Posted on by Abe Austin

Few There Be

The Narrow Way)

In the middle of his mortal ministry Jesus Christ gave the following instruction:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
-Matthew 7:13-14

The last time I read this passage I was caught by this particular sequence of words: “few there be.”

“Few” would suggest less than half, probably significantly less than half, in any case a clear minority. And if a minority of people are finding the pathway to heaven then, by definition, the average goodness of man would be insufficient.

This makes me wonder…am I only of average goodness in my everyday dealings? Am I only of average zeal in my seeking and proclaiming of the truth? Or is my discipleship the sort of which one would say “few there be?”

Above Average)

I am also reminded of another declaration from Christ:

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
-Luke 6:32-34

I believe that these verses describe the efforts that most people make to live good and wholesome lives. And while it certainly is not bad to love, do good, and lend to those that we are close to…once again, the default goodness is clearly not enough.

If “few there be” that find the path to eternal life, and most people are trying to be basically good, then we must aspire to be more than basically good. We must be extraordinarily good, uniquely valiant, and exceptionally virtuous. Christ says that we can find the strait and narrow way, but not by doing the status quo.

Perhaps this isn’t the comfiest of teachings, but at least Christ was good enough to forewarn us, to give us a chance to check ourselves and change our path. Pay close attention to how these words stir your heart, and give those feelings the heed and serious consideration that they are due. Don’t be going so fast that you can’t make the turn-off that takes you from where you are headed to where you need to be going. It’s a pretty narrow road, after all, and few there be that find it!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Subjective Abstractions of Objective Reality

Subjective Fear)

There are many instincts that we people have ingrained in us, even without being taught them. We tend to fear heights, have a revulsion to spoiled meat, and pull our hand back when it is burned. These reactions are all invented from within us, though, they do not immediately correspond to some physical, universal reality. The universe is not afraid of heights, the universe is not repulsed by spoiled meat, and the universe does not pull back when it is burned. Fear and revulsion and recoil are not calculable by any sort of physical equation, they are only psychological illusions.

One might also make the case that it is the same with our morality. There is no observable universal reality that hates slavery and abuse. There is no observable universal objectivity to loving kindness and bravery. Could it be that these are also delusions of the mind? That they are simply extreme emotional hallucinations, totally detached from reality, just like being afraid of heights?

It’s an interesting argument but I do not find it convincing. In fact, it undoes itself.

Abstractions of Reality)

Let us consider the first half: the notion that the universe itself is not afraid of heights, and so our fear of it is merely a psychological illusion. It is true that the greater cosmos does not shrink back at the edge of a cliff. All of the elements and minerals and flakes of dust that have no mind attached to them happily roll off the edge of the cliff without a care in the world. But that doesn’t mean that our fear of the cliff is random or detached from reality.

The fact is, we fear the edge of the cliff for a reason, and that reason is based on three universal truths. The first is that objects which become untethered at a high height will be accelerated downward by gravity. The second is that an object which has been accelerated into another object will experience an opposite and equal reaction, a force that presses against it. The third is that a force will continue through a body, dispersing its energy in fractures and breaks, until that other body has cancelled out that force.

These are all objective realities that apply to every physical object in the universe. The combined effect of them is, of course, that an object that is suddenly released at a great height will fall, and hit the ground with great force, and be broken into pieces. Our seemingly subjective fear is actually an abstraction of multiple objective truths that can combine to destroy us. It is well worth appreciating how our minds are able to take all these separate physical phenomena, and encapsulate them with a single, visceral emotion.

So yes, there is no universal fear of heights, but that fear is an abstraction of physical laws. So our fear does actually have an objective basis and justification, and no one is deluded for listening to it. The same goes, of course, for our revulsion of spoiled meat and our recoiling of our hand when burned. These impulsive, instinctive reactions are simply abstractions of objective truths in chemistry and thermodynamics.

The Moral Reality)

Having recognized these objective roots to our other instincts, it seems most logical to assume that it is the same for our sense of morality. To suggest otherwise, one would have to make a compelling case as to why one set of instinctive, emotional reactions is grounded in reality, while another is purely relative, and I struggle to think of what such an argument would be.

To me, it is far simpler to assume that our disdain for slavery and stealing is a subjective abstraction around an objective reality. Not a physical reality, but a spiritual reality, and the disdain is not a protection of our physical form, but of our spiritual form. We are afraid of unkindness because it is a reflection of unseen universal, moral truths that will damage our spirits just as surely as falling off a cliff will damage our bodies. So even if our sense of justice and compassion and virtue are subjective illusions, they are still illusions that signify an underlying truth.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Taken to the Extreme

Two Ways of Life)

Many of my generation and culture have expressed that we were raised with strict—and sometimes severe—consequences for any time that we slipped from the moral standards we were expected to live by. Quite a few of us developed a strong sense of perfectionism as a result, inflicting upon ourselves an impossible standard that has tied more than a few of us into painful knots. Too many of us have had constant feelings of being guilty and unworthy. Suffice it to say that there were some flaws in the way we were given our belief systems.

But on the other hand, I have also seen several of my same generation that were raised under an anything-goes sort of mentality. Moral misdeeds were only winked at, and consequences obscured, resulting in some incredibly reckless, selfish, and narcissistic tendencies. Either morality was relative, or it didn’t even exist, and many avoidable wounds were suffered by that denial of objective truth. From my observation, this philosophy wasn’t really any better than the extreme legalism.

The Inevitable Extreme)

Either way, one can easily come to feel that they were dealt the harder hand. I have seen many of my peers throw the baby out with the bath water, renouncing all moral law because they were hurt under an inappropriate application of it. They lack the nuance to see that there was good in the theory, if not the execution.

And, frankly, these flaws and nuances are inevitable. Whatever principles people choose to live and raise their society by, there will always be those that take the principles to an inappropriate extreme. If you decide to instill a strong sense of moral obedience, sooner or later you will have individuals that enact cruel punishments for any perceived deviance. If you decide to instill a carefree, life-loving mantra, sooner or later you will have individuals that pursue carnal indulgence without any regard for the people harmed along the way. Humanity is made up of all sorts. It has the best of people within it, but also the worst, and it is the worst who will always find a way to pervert the well-meaning conventional wisdom.

Lessons Learned)

Having explained this, let me point out two essential takeaways related to the matter:

  1. In any philosophy that you choose to live by, it is worth considering what potential evil might sprout from it down the line. Life philosophies are not so much a destination as a direction, and it is important for us to follow the logical conclusion of that direction to its furthest extremes. In the wrong minds, what are the worst interpretations that others might take from your teachings? If you identify what those perverse extremes are, then you can call them out ahead of time, setting in place the bounds that will let you and others know when things have been taken too far.
  2. Any principle, even one that is true and good, becomes corrupt when pursued at the expense of all other true principles. Going back to the idea of life philosophy as a direction, we might also consider it as a vector: a line stretching across a graph. It may run from one inappropriate extreme to another, but in between it might run through some very worthy territory as well.
    Additional principles can be thought of as more vectors, other lines that stretch across the graph, and at certain points intersect with our first. Those intersection points help us greatly in that they represent the natural bounds that each principle sets upon the other. For example, if we are mature enough to hold both the principle of moral obedience and grace for sin at the same time, then each will keep us from running too far with the other. Together they plot for us when to forgive and when to call for repentance. They will even show us how to do both at the same time!
Posted on by Abe Austin

Doing Wrong vs Trending Towards It

I’ve been part of an addiction recovery group for a while, and I’ve noticed something that can trip up addicts in our sobriety. I think it is a trap that applies universally as well.

I have witnessed and experienced how an addict will sometimes re-examine his definition of sobriety, playing with the fringes of exactly what behavior he will consider a relapse and what behavior he will not. Sometimes he will find a behavior that really doesn’t contradict his conscience or give him any guilt. So he relaxes the rules and guidelines in that one area, but not long after he finds himself pushing the envelope further and further, and ultimately relapsing multiple times in a row.

So was he wrong in his appraisal and just trying to justify doing things that he should have felt guilty about all along? Not necessarily.

As a general rule, good begets good and evil begets evil, but there are times where an action that is neutral, or even good, should be treated as evil, not for its own sake, but because of the evil places it tends to lead to. The addict has to acknowledge what actions follow his choices down the line. Lending a sympathetic ear to a friend might seem like a good thing to do, and in-and-of-itself it might be, but if spending time with that particular friend often leads to you eventually losing your sobriety, then maintaining that relationship is actually a bad thing to do.

The addict—and everyone else as well—is playing a game of chess against his own nature, and to not get caught in a trap he has to know how to play six moves ahead. He must reject what is clearly wrong, but also reject whatever leads to it. He must place a prudent and deliberate buffer around evil. He must come to know himself very, very well.

Posted on by Abe Austin

It’s Hard to Change Your Story

It can be a hard thing to change the story we have told other people of who we are. Each of us suggests to others what our principles and priorities are, what we will and will not do, and what behavior they might expect of us. Sometimes we begin to shift who we are, though, and at that point it becomes difficult to explain to others this new emerging version of ourselves. This is true whether our change is for the worse or for the better.

For the Worse)

Let us first consider the example of a change for the worse. Suppose I am developing a bad habit, or that I’m trying to admit to a bad habit that I’ve kept a secret. In this case, then telling others about this new lifestyle of mine reveals any number of the following details about me:

  1. I was lying to people in the past.
  2. I’m ignoring my conscience to do something that I still know is wrong.
  3. I wasn’t nearly so firm in my past convictions as I pretended to be.

None of these are a pleasant thing to own up to. None of them show me in a very good light. All of them make me a fool and/or a liar. Any other principles that I still claim to maintain are now suspect, because I’ve already shown the capacity to abandon one of them. This creates a motivation to hide our vices, to let people go on thinking that we are still as saintly as they had assumed, thus adding another layer of deceit to our story.

For the Better)

Now let us examine the example of me giving up a bad habit, changing my life for the better. In this case, there is still a friction against changing my story. For one, I might have the sense that my present company have something over me in that they knew the old me, the worst me, the me who openly did the things I now say I don’t do. I might be worried that these people will see my new efforts as nothing more than an act, a forced performance and not my true character. They might be anchors, trying to pull me back to what they think is the “real” me, even though I am trying to reject that version.

Not only this, but if I have done these bad habits with others, they may feel judged by my rejection of that behavior. I might say that I don’t judge them for doing that which I now consider inexcusable in myself, but that is inconsistent. I am now opposed to a part of my old self that still loves on in my friends’ current selves, so in truth I am now rejecting a part of who they are.

These two factors create a pull back towards our old ways. We are motivated to undo our story rewrite.

Is Change Possible?)

Whether for the better or the worse, change implies that there something wrong and deceitful about yourself either in the past or the present. Making a change means admitting to your flawed nature, your unreliableness, and your uncertainty. Is it any wonder, then, that so few people seem to change? Some people even believe that no one can really change. They say that people can only alter their outer behaviors from time-to-time, but will still be the same person at their core.

I don’t think the situation is quite that severe, though the difficulty of true transformation should never be understated. I think it would be more accurate to say: a man really can change, even for the better, but more often than not it takes an act of God to do it!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 8:28-32

28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: entreat for me.

29 And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.

30 And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and entreated the Lord.

31 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one.

32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.

Pharaoh agreed to the demands being made, even for Israel to depart into the wilderness to perform their sacrifices. Now that Pharaoh had given his word, Moses assured him that he would entreat the Lord, but Moses already anticipated Pharaoh’s deceit and warned him against it. Pharaoh, however, went right ahead and betrayed his word for a second time.

I’m really not sure what Pharaoh expected to happen when he broke his word this time. He had already seen that God would return with greater affliction, so it should have been clear that he was only making his situation worse. And not just marginally worse, either. The curses were about to enter an entirely new tier of suffering. The turning of the staff to a snake and the river to blood can be considered as the first phase of God’s curses, transfigurations that were merely meant to frighten Pharaoh without causing lasting harm. The second phase was the irritation and annoyance of frogs, lice, and flies. Now, though, would begin the third phase, in which the curses would deal in actual death! I believe Moses’s warning that Pharaoh must not deal deceitfully was insinuating that if he tried to test God further, the Egyptians would enter into this new order of suffering, but Pharaoh chose to walk that path anyway.

And, according to verse 32, Pharaoh really did choose it. I’ve mentioned this verse before, but let’s take note of it one more time. In other passages it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but here it says that “Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also.” The “also” suggests that Pharaoh was the one who hardened his heart in the previous instances as well, not God. As I’ve mentioned previously, I think it is this reading and interpretation that makes the most sense.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 8:24-27

24 And the Lord did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies.

25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.

26 And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?

27 We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us.

Pharaoh held out during the plague of lice, but not against the flies. After the frogs he had told Moses “take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.” This time he again approved of the Israelites making sacrifice, but he added the restriction that they remain “in the land,” rather than travelling away from Egypt.

The fact that Pharaoh was being more specific and asking the Israelites to compromise might mean that he was more sincere this time than the one before, but his restriction was not acceptable to the Lord. There seem to be three reasons why it was necessary that the Israelites journey three-days distance before making their sacrifices.

  1. As Moses explained, the Israelites would be performing sacrifices that the Egyptians found abominable, likely because the animals were considered sacred to Pharaoh’s people. The Israelites would incur the wrath of the people, thus a separation was necessary to preserve their lives.
  2. There is reason to believe that sacrifice and three-days’ distances had something to do with the law of the Hebrews. In the Dead Seas Scrolls there is a passage that states “You shall not slaughter clean cattle or sheep or goat in any of your towns, within a distance of three days’ journey from my sanctuary” (Dead Seas Scrolls translation, Page 254, bottom-left). This is saying that if an Israelite was within three days’ journey of the temple they needed to make their offerings there. But if they were more than three days’ journey away, they would be permitted to build an altar and sacrifice to the Lord elsewhere. It may well be that Jacob was three days’ journey from Isaac’s home when he made such an altar to the Lord in Genesis 28. Jacob also made a point of setting up his homestead three days’ journey from his father-in-law Laban, perhaps to have sufficient distance from Laban’s pagan gods for his offerings to the Lord to be pure. It therefore makes sense that the Lord would require Israel to be the same distance from the false gods of Egypt before making sacrifice.
  3. We’re not actually told whether the Israelites did, in fact, perform rituals and sacrifice after leaving Egypt. My assumption is that they did not, as we are told that they marched forward day-and-night in great haste. But possibly they did, and thus this was a valid reason for them traveling at least three-days-distance into the wilderness. However, even if that was the case, it obviously was not the only reason for their departure. They were also going into the wilderness to run away from the Egyptians, and obviously this was better served by getting a head start.

Pharaoh would soon renege on his promise, and perhaps his reason was this three days’ distance requirement, but God was not here to compromise. He was not one to be dictated to. What He required must be met, and He would continue to afflict the Egyptians until Pharaoh agreed to all of His requirements.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 8:22-23

22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

I previously wondered whether the Israelites had been affected by the turning of the river to blood in the same way that the Egyptians had. And did the frogs come upon both sets of people? And the lice? Perhaps so, but now we are told that there would be a sharp divide between the people of Israel and the people of Egypt.

This is a recurring theme in the Bible, that of a divide being made between the faithful and the profane, of God’s chosen people being saved and the wicked being destroyed. We have seen it where a protection was put around Noah’s family in the form of an ark when all the world was flooded. We have seen it where heavenly messengers drew Lot’s family out to safety when Sodom and Gomorrah was bombarded. Now we see it where a clear line is made between two halves. In one land the curse runs rampant, but it is not allowed to pass over into the neighboring land.

Thus we see multiple different ways that God is able to protect His people. He can shield them in the eye of the storm, or lead them out to safety, or put up a wall that keeps the danger at bay. He can end the danger, preserve you through the danger, or get you out of the danger. One never know just how God will save him, only that God will if he prepares himself for it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 8:20-21

20 And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.

In the midst of all the larger wonders occurring it is all too easy to miss the little ones that are happening as well. At several points now, God has told Moses the exact time and place he needed to be to meet Pharaoh. I wonder if it ever occurred to Pharaoh what the implications were of Moses and Aaron intercepting him along his way. It meant that God knew Pharaoh and his movements intimately, He might have even revealed some of them to Moses before Pharaoh, himself, knew when and where he would go. If Pharaoh felt anything at Moses’s prescience, he should have felt vulnerable.

In regards to the plague of flies, this curse mixes some of the intimacy of the lice with some of the space-invasion of the frogs. Flies could be on the body like lice, and in the dishes like frogs. They could carrying diseases and dirtying vessels. Perhaps the most unique quality of the flies, though, would be the incessant buzzing. Their constant murmuring in the ears is another representation for when a society embraces false doctrines instead of following God. Moral perversion causes so much distraction and noise, from the literal buzz of gossip to the constant murmur of a dissatisfied conscience.

Itching, noisy, constant irritation. Whether in the form of flies or anxious guilt, this is one agitation that none of us need in our lives!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 8:18-19

18 And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast.

19 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

With every sign and curse performed by Moses and Aaron the magicians of Egypt repeated its effect. By this they had shown the ability to increase the affliction, but they never showed any capacity to remove it. Only God could do that.

Here, though, God completely left the magicians behind. They did try to bring forth lice of their own, but they just couldn’t. Presumably they had done all of their enchantments to try and dispute the power of the Lord, to show that their own gods were just as powerful as He. But with this one failure they changed from critics of God to ones that would testify of His sovereignty! They told Pharaoh that “truly this is the finger of God.” They were telling Pharaoh that the power that stood behind Moses was the genuine article, and they were powerless to answer it. And so it would be for all other curses that followed. We will not hear of the magicians repeating any more of the afflictions that God set upon Egypt.

But even with the testimony of his magicians, Pharaoh still hardened himself. Sometimes after a curse he would seek mercy, but at other times God would just escalate to the next afflictions until he relented. Pharaoh could hold out for a while, and so can we, but God is perfectly able to outlast and outpower any of us. He may move gradually and accumulatively, but He can go as far and as high as He needs until He breaks our pride and we humble ourselves before Him. As it has been written, sooner or later, “every knee shall bow” and “every tongue confess.”