How close is God to the reality around us? How should christians view the physical world that we live in?
Jacob was born into a world where he was alloted a certain position and the accompanying benefits, but he wasn’t content and he used devious plans to try to extract more from the world around him. He was ambitious and without scruples and he wrestled with the reality around him. He tricked Esau his brother twice to take what his brother had been given until his brother finally decided to kill him. He ran for his life and lost everything. Many years later when Jacob was alone he wrestled with an Angel all night. Jacob said ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me’ and the angel said ‘Your name shall no longer be call Jacob, but Isreal; for you have struggled with with God and with men and have prevailed.’ Then the angel dislocated his hip. This event mirrors his past in that he struggled to get more from the world around him and he was injured by that ambition. Jacob was shaped by the world around him. There is a connection between our attitude to the world around us and our attitude towards God. The physical laws around us contain us and limit us and when we fight with those laws we pay a price. Many people are at war with God and the world and they pay a price.
Cain and Able approached the world in different ways. Cain was a farmer and Able kept sheep. They found themselves in different industries. When Cain offered his farmed goods to God, God was displeased but when Able offered a sheep, God was pleased. Sometimes necessity dictates what we should do with our lives, we would love to be free to choose whatever career path we want but reality governs where we will be succesful and where we will be unfruitful. Maybe a business chooses an industry without demand, good intentions and desire are not enough to be fruitful.
God can direct us in multiple ways, He can guide us directly, telling us what to do, or He can give us wisdom so that we understand the reality around us and know what we should do. God wants us to understand how things work and to interact with them in productive ways. Sometimes Christians ignore the reality around them, thinking they can ignore it and only focus on God, but God created this world and every physical law exists because He wanted it to. This includes physics, biology, economics and every other discipline. God is a God of miracles, and He can override the laws of nature at will, but He also wants us to respect the world that He created. There is a saying that a person can be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. It is good and right to focus on heavenly things, to pray and to dwell on spiritual realities, but these serve to give us strength in our daily lives.
Uzzah was walking beside the ark as it was being carried, when it tipped he tried to stop it from falling and God struck him down for touching it. This seems harsh and uncaring but it also seems like the laws of nature. Gravity doesn’t care about intentions, if you fall a certain distance you will get hurt or even die. We need to respect the laws of nature that God created. Safety is a crucial subject that everyone should focus one when interacting with the harsh laws of physics. We shouldn’t ignore common safety and assume that God will deliver us. When Satan tempted Jesus to jump off a building and force God to protect Him, Jesus said that it was wrong to test God. We are not to ignore the laws of reality under the ussumption that God will miraculaously save us from our actions. We will suffer the consequences of our behavior according to the laws that he created.
There is the way the world is and the way we want it to be. When the Isrealites thought of a messiah they thought of someone who would wage war against the Romans to deliver them from their rule. But Jesus choose instead to save them from themselves and teach them how to be loving and self controlled. When they realized that He wouldn’t deliver them in the way that they wanted to be delivered they turned on Him. We want to be free form the reality around us that limits us and Gods answer to us is to change ourselves before we can change the world.
The world around us is governed by physical laws and it acts consistently according to those laws. Science is a system used to observe those laws and it helps us understand the world around us. The physical laws and the science used to observe them does not account for the spiritual world though. Science cannot peak across the barrier and can only be used to observe this reality. Like the mechanics of Mario can only be used to interact with the programmed world that Mario inhabits, we are similarly contained within our world. In a spritual sense, we are able to interact with the spiritual world through faith in Jesus and fellowship with God, but in a physical sense, we are subject to the world that we live in. Science is a good methodolgy for observing the world. Math and statistics are integral to the world that God created.
There are many ways that people can be at war with reality. Trans people want something that they can’t have. They want to be the opposite sex and try many things to make it a reality. But reality has determined the sex that they will spend their lives as. Medical procedures, clothing and pronouns will not change that. Pretending to be something you’re not and asking the world to pretend with you is not the solution. The solution is to accept the realities of life even when you don’t want them to exist. Accepting the truth can be difficult but it is necessary for us to grow and to interact with the world in meaningful ways. Drug addicts are at war with reality because they want to feel good without going through the proper steps to earn it, dealing with trauma, self-control, hard work etc. Porn is at odds with reality by misrepresenting sex and healthy relationships. We are all at war with reality to some extent but the more we accept the true nature of the world the better off we will be.
The law of moses was shaped by reality and necessary for the times that the Isrealis lived in. It was perfect in the sense that it accomplished what it needed to accomplish. But it wasn’t a perfect law in the sense the it will work for every new society. Laws need to be shaped by the times that people live in and need to adapt to new conditions like new technology and threats. Jesus directed peoples focus to the underlying principles of the law and the goal of them, rather than the letter of the law. People had lost site of the laws purpose and many started abusing the letter of the law for their own benefit. The closer our laws align with the reality around us the more effective they will be.
There are consequences to our actions, even when we are saved by faith in Jesus. Sometimes christians ignore the reality around us but it is important to remember that we live in a real world and God lets us live by the same rules as others. The world can seem harsh and unforgiving but God has given us hope for a new world without the difficulties and dangers. Reality has edges and we need to respect those edges. Being carefree and ignoring consequences only leads to misery and pain. Through faith in Jesus we can be changed into people who are more inline with the world that God created. We can submit to what should be submitted to and can fight what should be fought when we have subdued our own natures that are contrary to God and the world. We are spiritual creatures trapped in a physical world. Through faith in Jesus we find strength to deal with the world around us.