We are created to wonder and wonder about the created. Consider the ant, the Scriptural Sage advised. Consider the heavens, reflected the Psalmist of Psalm 8. Consider. Ponder. Wonder. The Bible gives us much to ponder and encourages us to ponder much.
There are different ways to ponder but it generally involves asking questions. The Philosopher asks why. The Historian asks when. The Scientist asks how. The Textual Critic asks what. The Geographer asks where. The Theologian asks who.
When it comes to pondering Scripture, its important to know which questions are being answered first. Certain passages are very locational and invite the Geographer's question. Other passages are mysterious and invite the Textual Critic to ask his question before we can begin to ask the questions of others. Some passages, like Genesis 1 and 2, on the surface appear to be the domain of the scientist when in fact they are the Theologian's foundational answers to his lingering question.
The Theologian's question of Genesis 1 and 2 appears to be what the text is answering. "Who" is creating everything? The Theologian answers this question with minimal effort. Genesis 1 and 2 immediately disappoints the Scientist though. It doesn't mention "how" the Creator created in terms other than theological- "Then God said...". The Textual Critic is given the day off when it comes to this passage because the text is plain: God created everything. The Geographer is left clueless because he is not told where God first created. We are told that God brought Adam to Eden, but from where? the Geographer asks- but the text is silent- therefore it doesn't want us to know. The Philosopher is less disappointed. He hears the text answer his question- the Creator created for His pleasure. The Historian assumes that since "Genesis" means 'Beginnings' his question will be answered first. But he is quickly lost in the absence of any geographical reference.
Creation is wonderful. We can wonder endlessly about the Biblical account of the Creation event unless we recognise that there appears to be a hierarchy of wonder that the text invites. Even though He is never named in the Text, the passage begins with "In the beginning God" leaving us in no doubt that it is about to answer the "Who?" question rather than the "When?" question. It continues to refer to this God over and over again. "Then God said", "And God saw", answer the Theologian's question not the Historian's.
To ponder the wonder of the Creation Event it appears that the Sacred Text invites us to ask these questions in this order-
1. Who?
2. Why?
3. What?
4. When?
5. Where?
6. How?
Before we argue with another wonderer of this event about the "How?" and the "When?" it might be advisable to answer the more pressing questions first: Who is this God? Why did He create (and particularly, Why did He create me)? What is it that the Text plainly says about Him in this event? Yet, many people are prepared to make the last three questions the top three questions and thereby completely miss what the Text answers. The challenge for this wonderer is to persist in the midst of the pressure from How-Where-When-ers who seem bent on reversing the hierarchy of wonder and convincing everyone else that their questions are the test of faith. But I seem to recall that Jesus placed the Who? question as the first question to be answered: Who do you say I am?
When we read Scripture, including Genesis 1 and 2, it seems that the Who? question always needs to be answered first. Who is this God? Why is He doing what He is doing? What does this Text tell me about Him? Answering these questions helps us to wonder about the One who is called Wonderful in whose image we have been wonderfully made.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
Pastoral reflections on things that matter.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
Wednesday, 14 March 2007
Fear Is Worship
The expression, "The fear of the Lord" has puzzled theologians and believers for millennia. Fear is almost universally treated as an undesirable characteristic. The Bible seems to reinforce this impression when it commands- "Fear not!" The unvirtuous side of fear is reinforced by social currency when we generally deride those who experience fear as "scaredy cats", "chickens", "yella bellied" or "wimps". The Bible commands us not to fear. Society condemns us if we do. Why then would God choose such a negative and forbidden emotion and command that people express (and experience) it toward Him?
AN AUTOPSY OF FEAR
Fear is a form of respect. It is an acknowledgement of the unknown, the unpredictable, the potential for harm. Fear grips our attention. It doesn't merely demand it. Fear can be a surrender to the superior. Whether it's an angry dog or an irrate wife, fear betrays our respect, indicates our attention, and reveals our submission.
COMPARISONS TO WORSHIP
Respect, attention, submission. These are symbiotic integers that when added up equal: worship. The Bible doesn't command us not to fear, generally. It commands us not to fear anything other than God. When we are more fearful of something other than God, we are being disrespectful to God. Therefore, when the Scriptures want to instruct us as to how we should worship, the first thing- the "beginning" of worship is: to fear the Lord. He alone is worthy of our ultimate respect, attention and submission.
Last night, I incorporated a children's talk into my Sunday evening sermon. I was dealing with a very delicate topic: Evil, Hell and the Devil. My goal was to contrast these things with God and show how infinitely superior God is to these objects of fear. And this goes right to the heart of our misplaced fears. When we worship a mere facsimile of God, where we have substituted his true identity for some opinion that considers him simply as great rather than the greatest, we are prone to "fear man" (Prov. 29:25), "fear death" (Heb. 2:15), and "fear our enemies" (Deut. 20:3). When we overcome our fears in these areas by accepting the revelation of God's true identity as the All-Sovereign-Almighty-God, we live a life of worship for this God.
Jesus said,"Fear? I'll tell you who to really fear!" (Luke 12:5) And He was referring to His Heavenly Father. The One who He knew as All-Loving, All-Compassionate, and All-Merciful, yet exclusively worthy of fear. In this sense we need to be careful what we fear, because it may be a statement of what we are really worshiping.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
AN AUTOPSY OF FEAR
Fear is a form of respect. It is an acknowledgement of the unknown, the unpredictable, the potential for harm. Fear grips our attention. It doesn't merely demand it. Fear can be a surrender to the superior. Whether it's an angry dog or an irrate wife, fear betrays our respect, indicates our attention, and reveals our submission.
COMPARISONS TO WORSHIP
Respect, attention, submission. These are symbiotic integers that when added up equal: worship. The Bible doesn't command us not to fear, generally. It commands us not to fear anything other than God. When we are more fearful of something other than God, we are being disrespectful to God. Therefore, when the Scriptures want to instruct us as to how we should worship, the first thing- the "beginning" of worship is: to fear the Lord. He alone is worthy of our ultimate respect, attention and submission.
Last night, I incorporated a children's talk into my Sunday evening sermon. I was dealing with a very delicate topic: Evil, Hell and the Devil. My goal was to contrast these things with God and show how infinitely superior God is to these objects of fear. And this goes right to the heart of our misplaced fears. When we worship a mere facsimile of God, where we have substituted his true identity for some opinion that considers him simply as great rather than the greatest, we are prone to "fear man" (Prov. 29:25), "fear death" (Heb. 2:15), and "fear our enemies" (Deut. 20:3). When we overcome our fears in these areas by accepting the revelation of God's true identity as the All-Sovereign-Almighty-God, we live a life of worship for this God.
Jesus said,"Fear? I'll tell you who to really fear!" (Luke 12:5) And He was referring to His Heavenly Father. The One who He knew as All-Loving, All-Compassionate, and All-Merciful, yet exclusively worthy of fear. In this sense we need to be careful what we fear, because it may be a statement of what we are really worshiping.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
Tuesday, 6 March 2007
The Discipline of Art
What is the source of creativity? There can be little doubt that inspiration plays a key component in the production of good art. As a student of art since my teens I have only just recently noticed though, that most of the world's best art was produced more out of persperation than inspiration alone. I recently heard a commissioned poet interviewed who said that his world-acclaimed poetry was very hard to produce. In fact, he would sometimes be up to the early hours of the morning of the day his commission was due, to finish it off. This is despite him having up to 12 months to produce it! The interviewer was a little stunned and said that after thirty years of doing this he would have thought that it would have got easier, not harder.
My literary hero, F.W. Boreham, wrote in his autobiography that he began the habit of daily and weekly reading in order to fill his mind with source for his essays. He would go down to his study each morning at 8AM to write for one hour. He said that sometimes it was easy, but most of the time it was just hard work. He wrote some 58 books, published over 3000 articles and was the weekly editor of the Melbourne Age (Argus) and the Hobart Mercury for 36 years. The public has not seen all that he wrote. Boreham was realistic about what was worthy of public attention and what wasn't. He knew that despite his giftedness with the pen, he still needed to be highly disciplined to produce his art.
The same can be said of painters. Da Vinci drew daily and painted regularly. Yet the world has only ever seen a very small amount of what he produced. Da Vinci's art is described as some of the most inspirational work ever produced, yet he would probably tell us that at the time it took more persperation than inspiration to produce. This is borne out by the Xrays and ultra-sounds of many of his paintings where researchers have discovered the multiple layers of completely different subject matters lying beneath what the world has only ever seen.
One of the earliest pieces of advice I was given as a writer was: "There is no such thing as good writing only good rewriting." For someone committed to writing for the public, this demands disciplined efforts. It also involves the scrutiny and critique of others, which is also an aspect of discipline. I am discovering what the great art masters learned- that good art requires a creativity that is honed by regular discipline to fine tune it. When I think of God and how He created all there is I see the same pattern. He didn't haphazardly create. He created in sequential stages. He created in a way that each stage built on the previous stage. Many believing scientists argue that creation was more an artistic exercise than a clinical one. It seems that God the Master Artisan was extremely disciplined in His creativity. He fine-tuned the world to be ready for the creation of mankind. And it is in the image of this Artist that we are created to be creative. And it seems that this creativity is best drawn out of us by the discipline of deadlines and regular exercise of our creative gifts.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
My literary hero, F.W. Boreham, wrote in his autobiography that he began the habit of daily and weekly reading in order to fill his mind with source for his essays. He would go down to his study each morning at 8AM to write for one hour. He said that sometimes it was easy, but most of the time it was just hard work. He wrote some 58 books, published over 3000 articles and was the weekly editor of the Melbourne Age (Argus) and the Hobart Mercury for 36 years. The public has not seen all that he wrote. Boreham was realistic about what was worthy of public attention and what wasn't. He knew that despite his giftedness with the pen, he still needed to be highly disciplined to produce his art.
The same can be said of painters. Da Vinci drew daily and painted regularly. Yet the world has only ever seen a very small amount of what he produced. Da Vinci's art is described as some of the most inspirational work ever produced, yet he would probably tell us that at the time it took more persperation than inspiration to produce. This is borne out by the Xrays and ultra-sounds of many of his paintings where researchers have discovered the multiple layers of completely different subject matters lying beneath what the world has only ever seen.
One of the earliest pieces of advice I was given as a writer was: "There is no such thing as good writing only good rewriting." For someone committed to writing for the public, this demands disciplined efforts. It also involves the scrutiny and critique of others, which is also an aspect of discipline. I am discovering what the great art masters learned- that good art requires a creativity that is honed by regular discipline to fine tune it. When I think of God and how He created all there is I see the same pattern. He didn't haphazardly create. He created in sequential stages. He created in a way that each stage built on the previous stage. Many believing scientists argue that creation was more an artistic exercise than a clinical one. It seems that God the Master Artisan was extremely disciplined in His creativity. He fine-tuned the world to be ready for the creation of mankind. And it is in the image of this Artist that we are created to be creative. And it seems that this creativity is best drawn out of us by the discipline of deadlines and regular exercise of our creative gifts.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
Monday, 5 February 2007
Beauty
The Psalmist declared that there was one thing he desired: to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). The Psalms also declare that it is from God that perfect beauty comes (Ps. 50:2). Beauty, and our ability to appreciate it, seems to be a reflection of God's imprint upon us and our creation. For the hyper-naturalist, those who deny the existence of the super-natural, nothing has intrinsic beauty. That is: beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. But this reasoning flies in the face of what we have all experienced.
I remember coming back to Tasmania by plane having just travelled to several countries in South East Asia and marvelling just how beautiful it was. I could hear first time visitors to my state gasping and excitedly commenting to their travelling companions as they too gazed on the natural beauty of this island. It wasn't just that we had determined that what we were looking at was beautiful- it actually was beautiful!
But it's uncommon to (and bewildering that we don't) connect beauty with God more often than we do. In fact, sometimes we dismiss our craving for beauty and vainly try to convince ourselves that functionality is just as satisfying. But we all know that it's not! I suppose we could live in large boxes with concrete covering the surrounding ground and congratulate ourselves that we have been functional (economically and practically). But who wants to live like that? Most societies punish criminals with such conditions. No, we were made by Beauty, for Beauty to appreciate Beauty.
Humans, unlike animals, decorate for the sheer sake of beauty. A friend of mine just recently bought his first home. After twenty years of renting, he and his family have now moved into a small, modest house. I congratulated him on this move and commended him for such a prudent financial investment. His response was to dismiss the satisfaction that comes from having made a sound financial decision and glory in his new right to put a picture hook wherever he and his wife wanted! By being able to hang a picture, not just a picture- his chosen picture - he was now able to express what is common to us all: the need to beautify.
God celebrates his glory and power through beauty. He commanded that the garments for Priests be made "beautiful" (Exodus 28:2). So the next time you get frustrated that your surroundings are untidy or drab you are just expressing the trace of the image of God you bear. If you have felt guilty about taking time out to admire the beauty of nature, the genius beauty of an artist's work, the wonder of imaginative beauty in a novel or movie, don't. You are simply relishing that more-real component of your existence: the craving of your spirit for beauty. Perhaps you look at yourself and feel inferior in the beauty stakes? But the Scriptures declare that when it comes to forming opinions about human beauty, it does go beyond being merely skin-deep.
"You should be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God." (1Pet. 3:4)
It seems that the God of all beauty has invested into each of us the potential to be wonderfully beautiful despite our physical short-comings. And for someone like me, I think that's a beautiful thought.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
I remember coming back to Tasmania by plane having just travelled to several countries in South East Asia and marvelling just how beautiful it was. I could hear first time visitors to my state gasping and excitedly commenting to their travelling companions as they too gazed on the natural beauty of this island. It wasn't just that we had determined that what we were looking at was beautiful- it actually was beautiful!
But it's uncommon to (and bewildering that we don't) connect beauty with God more often than we do. In fact, sometimes we dismiss our craving for beauty and vainly try to convince ourselves that functionality is just as satisfying. But we all know that it's not! I suppose we could live in large boxes with concrete covering the surrounding ground and congratulate ourselves that we have been functional (economically and practically). But who wants to live like that? Most societies punish criminals with such conditions. No, we were made by Beauty, for Beauty to appreciate Beauty.
Humans, unlike animals, decorate for the sheer sake of beauty. A friend of mine just recently bought his first home. After twenty years of renting, he and his family have now moved into a small, modest house. I congratulated him on this move and commended him for such a prudent financial investment. His response was to dismiss the satisfaction that comes from having made a sound financial decision and glory in his new right to put a picture hook wherever he and his wife wanted! By being able to hang a picture, not just a picture- his chosen picture - he was now able to express what is common to us all: the need to beautify.
God celebrates his glory and power through beauty. He commanded that the garments for Priests be made "beautiful" (Exodus 28:2). So the next time you get frustrated that your surroundings are untidy or drab you are just expressing the trace of the image of God you bear. If you have felt guilty about taking time out to admire the beauty of nature, the genius beauty of an artist's work, the wonder of imaginative beauty in a novel or movie, don't. You are simply relishing that more-real component of your existence: the craving of your spirit for beauty. Perhaps you look at yourself and feel inferior in the beauty stakes? But the Scriptures declare that when it comes to forming opinions about human beauty, it does go beyond being merely skin-deep.
"You should be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God." (1Pet. 3:4)
It seems that the God of all beauty has invested into each of us the potential to be wonderfully beautiful despite our physical short-comings. And for someone like me, I think that's a beautiful thought.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
Friday, 2 February 2007
The Eternal
Someone has said that everything that once was not, but now is, must have had a beginning. Another way of saying that is, everything that has begun must have had a beginning. This might seem like too obvious a statement, but it wasn't that long ago that it was assumed by some learned people that all matter had simply always existed.
Prior to the middle or so of the twentieth century, it was believed by some scientists that the universe had always existed. This idea of the universe being eternal gave some comfort to those sola-naturalists looking for an explanation for the origin of time, space, matter that didn't involve God. But as a theory championing omni-naturalism as the explanation for everything's existence, it was doomed in the mounting barrage of evidence that now points to the universe having a beginning. This new understanding of the origins of the universe was coined "The Big Bang Theory."
The "Big Bang" theory proposed that the universe must have had a beginning since its current expansion can be traced back in time and space to a single event. Einstein's theory of relativity (E=mc2) also supports this theory. In essence, Einstein has observed that the universe is relative to its beginning. Within this relativity are certain fixed laws, like the speed of light.
So we now know that the universe did have a beginning- about 14 billion years ago - and that it has certain fixed laws, such as the speed of light and gravity, and that it is still expanding from its original starting point in the cosmos.
Curiously, these concepts have been declared by the Bible for thousands of years. "In the beginning God created...", "God has fixed the laws that govern the universe...", "He stretched out the heavens..."
When we ponder these thoughts we realise that the only One who had no beginning was God. He is eternal. This satisfies the question: If God made everything, who made God? Only those things which had a beginning must have had a beginner. God has always been. He therefore had no beginning. Curiously, it's often the hyper-naturalists who reject and dismiss this concept of God as the Eternal who just a generation earlier were espousing that everything was eternal.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
Prior to the middle or so of the twentieth century, it was believed by some scientists that the universe had always existed. This idea of the universe being eternal gave some comfort to those sola-naturalists looking for an explanation for the origin of time, space, matter that didn't involve God. But as a theory championing omni-naturalism as the explanation for everything's existence, it was doomed in the mounting barrage of evidence that now points to the universe having a beginning. This new understanding of the origins of the universe was coined "The Big Bang Theory."
The "Big Bang" theory proposed that the universe must have had a beginning since its current expansion can be traced back in time and space to a single event. Einstein's theory of relativity (E=mc2) also supports this theory. In essence, Einstein has observed that the universe is relative to its beginning. Within this relativity are certain fixed laws, like the speed of light.
So we now know that the universe did have a beginning- about 14 billion years ago - and that it has certain fixed laws, such as the speed of light and gravity, and that it is still expanding from its original starting point in the cosmos.
Curiously, these concepts have been declared by the Bible for thousands of years. "In the beginning God created...", "God has fixed the laws that govern the universe...", "He stretched out the heavens..."
When we ponder these thoughts we realise that the only One who had no beginning was God. He is eternal. This satisfies the question: If God made everything, who made God? Only those things which had a beginning must have had a beginner. God has always been. He therefore had no beginning. Curiously, it's often the hyper-naturalists who reject and dismiss this concept of God as the Eternal who just a generation earlier were espousing that everything was eternal.
Andrew Corbett
www.andrewcorbett.net
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