Outline from The U.S. Constitution - Week 2 of 2

7) SEVERAL PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION THAT HAVE SEEN DRAMATIC CHANGE.


a) Free speech

i) the primary concern was protecting political speech – the ability to speak out against or for government policies

ii) Clearly their concern since gaining independence from King George’s oppressive policies. This includes certain types of “expressive” actions to communicate political speech.

b) Fee exercise of religion

i) From early American legal documents, the political practices of the Framers, and the authoritative statements of leading Founders, Justice O’Connor drew three general conclusions. First, “these early leaders accorded religious exercise a special constitutional status.”59 Second, “all agreed that government interference in religious practice was not to be lightly countenanced.”60 Third, “all shared the conviction that ‘true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.’”61 These significant historical sources, Justice O’Connor concluded, led to the finding that:[T]he Free Exercise Clause is properly understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious activities without impermissible governmental interference, even where a believer’s conduct is in tension with a law of general application.

c) Establishment of religion

i) The concern was the establishment of a national religion – The "wall" was a jurisdictional limitation against the federal government's interference with an individual's natural right to the free exercise of religion. The federal government, reasoned Jefferson, has jurisdiction over "actions only and not opinions"; it had no jurisdiction over religion, which was a matter "solely between man and his God."

ii) did not even apply to the States until 1947 Everson v. Board of Education

iii) This was not understood as a prohibition government aiding religion – in fact, the founders, as we’ve seen, thought religion indispensible to the operation of their new government

d) Due process

i) 14th Amendment Clause 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

ii) Process means notice of a hearing and opportunity to be heard. Today we call this procedural due process – what procedures are required to meet the constitutional requirements for taking life, liberty, or property? Next week we’ll talk about something new known as “substantive due process.”

e) Commerce clause - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

i) With foreign Nations and the Indian Tribes is pretty clear

ii) The understanding of “Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate Commerce . . . among the several states”

iii) Justice Thomas has maintained that the original meaning of "commerce" was limited to the "trade and exchange" of goods and transportation for this purpose

(1) Among the several States" meant between persons of one state and another;

(2) "To regulate" generally meant "to make regular"-that is, to specify how an activity may be transacted-when applied to domestic commerce, but when applied to foreign trade also included the power to make "prohibitory regulations."

iv) In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another, to remove obstructions to domestic trade erected by states, and to both regulate and restrict the flow of goods to and from other nations (and the Indian tribes) for the purpose of promoting the domestic economy and foreign trade.

8) CHANGES IN CONSTITUTIONAL MEANINGS SINCE DRAFTING

9) Constitutional Interpretation

a) What’s the method? In other words, what principles do we look to in order to apply the Constitution to unforeseen circumstances not expressly addressed and how do we understand what is express in the text?

i) Strict construction – not in the text, it doesn’t exist – for example, speech and press mean just that – no other means of publication are included

ii) original intent – what did the founders intend

(1) At first blush, this sounds reasonable – but what do you do when the records indicated that different founders had different intents?

(2) Example: federalist vs. anti-federalist and the compromises each made – Adams intended the portions of the constitution touching on federalism to give more power to the federal government and Jefferson meant for those same provisions to limit the power of the feds and preserve the power of the states.

iii) Textualism - The interpretation cannot go beyond the boundaries of the text – the interpretation cannot change until the text, that is the law, changes

iv) Originalism – original understanding of the text at the time it was drafted

(1) Textualism informed by originalism – discovering what the plain meaning of the text was at the time it was drafted (looks at many of the same resources as original intent)

b) Judicial Review

i) Marburry v. Maddison

(1) First case – 1803 – to talk about judicial review – we need to clarify what that means:

(2) Basically to review acts of the other branches of government in light of their powers under the constitution – if it’s within their powers, it’s ok. If not, they can’t do it

(3) So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

ii) Federalist #78 described judicial review: The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

c) Judicial activism is another term we need to define. It is not the same as judicial review. When the court determines that a law conflicts with the constitution on a legitimate constitutional basis, it is doing its job. However, when it goes outside the text and meaning of constitution to create something that is not there or distort something that is already there – that is judicial activism.

i) I would argue that it is not judicial activism to ignore the principal of stare decisis when the precedents have departed from proper action by the court.

ii) Marshall’s understanding of the limits of the judiciary is expressed in the closing lines of the Marbury case: Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreeably to the constitution of the United States, if that constitution forms no rule for his government? If it is closed upon him, and cannot be inspected by him? If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe, or to take this oath, becomes equally a crime. Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and those courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

d) The Dredd Scott case – the Missouri Compromise adopted in 1820 prohibited slavery in the upper half of the western territories. Dredd Scott sued for his freedom

i) First time in 50 years (since Marbury) that the court struck down a federal law

ii) The court took this action by determining that if a slave owner in the south has a property right recognized by the constitution and then moves to a northern state, the Missouri Compromise would deprive him of his property and was thus outside the boundaries of proper legislative action (taking away what the constitution says cannot be taken away without due process)

e) Oliver Wendell Holmes – championed sociological jurisprudence at the beginning of the 20th century (1902-1932) – the law is means of progressing – social Darwinism applied to the law. The role of the judge is to figure out what is socially expedient and what the views of the dominant social group are and make decisions on those basis.

i) By combining judicial review with sociological jurisprudence, he created a theory known as judicial deference – since the judge is supposed to rely on the views of the dominant social group, and since the legislature ought to accurately reflect those views, the judiciary should defer to the legislature, even if the legislature is in violation of the constitution –

ii) Roscoe Pound, dean of Harvard Law school during the same period took the same approach

f) The Warren Court – judicial activism matured - Important decisions during the Warren Court years included decisions holding segregation policies in public schools (Brown v. Board of Education) and anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia); ruling that the Constitution protects a general right to privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut); that public schools cannot have official prayer (Engel v. Vitale) or mandatory Bible readings (Abington School District v. Schempp);

i) Griswold v. Connecticut - Though the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void.

ii) Maybe we should have a right to privacy, but that’s not the point – the point is that when we go beyond the constitution’s text and plain meaning when adopted, the courts rather than the citizens get to choose – we can always amend the constitution to add a right of privacy

10) Fee exercise of religion

a) From early American legal documents, the political practices of the Framers, and the authoritative statements of leading Founders, Justice O’Connor drew three general conclusions. First, “these early leaders accorded religious exercise a special constitutional status.” Second, “all agreed that government interference in religious practice was not to be lightly countenanced.”60 Third, “all shared the conviction that ‘true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.’”61 These significant historical sources, Justice O’Connor concluded, led to the finding that:[T]he Free Exercise Clause is properly understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious activities without impermissible governmental interference, even where a believer’s conduct is in tension with a law of general application.

b) Sherbert -7th day Adventist was fired because she would not work on Saturdays and then was denied unemployment benefits. Court ruled strict scrutiny applies:

i) State action must be justified by a compelling governmental interest, and be narrowly tailored to advance that interest.

c) Smith – American Indian fired for using peyote in his religious practices and unable to obtain unemployment benefits – established a new standard (said Sherbert was limited to unemployment cases that require individualized consideration of religious activity – Smith dealt with a generally applicable rule)

i) Laws of general applicability are only subject to rational basis test: state action must only be justified by a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest

ii) Strict scrutiny will apply when religion is targeted or free exercise is combined with another constitutional right

iii) Whether or not the decisions are that limited, they at least have nothing to do with an across-the-board criminal prohibition on a particular form of conduct. Although, as noted earlier, we have sometimes used the Sherbert test to analyze free exercise challenges to such laws, see United States v. [p885] Lee, supra, 455 U.S. at 257-260; Gillette v. United States, supra, 401 U.S. at 462, we have never applied the test to invalidate one. We conclude today that the sounder approach, and the approach in accord with the vast majority of our precedents, is to hold the test inapplicable to such challenges. The government's ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, "cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector's spiritual development." Lyng, supra, 485 U.S. at 451. To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is "compelling" -- permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, "to become a law unto himself," Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. at 167 -- contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.

d) Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah

i) Establishment of religion

ii) The concern was the establishment of a national religion – The "wall" was a jurisdictional limitation against the federal government's interference with an individual's natural right to the free exercise of religion. The federal government, reasoned Jefferson, has jurisdiction over "actions only and not opinions"; it had no jurisdiction over religion, which was a matter "solely between man and his God."

iii) Here we’ve been getting consistently bad rulings that continue to separate religion from the public square – relegating religion to the realm of the private.

e) SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT v. JANE DOE The Court distorts existing precedent to conclude that the school district's student-message program is invalid on its face under the Establishment Clause. But even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Court's opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life. Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, when it is recalled that George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God...."

11) Due process

a) 14th Amendment Clause 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

b) Process means notice of a hearing and opportunity to be heard. Today we call this procedural due process – what procedures are required to meet the constitutional requirements for taking life, liberty, or property?

c) Substantive Due Process

i) Dredd Scott – here we have the court specifically stated that the due process clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments dealt with more than process – they didn’t mention process, only the property rights of slave owners

ii) Substantive Due Process holds is that the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee not only that appropriate and just procedures (or "processes") be used whenever the government is punishing a person or otherwise taking away a person’s life, freedom or property, but that these clauses also guarantee that a person’s life, freedom and property cannot be taken without appropriate governmental justification, regardless of the procedures used to do the taking. In a sense, it makes the "Due Process" clause a "Due Substance" clause as well.

(1) First, it gives the federal courts unqualified discretion to decide what substantive rights are protected under Due Process and how extensive that protection is. There are two ways the Supreme Court does this:

(a) Under the substantive wing of the "Incorporation" doctrine, where the Court adopt selected provisions of the Bill of Rights and apply them to the states under Due Process. This can be called "Substantive Incorporation."

(b) Under the "Fundamental Rights" theory, where the Court adopts whatever substantive rights it thinks are so basic, natural and fundamental that they must be protected even without reliance on any particular provision of the Constitution. Instead the Court is said to root these guarantees directly in the word "Liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

(2) Second, once the federal courts decide what substantive rights are protected buy Substantive Due Process, it can use Judicial Review to enforce these rights by reviewing all state legislation for compliance with these rights. (provided a case is properly before it)

12) The redefining of liberty

a) By trying to “expand” the rights protected by the constitution, the court has taken control of drawing the lines between what we can and cannot do

b) For every new right it finds, there is a corresponding restriction on the ability of the people to govern themselves

c) By granting a right to abortion, we have lost the right to protect the unborn

13) Commerce clause - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

a) With foreign Nations and the Indian Tribes is pretty clear

b) The understanding of “Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate Commerce . . . among the several states”

c) In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another.

d) This was the case until the New Deal and FDR.

i) In response to the court striking down a series of his new deal laws, FDR proposed a court packing scheme which ultimately lead to a swing vote on the court moving from the previous 5-4 majority to join the four who supported the new deal legislation

ii) Now, rather than following the natural rights basis for the right to contract expressed in the Constitution and the limited view of the commerce clause, the court began to uphold laws that limited contractual rights and gave a broad interpretation of the commerce clause

e) Previously, the feds were limited by the commerce clause to regulating the actual trading of goods and service across state lines. This did not cover manufacturing or any other element related to them

i) States were allowed to do whatever they wanted with all the other aspects of business and also control trade within their borders as long as it did to obstruct commerce between the states

f) Now, the courts backed off and allowed congress to begin to regulate all aspects of trade, even trade within state borders

g) This opened the gate to federal regulation of almost every area of life via the commerce clause

14) SO WHAT DO WE DO?

a) Chuck Colson is fond of saying that politics follow the culture, not the other way around.

b) Greg Cunningham from the Center for Bioethical Reform talks about how to end abortion this way:

i) A constitution amendment is the only solution

ii) We’ll only have that when the state legislatures feel the pressure to do so

iii) They’ll only feel the pressure if public opinion changes – so Greg is working to change public opinion about abortion

iv) I would add the following – public opinion will not change until we have revival

c) We are the agents of the needed change

d) We need to engage spiritually

e) We need to become outposts of biblical thinking,

i) Our concept of what is real must match what scripture tells us

ii) We then need to develop Godly beliefs and values which result in righteous livings

f) The recent debates in congress demonstrate that if we are willing to stand for the principle without compromise, we can begin to effect change

g) Nullification actions by the states

i) The states preceded the union and were sovereign

(1) Read a biography of George Washington and listen to one of his biggest complaints as commander of the revolutionary forces – getting money and men from the various states – it was like herding cats

ii) The Constitution is a pact agreed to by the individual states

(1) ratified by the states

(2) Only amended by the states

iii) The federal government only has the power delegated to it by the states – regardless of what it wants to declare that it has

(1) If the Supreme Court – a branch of the federal government - has the power to declare what the law is without question or recourse, the government has become a tyrant

Outline from The U.S. Constitution - Week 1 of 2

1) THE BIG CONCEPTS BEHIND OUR CONSTITUTION AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT

a) Declaration of Independence

i) Stated reason for the declaration

(1) When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

ii) Stated purpose of government

(1) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness

iii) The purposes one-by-one

(1) Self-evident – the statement itself provides the evidence of its truthfulness

(a) Romans 1:19-20 - For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

(2) Created equal

(a) Galatians 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[a] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(b) Endowed by their Creator – There is system of universal moral laws woven into the universe just as there are physical laws

(i) the basis of natural law – Romans 1 again

(3) Life – the right to exist

(a) Fundamental rights are those rights that all people can simultaneously claim without forcing someone to serve their needs.

(4) Liberty – the right to choose virtuous actions without the interference of others

(a) Different from freedom, the right to choose any action

(b) Not a license for any choice

(c) Choosing liberty results in the ultimate level of freedom – free from the dictates of base desires

(5) Pursuit of happiness – pursuit of a virtuous life – one that produces benefit to ourselves and others

(a) Euphoria vs. enjoyment

b) The Declaration of Independence is like a “policy” – a guiding principal

i) The Declaration presents the founders’ ideas of what government should be and what it should not be (or on what grounds a people can declare independence)

ii) The Constitution is like a set of “procedures” – the specific steps to implement a policy

(1) Procedures divorced from their policies have no reason to exist – stated positively, implementing their policies is the only reason for procedures to exist

(a) We cannot read the Constitution apart from the Declaration of Independence – it has no purpose apart from the Declaration.

iii) For example, the first seven charges against the King in the Declaration that argue against the manner in which the king governed legislative matters, as he

(1) “refused his Assent to Laws,” “

(2) forbidden his Governors to pass Laws,”

(3) “refused to pass other Laws” for the accommodation people, called the legislature at “places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant” from their homes,

(4) “dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly,”

(5) refused to allow the people to petition their representatives, and “obstructed the Laws.”

(6) Article I addresses how the legislature ought to be strong and operate for the common good.

(a) This deliberative process is expressly stated in Article I of the U.S. Constitution relating to the Legislative Powers of Congress, whereby the founders establish frequent elections, define the electorate, as well as, define the deliberative process of the legislative branch, which incorporates a bicameral legislative balance between the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to promote deliberation and delay for the common good of the American people.

iv) A long list of “the King does whatever he wants” grievances is addressed in

(1) Article II – the executive branch

v) He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

(1) He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

(2) Article III directly addresses the judiciary.

c) What were the Founders willing to give to make this happen?

i) And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

2) DELEGATED AUTHORITY

a) Creation works on the principle of delegated authority

i) In all of creation, who possesses ultimate authority? God.

ii) Who did he delegate some of it it to? Man – see Gen. 2:15-24

iii) On the shores of the new world, who did the people delegate some of authority to? Colonies, and then States.

iv) Who did the states delegate some of their authority to? The Union.

b) The federal government is not omnipotent – only God is

i) The federal government only has a part of a part of the authority delegated to mankind

3) WORLDVIEW PRINCIPALS

a) Explanation

i) The assumptions we make about life in order to understand it – the answers we have to the big questions of life:

(1) Where did we come from?

(2) What’s wrong with the world?

(3) How do we fix it?

(4) How do we live out our lives?

(5) These assumptions have a ripple effect on what we believe is true, hold as good, and how we act

ii) Circle Diagram – our worldview assumptions can be restated as what we believe is real

(1) What is real – Worldview

(2) What is true – beliefs

(3) What is good – values

(4) What we do – behavior

b) We can approach this from the inside out – what is real ultimately determines how we act

c) We can approach this from the outside in – how we act should shed light on what is real

i) As an aside, Del Tackett in The Truth Project video series says that the big question for Christians is whether we really believe that what we believe is really real. In other words, we have the tenants of our faith which we say we believe are really real, but when we examine our lives, our behavior may suggest that we really hold something else as really real.

d) To understand what the founders had in mind when they drafted the constitution, we need to understand their worldview – what they thought was really real.

e) Their concept of reality was grounded in Christianity

i) Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual influence shaping the nation from its outset. The Christian influence pervaded all aspects of life, from education to politics.

ii) Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil religion and civil government.

(1) George Washington's admonitions in his Farewell Speech: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

iii) Numeration of beliefs

(1) There is a transcendent yet personal God (Deists would leave out the personal adjective)

(2) God has authored absolute norms of higher law which nations are obliged to seek and obey, with punishment for disobedience assured.

(3) These norms are expressed in both revealed law and natural law, but most perfectly in the revealed law – Deists would eliminate the supernatural portions of the revelation.

(4) No human official has the authority or ability to alter God’s higher law

f) Applying their worldview to beliefs, values, and actions – an example

i) What is REAL: A personal yet transcendent God exists, revelation presents the truest picture of this God, revelation says this God created all that exists, and that He created man in his own image (where did we come from?)

ii) What is TRUE: people have inherent value and set of rights that are given by God, not other people

iii) What is GOOD: protecting and proclaiming the dignity of each person

iv) How they ACTED: drafting a Declaration of Independence that stated the dignity of each person and a Constitution that protected the dignity of each person

(1) Declaration: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”

(2) Constitution: See the Bill of Rights – freedom of religion, press, expression, bear arms, quartering of soldiers, search and seizure, trial and punishment, compensation for takings, right to a speedy trial, confrontation of witnesses, trial by jury in civil cases, cruel and unusual punishment, etc.

4) THE CONSTITUTION IN LIGHT OF THE DECLARATION (6/21/1788) TOTAL WORDS = 4418

a) Article 1 - The Legislative Branch total words = 2264 or 51%

i) Section 1 - The Legislature

(1) Establishes the name of the Legislature to be The Congress, a bicameral, or two-part, body.

ii) Section 2 - The House

(1) Defines the House of Representatives, known as the lower house of Congress. It establishes a few minimum requirements, like a 25-year-old age limit, and establishes that the people themselves will elect the members for two years each. The members of the House are divided among the states proportionally, or according to size, giving more populous states more representatives in the House. The leader of the House is the Speaker of the House, chosen by the members.

iii) Section 3 - The Senate

(1) Defines the upper house of Congress, the Senate. Again, it establishes some minimum requirements, such as a 30-year-old age limit. Senators were originally appointed by the legislatures of the individual states, though this later changed. They serve for six years each. Each state has equal suffrage in the Senate, meaning that each state has the exact same number of Senators, two each, regardless of the population. This Section introduces the Vice-President, who is the leader of the Senate (called the President of the Senate); the Vice-President does not vote unless there is a tie.

iv) Section 4 - Elections, Meetings

(1) Says that each state may establish its own methods for electing members of the Congress, and mandates, or requires that Congress must meet at least once per year.

(2) Section 5 - Membership, Rules, Journals, Adjournment

(3) Says that Congress must have a minimum number of members present in order to meet, and that it may set fines for members who do not show up. It says that members may be expelled, that each house must keep a journal to record proceedings and votes, and that neither house can adjourn without the permission of the other.

v) Section 6 - Compensation

(1) Establishes that members of Congress will be paid, that they cannot be detained while traveling to and from Congress, that they cannot hold any other office in the government while in the Congress.

vi) Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto

(1) Details how bills become law. First, any bill for raising money (such as by taxes or fees) must start out in the House. All bills must pass both houses of Congress in the exact same form. Bills that pass both houses are sent to the President. He can either sign the bill, in which case it becomes law, or he can veto it. In the case of a veto, the bill is sent back to Congress, and if both houses pass it by a two-thirds majority, the bill becomes law over the President's veto. This is known as overriding a veto. There are a couple more options for the President. First, if he neither vetoes a bill nor signs it, it becomes a law without his signature after 10 days. The second option is called a pocket veto. It occurs if Congress sends the bill to the President and they then adjourn. If the President does not sign the bill within 10 days, it does not become law.

(2) Section 8 – the enumerated powers of Congress – 18 things it can lawfully do

(a) The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

(b) To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

(c) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

(d) To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

(e) To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

(f) To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

(g) To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

(h) To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

(i) To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

(j) To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

(k) To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

(l) To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

(m) To provide and maintain a Navy;

(n) To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

(o) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(p) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

(q) To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

(r) To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

vii) Section 9 – enumerated prohibitions on Congress

viii) Section 10 – Powers given up by the states

(1) They cannot make their own money, or declare war, or do most of the other things prohibited Congress in Section 9. They cannot tax goods from other states, nor can they have navies.

b) Article 2 - The Executive Branch total words = 1023 or 23%

i) Section 1 - The President

(1) Establishes the office of the President and the Vice-President, and sets their terms to be four years. Presidents are elected by the Electoral College, whereby each state has one vote for each member of Congress. Originally, the President was the person with the most votes and the Vice-President was the person with the second most, though this is later changed. Certain minimum requirements are established again, such as a 35-year minimum age. Presidents must also be a natural-born citizen of the United States. The President is to be paid a salary, which cannot change, up or down, as long as he in his office.

ii) Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments

(1) Gives the President some important powers. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and of the militia (National Guard) of all the states; he has a Cabinet to aid him, and can pardon criminals. He makes treaties with other nations, and picks many of the judges and other members of the government (all with the approval of the Senate).

iii) Section 3 - State of the Union, Convening Congress

(1) establishes the duties of the President: to give a state of the union address, to make suggestions to Congress, to act as head of state by receiving ambassadors and other heads of state, and to be sure the laws of the United States are carried out.

iv) Section 4 - Disqualification

(1) briefly discusses the removal of the President, called impeachment

c) Article 3 - The Judicial Branch total words = 293 or 7%

i) Section 1 - Judicial Powers

(1) Establishes the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. It also sets the terms of judges, of both the Supreme Court and lower courts: that they serve as long as they are on "good behavior," which usually means for life (no Justice and only a few judges have ever been impeached). It also requires that judges shall be paid.

ii) Section 2 - Trial by Jury, Original Jurisdiction, Jury Trials

(1) Sets the kinds of cases that may be heard by the federal judiciary, which cases the Supreme Court may hear first (called original jurisdiction), and that all other cases heard by the Supreme Court are by appeal. It also guarantees trial by jury in criminal court

iii) Section 3 - Treason

(1) Defines, without any question, what the crime of treason is.

d) The relationship of the three branches of government

i) Legislature was intended to be the strongest branch of government because it was the closest to the will of the people 51:263

(1) The restraint on the legislature is the veto power of the president and the ability of the courts to arbitrate when a legislative act conflicts with the limits of power on government in the Constitution 78:93-94

ii) The executive was viewed as the next most powerful with the

iii) The judiciary was viewed as the weakest and in need of protection from the other two branches

(1) The other two branches were naturally restrained by their own “ambition” – protecting their own turf against each other and keeping in office

(2) However, since the judiciary must be independent so as not to be influenced and thus fairly protect the constitution, it was considered immune from the protective effects of the ambition of congress or the executive – it was to be curbed by a higher principal – self restraint.

iv) What happens when we lose the concept of strict separation of powers?

(1) The original idea is any power given to one branch cannot be exercised by another – each one only has the powers inside its boundaries. The founders wanted a firm separation of powers to prevent one or another branch from gaining too much power.

(2) Recently, the courts have taken another approach – known as functional separation. Instead of telling a branch of government they can’t engage in a particular activity because it is reserved to another branch, the analysis looks at whether or not the other branch will be prevented from performing its functions. If the activity of another branch doesn’t prevent a branch from doing its jobS, then the activity of the other branch is permitted. Now, they’re beginning to fill in the gaps between the powers. Think of the chaos that can create – 6 possible encroachments with 3 branches – add extra powers for each – 4 for one, 4 for another, and 5 for the third and it jumps to 210 -

e) Article 4 - The States

i) Section 1 - Each State to Honor All Others

(1) mandates that all states will honor the laws of all other states; this ensures, for example, that a couple married in Florida is also considered married by Arizona, or that someone convicted of a crime in Virginia is considered guilty by Wyoming

ii) Section 2 - State Citizens, Extradition

(1) Guarantees that citizens of one state be treated equally and fairly like all citizens of another. It also says that if a person accused of a crime in one state flees to another, they will be returned to the state they fled from. This section also has a clause dealing with fugitive slaves that no longer applies

iii) Section 3 - New States

(1) concerns the admittance of new states and the control of federal land

iv) Section 4 - Republican Government

v) ensures a republican form of government (which, in this case, is synonymous with "representative democracy," and both of which are opposed to a monarchical or aristocratic scheme - the state derives its power from the people, not from a king or gentry) and guarantees that the federal government will protect the states against invasion and insurrection

f) Article 5 - Amendment

i) details the method of amending, or changing, the Constitution

g) Article 6 - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

i) Concerns the United States itself. First, it guarantees that the United States under the Constitution would assume all debts and contracts entered into by the United States under the Articles of Confederation. It sets the Constitution and all laws and treaties of the United States to be the supreme law of the country. Finally, it requires all officers of the United States and of the states to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States and the Constitution when taking office

h) Article 7 - Ratification

i) Details the method for ratification, or acceptance, of the Constitution: of the original 13 states in the United States, nine had to accept the Constitution before it would officially go into effect.

5) THE BILL OF RIGHTS (AND WHY IT WASN’T IN THE ADOPTED CONSTITUTION)

a) Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression 12/15/1791

i) Protects the people's right to practice religion, to speak freely, to assemble (meet), to address (petition) the government, and of the press to publish.

b) Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms 12/15/1791

i) Protects the right to own guns. There is debate whether this is a right that protects the state, or a right that protects individuals

c) Amendment 3 - Quartering of Soldiers 12/15/1791

i) guarantees that the army cannot force homeowners to give them room and board

d) Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure 12/15/1791

i) Protects the people from the government improperly taking property, papers, or people, without a valid warrant based on probable cause (good reason).

e) Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings 12/15/1791

i) Protects people from being held for committing a crime unless they are properly indicted, that they may not be tried twice for the same crime, that you need not be forced to testify against yourself, and from property being taken without just compensation. It also contains due process guarantees

f) Amendment 6 - Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees a speedy trial, an impartial jury, that the accused can confront witnesses against them, and that the accused must be allowed to have a lawyer.

g) Amendment 7 - Trial by Jury in Civil Cases 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees a jury trial in federal civil court cases.

h) Amendment 8 - Cruel and Unusual Punishment 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees that punishments will be fair, and not cruel, and those extraordinarily large fines will not be set.

i) Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution 12/15/1791

i) is simply a statement that other rights aside from those listed may exist, and just because they are not listed doesn't mean they can be violated

j) Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People 12/15/1791

i) Is the subject of some debate, but essentially it states that any power not granted to the federal government belongs to the states or to the people. See the Federalism Topic Page for more information

6) THE LATER AMENDMENTS

a) Amendment 11 - Judicial Limits 2/7/1795

b) Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice President 6/15/1804

c) Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished 12/6/1865

d) Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights 12/6/1865

e) Amendment 15 - Race No Bar to Vote 2/3/1870

f) Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified 2/3/1913

g) Amendment 17 - Senators Elected by Popular Vote 4/8/1913

h) Amendment 18 - Liquor Abolished 1/16/1919

i) Amendment 19 - Women's Suffrage 8/18/1920

j) Amendment 20 - Presidential, Congressional Terms 1/23/1933

k) Amendment 21 - Amendment 18 Repealed 12/5/1933

l) Amendment 22 - Presidential Term Limits 2/27/1951

m) Amendment 23 - Presidential Vote for District of Columbia 3/29/1961

n) Amendment 24 - Poll Taxes Barred 1/23/1964

o) Amendment 25 - Presidential Disability and Succession 2/10/1967

p) Amendment 26 - Voting Age Set to 18 Years 7/1/1971

q) Amendment 27 - Limiting Changes to Congressional Pay 5/7/1992

An Anchor for the Soul

Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on July 24, 2002, miners working in the Quecreek Mine just south of Pittsburgh broke through the mine wall into Saxman Mine which operators abandoned in 1950 and had since filled with water. Though they made it to higher ground, nine miners remain trapped and standing in four feet of 50-degree water. The men huddled together to keep warm. Later, they wrote last words to family members on scraps of paper and placed them in a pail. Then, the men tethered themselves together so all would be found if they drowned.

This account paints a pretty bleak picture and left alone the miners would have had no hope. However, working tirelessly for over three days, rescuers using water pumps, air pumps, and mining equipment retrieved each of the nine miners.

You can bet that the view from the stretcher as rescuers carried each miner to a waiting ambulance differed radically from the view they shared of a flooded mine shaft 240 feet below the surface. From one vantage point they rested in the knowledge of rescue and from the other they were surrounded by dark, dirt, water, and the inevitable.

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that our family recently lost our youngest daughter to an auto accident that tragically took the lives of three people. The place where I now live is just about as cold and dark and potentially as hopeless as the flooded Quecreek Mine.

Left to my own devices, my loss, my emotions, my inability to see beyond my catastrophic grief, I see no way out, no future. There is a pain in my soul that makes the rest of my life seem like the watery liquid at the bottom of a glass of soda after the ice has melted. Everything that gave me pleasure has lost its appeal. On some days, the best I can hope for is getting to evening and a couple of Tylenol PM tabs and closing my eyes. But, even then, my sleep is distorted with uneasy dreams. My grief is impossible to adequately describe and equally impossible for someone who has not experienced it to imagine. None of this is unusual, but shouldn’t my faith in Jesus somehow mitigate the pain?

The short answer is “no.” Nothing in Scripture suggests that my faith will make the experience of my loss any easier. Believers and those outside the faith alike are created as emotional beings and equally lack the ability to make sense of some emotions. The depth of the pain does not differentiate my experience from outsiders, but my knowledge of rescue does – the difference is hope.

In this mortal existence, I will never be the same. My daughter is gone and while I breathe with this body, I’ll never see her. Nothing can fix that injury and I will always bear that scar. Even as time wears away on my grief, things will never be the same.

But I know the rest of the story. Even though my grief at this point does not allow me to feel the love that Jesus has for me, I know that nothing can separate me from His love. I cannot fathom the reason for my loss, but I know that God is sovereign and this train-wreck somehow works towards His glory and my good. Despite the fact that these eyes will never again set their gaze on my daughter’s face, I will see her again. I have hope.

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.

[Hebrews 6:17-20a]

This is not just any kind of hope, rather it is hope in the Living God – the God who infinite and unfettered by any limitation of His creation, the God who is personal and desires to have a relationship with me, the God who is unchangeable, the God who is eternal, the God who is present everywhere. He is all knowing, wise, truthful, good, loving, merciful, holy, orderly, righteous, just, beautiful, and much more.

While this hope does not alleviate the intensity of my grief and even though I’m still free-falling through the dark, I know my circumstance is not bottomless. How one could face my grief without a firm and secure anchor for their soul, without the hope of my God, eludes me.

Don't Waste Your Pearls

The following is Part 2 of my comments at Leah's Memorial Service at Skyline Wesleyan Church on May 29, 2010.

But, that’s not the end of the story. Speaking to His followers in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we should not cast our pearls before swine. A curious statement, but with some thought, it makes sense. What would a pig do with pearls? A pig would be happy with some food, but pearls don’t make a good pig meal. Pearls are no help to a pig. Likewise, the person who owns the pearls and uses them on pigs misuses them – they could be sold, or made into jewelry or wonderful gifts, but when thrown to the pigs, they are lost.

I imagine that between here and the presence of Jesus, Leah let go of handfuls of pearls. Take your right hand and close it in a fist. Imagine with me that in your hand, you hold one of Leah’s pearls. Here is my challenge to you – don’t waste Leah’s pearl.

The composition of that pearl is different for each of us, but I suppose we fall into some general groups. For all of us, that pearl is the memory of Leah and how she touched our lives. Our responsibility is to take the memories of Leah and let them point us towards whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—things that are excellent and praiseworthy.

For some of us, Leah’s pearl encompasses the whole spectrum of events with her death and is preparation for things you will encounter in your own lives. Our family is buoyed by the prayers of the saints. Many of you know that I’m at the end of a campaign to be elected as a Superior Court Judge in San Diego County. This is a challenge that can only be carried by the power of God. I and the other candidates endorsed by Better Courts Now do not have the resources to prevail over the incumbents. That will happen only if God acts. Many people have been praying through all hours of the day and night for this campaign and the candidates. I tried to describe to Vicky the sense I had of the effect of those prayers but could never put it into words. I know that I have been kept from temptation and evil wished upon me by the enemy, that our cause has been supernaturally advanced, and that I have been preserved by these prayers during times of tremendous pressure. The same is true for Vicky, Hannah, Simon, Cindy, and me and the rest of the family now. This ministry of the Lord to us is a faith building block for you who will soon encounter hard times of your own. You can see that God loves and that God acts and that He will love and act for you, too. Hang onto that pearl.

For others, Leah’s pearl represents your faith in Christ – faith that may have faltered over time, or maybe never got a healthy start. Now is the time to cash in her pearl and turn your heart fully to Jesus. I’m not talking about the lip service on Sunday or even at other gatherings during the week that our faith can degenerate into. I’m talking about the vibrant, “follow Jesus wherever He leads because it will always be better than the place I’ll pick” kind of faith. The kind of faith that no longer needs control of our lives, but is willing to give control to the Lord. This is the kind where supernatural power is free to act, where miracles happen and the boundaries of the kingdom of God among us are pushed outward. I urge those of you in this group, now is the time to use Leah’s pearl.

Finally, for some of you, Leah’s pearl represents the biggest opportunity you will ever have – the opportunity to meet Jesus. The shock of this event has forced you to consider not only your own mortality, but the ultimate questions of life – where did we come from, what’s wrong with the world, how do we fix it, and what is life intended to be? For you, Leah’s pearl may have the greatest value. Don’t waste what she left you.

God as presented in the Bible gives us the only fully rational, fully defensible explanation for who we are and where we came from. We are His creations which bear His image. All that we are: persons capable of relationships, able to understand and communicate truth, moral beings, self-aware and able to choose - are each reflections of who God is. He made us like Him to be in relationship with Him.

But something is wrong – we all know it. That’s why the question “what’s wrong with the world” sounds so reasonable – everyone agrees something is wrong. But what is it? In biblical terms we call it sin – the effects of living out of relationship with God. It’s a life that falls short of what it could be, that strays from the best path, that misses the mark that it is intended to hit. We all start in that place apart from God. What’s the solution? Restoring a relationship with God. Whether you understand the theological implications of this point right now is not as important as understanding it is the fix. A holy God could not enter a relationship with sinful men and women. The sin needed a cure – someone had to pay the price. Each of us could pay our own price but that would cost us eternity separated from God. Instead, God’s own Son, Jesus, with an infinite capacity to bear the punishment for our sin took it on Himself – that’s why He had to die, that’s what the cross is all about. Since the price is paid, if you so choose, you can claim your redemption. By acknowledging your sin, that your life by itself strays from the path, falls short of righteousness, misses the bulls eye, and acknowledging the cure, the price that Jesus paid in your place, and telling God that you indeed rely upon Him to save you from your current condition and having to pay the price yourself, God can remove the barrier of sin and you enter into the relationship with God that He intended from the beginning.

This is how God intends life to be – life with Him from this point forward.

Whatever you circumstances, you have a pearl from Leah in your hand. Don’t let the gift from my precious daughter get misused on pigs, she left it for you.

Leah [To Kansas and Back]

The following is Part 1 of my comments at Leah's Memorial Service at Skyline Wesleyan Church on May 29, 2010.

Leah had a good childhood. She had a mom and a dad, a brother and a sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, and lots of the things that families do together. But, the best story of Leah’s life is more recent. It’s about a trip to Kansas and back.

Volleyball is a Trask family sport. Vicky played in college, I played sand, Simon, Hannah and Leah played in high school, Hannah and Leah played club ball and went on to play in college – Leah played one season at Grossmont College with her sister-in-law. Somehow, Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas recruited Leah to finish out her college eligibility with their team. So, after a visit to the school, a liking to their art department, and a scholarship offer, Leah was Kansas bound.

If you know my wife Vicky, you know she’s quite expressive. If you know me, you know I’m, well, not. One of us was going to drive out to Kansas with Leah and she expressed the choice this way – “I can go with Mom who won’t stop talking or I can go with dad and ride in silence” – she chose Mom.

Vicky and Leah had a playful relationship. It was filled with all the tender and explosive moments characteristic of mother-daughter relationships, but it had a unique quality. When Leah would visit home, she and Vicky would engage in taunting that you’d expect from a couple of 10 year old boys and it would invariably escalate to full scale chases through the house with locked bathroom doors and in one case, a broken door. I’ll spare you the details, but the stories from the drive to Kansas are on the same “maturity” level as the antics at the house.

Leah started her art studies with an artistic sense, but like any budding artist had coarse skills. In time her skills began to develop, but her art had a dark or heavy feel to it. Through her body of work, you can see a struggle to find her way of viewing the world and then expressing it. Through a series of events, she was to find that narrow path that would uniquely define her art.

Leah had friends everywhere she went. Lindsborg is a very small college town with a very small college and there is a natural divide between the Bethany kids and the “townies,” the kids who lived in the town of Lindsborg. Leah was one of those unique people who could cross that divide and started strong friendships with members of her student body and folks from her town alike. When we were cleaning out Leah’s apartment, four different girls stopped by, each to tell us that Leah was her best friend.

Last fall, Leah’s connection with Kansas began to deepen. One of her good friends set her up on a blind date with his roommate, John Blasenhauer. Vicky was visiting Leah at the time and Leah wouldn’t let her meet John because she was afraid Vicky would do something nutty to embarrass her. Apparently that date went pretty well because they went out again the next night (Vicky still was not allowed to meet him).

The relationship between Leah and John blossomed into a full-fledged romance. Blossom is a good word for what happened. John’s parents Virginia and Tom describe the 180 degree change in John’s perspective on life and general attitude – from pretty subdued to the happiest they’d ever seen him. Vicky and I saw the same change in Leah – she was truly the happiest we’d ever known.

Just as important, Leah’s art blossomed. Her connection to the community and the region through John and his family had a profound effect on how she viewed the world around her and how she expressed it. Gone were the darker images of her earlier work. They were replaced with more thoughtful and expressive images that reflected the look and feel of Kansas landscape. We’ve brought back a small collection of Leah’s work including prints of rose flowers that are a far cry from her early pieces. Not only in her art, but in her life, Leah had found her place. She was a Kansas girl born in San Diego and planned to stay in Kansas.

Leah and John had planned a trip to San Diego this July and Vicky and I would meet John for the first time. We’d heard from friends and later from John’s parents that there were marriage suspicions, but neither Leah nor John would give any indication. Vicky and I spoke with John’s roommate Garrett and he put those suspicions to rest – John had asked him several times if Garrett thought it was foolish for him to go all the way to San Diego to ask Leah’s dad if he could marry her. That’s the way it’s done in Kansas, but he wondered if it would be OK in California. Let me be very clear: I would be proud to have my daughter marry a man who had enough respect for her to ask before he took.

Leah’s death was sudden, tragic, and heart-wrenching, but our God is merciful. Vicky and I talked with proprietors of the “The Seasons of the Fox” bed and breakfast where Leah worked, the last people we know to see Leah and John before the accident. John picked her up at work and they were headed out to a farm in John’s family where he and Leah kept dogs. They loved to go out to the farm to see their dogs and the animals and were excited when they left. On the way, Leah called Vicky and they talked for some time about how well life was going. Leah had just sent off Vicky’s mother’s day present and was so excited about it she just had to tell her what it was – a “Forever Rose,” a real rose treated in some way to always to appear fresh and alive. Twenty minutes after that conversation ended Leah was standing in front of Jesus, probably wondering how she got there. The next morning a handwritten letter and a Forever Rose arrived on our doorstep.

You might know that Pastor Jim is from the part of Kansas where Leah lived. You also might know of the tragic death of his college age nephew last August. While in Kansas, Pastor Jim’s sister-in-law spent some time with us. Laurie Garlow gave Vicky a necklace that she had worn since her son died and said that it had helped her through the past ten months – a beautiful rose cast in silver. Laurie proclaimed through our collective grief that “our kids made it home.”

The last memory I have of Leah is when I dropped her at the San Diego airport in January. I hugged her, kissed her, prayed over her, and told her that I loved her.

And now, Leah our blossoming rose dances with Jesus.

Mercy, Grace, Sorrow, and Grief

Then Job replied to the LORD : "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
After the horrific sorrow and grief visited upon Job, after Job's questionion of God's wisdom and plan, after getting "schooled" by the Master, Job comes to this conclusion.  Our God can do all things and no plan of His can be thwarted.  Job realized his knowledge is limited and in relying upon his own knowledge, he obscured the counsel of God.  Job confessed that in reality (life from God's point of view) he did not understand God's plan which is so wonderful, he cannot even comprehend it.  Before the tragedies that befell Job, his ears had heard of God, but now, after walkin in sorrow and grief, Job declares my eyes have seen God.

Do not miss this truth.  Until we are in a position to need God's mercy and grace in supernatrual proportions, our knowledge of God is less than what it will be, akin to hearing rather than seeing.  It could be like listening to a person speak from another room.  We hear the words, but how different that a conversation face-to-face, looking straight into another's eyes.  As the recipients of of the kind of mercy and grace that occurs only at the end of our rope grasped in sweatty hands can we say that God is no longer someone we've heard, but is now someone we see.

In the past 48 hours I have dangled helplessly at the end of my rope.  At times, it seemed as though the rope had slipped from my grasp and I was falling without hope into the abyss of my grief.  These were the times when I could only cry out the word "no!" or the phrase "Jesus help me!"  My ears had heard of God and I knew He was there.  I knew He would eventually comformt me.  But, when the Mercy and Grace of God began to flow and rescue me from each successive cycle of abysmal grief, I saw God.  My eyes looked directly into those of my Savior.

Pray for my family - continue to pray.  The road ahead has many, many valleys, ruts, detours, and crossroads.  But at the same time, it has turnabouts where we gaze out over the vista of grace and mercy and see God.  It has hilltops from which we can see far ahead.

Grieve with us at the present loss of our daughter, Leah, but rejoice with us because we see God.

Competing Worldviews: Biblical Theism , Part 1

Theism in the broadest sense refers to the idea that at least one god exists. Biblical theism refers to idea of one God who created all that exists, is personal in nature, and who involves Himself in His creation - in short, the God of the Bible. Of course, biblical theism contains much more than this, but we have a limited purpose here. We want to introduce various worldviews with enough detail to distinguish them from each other. We’ll expand the idea of biblical theism when we discuss the components of the Christian faith.

We’re starting with biblical theism because, well, it’s proven itself true. All other worldviews unsuccessfully compete with biblical theism. We’ll see later how competing worldviews in the west grew from a response to biblical theism and how they reach back to it for support, for ideas that make life livable, because on their own, carried out to their logical conclusions, these competing worldviews make life an impossible task.

 

We commonly define different worldviews by answering a standard set of questions. Various thinkers have used similar questions, some with shorter, some with longer lists. Chuck Colson in his watershed book How Now Shall We Live, posed three questions which form the classical reference points of a Christian worldview. The title to his book and the applications he works through each chapter form and important fourth question.  

• Where did we come from and who are we?
• What has gone wrong with the world?
• What can we do to fix it?
• How should we live?

I’ve found it helpful to break these apart in to six questions, limiting the first to “where did we come from” and adding two more just after it: 

•  Why are we here? (which will also answer “who are we?”); and
• Where are we going?

These questions from a grid to analyze each worldviews approach. Generally all of the big or ultimate issues of life can found in or between these questions.

 

The first question, “Where did we come from?” starts at the beginning and by answering it we determine the scope of possible answers for the remaining questions. The answer to the first question requires a look at the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible. We can all quote at least a few words, “in the beginning God . . .” But, who is God? “God is infinite and personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good.” Each of these broad descriptors captures an array of characteristics of God.

 

The infinite God is boundless, governed only by His own character. Neither man nor creation restricts Him. No other being in all creation equals Him or can challenge Him. Yet, this God who is so “other” than us is also personal. He possesses the attributes of personhood. He is a self-conscious, thinking, and acting being. He interacts personally with us. We can pray to Him, worship Him, obey Him, He answers our prayers, reveals Himself in to us in Scripture and nature, He loves us and we love Him back. An infinite but personal God is unique to biblical theism.

 

Theologians will say that God transcends His creation, but is also imminent. God transcends because He is something other and above His creation. Just as time cannot constrain Him, neither can space. Yet, while, transcendent, He remains in that place we call “here,” wherever that place may exist for us at any given time, and not only for me, but for all mankind. For each person in every place and every age, whether separated by time or at the same moment, “God is here.”

 

In His omniscience, God possesses all knowledge and nothing escapes Him. He governs all that exists according to His ultimate desires in His sovereignty. And, God is good. From His goodness flow all of His other characteristics. Good exists because God is good.

 

Back to the question of from whence we and the world come. This God created all that exists from nothing. Without any prior pattern or form, He imagined all that is. He imagined lizards and spiders and tropical fish and birds. He imagined earth and sky. He imagined sub-atomic forces and particles, the basic elements, gravity, acceleration. And then, He spoke it into existence. He didn’t go to the stockpile of pre-existing creation building materials. He just spoke and out of nothing, His ideas became real. Because an orderly God created, the universe itself is orderly. It is also open. In other words, God constantly involves Himself in the unfolding of events within His creation.

 

Why are we here? God made man as the pinnacle of His creative activity, the only creation made in God’s own image. All the rest of creation bears the stamp of God’s character, but only man bears His image. To be sure, God’s image is not God nor is it equal to God, but it is like God. We are not infinite, but we are personal, capable of creating and sustaining relationships with one another and with God. We are not omniscient, but we know and can understand from the propositional revelation of God in Scripture and the demonstrative revelation of creation who God is and what the world is like. We are not sovereign, but we do have a kingdom of sorts where we exercise our will. We are not perfectly good, but we can express goodness in acts of love, mercy, patience, and grace. We cannot create out of nothing, but we possess impressive creative abilities and continue to work with God’s creation to further His initial work.

 

That’s a glimpse at who we are, but does not fully answer why we’re here. The Westminster Shorter Catechism provides a succinct answer in its first question: “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” It follows with an explanation of what will guide us in our quest to glorify and enjoy God: the Scriptures. If we unpack that just a little more, we’ll find that we were created for relationship with God, to walk side by side with Him in the garden of Eden, to continue His creative works. In this we would bring rightful glory to God and enjoy Him. We were created to love God and be loved by Him and carry out His purposes.

 

In Part 2, we'll tackle the remaining worldview questions.

A Matter of the Heart

I've previously posted comments on the Sermon on the Mount which shows us with an inside-out look at life and worldview thinking mirrors that perspective. Diagram 1 below depicts what Jesus taught and how it relates to the idea of worldview. Paraphrasing from Matthew 6, “you have heard it said, don’t murder. But I say don’t be angry with your brother because in the heart, murder and anger come from the same place. I say experience my transformational power in your inner man and you will become the kind of person who will treat his brother in the way I would.” This doesn’t happen by accident. A series of cause and effect relationships move what is on the inside of a person into outward action.

Look at the center circle of diagram 1. In blue I’ve labeled it “what is real.” The group of assumptions that I hold about what is real fits into this circle, for example that the Creator God of the Bible is the source of all that exists. My concept of reality will determine what I know to be true (the next layer), like people have inherent dignity because they are created in God’s image. What I know to be true will determine my idea of what is good (the next layer), such as helping others in need. And, my idea of what is good will ultimately determine what I do (the last layer), including working in my community to alleviate homelessness. Now, look at the green labels for the same circles. My assumptions about what is real make up my worldview. My worldview will determine my beliefs. My beliefs will determine my values and my values will determine my actions.

These relationships tell us two things. First, if my behavior does not match up to what I say my assumptions about reality are – how I characterize my worldview – then my worldview is really something different. Second, worldview matters. If we intend to live our lives differently, in conformity with God’s expectations, then we must make sure our worldviews agree with His revelation. If my worldview contains the wrong story about how things really are, may attempts to live differently will have short term or spotty results because they will lack the necessary foundation of supporting values and beliefs. I’ll be constantly swimming against the tide of my worldview much like the man Paul describes in Romans chapter 7 who wants to do what God expects, but finds himself doing the very thing he doesn’t want to do. If he remains in that state, the Romans 7 man has nothing to say but “what a wretched man I am!”

You might be thinking, “I don’t have concentric circles painted on my chest, so, where does a worldview reside in a person?” The concept of a worldview originated outside of biblical theism or Christianity, but as Saint Augustine points out, that does not make it off limits to us. “Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said what is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.” He surmised that this practice mirrors how the Israelites plundered the gold of the Egyptians during the Exodus, taking what had previously been put to ungodly use to a godly purpose. So, as David Naugle points out, we ought to drop the secular baggage that comes with this immigrant idea and replace it with a biblical perspective. Worldview is a valuable piece of Egyptian gold that we ought to bring captive to Christ. Doing so will help us track down the biblical location of one’s worldview.

The “heart,” used over 1,000 times in the Old and New testaments reflects the totality of personhood. It operates as the seat of our intellect, emotions, will, and spiritual pursuits. Jesus’ comments on “treasure” in the Sermon on the Mount underline the central place of the heart. In the heart we hold our treasure, from it we produce fruit, and out if it flow our deeds and thoughts. If we hope to have an accurate view of the worldview concept, we must strive to understand it terms of the biblical doctrine of the heart. “In other words, the heart of the matter of worldview is that worldview is a matter of the heart.”

“Believing, thinking, feeling, and doing and transpire within it. It is concerned with a particular treasure as an ultimate good. It is the source of how one speaks and lives. It is a reflection of the entire man or woman. It constitutes the springs of life . . . on the basis of a vision of the heart, for according to its specific disposition, it grinds its own lenses through which it see the world. According to the Bible, therefore . . . the heart and its content as the center of human consciousness creates and constitutes what we commonly refer to as [worldview]." (David K. Naugle, Worldview, The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, 2002) 270.)

The experiences of life and our thoughts about those experiences flow into a person’s heart and in the process begin to develop the assumptions we use to make up our worldview. In turn, those assumptions influence our beliefs and values and determine how we live.

They are the work of the heart which establishes the foundation for all human expression and experience. Though mostly hidden, and often ignored, these most basic intuitions [assumptions] guide and direct most, if not all, of life. They are compass-like in effect, a Polaris in the night sky. They are gyroscopic amid many imbalances, a thread in the labyrinth of life. These baseline beliefs are so humanly significant; they are like a nest to a bird or a web to a spider.

Given this central and controlling position of the heart, we must carefully follow the father’s instruction in Proverbs 4: 23 “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.” But how? Two passages from Paul’s epistles provide guidance. First, Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." This passage points out three reference points in the workings of a worldview. The mind forms the gateway to our heart. Through our mind assumptions enter our hearts and life-determining thoughts emerge. Renewing our minds will unlock the transformation of our hearts. No longer will we conform to this world. Instead, we will live out abundant lives, demonstrating God’s good and acceptable and perfect will in every inch of our existence.

Ephesians 4:23-24 amplifies this thought. “And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the transformed new self. The next eight verses detail what kind of living this will produce – just what one expects from a new self created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Renew your minds so that your hearts will be transformed so that you live righteous and holy lives.
Worldviews matter; worldviews are a matter of the heart; Christianity is a worldview.

Who Cares What I Think?

What determines how I live my life? Do I have a master plan that I’ve created to govern how I’ll think and feel and act? Could I even construct such plan? If not, is my life just an unplanned series of events without direction or purpose?

When you stop to think about it, these are really big questions. Unfortunately, many of us miss the opportunity to stop and think or when we do, we can’t figure out how to get to the answers. The next few minutes could begin a thoughtful journey, one that over time develops clarity regarding what you regard as really real and its affect on how you live.

Each of us has tucked away the building blocks that make up our understanding of how the world works. Some of these blocks form a foundation and others the walls and various rooms of our house of reality. The ideas that we use in the process of thinking itself form the foundation. Characteristics like self, things that are not a part of self, relationship between things and between ideas, the ability to place things and ideas into groups or categories, the relationship of cause and effect, the dimensions of space, time, and the like. We use these thoughts as tools to explore and determine what we hold to be real.

On that foundation of thinking tools, we have assembled a series of other ideas that we may have consciously examined or which we simply take for granted. Either way, we cannot imagine the world without these characteristics or ideas. They comprise the things we hold to be really real, the answers to the big questions in life that help us make sense of it all. These ideas form our worldview and consist of the principles by which we understand what our experience in life really means. Maybe this sounds a little too theoretical to have any practical use. Some have described a worldview as:

• A basic model of reality

• A Set of presuppositions which we hold about the makeup of the world

• A set of assumptions that explain reality

• The interpretive framework we use to make sense of the totality of our reality

One thing lies at the core of each of these definitions. A worldview consists of assumptions or presuppositions that we apply to the world to make sense of it all, to figure out what is real. Over time, people have assembled sets of questions to identify what assumptions or presuppositions form the walls of a particular worldview structure. These are the big or ultimate questions of life I referred to earlier. Questions like where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? What’s wrong with the world? How do we fix it? How should we live our lives?

My hope is that this series of discussions leaves you with at least on foundational idea: Christianity is a worldview. Yet, even within Christianity, we have our family differences about the details of how the world works. For example, has God chosen me out of the population of rebellious humans, dead in their sin and unable to respond to Him without His choice? Or, did the death of Christ bestow on all mankind the ability to decide to allow Him to save us from our sin? Worldviews which compete with Christianity experience these same internal tensions. To characterize a person as a naturalist does not put that person in perfect lock-step with every other person identified as a naturalist. Because we're people, this business can be a little messy.

So, to some degree, our worldviews are personal (shared in the fine detail only by ourselves) as well as public (shared in general form by our group, for example evangelical Christians). This spectrum of worldview variations sometimes provides the wiggle room to talk one way and live another. What we state as our assumptions about life and how we actually live out our lives doesn't always match up. Now we’ve gotten to the place where personal examination will yield sometimes difficult, but very fruitful results. In great DVD series The Truth Project, instructor Del Tackett often says that in the church today, Christians don’t always believe that what they believe is really real. This observation deserves some unpacking. As we’ll see in the next chapter, a Christian worldview gathers it’s assumptions about what is real from God’s revelation of Himself, both in creation and in Scripture. Tackett says, in other words, that even though we profess to believe God’s revelation as our assumptions about life, we may not - and if not, it shows up in how we live our lives. The proof really is in the pudding.

A Question for the New Year

(NOTE: Three weeks of illness and the Christmas holiday left the blog dark during December, but it now returns to its weekly schedule.)

J.P. Moreland in his book Kingdom Triangle recommends the following: "Each year, I ask myself this question: How much of my life and ministry last year required the existence of the Christian God to explain it? How much would have happened if God did not exist? Here's the point: Life in the Kingdom - corporately in our churches and individually - is a supernatural colaboring with God in which we both matter." That's a tough question and one that simultaneously caused me to reflect on my participation in expanding the boundaries of the Kingdom by God's power and repent over living a naturally unsupernatural life.

Moreland's book (as the title suggests) presents a three-part strategy for advancing the Kingdom. First, developing the life of the mind, learning what and why we believe and acquiring a thoughtful Christian worldview. Worldview as an important concept for the church is gaining momentum. Chuck Colson says that Christianity itself is a worldview - a set of beliefs by which we make sense of the world, define reality, answer life's ultimate questions. Moreland's challenge here is to make sure our beliefs are biblically accurate, to make sure that we actually believe they are true, and to put these beliefs on center stage in what we hold to be real - our worldviews.

Second, cultivating our inner lives by developing emotional intimacy with God through spiritual disciplines and literature of the formation of the church. Jonathan Edwards would call this the development of religious affections where our desires and our wills are aligned with the desires of God. No small task and disciplines like silence, solitude, meditation, contemplative prayer, memorization, and fasting when understood and applied can provide the nutrients necessary for flourishing spiritual growth.

Third, Moreland urges us to learn to live in and use the Spirit's power and authority of the Kingdom of God, developing a supernatural lifestyle, receiving answers to prayers, learning to effectively pray for healing and demonic deliverance, and sharpening our ability to hear God's voice. This, of course, is the point of the quoted question. Have we lived lives of self-powered moral uprightness where the shining best is really just mediocre, or have we hurried on the path to walk shoulder to shoulder with Jesus encountering whatever comes our way in the power of the Spirit and the authority of Jesus?

These three ideas, recovering the Christian mind, renovating the soul, and restoring the power of the Spirit form what intelligent design theorists call an irreducible complexity. Michael Behe describes an irreducibly complex system as "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." If we fail to develop any one of the three legs of the Kingdom Triangle, Kingdom life will break down. If our Christian beliefs are not what we hold to be really real, if our desires are not joined at the hip with God's desires, if we fail to rely on the power of the Spirit or exercise the authority of Jesus, our lives and the lives of those we touch will remain locked in the realm of what we can see, taste, hear, smell, and touch. Our deepest longings will remain unsatisfied, and God's redemptive work will continue on without us and without the joy and fulfillment of participating.

Something to be Thankful for

I pray that this day of thanks is filled with reminders of blessings and renewal of relationships.  Today I was blessed far beyond our celebratory meal and outstanding fellowship.  Today I read a document entitled the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience."  I've written much in the past about the meaning and effect of a Christian worldview.  The Manhattan Declaration demonstrates what can happen when your mind, your heart, is gripped by Christianity as the explanation of reality, as a worldview.  It will burst out of our personal sanctuaries and blow the doors of our corporate sanctuaries.  It will cause the Kingdom of God ooze, flow, splatter, and spray over our world - reclaiming territory for King Jesus, putting things back to the way their supposed to be.  Below you'll find the preamble to the Manhattan Declaration which briefly documents the profound preserving and advancing influence of Christianity on western culture.  This is much more than a profession of Christian ideas.  In this act of declaration Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians have joined together out of a common understanding of what is really real and how that understanding ought to be lived out by real believers.  I urge you to read the complete document and if it agrees with your convictions about the way things ought to be, to sign it and pass it on.

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.

The End of the Sermon

Jesus' model prayer next moves from our immediate physical needs to the sustenance of the inner man. Forgive us as we have forgiven others. Though each member of the Father’s family has received forgiveness in the fullest sense so that none will answer in final judgment for his or her sin, the matter does not end there. We have begun a relationship with the Father but we have not fully rid ourselves of the old man, the rebellious man, the self-directed man. We each know that more regularly than we would like, we turn our backs on the Father and go our own ways. It may only happen for a moment, but in that moment relationship becomes broken. Forgiveness paves the way to restoration. But Jesus describes this forgiveness in a particular way – not just any forgiveness, but forgiveness that mirrors that which we extend to others. You can hear the echo of another portion of the Sermon. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Jesus does not suggest that we can earn our forgiveness by forgiving others. No, the New Testament clearly states over and over that we, in fact, cannot earn forgiveness. Instead, Jesus points to the primacy of relationships in God’s kingdom. Remember back to when Jesus redefined murder to include something deeper than the physical act. At the end of the discussion, He emphasized the restoration of relationships – if I’m engaged in what a first century Jew considered his highest duty, ritual worship, and discovered that a brother had something against me, I ought to set aside my worship, go to my brother and restore our relationship. “God does not work by halves. He will not allow us to come to Him confessing half a sin while hanging on to the other half. It must be all or nothing. Thus if we confess our sin, our confession must of necessity involve a forgiving attitude towards others.” By asking God to forgive us as we have forgiven others, we impliedly ask God to assist us in forgiving others. For, without that the restorative act of forgiveness towards others, we cannot effectively seek the forgiveness of God we so desperately need.

Finally, we hear the call of our daily battle: lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. The term “temptation” is a neutral word, sometimes meaning to lure one into sin and other times to test or try a person. James makes it clear that God does not lure anyone into sin. “When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. “ That leaves only one option to clarify this phrase in the prayer: do not lead us into trials. If possible, keep me away from the places where I might be tested. But if tested, deliver me from the evil one, keep me from sin. I do not want to experience testing, but I might need it.

Several biblical principles help us navigate the shoals here. First, though unpleasant, testing has its place. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” And, finally, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Testing will help form us into the people God intends by forcing us to face the weak points where we have yet to surrender to Christ’s authority. It will provide us a history of God’s work in our lives which builds our faith into an absolute expectation. God will use even those events intended by others for the worst outcomes toward us to our good, bringing towards our inheritance one step at a time. And Finally, God will never allow the testing to go beyond the resource He provides and our ability to grasp it. He will always, always provide a way of escape.

Just after the prayer Jesus talks about our treasure, a fitting commentary on the jump from petition for bread to meet our temporal needs and the request to receive forgiveness and avoid temptations to satisfy our souls. He’s already told us not to worry about our material needs, but here He goes beyond our needs to those things we hold dear, to our treasure. What kinds of treasure do we have – horded earthy things, wealth, power, and status, or the eternal treasure of refined character, wisdom, powerful faith, and God-like love? Jesus makes it clear, we can’t have both – we’ll either “hate the one and love the other,” or “be devoted to the one and despise the other.” In the end, like metal detector beeps in the ear of a beach sand jewelry hound, our treasure will shout out the home of our hearts. They either rest in the hands of Jesus, a fitting gift for the One who turned them from stone to flesh, or we’ll have clutched them to ourselves where they slavishly serve our desires alone.

This brings us to the end of the Sermon and the final exam. We only have two options after hearing Jesus’ words: put them into practice, or not. The one who puts them into practice builds for herself a foundation that will not fail. Rain, rising water, nor beating wind can move the house built on the rock. Even if we must encounter temptation or trials, we can endure. We will have the strength to restore relationships and actively seek the good of others. Our kingdom lives will flavor the lives of those whom we touch and provide a Jesus beacon to a groping world. We will rid ourselves of contempt and lust and garnish our conversations with truth.

The other side of this canvas bears the portrait of a house built on sand. Rain, rising water, and beating wind will have their way with this house and will reduce it to a pile of rubble and bits of flotsam that disappear with the tide. This might occur through neglect or outright refusal, but the result remains the same. Can we witness any greater disaster than one who recognizes and responds to the salvation call of Jesus, yet fails to put His words into practice – one who has entered the kingdom gates but fails to put all into kingdom life?