In an interview with four New York Times Reporters last week, Donald Trump conveyed how emboldened he feels to exercise his power around the globe.
Q. Is there anything that could stop you.The last person who spoke like this was our old friend Nebs.... and it did not end well. And Nebs did not claim to be a Christian as Donald Trump has (Dan 4:30).A. Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. And that’s very good.
A TV preaching that heard recently ended his message by asking for people who did not have a Personal Relationship With Jesus to respond. He then led them in a “sinner’s prayer.”
Modern preachers use the phrase “Personal Relationship With Jesus” so frequently that we have forgotten what it means, and never ponder if it actually makes sense at all. I see several problems with the term.
One purpose of the term is to distinguish evangelical Christians from legalistic religion, or ritualistic religion. Yet once the preacher had identified those who wanted a Personal Relationship With Jesus and led them in a sinner’s prayer, he gave them a set of four rules to follow.
Why do we need the word “personal” in the phrase? Aren't all relationships personal? A relationship that is not personal is probably not a relationship. So the term “personal” is redundant.
Jesus never told people that they needed to have a Personal Relationship With Him. He called them to be disciples and obey his teaching. He commanded them to obey him, because they loved him.
Jesus explained to his disciples that he was going away, so their existing relationship with them, whatever it was, would end. He promised that the Holy Spirit would come and that he would teach them to obey Jesus, but that would be a totally different relationship.
A personal relationship is not a political relationship. Jesus is a Messiah/King. His disciples called him “Lord”. So the relationship with Jesus is a political relationship. We relate to him in a servant/master relationship, so it is misleading to describe it as a personal relationship.
Paul did not tell the readers of his letters to have a Personal Relationship With Jesus. He talked about fellowship with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14), but we have forgotten what the term “fellowship” means. Friendship is the closest word to the meaning of fellowship, yet I have never heard a preacher telling people that they should become a friend of Jesus.
The television preacher told his listeners that they should go to church. I presume to develop their Personal Relationship With Jesus. However, I am not sure that is correct. I don’t develop a relationship with a famous person that I don’t know by:
Reading a person’s biography is not the same as getting to know them personally. To do that, I would have to be involved in their life in some way. So reading the bible is not a guarantee that a person will get to know Jesus personally.
Prayer is important: a few people enjoy it, but most people find it really hard. Many struggle and fail. So if prayer is the key to developing a Personal Relationship With Jesus, then it is not surprising that many church attendees are not sure if they have one.
People can appropriate the rescue that Jesus provided without becoming his best friend. They have done it throughout history.
My Experience
What has this been like for me?
I have been a follower of Jesus for fifty years. I call myself that because that seems to be the nature of the relationship. He is the leader, and I am the follower. (A follower does not have to be the best friend of their leader).
I think of myself as a friend of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who speaks to me. I get this quiet inner witness that I have learned the way that he speaks. I talk to him and give him permission to do things in my life and in the places where I exercise influence/authority. He is the one who acts, so it makes sense to talk to him directly.
I do not ask Jesus to do things. But I ask him to show me what he wants me to do. But it is usually the Holy Spirit who does that. And I often apologise to Jesus for not doing what he asked me to do.
I do not ask our father to do things very often. He knows better than me what needs to be done. My role is to give him permission to do it.
I love Jesus because of who he is and the wonderful things that he has done. For him to leave his place in the spiritual realms and become a human is amazing. For him to be willing to die on a cross for humans who had rejected him is mind-blowing generosity. So I love Jesus and tell him that he is wonderful.
This is a relationship of awe and wonder. I am not sure if this is the Personal Relationship with Jesus that the preacher was talking about. I love reading the Bible, but that is probably because I have an intellectual bent and a curious mind. I have learned a huge amount about who Jesus is and what he has done, but I also know that this does not automatically translate into a relationship with Jesus (although it can help).
I suspect that many Christians don’t have a Personal Relationship With Jesus like the TV preacher promises, but they pretend to have one, because they are unwilling to admit how tonight it is to be a follower of Jesus.
Challenge
I don’t like the expression Personal Relationship With Jesus. I know what the TV preacher is trying to say, but I don’t think his listeners really understand what he is offering them.
I presume that most of the preacher’s listeners are not sure how to obtain the Personal Relationship With Jesus that they are supposed to have. And I suspect that many preachers do not really know how to teach them about achieving it, either.
Followers of Jesus are called to share his message with a new generation of people who are unchurched. The expression Personal Relationship With Jesus does not mean much to them.
We will need to find more effective ways to communicate the gospel (even word is not very useful now). We will need to find better ways to describe what Jesus has done and how we appropriate it. We will have to find better ways to describe how we can follow him by communicating with his Holy Spirit.
Question
Tell me what it has been like for your in the comments. But be honest, do not pretend to look good.
I have updated my article on Migration. Here is an excerpt.
When Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God, he was not envisioning a nation-state with national boundaries. He envisioned a boundaryless situation more like the Roman Empire, which dominated the known world.The Kingdom of God will be made up of communities of people who are united by their commitment to serving and obeying Jesus. They will support people of all cultures who live in their midst. People will be free to travel wherever in the world that they choose to go. Wherever they choose to live, they will find a Kingdom Community that welcomes them and will support them.
As the Kingdom of God grows, nation-states will wither away as they become irrelevant and lose their viability.
Imagine if
two evil spirits had attacked baby Jesus and strangled him while his protecting angels were celebrating his birth with the shepherds.
What if
the wise men had misunderstood their dream and returned to Jerusalem after they had found Jesus. Herod would have gone to worship him, but after he had left, he would have sent a couple of his most vicious henchmen to slaughter Jesus and his parents. Jesus did not receive the Holy Spirit until he was baptised by John, so he would not have been able to heal himself as he was bleeding to death.
What if
Joseph had not understood his warning dream, as we often don’t, and had remained in Bethlehem after Jesus was born, because work was plentiful and well-paid. Jesus would have been killed when Herod killed all the boys under the age of two living in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
What if
Jesus had been helping his father as a builder when a heap of stones fell from the wall of a building and killed him.
Any of the possibilities listed above could have happened. This shows that God took on a huge risk when he sent his only to the earth son to be born as a baby and grow into childhood and eventually to become an adult who would would deliver the people of the world.
If Jesus had been killed, God would have lost his only son. He could not create another one, because Jesus was not created. If Jesus was killed as a child, God’s plan would have failed. The Trinity would become incomplete.
The success of God’s plan depended on a dozen people hearing from God and doing what he needed them to do. If any one of these had missed it, as we often do, the plan would have failed.
More at God’s Big Strategy.
For to us a child is born,This is simple. Jesus has been born. He will be the government
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign … over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this (Is 9:6-7).
Once upon a time.....
a botanist who had been studying ants all his life discovered an ant colony at a site where a new road was being built. The machinery that would build the road and destroy the ant colony would arrive within the next week.
He loved ants and did not want them to suffer, so he set to and built an ant world on a table in the spare room of his house. His construction contained everything that ants would need for a good life, including food, warmth and moisture. The botanist had studied ants for most of his life, so he understood everything that they needed. His ant world was a paradise for ants.
The ants lived happily in the ant world for many years. But one day, a restless ant found a crack in the outside wall of their home. He pushed out through the crack and dropped onto the floor of the spare room. A group of ants followed him as he moved out the front door and into the garden.
The move into the garden proved to be a dangerous adventure, because the garden was full of birds that attacked and killed many of the escaping ants. The few who survived formed a small colony, but the attacks by the birds were so severe that the colony was in danger of dying out.
The young ants who were born in the garden colony heard stories about the paradise in the ant world that their ancestors had escaped from, but they did not know how to get back there. As they struggled for survival, they longed to get back, but they had no hope of doing it.
Although the ants had escaped from his care, the botanist loved the ants that were struggling to survive in the garden. He built a tube that went back up into the ant world, but he had no way of showing the ants in the garden how to find it. Even if they had found it, they would have been scared to go up the tube.
The botanist did not have the ability to speak to the ants, and the ants had no ability to hear him speak. If he went too close to the garden colony, he would be in danger of crushing with his feet the ants that he wanted to save. He could write a big sign on the front door of his house, but the ants could not read it.
The botanist decided that the only way he could resolve the situation was to transform his favourite daughter into an ant. He told her what he wanted her to do. She would go into the ant colony and tell them about the paradise in the ant world that was still open to them. She would show the ants the way to the tube that he had built that led back up into the world. She would tell the ants that the botanist still loved them and would look after them in the ant world paradise. He would forgive them for their mistake, and there would be no negative consequences.
Once she knew what to do, the botanist used scientific power to change his daughter into an ant. He took her carefully into the garden and place here near the dying ant colony. This was a hugely risky move, as once she was on the ground, he could not distinguish her from any other ants. The birds were still flying around, and if she could not get into the shelter of the ant colony, they would quickly pick her off. Her father could not protect her from destruction and failure.
At first, the daughter ant received a hostile reception from the ant colony. The guards recognised her as an outsider and tried to attack and kill her. They only stopped when she told them that she had good news for the colony. Some still wanted to kill her, but a few thought they should listen and took her to the leaders of the colony. They were hostile at first, but she pleaded with them, and her description of the ant world paradise appealed to them. Eventually, they agreed that they had nothing to lose from following her up the tube to see if they could find the ant world. Their situation in the garden was so desperate that they decided it was worth the risk.
When nightfall came, and the birds went to bed, the daughter ant led the members of the ant colony towards the house. They filed under the front door and into the spare room. The daughter ant led them up the tube and back into the ant world paradise. The ants living in the ant world recognised the ants from the garden as their distant cousins and welcomed them back into their paradise. They quickly settled back into the pleasant life that it provided.
The ants guarding the ant world did not recognise the daughter ant, so they would not let her in. They pushed her out of their world and back down the tube through which she had rescued the garden ants. This seemed like another disaster, because the daughter ant would be quickly killed by the birds if she went out into the garden to find some food.
Fortunately, the watching botanist was prepared, because he had expected that his daughter would be rejected and ejected. When the rescuer ant tumbled down out of the tube, he knew it was his daughter. He quickly and gently scooped her up and reversed the process that had transformed her into an ant. Once she was restored, she was even more special to him because she had rescued the ants that he cared about.
The botanist and his daughter lived happily ever after....
And the ants in the ant world continue to enjoy the paradise that the botanist had prepared for them.
This story is a bit stupid because no sensible man would turn his favourite daughter into an ant that could be eaten by birds just to rescue a few runaway ants, even if he was a botanist who had spent his life studying them.
Yet this is something like what God did when he took the immense risk of sending his favourite son to be born as a human baby to rescue the people who had rejected his care, even though he had created them.
This story demonstrates what a great act of love the incarnation was. God did something that no human father would do.
More at The Incarnation.
Various political and religious commentators are drawing parallels between Donald Trump and Hitler’s Germany. Emmanuel Todd has a different take on this issue in a recent article. He argues that European institutions are becoming the real far-right, because they are out of touch with reality.
Kaiser Y Kuo has written an important article about the role of China in the modern world called The Great Reckoning.
Daniel had a vision of a Terrible Beast.
It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left (Dan 7:7).He saw an Empire that would crush and devour many other nations.
In a recent interview Jeffrey Sachs described a nation that is ruthlessly trampling and destroying other nations. He is not a Christian, but I think he got a glimpse of the Terrible Beast.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people (Matt 4:23).
Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12).
The good news of the kingdom is that Jesus has been made king and he has sent the Holy Spirit to establish his kingdom throughout the earth. The Book of Acts is the story of the Holy Spirit beginning the task of bringing his kingdom into being.
Some Christians say they cannot believe in the resurrection of Jesus. This is not logical. If God cannot raise someone from the dead, he is not much of a god, but just a bystander in the universe. So why believe in him? If God exists, then anything is possible, including miracles. So the key issue is not belief in the resurrection, but belief in God. If God exists, then raising someone being raised from the dead is no problem.
Some Christians say that believing in the resurrection is not sensible in a scientific age. This is not logical. Man learning to do science, does not change God, or limit what he can do. Scientific study by man cannot take away God’s power to raise the dead.
Many scientists assume that miracles cannot happen. Not surprisingly, they find no evidence of God in the universe. However, assuming what you are trying to prove is not logical.
A television reporter asked a rationalist if he believed in God. That rationalist said that we have been looking round the universe for a long time, but have not found God, so he must not exist. That is not logical. First of all, many people have found him. More importantly, the fact that something has not been found does not prove that it does not exist; just that it has not been found. Many things exist that have not yet been found. Fortunately, God can be found by those who seek him sincerely.
God exists
Jesus is risen
Faith is logical
Some would say that he is a retributive judge, who cannot forgive unless the penalty for sin has been paid.
Others would say that he is kind, forgiving and merciful.
The first view is not even an Old Testament portrayal of. Ezekiel 18:24-32 tells a different story of God’s justice.
If a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust (Ezek 18:27-29)?If the person turns from their wickedness, they will live. Their wickedness will no longer be held against them, but will be forgotten. The Israelites said that this was unjust, but God disagreed. He said they were unjust, so they did not understand God’s justice.
At the end of the prophet’s message, God makes his attitude clear.
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD (Ezek 18:31-32).God does not want people to die for their sins. He wants to give them a new heart and a new spirit. He does not take pleasure in people being punished.
If we look at the life of Jesus, the answer to the question above is obvious. When he met ordinary, broken people he did not demand that they face retribution for their sins. He did not say that the had to pay the price of justice before he could forgive them and heal them.
When the leper to him asking for mercy, he reached and touched him. He then healed him (Mark 1:40-41). Jesus forgave the sin of the paralysed man who was lowered through the roof (Mark 2:5,11-12). He did not require him to meet the demands of justice first.
Imagine this end to the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31).
While the lost son was still a long way off, his father saw him, and sent a servant to explain that he wanted to forgive him, but that he would have to repay the debt he owed before he could do so.This does not have the same ring as the parable that Jesus told.
Imagine this ending to the parable.
While the lost son was still a long way off, his father saw him. He wanted to forgive him, but he couldn’t until the debt was paid. So, the father called the older son and demanded that he pay the debt that his brother owned. When the son had repaid the debt at considerable cost, the father welcomed the lost son that he had never stopped loving.This does not make sense, but it is what many Christians preach.
Paul explained what God has done in his letter to the Romans.
All are put right freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (Rom 3:24).This redemption came freely by his grace.
He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time (Romans 3:25-26).God chose to pass over sins committed beforehand. He was happy to forgive, because this demonstrated his righteousness.
Some preachers say that God demands propitiation for sin, ie his wrath has to be satisfied. That is not true. It is the spiritual powers of evil who had to be propitiated, because humans had let them grab authority over the earth from them.
I never had to propitiate my father, ie give him a gift to calm down his wrath. Everyone would agree that a son who had to propitiate the anger of his father with a gift had a terrible father.
The idea that God needs retribution for sin before he can forgive them is a distortion of his character. It is Satan who accused people and demands retribution against them. Jesus died to satisfy his demands for a ransom.
I get upset when I hear preachers using the example of the Widow’s Mite when attempting to raise funds for their ministry or church building programme. I explain why in Widows Mite.
During the first five centuries of Christian history, a number of ecumenical councils were held. Tradition says that these councils settled outstanding theological disputes. For example, the Council of Nicea in AD 325 is said to have established the doctrine of the Trinity. This is not really true. The theology of the Trinity is settled in the nature and character of God, not by human councils. Those who listen to the Spirit of God will find the truth, whereas human councils will usually arrive at a convenient compromise.
Christian historians who back the council movement identify the meeting of elders and apostles in Jerusalem that is recorded in Acts 15 as the first ecumenical council. A careful reading of the text does not support this view. This meeting was not a council that set a pattern for the church; it was actually a shambles that made unwise decisions.
The problem arose when the gospel spread to Antioch. Paul and Barnabas had a relationship with apostles and elders in Jerusalem from the time when they both lived and preached there (Acts 9:26-30). They were sent up to Jerusalem to talk to them about the problem (Acts 15:2). Several things went wrong at this council.
The shambles described in Acts 15 shows the dangers of trying to deal with problems on the mission field with church councils, committees and government. See Church Shambles.
I have been reading Matthew’s gospel again. I am struck by how central healing and deliverance from evil spirits was to his ministry.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them (Matt 4:23-24).
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick (Matt 8:16).
And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him 36 and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed (Matt 14:35-36).Then there are all the individual healings that Matthew describes in his account of Jesus ministry.
I have just finished reading a book called Strange Religion by Nijay Gupta. This book provides a description of Christianity in the first couple of centuries.
Nijay explains that the first Christians seemed weird to the people of Roman society. The behaviour of Christians was totally different from any religion that the Romans knew. This is why the gospel was so appealing and the church grew so fast. It was radically different and better than any other religion of the time.
When I look at the church today, the opposite seems to be the case.
Christian music seems very like secular music, with similar genres, and only the message being different.
Christian worship seems to be secular rock concerts with groups of people and similar musical instruments on the stage.
Christian schools are very similar to secular schools, with a slight difference in curriculum.
Christian seminaries function in a way that is very similar to other tertiary education institutions.
Christian political parties function in a way that is similar to other political parties.
Christian buildings don’t look much different from secular buildings.
I see that Donald Trump has instructed the Census Bureau to undertake a new population census. According to the US Post-Enumeration Survey (PES), eight states were overcounted while six were undercounted in the 2020 population census. Trump is concerned that these discrepancies distorted representation in Congress, which is based on census numbers, but there are a couple of issues with his concern.
The biggest threat to the fairness of electoral district boundaries is gerrymandering. Successive governments from both parties have gerrymandered congressional districts to the extent that many never change hands. Introducing a fairer way to set boundaries would contribute more to fair elections than better population estimates.
The other problem is that conducting a census of the population is almost impossible in the modern world. I have explained the difficulties faced in New Zealand in a previous article.
The problems are worse in the United States, as two save money, the Census Bureau operates a postal collection for the population census. That only works well if the agency has up-to-date address lists for all citizens. However, that is not the case. When people move frequently, it is very difficult to maintain accurate address lists. Consequently, many census questionnaires are not delivered to the correct people. And if people don’t bother to post their census form back, getting a response from them is very expensive.
For these reasons, I would be surprised if Donald Trump will get a more accurate census than was achieved in 2020.
Trump was upset by the July 2025 payroll report (a less-than-expected monthly job add of 73,000 and a very large negative two-month revision of 258,000). He has also expressed concern that the Payroll Reports for the period leading up to the 2024 election were revised down following the election. He is correct in saying that the statistics for the last year of the Biden presidency overstated the state of the economy, but it probably did not have a huge effect on the outcome of the election (although it might have in different circumstances).
The problem is that early estimates of employment/jobs are very difficult to measure. In the United States, the payroll report is based on a survey of business establishments. This presents several difficulties. The robustness of a sample survey depends on the quality of the population frame from which the sample is selected.
The United States does not have an up-to-date register of businesses, so the sample results have to be adjusted for births and deaths of businesses. Businesses that have closed down will not respond to the survey, although they could still be in the survey. New businesses will not be included in the establishment survey because they will not be on the business register when the sample is selected. The adjustment for births and deaths can be quite large, yet they are difficult to estimate because the relative numbers depend on the stage in the business cycle.
The other problem is that funding for statistics has been cut. I read that funding for CPI surveys has been reduced, so I presume the same applies to the payroll survey as well. Getting a satisfactory response to the surveys of businesses can be difficult. There are methods that can be used to improve the response rate, but they all cost money.
In light of these difficulties, I am not surprised that the payrolls report is not as robust as commentators would like.
In New Zealand, the earliest estimates of monthly job numbers are derived from data supplied to the tax department as part of the PAYE system. There are a few issues with small businesses that have less frequent reporting requirements, but the appropriate adjustments can be estimated. But overall, the Monthly Employment Indicator is a robust statistic. It is supplemented by a quarterly survey of business establishments. The sample is selected from the business register that is kept up to date using GST registrations (value added tax), so there is less of a problem with births and deaths.
