Tag Archives: Ravi

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The World Off Balance

November 3, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Once and a while a friendship is forged that seems to surprise everyone but the two who are in it. In a story that first circulated in 2006, Zookeepers at Tokyo’s Mutsugoro Okoku Zoo couldn’t agree more. Gohan and Aochan had been living side by side for months, at times even curling up next to one another as they sleep. Such behavior is, perhaps, natural among creatures sharing habitats—except that Gohan and Aochan should have naturally been predator and prey. Gohan was a three and a half inch dwarf hamster, and her companion, Aochan, a rat snake. The hamster, who was jokingly named “meal” in Japanese, was originally given to Aochan as dinner after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of dining, Aochan decided to make friends. Much to the zookeeper’s surprise, the two began sharing a cage. Gohan would even climb onto Aochan’s back to take a nap.

The thought of such a relationship is one that fascinates in its complexity (if not an accident waiting to happen). Though the friend who first sent me this story assured me that unusual bondings have occurred throughout the animal kingdom without bad endings, I still find myself leery of the snake’s intentions. Can a snake really surrender its natural instincts to hunt? What happens when Gohan gets in his way or makes him mad, or when the zookeeper is running late feeding the reptiles? Can the nature of a snake remain reversed because of a relationship?

In a significant prophecy of the coming Messiah (literally, anointed one) and his ensuing reign, Isaiah describes a scene full of similarly unusual relationships: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).

On many levels it is a scene that is unimaginable. We would no sooner trust the cobra than we would trust the one who suggests we allow a child to play near it. Yet the vision speaks of a dramatic change in nature throughout God’s kingdom, where the aggressiveness and cruelty that are so much a part of our world will be forever changed. We will look at the relationship of Gohan and Aochan and not fear the hamster’s trust of the snake. With good reason, we ascribe such a reality as something God promises in the future, in heaven, when nature as we know it has passed away. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain; the wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the goat, for the old order of things will have passed away. Many believe this is indeed an image of things to come. Could it not also be something more?

The Christian story says there is something about the coming of the Messiah that brings this scene to life even now. The Incarnation—the coming of Jesus into creation—turns things on earth upside-down. Like the brutal outlaw in one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, the Misfit, recognizes, there is something about the Incarnation that has “thrown everything off balance.” The mere presence of the source of all matter in our very midst, the Incarnate Christ coming to us in flesh and blood introduces a possibility of grace that changes the nature of everything. “If He did what He said, then its nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn’t, then its nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him.”(2) Isaiah depicts a world where lions and vipers will not kill; young lambs will rest peacefully beside predators, “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). It is unnatural for a wolf not to harm a defenseless lamb or a snake not to bite the hand that invades its nest. Is it any more natural that you or I should be able to defy our human nature? That we should claim the old has gone and left a new creation in its place? That we should find ourselves born a second time from above?

Yet to bow before the person of Christ—in life, in prayer, in relationship, in community—is to lay our lives at the feet of the one who is both Lamb and Lion in a way that overturns these very notions of nature. In his work Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton finds fault with the way this is often envisioned. “It is constantly assured,” he writes “…that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is—Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity?”(1) This, somehow, Christ achieves. His invitation is the fierce hope of transformation and the gentle assurance of new life—on earth and as it will one day be in heaven. He alone can reverse the nature of the snake; he is both Lamb and Lion.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 105.

(2) Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find, Complete Stories (Franklin Center, Pa.: Franklin Library, 1980), 151.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Missing

October 31, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Losing things is a nuisance that seems forever mine. It’s the minor things I lose, things I seem to have given myself permission to be less attentive to keeping found. I am notorious for misplacing my car keys most of all, and my sunglasses are presently missing in action. Most days I haphazardly place my keys somewhere near the first thing that was on my mind as I turned off the engine—which means that sometimes I find them in the laundry room, and other times by the refrigerator.

Habitually missing keys are certainly a frustration, but finding them is usually as simple as retracing my steps—and there is always a spare set if they don’t turn up right away. To my husband, however, lost keys are a source of unnecessary frustration. He has worked patiently on the problem; we have a special place to put the keys when we walk through the door. Some days this works.

Other days I more resemble the woman in Jesus’s parable tearing apart the house to find the lost coin, lighting a lamp, sweeping the house, searching carefully until she finds it. And perhaps this contributes to my attitude regard to lost keys—I know I will eventually find them. In fact, the only time I seem lose them is when I am comfortably in the confines of my own house. Sadly, sunglasses are another case entirely.

In two different parables, Jesus compares the sentiments that accompany the person who has lost something to the sentiments of the heavens over the one who is lost. When the woman in the parable has found the coin she was searching for, “she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’” “In the same way,” Jesus concludes, “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over even one sinner who repents” (cf. Luke 15:8-10).

My lost keys or pens or coins don’t typically evoke in me such sentiments. And I wonder how easy it is to carry a similar lightness about a world buried in injustice, lost in pain, distraction, or privilege. How easy is it to give myself permission to be inattentive to so much around me, to see a world of need as something minor, to view wandering as a problem that will work itself out like lost keys? No doubt the heavens grieve over this sort of inattention even as they grieve over the wandering prodigal.

But I was reacquainted recently with the pain of longing after something lost. Unlike misplaced keys, I was neither confident that it would turn up nor was the thought of a “spare” comforting in the least. Sentimentally, it was irreplaceable and I grieved its loss. I found myself recounting all of the memories associated with it. My mind was haunted by where it might be, whose hands it might be in, whether I would ever see it again. And when I found it, like the woman in Jesus’s parable, I celebrated with anyone who would celebrate with me.

When we lose something dear to us and find ourselves hoping against hope for its return, we are given the slightest illustration of the Father’s longing to gather us unto himself and his grief when we will not have it. When Jesus spoke of lost sheep, he gave us an image of the personal nature of God’s love for each face we pass on the way to work, each child we overlook, each person to whom we give ourselves permission to be inattentive. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep’” (Luke 15:3-6).

Unto the shepherd who pursues lives and searches hearts, whose arm is not too short to save, the psalmist confessed, “I have strayed like a lost sheep.” Undoubtedly the heavens rejoice over the heart that recognizes its need to be found. Whether we have strayed from the care of God or strayed in our attention to a world in need of being found, he who came for the lost calls us back into the careful arms of the shepherd who won’t quit searching.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Theology as a Subject

October 30, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

“Why would a theologian have anything to contribute to any worthwhile discussion, on any subject whatsoever?”(1) So asks Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion. He further articulates his disgust for theology in his 2006 article in The Free Inquiry magazine:

“What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?”(2)

Dawkins scornfully dismisses not only theologians but the subject of theology, too. Francis Schaeffer similarly recalls in his book The God Who Is There meeting a successful young man when he was on a boat crossing the Mediterranean. “He was an atheist, and when he found out I was a pastor he anticipated an evening’s entertainment, so he started in.”(3) It seems not taking theologians seriously is hardly a new phenomenon. As a theologian, I might be tempted to respond to these provocations with the words of the Psalmist: The fool has said in his heart that there is no God. Nevertheless, skeptical commentators like Dawkins might also make me ask other questions. For instance, from where did people get the idea that theology is meaningless and also detached from other subjects? Do others think the same about theologians? Did the theological community contribute in any way to this impression? Are religious leaders guilty of indulging in spiritual talk entirely divorced from reality?

When the apostle Paul visited Athens “his spirit was provoked” as he observed the city full of idols. Nevertheless, when he addressed the Areogagus gathering he commended them for being a religious people. Having spent time understanding their religious and philosophical beliefs he begins his message by finding a bridge in their idolatry with “The unknown god.” He knew that bridges could not be built without starting at their end of the shore. And he knew their ideas and interests well enough to quote their own poets and prophets.

The Christian embodies theology in this world of commerce, science, philosophy, and the arts. It is a subject because of its Subject. Where Christianity is lived well, the charge that theologians can engage only in the pursuit of theology devoid of contemporary issues should sound false to the ears of this generation. For all truth is God’s truth. As hymn writer Maltbie Babcock wrote more than a century ago:

This is my Father’s world,

and to my listening ears

all nature sings, and round me rings

the music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world:

he shines in all that’s fair;

in the rustling grass I hear him pass;

he speaks to me everywhere.

Cyril Georgeson is a member of the speaking team with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Mumbai, India.

(1) Richard Dawkins as quoted in “What’s so heavenly about the God particle?” Newsweek, January 2, 2012.

(2) Richard Dawkins, “The Emptiness of Theology,” Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 18, Number 2.

(3) Francis Shaeffer, The God Who Is There in The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), 68.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Between Endings and Beginnings

October 29, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

The dictionary defines the word “vacation” as “a period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation.” Though I imagine it happens less often than not, it seems the ideal vacation would come to an end just as the life we left behind begins to seem preferable. Yet even if it is with reluctance that we let go of our last vacation day, most of us can imagine why we must. By definition, a vacation is something that must come to an end. To vacate life as we know it on a permanent basis would be called something different entirely.

Though we know that the days of a vacation or holiday are short-lived, we nevertheless enjoy them. Even as they fade away into the calendar, they are remembered (and often nostalgically). That they were few does not hinder their impact. On the contrary, a few days devoted to relaxation are made valuable because of the many that are not.

And we know this to be true of life as well—that it is fleeting, makes it all the more momentous.

The artists among us often give voice to the things we seem collectively to work at putting out of our minds, sometimes simply stating something obvious. Musician Dave Matthews admits, “There are arbitrary lines between bad and good that often don’t make a lot of sense to me. I don’t want to die, obviously, but really, the wonder of life is amplified by the fact that it ends.”(1)

Like withering grass and dwindling summers, fading flowers and holidays, life cannot escape its end. Like the seasons we live through, generations spring forth and die away. Like the vacations we take, so our days pass away into the calendar. If we refuse to look at any of these endings we live foolishly; if we look only to their ends we miss something about living.

The voice of the psalmist is not unlike the artist who sees life as it is and the importance of reckoning with the harder parts of it. “Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life” (Psalm 39:4). It is a cry aware of the fleeting and even painful nature of time and the mystery of the many things that seem to heighten a sense of something richer. “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you” (39:7).

The Christian story of that hope doesn’t provide an escape from the harsh glimpse of fragility but an invitation to see that we live somewhere between fleeting dust and the mystery of the one who brought it to life. It includes the fearful but hopeful thought that gaining one’s life might somehow involve losing it, that endings though painful are often necessary, that somehow a broken body may offer the reviving bread of life itself.

When Jesus stood with the disciples staring down the very hour he came to face, he told his friends that his time with them was coming to an end. He told them that his departing would usher in the Great Comforter, that he was leaving to prepare a place for them, and that in his coming and going the world would see that he finished exactly what the Father sent him to do. He reminded them that in the ending of this season was the budding mystery of another.

The psalmist writes of the death of God’s own as ‘precious’ in the sight of the LORD. Into that difficult mystery of seemingly arbitrary lines of life and death, the self-giving love of the Father invites us to consider the precious death of the Son.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Dave Matthews, Washington Post, August 16, 1998.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – A Fish in Water

October 28, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Most of us recognize that there are forces at work in our world that make communicating more akin to communicating across cultures—even within our home countries. Twitter, texting, and other forms of modern short-hand must be learned just as one would learn a new language. #margaretmanning, @ravizacharias, TTYL, LOL, and other combinations of letters form almost indiscernible words for the tweeting and texting uninitiated.

Beyond these new technological changes in language, simply moving from region to region within a country can mean another language, dialect, or even phrases that are unique to that particular place. Moving, as I did, several years ago from one part of the United States to another introduced me to a new world of sayings, customs, and local culture.

In a similar way, trying to find ways to communicate about matters of my own faith can feel like trying to cross a broken bridge. Beyond that, anyone who claims to present a clear language of faith speaks into a cacophony of languages claiming the same clarity. Is it any wonder, then, that blank stares are the all too often response to the particulars of the unique vocabulary of faith?

Yet everyone—even those who speak what seems to them a clear message—are also informed and shaped by a culture. Speech embodies a whole world of language, experience, and ways of understanding that experience, which in turn shapes the way in which individuals speak about beliefs and values.

There are, therefore, particular difficulties inherent in translation from within one’s own culture. An ancient Chinese proverb highlights this difficult task: “If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.”(1) In other words, on what platform does one stand in order to speak into one’s own culture? We are products of the very culture into which we seek to communicate, and we can never fully stand outside our own culture. We are, in the words of the proverb, like fish trying to define water.

Notably, Christians affirm that the heart of the gospel message transcends culture and language, just as surely as it was originally proclaimed within a particular culture and language. After all, the good news of the gospel is about “the Word made flesh“—the Son of God stepping into humanity. Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin explains the dialogical nature of the gospel as a product of culture and yet as a trans-cultural communication when he suggests: “Every statement of the gospel in words is conditioned by the culture of which those words are part, and every style of life that claims to embody the truth of the gospel is a culturally conditioned style of life. There can never be a culture-free gospel. Yet the gospel, which is from the beginning to the end embodied in culturally conditioned forms, calls into question all cultures, including the one in which it was originally embodied.”(2)

Newbigin uses the conversion and transformation of Saul into the apostle Paul as a case in point. His trial before King Agrippa, as recorded in Acts 26, illuminates this cultural dialogue. As Paul shares the story of his conversion, he speaks the language of the Empire, Greek, and not his native Hebrew. Yet earlier, when he was blinded by “a light from heaven, brighter than the sun” and he heard a voice from heaven, it was not in the predominant Greek language. Paul tells Agrippa: “I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’” Paul then asked who was speaking to him, and the voice answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

Newbigin suggests that this passage provides a means by which we can understand the challenges and the opportunities for gospel communication and translation from within a given culture.(3) First, just as Paul hears the as yet unnamed voice from heaven in his native tongue, the “voice” of the gospel must be offered in the language of the culture into which it is spoken. The gospel must be communicated in a way in which it can truly be heard, and we must accept that the way in which we present it will on some level embody that which is understood and experienced in a particular culture.

Truly communicating the gospel, however, means it will also call into question the way of understanding that is inherent in the culture. Saul truly believed his actions against the Christians were in keeping with the God-ordained desire to preserve and protect Jewish identity and purity of belief. Yet, the voice from heaven revealed that this devotion of Saul was a form of persecution against the very God he claimed to serve.

Finally, as Christians seek to clearly translate and communicate the gospel, conversion is the work of God. No human persuasion, no lofty speculation ever accomplishes the work of conversion. This is God’s work alone accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and those who bear witness in multiple cultural contexts can depend on the work of the Spirit to accomplish what God desires. “[I]n the mysterious providence of God, a word spoken comes with the kind of power of the word that was spoken to Saul on the road to Damascus…it causes the hearer to stop, turn around, and go in a new direction, to accept Jesus as Lord, Guide, and Savior.”(4)

The communication of the gospel into every culture is filled with challenges and opportunities. Without the work of careful translation, Christians can sound as if they are babbling in a foreign tongue. On the other hand, they may immerse themselves so much in cultural study and experience that they lose the prophetic power of gospel proclamation. Indeed, as culture-bound people, there is always a risk of proclaiming a version of the gospel that is more cultural than Christian. Can Christians be willing to hear the radical call to conversion in their own proclamation? Making room for in these proclamations for the transformational work of the Spirit, there is hope that the unique message of God’s deliverance in Christ will not be lost either on the one who hears or the one who speaks.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) Cited in Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 21.

(2) Ibid., 4.

(3) Ibid., 5.

(4) Ibid., 7-8.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Defining Faith

October 27, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Whether we merely dip into its surface or stretch out our arms attempting to reach its depths, language is a deep well. With words, there is often more than meets the eye. And there is something about the study of words that reminds us that if we dig deep enough, hidden treasures can be found.

By way of introduction to the word “faith,” the book of Hebrews speaks of men and women, people of history exhibiting faith themselves, following hard after God in trust and obedience. These names are not listed to makes us feel diminutive by comparison, but are presented as something of a definition, a definition which establishes that faith continues to be about seeking one who has been found. Abraham and Moses, Enoch and Noah and Rahab, all are commended for walking in faith and hoping in what was yet unseen. We are given the image of men and women who have been moved by God as they moved toward God, some in ways more conspicuous than others, seeking in light and shadow the one who is pleased by faith.

This is encouraging, even while imagining the magnificent faith of Moses and the sustaining hope of Abraham. For what seems to set them apart in the eyes of God is a God who is faithful though they were not; one who is a firm foundation though they were often indecisive in their certainty. It is the same today. We seek a God who does not grow weary of pursuing us though we often grow weary of pursuing God.

The writer imparts a definition of faith fairly countercultural to modern assumptions of what faith is. Faith in God is more than believing God exists; faith is not mere abstraction, a lifeless notion of preference or insufficient fact. Faith is seeking the God who finds us, which is the detail of utmost importance. The Greek word that is usually translated “seek” in this passage is actually a compound word meaning to “seek out.” The word “seek” (zeteo) here is written ekzeteo. Though most English translations denote the two different words identically, the later is deliberately more intense. The added word re-emphasizes the first so that it is understood with all the force and certainty the author intended. It is not merely “seeking;” it is seeking actively something that will be found. It is the difference between seeking something like happiness or world peace and the seeking of a child who counts to twenty and runs off to find her hiding mother. The child actively seeks even as the parent makes sure she’ll be found.

The careful words of the writer of Hebrews remind us not only that we are able to seek one who can and wants to be found but that we are able to seek one who has found us. We seek the one who came among us, willing that none would be lost. That God is pleased by those who seek the Father’s arms exemplifies his longing to gather his children together, the care with which God seeks each one. Jesus likened it to a hen longing to gather her chicks, a shepherd seeking every last sheep in his flock.

God’s desire to seek you is not abstract, and faith’s seeking of God is no abstraction. Consider the depths of these words: “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.’”(1) Our seeking after the one who can be found might be similarly earnest, believing not only that God exists but that Father, Son, and Spirit have been near all along.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Ezekiel 34:11.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Like Treasure Hidden

October 24, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

A nurse named Melanie was on her way to work when something in the trash bin caught her eye. She was immediately taken with the possibilities in the discarded treasure. It was a cello, slightly cracked in several places, but nonetheless a discard of great character, a piece quite charming to the eye. Her boyfriend, who is a cabinetmaker, also saw the cello’s potential. Together they thought it could be turned into a beautifully distinctive CD holder.

At first glimpse, this story seems to evoke a mantra commonly upon artists’ and antique-hunters’ minds alike: “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” With a mother as an antique dealer, I have an endless bank of similar stories. Yet this one was deemed newsworthy and is thus worth retelling.

The discarded cello was indeed old and it in fact had really been abandoned, though authorities are not sure why or how it ended up in the trash that day. But a most shocking revelation to the nurse (and possibly to the thief as well) was the fact that it was not merely an old, interesting cello. It is a one of only 60 like it in the world, made by master craftsman Antonio Stradivari in 1684. The 320-year-old masterpiece, valued at 3.5 million dollars, was stolen from a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra just weeks before it sat rescued in Melanie’s apartment with dreams of becoming a CD holder.

In the music world, “Stradivarius” is an untouchable description. Neither scientist nor musician understands the difference between the voice of a Stradivarius versus the voice of modern violins and cellos, but the distinction is real—and costly. They are the most sought after musical instruments in the world—works of art in their own right—coveted by collectors and players alike. To be in the presence of a Stradivarius is to be in the presence of something great, regardless of whether it is recognized or not.

Of course, Melanie knew for sure that she had found a treasure (and there are countless people overwhelmed with thanksgiving that she felt this way). She saved a magnum opus from landing in a truck of garbage because she saw the potential in a piece of trash. But she had no idea how true her thought actually was, until reports of the missing cello transfigured the precious masterwork before her eyes.

I wonder if our experiences of God do not sometimes hint at something similar. Like the disciples on the mount who fell on their faces as the Jesus they knew suddenly became “like the sun” and “as white as light,” God can bring us to that place where we are awed by God’s glory, goodness, mystery—or even fearful existence. And like the disciples, like Job and Isaiah and the long history of surprised followers, we can be unexpectedly reminded that we are in the presence of the Father in all his glory, or remarkably present with the Son, or suddenly aware of the Spirit. Yet whether we are aware of it or not, God is always near, God’s glory declared day after day, the work of God’s hands proclaimed night after night.

A poem penned by Augustine of Hippo describes the delight of soul at being surprised by God, even amid the lament of realizing belatedly that God is there. Writes Augustine, “Slow was I, Lord, too slow in loving you. To you, earliest and latest beauty, I was slow in love. You were waiting within me while I went outside me, looking for you there, misshaping myself as I flung myself upon the shapely things you made. You were with me all the while I was not with you, kept from you by things that could not be except by being in you. You were calling to me, shouting, drumming on deaf ears. You thundered and lightninged, piercing my blindness.”(1) His words plead with the ordinary moment to taste and see the bounty of God today, presently, in this very glimpse. There is surely rejoicing in being found at all times, but perhaps, too, lament in not seeing sooner how near God was all along.

Like Melanie who saw beauty but did not grasp the true splendor of all she was holding, like the thief who held a masterpiece but saw fit to discard it, what if we are unaware of how near we are to God and the vicarious humanity of the Son who makes his kingdom in this world of flesh and bone and soul? It is like treasure hidden in a field, taught Jesus, like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Garry Wills, (New York: Penguin, 2006), 234.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Why Suffering?

October 23, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

In one of the first conversations I had on this topic, my aunt Regina told me how difficult it was to see her son Charles—my cousin—struggle with a mental illness. In response, I shared some of my abstract, philosophical ideas about why God might allow suffering.(1) After listening very graciously, Aunt Regina turned to me and said, “But Vince, that doesn’t speak to me as a mother.”

Suffering is very real and very personal, and since that conversation with my aunt I am always hesitant to address it briefly. Here I hope to suggest only that the question is more complicated than it first appears.

It’s typical to think of the problem of suffering like this: We picture ourselves in this world of suffering; then we picture ourselves in a world with far less suffering. And then we wonder, “Shouldn’t God have created us in the other world—the world with far less suffering?” That’s a reasonable thought.

But it may be a thought that relies on a philosophical mistake. It relies on the assumption that it would still be you and me who would exist in that other world. And that is highly controversial. Let me explain.

There was a pivotal moment early on in my parents’ relationship. They were on their second date. They were standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, overlooking the picturesque New York City skyline, and my dad noticed a ring on my mom’s finger. So he asked about it, and she said, “Oh, that’s just some ring one of my old boyfriends gave me. I just wear it ’cause I think it looks nice.”

“Oh, yeah, it is nice,” my dad responded. “Let me see it.”

So my mom took it off and handed it to him, and my dad hurled it off the bridge and watched it sink to the bottom of the East River! “You’re with me now,” he said; “you won’t be needing that anymore.”

And my mom loved it!

Now it was a pretty risky move my dad made hurling my mom’s ring off the Brooklyn Bridge. She loved it, but what if she hadn’t? What if she had concluded that my dad had lost it and then run off with her old boyfriend instead? What would that have meant for me?

I might be tempted to think that if Mom had wound up with her old boyfriend, I could have been better off. I might have been taller. I might have been better looking. Maybe the other guy was royalty. That would have been cool! I could’ve lived in a castle!

But actually, that’s not right. There’s a problem with wishing my mom wound up with the other guy, and the problem is this: “I” never would have existed.

Maybe some other child would have existed. And maybe he would have been taller and better looking and lived in a castle. But part of what makes me who I am—the individual that I am—is my beginning: the parents I have, the sperm and egg I came from, the combination of genes that’s true of me.

Asking “Why didn’t God create me in a world with far less suffering?” is similar to saying, “I wish my mom had married the other guy.” I’m sure my mom and her old boyfriend would have had some very nice kids, but “I” would not have been one of them.

Oftentimes we wish we could take suffering out of our world while keeping everything else the same. But it doesn’t work that way.

Why didn’t God create a very different world? When this world fell into ruin, why didn’t God give up on it and start over? Well, it depends on what God was after. It depends on what God values. And what if one of the things God values, values greatly, is you, and the people you love, and each person you see walking down the street?

Sometimes we wish God had made a different sort of world, but in doing so we unwittingly wish ourselves out of existence. And so the problem of suffering is reframed in the form of a question:

Could God have wronged us by creating a world in which we came to exist and are offered eternal life, rather than creating a different world in which we never would have lived? I don’t think this makes God’s decision to create and sustain this world easy, just as it is not an easy decision for human parents to bring a child into this world. But if human procreation can be an act of love so long as the parents are committed to making sacrifices for their children and to seeing their children through suffering to the best of their ability, then perhaps divine creation too could be an act of love, if a divine parent was willing to make an extraordinary sacrifice for those He created and is committed to seeing them through suffering to a time when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes,” when there will be “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

Vince Vitale is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Oxford, England.

(1) This article is adapted from the forthcoming book Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn’t Make Sense, co-authored with Ravi Zacharias. Vince Vitale wrote his PhD on the problem of suffering. He now teaches at Wycliffe Hall of Oxford University and is Senior Tutor at The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Face of God

October 22, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Above the massive statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington D.C. is the inscription: “In this Temple, as in the hearts of the people, for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.” The seated figure is 19 feet tall, carved from 28 blocks of white marble. To stand in front of the giant sculpture is no doubt to catch a glimpse of the nation’s respect for the man and his important place in American history.

As in many cultures, a statue carved in someone’s image is an honor bestowed upon the one engraved in stone. A portrait painted in someone’s likeness is intended to be a distinguishing tribute to the life captured in color. And yet, in ancient near eastern writ is the repeated warning never to do the same with God. In the ancient words of the Hebrew Bible, the one who would hold our highest esteem, has cautioned against even attempting to make such images because even the best of our imagination will lead us astray. “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:8). Whether in finest metal or costly stone, to create a graven image of God would only reduce this God.

A prayer by C.S. Lewis captures a similar idea in more modern terms, suggesting that not all graven images are of stone and gold. The poem is titled “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer” and is a potent glimpse at what we might call thoughtful idols. Writes Lewis:

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead

Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.

From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,

O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.

Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,

Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

It is not uncommon to hear Christians speak of perpetually finding themselves surprised by again and again with God. Even thoughts of God can easily become idols aligned neatly on theological shelves. Yet God mercifully and repeatedly wakes knowing disciples to new understandings. It is forever surprising for me, for instance, to be reminded that Jesus’s famous words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” were not uttered at angry religious leaders, nor directed at the lost and downtrodden. It can so seem a statement that draws a line in the sand with quickened stroke, separating the faithful from the uninterested, providing infinite comfort to the lost, and infinitely disturbing those who thought themselves found. Certainly, Christ’s words have a way of doing just that. But his potent words that day were spoken not to those who did not know him, but to those who knew him best. And they did not understand.

I wonder if these men and women understood any further, when only days later Jesus’s very life was poured out before them. “I am the way the truth and the life.” Did they remember these words on his lips? Could their minds have gotten around the thought that his life made the way, that the life of vicariously human Son of God poured out for the world is somehow the way to wisdom and life and meaning? Could they understand all that was packed in those words? Can anyone?

We are given minds and imaginations that can freely tread into heavenly matters. The desire to see God seems to be set upon our hearts no matter the culture or creed we are raised with. “Show me your glory,” Moses implored of God. “Show us the Father,” the disciples pled with Jesus. But we cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end anymore than we can fathom God, and for this, God seems to remind us of our limitations. We will be shown the Father; we are shown God’s glory; we are continually given glimpses of a self-revealing God. And yet we are warned not to make any of it into an idol lest we miss God in the midst of it. In a letter to a younger colleague, poet and professor Stanley Wiersma advised, “When you are too sure about God and faith, you are sure of something other than God: of dogma, of the church, of a particular interpretation of the Bible. But God cannot be pigeonholed. We must press toward certainty, but be suspicious when it comes too glibly.”

I believe that God moves us to those places where we discover again that God is fearfully alive, that the human Christ is one of us, that the mere hem of God’s robe fills even our holiest moments. We must repeatedly remind ourselves that even our imaginative limitation is good news: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?”(1)

“Show us the Father” is a hope our hearts were meant to utter, even as we learn to revel in the mystery of the request. It is also a longing God has promised will be answered for cultures and ages past to our own today: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.(2) A God who takes humanity so seriously that he joins us within it, offering us his own humanity as the way, the truth, and the life, will surely not disappoint.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Job 11:7-8.

(2) Isaiah 40:5.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Telling Stories

October 20, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

At once an analogy I appreciate and find troubling, it has been said that life is like entering a very long movie that has already started and then learning that you have to leave it before it ends. As a Christian, it is the story I profess: “My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.”(1) Even so, entering a movie already started and leaving before it ends also means that I could entirely miss the point.

Every time I read St. Augustine’s Confessions I seem to come eerily face to face with myself, and with it, the thought that someone has already told my story—or at least very real parts of it. It is a shock of recognition that suggests an ugly narcissism and makes real the danger of missing the point. In a world where setting oneself apart seems the highest virtue and being “liked” can literally be measured on social medial, seeing yourself in an unoriginal light will either cast a tormenting shadow or offer a freeing vista. In Augustine, as in countless others who have wrestled with God long before me, I’m reminded that I am a small character in a much greater story. I have entered a movie that has already started, and surprisingly, it’s not all about me.

What if there is a vast stage full of lives who have wrestled with questions or struggled with thorns quite similar to your own? Would it be a comforting suggestion that people long before you and long after you may well live with the same sorrow or struggle or doubt? Many have lived aware, often more than we are, of life as it existed before them and time that would march beyond them. Many have lived thinking it a gift to “tell the old, old story” as their own. For they saw with the writer of Ecclesiastes that it is important to realize there is “nothing new under the sun,” lest we miss the sun entirely by focusing only on the shadows we watch it cast. They saw the momentaryness of our lives not as undermining but as dignifying, specifically because there is a permanence to life itself, a story with an end and a beginning.

Jesus once turned to his disciples and said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”(2) The disciples were seeing in the present all that kings and prophets looked for at a distance. Yet even those who walked intimately with Christ were not always aware of all there was to see. Chances are good we are missing him too even as there is a uniqueness to this moment.

If life is like entering a movie that has already started and leaving before it ends, it is important to look both behind us and ahead of us in order to see what is right in front of us. There is only one place in Scripture where God is referred to as the “Ancient of Days” but it significantly comes from one who justifiably could have been overwhelmed by the present. “As I looked,” says Daniel describing a dream, “thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze” (7:9). This one addressing God as sovereign over days long before his own is someone who could have been consumed with the picture of life before him. Jerusalem was in ruins; God’s people were scattered. Daniel could have easily viewed his situation as being stuck somewhere in the middle of a movie he wasn’t happy with, yet he chose to see the difficult scene in which he was living as a part of something bigger. He saw the “Ancient of Days” in the midst of the days he was given.

Having a sense of entering a story that has already started and leaving before it ends is a very different vision than the story that begins and ends with me. The freeing vision that comes from standing beside the vicariously human Christ is one that can look back at lives of faith and God in history, forward at all that God has promised, and presently at all God has placed before us. There is a story and a storyteller, far more creative, far more redemptive, than even our best material.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Psalm 102:11-12.

(2) Luke 10:22-23.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – I Remember

October 17, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

It is startling to consider the amount of information we carry about in our heads. Think simply of all of the numbers you have by memory: phone numbers, birthdays, ID numbers, zip codes, appointment times and dates. Among these many numbers are some so inscribed in your mind with permanent marker that you could not forget the number anymore than you could forget the person or thing they represent. The significance moves well beyond the boldfaced digits themselves—the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the street number of the house you grew up in, the number of times you failed before you finally passed the test.

In the days of Mordecai and Queen Esther the people set themselves to remember the days when they received relief from their enemies, the month that had been turned “from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday.”(1) And so it was determined: “These days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants.” The days were weighted with enough hope to press upon them the need to remember them forever. More importantly, they saw the very certain possibility that they might forget.

I suppose there are moments in our lives when we realize that we are beholding the carving of a day into the great tree of history. On my way to the hospital on the day my son was born I thought about the date and how it was about to be something more. Like any bride or groom or parent I knew from that day forward it would be difficult (and detrimental) to forget this day on the calendar; it would carry the force of forgetting so much more. Like the number itself, my remembering is more than a recollection of detail; it is the recollection of a person.

With a similar sense of anticipation, God told the Israelites that they would remember the night of Passover before the night even happened. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast” (Exodus 12:14). Moses and Aaron were given instructions to tell the whole community of Israel to choose a lamb without defect, slaughtering it at twilight. Then they were to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts of the houses. “The blood will be a sign,” the LORD declared. “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike the firstborns of Egypt.”

The significance of remembering is a theme carried throughout all of Scripture. It is not about static facts or rules or figures, but the mystery of a place, the significance of a person, the marking of lives. Celebrating the Passover was built into the story of Israel. The command to remember was passed down from generation to generation. But they were remembering more than the mere events of their ancestor’s exodus from Egypt; they were remembering God as God showed up and changed them—the faithful hand that moved among them, the mighty acts which exclaim a Father’s untiring remembering of his people.

As the disciples sat around the table celebrating their third Passover meal with Jesus, an observance they kept before they could walk, everything probably looked ceremoniously familiar. The smell of lamb filled the upper room; the unleavened bread was prepared and waiting to be broken. Remembering again the acts of God in Egypt, the blood on the doorposts, the lives spared and brought out of slavery, they looked at their teacher as he lifted the bread from the table and gave thanks to God. Then Jesus broke the bread, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

I have always wished that Luke would have described a little more of the scene that followed. Were the disciples hushed and confused? Did their years of envisioning the blood-marked doorposts cry out at the Lamb of God before them? They had spent their entire lives remembering the sovereignty of God in the events of the Passover, and then Jesus tells them that there is yet more to see in this day on the calendar: In this broken bread is the reflection of me. On this day, God is engraving across history the promise of Passover: I still remember you. I still seek you.

I imagine from that day forward the disciples knew it would be difficult to forget that day on the calendar. It is not that different for us today either. Forgetting what was witnessed in the upper room on that Passover carries the force of forgetting so much more.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Do You Believe This?

October 16, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).

I recently shared these words of Jesus with the father of my oldest friend.(1) Chris’s father, Joe, was suffering from a brain tumor, and the doctors had given him only weeks left to live.

When I walked in to see Joe, I didn’t know if he would want to talk about his approaching death. Joe had always been strong and capable. He had a voice so deep that no matter what he was speaking about, it resounded with confidence and authority, leaving little room for vulnerability.

But as soon as Joe saw me he said, “Hey Vince. Good, I’m glad you’re here. I told Chris I wanted to talk to you.” Joe went on to tell me that although he had always been confident that God exists in some way, he was finding himself increasingly scared about what comes next.

As we spoke, what became clear to me was that Joe’s understanding of the central message of Christianity was that you should try to do more good than bad in your life, and then just hope that in the end your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds. If they do, something wonderful awaits. But if they don’t, you’re in trouble. And as Joe reflected back over his life, he recognized that if that was the case, then he had reason to fear.

Never was I so incredibly thankful to be sitting before someone as a Christian. As an atheist, I would have had to say there is no hope beyond the grave. If I adhered to almost any other religion, I would have had to tell Joe that he was basically right, and did have reason to fear what was next.

But as a Christian I was able to explain to Joe that while Christianity does say that God wants us to do good, that is not what makes us right with God. I was able to share with him that the message of Christianity is that what makes us right with God is not about anything we do or ever could do, but rather about what Jesus has already done—once, and in full, and for all. I explained that if we trust in Jesus, we no longer need to fear judgment, because when he died Jesus took the judgment for everything we have ever done or will ever do wrong. And we no longer need to fear suffering, or shame, or even death, because Jesus has joined us in all of it, and invited us beyond it.

I explained this at length, and when I asked Joe if this made sense, he responded—in classic New Jersey fashion—”That’s a hell of a realization.” Emphatically he said it again, and then continued, “Sixty-nine years and I never thought of that. I thought Christianity was one thing, but it was something else entirely.” There was an extended pause, and then Joe said, “You know, Vince, you spend your whole life trying to make up for your [mess] ups, but this finally explains how we can deal with guilt.”

I asked Joe if he wanted to pray with me to accept this gift from God. He said he did, and with great conviction he thrust out his arm to me. We clasped hands, and we wept, and we prayed, and as we finished praying he exclaimed a loud “Amen.”

Joe asked me if my wife Jo knows this great truth about Christianity as well. I said that she does, and he said, “It must be a happy life.” And then, after a thoughtful pause, “Now I’m actually looking forward to what’s next.”

When Joe’s family saw him the next day and asked how he was, for the first time in a long time he responded, “Wonderful.” The transformation in him was so visible that his family called me immediately and wanted to know every word that I had shared with him.

Life after death, on its own, does not bring hope. Forgiveness brings hope. And I believe, because I was there to see it, that forgiveness, and therefore hope, can be found with a simple heartfelt prayer.

Vince Vitale is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Oxford, England.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Half-Hearted

October 15, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

I am notorious for reading sentences—sometimes entire pages—before realizing that that my mind is simply elsewhere. With my eyes moving along the paragraphs, taking in the ordered sentences, it is as if my mind pronounces each word into a room with no vacancy. I am reading in a way that can’t even be called half-hearted. Evidently, the practical spirit of multitasking isn’t always practical. Mentally outlining my to-do list while reading Tolstoy isn’t reading Tolstoy. Hearing the words, I have heard nothing. I walk away from the paragraphs as if never seeing the sentences at all.

So it is distinctly possible, as Jesus once stated, to see without seeing, and to hear without hearing. I do it often, and not only with Tolstoy.

Like all communication, there are degrees to which we hear the stories of Scripture, the words or stories of Jesus. There are levels of interest, concentration, and understanding. Like all metaphors there are levels in seeing, layers to uncover, depths that call for attentiveness. Jesus’s parables and descriptions of reality ring in ears on many wavelengths. We can hear them as moral fables, abstract stories, truthful similes and images, great and awful mysteries at which we do well to pay attention, words we must try our hardest to ignore. Like the Pharisees who fumed as Jesus told the parable of the tenants, we might even recognize ourselves in the storyline. It is how we react to these mirrored images that are of significance.

What does it take to look into a mirror and walk away as if completely forgetting what you have seen? I suspect, as with my less than half-hearted reading, not much. When the Pharisees saw themselves in the words of Jesus’s parable, they were furious. Wholeheartedly, they began scheming a strategy to silence him. Ironically, they were plotting to do exactly what the parable said they would do.

Christianity describes the world with a wealth of detail. But it is more than a system whereby we believe certain information and thus call ourselves Christians or otherwise. What Jesus presents is a transforming way; it is intended to be life itself. If we merely hear God’s words, or half-see reflections of truth, we actually miss everything. Such a response cannot even be called half-hearted. Like the pages I have read mindlessly—lifelessly—in seeing we have seen nothing, hearing we have heard nothing. As one writer describes this common self-deception, “[I]f any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like” (James 1:22-24).

As when the Pharisees saw themselves in Jesus’s words, so our own reflections wait to be really noticed in his words. A response is inescapable; we will hear and live into a new story, or we will walk away as if never hearing.

Upon Jesus’s telling of the parable of the tenants, his hearers walked away from the mirror holding only vacant memories. Though they saw themselves in the story, they walked away from the reflection only to fully embody it.

In seeing will we see? In hearing will we hear? The kingdom Jesus describes is one that beckons all of our senses.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Upside Down, Inside Out

October 14, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Every society has insiders and outsiders. Groups of people or individuals are defined by a particular characteristic, belief, ethnicity, or behavior marking them as winners and losers. If one was a Jew in Nazi Germany, for example, she was an “outsider” and branded as such by a yellow Star of David sewn into her garments. If one was a Tutsi in Rwanda in the 90s, he would be forced to use an ID card which specified his ethnic group. In addition, his skin color was a general physical trait that was typically used to designate him an ethnic “outsider.”

But just who is inside and who is outside in particular cultures is often a matter of perspective. The Amish community intentionally lives as “outsiders” as a witness to the larger, secular culture. Being outsiders is their chosen identity. In the community in which I live, tattoos and multiple piercings define one as an outsider in the button-down-shirt-world of suits and ties, while at the same time identifying one an insider of this subculture that uses body art as a means to set one apart from the rest of society. It seems that the boundaries around who is in and who is out shift and change with the whims of culture and fashion.

Jesus, as presented in the gospel accounts of his life, often blurred the lines between who was inside and who was outside. Indeed, he often suggested in his teaching ministry that those deemed on the outside of his society were actually on the inside. In his “outside-in” perspective, the first would be last, and the last first. Rejecting the rules that kept the poor, the broken, the sick, or the disabled person firmly on the outside, Jesus instead opened-wide his arms and extended the reach of his hospitality far beyond what would have been acceptable in his day.

Yet standing in stark contrast with Jesus’s welcoming reputation is an encounter with an unnamed Syrophoenician woman. According to Mark’s gospel, Jesus is passing through the predominantly Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon when this unnamed, Gentile woman approaches him to ask for healing for her demon-possessed daughter. As a Jewish male, he is an outsider in this Gentile region. Yet, he speaks to her as a Jewish insider. “It is not good to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.”(1) In Matthew’s account of this story, this woman’s outsider status is highlighted in even stronger terms. She is a Canaanite woman—a member of the people group Israel was commanded to expel from the land thousands of years earlier.

We who are more familiar with a loving, welcoming Jesus are jarred by his seemingly cruel response. Matthew tells us that the woman was pleading with Jesus to help her, yet “he did not answer her a word.”(2) Is this the same man? How is it that Jesus could ignore her cries for help?

Remarkably, the woman is not deterred by this familiarly abrupt response from an insider. In league with the great negotiators of old—Abraham, who bargained with God over the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; Moses, who bargained with God over destroying the people in the wilderness; and King Hezekiah who bargained for more years to his life—she very cleverly argues: “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Both Matthew and Mark highlight Jesus’s delight at her faithful response. In Mark, Jesus is impressed simply by what she has said; “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” In Matthew, Jesus acknowledges her faith; “O woman, great is your faith!”

A casual reader may not realize the boldness and courage of this outsider, and the gift of Jesus in giving her a public voice. A Gentile woman alone with a daughter did not hold a good position in first century society. As a Gentile and a woman, she was an ethnic alien invisible to the society, greatly amplified since she was without a man to represent her in the public realm. Yet, this woman stepped beyond the prescribed boundaries to seek out Jesus for the sake of her daughter whom she valued, and Jesus praises her publically for it.

This story of the Syrophoenician woman demonstrates that God’s promise to Abraham overflows to the outside. The Syrophoenician woman understands this better than some in Jesus’s own circles and he gives her the opportunity to educate them: There is an overflow of blessing to one such as me, and it does not involve taking away the portion allotted to the insiders. As Peter declares in his own encounter with the Gentile Cornelius, “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.”(3)

Beyond this ancient story, we who sometimes feel ourselves as outsiders can take heart. For here, this outsider of outsiders is the recipient of healing. Jesus brings the outsider inside, he gives the least a voice, he makes blessing overflow. And that is very good news.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) See the full story in Mark 7:24-30. Matthew’s Gospel also records this event. Cf. Matthew 15:21-28.

(2) Matthew 15:23.

(3) Acts 10:34-35.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Digging Out the Words

October 13, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

For the past decade, doctors and psychologists have been taking notice of the health benefits of reflective writing. They note that wrestling with words to put your deepest thoughts into writing can lift your mind from depression, uncover wisdom within your experiences, provide insight and foster self-awareness. From autobiography to blogging, writers similarly laud the benefits of writing. Whether publically, anonymously, or privately, confessional writing can free the writer “to explore the depths of the emotional junkyard,” as one describes. In my own experience, writing has no doubt been a helpful way to sift through the junkyard, though perhaps most effectively when reflecting and not merely reveling in the messes.

Writing is helpful because the eye of a writer seeks the transcendent—a moment where the extraordinary is beheld in the ordinary, a glimpse of clarity within the chaos, beauty in a world of contrasts. When Jesus stooped over the crumbled girl at his feet and wrote something in the sand, the written word spoke more powerfully than the anger of the Pharisees and well beyond any sin of the young woman. For those of us looking on through story, his words remain unknown but no less powerful. Writing is a tool with which we learn to see ourselves more clearly, a catalyst for which we can learn to see thankfully beyond ourselves.

In the C.S. Lewis novel, Til We Have Faces, the main character, Orual, has taken mental notes throughout her life, carefully building what she refers to as her “case” against the gods. Finally choosing to put her case in writing, she describes each instance where she feels she has been grievously wronged. It is only after Orual has finished writing that she soberly recognizes her great mistake. To have heard herself making the complaint was to be answered. She now sees the importance of uttering the speech at the center of one’s soul and profoundly observes that the gods used her own pen to probe the wounds. With sharpened insight Orual explains, “Til the words can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face til we have faces?”(1)

There is something about writing that can introduce us to ourselves and to the image of another—both outside and within us. Daring to utter the words at the center of our souls we may find the words leading us to truer selves. What if God could use your own pen to probe the wounds of your life? In the intimate descriptions of life recorded in the Psalms, the writers of the Psalms express loneliness, joy, even frustration with God. “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness?”(2) Yet the psalmists seem to walk away from their words, not with tidied moralisms or regret and recanting, but with a clearer sense of what they meant and the one who helped them see. And, I would add, their words have been a source of encouragement to countless lives, pointing many to wisdom, to beauty and depth, to a God enthroned on high.

As Jesus stood with the girl at his feet in the middle of a group armed with power and hatred, the one who called forth creation and worked the heavens with his fingers, crouched down in the sand and with his human finger changed a life. This Word of God in human flesh may well be the gift that moves in our own.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Orlando: Harcourt, 1980), 294.

(2) Psalm 30:9.

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Ravi Zacharias Ministry – On Blessing

October 10, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Prolific author F.W. Boreham was once described as a man who went about his life “scattering benedictions.” The description colorfully puts an image of the beloved minister in mind.

For some, the word “benediction” signals the end of a church service, the parting words of a priest or pastor with lifted hands sending forth the congregation in the grace and love of Jesus Christ. The word comes from two Latin words meaning literally “good speaking” and is most often translated “blessing.” In the theological sense, benediction is the act or pronouncement of divine blessing upon another person.

To pronounce a person or group of people blessed was in fact given as a commandment to Aaron and his sons, the tribe chosen to serve as priests among the Israelites. The book of Numbers recounts that God spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace’” (6:22-26). It is a beautiful remark, blessing as much as it teaches. The hearer is lifted in the name of the Lord, the keeper of creation, the giver of peace, the one who longs to bless us so much that it was given as a command. As parents look at a child and delight to find a smile they recognize, so God’s face is lifted in kind to those made in God’s own image, shining upon those God has called the “apple of his eye.” The gift of God’s name is a great blessing, and giving it to us, God is glorified.

Herein lies the potency of benediction. At the end of God’s instructions for the Aaronic blessing, God adds distinctly, “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” (v. 27). Whereas doxology is ascribing praise to God, and prayer is conversation with God, a benediction is a word of blessing on behalf of God. The former rise from the heart of the saint, the other overflows from the heart of God. As author Samuel Chadwick writes, “[T]he benediction does not approach the subject from the standpoint of theology but of experience. It is not concerned with definition, nor does it contemplate the glory of God in the absoluteness of his deity.” Rather, notes Chadwick, it sets God forth as God is realized in the soul.

Scattering benedictions, it seems then, is a high calling. And I would add, it is a mysterious gift given to all made in God’s image. The putting of God’s name upon another person as we go about life is our tongue’s greatest utterance. It is a hopeful command, a most uplifted effort. As God’s name is set forth, not only is it God who does the blessing, it is God who is the fulfillment of the words we offer. God is the blessing.

So may the blessing of the LORD be upon you, and may you know the joy of putting the name of God upon others. For indeed, whether hiding or curious or seeking in earnest, blessed are those who rest in the light of the face of God.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ravi Zacharias

October 9, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

In the first chapter of John a theme begins which John will carry throughout his entire testimony. We read, “The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and he said, ‘Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’” What John is saying here and will say again and again is “Look! Look at Jesus.” In fact, he goes on to use this word fifteen times in his gospel. In the King James Version, it is translated emphatically, “Behold!” Interwoven throughout his stories of the life of Jesus, John repeatedly seems to stop and point his finger to make sure we hearers are getting it: “Look at this. Look at Jesus. This is astonishing. This is amazing. This is mind-blowing. Will you behold?” It is an appropriate question to hold before us as we take in the events of Easter: What are you looking at?

In one of my favorite hymns, Charles Wesley writes in his final verse, “Happy, if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name, preach him to all and cry in death, ‘Behold, behold the lamb.’” An account of Charles Wesley’s death tells us that that is exactly what happened. As he lay dying, he said those words, ‘Behold the lamb,’ and then went to be with the Lord. What is it that you are beholding? John wants to make sure we heed the call to look at Jesus.

In his gospel, John then goes on to give us several signs that tell us something of who and what this Jesus really is. Out of the many miracles that Jesus performed in his ministry, John deliberately chooses seven in order to give us a very particular perspective. The first miracle he recounts is the miracle at the wedding in Cana where Jesus takes ceremonial washing jars filled with water and astonishingly turns the water the red. Choosing this miracle, John shows us a sign of what Jesus has come to do. He has come to wash us, to give his red blood as a gift that we might be purified. John wants us to behold Jesus as the one who comes to bring atonement.

In the second and third miracles John offers are the signs of miraculous healing. In chapter 4, Jesus heals the son of a man in the royal household of Herod. As this man’s son lay dying miles away at home, he begs Jesus to heal him. And right there, Jesus pronounces the words, “Your son will live.” In chapter 5, Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda, literally “the house of mercy,” where the man had come for years hoping for healing but could never attain it on his own. Into this man’s despair Jesus comes and simply tells him, “Pick up your mat and walk.” In both of these miracles, we find the healing Jesus offers reaching far beyond the private corners of faith and into the very public realms of reality.

In the fourth miracle John chooses, we are shown a picture of the abundance in the very person of Christ. In John chapter 6, Jesus feeds a crowd of five thousand by dramatically multiplying the loaves and fish. We are left with a picture of mind-blowing abundance, the Son of God demonstrating the fullness of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Also in chapter 6, the fifth miracle shows Jesus walking on water in the midst of a storm. The disciples are terrified, but Jesus gives them an extraordinary look at his authority, not only over the elements, but over all that would cause fear. Here, he says to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

In the sixth and seventh miracles John offers, we are given even further reason to thoroughly behold the person of Christ. In chapter 9, Jesus heals a man born blind and we literally see darkness illuminated by the Son of God. Here, John gives us another sign of what Jesus has come to do. Christ has come into a dark and broken and needy world, and he is the light of the world who shines in the darkness. Finally, in the seventh miracle, John gives us a picture of all that is to come in Christ. In the raising of Lazarus, Jesus demonstrates his authority over death itself. It is a sign of his impending resurrection, a sign of the resurrection to come.

Thus the question remains: Will you behold the lamb of God? John wants to make sure we see clearly the one who brings atonement, who shows mercy, who brings healing, who has authority, the one who tells us not to fear, the one who is abundant, the one who illuminates a darkened world and literally opens the eyes of the blind, the one who has power even over death itself. It is Christ. It is this Jesus who we do well to be looking at. Will you behold?

Amy Orr-Ewing is director of programmes for the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and UK director for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Oxford, England.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Benediction

October 8, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

With outstretched arms, Aaron blessed the people of Israel, putting the name of the Lord upon the people: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”(1)

These were instructions from God, who told Moses to tell Aaron to bless the people of Israel. “Benediction,” as it is now called, was to be an act of worship, a response of obedience to God’s instruction given to the priestly line. As a priest, Aaron was set apart. He and his descendants were forever “to consecrate the most holy things, to offer sacrifices before the LORD, to minister before him and to pronounce blessings in his name forever.”(2) The Aaronic benediction was a command, given in order that God’s name be placed upon God’s people.

So Aaron spoke the benediction over a people frustrated and wandering, and his words reached beyond him. Today the church continues to believe that there are moments often unknown to us with which God does the same. Like a river whose source does not know the far places it reaches, God’s name moves before the world; we don’t always know where it has come or where it is going. Yet we know that God’s hand is not too short to save. In the desert or on the mountaintop, God’s blessing reaches those who will receive and be filled. It is this God “who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land.”(3)

Aaron’s blessings on behalf of God were both heard by the people and honored by God. And this duty, done in obedience, acting in worship, was passed down amongst the descendents of Aaron. Under oath, the priestly line vowed to keep the covenant of God before his people and the hope of God’s saving name upon them. Of course, the vow of people is prone to breaking and the service of the priest short-lived, but the presence and touch of God moves even closer than Aaron imagined.

The writer of Hebrews expounds, “Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”(4) Through Christ, a better hope was introduced, by which the Holy Spirit moves the world that we can draw near to God. For as it is written, “Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” Whereas the Aaronic blessing was intermittent, Christ’s blessing is continual.

It is significant here to note Luke’s retelling of the last hours with Jesus on earth, for Christ’s departure is marked with the gesture his life epitomized. Luke writes of Jesus, “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.”(5) Near the place where he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father where he remains High Priest forever. Before he left, pointedly, he offered the benediction. Hands and arms that days before were outstretched upon the Cross were lifted once more to bless the world.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Numbers 6:22-26.

(2) 1 Chronicles 23:13.

(3) Amos 5:8.

(4) Hebrews 7:23-25.

(5) Luke 24:0-53.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Solidarity and Survival

October 7, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

In 1943, two hundred and thirty women were arrested as members of the French Resistance and sent to Birkenau. Only 49 survived, but this in itself is remarkable. These women were as diverse a group as could be imagined. They were Jews and Christians, aristocrats and working class, young and old. Yet they were united by their commitment to the French Resistance and to one another.(1) In her book A Train in Winter, Caroline Moorhead reconstructs the story of these women through the journals and memoirs of survivors. Noting the mutual dependence that made the difference between living and dying, Moorhead highlights how the solidarity of these women to one another and to their mutual survival sustained them through unspeakable horror and torture.

In many accounts of Holocaust survivors, the hellish conditions of extreme deprivation and torture drove many to hoard whatever meager resources they could save for themselves. And how could they be blamed? Survival became the only goal—no matter what the cost, even to others. Yet, in most of the cases with these French women in Birkenau, their solidarity toward each other trumped the selfishness that engulfed so many others. As Moorhead writes, “Knowing that the fate of each depended on the others…egotism seemed to vanish and that, stripped back to the bare edge of survival, each rose to behavior few would have believed themselves capable of.”(2) Moorhead recounts that when unrelieved thirst threatened to engulf one of their members in utter madness, the women pooled together their own meager rations to get her a whole bucket of water.

Altruism of this magnitude is seldom seen. Putting one’s own needs first is as natural as breathing, and just as unconscious. Yet adversity sometimes coaxes out the best and the most beautiful in human beings.

In the ancient biblical account of Ruth, three women are left widows, and one, Naomi, has lost her sons as well. Bereft of their economic and financial support, the women instinctively stay together even as Naomi insists they return to their homeland of Moab, where the prospect of finding a husband would be more likely. But the women insist on staying. “No, we will surely return with you to your people.”

We moderns miss the significance of this solidarity. In staying with Naomi, the women would forfeit any sense of security. In the ancient Near East, husbands and sons secured a woman’s total wellbeing. Without husband or male heir, women were left to fend for themselves, often forced into prostitution to earn a living. They would not only depend on one another, but would be cast upon the mercy of another land and another people as strangers.

Naomi understands the risks as she laments, “Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.” One daughter in law, Orpah, finally relents, and after weeping with Ruth and Naomi, returns to her homeland of Moab. But Ruth will not leave. “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.”(3) Ruth aligns herself with Naomi—her welfare is Ruth’s welfare—no matter what the cost.

The ancient Hebrew law enforced the care of widows and orphans by the larger community as a sign of solidarity to the weakest and the most vulnerable members and to provide for the most desiccated and desperate among them—just as the women at Birkenau pooled their water rations for the sake of the one who needed it most. Ruth, as a Moabite, was bound by no such law and yet she sees her allegiance to Naomi, nevertheless. Their shared adversity, their shared identity as widows, bound them together and brought about something beautiful.

Ruth wouldn’t ever see how this exceptional act of solidarity would save—not only Naomi—but the people of Israel. She would become the great, great grandmother of King David. Indeed, one would come from David who would also demonstrate solidarity with humanity. So great was his act of altruistic sacrifice that he would “empty himself, taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” This one, would “humble himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”(4)

The women of the French Resistance provide a contemporary model of what Ruth demonstrated in ages past, an altruistic solidarity to one another in order to ensure survival. Christian faith tells of the solidarity of God with humanity. This God chose to cast the lot by becoming one of us, walking among us, even sharing the horror of human death with us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…solidarity in order to bring life.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) Caroline Weber, “Sisters Unto Death,” New York Times Book Review, November 13, 2011, reviewing A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Cf. Ruth 1:6-22.

(4) Philippians 2:5-8.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Who Is He?

October 3, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

It would be hard to underestimate the significance of Jesus. No other person has had a greater historical impact. Even those who aren’t Christians acknowledge this: Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet. Hindus consider him a holy teacher. Even many atheists are very willing to say they admire Jesus; for example, Christopher Hitchens once said he respects “the virtue of his teachings.”

Yet a common skeptical remark you hear is that we can’t really know anything about who Jesus actually was. He was probably a great guy, but the early Christians invented so many stories about him that we have no way of separating what’s true in the Bible from what’s false. Most skeptics don’t realize, however, that academic historians take Jesus very seriously. We’re talking historians, not theologians; not least, because we have so many historical sources for Jesus. Many people don’t realize the New Testament is a collection of books, for example, and represents multiple sources about Jesus. Many are very early—for example, Paul’s letters date to the 40s and 50s AD and some of the material he quotes is dated even earlier, to within months of Jesus’s death.

Literary studies of the gospels have also shown that their authors were intentionally setting out to write biography—not fiction or hagiography. Where we can test them against archaeology or other historians of the period, they’re shown to be reliable. Thus, historians take Jesus seriously. No credentialed academic historian in a university ancient history department would suggest that Jesus never existed, for instance. Throw out Jesus and you would have to throw out a wealth of other historical figures for whom less evidence exists, such as Julius Caesar.

In recent decades, there has been a renewed interest in the study of the “historical Jesus,” by which we mean what we can say about Jesus using the methods and tools of the historian. There are a wide number of facts upon which historians agree. To list just a few, it is generally agreed that Jesus was raised in Nazareth. That he was baptized by John. That he had twelve disciples. That he had a reputation as a healer and miracle worker. That he taught in parables and stories. That he clashed with the religious authorities of his day. That he spent time with social outcasts. That he had an extremely high view of his own identity and his relationship to God. That at the end of his ministry he rode into Jerusalem, was hailed by many as the Messiah, performed some kind of prophetic action in the Temple for which he was arrested, tried, and executed.

It’s simply not the case, in other words, that Jesus’s life was invented decades after his death by well meaning Christians. And that means we are forced to take the life of Jesus very seriously—at the very least, we need to read the gospels as we would other ancient literature and weigh them accordingly.

And that brings us face to face with Jesus himself: a Jesus who made astonishing claims about himself. C S Lewis once famously said that Jesus left us only three options. Either he was mad—utterly insane. Or he was bad—a cynical liar. Or else Jesus was who he claimed to be. Whilst this threefold choice may slightly over simplify things, the broad thrust is right. Jesus forces all of us to answer the same question he asked Peter in the Gospels: “Who do you say I am?” One thing is certain: Jesus has left a powerful footprint on history, too great to ignore. “Who do you say that I am?” The answer each of us gives to that question matters profoundly.

Andy Bannister is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

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