Christian Living

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“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

This petition, especially when coupled with the addendum in v. 14-15 (“if you do not forgive others the Lord will not forgive you”) has caused concern for some of God’s people. Let me say first that this passage is not concerned with forgiveness of sins and justification on the basis of the cross and resurrection. Certainly, that is not how the disciples would have understood Jesus.

Rather, what is in view here is our unfettered approach to God. How can we think of asking God to forgive us our debts and our sins (Luke 11:4) if we hypocritically refuse to forgive the debts and sins of others against us? Just as unconfessed sin stops our prayers from being effective, so an unforgiving heart will damage our fellowship with our Father, and hence our prayer life.

This petition requires us to look within ourselves for any traces of hypocrisy in our dealings with our fellow man. How many of God’s children harbor secret enmities, prejudices, envies and bitterness toward others? In some sense they must be to us as we would be to God.

Thus, as Andrew Murray says,

In each prayer to the Father I must be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not heartily love. (With Christ in the School of Prayer, 30.)

A prayer life that fails to include thorough self-examination is always going to be deficient. Although no man can know himself so well as to exclude all suspicion of his heart-motive, yet he must search his memory for sins still unconfessed and people yet unforgiven.

The Bible describes with clarity many responsibilities of believers in the contexts of government and society. Still in some areas believers are not given specific instructions, and instead must rely on applying general biblical principles to contemporary challenges. For example, Paul mandates without compromise that the Roman believers should pay the taxes required of them (Rom. 13:7), but when it comes to eating meat sacrificed to idols, Paul gives the Corinthians options (1 Cor. 8-10).

Pagan temples in first-century Corinth often included animal sacrifice. Even beyond the temples themselves, the marketplace was well represented with meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Consequently, the issue of whether a believer should eat such meat became an iconic cultural problem for the Corinthian church. Each era and context presents its own unique challenges. Every culture encounters, From time to time, moral issues so complex as to defy simple solutions. Still, in each and every instance, despite any level of complexity, these challenges can be answered appropriately by biblical principles. But before one can correctly apply a general principle to a specific situation, the person must understand the principle. Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians is helpful, as he explains the principles and their grounding so that the believers at Corinth could apply them well, and in so doing could maintain clear consciences.

The term ad hominem is much misunderstood these days. In popular usage, it’s a personal attack leveled against someone you disagree with. Many never use the term without appending the word attack. “It’s nothing but an ad hominem attack,” they complain, as though an ad hominem is a nasty species of attack that automatically disproves every claim the user ever made. (And is it just me or does just about everybody employ “ad homnem attacks” even though they insist nobody else should?)

My aim here is to clarify a few things about the much misunderstood ad hominem.

It’s an argument.

First, the ad hominem is an argument, a bit of reasoning employed to support or counter a claim. Specifically, ad hominem looks to some trait an individual possesses (usually a flaw) to show that a claim is false (or, less commonly, that a claim is true). Ad hominem means “to the man,” and as a form of argument it is not inherently invalid or improper—or even impolite.

Celebrating Christmas is a skill. I’m not particularly good at this craft, but I have at least figured out that you must handle the holidays with a measure of prowess. Just letting Christmas happen to you is a recipe for trouble. Like sailing a ship, Christmas is an opportunity requiring keen attention at the helm.

Every year, it seems, I gain a lesson in what not to do and resolve to do things a little better the next time around. I do not pretend to offer anything like a comprehensive word on the subject here, nor to speak with authority. But after many tries at it, a few reflections may at least stimulate thought as we reflect back on this past season and look to the future.

The first skill in navigating Christmas well is to renounce idealism.

This is harder for some than for others; but it is vital never to permit tradition or fantasy to overwhelm reality. Fulfilling traditions and meeting expectations is not evil; but unrestrained dreams can quickly morph into vampire-like nemeses that suck the joy from our souls. Have a long talk with your head (rather than your heart) at the outset of the holiday season: “Some preparations will fail. Unforeseen complications will arise. Some things will not go well. And all of that is okay.” Do not expect to hit a home run every Christmas; hitting a single now and then is acceptable. Moderate expectations can brighten the season considerably.

Like almost all children, I loved Christmas. Being brought up in a religious (but non-evangelical home), I understood the meaning of the holiday from as far back as I could remember. We always went to church every Sunday and would not think of missing church on Christmas.

Part of our Christmas décor included setting up a small Christmas crèche, complete with a light that fit into a “star” slot above the stable. Although I was led to believe in Santa Claus, the religious nature of the holiday was always front and center. My mom sent only Christmas cards with manger scenes, and we never bought Christmas albums that did not have at least some faith-based carols.

When I was very young, my sister and I would go out with my parents to purchase a live Christmas tree about a week before Christmas. We would decorate it with ornaments, tinsel, and those old-fashioned colored bulbs. One year, a neighbor moved and left us a silver tree. We tried it one year, but it seemed so cold. We returned to purchasing live trees, but eventually decided to buy an artificial green tree.

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“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

One of the greatest difficulties for believers when they are praying is perspective. By this I have in mind particularly the perspective of time. God’s time-table is stretched out and often overruns the short span of our brief lives. Like the stride of a giant overtakes the scurrying of an ant, it can appear that God is hardly “in” our situation, because He has the vista of the whole future in front of Him. As Longfellow put it, “the mills of God grind slowly!”

Most of us struggle through life snatching only glimpses of the outworking of God’s plan. We expect this, for we are instructed to walk by faith and not by sight. So we trust that the plan is truly coming together. Indeed, this part of the “Lord’s Prayer” teaches us that anticipation plays a large part in daily prayers. We are to anticipate the culmination of present realities—as harsh as they so often are—foreseeing an era when God’s perfect shall indeed be done on earth as it is right now in heaven.