The Watch on the Beach

I have been reading and meditating on the gospel, being troubled by what I see as a watered down, miss the mark, cheap grace gospel. Of course, the question I have to ask is, 'If I am seeing things right, how have we (me included) managed to get it so wrong?" I look at the two predominant protestant constructs, Calvinism and Arminianism (TULIP/DCURA), and see both as flawed concepts. First, neither collection of ideas is taken directly from the teaching or writing of the men whose names are used to distinguish these hotly contested and opposing tenets of the faith. That is simply put and you can explore that fact on your own to see if it be true. But, secondly, they both seem to clash with the things of God. Here I don't mean just in scripture itself but in the very way God has revealed Himself to us in the lives of those recorded for us in scripture. I will take some time to see if I can give this idea some detail, but think of it this way for a start.

In proving the existence of God we will sometimes ask sceptics to consider the case of the 'Watch on the Beach.' The idea being that when we walk along a deserted beach and discover a functioning Swiss watch we immediately assume, without seeing more, that it had a maker. Whether this is a convincing arguement or not, think about the scene as we have described it. The beach is made of innumerable grains of sand; waves of energy that have traveled around the world tirelessly and rhythmicly trouble the waters at the shore; tides influenced by the orbiting moon climb up the beach and recede again like clockwork; and a place that can seem so barren is full of life! Need I go on (I refer you to the end of the book of Job for more detail). Here we truly see the hand of God, not the hand of man. And like the rather simplistic watch, so out of place laying on the sandy beach, the doctrines of Calvinism or Arminianism seem to me to represent more the hand of man than the hand of God.

So much has been invested in arguement over these teachings that its seems arrogant and presumptious to question them, but if they should be questioned they themselves might represent the very height of arrogance. May the Lord deliver us.

^{II Timothy 1:22}Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. ²³Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.

Which should I first seek first??

Mt 6:33 says to 'seek first His kingdom and His righteousness;' literally it is be seeking first the kingdom (of God) and the righteousness of Him. We touched on this verse in a recent bible study and I have gone back to it a number of times in the past weeks thinking about how to best 'make it mine.' The need to do this is necessary for me because I feel the Holy Spirit is working on me in this area. So after studying it and reading it over a number of times I was working over in my head how the seemingly two objects of our primary search are actually one. So we might translate this as 'seek first His righteous kingdom' or 'His kingdom of righteousness.' The absurdity of seeing our search as an absolutely primary one but with two objects hit me tonight when I asked myself 'which I should seek out first?'. Perhaps I could find a study mate to share the task. I will spend my time searching for the kingdom and not worry about righteousness and my buddy will do the opposite. Then we can compare notes and save ourselves each all the hassle of finding them both.

Throughout our Christian walk we must be seeking His kingdom which is characterized by righteousness. His imputed righteousness allows us the advantage of conducting our 'search' under the leading of the Holy Spirit, but the imputed righteousness does not free us from the need to be finding / experiencing / functioning in the Kingdom righteously.