Nielsen’s Nook

I. Introduction

A. Propositional Anemia

Part of the problem with the church today is that we really have lost connection with God’s work in history. Being a Christian, in many cases, has been reduced down to 3-5 propositions about grace, humanity, God, Christ and faith - abstracting the propositional from the historical.

If I told you that it was important for you to understand that a man painted a woman’s home, would that matter to you? Not really, it is a mere proposition and not a very interesting one at that. But what if I told you that a man, who was out of work, painted an elderly widow’s home at his own expense out of a deep conviction and delight that God uses people like him to care for people like her? Now we’re talking! The history of the thing has breathed life into the proposition that ‘a man painted a woman’s home.’

B. Satanic Strategy towards Apathy

Personally, I believe the reduction of the Christian faith to mere proposition is a quite amazing strategy of the Enemy of our God and our faith. If he can keep our faith in the abstract then he will never have to worry about our faith affecting us or anyone else.

C. Robust Historical Christianity

The good news is that our faith is not merely propositional. We believe the propositions of the faith handed down to us by those Christians who have come before us who received it from those before them. The connection goes back to those people like the Apostle Paul, King David, Abraham, Moses and our first parents, Adam and Eve. If you understand the weight of my argument here, you understand that Christianity, the faith of God working redemption throughout time and space, is of cosmic proportions and not merely a handful of propositions that we believe merely intellectually or emotionally.

Our faith is built upon the word of God, spoken by the Apostles and Prophets, now inscripturated in the Bible. It reveals to us that even before there was sin in the world, there was faith and faithfulness. Adam and Eve, the image of God, walking in the likeness of God, were created to have uninhibited fellowship with God. That is what is meant by paradise. In the created order, God was communicating to Adam and Eve in ways that are very much alive to us today.

1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
(Psalm 19:1-2, ESV)

As his image we say and do things that communicate far more than the mere proposition of our words or appearance of our actions. The two trees in the midst of this Garden of Eden are communicating to us a great symphony of covenantal overture.