One of my favorite podcasts (and pretty much the only Christian podcast I follow) is Beyond the Box. Basically a couple of heretic Jesus followers who are trying to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). In their most recent episode, Embracing an Open Future, they tried to answer a couple questions about their thoughts on Open Theology. The podcast (as usual) is very thought provoking. I am definitely nowhere near where they are in this line of thought though. I haven’t decided yet if it is a because of my comfort level or because of something else. I do know that my understanding of Cause and Effect is a main catalyst for rejecting most of Open Theology.

This post isn’t really so much about Open Theology as much as it is about something that Steve Sensenig said regarding 1 John 5:14. Here is a transcription from about 22 minutes into the podcast.

Ray: If you think about it, in classical theology, have you ever wondered, “why the heck am I praying?” If God is going to do what God is going to do; or if God already knows the outcome, then what is the point of me praying?

Steve: Is it John that says, in one of his epistles, “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us”?

Ray: “And if he hears us, then we know we have whatever [we ask]“, yeah.

Steve: Right, and so the interpretation is that, as long as whatever you are praying lines up with with what God has already determined will happen, then you’re going to get it — you’re going to get what you prayed for. Which to me seems like nonsense. I have said, and I think I have shared this on the podcast before, because of the lack of punctuation in Greek, I have a hunch that you could (and this would make more sense to me) say (putting the coma in a different place), “if you ask anything [in my name], according to his will, he hears us.

Steve: God has willed and determined that he wants to listen to us when we pray. That puts prayer in a whole different light, because it really can make a difference. I heard a well known preacher one time talk about the verse in James were it says, “If anyone is sick among you let him call for the elders and they will pray for him” and it talks about if he has any sins let him confess them, and basically he will be healed. And this particular preacher said that really what James means is “if it’s the Lord’s will he will be healed.” We’re going to put that [sub-text] in there and say that this is really you’re praying and if it’s God’s will then he’ll heal. Well again you’re left with, “what’s really the point of praying?”

Basically, Steve is suggesting that it is God’s will to hear us when we pray. And that 1 John 5:14 should not be interpreted in a such a way that makes it seem like we need to pray only for things that are “God willed”.

So I jumped into the Greek to see if there was any sort of way to get to this interpretation. This is the last half of 1 John 5:14 in Greek…

εαν τι αιτωμεθα κατα το θελημα αυτου ακουει ημων

Which roughly translates to:

If (εαν) we ask (τι αιτωμα) according to (κατα) the will (το θελημα) of him (αυτου) he hears (ακουει) us (ημων).

“we ask” is a subjunctive verb.

“according to the will of him” is a prepositional phrase.

“he hears” is an indicative verb.

So the question is, does “according to the will of him” apply to the verb “we ask” or the verb “he hears”. I believe the prepositional phrase should be applied to the subjunctive verb. But I wanted to see what other similar verses teach, a lot of them are just as ambiguous, but James actually spoke to this issue in a pretty straight forward manner.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

James seems to indicated that we do not always receive what we ask for, and it has to do with our motives for asking.

In 1 John 3:21-22, John writes,

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.

Just a few chapters before the verse mentioned by Steve, John writes a conditional for what we receive from God. We only receive those things that we ask for if our hearts do not condemn us. If our hearts do not condemn us, then we receive anything we ask for… but if that condition is met, I think most would say that we would only ask God for things that are within God’s desires.

So, Steve could be correct in his interpretation of 1 John 5:14, the preposition phrase could describe “he hears” instead of “we ask”. However, there are at least a couple places in Scripture that shows us that God does not grant any and every prayer. There are conditionals attached to prayer, even if the conditionals are not explicit. I’m not saying Steve believes that God grants every prayer request, but I wanted to take an opportunity to expand on what Steve had said and find out what scripture is teaching.

By the way, Steve / Ray, if you read this and you’re ever looking for a “guest” I’d love to join in :).

(Yeah, that’s right, I just invited myself, I have no shame)

I have a hypothetical situation/question for my readers:

Let’s talk about you. You are a “good” Christian. You read your Bible every morning and every evening before bed. Your pray before each meal asking God to bless the food. You talk about Jesus to the lost several times a week and try through Jesus to live a holy and pure life. You attend a regular church meeting a few times a week and even find time to minister and disciple people outside of the walls of the building. Your marriage is in great shape, your spouse loves and supports you. Your children are well discipline, get good grades and are all followers of Christ. You pray with your family daily and have weekly bible studies with them and your neighbors.

One night, you go to bed. Before bed you are burdened to pray. You pray extra long this night, making sure to pray for God’s will in your life. You pray for the health of your family, friends, neighbors, and enemies. You talk to God as if he were in front of you and were responding. As you are praying you fall asleep and have the most amazing and vivid dream. In this dream a man, who you recognize as Jesus (but looks nothing like the pictures) is standing before you. He is talking to you but his lips aren’t moving. You wake up the next morning to your alarm and feel completely rested. You are also overjoyed about your dream. Y try to remember everything that Jesus relayed to you but can only remember one thing – he told you that the book of Revelation is not Scripture.

Do you believe the dream? Why or why not?

I recently had a wonderful conversation with one of my co-workers. She came into my office to give me something and noticed my digital picture frame displaying on my desk. Then I showed her a picture of my wife and we spent a few minutes looking on Facebook and MySpace to see if my wife had any pictures up of the kittens. While browsing through the pictures she saw one that Kati had of me at my graduation. My co-worker asked where I graduated from and I told her, “Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

She said, “WOW! I’ve gotta stop cussing in front of you…”

I explained to her that I didn’t want her to censor herself in front of me. Then we started talking about “church” life. She and her husband aren’t really church people. They both went to Methodist churches from time-to-time growing up though. Recently her husband expressed interest in going to a local Methodist church. He wants to go somewhere that he can hear the word preached without feeling pressured into anything weird. She said that she wasn’t really into the idea, but wanted to go with her husband anyway.

Up to this point in our conversation, I had already explained that I am a heretic and defined the word for her, as “a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church.” I explained a little bit about my history, what I believe, what I don’t believe, etc. Basically just enough to let her know what I am all about.

Knowing this, and having her recent church experience, she had some questions/concerns for me. This is what they were (in her words).

1) During one songs, they sang about Immanuel… who is Immanuel? I thought they were suppose to worship God?

2) When it was time for prayer, everyone bowed really low with their heads down. Why did they do that?

3) After the community prayer, instead of everyone saying “Amen” they all started to say their own little personal prayers – is that normal?

4) After the service a couple cornered us and asked if we were saved, it was really ackward.

5) The husband of the other couple convinced her husband to fill out a vistor’s card. Then they received a call that afternoon asking if they were going to visit that night.

6) They had “children’s church” during which they took up an offering/tithe. Our little girl felt bad because they were trying to build a new church building and gave 10.00$ to the offering. I feel like that’s wrong, that should be up to the parents, not pressured little kids.

Hearing some of these questions and concerns, I had the feeling that I knew exactly what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthins 14, “Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?” Granted, this is about “tongues” not about Christian Music, Childrens Church, Prayer Stance, etc. I think it still relates though.

Today is much different than 2000 years ago. Everything is different: culture, society, technology, science, politics, and more. All of these changes combined with time and the evolution of tradition have made us change the way we think about evangelism, the gospel, and even Christ. Today I would like to compile of list of how we do things versus how Jesus did things.

We hang out with unbelievers when they come to our meetings and programs.
Jesus hung out with unbelievers.

We develop programs to attract the world.
Jesus developed relationships with the world.

We raise funds to build buildings and additions.
Jesus didn’t have a place to lay his head.

We believe that true fellowship with God happens once a week.
Jesus expects true fellowship every day.

We make the gospel attractive.
Jesus made the gospel unattractive.

We create religious systems, doctrines, polity, rules, and more; in the name of being right.
Jesus tore down all those; showing that he was right.

We expect non-followers to act like his followers.
Jesus expected his followers to act like his followers.

We believe that classes equates to discipleship.
Jesus walked with his disciples.

We believe that we cannot perform miraculous things.
Jesus told us that we could perform greater miracles than he did.

ATHENS

The past two weeks have been hectic for us. As many of you know we have been in the process of moving to Athens. Well, I was finally able to close on our house August 29th. My wife and I moved from Dublin to Athens August 30th after a horrible experience with UHaul (I will never use them again). To make a long story short, if you reserve a 17′ truck at 8AM in your town, you should expect to get a 14′ truck at 10AM in a town an hour away. We expected to have everything loaded up and be in Athens in the afternoon. Instead, I found myself unloading our truck at 11PM to get our mattress out so we could sleep that night. By the way, I’ve never had this issue with Penske or Budget. But, we’re moved in, we still have tons of boxes to unpack, furniture to move around, and all sorts of things to get situated.

WOODY

Last Tuesday we took Woody to the Vet Hospital for an overnight. He had to have an MRI Wednesday morning. The good news is that the MRI came back positive. His brain is fine, his spine is fine. The bad news is that Woody is still broken and no one knows why. The doctor said that it is probably a genetic condition – pretty much uncurable. They took a urine sample and discovered a high keytone level (which is usually found in diabetics). But he doesn’t have diabetes. So they are sending the sample to California to find out if there are any oddities. We started to change his diet a little to up his protein and we’ll have to probably put him on a multi-vitamin. But basically, unless California finds anything, Woody will remain the same. Of course God could always do something miraculous. I know you’ll all probably laugh at me, but the night I closed I went home and put some oil on Woody and prayed over him. It hasn’t really changed anything with Woody, but I felt like I should at least do it, since we are told to have Elders come and anoint us with oil and pray over us if we are sick (James 5:14). We’ve also been looking into getting Woody some booties so he can grip the wood floors in our house better.

I think that’s all for updates.

Your prayers are always welcome.