Category Archives: Pastoral Reflections
Ego Eripiam
The third of our statements deals with the relationship of Satan toward believers—“I will snatch them” or “I will steal them away.” While we would affirm in our theology that the believer is held by Christ and can never be separated from his hand (John 6:37; 10:28; Romans 8:37-39), the reality of Satan’s eventual failure does not dissuade him from this attempt to make us stumble and fall away from our Lord and master. He is a persistent foe. This phrase could be embellished with some of the means that our enemy employs: Ego Territabo (“I will intimidate”) or Ego Onerabo (“I will weary” or “I will oppress”).
In contrast to Jesus, who gives life and life abundant (John 10:10), but the thief, which is Satan, only comes to kill and destroy. He comes to undermine the work of the fellowship and to frustrate our labors. Though he knows he cannot win, he strives toward that end. Peter describes him as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8) seeking someone to devour. Jesus describes him as a wolf, seeking to prey upon the weak sheep (John 10:12). John describes him as a dragon who deceives the world and seeks to lash out and destroy the followers of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:9,17).
So, what is our response to this kind of wild enemy. Peter says that we are to be sober-minded and watchful. Being sober-minded means that one’s mind must be clear from distractions and from all of those things that would flatter us so as to lead us astray. As the man who is drunk acts in a way that is both unwise and unlike his character, so the man who is sober-minded should act in a spirit of wisdom and in a way that is consistent with the Godly character that the Spirit has instilled in us. It is to remain self-controlled even in situations where threat arises.
And to be aware of those threats, we must be watchful. This is a military term reflecting the guard that we must have on the wall to warn us of the temptation of sin (Ezekiel 3:16-21). We are not to be like the ostrich burying its head in the sand. We must not be found asleep at the post. The Apostle Paul even uses this term of watchfulness as an analogy of being alive (1 Thessalonians 5:10), a reminder that life and death are the matters with which we are dealing; a serious reminder indeed, particularly in a world that rarely takes seriously the warnings that scripture sets before us.
Though Harry Houdini may not be a model example of Christian faith (his heritage was Jewish), he is an example of what it means to be sober-minded and watchful as a Christian. Many of his stunts, from the perspective of an outside observer, were death-defying, reckless, and foolish. Yet, when you realize that Houdini never performed a stunt that had not been planned out and rehearsed many times with many safeguards in place, you must confess that reckless is not a term that can be properly applied. From the perspective of a non-Christian, sometimes the work that Christians do seems equally reckless and foolish. Christians regularly go and minister to people in plague infested areas knowing that they too might contract the disease, but doing so for the sake of the Gospel. My favorite missionary, John Paton, went to Tana Island in the New Hebrides which was populated by several cannibal tribes and his life was at constant risk. Yet, he went anyway. I have worked with inner-city drug addicts in a place where at one time the shelter’s director was stabbed by a man staying there. The Christian goes, though, because the Christian understands that the call of God is more important than the risks. At the same time, the Christian goes knowing the risks that are present and does not ever go until one has bathed himself in prayer and sought the prayers of others. Like Houdini, there are risks certainly, but the risks are approached in sober preparation.
The Devil seeks to snatch you out of the hand of God. That cannot be done, but that does not mean that the resultant tug-o-war on your life will always be a pleasant thing. At the same time, in knowing who the victor will be, it enables you to stretch beyond your limits and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Given our fallen and sinful state, there is a great deal of stretching left to be done to prepare us for God’s heaven—what are we waiting for; step into the call that God has placed upon your life.
Ego Decipiam
While the pastor must confess that he will fail his flock, the world makes a different profession. The world says, “I will deceive them” or “I will ensnare them.” How much more sinister is this response than the one that went before, yet how often has this been our experience. The world promises us wealth and success if we just compromise this or that set of morals—which at first seems small, but like a drug, it demands more and more and more. At first it might take the form of justifying a little lie, then it may grow into envy coveting either the wealth or the success of another. Gradually it progresses from there onward. We end up make idols of the things of this world and in doing so, we compromise God’s law as a whole.
Jesus speaks of the cares of the age and the deception of riches as that which chokes the Word of God in our lives (Matthew 13:22). The cares of life often fill our days and rob us of sleep. We pretend that we are just trying to be responsible citizens and parents who provide for our families, but how often those words, while well intentioned, are placed in our mouths not by the Holy Spirit, but by those who are of this world. Yet this world and the things therein are passing away (1 John 2:17). While sounding noble, such cares betray a lack of reliance upon the promises of God to provide for his children.
The world masquerades its temptations as love and care for us, while in reality, the world hates us and the one we serve (John 15:19). Like a treacherous counselor, the world pretends to be our ally, all the while manipulating our thoughts and actions toward sedition against the great King and High Priest, Jesus Christ. Our ego is flattered and our lusts are excused. These are the ways of this world.
How essential it is for a person to keep their guard up against such treachery. The Apostle Paul warns us to be careful that no one takes us captive through vain or empty deceit (Colossians 2:8) and the author of Hebrews warns against the hardening that comes through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13). It is likely, though, that Paul offers the strongest warning on this matter to the church in Thessolanica when he warns that with the coming of Satan’s influence and that the reason we are ultimately deceived is because we have refused to love the Truth and in turn, rejected salvation (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). How often we are guilty of desiring the so-called comforts of the world that we choose to allow ourselves to be deceived, yet do not consider this willful deception to be a rejection of God’s Truth!
How do we protect ourselves from this deception? The psalmist sets 8 principles before us in the second stanza of Psalm 119.
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- We must guard our way according to God’s word (Psalm 119:9)
- We must seek God with our whole heart (Psalm 119:10)
- We must store up God’s word in our heart (Psalm 119:11)
- We must seek to learn God’s statutes (Psalm 119:12)
- We must declare to others the law of God (Psalm 119:13)
- We must delight in the testimony of God and in his ways (Psalm 119:14)
- We must meditate on God’s precepts (Psalm 119:15)
- We must delight in the law of God (Psalm 119:16)
Seek these things, the Psalmist insists, and you will guard the way that is before you. Deception is all around; do not fall prey to the wiles of the devil, but indeed, guard yourself with the whole armor of God which he has given to you (Ephesians 6:11).
Ego Deficiam
“I will fail them.” The early church fathers reflected on the relationships between pastors, the world, satan, and the church flock and developed a series of statements that described each relationship. The first of these statements was that of the pastor with regard to his people: Ego Deficiam (I will fail).
At first, our response might be to think that this is a rather pessimistic view of the relationship between shepherd and flock. How is it that a pastor could go into his role with the assumption that he will fail his people? As churches, do we want to hire a pastor who says up front, “Oh, by the way, I will fail you.” It is food for thought.
There are two aspects of this statement, that we must understand. The first is the “I.” I will fail you. I will fail as your pastor, as your counselor, and as your friend. I will fail as a husband and as a father. I will fail as an employee and as a representative of the church in the community. I will fail. Yet, this is not a pessimistic view, but a realistic view (as well as a Biblical one). For while I will fail you; Christ will not do so. Christ will gloriously succeed not because of my efforts, but in spite of my best efforts. And when I serve not in my own strength, but in the strength of Christ, then glorious things will happen—not for my praise, but for God’s.
This is the reason that a pastor (all Christians really) must be a man of prayer. And not just a prayer in the morning or evening, but a pastor must be a man of constant prayer through the day. One of the reasons that I like Nehemiah is because he exemplifies this. Not only are there formal and structured prayers recorded coming off of his lips, but also he lifts up short little “bullet prayers” throughout the day as he is making decisions. Those of you who know me or who have sat under me teaching on Nehemiah know that I am not overly fond of his model as a manager of people (even though lots of books present him that way); read Nehemiah 13:23-27 and ask yourself if you want a governor or office manager who leads in this fashion☺. I do believe, though, he provides us with a good example of perpetual prayer, seeking God’s wisdom and strength.
The second aspect that we must understand is that the fact that someone fails is not nearly as important as what someone does as a result of that failure. The true humility of a man will always present itself in failures, not in successes. If a person covers up their failures or seeks to shift blame to others, then the person’s character is such that you ought not have him as shepherd. If he is humble, repentant, and takes responsibility for his actions, then that is a man you want to lead you. The Gospel is the good news of God reconciling us poor and spiritually bankrupt sinners to himself; we are all in the same boat together within the church—wretches who have been redeemed by grace. Why should we expect our pastor of not being a sinner and thus a failure in God’s economy?
Sadly, we often create a standard that a pastor cannot hope to live up to and then make him feel like he has to hide his sin to keep up appearances. Yet, if the pastor is living hypocritically, why are we surprised when the members of our congregations live hypocritically? Our goal must be very different. We must endeavor to create a culture of honesty and transparency within our church community that is seasoned with abundant grace. Then, when one fails, the community comes together to work toward grace-filled reconciliation. It must be said, that there are some failures that must, by their very nature, remove a man from the office of shepherd, but not that ought to remove him from the church.
In discussions and counseling sessions with members of my congregation, one of the things that I have said over and over is: “We are going to make mistakes; we are going to mess things up.” The fact is, we are fallen and sinful and despite the grace we have been shown by Christ, we will not always show the grace we ought to show. At the same time, what I have told people is that when we mess up, if you let us know, we will fix it.
Indeed, I will fail you. But in Christ, I will repent and strive to make it right.
Blankets as a Sign of God’s Grace
One of the ways in that my wife and I are different has to do with blankets. My wife is almost always warm when she sleeps, so typically a comforter is all she wants to sleep with. I, on the other hand, am perpetually cold when I sleep, so to me, the more blankets the better. This makes for a rather funny appearance, particularly in the wintertime, as I have stacks of blankets on my side of the bed and she has at most a single blanket on top of her side. We have a picture from when we lived back in Maryland of me with either 19 or 22 layers of blankets on my side of the bed. Some people may consider that a bit excessive; I suppose that they have a right to their opinion. In my opinion, blankets are not only there to keep you snug, but they are also a sign of God’s grace.
One of the Hebrew words that is translated as “atonement” is the term rDpA;k (caphar—ironically, it even sounds a little like the word “cover”), which means to cover over. Atonement, of course, is a gift of God’s grace whereby our sins are covered over by the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ and thus we have been restored to a right relationship with God and with his Law. The idea of covering also reflects a picture of the righteousness of Christ being draped across us as new garments, not the filthy garments of our own labors.
As Christians, we do more than simply affirm the atonement as a doctrine, it is the source of our hope! The very fact that when we stand before an almighty God and he asks us why he should allow us to enter his heaven, we do not need to appeal to our own messed up works, be can cry out— “It is because of the blood of Christ! He has saved me and brought me to you! He is my righteousness and I am trusting in his promise alone!” It is because of Jesus’ work of atonement that we can find joy in this life because without it, all we would have to look forward to is judgment and eternal destruction.
Now, granted, we may not find hope and joy in the blankets we use on the bed on a cold night (okay, I even put blankets on the bed on a warm night…), but we do draw comfort from out blankets. I imagine Linus, from the Peanuts cartoon, walking along, dragging that blanket and clinging to it for dear life. For Linus, the blanket represents safety from the terrifying things of this world. Ironically, Snoopy (aren’t dogs supposed to be man’s best friend) is always trying to swipe the blanket from him. Isn’t it interesting how our modern, liberal, Bible-doubting, politically-correct society is always trying to reject or fictionalize doctrines like the atonement, thus trying to rob the church of its security blanket.
Oftentimes, in our modern society, we speak of security blankets as things that provide a kind of false comfort. Linus’ blanket can protect him from no real harm. At the same time, that is not the kind of security that a blanket is supposed to bring. It brings security from being left alone and a security from the cold; it is Linus’ assurance that he will find comfort even in the midst of his failures. The blanket of covering from the Atonement does much the same thing for us today. It cannot protect us from someone who will try and take our money or our job, but it is something that reminds us that we will never be abandoned by Christ (he paid too great a price for us than that!) and that will bring us comfort from that cold and calculating world in which we have been called to live and suffer in faith.
When I curl up under my 20 layers of covers on a cold winter night (okay, yes, I live in Florida), I confess to you that my first thought is not always of the Atonement. At the same time, when I think of the atonement, I do think about my covers and how nice it is that I am held by a God who will never leave nor forsake me and no matter what trials I may need to face, I am held secure and in eternal safety. Such is a blanket that can never be taken away.
The Gospel and Brushing Your Teeth
I publicly confess that I am not overly fond of brushing my teeth. I do brush my teeth, mind you, but it is not a part of the day that I look forward to. In fact, after I got married, one of the great sacrifices that I made to please my new bride was that I agreed to brush my teeth at least twice a day. Indeed, such monumental compromises only take place when someone is very much in love. And yes, after nearly 14 years of marriage, I am still scrubbing those teeth morning and evening as a faithful expression of my love for my wife.
Now, as random a piece of information as that may seem, there is a rhyme and reason to my madness. In our theological circles, we often talk about how the Bible is “our only rule for faith and practice” and that God’s word is there to equip us for “every good work.” Now, typically, we apply this as a guide to what we believe in our spiritual life and to what we do in our gathered worship. We also tend to be quite comfortable applying this principle to moral questions and for most, it is not too great a shock for me to say that we should rely on Biblical principles to guide our professional lives and our personal interactions in the community as well. So far, so good…
Yet, if we are going to take this language to its logical end, we ought to be able to apply the Bible and its principles to even the most mundane things that we do…well, like brushing teeth. So, the obvious question is, how does the gospel inform and even transform your teeth brushing?
Most of us will be quick to think of 1 Corinthians 6:19 and cite that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and thus should be cared for. This is a good start, though it does take a passage that is talking about not engaging sexually with cult prostitutes a little out of context. So, where else might we go? Peter reminds us that we are to always be ready to give a defense of the hope of the gospel we have within us (1 Peter 3:15) and Paul teaches us that we should be well thought of amongst the unbelievers in our community (1 Timothy 3:7). One logically might infer from those statements that it might be an impediment to sharing the gospel were we to have bad breath or a little piece of parsley leftover from dinner caught in our teeth. Moreover, if we are to be “winsome” with the Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:19-22), we ought to take care of ourselves in such a way that potential converts would want to fellowship with us and not see our presence as something to be dreaded. Yet, is this as far as the application of the gospel can go to the mundane areas of our life?
As Christians, we understand that we are made in the Image of God (Genesis 1:27). The idea that the scripture presents is that when we look at ourselves in the mirror or at others, we are looking at ones who represents God himself. Now, as you are reading this, don’t get a swelled head, the Bible also affirms just how far we are from a perfect representation as Christ is the only one who has done that for us. Yet, even so, it means that we carry within ourselves an inherent dignity and that as Christians, we have a responsibility to see that dignity preserved in others as well as in our own lives. God has given us these bodies and how we treat them with a certain degree of reverence ought to reflect the reverence for the one in whose image we are made. Thus, the abuse of our bodies is sinful because it reflects a lack of respect for God’s image and care for our bodies—even in simple ways like good hygiene—is an aspect of our worship, not of ourselves, but of the one in whose image we are made.
The atheist or non-Christian in our culture will have other reasons for their hygiene, most of which are quite practical, though some border on vanity. They will not, though, understand the fullness of their actions or root those actions in anything or in anyone outside of themselves. As Christians, we are ultimately “People of the Book,” and that book, the Bible, instructs us in not only the most significant things we do, but also in the most mundane aspects of our life. Of course, to be able to apply the book one must first know it, so I encourage you to drink deeply of God’s word and then apply it to things in your life both great and small. And, let the word of God, not practicality or vanity, guide your every action in all of life.
Polished But Worn
Recently, I was reading about the criminal investigation that took place around the shooting of President Kennedy. One of the investigators made note of something that I found quite striking: the shoes that President Kennedy was wearing looked as if they had been re-soled at least 10 times. To us, in our modern “throw-away” society, that sounds quite odd, since indeed it is often easier and cheaper to replace something than to repair or restore it to use. While the culture in 1963 was quite different than our own in the sense that “throw-away” was not the choice, the investigator was still struck that the most powerful man in the world would model such frugality with respect to his footwear.
As I was reflecting on this I began to reflect on the nature of relationships. How often, much like we would do with an old pair of shoes or a malfunctioning DVD player, we treat our human relationships things that can be disposed of when they no longer seem convenient and practical. How often, when we have trouble or frustrations with friends, we simply cut off relations and find new friends with whom we can do things. Even in marriages, the “till death do us part” has been superseded by “as long as we are in love” or “as long as it seems good in our eyes.” The same mentality seems to be applied to every aspect of our lives—our friendships, our jobs, and even our churches.
Yet, relationships are an interesting thing. Typically, when relationships are stressed the hardest, yet are able to survive the trial that brings them stress, they grow stronger rather than weaker. The scars are still ever-present reminders of what has been endured, though if shared, they also show as a sign to others of what can be endured in the grace of Christ. If you take the time to look around you at those friends with whom you are closest, you will typically find the evidence to support the principle—these closest ones are the ones you have not only laughed with, but you have also cried with and even bled with.
The key is that healthy and deep relationships are not easy and require maintenance. A pair of nice shoes needs to be polished at regular intervals. The polish not only serves to keep the leather shiny and to hide blemishes to the casual glance (so they don’t look shabby), but it also helps to keep the leather pliable and healthy. The polish that we apply to our own relationships is the polish of love—love that is, as is described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Relationships like this also have a secondary benefit: they draw others into the relationship. People have an inherent need to be in healthy relationship with others, modeling such will naturally draw others. Our relationships may indeed be worn and scarred, but there is no battered life that the love of Christ cannot make fresh and new.
Safety Inside Our Bondage
A strange thing sometimes happens when people have been held captive for a period of several days or longer. In certain instances, the captive begins to associate with his or her captors, and in some cases, not only resists rescue, but serves to help their captors in their criminal activities. This is typically called “Stockholm Syndrome,” named after an event that took place in 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden where four captives were taken and held in a botched bank robbery. Six days later, the hostages both resisted rescue and even refused to testify against their captors. The 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did Hearst’s sympathies run with her captors, but she would aid them in robbing banks. There have been some who have suggested that this syndrome helps to explain a variety of cases where captives become sympathetic to their captors, participation in cults, and even the loyalty that some people feel toward the use of PC computers☺.
It is granted that in kidnapping cases, statistics have found that this particular syndrome is a minority case, but I believe that if we apply the principle more broadly, we will find how remarkably common an experience it happens to be. How often, we stay in a situation that is bad, but has become comfortable. How often do people stay in bad jobs where an employer constantly berates them simply because they have become used to the setting and are made to feel that they would be a failure in any other setting. Women often stay in abusive marriages for the same reasons—their self identity becomes dependent upon the identity of their abuser and thus to abandon the abuser is to abandon themselves. Even children experience this in relationships. How often kids stay “friends” with people who treat them very badly because they feel so insecure outside of even that bad relationship. Teenage girls stick with “boyfriends” who treat them badly for the same reason—their self-identity has become so interwoven with their boyfriend that they cannot see themselves without him—no matter how better off they might be. The emotional and spiritual bondage begins to provide a wall of safety, within which people find comfortable.
It seems that this principle, as we take it broadly, can also apply to habitual sins in people’s lives. Their sins, though grievous, have become comfortable and being without those sins, while perhaps desirous at times, is fearful. Certainly, recidivism rates that are calculated by sociologists and criminologists would concur with this assessment. In Hebrews 12:1, the author refers to sins that are eujperi/statoß (euperistatos), which refers to things that ensnare, constrict, or otherwise bind themselves to you. Yet, the author of Hebrews does not simply allow us to look at those sins and leave them alone—you must put them off, lay them to the side, get rid of them! Why? The writer goes on to say that because Jesus has endured the cross to redeem us from the power of sin and death, we must live lives that reflect that redemption. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that in Christ we are a new creation—in other words the new order should reflect the death of the old order in our lives.
Every time a Christian chooses to engage in serious habitual sin, that sends a message to those who are watching that the Gospel is not true. Certainly Christians will sin and will stumble into error and certainly we will not be perfect until we are with Christ in heaven. Yet a falter or stumble is not quite the same as habitual sin. In fact, the Apostle John would suggest that the presence of habitual sin may be a sign that the person is not a genuine believer (1 John 3:4-6). These are hard words for some, but for others, they should be words of assurance and empowerment. For in Christ we have been made a new creation—He delivers us from our sin—we are free! Habitual sin for the believer is a willful choice to turn back to the things from which we have earlier been delivered. It is a choice to go back to the slavers and away from the freedom that our Great Liberator—our divine Goel—who has come to take us to freedom. In some senses, we might refer to it as a spiritual form of Stockholm Syndrome, but Biblically we would say this falls under the heading of spiritual warfare. Whenever we are tempted with a major habitual sin, we are given a choice, will we trust the promises of Christ or will we slink back into the dark self-identification with sin that so long has kept us in chains.
A Living Parable
It has disturbed me to see the attitude taken by many toward the creation account as rendered by Genesis One. Even within my own denomination, one which finds its theological moorings in the Westminster Confession of Faith, there are many who have accepted “alternate explanations” of the account. Some have gone as far as to say that those who hold to a literal, six 24-hour day reading of Genesis One are “trouble-makers” in the grand scheme of the theological conversation. Ultimately, people are choosing to interpret their Bibles on the basis of their science and not to interpret their science in light of the plain teaching of the Bible.
As we look at the life of Jesus, we find that he often told parables to communicate spiritual truths. These parables are not simply “earthly stories with heavenly meanings,” as my old Sunday School teacher used to say, but these parables were used, according to Jesus, to blind the eyes of the unbeliever while enlightening the believer at the same time (Matthew 13:11-15). While the parables themselves were not actual accounts of events that happened, the events taking place within the parable were certainly realistic enough that they could have been either true events or based therein.
Yet, Jesus, being the best of teachers, also taught truth through the events that took place around him. One day Jesus and his disciples were in the temple observing the line of people giving their gifts to the temple treasury and amidst the wealthy people who were there to offer great wealth there was a poor widow who gave her last two copper coins and thus Jesus used that historical event to teach the truth about what it really meant to give to God (Mark 12:41-44). Similarly, when Jesus goes to visit two sisters in their home, one is busily working to prepare the meal while the other simply sits at Jesus’ feet to learn from him (Luke 10:38-42). Again, Jesus uses this historical event to teach us the truth about what it looks like when we truly love God with our entire being and submit ourselves to His priority for our life. The fact that these events are recorded to teach us a spiritual lesson does not make them any less historical. In fact, since God has ordered all history (Ephesians 1:11), we should not be surprised to see such illustrations popping up regularly all around us.
And such brings us back to the creation account. There are a variety of objections to the literal ordering of the creation account, but these objections seem to be able to be broken down into two categories: those who reject a literal reading of Genesis 1 due to its conflicts with science and those who reject the literal reading of Genesis 1 due to a belief that its purpose is to teach spiritual truths and not historical truth. Yet, as with these “lived out parables,” the very fact that spiritual truth can be drawn from the account does not take away from its historicity. By teaching that Genesis one tells us of the divine origin of all things (which it does) does not mean that Genesis one is not telling us the manner and the timetable in which all things were created. Just as we should expect that the widow in Mark 12:41-44 really was a widow and that the details around her giving of the last two coins she had were historically reliable and accurate, there is no reason not to expect the same of Genesis one.
To those who complain that it is scientifically possible for the widow to give of her last two coins but not scientifically possible for the creation event to take place in the order or timetable as recorded in Genesis one, I think that the problem lies not with their faith in science (an ever changing field) but with their lack of faith in the miraculous. God does not present the creation as a result of natural events taking place, but as a supernatural work of creation without respect to contemporary scientific explanations. And if the miraculous is going to be rejected at the creation event, on what basis would the person accept other miraculous works: the parting of the Red Sea, the raising of the widow of Zarephath’s son, the Incarnation, or the Resurrection of Christ? If you would deny a miraculous creation, why would you accept the possibility of a miraculous re-creation at the return of Christ? The Bible affirms both without compromise.
I suppose that to be fair, there is a third group that would seek to interpret Genesis one as a non-literal account, and that is a group that fears being mocked and scoffed at by the world’s scientific community. They find themselves frustrated that holding to a literal reading of Genesis one causes them to be catalogued with fundamentalists and fundamentalists carry with them a stigma of being anti-intellectual (and to be fair, sometimes this is true). Yet, in compromising the natural reading of the Genesis one text, they undermine the intellectual integrity of their own scholarship. More importantly, by their compromise they fail to understand Paul’s words:
“But God chose the foolishness of the world in order the disgrace the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to disgrace the mighty. God chose what is ignoble in the world and despised, that which is not, in order to invalidate that which is, in order that all flesh might not boast before God. From him you are in Christ Jesus, who has become wisdom for us from God—and righteousness and holiness and deliverance—so that, just as it is written, ‘The one who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”
(1 Corinthians 1:27-31)
In a very real sense, the creation of this world (and all things) is a lived out or historical parable told by God not to give us spiritual fiction, but to teach the believer spiritual reality within a historical event and at the same time, blinding the eyes of those who would seek to explain all things apart from God’s almighty hand. Thus, God has told us the historical reality, but has created in such a way to leave the eyes of the unbeliever perpetually closed largely as a judgment for their unbelief. It is not the praise of the world that we ought to be seeking, but the words, “Well done my good and faithful servant,” spoken by our God—remembering that a faithful servant believes and submits to the words of his master.
Stressed or Desserts
It was pointed out to me recently that if you take the word “stressed” and spell it backwards, you get, “desserts.” At first, I did not dwell too much on the idea beyond the idea that isn’t it interesting that one of the ways we humans deal with stress is with what we sometimes call, “comfort food.” And desserts are one of the great, equalizing, comfort foods. Of course, in the English language, there are lots of words that when spelled backwards are other words (live/evil; tort/trot; and denim/mined to name a few), and such words are called “palindromes.” Yet with most palindromes, the two words have very little relationship to one another, which makes this pair a bit of an exception.
So, I began to reflect on this connection, wondering how it applied to the Christian life. Certainly, there is no question that we use food to relax us and ease the pressure of a conversation. There is a significant difference, for example, the tone of a business meeting around a table at a restaurant is entirely different than that of a meeting around a board-table. In addition, I have it on good authority that stress can raise hormone levels in the body, thus creating cravings for various things, often salty or sweet food.
So, how do cravings and distractions apply to the Christian life? To begin with, we must recognize that there is a spiritual aspect to pretty much everything we do, we cannot separate one from another. Thus, solutions to ease our troubles, stress included, need to include a spiritual component. In other words, dealing with stress purely on a physical level is not the most effective way to deal with stress, but instead, we must also deal with it on a spiritual level. Certainly, prayer is a tool that God has given to us as Christians, to aide us in managing our stresses (as well as the rest of life). The Holy Spirit’s indwelling us is a second help that we are given, for he is God dwelling in us. But third, and this is what I wanted to focus on, God also gives us the Scriptures to help manage our lives.
The psalmist words it this way:
How they are sweet to my mouth,
your words are honey to my tongue!
(Psalm 119:103)
Such is the sentiment of much of scripture, God’s word is for us to feed our spiritual needs and to provide our spiritual nourishment and not only is it rich, but it is sweet to the tongue of the one who loves the Lord.
So, how do we apply God’s Word to the managing of stress in our life and how does this tie back to desserts? To begin with, just as having a meeting over food can reduce the stress of said meeting, so too can beginning a meeting with God’s Word reduce the stress felt at that meeting, particularly if Scripture is used within the meeting to season the conversation (pardon the pun). Even when such meetings are not held formally as a “Christian” gathering, such wise counsel as the scriptures offers, in my experience, can be appreciated by Christian believer and unbeliever alike. Years ago, I used to purchase materials from a non-Christian gentleman who built his entire philosophy of doing business from the book of Proverbs; his interest was not in the faith of the Bible and he obviously was not proselytizing, he simply recognized the wisdom for life the Bible contained. Christians especially have reason to salt their conversations with Scripture, especially when speaking to other Christians. Can you imagine the church strife that could be avoided were all Christians to intentionally seek scriptural support for all they would say and do? Sadly, it seems that many if not most Christians have fallen for the lie that we need to do things the way that the world does them, and the word of God is never brought to bear on the problems found in life or business.
The second, and most critical element for Christians to grasp is this idea of craving. When we get stressed, we typically crave comfort food–particularly sweet or salty items. Just as we have physical cravings, though, we sometimes have spiritual and intellectual cravings as well. I have shared in other contexts that I enjoy science-fiction novels and movies—there are times when I just get an itch or a craving to put something on (one of my favorites is Dune). As we deal with stress in our own lives, we need to work to engender a craving for God’s Word. Jesus, in the Beatitudes, speaks this way:
“Blessed are the ones who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
For they will be filled.”
(Matthew 5:6)
Recognizing that the Scriptures teach us the meaning of righteousness according to God’s standards, the implication is that we will have this hungering satisfied as we give ourselves wholeheartedly to a pursuit of God’s Word. How then do we engender this craving in our lives? To begin with, you must recognize that it is sweet to the tongue—sweeter than anything this world can offer, as the psalmist is pointing out and you must intentionally use the Bible as a means of relieving stress (trust me, it is better than chocolate or television), and thirdly, you must seek God’s face within it (and he will reveal himself to you), recognizing that this book we call the Bible is no dead text from an ancient religious tradition, but that it is living and active, sharper than a two edged sword, and that it will be able to not only cut you bone from marrow, but also suture you back up to the glory of God on High.
Stressed? Yep, this life is full of it. Dessert? Well, you may look to the delicacies of this world; I commend to you the one true delicacy of eternity—the very word of God, breathed out through faithful men for our edification and growth.
Fear Not, Little Flock!
Have you ever noticed how many times the Bible talks about fear? There is a fear of the Lord, which is the source of wisdom and knowledge—a fear that reflects a holy reverence for who God is. There is also a fear of the world—a fear of going hungry, not having the things we need, or of being persecuted for our faith. This is a fear that we are not to entertain in our lives, for it ruins our witness. The reason we need not fear any of these things is because we have a God in heaven who is sovereign and all-powerful and who loves us with a love that will never be lost or squandered. The pagans do not have a God who will do for them what our God does for us.
There are ramifications of leaving this second kind of fear behind. When you let go of fear and worry you also are left without excuses—you know, those excuses we all use to avoid doing what God has called us to be and to do. Notice what Jesus says immediately after these words:
“Fear not, little flock! For it is the pleasure of your Father to give you the kingdom.”
(Luke 12:32)
In other words, it is the pleasure of God to give us—his church—the kingdom. He will use us to transform the world around us to the glory of Christ Jesus. What a wonderful promise—though we are strong, we are not measured by our size, but by the size of the God who is working through us and dwelling in our hearts.
When we read these words of the Gospel, our heart ought to skip a beat! Is this what God really intends for our little church? The answer that God gives us in an unequivocal, yes! Yet, there is a catch. Jesus also stipulates a means by which he wants us to accomplish this task in the verses that follow:
“Sell your possessions and give benevolences. Make yourselves coin bags that do not wear out and an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near nor does any moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.”
(Luke 12:33-34)
Note, Jesus is not telling us we must take a vow of poverty—here he does not say, “sell all of your possessions.” The fact that he still calls us to have a money purse is a testimony to that. The key is what we are using those possessions to accomplish. If we pursue possessions to gain more possessions for ourselves, then the possessions become idols and distract us from God’s purpose. If the possessions are but a tool to accomplish the work of the kingdom, then God will bless their use, for your heart will reside with heavenly things, not earthly ones.
So what does this mean for us? It means that our handicap is not our small size as a church and congregation. Our Father will not limit his work based on human considerations. Our handicap is our fear of letting go with the things we treasure on earth—both individually and corporately. Remember, David did not form a committee before he went to fight Goliath—he went in the strength of God and slew him. The God that gave him that boldness is the same God that indwells every believer, there is no reason that we too should not be so bold as to engage the giants of unbelief in our day.
Burning the Q’ran
There has been a lot of discussion as of late about a Florida pastor who desires to burn the Q’ran (some also write it: Koran) on September 11th in protest of the Muslims who were responsible for the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and on the Pentagon in 2001. Such has caused a great deal of stir in the news and in churches and this pastor has received pleas not only from political leaders but from religious leaders as well to cease his activity as it would be offensive to many worldwide. The pastor has chosen to back down and cancel his event, but as I have watched this play out, several thoughts have come to mind regarding the principles surrounding the whole debate.
I must confess, my first instinct was just to chuckle, wondering why the whole world, it seemed, was interested in the activities of a small church pastor down in Florida. My second instinct was to think, if I really wanted to make a point about false religions, why not be an equal-opportunity offender and burn copies of the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, Barak Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and anything by Joel Osteen. I even thought that we could make it a group participation event and rather than burning them, set them on a large stand and let everyone from church bring their guns for target practice.
As entertaining as such an event might sound, it wasn’t long before God’s word sobered me a little bit. Indeed, we are called to tear down the strongholds of the devil (Matthew 16:18; 2 Corinthians 10:4), yet at the same time we are to do so with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:16; 2 Timothy 2:24-26). Indeed, we are to be well thought of by the unbelievers around us (1 Timothy 3:7). The principle is simple: if the world considers us a bunch of backwoods radicals, they won’t be interested in the message of truth we bring. If we earn their respect with integrity, then they will listen (though whether they respond savingly is a work of the Holy Spirit).
So, what then ought to be our response to this pastor’s call to burn the Q’ran on the memorial of September 11th, 2001? To begin with, we ought not participate ourselves in such actions as they are not consistent with the Scripture’s own teaching in the area. Should we then forbid him? Such is a different matter altogether. In terms of whether or not to forbid his action, the question needs to be raised as to whether his action is legal or not. If it is legal, then why all of the fuss? If it is not legal, arrest or fine him if he does it and again, why all the fuss? The point is that we live in a nation governed by the rule of law. Some, including myself, have argued that this is changing in American culture at least on a philosophical level, but for most of us, the law still very much governs our lives on a practical level. We have to pay taxes, drive the speed limit, and avoid stealing things if we want to stay out of jail. It is as simple as that. And currently, the First Amendment to our Constitution allows this man the freedom of expression, thus whether we may consider it wise or unwise, it is legal.
Now, it should be noted that there are times when complete freedom of speech is not legal. For example, it is not legal to yell, “fire!” in a movie theater. Some have suggested that this falls into that category given that we are currently at war within several Muslim nations. Yet, my suggestion is that we have a different situation at hand. The case of yelling fire in a movie theater is an intentional act of creating fear and confusion that will likely get people killed or injured. We are already at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, things are likely not going to get worse because of a local book burning.
What I find most alarming about the entire event is the contrast between these events and the events of 1988 surrounding the publication of Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, where Rushdie addressed several verses in the Q’ran which allowed the Muslims to make intercessory prayers to three Meccan goddesses. As a result of this publication, a “fatwa” was declared by several Islamic leaders calling on all “good Muslims” to kill Rushdie. Not only did the western governments put Rushdie into protection, but the Muslims who were calling for fatwa were denounced and condemned as radicals and told to cease and desist their actions. In 2007, Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist, published several drawings depicting Mohammed as a dog. Again, people were in an uproar, several attempts to execute Vilks were made and prosecuted, and the Muslims were chided for their intolerance.
Yet, now, it seems that things have changed in our attitude toward Muslims. While it is common to publish things that mock Christianity, those things designed to mock Islam are shunned. This is where, I believe, we need to raise concerns. One of the things that my father impressed on me was that no matter how big the bully was, you do not compromise doing what is right. As Europe drew closer to its Second World War, there were many who desired to appease Hitler in the hopes that he would fade away and leave them alone. Winston Churchill had a different view, though. He defined an “appeaser” as someone who “feeds his neighbor to the crocodile hoping that the crocodile will eat him last.” I fear that the path we are on is one of feeding others to the crocodile of Islam.
A final thought and a solution: the primary reason that Muslims (as with other immigrants) are coming to America is for economic freedom. Though we are in a recession, one can still raise one’s own standard of living through hard work and persistence. And even the most modest standard of living here is worlds better than what most people in most of the world have to endure…we have running water, electricity, and air conditioning, just to start naming things! As Christians, we ought to use that to our advantage. Instead of fearing Muslims who are coming into our community, let us welcome them and then evangelize them. Can you imagine what our culture would look like if our evangelistic witness was so strong that the majority of people coming from the Arab countries were converted to Christianity. If such were the case, then we would be saying, “send us more!” rather than being worried about them sending any at all.
Serving Two Masters
“No one has the power to serve two Lords; for either the one he will hate and the other he will love or he will hold firmly to one and hold the other in contempt. You are not able to serve God and Mammon.”
(Matthew 6:24)
Recently I read an article that cited a statement that Thomas Sowell made in The Washington Times. Sowell said that “journalists cannot serve two masters: the complete truth and a political agenda.” The criticism that he was making is that journalism seems to have departed from the task reporting the news in as unbiased way as possible and moved to telling you what you should think about events considered newsworthy. Thus, we have the development of both liberal and conservative news reporting. Sowell’s point is that truth is sacrificed on the altar of a political agenda.
As I was reflecting on this, I realized how often we fall into this trap. As teachers in school, we have been called to educate young minds a particular subject but at the same time, standardized testing, athletics, extra-curricular events, etc… compete with our class time. We need to balance what we do with the whole of the program, but at the same time, teaching is compromised in the process. Pastors also fall into this trap. We have been called to preach and proclaim the Truth, teaching believers to obey all that Christ taught. At the same time, if one does so in such a way that drives everyone out of the church, then you no longer have a platform for speaking Truth into people’s lives. That does not mean that Truth is to be compromised, but it is important how one presents the Truth. Sadly, too many pastors have chosen another route to go, seeking to build their congregation by entertaining people rather than speaking what is True. In addition, in many places, the government severely restricts what can be said from the pulpit and even in America, certain restrictions are in place if a church wishes to maintain its tax-exempt status. So, when these restrictions would cause one to compromise or otherwise ignore the Truth, what does one do? Who does one serve? My hopes is that it is God’s Truth and not the government, but all too often, it is the other way around.
In our personal lives, we fall prey to this as well. When we are around other people that might get offended if we speak about our faith, what do we do? In our place of employment, is your speech and behavior consistent with the Bible even if your boss asks you to cut corners? Do you fear the criticism of man or of God? The Greek word Mammon is usually associated with money in our modern culture, but it can also refer to worldly things on every level. So, do we pursue the truth or do we pursue someone’s agenda? There are certainly lots of agendas in the church to choose from, but notice Jesus’ warning, if we pursue the agenda of men over God’s Truth, we will end up loving the agenda and despising God. Man cannot serve both God and Mammon.
Building Museums or Kingdoms
Museums can be a lot of fun to visit. They contain relics and artifacts from which we can learn a lot about our past. They are monuments and testimonies to where we have been as a culture and from where God has brought us as a civilization. They serve a very important role in our culture as they help us to appreciate the sacrifices and successes of those who have gone before us in the hopes that we do not become proud and arrogant as a culture and they provide useful instruction in terms of the mistakes of the past in the hopes that we do not repeat them. There are many kinds of museums, but they all have one thing in common…they do not contain any life.
Sadly, churches can also fall into the trap of becoming museums instead of being the living, breathing marks of the Kingdom of God that we are meant to be. This does not mean we oughtn’t look back and celebrate the blessings of God that have been brought in the past and not learn from our errors as well, but if we spend all of our time dwelling in the past—dwelling in the museum of antiquities—the life that we are meant to have will be sapped from us and we will decline into a testimony of what once was, and not to what is. Remember, God is a God of the living, not of the dead (Luke 20:37-38; 24:5).
Instead of a museum, we are called to build a kingdom (Matthew 6:33; Mark 1:15; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12). Our great commission (Matthew 28:19-20) is to make disciples of all of the nations—that begins here at home. Our call within our church is to be at the task of disciple-making. Those who are not believers need to have the Gospel proclaimed to them and those who are believers need to be built up in the faith. We should learn from and celebrate the past, but we must never be tempted to dwell there. Like that favorite hymn by Sabine Baring-Gould:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
Like an army, we are to march forward, and for that to take place, though kingdoms rise and fall around us, we must always keep our eyes fixed upon our great and glorious captain, Jesus Christ, who leads us on. Let us never lose sight of the goal that the church is to march onward, breaking down the strongholds of hell in this world around us.
Also, let us count Jesus’ own words to one individual as a warning against dwelling in the past:
“And he said to them, ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead;
but you, go and preach the Kingdom of God.’”
(Luke 9:60)
Stuff
Thus, where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.
(Matthew 6:21)
Stuff, stuff, and more stuff… We fill our lives with stuff, we fill our homes with more stuff, and we fill the homes of others with even more stuff. In and of itself, stuff is not bad—we need stuff to survive. We need food to eat; we need water to drink; and we need shelter and protection from the elements. All of that is stuff. Certainly, some have more stuff than others, but it still is stuff. Frankly, I like stuff; I cannot deny it, but I would suggest that God also likes stuff. Roughly 6,000 years ago, God decided to create, well, stuff. And not only did God create stuff, but he pronounced it, “good.”
The problem with stuff is not the stuff itself, but what we use it for. Often, our stuff just collects dust. We fall into a trap of wanting to have stuff and more stuff just for the sake of having the stuff. Even worse, we find ourselves embattled with others, each trying to gain and secure more and more stuff than the other. Our lives begin to be consumed by the pursuit of stuff. Where does it all end!?!
Ultimately it does come to an end. There will come a time when all of us will die and leave behind our stuff to others. Death is the great equalizer as someone once said; we all die and we cannot take any of our stuff with us. Where we go next is not dependent on the stuff we have or even on what we have done with our stuff; where we go is dependent upon the finished work of Jesus Christ and whether or not our name is in his great Book of Life.
So, if my salvation is neither dependent upon the stuff I have nor upon how I use it, what does it matter? Jesus has some words to this question, because while your salvation is not dependent upon anything but Christ’s finished work, Christ’s finished work in your life should affect what you do with your stuff in this life. We are taught two major lessons about our stuff in scripture. The first is that God blesses us with stuff primarily so that we can be a blessing to others—not only in how we share our stuff with them, but in how we share our stuff with them for the purpose of sharing the Gospel.
The second thing we learn from Scripture is found in this verse—our heart will dwell with what we treasure. Now, for the Hebrew culture, the heart not so much reflects the passions as it does the personality and mind—in other words, the thing that you think about all of the time will be what you treasure. For the Christian, our minds and thoughts ought to be on Christ and upon God’s word; sadly, we often are tempted to fall into the trap of pursuing more stuff and in that pursuit they become consumed. The Apostle John warns about this trap:
Do not love the world, nor that which is in the world. If a certain person loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all of the things in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and arrogant living-is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away as well as its lusts. Yet, the one who does the will of God will continue living eternally. (1 John 2:15-17)
So, the question is not so much about the stuff, but it is about the heart. Have you set your heart upon God and upon the things of God or is it on the stuff that those who live in this world set their hearts upon. If, then, your heart is set upon God, the stuff that you have and accumulate in this life becomes rather secondary. And when stuff is secondary, using it to bless others becomes second nature. All our stuff comes from God anyhow, let us use it as an evangelistic tool and not an end in and of itself.
The Conversation
“Some weather we’ve been having, isn’t it?” “Did you see the game last night?” “Did you read the paper this morning, with crime going up and unemployment going up, what is this world coming to?” “Did you hear what those democrats did?”
Conversations, we all have them every day and usually they are had around some fairly mundane subjects—weather, sports, news, politics, etc. Most of the time, we strike up these conversations without much thought and they are over almost as quickly as they begin. Most of the time these conversations are had with complete strangers with no expectation of ever seeing them again. So, of what value are they? Do they serve a purpose other than that of trying not to look unsociable and filling up dead air with useless chatter? I am not convinced that they do.
But what if even those short conversations were ones that could become significant? What if they could become eternally significant? Would we have the conversation if it contained meaning and not just noise? What if we opened our conversations with, “where do you go to church?” instead of “what do your think of the weather?
God has given us language so that we can exchange ideas with one another in community—that is what the very word, “conversation,” means—“to exchange ideas.” In addition, ideas have consequences because the ideas you offer will in turn spark ideas in the mind and hearts of those who hear them. The question is whether or not you are exchanging ideas of consequence or whether you are merely beating the air. The weightier the idea the more significant the consequence.
One of the things that concerns me, though, is that as a society we have become rather superficial not only in our conversations but in our ideas. It is almost as if we are afraid of the consequences of significant conversation so we opt to avoid it altogether. Yet significant conversations are essential for building significant relationships and significant relationships are essential for effecting change in peoples’ lives.
So, what do your conversations look like? Are they significant or do you play it safe, seeking to stay in the shallow end of the relationship pool. If we are going to effect change in our community, shallow will not cut it. We need to enter into the deepest end of the pool and speak of the resurrection of the very Son of God who came into this world, lived amongst men, died a horrible death to atone for the sins of his people, and rose again on the third day. There is no conversation more significant that that and there is no conversation that this world needs to hear more than that one. Will you be the one to have that conversation with those you meet, though?
The Law of the Jungle
Recently, I read of the following account:
Elephants and rhinos normally get along quite peacefully, though the elephant defends her calf against any hint of aggression. Once a baby elephant at a water hole near Tree Tops Lodge, in Kenya’s Abedare National Park, playfully approached a rhino. The rhino charged, sending the calf squealing back to its mother, and then the rhino sauntered off. The mother elephant was so enraged that she turned and attacked another rhino drinking nearby, sending a tusk into its chest. While tourists watched from the lodge’s terrace, the elephant then held the innocent rhino underwater with her forefeet until it drowned.[1]
The Law of the Jungle is brutal. It is a law that essentially says, you can do whatever you can get away with. It is a law that says that you, the individual, and perhaps (but not always) your family is the only thing that is important. It is a law that permits one not only to hate his enemy, but also to turn on his friend if such is expedient. Power and survival are the sole virtues of the Law of the Jungle and one’s purpose in life is simply the gaining and preservation of power and the propagation of one’s own line. Sacrifice is meaningless unless it brings about that end. The strong survive; all others are merely in the way.
What struck me about this little account of the elephant and the rhinoceros was not only the brutality of the event where the mother enacts her revenge on an uninvolved bystander, but sadly, how often Christians act in much the same way when dealing with one another. True, we typically don’t drown people in watering holes, but how often we drown others with criticism, exclusion, or outright hostility. How often we follow the example of the Jungle and not the example of Christ in our personal dealings.
In the jungle, when one is offended, revenge is the response. There is no such thing as humility or grace, these things belong only to those who bear God’s image. And in the jungle, when revenge is handed out, there is always an escalation of aggression—even a minor offense yielding capital punishment as in this case. There, of course, are many who would point to the brutality of many of the Old Testament Biblical laws, but the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is a principle that states that the punishment must suit the crime. One could not demand execution in response to a personal injury—in the jungle, as the account of the elephant and the rhino illustrates, death is common even for small crimes. It is not a matter of justice, but of severe vengeance served cold and bloody.
It should not be too surprising when non-Christians choose to follow the Law of the Jungle for philosophically they simply see humanity as a highly developed animal living under the same rule as our “cousins” in the animal kingdom. In addition, to really give grace to others, it requires that one have experienced it in a transforming way. And free grace is one of those things that really is unique to Christianity and to the way our God deals with us.
What grieves me is when I see professing Christians choosing to follow the Law of the Jungle instead of another law—the law modeled to us by Christ—is that they demonstrate that they don’t really understand what it is that Christ did on the cross. When Jesus hung upon the cross of Calvary, the man without sin, being judged as a sinner, his words were not that of vengeance, but he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The word we translate as “forgive” is the Greek word ajfi/hmi (aphiami), which means to pardon, forgive, or to release from legal obligation.
We owe a debt to God because we have broken his law. In addition, we owe a debt to God because we have inherited the unpaid debt of our fathers that have gone before us (Exodus 20:5, 34:7). This debt goes back to Adam (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). God is righteous and righteous justice is demanded for sin—we have inherited death and earned wrath. Yet, God chose to do something unheard of; he took the punishment for a group of people upon himself by sending his Son, Jesus Christ to die and bear his wrath in their place—a substitutionary work of atonement. To Christ’s work, we contribute nothing. Jesus has fulfilled the righteous demands of the law on our behalf and we vicariously benefit.
Who is the “we” that benefit? It is those who have been given new life by the Holy Spirit (John 3:3) and are thus drawn to Christ in faith. This is a work totally dependent on God and on his Grace, not upon who we are or what we might be capable of doing. Were it earned in any way or reliant on our works in any way, Grace would no longer be Grace (Romans 11:6). In theological terms, we refer to this as God’s act of election, an act which God chose before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 1:4,11). We are spiritually dead in our trespasses against God (Ephesians 2:5) before this new life and thus, can do nothing to help ourselves, but are totally and absolutely reliant upon God’s Grace for this salvation. Grace is not favoritism, for favoritism demands that there is a reason one places his affections more so on one person than another; Grace is given where it is not deserved so that the giver of Grace is upheld. Who then is this body of grace-receivers? It is those who are born again believers in Jesus Christ—those who believe in their heart and profess with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9).
The sad thing is that so many who profess this betray their hearts when they refuse to show grace to others around them. If you are a professing Christian, you must understand that the bar has been set very high. Christ has shown infinite grace to you; you have an obligation to show grace to others around you. No, it is true that you and I are not capable of the intense level of grace modeled by Christ Jesus; we have been shown a grace that transcends all worldly experience. At the same time, as ones who have received grace that is transcendent we can yet strive for a grace that gives others a taste of the grace that can be found in Christ.
God is not asking you to show others something that he has not first shown to you in super-abundance; he is asking you to show grace to those around you that do not deserve it, who have offended you, and who have rejected the things that you stand for. He has also promised that he will not leave you on your own as you seek to do this, but that he will be with you in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The next time you are tempted to gossip, complain, slander, undermine, or get angry at another around you, make the decision to show them grace and shed love upon them instead of wrath (even where that wrath is deserved). If you want to see a change in the culture around us, take the lead not from elephants in the wild, but from Jesus Christ. Then step back and watch what God does through your witness.
[1] Cited from: Shreeve, James. Nature: The Other Earthlings. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987. Pg 166.
Evidence for the Historical Jesus
Recently, I watched a debate where a critic of Christianity made the statement that there was no historical evidence to support the Jesus of the Bible that existed in Jewish literature. The Christian in the debate made a tolerable answer, but I felt that he had missed a major point of the argument. In this essay, I would like to do two things. First, I would like to pose the question as to just what does constitute historical evidence and second, what historical evidence is there in the world?
To begin with, we need to ask what constitutes “historical evidence” before we can honestly set evidence on the table for discussion. The Historical Method, which is the method used by historians to relate the history of peoples, events, and cultures can be summarized by a series of principles[1]:
- Archaeological Relics are the most reliable witnesses to an event because they were actually present at the time the event took place.
- Primary source material is the most reliable witness, followed by secondary sources and then tertiary sources, etc…
- The more independent sources testify to an account, the more credible the account becomes.
- When looking at source data, one must take into account the sympathies, biases, and agenda of the author.
- The less biased a witness is, the more credible the witness.
These are the criteria of those who practice what is called the “Historical Critical” method, which is dominant in historical evaluation today.
In light of the above criteria, I would begin by suggesting that the Biblical text itself satisfies all of the above requirements to be considered reliable primary source data of the most credible degree. Manuscript evidence of the Bible dates back to the first century AD, during the lifetime of some of the original 12 Apostles. It is primary source data in that it records first-hand accounts of the life, the works, the teachings, the miracles, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. These early witnesses are also testified to by first and second century manuscripts, themselves constituting either primary or secondary witnesses. Given the large amount of independent sources that corroborate the Biblical account, the biases can be recognized as minimal. In additional, since all of the Biblical writers, save perhaps Luke, were Jewish, even the New Testament counts as primary Jewish source evidence. Those who reject the Bible because of its religious nature have allowed their own biases to cause them to be inconsistent in their methodology. Yet, in addition to the primary source material contained in the Bible, we additionally have references like the following to support the life and ministry of Jesus Christ:
- Josephus (a Jewish historian in the Roman court) in Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3 mentions Jesus as “a wise man” and a doer of “wonderful works.” Though this text is debated, here Josephus also attributes Jesus as a teacher and Christ who was executed.
- In Book 20, Chapter 9 of Antiquities, Josephus also mentions James as the brother of Jesus “who was called Christ.”
- Tacitus (a late 1st century Roman Historian) in his Annals 15.44 mentions “Christus” as the namesake of the Christians and that this Christus was executed in Judea during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate.
- Thallus (a Roman historian writing in the mid first century) records an unusual eclipse as well as an earthquake during the time of Passover in Judea. The eclipse was unusual because Passover was held at the time of the full moon where eclipses do not take place naturally.
- The Babylonian Talmud (Hebraic tradition and commentary) records that on the eve of Passover “Jeshu” was hanged. Jeshu is a Jewish name for Jesus.
- Mara Bar-Sarapion (a Stoic Philosopher in the mid to late 1st century AD from Syria wrote the following in a letter to his son: “What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given”
It should be noted that this list contains only a small sampling of the extra-Biblical evidence to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We have not begun to talk about some of the archaeological evidence like the “James Ossuary.” We also have deliberately kept Christian writers out of the discussion, though there are many. The bottom line is that there is an abundance of evidence to support the existence of the Historical Jesus—even in the Jewish writings. If we were to include Christian writings, layers upon layers of textual evidence would be added. Ultimately, to deny the historicity of Christ is like trying articulate a new scientific law without ever having taken the time to test it in the lab; it is intellectually dishonest. Those who deny the Bible as Historical evidence are not being honest with their methodology and the evidence that is available.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method — footnote 1: Thurén, Torsten. (1997). Källkritik. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Does Your Location Affect Your Religion?
Recently, I heard a challenge to Christianity that was worded like this: “The only reason you identify yourself as Christian is because you were born in America; if you had been born in Iraq, you would be Muslim and if you had been born in northern India, you would be Hindu—religion is nothing more than a cultural expression of morality.” The person making the challenge was Richard Dawkins, a popular atheist in our culture today. Though I had not heard that objection worded in the same basic way, I have heard this objection of Christianity before, and thought that I would like to pose a response from two perspectives.
The first perspective is purely a practical one, for I know that there are many nominal Christian parents that are essentially banking on this principle, hoping that their children will remain Christian (at least in name), while never truly training their children up in the faith. They think that of course, America is a Christian nation, so of course, my children will remain Christians all of their life. This not only exposes a faulty understanding of Christianity (as I will mention below), but it is a dangerous assumption, for America is becoming more and more of a secular, atheistic nation, and not a Christian one. Thus, some are estimating that as many as 80% of teenagers leave the church when they hit their college years, often without returning. Don’t get me wrong, many of them still think of themselves as Christian, but their Christianity has no bearing on the way they live their lives and for all practical purposes, they are secular humanists in practice and thought.
Furthermore, many of these children will openly reject Christianity because they see how self-serving, jaded, lazy, and corrupt so many churches have become. Many embrace the atheism of their college professors, but others are embracing false religions like Islam because they are attracted to the self-discipline and rigid lifestyle that such religions offer. We should not need to be reminded that one of the reasons that the Byzantine empire fell so easily to the Muslim expansion was due to the corruption and self-seeking nature of the church—people saw its weaknesses and rejected it as diseased and dying. Such an observation has been made of much of the church in America. Thus, it is not enough that we are actively pursuing the Christian faith, it is essential for us to recognize that our children must be actively pursuing the Christian faith as well.
That is the purely practical perspective, now for the theological one… While many religions may very well be simply cultural expressions of morality, Christianity, by definition, is different. For in Christ, we are called “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17)—in other words, we are changed from the outside in. Christianity is not a mere self-help program, it is a total change of lifestyle that can only be accomplished if one is supernaturally changed by God—we refer to this as being “born again” (John 3:3). This change is impossible to do for oneself, but God must effectively draw us to Christ as well (John 6:44). God draws us from the world, God gives us new life, and God makes us a new creation. This is more than mere morality, it is transformation. And, it is a transformation that takes place all over the world, even in countries where you can be put to death for claiming Christ as Lord and Savior.
The sad thing is that too many Christians simply treat Christianity as a self-help program, and when that happens, they do not live like new creations and Christianity becomes nothing more than a social norm—a norm that is quickly being redefined in America.
A Christian Hierarchy of Values
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, argued that there was a hierarchy of values in terms of what was worthwhile for individuals and society to pursue. For Aristotle, the highest value was the knowledge of truth for its own sake. Of course, Aristotle was an Empiricist, which means that his real interest in “Truth” has to do with what one can observe with one’s senses or through the use of observational tools. Some might be tempted to simply label this, “science,” but such a label would shortchange both science and Aristotle’s view. Much of science is based on the use of reason built upon basic presuppositions and Aristotle recognized that observation could be applied to things outside of the realm of what we would typically classify as science (metaphysics, for example).
Aristotle’s second value was the discovery of practical knowledge—what Christians and Jews typically refer to as wisdom. This is the kind of knowledge that can guide one to live a life well and skillfully. For Aristotle, this was exemplified in the Four Cardinal Virtues of Greek thought: Justice, Wisdom, Courage, and Moderation. Finally, the value at the bottom of Aristotle’s list was that of learning to be skilled in Technique—what we would refer to as technical or vocational skills. These are the skills by which one would earn a trade.
I began to reflect on these ideas for two reasons. First, I heard a contemporary philosopher argue that our modern culture has turned Aristotle’s hierarchy upside down—that those who our society values the most (based on their paychecks) are those who demonstrate a high degree of skill in technique and those who are valued the least are those whose life is dedicated to the pursuit of truth for truth’s sake. Thus we live in a society where professional athletes, popular musicians and actors, and skillful doctors (again, technique with the surgical instruments) are the wealthiest class and preachers, teachers, and philosophers make up one of the poorest classes in society. The second reason that I began reflecting on this idea is because I happened to be teaching on Augustine’s approach to the Four Cardinal Virtues of the Greeks. Ultimately, Augustine affirmed these virtues as Christian virtues, but only when they were joined by faith, hope, and love—especially love.
Thus, I began asking the question, if I had to construct a hierarchy of values for the Christian life, how do I think that they would be reflected in the Christian life. One might be tempted to begin, as Aristotle begins, with a knowledge of truth for its own sake. Jesus said that his purpose in coming to dwell with men was to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37). God, of course, is the God of truth (Isaiah 65:16) and those who reject God suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). In addition, those who have no knowledge of God (as truth resides in God) destroy themselves (1 Corinthians 1:34). Also, the implication of scripture is that it is the knowledge of God that allows his people to be faithful (Hosea 6:6) and when there is no faithfulness in the land, it is joined by a lack of the knowledge of God (Hosea 4:1).
Yet, it seems to me that a higher virtue sets the stage for the knowledge of the Lord. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the very Son of God, Jesus’ response is not to congratulate him on that knowledge, saying it was the highest virtue, but Jesus instead said, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah” for this knowledge came from “my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). There are two things that need to be brought out from this verse in light of understanding Christian virtue. First of all, the source of the knowledge of God is God himself, not something gained through a human pursuit—and if something has a source, or a precursor, it ought not be seen as the “highest” virtue. Secondly, Jesus does not say, “virtuous are you,” but he says, “blessed are you.” The Greek word for virtue, ajreth/ (arête), refers to one’s moral excellence or other attributes that make one praiseworthy. Yet, blessedness, maka/rioß (makarios), has to do with one’s internal state as a result of their relationship to God. Thus, Jesus can say, “blessed are you when you are persecuted for my name’s sake…” Similarly, Peter’s blessedness does not come from anything he has done, but because of what has been done to him.
Now, we may be tempted to engage in a discussion of regeneration, but since the purpose of a hierarchy of virtue is to give us something of merit to pursue, such a discussion does not seem to have a place here as regeneration is something that God does in us which in turn precipitates a response of faith and repentance in the believer. Our temptation, too, might be to jump immediately to the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and to Peter’s instructions on how to build up our faith (2 Peter 5-7), but again, these seem to have their source in a virtue that is more primary.
And that brings us to the question, what then does the Bible present as primary? The logical answer seems to be that the highest virtue is the fear of the Lord. We are told in scripture that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both wisdom (Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 9:10) and knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). The fear of the Lord gives life and health not only to the individual believer, but it is also a sign of a healthy church (Acts 9:31). And then, out of the fear of the Lord proceeds the pursuit of the other Christian virtues.
Are You Getting with the Program or Watching It?
I will confess that I am a consummate daydreamer. My mind not only drifts off into curiosity on things tangential to what is taking place or being taught, but I am also prone to rabbit trails when I am in the role of teacher. I never realized just how frustrating that must have been to my parents (who were trying to get me to do homework, etc…) until I became a parent and found that my son is prone to the same thing—the apple does not fall too far from the tree. One of the phrases that my parents used to use commonly was, “Come on, Win, get with the program.” What they meant by this was to get focused and to be a part of the task (the program) that was at hand.
Our Lord also gives a “program” to the church. After Peter’s confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Jesus utters the following words:
“And now I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
(Matthew 16:18)
This is one of those passages that contains a tremendous amount of theology, but essentially Jesus is saying that the confession of Jesus as the Christ and Son of God—the confession of the Gospel—is the rock upon which the church will be built. So, what is the church’s “program”? The program is to take this confession of Christ and use it to batter down the gates of hell—essentially to use the gospel of Jesus Christ as a tool by which the fortifications of the Devil that exist on this earth are destroyed. To use military terminology, the church is being portrayed as an army on the march in enemy territory.
Now, there are many things that the church does, we are called in the Great commission to make disciples by baptizing and teaching all that Christ has taught (Matthew 28:19-20), we are called to care for the widows and orphans and to keep ourselves unstained by the sinful things of this world (James 1:27), we are to be ready with a reasonable defense of the Truth that God has given us (1 Peter 3:15-16), and we gather to worship (Hebrews 12:28-29). Yet, all of these things fall under the heading of engaging the enemy’s strongholds and battering in their gates (the primary place where an invading army would focus their attack).
Yet, as I look at the church today, I wonder whether we have allowed ourselves to daydream. For some it may be about the busyness of life; for others it may be their comfort or reputation. Some spend so much time thinking about the world to come that they are distracted from the task at hand. Regardless of the reason, a soldier who is distracted during a time of war usually becomes a casualty (and others are often wounded or killed because of the soldier’s distraction).
The question we must ask of ourselves is whether or not we have “gotten with the program” and are a part of the task. My concern is that there are too many confessing Christians who are watching the program as if it is on television, seeing church as entertainment or a social club, not as an army at war in enemy territory, besieging the fortifications of the Devil. How the church needs to “get with the program” and stop trying to watch it from their easy chair.
“No one who serves as a soldier becomes entangled in the affairs of life in order that he might please the one who has enlisted them.”
(2 Timothy 2:4)
A Mocha-Frappe-Latte Society
“The Christian faith has not been tried and found lacking; it has been found difficult and been left untried.”
-George Macdonald
I must confess up front that I am not a coffee drinker. I neither like the taste of it nor the smell of it, nor do I have any compulsion to infuse it with a variety of sweeteners to try and mask its otherwise awful taste. This is not a criticism of those who like coffee (my wife is one of them), it is simply a statement of fact, and to set the record strait, it is not that I do not also have a morning crutch, but for me it is tea—“Earl Grey, hot,” as Captain Picard used to say.
All of that being said, what I find interesting is the popularity of the specialized coffee drinks in our society. People flock to one of dozens of corner coffee stores to buy the latest “Chunky-Monkey-Sola-Frappe” concoction or if they are more frugal, they will get a designer coffee machine for their home to whip up their favorite concoctions. Now, I see nothing inherently wrong with this practice (I like stacking onions, pickles, lettuce, and ketchup on my hamburgers), what I find interesting is that by the time everything is said and done, one can barely taste the original coffee flavor—and for some, I know that is the objective.
Imagine a world, for a minute, where coffee is only ever served in this fashion (this should not be too hard as we are close to that now). Imagine that you have never tasted “black” coffee, but that it has always been filled with the additives that we might see at a specialized coffee place. And imagine that this is the way coffee has been served for several generations. You may have heard stories of coffee being served black, but only in the old days when the people were so poor or backwards that they did not know any better.
Then imagine, one day, something changed in the world around you. Imagine that you, and everyone around you, were served black coffee—no milk, no sweetener, just straight brewed coffee. What do you imagine might be the response. My guess is that most people would quickly spit it out in disgust. They might curse what they were served and leave in search of “real coffee”—or at least coffee that was diluted with the sweeteners that people were used to.
I imagine, though, that there might be a few people (likely a very few), who will have something confirmed in their hearts. Deep down, while they have been drinking all of the concoctions, they have sensed that there must be something more out there—that that there must be something stronger and more robust in this thing called coffee than what was being served. The taste might not totally agree with them, but they know deep down that this coffee, black and strong, is what they have been looking for all along and for them to go back to anything else is something they have no desire to do.
It is imaginable, that the majority of the “coffee” drinkers would take offense to those who began serving and drinking black coffee. They might see them as unsophisticated and seeking to undo great social advances. It is imaginable that the majority might even legislate to try and restrict the “black coffee drinkers” from being able to proselytize and win others to drinking black coffee. There might even be some that would go back to drinking the stylized coffees just to more comfortably fit into their communities. There may even be some that would become secret black coffee drinkers, drinking the concoctions in social settings for the business contacts, but only drinking black coffee at home. There would be some who would even go to the other extreme, gathering with other black coffee drinkers and living separate from non-black coffee drinkers to eliminate any outside influence upon their families. Yet there would be some who, despite regulations and litigation against the black coffee establishments, would continue drinking their black coffee while remaining in society, being willing to have the honest discussion about coffee and to answer questions from the skeptical but curious who still are drinking the fancy mixes.
Okay, so what does this have to do with Christianity? If you haven’t anticipated it, my suggestion is that we have a lot of “doctored up” Christianity in our culture today. It may have at its most basic root, genuine Christian belief, but because true Christianity is vibrant, strong, and offensive to the broader culture, churches have been quick to dilute it with all kinds of sweeteners and additives to hide the taste. C.S. Lewis called this kind of liberal Christianity as “Christianity in water”—something almost unrecognizable as Christianity because it has been so diluted. It is no wonder, given our culture has strayed so much from “straight-black” Christianity (to keep the coffee analogy), that so many people react so violently against the preaching of the wrath to come and the need for Christians to take up their cross and die daily to this world. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been reduced to love and fuzzy feelings rather than about a mighty God who chose to take on flesh and live in the midst of wicked, fallen, and hateful men to redeem some of them to glory, bearing the judgment for their sins on his shoulder. All we are, we owe to him.
Drinking this kind of “coffee” will earn you the title of being intolerant, unsophisticated, and backwards. It requires a whole new view of the world. But this is true Christianity. Lewis argued that while most people would be reviled if they were confronted with real Christianity, there would be some who would find that it was what they were looking for all along and find the real stuff to be “red meat and strong beer.” How many of our churches look more like Starbucks in their theology and social stance than like the strong, black coffee of the Scriptures.
An Urgency of the Reforms of Church and Society: Calvin 500
This year marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the theologian of the Reformation. While Luther’s preaching sparked the fires of reform, it was Calvin that God had raised up to articulate the theology of those who protested against the Roman Catholic Church. To commemorate what God did through Calvin, there are conferences that have taken place all over the globe. I was given the great privilege of speaking at the international pastors’ conference held in Moscow. I was one of three representatives from the USA, joined by representatives from Holland, South Korea, Japan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, to encourage the Russian Reformed pastors.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Roman Catholic Church was oppressing the Reformers, Russia opened its doors to the Protestant refugees. Since the Russian Orthodox Church had already fought their battles with the Roman Catholic Church, they took the attitude that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Thus, many Calvinistic Christians found their homes in Russia. These Christians not only brought their faith with them, but also quite a lot of technology from the west.
When Peter the Great began modernizing Russia in the late seventeenth century, it was the Calvinists he turned to for support. The Russian Orthodox Church preferred the “old ways,” but these Russian protestants proved to be very progressive and built Peter the Great’s navy, army, and artillery as well as much of the Russian infrastructure to support the modernization of the nation. These protestants, along with Peter’s vision for a modern Russia, are responsible for making the nation a European power.
When the Bolsheviks revolted in the beginning of the 20th century, the Calvinists in Russia supported the monarchy, thus, when the Communists took over, the Reformed Christians were systematically eliminated. When “Perestroika” took place in the late 1980s, the Protestants rushed back into Russia to evangelize and at first were largely successful. As a result, people were leaving the Russian Orthodox Church at a rapid pace; something that the Russian Orthodox leaders did not much care for. Thus, they began pressuring the government to restrict the ability of the Protestants to meet and organize.
A year ago, one of the Russian pastors, who was connected with a Reformed movement from South Korea, decided to separate from the liberals in his denomination and re-form a conservative and evangelical church from the “dry bones” of the older Russian Reformed church. He was joined by three other pastors, and the four of them formed the Russian Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church. One year later, they had grown to nine churches scattered around the greater Moscow area. The primary purpose of this conference was to encourage and help equip these nine pastors to continue to build as God would allow them. As a result of the conference, three churches in St. Petersburg, who were in a similar situation, decided to join the other nine in fellowship. In addition, the two representatives from Holland were there to determine the possibility of fraternal relations between their denomination (a conservative sect in the Dutch Reformed Church) and this new Russian denomination—something that seemed to go very well.
The Russian churches are still in need of a lot of prayer as they face a great deal of obstacles—some that we face and others that we are not currently facing (though may in time). It was a privilege for me to represent Westminster Presbyterian Church, Milton as well as the PCA to these pastors. Seeds have been planted, I am excited to see what our Lord will do with them in the years to come. Please commit Pastor Ten and this infant denomination to your prayers.
-Pastor Win
Two Group Pictures from the Convention
The Preacher's Study 