Articles - Miscellanea

The prophet Hosea writes, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD” (Hosea 10:12, emp. added). The prophets often illustrated God’s truths from nature or from an agrarian viewpoint. They saw land that was generally plowed and sowed in crops laying idle; land that normally was productive was left lifeless, useless, and nonproductive (fallow). In Exodus 23:11, God required Israel to allow their ground to be fallow one year in seven. The fallow ground of Hosea was fallow, period! It was a graphic picture of carelessness and indifference in the people’s lives. Jeremiah joined the chorus of Hosea by writing, “Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns” (Jeremiah 4:3, emp. added). Great food for thought!

Nothing is as cold as lead, yet nothing is so scalding as molten lead. There is nothing so blunt as iron, yet nothing so sharp if sharpened. There is nothing so merciful as God’s love, yet if He is provoked nothing is more terrible than His wrath. “Break up the fallow ground” (Hosea 10:12; Jeremiah 4:3) is picturesque. There is nothing so ineffective in the Christian as a forsaken, barren, or fallow life. Do we like a personal faith that produces no fruit for Christ? Are we content to not produce the fruit of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23)?

“Is there a cultural war?” A good question. What do we mean by culture? Culture is “the sum total of ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation” (qtd. in Gagging of God 538). This definition creates conflict between good and evil, right and wrong, God and the world, but cannot be avoided. Incidentally, this is the meaning of Armageddon in Revelation 16:16. 

The biblical worldview. In the beginning (Genesis 1-3), God set forth the biblical worldview culminating in Christianity (Hebrews 1:1-2a; John 14:6). The biblical worldview insists man obey, serve, worship and glorify God (Revelation 4:11). God defines both the origin and purpose of man. God created man in His image (Genesis 1:26-27) and as the apex of His creation. He imbued man with all the traits of personality. God created man a creature of choice; i.e. man could choose to obey or disobey God. Consequently, man walks in the biblical worldview when his behavior is learned and modified by the divine standard, the Bible.

  There are Christians who become troubled when they think about their faith and sometimes they wonder if their Christian faith is true. Too many Christians have accepted the facts of Christianity solely on the basis of trust and confidence in others (parents, friends). They have never given a close and careful consideration to examine the basis of Christianity (the Bible).

   The age in which we live is both sophisticated and educated. It demands that we know what and why we believe something. Believing something does not make it true. A thing is true or not true regardless of whether anyone believes it. This is true of Christianity as of everything else.

   There are those who reason that Christianity is at least non-rational if not irrational. They use Paul’s statement: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8, ESV). However, this is an abuse of Paul’s statement. Christianity is rational. The Bible is the ground of faith. Faith in Christianity is built on evidence. Paul wrote: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17, NKJV). The Christian faith is reasonable and rational.