Christian Liberty: Part II

Copied nearly wholesale from http://www.eskimo.com/~johnnyb/spiritual/Decisions.xml

Christian Decision Making
A Study in the Book Decision Making by the Book, by Haddon W. Robinson



Jonathan
Bartlett

08/25/2000


Proactive and Reactive Living


Decisions surround us every day. The problem is, we often forget that
we have a choice on how to live our lives. Most people live reactionary
lives. Life happens, and we just do what comes naturally to us. We
don't think about it too much, we just do it. However, as Christians,
we should not live reactively, but proactively. This means that each
situation we are in brings us to a decision. There is more than one
way to react in every situation. Some actions are appropriate, some
aren't. We need to assess each situation we find ourselves in, and
make proactive decisions on how to handle them, based on Christian
decision-making principles. This way, we can live dynamic lives, and
can be used by the Lord for His work. If we just do what comes naturally,
we will be blown around like dust in the wind, going whatever way the
wind takes us. Christ died for us, we must decide at each moment to
follow Him.



Let me give you some example of this proactive/reactive dichotomy.
I work as a webmaster for a company that has a significant
amount of traffic to their website. In my job, I have to carry
a pager. We have an automatic paging system that pages me and a few
other people whenever a machine goes down. Having never carried a pager
before, I tended to forget mine and leave it at work. I had missed
several pages this way, with other co-workers having to pick up the
slack. One time, this happened at two-o'clock in the morning. The
next day, I was embarrassed about what happened. When my co-workers
asked my what happened, I lied about it saying that I just slept
through it. My decision was reactive. I wasn't thinking about what
I was doing, so my first reaction (which was obviously wrong) is
what I did. Had I been proactive, I would have considered my options,
and chosen a better one.



Jesus was always proactive in His ministry. Even when He was angry,
His actions were well thought out and well planned. Consider the time
when Jesus cleared out the temple. Obviously, He was very angry.
However, don't think that Jesus went into the temple, and then after
seeing the merchants, He flew off the handle and went into a rage.
Actually, He had the whole thing planned. If you look in John 2:15,
you see that Jesus made a whip of chords. I could be wrong, but it
seems to me that making a whip was not something one does on impulse.
Instead, I would say that this move was likely planned, and he made
the whip to help Him carry out His purpose.
So, as
you can see, even when Jesus was angry, His actions were planned,
proactive choices.





Componenets of a Decision


Every decision is composed of these things:


Context

The context is the situation surrounding the decision. No decision
is ever made in isolation. Decisions involve previous choices, other
people, and other decisions.


Courses of Action

A decision entails specific courses of action. It is important to
the decision-making process that a good number of alternatives be
sought out, so the best decision can be made. What may look like
a poor alternative at first may later show itself to be the best choice,
so it is best not to rule out too many options too soon


Benefit Analysis

This is the heart of decision-making. This involves taking each
possible alternative, and weighing the pros and cons to make the
best possible decision. This document is mainly concerned with
helping you weigh the pros and cons in a manner consistent with
the Christian life.



Reactive living is what happens when a person does not spend as much
time looking at the courses of action or analysing the benefits as
they need to. Someone who lives proactively will be constantly weighing
each course of action against Christian guidelines




Let's examine my decision at Wolfram. What did I do wrong? First,
I did not explore all of my options. I did not even consider simply
telling the truth and apologizing. If I had, when I weighed my options
I would have realized that telling the truth is the only valid Biblical
way to go. Later I did realize this, and decided to email an apology
both for my actions and for my lie.





Purpose of this Document


The aim of this document is to acquaint you with some of the proper methods
Christians should use when making decisions, whether the decision is a
large, life-changing one, like what career to take, or whether it is one
of the many daily decisions we must make when we live as proactive Christians.
It also should acquaint
you with many common mistakes and misconceptions most Christians have
about decision making. There are many decision-making methods available
that non-Christians use. However, as Christians, our lives are orientated
around loving and serving the Lord, and our decision-making process should
reflect that. Also, as Christians, we also not to fear the
decisions we have to make, but should be confident that the Lord will
both show us the way and give us what we need.



Decision Making and God's Will


One of the main problems in Christianity is that we don't know what
God wants us to do. We wait and wait and let life pass us by. What
are we waiting for? For God to show us what His will is. Instead
of waiting around, we should be seeking out His will. Indeed, there
are times when it is appropriate to wait, but by default we should
seek the Lord and His will, and only wait when specifically asked.
However, do not be fooled into thinking that seeking the Lord's will
is an easy task. On the contrary, it takes lots of prayer, study,
and time. Be patient and perservere. You'll be glad you did.



One of the most common questions any human asks is "why am I here?".
The Christian's life is oriented around serving God, so the Christian
instead asks, "what does God want me to do?" or "what is God's
will for my life?" The problem is that many Christians know the
question, but they have no idea how to find out the answer. This
has a profound effect on decision-making, because when you know
the direction that God wants you to go, it gives you a guideline
to decision-making. For example, Olympic athletes know that they
are going to compete in the Olympics. Knowing that, they make
decisions on eating, daily routines, lifestyle choices, and all
sorts of other decisions based on where they are going. As
Christians, if we know where God is taking us, we can use that
information to help us make decisions in many areas of life.




The Bible has been regarded as the definitive source of faith and
practice for Christians throughout the centuries. Therefore, we
will follow its lead on finding out how God wants us to make
decisions, and what His will is for our lives.
In the Bible, God makes many statements concerning His will.
It is useful to divide these up into general categories, and see how
they apply to us. These categories are:


God's sovereign will
God's moral will
God's will for you





God's Sovereign Will


God makes many statements throughout the Bible that tells us His
general plan. This general plan is often referred to as God's
sovereign will. It is called this because God assures us that
this is what He wants, and He will be make it happen.
Make no mistake - God will be faithful in executing
His plan, and He wants your help. God's plan
includes, among other things


the salvation of every nation
His kingdom being established on Earth
for the whole world to glorify Him



So, when making decisions,
your first question should be, "Is this in line with God's overall
plan for the world?" There are many decisions where this question
doesn't give you any helpful guidance, such as "who should I be
friends with?". However, this affects many others, such as "how
should I act at work?", "what should I do with my free time?", and
"how should I spend my money?". Although this doesn't give you a
specific answer, it gives you a direction to look in.





If you are stuck trying to find God's will, maybe the best way to go
about it is to look at God's overall plan, and see where you
want to help out in (your church leaders will
probably be able to tell you possible avenues in which you can serve
God). Start there. If later you find out that God wants you somewhere
else, then change direction. But if you don't do anything, you
definitely aren't following His plan.


God's Moral Will


So, God's sovereign will tells us the general direction in which we
need to go. How about more specific issues?
What about questions that not only guide our lives in the long run,
but those that affect us day to day? Questions like, what do I
do about my meddlesome boss? How do I handle my children who
are out of control? How do I choose my friends?




As you can see, God gives us a great amount of moral direction in
the bible. This is one of the best sources of council in decision
making. You will find that the most hard decisions of life are
answered clearly within the moral teachings of the Bible. That
doesn't make the decisions easy to make, nor does it guarantee
a good outcome. However, as Christians, we are here to make decisions
according to God's will, not our own gain.



The Bible's answer to moral questions is known as God's moral will.
God's moral will, like His sovereign will, does not change.
However, how it is performed does vary with circumstance. Knowing
how to apply the Bible's moral principle's is a complex subject,
which will be dealt with later. In
order to make Christian decisions effectively, you must be very
familiar with both what the Bible says, and the proper methods to
apply it.



God's Will For You


God's will for you (known in theological circles as His
individual will) is comprised of the specific things that God wants
you to do. God has a specific plan for
you. Please take note, however, that this plan will not violate
either His moral or His sovereign wills. His plan for you is
fully in line with both. So, if you are trying to make a decision,
often times looking at God's sovereign and moral wills will leave
only one option. In such a case, there is no need to find out
what God's will is, you already have!



God's individual will is probably the hardest to decipher. This
is because the Bible offers no help whatsoever! If you read a
verse and apply it as a message to yourself, and that message
wouldn't make sense to anyone else, you are misinterpretting the
Bible.
In the Bible, there are many examples of God showing His
individual will to people, but we shouldn't confuse what God layed
out for them with what God has planned for us. So how do we
know God's individual will for our lives? There are many ways,
but I've found the most effective way is keeping the communication
lines open with God. The more you have meaningful time with God,
the better you can understand His voice. Anyway, any of the
following can show you God's individual will:


Advice of a trusted friend/pastor/family member
Word of knowledge or prophecy
Personal prayer time
Situations


Be careful about looking at situations for God's will. Even though He
sometimes speaks through them, it is the trickiest of all. God doesn't
always take us down the easiest or most obvious route. We are not
supposed to go through every door that opens. Be sure that before
taking any counsel about God's will for your life, that you weed
out those options that violate His moral or His sovereign will.


Christian Freedom


Of course, in all this trying to figure out what God wants for us, we
often forget about the incredible freedom that God gives us. God
gives us freedom in two main ways - forgiveness and choice.
We have freedom in forgiveness because we know that even if we make
the wrong choice, God will forgive us and we can move on. This is
one of the most exciting things about the gospel for the apostle
Paul. Before Jesus, we had to busy ourselves poring over scripture
after scripture making sure that whatever we did was exactly in line
with what God's commands are. In fact, so much effort was put into
worrying about not doing anything wrong that hardly anything was
done right! In Jesus, we can leave our worrying behind. If we focus
on Jesus and try to do what's right, we don't have to worry if we
miss the mark, because we have complete forgiveness. It doesn't mean
that we should ignore God's words and commands, but we don't need
to live in fear of breaking them. Instead, we can concentrate on
glorifying the Lord, and accomplishing His perfect plan.



However, that is only one kind of freedom God gives us. God also gives
us a great deal of choice. God cares about what we
want! Within the bounds of His sovereign, moral, and individual wills,
He gives us a tremendous amount of freedom to operate. In 1 Corinthians
7:39, Paul says to the widows that they can marry
anyone they want (as long as that person is a believer)! In one
of life's biggest decisions, marriage, God gives us freedom to choose
within His boundaries. God's moral will prevents us from marrying
non-believers, but other than that, the instructions are to marry
(or don't marry) whomever we wish. Now, God does choose wives
for some, and for others there may be a best
choice of a wife. However, for the general case, the choice is
entirely up to you! Now, in the case where God gives no direction
as to His individual will, and His sovereign and moral wills leave
several options open, you should employ good decision-making skills.
God has left the choice to you, so you should choose wisely. Although
there is no "wrong" decision in these cases, some have more desirable
consequences than others. When the choice is yours, be sure to make a
good decision!


A Strong Sense of If


When making any plans, whether you believe them to be according to
God's will or part of the free choice that God gives us, we must
always remember what James says - God may change our plans at any
moment. James 4:13-15 explains that it is stupid to say tomorrow
we will do something, instead we should say that
if the Lord allows it, we will do whatever it is we were planning.
There is nothing wrong with planning, but always remember that even
the most definite of outcomes can be changed by God. He may move in
any situation to our benefit or detriment. As James says, we should
not say "tomorrow we will do thus and such," but instead, "if the Lord
wills, tomorrow we will do thus and such." It's not a matter of words
- anyone can incorporate this into their language - but whether or not
you acknowledge that God has control of the situation, not you. God
has a full understanding of what's going on, but you don't. In
1 Corinthians 13:0 Paul says that we currently only know and prophesy
in part (later we will know the whole picture). In the Old Testament,
Joseph had the vision that his brothers would bow before Him. However,
even with this knowledge straight from God, He did not know that He
would spend decades in bondage before that. If He was expecting God to
follow his own way, Joseph would probably have forsaken God a long time
before God could fulfill His promises.

Resources for Decision Making


The Bible


The Bible is the obvious first place for a Cristian to look
for God's will. However, it is very easy to misuse what God
says, and thus render it ineffective. If you do not properly
interpret the Bible, you can read anything into it that you
want to, and therefore, it is no more helpful than your own
opinion. If you just want your own opinion, there is no reason
to consult the Bible for it.



You can spend your life learning Bible-study methods. You may
wonder - how many do I need to know until I'm ready to study?
Well, you will never know everything about biblical interpretation,
and you'll never know everything about the Bible. However, you
should always try to learn more of both, and they will each help
the other. As you learn better interpretation, it may cause you
to re-examine previous scriptures, and come to a new understanding.
Your old beliefs may have been based on a faulty reading of scripture -
be prepared for that. Also, be willing to be corrected by those who
are better at interpretation than you are, but you should also examine
what they have to say for yourself to make sure it makes sense
(many heretics are also bible scholars). Don't be afraid to ask others
when you face difficulties, you may learn something new.



This paper does not intend to give even a thorough introduction to
Biblical interpretation. If you are new to Biblical interpretation,
you should read the book How to Read the Bible for All its
Worth. It is definitely worth it.



Examining the Context


The Bible has many, many verses. You might not know this hearing
some people quote it. Before even attempting to interpret a
passage of scripture, you need to understand the context it is
placed in. The context consists of two parts


The historical context
The scriptural context


The historical context consists of things like historical background and
cultural customs. Take for instance Simon. He was called "the zealot".
Just reading that, you may think that it means that he was very
enthusiastic. However, knowing the history of that time, you find that
the there was a group of people who called themselves "the zealots",
who were militant in wanting Jerusalem out of Roman control. It is
not certain that Simon was a part of this group, but knowing that
he might be will help understand his actions as portrayed in the
Bible. The Bible was first written to the people of its time. Paul
wrote his letters to his churches, not to us. Therefore, it is
important not to ask, "what does this mean to me and my situation", but
instead ask "what did this mean to them and their situation?" Only
after that question is answered can you then extract a meaning for
your situation today. For example, Paul once said "greet one another
with a kiss". If he were to have said that to our churches today, then
we should all be going around kissing each other all the time. But he
didn't. He wrote it to a Greek church where kissing is a common greeting.
A proper interpretation for today's world is "greet each other with
a warm hug or handshake." Now, this does not give us license to
declare parts of the Bible not applicable to today because of the context.
You should never say "that doesn't apply to us". The only revelant
question is "how does that apply to us". Sometimes it will apply
differently in our culture than it did then. However, to find that out,
you must first discover how it applied to their culture.



The scriptural context basically says where this passage fits in
with the rest of the Bible. It consists of


How long is this passage?
How does this passage relate to the rest of the book?
How does this passage relate to the rest of the Bible?


Now, I can't possible tell you everything you need to know about these
questions, except alert you to their presence and necessity, and give
you a few examples of what to do. First of all, lets take the length
of a passage. When looking at a passage, you need to decide how long
of a section constitues the main idea. For example, when studying
the Good Samaritan story, you can't just read the story, you also have
to read the verses before it. If you were just to read the story, you
might not understand what it's about. However, if you look a few verses
before, you find out that the whole story is an answer to the question,
"Who is my neighbor?" Many people have read that and come up with
some really strange interpretations. However, the meaning is clear if
you read it with the question "who is my neighbor" in mind. Now, there
is no cut and clear way to determine what the absolute length of a
passage is. However, when you read verses, be sure to look both before
and after the given verse until you come to what seems to you like a
section break. Find out the main point of the section, and then
read the meaning of a verse based on the main point of the section.



Next, you need to look at that passage in the context of the whole
book. This isn't something you can do easily - you must have a good
background on the purpose of the books of the Bible as well as the
style in which they were written. You can find this information from
a good study bible or commentary. The book How to Read
the Bible for All it's Worth has a good reference to much
of this information. Basically, you have to ask yourself:


Why was this book written?
To whome was this book written?
What style was this book written in?
How does this passage fit in with the book as a whole?


The first two questions can give you a background for reading the book.
Knowing why something is written can give you
a better knowledge of what it is about. However,
the question that affects interpretation the most is the style question.
The Bible was written like everything else is written. It was written
for a reason, and in a specific style. When I write poetry, I write
differently than when I write prose. I use different words. When I'm
arguing, I might exaggerate to make a point (note that exaggerate is
not lying - its purpose is to clarify your point by making it bigger).
Each type of writing makes its point in different ways. In the Bible,
if you are reading poetry, don't use the words of a poem as an exact,
literal truth. They are not even meant that way. When reading a
parable, don't look for any deeper truth than what answers the
question Jesus was being asked or discussing. When reading a
narrative, don't assume that the main character does everything right -
its just an account of what happened, not necessarily what should
have happened. The Bible was written in a number of different styles,
and it is important to interpretation to both know what the style was,
and also how that style affects the meaning.



Finally, you need to read the passage in relation to the whole Bible.
Basically, ask yourself, "how is this part of God's message to
humanity?" If you can't find the answer, re-examine the verse, look
at more resources, and ask others.




Examining the text


Whenever reading the Bible, it is always a good idea to check several
translations to make sure you have an accurate reading. I think it
is good to always include the King James version. Why? It's not
because I think it is more holy or anything. Rather, there are many
words in the Bible whose translation is uncertain. In most modern
translations, the translators almost always make a guess as to what
it means. The King James, on the other hand, usually leaves it
vague and uncertain. People complain about the King James being
difficult to understand, but that is often because the meaning of
the original Greek or Hebrew is unclear. Anyway, by reading several
versions, you get a better idea of what the passage really means.

Why do translations differ?

Many people wonder why translations differ so much from each other.
There are two main reasons - textual criticism and translation style.
Textual criticism is simply the examining of the various copies of the
Bible and determining which copy contains the most accurate rendering.
There are thousands of ancient manuscripts for each book in the Bible,
but we have no original versions. On top of that, each manuscript is
different (usually not by much, though). So, many translations differ
in which set of manuscripts they base their translation on (the process
of determining this is way outside the scope of
this study). Also, there are differnt styles of translation. The
literal style basically takes each word in the original language, and
finds a matching word in English. This usually renders a very dry
translation, and it requires the reader to know many greek idioms.


Interpreting the Text


After learning about and studying the text, you are ready to interpret.
There are actually two parts to interpretation:


Finding out what the passage meant then
Discovering how it applies today


You might wonder how these two things differ. Shouldn't the Bible mean
the same thing yesterday, today, and forever? Yes, of course. However,
people change. Culture changes. Therefore, the means of living the
Christian life today is different from the past. Some things are
explicitly meant to be true forever, but others vary according to
culture. However, you should say that a verse doesn't apply to today.
All scripture applies, but it may apply differently today than before.
For example, I follow Paul's recommendation of greeting each other
with a holy kiss by greeting others with a warm handshake. I am
carrying out the idea presented in the verse according to the culture
at hand.




The Bible and decision making


These tools I've presented for Bible study should enable you to
more accurately study the Bible, and therefore make better
decisions. If you have God's word in your heart, you are well
on your way to good decision-making. However, if you misinterpret
the Bible, you may accidentally break God's will. That is why
learning biblical interpretation is so important. However, don't
let the fear of misunderstanding or accidental misinterpretation
prevent you from acting on God's word. Do your best. If you are
wrong, allow yourself to be corrected, and let Jesus' forgiveness
do its thing. We don't have to get it all right before we go out
and live it. We just need to go, and if we screw up along the way
we'll be forgiven.



Remember, the Bible will help you out with learning God's sovereign
will and His moral will. Thus, it will give you guidelines on what
are acceptable courses of action in a given situation. However,
it does not offer any specific guidance (unless it rules out all choices
but one). The following are improper uses of the Bible:



You should not use the Bible as a Ouiji board. Don't make decisions
based on a coincidence in a Bible reading. That is a misuse. For
example, if you are trying to decide which college to go to, and you
read a passage about Moses travelling East, do not take
that as an instruction for you to go to an eastern school.
That is a misuse of the Bible.



You should not take any statement as overly literal, overly exact,
or overly encompassing. Remember that the Bible is written in
regular language, which is often inexact. A writer may say "all"
when they mean "all the things I've been talking about". Be aware
that in regular language, things can be vague. Things can be
exaggerated. Noone is being false, they are just using language -
and imperfect tool.




If you use the Bible properly, it will be a valuable tool for decision
making


Prayer


Prayer is one of the best and most underused tools Christians have
at their disposal. God has given us an amazing power through prayer,
yet only very few people make good use of it. I'm sure its possible
to pray too much, but I've never seen it happen.