Christopher Peppler

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – a Christian Perspective

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I first came across the term Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs when, at the age of twenty-four, I studied at the Damelin Management School. I encountered it again at the WITS Graduate School of Business eight years later. By then I had incorporated it into my approach to management and leadership, but I had begun to realise its limitations for a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I will set out briefly what Maslow meant by his hierarchy of needs, but I want to spend much of your reading time on its Christian implications.

The Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Harold Maslow (1908 – 1970) was a psychology professor at Brandeis University and Colombia University and a prolific writer and speaker. He did not present his theories of human motivation graphically, let alone as a pyramid, but today his theory is usually set out in the form of a layered pyramid.

Maslows hierarchy of needsSelf-actualization needs cover personal potential, self-fulfilment, and personal growth

  • Esteem needs include self-worth, accomplishment, and respect.
  • Belonging needs are the desire for relationships and group membership.
  • Safety needs are for order, predictability, and control.
  • Physiological needs are biological requirements for minimal human living

The basic idea is that people need to satisfy most of their basic needs most of the time before they are motivated to pursue higher needs. In other words, people need to be reasonably well-fed, hydrated, warm and rested within a secure and safe environment before they bother much with psychological needs, let alone with self-fulfilment.

Sociological Perspective

To put this into a current sociological perspective consider the following:

People who do not have enough to eat and a place to stay will focus their energy on acquiring food and shelter. If they cannot do this legally, and without harming others, they may satisfy these basic needs through some form of crime unless the state or private citizens provide them with help (social grants, charities etc.) Once they have these needs met, people will seek to provide some form of permanence to their situation. They will require liveable housing within an environment where they are protected (housing schemes, shared accommodation etc.). It is easy to see from this that job creation becomes paramount for society and government. Poor people ideally need to provide basic and safety requirements for themselves as only this will provide a viable long-term solution to the problem of poverty.

Once basic needs are met, people will deploy their remaining resources seeking to belong to a group (family, community) and in developing close relationships with others. Gangs and cults provide an attractive yet highly destructive means to these ends. Gangs in particular provide their members with basic and psychological benefits at the cost of legality and moral corruption. They even provide a perverted form of self-esteem and respect.

The socially acceptable and legal path to esteem for most people is through hard work, economic success, and achievement in any number of fields of endeavour. Hence the societal obsession with career, winning, fame and wealth.

There have been several criticisms of Maslow’s theories of motivation, but it remains a reasonable way of understanding how we function both as individuals and as societies. Where my problem lies is with the concept of Self-actualization, the capstone of his pyramid. This is the point where this article will, hopefully, become more interesting to you as a Christian.

Self-actualization

Maslow described Self-actualization as ‘the person’s desire for self-fulfilment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially.’ He refined his thinking over several years and qualified the concept of Self-actualization to include seeking fulfilment and change through personal growth and discovery throughout life. He believed that people are always “becoming” and never static.

The pyramid way of presenting his theory suggests that self-actualization is only something that motivates once all lower needs are met, but this is not what Maslow taught. This qualification brings inconsistency into the model; if the top of the hierarchy is present in all other levels of need motivation, then why should this not apply equally to, say, esteem or safety needs? However, from a humanistic point of view, I can see how a person can only really devote focus and energy to self-actualization once he is free of striving to fulfil lower-level needs.

My real problem is that, as with most secular models, the needs hierarchy stands on the assumption that a human can, within itself, realise real self-fulfilment. It makes no room for a divine source of human worth.

Later psychologists added a further level to the needs pyramid by topping self-realisation with what they call Transcendence. The article in ‘Simply Psychological’ explains this expanded concept as follows: ‘A person is motivated by values that transcend beyond the personal self. Beyond self-actualization.they represent the human desire to connect with a higher reality, purpose, or the universe. This level emphasises altruism, spiritual connection, and helping others achieve their potential.

Individuals seek experiences that move beyond personal concerns, aiming to achieve a deep sense of unity, understanding, and belonging within the vast expanse of existence’. Now, this gets us a step further towards truth, but why can’t they just say ‘God’ rather than ‘higher reality’ or ‘the universe’? And what about citing Jesus who consistently taught and modelled an other-oriented life.

True Self-actualization

I do not believe that transcendence is something we attain apart from God at any level of human need. When people come into a saving relationship with God through the rebirth of the Spirit, then they become new creations and their primary identity becomes ‘child of God’. Consider the following passage of scripture:

Galatians 3:26-4:7 “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father”. So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” Note the final verse “so you are no longer a slave, but a son.

So then, true self-actualization comes through knowing who we are as children of God and the realisation that our worth and fulfilment is sourced in him. What is more, we can experience this at whatever ‘level’ we are in the pyramid, whether we are in the process of satisfying basic or psychological needs. We do not have to ascend to the higher levels of the motivation pyramid before experiencing self-fulfilment; it is not the pinnacle of development, but rather a potential reality throughout all of life.

Biblical Examples

The book of Ecclesiastes records King Solomon’s attempts to self-actualize.  He fully exploited the possibilities of life, from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy to the top. After all this, there was only one thing he had to say: “Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that man was created for”.  Ecclesiastes 12:13 (TEV)

Of course, as usual, the Lord Jesus was the perfect example of living in the knowledge of who he was in the Kingdom of God. Words that grip me every time I read them are: “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:3-5).

Conclusion

Whilst some of what I have written might have been interesting to you, the one big takeaway is that no matter what level in the pyramid we are engaged with, the thing that gives it all lasting meaning is the sense of who we are. If we are born again of the Spirit, then our identity is a son or daughter of God, followers of Jesus complete and worthy in him.  With this understanding, we can find meaning and peace no matter our current circumstances or levels of need.

‘As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”  “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” ‘ (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)

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The Unchurched

unchurched

About 30 years ago, a young man came to interview me as part of his Master’s degree thesis on ‘The Unchurched’.

His research indicated that over 1.5 million committed Christians in South Africa were not attending church. I don’t know what the situation is today, but my impression is that in post-Covid19 South Africa, it is far worse than three decades ago. I have encountered many believers who either do not attend church or who do so only because their families drag them along. The reasons given tend to cluster around the following:

    • Sports and family activities take priority
    • There are many online alternatives available
    • Don’t see the need for church rather than private spirituality
    • Offence by church leaders or other church members
    • Disagreements over doctrines
    • Finding church services long, boring, and not relevant to modern life

Personal Experience

There could be many other reasons, but everyone has a personal story to tell. I have a story to tell because for the first time in my 46 years as a Jesus-follower I have experienced being part of the large yet invisible ‘Unchurched’. In the past, I have seen this ‘church problem’ from the perspective of a church leader, but now I have experienced it from the other side. I don’t believe there is much to gain from detailing just how I found myself on the ‘dark’ side, but my experiences may well help others who are part of The Unchurched.

The Value of the Local Church

I have always believed that the local church is very important to the Lord Jesus and, therefore, to every one of his followers. My recent experiences have not shaken this belief. Some of the reasons why the church is important are:

  1. Acts 20:28 Once a year for the 28 years that I led a local church I would read this verse to my fellow Elders: ‘Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. This alone should settle the matter of the worth and importance of the local church.
  2. Hebrews 10:23-25Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching’.
  3. God designed the local church to be more organic than organisational in nature. In some mysterious, but very real way, it is a living manifestation of the Body of Christ in a particular area and culture. Each born-again believer is a cell within this body and can therefore only thrive over time as a functional part of this body.
  4. The church is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the ‘place’ of his presence. When believers come together as a church, they, in a wonderfully mysterious way, constitute this temple.

These are four reasons why the local church is important to God and should be important to all Jesus-followers.

What I Missed

Having spelled out the value and importance of the local church, the place I want to start, in setting out my experiences and observations, is by mentioning what I missed most by being unchurched.

  1. I missed the faces, voices, hugs, and simple presence of other believers. A properly functioning church is one in which the people get to know each other, interact, and over time come to love one another.
  2. Another feature of a properly functioning church is that it provides the opportunity to give and receive, to minister and to receive ministry, and to witness others experiencing this.
  3. I missed the spiritual stimulation of singing out praise and worship together with many others.
  4. I dearly missed the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit moving among his people and animating us all to become more than just solitary parts but co-joined living cells within something greater.
I have used the words ‘properly functioning church’ purposefully because not all churches function as an organic body. Many are self-serving organisations, leader-dominated means to control or self-enrich. Far too many are religious edifices that serve only to perpetuate traditions and superficial expressions of spirituality.

I filtered out these types of churches when I eventually started to look for a church to attend. Instead, I initially did two things – I prayed and I viewed the online services of several churches in the area. I later visited a few. This is what I observed:

  • Most of them had positioned themselves as alternatives to modern secular life. They turned off the main lighting during the worship and even during the preaching, much like a theatre. The leaders sported ‘with it’ clothing, trendy facial hair, and eerily similar styles of speaking. The services minimised worship, sharing, and ministry and maximised notices, offerings, and preaching. The preaching was mainly superficial and self-improvement-oriented.
  • However, I visited a couple of churches where the leaders were genuinely trying to create what they saw as authentic biblical church life. Here other questions rose in me – could I contribute meaningfully to this church? Could I accept the particular rules and doctrines that they thought important enough to insist on? Would they accept me for who and what I am, an elderly past church leader and theologian?

I did not find one that I could join and serve, but I never stopped being open to joining a local church. However, I needed the Lord to guide me because on my own it is so hard to find a place to belong.

What Surprised Me

There were some things that I just did not expect to experience when I left the church that had been my spiritual home for over three decades.

  • I didn’t expect to find myself “cancelled”. I knew of the cancel culture so prevalent in the world, but I did not expect it from Christians. In my case, I do not think it was a strategy, but rather just out-of-sight-out of mind.  In the months after leaving, very few people reached out to me, particularly among the men I had shared leadership with and regarded as genuine friends for so many years. To most, I became generally invisible and irrelevant. Not to all, of course, and most who were ‘house friends’ continued their relationships with me. I also have to note (with a wry smile) that when I was a leader in the church there was an expectation that the missing sheep also had an obligation to reach out to us. I can see how unrealistic this is because someone who is grieving loss just doesn’t know how to re-establish relationships without creating further problems.
  • I also did not expect to experience the severity of the resentment and emotional pain that came with severance from my church family. My wife and I have been married for 55 years and so I have never experienced the negative power of divorce, although I have often observed it. Well, leaving a church body seems similar in many ways to a divorce.
  • Although I had warned people from the pulpit how spiritually lonely it is to be outside of the local church, I did not expect it to take such a toll on personal devotions, prayer, and spiritual passion. It is a truism that a lump of coal cannot remain hot for long when removed from the fire.

What I Needed to Do

I cannot presume to say what other unchurched believers should do; all I can do is mention what I have done in the hope that this may be helpful.

  1. I resolved to continue to grapple with the difficulty of finding an authentic local church where I could belong. I tried to ensure that I was open to the possibility and I constantly asked the Holy Spirit to lead me to one. When I came across a new possibility, then I went there to see if it was ‘the one’. I widened my field of vision to include house churches or Christian fellowship groups that are not necessarily part of an established church.
  2. I continued to try to deal with offence, resentment and hurt. I wanted to respond to these realities in the way Jesus taught and demonstrated, but I found it difficult, complex, and full of lose-lose options. In the past, I might have said “Oh boo hoo, just get over yourself” but I won’t be making that mistake again.
  3. I refrained from bad-mouthing the church leadership to their members or saying and doing anything that could hurt the church. I did not volunteer to others the reasons why I resigned and only gave details if specifically asked.
  4. I continued to value the local church in what I said and wrote and I tried my best to keep my relationship with Jesus and his followers sincere and transparent.

Why I have Written This Article

 

I have shared my experiences transparently in the hope that what I have written will be helpful to both unchurched folks and, perhaps, church leaders. It was a painful experience living on the outside, but it would only have been a worthless experience if I and others could not learn from it.

Over the last year I have learned, and relearned, some important life lessons. One of these was the difficulty in grasping how others might view the things I said and did. For instance, I felt abandoned and did not realise that others might have felt abandoned by me. Another important issue I had to face was the destructive power of unforgiveness, which I knew had to be dealt with if I could but find a satisfactory way to do so.

I have written this article in the past tense because for the last several weeks I have been back at my ‘home’ church. The Lead Elder graciously reached out to me and we were able to forgive and reconcile. Things will probably not be the same as they were ‘back in the day’, but they never are, are they?

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2024 featured

2024

2024

I saw a cartoon the other day depicting a group of people peering fearfully around a corner towards a door marked ‘2024’. One of them was timidly poking the door open with a broomstick. I can’t reproduce it for you without infringing copyright and I was loath to even mention it because of the negative message it conveys. However, I think it puts the situation well because we have to face facts; our global and national situation is predominantly ‘negative’. I want so much to be optimistic as I peer through the slowly opening door of 2024, but I cannot.

It is better to face reality head-on and with open eyes, as we trust God to walk with us into the future.

There is every indication that 2024 could be a pivotal year for the world in general and South Africa in particular. What happens outside of my country will continue to affect us here at the tip of Africa, but it will also affect many of us personally through our family and friends in other parts of the world. However, I will only comment on the global situation in as much as it is likely to affect South Africa.

2024 Globally

It is obvious to anyone even vaguely politically, economically, and environmentally aware that the world is on an accelerating downward escalator.

Global warming, whatever its causes, has passed the critical point where the rate of change moved from rapid to exponential. Last year was, so say the experts, the hottest year in recorded human history, and there is no reason to think that this year will not be even worse. With this change come droughts, extreme weather conditions, and disruption. Food becomes scarcer and more expensive and people die or try to take over someone else’s patch of more productive land. The world population is on the move with emigrants and refugees swamping more stable and prosperous nations than the ones from which they are fleeing. This brings with it huge social and political instability and stress. War borders are expanding outwards threatening to engulf many nations. Ukraine and Russia continue to fight it out in the bloodiest of ways while nearby nations tremble at the negative prospects that threaten them. Israel fights a survival death-battle, while the Arab world tries to convince us that it is the Palestinians who are facing genocide. And, all the while North Korea eyes South Korea waiting for a time to devour it and China eyes the South China Sea territory with equally hungry eyes.

All this casts a huge stress on the rest of the world. Moreover, to top it all off the USA, the world’s last traditional superpower, is facing a contentious presidential election that could even further divide and destabilise. And my poor country, the tarnished rainbow nation, faces its own day of reckoning.

2024 South Africa

South Africa’s only contributions to the world crises seem to be to side publically and noisily with Hamas and the Palestinians, vote for the United Nations condemnation of Israel, and take Israel to the World Court of Justice for committing genocide. This does not help us as a nation in any way that I can see. On the contrary, it antagonises our major trading partners and investors without any noticeable recompense from China, Russia and the Arab nations. So, it looks like we will be facing our own meltdown without international support.

Sociologically, we have over 45% of the population surviving on state aid (social grants), a shrinking tax base unable to maintain this, and an exhausted national debt limit. About 40% of the population earns an income from formal employment, the murder, death, and rape rates are probably the highest in the world, corruption is endemic, and the roads, railways, and harbours are broken! Food prices are through the roof, housing prices slumped in most suburbs, and electricity supply has been cripplingly problematic … and so on.

On the political front, we have a national election that will take place sometime this year where the possible outcomes are all potentially momentous in one way or another. If the ANC retain 40% plus of the vote it is more than likely that they will be able to cobble together a coalition government with a few small parties or the EFF (Horror!) Whatever the constituency of this coalition, they will still be the majority and controlling party … and the slide into a failed state will no doubt continue. If the opposition Multi-Party Charter coalition wins 51% plus then things will at least have a chance of changing for the good, although the first few years will most likely be characterised by power plays between member politicians … but perhaps not. In the first scenario, we will plunge further and more rapidly into social and economic ruin, and in the second scenario, we will stop the plunge to destruction and even slowly turn the graph upwards in a growth trajectory. Both of these possibilities will mean that we the citizens will be facing years of uncertainty, threat, and hardship. Not pleasant to contemplate or accept but probably inevitable.

But, hold on Chris, aren’t you looking at the glass as half-empty rather than half-full? No, I am seeing it as a quarter full at best! We face that reality. OK, but what of the possibility of spiritual revival?

2024 Revival

I am one of those people who believe that we are yet to have the greatest revival in history.

God sends revival not as a reward, but as a response to the desperate spiritual need of the church and society.

The darker the day, the more we should expect the light of Heaven to break through. However, something that history has taught us is that although revivals come suddenly they tend to start locally and then slowly spread to other parts of a nation and then the wider world. Many folks think that if we in South Africa were to experience revival today, then everything would change overnight. This just does not seem to be realistic. John Wesley’s Methodist movement was a revival that some historians hold that it saved England from experiencing a French-revolution-type social uprising. This is probably true, but it did not all happen in a moment. John Wesley was a prolific preacher, addressing crowds twice a day almost every day of every week. In 1739 he preached his first open-air sermon, in 1741 he preached regularly in South Wales, in 1747 he preached (42 times) in Ireland and in 1751 he ministered 27 times in Scotland. That covers a period of about 12 years. It did not happen in a day!

The heart of true revival is that it does not only stir the emotions of crowds, but changes the lives of individuals. Those men and women go on to plant churches, influence business, and participate in government. The combined and accumulated effect of all this is a revival fire that transforms nations.

So, would revival change South Africa and other countries? Yes, but it will most likely take quite a bit of time. That then begs the question, ‘What should we do in 2024?’

2024 Individual Response

I don’t suppose there is much in this article that most of you do not already know, and the same applies to this final section. However, these three practical and personal suggestions bear repeating. We need to know and live out these things if we are to thrive in 2024.

  1. Strengthen relationships with Jesus, family, friends, and church: Strengthening the relationship with the Lord Jesus should always be a priority, but never so much as now. It is he who said: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) In addition Paul wrote: ‘God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6) Then the next most important relationship to strengthen is with spouses, children, parents, and extended family. Friends, true friends, are rare and valuable, and we need to be a friend and receive friendship in these times. Then there is the church, your local church, which could be an extended family for you.
  2. Pray, expect revival, and submit everything to God: Pray alone, in groups, or as part of a congregation. Pray in tongues in the spirit. Expect revival at any time: if we do not expect it then we may not perceive it. I recently heard a church historian saying that we often only recognise revivals in hindsight. That is a little sad because it says a lot about the lack of response to revival when it comes.
  3. Vote: I have written about this recently HERE, but let me repeat this: ‘If we do not democratically remove the current  government from power in the soon-coming general elections, then almost everyone, except them, fears that we will plunge over the edge of the abyss into the horror of a Failed State. All citizens of South Africa, whether Christians or not, need to vote’.

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God is good

God Is Good All The Time

God is good

The leader of the church service intones, “God is good, all the time”, and the congregation responds with, “all the time, God is good”. This may be a stylised church thing, but it is also a profound statement of truth. The older I get, the more I come to understand that this axiom lies at the foundation of so many theological and life-related issues.

There are two parts to the statement:

 

  • God is good: This is the fundamental moral and ethical foundation of human life. God is good, he is not bad. God is love, he is not hate. God is truth, he is not lie. Of course, we will need to define what we mean by ‘good’ and we will need to establish a standard against which we can determine goodness.
  • All the time: God is not good just some of the time, but all of the time. He is not both good and bad, successively or simultaneously. God is absolutely and always good.

 

Right at the outset, let me give a few examples of what this means and the effect it has on our beliefs and lives:

 

  1. If God is consistently and absolutely good, then he cannot, in any sense, be bad.
  2. If something truly bad happens to us then we cannot and must not attribute it to God. “God knows best – His ways are higher than ours” is no real comfort at all to the man or woman whose daughter has recently been raped and then butchered. It besmirches God and leaves the parent hopeless and doubly distraught.
  3. If God cold-bloodedly killed Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) for lying about how they spent their own money, then why should we expect his goodness to be manifest in our lives? It would be no better than living in fear of the wrath of God or not believing at all.
  4. If God is not good all the time, then why should WE strive or even expect to be? The old false narrative that God’s standards are different to our standards is just an unethical double standard.
  5. If God has predetermined who will be saved and who consigned to Hell then how can we equally believe the biblical statement that he wants all to be saved? Either this makes God out to be a disingenuous fraud, or it makes the bible unreliable.

There are many more examples I could set down, but these will do for now. So, now let’s examine the two parts of the axiom I started with and then move on to how we should establish the truth that God is good, all the time.

God is Good

 

If I were not a bible-honouring Christian then I guess I would have to argue from philosophy, sociology, or reasoning. If you would like to explore the intellectual idea of Godless ethics then HERE is a good place to start. However,  I am a bible-honouring follower of the Lord Jesus and so I will instead argue from scripture.

Many Old Testament texts affirm that God is good, but consider Psalm 34:8: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.’ The word ‘Lord’ in the Hebrew text is of course ‘Yahweh’, the customary name of the creator God of Israel.

As with the Old Testament, there are many references to the goodness of God in the New Testament. Again, I want to focus on just one. 1 John 1:5 ‘This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ It is quite legitimate, therefore, to say ‘God is good, and in him is no badness at all’. God is absolutely, completely ‘light’, and ‘good’ and there is nothing in him that is ‘dark’ and ‘bad’.

All the Time

 

Not only is God good, but he is consistently and continuously good. Not just sometimes good and sometimes bad and not both good and bad, but always good.

James 1:16-17 reads: ‘Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows’. The picture here is a sundial where the shadow moves over the dial as the hours progress. God is not like that. To use the same word picture, God is like the sun at noon where there is no movement of a shadow on the sundial. He is unchanging in his bright goodness.

So then, God is good, and only good, all the time. Yet I have often read or heard that we need to hold the goodness of God and his ‘dark side’ in dynamic tension, accepting that he is both light and dark, good and bad. He loves all people because he created them in his image to be his eternal children, but he feels free to abuse and obliterate them if he deems that this is ‘necessary’. I have very little tolerance for this line of thought. It is schizophrenic and falls foul of Isaiah’s admonition: ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter’ (Isaiah 5:20).

So, now one more important issue needs addressing, ‘What is our standard for what is good?’

The Standard

 

How do we know good from bad and truth from error? God is good, but what does that mean in terms of our standards?

The first step towards answering these questions is to dispel some wrong thinking. The most common excuse for what we understand as instances of God’s ‘misbehaviour’ is that because he knows all things and can see the outcome of all eventualities he does some things that appear bad to us but that are necessary to achieve a good result. Just think for a moment what that says about God. Is he so limited that he cannot choose options that avoid doing anything ‘bad’? Is he selectively loving and merciful? When we try to account for the things in scripture that God seems to do or instruct that we see as bad, then we compromise God’s own stated values and besmirch his character. In addition, it opens the door to us adopting the means justifies the end thinking – I can do anything I need to do to attain what I believe is a ‘good’ result. This ‘the end justifies the means’ pollutes modern society, families, churches, and personal life and is prevalent in governments, businesses, and even Christian institutions.

An alternative to this wrong thinking is to slip into another form of wrong thinking – to accept that God has double standards. What is good for him is not necessarily good for us. God expects us to live to standards that he does not evidence. There is just so much that is wrong about this line of thought, so best I just say that God does not have double standards, he is absolutely good in all his ways.

So, how then do we determine good from bad? The obvious answer to a Christian is, “well the scriptures of course”. Sure, but that supposes that we are all able to understand the bible correctly, whatever ‘correctly’ actually means. No, the answer must be that our means of determining good from bad is the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in and through the scriptures. If Jesus is truly God incarnate, then what he said, did, and revealed of the nature and character of the Godhead must be true. I have made the case for this idea many times and you can find an instance of this HERE.

Conclusion

 

If you find yourself blaming your god for bad things, or accommodating his apparent ‘dark side’, then PLEASE examine your thinking. How can you have a loving relationship with a god who is fickle, disingenuous, or just plain bad? You cannot! If your god might have chosen you or a loved one for eternal damnation, no matter what they do or are, then what kind of a god is that? If your god applies double standards or expects you to disengage your critical faculties then what does it say about his morality and ethics? I have used ‘god’ with a small ‘g’ in this paragraph because the deity we are envisioning here is not God Almighty. He is not the God embodied in Jesus of Nazareth.

God is good and there is no badness in him. God is light and there is no darkness in him. Anything that contradicts this key maxim is a reflection of wrong thinking and incorrect biblical interpretation.

Please do not dismiss what I have written here as either simply interesting or perhaps irrelevant. The nature and character of God is something that affects all doctrine and human life. Rather than moving on to the next thought presented to you, stop and critically evaluate what I have set out before you. Look into the scriptures and question, pray, and seek answers.

This is a vitally important subject, so please comment freely in the section at the foot of this article and I will interact with you as best I can.

God Is Good All The Time Read More »

forgiveness

Forgive – But How?

Forgiveness 

Few Jesus-followers would dispute the fact that we need to forgive those who offend or wrong us. However, just how and when to do this can be very problematic.

I am  writing this article, not just as a pastoral teaching, but as a means of working through a practical issue that has affected me and many others. Unforgiveness destroys relationships and can cause mental and even physical health problems in the offended party, so it is something we cannot ignore or postpone for too long.

Jesus’ Teaching

The Lord Jesus taught that we should forgive. He included it in the prayer format that he gave his disciples (Matthew 6:12-15) and ended with, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” This sentiment is repeated in Mark 11:26 and Luke 6:37.

Oh, OK, so I just need to pray, “Lord, I forgive so-and-so for this-and-that” and everything will be fine? No, that won’t do because Matthew 18 records a story Jesus told to illustrate the concept of forgiveness, which he concluded with: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”  (18:35). The key phrase here is ‘from your heart’, and that is where the rubber hits the road (or as we say in South Africa ‘the tackie hits the tar’). It is easy to forgive in the mind, but the ‘heart’? … not so much.

There is no doubt that Jesus instructs us to forgive in a real and heartfelt way.

The Problem

The problem is not in knowing that we need to forgive, but in knowing how and when to do this.  Matthew 18:15-19 sets out the Lord’s instructions regarding sin that affect the church community or its Christian reputation. It starts with ‘If your brother sins against you…’, but the better translations all add the footnote that the words ‘against you’ are omitted from some manuscripts. This omission makes more sense of the passage because the process that Jesus sets out lands up under the purview of the local church and has a form of ex-communication as the ultimate negative outcome. It does not make a lot of sense to omit the words ‘against you’ if the ‘sin’ in question is a purely interpersonal matter. So, this passage does not give us much help when it comes to personal offence and forgiveness.

Another problematic aspect is when the persons who have ‘sinned’ against you might not be aware of the hurt they have caused.

Jesus’ instruction on this is in Luke 17:3, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him“. So, if you have reason to think that the offender does not realise that they have offended you, then bring it to their attention and perhaps they will ask for forgiveness. However, I have found from painful personal experiences that it is often very hard to accept that the person in question could be unaware of the impact of his/her words. It is seems so obvious to you that anybody could be unaware of the damage done to your self-worth or sense of identity. This then raises another obstacle to approaching the offender … rejection and counterattack from them. Sometimes you even have the evidence of experiences to lead you to conclude that your challenge, no matter how gently made, will be aggressively rejected. Of course, the only way to find out is to approach the person anyway … and this risks further pain and humiliation.

Of course, if you are the offender, and know it, then the Lord’s clear instruction is that you immediately go and ask for forgiveness: “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

So, you see, forgiveness is not always as simple as it may seem.

A Solution to the Problem

Full forgiveness in any relational sense is impossible to grant if the one causing the offence does not ask for it. However, Mark records something Jesus said that is helpful here. He said: ”When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in Heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:35)  It is hard to imagine, in this example that the man was supposed to stop praying, dash off to find the person he held a grudge against, forgive him although he may not have asked for forgiveness, and then resume praying. A more likely explanation is that Jesus requires an offended person to adopt an attitude of heart that is willing to forgive if so asked. In other words, prayerfully commit to forgiving if asked to do so.

This conforms to the pattern we have in God’s attitude towards us; we ask him to forgive us and he does so because his heart is disposed towards this. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). Luke 17:4 confirms this approach: “Even if he wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, forgive him.” NLT

Kevin Carson, department chair of biblical counselling at the Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, writes:

The process is a little more complex though. Although we try forgiving in our hearts before God, often the subconscious mind interferes with the integrity of this ‘attitudinal forgiveness’. We catch ourselves in moments of reflection remembering the pain and we even create an imaginary dialogue where we tell the offenders just how we feel and how they have wronged us. Sometimes, this can only be resolved when transactional forgiveness has taken place. Until then all we can do is pray for God to bless (not correct) them and, continue to restate our willingness to forgive whenever these thoughts intrude, and ensure that we are sufficiently in contact and available to receive a request for forgiveness if and when the person is convicted of the need to do so .

There are some obvious exceptions to this principle of ‘transactional forgiveness’. For instance, the person may be dead or otherwise uncontactable, or mentally unable to process and respond. In these cases, ‘attitudinal forgiveness’ must simply have to suffice and the Holy Spirit will over time deal with any residual negative emotions.

Another aspect I have not dealt with is the idea of ‘self forgiveness’ epitomised by the phrase “I just can’t forgive myself for….”. As I see it, the simple truth is that we cannot forgive ourselves for anything, but we can confess and ask forgiveness for everything. The biblical assurance is clear that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) To continue to live in a state of self-condemnation is surely an affront to God and a lack of faith is the scriptures?

Process and Assumptions

Let me share with you two insights that I recently acquired.

The first is that forgiveness is a process. The sort of events or incidents that create serious mental anguish cause relationship failure. If we lose relationships that we have cherished then we mourn in some way. Mourning is a process that has no fixed expiry date. Often the process involves stages of denial, anger, depression, and finally acceptance. So, although we, and others, know that we need to confront the problem and approach the offender, it takes time to do. Our hearts need to be prepared, as does the heart of the offender. If we are open to the possibility of reconciliation then the Holy Spirit will work in all the lives concerned until the time comes when things can be positively resolved.

The second insight is that we often make assumptions about the state of the other person, which turn out to be untrue or one-sided. For instance, he/she may view the break in the relationship as our fault: we walked away, we didn’t care enough to try, and so on. This coupled with a lack of awareness of the damage they have done to you can result in them taking offence and feeling that you need to ask their forgiveness.

Summary

Forgiveness is required of us by God. It starts with an attitude of preparedness and commitment to forgive the person who has caused the offence.

However, it can only be effective in its fullness when forgiveness is sought and granted. When we release the offenders and give up the right to exact a penalty, then our conscience is clear before God and our relationship with him unsullied. When forgiveness is asked for and granted, the heart is then healed and a way open to restore the relationship.

Unforgiveness is a serious threat to our mental and spiritual health and negatively affects our relationship with Jesus and his people. Unforgiveness is a double-whammy problem because it impoverishes both the offended and the offender in some way irrespective of the merits of the case. Sometimes it even affects family and friends who grieve or take offence on behalf of one party or both. It is something we just cannot ignore.

‘Our Father in heaven:

May your holy name be honoured;

may your Kingdom come;

may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need.

Forgive us the wrongs we have done,

as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.

Do not bring us to hard testing,

but keep us safe from the Evil One.’

TEV

Forgive – But How? Read More »

About Me

My name is Christopher Peppler and I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1947. While working in the financial sector I achieved a number of business qualifications from the Institute of Bankers, Damelin Management School, and The University of the Witwatersrand Business School. After over 20 years as a banker, I followed God’s calling and joined the ministry full time. After becoming a pastor of what is now a quite considerable church, I  earned an undergraduate theological qualification from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and post-graduate degrees from two United States institutions. I was also awarded the Doctor of Theology in Systematic Theology from the University of Zululand in 2000.

Four years before that I established the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), which today is represented in over 70 countries and has more than 2 500 active students enrolled with it. I presently play an role supervising Masters and Doctoral students.

I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus

I have been happily married to Patricia since the age of 20, have two children, Lance and Karen, a daughter-in-law Tracey, and granddaughters Jessica and Kirsten. I have now retired from both church and seminary leadership and devote my time to writing, discipling, and the classical guitar.

If you would like to read my testimony to Jesus then click HERE.