CalvinDude.com

Tonight as I headed home on ye public transit, I read through a portion of the book of Joshua. I was struck by the story of Achen, not because I hadn’t heard it before but because I hadn’t thought of it in terms of Federal Headship until now.

Federal Headship (to give a brief definition) is the idea that there are certain people appointed as representatives for others. Thus, the House of Representatives in the US Government as well as the US Senate are all modern political units that derrive from this idea of Federal Headship. In Scripture, the idea is mostly used in connection with Original Sin as we describe why it is that all of mankind was held responsible when Adam fell (and thus we are all born depraved). However, it’s also used by Paul in Romans 5 to demonstrate that our Federal Headship transfers to Christ when we become Christians.

In any case, knowing this structure, when I read the story of Achen I realized that this story also shows Federal Headship. Basically, what happens is that Israel attacked Jericho and God ordered them to destroy everything. Achen stole some of the items that were to be destroyed, and as a result the Israelites lost the next battle at Ai. Joshua then used lots to determine that it was Achen who had caused the problem. With that in mind, here are the key verses regarding the Federal Headship notion.

And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel. (Joshua 7:15). This is the command of God as to what to do with the one who had taken the devoted things (that is, the items God wanted destroyed). The sentence included not only the one who caused the problem, but also “all he has.”

This is then carried out in the following passage:

And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The LORD brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. (Joshua 7:24-25).

For the person who does not believe in Federal Headship, this is a very troubling passage. Indeed, I must confess that at first glance even I find this passage somewhat discomforting. Why was it that God commanded the death not only of Achen, but also his sons and daughters and all his livestock?

There is only one possible answer, and that is the idea of Federal Headship. When Achen sinned, he was not acting alone. He was acting as the representative of his family, and thus his entire family was condemned along with him.

But why would God do that? This is the question that troubles most non-Calvinists (who tend not to believe in Federal Headship). But in reality, this is no different from what God did in the Garden after He cursed Adam (and all his descendants after him). In fact, it illustrates how sins can be imputed to those who are not actually involved in the act itself. This is, in other words, a pre-cursor to the death of Christ. It is a picture (or a type) of the mechanism of how our sins are reckoned unto Christ and His righteousness unto us.

Any other interpretation of this passage must, in my opinion, lead to the idea that God capriciuosly and maliciously decided to act out vengance on innocent people. Only if they were legally declared unrighteous could God have commanded their death specifically for the sin of Achen with impunity. Naturally, God could have condemned them for their own sins without anyone raising a fuss; but the passage is clear that Achen’s sons and daughters were killed due to Achen’s sin. How is that possible with a just and righteous God? The only answer is if Federal Headship is valid.

If there is one thing that depression teaches, it is reliance on prayer. Prayer support is important in any case, but it is even more vitally so when a wave of depression swamps over your head.

One of the problems I have when I have depression is that my thoughts fire too rapidly. This makes it extremely difficult to focus, and as a result it makes prayer disjointed too. Thankfully, I have found a way to get through this.

The trick is to pray out loud or to write prayers out. Doing both of those forces your mind to concentrate enough that you can stay focused, at least for me. And I think I’ve figured out why it works that way.

When I think normally, it’s in complete sentences. Most of the time, I think through what I’m going to say before I say it out loud, or I see something and think, “Wow, that’s cool” or perhaps I taste something and say, “Ooh, I wish I didn’t have to swallow this.” Each of those sentences has a beginning and an end to the sentence.

Let’s take a simple sentence: “I saw the ball.” If someone is playing this out loud for you on a tape recorder and they pause in the middle, you don’t know what the ending is. “I saw the….” Saw the what? We don’t know. But the information is already on the tape. All we’d have to do is get to it.

The sentence is intended to be understood as a whole. That is, no one intends for only the first half of a sentence to be spoken and the rest left unsaid. So the choosing of the first words in the sentence is intentional. The first words are leading you to the last words. Because of that, it is sometimes possible to guess the end of someone’s sentence before they speak it, due to the context of the situation.

When we think, it’s similar to that. Our thoughts are not intended to be incomplete sentence fragments. When we think, “I see the ball” we start with the subject and proceed to the predicate, like in normal English. But here’s the thing. In order for the first part of the sentence to make sense, we have to know what the ending of the sentence is going to be before we actually think to the end of the sentence.

What this means is that your entire thought is known before you express that thought in words. You must already know the subject and the predicate before you even begin the thought. This knowledge isn’t expressible by us until it is translated into language, but it is nonetheless still existant.

And because of that, when your mind is really firing on all cylinders (or at least for me this is what happens), then I actually do not think in complete sentences but only in the first portion of each sentence. So if I’m thinking, “I hope I get to sleep soon” I might consciously only think “I hope I” and then change to the next subject, while leaving the implied “get to sleep soon” unstated mentally, because I already know it in order to begin the sentence.

I think it might actually be possible to think so quickly that your thoughts are never translated into words but you still know what you’re thinking. The only drawback to all this is that it means there is no conscious “filter” that is forcing your thoughts onto one specific point, and because there’s no filter it means that you will be unfocused. So if you try to pray in this manner, you might begin like this: “Lord, I pray that tonight you man I wish that this wasn’t what would happen I can’t believe that stupid call” and suddenly you’re thinking about last night’s hockey game instead of praying.

If instead of that, you force yourself to speak the prayer out loud (or write it down) then your mind is “required” to finish the sentence. You are speaking it out, and you need for your spoken language to make sense too. Thus, your thinking “slows” and you transform it into English with the ability to focus clearly on what you’re praying about.

Perhaps it may be that I am the only person who thinks in this manner, but I would find that unlikely (perhaps you just never realized you think that way because no one pointed it out to you).

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve seen that I’ve mentioned my depression. Everyone goes through periods where they feel “blue.” But there really is a distinct difference between depression and just feeling down.

Because not everyone has the same experiences, I’m going to take some time in the coming days to explain just how I feel when I go through my depressive occurances, what the fight is like, and what happens to people as they go through it.

Depression is difficult to talk about, not only because it is so personal to the one going through it, but also because it hurts. Being depressed is being in a constant state of pain–emotional and spiritual pain that sometimes generates physical pain too. Often, my depression comes as a tightened sense in my chest, as if my heart is squeezed in a vice. Other times, my stomach feels queezy.

For me, depression also exhibits itself in my sleep patterns. I have insomnia when I am depressed. Now almost everyone has spent a restless night or two tossing and turning on their bed. But I spent six months not catching more than an hour or two of sleep during the night. It is sad to say that after a few weeks of no sleep, your body gets used to it enough that you can function on autopilot. Your eyes will stop being red from being so blood-shot, although the permanent dark circles that support your eyelids will still give away the fact that you’re not sleeping.

When I have insomnia, it goes like this. I get in bed at ten o’clock. I stare at the clock until midnight. Around 12:30, I close my eyes because I know I have to get up by six or I’ll be late for work. By this time, I already know that I’m going to wake up just as tired as I was when I got in bed because it’s now inevitable. I look at the clock. It’s now 12:32. Two minutes of my life have vanished into the void, and I am still awake.

I close my eyes again and try to sleep. For a moment, everything swirls around and I think for the faintest of moments that I might fall backwards into the arms of a dream. It feels like an hour has passed. I crack my eyes and look at the clock.

It’s now 12:37.

This continues until 5:45 when I just shut off my alarm because I’d rather not hear it. Then, I turn on my radio so I don’t fall asleep again. And only then do I feel tired again. Only then do I long to find the arms of sleep, because now it is too late. So I drag myself out of bed and go forward to face the day instead.

Insomnia is just one aspect of depression that I have gone through. Depression feeds off itself in an ever increasing circle of destruction. Lack of motivation means you don’t do anything, and you feel bad because you don’t do anything, and because you feel bad you don’t feel motivated to do anything else. You don’t sleep so you feel tired, and then you’re too tired to sleep. You don’t want to get up in the morning to go to work because it’s just the endless circle over and over and over again.

Some people say that a spiritual person wouldn’t suffer from depression. I would simply point out some of the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations. For example, we read:

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. (Lamentations 3:4-9)

But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friends to shun me; my companions have become darkness.(Psalm 88:13-18) (Or, as an alternate reading of the last clause states, “Darkness has become my only companion.”

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressions there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 4:1-3).

There are countless more examples that I could site. But the conclusion is obvious. Spiritual people can feel depressed just as much as a pagan can. The only difference lies in this.

In the midst of depression, no matter how dark it gets, I know that God has not forsaken me. Sometimes I hate Him because of that, but He will never leave me. For that reason, I have hope even when I feel hopeless. I have love when I feel hated. I have a reason to keep going on when others would find a pistol and end it all. Because of God’s strength, I can still live.

It isn’t easy. But no one ever said it would be. And when emotions rise up they tend to overwhelm reason. Even so, intellectual knowledge is sufficient to keep my boat above water just long enough for the grace of God to deliver me.

People who say that pain is temporary often forget that so is pleasure.

I can’t take credit for the genesis of this blog. It was actually my father who asked me the question: “Do you know where the change in dietary law first occured?” My first thought was Peter and the sheet in Acts. But there’s one before that and since I just read it last night, it’s fresh on my mind again.

And [Jesus] said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)” (Mark 7:18, ESV).

Since there are still some groups of Christians and psuedo-Christians who hold to the dietary laws of the Old Testament, this verse is rather interesting. Anyone who believes the teachings of Jesus must accept, as Mark points out, that all foods have been declared clean by Christ. After all, the unclean foods were merely a type and shadow of the unclean hearts that a person had. In other words, unclean food was only unclean because it represented uncleanliness, not because it actually was unclean in and of itself. But now that Christ has come, the old things have passed away and there is no longer any use for those old types and shadows. We have the real thing now.

I think I’m really starting to like the ESV. Since getting one (my father actually got me one since I’m in the middle of moving and all my Bibles got packed in a box that ended up waaaaaaay in the back of the storage shed), I have now read the following books completely (in order listed below):

John
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Lamentations
Matthew
Ecclesiastes
Mark

Not bad for one week. :-)

When I feel good, I thank God that I’m a Calvinist, because I know that when I’m down I’ll still be saved. When I’m down, I curse God that I’m a Calvinist because I know I won’t be able to get away from Him. “Love God?” Martin Luther once said. “Sometimes I hate Him.”

Why do I take pride in things I can’t control?

Note: This is a slightly modified version of an original story I wrote in 2003. All characters and events are fictional.

I think in code. It used to be BASIC, then C++. More recently, it’s PHP, the powerful server-side language that runs many web applications. It’s a script language, so the programs aren’t long and difficult. Mostly, it’s just simple logical branching. IF…THEN…ELSE.

It’s easy to think in code if you start properly. And the world becomes easier to cope with after a time. It’s all a matter of context and syntax. If you can put the right words in the right order, everything works out like it’s supposed to. If you can’t…

Syntax Error in Line 14, error parsing code.

It’s obvious that whoever invented syntax error codes was an android, not a human. A human would have just said, “Hey idiot, you left off your stupid semi-colon again.” A computer just gives you generic parsing errors and line you need to fix. It’s dispassionate, detached. And somehow….

Nicer.

If ($computers == $people){
$my_problems = “Solved.”;
}

The nose of the car edges out into the street. I blink at the sun that fills my eyes. I have the sun-shade pulled down low, but I need to see under it so I don’t run out into traffic and get killed. Just for kicks, I think in pseudo-code instead of a specific language: If car coming, don’t move, else pull out and drive like an old man. Yeah, problem solved.

The street is clear, unless a car is hiding in the sun. I pull out and don’t hear horns blaring, so I accelerate. If you can call it accelerating when you’re in a 1987 Volvo.

I hear the sigh beside me and look to my right. Amanda is there, her legs curled up under her. “You have your seatbelt on?” I ask, as my parental duty requires.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, pointing to the strap that keeps her in place should my Volvo decide to make a bee-line for the concrete barrier that divides the two lanes going beneath the underpass that, at least, blocks the sun for a moment.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, certain I know the answer, but needing to talk anyway.

“I dunno,” comes the expected response. “How am I supposed to feel?”

How indeed? “Well, what did you talk about?”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah. Stuff.”

I can tell where this conversation is headed. I’m just not that good at coming up with conversation starters for fifteen-year-old girls. That’s the reason why God invented mothers.

If ($myself == $mother){
$my_problems_with_teen_daughter = “Solved.”;
}

But maybe that wasn’t quite accurate. Not that Amy had left us an option of discovering the truth on our own.

It’s my turn to sigh. As we head out across the flat nothing that is Nebraska, Amanda says, “I hear ya, pops.”

If ($nickname == $pops){
$self = “Old”;
}

I sigh again.

We travel all night long. Long past the time the sun dips below the flat horizon we constantly head toward. More pseudo-code: If traveling, Go West Young Man. Wise advice indeed, but who are you calling “young”?

West is home. The Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. A place that Amy used to love, back when we used to love each other. Back when Amanda had a mother. And a father who didn’t have to be a mother too.

If ($problem == $feminine_nature){
$solution = “Call Granny”;
}

Granny was getting a lot of calls. She had raised me to be a man, not a mother. But Amanda wasn’t a boy, and my understanding of women ceased the day I tried to figure out Amy. Women made no sense. I think God did it on purpose.

Amanda snores softly next to me. I can see her face in the pale green dashboard light. In that light, she looks so much like Amy. Just like she ought to. It was better for her to get Amy’s looks than mine. As if she could have.

But as she lays there with an innocence that Amy never had, I can feel the heavy weight on my heart again. I try to stare at the white lines, zipping past on the left side of the car, but even counting them doesn’t clear my mind.

There’s no code for what I think. It simply is.

Amy and I had met seventeen years ago. She was fresh out of high school, and I was a junior in college. We both happened to have the same philosophy class. I happened to make sure I sat by her every day.

Things clicked, and the relationship evolved. Eventually, I was spending so much time with her that I had failed three classes. But I didn’t care. Classes weren’t important when I was with my woman.

Amy talked often of running away to Mexico. She wanted someplace new. Someplace tropical. Somewhere out of the endless windy Wyoming skies. She didn’t want to have to buy a special wardrobe just for winter. One that made her look seventy pounds heavier.

Yes, Amy was proud of her looks. And I was proud of the fact that she was with me instead of some other schmuck. Sure, she partied a little harder than most people and she sometimes ran away for a few days. She always came back.

If ($Amy == $enhancement_to_my_life){
$problems = “Overlook”;
}

But some problems couldn’t be overlooked. Like that little problem of when Amy told me she was pregnant. I knew who the father wasn’t. But my philosophy had already been confirmed:

If ($Amy == $enchancement_to_my_life){
$problems = “Ignored completely.”;
}

Amanda still doesn’t know she’s not mine. She still doesn’t know that she will never look like me. She doesn’t know that she will never find out who her real father is.

The sun is rising behind us as we near our home. Amanda stirs from her seat and yawns. “Have you been driving all night?”

“No,” I reply. “I stopped at a rest stop four hours ago.”

She nods, says nothing. I look at the familiar landscape in front of me. “It’ll only be another hour and we’ll be back.”

She nods again. Still says nothing.

I turn to her. “How are you feeling?”

“I dunno,” she responds. “How am I supposed to feel?”

“Well, I feel like we’ve already had this conversation.”

“Yeah, we did. You want to have it again tomorrow?”

Her mother’s wit has rubbed off on her. It must be the genes.

“No,” I say after a moment. “I was just wondering what you had to discuss with her.”

“’Her.’ Is that all she is now?”

It’s my turn to say, “I dunno.” What is Amy to me now? How long has she been gone?

If ($today == “March 17”){
$absence = “Nine years.”;
}

Nine years. Is that all? Only the better part of a decade.

“It’s just…I was so surprised to get her email. I still don’t know what to think.”

Amanda nods. “I know.” Her eyes go distant, looking toward the approaching mountains too. “I can still remember her. Just barely.”

I’m about to say, “That’s because you just saw her.” Something keeps me from doing so. She’s talking about that day. The day Amy left.

The day that Amy told me of her affair with Vincent. And how they were running away to Mexico, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. By the time I read this she’ll already be in Cancún. March 17.

Amanda had been six and in first grade. Mama was supposed to pick her up after school. Instead, she waited for three hours before I finally did. I would have been over faster…but like Amy had said, by the time I read this….

Amanda turns to me. “I still can’t believe she just picked up and left.”

“I know,” I say.

“She didn’t even say goodbye.” Amanda laughs. “Not even yesterday. That’s what I really wanted to hear, you know. Just a simple, ‘Good-bye. Nice to know you. Have a swell life.’ But there was nothing there.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. At least she wanted to talk to you, I think to myself. She only e-mailed me because she knew Amanda couldn’t drive yet. And she didn’t want to return to Wyoming to meet her either. It would be too inconvenient, so could I just drive to Omaha and meet her instead?

Amanda looks back at the mountains. “Mom said some pretty…” she starts. She turns to me. “…Pretty mean things about you.”

“Really,” I say. “That’s not surprising.”

“She said that you’re stupid and naïve. You cry in front of people. And that everyone takes advantage of you all the time. And….”

Her voice trails off. “Go on,” I encourage. “What else does your wonderful mother think of me?”

Amanda looks up. Tears are in her eyes. “She said you’re not my father.”

Ah that.

If ($That_Question == $asked){
$answer = “Lie.”;
}

But I can’t.

“She said that, huh?”

“Yeah,” Amanda replies, and then she utters a curse word.

I laugh. I can’t help it. Amanda does too. “I told her, ‘Well, he’s the one who takes me to Drama Club practices and he’s the one who goes to the school for parent-teacher conferences.’”

I smile. Bless you, Amanda. “What did she say to that?”

“She said that I could go live with her. She married some German doctor who was studying in Mexico and she says she’s rich beyond her wildest dreams.” Amanda looks at the mountains again. “She said I could have whatever I wanted.”

“Wow,” I say, looking over at Amanda.

“Know what I said?”

I shake my head.

“I said, ‘I only want my father.’ I said I want you, Dad.”

If ($happiness == $daughters_love){
$my_self = “Nirvana”;
}

The mountains are blurry ahead of me. I put my arm around my daughter, and I don’t care if she sees me cry.

A few days ago on #prosapologian we had a discussion about whether all sins are equivalent or not. I just read through 1 John, and now I wish I had read it just a few days ago, because this passage makes it all clear:

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life–to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death (1 John 5:16-17).

As you can see, all wrongdoing is sin, but the consequences of different sins are different. There are some sins that do not lead to death, and some that do. Whatever else this passage means, it definitely means that not all sin is equivalent.