Biblical Christianity from Peter DeHaan

What Do Moses and Gilligan Have in Common?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date May 2, 2013
2 Comments on What Do Moses and Gilligan Have in Common?

As a kid, I enjoyed watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island. One thing that amused me was that for three years Gilligan sported the same outfit, but his clothes never wore out. They didn’t fade, become threadbare, or fray.

His shirt, pants, shoes, socks, and even his hat lasted in pristine condition for as long as he was on the island.

But that’s nothing. Moses and the nation of Israel spent forty years in the desert and their clothes and sandals lasted that long. For four decades, their clothes did not wear out.

Moses beats Gilligan by thirty-seven years, over thirteen times longer.

Although Gilligan’s situation amuses me, Moses’ situation amazes me.

Even more so is the reason Israel’s clothes lasted so long: God did this so that the people would know he was God, their Lord.

That makes me ponder the things God has done for me so I will know he is the Lord, my God. That’s amazing, too.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 28-30, and today’s post is on Deuteronomy 29:5-6.]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

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Tags Moses

Christian Living

Make a Joyful Noise

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 30, 2013

On a recent trip I wound my way through the airport, seeking the hotel shuttle.

Not transferring planes as I normally do at this hub, I navigated unfamiliar territory: traversing terminals, ascending stairs, snaking through corridors, and riding an elevator.

The sign lead me outside for a moment and then back in. Really? Next was another series of hallways.

Amid the cacophony of airport noises, I turned the corner as a faint sound reached my ears. It didn’t belong in an airport. Barely discernible, I strained to hear the improbable.

Could it be? Several more steps confirmed my suspicion; a smile formed, subtle at first.

The grand tones of a trumpet bathed me. My smile broadened.

The pure sounds grew stronger as my path brought me closer. This was not the prerecorded variety, amplified and distorted over speakers, but live music. The beauty of the notes overwhelmed me.

Perfect in every way, it was an uplifting treat: a point of humanity overpowering the waves of inhumanity milling about me. I recognized the tune and continued moving towards it.

However, the louder it became, the more I realized it was not coming from an accomplished musician. The notes were actually sloppy and the timing, imprecise. Even so, I remained pleased for this musical reprieve.

It was also repetitious, bordering on tedium. Yet it surpassed the ever-flow of PA announcements, the beeps of vehicles trying to run me over, and the less-than-patient words of the people pressing about. Okay, so the music wasn’t perfect, but it was still nice to hear.

Another turn gave me a visual. Stationed at the intersection of corridors the musician stood, shabbily dressed, but whether out of necessity or plan, I know not.

What I do know, he was playing his heart out, exuding passion.

Passersby dropped money into the cardboard box at his feet. I pulled a bill out of my wallet. Drawing close, I veered from my path to make my contribution to his art. He’d amassed a nice haul and I added to it, making eye contact as I did.

He winked and out of the corner of his mouth snuck a quick “thank you” as he sucked in another breath, while only slightly affecting his timing.

I continued on. His playing wasn’t good, yet I appreciated his initiative. Even more so, he brightened my day and filled me with joy, forming the highpoint of my trip.

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Tags good music

Christian Living

How to Show God Love

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 28, 2013

I’m a fan of Dr. Gary Chapman’s classic book The Five Love Languages. The basic premise is there are five ways people express and receive love. The five love languages are:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

Though we may use several of these love languages or even all of them, we each have a primary mode we default to in order to show and feel love. This is our love language (and often couples use different ones).

It took me a while to figure out my primary one, but it’s words of affirmation—and being a writer, this makes a lot of sense. My inclination is to use words to express love to others and hear words as their expression of love to me.

Does love language apply to God? I think so and so does Dr. Chapman with his book God Speaks Your Love Language: How to Feel and Reflect God’s Love. I’ve not read this one yet, but it is on my wish list.

While I don’t want to presume to know what the book says about how to show God love and receiving love from him, my mind is already formulating ideas. Words of affirmation, quality time, and acts of service are all easy parallels to see.

The love language of gifts could be money, but I suspect there’s more to it. That leaves physical touch. Do we understand it as a metaphor or is there a more practical application? I don’t know.

What I do know is there are multiple ways to let God know we love him and multiple ways for him to show love to us. One way isn’t better than another, just different.

May we each love God the way he has wired us—and not be concerned if it’s different from other people who may show love differently.

How do you show love to God?

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Tags God, love

Reviews of Books & Movies

Book Review: The Aedyn Chronicles

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 26, 2013

The Aedyn Chronicles: Chosen Ones

By Alister McGrath (reviewed by Peter DeHaan)

In tween fantasy book, The Aedyn Chronicles: Chosen Ones, Peter and Julia’s parents send them to live with their grandparents in rural England.

Amid their bickering, they discover a mysterious garden and its enchanted pool, which transports them to an ancient mythical island.

Once idyllic, corrupt leaders turned the land into a dreary place. Ruled by otherworldly creatures—at one time human, but no longer so—these tyrants oppress the people. Some fall under their control, while others flee.

Those who’ve escaped live in hiding, waiting for the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy that foretells the arrival of liberators.

Peter and Julia fall on opposite sides of this classic battle between good and evil. Which side will prevail? Will they remain apart? Can they ever return home?

Author Alister McGrath is both a theologian and Oxford professor.

The parallels between him and this book to C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia are unavoidable. When comparing a book to a classic, the former almost always falls short.

With clear religious references, Chosen Ones may resonate with mid-grade readers and perhaps even more so when read to younger children.

However, older readers and those familiar with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will likely find it lacking and an unsatisfying substitute for the original.

Even so, Chosen Ones—abounding with spiritual references and void of objectionable content—is worth considering for a quick romp in a fantasy world.

[The Aedyn Chronicles: Chosen Ones, by Alister McGrath. Published by Zonderkidz. 2010; ISBN: 978-0-310-72192-5; 202 pages.]

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Tags author, C. S. Lewis, Christian fiction

Peter DeHaan News

News: Receive Free E-book From Peter DeHaan

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 25, 2013

Receive Peter DeHaan’s new e-book, How Big Is Your Tent? as a free thank you gift when you sign-up for his free weekly newsletter below.

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Read more in How Big is Your Tent? A Call for Christian Unity, Tolerance, and Love and discover what the Bible says about following Jesus. Available in e-book and paperback.

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Tags A Faith Manifesto

Bible Insights

How Big Was the Promised Land?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 25, 2013

God gave the Promised Land to the descendants of Abraham, not because they deserved it, but to use them to punish other nations who were wicked.

After he gave them the territory, their job was to drive out the other people (thereby punishing them).

Though the nation of Israel did this to some extent, their efforts were incomplete. This was to their detriment and God’s dismay.

God also gave them laws to obey. They didn’t do a good job at following through with those either.

Had they completely done all God instructed them to do, he would have given them even more territory: this time because they earned it.

Sadly they didn’t do their part, so they never received all the land God wanted to give them. The Promised Land could have been bigger, but because of disobedience, the nation missed the full blessing of what God had in mind for them.

I think it’s that way with us sometimes.

God wants to give us more, but we don’t do our part to receive it and so we miss out.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 19-21, and today’s post is on Deuteronomy 19:8-9.]

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Tags disobedience, obey God, promised land

Peter DeHaan News

News Release: Peter DeHaan Releases A Faith Manifesto

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 25, 2013

New Spirituality E-book Conveys Author’s Basis for Belief and is Available as a Free Download

[Note: this book has since been updated and relaunched as How Big is Your Tent? A Call for Christian Unity, Tolerance, and Love.]

Mattawan, Michigan, Apr 25, 2013—Author Peter DeHaan, PhD, announced the release of his new e-book, A Faith Manifesto, an essential belief statement of what it means to follow Jesus as revealed in the Bible.

Weighing in at a mere 2,800 words, A Faith Manifesto is a quick read that’s packed with elegant simplicity, yet offers much to contemplate.

Proclaiming the Bible as his foundation for belief, Peter simply asks, “What did Jesus say?” Compiling Jesus’ own words from the biblical accounts of his teaching, the evidence mounts to produce a fresh perspective.

The result wipes away centuries of assumptions that don’t really align with Jesus’ teaching.

And that’s just part one. There are two more parts—even more daring and outrageous than the first—as Peter urges readers to “follow the God who is revealed in the Bible.”

“A Faith Manifesto is a succinct account of the foundation of my theology,” stated Dr. DeHaan. “It also serves nicely as a focal point for much of my other writing. Part one of A Faith Manifesto is a concise summary of key principles from my dissertation.”

Peter continued, stating that two other books he is working on also connect with the core ideas expressed in A Faith Manifesto.

A Faith Manifesto is available as a PDF file and formatted for easy viewing on a computer screen.

Read more in How Big is Your Tent? A Call for Christian Unity, Tolerance, and Love and discover what the Bible says about following Jesus. Available in e-book and paperback.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Tags A Faith Manifesto

Christian Living

How to Spend Time with God

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 21, 2013
2 Comments on How to Spend Time with God

We spend time with people we like. The more we like them, the more time we spend together. If we claim people as friends but don’t often see them, then they must not be too important.

The same is true with God. If God is important to us, we’ll spend time with him: not out of guilt but out of longing. Here are some ideas.

Pray

Prayer is talking to God. When we pray, we tell him what’s on our minds. We also listen to what he says.

We would never dominate our time with a friend, just talking about ourselves but never listening or always complaining but never being appreciative or always asking for favors but never giving any. Those are easy ways to lose a friend.

So it is with prayer: don’t do all the talking, rant, or just ask for things. Instead, listen, thank, and give.

Read the Bible

With friends we read their emails, subscribe to their blog, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. If God is our friend, shouldn’t we likewise be interested in what he has to say?

Think

Taking time to just contemplate is not often done in our fast-paced culture. Yet we do think about friends. And for that someone special, we think about him or her a lot.

We call this daydreaming; we can’t help ourselves. As it relates to God, thinking about him is meditating; we contemplate God.

Give

I’m not talking about money. We give friends our time, attention, and focus (and sometimes money, too). So it should be with God. We carve out time to be with our closest friends. So too, God appreciates our time, attention, and focus.

Hanging Out

The Gen-X and Gen-Yers value “just hanging out with friends.”

In the same way, we can hang out with God: going for walks, listening to music, watching TV, eating out, taking him to the movies. In fact, God can do whatever we do and go where ever we go.

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Tags God, priorities

Reviews of Books & Movies

Book Review: Prayer: Conversing with God

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 19, 2013

By Rosalind Rinker (reviewed by Peter DeHaan)

“I have discovered,” says Rosalind Rinker, “that prayer’s real purpose is to put God at the center of our attention, and forget ourselves and the impression we are making on others.”

So begins the preface of Prayer: Conversing with God, aptly establishing the foundation for the rest of the book.

Rinker starts Prayer: Conversing with God by sharing her experiences at three prayer meetings—both the positive and the negative. The lesson that she learns is that prayer is simply talking to God.

It’s a dialogue, sans religious prayer-language, pretentious posturing, and Shakespearean low English (thou, thee, thy). As a result, her spiritual journey is forever; a new and fresh relationship with God emerges.

Interspersing personal experience with scriptural support, she moves from the basics – prayer is dialogue, a conversion, a relationship—to discussions about group prayer and private prayer.

In the chapter entitled, “To whom should we pray?” she addresses the Trinitarian nature of God in a helpful and practice manner.

Prayer: Conversing with God also includes the perplexing and the ponderous, addressing issues such as faith’s role in prayer, unanswered prayer, and making “faith-sized requests.”

She notes that prayer can be delayed and even hindered, providing convicting teaching on the importance of forgiveness.

The concluding chapter presents practical steps for turning a prayer meeting into a vibrant conversation with God. As a bonus, there are four appendices with additional tools to aid readers in their own spiritual journey.

With numerous printings and nearly a million copies sold, Prayer: Conversing with God is a book that has proven itself to be a timeless classic. Written over 50 years ago, its truths are as valuable and useful today as they were a half a century ago.

[Prayer: Conversing with God, by Rosalind Rinker. Published by Zondervan Publishing House, 1959, 117 pages.]

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Tags prayer

Bible Insights

Why Does God Bless Us?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 18, 2013

When God’s people were in Egypt, he promised to send them back to the land of Jacob, that is, the Promised Land.

God would give them the land because they deserved it, right? Surely God would bless them with freedom and a place to call home because they earned it.

Their endurance while enslaved in Egypt for four centuries must have secured this reward.

Certainly, they would receive the Promised Land because of good behavior and righteous living. They had garnered God’s favor and he was duty-bound to respond.

No, that’s not it at all.

Moses said God would not do this to reward Israel but to punish the nations they would displace. God had a bigger picture in mind and in order to accomplish it, he blessed one people in order to remove the wickedness of another.

The Israelites were the happy recipients of God’s unmerited favor.

When something good happens, we often assume God’s implicit acknowledgment of our character and conduct.

But before we pat ourselves on our back, we should recall Moses’ warning to the people of Israel: they were not to assume the Promised Land was a response to their righteousness.

We shouldn’t make incorrect conclusions about why God chooses to bless but instead just be grateful when he does.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 7-9, and today’s post is on Deuteronomy 9:4.]

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Tags blessing, God