Delayed Gratification

Is it important to wait? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

4,000 pieces of gold.

That’s a hefty price for a young man playing a game, but in the world of Final Fantasy at the time, that was a lot. Gold pieces were the main currency then and at the area of the game you were in, most battles gave 100-200 pieces. You would have to stay at the inn at times to recover which would cost 100 pieces of gold.

However, if you wanted to get the silver sword then, you had to pay 4,000 pieces of gold. Only one person likely in your party could equip it. The next most expensive weapon costs 450 gold. Still, there were other expensive items. A bracelet you could equip costs 1,000 and level 3 spells cost 1,500 to learn and level 4 costs 4,000 to learn.

(By the way, I had to look up the prices of other items aside from spells, but silver sword stuck with me.)

If you wanted to get this sword, you had to work for it. This kind of thing is something called grinding. Why? Just think of how your going to work can be called the daily grind. Some people do it just to gain experience to level their character up. Either way, most people don’t really like grinding. It’s very repetitive.

By the way,  I haven’t even mentioned buying healing items and deals like that for what can essentially be the first dungeon the party goes through in the game.

However, if someone engages in this in many a game, they are prepared not only for the next dungeon, but also for several later dungeons. Those who rush through because they just want to get on with the story are more likely to suffer and in the end, have to do their own form of grinding still when they keep encountering an obstacle they can’t get past and grinding can be much harder later on in a game.

Okay. This is interesting, but what has this to do with Christianity and apologetics?

As I thought about it, it came to mind that this is a lesson in delayed gratification. Consider this. How many problems in our society come because we do not like to wait? We live in an instant society. Everything we want comes immediately. We can put something in a microwave or get something out of the freezer or drive where we want to go and with the internet, we have instant communication. Paul would love to do in the Roman Empire what we can do today.

In some ways, that can be fine, but in others, if we think we have to wait for something, then we will suffer in the end for it often.

Let’s start with money where this started. How many people are in debt today not because they had to buy an expensive item like a house or needed emergency surgery that was really expensive, but because of out of control credit card debt? How many people just buy items constantly and don’t really think about the price?

I considered that my early habits in gaming came to influence my early thinking with money. I learned the value of money there and to this day, I make it a point to have money in the bank and be light with my spending. Because of that, when I do want to splurge, I normally can without much difficulty.

Recently, a friend gave me a pass to the World War II Museum here in New Orleans. I only had to pay for parking. When I was done going through the museum, I got to the gift shop which had books. I bought a couple of them there. It cost me some naturally, but I was able to handle it. This also after having a month where I had to go to the doctor twice for a really bad sinus infection after the conference, the second being a follow-up, and I currently have no health insurance.

Still, I have money in the bank and my money in savings I haven’t even had to touch since moving to New Orleans. I pay my bills responsibly and I use plenty of programs to get free Amazon gift cards and to get deals when I do have to go out into town. My parents were always frugal with money, but I think my experience in gaming where I had to save up to buy things and make sure I always had enough taught me just as much.

Not only that, but I realize that some of my money comes from donors. Thus, I want to make sure I honor the money that is given on my behalf. If you want to become a supporter of me financially, which is greatly appreciated, then you can do so here.

This also works in other areas of our life. Our country has a problem with obesity and most of us are eating not because we are hungry, but because we are bored. We also don’t want to wait, and why should we? We can get fast food which normally isn’t good. I think we all have experienced the event of sitting on a couch or chair watching something or playing a game and just snacking while there. We don’t move much, we exercise little, and what do we have as a result? Obesity.

Finally, what about sex? Who wants to actually have to wait until you’re married? People who went to school with my parents and get divorced are now living together before marriage. In their day in school, that was definitely the exception. Today, it is the norm.

We live in a world of one-night stands and a hook-up culture and why? Because why should we have to wait? It’s just sex. Not a big deal. Right? We say this in an age of single parents, unplanned pregnancies, STDs, and ultimately a miasma of meaningless hanging around us. The sexual revolution has been a disaster.

However, the option left is waiting and we don’t like that. Why have to wait? If you want something, get it now.

Maybe we should return to what I learned so long ago in Final Fantasy. It was hard to work and work and wait before I went into the dungeon in making sure all my characters had the best equipment and spells, but you know what? When I did that, we did much better than everyone else and were more prepared not just for that dungeon, but for every other later dungeon. Also, if I needed to grind again to buy better items, I did it again.

Patience is a virtue we don’t really have today, but we definitely need it. How many of our problems in our society could be dealt with better if we would just learn to wait? How much of what we go through would we be better prepared for if we just waited?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Forgiving Sins and Forgiving Student Loans

Are these the same? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The big news now is student loans and who is going to have to pay for them. Sadly, I see a lot of Christians trying to compare this to the atonement. Jesus forgave me of my sins! Should i not rejoice in getting to forgive student loans?

There are three possibilities I see here.

Someone does not understand the economics of the situation.

Someone does not understand the atonement.

Or both.

Let’s consider an example with credit cards. A credit card is not a blank check such that if I want something, I whip out the card and use it and someone else pays for it. I am essentially telling the company “If you give them this money now, I will pay you back for it at the end of the month.” (I always do. No carrying over a balance.)

Suppose I wasn’t like that. Suppose I went out and bought a PS5 and a bunch of games and bought all the books I wanted and wanted to take a girl out on a fancy date and when the bill came, I just made any minimal payments. Over time, that escalates more and more. I have built up a debt and you could say that debt is “forgiven”, but you could also have grounds for saying I did not handle the card properly and wasted it and now am seeking more of a bailout.

Suppose though I have a really rich friend who says “I think you can turn your life around and get your debt under control and I am going to give you a start by paying your bill for you.” He pays it off. Now in a sense, my debt is cancelled, but he has still taken a hit in some way. If he can afford it and do so, great. If not, he and those he cares for will suffer. In either case, he has done so voluntarily.

What is going on in this situation is that this is being called forgiveness, but that doesn’t make it forgiveness. In the news, one must always watch what words are being used. He who controls the meaning of the language will have a hand-up in the game. Being opposed to what is going on can sound like you are opposed to forgiveness. What Christian would be opposed to that?

This is not forgiveness. This is transference. The government, which already has a huge deficit in a country with intense inflation, is taking on the hit. They will respond by doing nothing, which is not likely, or by increasing taxes, or increasing the price of goods and services somehow, or by decreasing benefits in other areas. Keep in mind that 80,000+ IRS agents have just been added who are told to carry a gun with them.

Also, we don’t have exhaustive records, but true forgiveness also requires repentance. If there was someone who made a mistake in taking out a loan and wasted their money and time and realized they made a mistake in that and needed help, I think the church should be willing to help. That could entail paying the debt, but not necessarily. Sometimes, one of the worst things you can do to help someone is give a handout. You can be enabling.

As an example, when I worked at Wal-Mart, I sometimes worked in the money center. I remember a customer coming in and wanting to transfer money and I could tell he was upset. I asked why and he said he doesn’t have a lot of money, but he has to keep sending money to his son. This son was constantly making mistakes and if he didn’t get the money, he would go to jail.

I told the father bluntly that one of the best things to do would be to let the son fail.

“Then he’ll go to jail.”

“So he’ll go to jail.”

What the father was doing was just enabling and the son had no reason to change his life and not live off of his parents who were eating away at all they had while their son took advantage of them. This father was not really helping the son in that case. He was telling the son by his actions to keep squandering the money and if there was a problem, he would bail him out. The father was willing to because going to jail would just be awful. In reality, it might have been just what the kid needed. Perhaps he needed to hit rock bottom so he could really examine his life.

Now there is not to be joy in that at all. However, proper boundaries means not rescuing people every time they make mistakes. Love sometimes has to be tough.

There are plenty of people also who did the hard work of paying back their loans. Why? They made an agreement to do that. Everyone of them has been slapped in the face. Good behavior has been shown to be not worth it. Bad behavior has been punished.

Of course, this will be on a case-by-case basis. Suppose someone gets a student loan and gets a degree and yet gets in a car accident and can’t work to pay off the loan. I have no problem with the church showing compassion and helping out.

In the atonement, God doesn’t transfer our debt to other people who can’t afford it. He takes it on Himself in Christ and pays it in full. He alone has infinite resources. He can do that. However, unless you are a universalist, you will agree that the only people who it applies to are those who really submit to Christ. (Those who never heard is a separate issue, though I think some of them can be saved by the light they have.)

Are Christians supposed to be people of charity? Yes, but as said, charity can be less than beneficial sometimes. Good motives does not mean good results. I recommend a book such as When Helping Hurts. This is where wisdom comes in. Are you giving to someone who will really use what you give them wisely or someone who will be enabled with a handout?

How do we personally respond? As Christians, we can still rejoice in all things because we know Jesus is still in charge of the story. If we are wronged, which most of us have been with this, we can take it and realize God will give justice someday and He still has infinite resources to provide for us. As a seminary student now, I am living out what it means to believe God can provide as is said in the Sermon on the Mount.

Ultimately, to say this is just the same as the atonement is an insult to the atonement. Something more akin would be if God took the sins of His chosen people, the Jews, and made all the Gentiles suffer judgment to pay for them. Thankfully, He did not. The debt was not transferred. It was paid.

Thanks be to God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Seven Stupid Things People Do To Mess Up Their Lives

What do I think of Beau Adams’s book published by Crossover Communications?

I don’t know a single human being who has lived a substantial amount of time on this Earth who doesn’t have something they’ve looked back on and said, “How could I have done something so stupid?” That includes me. That includes Pastor Beau Adams, who wrote this book. I also think it’s really refreshing to see a pastor openly use words like stupid.

Pastor Adams takes his material from the book of Proverbs and looking at Solomon, who sadly also did stupid things to mess up his life even after acquiring so much wisdom. Of course, none of us will be perfect at this and we will still make stupid mistakes. Still, at least we will have some advanced warning and hopefully, we can make less stupid mistakes. Adams gives us seven basic categories.

The first is to not get caught up with the wrong crowd. We all know that bad company corrupts good character. Today we hear a lot about race relations and one aspect of this we hear about often is fatherlessness in the black community. This really is a problem because when young men don’t have fathers or at least father-figures, what do they do when they want to know they’re men? It can often be gangs.

The antidote to this? Choose friends who are going to build you up and not bring you down. This doesn’t mean just choose friends because of what they will do for you, but make sure your friends are friends of noble character.

The next is thinking we know it all. Just yesterday, I was in dialogue on Facebook with an atheist who was being tripped up by Thomistic philosophy. I was blunt telling him he wasn’t familiar with what he was critiquing and recommended he read Feser’s Aquinas, especially since Feser used to be an atheist himself. He told me he was tempted to respond to my last point, but thought he might say something foolish again and so would go and read the book and then come back.

Props to you. Really. Props to you.

Too many of us don’t go that route, and it shows. A Christian can argue against evolution and they don’t know how to do a Punnett Square. Note fellow Christians that I am not telling you to not argue against evolution if you think it’s false, but I am telling you to come with an informed position. If you aren’t informed, you come across like a Christ-myther who only reads Richard Carrier.

The secret is to avoid thinking you know it all. This doesn’t mean you have to study everything as no one can do that, but it means you really try to only talk about what you have studied. Study also refers to not just watching YouTube videos. Read books.

The next is an obvious one. Sexual immorality. Yesterday, I got a message from someone asking if you were to preach on something apologetically oriented for two months and wanted to avoid race and politics, what would I preach on? My answer came immediately. Sex and marriage. The person responded saying that it did need to be for two months. I told him that should last for two years. Our youth especially get six days a week of the world’s view and we only have one day a week and we don’t even say anything.

Sexual immorality can easily ruin your life. How many pastors have fallen because they got too close to the opposite sex, including Ravi Zacharias. It can all start more innocent enough, but every relationship with the opposite sex needs to be guarded closely.

Now as I go through this, I realize I could say more about each point, but then I realize that would get lengthy and you need to have something to get you interested in the book, which you should read. Other topics include laziness, dealing with debt, controlling your tongue, and handling anger.

Pastor Adams’s book could be seen as having a harsh tone to it, but the whole of the book speaks with a pastor’s heart. He’s begging you to not make these mistakes. Some of these might be easier to recover from, as most of us have lost our temper at one point. Others are much harder, such as when we fall into sexual sin. I still get a sting anytime I go through my library now and see a Ravi Zacharias book.

Final word then is simply to get the book. You’ll likely learn something from it and hopefully you can put it into practice. You want to avoid doing something stupid after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)