In the blanks below write the two most significant statements in today’s reading assignment. Be prepared to discuss why the statements you chose were significant to you.
“A parent’s own inconsistency, anger, moodiness, materialism, sensuality, or deception can be a far more serious stumbling block to the teen’s life than whatever problems … the parent is trying to address – mea culpa
“The rules for which the student is held accountable are merely the guard rails on the highway that keep him from destroying himself and others while he learns how to drive – how to walk in the Spirit for himself – great metaphor image”
What are some excuses parents give for teenage rebellion when they do not have a biblical view of the human heart?
“hormones
“struggle for independence
“peer pressure and resulting worldliness
“low self-esteem
“immaturity”
What is accountability, and what does God intend to accomplish through it?
“Accountability is the constant watchfulness and enforcement behind every effective discipleship effort. God uses accountability to stimulate change and makes it a primary part of the ministry of the leaders He has appointed – prophets, apostles, parents, and so forth.”
What do you know about a man’s view of the human heart when he says ‘I can’t believe God would damn anyone to hell’?
“The unbelieving, secular view doesn’t recognize as Jeremiah did that ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ (Jeremiah 17:9) Man’s view wants to see us all as basically good people wanting to do the right thing at least the majority of the time. (Clearly they’ve never watched Bait Car.)”
Why do believers not have an accurate view of the strength of the evil within when they are rowing downstream with the current of their heart?
“You can’t feel the level of force in any resistance if you aren’t making any effort to resist it.”
Praise – “You are fantastic, fabulous, formidable, fulfilling, Father, and faithful.”
Repent – “I am sorry I’ve given in to the current so many times in the last 36 hours.”
Yield – “I will try to get rowing again.”
Dearest Rachel –
Well, once again we come to the question of why God would condemn a person – any person – to hell. I’m going to venture a guess that you participated in this study before I started to actually flesh out the concept of hell as a place “where God is not,” and therefore akin to being in the midst of a perpetual nuclear explosion, as every particle, not being held together by God, flies apart in keeping with the laws of physics He laid down in the first place. I’m pretty sure we discussed it between ourselves, but that was likely some time later on in our lives.
Instead – and understandably – you relied upon the more conventional explanation that people are simply not “innocent,” when you come down to it. We are all sinners, and none of us are worthy of standing before God, as He is holy, and by definition unable to tolerate evil and wickedness in His presence (His holiness been described as being almost allergic to evil, in fact, which makes it relatable even as we don’t suffer from such allergies ourselves, more’s the pity). It’s an argument going back millennia, and explicitly stated in scripture, so it certainly carries more weight than any half-baked theory I could come up with about the place.
It’s just that… it bothers me that people will turn away from God specifically because, in their understanding, He ‘punishes’ people by sending them to hell. Those same people will agree almost instantly with anyone who asks them that people are not perfect – although often times, they will claim that they are ‘basically good.’ Of course, this leads to Jesus’ question to the rich young ruler upon being called ‘good’: “No one is good but God alone,” because to be good enough is to be perfect, which they are forced to agree we are not.
Meanwhile, Jeremiah states that we are about as far from good as it is possible to be; we may not act out every bit of evil in our hearts, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and if the opportunity exists for us to do evil and get away with it, there are far too many of us who will jump at the chance. And even those of us who might not will think of ourselves as chumps for playing by the rules when others refuse to and get ahead. More than one psalmist laments about “why do the wicked prosper?” thereby acknowledging that there are wicked people in the world (so much for them being ‘basically good’) and that they appear to get ahead in life compared to himself.
Your reference to the show Bait Car brings back memories; I remember the three of us watching that, along with World’s Dumbest and other such dashcam footage shows on truTV back in the days before Daniel introduced us to YouTube when he was in college. That show was certainly proof that people are more than willing to commit crimes of opportunity, regardless of the fact that if something looks too easy, it probably is. To be fair, there’s a satisfying aspect of such folks also getting their swift comeuppance, too, which was likely the reason the show lasted so long.
These days, I doubt the program exists any more – be it the television show or the police operation – either because of entrapment laws or the demographics of those snared by the bait. Although it would be interesting to see what would happen if such were revived in a pleasant, peaceful suburb like ours; I wonder if we wouldn’t discover that folks here are just as susceptible to temptation here as anywhere else.
Anyway, with that being said, honey, I’d ask you to keep an eye on us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 