God Views
Week 9
Our Personal Butler
You Rang My
God Bell?
http://www.pjteaches.com/GodViews.htm
“With every virtue comes two
vices – too much and too little.”
Even a good thing can turn bad if it is
either minimized or magnified.
To think of God as being concerned about
our daily needs is a good thing. It would be
tragic to conceive God to be apathetic to our
wants and desires. But we also turn virtue
“With every virtue comes two
vices – too much and too little.”
into a vice when we obsess on a view of God
as a giant genie—existing only to ensure that
our wishes become His demands.
The Midas Touch
Here’s a familiar
example of how
desires arising from
human nature can
sometimes become
tragic if granted.
We could retitle the story, “When the Name-ItClaim-It Approach to God Goes Awry.”
The Midas Touch
The story of Midas and his golden touch is a
sobering illustration of how bad things could
become if God granted all our desires. For
this to happen, God would, of course, cease to
be God—our appetites and desires would
reign instead. If God were to become our
personal butler, it seems most likely that we
too would follow the story line of Midas,
The Midas Touch
discovering that
there are far more
precious things in
life than what
sparkles and shines.
Only our heavenly
Father knows what
we most need.
The Midas Touch
In the story of Midas, the king is set
free by washing in a certain river.
Does this image suggest any symbolism
from the Christian faith? What
comes to your mind?
The Midas Touch
How do you think being born again (as
symbolized by water baptism) changes
our view concerning what is valuable
and what is not?
St. Ignatius of Loyola
In 1491, Ignatius was
born at the family castle
of Loyola in the Basque
Country of Spain. He
was an aristocrat and a
soldier, a man encrusted
with a strong sense of
duty and obedience
St. Ignatius of Loyola
In 1521, Ignatius received a leg wound in a
battle against the French. He came back to
Loyola to recuperate. For a long period of time,
he relieved his boredom by reading a copy of the
Life of Christ and a collection of stories about
the lives of the saints. During this time of
intense reading, he became stirred deep within
to become as much like Christ as possible.
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Eventually, Ignatius’
thoughts took written
form, and would be
known as The
Spiritual Exercises of
Saint Ignatius.
St. Ignatius of Loyola
The classic disciplines
contained in Ignatius’
exercises would play an
important role in
fueling the internal
reformation of the
church.
St. Ignatius of Loyola
The Spiritual Exercises of Saint
Ignatius are often experienced as a
thirty-day time of systematic
prayer, reading, and reflection. At
the heart of these experiences are
meditations on the kingdom of God
and the contrasting standards—
those of Christ and those of Satan.
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius believed that the best attitude
Christians can have toward health and wealth is
one of indifference. What he meant is this:
Even though it is normal and natural to want to
be healthy and prosperous, we also know that
sometimes God uses suffering and poverty to
perfect the growth of our souls. Therefore,
St. Ignatius of Loyola
since we don’t know what is in our ultimate
best interests, our interests are best served by
letting go of our attachments to things of this
world while allowing our trust in God (that He
loves us and has our best interests at heart) to
grow.
St. Ignatius of Loyola
We become indifferent to all things of this
world—even those most often identified as
“success”—so that we can be most fully
focused on things out of this world—the
kingdom of God.
What do you think of Ignatius’ notion of
“indifference”?
Exercise 4-A
Complete exercise 4-A as a means of
helping you consider the notion of
“indifference” to things of this world so that
we can be more focused on things of the
Spirit.
Our Personal Butler DVD clip
You Rang My God bell?
In portraying God as a butler,
Curt Cloninger gives us a picture
of the Divine in which He is only
contacted when His “employers”
are experiencing a crisis or have
a fleshly need.
How do you think that feels,
from God’s perspective?
You Rang My God bell?
What is the potential
impact of this type of
immature faith (treating
God as a genie) on
unbelievers?
Bible Study
Exercise 4-B
Genesis 13:1-15
Genesis 13:1-15
(1) What does this passage tell us
about Abraham’s faith? (Note:
Abraham went back to Bethel (“house
of God”) to ask for God’s guidance
before making his astounding offer to
Lot.)
Genesis 13:1-15
(2) How would you describe the
maturity of Lot’s faith?
Genesis 13:1-15
(3) From the perspective of how things
turned out in the future for Abraham and Lot,
who was blessed with the true “Midas
touch”? (Note: Read verses 14 and15 again
to be reminded of how richly God rewards
when we hold His possessions with open
palms.)
Genesis 13:1-15
(4) Do you believe that Abraham would have
known what Ignatius meant by the concept of
“indifference”? What makes you think so?
Bible Study
Exercise 4-C
Matthew 26:36-45
Matthew 26:36-45
(1) Some would argue that what Jesus did in
Gethsemane was equally as important as
what He accomplished on the cross. Do you
agree? Why, or why not?
Matthew 26:36-45
(2) Do you see any similarities between the
previous passage (Genesis 13:1-15) and the
present passage (Matthew 26:36-45)? How
so?
Matthew 26:36-45
(3) In Matthew 26:39b, Jesus cries out, “My
Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken
from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
How do these words contrast with the idea of
giving orders to God as if He were our
butler?
Matthew 26:36-45
(4) If you are willing to share, tell about a
time in your life when you lived through a
“Gethsemane” experience and were able to
pray the prayer of Jesus, “…Yet not as I
will, but as you will.”