Jason Albertson

In the last installment, we looked at what we should use our rights for. In this post, we’ll look at what we should do when someone violates our rights. There are several main options, I think, and they’re not necessarily exclusive of one another: Ruminate We can contemplate the wrong done, rehearsing it mentally and verbally. There may be several reasons someone might ruminate over injustice, including self-doubt (“Am I really sure of what happened? Might I have misunderstood?”) and anger (“I’m just furious that they would do that! How dare they [rumination commences here]!”). The danger in rumination is that people have a tendency to be shaped by what they think about. To paraphrase Dallas Willard in Renovation of the Heart , there are people who would not know who they were if they weren’t holding onto and ruminating over an injustice. The tendency to find our identity in how we’ve been hurt increases with time. Rumination is not a permanent solution; eventually, permanent rumina...

What are we supposed to do with rights? Rights are expectations that are backed up by authority, whether inherent or delegated. The ultimate authority is God. He set up the universe in all the ways that give people inherent or delegated rights. True rights come from Him. What we -- I -- should do with other people’s rights is  honor  them. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If I honor someone’s rights, I’m ultimately honoring the one who delegated the rights. I’m bowing to the power of the One higher than both of us. Rights give authority, and authority carries power. That’s an important connection, and it leads toward the answer to a harder question: What should I do with my rights -- that is, the power God has given me? The answer is shaped by the type of universe we live in: this particular universe was made by the God who revealed Himself through the Hebrew and Greek (and Aramaic, sometimes) Scriptures. He created the earth, its flora and fauna, and man, and He endo...

To reiterate what I concluded in part 1 (several months ago), saying “I have rights” is another way of saying “I have the authority to expect things.” Rights/authority can be inherent (for example, Paul founded a church, so he will have authority inherent to his relationship to the church - see 1 Cor. 9:18) or delegated (for example, the government - see Rom. 13:1-7). Lately, I’ve been exploring in one direction in particular. I've been trying to figure out whether this statement is true: When God gives a command or prohibition, He conveys rights on people. I think it is true. For example, He says, “You shall not murder,” and as a result, I have a right not to be murdered. This is delegated authority from God. In the right (but not desirable) situation, I could say authoritatively, “Stop murdering me! I have a right not to be killed.” I don’t have inherent authority to say that, but God has delegated it to me through His law. Another example. God says through Paul, “Fathers, ...

I like to read young adult fiction. As literature goes, it's not demanding, and it lets me get my mind off study and explore new directions. Recently, I read through the  His Dark Materials  trilogy. You may have run across reviews/comments on that series before, and I can confirm, it does present a view of God and the universe that runs completely contrary to Scripture. More on that another time, probably. However, as I read, I was struck by a beautiful theme in the books that's worth reflecting on: the incurable wound. Fig. 1, Two Severed Fingers In the second book, Will, one of the characters, must retrieve the subtle knife. To do so, he must fight for it, and in the course of the fight two of his fingers are cut clean off. In a gut-wrenching and fantastic turn of phrase, the author describes the fingers lying on the floor like a hideous, bloody quotation mark. The former keeper of the knife tells him that this was no accident: every keeper of the knife loses the same two...

Applies to contents of this very blog. But does it apply to me personally? Where do rights come from? How do I know what my rights are? To what extent should I assert my rights? I’ve been mulling over these questions for a couple of weeks. An unfortunate consequence of childhood is that I sometimes didn’t know how to balance things I heard. I have heard people describe their experience of entire sanctification as, “I gave up all of myself to God. I’ve given up my rights. I’m holding nothing back. I’m completely surrendered to His will.” As a child, hearing “I’ve given up my rights” conveyed the impression that there must have been something wrong with having rights. I started working with 1 Corinthians for a class project this semester. I was surprised to see Paul affirming his own rights repeatedly! That drove me to ask the questions above. I started in the New Testament because that's where I found a believer talking about his personal rights and because I'm more familiar...

Uber review: "1 star. Cramped vehicle. Poor snacks. Reckless driving.  Thankful to be alive." The message of a story is usually communicated by the characters. In the story of Jonah, there are three main characters: God, Jonah and pagans. The characters make the author's points. The first two posts here looked at contrasts between God and God's prophet. Those contrasts show us how Jonah was unlike God, and the contrasts call us to be like God, not like Jonah. There's another comparison/contrast relationship going on in this story: God's prophet versus the pagans. In chapter 1, God's prophet receives God's call. God's prophet  refuses  to obey because he hates the Ninevites (4:2), and he skips the country. This probably indicates that Jonah thought Yahweh, who is the God of Israel, might be  merely  the God of Israel, and so hemmed in by national boundaries. It turns out that Yahweh is not hemmed in by national boundaries. Jonah is stupid; he b...