Everything Created by God Is Good

Note: I originally wrote this post as an article for the Bible Bee Alumni Group’s newsletter. You can learn more about the National Bible Bee here.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with
thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4:4-5

I was blessed by God with the amazing privilege of being raised in a loving Christian household by parents who were committed to teaching the faith to their children. I wouldn’t trade my upbringing for anything. But, like so many others who grew up in conservative homeschooling families, I slipped into a lot of legalism as a child and teen. Even today, I’m aware of areas of life in which my natural thought process is legalistic, and I’m sure I don’t recognize my legalism in other areas. I can’t blame anyone else for the way I internalized certain messages and took things too far. It was a self-imposed legalism. But I do wish someone had shown me the beautiful truth contained in these verses of 1 Timothy 4.

Everything created by God is good. It’s a simple statement. Maybe it should be an obvious statement. Maybe it should go without saying that a good God would only create good things. But legalism searches for workarounds, refusing to believe that creation is good.

Legalism is often driven by fear. When legalism hears God’s instruction to Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17), it misses the generous gift. It hears only the Law and the warning. In fact, it is so afraid of eating from the tree in the center of the Garden that it determines only to eat from the trees along the perimeter, refusing to touch most of the fruits God created for enjoyment and nourishment. Or it goes even further and declines to eat at all, preferring starvation to the risk of disobedience.

It seems harsh to call this “teachings of demons,” but those are the words Paul uses to describe the liars with seared consciences who forbid marriage and certain foods (1 Tim. 4:1-3). We may think demons would only be interested in promoting sexual immorality and gluttony. But while they certainly teach those vices, they are apparently content to promote an ungrateful abstinence from marriage and foods as well. These foods were “created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (v. 3). God made these foods because He wants to give them to His children, but false teachers stand in the way, barring Christians from receiving God’s gifts.

I find it interesting that Jesus was accused of being “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34). Of course He was neither of these things. He was perfectly sinless and never succumbed to either excess. But He must not have cared too much about staying as far away as possible from all appearance of gluttony and drunkenness. He turned water into good wine and gave it to those who had already been drinking (John 2:10). One of the last things Luke records Him doing before His ascension is eating fish (Luke 24:42-43). As shocking as it may sound to our legalistic and Gnostic ears, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking” (Matt. 11:19).

I wonder sometimes about the complaint of the older brother in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. Pouting outside his younger brother’s homecoming party, he accuses his father of never giving him “a young goat, that [he] might celebrate with [his] friends” (Luke 15:29). It is hard to believe that the same father who divided his property at the younger son’s impudent request would refuse his older son’s request for a young goat. The best explanation I can think of, though it is purely speculative, is that the older son never asked. Fathers love to give good gifts to their children, and even more so our heavenly Father gives “good things to those who ask him” (Matt. 7:11). But the legalistic older brother in me doesn’t want to ask. Maybe he is too afraid of looking like his younger brother. He wants to boast that he has gotten by without grace.

The devil is happy to lead us in the prodigality of the younger brother. He is pleased when we squander our inheritance “in reckless living” (Luke 15:13). But if he cannot make us despise and throw off the Law altogether, it serves him just as well to deceive us into thinking we are keeping the Law. If he cannot convince us to misuse God’s good gifts like the younger brother, he can tempt us not to use them at all like the older brother. He will do all that he can to keep us standing outside the banquet hall, willfully rejecting the Father’s gracious celebration.

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If it is hard to accept that creation is good, it is even harder to believe that simple, everyday gifts are holy. This is Paul’s explanation for why nothing should be rejected if received with thanksgiving: “it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:5).

God’s holy word makes holy the ordinary gifts of marriage and food. It is noteworthy that these are two of the things that Ecclesiastes says to enjoy during our short lives (9:7,9). When we receive these gifts with thanksgiving, we are partaking of what God has sanctified.

Only God can make the unclean to be clean and the common to be holy. The holiness of our marriages and mealtimes is not found in the radical way we live. It comes from God. So next time you kiss your spouse or eat a bowl of cereal, consider the amazing reality that these gifts are holy by the word of God and prayer. God showers us with daily blessings to be enjoyed–good things that are not only permissible but holy.

Righteous Lot?

No one names a kid after Lot. (My apologies if your parents did.) His life reads as a series of one unimpressive event after another. We see him choosing the best land for himself and moving next to Sodom, getting captured and having to be rescued by Uncle Abraham, abandoning his fatherly responsibilities when the men of Sodom threaten his angelic visitors, and essentially being raped by his daughters in the end (Gen 13-19). He doesn’t make for a very impressive Bible hero.

That’s why it has always puzzled me when I read in 2 Peter of “righteous Lot.” Here’s Peter’s commentary on Lot: “[God] rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)” (2 Pet 2:7-8). One thing that stands out is Peter’s commendation of Lot’s distress. I often fall for the lie that if I can’t change the wickedness around me, I should ignore it. But this text shows otherwise. Lot is similar to those in Jerusalem whom God instructed Ezekiel to mark: “the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it” (Ezek 9:4). Even when we feel powerless to stop evil deeds, we can still mourn over them.

But Lot’s story reveals more than the importance of being distressed by sin; it shows God’s abundant mercy. The source of Lot’s righteousness is the same as mine: Christ alone. Maybe that’s why Lot makes me uncomfortable. He shows that God counts as righteous even poor, miserable sinners like Lot–and like me. We aren’t any different, really. We are both helpless sinners rescued from the flames by the steadfast love of God. We are both proof of His extravagant grace.

^{The Flight of Lot from Sodom, etching by Gustave Doré, 1866}

As I was reflecting on Lot’s righteousness the other day, I wrote this free-verse poem. It draws mainly on Genesis 19 (especially v. 16) and 2 Peter 2:7-8. Click here to listen to the poem. (I just went back and added audio to my other poetry posts too.)

Righteous Lot?

Righteous Lot? 

It seems so wrong

To praise a man who did so little good.

Righteous Lot? 

Can this be said

Of one whose presence left no mark

On Sodom and Gomorrah?

Abraham entreated God 

To leave the city standing 

If ten righteous souls were found.

But they could not be found.

Just the man, his wife, his daughters – 

What difference had he made 

In the place he pitched his tent?

Even in the end, he could not stop them.

What kind of man would throw his daughters

To the hungry mob?

How can Peter call this weakling “righteous”?

“Greatly distressed”? Is that all?

He tormented his soul over their sin,

The lawlessness he daily saw and heard.

How is that enough?

Just that mustard seed of faith, 

No proof of mountains moved,

Not even future sons-in-law converted.

Yet somehow God 

Looks upon this man

And calls him “righteous.”

Could it be when Abraham was pleading

A greater Intercessor also spoke?

Could it be that Christ defended

This man whose life had ended

Had not angels dragged him out to safer ground?

And when sulfur rained on Sodom and Gomorrah,

It was Mercy that spared Lot and called him just.

His righteous soul that burned over their evil

Could not save the cities from the burning. 

Yet Lot was saved as angels took his hand

And pulled him from the judgment on that land.

Which Bible heroes and heroines make you uncomfortable? Why? Could it be because of our temptation to grumble at God’s generosity like the laborers in Matthew 20:15?

Going to Hell through the Church?

A few months ago, my husband came across this artwork on social media. I have unsuccessfully perused the internet in search of its source, so please leave a comment if you know to whom I should give credit. Maybe the artist won’t mind being left unidentified because most of what I have to say about the image is not complimentary.

As I discussed in a previous post, we are exhorted to explain our neighbors “in the kindest way.” Therefore I’ll start by hoping that this artist truly loves the church. Perhaps the goal of this image is to warn Christians against the danger of falling away and to urge them to hold on to the faith. Maybe the artwork is supposed to visually represent what Hebrews says of “those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away” (6:3-6). Maybe the artist wants viewers to recognize their continued need for God’s grace so that they do not grow prideful. 

However, I don’t think the image does a good job of communicating what went wrong for the poor silhouettes falling out of the bottom of the church into hell. It looks like their biggest mistake was walking through the church doors. It makes you want to grab the figures who are just entering and yell, “Watch out! Turn around! This is the path to eternal death!” This piece of art makes the church look like the biggest obstacle to people’s salvation. And I’m afraid some Christians would agree with that sentiment.

This is the exact opposite of how we should view the church. I was recently reminded by another blogger of how the church has been seen historically as a “ship of souls.” Is it possible to come aboard the ship and still perish like the figures in the drawing? Yes. But admitting that some people jump overboard and drown doesn’t change the fact that the church is the safest place to be and our only hope of life in the first place.

^{Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee by Rembrandt (1633)}

I find it interesting that we confess in the Apostles’ Creed our belief in the holy catholic (or Christian) church. Why couldn’t we just confess our belief in the three Persons of the Trinity and leave it at that? Because God has chosen to save us through the church and as a church, not just as individuals in our personal little lifeboats. The parts of the third article all belong together. We confess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” It’s easy to see the connection between the church and the communion of saints. Do we also believe in the connection between the church and God’s forgiveness? God could have chosen a different way to do it. He could have chosen to zap us all individually with His salvation. But instead He chose to work through the means of the Word and Sacraments, and by these means He gives grace through His church.

Here’s what the Small Catechism says about the Holy Spirit’s work through the church: “He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.” 

Some might think that this image warns against legalism by exposing the danger of doing “church stuff” without faith in Christ. Maybe that was the artist’s goal. If so, I appreciate the good intention and I admit that legalism can infect churches. But I can’t agree with this image’s solution, which seems to be that we should reject the church. If there is legalism within the church, there is most certainly legalism when Christianity tries to exist without the church. What are we left with when we remove the church with its preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments? Whatever form the remaining Christianity takes, it will have to rely on works of some sort. The church is where God’s grace is.

What do you think? Do you have other ideas about what this artist might be trying to communicate? What do you believe about the relationship between the church and salvation? Is the church a “ship of souls” or a threat to souls? Please share in the comments.