Category: Evil

It’s Not Your Fault

What is the cause of your suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife and I are part of a group for Christians with Borderline Personality Disorder on Facebook. She has the condition. I don’t, but I am in there to be supportive. Yesterday, I saw a post by someone saying that they were being condemned by their church for having Borderline. They were supposedly making their Borderline an idol and they don’t have enough faith and they need to pray and read Scripture more and similar things. Naturally, if they truly had faith also, they would be healed.

Let’s be clear with some things at the start. We could all bear to pray more and read the Bible more. It also doesn’t hurt to examine ourselves and look for sinfulness in our own lives to work on.

Also, there are times where suffering is your own fault. If you drink alcohol and get in an accident because you were driving drunk, that is your fault. If you smoke all your life and get lung cancer, that is your fault. If you overeat and suffer the effects of obesity, that is your fault.

Yet some things you are born with or born with a predisposition to that are not your fault. A mental illness can be one of those things. While I am sure this is sometimes said to people with diabetes or people in wheelchairs, I am sure it is less often than it is for cases of mental illness, something the church just doesn’t really deal well with.

Mental illness has a stigma around it such that it is even thought to be connected with demonic activity. I do not doubt demons can influence us, but they cannot possess and control us and it’s too easy to blame our problems on a demon instead of realizing it could be something with us. If you have a mental illness, that is not your fault. What you do with the condition is your fault. I have Aspergers. I cannot control that. It is hard to look someone in the eye when I am talking to them, but that is something that I must actively work on.

In the same way, people with Borderline have powerful emotions that seem gripping and controlling. Can they be controlled? Yes. Is that easy? No. It can often require a combination of medication and therapy. It’s the same way with a phobia. One doesn’t just sit down and will through a phobia naturally. It takes concentrated work and effort to overcome it. I am terrified of water and when I get in a swimming pool, it takes a concentrated effort to move where I need to move. It is not bulldozed over.

The church doesn’t help with this when the church demands instant cures. Now, can an instant cure happen? Sure. God can do it if He wants to. I know people who come to Jesus who have addictions like alcohol and drugs and when they convert, they lose their addictions. That can happen. Sometimes, it does not happen. It is foolish and cruel to say the reason someone is suffering is that they don’t have enough faith.

It’s also just bad theology. Sometimes we do suffer for our own sins, as I said. Sometimes we suffer for the sins of others. Sometimes we suffer because this is a fallen world. It is a foolish person who thinks without divine revelation that he can tell you why a certain kind of suffering is taking place like that. We must be very careful whenever we make any sort of claim to speak for God.

What the sufferers often need most is not someone to fix their problems. We should have people who are ready to be good therapists and counselors and work with them, but if you’re not that, don’t try to be one. Here’s something you can be. You can be a listener. You can be a friend.

Try this for the person with mental illness that you know. Pick up a phone and call them. Send them a message on Facebook. Go to their place and visit them. Take them out to eat sometime. Show the other person you’re glad to have them around. Do not do anything to them that indicates that they are a bother. If you think having to deal with someone like that is a bother, it speaks more about you than it does about them.

Many people like this can struggle with thoughts of depression and suicide. How does it help someone like that to pile on to them? Don’t also tell them they’re being selfish or self-centered. In the moment, that is not helpful to them. It only gives them more reason to be depressed and/or suicidal.

Overall, be Jesus to these people. Jesus never turned away people who were truly suffering and in need. He always had the greatest of love for sinners. The people who thought they were alright were the people He had the most problems with. If people don’t think Jesus will accept them, maybe it’s because they’ve met too many people who claim to represent Jesus who haven’t.

I look forward to the day when the church treats mental illness in much the same way they treat physical illness. Of course, some churches are still horrible there, but I think it often gets worse for mental illness. Come alongside those who are suffering. Be a friend and confidant and really listen to them. If you reach out to someone you know with a condition, you never know how much hope that might give them.

You’ll truly be being Jesus to them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Stranger Things And Christianity

Does Stranger Things have anything to teach us about the world we live in?

(Possible spoilers in the post and comments)

My wife is a major fan of the Netflix series Stranger Things. We had to use a free trial this time around to watch the season that came out on Independence Day, but we did watch it and we weren’t disappointed. Season 2 had honestly been a let down to us. Season 3 made up for it.

Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser has a book coming out in October about Christianity and Stranger Things. One of the things I think that will be in that book based on the description is the openness of the world of the show to what we would call the paranormal. In this world, you have a number of science nerds who come together and fight a being from another side of reality.

If you don’t know, the series takes place in the 80’s and involves a group of boys that somehow have one of their members get trapped in a world called the Upside-Down where strange creatures live that are starting to make a move onto our world. The boys have to work together normally with their siblings and select adults in the community. They also work with one character who essentially has super powers such as telekinesis and a sort of projection of themselves into other places.

I do like the show being set in the 80’s since I was born in 1980 and grew up in that time. It’s also good to know the heroes at the start are a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons nerds who find themselves going on a real adventure against a real monster. There are also other aspects that I think are interesting.

A few years ago, I wrote a post on Final Fantasy XV here. In it, I talked about how some heroes go about saving the world they live in while many people are living their lives oblivious to what is going on. The same happens in Stranger Things. There is one difference in the people who do come together to confront the evil.

In the seasons, normally, you see different story arcs taking place. They seem unrelated at first, but in the end, everything comes together. There is normally one final confrontation with the evil and of course, the good guys win. Keep in mind also that in many ways, most of these are ordinary people. They don’t dream of doing anything super heroic, but when the time comes, they fight and win.

It’s also people from all walks and ages. You have at first the younger children who are now just really entering puberty. Their older siblings also eventually get involved. The parents also play a part in what happens, and then various people in the community. About the only one who might expect to do something heroic in the party is the police chief.

Aside from the one superpowered character who goes by the name Eleven, there is nothing specifically amazing about these characters. Despite that, they are not stopped whether it be facing Russian spies or Upside Down monsters. They all do what they have to do because evil has to be stopped.

There is certainly a reason this is a hit series and I look forward to Heiser’s book coming out. Until then, perhaps like was discussed with Final Fantasy XV, we should consider we have been put on this Earth also to help deal with evil here as well and we don’t have to have super powers to do it. Everyone of us has a role we can play.

Play yours.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Evil Of Sex Trafficking

What harm can visiting that porn site do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, my wife and I watched an Indian movie with subtitles called Shivaay about a man going against the sex trafficking industry. It was fictional, but something made along the lines of Taken. Pretty much, you have a one-man wrecking crew going against a sex trafficking industry when his daughter gets kidnapped.

Most of us I hope would never ever want to participate in sex trafficking. While young boys can be the victims, more often than not, I suspect it’s females. After all, sex sells and usually men are in the market to buy. In these cases, young women are ripped away from their safe environments, even here in America, and find themselves in an industry where they are only valued for their bodies.

One such business they can be in is the porn business.

Now I am not saying that everyone who works in the porn industry, even the “performers” are there because they were kidnapped in the sex trafficking industry. However, we don’t know on the outside who was and wasn’t brought into it that way. Statements can be made, but we all know businesses can lie as well.

Readers know I have enough problems with the porn industry as I think it takes something good and beautiful and holy like sex and cheapens it. Many of us married men do indeed value the sex we have with our wives, but we value them for much more than that. If you are a man or a woman one day planning to marry, I recommend you obliterate any porn from your life now. Heck. Even if you’re not planning to, I recommend you do it, because the use of porn will make it easier for you to think of men and women as sex objects only or at least primarily.

When that woman is before that camera, that is someone’s daughter up there. Always remember that. That is a person who is beautiful and special in her own right regardless of what she does or doesn’t do with her body. She is also not just a body. She is a person created in the image of God.

As said at the start, most of us won’t get involved in the sex trafficking industry, but some do or else it wouldn’t be going on today. Many more do get involved in the porn industry. That could be unknowingly leading to the support of the sex trafficking industry. I hope that most who are viewing porn would at least oppose sex trafficking and be willing to give it up at least for that reason.

Please also watch the young people around you. If you suspect someone you know is caught in the industry, get some help from some professionals out there. Every life is precious and no one deserves to be used this way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Makes Grace So Amazing?

Why do we call it amazing grace? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We really don’t understand grace. For many of us, there has to be a catch. No one can be like that. It gets to be a real problem when we talk about whether grace is deserved.

Earlier this week, I wrote an article on this kind of topic. Many of us I think fear being taken advantage of. We fear being in someone else’s debt. We fear having the floor pulled out from under us when we dare give someone else our trust.

In a thread discussing the article I wrote earlier, someone talked about God giving more grace than we deserve. That’s actually a contradiction. If you deserved any of it, it would not be grace. Go to work and do your job and if your employer pays you, you don’t consider that an example of unmerited favor. You gave of yourself, He gives back to you.

Grace is never deserved. Grace is never earned. That’s a contradiction in terms. We really don’t get this today. When it comes to love, we often put so many conditions on it. The wife and husband can say “I love you” but often thought to be secretly implied in that is “Provided you keep doing XYZ or you avoid doing XYZ.” They way the love is expressed can change, but the love should still be there. (This is of course, excepting serious cases like infidelity and abuse. With the former, love can still be there for restoration and with the latter, that is still true, but one must have serious work done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.)

What I have found as a secret to doing this in my own personal walk is to remember the love that I have been shown. God has forgiven me and anything I have done to Him is far worse than anything my fellow man could ever do to me or, dare I say it, anything I could ever do to them. Should I not give that same kind of love and forgiveness? If I do not, am I not being just like the unmerciful servant in the parable of Jesus? If I really believe I have been forgiven of divine treason against God, essentially wishing He was dead so I could sit on the throne, then should I not show forgiveness towards everything else which is petty by comparison?

And yes, all sin is divine treason. When we sin, we deny either or all of the following about God:

His omnipotence because He doesn’t have the power to judge.

His omniscience because He either won’t know about it or doesn’t see how He’s clearly against me and doesn’t have my best interests at heart and doesn’t know what He’s talking about with this sin deal.

His omnipresence because He’s not present to notice the event.

His justice because He either won’t enforce it or He is misusing it.

His love because we have to go against Him to get what is really good.

His eternality because the sin will eventually go away on its own.

I could go on and on. The last one comes to me as well since Lewis said once we have this idea that time will erase wrongs. It won’t. Sometimes I’ll remember things I did wrong even back in Elementary School and it could be tempting to just say “I was young and stupid then,” and that could be true, but I ask forgiveness. There is no expiration date.

Just now, my wife brought in our cat to see me. As I held him, I thought that we’re a lot like him sometimes. Our cat doesn’t really like to be held and is quick to whine when it happens. We can picture him sometimes saying he wishes we would love him less.

We might have to ask if we want God to love us less.

Some of you might wonder why we would want a thing like that.

Because when God loves us, He doesn’t just come and forgive us. That’s a big matter, but it’s just part of it. He comes and does a work on us because He loves us that roots out the very nature that led us to give in to temptation. He does divine surgery, and most of us don’t delight in surgery.

When I was nearly 16, I had scoliosis surgery done or else in a decade, I would be walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Today, I walk and even run and jump just fine, but back for about a year after the event, I was not like that. I was not lying on a couch thinking it was so awesome that I was given surgery to recover. I was in excruciating pain constantly.

Sometime after that, I went through a time of deep depression. That lasted longer and I consider it far worse. Still, that time was essential for my growth. It made me into the person I am today.

We always have to remember God has a purpose for any suffering that comes into our lives. It will help others, but it’s not just for them. That suffering is for us. If we deny that, we are making a statement to God about how we see Him. This is why we often want Him to love us less really. We’d like to just get forgiveness without the change that comes with it, or if we have the change, please make it an American change that happens pretty much instantly like popcorn fixed in two minutes in the microwave or a problem on a sitcom that is resolved in half an hour.

That’s also because of our fixation with happiness. God will give us happiness in the long run, but the goal at the moment is holiness. It’s God’s love that we must relish in and long for all the more. We must make that love and that desire central. That comes over any family love, any sexual love, any romantic love, and friend love, any love of any kind.

But to get back to grace, it is always unearned. It is always a gift. It is foolish of us to reject the gift because we don’t deserve it. Of course, we don’t! If we did, it wouldn’t be grace. Wouldn’t it be the height of arrogance to go to God and say that He owes us a blessing or forgiveness because of the good that we have done? (And most of us, myself included, have done that.)

This I also find something to keep in mind in suffering. I look at all the good I do have in my life. How much of it do I deserve? The sun comes up and shines on our city every morning. How do I express my thanks? I sit here at the desk in my office looking out the window at a world of vibrant colors and life everywhere outside and a world bigger than any video game or comic book world that I could imagine knowing even more is coming someday than I could ever fathom. What thanks do I give? Do I treat this as if it was a given and expect more? It’s not and I don’t deserve more.

This is why thankfulness is so important to us all. If we could think about the good things we have, I think most of us would have a better mood. There can still be sorrow and sadness, and that’s okay, but could it be we’d have far more joy if we had more thankfulness?

Perhaps we could.

And maybe one of the first things to be thankful for is amazing grace. If you are a Christian, every sin that you have committed is not held against you. You are clear before the throne of God. Think about that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: For Thou Art With Me

What do I think of Bruce Baker’s book published by Grace Acres? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Death is never an easy topic to talk about. For many of us, it can seem far away. If you’re someone with a terminal illness, you have a better awareness than many that you are living on borrowed time.

That’s the situation of Pastor Bruce Baker. He has ALS and he knows that he only has so long to live. Yet being a pastor, one has to wonder how he approaches a sensitive topic like this. What are you thinking? Do you want to die and be with Christ? At the same time, is it possible to feel cheated, as if you’ve lived your life for God all these years and then he strikes you with a death sentence through a horrible disease?

Baker’s book is largely a pastoral book. It’s written for those who have a terminal illness and those who love them. It’s not written from an apologetics perspective, though I understand he could write one like that as he told me in correspondence he used to teach such a class. If you’re wanting a justification for God in the face of suffering, you need to look somewhere else. If you’re wanting to know how to walk with God in the suffering, you’ve come to the right place.

At the same time, some issues relating to an apologetic approach are discussed, such as what about assisted suicide. Baker has sympathies with the position insofar as he can understand why someone with a terminal illness would choose that route, but in the end, he makes the case against it. Overall, I find it a persuasive case against any kind of suicide ultimately.

Naturally, being a pastor talking about death, he has a section on the gospel as a whole and what it means. If you aren’t right with God, Baker wants to make sure that you are. He also wants you to see what it means to your Christian faith when you think about not just dying but how you will die.

He has a section on what the Bible says happens when you die. If there was one area of disagreement I had, it would have been here, and yet it’s a minor point. Baker sees the story of the rich man and Lazarus as a historical account since a name is given to the poor man. I think it’s more Jesus saying the rich man is unnamed because he’s not worth talking about and the poor man is worth talking about and he is given a name indicating that the Lord helps him. The story isn’t meant to tell us about what the afterdeath is like, but rather it’s meant to tell us about how God doesn’t view the rich with favor or the poor with shame.

The book is also short, which I’m sure is helpful for those who do have a short time. You could go and read chapter by chapter if you want or just jump to a chapter you think is relevant. There are also sections at the end of the chapters with questions for you to think about.

Ultimately, this is a good book to have if you’re thinking about that time and reading as someone outside of that perspective, I am sure if I had a terminal illness this would be something I’d think about a lot more. I sincerely hope that it does help those in need. We need some more writing in this kind of area for those undergoing suffering.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Forgotten Blessings

Do we take the time to remember blessings we take for granted? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last month, we moved into a new apartment complex. We’re still in the same area, but we’re just in a new place. Yesterday, we made a video of our cat Shiro looking outside the window because he saw another cat out there.

Allie and I have debated over how Shiro was reacting to the cat. I thought it looked like Shiro wanted to get to go outside and play with a new friend. She thought it looked like he was angry. I figure if he was angry he would have hissed, but perhaps I’m wrong.

Still, Shiro never goes outside except for in his kitty carrier when we have to go to the vet or something like that. He’s strictly an outdoor cat. We don’t want to risk anything happening to him.

The day was fine then with the weather, but last evening, it started to rain. Then, the rain got worse and worse. Around 10:30 last night, we got messages saying that flash flooding was going on. As I was getting ready for bed, I saw Shiro walking around here and I thought of how good he has it. Where is that other cat that’s apparently one of the strays around here?

This morning, we heard a cat meowing outside very loudly. For me, it sounded like it was hurt. Allie wanted to get up too and see what was going on, so we went outside together. Eventually, we saw the cat from yesterday in a face-off against another cat and a third cat in our rosebushes here watching. Allie tells me they were just claiming their territory.

Shiro is a cat, so naturally, he doesn’t think about these kinds of things.

I am not, so I have no excuse. If you know the story of Shiro, he was a stray when we found him and had been abandoned. Allie fell in love with him immediately and we took him in. He has been with us for about eight years now. When we found him, he was in a really pitiful state.

This is the first picture of him. He was really thin and underweight. He was having to live on scraps from the people and had we not taken him, they would have called the pound the next day. It’s quite likely that no one would have adopted him and he wouldn’t be here now.

But now, he looks much better. As you can see from this picture, he has a mane. He also if anything could bear to lose a little bit of weight.

I do not know if Shiro remembers that time when he was abandoned or not. I know that he might not be capable. I know I have no such excuse. I can look back and forget all the times God has provided for me and figure this time it will be different and he won’t.

For instance, one obvious one to me was that I prayed for years to get married. Talk to anyone who knew me then and they would tell you the one thing I prayed for regularly was a wife. I wanted someone special to share my life with. Do I sometimes take that blessing for granted now? Do I forget God answered my prayers in a marvelous way with a wonderful woman?

Is life perfect now? Of course not. Neither is yours. I really do wish my home situation was better with regard to our finances. It’s not. But do I have a roof over my head? Yes. Do I have a bed to sleep in (And not alone!)? Yes. Do I have food in the fridge? Yes. Have I ever gone hungry? No. Do I have the internet to do the ministry I need to do? Yes. Do I have a car to get around? Yes. Do I even have entertainment? Yes. We had someone be very kind to us and give us a Nintendo Switch and we won enough in a contest to get a PS4 at a mall. We are provided for.

Do we have good friends here? Yes. Do we have a support group? Yes. Do we have family here? Yes. Do we have a church home? Yes. Two of them. Do we have the freedom to worship as we see fit? Yes. Do we have to fear for our lives due to a tyrannical government? Not yet.

Yet how many times do I get depressed because I have forgotten about those blessings? I seem to think God has neglected me when in reality, I am the one neglecting the blessings He has already given me and His faithfulness. Why is it I assume God is wrong first before I think I am?

My wife talks about hearing a “worship” song that really got her upset. It was about how God has been faithful and He hasn’t failed me yet. She wondered why they said yet. God will never fail us. Why think He would?

Yet when we get in trouble, we assume God has failed us. God has abandoned us. God wants nothing to do with us anymore. It’s amazing we’re willing to go after God before going after ourselves. That seems a bit backward. Hopeless thinking is more than just being down about something, and there’s nothing wrong with that at times because we are also emotional beings. What matters is if we treat it like it’s true. When that happens, we’re essentially atheists.

That cat was fine last night during the flooding, but as far as I know, he has no home here and neither do other strays around here. Inside, we have a cat who has a home for life, and yet could through no fault of his own lose sight of those blessings. Every morning and evening he will still whine for us to feed him before it’s time (He has an automatic feeder) as if we have neglected him though every time we have made sure he’s provided for. He will whine when we take him to the vet as if we’re evil people not realizing the good we have for him.

He has an excuse. He’s a cat.

I don’t.

Am I thankful today?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

D-Day

How should we think about what happened 75 years ago? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

75 years ago today America and other countries took on the forces of evil. We made our first big move in the war. Historians of World War II can better debate if it was even possible for Hitler to win. I’m not such a historian so I will leave it for them.

What is commonly said is that so many of these young men storming the beaches of Normandy were going knowing they were essentially being fodder to draw the fire of bullets for those who would come after them. Many of you know that I have a very soft spot here seeing as I am a husband now. I can’t help but think of many women back in America who became widows and many children who lost Daddy on this day.

And this all because of human evil, the evil of one very depraved man. Many of us can often say that we are not Hitler, and we are right, but how many of us, if we had the power and opportunity, would be like him? We would all like to say that we are not, but we should all realize that the thin line between good and evil runs through all of us.

Yet also, how many of us would be willing to be those first soldiers? Would we willingly give our lives like that for people we don’t even know? I’ve already said that many husbands never saw their wives again. There are also many men who never saw the women that they had hoped to marry one day again. All of them were willing to put their lives on the line for something greater than themselves.

Do we live for something greater than ourselves? Is our happiness central?

We can also realize that all of these young men played a part in the constant war of good and evil. They played a part, but you and I play a part as well. Every day we are working to either serve good or serve evil. With every good action, we are making the world a better place and bringing in the Kingdom of God more and more. With every evil action, we are making it a worse place and bringing in the Kingdom of the devil more and more. Sure, God will use any evil we do for good, but we must not do evil saying good will result.

Today, we live in a world without the Nazi regime as it was at least. Evil was stopped. Evil can be stopped. Evil can be defeated. We did it, and hopefully, if it ever arises like that again, we will do it again. Keep in mind that this all happened in our modern world as well where we tend to believe we are so enlightened and so much better than our primitive ancestors of the past. We all still have the thin line between good and evil in us and one of the surest signs that we are giving in to the power of evil is that we think we are not capable of giving in to the power of evil.

Years ago a friend said something to me that I have never forgotten. I made the comment about the love of God that if we were the only person out there, Jesus would have come for us. I was told that this was true, and that if we were the only one, we would have crucified Him as well.

I sadly think he’s right.

Today, take some time and remember our fallen heroes of the past. Take some time to honor the ones we have today. If you see someone who serves or has served in our armed forces, thank them for their service. Thank you also to the families who have someone who died in D-Day.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Go To Romans 8 And Not Jeremiah 29

What passage can better deal with suffering in a Christian’s life? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many times I hear a testimony about overcoming suffering in one’s life. Too many times, I hear them reference Jeremiah 29:11. This is the passage about how God has plans not to harm but to help and give a hope and a future. Now this does show something of the nature of God, but it is about the Jews going into the Babylonian captivity. Most of us haven’t been through that.

One could gather a principle from this passage that suffering that takes place in one’s life will be used for good, but there are better passages that can be used. Genesis 50:20, for example, can be used to show that what man intends for evil, God can use for good. The best passage I think to go to is Romans 8.

In this passage, Paul tells us about the life in the Spirit. I wish to start that point by saying that too often we go to Romans 7 and find our identity. We look at the whole thing about the things I don’t want to do, I do, and the things I want to do, I don’t do. We take that as describing our present Christian life. I don’t think this is so and this is Paul speaking in character as Adam in the garden. After all, there never was a time when Paul was not under the Law.

The great danger is if you identify yourself in Romans 7, you could miss your real identity in Romans 8. This is a passage about how we have life in the Spirit and we have no condemnation. Then we get about 2/3 through, Paul talks about how all things work for our good and then about how nothing can separate us from Jesus.

Starting with all things working for our good, notice that. If we could as Christians all come to believe this promise, we would not be as fearful and anxious as we often are. We have an idea that God will work things out for His glory, and we are correct, but we act like that is the only thing He’s working for and we don’t matter.

Yet this passage tells us that everything will work out for our good as well provided that we love the Lord. This means that if you are a Christian, whatever suffering takes place in your life will be used for good. This doesn’t mean that you have to like the suffering and you shouldn’t go out seeking suffering, but it does mean that suffering is not pointless in your life. Suffering will be used for your good.

If this is true, then in gamer language, you have the ultimate cheat code. Whatever happens, will happen for your good. Nothing can ultimately undermine that. All that needs to be done is to trust in God, which is the really hard part. To be suspicious though is to really doubt the love of God and doubt He is in control of this universe.

But if it is true, it is something staggering. God has worked out this whole universe so that every bit of suffering in a believer’s life will be redeemed for good. It might not all happen in this phase of reality, but it will happen. That is something explicitly about us and works a lot better than Jeremiah 29 for us. Go there instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Disability And The Way Of Jesus

What do I think of Bethany McKinney Fox’s book published by IVP Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Normally when I get a chance to read anything on the disabled community, I jump at it. After all, I am on the autism spectrum having Aspergers and my wife also has the condition as well as Borderline, PTSD, and a few others. Disability awareness is something important to both of us.

Yet I wondered how much could be said on disability and the way of Jesus. After all, when you read the Gospels, it looks pretty clear. A person with a disability comes to Jesus. Jesus heals them. Many times, the story is complete at that point. What am I missing?

For a start, I was pleased to see that Fox goes into the culture of the Bible and points out how we talk about biomedical healing more than anything else. For the ancient perspective, there were also problems of the soul and those were believed to affect physical health. We know today they weren’t entirely wrong either. You kill someone’s spirit as it were and they will suffer physical maladies often.

There was also not only the sickness itself, but also the way the sickness was perceived. In Jesus’s day, a leper didn’t just had leprosy. He was an outcast to the community and cut off from society and would have to shout out that he was unclean when he walked down the street so people wouldn’t get close to him. The woman with the issue of blood would know this as well since blood rendered one unclean.

Some people might not actually appreciate a desire to heal. For my own part, if there was announced tomorrow a cure for Aspergers that anyone could take and would be free with no side effects, I would say “Thanks, but no thanks.” Do I have some disadvantages in social situations and with my diet and such? Absolutely, but I would rather have those than risk losing the intellectual advantages that I think Aspergers gives me.

It’s presumptuous to go up to a person who has a disability and immediately give a prayer for healing. Many people might not want healing in that way and think that their disability is being used for the glory of God. Not only that, but you are implying automatically that there is something defective about them and they need to be cured so they can be normal, you know, like you.

From here, Fox goes on to interact with people in the medical field who also specialize in the New Testament. Here we get insights into how they see healing in the texts. Healing is also not just physical, but can often be connected to salvation, even with the word we use for being saved referring to someone being healed.

But why not go to the disabled themselves? Fox does that, talking to people with disabilities who again specialize in Biblical studies in some way. They share their insights into how they see the text and what it means. There are a number of hermeneutics for approaching the text from a disabled perspective and readers will agree and disagree with some perspectives here.

After this, Fox goes on to interview pastors of seven different churches in her part of the world, all of them rather large churches, to see how they approach disability. Some did have healing services. Some fully integrated the disabled into their community. One pastor even had a disability himself.

Finally, we get to the way of Jesus. This is the most important part of the book, of course, so I will not be saying anything about it. After all, you need to get the book yourself and read it for yourself, but many of Fox’s ideas I hope would get embraced in the church. There are several people with disabilities and they need Jesus just as much as anyone else does.

Please go and get this book and read it. Try to make your church friendly towards people with disabilities. They can be some of the best people you will ever know.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The One Year Chip

What does it take to overcome? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night was a momentous night for my wife. She and I are part of Celebrate Recovery and my wife has a battle against self-harm. This is where you take a blade of some kind such as a pair of scissors. You then cut yourself. Why would anyone do that? When I first heard about it, it made no sense, but for people like this, it becomes a way of releasing endorphins and short circuits any anxieties that they have. Of course, there are dangers. Those in the medical profession could say more, but one I have frequently been told about is staph infections.

Allie has been in a battle with this and while many times she came close to the one year mark, she always fell short somewhere along the way and had to start all over again. As the time drew closer to this, she got more and more nervous afraid she was going to blow it. Fortunately, she did no such thing.

Yesterday, we went to see a friend of ours from our Protestant Church who is a cosmetologist. She had agreed to help Allie with her make-up for the big presentation last night. Allie said later it was one of the rare nights in her life that she felt beautiful. She took a picture of herself on the way to the event.

We got there and I opened the door to the church telling everyone to greet Miss America. So many people were amazed with how she looked. For me, I told her regularly to remember there was a man who said she was beautiful all along and that was without make-up.

In the end, Allie did get her one year chip. She had been of the mindset many times that she wouldn’t make it. At one point, she was really tempted and said, “Who cares about a stupid chip?” At times last night, I told her, “Well, honey, isn’t it just a stupid chip?” She knew what I was talking about and had to concede it wasn’t.

Some of you might be thinking it is just a stupid chip. It’s not. It’s a symbol. It’s a token of a victory that one has had over temptation and sin. Let’s be clear also that definitely addictions come from sin and cutting is such a case. So let’s see that one year chip.

Her Dad also came for the event.

And here she is again with her chip.

If there’s any great lesson I told Allie to get from this, it’s one we all need to hear. Tell that inner voice to shut up. We all know that voice. It’s the voice that condemns us and tells us to give up and that we’re not good enough and that we’ll never make it or whatever it says for you. Last night, Allie showed that inner voice that it was wrong. Hopefully, it will happen consistently.

And that can happen for you as well. If you are struggling with an addiction of some kind, please go to Celebrate Recovery and enroll there. If you are struggling with cutting, definitely go and do that. You are loved just as you are by God, and Allie would tell you it was only through reliance on God that she got this chip.

Princess. Please also know that your husband is super proud of you and remember that he has also always said you’re beautiful even before the make-up. Your true beauty comes from within and it makes your exterior so much more amazing. You are the woman who captivates me to this day still and I love you greatly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters