GOD DOES NOT OVERPOWER, BUT EMPOWERS1

The Bible portrays God as one who graciously and relationally empowers, not as one who autocratically overpowers.

Background:
From the beginning, God empowers rather than overpowers.  One should read the opening Genesis texts as ancient Near Eastern nature-of-life, explanatory texts, which are often based on common, phenomenological observations, but which have been rewritten from the Israelite, God-given worldview.  [Note: The most beneficial reading, then, is to observe what the Israelites, who were late comers to the ancient Near East, changed.]  The texts are not to be read as the literature of modern science.  Still, there are a couple of interesting texts in which an ancient concept about the natural world is significant for today:

“And God said, ‘Let the land produce [a command form] vegetation…’” (Gen 1:11).
“And God said, ‘Let the land bring out [a command form] living creatures…’” (Gen 1:27).

The notion is that the land had been equipped and empowered to be an agent in the procreation of life.  I am not interested in relating this concept to modern biological constructs of how life originated.  Also, on a phenomenological level, one can see how people observed plants sprouting from the ground.  However, I am intrigued by the theological notion of the natural world being empowered by God to cooperate in procreation rather being than overpowered.  That is because this concept is especially true of humanity created in the image of God (to represent God)² and commanded to be fruitful and to share in the ruling creation (1:27-28).

A second “creation” text, which begins at Genesis 2:4, reveals how humans – Adam himself coming from the “dust” of the ground (2:7) – were to care for the land in companionship (2:8,15,18,20b-24).  However, it also explains in narrative form how such divine empowerment became – and continues to become – corrupted when humanity no longer serves its Creator but rebels in desire to usurp God (the temptation of 3:4).  The result is that sin/chaos encroaches on both realms: not only does human procreation becomes laborious and the equal partnership between Eve and Adam broken, but also the ground becomes “cursed” so that working it become laborious; and, to it humans return as they experience their mortality (3:16-19).

Application:
To be honest, I would like for God to overpower the world of nature, as well as those with whom I live in tension, and, sometimes, even myself.  I want a smooth, non-laborious life.  I tire of the struggle.  However, the character of God’s sovereignty (kingship) is not that God overpower and control the natural world to do all that it does.  The natural world, an interplay of order and chaos without which life as we know it would not exist, generally “takes its course.”  In the same way, God does not overpower us such that we must do God’s will.  Rather, God desires that we willfully obey God as our Creator and King, something that begins to take place as we “seek God.”  It is then that God empowers us to face the labors of life and our mortality.  That is all I need.  That is the foundation of contentment.  That is the ground of hope – that which I do not see, but that of which I am certain (Heb 11:1).³

Jesus, I cannot manage in this life that you have entrusted to me without You.  I do not ask that you remove the labors of life for me.  I ask that you empower me to serve you faithfully throughout the labors of life that you might be glorified as Creator and King even to the end of my labor.  Amen.
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1. This concept ties in with the previous devotion, “God Is Not to Be Found in the 'Why? but in the 'Where?' (Oct. 14, 2024)
2. See entries on the “image of God,” Feb. 1, 2024, Oct. 3, 2024.
3. See entry on Hebrews 11:1, Sept. 13, 2023.

 

HOMOSEXUALITY: REFLECTIONS BIBLICALLY, GENETICALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND PASTORALLY

Note: I am not writing as an “authority” on this complex and controversial issue, which is particularly divisive within the Church.  My understanding is limited and quite possibly wrong.  Rather, I am writing about how my current understanding challenges ME spiritually.  I understand that “sound bites” mislead because they leave out important qualifications and discussions, but here are mine.

·        Biblical theology: If one understands creation theology, the biblical theology of the “hardening of the heart” (individually and corporately), and an OT prophetic motif that sins of the people (particularly “idolatry” which is putting anything above God) reverse the creational order and promote the return of chaos, then Paul’s line of thought in Romans 1:18 – 32 (which is not his main point) is clear and decisive to me.  A peoples’ failure to give glory to God results in a hardening of heart/mind, a turning away from (reversal of) the creational order, the results of which are manifest in the chaos of improper sexual behaviors – as well as other behaviors found in most all people.

·        Genetics: The best scientific studies I know about, studies of genetically identical twins separated at birth, shows that sexual identity and preference are not genetically pre-determined.

·        Psychology: To the best of my knowledge, sexual identify formation begins in one’s early years in terms of modeling and molding within one’s environment.  Moreover, early formed identity is not easy to change.  It is neurologically “ingrained.”  Anecdotally, I know stories where home abuse was a factor toward one’s sexual identity development.  I know a person who tells how he accepted an identity that he was rather bullied into by peers.  There are some who out of loneliness found acceptance through a change of orientation.  Whereas these factors are admittedly inadequate as explanations,* I mention them because they lead me to the next point, my area of struggle.

·        Pastorally: Of course, I desire that all people, me included, would move away from any self-induced chaos and toward divine order.  Still, I also need to consider that some people, who are practicing behaviors that I find to be “of chaos,” may well be doing the best they can when given the combined individual, family, and social-level factors of their unique histories.  It is not my role to pass judgment on them, but rather on my own failures and those of the Church.  However, what I recognize most is that I desperately need divine guidance and sensitivity toward each person in order to know how to love and encourage that person, whatever their “orientation” or practice, to grow in Christ.  And, I feel pretty inadequate.

Lord, help me to grow in understanding, compassion, wisdom, and love in my interactions with all people.  Amen.

*I’ll share another challenging anecdote.  A priest friend, whose occupation is to counsel priests, found he was encountering priests who wondered if they were homosexually oriented.  He immersed himself in the related literature.  After doing so, he began to have homosexual dreams and decided that he must have a homosexual orientation.  As one hearing his story, what struck me was that his reading/thought focus had had a neurological impact that influenced his dreams, which had not been homosexual beforehand, but which he accepted as evidence of his orientation.  That raises the complex issue of mental conditioning.  In my “Devotional Testimony” (4/18/24), I mentioned that, as an embodied being, all my experiential perceptions are neurological, but that I think God can interact with those perceptions.  I will suggest here, perhaps to be developed in a later post, that what Paul portrays as “spiritual warfare,” has much to do with monitoring one’s thought life that creates neurological “paths” which in turn shape us (see 2 Cor 10:3–6; Eph 6:10–18).