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Fine Prints: November,
2007
Straight-Liners and Flat Planers
November 3
Onions and Infinite Possibilities November
10
Speculating and God's Rewards November
17
Little Man, Big Victory--1 November
24
Straight-Liners and Flat Planers
Last week I contended that
supernatural needn’t mean unnatural. Thus, Jesus’s miracles
didn’t necessarily interrupt or suspend any law of nature. He may have
simply engaged nature at an altogether different level. Let me
illustrate what I mean.
Suppose
there’s an intelligent species that can move only along a linear track
on a flat plane. And they can move only in one direction. They can go
forward, but they can’t go backward.
At least they assume they can’t go backward, because none of them
ever have. Or, more precisely, none of them have ever really thought
about it. They just move along the line in a forward motion as their
fellow creatures have always done, and as their forebears did before
them.
Then one day one creature gets the wild idea that maybe movement can be
both forward and backward along the line. He tries his theory. To
his delight, he discovers that he actually can move in both directions.
At first others of the species are skeptical. But they can’t deny that
he’s indeed moving in both directions. And before long, the entire
species is routinely moving forward and backward along the linear track.
Then comes another breakthrough. One of the species asks why it wouldn’t
be possible to create a new path, perpendicular to the one all the
creatures walk along. With no small amount of fear and trepidation, he
turns to the right and steps off the beaten linear track. And it works!
He quickly discovers that he can go to the right of the main track, and
he can go to the left. And then he discovers that he needn’t even be at
right angles from the main track. He can move at any angle he chooses.
It’s exhilarating.
Others try it. And soon they discover that it isn’t even necessary to
travel in straight lines, even though that’s how it has been done for
generations. They can move in circles. They can zigzag. They can go
almost anywhere.
In fact, they discover that the entire flat plane is theirs to explore
and traverse. The discovery is so exhilarating that at first the entire
species spends all their time testing their newfound freedom.
More time passes. Then one of the species asks why all movement is
straight ahead, or backward, or right or left, but never up or down. The
species is quite unanimous that it’s a stupid question. After all, none
of them have ever traveled up or down. They’re a species of
flat-planers. Always have been, they say.
But the innovator persists. Why not travel up and down? So he
tries it. And, lo and behold, it can be done. The species isn’t
limited to a horizontal plane. They can move vertically as well.
Talk about revolutionary!
The species, which once had moved only forward along a single line on a
flat plane, are soon routinely moving forward and backward, at all
angles to the right and left, and even up and down. And the potential
had been there all along. It just had never been tapped into.
But I
promised to talk about how onions fit into all of this. So tune in next
week, and I’ll try to deliver on that promise.
Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor
 
Onions and Infinite
Possibilities
For the past two weeks I’ve
been talking about whether Jesus actually suspended or interrupted the
laws of nature when He performed His many miracles. Perhaps He was
simply engaging nature at an altogether different level. His actions
were supernatural but not necessarily unnatural, I
suggested.
This line of thinking first came to me when I was 19 years old and for
the first time reading the book Education, by Ellen G. White. In
commenting on how prayer works, she states: "As surely as the oak is in
the acorn, so surely is the gift of God in His promise. If we receive
the promise, we have the gift" (p. 253).
Suddenly it hit me that she might be suggesting that God’s promises are
very much like scientific laws: They’re descriptions of reality. Do this
and that happens. Might it be that God’s promises function just as
consistently as all other laws of nature?
Is it possible that God isn’t saying to us: "Convince me to act on your
behalf"? Rather, He’s saying, "I’ve already acted on your behalf. It’s
in the design. The gift is already there. You simply need to come into
harmony with me so you can appropriate it."
Could it be that it’s not a matter of persuading God to make an
executive decision so much as accessing a strong force to counteract an
otherwise consistent pattern of behavior on the part of nature (much
like my description two weeks ago of what it takes to blast a rocket
into space or make an airplane fly)?
While reading Education, I also came across the statement that
"except by [our] own choice, there is no limit to the possibilities of
[human] development" (p. 125). Putting the two statements together, plus
a bit of additional random thinking—such as, What did God mean when He
said we were to have dominion over the earth and "subdue" it?—I came up
with the onion model to explain how it all might work.
Imagine that the universe/nature is like an onion—layered. We generally
function in the layer of natural laws that exist down at the core of the
onion. What goes on there is "natural" from our perspective. But that’s
not the entire picture.
Suppose that outside of the central layer where we typically exist and
function is another layer that offers a whole new realm of "miraculous"
possibilities. I say "miraculous" because the laws of the next layer
transcend the laws of nature that we daily experience at the core layer.
But that next layer is still nature. What takes place there is also
natural. From our core-layer perspective, though, it’s supernatural.
But even if we were able to come into harmony with and appropriately
harness that new layer of nature with all its miraculous potential,
there’s still another layer to be experienced. And another. And another.
And another. The number of layers of natural law is infinite. Jesus, I
suggest, functioned at such a far-out layer that He could say that He,
in Himself, had the power to lay down His life and to take it up again.
All this doesn’t directly have anything to do with onions. But using the
onion analogy does spice things up a little, don’t you agree?
Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor
Speculating and God's Rewards
One of the rewards of heaven
and the new earth that I’ve always looked forward to is inter-planetary
travel. Make that inter-galactic travel! The idea is a bit speculative,
I recognize. It’s definitely not a theme developed in Scripture. In my
case, many of my ideas came while reading the writings of Adventist
writer Ellen G. White.
But back to the idea of travel to places light years away.
It’s obvious that utilizing any method of transportation currently
available to us is inadequate for the kind of distances we would need to
traverse to get to the outer reaches of the universe. Granted, we’ll
have eternity to do it. But we’d be cooped up on a space ship for more
time than I’d like—which kind of takes the thrill out of the possibility
of inter-galactic travel.
But who says we have to employ current means of travel? And who says
that science-fiction writers may not be on to something? Not that the
specifics are correct, but their "beam me up, Scotty" ideas may have
some truth in them. For example, the idea of dematerializing and then
rematerializing makes a lot of sense. Maybe it’s akin to what Jesus was
talking about when He said he had power to lay down His life and power
to take it up again.
I think we too often portray heaven and the new earth as so namby-pamby
and static that they sound kind of boring. We too often portray God as
the great Santa Claus-style "passer-outer" of goodies from His big bag
of gifts. But I’d rather think of heaven, the new earth and the
ceaseless ages of eternity as opportunity for study, discovery and
development. As I quoted last week, except by our own choice, there’s no
limit to the possibilities of that development. The potential is
infinite, just as eternity is infinite.
Now, I recognize that the same Ellen G. White whose writings triggered
much of my speculation had something to say about the danger of
speculation. And for good reason, no doubt.
One of her concerns seems to be the unfortunate characteristic too many
of us have of feeling that everyone else should think exactly as we do.
That characteristic can get in the way badly enough when we’re dealing
with the fairly plain teachings of Scripture. But when we try to cram
our speculative theories down other people’s throats, we’re
really out of line.
Another important principle is that we must make a clear distinction
between what the Bible actually says and the inferences we draw from
those words. So let me assure you, what I’ve shared in the past four
Fine Prints has been to stir up thought not to hand you a tidy package
of proven truth.
Speculation is just that: speculation. But when the Bible tells us that
eye hasn’t seen, ear hasn’t heard, and it hasn’t even entered into our
wildest imagination the wonderful things that God has in mind for those
who follow Him, I think it behooves us to ask ourselves just what those
wonderful blessing might be and how they might operate.
At least, that kind of thinking gets me pretty excited.
Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor
Little Man, Big Victory--1
Have you ever wanted to have a
second go at some life event you fumbled badly and would desperately
like to totally redo? Rarely, ever so rarely, life hands us just such an
opportunity. Let me tell you how it happened for one person a long time
ago.
My grandfather, James Nathan Coffin, whose name is
identical to mine, was a small man. At his prime he weighed about 135
pounds and stood some 5 feet and 6 inches tall. Needless to say, he
didn’t have an imposing, intimidating, John Wayne presence about him.
But he did have both an agile mind and a well-tuned body, small though
it was.
While in his mid twenties, my grandfather was
invited to be the sole teacher at a country school in Southern Iowa that
had a reputation for chewing up and spitting out teachers—often several
in one year.
In those days, more than a hundred years ago, many students came to
school only when they weren’t needed for spring planting or fall
harvesting. So it wasn’t uncommon for students to still be in elementary
school in their late teens or even early twenties. And they weren’t
always the most cooperative as students.
My grandfather arrived mid-winter to take up his teaching assignment,
after a couple of other teachers had already thrown in the towel. One
look at the size and demeanor of the boys in his classroom, and he
understood why his predecessors had left. Most of his male seventh- and
eighth-graders were larger than he. And some weren’t all that much
younger.
When he rang the bell for recess to end on his first day
of teaching, the older boys not only shouted at him that they weren’t
going to come in, they also started throwing snowballs at him. He knew
it was now or never to establish his authority.
Laughing, as if it were all a big joke, he rushed the
nearest of the big boys, tackled him, and began washing his face with
snow. Then he stuffed snow down the boy’s shirt—all the while laughing
as if he were having the time of his life.
His victim was surprised that such a small man could
move with such speed and was so strong. Almost before the onlookers
realized what had happened, my grandfather stood up, dusted the snow
from his clothes, and said, "We’ve had our fun. Now it’s time to hit the
books again." Stunned, the boys followed him back into the classroom.
Although he’d won the first round, the boys were by no
means giving up the battle. And throughout that winter and spring, it
was a game of cat and mouse, with my grandfather keeping one step ahead
of them, but getting more and more weary with each encounter.
The students’ threats became louder and more menacing
each time he outwitted them. They weren’t used to losing when it came to
making life miserable for their teacher. And it rankled them that he was
still hanging around, when most teachers would have left long before.
Knowing that a big showdown was inevitable, he began
preparing. And next week I’ll tell you what happened.
Jim Coffin, Senior Pastor
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