Will We Recognize Each Other in Heaven? by Randy Alcorn

When asked if we would recognize friends in Heaven, George MacDonald responded, “Shall we be greater fools in Paradise than we are here?”

Yet many people wonder whether we’ll know each other in Heaven. What lies behind that question is Christoplatonism and the false assumption that in Heaven we’ll be disembodied spirits who lose our identities and memories. How does someone recognize a spirit?

However, these assumptions are unbiblical. Christ’s disciples recognized him countless times after his resurrection. They recognized him on the shore as he cooked breakfast for them (John 21:1-14). They recognized him when he appeared to a skeptical Thomas (John 20:24-29). They recognized him when he appeared to five hundred people at once (1 Corinthians 15:6).

But what about Mary at the garden tomb or the two men on the road to Emmaus? They didn’t recognize Jesus. Some people have argued from this that Jesus was unrecognizable. But a closer look shows otherwise.

Jesus said to Mary in the garden, “‘Woman . . . why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him’ ” (John 20:15).

Distressed, teary-eyed Mary, knowing Jesus was dead, and not making eye contact with a stranger, naturally assumed he was the gardener. But as soon as Jesus said her name, she recognized him: “She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher)” (John 20:16).

Some commentators emphasize that the disciples on the Emmaus road didn’t recognize Jesus. But notice what the text says: “As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:15-16, emphasis added). God miraculously intervened to keep them from recognizing him. The implication is that apart from supernatural intervention, the men would have recognized Jesus, as they did later: “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight” (Luke 24:31).

Another indication that we’ll recognize people in Heaven is Christ’s transfiguration. Christ’s disciples recognized the bodies of Moses and Elijah, even though the disciples couldn’t have known what the two men looked like (Luke 9:29-33). This may suggest that personality will emanate through a person’s body, so we’ll instantly recognize people we know of but haven’t previously met. If we can recognize those we’ve never seen, how much more will we recognize our family and friends?

Scripture gives no indication of a memory wipe causing us not to recognize family and friends. Paul anticipated being with the Thessalonians in Heaven, and it never occurred to him he wouldn’t know them. In fact, if we wouldn’t know our loved ones, the “comfort” of an afterlife reunion, taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18, would be no comfort at all. J. C. Ryle said of this passage, “There would be no point in these words of consolation if they did not imply the mutual recognition of saints. The hope with which he cheers wearied Christians is the hope of meeting their beloved friends again. . . . But in the moment that we who are saved shall meet our several friends in heaven, we shall at once know them, and they will at once know us.”

The continuity of our resurrection minds and bodies argues that we’ll have no trouble recognizing each other—in fact, we’ll have much less trouble. In Heaven we probably won’t fail to recognize an acquaintance in a crowd, or forget people’s names.

Missionary Amy Carmichael had strong convictions on this question:

Shall we know one another in Heaven? Shall we love and remember?
I do not think anyone need wonder about this or doubt for a single moment. We are never told we shall, because, I expect, it was not necessary to say anything about this which our own hearts tell us. We do not need words. For if we think for a minute, we know. Would you be yourself if you did not love and remember? . . . We are told that we shall be like our Lord Jesus. Surely this does not mean in holiness only, but in everything; and does not He know and love and remember? He would not be Himself if He did not, and we should not be ourselves if we did not.

New World Watch List

If you haven’t already seen, the 2014 World Watch List is out. With about twice as many Christian deaths due to persecution in 2013 as there were in 2014, watching where and how these violent trends grow is more important now than ever before. We ought to be well acquainted with the suffering of our brothers and sisters overseas so that we can better pray for and minister to them.

Sadly, North Korea’s prison camps and public executions earned it a number one spot for the 12th consecutive year. Syria, accounting for over 1,200 Christian deaths, continued it’s rapid climb from number 36 two years ago, coming in at number three in 2014. This is largely due to the ongoing civil war in which the almost half of the fighting rebels come from Islamic extremist backgrounds. Overall, it’s hard to ignore the impact that Islamic extremism has had on the persecution of Christians as it is the main source of persecution in 36 of the top 50 countries ranked, as well as the reason that Bangladesh and Central African Republic were both newly added to the list.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the list. Remember the believers that live in these places and pray for them. Also, note that this is where the gospel is most needed… so pray for bold gospel proclamation resulting in the salvation of the persecutors.

Evolution Is Most Certainly a Matter of Belief—and so Is Christianity by Al Mohler

One of the most misleading headlines imaginable recently appeared over an opinion column published inUSA Today. Tom Krattenmaker, a member of the paper’s Board of Contributors, set out to argue that there is no essential conflict between evolution and religious belief because the two are dealing with completely separate modes of knowing. Evolution, he argued, is simply “settled science” that requires no belief. Religion, on the other hand, is a faith system that is based in a totally different way of knowing—a form of knowing that requires belief and faith.

The background to the column is the recent data released by the Pew Research Center indicating that vast millions of Americans still reject evolution. As the Pew research documents, the rejection of evolution has actually increased in certain cohorts of the population. Almost six of ten who identify as Republicans now reject evolution, but so do a third of Democrats. Among evangelical Christians, 64% indicate a rejection of evolution, especially as an explanation for human origins. Krattenmaker is among those who see this as a great national embarrassment—and as a crisis.

In response, Krattenmaker makes this statement:

In a time of great divides over religion and politics, it’s not surprising that we treat evolution the way we do political issues. But here’s the problem: As settled science, evolution is not a matter of opinion, or something one chooses to believe in or not, like a religious proposition. And by often framing the matter this way, we involved in the news media, Internet debates and everyday conversation do a disservice to science, religion and our prospects for having a scientifically literate country.

So belief in evolution is not something one simply chooses to believe or to disbelieve, “like a religious proposition.” Instead, it is “settled science” that simply compels intellectual assent.

The problems with this argument are legion. In the first place, there is no such thing as “settled science.” There is a state of scientific consensus at any given time, and science surely has its reigning orthodoxies. But to understand the enterprise of science is to know that science is never settled. The very nature of science is to test and retest hypotheses and to push toward new discoveries. No Nobel prizes are awarded for settled science. Instead, those prizes are awarded for discoveries and innovations. Many of those prizes, we should note, were awarded in past years for scientific innovations that were later rejected. Nothing in science is truly settled.

If science is to be settled, when would we declare it settled? In 1500? 1875? 1960? 2013? Mr. Krattenmaker’s own newspaper published several major news articles in just the past year trumpeting “new” discoveries that altered basic understandings of how evolution is supposed to have happened, including a major discovery that was claimed to change the way human development was traced, opening new questions about multiple lines of descent.

But the most significant problem with this argument is the outright assertion that science and religion represent two completely separate modes and bodies of knowledge. The Christian understanding of truth denies this explicitly. Truth is truth. There are not different kinds of truth that operate by different intellectual rules.

Every mode of thinking requires belief in basic presuppositions. Science, in this respect, is no different than theology. Those basic presuppositions are themselves unprovable, but they set the trajectory for every thought that follows. The dominant mode of scientific investigation within the academy is now based in purely naturalistic presuppositions. And to no surprise, the theories and structures of naturalistic science affirm naturalistic assumptions.

“Religion”—to use the word Krattenmaker prefers—also operates on the basis of presuppositions. And those presuppositions are no less determinative. These operate akin to what philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls “properly basic beliefs.”

In any event, both require “belief” in order to function intellectually; and both require something rightly defined as faith. That anyone would deny this about evolution is especially striking, given the infamous gaps in the theory and the lack of any possible experimental verification. One of the unproven and unprovable presuppositions of evolution is uniformitarianism, the belief that time and physical laws have always been constant. That is an unproven and unprovable assumption.  Nevertheless, it is an essential presupposition of evolutionary science. It is, we might well say, taken on faith by evolutionists.

Consider, in contrast, another section of Tom Krattenmaker’s article:

For starters, “belief” means something different in a religion conversation than it means when we’re talking about science. In the case of faith, it usually means accepting the moral and spiritual truth of something and giving it your trust and devotion. In talking about evolution, it is more precise to call it “scientifically valid” or “an accurate account of what we observe.” No leaps of faith or life-altering commitments required.

He really does believe that science and theology operate in completely different worlds. The late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould believed the same, arguing for science and religion as “non-overlapping magisteria.” But, as both scientists and theologians protested, science and religion overlap all the time.

Krattenmaker argues, “A scientific concept backed by an overwhelming amount of supporting evidence, evolution describes a process by which species change over time. It hazards no speculations about the origins of that process.”

But this is not even remotely accurate. Evolutionary scientists constantly argue for naturalistic theories of the origin of matter, energy, life—and the entire cosmos. The argument that the existence and form of the cosmos is purely accidental and totally without external (divine) agency is indeed central to the dominantmodel of evolution.

On one point, however, Krattenmaker is certainly right: he argues that it is possible to believe in God and to affirm evolution. That is certainly true, and there is no shortage of theistic evolutionists who try to affirm both. But that affirmation requires a rejection of the dominant model of evolution in favor of some argument that God intervened or directed the process. The main problem with that proposal, from the scientific side, is that the theory of evolution as now taught in our major universities explicitly denies that possibility. Theistic evolutionists simply do not present the model of evolution that is supposedly “settled science.”

On the other hand, such a blending of theology and evolution also requires major theological alignments. There can be no doubt that evolution can be squared with belief in some deity, but not the God who revealed himself in the Bible, including the first chapters of Genesis. Krattenmaker asserts that “it is more than possible to accept the validity of evolution and believe in God’s role in creation at the same time.” Well, that is true with respect to some concept of God and some concept of creation and some version of evolution, but not the dominant theory of evolution and not the God who created the entire cosmos as the theater of his glory, and who created human beings as the distinct creature alone made in his image.

I am confident that Tom Krattenmaker fully intended to clarify the matter and to point to a way through the impasse. But his arguments do not clarify, they confuse. At the same time, his essay is one of the clearest catalysts for thinking about these issues to arrive in recent times in the major media. It represents an opportunity not to be missed.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/albertmohler.

Tom Krattenmaker, “Evolution is Not a Matter of Belief,” USA Today, Friday, January 10, 2014. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/01/09/evolution-belief-gop-democrats-science-god-faith-column/4396027/

Ravi Zacharias on Postmodern Architecture at Ohio State

From an address by Ravi Zacharias:

I remember lecturing at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in this country. I was minutes away from beginning my lecture, and my host was driving me past a new building called the Wexner Center for the Performing Arts.
He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.”
I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?”
He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.”
I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?”
He said, “That is correct.”
I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?”
All of a sudden there was silence.
You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry.

The Strength and Spirituality of Segmented Sleep by Wade Burleson

Our God is a wonderfully diverse Creator. If each snowflake looks different under the microscope, then one would expect each human being to have unique characteristics as well. It's one of the reasons one must always be careful with generalizations of human character or actions. Each of us is different and unique, a masterpiece of God's creation.

Yet, there are some common characteristics of all humans. We all breath, we all eat, we all sleep. Much of life's journey is walking a path of learning how to eat relax, eat well, and sleep well. Unfortunately, modern science seems to have ignored ancient data that indicates the best way to sleep at night is in segments, a process called segmented sleep.

Segmented sleep, described more fully, is a pattern of sleeping where two or more periods of sleep are punctuated by periods of wakefulness. Historian Roger Ekirch has written a fascinating book entitled At Days Close: Night in Times Past. Dr. Ekirch's seminal research into the matter shows how people for millennia slept in segmented patterns. Most humans went to bed a couple of hours after dusk (8:00 p.m.), slept for four hours (till midnight), then awoke for two to three hours where some of their most productive mental work took place. It was during this waking segment of the night that people would  pray, interpret dreams, meditate, and plan for the future. Then, people would go back to sleep around 2:00 or 3:00 am and sleep till sunrise.

In ancient literature the first period of sleeping before midnight was called "the first sleep" and the second period of sleeping after midnight was called "the second sleep."  This pattern of segmented sleep was universal. Dr. Ekirch writes:

"It's not just the number of references to segmented sleep (that is astonishing) - it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge."

There seems to be biblical evidence of segmented sleep among the peoples of the past:

"At midnight I arise to give you thanks for your righteous laws" (Psalm 119:62)

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25).

"But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill" (Judges 16:3).

"At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet!" (Ruth 3:8) 

"Stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning" (Mark 13:35).

Psychologist Greg Jacobs says that waking up during the night is part of "normal human physiology." A website called Slumber Wise says "the ideal time for study and contemplation" for the people of the past was between first sleep and second sleep. Chaucer tells of a character in the Canterbury Tales that goes to bed following her “firste sleep.” Interestingly, Slumber Wise also records that a doctor of the 1500's once explained why working class people conceived more children saying, "Working people typically have sex after their first sleep."

The modern idea that good sleep is always eight or more hours of uninterrupted sleep is a recent belief. Good sleep, according to Dr. Jacobs, is segmented sleep. The brain exhibits high levels of thepituitary hormone prolactin during any period of nighttime wakefulness. The lessening of anxiety, the feelings of peace, and the relaxed state of one's mind tend to make the waking time between sleeps the most creative time for many people.

Those of us accustomed to electrical light often wake up at night and find ourselves anxious, believing something is wrong with us because we can't sleep.  As a result, we do not get the benefit of segmented sleep because nobody told us this was healthy. In fact, the reverse was true. We've been told it was nothealthy to sleep in segments. Not so. It seems that waking up and spending an hour or two in mental exercises before going back to sleep might be the healthiest way to sleep. Of course, this pattern of sleeping would require an earlier bedtime than what most Americans currently have.

If, however, you can get to bed at an early hour (the evening news), and if you awake up after about four hours of sleep, don't get anxious. Science (and Scripture?) seem to indicate that the "between the sleep" time is a very important part of human sleep patterns. Use that time to think, pray and even meditate. Feel free to get up and move around and do something productive, or if it is more suitable, lay in bed and engage your mind and heart in thought and prayer.  There are numerous prayer journals from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries that show God's people offered special prayers in the hours between sleeps.

I have a friend who practices segmented sleep. He tells me often that some of his most productive times are between sleeps during the night. Often he will Skype with friends from around the world during those one or two waking hours. Segmented sleep may not be for everyone, but if you are curious about it, I would highly recommend you read At Days Close: Night in Times Past.

Choose Your Color

 (I found this one page from "Daily Bread" devotions dated August 10, but no year.  It is old, but good.)

A college student decided one summer that he would earn money for his tuition by selling Bibles door-to-door.  He began at the home of the school president.  The president's wife came to to the door and explained politely that her family didn't need any more books.  As the student walked away, she saw him limping.  "Oh, I'm sorry," she exclaimed.  "I didn't know you were disabled."

When the student turned around, she realized she had offended him.  So she quickly added, "I didn't mean anything except admiration.  But doesn't your disability color your life?"  To which the student responded, " Yes it does.  But thank God, I can choose the color."

When Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi and their backs were raw from beatings, they sand hymns (Acts 16:23-25).  They chose the bright color of praise instead of the dark colors of depression, bitterness, and despair.

No matter what affliction or crisis we may face, we too can decide how we will respond.  With the enablement of the Holy Spirit, we can refuse to paint our lives in the dull gray of grumbling and complaining.  Instead, our chosen color can be the azure blue of contentment because God's help is always available.

God chooses what we go through; we choose how we go through it.

God Will Fulfill His Purpose for You by Jonathan Parnell

“I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.”

This is the straightforward truth that David clings to in Psalm 57:2.

Here he states two basic facts: God has a purpose for him and God will fulfill that purpose. Both these truths combine to become that deep and wondrous theological concept we call “providence.” The word was much more common centuries ago than it is today, though its relevancy has never waned. Its meaning captures God’s relationship to the created world, namely, that he both preserves the order of all things and guides them toward his intended end.

Providence is the sovereignty of God made palpable. It’s the outworking of his power and authority for his children in space and time, which means, in the things we schedule, the air we breathe, the moments we move. Providence is observed, experienced, tasted. We may even say it’s the distinctively Christian term for reality.

Since God is sovereign, and this world is his, then every moment, in a sense, is a moment of providence. Wherever you find yourself right now has come by the process of events he ordained. 

Every past moment of your life has led to your now. The same will be true tonight, and tomorrow, and ten years in the future. Our experience of providence is our experience of the present, which we know has been wondrously woven together by God.

And because God is behind it all, we, as those united to Christ by faith, are assured of this: God’s providence neither gets it wrong nor lets us go, ever.

His Decree and Promise

First, we should immediately stop every instinct in us that wants to pass this off as cobweb orthodoxy. It is orthodoxy, and it’s beautifully ancient, but it’s more current than we ever expected. Providence is actually so contemporary that it anticipates how vastly different things often seem from our perspective. 

Rarely does it feel like every event in our lives is for our good. But providence, in its mysterious movements, flanks the arguments about how we may feel and compels our faith in the God who is doing “ten thousand times more” than we realize. This doing, whether seen or unseen, whether painful or pleasant, is resolutely and effectively targeting our eternal joy. We will be like Christ . . . with him . . . forever (1 Corinthians 15:49; Psalm 16:10–11).

God’s intended aim for his people, after all, is that we are conformed to the image of Jesus. This is his decree and promise, having chosen us for this before the foundation of the world and having promised usunto this that all things will work together (Romans 8:28–30).

God’s providence is his execution of that decree and promise, as Puritan John Flavel explains. In fact, nothing ever happens in the universe that is outside of fulfilling that decree and promise. Nothing. There isn’t a single incident, or tragedy, that will result in something other than the “true interest and good of the saints” (Mystery of Providence, 19).

God never gets it wrong. He doesn’t swing and miss. Every detail of our days comes through the blueprints of his meticulous care for us. And even when all hope seems lost, remember he is the one who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17) — and he will do that for you.

His Resolute Focus

Not only is God flawlessly at work for our good, but he doesn’t let loose until he’s finished. God’s providence never dries up or fizzles out. It is always in action to accomplish his intended aim. Everything he does is right, and it is all right until it’s done. Flavel writes,

[Providence] goes through with its designs, and accomplishes what it begins. No difficulty so clogs it, no cross accident falls in its way, but it carries its design through it. Its motions are irresistible and uncontrollable. (19)

“He does all that he pleases,” “no purpose of [his] can be thwarted,” and “none can stay his hand” (Psalm 115:3; Job 42:2; Daniel 4:35) — these words about God are assurances that he will complete what he began in us (Philippians 1:6). Nothing can separate us from his love for us in Christ (Romans 8:39), and nothing can distract the simplest of circumstances from hitting the target of our transformation. There’s no stalling with God. He doesn’t procrastinate. Even if we are innocently obtuse to his designs right now, God’s providence is blaring full-throttle toward our Christlikeness, and his glory.

Be revived, encouraged, comforted, God is fulfilling his purpose for you.