I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success.
However, apart from work, I have little joy. – The last words of Steve Jobs

Self. It’s the world’s number one killer today. It destroys marriages. It rips communities apart. It leaves children orphans. It threatens social stability at every level. It damages lives. It leaves people bereft of friends and loved ones. It is the source of wars and fights. And it is the real reason we must tragically open graves on a daily basis.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, they didn’t just break a simple rule. They effectively opened the door of Pandora’s Box, unleashing hell. Man was created in God’s image. It’s something we don’t reflect upon often enough. There are many things that mean, but one consequence of this wonderful truth is that being made in God’s image means we were given great creative skills and abilities – abilities that far surpass those of the animal kingdom. Man’s ability to cultivate, build, think, imagine, and create is vast. But man was created to do these things in a way that reflects the creator back into the creation. But because of Satan’s lie, man’s abilities were hijacked. We were created to serve God. After God created Adam, he told him to tend and keep the garden God had created. The words in the original language are the language of worship. Adam and Eve were to bend all their ingenuity in the service of their God. But when they accepted the lie of Satan, all those abilities were now placed in the service of self. Focusing those abilities on oneself has become the source of much evil in the world.

This is not to suggest that good things aren’t accomplished today or that people always and only do things that are inherently evil. It does mean, though, that most things in life are not done for God. Most people engage in the various activities of life with themselves in mind. Daily, we go through life pursuing our ambitions and dreams. We think about our future, our jobs, our daily objectives, our next big score, our likes, our dislikes, etc. etc., etc. … but rare is the person who thinks about these things in relation to God, and rarer still

So I just finished a debate – if you can call it that – with a man who forcefully argues for a hyper-Calvinist position on the atonement. We sat down for coffee a couple of weeks ago and somehow got into a debate over Romans 9. Let me say upfront that there are many good Christians who are hyper-Calvinists, and there are many good Christians who are not. I belong to the latter category. I assume the conclusion of the story, based on his comments on FB, is that he has broken fellowship with me. In our discussion of Romans 9, I presented a reading of the text that differed from his. On FB, without articulating what I actually said about Romans nine, he told anyone reading that I vehemently oppose God’s sovereignty in salvation, that I dishonor God, and that I despise the sovereignty of God. When I called him a Calvinist, he said I was disparaging him and that he does not accept such titles – he even said I was disparaging Calvin. I thought I was being accurate based on his argument. He thought I was being divisive. One of the things I took away from his comments, in which he accuses me of dishonoring God, is that because I disagree with him, I am therefore dishonoring God. To dishonor God is a serious thing. It is to be living in sin and rebellion against God. To accuse someone of dishonoring God because of theological differences is a scary place to be. You might as well make the claim “To disagree with me is to disagree with God.” Where did we ever get the idea that disagreement over theological arguments is A. equivalent to attacking God; and B. grounds for accusing a brother in Christ of being in sin; and C. grounds for breaking fellowship? Friends, this is not Christianity. This is insanity.

As far as my reading of Romans nine, in a nut-shell I believe Paul is explaining why God’s promises to the Jews have not failed. It seems that the point of contention comes from the verse that reads, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated” (Rom 9:13). Hyper-Calvinists insists that this means God chooses who gets saved, and conversely, God chooses who goes to hell. I think that is a misreading of the text. That verse is a quote from Malachi 1:2. It is my contention