gospel

That sounds like something a talking serpent would say

I recently saw a Facebook post that said something like, “If you are going to quote principles from Genesis in the Old Testament, keep in mind that it also contains a talking snake, a boat filled with every type of animal, a man wanting to sacrifice his son to God, a woman turned into a pillar of salt, and a father impregnating his two daughters. So when you are going to quote the Bible, instead of quoting Genesis, maybe you should be quoting the Gospels instead.” 

My first thought upon reading this was, “That sounds like something a talking serpent would say.” After all isn’t the devil’s main trick to get us to question God’s word, to get us to doubt him, to stop trusting him and to do what we want instead of what he says? Doesn’t the devil want us to pick and choose which parts of the Bible best suit our desires, our will, and our selfish motives? 

The Bible exists to tell us who God is and who we are in relation to him. This means there will be things we don’t like or with which we disagree entirely. It is not a choose-your-own-adventure book, nor is it a self-help book or a text book. The Bible is either the divinely inspired word of God or it’s not, but we don’t get to hang out in the middle of the road and still consider ourselves Christians. 

That said, the Bible should be taken in context. What happens in Genesis or Exodus informs what happens in the Gospels, but there are thousands of years in between. The world changes, God’s people change, and God’s covenants change. This doesn’t give us a license to simply disregard the Old Testament, however. There are some principles and laws in the Old Testament that are situational or specific to that time or those people and there are some that are universal and applicable for all people for eternity. 

After all, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus himself says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

There’s truth and then there’s Gospel

The books and teachers that influenced me when I first started my spiritual journey are not the same books and teachers that speak to me now. That does not make them any less valuable, however. They are still very much a part of my story. They are part of my spiritual identity, part of my spiritual DNA. 

When I first began seeking God, enlightenment, a spiritual experience, or whatever you’d like to call it, I was attracted to anything and everything that was not Christianity. While I was raised as a Christian, sort of,* I turned my back on God and religion as a teenager. 

As a result, I found spiritual comfort in non-Christian teachings. I was particularly interested in and attracted to Buddhism and Taoism, although I also studied Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and even Zoroastrianism. But Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, was where I found my spiritual home for many years. 

As I made my way, or rather was called back to, Christianity, however, many of the books and teachers whose words used to deeply move me, simply miss the spiritual mark for me now. That doesn’t mean they do not have value. Nor does it mean that they do not offer deep, powerful truths. Rather, the part of me that they once spoke to no longer exists, or has grown and changed into something or someone else. 

But these books and teachers are still part of who I am. They were the building blocks for the spiritual temple that is my life. I owe a debt of gratitude to and have immense respect for them. 

What I have found, however, is that many, if not all, of the teachings and practices that attracted me to Buddhism and its spiritual cousins exist in some shape or form in the vast and deep tradition that is Christianity. I simply was not ready to hear or see that when I first started this journey. 

Whether it is meditation, asceticism, or monasticism, Christianity has some version of it that feels as deep, true, and enriching as anything I found in these other traditions. The difference is that Christianity has God and, more specifically Jesus, guiding, informing, and leading the way through the journey. While I wasn’t ready for this in my youth, it brings my soul comfort, peace, and joy now. 

Coming to know Jesus and accepting him as my lord and savior has opened my heart and mind to so much of what I was unable and unwilling to see because of pride, prejudice, and stubbornness. It is no wonder I was such an insatiable seeker. Until I returned back to Christianity, nothing I read and no one I listened to was going to be good enough. 

I didn’t need spirituality as spirituality. Nor did I need wisdom for wisdom’s sake. What I needed was God. As my college religions professor told me when, after several semesters of studying a variety of religious traditions with him, I asked him what his personal beliefs were, “There is truth in all of these traditions, but in Christianity I have found the Gospel.” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

*We went to church with my grandparents when we stayed at their house as kids, but my parents never really instilled in us Christian values or taught us about Christianity. Although they did start taking us to church at one point because I asked to go as a means of trying to find a solution to my feeling lost and out of place in this world. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I still felt lost and out of place. 

Merely the hem of his garment

One of my favorite stories in the Gospels is when the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years was healed through faith by simply touching the hem of Jesus’s garment. This story exists in three of the four Gospels: Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, and Luke 8:43-48. In some translations, it says hem (NKJV). In others it says edge (NIV), fringe (ESV), or border (KJV). But what they all have in common is that the bleeding woman was healed by Jesus by reaching out in faith and touching only some small, distal part of Jesus’s clothing. 

And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour (Matthew 9:20-22, NKJV). 

There are a couple of remarkable things about this passage to me. The first thing that strikes me is just how little it actually took for this woman to be healed by Jesus. He didn’t lay his hands on her. He didn’t bless her or pray over her. He didn’t even know who she was until the moment she touched his clothes. 

All she did was touch the hem of his garment, not even the sleeve or the collar, but simply the hem. Through this simple gesture, she was healed. This goes to show just how powerful Jesus’s healing powers were and are. He is able to heal all manner of illness and malady with even the smallest amount of connection to him. 

The other remarkable thing about this story is that it teaches us the power of faith. This woman had been bleeding for twelve years. She had no realistic reason to believe that Jesus would or could heal her. And yet, she reached out in faith and was made instantly well. 

With faith and the smallest amount of effort on our part, Jesus is able to accomplish miracles in our lives. We cannot heal ourselves but, when we find ourselves in a position wherein we are beyond human aid, if we reach out to Jesus, he will heal us. As it is written in Matthew 17:20, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you (NKJV).”

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

He began to teach them many things

Yesterday morning during my prayer hour, my Biblical readings contained the following story from the Gospel of Mark:

The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things (Mark 6:30-34, NABRE).

As with all of the Gospels, there is a lot to contemplate in this passage, but the part of the story that really caught my attention was the last verse that says, “When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” 

For whatever reason, “…and he began to teach them many things,” really stuck in my mind. I couldn’t let it go. What are the many things that Jesus taught them? Why didn’t Mark write these teachings down? What did those he taught do with the teachings? Were they converted? Were they saved? Did they, in turn, share Jesus’s teachings with others?

As I meditated on this for a while, the thought came to me, “What if Mark intentionally left this statement open-ended? Perhaps it’s left open-ended like that because he is telling us that we are them to whom he taught and is teaching many things. His teaching didn’t end there with that crowd. When he left them, he continued teaching up until the moment of this death. Even after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, he continued teaching. In fact, he is still with us teaching us through the spirit.”

This thought immediately brought me a sense of comfort. In truth, I am one of the crowd hastening to Jesus and without him, I am like a sheep without a shepherd. And like that crowd, Jesus has taught and continues to teach me many things. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

The vessel matters

One of my wife and my favorite things to eat on a cold, winter day is a Korean stew called gamja-tang. Gamja-tang is a spicy potato and pork neck-bone stew cooked and served in a hot stone bowl. The pork neck-meat is tender and succulent, the potato is soft and creamy, and the broth is spicy, rich, and full of umami.

Ever since we first got married, one of our weekend rituals, especially during the colder months, has been to go to the Korean market for groceries, and to get gamja-tang and sushi for lunch. Over the years, the markets we go to have changed, and, as our life together has gotten more full, the frequency we go on these dates has become more sparse, but even after fifteen years, groceries and gamja-tang remains one of our favorite ways to get away and spend time together.

Most often, we prefer to sit down and eat together in the little food court of the grocery store. However, there have been occasions when, for one reason or another, we took our food to go. But whenever we have gotten takeout, the soup never tastes the same and we cannot figure out why.

The gamja-tang we take home looks exactly the same as the gamja-tang we eat in the restaurant. It has the same ingredients and the quantities are the same. The taste, however, is different. It’s less rich, less flavorsome, and lacks that unami deliciousness it has when we eat it on-site. The best we can figure, the bowl the stew is served in is what makes the difference between the eat-in and the takeout versions.

When gamja-tang is cooked, it’s cooked directly over the fire in a stone bowl. This bowl is then placed on a small, stone platter and served to customers in the same vessel it was cooked in. When gamja-tang is ordered to-go, however, the stew is transferred out of the bowl it was cooked in and into a plastic takeout container. Since the only real difference between eating gamja-tang in the food court and eating it at home is the container it is served in, we have to assume that this is the cause for the noticeable difference in flavor.

In my many years spent as a coffee drinker, barista, and espresso machine repair technician, I have observed this same phenomenon with coffee. When coffee is served in a ceramic cup, it tastes different than when it is served in a glass, paper, or plastic cup. I don’t know why, but it just does. Apparently, the vessel matters.

The same principle seems to apply to us. As much as we don’t want it to be the case, and as unfair as it may seem, how we present ourselves, how we dress, groom, and carry ourselves, plays a large role in how we are perceived and received by the world. This is especially true when we are trying to carry a message to others.

We all want to be loved and accepted as we are and for who we are, but there is only one who has ever truly loved us unconditionally in this way. That one is God, the God who knew us before he formed us in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5), the God to whom nothing is hidden (Hebrews 4:13), and the God to whom we will return to answer for our lives in death (Romans 14:10-12). This same God who knows us better than we know ourselves (Psalm 139:1-4) also loves us beyond our comprehension or deserving (Romans 5:6-8).

God loves us for who we are, but everyone else has conditions and expectations. For this reason, how we present ourselves matters. The container matters. Our outward appearance doesn’t define us or make us any more or less loved by God, for God’s love is perfect, but whether we like it or not, it does affect how we are perceived and received by the world. Much like Korean stew or espresso, changing the container changes perception. So if we want to be taken seriously, if we want our message to be heard, we have to look like we are serious and deserve to be listened to.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Tension between the world and the Word

At church this past Sunday, the pastor gave a sermon that centered around a passage from the book of James which states, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:22-24 NIV).”

As part of the sermon, the pastor gave out small, circular stick-on mirrors for the congregants to take home and stick in a conspicuous place as a reminder of James’s message. My daughter and I each took one on the way out, but as my daughter received hers, she dropped it on the floor and exclaimed, “Oh no!” When she picked it up, she let out a sigh of relief and said, “Whew! It’s not broken. I won’t have seven years of bad luck.”

Being in a hurry to get down the road, I didn’t think much about what happened. But then, as we were leaving the church, I noticed one of these small mirrors on the steps, broken in several pieces. “Someone dropped their mirror,” I said to my daughter. “Oh no,” she replied, “Whoever dropped it is going to have seven years of bad luck.”

Hearing what she said a second time, I couldn’t let it go. We had just left a church service wherein we heard about, praised, and proclaimed our faith in an almighty God and here my daughter was, albeit innocently, worrying about superstitious bad luck from a broken piece of polished glass. I said to her, “You know that God is more powerful than a broken mirror and that is just a superstition, right?” “Of course,” she replied confidently and sincerely.

As we drove away, this interaction got me thinking about how, even when it seems innocent or insignificant, the teachings of the world and the teachings of God are so often in direct conflict with one another. This tension between the world and the Word is a fact of life as old as humanity itself and is precisely why God gave us the filter of Scripture through which to view and understand life. I can’t and don’t fault my daughter for her childish superstitions because she is, after all, a child, but this experience did make me take a look in the mirror, so to speak, and ask myself where I hold false beliefs that keep me from accepting God’s truth.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.