God's guidance and "open doors"

Blessed Assurances Baptist Church is nearing the end of its building project. In the last few years they have outgrown their current facility, and in their last week before they move onto their new, bigger campus in the suburbs, they hold a special prayer meeting. At one point, Pastor Irving directs the congregation: "We are moving into an area of the city that has many unchurched families. Let's pray that God will open doors that will allow us to minister to our new neighbourhood."

Open doors. It's a perfectly good, Biblical metaphor, used multiple times in the New Testament. It is used, basically consistently, for providential opportunities to serve God.

Paul uses this metaphor three times:

But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. (1 Cor. 16:9)

. . . when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit . . . (2 Cor. 2:12-13)

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. (Col. 4:2-4)

Luke also uses the same metaphor in a similar way in Acts, writing that God had "opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles" (14:27) - not to say that the evangelist had been given access to the Gentiles, but the Gentiles to God. John also records Christ's words to the Philadelphians: "behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it" (Rev. 3:8). I'm not convinced that this particular usage is consistent with the others, so I am leaving it alone for the time being. (Anyone who can provide insight here is most welcome to comment.)

What can we learn from Scripture about open doors?

• Open doors come from God. Paul says as much all three times. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he writes that his work in Ephesus is "the work of the Lord" (1 Cor. 16:10). In his second letter, he says the door "was opened unto me of the Lord" (2 Cor. 2:12). He asks the Colossians to pray "that God would open unto us a door" (4:3).

  Some people warn against taking every opportunity because some open doors are Satan's snares to trap us. But Paul and Scripture never say this. When the Bible speaks of the snares of the devil, it always means sins, not situations. God is in control of circumstances. Think it through: Could Paul have truthfully written that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28) if God and Satan were in competition?

  Others warn against going through open doors because while they might be good opportunities, they might not be the best opportunity. (There's that notorious idea of "God's second best" again). But if God is in control of all circumstances, isn't this really saying that he might be trying to trick you by laying enticing but inferior opportunities in your path? Or perhaps God is conflicted, giving you the opportunity but really hoping you won't avail yourself of it. Perish the thoughts! So this warning isn't really very useful either.

• We should seek out open doors. Paul was an opportunist when it came to seeking chances to preach. He didn't care if the door was obstructed by adversity, and he asked his readers to pray for more opportunities. We read in Acts that he actively sought them out. He went to the synagogue in hopes of preaching to Jews, and the marketplace to preach to Gentiles (Acts 17:17). He went to the waterside in Thyatira because he knew there were women there who held prayer meetings (16:13). He even used the idols of Athens as an object lesson to point to the true God (17:23) and, in what has to be one of history's great displays of chutzpah, his own trial to preach to the local governors (24-26).
• Just because a door is open, doesn't mean we have to use it. Opportunities are not commands. Paul had a door open to him in Troas (2 Cor. 2:12). Since he had been there before, but was sent away by a vision (Acts 16:8-12), you might think this time he would be all the more eager to stay and do the work that was interrupted that first time. But he didn't, for the seemingly unspiritual reason that he was concerned for a friend. It seems as though Paul was expecting Titus to meet him in Troas, but he didn't show up. So although Paul would probably have preferred to stay, he went to Macedonia (again!) where presumably he met Titus. Sometimes, even pressing personal concern must take priority over availing ourselves of every opportunity. Other doors will open. I doubt Paul spent any time sitting on his hands because he passed that one up.

"Open doors" should not be a cause of concern or indecision. When faced with a multitude of open doors, we shouldn't worry about which one is the "right" one to take. Rather, we should thank God for providing such an abundance of opportunities to serve him.

See also

First in the series: Finding and doing the will of God: Prolegomena

Previous entry: Fleece, peace, and the "still small voice"

Next entry: God's plan

Manufacturing dissent

Unless you've been in a coma over the last few days, you can't have missed the flap over CBS' apparent use of forged memos to smear President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, on Wednesday's 60 Minutes II (hosted by Dan "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" Rather). (I'm not going to repeat what's been said. But if you are one of the comatose, start here and read on.)

Naturally, like sharks smelling blood, the other major media networks have started to attack, starting with ABC, though at the time of writing all the major networks have related news stories up on their Web sites. Lest we forget, however, no one in the major media is innocent of charges of manufacturing the news.

In 1992, NBC News claimed on Dateline NBC that a side collision with certain models of GM trucks might rupture their side-mounted fuel tanks, resulting ina deadly fire. The only problem was, they couldn't get a truck to catch fire. So they rigged one with pyrotechnics.

ABC aired a segment on Prime Time Live in 1993 in which producers, posing as employees, found evidence of tainted food and unsanitary conditions in the supermarket chain Food Lion. Finding it too difficult to find actual damning evidence against the store, they faked it, for example, videotaping expired food that they planted themselves, or showing a dirty meat slicer that it was their own job to clean.

The Fox network is infamous for airing sensationalistic "documentaries" about alien autopsies or moon landing hoaxes in which conspiracy theorists are given a disproportionate amount of time compared to skeptics.

The problem is that we continue to assume that the driving force behind these networks newsgathering is the public interest. It isn't: it's the buck. Sensationalistic "news" stories means higher ratings means more advertisers means more money. And "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). Of course, it doesn't hurt that those who gather and report the news are overwhelmingly leftist along with all the baggage that entails (supporting the Democrats, anti-capitalism, anti-corporation, etc.). And it really doesn't hurt for CBS' frontman to have a rather personal grudge against the Bush family.

Your (local) tax dollars at work

Evidently, Ottawa city council has nothing better to do with its time than this idiocy:

Councillor Gord Hunter is concerned the new name given to two Barrhaven baseball diamonds could make the area a magnet for neo-Nazis.

Yesterday, council approved renaming the baseball diamonds the Eagle's Nest, in honour of the East Nepean Eagles, the little league baseball team that won the Canadian championship in Brossard, Que., and then represented Canada at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, last month.

But Mr. Hunter says the name "has significant negative connotations" -- it's the same name as that given to Adolf Hitler's infamous mountain retreat.

[Full Story]

After all, we all know how much neo-Nazis like to hang out at baseball diamonds!

The name was chosen by the 10-year-old kids who were part of the baseball team. How many of them do you really think know what Hitler called his infamous mountain retreat? Where else would eagles live, in an eagle hole? Earth to Hunter: Get a life.

For crying out loud, George . . .

Apparently Lucas has fiddled with the original Star Wars trilogy yet again, according to Sci Fi Wire:

[Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith star Hayden] Christensen now appears at the end of Return of the Jedi in a scene where Luke sees the spirits of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his father, Anakin Skywalker. The role was originally played by Sebastian Shaw, who still appears as the human face behind the Darth Vader mask in another scene in the film.

Pointless tampering. Absolutely pointless. If Shaw remains on screen for Darth Vader's death scene, why bother replacing him with Christensen as the spirit of Anakin? It doesn't correct any plot holes or continuity errors, and it seems more likely to alienate fans of the original trilogy than impress them. (In fact, unless he intends to replace Sir Alec Guinness with Ewan McGregor as the spirit of Obi-wan Kenobi, it arguably causes continuity difficulties.) This is nothing but gratuitous revisionism just because Lucas can.

Other minor updates made to the 1997 special editions include the uncredited appearance of Ian McDiarmid as a holographic Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back (McDiarmid played the role of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, as well as that of Senator Palpatine in the recent trilogy) . . .

Well, OK, this corrects a continuity error brought on by a change in casting between two movies. Still, you have to wonder how Clive Revill, who played the original Emperor, feels about being erased. (The same would go for Jeremy Bulloch, the original Boba Fett; according to IMDb, he is now to be voiced by Temuera Morrison, Jango Fett in Clones.)

. . . and a compromise to the infamous Star Wars cantina shooting, in which Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Greedo now shoot at each other at the same time, the paper said.

[Full Story]

Diehard fans just hated this change, intended to make Han Solo into a kinder, gentler criminal who shoots only in self-defense. So, for those keeping score, it's now Solo 1, Greedo 1, and 1 tie. (Want to go for the best of five, George?)

While I didn't mind most of the alterations made to the original trilogy, I tend to be of the camp that says film ought to be preserved "as is" so we can appreciate and study the filmmaker's original work - not pulled out and retooled every few years because the producer sees something he could have done better if only he'd had the ability twenty years earlier. To make matters worse, the original unadulterated Star Wars is no longer commercially available and probably never will be. When Stephen Spielberg retooled E.T. for its 20th anniversary, he had the wisdom to include the 1982 version in the DVD package. It's too bad George Lucas can't follow suit instead of revising film history.

(Thanks to white noise for seeing this before me.)

New and improved!

For those who care about such things, I've added an Atom syndication feed to the CC. The link is near the bottom of the sidebar, or here, for your instant gratification. I may add an RSS feed in the future if I think it's warranted.

Frankly, RSS/RDF/Atom are a complete mystery to me. Then again, it was 10 years ago this month that I sat down at a computer terminal at school and discovered a new icon had been added to my Windows desktop: something called Mosaic, which appeared to be a graphical hypertext engine of some kind.

Monday morning quid pro quo

Jeremy at Parableman had some supportive words about my article on Romans 12 from a couple of weeks ago, which he came across thanks to the Christian Carnival. Unbeknownst to me there had been a big discussion about God's Will a few months ago within the Christian blogosphere, not long before my own network of must-read blogs extended that far.)

My blogroll tends to reflect not merely those blogs I read regularly (of which there are dozens) but the ones that I read daily and before any others. Naturally, personal friends get preferential treatment. I've known Rand for about 7 years, ironically because he married another close friend from when I lived in Ottawa while a student. He hit the ground running a few weeks ago with his new blog a pattern of sound words. (Incidentally his wife also blogs at Peccadiloes & Penetralia.)

Enjoy.

Latin help

My Latin skills are pretty much nonexistent. If you have a working knowledge of Latin and get the reference:

neglegere homo retro aulaeum

then can you help me correct it, if necessary?

Happy birthday to me

I pause to note that today is the first anniversary of the Crusty Curmudgeon.

No plans to celebrate. I might tweak the design a little bit.

The SF moratorium is on

As I mentioned a few days ago, I realized that my normally somewhat-balanced reading took a definite turn for the improbable last month, with nothing but science fiction actually getting read. Now I like SF as much as the next geek, but enough is enough, so for the month of September I declared a moratorium on the genre. (The exception was Niven's Ringworld's Children which was due back at the library today and I was re-reading in hopes of blogging a book review soon.)

Then I thought, why not plan this out a bit, and deliberately design a little bit of variety into the program? So this is the plan I came up with, in no particular order:

• Something I haven't read since high school. For this I chose Jimmy Breslin's The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, which I thought was a laff riot in grade 11. Once upon a time, there was a newspaper columnist with a sense of humour who wasn't at all the sad bitter shell of a man he's become.
• Something I should have read, but didn't. I chose Henry James' short novel The Turn of the Screw, part of the syllabus for OAC English Literature back in high school. Yes, Mrs. Emmerton, I BSed my way through pretty much that whole course, except for Apocalypse Now, The Wall, and Macbeth. Sorry about that.
• A contemporary, critically-acclaimed novel. Non-SF, of course. I've chosen Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
• A collection of short stories. No choice made here yet. Flannery O'Connor, perhaps.
• A collection of poetry. Again, I haven't made a choice yet, but I'm thinking maybe George Herbert, if I can find him.
• A biography. This time, it's Here I Stand by Roland Bainton, the classic bio of Martin Luther. I'm jumping the gun a bit on the church-history Sunday school class I'm currently enjoying, but I couldn't resist when I saw it at the library.
• A work of theology. Another acquisition from the church library: Keep in Step With the Spirit by J. I. Packer.
• Another work of nonfiction. I grabbed Volume One of the New Oxford History of Music, which covers primitive and non-European music.

And now we wait and see how long it takes me to go crazy.

Christian Carnival XXXIII

The Christian Carnival is up at the New Trommetter Times. No submission from me this week; I intend to offer something approximately every other week, just so I am not under abnormal pressure to post something blogworthily Christian every week, and don't get unnecessarily repetitive with the "God's guidance" series.

Anyway, check it out. My personal favourites:

• LaShawn Barber argues that it is neither good politics nor good Christianity to overlook illegal immigration:

  Among illegal aliens I have brothers and sisters in Christ. The call to share the Gospel with unbelievers and worship a merciful and gracious God with believers doesn’t stop at our national borders. God saves all kinds of men, and all kinds of men are my fellow inheritors of Christ’s bounty!

  However, I am not required to ignore or oppose justice against lawbreakers, even if they are believers. Government is supposed to punish lawbreakers, and Christian criminals are not excepted. God appoints men to authority and laid down the function and role of government.

• Mark D. Roberts continues his series on the ongoing crisis in the Episcopalian Church in Los Angeles over biblical authority:

  I have not followed closely the actual debate in the Episcopal Church about the ordination of homosexuals. But my guess is that serious discussion of biblical texts has not been in the forefront of this conversation, at least in the last few years. Those who continue to hold on to the rather obvious (yes, literal, maybe even simple) meaning of biblical passages are dismissed by their opponents as “literalistic and simplistic.” It’s a way of avoiding serious debate about the meaning of the biblical text, and replacing it with an approach in which people need only to “speak their own view of the truth” in love.

• Joe Missionary explains why the fashionable practice of "prayer walking" is hocus-pocus:

  Whereas praying while walking certainly may have some benefit to the person praying, the contemporary practice of "prayer walking" is misguided. To claim that praying in a particular region has MORE power than praying at home or in your car has no basis in Scripture whatsoever. Further, it adds to the mysticism which is creeping into today's Church.

• William Meisheid at Beyond the Rim has an interesting article about what he and Ben Stein have in common:

  We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves.

  In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

• Rebecca writes another in her series on the attributes of God, this time a good one about God's holiness:

  I'm not sure it is even right to think of it in the same way we think of the other attributes, for it doesn't seems to be one among the others, but rather the overarching attribute: the one that defines all of what God is.

• Finally, Reynaldo at The Bible Archive touches on a subject related to the one I had intended to tackle this week: open doors and what the will of God is when no one can agree on it:

  The difficulty then is found not in the heart of Paul for his heart was set for the Lord, but in his friends. He knew that he would have to suffer many things for the name of Christ Jesus—and yet, his very godly friends tried to persuade him from his course.

Enjoy.