ericmesselt

Showing Up

2011-09-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Was reminded this morning of the old saying that goes something like this: "Most of life is about showing up."

We frequently mean that in a mental or emotional sense, as in: "I was there but mentally checked out;" or "I was emotionally unavailable." I remember hearing this most recently in the case of voting - encouraging younger voters to 'show up' in the political process by voting

But there is the basic sense that we tend to pass over and that is physically being there. "Incarnationally present," to sound technical. You can't even get to "mentally in attendance" if you are not physically there! By the way, no points if you counter with: "But what if I am listening to a conference call or webinar or ..." That's not the point and quit trying so hard to misunderstand it.

So where am I going with this? Next time you elect to not attend church, realize that you are choosing to not "show up." Then tell me, with a straight face, about how much you love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Tell me about your commitment to the church as the family of God. Convince me of your engagement with the purposes of Jesus in the world. You have not shown up physically - it is Highly Improbable that you are showing up mentally, emotionally, or volitionally. Yep, most of your life as a Christian starts by showing up at your local church.

In the book of Hebrews we read "Let us not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Heb. 10:25). Sure, some Christians do treat the meeting-together pretty casually - but that is not the way it is supposed to be. It is an appropriate response to the gospel: now that God has drawn near, we should draw together. And if we don't; well, the next few verses say that will not be good.

Oh, and another ByTheWay, why would you think that "family/friends are in town" is a legitimate excuse to not come to church? If they are believers, they should come and worship with you. If they are not, then this is your opportunity to have an evangelistic impact. Either they come with you and see what Christians do, or they do not come and see that you are committed to the cause and work of Jesus in this world - both of those outcomes have evangelistic impact. Remember that most evangelism is not done by the professionals, it's done by the pew-sitters. But - of course - if you're not in the pew in the first place, well ...
So if you do not go to church, the message to your visitors is pretty clear: "I value physical family-friends more highly than the people of God."

Let's look again at the words of Jesus: Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. 12:49-50) - so who is your true family? Or, He replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice" (Luke 8:21) - who are your true relatives? Or, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26) - even using hyperbole, Jesus is making it clear: if some other loyalty is competing with your loyalty to God, you are not being a good disciple. Is there any doubt that Jesus well and truly loved his mother and siblings? No - of course not!

There are certain cultures within the world or sub-cultures within America that embrace the idolization of family. Remember that an idol does not have to completely replace the true God. If you place the idol along side of God, that 'implied equality' is still idolatry.

Back to church attendance - really, if our commitment to God is so weak that we struggle to do this very basic thing of giving one percent of our week to meeting with the local church, then we need to have a serious self-conversation about our devotion to Jesus.

"One percent" - where did I get that? A week is seven 24-hour days: (7*24=)168 hours. I assume a two hour commitment to a weekly service. Two divided by 168 is (2/168=) .0119, or a bit over one percent (1.19%).

A Protestant 'Pope' Has Died

2011-07-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

‎"If evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose." New York Times columnist David Brooks.
I learned today that John Stott, leader of the modern evangelical Christian movement, passed away today. We - Evangelicals - grieve; but not as those who have no hope.
Many others have and will have much more enlightening and helpful things to say about John Stott, but my response is more personal. I can't say that I read everything that Stott wrote - far from it. But that which I did read from Stott was very, very good. I was impressed by the trajectory of his ministry. He, as an Evangelical, stayed within the existing Anglican communion and helped to fan a flame of revitalization and restoration within that movement.
I was able to meet him on one occasion while I was studying in England. While we lived there, we decided to make All Souls, Langham Place our 'home-away-from-home' church. Stott, former Rector at that church, came back to preach a brief two or three message series there during our own tenure. After one of the services, I was able to shake his hand and converse Very briefly. I'll be honest, my motivation to stand in line was mostly to get a chance to meet a Christian 'celebrity.' But while I was there, I watched him greet old friends from his days at All Souls as a local pastor. I realized that this great intellect, devoted follower of Christ, and influential leader seemed very comfortable as a parish pastor. I was impressed by him even more. It came time to shake his hand, he realized that I was American and asked what brought me to London. I explained briefly and after expressing interest, he went on greeting his former flock. Even that small interaction gave me a taste of his grace, wit, and 'pastoral touch.'
I got a taste of Stott's capacities by association - the people who were around him. During our few months attending All Souls, we became acquainted with a gentleman who served as Stott's Administrative-Aide-Compainion and I was struck by Stott's personality by extention: if this very clever guy was paid by Stott to just stick around and keep Stott company, Stott must be a pretty clever guy as well. The current President of John Stott Ministries is semi-roommate of mine from college days: Ben Homan (former President of Food For The Hungry) is a rather bright and accomplished fellow. If Ben is leading that ministry; it has Christ-centered depth, purpose, and integrity.
As I said, there will many comments far more insightful, informed, and intimate on Stott's life. But, as for me, I remember meeting a good pastor.
Here are some other comments:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/john-stott-obit.html
http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2011/07/27/rest-in-peace-john-stott
http://westernthm.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/john-stott-rest-in-peace-1921-2011/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stott

Confident? Confident.

2011-04-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Here in the Detroit Metro area, over 500 like-minded churches as well as many para-church organizations are cooperating in the “EACH” campaign. The EACH campaign will attempt, within the 40 days after Easter, to give Everyone A Chance to Hear the gospel in the Metro Detroit area. Now, there are going to be billboards, bus sides, advertisements, shirts, mugs, hats and all the accouterments of a media campaign. There have been and will be more events, service to the community, compassion initiatives, and practical helps. But the reality of giving everyone a chance to hear is that it will most effectively be done as people have one-on-one conversations with others they already know. All the media stuff is merely a tool to facilitate those conversations.

As we chat with those we know about the Greatest Story Ever Told – the true story of Jesus Christ, we need to tell the Second greatest story: our own story. To help us do that, we’ve all been encouraged to thoughtfully consider our “two word story.” The idea is to use the same word with different punctuation. The first use of the word is with a question mark which will describe the uncertainty and need I had before coming to Jesus. The second use of the word uses a mere period to describe the certainty of that need being met in Christ.

My two-word-story is: "Confident? Confident." When I was growing up, I had a crises in confidence. Sure, we all did at that age, but I was particularly sensitive. As goofy as everyone else was around me, I was even goofier. I was clueless about life and how it worked – everyone else seemed to “get it” and was able to operate with much greater confidence. I was the poster-child for a “Loser.” But one evening I listened to a speaker at my church talk about confidence. Later I was able to chat with him and he asked me about my confidence in my relationship with God, the ultimate judge. I thought I was “good enough,” but he pointed out from the Bible that really wasn’t true. The only confidence I could have would be through Jesus. That made a great deal of sense to me. So I prayed to receive Jesus to overcome my sin and to guide me in my life.

From that time, my life – to be simple – just got better. My newly discovered confidence in Jesus allowed me to be confident in the other, less-important, areas of my life. I discovered not only a new hope based on the forgiveness of my sin; but also a new life of purpose, meaning, and guidance as I more closely followed Jesus; as well as a new community of care and friendship of other followers of Christ.

And that’s my two-word-story.

Platonic Realities

2011-03-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

This is a different kind of post from my usual fare.
I’ve noticed something about coming to the midwest from west of the Rockies: I didn’t know what they were talking about.

Here’s what I mean. When I was in California, we enjoyed things like soft-serve ice cream, jelly-filled doughnuts, and when Christmas came around we would put tinsel on the trees – some people even “flocked” their trees, sprinkled them with glitter, and hung plastic icicles on them.

But now I am filled with a slight Platonic echo. Those things that I knew in California in my youth were but shadows of the real things.

Take soft-serve ice cream. What soft-serve is trying to replicate is the delightful dessert called ‘frozen custard.’ See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_custard. Frozen custard is a rich, delightful, frozen cream based batch of wonderfulness that Dairy Queen only wishes it could reproduce. Frozen custard is what soft-serve ice cream wants to be when it grows up.

The same for the jelly-filled doughnut. When I lived in California, we had Dunkin’Doughnuts and (more popularly in the west) “Winchells.” Winchells was where the cops hung out. The west coast wasn’t a real doughnut culture – not nearly the same as New England. But in high school, after a night of “TP-ing” (ask your friends who grew up in the ‘70’s about that), we’d go over to Winchell’s, get some doughnuts, and chuckle under our breaths over our exploits – knowing full well that three squad cars were represented in the room. Anyway, if we were feeling flush with cash, we might splurge on a jelly-filled “doughnut.”

But now I live in Michigan, in the metro Detroit area, and we have a lot of Polish people living around here. Before Lent, the Poles create a wonderous pastry called a “paczki” (pronounced “paunch-kee”) to be eaten on Fat Tuesday (sometimes Fat Thursday). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czki and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Thursday. It is, again, what a jelly-filled doughnut aspires to be.

Of course, living in a winter snow environment, I’ve now experienced the fun of seeing icicles form. I never thought about it until now but icicles don’t form in the cold of winter, they only form when it’s warmed up above freezing for a bit. Again, plastic icicles on the Christmas tree, or the icicle decorative lights during the Christmas season pale into silliness when you see the real thing: an ice beard bordering the eaves of a house, building, or church.

Finally, just this morning, Barb and I were out driving further north where a little snow had fallen the day before. As we drove past leafless trees, we noticed that they sparkled in the sunlight – they looked like they had pieces of tinsel or were sprinkled with glitter: very pretty.

So I suppose the point is, first, I never really knew what I was missing. Sure, this would give people ammunition to claim that southern California is full of fake stuff. But I will tell you this for free, southern California does have real mountains, real ocean, real sand beaches, real deserts, real oranges, real palm trees, etc.

Second is this wonderful fact of life: Here I am in my mid-50’s and I’m still learning about stuff. That’s pretty cool.

I think I’ll celebrate by knocking off icicles from my eaves.

Criticizing Preachers

2011-03-10T15:27:00.002-08:00

As we have finished our ReFocus process here, one of the initiatives we developed was a “Sunday Service Excellence Team” that reviews our services and evaluates everything from the PowerPoints to the sound quality to the sermon presentation. That last part, sermon evaluation - has been particularly key as we do team-preaching.

One of the issues that we’ve had to struggle with is the very nature of evaluating a sermon and the effect that has on a preacher. One of the lessons I had to learn while at my former church was

1) Don’t criticize a preacher within two hours of the sermon’s end; and

2) Don’t get “in the head” with silly stuff before a preacher gets into the pulpit.

I’ve tried to help the team understand the nature of preaching: that preachers get up there, pours out their souls, “leaves it all on the field,” and always gives ‘A’ level effort. After giving a sermon, the preacher is raw, spent, and frequently still running on adrenaline. That is exactly the *wrong* time to offer critique or challenge. But it is exactly the time when people feel compelled to do so.

Right here - I have to again beg the pardon for violating these rules during my time at my previous church. My pastors there helped me to understand and gain sensitivity to this matter of how to better express love and respect for the preaching ministry in the moment. They helped to understand that in the abstract and now I understand it experientially. I appreciate their patience with me.

So we are going through this issue. It is hard. I remember being ticked off by critique I received days after the “preach.” BTW, this is the first place I’ve heard the word “preach” used as a noun (as in, “That was a mighty good preach you did there, pastor”). Criticism of a sermon is an intensely personal thing. Most people who haven’t done it regularly do not understand this dynamic. Attempting to separate the message from the messenger, it seems to me, is a fool’s errand in the realm of preaching. All that to say that there is a real tension in evaluating and bringing critique to a sermon in both encouraging excellence and encouraging loving relationships.

Of course, one of the ways to deal with this (as I’ve come to realize) is to understand the danger and mentally steel myself against the nonsense comments that can come afterwards. I was briefly toying with the idea of just exiting the sanctuary through the door that happens to be near the pulpit and going to my office to de-compress after preaching. That is not a good idea. But …

That got me thinking. I remember hearing of a former pastor at a previous church that would preach his sermon and then disappear right after the service. At the time, I interpreted the story to say that this guy didn’t have enough of a pastoral heart to interact with his “flock” during after-service mingling time.

But now I wonder. I wonder if the ethos of that church - back in that day - was less loving and more critical. I wonder if that guy was acting out of emotional self-protection by getting the heck out of Dodge before some “well meaning” person told him - again and for the umpteenth time - about how he was a failure as a preacher because of some little inconsequential fault or disappointment. A pastor can only take so much of that before they start to hate the sheep that keep biting at him. So maybe that guy - to keep whatever pastoral heart he still had - ran away from the dangerous “post-preaching molestation” time as a self-preservation strategy.

I don’t know that at all. But I do know that criticism of a sermon right after delivery takes on greater force than the criticizer probably intends. Call me immature or not tough enough or inexperienced or whatever. But as I’ve looked into this with other mature, tough, and experienced pastors – they all tell me the same thing: criticizing a preacher after the sermon is very hurtful. Of course, let’s not forget that there are people who do want to hurt.

Anyway, all of that to say that I have learned that to keep my energy (and, yes, even my defenses) up until I’m done greeting and mingling with folks after a sermon.

Perfection and Suffering

2010-12-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

I was reading an old-school devotional book the other day, “Streams In The Desert.” It is arranged by days of the year, includes a small text of scripture, and a devotional thought. For the 2^nd of December, the text was a clause from Hebrews 2:10: “perfect through suffering.” The word, “perfect,” in Bible, doesn’t have the same force as the English use of the word. In Bible, the word merely means, “complete” or “aligned with the goal.”

But the text got me thinking about the nature of suffering as a passive spiritual discipline. Engaging in an active discipline of suffering CAN be appropriate: fasting, sacrificing, et al. The value of passive suffering is, of course, ignored in American Christianity. But Christendom has, for millennia, seen the usefulness of suffering to build character and form a healthy and thriving spiritual life. Why?

Suffering has several causes. 1) The natural consequences of our own foolish or sinful actions; 2) Attack of the demonic (e.g.: Job); 3) the corrupt and fallen nature of the world we live in.

In the first case, natural consequences, the world system is working just fine: we ought to feel pain and discomfort for wrong choices and actions. Suffering, like guilt, is a natural feedback mechanism of common grace that help to ‘perfect’ our character (1Peter 2:20).

In the second case, we are under attack and suffering unjustly (1 Peter 2:21-23). In this case, we are doing the right and good but we are still attacked and suffer from spiritual forces. Here, we can rejoice (James 1:2-4) because we should realize where the suffering is coming from and understand that it is actually a ‘reward’ – a back-handed compliment on our right choices and actions. As James says, this also works to ‘perfect’ us.

In the third case, we suffer unjustly or disproportionately do to the corrupt world. In the workplace; we do our job well, but unknown to us, someone is looking for a promotion and if we were made to look bad, it would improve their chances. We’re victimized and sinned against because of someone else’s greed or even the organizational culture. Rules that were intended to punish evil are twisted to punish good because the world system cannot discern good from evil and looks only at raw behavior. Again: you lose a promotion into a position where you would have performed very well to someone who sacrifices family on the altar of career. You are unwilling to do that, even though you would’ve done the job better. The other guy looks more “committed to the company,” but will eventually poison the organizational culture by destroying families and employees’ lives. I could draw out examples from family, friendships, and community contexts.

All of this is not because you are ‘righteous’ or ‘persecuted;’ it is “just the way things work” in our world.

But in that last cause of suffering, we are being perfected; our character and spiritual life is being brought closer to an intended goal. For as we realize that the suffering we experience because of the world’s system is largely a part of our poor affections. We see that we are tied to this world and hold on to it – after all, it’s what we know best. The world and what it says is still important to us, even when we know there’s another – better – way. We realize, when we suffer from ‘the way things are’ that we are too much “of” the world rather than merely being in the world.

As we see how messed up the world system really is, we should release our hold on it and become attracted to the alternative Jesus presented: the Kingdom of God. We start letting go of our old world-view and see a new world coming (1Corinthians 7:29-31). This is part of our perfection – giving up our affection for the world system (1John 2:15-17).

This is how suffering perfects us; it brings up the contrast and the decision point regarding our affections: either this world, or the Kingdom of God.

God's Love and Justice; Problem?

2010-08-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

One of my online friends posted a blog about the "problem" of God's love. Now, my friend was - as a good blogger - attempting to make a point by making a seemingly controversial statement. His point was to revisit the seeming difficulty of reconciling God's love with God's wrath. That is, we read that God is loving and we look at Jesus, who is the exact picture of God (Heb. 1:3), and see love. Yet we also see cases in the Bible where God acts in wrath. "What's up with that?"

I've been doing some thinking and preaching on this matter lately so I responded to my friend's post. Here's an expanded version.

First, I think that "wrath" and "anger" are good words as they are used in the Bible of describing God's response to people's sin, transgression, and rebellion. But the real idea that must proceed God's "wrath" is the idea of God's justice. That is, God gets "angry" as a response to our sin. We sin, punishment is earned, and God is just and acts to appropriately punish. He is also "angry" in that we have (to our own hurt and/or the hurt of others) messed up his gracious intentions for his people. And - let's be Very Clear about this - when we say God is "angry," that is NOT like our human fathers when they went ballistic. He's not capricious or out of control. No; that's how the pagan gods act.

Anyway, I’m a little nervous when someone proposes that God’s love is a “problem.” I know my friend was jesting a bit; but – yikes!

The reality is that God is both loving and just. And this is where the wheels can come off the wagon. We must see God – as does inscripturated revelation – *first* as loving; and only then as just (in response to our sin).

This is the narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 and – very importantly – the message that God himself gives us about himself in Exodus 34:6-7.

So (in Gen 2) there’s Yahweh, loving and providing for us; then we (in Adam) mess it all up (Gen 3); then God starts “cursing” the parties involved. But Yahweh can’t even get through the first curse (!) before he holds out hope that humanity will get its revenge and tells us that Jesus is coming. Even as he curses Eve, he holds out hope for continuing existence of humanity through children. Even as he curses Adam, God says that Adam’s needs will be provided for through labor. EVEN IN GOD’S “CURSING,” God is persistent to bless his image-bearers.

Notice that in the Exodus passage (very important because it is the most quoted text of the Bible by the Bible), God ‘leads off’ with compassion, grace, patience, love, forgiveness, and ends with justice.

When we emphasize God’s justice before we establish his gracious provision, it seems to me that we are making an un-Biblical emphasis. God is love (1Jn 4:8b) first both in logical and narrative priority. Only then, as a response to our high-handed rebellion, he is just. In Biblical fact, God isn’t too ‘eager’ to express his wrath (Rm 8:22-23) – there seem to be other priorities that take precedence.

The remarkable thing is that, even though we were clearly enemies of God (Eph 2:3) and deserving of wrath; God chose to love his enemies (Eph 2:4) and, by grace (Eph 2:8-9), gave us every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3-14). Loving your enemies – where have we heard that before? Oh – hold on – Jesus said that (Lk 6:27,35).

It seems to me that’s what Yahweh is like. We don’t need to pit one characteristic against another (as my friend rightly condemned). I’m suggesting that we do need to begin with what God says.

Water Facts and Politics

2010-05-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have just come across a very interesting set of statistics while reading The Economist (“For Want Of A Drink,” May 22, 2010, at 52). I was sharing this with some folks this morning as we were talking about the BP oil blowout near the Gulf coast.

Water is remarkable. Without it, life as we know it ceases. It has the physical property of becoming *less* dense as it cools allowing its solid state to float on its liquid state. Someone could correct me, but I believe that water is the only significant compound that does that. Water is, literally, "vital" to human existence. And with more humans on the planet, we need to find more water.

Everyone in grade school learns that the surface of our planet is made up of mostly water. There’s a lot of it – a lot! Strictly, it is a practically non-renewable resource as water is not easily made or unmade. While water may exist in several forms (ice, liquid, gas), there is only so much of it on the planet. We may get some deposits in the form of meteors, but we also lose some water to space, as well.

So let’s break down our water. Of all the water on our planet, 97.5% of it is salty. Let that sink in a bit. That means of all the water on our planet, only 2.5% is ‘fresh’ water – only two and a half percent. Water can be “de-salted,” but that is not easy and takes a lot of energy.

Now of that 2.5%, 69.5% of fresh water is locked up in glaciers and permafrost. So, of the fresh water that we do have, nearly seven tenths of it is not moving. So, of the 2.5% of all the water on the planet, only a bit over 30% is not locked up solid. Of the remaining non-solid water, a bit over one percent is on the surface – the rest of it is underground. Let me restate that; of the non-solid water, one percent is above ground and the rest is underground.

So the underground water is somewhat accessible and we get to that by sticking a hole into the skin of the earth and sucking it up or waiting for it to bubble up. We call those wells. Drilling for oil is roughly the same idea. Here’s our problem – most of the ground water that we tap in these ‘aquifers’ is being used up faster than it is being replenished by trickling back in. At some point in the future, all things being equal (yes, that's quite an assumption), we will suck the ground dry.

Let’s return to the surface. Not all is as it seems there. For of the 2.5% of the water on the planet that is fresh, and of the one percent of it that is either not locked up solid or buried in the ground, you are left with what is called “Surface and Atmospheric” water. As it is titled, ten percent of the S&A water is floating in the air. The rest of S&A water is divided up this way: 70% in lakes and rivers, 20.7% in soil moisture and wetlands, and under one percent is locked up in plants.

So the big picture to take away from all of this is that while the Earth has lots of water, it turns out that only a very small amount of it is easy to get at. By the way, we don't like it when we drain out big collections of water. The Russians have done a rather compelling job of emptying the Aral Sea and nobody else is happy about that.

So what’s the other side? Of the fresh liquid water from rivers, lakes, and groundwater; 67% is used for food production, 20% is used for houses and industry, 10% is used for power generation, and three percent just evaporates from reservoirs.

One of the problems with water is that it is not super easy to recycle it. A lot of farm and industrial water is used and then tainted with some nasty chemicals – it takes energy and/or time to clean it up. So that fresh water is both “used” and “consumed.” That is, being “consumed” (tainted), it can’t be released back into the general supply. We tried doing that for a while and then found that rivers were catching on fire. So that didn’t work out for us very well. We do treat sewage water, but only to release it *mostly* cleaned up into the general supply and let other biological processes clean up the rest.

I was born and raised in Southern California. As I learned about the history of my state it turned out to be dominated by water politics. How to get water from wet parts of the state to dry parts and, if at all possible (and it was) to ‘steal’ it from other states. Water is a Big Deal in California. My father was employed by the Water Resources Control Board in their huge California Aqueduct project. In a very earlier similar project, California actually accidentally created a huge lake in the southern interior now called the Salton Sea because of a water transportation accident. Lots of people need lots of water and California - especially the southern part - is defined by imported water.

Water, on a world-wide scale, may become one of the dominant political footballs of the next century just as it was in the last century in California. It will be an interesting issue to monitor.

Hypocrisy – Deleted Scenes

2010-05-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, here’s another deleted scenes posting. Again, the rules are the same: this pretty much will not do a lot for you unless you heard the sermon. I’ll try to have it make sense, ‘stand alone,’ but it will not be as interesting or compelling without the intended context. And that is EXACTLY the problem with a “deleted scenes” blog-post: it’s not that interesting! These are all the bits of a sermon that did NOT make the cut! The actual sermon was more interesting. So, dear blog readers, here are the scraps and crumbs from the table …

One of the things I discovered when preparing this sermon was the particular, well, “FURY,” that accompanies religious hypocrisy. It may be said that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned;” yet there is likewise no fury that is like that of the person betrayed by a religious leader. Bill Hybels says that there are ‘high stakes’ to church leadership and this is one of them.

Just to let you know, there is another passage in Matthew 10 that has many of the same ideas. But, for a variety of reasons (that I’m not going into right now) it is likely another occurrence. And that makes sense as when Jesus taught and preached, it is entirely likely that he repeated ideas, themes, and even messages. We saw an example of that when Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer on two separate occasions

I’ve noticed that Luke, at this point, is developing a new pattern. He presents some situation or verbal interaction with Jesus, and that launches Jesus into a teaching and even a parable. Here are some examples that we’ve already seen:

10:25 – a lawyer asks how to get eternal life; Jesus teaches about compassion and gives the parable of the Good Samaritan
10:38 – Martha gets upset with Mary; Jesus teaches about worship
11:1 – a disciple asks about prayer; Jesus gives a model prayer and teaches them about God as their Father through a parable
11:14 – Jesus is accused of operating under the power of Satan; Jesus teaches about unity, gives a little parable about demons
11:27 – a woman blesses Jesus’ mother; Jesus point her to the Bible
11:29 – Jesus starts getting very popular; Jesus points out that the people are just seeking entertainment, gives a couple of parables
11:37 – a lunch host is annoyed at Jesus’ lack of ritual; he fires right back with accusations of hypocrisy
11:45 – a lawyer feels the rebuke and Jesus tells him that he should be

That is, each of the introductory statements that Luke gives is connected to the teaching that Jesus gives. Jesus begins his little speech by making a statement that connects their recent experience: his own judgment of the Pharisees AND their current situation of his astounding popularity – all the crowds. He tells them to “Beware” the leaven of the Pharisees. Why? Why does Jesus talk about hypocrisy in the context of all of these people? I think Jesus may be addressing his own popularity. Now here’s my caveat: none of my commentators seemed to address this matter. But it seems to me that Jesus may be making some link between ‘popularity’ and a temptation to hypocrisy.

Jesus tells us the truth about hypocrisy. That’s one of the great things about God, he came down to us to tell us – face-to-face – about how things *really* work in the universe that, after all, he created.

In the context of the catastrophic effect of sin upon our relationship with God: Even David recognized this when he confessed his sin to God; which included: his dereliction of duty, abuse of authority, adultery, conspiracy, murder and said to God, “Against you and you only have I sinned.” Ps 51:4. Clearly David had sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, and Joab, as well as the whole nation of Israel. But David poetically emphasized that sin’s most important effect is to offend God.

I deliberately declined to go into the concept of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and made the point that the real important theme in the text was hypocrisy, not this issue of blasphemy. However, it is there and in the text, so I did develop some thoughts though didn’t include them in the actual sermon. Here they are:

Generally, “blasphemy” is an hurtful statement made about someone. There are several facets of blasphemy but, at its core, it is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. We saw an instance of this a few weeks ago when people were claiming that the works of God are actually of Satan. E.g.; Luke 11:15 – the claim that Jesus was casting out demons using the power of Satan. A more theologically precise definition is: “A conscious, willful, and intentional statement about the clearly recognized revelation of God’s grace in Christ through the Holy Spirit, which is – because of hate and hostility – attributed to the devil.”

In a way, hypocrisy and blasphemy are related. With hypocrisy, you are acting a lie about yourself; with blasphemy, you are speaking a lie about God. Now the question always comes up, “I think I might have said or done something once that was an unforgiveable sin!” Within the Bible, this is the only explicitly stated “unpardonable” sin. Why? Because of the clarity and obviousness of Jesus’ works at the time, a persistent declaration of those works as being from Satan is just inexcusable. Today, Jesus’ claims are not so obvious and clear as they were to those who were physically in front of him. We must walk by faith and not by sight. To put it simply: we live in different times and circumstances. So most commentators that I’ve read – and I agree with them – say that today it is just impossible to commit this “unpardonable” sin. Yet, there seems to be this distinction between blasphemy against Jesus and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that this difference is a recognition of our limitations. For those standing right in front of Jesus, they didn’t see the divine second person of the trinity; they saw a blue-collar guy in his early thirties. Even as the “Quintessential” or “Ultimate” human being, there are normal, natural, and predictable doubts about what we would’ve seen if we were looking at Jesus then and there. Please note that Jesus just got through saying previously that denying him would result in judgment - but that sin is forgivable. But when the power of the Holy Spirit is displayed for good, live-giving, life-enhancing, and God-honoring purposes in unmistakable, concrete, and completely miraculous ways - to then persistently say, motivated by pure hatred and hostility - that power is actually from evil and Satan - THAT, at that time and place, is just too much: such a person has leapt headlong into the lake of fire.

We, as Christians, are going to get hammered. Yes – there are consequences to following Jesus. There’s a saying that has gone around: “The safest place to be is in the center of God’s will.” Being in the center of God’s will is clearly the best place to be, but it may not be safe for you, or – this is much harder - those you love. We’re pretty fortunate that here in Sterling Heights, in 2010, we don’t face the probability of death for confessing Jesus. There are many good reasons for that and I am grateful. But the point is that we must be willing to accept the value of confessing Jesus OVER the value of our physical lives, or even the lives of those we love. This is a point that we frequently miss, precisely because of our relative safety and security in our society. We need to take up our cross – we need to be ready to die. A few weeks ago, we heard Jesus saying: Luke 9:23 And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” We must love Jesus more than family; later, we’ll hear Jesus saying: Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” But this isn’t just a New Testament thing: Psalm 27:10 “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.”

As to this promise for supernatural help, we see several fulfillments of this promise by Jesus in the Bible itself:

Acts 2 – Peter, after being filled with Sprit, and being in front of people who were responsible for killing Jesus, preaches amazing sermon
Act 4 – Peter, on trial, preaches another amazing sermon (4:8 > 4:13-14)
Acts 6 – Stephen, on trial, again preaches amazing sermon (6:8, 12, 15 > 7:2, esp’ly v55)

Can you imagine what it would look like if we all stopped being hypocrites and valued Jesus more than the other mini-gods we are attracted to;

little gods like:
good health
good job
good education
good marriage or family
nice house in good neighborhood
a good reputation
all of the above - for our children

Are all those things good? Sure, I just said so. But not only are those things idolatrous when we value them more than Jesus, the hypocrisy part is when we value looking good over being good. Say it with me:

Renounce hypocrisy;
Follow Jesus;
Don’t worry about the consequences

Luke 11 - Deleted Scenes

2010-05-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

I just preached on Luke 11, the first bit where Jesus again teaches the disciples about how to pray. He gives nearly the same model prayer that he did in his prior public teaching (recorded by Matthew). As before, I’m including some “Deleted Scenes” that were prepared for the sermon, but didn’t make the Final Cut. Now when I do this, I’m not – at all – implying that the information in these Deleted Scenes would make it into the “Director’s Cut.” Some of this was cut for time, others because they didn’t relate directly to the main message, even if it was initially interesting to me.

Before we get into looking at this verse by verse, I want to acknowledge that I get lots of help when I prepare a sermon. I say this because not only do I want to teach and preach to you about what’s in the Bible and what it tells us to do. But also because I want you to see a bit into how I come to these conclusions. Now, I don’t always do this as well as I should. But I thought I’d just take a minute to acknowledge help that I do get. After I study a passage on my own, I’ll then go to reliable commentaries to check my work and see that I’m on track. One commentary that I’ve been using a lot of is this one by Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary. This thick book covers only the last half of the single book of Luke. The full commentary on Luke is two books this size. I’ll also use other commentaries to give me some other input. Here’s a commentary (The Interpreter Bible) that we had in the church library – I think it was donated – and I found it’s not that helpful. You just learn these things. Commentaries can be helpful to keep you on track – after you do as much as you can on your own – as well as pointing out things that you might have missed: which is mostly what is valuable to me.

This sermon was uncharacteristic of me because I dove into the Greek a bit. I try NOT to do that (even though many preachers do) for a variety of reasons. But in this case it was helpful. As you’ll see, I was tempted to put in much more “Greeky” stuff than actually went into the final sermon…

The language can fail us so we’re going to get all Greek-y. The phrase is “One day;” actually, the language gives more the meaning, “It unfolded…” giving this as more of an episode that played out. And that is much of the ‘feeling’ of Luke’s gospel; we get the feeling that we’re walking along with Jesus, seeing events as they unfold.

More Greek: “Lord~” is a ‘vocative’ – a calling, address; take a noun and use that to call out to someone. It’s like: “Ushers, would you come down?” or “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!” or “Private, you come here!” or “Lord, please teach us…”

Now there is this odd Greek grammatical structure of a past-tense combined with a command, or technically known as the Aorist-Imperative. Doesn’t that just bless your socks off? This grammatical structure is actually used as request to superior in this word: “teach us.” Usually an imperative is a command, but telling God, or any superior, what to do is not wise! So it seems that the Greeks showed respect by putting the command in the past. So a command, “you taught us” was understood to be “Please teach us.”

I spent some time talking about the New Testament use of the word “Abba” as ‘Father.’ I’ve discussed this before in this blog (http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/father). In retrospect, it would have been helpful to clarify what I was trying to get across – something like this…

When we see that God tells us that he is our Father, does that mean that God is not our “daddy?” Certainly not! It is fully appropriate and supported in the Bible (think of some of the Psalms) to cuddle up in our heavenly Father’s lap, nestle into him, and have a good cry. This kind of casual or informal relationship with God is, it seems to me, clearly supported in scripture. But, again, what is NOT supported in scripture is this idea that God is our “buddy,” our “pal,” or our “mate.” There is much in the Bible that talks about what a proper and healthy Father-child relationship is like and none of implies that the Father and the child are peers. Any time we make God out to be that kind of he’s-just-like-me relationship, we’ve got it wrong.

At the same time, Jesus does say that he is our friend. But in any earthly friendship between two people, there seems to usually be a dominate person in the relationship. With our friendship with Jesus, he’s always the dominate person.

So, yes, a healthy relationship with God as our Father includes both intimacy and respect, affection and honor. God is our Father.

As to the point of our relationship with God as our Father…

I had a chat with my son, Theo, recently. One of the points I reminded him of was that I was extremely invested in his happy and successful future. That is, I cared a lot more for him than any – ANY – of his current friends at school or even here at the church. There is no one on the planet who loves Theo more than Barb and I. At the end, I hope it was clear to Theo that I had his long-term happiness and success in life in mind – and that is just not true of any of his friends in school or church. That’s a small part of the nature of God’s fatherhood of us: he is vitally interested in our lives and he knows what will make us truly happy in the long-term

I got to the section where Jesus says that if we ask, seek, or knock – we’ll get good things…

But what about this language? Is God a genie in a lamp and gives us whatever we ask? That seems very contrary to the flow of this story. That potential misunderstanding is corrected for us in Jas 4:2 – in our day, we must look at the whole Bible to formulate our theology. And, if we look carefully at the language, it is not saying that God will give you exactly what you asked for, but that God will graciously respond in terms of the request.

***

So that's my Deleted Scenes. Again, it's probably more helpful for you to listen to the sermon first (www.lbchapel.org/media.php?pageID=24) and then you'll understand the context of these 'scenes.'

Apostolic Suffering

2010-05-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

I was reading through 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, this morning and was struck by the chapter and its application to my life – though I wasn’t expecting one.

The chapter begins with a call to salvation – which is a weird thing as Paul addresses the letter to the church; that is, believers in Jesus, the people of God, those who are saved. So, it turns out that the gospel may be applicable to Christians after all. Huh; go figure.

Then Paul moves quickly to a discussion of evangelism. Specifically, that he puts nothing in the way of anyone and engages in great sacrifice so that people might receive the grace of God. Of course, this is what the “seeker” movement has really been about for decades: making sure that the gospel of Jesus is accessible to all, without putting religious expectations (dress, old music, style of architecture, and even confusing words) in the way of those who God is bringing to himself. This is also very annoying to those who have been in the church for a Long Time and are comfortable with the way church was done in their youth, forgetting how radical some of those things were back in the day, and now unjustly critiquing young evangelicals today. I find that tragically ironic.

But here was the thing that arrested my attention. I’ve read verses four through ten frequently enough to dismiss this section of scripture. It just doesn’t relate to me. Even more: I most certainly DO NOT want it to relate to me! This is a section where Paul, in his on-going ‘discussion’ with the Corinthians about how much they disrespect him, speaks of his very hard life for the sake of preaching the gospel. He says – and we can believe him – that he’s (at times) been beaten up, thrown in jail, been in riots, worked very hard, lost a lot of sleep, and hasn’t had enough to eat.

Let me be blunt. I’m a rather “pain adverse” kinda guy. I don’t like pain and I avoid it. I don’t like adversity and my first reaction, should I encounter something that hurts, is to go away from it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll put up with pain, suffering, and hardship if I can see the ultimate benefit. For a minor example, I recently went to the dentist and (because I haven’t been for a few years) had a major cleaning done. The dental hygienist commented that she has to use anesthetic on most people going through these procedures but I seemed to be enduring the pain rather well. Folks, it wasn’t because it didn’t hurt. It was because my teeth needed to be cleaned and for the long-term viability of my dental health, I needed to endure this.

So I, in times past have read this (and other sections like it) and prayed, “Thank you, God, that I have not had to suffer like Paul did.” And as of this moment, that is still the case – no body’s beat me up, thrown me in jail, etc.

However, I will say that I have lost some sleep over pastoral concerns. In addition, as the chapter continues, Paul says some other things have happened. He turns to what we would (and should) think of as positive things and yet Paul says he has to “endure” them: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, real love, telling the truth, and the power of God. Maybe I’m not getting this, but what I hear is that Paul is saying that not only must he endure the hard things, but he must endure the “good” things. What does that mean?

I wonder if what Paul is suggesting is that ministry is a disciplined thing. And that he must exercise discipline to be pure (for the sake of preaching the gospel), that he must exercise discipline to make sure his mind is clear and truly understands the gospel and scripture (for the sake of preaching the gospel); that he must be patient with difficult people and situations, be kind when he feels like being mean, yield to the Spirit when he’d rather act in the ‘natural’ man, exercise tough love when he’d rather just be ‘nice,’ and just be a “normal guy” but God keeps insisting that Paul must act in God’s power – all for the sake of preaching the gospel.

Then, and here’s where it got personal: Paul next goes through this list of human-related sufferings: that he is dishonored, slandered, treated as an obscure, dead, cursed, unhappy, and poor imposter. Yep, there were those who were coming close to calling Paul a heretic. Ouch – that hit too close to home.

Finally, Paul concludes his thought with a very interesting warning. He says that his heart was open to the Corinthians; he spoke freely with them and encouraged them to be free with their affections. But they would not. They were emotionally constipated and immature. Note that, specifically in the context of their emotional response of affection, he tells them to remove the restriction because they are behaving like children.

Resisting Temptation

2010-05-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

Back in the 4^th grade, we temporarily moved to one of the, er, interesting parts of California: Bakersfield. I started at a new school and had some very typical problems fitting in: I was from out of town, the Big City, everybody else seemed to know each other already, it was a very different kind of place than I’d come from, and then there was the problem of The Bully.

But I digress. I became friends with another boy whose name was Teddy. Teddy and I discovered we had similar interests and outlooks on life. His family was from the Philippines and I remember being amazed at their hospitality, generosity, and friendliness. To this day, I have a particular affection for Filipinos. So Teddy and I became thick as thieves, as they say, and we would look out for each other. Teddy knew who was who and what was what at the school. I was a tall kid so probably provided some cover for Teddy. Anyway, Teddy and I, with a few others, ran in a small pack: call it a mutual defense association.

At this point in my life, I can’t remember the boy’s name. But he was a sixth grader and apparently had as his Personal Calling Statement the purpose, value, and vision to make sure that all the students in our school were intimidated by him. When he saw me – remember, I was tall for my age – I popped up on his radar as an unidentified “bogie.” And his mission was to seek and destroy.

So one day, he confronted me during the recess period and uttered those words that an extremely insecure boy does not want to hear: “After school, I’m goin’ to beat you up!” Again, he wasn’t noted for his subtlety.

So for the rest of the day, Teddy and I planned our strategy to deal with this threat. It went something like this: “Wadda we gonna do?! Wadda we gonna do?! Wadda we gonna do?!” Now, and don’t miss this, there was never any this from Teddy: “Dude, that’s bad. Sure isn’t good to be you now. See ya later!” Teddy was my friend. My problem was his problem. Right there we could stop and this will be a great illustration.

But it was better than that. We realized that there were two exits to the school. One was the front and the other was the, er – yes – the back. So we made this plan. Once school got out, I’d hide – I’m not too proud to admit this – in the boy’s room. Teddy committed to going out and scoping the exits. If BullyBoy was in the front, we’d skedaddle out the back; and if he was in the back, we’d make our escape out the front. Notice, “OUR escape;” My problem was his problem.

It turned out that this plan worked very well. Teddy did an effective reconnoiter and located our threat force near the front exit of the school. We then executed a tactical exit strategy egressing from the rear of the school, suitably camouflaged by buildings, vegetation, and other terrain features. The extraction maneuver was successful and based upon our well-executed plan, we were able to successfully leverage our success when it came time to engage in diplomatic negotiations.

Here’s the point: Teddy helped me escape. He took my problem on as his own. He helped me find a way out in a very practical way.

So I think of God in that way. Temptation is my problem – God didn’t cause my temptation. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13). Yet my temptation is a problem that God takes up as his own. God, even more so that Teddy, is my friend and wants to help me in very practical ways. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1Corinthians 10:13). God, not only looks out for another escape route like Teddy did for me, but this verse says that God will “make” or “do” a way of escape. I take that to mean that if way is not already there, “providentially,” then God will just create a way miraculously.

Of course, most of us don’t have the faith to look for that way when we are tempted. That assumes that we are actually looking for a way out of temptation. But that’s another conversation.

Lawyer's Parable - Deleted Scenes

2010-04-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Wow - it's been quite a long time since I've entered a blog here. Normally I could've counted on a couple of "deleted scenes" entries but I just haven't preached that much these last couple of months. The couple of sermons I have done haven't had unused material. But this last sermon had plenty! This last sermon was on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Usually, when I post a blog on a past sermon, it is to include ideas that didn't make it into the 'final cut.' And while that's also the case here, this "Deleted Scenes" blog post will include some self-evaluation of the sermon itself.

I'm currently finishing up a course in preaching (the fancy word is "homiletics;" say it to yourself - it's a fun word to say: "haw-mil-et-iks") that I'm doing remotely through my school, Western Seminary. So, yes, I've done over a full year of vocational ministry and preaching without formal training. Now that I'm finishing up the course, I'm sensitive to several areas regarding my own preaching. So some of these comments reflect that.

As I get into trying to present the parable of the Good Samaritan, I'm confronted with the "problem" that the parable is so well known and beloved that it's really tough to say anything interesting about it that has not already been said. But, I then realize, there are plenty of people, even here at Lakeside Bible Chapel, that haven't had the opportunity to hear a sermon on this parable, and many others who - as do we all - continue to benefit by being challenged by that which we know so well. It is said that teaching is "telling them something they don't know" while preaching is "telling them to live out what they already know." In that spirit, I take up this parable.

***

During the sermon preparation, I was constantly confronted with these questions: "What is it that we need to know?" and "What do we need to do?" I, with help from Darrell Bock, realized that the thing to know was that God demands that our love for neighbor have no limitations. But the nagging thing was Jesus' use of the Samaritan as his hero. What was Jesus trying to communicate there? Well, as has often been pointed out by commentators and preachers, there was extreme emnity between Jews and Samaritans. This is not only what your favorite preachers have told you, but is demonstrated in scripture. We see the beginnings of Samaria in 1Kings 12 when the Kingdom was divided, north and south, between "Isarel" and "Judea." Israel created an official and competing religious system. Then, after a long time and several warnings by God, they were punished and judged. When we think of the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel," that's the group that we're refering to. The "lost" word doesn't refer to the thought that they went wandering around looking for a new homeland - which is what the Mormons believe without a shred of reliable evidence - but that they were "lost" to posterity: that they ceased to exist as a people. That, friends, is a horrible judgment! And that is the price they paid for their unrepentant idolatry. The lesson, if I may be so bold, from those lost people is that if you continue to resist God's calls to repentance, you will die. The New Testament parallels that thought when Paul reminds the church in the city of Rome that, 'what you earn by sin is death' (Romans 6:23).

***

This is a critique of my message that is good to insert here: I have not yet learned to recognize when I might say something and it will be distracting to the audience. For example, it was pointed out to me that I used the word "hate" a lot during the message. "Hate" is a very powerful word. Now my intention was for people to be grabbed by the emotional force of Jesus' story - which I belive is very much there. However, I forgot that the rest of the people in the room have not had the 'luxury' that I've had of thinking about this parable for two months and working through all the emotional reactions to it as I have. Therefore, I came off using the "hate" word in a seemingly cavaier way. I continue to grow in this area.

***

[regarding the question of 'what do we need to do'] If love is not limited by any excuse, then this parable seems to tell us something much more difficult. We must love allow active love to cross over our barriers of prejudice, bigotry, resentment, and even rights of vengence. As to vengence, I've said elsewhere that the Bible is pretty clear that vengence is none of our business. "'Vengence is mine, I will repay.' says the Lord" (quoted in Romand 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30). We have no rights to vengeance! Strike that - actually, we do. The only act of vengeance that God allows us is this one tool: kindness. "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, ²² for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." (Proverbs 25:21-22). And that is *exactly*, seems to me, what Jesus is suggesting in this parable. We need to be kind to our enemies. We need to perform acts of love to those we hate.

***

There are all sorts of people we hate. Some of those feelings we have are so strong that we don't consciously recognize them at all. We repress our feelings because we know that those feelings are wrong, sinful, and destructive. I'll tell you about a hatred I have that I recognized a few years back. I hate men that beat up their wives. I have a visceral, irrational, extremely negative emotional reaction when I hear about that. I don't even know where it comes from. There is no abuse in my familiy, there was none of that between my or Barb's parents. But I will tell you this, if a guy comes in for pastoral counseling and tells me he's beating on his wife, at this point in my life, I have to politely refer him to somebody else. My 'hatred' is just too strong.

Now my hatred is irrational: my belief in the regeneration that is available through Jesus Christ tells me that what this man needs is Jesus. Yet, right now, I am so repulsed that I cannot - yet - bring myself to minister to that man's needs. Though, I will say that God continues to work in my heart over this matter. I remind myself that God has forgiven me much and I must entrust that man's life to Jesus for redemption.

***

The hatred that the Jews and Samaritans had for each other was, yes, at some level 'justifyable.' Sure, the Samaritans were indeed heretics and acted like Esau to deny their birthright. Additionally, the Jews were pretty smug about their supposedly iron-clad relationship with Yahweh. They each had 'reasonable' gripes towards each other. It is said that the long-standing historical feud between the Hatfields and McCoys had some basis - but the basis was about who owned a pig. Most hatred is irrational! The interesting thing that Jesus does here is he *acknowleges* the actual hatred that exists. Yes, Jews hate Samaritans. That's a fact. It is not right, but it does exist. So he uses the Jews' existing bigotry to make the point even more firmly. Jesus does occasionally use startling and unexpected things to make his points.

When we think about our own "Samaritans," I'm not suggesting that our hatreds are objectively justified or justifiable. But they do exist. They subjectively seem like completely appropriate attitudes to have. That why we sometimes need to dig around to find them.

[Here I could've named some of our prejudices: politics, religion, causes. Instead I tried to capture that with the retelling of the parable. The idea was to try and get traction with people's unacknowleged 'hatreds.' One feedback that I recieved was that when I told that parable, it could've been very uncomfortable for a visiting Muslim, homosexual, or cult member to realize that the room was full of people who hated them! That was a very legitimate critique. I probably should've said more about how such hatreds are not right.]

***

[I really goofed up the sermon in this way. I should've put this next section in. As it stands below, it could've been developed better, but you can see where I was going with it. I probably could've cut out the Lawyer part and put this in. {Smack} is the sound my my hand hitting my forehead.]

Love like this - doing kindnesses to our enemies and those that we dispise - is Very Hard. Let's not kid ourselves. It is impossible for people to do that well in the long term.

That's the point. God has enemies. Everyone in this room was or even still may be an enemy of God. I've been thinking a lot in the last year about this idea in Romans 5 that we were enemies of God. Ephesians 2 says that we were children of God's wrath. Yet the very next verse says that because of God's rich mercy he loved us. God loves his enemies! And God actively acted to bless his enemies. Jesus, in his love for us, endured tourture and death that we might recieve every spiritual blessing. God acted in love towards his enemies. Jesus acted in love towards his enemies. God's standard of holiness is himself. He expects us to love our enemies.

I can't. I just can't do that!

Except for this: Jesus changed me. I'm not the same guy as I was before. It is now possible for me to love my enemies. I don't do it often or very well. But as I follow Jesus more closely, I find that I can love my enemies. And that would be impossible if it were not for the re-creating work that Jesus did in my life when I became a Christian.

Happy Xmas

2009-12-26T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well another Christmas season come and gone. And with it the echoes of controversy and silliness that otherwise informed people get wrapped up with.

First is the “Xmas” controversy. Some bad preaching fueled by ignorance and a “sky is falling” mood has contributed to this one. “Xmas” is an abbreviation for “Christmas.” This is because the English “X” most closely resembles the Greek letter ‘chi.’ Chi, for millennia, has been a God-honoring abbreviation for “Christ.” In the same way, Bible students can use “Xn” for “Christian,” “Xnty” for “Christianity,” or even “Xndm” for “Christendom.” As such, English believers have used their own letter, “X” for “Christ” for hundreds of years.

Only recently, with the increasing ignorance of all things older than one’s lifetime, have silly preachers claimed that “Xmas” is an attempt to ‘take the Christ from Christmas.” Leveraging on the use of the letter ‘x’ to signify the unknown in high-school math and the use of ‘x’ in popular culture to signify mystery, as well as a desire to find all kinds of reasons why the world is going to Hell in a Handbasket, have conspired to create the completely unwarranted objection to using Xmas for Christmas. “Xmas” as an abbreviation for “Christmas” dates from at least the 1500’s – far before any attempt by postmodernists, New Atheists, or even the concept of the secular state.

What is odd is that people object to the use of the English letter, ‘x’ for “Christ,” but don’t bat an eye at the rest of the word, “mas.” “Christ-mas” is derived from the phrase, “Christ’s Mass.” The word first hit the scene in about 1038. And for those people very much in the Protestant camp, they get their drawers in a knot about abbreviating “X” for Christ but are happy to encourage the concept of the Roman Catholic Mass. Go figure.

What causes me befuddlement is that otherwise well-educated Christians are perfectly willing to embrace willful ignorance because one day a bad preacher compellingly told them a historical falsehood.

On to the next controversy – one that is more “popular.” This is the “Merry Christmas” verses “Happy Holidays” greeting controversy. This is along the lines of the “He’s the Reason for the Season” catch-phrase. In fact, the birth of Jesus is not completely the reason for the season. I’ve mentioned this before (http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/2008/12/reason-for-season.html), but the fact is that there were pagan Winter Party seasons long before our Lord was born.

At the end of my thinking on this, I am resigned to recognize that our society confounds the pagan and Christian meaning of “Christmas.” Frankly, I appreciate the honesty of secular and pagan people to stop calling what they do during this time of the year, “Christmas.” I don’t like that the excesses and rowdy revelry are associated with Jesus. They still don’t get the idea of “holiday,” of course. But if this is merely a “Happy Holiday” for them, fine. It still – very much – is about Christ to me.

Let me take that “Happy Holidays v. Merry Christmas” controversy a step further. I believe that it was the redeeming and lifting effect of the gospel on the pagan-infested roots of Western Civilization that changed the course of the Winter Party season into the Christmas season. But not completely – there are still plenty of pagan influences. It is expected, within ‘Christian’ nations to not only celebrate the birth of Jesus, but also to have a rowdy ‘good time.’ That is, to be “merry.”

Let me pull back a bit. In the U.S., it is customary to wish each other a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” My time in the U.K. taught me another custom. There, people say it ‘backwards;’ they wish each other a “Happy Christmas and Merry New Year.” Now why the switch as the sentiment crossed The Pond is unknown to me, but I have pondered on the difference of meaning between the words “merry” and “happy.” To most, the words are exactly the same and so it’s a distinction without a difference. But the words are different and carry different meanings. Currently, “merry” means “full of or showing lively cheerfulness or enjoyment;” while “happy” means “feeling or showing pleasure, contentment, or joy.” When *I* think of the two words in connection with Christmas, I associate “merry” with the party stuff, while I associate “happy” with the “Happy Birthday, Jesus” stuff.

So I’m adopting the British practice of wishing people a “Happy Christmas.” Now, here’s what I’m NOT going to do. I’m NOT going to castigate, insult, or take exaggerated offense if other Christians continue to use the phrase “Merry Christmas.” Additionally, I’m not going to think less of them privately. I am merely going to make the shift myself and see what happens.

So “Happy Christmas” to my Jesus-following friends! “Merry Party-time” to my pagan friends (hoping they’ll come to their senses about Jesus), and may this next year be a time of peace, prosperity, and health because of the grace of God in our lives.

Sacrifice And Service (2Cor 4:7ff)

2009-12-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

I was reading this passage this morning and reflected on Paul’s sacrificial commitment to the ministry of the Good News about Jesus. Paul is intense, extreme, and hard-core in his devotion to Christ and the do-whatever-it-takes posture of spreading the news and encouraging people to be close to God because of Jesus.

Now Paul’s sacrifice for the work of Christ was great – even life-threatening. I’ve lived most of my life in suburbia and minister now in middle-class American suburbia. My ministry has hardly ever been even close to life-threatening. There are those who will be quick to tell me that I’m not *really* living for Christ, much less doing ministry – my life is too easy, convenient, and safe. And they are right – my life is relatively easy, convenient, and safe. One reason that is true is because I have family to care for: a wonderful wife and three great children. Which is a fact consistent with 1Cor. 7:32-35 – that my family responsibilities ‘limit’ my ability to minister.

But I have recently read about ‘limits’ and would gently correct my hard-core accusers: God has made me, shaped me, and equipped me to do some things well and other things not very well at all. I am good with things and tools, bad at athletics; good with words, only fair with numbers; good at changing light bulbs without a ladder, bad a crawling into tight spaces. We all have limits, as well as gifts; experiences as well as naiveté; fumbling as well as competence; calling as well as confusion. What seems to be part of the Christian life is learning to live as God made us and live toward what God wants us to become. My ‘limits,’ I’m learning, are actually gifts that God has given me and I am learning to welcome them and cherish them as helping me to understand the uniqueness that God has formed into me.

So I see my limits as informing my calling – yes, here to suburbia. “Calling,” as I understand it, is the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit on the direction I should take my life – not somebody’s else’s life: mine. And when God tells me to do something, everything I’ve learned and experienced tells me that I should really get about what he tells me to do. The alternative is always worse.

Additionally, I will suggest that “burning out for Jesus!” is not Paul’s answer, either. Philippians 1:21-25 show that Paul actually seems to have considered that option. In my hard-core brothers’ perspective: “live life hard for Jesus, shine bright, flame out, and go to heaven!” Paul seems to have two options before him: flame out and go to heaven, or stay here and slog along being helpful to Christians still here. He seems to indicate that the *more sacrificial option* was to stay here; perhaps even that flaming-out would have been slightly narcissistic and self-serving as an ‘easy way out.’

Nobody is suggesting that martyrdom is easy – but the larger issue is: what does God want? This shows up with Paul again as he state elsewhere that true loving sacrifice was in service, not mere death (Romans 12:1, 1Cor. 13:3).

So as I read this passage in 2Corinthians 4, I am on one hand challenged to stretch, to press into the hard things, and to travel into the bad places – if that’s where God calls me. But just because God called Paul to rather extreme deprivations does not mean I have to follow him there. I follow Paul as he follows Christ (1Cor 11:1) in doing what I have been called to do.

Jesus: Lord of the Calendar - Deleted Scenes

2009-11-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

This blog has to do with my “deleted scenes” from my sermon on Jesus as “Lord of the Calendar.” As with the other “deleted scenes” blogs, these points are pretty sparse and isolated. It is best to hear the sermon (download from lbchapel.com) and then read what I didn’t put in…

With that episode about fasting, Jesus introduces the idea of old and new wineskins. That is, that there was an old way of doing things, but that way is not compatible with the new way that Jesus brings. Not only was the old way of law, animal sacrifice, and a separate identity going to be replaced with the better thing, but there was going to be a new way of living for God’s people. The reality is that religious leaders of those times had messed up what God had provided, the Law, so badly that it became corrupt and evil. What God had meant as a good preparation for the coming of Jesus, men had corrupted to being evil and wicked

***

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, … (Mk 3:5)

Why???? Isn’t Jesus, “Meek and Mild,” supposed to be even tempered, forgiving to all, patient with all, accepting of all? Hmmmm. Apparently not.

***

When we say, “God’s Kingdom” or “the Kingdom of God,” what we are talking about is that people, place, where in the past-present-or-future God rules. As we approach Xmas, note that Mary – in her magnificent song of praise – acts a bit of the prophetess by saying, “He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble” (Lk 1:52). Jesus affirms this with an earthly “king,” that is Pilate (Roman governor):

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, …. But my kingdom is not from the world." ³⁷ Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." ³⁸ ¶ Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" John 18:36-38

This idea of God’s kingdom here with us now is stated elsewhere. We see Paul on this theme when he says that even now, God is doing this work: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,” Colossians 1:13

Modesty in Ministry (1Cor 12:22-24)

2009-11-05T05:54:00.000-08:00

No great exegetical insights today. Just an interesting observation. For those who are in teaching and preaching ministries; I have some earth-shattering news: not every believer wants to be up front!

So what’s implied by that? Well, first that those who have teaching-preaching ministries (sometimes called “Word Ministry”) usually also enjoy being on the platform, behind-beside the lectern, in the pulpit, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, especially for a gifted teacher, there is the inherent need for an audience of students to be able to exercise those gifts.

The second implication is that Christians are different. There is ‘diversity’ in the unity of the metaphorical body of Christ; that is, the church. And that occurs locally as well as in the universal church. While we, as humans, have a delightful set of similarities. God has also made us to be different, to notice those differences, and – when we’re sane – to enjoy and delight in those differences. When we’re insane, we hate the differences and thereby become racist, and so forth.

And in the church, God has seen fit to carry that diversity a step further. In order that the people of God would be encouraged by each other, God has given each Christian – through the indwelling Holy Spirit – unique expressions of spiritual power. These powers aren’t magical: Christians can’t levitate, pull animals out of hats, etc. – but these ‘powers’ are meant to be helpful to the assembly of Christians – the church. These are abilities like uncanny wisdom; the ability to learn Bible and theology at a very high level (sometimes even in spite of a lifetime of secular academic failure); the ability to have a visionary trust and confidence in what God can and will do; yes, the ability to heal disease and sickness and even achieve the miraculous; the ability to detect the working of evil spiritual forces; as well as the ability to speak and understand the manifestation of “tongues.” There are other abilities spoken of in the Bible, as well (such as teaching and preaching), but this is list that appears in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church.

Some of these Spirit-empowered abilities can be rather spectacular; others are more subdued. Here’s the thing: some of us with more ‘up front’ or ‘spectacular’ gifts can frequently offend those of our brothers and sisters with less public ministries.

Here’s an example from when I was working in industry. I remember a supervisor of mine – good guy, very competent, good boss – attempt to convince one of our team to do a small presentation on some technical thing she’d become an expert at. She thought that it would be great for more people to know this thing – that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that she was a shy and reserved type and the thought of standing up to present before even a small group was Very Uncomfortable for her. My supervisor tried to persuade her that he wanted her to develop her leadership abilities. My friend was annoyed: ‘Leadership? I don’t want to lead, don’t want to be a leader, I am very content following good leaders like you – please don’t make me do this!’ In talking with my boss later, he confessed that he’d made a mistake by attempting to make my friend into something that she wasn’t, and didn’t want to be.

I’ve seen that in the church. One of my former pastors, very conscious of the wonderful acts of silent service that many of our faithful members perform, wanted them to receive recognition and praise for their selfless devotion. So, every once in a while, he would mention them in a sermon – unfortunately without their prior notice or permission. The even more unfortunate thing was that he tended to go a bit, er, over the top in his praise making the person feel even more uncomfortable. A vocabulary developed for this phenomenon. People who loved the fact that they were serving behind the scenes were mortified by being “pastor-ized.”

I was reading 1Cor 12:22-24 and came across this brief text: “… our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty…” Modesty is when we keep covered what should appropriately be covered. Now this word, “unpresentable,” is a weird word. We tend to think of this as being a synonym for “ugly.” But is that the meaning that Paul is intending here? Is he suggesting that there are some expressions of the Holy Spirit in the life of a healthy church that are ugly or disgusting? That goes against the whole grain of this passage of scripture. I wonder if that word is not meant to communicate “ugly,” but merely “properly kept out of view.”

Of course, “modest” has another meaning: “not much to show for it.” If you have believers whose service is modest in that way and there is no justification or excuse, then they need to be encouraged to more energetic service. But for those who toil in obscurity, we need to be sensitive towards that obscurity – they may find great comfort in it. Not everyone wants the ‘limelight;’ not everyone wants to be up front; not everyone wants their accomplishments made public.

If so then here’s my application: we should treat our silent servers with respect. We should protect their modestly. Let the silent serving believers in the church keep doing their job. If you believe they need encouragement, let that be done privately. If you need to publically encourage people towards more service, refer to the silent servers in very general terms so they can continue to serve in a way “properly out of view.” I see no value in publicizing the specific work of particular believers who are involved in “modest” service.

Response To Sin and Offence

2009-10-22T07:51:00.001-07:00

My theology professor, Gerry Breshears, posted this blog on "Restoration." It seemed like a good process to think through when responding to sin and offence. Wadda ya'all think?

http://breshears.net/?p=519

The Man Who Is God - Deleted Scenes

2009-10-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here’s another blog about ‘deleted scenes;’ thoughts that came to me as I was preparing this sermon but didn’t make the ‘final cut.’

The sermon was about Jesus, the Man who is God. Please go to the church’s website, download the sermon, give it a listen, and then come back to see what I did not put in ….

***

As to this text that says that “all the people were being baptized…” I hope it is obvious, contrary to some preachers (and even teachers!) that “all” does NOT mean “all” all the time. We can see that in even the raw fact being that Jesus, at that moment, had not been baptized. Clearly Luke is engaging in some hyperbole to emphasize the fact that John was a Very Big Phenomena!

***

Let’s get this heresy on and off the table very quickly. Some will say that it was this time that Jesus was “possessed” by God and became Messiah. “See? Only now does the Holy Spirit come into Jesus’ life!” This misses the point, ignores scripture, and is contrary to what orthodoxy has taught for two thousand years. This is not the first time Jesus experienced the Spirit. This is the Spirit’s anointing for Jesus to now commence his public ministry.

***

Tradition tells us that Jewish men were not to commence their professional ministry careers until they had attained to their 30^th birthday. Priests had to wait (Num. 4:3), Joseph was 30 when he served in Pharaoh’s court (Gen. 41:46), and David was thirty when he became king (2Sam. 5:4). Interestingly, Jesus seems to honor that tradition and wait for that time in his life.

***

There is a lot of debate about the two genealogies of Jesus contained in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospel. After a point, the genealogies diverge. One very common way to reconcile them is to suggest that one shows Jesus’ biological genealogy from David through to Mary to confirm that Jesus had royal blood, so to speak. Then, so goes this argument, the other line is from David to Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father, to show that Jesus had a inherited right to sit on David’s throne. The problem with that is to come up with this solution, you have to mess with the black and white text of the Bible. You see, Mary is not mentioned in either genealogy while Joseph is mentioned in both. There may be other solutions to this problem, but it seems to me a Very Bad idea to make up words and insert them into the Bible to solve a problem.

***

Sometimes we can forget that the people that made up Jesus’ family were real people, living real lives, and experiencing joys and pain:

Ø Adam – tossed out of paradise because he messed it up

Ø Seth – conceived out of profound grief over the first homicide; even his name means, ‘substitute’

Ø Lamech – lived under the curse of his forefather in fear, and continued his father’s homicidal ways

Ø Noah – the first case of alcohol abuse, profound embarrassment with ugly results

Ø Nahor and Terah – confused understanding of God

Ø Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah

Ø Salmon – married the former prostitute, Rahab

Ø Boaz – he and his wife, Ruth, had a beautiful romance

Ø David, son Nathan (named after the prophet)

Ø Joseph – a middle-aged guy swinging a hammer for a living, suddenly faced with a girlfriend who claims to have had visions of getting pregnant by means of God

Ø … and you thought you had a weird family!

***

So why did Jesus have to be tempted? Well, the first thing to consider is that temptation happens all the time and it seems reasonable to conclude that Jesus had been tempted, and resisted, many many temptations before this episode. It seems to me that these temptations are all directed at Jesus’ role as Messiah.

Additionally, part of Jesus’ task was to undo the work of Adam. Remember that Adam faced temptation and failed. Jesus faced these huge temptations and came out a victor. Jesus is a victor over sin!

Distinguishing Work of Preaching and Baptism

2009-10-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” 1Cor 1:17

I've been poking along at first and second Corinthians for several months in my devotions. I will let you know that devotional time in the Bible is a weird thing for me. Sure, I read prayerfully and let the Lord speak to me. But, as I read, then something in the text catches my attention and I’m off to the original languages, doing a rough translation, and digging into the technical bits (as much as I’m able) to chase down this conceptual rabbit that just popped out of the bushes.

In any case, that’s what happened on this one particular morning. As I came across this verse, I was struck by the distinction Paul apparently makes between the preaching of the gospel (the task that Christ gave him), and the baptizing of believers (a task that was, it seemed to him, an add-on).

A few technical observations: 1) most translations translate logou as “words,” but the Greek word is singular; 2) the literal words here are “wisdom of-word;” that is, the “of” (genitive) is attached to “word” rather than “wisdom;” 3) there is an interesting use of the first “not” which points to the negation of the infinitive clause rather than the infinitive word itself. As to the first and second points, it seems to me that Paul is talking about a mode of presentation (“wisdom of word”) rather than actual speech (‘words of wisdom’), which does provide a different shading of meaning than how this is usually translated – maybe somebody can help me understand the discrepancy. As to the third point, translations get this right: it clearly makes better sense grammatically (“Burton’s Moods and Tenses”) and contextually to translate the clause, “Christ did not send me to baptize…” rather than, ‘Christ sent me to not baptize….’

Now as to the potential theological point; does Paul here distinguish between the evangelistic work of preaching and the evangelistic work of baptizing?

As one thoroughly brought up – and still very much in agreement with – the Anabaptist teaching of ‘believer’s baptism,’ I have believed and taught that the New Testament many times uses the word, “baptism” as a catch-all word (synecdoche) for the whole work of conversion in a believer’s life. Much like a baseball commentator would say, “With that out; that’s the game.” Certainly there was much more to the game than one ‘out,’ but that one play wrapped up the destiny of the whole game.

So when Paul suggests a distinction between his preaching (clearly part of the conversion process) and baptism (seems to me the capstone of the conversion process), then I was arrested. Here’s how it sounded to me: “I, Paul, was sent by Christ to pretty much just preach the gospel. All that baptizing stuff into Christ and the church – nope, that’s generally not for me. Other guys can do that.”

Another data point is a couple chapters later when Paul seems to say something very much like that in 3:6 – “I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” You could read that and suggest that Paul had more in mind than a simple agricultural metaphor. Was Paul saying that he “planted” the good-news into the minds of believers, but Apollos “watered” them by baptizing them? That is, that there are somewhat distinct phases: preaching-planting, baptizing-watering, sanctifying-growing?

This would also say that “God causes the growth;” which in this sense means that God causes the ‘sanctification’ in believers. We know (even hard-core Calvinists would agree) that our ‘sanctification’ is in some way dependant on our obedience (Phil 3:12). But the very next verse, Phil 3:13, shows that God is the one at work in us; ‘causing the growth’ So this take on the analogy still seems to hold up.

Here’s my context. There is a debate among Anabaptist evangelicals regarding ‘early’ or ‘late’ baptism. The Early baptizers would argue that once someone has made a credible confession of faith in Christ, they should be immediately baptized and they cite the Ethiopian Eunuch (Ac 8:27-38) and Philippian Jailer (Ac 16:25-33) as Biblical examples. These folks tend toward the ‘Free Grace’ end of that debate. The Late baptizers counter that both of the examples are put in Luke’s text as exceptions to the general rule of delaying baptism. These tend toward the ‘Lordship Salvation’ end of that debate. The Late baptizers claim that it was the very early church’s practice to delay baptizing a believer until that person could really make both a credible confession of faith and was fully ready to “reject flesh, world, and the devil” to follow Christ wholly.

Late baptism was clearly the practice of the pre-Constantinian church. One cause was that too many churches had been betrayed by too-quickly baptized ‘believers’ who then, under ‘persuasion,’ gave the authorities information that allowed for the persecution of other believers.

To prevent these and other problems in the life of the church, the church had a training regimen called “catechesis.” A “catechumen” was a believer who was in the process between confession of faith and the conversion of their minds from a pagan to a Biblical world-view so that they would be prepared to enter into the full fellowship of the church via baptism (baptism, among other things, having an ‘initiation’ function). A very early and respected document, the “Didache” had this training function. Several commentators on 1 Peter believe it was written by Peter with just this new-believer-training-before-baptism purpose.

I heavily lean toward the Late baptism view – though am solidly in the Free Grace end of that debate. I believe that it is very important that a believer be baptized only if they can give both a credible AND informed confession of faith. It seems to me that this is both the testimony of scripture as well as the very early church.

So, yes, it does seem possible that Paul distinguished between his task of preaching and proclaiming the good news about Jesus, and the ‘follow-on’ work of pre-baptism discipleship and the performing of actual baptismal rites.

Paul Disobeys Jesus??

2009-10-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

I hate it when I find stuff in the Bible that I don’t like. That really bugs me. This is not a typical example, but it is one that was rather arresting.

I’ve been reviewing the two epistles that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church for some time now. It somehow has seemed appropriate given my church, my newness to ministry, and some of the issues we all are facing over here. Some things in the letters are very affirming to our environment. For example, Paul’s clarity of teaching on the Lord’s Table – something very near and dear to our assembly. Some things in the letters are very challenging: handling conflict would be an issue for us – and nearly any other church. Some things seem pretty removed from our situation: not many of my brothers and sisters here are tempted to eat food offered to idols.

I came across a pretty unrelated section this morning. That is, unrelated to my church, but very much related to one of the infuriating themes in Paul’s dealings with the Corinthian church. I have written before of the church’s dysfunction and this church’s dysfunctional relationship to Paul (http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/1%20Corinthians%206, http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/1%20Corinthians%2010, and http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/1%20Corinthians%2012). During all my reflection on the relationship that Paul had with this church, I nearly always put the blame for the dysfunction on the dorky believers in Corinth.

But there was this one episode that I tentatively suggested might be Paul’s fault. I wrote about that here: http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/1%20Corinthians. I suggested that Paul may have made a ‘miscalculation’ in his insistence that he be so generous with the Corinthian church. That is, when he – out of grace and love and a desire to reflect the generosity of the gospel itself (2Cor 4:2) – did not make any demands or requests for the new Corinthian believers to financially support Paul (2Cor 11:9). We look at that decision and generally marvel in the giving and sacrificial posture that Paul adopted with these believers. However, this decision cost Paul – a lot. From that time to the writing of the two epistles, there was always an issue of Paul’s authority with this church (1Cor 1:12; 3:1-4; 4:1; 9:1-3; 2Cor 3:1-2; 10:8; 11:21-12:13) and the church’s inability to form a proper emotional bound with Paul (1Cor 4:14-16; 2Cor 5:13-12-13; 6:11-13; 7:2-4; 10:13-14; especially 2Cor 11:16-20). Even Paul acknowledges a potential problem when he states, “Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge?” (2Cor 11:7) and “For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this ‘wrong!’” (2Cor12:13).

But as I was reading this morning, I came across this section in 1 Corinthians 9:14-16

“In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting …”

Paul remembers this right, of course: Jesus commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living from the gospel. He did this in Matthew 10:10. But then Paul says – this is astonishing! – that he did Not Obey Jesus! Instead, Paul turns Jesus’ words of commandment into a ‘right’ that Paul chooses to not exercise. Why? So Paul can “boast.”

The word that Paul uses for “commanded” is like a “specific arrangement,” or “direct order;” not a guideline, recommendation, suggestion, or discretionary policy. It is not the granting of a right. There is nothing optional about the word. There are other words for a softer ‘command’ and Paul didn’t use them. Commentators want to agree with Paul and so ignore this word or re-cast it as a suggestion.

I’m boggled by this. Paul seems to have made a deliberate choice to disregard Jesus’ plain arrangements for how the livelihood for preachers of the gospel is to be secured and, instead, embarked upon a frolic based upon the fact that it would make him able to boast about his generosity. To put it starkly: Paul chose between feeling good and obeying Jesus.

Now I can hear the howls of protest already. But let me remind you that Apostles are not infallible in their actions. We do affirm that Apostles were charged and functioned to accurately pass along Jesus’ teachings. Note the situation here: Paul DID accurately pass along Jesus’ teaching – Paul just didn’t obey Jesus’ teaching. And the result is that Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian church was pretty messed up.

Certainly not all of the dysfunction regarding the Corinthian church’s relationship with Paul can be laid at Paul’s feet. It is clear that the Corinthians were a pretty messed up church and they bear responsibility for their own sins. But it is worth noting that Paul’s relationship with the church was damaged based on his posture towards them about money. I’ve preached on this before: money and possessions have unexpected spiritual influence.

The lesson here is that if Paul had done his ministry as Jesus had instructed, it seems that his relationship with the Corinthian church would have been healthier.

Love One Another; Deleted Scenes

2009-09-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

I preached a sermon in mid-August called, "Love One Another." I wasn't able to get all of my thoughts in so here are some that didn't make the cut...

I started my sermon by reflecting on the text in 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. As a fair exchange-- I speak as to my children-- open wide your hearts also” I commented on this odd emotional non-response that Paul received from this church he had planted.

This got me thinking about an often-ignored aspect of our spiritual lives: emotional health. We – especially in our movement – are very willing to acknowledge that we need to grow in -

obedience – we need to act with discipline and self-control
rational processes – we need to think clearly
faith – to use our capacity for hope and future thinking to see what God will do

BUT we are suspicious of issues of the heart. Even though we really appreciate other believers who are emotionally mature and healthy, we have seen so many abuses of “emotionalism” and get a bit skittish when we talk about emotional expressions in the Christian life. We don’t like to talk about this stuff and we don’t know how to talk with each other about each other’s emotional health, and even more to the point, growth. Yes, it seems to me that we should be helping each other to grow emotionally.

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As to loving each other, there are three kinds of love that we can express in the church. No, these don’t relate to the three Greek words; these are ideas about loving each other:

Justice – doing love in our community and society
Truth – caring enough for somebody to tell them the truth
Grace – usually what we over-emphasize: giving people a break, avoiding confrontation

- when we emphasize one of these to the exclusion of the other two, we get into trouble

I was thinking about how we can love each other in very pragmatic ways and thought of 1 John 3:17-18 “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” It occurs to me that James and John (especially in 1John where he hammers in the idea that we must love our brothers) are completely synched-up on this; it makes one wonder if they ever sat down over a coffee and shared their concern for pastoral compassion ministry…

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Valuing our “Community”

One of the hit TV series of the ‘90’s and new millennium was “Friends;” before that, it was “Cheers” (trading alcohol for caffeine). As our society and families break down, we have looked for a new sense of belonging, group, affiliation, and friends. Americans have famously been called, “a nation of joiners.” As much as we talk about ‘rugged individualism,’ we like coming together. And if this is true for Americans, the most individualist culture on the planet, it is even more true for the rest of the world: humans are social beings.

One of the things we sometimes forget to appreciate is that when we are converted, not only do we get a new heart that now wants to please God and live in obedience to him, but we also enter into a new community of spiritual brothers and sisters, the church: especially the local church – an assembly of other Christians who want to please God and live in obedience to him

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Conflict is one of the barriers to loving each other. It prevents love – puts a cap on it. Conflict among believers is so important that Jesus and Paul spend significant time on it in Matthew 5, Matthew 18, and 1Corinthians 6 – as well as several other shorter sections of scripture. Most Christian conflict resolution occurs through the common-sense application of these scriptures. Some of you in this room need to take these scriptures seriously and attempt reconciliation with your brothers or sisters: not that you will achieve it, but you must – in so far as it depends on you – live at peace with all men

God as “Daddy”

2009-08-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

I have heard preached for many years the idea that we, as Christians, have a “Daddy” relationship with God. Here’s an example from a recent work I read:

Jesus constantly addressed the Almighty, eternal, infinite Yahweh as “Abba,” an intimate, warm, familiar word a child would use for “Daddy.”

So I decided to track that down and nail it analytically. After all, I’m a seminary graduate and stuff; I’ve got this very nifty Bible software; and I know a little about Biblical languages. My point wasn’t to find that this is not true, but to quantify it so I could preach something like: “85% of the time, Jesus address God as ‘Daddy’ and that should tell us something about the relationship that he has secured for us with our Creator…” – or something like that.

So here are the facts: there are two words for “father” used in the New Testament. The first is the word, pater (which is similar to the Latin) and the other is the word, abba. The idea as usually preached is that pater is a formal address (“My most honored father”) while abba is a very familiar address (“Daddy, my knee has a boo-boo!”). The message is that certainly we can address God with respect and honor, but we can also address him as “Daddy” who cares deeply for us. Therefore, according to this idea, the overriding message of the Bible is that there are two ways of relating to God, as father or daddy.

So I fired up my Bible software and turned on my Greek language Thinking Cap. And I prepared myself for slogging through all the occurrences of “Abba” in the New Testament. So I performed the appropriate word search. Here’s what I found:

Uses of the word, pater: 167 (one hundred sixty seven).

Uses of the word, abba: 3 (three: Mk 14:36; Rm 8:15; Ga 4:6).

Unfortunately, I actually read my Bible. Again, my seminary professor’s words rang in my ear: “Don’t read the Bible!! It’s a dangerous book and will mess up your theology!” And this from a Systematic Theology professor. Of course, he was being mercilessly ironic by saying that. In fact, his clear point (and now I say the same thing) is that you *must* read what the Bible actually says. And when the clear teaching of the Bible conflicts with your theological notions, your notions must yield.

So here’s the reality: Jesus overwhelmingly refers to God as pater (father) and only once as abba.

Opps. Hear the sound of a hundred sermons based on the point that Jesus “constantly addressed the Almighty, … as ‘Abba’” going down the giant dustbin of bad exegesis.

So. Hmmmm. That’s not good.

Now one thing that an educated man is supposed to learn is ignorance. That is, I learn more so I can learn how much I don’t know. When I studied both Greek and Hebrew in seminary, I learned that I really don’t know very much about those languages. So I went to a real expert in Biblical languages and asked him about the abba and pater difference. Here’s what he told me.

The idea that pater and abba somehow signal two different kinds of relationship with a father is false. The two words come from two different languages and mean the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Pater means father in Greek and abba means father in Aramaic. Aramaic was the day-to-day language spoken by people in the Middle East and likely the language that Jesus spoke most of the time. Greek children who had a cuddly relationship with their daddies could call him pater. Middle Easter children of that time who were in a strained relationship with their father could call him, Abba.

Now there is a particular grammatic form that abba communicates and that is the Vocative. For you non-grammarians out there, the Vocative form is used by some languages as a form of address. Examples might be: “Father – look out!” or “Daddy, can you come here?” or “Old Man, who do you think you’re kidding?” – the idea in the Vocative is that you are trying to get the attention of the person you’re addressing by using their name or title. And when you look at the usage of abba in the New Testament, that’s exactly how the word is used – as a form of address.

Conclusion: there is No Difference between abba and pater - they both mean father.

Now the question is why would Jesus and Paul use Aramaic in those three instances? Notice this: in each of those instances, they also use the Greek word (abba ho pater is translated, “Abba, father”). When Jesus uses the word, it may be that Mark is attempting to communicate that Jesus’ feelings were so authentic that he used the language of his youth. When Paul uses the word, it may be to make a connection to a mixed audience of Greek and Aramaic speakers.

Maybe some of you language experts out there can help me out. What do you think?

Worship – Deleted Scenes

2009-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

I preached on some ideas about worship recently and did not include all of my thoughts and have since then realized I needed to make some clarifications.

First of all, preaching about worship is a tough sermon to listen to. I mean, it’s what we are supposed to be doing right now, even as the preacher is talking. So there’s a natural defensiveness that can affect us as we listen to a sermon on worship during a time of worship. We can ask: “Am I doing the right thing? Do I have the right attitude? Will he say something that I’m doing is wrong?” So this can be a weird time.

Something that I’ve recently become aware of is the linkage between worship and food. Yeah, it seems weird to me, too. But consider these passages: Ex. 24:9-11; Dt. 14:23, 26; 1Tm 4:1-4; Neh 8:9-10. There’s an odd, unexpected connection between worship and eating. In fact, the passage from 1 Timothy says that it is pagans – who don’t know how to truly worship – who will tell you to abstain from food. John Ortberg said, “In general, I believe we have underestimated the importance of pleasure in spiritual formation.”

I think that we underestimate the importance of joy and celebration in our worship. I spoke about the small steps I’ve made to be a better worshipper when I come together with the other believers at my church. I started by saying we need to engage our minds more and I don’t think that will meet with much resistance from this congregation.

I then said that we need to engage our hearts more (that is, our emotional life) in worship and used the Biblical example of David (a “man after God’s own heart”) who was clearly an emotional man, worshipped God emotionally, and seems to have been approved for that. That will leave some of you in the congregation cold. There is a strong feeling (isn’t that ironic?) that emotions are to be highly suspect. People trust their “heads” more than their “hearts.” Some people feel uncomfortable when they witness strong emotional expression.

As someone who is well practiced at trying to suppress my emotional life for several decades, I think I have some grasp on this phenomena. It seems to me that some people who are suspicious of emotional expression react that way NOT because they are not emotional people. Quite the opposite. They are VERY emotional people and realize that their emotional life gets them into trouble. So like the mythical Vulcans in the Star Trek legend, they work very hard at suppressing their emotions. Rather than allowing their emotions to be expressed in healthy and mature ways, they keep a lid on it. They probably pride themselves (there’s some emotional stuff right there) on being able to stay “cool.” And like those Vulcan characters, they are very uncomfortable with witnessing emotional “displays.” Why? Because it reminds them of their own seething feelings and they fear that they will lose control. Control is pretty important.

Now – and I’m speaking to myself, as well – the better thing to do is look at ourselves, realize our weakness, and not condemn those who do it better. That is, I may not be able to raise my arms far over my head in worship. But to those who can, and are doing so in an authentic manner, I should look to them as better worshippers than I. It’s alright that I’m not as further along. I need to recognize and admit that I am the weaker brother and strive to be stronger. My current weakness is no reason for me to insist that the stronger brother should be prevented from truer, better, and whole-hearted worship.

So if you find that you just can’t bring yourself to clap, raise your arms, or be very expressive in worship; really, that is OK! This is NOT the kind of church that insists that you must do those things to “prove” you are a real God worshipper. I am merely encouraging you to take the next, best step to increase your capacity for worship. I would further ask that as others are trying to take those steps for themselves, that you not prevent their expression of Biblical worship.

Give Your Pastor A Break

2009-07-20T16:50:00.001-07:00

This is going to be a bit more of a rambling blog than usual. I had a weird experience this last weekend. And I need to be careful as I know this can be taken as being negative or critical of the very people I serve and journey with in my faith. That is not my intent.

We had a time of sharing and I mentioned, with some feeling, that I'd experienced a discouraging week. It had started fine, but a variety of things had not turned out well, there has been some criticism of the church (very unjustified), there are some painful decisions to make, and by the end of the week I was feeling a bit down.

As I was sitting there during our worship time, I was thinking through my little pity-party with a Biblical perspective. I remembered how happy I am to be here, what a privilege it is to do this kind of work, how graciously Jesus has provided for me and my family, how I have watched people in the last week go through gut-wrenching suffering and have been able to comfort them. Folks, I'm in the front row of what God is doing in some lives! To restate it, I came from a hard week into the worship of Jesus with my fellow Christ followers and I could respond with joy.

I shared from Psalm 13 which, like several other Psalms, has the same message: life seems bad, really is bad, but come into worship and you feel better. I was reminded of this and suddenly felt badly for those people who don't have the opportunity to engage in real worship, who do not have a vital relationship with Jesus, who do not (or even Christians who will not) take the time to worship and thereby are left to stew in their own minor miseries until the stew becomes a new misery of itself. Anyway, and I could go on – it was a pretty powerful moment for me.

The weird thing – well it seemed weird to me – is that people were reacting to the thought that their pastor was anything but happy, joyful, and content. Now, in the specifics I understand that there are reasons for some folk to over-react. But there can be some odd expectations of what a pastor's emotional health should be like.

Let me part the curtain a bit. Your pastor occasionally gets discouraged, even depressed. The only one who doesn't seem to be so afflicted is Joel Olsteen and I kinda wonder at that guy. But, hopefully, your pastor does not stay there in discouragement. How? Because of his own walk with the Lord and your prayers. But to think less of or, even worse, criticize your pastor for being occasionally down is very bad.

And it is more than – shall I say it? – insulting to imply that your pastor who's had a bad week is not living in faith. If the apostle Paul could admit to his occasional discouragement and suffering, then you've got to look Paul in the face and tell him he didn't live by faith. And then he'll stand aside and you can talk to Jesus. Here was the person who was foretold to be a "Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." Go ahead, look Jesus in the face and tell him that he lacked faith. Being sad is not necessarily an issue of faith.

I understand that we want our leaders, especially in the church, to be better than us. But setting up those expectations in an unrealistic manner will only encourage a great sin: the sin of hypocrisy. That is, rather than being honest or "authentic" with their discouragement, your leaders will just lie to you. Why? Because you want them to. Your unrealistic expectations will tempt your brother to sin. And they will eventually not be able to lead you because they can never tell you what is really going on in their heart.

Be mindful of the expectations you have of your pastor.

Michigan Transitions – E

2009-07-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

I’ve been in southeast Michigan now for six months and a few other things have come on the “hmm, this is different” radar.

One of the things that was actually attractive to us when we came to the area is that there are more people here. My wife and I grew up in metropolitan areas and we understand traffic, congestion, and suburbia. In a sense, coming to the suburbs north of Detroit was like coming home.
Humidity – West of the Rockies, we just don’t get real humid weather. Even in the northwest where it rains frequently and moss grows on house rooftops, it doesn’t get as humid as the south and Midwest parts of the continent. Being here about half-way through the summer, I am reminded of a meteorological reality: summer rain is a regular thing. In southern California, you get your last rain in May and it doesn’t rain again until October. Even in the northwest, you’ll get summer showers, but they are brief and light storms. Here near Detroit, when it rains in the summer: it dumps in a thunderstorm and the puddles last for a couple of days.
Additionally, as I was driving around, another reason there is so much water in the air is clear: not only is Michigan bordered by four of the five Great Lakes, but there are a gazillian smaller lakes and ponds scattered throughout the land. There is probably some study to show the percentage of water surface to land surface here and my guess is that the percentage is much higher here than anywhere in the west.
The terrain is also different. It is flat here. Again, in the west you don’t have to search far to find a hill or mountain somewhere in your view. On one hand, this can be disorienting for me as during certain times of the day in certain weather (noon-ish with overcast skies), I can’t tell compass direction. On the other hand, it does give a wider vista. Somehow sunsets are more spectacular.
The coastal northwest does one better, of course. The prevailing tree type is tall and narrow. Therefore, even driving along the Interstate, you can actually have your view of the terrain blocked by trees. In southern California, there aren’t many trees so your view of the terrain is remarkably clear.
At least in this part of Michigan, this flatness translates to a pleasantly broad landscape. The roadways are built with wide margins between street surface and sidewalk. The notorious “Michigan Lefts” do have the benefit of creating wide medians along major streets.
“Pop.” OK, this is pretty mundane but I grew up calling soft drinks, “soda.” Here, you go into a restaurant and when the waitress asks what you want to drink, saying “soda” is going to create confusion. “Pop” is the term. And there is a fairly important devotion to regional favorites. Vernor’s ginger ale is bottled locally and is a favorite (though not drunk as frequently as is claimed, I observe). Additionally, “Faygo” is a local soft drink bottler with their own brands and flavors.

A Modern Heresy

2009-05-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.” 1Corinthians 12:14-15.

I was reading this passage this morning and realized, as so often happens, that I was reading right past a significant understanding of this section.

Usually, when this section of scripture is taught or preached on, the emphasis is placed on one of several themes. The themes are the diversity of Christian community in a local church, the relative importance or unimportance of a specific manifestation of the Holy Spirit, or the kinds of manifestations of the Holy Spirit (“spiritual gifts”) that are legitimate. In these verses, it is the diversity theme that gets preached on and it pretty much goes like this: we’re all different, we all contribute in different ways, and we should not become jealous of other people’s contributions to the church that seem more glamorous than ours. Really, what gets emphasized here is a late-20th century feel-good egalitarianism. Now I’m not suggesting that emphasis isn’t valid and, indeed, is probably part of the teaching here. But it now occurs to me that emphasis is not the best interpretation.

One of the difficult tasks of interpreting any of the New Testament epistles is that you are reading only one side of the conversation. All of the epistles from Paul, John, Peter, James, or Jude are responses from some inquiry or event from a local church. That is, to properly interpret the epistle, you need to have an understanding of the back-story. Now, providentially, this is actually not that hard to do. Frequently, the writer of the epistle will restate the question that was asked or make it pretty clear what the issue was that they are now addressing.

As I was reading this section it occurred to me that the backstory wasn’t merely some people claiming that their spiritual gifts were more important than others, making them into some sort of spiritual elite. No, Paul is actually repeating something quite different. Apparently, there were people who were convinced (by whom?) that “If I’m not gifted like …” then; what? That they aren’t ‘as important’ as those who are? No!

These ‘non-hand’ people had been convinced that if they weren’t like a hand, then they were “not part of the body” at all. That is, somebody had been teaching or preaching that if you don’t have a specific spiritual gift, you are not a Christian.

In the next verse, Paul actually repeats the same idea for emphasis. If somebody was told, “if you’re not an ‘eye,’ then you’re not a Christian” and that person believed it. Paul repeats himself – ‘that’s just plain wrong.’ In fact, Paul goes a bit further and says that just because somebody doesn’t think they’re a Christian (because of this bad teaching about ‘litmus-test spiritual gifts’), that doesn’t make them not a Christian. Or to be more precise, 'If you're not a Christian, the reason is not that you don't have a particular gift.'

So, in current theological language, the issue was a bad teaching that “charismatic grace affirms salvific grace.”

And then, rather than spill ink on smacking down those who were teaching such weird ideas, Paul spends his time refuting the teaching and affirming the importance and diversity of everyone’s Spirit-empowered ministry in the local church. The closest he comes to smacking down the apparent sources of this bad teaching is when he says that “those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow greater honor” (v. 23) and “God has … [given] greater honor to the part that lacked it” (v. 25). That is, all those guys who think they’re so great because they are a ‘hand’ or ‘eye’ actually don’t realize how less honorable they really are.

So the point is that this indicates that the situation with this church in Corinth was actually much worse than is usually preached. There were people not only saying that they were more important to others because of their spiritual gifts; but apparently there were people saying that if you do not have a specific spiritual gift, then you really aren’t a Christian. And the sad thing was that there were people in the church who were believing this bad doctrine.

And Paul’s pastoral heart must have broken for these poor souls who were being told they weren’t really saved. Such a false teaching is profoundly unloving (as it rests on the sin of pride). Please note that Paul then turns the church’s attention from this false teaching to a much better understanding of the church’s diversity and then to “a still more excellent way;” that is, love. And after that, he then comes back to clarify the relative importance of certain spiritual gifts.

Folks, there are – today – movements within Christendom which teach the same error. They will say that if a Christian doesn’t have a specific spiritual gift, then that person is not part of the body of the church. This idea is just as wrong today as it was nearly 2,000 years ago.

Idolatry in the Church

2009-05-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading 1 Corinthians 10 and Paul starts talking about idolatry – to a church! Well, that’s pretty strange right three. But what is even stranger is that he weaves all this talk about running away from idolatry with a doctrinal discussion of the Lord’s Supper.

Now what is going on here? Throughout this history of Yahweh-followers, there has always been a problem with ‘worship distraction.’ Sometimes it happens when leaders thought that God was just not around anymore (Exodus 32), or that worship of God was too inconvenient and sought to provide more convenient (and politically expedient) options (1Kings 12:25ff), or no longer believed that Yahweh was as powerful as the alternatives (1Kings 14ff). And, periodically, Yahweh would confront these delusions by sending prophets and displaying mighty acts to show the reality of the situation. One of the most scathing denunciations was spoken by the prophet Isaiah who mercilessly ridiculed those who would seriously worship their own creation.

But after Jesus came, surely (you ask) wasn’t idolatry a thing of the ancient past? Well, no. There were still people very actively worshiping other gods and expressing veneration to statues and images of those gods. All that’s fine, you might say, but we live in the 21st century where we just don’t do such silly things. Again, no – our society is full of worship and especially of idols.

Now it would be too easy to suggest that the current popularity of “American Idol” feeds into actual idolatry. But to properly understand idolatry you must read what the Bible says about it. Idolatry is not only the worship of other gods than Yahweh in the form of statues and images – it is the worship of any thing or person other than Yahweh. That is, when you make a thing into a god, that’s when it become idolatry. And you know that you’ve made the thing into a god when you start engaging in functional worship of it. Worship is “veneration” and “sacrifice;” or – to put it another way: attention-dedication and money-time.

Paul says, in 1Corinthians 10 that people in the past worshipped feasting and sexual gratification. That is, they made food and sex into gods by giving food and sex the kind of attention and resources that rightly belongs to God.

And that’s how idolatry can get into a church. Paul, in other places, also tells us that covetousness (wanting what we shouldn’t have), evil thoughts, and even grumbling can all be idolatrous. In the 21st century we can easily see that materialism, pornography, addictions, celebrities, and even dysfunctional relationships can be sources of idolatry. Watch the average American Male on Sunday afternoons and you’ll see idolatry while they worship Rams, Tigers, Bears, Colts, Bengals, Cubs, Bulls, Bucks, Grizzlies, Orioles, Ravens, Blue Jays, Eagles, Seahawks, Giants, Pistons, Cardinals, Mariners, Marlins, Broncos, Texans, Lakers, Pirates, Vikings, Saints, and Kings - but (oddly) not Lions.

And that’s what Paul is warning the church about: when people who spend their week in functional worship of other ‘gods’ come in to church on a Sunday and then participate in the Lord’s Supper, they are doing a bad thing. Paul says that the Lord’s Supper is, in some way still not fully understood by Christian theologians, a union with Jesus as God. To engage in such a significant event while also worshipping other gods is disloyal, disrespectful, insulting, and delusional.

I’m now ministering in a movement that – rightly – takes the Lord’s Supper seriously. We weekly practice this reminder of Christ’s atoning death for our sin – a HUGE part of The Good News that we Christians should be talking about and acting out. This section of the Bible reminds us that we, even as “Jesus People,” can be distracted from true worship of God. And this reminds us that we must be especially attentive to the other ‘gods’ in our lives that attempt to worm there way into the place where only God should be.

Michigan Transitions – D

2009-04-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

Once I’d been here and observed people and the environment, I tried to engage in a little amateur anthropology. Sure, being in the upper mid-west and being in the northwest, or even being in southern California aren’t really big differences. It’s not like I found myself in Zaire, after all.

But that’s the challenge, isn’t it? There are differences, even though they are subtle, and it is important to attempt to understand them in order to determine how you will respond to the differences.

Much of what I learned came from people already here. People who were born and raised here, but had travelled and spend significant time in the places I was formed in, were able to give me a perspective. “Where you’re from, things seem to be like this …, but around here, it’s more like ….”

I’ve had to come to grips with my “sub-culture perspectivalism.” That is, my perceptions are shaped by my formative environment. I was born and raised in southern California. That, right there, is a sub-culture apart from most of the rest of the nation of the United States of America. I am a “SoCal boy” and my formative years were spent living a mile away from the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the country was about football or hockey; we were about surfing and volleyball. Southern California, because of the movie and television industry, became the media capital of the country. Though all the media money was in New York, much of the creative talent was in my neighborhood.

I grew up in suburban sprawl, pleasant weather, and was surrounded by people who came from somewhere else. In fact, that “somewhere else” was a subliminal message: “Where I came from was not good.” That is, the east coast, mid-west, and south were places that were bad. California was the land of “opportunity,” meaning that the rest of the country were places of stifling tradition, oppressive conflict, and narrow-minded bigotry. That was the worldview that formed me.

So here are a couple more differences:

One of the natives here in Michigan says that they are not an optimistic people. Life is hard, the future is not always bright or hopeful, and it is entirely possible that things will get worse. This is in stark contrast to the “California mindset:” life is good, the future looks better, and we can have hope. I’m not really convinced that mid-westerners are pessimistic, but there is a mindset of “toughing it out.”
Mid-westerners are rooted people. They frequently live within 10 to 20 miles of where they grew up. They are in weekly physical contact with family members. Their friends have been friends since elementary school. By contrast, the west coast is full of people who got there by up-rooting and travelling to a mostly unknown place. West-coasters are mobile people who will not find it hard to move from Portland to San Francisco because of job relocation. “Our real friends will keep in touch and we’ll make new friends when we get there.” Family ties are a bit looser in the west – it is not as important to visit mom and dad every weekend. In fact, because family and friends are more scattered, it gives an excuse to travel frequently to visit.

Michigan Transitions - C

2009-04-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

So our transition to Michigan first began when I started looking for a job. When I got a nibble from the church, I began investigating the area much more thoroughly. This involved research on the web and even talking to some people who’d lived in or even just visited Michigan and the Detroit area.

The next phase was an actual visit. This helped me to put together things that weren’t clear in my data-only investigation. Now I was able to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears.
After a second on-site interview with my family, we compared notes and impressions and all of us had favorable responses. The area seemed very much like a flatter, yet prettier, version of southern California. There were more trees, the roads were wider and had more green strips, but there was still the energy and fun of being in a large suburban community.

The next phase of the transition was the acceptance of the ‘job offer’ and then solving the problem of how to get me relocated to Michigan. We decided that I would go, set up ‘camp’ in a small apartment, and get established in my job while the rest of the family would stay put and concentrate on getting the house ready for sale.

To do that, my wife and I took a cross-country road trip so that I could have my car with me at my new ‘home.’ That turned out to be much more of an adventure than we’d anticipated. We got right in the middle of a record-breaking storm and had awful weather all the way across the mountain and plains states. However, providentially, we were always able to travel during daylight hours. That’s not, “travel comfortably,” but we were able to make time and distance. Once we reached Chicago, my wife took a plane back to Washington and I continued on by myself arriving safely.

I was able to secure a condominium ‘house-sit’ and set up my bachelor life while getting oriented to my new job. About two months later, I flew back out to Washington and drove my wife and son across country (much different route, this time!) to join me.

During those couple of months while I was ‘bach-ing it,’ I certainly learned something about getting around in the snow. What was ironic was that this season was the worst snow in decades for the area. So it was a ‘baptism by snow.’ Fortunately, I learned enough quickly enough about driving in the piles of white stuff to avoid any accidents.

As one who was born and raised in the Los Angeles metro area, driving skills were Very Important. As I have travelled and moved place to place, for some reason I am very sensitive to the "car driving sub-culture." How people drive their vehicles is usually the first thing my mind registers as, "Hey, people do things differently around here."

A couple of driving-in-the-snow tips:

your 4-wheel drive only helps you go in one direction: straight. It does not help you stop any better. You also need an anti-lock braking system to help you from skidding.
Additionally, losing traction when turning is a common occurrence. Your tires are designed to start and stop in a straight line – they are not so good at holding you on a curve in slippery conditions. For the nerds: think "lateral forces."
Different snow drives differently. Very cold, powdery snow is actually not so bad for traction; especially if there’s a wind: it acts almost like sand. The worst is melting snow – the combination of ice, water, and snow makes the road “slick as snot.” Typical was the snow that piles up before the plows push it away – it almost looks like stiff oatmeal as your tires go through it.
I found that, generally, the colder the weather the better the snow traction.

General driving observations:

There is an odd thing here: the "Michigan Left." In the Detroit area on major streets, the Wise Men of Traffic Control have decided that drivers can not be trusted to make left hand turns as the rest of the country does. They have very wide medians and expect you to first make a right turn, cross over all the lanes of traffic, and then pull into a special turn lane that is put into the median. If you check out Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left) you can get the full scoop. Check out this animated website (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdot/MDOT_Roads-Travel_mich_left_213414_7.swf) to understand this more clearly. From my perspective, all this does is add milage to your trip and provide even more opportunity for accidents as you cross all those lanes of traffic or become confused as to how to handle an intersection - or even if there is an intersection.
As mentioned before, the road conditions are much poorer than in the west. Whoever the road engineer geniuses are who devised the Michigan Left apparently wasted all that brainpower on making it more difficult to get from place to place rather than thinking of better ways to make a road bed less prone to pothole-ing.
Drivers here, as befits residents of the Motor City, are more aggressive. But they frequently drive faster than they are competent. I say this not only as I observe driving behavior, but as I observe the pragmatic results. Already in our time here, we have seen one accident happen right in front of us and another that must have occurred less than two minutes before we got there, as well as seeing a few post-accident scenes on the streets here. Even after 30+ years in Los Angeles traffic, I don't remember seeing so many accidents in such a brief amount of time.
On the freeways, tailgating is frequent. Sometimes its of the aggressive sort: "Hey, I wanna go faster - get out of my way!" But it is also of a nonchalant sort: "You're going 65 mph and that's a good speed. I'll go 65 mph, too - three yards off your rear bumper."
Cell-phone use while driving has not be prohibited here, yet. And it does show. There are many times when somebody will be traveling slow in the fast lane, you pass them, and see that they are talking on their cell phone. The other tell-tale sign is weaving or poor lane placement (having the car way over on either the right or left part of the lane - or crossing it). It is true that distracted driving prevents you from concentrating on all the things you need to do to drive well in a fast-paced environment.
People around here do use their horns more. On the west coast, it was rare that somebody would use their horn to "send a message" of contempt or anger. Horn use was almost always "Look out! Do you see me?" Here, there is more horn use of the "sending a message" sort.
There are several controlled intersections where there is a small sign posted prohibiting turning right on a red light. The vast majority of these are unneeded (frequently posted in intersections that have left-hand turn light control) and seem posted to become a revenue-producing opportunity for the local law enforcement departments.

Michigan Transitions - B

2009-04-20T01:53:00.000-07:00

So what have we done, so far, in transitioning from Washington to Michigan?

The first point to make is that I’m a pastor and my move from Washington to Michigan was occasioned by my accepting a pastorate here. So the first step in transition was the candidating process itself.

Initially, I was contacted by the leadership of this church about an application that I’d sent to them. All that I knew about the area was that it was north of Detroit, Michigan. I did know a bit about the church from its website. Helpfully, the church had pictures of the building and people so I could get some sense of what the surrounding neighborhood was like. I had no idea what the area was really like when I sent the application. When I was contacted, I immediately attempted to orient myself to the area.

One of the first steps was looking up the city the church is in – Sterling Heights – in Wikipedia.

I then looked at satellite pictures using Google Earth. I found out, for example, that Sterling Heights is home to a couple of automotive and aerospace assembly plants. So that tells me that there is a manufacturing base to the local economy.

I then found out that Sterling Heights (#61) was on the Money magazine’s list of the top 100 medium-sized cities in the United States (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/snapshots/PL2676460.html ). That was fortunate as that article let me know about the city’s strengths and relative weaknesses. I then began to appreciate that Sterling Heights was a mid-sized suburban city within the state of Michigan.

I then caught some news and was interested to see that the McCain-Palin campaign stopped for a major event in the city – which told me that the city had some importance in the area.

I started doing some searches using Google maps such as “banks,” “restaurants,” “school,” and even “church.” I learned that there was a clear shopping district, that the area seemed solidly middle-class, and there were several churches nearby. Barb and I joked about seeing some of our favorite restaurants were nearby.

So I constructed a tentative 'mental model' of what Sterling Heights was like. Of course, after collecting such raw “data,” the key thing was the first visit where I could see with my own eyes what the place was like and adjust my model. I was pleased – the place seemed even better than I’d thought. After meeting the people and joking about being a west coast boy out of his element, that actually helped to bring out – in natural conversation - potential differences and points of adjustment.

A couple of first impressions:
1) this place is flat. On the west coast, there’s always a mountain range in view and so it is pretty easy to get your bearings. Here, you have to be a bit more aware of the sun’s position and how the streets are laid out.
2) The road surfaces are not very good. Now the reason is plain – this part of the country regularly gets freezing weather and develops pot holes and cracked concrete.
3) Drivers are more aggressive here. This is actually a welcome change. I grew up in the Los Angeles basin where, it was once quipped, “you’re either the quick, or the dead.” Washington and Oregon drivers, by comparison, drive like old ladies. I appreciate driving in a place where people actually seem to want to get somewhere.

So the first phase of our transition was just getting good information about the place.

Michigan Transitions - A

2009-04-16T01:54:00.000-07:00

Several of my friends have been asking and asking again about how are we adjusting to life in Michigan.

For Barb and me, this seems like such an odd kind of question. It is asked so frequently that it almost seems like some sort of group obsession. Right there, I’m trying to understand why people are so very interested.

The first thing is that some people just can’t understand moving such great distances. There are some people for whom great change is a very frightening prospect. I remember when we were living in Santa Maria, California in the late 1980’s and I’d made the decision to move to the Thousand Oaks area to attend law school at nearby Pepperdine University. One of our friends, who couldn’t have been 30 years old yet, was simply amazed that we would move “so far” to do something “so different.” This guy was so rooted to the area – even the valley – that he was born in that he couldn’t imagine relocating. I was struck by the thought that this 28 year old guy was already thinking like an old man.

Even when we candidated for this church, one of the questions that was asked was, “How can you move so far away from your friends and family??” That is, from Washington to Michigan. There are several answers to that question, but the primary one was that Jesus wanted us to. Beyond that, the reality is that real friends stay your friends. Our society is more connected over farther distances than at any other time in history. It is a relatively trivial thing for me to be in immediate contact with a friend in Southern California. Distance isn’t the issue. Actually, time zones present the greatest challenge!

Additionally, we are located nearer the bulk of our family now than when we were on the west coast. The hardest thing, in terms of family, is that both of our daughters are on the west coast. As parents, we can no longer respond as quickly or immediately as we were accustomed to. However, that separation has more to do with our daughters’ stage in life relative to our own. We are becoming empty-nesters.

Even more so, unlike my young old-man friend above, Barb and I have always had an adventurous streak in us. We have always relished travel and the challenge of adapting to new places and people. We’ve moved several times now and realize that, wherever we go, we’ll make new friends, keep the old ones, and enjoy the new place. We’re pretty resilient.

The other part of the insistent question, "how are you adjusting?" is just the nature of relationships here in Michigan. The vast majority of people that we know here are in our church – the church where I’m a pastor. They really can’t ask about my work because I can’t tell them that much. They can complain about the jerks and idiots who they work with. I can’t complain. (snicker) That last sentance is pretty ambiguous!

Additionally, lots of what I do can be confidential in nature and there’s only so much I can share. Even if I chat with people socially, they tend to steer away from talking about my ‘work.’ So what’s left to talk about? Well, I’m new to the area so … “How are you settling in?”

I’ll blog a bit more about our transition as time goes on.

Easter 2009 (Deleted Scenes)

2009-04-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

I’d mentioned last month that I was trying to figure out how to restructure my blogging activity. I came up with one thought, which was also confirmed by my friend, Doug, of writing on “deleted scenes” from sermons I would deliver. The idea is that there are several thoughts that I developed in preparation for my eventual sermon that, for various reasons, didn’t make it into the ‘final cut.’ Some of these ideas aren’t completely thought out so are a bit raw.

This blog is on the ideas that didn’t get into the Easter sermon.

Easter Isn’t About “Church”

One of the things that people get confused about Easter is that it’s a ‘holiday’ rather than a “holy day.” Easter, properly understood, is not truly about clothes, candy, or even “church.” For most Christians, they can see the first two points but get confused about the last: “Wadda mean, Easter isn’t about church?” Well, the first thing to get straight is that Christianity itself isn’t about church, it’s about Jesus. Once I put it that way, nobody’s going to disagree.

But here’s where Easter becomes “religious.” There are make-believe “Christians” who have no living relationship with Jesus (though they for bizarre reasons still call themselves “Christians”), who really believe that if they merely attend church on Christmas and Easter, that’s “good enough.” This is so mind-boggling to me that I don’t even know where to start. Christianity is not about attending church. While authentic Christians do attend church, their relationship to God is not about their church attendance but their relationship to the real savior, Jesus. So called “Twice-A-Year ‘Christians’” are not real Christians. That’s what I mean when I say that Easter is not about “church.”

Pagan Easter

There’s a lot of virtual ink spilled on the web about the pagan influences upon Easter. Several will spout the party line that Christians just glommed on to pagan springtime festivals and created Easter from whole cloth. Unfortunately, they just don’t have the historical facts. While it is true that the church took the then-nasty “Saturnalia” festival and redeemed it into a celebration of Jesus’ birth [see blog post on 10Dec2009], the exact opposite occurred with Resurrection Day.

Now it is clear that there are pagan Vernal Equinox celebrations. And it is also clear, in hind-sight, that some of the elements of those celebrations have made their way into the holiday we now know as Easter. As with Christmas, there are both pagan and Christian elements associated with the holiday. But no thoughtful Christian will say that the centrality of Easter lies in the Bunny, eggs, flowers, or mere “rebirth of nature.”

It is a clear fact when Jesus rose from his death by execution. It was early morning on the first day of the week after the Passover. The calendar for the Passover was very clear at that time and relied on the Vernal Equinox for its calculation. The date for Jesus’ resurrection is a very specific day of the week and season of the year. What has been annoying is to see a variety of pagan practices worm their way into this celebration. I am frequently tempted to refer to the pagan-secular part of the holiday as “Pseudo-Easter” and the authentic Christian celebration of Jesus’ resurrection as “Resurrection Day.”

Prayer

One of the things I’m surprised still occurs in church life is the weird way people pray. they don’t pray as if Jesus were real. There are people who still pray using “King James” pronoun language: Thee, Thou, Thine, and other phrases. It is as if the people who pray in this way believe that unless they use these kinds of ‘special words,’ God will not be pleased with them. This is very much like the thinking behind magical incantations: if you say the right words, in the right way, in the proper sequence, then you can manipulate the spiritual world.

If we believe that Jesus is real, then it seems to me that should change our “prayer language.” Prayer, for the child of God, is not magical incantations but family talk. The pagans, who don’t know God as Father, have every reasonable expectation that God is not happy with them. Pagans live in fear of a capricious god who needs to be appeased and may Zap them if they do the least little thing wrong. Christians should see God as their Father and talk to them as such. That was the instruction that Jesus gave his disciples about their prayer life: “Our Father, who is in heaven…”

Never in my life did I ever approach my own father, Warren S. Messelt, with words like this: “Oh my father, that thou would live forever! I beseech thee for thy good grace to bestow upon me thine favor and that thou wouldest bless me with thy good gift. I petition thee that thou wouldest grant me thy blessing and permit me to operate thy automobile this evening that I mayest fellowship with my companions. So be it.” If my dad heard me say something like that, he’d be pretty ticked.

I think that our prayer life indicates our relationship with God. Now I am not advocating disrespectful prayer such as: “God-Dude – I need a car!” When Jesus said we should pray to God, we should address God respectfully. But to use language that is foreign to us is to slip into an attitude about prayer that is very un-Christian.

Jesus, Man for The Nations

2009-04-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

A few days back I was thinking about how great Jesus is. There is a translation that says that Jesus is the “desire of the nations.” That is, that all people find in Jesus the highest, best, and most valuable. I started thinking along these lines:

For the nature lover, Jesus as the creator, is responsible for natural beauty
For the nerds, Jesus as sustainer of the universe, is keeper of quarks, bosons, and the atomic forces
For the emotionally mature, Jesus is lover of our souls and forever faithful
For the busy, Jesus accomplishes all that he intends to do
For the environmentalist, Jesus is the redeemer of creation
For the elitist, Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords
For the socialist, Jesus is the son of a working-class family
For the artist-writer-musician, Jesus is the theme of the greatest creative efforts our culture

… and so forthYou get the idea: Jesus is example, guide, teacher, and hero. Jesus is frequently treated in this way - which is right - but Jesus is more than just a hero. We properly admire a hero but realize that 'veneration' or 'worship' of a hero is wrong. When we make Jesus into just a hero, we rob him of his rightful place and role as person worthy of real worship.

Some years back I realized that I’d come to view Jesus merely as a hero. Sure, Jesus was really smart, all “together,” insightful, courageous, compelling, the kind of guy people liked to be around, etc. But then I was confronted by my low view of Jesus. This is devastating for someone who calls themselves a “Christian.”

You see, everybody likes Jesus. Buddhists, Muslims, pagans, intellectuals, and even Jews admire Jesus. Why? Because they see Jesus as a "hero." But that picture – while certainly accurate – is not complete. Those very people – very much – want to ignore all the things that Jesus said and did that they don’t like. This is weird but it has come up often. Thomas Jefferson, who was not a Christian, liked many of the things that Jesus said. But the things that Jefferson didn’t like? Well, Jefferson didn’t merely ignore those things, or even just cross out those parts from his Bible; Jefferson physically cut those passages out of his personal bible. Wow.

For a couple of hundred years now, so-called ‘scholars’ (with increasingly less actual evidence to support this), have claimed that the un-popular bits of what Jesus said were just made up by his followers to advance their own agenda. This is very postmodern as it feeds into the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ that helps define postmodern thought. Think of “The DaVinci Code” and you’ve got the picture. More recently, a group of Christian scholars assembled and voted as to which of Jesus’ sayings were truly authentic to Jesus. I believe the current count, according to this group, is only 18% that is “really” Jesus. Bizarrely, they began with the assumption that what’s recorded in Jesus’ biographies is inherently unreliable. What is not widely known is that while this project, called the “Jesus Seminar,” was initially represented by reputable scholars, those people rather quickly abandoned the ship and the project has become the laughing-stock of even scholars hostile to Christianity. Basically, Jesus Seminar people are just making it all up as they go along.

The point of all this is to show that the “Jesus As Merely Hero” movement has been quite popular to the ‘chattering classes’ for a while now.

Here’s the thing: Christians don’t think of Jesus as their hero. That is, while he is their hero, he is so very much more. Jesus is God. As God, Jesus should be worshipped. Jesus should be venerated. But even more, Jesus should be loved and obeyed.

Now lots of people “love” Jesus, but they suddenly get cold feet when it comes to actually obeying him. And, for their excuse, they will frequently claim that Jesus is “misunderstood.” Again: Wow. The moment that their hero actually makes a claim on their lives – to live differently, think differently, relate to people differently – well, their story changes.

So, as a Christian, when I reduced Jesus to mere hero I was also reducing his claim to my life. I was removing his right to judge me and expect me to live the way he wants me to. That isn’t Christian – that’s pagan. When I realized that I my functional theology about Jesus was becoming rather pagan-like, I realized that I had a choice: What do I really believe about Jesus?

As a complete geek-analytical type and a lawyer, I reviewed the evidence. It came out even more compelling for me: Jesus’ rightful place is as boss of my life. And that recommitment to the supremacy of Jesus has significantly fueled my spiritual growth for the last several years.

So should you, as a non-Christian – but especially if a Christian - have thought that Jesus was merely a hero; then I would challenge you to examine that conclusion even more. A really bright man who died when I was a 'wee tyke' said something to this effect: “Let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

(for a detailed review of the ‘trilemma’ argument, I found this to be interesting: http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trilemma.html)

Pastors, Maturity or Elitism?

2009-04-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready…” 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

Spiritual elitism is a subtle sin. It is sin because a significant component of elitism is pride. Pride, said one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, is the first – maybe even the root – sin.

One of the factors that brought me into vocational ministry in mid-life was a season of spiritual renewal that started about ten years ago. Several things converged together to create a storm that re-awakened my love for Jesus, my desire to serve him at a greater level, and to sharpen my biblical-theological understanding. In summary, my spiritual life ramped up.

As I entered into this new ‘neighborhood’ of faith, I had to realize that not everyone around me was in the same place. I had to fight the idea that I was in a “better” spiritual place than my other friends. In fact, one of the minor frustrations that some of my other pastoral mentors have admitted to is a relative lack of faith in their congregations and even in church leadership. Certainly, your average spiritually-healthy full-time vocational pastor should be more spiritually mature and is committed to living a life of faith in service to Jesus than most of his congregation. But that can be frustrating. The pastor says: ‘I see the blessings that can come into your life if you’d trust God more fully but you just don’t want to really do that.’

I wonder if Paul was a similarly frustrated: “I’d really want to get you folks to a greater level of maturity, but you are acting like babies. Since you aren’t ready to go further, I can’t treat you like grown-ups so that’s why I treat you like babies.” Ouch.

Now I think there is a distinction between understanding that your spiritual journey is a bit farther down the road than some others of your friends, and the sin implied in thinking that you are better than those who haven’t travelled as far. Paul was also careful to recognize this sin – especially in the context of church leadership – when he refers to Proverbs 16:18 (‘Pride goes before a fall’) in his first letter to Timothy (3:6). And again, Paul says this to every Christian when he warns us to understand ourselves rightly (Rom. 12:3) – not too high or too low.

I’m still coming to grips in understanding this distinction because this is an area where I fall into sin. But I think the distinction is this: a proper pastoral concern for his flock’s relative immaturity focuses on them; but spiritual elitism is self-centered and is much more about the sinner’s reputation, esteem, and ‘position.’

This is where Paul’s frustration comes in: he cares very much for his friends at the church he planted and wants them to enjoy more blessings in Jesus. But they are so distracted by personality cults, ‘toleration’ and moral relativism, dysfunctional conflict, weird ideas about marriage, superstitions, money, church time, spiritual gifts, and a confused understanding about the gospel. All of these problems are preventing many of the folks in the church from living the lives that God wants for them. This is frustrating!

This would be like a parent who watches his children divide up Halloween candy and get into a terrible fight over one piece of Tootsie Roll while completely missing the pile of candy that they each have in front of them. The mature parent doesn’t point out the silliness of their fight because he or she wants to appear wise and morally superior; no, the mature parent realizes that the kids are missing the blessings of a sugar-induced coma because of a very minor thing. They want their kids to learn perspective: don’t focus on the little thing, consider the big pile in front of you – especially when the little thing is keeping you from the big pile.

So from this section of scripture, I see some interesting pastoral applications. A pastor is just a tad set apart to help people along on their spiritual journey. As Eugene Peterson says: “It is the pastor’s responsibility to keep the community attentive to God.” (Working the Angles, 2).

Nehemiah Thoughs

2009-04-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with one of our people here at the church about the sermon series we’re doing on the book of Nehemiah. We’ve been studying Nehemiah since the first of the year and are just about to finish it up.

One of the things that we chatted about was the implication that the Ark of the Covenant – the golden box that symbolized God’s relationship with the Jews – was missing. The Ark seems to have been a casualty of war when the Jews were taken to Babylonia. Not only is the Ark not mentioned after the Jewish exile, but it is notably absent from the depiction of Emperor Titus’ sacking of Jerusalem contained on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

The tragedy of this loss is profound. The Ark was the symbol of God’s relationship to the Jews and presence among them. After they returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple, and even rebuilt the walls, they must have been excruciatingly disappointed that their Temple was – in essence – empty.

That is the real judgment of God upon Israel and Judah. After hundreds of years of God telling his people (through his ‘prosecuting attorneys,’ the prophets) that the people should “shape up, or ship out.” The people did not shape up. So God shipped them out. Now the death, destruction, and displacement of The Exile is one sort of judgment. But after rebuilding Jerusalem, the true horror of God’s judgment becomes apparent: God is no longer with us.

And this is affirmed in the structure of Isaiah’s prophecy. The first 39 chapters are Isaiah’s statement that the Jews are “hardened, blatant sinners headed off to exile and death.” Then, suddenly, Isaiah begins chapter 40 with words of comfort. And he signals when that comfort would come in verse 3: “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” For Christians, it’s pretty clear whose voice this is: John the Baptizer (Matthew 3:1-3). So what does this mean? There are two descriptions of historic periods given by Isaiah. The first is the Exile given in chapters 1 through 39. The second is the coming of Messiah heralded by John the Baptizer in chapters 40 through 66. Note there is – for Isaiah – silence about God’s dealing with the Jews from the point of the Exile to the point of Messiah’s coming.

A Psalm (22), recognized at the time as being about Messiah, begins with these thoughts: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” Several hundred years prior to the Exile, King David had connected a sense of separation from God with a promise of Messiah.

And that’s the true judgment of God for the Jews: a partial separation. For Ezra, Nehemiah, and the others of this period, things look very bleak. Of course, several hundred years after the Exile, Jesus – on the cross – uttered the opening sentence to show that he was the fulfillment of that promise.

Still, some interesting things happen during that post-Exile time. First, the people – recognizing the severity of their judgment – resolve “Never again!” There forms a revival movement to obedience of God’s commands. The reasoning is clear: “If God judged us because of our disobedience, then we will make absolutely sure that we obey from now on!” This movement led to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

At the same time, many scholars believe that Ezra restored the scriptures, re-instituted Temple worship and sacrifice, and generally provided the intellectual leadership to revitalize Judaism. The difference is so striking that today scholars refer to “Second Temple Judaism.” From the time of Ezra to the time of Jesus, Judaism never again fell into the idolatry that plagued them from the time of Solomon’s death until The Exile (“First Temple Judaism”).

Additionally, Temple worship became so consistent and coherent that another movement arose that recognized and affirmed the power of Temple worship – Sadducees. While Pharisees emphasized Bible and obedience, Sadducees emphasized the Temple. These are gross generalizations, but my intent is to help you understand why the two groups formed and what they became by the time Jesus came around.

My point here is to recognize that this time of Ezra and Nehemiah seemed – to the people that lived it – a depressing, tragic, and empty time. But in fact, it was the seeds for a revival of Jewish religion that remained strong even after the Jews were crushed by Rome in 70 A.D.

Repentance and Over-reaction

2009-03-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

We've been going through the book of Nehemiah since the first of the year. It has been a good study and we've seen some interesting perspectives preached from our team. One of the frustrations I've had in preaching is that I feel like I've come across some great thoughts but - because of time constraints - couldn't preach them.

Other times, like now, I think over a passage I just preached and suddenly realize something about the passage that didn't occur to me until *after* I've supposedly fully preached on it.

Of course, that is one thing a blog can be useful for: communicating some ideas that didn't quite make it into the final cut of the sermon. This is one of those times.

On March 1st, I preached on Nehemiah 9. The passage is very powerful. In summary, the people gather for 'church' and read the Bible for three hours straight. Then, for the next three hours they confessed their sins and worshipped God. One point I made in my sermon (which is good to repeat) is that the people first got Bible input, next they confessed, then they could properly worship.

But this got me thinking, two weeks later, about their confession and repentance. There are several instances when this pattern occurs. It seems to be a pattern of revival: the Bible is 'rediscovered,' read, and people realize that they have completely ignored the requirements that God expects of them. They realize that they have been living in utter rebellion to the righteous judge of the universe. This is a bad situation! Then they confess their sin, make changes to repent, and even make restitution for the wrongs they've committed, all so that they will be reconciled to the loving and gracious God, Yahweh.

This happens most notoriously in the reign of king Josiah when they actually stumble across the Bible while doing a periodic remodeling of the Temple - apparently nobody really cared much about the Bible in times previous (2Chr. 34). It happens again in Ezra (chapter 9 and 10), a couple of times in Nehemiah (Neh. chapters 8 and 9).

Here's a weird thing: when we read stories about how the people read their Bibles, then were profoundly convicted, made a big scene of confession and declare repentance; we are tempted think "over-reaction." Really! In our sophisticated, hyper-suspicious post-modern perspectivalistic meta-narrative; we think those people back then were all about the drama and making a big deal about what certainly are minor issues. Clearly, we believe in all our post-modern smugness, they were over-reacting and really needed to chill.

Well, here's our problem. The Bible says that all *those* folks actually reacted properly. According to the Bible, this means that they got it right and we've got it wrong.

I'm thinking about that. What would it mean about my own personal sensitivity to God's holiness and my own sinfulness if I felt so guilty (heavens! there's a word we don't use today) about my wickedness that I would actually feel compelled to wail (who "wails" these days?), throw dirt all over myself, and tear my clothes?

By the way, why *did* they tear their clothes? Well, clothes were invented a Very Long Time Ago (Gen. 3:7) for the express purpose of hiding our 'real' selves - to hide our sinfulness. From that time to this, clothing has been a way of hiding our true natures and making ourselves somehow to appear better than we are. When people 'rent their garments,' it seems to me that they were actually making a very powerful statement of their confession: "Lord, here I really am: I've been hiding behind these clothes (and other things) - be merciful to me, a sinner!"

Back to the point: what kind of confession and resulting repentance would that really mean if I were so humbled by God's holiness that I would authentically wail out loud at my sinfulness? Well, people around me would certainly consider that rather awkward. That would definitely be "not cool."

Hmmmm. I wonder at which attitude God regards more? The attitude that says, "Dude; chill out! Man, you don't see me getting all emo and narcissistic about all my issues, do you?" or "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Look at Luke 18:10-14 for the answer.

All this tells me that I am not as convicted about my sin as I should be.

Wisdom and Foolishness

2009-03-23T04:44:00.000-07:00

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1Cor. 1:18

I was reading this passage and it struck me anew. For the past six months I've been reminded (and irritating my friends) time and time again that "God is smart and we are stupid." My purpose in repeating this near-mantra is to remind my friends - but especially myself - of a simple reality. Life's issues are hard and complex. That's why we need Jesus (who is the smartest man whoever lived and - oh, by the way, also God) to help us. Rather than rely on our own cleverness, we need to develop the kind of relationship with Jesus that allows him to help us through life's problems.

This passage also strikes at the whole "are-you-really-as-clever-as-you-think-you-are?" thing. When we look at Paul's analysis (and Paul was no mean intellect) both here and other places, we see how very clever God was in using the apparently foolish, weak, low, and non-existent to bring forth something that now is clearly wise, strong, high, and obvious - at least, to those who are being saved.

I've had the interesting experience of rubbing elbows with some pretty smart people. Truly, when you go through law school you really do meet 'scary smart' people and the 'debaters of this age.' And I've met other smart people: physicians, scientists, engineers, business leaders, political operatives, etc. They really understand how things work and can put ideas and facts together to make sense of the world. They understand how this world works.

But - and here's the problem - this world, as it works today, is "not the way it's supposed to be." The world, in this sense, is in profound rebellion to the benevolent judge who created it. And that's utterly ironic as these clever people just don't get it. They are the very ones who ought to be the most perceptive in understanding and discerning what is obvious about God from just observing the created world around them. Paul, in his letter to Romans, makes the case that both the observers of nature and the ethical "moralists" have deliberately ignored the obvious: that God exists, is moral, is personal, and will judge wrong-doing.

Why? Why should such clever people miss the obvious? Well, over in that letter to Romans Paul states that it is not an intellectual issue as much as a issue of the will - they just choose to go the other direction. Back in this passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul give us another insight: "For since (in the wisdom of God) the world did not know God through wisdom ..." (1:21). That is, God cleverly constructed the world in such a way that knowledge about him couldn't be gained through only the intellectual elite.

So - and this is part of "the wisdom of God" - it turns out that very normal folks like you and me can "get it." And it really is very simple: Jesus is good and deserves all the good things, I am bad and deserve all the bad things, Jesus (because he is Really Good) willingly took the punishment that I deserved and gave me his good things. Now that's pretty good news and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to appreciate that. If for no other reason than the science of rocketry wasn't invented until 2000 years later. :-) Back to my point: the good news ("gospel") is pretty easily understood by anyone from five to ninety-five. That's one thing that makes God cleverer than the world.

It is helpful, I think, to note that Paul doesn't bash on intellectuals just because they are smart. Notice he does say that the church, while it doesn't have loads of clever and powerful people in it, apparently does have a few (1Cor. 1:26). I think the point here is that God opposess "elite-ism;" whether "elite" because of worldly power or "non-elite" because lack of seeming influence. God has little regard for power politics. "God is opposed to the proud..." (Prov 3:34; Ps 138:6; Jas 4:6, 1Pt 5:5).

Blogging Shift

2009-03-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

It is a bit funny to me, once I realized what has happened.

When I was in school and interacting with all these great ideas about the faith, how to live it out, how God tells us to live through the Bible, and all that – well, the way I used to ‘metabolize’ those things was to write them out in the blog. Writing the blog helped me to grapple with the issues and engage with the ideas a bit more.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the pastorate. Now that I’m in a full-time pastoral role, I don’t have the need to express all those ideas or write a blog to help me metabolize them. Nope, I’m getting lots of opportunities to put those ideas into practice right here on the job.

Then there’s just the raw time element. I haven’t yet structured my work week and days to carve out time to do blogging.

And, more significantly, there is the confidentiality thing. Some of what I could blog about are things that are happening in the church itself. But that presents some problems. Because even if I start telling stories that happened to me in lay ministry twenty years ago, somebody just might think I was writing about them here and now. I’m still trying to sort out how to make lessons I’ve learned public without unduly embarrassing somebody who was involved in my learning that lesson. As far as embarrassing myself, I’ve done that plenty of times before so that’s not a big issue. :-)

So for those few folks who follow my blog, please be patient with me as I figure out how to do this in the context of vocational ministry.
Blessings!

Courage and Vision

2009-03-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Our church is considering an exercise that will allow us to discover God’s unique vision and calling for us in our community. But there is a cost. It will take time, effort, and more sensitively, money. We, like many churches now, are in a state of “resource challenge.”

Do you all remember the difference between the “urgent” and the important? The urgent are those things that jump at you and demand your attention. They are immediate, insistent, pressing, and seem utterly critical. But the so-called, “urgent” can actually be distracting from the important. The “important” is significant, long-term, strategic, central, ultimate, essential, and even visionary. The “important” is, well, important! But the urgent is merely urgent.

Here’s how I see things: the budget shortfall is an urgent problem, our lack of coherent vision is an important problem. I’m not – in any way – suggesting that our lack of resources is not painful, hard, or insignificant. But I really do think that if we have a coherent vision from God, the resource challenge will eventually work itself out with a happy ending. That’s the horse before the cart. But if we unduly concentrate on resources, then we will be stuck there.

Let me illustrate that. Guys who ride motorcycles well will tell you that you always keep your gaze on the end of the curve, not on the roadway immediately in front of you. They tell you that when something goofy goes on, if you keep your eyes on where you should be going you’ll probably come out all right. But if you shift your gaze on where the bike is actually pointed, you’ll get yourself into big trouble and it will hurt. And that is NOT easy! It takes real mental discipline and a radical courage and trust in the process – and your tires - to not panic. The point from this motorcycling analogy is that it seems to me that we should keep our eyes on where God wants us and follow that line. It takes real leadership discipline and courage, to trust God’s process and not panic.

This is not theoretical, impractical, or “blah-blah” – scriptures are clear: without vision, people are destroyed. This “vision stuff” is practical, pragmatic, and concrete. If we don’t have a true, clear, and focused calling from God, it will destroy us. Do we need a sense of urgency? Then consider what a couple years of drift, indecision, thoughtless, laziness, and ‘business as usual’ will do to any church. That church will either start to die, die, or become a zombie-church: dead, but still moving around causing harm.

Let me address the resource thing a bit more. The world’s values and ethos tells us – because we’ve all lived and worked in it – that if we don’t have the resources, then we can’t do good work. I think the Bible tells us something differently. I think the Bible tells us to do God’s work and then the resources will find their way to us. Not only do I really believe that, I’ve seen that happen time and again.

The definition of success that I like the best is this: One, find out what God wants you to do; and, two, do it. From my perspective, the more important thing is to get a true, clear, and focused vision from God on what our church is suppose to be doing. And then do it. Neither one of those two things is easy. They both take leadership discipline and courage.

Reason For The Season?

2008-12-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

So it’s the Christmas season once again. The older I get, the more Christmas annoys me. Don’t get me wrong, I love many aspects of the holiday. I like the “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” part. I like the lights, smells, food, and fun that go with it.

The thing that presses my hot button is the commercialism. For decades now, we’ve been inundated with nonsense about the “True” meaning of Christmas. When I was a kid back in the 1960’s, the line was that the “True” meaning of Christmas was “brotherhood.” Really? Then we got into the 80’s and 90’s where the “True” meaning of Christmas was family. That got to be such a cliché that we’d make jokes: “Christmas; it’s all about the children!” Gag me. The current favorite, with all its deliberate ambiguity, is that the “TRUE” meaning of Christmas is “giving.” That line isn’t on your T.V. because of theologians; it’s there because of credit card companies.

First, let me tell you what most of you already know. Christmas is a bit of a confusing holiday. For some time the early church paid little to no attention to the birthday of Jesus. The church was busy trying to do what Jesus actually told them to do: make disciples as you’re going about living your life, love God and people, assemble together regularly – and do all that “until I come again.”

Now, historically, a couple things happened. The church started losing its Great Commission and Great Commandments focus – that’s bad enough. The other thing was that the society around them was getting more and more corrupt and degenerate. There was a Roman holiday called “Saturnalia” that happened each year in December. Initially, it was a celebration of the god Saturn and included feasting, drinking, and candles. Why? Because it was the cold and dark time of year. What happened is that this holiday got more and more out of control such that it became a threat to public safety – it had already compromised public morality. By the way, instead of greeting each other with “Merry Christmas!” they would greet each other with a hearty “Io, Saturnalia!”

Well here’s where the church stepped in. They recognized the need for people to celebrate the winter time (who doesn’t like a party?) and they had some pretty good evidence that Jesus was born about that time. The church did what it has done many times since. It redeemed that holiday and re-shaped it to a time to honor Jesus. And - this is the wild thing - the church was successful! Yea! And that's obvious; after all, not many people greet you with "Io, Saturnalia!" this time of year. Well; or any time of year, for that matter....

Now that’s actually a good thing. But it does call into question those bumper stickers: “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Why? Because, originally, that wasn’t the case. Of course Jesus is the reason for every season. But that’s another topic.

Again, do not get me wrong here. Jesus IS the reason for the season for Christians. But for others; not necessarily. For your average guy coming home drunk from a “Christmas Eve” party; well, as a functioning pagan, that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. When people don’t acknowledge Jesus for who he is, they just revert to their pagan roots. It’s nothing more sinister than that.

Here’s the problem: when Christians approach Christmas with exactly the same attitude, motivation, and behaviors as the pagan winter-feast celebrator, then we’ve got no claim to state what the True Meaning of Christmas is.

Here’s my claim: he who does not have Christ in his heart will not find Christmas under the tree.

Election Perspective

2008-11-04T20:45:00.000-08:00

So I’m writing this on Election Day with the intent of it being posted on the day after. I was thinking about some things I read recently from one of my heroes, Mark Driscoll.

First, congratulations to the winners - what a big day for you! Second, my condolences to those who didn't win this one - there will be another chance in the future.

Today, if there is not another protracted legal battle for election results, there will be some disappointed people in this country. Some will have “won” and others will have “lost.” The unfortunate thing, from my perspective, is that many Evangelical Christians will be too invested in the results.

Here’s my concern: too many Christians are bought into an insidious form of idolatry. It is the problem of political messiah-ship. During this season, too many Christians have been enticed away from the raw fact that Jesus is not Republican and he’s not Democrat; he is the Lord.

Far too many Christians in both parties have been seduced into bad theology: “The country is going to Hell in a hand-basket if the election doesn’t come out my way.” This is, seems to me, a dangerous denial of God’s sovereignty.

Of course it’s important to vote, to be in the political process. My dad, as well as numerous civics teachers, impressed upon me that voting is not a privilege but a positive duty. For those of us in the United States, it seems to me that Romans 13:1a (“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”) applies to our duties as citizens. If the Constitution (our governing authority) gives a duty to vote, then our Christian obligation to the governing authority is to fully engage in the political process.

Still, there are too many, who should know better, that take their duty to participate to such an extent as to become idolatrous. They invest their time, treasures, talents and even spiritual well-being into politics to such a level that can only be compared to worship.

It seems to me that such a posture, for a Christian, is wrong. We worship Jesus; not our party, candidate, ideology, or political position.

For some of us, after seeing our candidate lose, we will need to repent of our sin of idolatry. Others of us, who have seen our candidate win, will need to repent of our sin of idolatry and resist the temptation to continue in that sin.

Others may talk of political history, cultural healing, "unifying the nation;" but there is a spiritual issue in how we've allowed politics to become our 'functional savior.'

That’s how it seems to me.

Parabolic Interpretation

2008-10-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

I was privileged to preach twice in the last two weeks and it so happened that my biblical texts for both sermons were Jesus’ parables. In the first sermon, there were two: the parable of the friend at midnight and the parable of the evil judge. In the second sermon, the primary text was the so-called parable of “the Good Samaritan.”

One of the interesting things I learned in seminary was how to interpret the Bible better. Rather than relying on what my favorite radio (or podcast) preacher tells me, or what I read in a book (devotional or commentary), or whatever interpretive prejudices I might bring to the text; the point is to let the text speak for itself. The whole science of interpretation (“Hermeneutics” is the technical term) is to prevent, as much as possible, those potential errors of interpretation and get at what the original authors really meant.

Parables can be really tricky to interpret. In any good work on hermeneutics, there’s usually a short laundry list of the “rules” (more like strong guidelines) to interpret parables. Other forms of literature found in the Bible (narrative, poetry, etc.) have their rules but Parables seem to always get special treatment.

But here’s the Number One, Primary, Unalterable Rule of Parabolic Interpretation: If Jesus or the gospel writer actually gives the interpretation of the parable, then that’s the interpretation. So, what if you go through a parable and come up with a significantly different interpretation of the parable than Jesus gave? Well, let’s just say that you need to go back and do your homework again.

Now, can you believe it? there are actually people who would disagree with that principle of interpretation. They believe that they can fragment the text, sever the parable from the interpretation given by the parable’s author, and do with the parable whatever they want to. Oddly enough, these people who want to fragment the text are postmodernists in love with “deconstruction.” So the postmodern deconstructionists are actually giving themselves permission to make stuff up as they go along, seems to me.

The approach I gave to parabolic interpretation additionally affirms the canonical approach to Biblical theology: look fully to the text before you use external resources to aid your interpretive task.

So let’s look at a couple of the examples. The friend at midnight parable is found in Luke 11:5-8. The parable is squarely connected to Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the previous four verses. After Jesus tells the parable, he spends then next five verses explaining the parable. There you are – there’s the interpretation.

In the parable of the widow and unjust judge, found in Luke 18:2-5, the writer (Luke) gives the point and interpretation of the parable in the introduction in 18:1. The point of the parable is that we should pray and not give up. There it is, that’s the parable’s interpretation. After the parable, Jesus gives some interesting teaching about God’s love for his people and justice, the nature of faith, and affirms that he’s coming back.

Even the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35) yields the same result. What’s the point of the parable? Within the context of obeying the great commandments (10:25-29), Jesus’ point is crystal clear: “Go and do likewise” (10:37). There it is – right in front of us.

So the point here is that while parables can sometimes be tricky to interpret; there are several parables where that hard work is already done for you.

Sometimes you don’t have to look for the answer; you just have to see it.

Thoughts on Hebrews 11

2008-09-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about that famous chapter of the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven, frequently called the “Hall of Fame.” The chapter begins with a discussion of the nature of faith. The writer of Hebrews (we don’t really know who that is) does something that neither John, Paul, nor James do – he defines the word “faith.” And, wouldn’t you know, he uses the word a tad differently than the other guys (who all use the word differently from each other – a topic for another day). Faith, for the writer, is both a rational thing and an action thing.

ByTheWay, no Biblical writer ever suggests that faith is a “blind leap” like wishful thinking, that’s a completely un-Biblical understanding of the word.

The point of this whole section (and the writer has been working up to it throughout the book) is that faith is what saves. Hebrews 11:2 “For by it the people of old received their commendation.” That is, the idea of salvation by faith is not some new-fangled idea invented by John or Paul. It’s been around from the Very Beginning.

There are some really interesting things to notice in the chapter. First, the writer seems to emphasize a ‘declaratory’ nature to faith in the time before Moses. People are commended, speak (4, 14), are warned, are called, condemn, receive promises, bless, and make mention. These are all words related to speech, to declaring something. At the same time, notice that these people also are doing things. Kinda a ‘speech-act’ notion. Interestingly, after Moses faith is demonstrated by pretty much only by action.

But then Moses comes along. There are three Great Heroes to the Hebrew people: Abraham (Father - identity), Moses (Prophet), and David (king). The writer deals with two of them, Abraham and Moses. Like Paul and James, the writer affirms that Abraham was not justified by the Law, but by vital faith. Even more startling to the readers (Hebrews) is that "The Law Giver," Moses, was approved before God because of his faith – not his ability to keep the Law. Even today we refer to that governmental, sacrificial, and ethical complex of rules as “The Law of Moses.” But the writer slaps that down pointing out that even Moses wasn’t justified because of The Law that bears his name.

But the REAL agenda that the writer wants to emphasize is that it is only Jesus who is the standard, source, and object of faith. It is clear that every person mentioned in the so-called “Roll Call of Faith” was a sinner; some of them notoriously so. But Jesus is the perfect example of faith. The writer says, in 12:1-2, (pardon my paraphrase): ‘While you have all of those examples of so-called “Great Faith,” you’re looking in the wrong direction. You need to look at Jesus – he’s the Real Deal.’

So the writer’s argument is that it is faith in a proper object, from a proper source, and actually relied upon that saves. And it has always been that way.

"Grey" Scripture

2008-08-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

One of the questions that was brought up during this last course was a question about the concept of the "sufficiency of scripture." One of my classmates provocatively asked whether the Bible speaks mostly in guidelines, suggestions, and is mostly "grey" rather than being "black and white." That got me thinking.

We learn, in Bible classes, the Interpreting Scriptures course, and the theology classes that the Bible is "sufficient." But we don't spend a lot of time poking at that idea.

I'm going to quote a guy named Ken Myers:
We don't hear much about the "insufficiency of Scripture." But it is an important point to keep in mind when thinking about Christianity and culture. Scripture does not present itself as the only source of truth about all matters. It does not even present itself as a source of some truth about everything. It presents itself as the only authoritative source of truth about some things, and they are the most important things.

So, seems to me that the issue is whether the Bible presents the down-to-the-last-detail truth about those important things. In agreement with the folks posing the "grey" question, I think the answer is occasionally: "no." That is, not all the details of how to live life are filled in by the Bible in such a way that we in our modern (or post-modern) mindset would like. I think that God does grant us the dignity of discovery and wants us to work a bit at connecting the dots that he's laid out.

As to the not-as-important-things? For example: the Bible doesn't directly speak to whether I should buy and use a Mac or PC - much less whether I should use electricity. From that, I would conclude that issue (Mac or PC) is not really as important as stuff like: what's our relationship to The Creator; do we get that we have a HUGE sin "problem;" do we see that the answer is Jesus; do we connect with a well-done church; do we do (as well as believe) a true gospel? Those are The Important Issues and the Bible speaks clearly to them. Though not even those matters are always covered in complete detail.

While I am, even now, going through a thought experiment about the concept of biblical "ambiguity" (in a technical sense) I'm not at all comfortable with the thought that most of the Bible is 'grey.'

But I sense that's not the core of the question. It seems my classmate is responding to an overly-literalistic tradition. And to that, I certainly agree that scripture gives us more freedom and liberty in Christ than some of our Fightin' Fundies brothers and sisters are willing to admit.

Acts 2:42 - Not the ideal for the church

2008-08-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've also occasionally wondered at our use of that Acts 2 passage as an example of the "perfect" chuch. Or, for that matter, of our attempts to become "like the first century church."

The thing we like (and should) about the church of that time was their rootedness in the "Apostles teaching" (that's 'Bible' to us), their influence by and general obedience to the Spirit, their zeal for both growing in Christ and sharing Christ (eventually), and so forth.

But, while I certainly applaud my brothers and sisters as they followed Jesus 1,900 years ago; it is obvious "that was then and this is now." Even Paul touched on this when he stated that David served his generation and then went to be with his Lord (Ac 13:36). My Bible survey professor keeps hammering on us that The Apostolic Age was pretty unique in church history.

So these, and a recent semester of church history, lead me to tentatively consider that there may not be some Golden Model of Church. In fact, it may be that church is far more a child of its culture and time than we are comfortable with (I ruminate on this here).

And I'm not the only one that may be questioning this Acts-2-church-is-the-perfect-church idea. There's a whole church-planting network out there called Acts29. The idea behind the name is what-if the book of Acts continued on past chapter 28 to record the expansion of the Kingdom in our own time?

I think the big idea is that the church holds tightly to the gospel and is in firm contact with its culture; not some idealized way of doing church from "The Golden Age." To even suggest that the Church had a "golden age" is to dismiss that the church's best days are yet to come.

Communicating Gospel Cross-culturally

2008-08-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Seems to me that given the general biblical illiteracy of the culture we find ourselves in, as well as the general inability of most people to think critically (most thinking seems to be more bumper-sticker or sound-bite polemic), we can't go to the Bible very quickly when we attempt to communicate the gospel to our Post-modern culture and society.

I read a Christian thinker a few years back who suggested that we need to become better Natural theologians rather than better Systematic theologians. What he meant by that is that we should get a better grip on Thomas Aquinas' massive thought-experiment that we now call Natural Theology. Aquinas' experiement went like this: we know Paul says in Romans 1 that everybody knows some pretty basic things about God. So using the evidence we have before us and our own reasoning power, just how far can we get along into our theology without having to rely on Jesus, the Apostles, or scripture? Aquinas got pretty far along, and while others that followed him thought he resorted to a couple of logical cheats to get there (unintentionally), still he made lots of interesting points.

The guy I read said we ought to do a similar, though not as intense thing. Can we converse with a dude in the epicenter of Portland "wierdness" (say on Hawthorne) about the existance - not of God - but of basic good and evil? Can we argue about the sanctity of life - not from Psalms - but from our own feelings towards children and infants? Can we argue about a creator - not from Genesis - but from the amazingly balanced world around us? And then, from there, can we make the move to point them to God, human uniqueness, and creation?

And even to a moral standard? Consider this exchange:
PoMo: "Dude, your metanarratives don't do it for me. I don't need somebody doing their power trip on me; telling me what's right and wrong."
XnDude: "OK, so let me ask you; do you have a sense of right and wrong?"
PoMo: "Sure I do."
XnDude: "Do you, according to your own standards, ever fail those standards?"
PoMo: "Yeah, 'course I do."
XnDude: "Then you -right there - agree with me that you are a 'sinner.'"

The thinker's point from before was that if our culture denies us the use of scripture, we are not left without authority to speak. God has still given us an ordered world in which he is displayed. We can use that and build upon it to bring the specific good news about Jesus, salvation, and redemption.

What do you think? Would that play in the espresso shop on Hawthorne?

Immediate or Delayed Baptism

2008-08-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned before, I've been doing lots of thinking about baptism in the last three or more months. I've also been looking at baptism from a church history perspective.

The very early church (within 100 years of the Ascention) actually seemed to practice 'delayed' baptism after a period of training as they saw the rite of baptism partly as an 'initiation,' of sorts. Before the convert was to be accepted by the local church, they needed to get some basic training (replacing their previous pagan background with what we might now call a biblical world-view) and show real commitment ("Do you truly renounce the world, the flesh, and the Devil?").

Post-convert-pre-baptism folks were called "catechumans" (because they were in the process of "catechesis," or training). There actually were some of these catechuman guys who delayed getting baptized for years because they weren't *quite* ready to seriously renounce the world, flesh, and works of Satan. One of our early Best-And-Brightest, Augustine (knowing this) once quipped, "Lord, give me chastity - but not quite yet." Of course, Augustine eventually got with the program. Anyway, all of that just gets me thinking about folks who we may allow to become members of our churches.

Let's be clear about this historic position - they were not necessarily saying that these converts were converted only when they were baptised. There is some confusion on that point. Still, the emphasis was on, as we put it, "affirming by an outward sign an inward reality."

So that was the argument for 'delayed' baptism - the local church wanted to see a level of evidence that the convert really had engaged the gospel. In this view, the Ethiopian (Ac. 8:27-38) clearly already had a biblical world view - he was reading a personal copy (those weren't inexpensive!) of Isaiah so knew the OT pretty well and was asking good interpretive questions. So Philip, goes this reasoning, could baptize the Ethiopian immediately. Again, the Phillipian jailer (Ac. 16:25-33) got training and instruction directly from an Apostle (16:32) so he and his family - after showing evidences of conversion and commitment - could be baptized by that Apostle.

These don't capture all the arguments for 'late' baptism, but it is worth reflecting on the issue. The very early church faced the same problems that we do: so-called "believers" who turned out to have been admitted into the local body too soon. The result, for those true belivers long ago, was severe persecution and death by 'turncoat Christians.'

Is it possible that allowing unprepared "belivers" into church membership too early could cause harm to our local churches? Is that a risk we run today?

So, some suggest that the Biblical model is immediate bapism. Why don't we go back to that? My response is to challenge whether 'indiscriminate' early baptism truly is the Biblical model. The very early church did not seem to think so.

Gal. 1:15; Election To Salvation and Mission

2008-07-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

So the great Calvinist-Arminian debate...

First, I'm going to annoy some people and suggest that the debate has been shaped a bit unfairly. For one, the debate has been shaped by "Reform" writers who seem to ignore that Jacob Arminius was, in fact, a Reform theologian. For two, the debate (again, from the side of "Reform" writers) describes "Calvinism" (rather than what Calvin explicitly taught) and "Arminianism" (which is cast as Finney-ism as the straw man, rather than the Weslyan tradition). So the whole thing is a bit of a set-up.

Second, The Debate goes (very simplistically) like this: either God pre-ordaines and decrees people to be saved before any consideration as to how those people might choose, which smacks of fatalism; or God is a bit dense (or powerless) and has to look forward to save those people who actually will respond to the gospel.

Dr. Breshears, in an attempt to square the circle on this matter, suggests that when faced with an intractible apparent contradiction we should look for an untested assumption. He suggests that such an assumption exists in the election issue. The assumption is that God always acts exactly the same way with all people. Is that assumption warrented?

Maybe God acts differently with different people. Maybe some people are persuaded and others are decreed. That popped into my head as I read Galatians 1:15: "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, ..."

What's interesting about Galatians 1:15 is that Paul only speaks for himself. He says that he was called apart even before he was born. Why didn't he say the same thing about all the other believers in Galatia?

Now the traditional view of this text is that Paul is talking about his calling to preach the gospel to Gentiles - to a specific ministry. But the grammar here is a bit uncertain. There seems to be room to read that as, "God (the same who called me to salvation) was pleased to reveal Jesus to me in a way that would allow me to do this special ministry to the Gentiles." That is, Paul was affirming two callings: (parenthetically) one to salvation, the other (the main point) to a special ministry. "set me apart..." and "called me through his grace" seem to be subordinate clauses to the main thought: "But when God ... was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might (do this special mission)."

So that gets me wondering about the nature of election. Do we assume - presumptively? - that God must act with everyone in exactly the same manner?

Acts 17 - Paul's Seeker Sensitivity: Rebuttal

2008-07-23T20:14:00.001-07:00

So one of my friends gave me some good-natured push-back about my line of reasoning that Paul was "seeker sensitive" and "culturally relevant" (see the post on 20080708). My friend poked specifically at the Mars Hill discourse at Athens. The line of reasoning goes like this: Paul's attempt to be culturally relevant was ineffective: not many converts, no recorded church in Athens, and The Bible tells us so - look at the text! Therefore, we should jettison all this "culturally relevant" garbage and Preach The Word!

OK - certainly we should preach the Word. I'm not in any disagreement with that. But let's take another look at the text.

First, the evidence actually in the text doesn't support the proposition that Paul's cultural engagement was ineffective. Some people in Athens were converted, there were requests to hear more from Paul, and it's not surprizing that no church was recorded planted as Paul's mission wasn't to plant in Athens - he was on his way and Athens was a lay-over while he waited for Silas and Timothy. Finally, the scripture doesn't signal or otherwise indicate that Paul's work on Mars Hill was bad, ineffective, or inappropriate.

The real, larger, question that my friend is raising (of course) is one of 'cultural engagement.' Is Christ against culture, above culture, accomodated to culture, or in culture? Several of you will recognize those phrases as the premise of the book, "Christ In Culture" by R. Niebuhr - a very important work. His answer is that the best - and especially the most Biblical - answer is Christ in culture: the church engaged in society.

So, my friend's arguement - seems to me - is not as compelling as advertised and the larger issue (as well as the best Biblical answer) is that Paul was right to do what he did. By the way, my friend doesn't really hold his argument, he'd heard it from a mis-guided fundamentalist.

Those are my thoughts.

Colosians 3:11 - A Final Word

2008-07-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

I am taking my last course in seminary as a combination of lecture-on-DVD and online interaction by a Wiki-forum tool. Several of my last blogs have come from my contributions to this forum. The folks in the course seem to have begun a “Final Posting” tradition. I like the idea and like the thought that each person posts on one last final Big Thought. So this is a revision of my "Final Post" on a little phrase from Colossians 3:11: “… Christ is all…”.

David Bryant, in his book Christ Is All makes the point that modern Evangelicals have drifted into what I’ll call a “Generic Protestant Judaism.” We hear from the podium and sing from the screen lots of stuff about “God.” But, oddly, we shy away from actually talking about “Jesus” or even “Christ.” Younger Evangelicals are recapturing this, thankfully.

The point is even more forcefully made by Bryant when he asks us to listen to the conversations among Christians in the church lobby during Sunday morning. How many times do we ask each other, “Hey, so what’s Jesus been showing you this week?” That suggestion strikes many of us as, well, a little weird.

And that’s the point. Why? Why should that be weird? That kind of conversation should be completely normal for us as Christ followers. If we can’t talk about Jesus normally to each other, then how can we expect to talk to Jesus with unbelievers?

In the last few years I have had to come to grips with my deteriorating theology about Jesus. Do I really worship him? Do I really believe that he is the God-man who is not merely The Famous One, or my hero, but worthy of veneration and worship? Is Christ all for me? Too many times the answer was no.

I’m working for that to change. I’d be happy to have your company with me as I make that journey.

Phil. 4:8 - What Kind Of Person?

2008-07-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

I was reading Philippians 4:8 where Paul tells us that we should be spending our thinking resources on the things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good reputation, excellent, and worthy of praise.

And then I thought, what if I turned this around? What would be the result to a person if they dwelt (continued to think, obsessed, concentrated) on things that were:
• False
• Shameful
• Wrong
• Corrupt
• Ugly
• Bad reputation
• Mediocre
• Unremarkable

What would such a live their life? How would they spend their time? What would they shop for? Who would they vote for? Who would be their friends? What movies or CD’s would they like? What would be their fashion identity? What bumper stickers would adorn their mode of transport?

Maybe that’s a description of what our “mission field” looks like?

1Cor. 10:23ff - Paul Is Seeker Sensitive

2008-07-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Again, my Bible course gave me a new insight (which I suppose is the point) on this little section about Christian liberty (1 Cor. 10:23ff).

Here, Paul states that 'all things are lawful, but not profitable or edifying.' The presenting issue is eating food knowingly sacrificed to idols. Such meat was less expensive (like day-old bread) and many Christians (rightly) felt it was fine to buy that as there was no spiritual power to that meat. But there were some folks (both new believers and "seekers," if you will) who were still pretty superstitious and creeped out about that meat. As the course (wonderfully taught by Dr. J. Carl Laney) pointed out; this specific issue was clearly decided during the Jerusalem 'Council' several years before. The council's decision was - by now - well known and published abroad.

So why didn't Paul just appeal to the authority of the Council? He was there, he fully participated, certainly he was in agreement with the conclusion and decision - why didn't he just tell the goofy Corinthians: "Look, this was decided years back. You know the decision - just obey."

What I find so refreshing is that Paul goes a completely different track. He doesn't respond authoritatively, he responds evangelistically. Paul says that (v.24) it's not about what's good for you, but what's good for your neighbor. I think he's implying that the "neighbor" is a non-believer or else he'd have used the word "brother." Later (v.27), he specifically refers to unbelievers. And in verse 28, Paul asks the rhetorical question, 'Why should I, knowing better, be prevented from enjoying inexpensive BBQ?' Paul's answer is clear: because you have a greater calling and that's to proclaim the gospel. If eating meat offered to idols is going to be a barrier to a gospel presentation, then you have got to give up your 'theologically pure' practice of inexpensive BBQ.

I think Paul is offering up an arguement for what has been the big point about being "seeker sensitive." Here's the big point about being seeker sensitive: if pews are a barrier to people meeting Jesus, rip them out; if special terminology ("justification," "propitiation," "redemption," etc.) prevents people from understanding the good news, change the words to make them understandable; and if people who don't know Jesus are actually willing to show up on a Sunday morning (but no other time of the week) to hear the gospel, then we need to move our more serious teaching experience to another time of the week and make our Sunday morning worship service comprehensible - at the least - to those who are interested learning about Jesus.

I think the take away from this passage (and Paul's point) is to put aside our preferences so that whatever we do, we glorify God towards those who do not know Him yet.

Gal. 3:3 - Monergism or Synergism?

2008-07-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit I picked my subject line to be deliberately controversial. The controversy is this: how much does any person contribute to the work of salvation done in their everyday lives?

The 'hard' Reform guys say - it was God, beginning to end, and any person saved has no input or influence on God's sovereignty. There was only "one worker" (mono+erg = monergism).

The other Reform guys (remember that Arminius and Weslyans are also part of the Reformation) say - yep, God did all of the heavy lifting and that much is clear. But at some point we (as a response to God's working and 'wooing') had to grope a bit and come to some conclusion and then decide. That is, God and the person "together worked" (syn+erg = synergism, "synergy" is a similar idea). Now the reason hard Reform guys don't like 'synergism' is they get very allergic (and for very good reason!) to anything that smells like Pelagianism. It's not the heresy of Pelagius, but it can sound like that.

OK, now that's the issue with our justification. That is, justification is the work of conversion that occured when we were saved, converted, regenerated, etc. For the Christian alive today, justification is in the beliver's past.

So the open issue that this text seems to present is what about our sanctification? That is, the work that God does in our every-day present lives to transform us to be more like Jesus. For the Christian alive today, sanctification is how God continues to daily 'save' us from our past life, habits, etc. Is this spiritual work done only by God (monergism) or something we partner up with God about (synergism).

This text seems to speak against 'synergism' - that we shouldn't be 'perfected' (sanctified) by any work of our 'flesh.'

But I don't think that's the issue. I think that the issue in that text is that the Galatians were getting confused about was whether they needed some extra physical (flesh) rite to "seal the deal" (perfect) their justification. In a rough analogy to what the Roman Catholics believe, that there is a two-stage justification (gotta do good works to seal the deal), so the Galatians believed they needed to do Jewish rites to seal the deal. That, BTW, goes *way* beyond 'synergism!' Theologically, as to what the Galatians were proposing; well that just takes you right off the reservation of Christianity (Protestant, Roman, or Orthodox) - which is precisely Paul's point. Believing you need to do Jewish rites (be circumcized) to "seal the deal" of your justification is heresy.

Nope, this test isn't about sanctification, it's about justification. Paul is trying to get them back to the gospel: you have been completely saved, actually sealed by the Spirit, and as that work was completely done in the believer's past there's nothing else that the believer can do to improve upon their justification.

Now, as to your sanctification, Paul has stuff to say about that. For example, serve each other (5:13), walk with the Spirit (5:16, and keep in step with the Spirit (5:25).

So the point of Galatians 3:3 is not about monergism or synergism in our sanctification, but about a heresy of justification.

Warning Signs

2008-07-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

For the two of you who actually read my blog, here are a couple of links discovered by my BFF Doug who is preparing a sermon on "warning signs..."

Could this, in fact, be the greatest warning sign ever? http://www.smoothharold.com/uploaded_images/helpdesk_warning_sign.jpg

This is more subtle: http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/scarylaser.gif

Thanks, again, to Doug Humphreys for these catches.

That caused me to go looking and I came up with these:

Don't Think
Please don't pack the baby
Oddly literal
Or just build your own.

Here's one from my BackInTheDayDawg, Eric Miller: try not to die

Enjoy.

Rom. 3:21 - God Is "Tricky"

2008-07-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Romans 3 is really interesting! In a startling "reveal," Paul says that it turns out that God can - and does - save people apart from the Law.

Paul points out that the Law was never intended to save people. The sacrificial system could not accomplish that (Heb. 10:4). Abraham was saved before he became Jewish because (Rom 3:21), 'God has shown a becoming-saved-process that is not at all linked to The Law.' The Law doesn't save - it brings death and even greater realization that we are doomed. But God - all along - had this undercurrent of salvation by grace through faith. God's salvation was always apart from The Law. The Jewish mindset was that they needed to obey the rules to get God to like them more.

The author of Hebrews says a similar thing as Paul when he does a "reveal" that there's another order of priesthood that you-all forgot about. Everybody was fixated for the longest time on the Aaronic Priesthood. But there was this other priest - no relation to Aaron at all - that was a priest of God whom even Abraham showed submission to. This guy with the crazy name, Melchizedek, was a believer in Yahweh and his priest hundreds of years before Aaron came along.

I have to chuckle at this. It's a bit like the illusionist who distracts your attention away from what's really going on and it when the effects are shown, it looks like "magic." All this time God had a righteousness and a priesthood working in the background ready to be used when The Law and Aaronic priesthood had fully taught us what we didn't want to believe: that we could try really hard and get God to like us.

That could be confusing so let me restate the lesson: it is absolute folly to think you can do anything to make yourself acceptable to God.

Go 'head, try it! Here's a list of 613 commands - just 613 of them. Go ahead, keep them all.

OK, OK, that's too many and too hard. Here - let's start you out on just ten rules. Live your life so as to not violate just those ten. Hmmmm. Can't do that either.

Well, by the time people are figuring this all out, Jesus comes along and says there really are just two: love God and love neighbor. We still can't do it.

Have we learned the lesson? We can't do anything to gain acceptance by God. OK, now let's get to the real point: it's about grace and it always has been.

This must have been an earth-shattering realization for both Jews and Gentiles. An earned righteousness that is apart from rule-keeping. Mind boggling!

Acts 21:4-14; Paul Goofs?

2008-06-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

In my coursework we are going through the book of Acts and I've developed a renewed appreciation for Paul and his ministry. But what has really grabbed my attention has been incidents where it seems that Paul has actually made a mistake.

Now let's get this straight: Paul was not infallible, he could and did make mistakes. The Bible records those (and the mistakes - even sins - of others) inerrantly. While Paul is legitimately a role-model (1Cor 11:1), he isn't perfect and even said so (1Tm 1:15).

When Paul comes back from his last missionary circuit, he stops by and has a quick off-site briefing with the leaders from Ephesus and admits to them that everywhere he's been recently the Spirit keeps saying that 'bonds and afflictions' await him. Paul says good-bye, sails back towards home, and then lands in Tyre.

In Tyre, the prophesies are a bit more explicit (Ac 21:4): "they kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem." Now I don't know if there might be something hiding in the text, but it sounds like - from these words - that the Spirit is trying to tell Paul "Don't go to Jerusalem!" Now, what's the difference in Paul's reaction between this and Ac. 16:6-7 where Paul hears from the Spirit to not go to places, Paul obeys, and does not go to those places?

Paul then goes to stay with Philip and his four daughters (all prophetesses) in Caesarea. Agabus, a prophet who seems to have a good track record, makes a special trip up to Paul and warns him, again, things aren't going to go well if Paul persues this course of action. All the folks (including Philip and his daughters) take this news and beg Paul to not go further. Paul doesn't listen.

Finally, in the face of a remarkably intrasigent Paul, the folks there say, "Well, we sure hope that God can do what he wants with this situation." Now a couple of commentators I've read both see that as the folks "finally acknowleged that it was the Lord's will for Paul to go."

Really? In the face of five prophets, a Proto-Deacon who helped to break the gospel into Samaria, and the words of the Spirit from many believers for the last few months, am I to read this narrative and see that the vast majority of Christian leaders (including reliable and respected prophets) all saw it the other way but only Paul had it right?

Any thoughts out there?

Paul's Miscalculation?

2008-06-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

As I read both first and second Corinthians and one of the minor themes was how Paul interacted with this church he’d planted. After he left, they got into a habit of disrespecting him. Paul, in both letters, has to reassert his apostolic and pastoral authority.

What’s interesting is that Paul figures this out and he identifies the cause. He jokes with them: "You guys don’t respect me because I didn’t abuse you financially." Now it’s only half a joke because, from Paul’s perspective, that’s actually a big bit of what’s going on between him and them – and that’s pretty messed up.

Paul got to Corinth and was supported by other churches in order to do his church planting work there. He had very good reasons for doing so, but the Corinthian church consistently misread Paul’s generosity on their behalf.

What is really annoying about the church is that, once the church was established, they still weren’t willing to give to support the work of the gospel! (We see that in 1Cor.9:9-14) Finally, in 2Cor.11:7 Paul says, “Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God without charge?”

And I wonder, seriously, was that an error in judgment on Paul’s part?

I remember a while back when we were getting ready to launch a really important ministry initiative that would involve people buying a book. Most of the people in the room said, “This is so important and so beneficial to our people that we should make sure there is absolutely no barrier for them – have the church pick up the tab and give the people the books for free!” But a couple of folks said, more wisely I think: “No, they should be made to pay a few bucks for the book. If they don’t pay even a little bit for it, they won’t value it.”

I wonder if Paul, who would certainly understood this dynamic of human nature, realized what trouble this would eventually cause for him as he worked to effectively minister to Corinthian church.

History III

2008-06-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

History is important to Christianity.

But, oddly, history isn’t very important to Christians these days. Most believers in my tradition have a passing understanding of Jesus’ biography, the events surrounding the Apostles, know there was something called “The Reformation,” and then think of Billy Graham. That’s all the history about the church they know.

And that’s a shame, it seems to me. Of course, we could observe how many Christians of my tradition are barely aware of what they believe (and, much worse, if what they believe is truly in line with the faith they "profess"). There are many reasons for this: an underlying suspicion of ‘intellectual stuff;’ an emphasis on felt needs and experience; an emaciated theology of the person that believes that Jesus was just joshin’ when he told us to love God with our minds; and a teaching-pulpit tradition that encourages all those weaknesses.

In any case, my point is this: we ought to pay more attention to church history. During my couple of years in seminary, I’ve been challenged by my good friend, Johnmark, to give a bit more weight to the early Patristics.

Now “Patristics” is another word for “church fathers” and they, as a group, are kind of Christianity’s ‘founding fathers’ (a term most Americans know). When I talk about the early Patristics, I’m thinking of those influential church leaders who helped guide the church as it transitioned from the Apostles commissioned by Jesus to the ‘institutional’ church that Constantine ushered in. For about two hundred years, most of these early church fathers worked very hard to preserve and teach nothing but the teachings of the Apostles. The church fathers of the first hundred years after the last Apostle died are of particular interest to me.

My current hero from this time is a man name Irenaeus who was raised in Turkey, actually was a protégé a bishop named Polycarp. Polycarp was a protégé of John, the Beloved Disciple. So it was John (Jesus’ best friend on this earth) who taught Polycarp, and then Polycarp taught Irenaeus. During that era, we don’t see much speculative theology. No, the emphasis was on conservativism: teaching what the Apostles taught – no more and no less.

Now the value of these Patristics to us is that when we have certain questions about, say, church organization or baptism, or engagement with worldview philosophy our proper, right, and God-honoring response should be to go to the Bible. But what if there is ambiguity there? I realize that’s a hot-button statement. But still, I have to acknowledge that some ambiguity on those matters exist. The next place to go is, seems to me, to those early Patristics.

For example, to those who insist that baptism is only valid if it is done by immersion might be surprised to learn that the Apostles and their protégés were not nearly so rigid. From “The Didache,” a very early document that dates from the 100’s, the understanding of Apostolic practice was that how a believer was baptized was a matter of circumstance. That is, there was an order of preferred 'modes:' immersion in cold flowing water (river or beach) was the best, second best was cold still water, third best was warm still water, fourth best was to pour water over the head three times. All of those were legitimate modes of baptism to the very early church. What was really important was that the person being baptized and the one doing the baptism to fast one or two days before. These days, we don't even think about doing a fast before baptism.

Hmmmm. Folks, that’s what was important to the Apostles: not how the person got wet, but whether they were spiritually prepared to engage in the ritual.

We say that our faith is built upon Jesus and the Apostles’ teaching but we conveniently neglect to see what the Apostles actually taught. We make ambiguous Biblical passages into doctrine and ignore Apostolic teaching.

Now I am not – read me well – in any way suggesting that early Patristic writings have the same authority as the canon of scripture. I am suggesting that they should be influential in our understanding of some ambiguities which I believe God has allowed to be in scripture.

Here's another thing; I realize that there's a current faddish re-discovery of the Patristics among Evangelicals. I applaud that movement as an attempt to get reconnected with the church's history. However I would exhort Evangelicals to go beyond the faddish find-a-quote-from-a-Patristic and thoughtfully engage with those men who struggled to carry on the Apostles' teaching.

History II

2008-06-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

History; well, that’s a tough thing.

Why?

First, because many people didn’t have my good experience with history classes in school. For them, history is boorrrrinnngggg – a real snoozer and anytime history is brought up, their lights go out. If you ever tried to pay attention, your likely response was: “What-ever.”

Second, history is, well, old. In our modernistic culture new is good and old is bad. Progress is the goal and “history is bunk.” We have lots of clichés for that attitude: “That was then, this is now;” “What have you done for me lately?,” "What's next?," “Let’s not dwell on the past,” “Forget the past, look to the future,” and so on. Really, our culture truly, viscerally, and with extreme prejudice believes with all its heart that history is, well, evil. I don't think I'm overstating here. People these days have an allergic reaction to history.

Third, history, …. "Dude, there’s just so much of it!" Humans have been around for a long time and even within ‘recorded’ history there’s just a lot of stuff to know. History can be overwhelming and it can be really difficult to place events, people, eras, movements, and cultures in coherent context.

Fourth, history is depressing. Face it, there’s not a lot of happy news in history. A lot of it is about meglomaniacal warlords in love with their own legends; wars, battles, killing, plagues, famines, dying, and a constant theme of trajedy, injustice, and oppression. History is frequently not a happy place. Here's something from Brennan Manning: "How does one dare to propose the way of trust in the face of raw, undifferentiated heartache, cosmic disorder and the terror of history?" Followers of Jesus see that matter differently, by the way.

Fifth, Yes - history can be prey to ‘perspectivalism.’ Yes, many historians wrote with almost comically transparent agendas and biases. Even those part of the ‘modern’ historical movement have been shown to be unconsciously influenced by their times, societies, and mores.

Yet, badly told history should be a motivation to demand well-told history.

As to boring; even in our narcissistic culture, if we want to know ourselves even better, we should want to know where we came from, how we came to be, and what shaped us.

And, yes, there’s a lot of history! But there have been a lot of people who have come before us and we owe it to them to try and capture their times and a small sliver of their lives.

For Christians, who are deeply wounded by the injustices done in the name of their savior Jesus, we see history as a painful, yet needed, reminder that people are broken and have needed Jesus all this time.

Lastly, that even noting the failings of historians, we still are motivated by a sense of objective truth. Those laughable ancient writers may have been engaging in covert sarcasm. Ever consider that? We become sympathetic with those who have struggled hard to get a handle on their times and occasionally came short. We applaud their efforts and ourselves take up the banner to even better understand the times.

We do history because humanity is a historical species. It is deeply engrained in our overly large cerebral cortex.

History I

2008-06-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve always enjoyed history. That, right there, marks me off as different from lots of other people in my society. Maybe I was just lucky, but my history teachers were good. They always seemed to be able to show how where we are now is because of what happened before. I specifically remember a professor at my Community College, Mr. Haydu, who I realized lectured in history like he was telling a story: characters, plot twists, motivations – all of those things were what made up history.

As I advanced in my education, I got the typical undergraduate stuff about perspectivalism: “All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon” – Voltaire. My favorite is the African proverb, “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.” But that attitude never satisfied. There has always been perspective, sure, but one reason why we tend to trust some historians over others is that those we trust seemed to work hard to eliminate their biases.

In any case, when it comes to history about the church, things get fun. Christianity places a Very High value on objective truth. Yet, because another high value is the recognition of human fallibility, Christianity is ‘realistic’ and recognizes that historians – operating by themselves – can record with unrecognized bias.

Christianity itself is a religion based on history: the historical facts of Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. In fact, Paul states that if the historical fact of the death and resurrection of Jesus is not an objective fact, then Christianity itself is just plain false. Without history, Christianity evaporates. For millennia, this has been known as the ‘soft underbelly’ of the faith. And yet, dispite this notoriously known fact, there’s been no soft underbelly to be found. Archeology and high-confidence history keep revealing more and more strength where the soft belly is supposed to be.

Judaism and Christianity both affirm the importance of history and note that the writing of history is left to its most capable people. Moses, equipped with the best education that civilization of his time had to offer, recoded a purposeful history of humanity to show how his people came to be. Unnamed prophets compiled histories of the Jewish people using the reign of kings as their narrative structure. Ezra, an extremely gifted priest, compiled a brief history of Jews returning to their homeland. Luke, a gentile physician, used his scholarly bent to compile a systematic biography of Jesus and early history of the Apostles.

And we also believe that all these writers were not operating by themselves. They had supernatural guidance. Because, even with the most gifted of people, God was there to work with those writers to not only make sure that the facts were correct, but also that the writing would accomplish the purposes that God ultimately had for those writings.

History is important to Christianity.

Heroes - Part 2

2008-05-29T03:35:00.000-07:00

So here is part two of my hero list….

Titus – we see Titus as St. Paul’s associate. What I like about him is that Paul could count on Titus to do anything. Titus was Paul’s utility player: take care of some money transfers, do a church evaluation, step in as an interim pastor – Titus had lots of talent that God used. So he appeals to me because he was multi-talented and ministered in a broad context.

Bill Hybels and Mark Driscoll – these are two guys who both love Jesus and want others to know about Jesus, as well. They are both innovative and created models of ministry that are admirable. They are on opposite sides of one theological spectrum, which might be ironic except that they both very insistently point to Jesus. They are similar in that their younger days were marked by being both very effective and maybe a bit arrogant. They are both very committed to engaging their culture with the gospel.

Bishop Irenaeus – he was born in the Orient, then ministered in Europe, and a man with a powerful love and concern for his church. He saw a faddish spiritual movement developing, recognized its toxicity for his flock, and took it on himself to argue and refute that heresy of Gnosticism. In doing so, and not really intending to, he became the first systematic theologian of the church. His name means “peaceable” and he lived up to that moniker.

C.S. Lewis – I have a real respect for bright people who can communicate clearly. C.S. Lewis was once described by a close associate as “the clearest thinking man in Britain” because of the lucidity of his writing style. He came to Jesus later in life and turned his smarts towards explaining why following Jesus was the most obviously rational thing to do.

George Washington – people of my generation went through the 60’s when it was the cool thing to trash the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson excepted. But in college I read a biography of Washington and found him to be a true hero. Not always the brightest man in the room (compared with others of the Founding Fathers), he was a man of character, courage, and talent. He made many mistakes but never repeated any of them and learned from them all. He was sacrificially dedicated to his new country.

Winston Churchill – very similar to George Washington for me: a late-bloomer, tenacious, dedicated to his nation, and a charmer. We think of Churchill today for his wit, which was considerable, but few knew that Churchill wasn’t much of a student, had a pretty obscure start as a politician, but kept plugging away until he was the man of the hour during the Second World War.

George Smiley – this is a fictional character born of ‘John LeCarre,’ a spy novelist. George is a master spy but as anti-James Bond as can be: middle aged, un-athletic, bad with women, plenty of self-doubts, a powerful thinker, hated gadgets – the character of Smiley is very compellingly drawn by ‘LeCarre.’

So there are some common themes here. Dedication and purpose to life, character and integrity, talent and capacity, mostly intellectuals or bright people. These are my heroes.

Heroes - Part 1

2008-05-26T11:04:00.001-07:00

I was just recently challenged to make up a list of my heroes and to think a bit upon the list. I then recalled that I had a list of heroes (look to the right) on this blogsite. So I thought I’d tell a bit about why each of these are on that list.

Jesus – can’t get past this one, Jesus Christ is my hero. He is an awesome guy, lived an exemplary life, I want to be like him. I am an absolute raving fan about Jesus. I worship the dude.

Joseph Jacobson I – you know this guy as Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was a bit relationally retarded as a young guy (and a bit arrogant), got sold into slavery, languished in prison for a couple of decades, but was eventually used greatly by God to save thousands of lives. I admire Joe because God used Joe’s talents to do good and great things. Additionally, a case could be made that Joe was a late bloomer and that is something I identify with.

Joseph Jacobson II – you know this Joe as Jesus’ dad. I think Joe is the unsung hero of the Christmas story. Joe’s character, his determination to obey God, his acceptance of an unthinkable responsibility to raise the boy Jesus… Well, Joe ought to be the patron saint of all blue collar tradesmen. He loved God, did his job, took his responsibilities as a husband and father seriously, and didn’t ask for anything in return. We should honor this guy more.

Mary Elidatter – I’m using the Scandinavian formula for this gal’s name. This is Mary, Jesus’ mom. Mary is an absolutely first-class gal. She should not only be a role model for women but all us men as well. She was one strong woman. This is the kind of gal we should marry and the kind of gal we should help our daughters to become like.

Mark Etzen – this is a friend of mine who died in 2007 from pancreatic cancer. Mark was funny, supportive, positive, and wise. He sold things and was good at that; he was generous with his resources; he was a respected voice in our church’s leadership; he was an exemplary family man. All of those things made him a good friend to me. But the thing that capped off his hero status to me was the way he died: with courage, grace, and looking forward to meeting our mutual hero, Jesus.

Doug Humphreys – this is my BFF who was an attorney and has moved into ministry splitting his time pastoring and working for CRM. Doug is smart, funny, a good family man, and has had to battle some health issues. He has done so also with courage and grace. I find myself occasionally thinking that someday I want to grow up to be like Doug, even though he’s younger than me.

Jeff Logsdon – Jeff is the ‘Associate Pastor’ of Flipside church. Jeff sought me out to help him with some projects as the newly-planted Flipside was shaping up its ministry model. I soon came to admire Jeff for his courage and willingness to risk much to start the church. Jeff’s wisdom, temperament, and willingness to learn came strongly into the mix when God started speaking more clearly to me about entering into vocational ministry.

This is just part one of my hero list. Keep posted for part two...

Gifts To The Church

2008-05-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 4:11-12 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; ...

In the past, I had considered the gifs spoken of in Ephesians 4 to be spiritual gifts like the lists in Rom. 12 and 1Cor. 12. But my opinion has shifted a bit. I think the meaning is that these are people. That is, God has given us gifted people who are gifts to the church: gifted people who God gave the church to fill the roles of apostles, gifted people who God gave the church to be evangelists, and so forth.

This challenges my thinking about the leaders in church. We frequently hear the idea that our pastors, teachers, evangelists are just plain folk who aren’t any different from the rest of us. Even more so that the “calling” to ministry isn’t anything different or special from the calling to be a godly computer repair guy or Jesus-loving health insurance agent.

Something bugs me about that. I get it – of course the idea is to 1) prevent pride and arrogance from destroying our leaders, and 2) to affirm those that don’t have the ‘call’ to ministry that God delights in them and their work, as well.

But when I look at scripture, I do not see leaders who are ordinary guys and gals. I see very high-capacity, usually well-trained, and high-functioning people. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jesus, Matthew, Luke, Paul, John – all of these were not ‘just plain folk.’ And when I look at the pastors who I’ve been shepherded by: Ron S., Paul C., John M., Dan B., Ben B., Jack L., , Dave G., (a string of Bible names there!) Rob A., and Keith K. – these guys have uniformly been very bright, could’ve succeeded and prospered in any field they would’ve entered, and worked hard at their roles. The same goes for most missionaries I know and the few evangelists I know about (I admit to not knowing any folks with the titles of “prophet” or “apostle”).

What is impressive to me is that God captured these folks lives, shaped them, and then gave them as gifts to the churches they served. God gave gifts of specific people to fill those roles. That's how I now understand this passage.

Acts 5:13 - Attraction and Repulsion

2008-05-20T17:34:00.001-07:00

I was reading Acts 5 and I was interested to note that as the new movement (at that time it was called, "Followers of The Way") was starting and still meeting in the Temple courts, that this phrase appears:"But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem." Acts 5:13. Hmmm. Nobody wanted to be around them, but everybody respected them. That's both odd and interesting.

That got me thinking about what I'd heard from Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York. Keller talks about how every culture has elements that both affirm and rejects Christian values. Our culture, for example, stands up and applauds our compassion, charity, and social activism to all members of our society. But our culture hates the fact that we say sexual activity needs to be restricted. In the Muslim culture, they affirm our sexual 'ethics,' but think we are plain wrong-headed to be indiscriminately charitable.

In both of those cases, Christianity speaks out against the culture. One of our tasks to to realize that we have to be faithful to Bible and affirm how the culture we find ourselves in is in alignment with Bible and speak prophetically when our culture is not in alignment.

I think it's obvious: that is one reason we study the Bible - to know the difference between God's perspective and our society's perspective. But here's the other thing: we shouldn't be surprized when the world both esteems us and hates us. I think that might be a bit of what was happening in Acts 5:13.

High Capacity Servants

2008-05-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until after the Apostolic age during the Patristic (Church Fathers) period that any commentator explicitly linked the servants identified in Acts 6 with the office of Deacon. Still, it seems that it is appropriate and helpful to consider Acts 6 as the inauguration of this important, but now degraded, office in the church.

Western Seminary, rightly (seems to me) teaches a plurality of Eldership and a separate office of Deacon. However, in our modern churches we frequently place people in the Deacon office who are, well, lesser. Maybe good-hearted souls who like to help out, or good ol' Boys who mean well and need some affirmation ("Billy Bob's a good guy, let's make him a Deacon"). I think that degrades the role, function, and office I see in Acts 6.

I look at who's described here and they are very high functioning, extremely commited, spiritual exemplars and leaders of the local church. They are men of the highest integrity. Especially as they are going out to very needy women, you better believe they need to be 'one-woman' men (1Tm 3:12)!

Look at the two examples: Stephen, when he gets caught in a debate, completely holds his own, has no trouble articulately and eloquently telling truth to power, and even though he knows he's going to see his friend Jesus face-to-face very soon, has the presence of mind (while getting his brains literally knocked out of his skull) to express compassion and forgiveness. That's spiritual courage on a level that I never want to experience (coward that I am). Stephen was NOT some well-meaning guy who needed a bit of affirmation. Stephen is a genuine hero.

The next example is Phillip who, after watching one of his best friends getting stoned to death, marches right into the most hated part of his region and starts preaching Jesus to Samaritans. People are responding and Phillip is showing signs of supernatural power. Such wild and wonderful things are happening in Phillip's ministry that the Big Boys, Peter and John, come over to see for themselves. Phillip's got no problem with that because the Spirit's told him to run on down to the dessert road where it just so happens that the most influential Jewish prostelyte in Candace's Queendom is heading back home with a new scroll that he bought up in the Mega-Bible-Bookstore in Jerusalem. Phillip catches him reading out loud and enters into a conversation, asks simple interpretive questions, gives a Biblical Theology of Messiahship and Jesus, sees this guy convert, baptizes him right on the spot, sends him on his way and then - apparently - the Spirit does a Star-Trek-transportor thing with Phillip plopping him 20 miles away. Phillip settles in at the influential seaport town of Ceasarea, raises some pretty impressive girls, and has a reputation as being a major Evangelist. This is no Good Ol' Boy - this guy has got Game and played it for the long term.

My point is that I think we need to re-evaluate our view of Deacons.

Looking for Ministry

2008-05-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

So I’m looking for a ministry position. This is an interesting process and very different than industry.

First, let’s get all the negatives out of the way. Most church (small to medium sized) hiring practices are very poor. Churches are terrible communicators with their pastoral candidates. There are situations where the elders – some of whom may have never gone to college – are expecting to hire somebody with a graduate degree. Additionally, the elders may not have much experience hiring people or, if they do, it’s manual or semi-skilled labor. The search committee may, if the candidate is fortunate, meet once a week. The candidate is expected to give, up front, a ton of difficult information. Much of the information expected is extremely personal. Some liken the process to a “spiritual colonoscopy.” And then, some churches are looking for candidates who must fit a Very Narrow band of beliefs and practices: not just Calvinistic or Arminian – are they Reform seven pointers or only five pointers? Not just amillenial or millennial, but are they non-dispensational pre-trib rapture pre-millennialists? Again, a group of elders who may not have been to Bible college, much less have seminary level training, assume that they know Biblical doctrine better than the guy who they’re interviewing.

When I looked for work in industry, I hit the want ads, sent resumes, only if the hiring people thought I had good qualifications was I then contacted by phone, then went to interview, and then I'd fill in an application. During the interview they didn’t ask me if I was in the Yourdon or McCracken school of program structure; they asked if I could do it, was I qualified, and assumed that if I were competent that they didn’t have to tell me how to do the job. They asked if I could get along with people, was a good worker, and didn't ask about my marrital relationship.

This process is pretty goofy.

But, there is something rather noble in the midst of all the chaos and incompetent practices. There is the realization that God is sovereign. There is the mix of tough and tender that this process imposes on those who enter it. On one hand, a candidate must have the emotional stuff to say, “Yes, I really think that God can use me in this church to do great things.” On the other hand, the candidate is constantly evaluating and checking their motives, the clarity of their hearing for the One voice that matters, attempting to wade through well-meaning advice, and being encouraging, gracious, and polite in the face of some thoughtlessly rude behavior.

Additionally, there is the testing of calling. How clear is the candidate's vision to this extremely important role? This rather annoying process can shake the candidate to the core: this isn't just a job, it is a "calling."

This is a weird line of work.

Commencement: Courage and Humility

2008-04-25T16:15:00.000-07:00

The time has come! I will be participating in graduation ceremonies tomorrow and the road through seminary will be mostly done. I still have one course to complete (by DVD) this summer. Again, the degree is Master of Arts in Exegetical Theology – I think I remember taking a course where I had to learn just how to spell all of that. :-)

As we did our rehearsal this afternoon, I found myself sitting next to a couple of very interesting guys and their stories caused me to reflect on my own journey to seminary.

Sitting two seats down from me is Mark Driscoll. Mark is one of the pastors of Mars Hill church in Seattle, Washington. I’ve enjoyed listening to Mark’s sermons via podcast for the last couple of years and admire both his mission and teaching. But the thing that really impresses me is the story of how Mark got into seminary. The way I heard it was this: my theology professor, Dr. Gerry Breshears, heard Mark speak at some event and got to chat with him. He suggested that maybe Mark might want to sharpen his theological saw by going back to school. Now Mark, who has admitted as much, was not always known for his humility. He is the pastor of a very large, growing, and influential church! But instead of telling my theology professor to get lost, he said, sure, and submitted himself to getting himself better trained.
That really impresses me. And on several levels. First is that a guy like Driscoll would submit himself to going back to school. Second, that a guy like Driscoll would carve out and take the time to do all that work to get through graduate school. All of that speaks of a combination of courage and humility that I must learn from.

Sitting right next to me is David Gilford. David works at a local college and has gone through seminary part time for a few years. David and I were in a few classes together. The last one was our “theology capstone” course where we had to create a unified doctrinal statement and then defend our theological conclusions in a mini-ordination interview. Now here’s the thing – David comes from the Assemblies of God which is firmly in the Pentecostal part of our big Evangelical tent. Now you might call Western Seminary many things, but Pentecostal is not a description that anyone would apply to the school! Yet here David is, getting trained and putting up with some pretty inane comments (some of which came from me). David always impressed me as being a very bright and systematic student – he is one of the bright guys on campus. So here David was, occasionally getting some less-than-supportive comments and he has, in all that I’ve observed, responded with grace, tact, and the Bible.
David has really impressed me. He’s come to a school that does not share all of his theological convictions and, even just a few years ago, would have been positively hostile towards him. Still, he has submitted to being trained here for ministry. That’s a combination of courage and humility that is powerful.

Both David and Mark are great examples of the caliber of people that it has been my very great privilege to study with for these last two and a half years.

During this time of the year, maybe it could be a reminder to honor your own pastor and the training and education that he committed to so that he would be able to serve and care for you. Honor your pastor!

Christian Lawyers

2008-04-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

I had a dear friend from way back send me a news story a while back, asking me to comment.

The story is, in a nutshell, about an Islamic school in Minnesota that seems to be receiving preferential treatment in clear violation of what we've come to recognize as maintaining the "separation of church and state." Of course, for political reasons and the manifest fact that Muslims are Very Touchy People, nobody in power in Minnesota seems to want to apply the very clear laws on religious liberties and religious limitations to this Islamic school.

So, as a lawyer (member of the California Bar since 1994), I look at the apparent facts, apply what I know of U.S. Constitutional law, and see that this situation is ripe for a lawsuit. Christians could sue the state of Minnesota requesting relief in requiring the state to provide equal treatment regarding religious liberties. From the facts I know, it seems it would be a slam-dunk.

Yet...

Oh, but I forgot!!!

We can’t find anyone to help us Christians sue to correct this clear violation of the U.S. Constitution because, after all…

Being a “Christian Lawyer” is a contradiction in terms! Ha, ha, ha!

Next time you need legal help, hire a comedian.

Yep, no apologies here; being made fun of, marginalized, and ridiculed for being both a fully devoted follower of Jesus and an attorney at law is not fun. Sure, why shouldn't I be insulted, jeered, and my personal integrity, honesty, and devotion to Jesus called into question??

Yep, don't you know I feel all affirmed and supported by my brothers and sisters in Christ when they tell me they know the law better than I do because some radio preacher told 'em so, when they tell me I don't have a 'real doctorate,' when I'm automatically placed in the same category with the worst example of lawyer that they've ever met or even heard of.

Yep, listening to "lawyer jokes" where people laugh at the thought of lawyers being tortured, mutilated, and killed is exactly the way I want to begin a relationship with the joke teller. Hmmmm. What an interesting way to start a relationship with a stranger: I just let you know that I'm a lawyer and the first thing you do is tell a story that apparently expresses your wish to see me dying a horrifying death. Ha-ha. Thank you; such a pleasure to meet you, as well. Please, sir, may I have another?

Ahhh; what's the matter - can't I take a joke?

Jesus said, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Don't you know it; that I feel the love from my fellow disciples of Jesus!

Same thing goes for Christian teachers in the public school system, Christian business people working in corporate life, Christians working in mainstream media, and so forth. Christians who actually want to love God and love their neighbor get the stuffing kicked out of them on a pretty regular basis. They get kicked at by their workplace for being Christians, and then they come to church and get really worked over for actually trying to live and declare the gospel to people who really need to see it.

Next time you bemoan the deterioration of American culture be sure to thank God for the foresight you exercised by encouraging other Christians *from* being a Christ-honoring presence in our culture.

Gospel, Culture, and Church?

2008-03-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

I was listening the other day to a Portland-area Christian guru type. He said that he’d done some reading and came across a model that he shared and that got me thinking a bit.
The model is how gospel, culture and church interact. My apologies, Rick, if I didn’t get this right, but this is what I came away with…

We start with the gospel. The gospel interacts with culture (really “society”). What happens when the gospel effectively engages society? People come to Jesus – that’s a good thing! Those new believers group together because the both want to and should do. That leads to a church.
The next thing to notice is that the church then goes back to the gospel. This is a continuous thing – the church always has to remind itself of what the gospel is while staying connected to its birthing society.

Now get this part: the gospel is above both church and culture – neither the culture or the church “own” the gospel (this is what our Roman church friends miss), however the church’s function is to posses and use the gospel in culture.

Note the progression: the gospel interacts with society and a church is the result – the church is a child of both the gospel (which is easy for most Christians to see) AND the culture (which causes most Christians to squirm a little). This is important to grasp: each individual church is a product of its community, society, and culture. By the way, most PoMos get this immediately.
And, for evangelicals, this should sound right. After all, we keep saying that we want to present the timeless truths of the gospel in the relevant language of the world in which we now live. The same applies to a particular church.

Also note that the church is interacting with BOTH gospel and culture. If the church ceases to interact with the gospel and only engages culture, it presents (at best!) as “watered down gospel.” I would argue that such a church presents no gospel at all. For evangelicals of the last half of the 20th century, this is what we think happened to the Liberal wing of the church. Some evangelicals are concerned that certain segments of the emerging-emergent church are going down the same path.

If the church stops interacting with the society and culture, it is also guilty of sin: we have held our fists up to God in disobedience to both the Second Greatest commandment and the Great Commission. The church becomes insular and ineffective. There can be no impact without contact.

R. Neibuhr present four models of Christ In Culture as it relates to the church: 1) Church against culture, 2) Church accommodating to culture, 3) Church over culture, and 4) Church in culture. Rick’s model touched on three of these. A church disconnected from society is Christ against culture. A church disconnected from gospel is Christ accommodated to culture. A church engaged in both gospel and culture is Christ in culture. While Neibuhr was quick to say that each of the models he developed had biblical support, the best understanding was that of Christ in culture. That is, the church engaged with both gospel and its society.

Senior-ites

2008-02-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been back in classes for about a month and I’m feeling very ambivalent.

One on hand, I have loved my seminary education and experience and will miss it when it is time to graduate. I have enjoyed the friends I’ve made, the opportunity to learn more and engage issues, and especially the experience of getting to know Jesus better. Let me assure anyone reading that I am coming out of seminary with more questions than I came in with – but I understand that’s typical.

On the other hand, I’m getting a little tired of it. Part of this is the nature of my course load this year: two languages that are beginning to feel tedious, having to commute two hours one way twice a week because that’s the scheduling, and a lot of books to read and papers to write. But the bigger part is probably just plain ol’ Senior- ites.

In High School and College it was just wanting to finish up and get on with one’s life. In law school, the paradigm was: “1st year: scare you to death; 2nd year: work you to death; 3rd year: bore you to death.” That last year of law school was ‘boring’ because by that time you felt you had enough learning the rules of the game, now you wanted to go out and play! For those of us lucky enough to get internships during school, it was actually even a little worse – we’d gotten to play a little bit and now we wanted to play for real!

So I’m coming to the end of my degree program and, I admit it, I’m itching to get out there and see how God will work. Also, like most of my classmates, I’ve had some part-time experience at my church so that makes me even more motivated to dive in head first.

At the same time, there’s anxiety about finding a ministry position. Is there really one out there for me? Will the search committees be able to look past the fact that I don’t look like the typical seminary graduate? Will my first position be affirming of my call to ministry or will it be – otherwise? Can I find a position that can actually support my family? And so forth.

These are going to be interesting days.