gratitude & hoopla

Closing Shop

2006-09-30T10:11:00.000-04:00

Gee, I think I'm going to do it. Close down Gratitude & Hoopla. As a more than a few people have now and then noticed throughout the centuries, "all things must pass." The time seems to have come for good old g&h. The fire seems to have gone out under this one.

Nevertheless, I will be tinkering with a new blog, just to keep my hand in, called In the Clearing. As I said, I don't seem to have much time for this anymore, but I'm expecting about a once a week post over there. I anticipate the feel of the thing being somewhat different than g&h. We'll see. Stop by In the Clearing now and then. Not much there yet, just a first experimental post or two, and no blogroll at all. But we'll see. . .

Onward Sidewise: Musing about a Blogging Change

2006-09-23T08:51:00.000-04:00

Well, it certainly has been hard for me to keep at this blogging thing lately. This has been the first unplanned extended gap in my blogging since I began 3 years ago. But it's good to remember that, well, it's just no big deal. After all, blogging, like so many things, is destined to pass away. You did know that, didn't you?

So I'm thinking about a drastic change. I kind of feel as if the posting had become somewhat forced and joyless in the last few months anyway. So I'm getting that feeling that what I ought to do is close g&h down at last, and possibly begin diddling around with a new blog!

Yup, there you have it. Blogging has always been somewhat whimsical for me--an extended whimsy, to be sure--rather than clearly planned and intentional. I started blogging several years ago at Mr. Standfast, where I posted about 600 times before starting gratitude & hoopla. Now I've posted about 300 or so at g&h, and I'm once again feeling like the time is right for a change. So you see I've just about talked myself into closing this blog down and starting a new one. This isn't the last post here, but probably pretty close. I'm going to think about the mission of a new blog, and of course a good name for it, then I'm going to make the official "announcement" (not earth-shaking, certainly, but perhaps "fringe-rippling") when the time comes.

Another advantage of this, btw, is that I can use the new Blogger beta, which is a big improvement. So stay tuned for the news of the next blog, unless some other whimsy, riding a cross-current, interrupts my intention.

Does it sometimes seem like I keep moving onward sidewise?

Storms on Christian Superstars

2006-09-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

Sam Storms has been working his way through Colossians in a running online commentary, and he has reached the letter's closing verses (Col. 4.7-17). Check out this opening to his latest post:

here's a sickness in our society that has infiltrated and infected the church. I have in mind our modern obsession with superstars. Whether they be Hollywood actors, Wall Street moguls, or overpaid, egotistical athletes, they seem to fill our newspapers and dominate our headlines and have become, tragically in most cases, role models for our children.

The Church is by no means immune to this infatuation with celebrity. Mega-church pastors, health-and-wealth advocates, and best-selling authors are promoted and praised as if they are in better standing with the Lord than the faithful but unacknowledged housewife or the quiet pastor who tends a flock of less than a hundred folk in rural Alabama.

I think Paul would have been disgusted with it all. In fact, I know it. One need only read 2 Corinthians (especially chapter 11) to observe his disdain for those who fancied themselves "super-apostles" (2 Corinthians 11:5). It's also evident from his commendations at the close of most of his letters. The kind of folk that most impressed him didn't necessarily hold ecclesiastical office or write books or have their names bandied about among gossipers.

The people who impressed Paul were the likes of Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Justus, Epaphras, Luke (O.K., there's one famous name), and Archippus. And the things Paul took note concerning them would hardly get their names on the evening news or generate enough money to subsidize a program on TBN.

Willard Alert!

2006-09-13T17:32:00.000-04:00

Dallas Willard's new book is entitled The Great Omission. It sounds to me a little like a rehash of his earlier work, but I'm sure it will contain much Willardian wisdom. I found out about this book when I stumbled upon a bunch of guys blogging it. Great idea, that. Makes me kind of wonder about the possibilities. Give me a book rich in wisdom, and four or five guys who want a blog it, and I'm there! Any suggestions?

Update

2006-09-13T09:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I had a great time at the Men's Retreat. Mostly because the setting was so dang pretty. I did a lot of walking in the woods alone, kayaking, swimming, and hiking with friends. These things made the retreat a true joy. The teaching component was okay, but I'd have been happier if I could have spent more time swimming, to tell you the truth.

More on all this later. My new work-schedule is really cramping my blogging style, so I can't promise when.

Retreating!

2006-09-07T06:48:00.000-04:00

I'm off to a men's retreat for the next couple of days. Hanging around with about 60 guys in the woods. Ergo, I won't be roundabout till Saturday evening. I've had great times at these in the past, and sometimes not so great. Hey, I think when you put those two things together, great and not-so-great, you could call the resulting concoction "life"!

Anyway, I'll be looking for Jesus there. More specifically, I'll be looking for, listening for, and seeking to apply, the good news of Messiah Jesus, Lord of all. If I don't see or hear that, if I see and hear an alternative plan (human imperatives without Gospel indicatives), well, hey, maybe I'll just go for a walk in the woods.

Seriously, I have no expectations about this retreat. With regard to the teaching, I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude. But at the very least there will be fresh air, good friends, conversation, and perhaps even time to curl up with a good book.

In the meantime, Dan Cruver has a clearly-written and truly debris-clearing article called Gospel-Centered Men and Women. A very good and useful read.

Marriage and the Atonement

2006-09-06T15:24:00.000-04:00

Update on the recent church dissatisfaction post: some Sundays are more devoid of the Gospel than others, and I'm happy to report that this past Sunday was somewhat better than usual. The worship was actually not entirely self-referential and our pastor preached a pretty fair sermon concerning marriage, based of course on Ephesians 5:21-33. I have no desire to criticise my pastor, who works dang hard for his pay, but this post from Ligon Duncan at Together for the Gospel reminded me of the often-overlooked connection between the Gospel and, yes, marriage. For those many who don't seem to "get" that the Gospel really is fundamental to every important issue we can preach about in church, please read this paragraph carefully:

Martyn Lloyd-Jones taught me something about Ephesians 5:25 that I had never before grasped. How many times have I read, and preached, this verse and missed it? Then I read his pastoral words of application: "How many of us have realized that we are always to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement? Is that our customary way of thinking of marriage?. . . Where do we find what the books have to say about marriage? Under which section? Under ethics. But it does not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of the doctrine of the atonement." (Life in the Spirit, 148)

Well, so maybe I'm NOT just being snarky and peavish about church. Maybe the Gospel really IS missing (or at least significantly under-valued and under-applied) at my church and many others. In any case, finding oneself in accord with Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives one a warmly affirmed kind of feeling.

[Hearty Hat-Tip: Justin Taylor]

The Gospel, Not Happy-Talk

2006-09-04T07:00:00.000-04:00

Mark Lauterbach's GospelDrivenLife is one of the most consistently valuable personal weblogs in the Christian Blogosphere. Lately Mark has been running a series called "What hill to die on?" Especially for those who call themselves soldiers, that's an an important question, don't you think? This little series of blogposts is full of riches, but I want to draw your attention to #5 in the series.

Here is where all this lands -- are we being clear about the Gospel? That is what is most urgent and I believe clarity on the Gospel brings resolutions to hundreds of other problems. We are often sloppy on the Gospel -- soft-pedaling sin, not dealing with God as the offended party, not speaking of the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin. All too often I have found the fruit of poor "labor and delivery" -- supposedly new Christians who were clueless about the Gospel.

Mark goes on to list important aspects of the Gospel that are often soft-pedaled by earnest evangelists. When Mark says he runs into many Christians who don't seem to know what the Gospel is, well, that's a bitter pill, but I've seen it enough times myself. The Gospel and just any old happy-talk are not synonymous.

BTW, Mark Dever at Together for the Gospel makes a similar point here.

One part of clarity sometimes missed by earnest evangelists, however, is the willingness to offend. Clarity with the claims of Christ certainly will include the translation of the Gospel into words that our hearer understands, but it doesn’t necessarily mean translating it into words that our hearer will like. Too often advocates of relevant evangelism verge over into being advocates of irrelevant non-evangelism. A gospel which in no way offends the sinner has not been understood.

Good word!

Here's what I think . . .

2006-09-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

Well, if you want to know what I think, you should carefully read this post from the Imonk. I mean, he says it so welll, that I want to print out this post and hand it to everyone I know, saying, "Here's what I think. Over and out." If you want a sample, try this:

I knew that there were codependent people in every church I ever served. These were people who “loved” (i.e. needed) the church like a drug and lived in a relationship with the church that kept the fix going. I knew that many people in church were going through marriage and family problems, economic stress or health breakdowns. The church was a way to numb, avoid or barter with God about these messes. Often, I listened to people complain about how busy they were at church compared to what they wanted to be doing in other areas of their life. It was backwards, but you could never admit it without questioning the whole system.

Yup. You got that right. Please, if you care about the church, drink a glass of reality-juice and read the whole post.

Who's the point?

2006-08-29T17:51:00.000-04:00

Jared at Shizuka Blog is sayin' it!

We have not done a great job at making Jesus the point of the enterprise of faith.

Hmmm, could that be the most overlooked elephant-in-the-corner in the history of everything? Read the whole post. It's true and powerful and powerfully true.

***

BTW, speaking of Shizuka Blog, note the new feature on his sidebar. Books (and music) that have influenced him the most. Jared writes:

This list is a representative sample of the works that have most influenced the thinking and style that direct the unique approach of Shizuka Blog.

Many of them are my influences also. Those that aren't, probalby soon will be. I take Jared's recommendations that seriously.

What's of First Importance?

2006-08-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

It’s not easy being mildly unhappy in one’s church. You wonder if it’s just you, and not the church. You wonder if you’re not making mountains out of doctrinal mole hills. After all, the people are wonderful, all your friends are there, etc. But the preaching and the worship leave you feeling singularly unsatisfied. What do you do? Oh, people say you should talk to somebody about it, anybody, except that it’s been clear whenever you’ve tried that negative opinions of this kind are looked upon as bad form, and possibly downright snarky. The subject is always quickly changed.

Okay, so maybe I am being snarky. The thing is, I’d just kind of like a Gospel message now and then. Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, something about something being, umm, of first importance. Oh yeah, the Gospel. Christ crucified for our sins. That whole deal. But I go to a church where people routinely say that other things, such as marriage, or community, or the young people, are the foundation of our church. Never the Gospel. Never the cross.

Oh well, maybe they’re just being, you know, sloppy with words. On the other hand, what ever happened to the wooden cross that had stood in the corner of the sanctuary for years. Oh sure, it wasn’t exactly given a place of honor, which should have been a warning to me, but then it disappeared altogether. And no one seems to miss it. When asked about it, the pastor said, that’s just not the kind of church we are. Uh oh. Red flag city!

Then again, what ever happened to the preaching of the Gospel? Can somebody tell me? Is it just one of those items in a creedal statement that nobody reads . . . too "doctrinal," don’t you know?

I’ve been going through a period of personal re-assessment lately, (perhaps it has something to do with my impending fiftieth birthday), but I’m tired of settling for preaching that would be right at home on the Oprah show (well, almost). I’m tired of trading ancient wisdom for the fleeting will-o-the-wisp called "relevance," of shallow hip-ness and glib self-congratulatory church booster-ism and music that is fervent about nothing more than our own fervor (instead of being fervent about the singular value of Christ and his cross).

And I hate taking this tone. I never expected a perfect church, but as I approach my fiftieth birthday I begin to wonder how many more social-club Sundays I must endure. I’m not looking for a perfect church, but one that puts first things first. Is that too much to expect?

A Forlorn Hope?

2006-08-28T13:04:00.001-04:00

Over at Mark Dever's 9Marks website there's a lot of discussion about things "emergent." At this page several theologians are asked, "What do you hope will ultimately emerge from the emerging church conversation for evangelicals?" D. A. Carson's answer included the following:

My most forlorn hope is that as this fad—for that is what it is—burns itself out, rising numbers of Christians will learn a great lesson, and resolve afresh to be passionate about Christ, about Christ crucified, about the gospel holistically considered, and not about fads. As a result, when new fads come along, we will learn from them what we should, while maintaining our allegiance to and excitement in the old rugged cross and him who hung upon it, was buried, and rose again for our justification, so that our reading and praying priorities, the kinds of conferences we attend and the colleagues we cherish and admire, the language we use and the heritage we seek to pass on to a new generation, are all shaped by eternal realities, and not by fads. Soli Deo gloria!

Yup, that's my hope, too. But I too would call it "forlorn" one. But time will tell.

The Foolishness of God

2006-08-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

"We are fools for Christ’s sake," Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians. God is foolish, too, Paul says. God is foolish to choose for his holy work in the world the kind of lamebrains and misfits and nitpickers and odd ducks and stuffed shirts and egomaniacs and milquetoasts and closet sensualists as are vividly represented by us all.

God is foolish to send us out to speak hope to a world that slogs along heart-deep in the conviction that things can only get worse. . . . He is foolish to have us speak of loving our enemies when we have a hard enough time loving our friends. . . . God is foolish to have us proclaim eternal life to a world that is half in love with death. . . . God is foolish to send us out on a journey for which there are no maps, and to aim us in the direction of a goal we can never know until we get there. Such is the foolishness of god. And yet, and yet, Paul says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than man."

Frederick Buechner

Carson on Passion

2006-08-25T06:58:00.000-04:00

I'm about a year and a half through D. A. Carson's two part devotional, For the Love of God [Volume 1, Volume 2], and I continue to be amazed, challenged and consoled by its wisdom. From this morning's reading:

Where there is no passion for the Word of God, other passions take over.

Quotatious

2006-08-24T18:05:00.000-04:00

We--or at least I--shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not have "tasted and seen." Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are "patches of Godlight" in the woods of experience.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom.

Update

2006-08-23T21:12:00.000-04:00

No, g&h is not dead, only slightly sleepy. I do want you to know that I've been trying the new Blogger beta and it is a vast . . . and I mean VAST . . . improvement.

I mentioned in my last post that I was experimenting with another blog that would reflect a broader range of interests than this one. I was calling it, for a while, "The 1sr R", because I saw it as a bookish blog of sorts, but really because I couldn't think of anything better. But I'm a little clearer about its purpose now, and so I've also settled on its permanent name. It's called Towamensing, which means "wild place" in the language of the Iriqois (I think).

The reason for that title will come clear as you read the blog (or maybe not). Actually, one primary focus of the blog will be a place to work out my understanding of this nagging story-idea I've got. I'd really like to write a novel, you see, and I believe I'm on the trail of one now. Towamensing is the place where I sniff out the clues. Anyway, I've only just posted once (having discarded all previous experiments), and the blogroll is definitely under construction, but you can find it here if you're interested.

Gratitude & hoopla, meanwhile, will continue. I've in the first week of my new work-schedule, which doesn't allow me to blog in the morning anymore, so I'm going to have to work out a new blogging routine. So I guess you can call this a period of a adjustment. As I said last time, posts may not be so frequent, or so lengthy, but post I will.

Feeling Fluxish

2006-08-14T11:37:00.000-04:00

So, here's the story, as of this moment. My job will be requiring me to go to work somewhat earlier now than in the past, so I don't think I'll have the time for morning blogging after this week. And I don't imagine I'll be as inclined to blog in the evening (just not my style!). So for that reason and others, I think (I think . . . ) gratitude & hoopla will be going into semi-retirement soon. Semi-, because I think I will still post here, but quite a bit less frequently. So, I guess you can say that things around here on in a state of flux.

In the meantime, I have been experimenting with establishing another blog that will be focused loosely on the kind of work I do (librarian). Since I'm contemplating writing a novel . . . whimsical me . . . that might be the place for my thoughts on that process too. So it'll be a bookish sort of blog I guess. That too is in a state of flux, you see, and I haven't even settled on a title for it yet. Right now it's being called The 1st R, but I'm not satisfied with that name. Besides, my posting to it has been erratic and somewhat pointless (oh wait a minute, it's a blog, so that's ok!).

So that's how thing's stand at the moment. Infrequent postings here, pointless postings there. And flux all around. This isn't a goodbye post, and I'm not (not yet) completely shutting down g&h, but I'm going with the flow (and the flux) and seeing where it leads. See you later!

Matthew 12: Intensification

2006-08-11T07:10:00.000-04:00

In Matthew 12 Jesus repeats and broadens his claims about himself, and as a result the enmity of the Pharisees is stirred to action. Their conflict with Jesus is not merely a philosophical one. They begin to conspire to destroy him.

Note: Jesus' defense against their various accusations (that he has profaned the sabbath or that he is possessed by Beelzebul) is nothing if not deeply sensible. In other words, he is not merely denying their charges, but verbally demonstrating their hollowness. This must have been deeply frustrating to the Pharisees, for they are status-proud folks, and here the carpenter’s son from Galilee is showing them up publicly.

Jesus, for his part, continues to call himself the Son of Man. He boldly claims to be "the Lord of Sabbath," and later "one greater than Solomon." When the Pharisees, mightily bothered, accuse him of serving Beelzebul, he in response not only demonstrates the absurdity of their accusation, but suggests that they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. He calls them a "brood of vipers," and goes on to suggest that their response to him is crucial to their eternal destiny. Finally, he aligns himself so radically with heaven and with heavenly things as to seems even to deny his own family.

Chapter 12, then, is a chapter of intensification. Jesus' claims have become more radical, more devisive. Meanwhile, the enmity of the Pharisees has also intensified. Finally, it should be noted that, in line with this intensification, Jesus now speaks (no doubt in a veiled manner) of his death and resurrection (v.40):

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Intensification, indeed.

Notes on Matthew 11

2006-08-10T07:10:00.000-04:00

The point of this exercise--blogging through Matthew--is simply to put into writing the thoughts and impressions that "rise to the surface" as I read through the Gospel of Matthew. It is not to “study” Matthew by using various helps, or to speak comprehensively or authoritatively, as if with a settled understnading. I make not pretense at exegetical expertise. As I’ve said before, I’m trying to recognize the arc of the story, see each passage in context, and simply make note of my fleeting impressions.

There's a new note of urgency in this chapter. Jesus has been healing and preaching, and crowds have been gathering, eager to receive from him, and yet there must also have been resistance, and not only from carping Pharisees. Jesus suggests that the proper response should have been repentance (see v.21), but it has not been forthcoming on the scale that he, Jesus, had perhaps hoped for. This "disappointment" seems to lie behind those "woe unto you" passages here.

And yet, the chapter ends with an invitation.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The yoke is Christ's teaching, his message, and the heavy yoke is that teaching which has heretofore been weighing people down. [see Mt. 23:23]

Also in theis chapter, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist, describing him at a latter-day Elijah, pointing the way to the coming Lord. Pointing to Jesus. On this grounds alone--on the grounds that he pointed out Jesus--he is called the greatest "among those born of women."

Pretty amazing, no? D. A. Carson, in his devotional For the Love of God, V.2, says that our own greatness lies solely here--we "point out who the Messiah is with even more immediacy and explicitness."

On Cross-less Preaching

2006-08-09T08:46:00.000-04:00

I have had several discussions lately about the need for the Cross of Christ and the fact of its atoning and redemptive purpose to be central to everything that goes on in church. A lot of people don't seem to want to accept this. They think that the Cross is "understood" and doesn't need to be "harped on" all that much.

That's why this post [What does it matter...] is so timely for me. Another great word from the consistently Cross-centered GospelDrivenLife. Speaking of his experiences in many churches:

I have heard a truncated, therapeuticized Gospel -- I have heard protracted pushes for people to invite Jesus into their hearts -- but I have not heard thoughtful explanations of the Gospel.

Further Notes on Matthew: Chapter 10

2006-08-09T08:30:00.000-04:00

Jesus has been performing many miracles of healing, but in chapter 9 he begins to run into resistance from the religious authorities. Why? Because he has claimed the authority to forgive sin. In fact, he has strongly implied that to forgive sin was his primary purpose in coming.

That word, "coming," seems somewhat mysterious in this context. Jesus was speaking and healing in his home counties, not in some far away place to which he had "come." But when he uses that word, he reminds us that he is, or at least claims to be, the coming one that John the Baptist had spoken of.

John had associated this coming one with a kingdom. Jesus, claiming in a not-so-veiled way that he is that one, proclaims relentlessly that that kingdom is indeed "at hand." Christ's miracles of healing only display that kingdom's nearness, signaling that, yes, this kingdom-stuff is for real.

So what have we so far? Jesus heals many, associates healing with forgiveness (a controversial premise) and associates himself -- the one who heals -- with the God-like authority to forgive. Finally, Jesus passes on this combined ministry of proclamation and healing to his disciples. They are to ) proclaima Christ's message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And, 2) perform miracles: heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons, etc.

This is yet another stunning fact and unveils to us still more about the nature of Jesus' work and ministry. Note: these men to whom Jesus has assigned a ministry--what Paul would later call a ministry of reconciliation--are to do everything Jesus did. They will proclaim the same kingdom message. They will perform the same kinds of miracles. And just as Jesus has met resistance, so shall they. In fact, they’re going to be flogged, dragged into court, etc. But Jesus tells them that the Spirit will be speaking through them at those times, so they shouldn't be afraid. "Endure," he says. Hang in there. God will take care of you.

You see how in each chapter since Jesus’ ministry began he has ramped thing up, revealing more of his power, and hinting more plainly at what is to come. Now in assigning his authority to others, he is once again displaying the very fact that his authority is not of this world. Everything they do they will do in his name. Their authority is derivative of his. How great then is this man’s authority? So great that he can task it to others, and now fishermen and tax collectors are raising the dead, casting out demons, etc. This little ballyhoo in Galilee that so concerns the religious authorities is now, by means of these disciples, going to spread throughout Israel. And the way people respond to these sent ones -- either accepting or rejecting them -- is taken as their response to Jesus himself. The disciples 'represent" Jesus, act as his official ambassadors, and so are responsible for the message they carry -- it must be Christ’s message and no other. If they "harvest" souls for the heavenly kingdom, it will be in Christ’s name. If they suffer persecution, that too will be in the Master’s name. So be it.

Matthew 9: Harvesting Sinners

2006-08-08T06:16:00.000-04:00

So I'm traipsing through Matthew, trying to catch the arc of the story and not get too wrapped up in the details. This is for my own sake, and no one else's. That is, I've got nothing particularly insightful to offer others . . . it's just that the blog is a convenient place for me to do this sorting out of the text.

In chapter 9 we run into some new developments. A little more of the truth about Jesus, and about his kingdom, is being revealed here. Some new pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. [The great puzzle is, by the way, who is this Jesus?] John said Jesus was the coming one, and that he was associated somehow with the near-at-hand kingdom of God. And clearly Jesus has authority, as everyone recognizes. After all, even the demons obey him (8:28-34). And yet chapter 8 ends with the people of the Gadarene neighborhood asking him to leave, and in chapter 9 we find Jesus running into resistance from the religious authroities. So it is clearly a kingdom that, however "near" it may be, is not exactly commandeering the levers of power. In fact, while the spirit-realm obeys Jesus without question, people are not half so amenable.

So, chapter 9. One of the new developments revealed here is that Jesus openly claims the authority to forgive sins. This is, quite obviously, one important aspect of the kingdom's nearness. People get healed, yes, and (in close relationship to healing) people get forgiven. The Pharisees, making their first appearance, are appalled. Jesus may have veiled the full meaning of his ministry at first, but it's clear now that he's claiming something that just might get him in deep trouble. Only God can forgive sins! Christ is stepping on very thin ice here.

In the next encounter with Pharisees, at Matthew the tax collector's place, Jesus succinctly states the purpose of his "coming."

For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Hmm, the ice just got even thinner.

The last "episode" recorded in chapter 9 in closely related to this stated purpose. "The harvest is plentiful," he tells his followers. He has been healing people almost without let-up. Crowds are pressing in, Pharisees grumbling. He has said his purpose is to forgive sinners. Now he says, in essence, "There are many sinners ripe for forgiveness. We've got to go tell them that what they're longing for is now available through me." That's the harvest he speaks of. A harvest of forgiven sinners.

The Gospel in the Gospel According to Matthew

2006-08-07T07:09:00.000-04:00

In chapters 5-7 we have an example of Jesus' preaching, perhaps the supreme example in all the Gospels. And the truth is, it's not exactly what we might have expected. I mean, hadn't John recognized Jesus as the "coming one" that he had been looking for? And hadn't God confirmed that with a voice from the heavens? And hadn't the Holy Spirit descended upon him in a manner that was apparent to all? But now he is not preaching, as we might have expected, "Here I am . . . the one John was speaking of." He is not preaching, "The kingdom of God is here." No, he's preaching the same message that John preached: the kingdom of God is near. And he's preaching, in chapters 5 through 7, a way of living as we await that kingdom's full "coming."

It is a remarkable document, these three chapters, and one for extended meditation, but I'm going to point out only one matter here. The sermon on the mount is not a gospel message. Isn't that interesting? Why do you think that is?

It's perhaps worth noting that Christ, in inaugurating his ministry by submitting to the baptism of John (Mt. 3:13-15), was in effect "going undercover." That is, for the time being, he was not openly declaring the full revelation of what it would mean for him to assume this mantle of messiahship. Thus, "the sermon on the mount" may be seen as a preparatory message, in advance of the full unfolding of what his coming is all about.

As noted above, it is essentially the same message as John's, and yet it is accompanied with healing. Thus his fame spreads and many come to him, and to these people he preaches his "sermon," a message about the attitude his hearers are to have as they await the kingdom. He is saying, in essence, Yes, the kingdom is near, very near, so see to how you walk. And here are a few pointers: blessed are the poor in spirit, etc.

At the end of this sermon we are told: "And when Jesus finished these sayings the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority...." The wisdom of Christ's words revealed, perhaps, just how the "near" the kingdom really was. This matter of "speaking with authority" was apparently as striking and noteworthy, to those listening, as his healings had been.

And so we arrive at chapter 8. Herein Jesus proceeds to heal 1) a leper, 2) the centurion's daughter, and 3) Peter's mother-in-law, 4) many who were demon-possessed, 5) many who were sick, and 6) two Gadarene demoniacs. But amidst all this we have the first hint, inserted by the author with the benefit no doubt of hindsight, of the full meaning of what Jesus was doing. Was he simply demonstrating the power of the kingdom? Well, there is that, yes, but Matthew seizes the opportunity to point to the fundamental meaning of Christ's healings. Read verses 16-18 again:

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "He took our illnesses and bore our diseases."

Isaiah 53 of course. And it is here, in these verses, that the Gospel intrudes on Matthew's story, orienting our understanding. Is Jesus simply waving a wand and making sickness go away. No, in some way as yet not clear, Jesus is "bearing our diseases." What can this mean? We shall have to keep that question in mind as we read on.

8 Characteristics of Salt-and-Light Living

2006-08-04T09:32:00.000-04:00

Matthew 5:13-14 (you are the salt of the earth . . . you are the light of the world) is a passage usually spoken of in connection with the subject of evangelism. We are salt and light by being bold about our faith, preaching the gospel, etc. But these verses come in a context that has nothing to do with such matters. They come in the context of Jesus Christ’s discussion of spiritual integrity--or in other words, his discussion of an inward heart-attitude that is consistently and thoroughly "walked out" in the common affairs of life. That is, the faith and the life are perfectly in sync.

So then, regarding salt and light, the light that we are to shine and the "flavor" that we are to add to the world simply by virtue of our being in it, has about it the following qualities:

Beatitude #1 - spiritual poverty or deep humility
Beatitude #2 - a prompt and authentic sensitivity to the pain of others Beatitude #3 - meekness or gentleness (as opposed, perhaps, to a retributive spirit)
Beatitude #4 - a hunger for what is right or in line with God’s character and will
Beatitude #5 - a disposition to mercy or deep and consistent and "natural" kindness
Beatitude #6 - purity of heart (wholeness, integrity)
Beatitude #7 - peacemaking
Beatitude #8 - such a commitment to what is right that one is even willing to endure persecution for it

These are the aspects of salt-and-light-living that Jesus purposefully chose to highlight in this inaugural sermon of his ministry. Much that follows is simply illustration of these 8 important characteristics. I am all for evangelism, I am all for being open about one's faith, but how much more powerful might our "witness" become if it were corroborated by these deeply-rooted character traits?

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that such a life, according to Jesus' repeated emphasis, is blessed by God?

Matthew 5

2006-08-04T06:53:00.000-04:00

So here I am happily blogging along in that off-hand seat-of-the-pants spur-of-the-moment way that we bloggers often do--and then I come to Matthew 5, for crying out loud. The so-called "sermon on the mount," about which so much has been said, for so long, by so many. Here are some of the most disturbing--and silencing--words ever spoken.

So, I'll just say this: note the virtues that Jesus extolls here. Poverty of spirit, mournfulness(!), meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, purity or cleanness of heart, peacemaking, and a commitment to what is right so stubborn and true that it draws down enmity and persecution (how's that for interpretive license!).

I am struck once again at how antithetical these values are to what we would call a happy well-adjusted person. This is either complete hogwash (as many believe it to be), or the deepest truths ever spoken.

Ask yourself: how well do our leaders in the church display these characteristics? How well do we? My God, how well do I?

Matthew 4

2006-08-03T07:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I hadn't really planned this, but perhaps I'm going to blog through The Gospel of Matthew. As I said yesterday, I'm just trying to overcome my own familiarity and read the text with "fresh eyes," and I'm using these blog-posts to help me do so. I'm reading one chapter a day, so stay with me and perhaps we'll learn things together.

Matthew 3 ends with the baptism of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit of God upon him. In The Presence and the Power G. E. Hawthorne writes:

Immediately after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended upon him, entered into him, filled him without measure, and remained within him. The consequence of this crisis event was that the entire course of Jesus' life was forever changed. From this moment onward the directing and empowering impulse of the Spirit of God ordered the way he was to go, the things he was to say and do.

That's something I hadn't thought about before. The descent of the Spirit was a kind of crisis in his life. What would come after was going to be in some way drastically different than what came before.

And what's the first thing the Spirit does? Leads him into a desert wilderness--in fact, John the Baptist's old stomping-grounds--where he'll be tempted by the devil. Note this: he is led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted. Yup, that's what it says at 4:1.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

To put it another way, it was a part of God's plan for Jesus that his Spirit-led ministry should be inaugurated by a close-encounter with evil, a full-frontal assault of the enemy. This was the first demonstration, for Jesus' benefit alone, of the power that the Spirit's presence would give him.

It kind of reminds me of a verse I read this morning:

It is good for me that I was afflicted, / that I might learn your statutes. Ps. 119:71

Or, in Jesus' case, It is good for me that I was tempted, that I might learn the real power of your indwelling Word.

Well, much more can be said (and has been) about all these desert temptations, but in the end Jesus comes out of that experience as a sort of new and improved John the Baptist, preaching exactly the same message ("Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"), but unlike John accompanying that preaching with healing on a massive scale. People come flocking of course, and this carpenter's son from Nazareth seems invested with a power heretofore unknown. The obvious question, for one reading this account 2000 years later, might be: Okay, but what's all this about a kingdom?

Extraordinary Jesus

2006-08-02T07:36:00.000-04:00

So I'm reading Matthew again, one chapter per day, trying to see the story of Jesus with "fresh eyes." Trying to catch that note of awe in Matthew's voice. Trying to remember how utterly shocking this strange tale is.

In the first chapter we learn of the extraordinary circumstance of Jesus' birth. He is the one foretold, born (of all things) to a virgin. Now, if you stop and think about it, that's a pretty outrageous statement, but one we have managed to turn into a line of bloodless doctrine. In fact, of course, it's a stunning indication that, well, something extraordinary is in the works.

Chapter 2 has eastern magi picking up and leaving their distant lands in pursuit of a star, for crying out loud. How strange is that? They realize, apparently, that the world is about to be turned upside down, and the evidence is on display in the heavens. Herod also realizes this, but his intentions are different. Yes, evil is stirred to action--dreadful action--by what is about to happen in little Bethlehem.

Then, chapter 3. Thirty years or so have come and gone. John the Baptist. Freaky desert guru, proclaiming the soon-coming fulfillment of ancient prophecy. His message: you better repent now, because the Lord is coming. Many people take him seriously. They seem to understand that life as-we-know-it has run its course. Something's happening. Something's on the way. Get ready!

It's useful to stop for a moment and look at the verbal formulations with which John describes these extraordinary at-hand circumstances:

v.2 - the kingdom of heaven is at hand
v.3 - the Lord is coming (quoting Isaiah)
v.7 - this coming will involve, for some, wrath
v.11 - the coming one will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire
v.12 - His winnowing fork is in His hands (judgment)

Okay, this guy could be out of his mind, who knows? But people take him seriously, and many repent, coming down to the Jordan for baptism. Clearly, they want to be counted righteous by this coming one, they want to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. They want to be wheat, not chaff.

Then Jesus shows up, down by the riverside. This one whose birth, recall, was extraordinary. He is baptized by the somewhat shocked and dismayed John, and then the Spirit of God descends upon him. However this was manifested, it was an apparently visible sign. And then, to top things off, people hear a voice. Does it thunder from the skies? Or does it whisper in the inner sanctum of each man's heart? "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

Just imagine being there. Extraordinary. Crazy stuff. No one will believe it when I tell them. But this guy, this Jesus, from Nazareth, this ordinary man, could he really be the kingdom-bringer that John keeps talking about? The Coming One, here at last? Here? At last?

Extraordinary.

The Naming of Jesus: A Sabbath Meditation

2006-07-30T07:43:00.000-04:00

Three times in the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel, the account speaks of the naming of Jesus. That is, it speaks of what he was to be called called, how he was to be known.

At verse 17, just at the end of the 42 generation genealogy, we read: "and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ."

That Jesus was called Christ does not of necessity imply divinity. But it does require one in the line of David, who shall rule over a restored kingdom. This is in fact the purpose of Matthew's genealogy, to show that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed descended from David. In fact, the start of the genealogy affirms this: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."

So the first name featured here is Christ, which is to say, a Davidic messiah, or savior. But we get more light on the matter of who Jesus, and what it means to be a savior, when we read the words of the angel to Joseph at verse 21:

"Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

His name shall be Jesus, which means, Yahweh is salvation. Christ means savior, but Jesus means God saves.

So Jesus was, yes, descended from David, fulfilling one aspect of messiahship, but now we have affirmed another aspect of that prophecy: Only Yahweh can save. Therefore, the messiah must be, at the very least, a servant of Yahweh, doing his will. And yet we are approaching a new possibility here. Can it be that the Christ is God? God himself? Matthew cinches the deal immediately after affirming that "Yahweh is salvation," by going back to the ancient prophecy of Isaiah 7:14:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel."

And "Immanuel" means, as Matthew is quick to point out, "God with us." So, the three "names" of Jesus affirm three propositions:

1) Jesus was the prophesied Davidic savior (as Matthew's genealogy shows).
2) Only God saves (as the OT Scriptures show again and again).
3) Therefore, Jesus was "God with us" (as his life, ministry, death, and resurrection would show).

G. E. Hawthorne on the Holy Spirit

2006-07-28T10:13:00.000-04:00

I've been reading Gerald F. Hawthorne's The Presence and the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ. It comes highly recommended by such luminaries as Scot McKnight and Sam Storms. Here's a great little summation of the Spirit's work (from p. 53):

The Spirit of God is powerfully present in his world, involving himself primarily in the world of human beings, coming upon people so as to infuse them with new life, new vigor, new vision, new strength, new powers of body and mind in order that each person so infused might play a significant, important, and decisive role in the course of redemptive history.

Just thought I'd share.

Conflation-Manifestation

2006-07-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

Something Jared said (see my quotation in yesterday's post) has me thinking. He spoke of the conflation of optimism (or an energetic "go-getter" attitude) with the filling of the Holy Spirit. I think this is a pretty important insight, especially for Christians who call themselves Charismatic. This phenomenon manifests itself in a couple of ways (at least). One is the emphasis on enthusiasm as a necessary prerequisite that allows God to move. The other is the conflation of positive thinking with faith. You know, "I'm believing God for a parking space near the entrance."

Regarding "enthusiasm": well, the simple fact is, it's easy as pie for a decent bunch of musicians to whip a willing audience into a frenzy of excitement. Actually, that's common as paint. But when the band is a "worship team" and the frenzied crowd a congregation, we call it being Spirit-filled. Okay, maybe. Maybe all we have to do, really, is shake off the dust and dance. Or maybe we're just attending a rock concert.

That's one maifestation of this "conflation." [Hmmm, new catch-phrase: conflation-manifestation] The other is the God-is-my-good-luck-charm brand of optimism, that says along with the old Mets-Phillies reliever Tug McGraw, "You gotta believe," and if you do, if you believe hard enough and well enough, God will land you that new job, find you that choice parking space, lead you to that wife/husband you'd always wanted, even cure your cancer.

That's all I have to say this morning. Except that, well, I admit that this conflation rests on the twin truths that enthusiasm is indeed a natural response to the love of God, and faith is certainly of bedrock importance in the walk of the Christian. So there is truth beneath this conflation. But somehow I get the feeling we're getting the focus skewed. What do you think?

Two from Jared

2006-07-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

Jared at Shizuka Blog is saying things I've wanted to say myself, but couldn't find the words. Like this:

The real devil in the details of the prosperity-type teaching overtaking evangelicalism is not really that it skips over the stuff about sin. Sure, it does that too, but the pernicious paradox of this stuff is that it champions "victorious Christian living" yet does not equip believers for sustainable discipleship. It emphasizes feelings and "outlook," not the power of the Spirit, which is hard for some folks to notice since the latter is often conflated with the former (so that being optimistic or a go-getter is ipso facto being Spirit-empowered). The problem over time is that, going from victory to victory, expecting victory after victory, cultivates a contagious form of spiritual greed. (Is it any wonder that this sort of teaching often goes hand and hand with talk of financial riches and prosperity?) The real stuff of discipleship -- what Eugene Peterson calls "a long obedience in the same direction" -- involves hard stuff like discipline and the fruit of the Spirit. In pop discipleship discipline is replaced by steps, tips, and amazingsupercolossal breakthroughs.

The post is called Content (as in contentment) and is well-worth a careful reading.

Oh, and while we're in a "let's quote Jared" mood, how about this one from a brief post called Flipside:

We are in a strange -- but, dare I say it?, exciting -- place where the Gospel continues to scandalize even those sitting in the pews next to us or in the chairs across from us in small group.

Indeed.

Five Good Things

2006-07-21T08:48:00.000-04:00

I just realized Jared is posting again at Shizuka Blog, after a long layoff. That's a good thing.

***

Douglas Groothius is one of those bloggers who actually writes books! In fact, I just sent for his On Jesus, which I'm looking forward to reading. Anyway, in a recent post Douglas presents a reading list "for developing a Christian mind." The blog is Culture Watch, and the post is It's Never a Bad Time to Recommend a Few Books. I agree.

***

Bill of Out of the Bloo is very cool. Cool like jazz, you might say. But what may be cooler is Way Out of the Blue, which is the newish blog of Bill's son, AJ. Blogging dad, blogging son. Very cool.

***

A nice post on the subject of repentance at Boar's Head Tavern. I concur.

***

Finally, Ligon Duncan quotes from an African evangelist on the state of Christian teaching over there. I think we Western Christians often have an idyllic view of Christianity in the developing world. We assume their faith is more authentic, more powerful, because they're supposedly undistracted by the charms of advanced material culture. Duncan's correspondent puts the lie to all that. Wherever the true Gospel is preached, false gospels spring up everywhere, because a false gospel is the devil's primary weapon against your faith and mine.

Changing Times

2006-07-21T07:48:00.000-04:00

Some big changes coming in my little ol' life. Main one, I'll be sliding into a new position at work. I've been a reference librarian for the past five years, but now will be moving into a "back-of-the-house" role as purchaser for the three libraries at USM. This means, well, that I'll be buying books for a living. Hmmm, dreams really do come true!

The potential down-side of this is that I'll probably be going to work earlier, thus will have less morning time to blog. Morning has always been my blogging time. I don't intend to abandon this blog--not on your life--but I have no idea how evening blogging will effect the content.

The other thing is . . . well, umm, I think I'm going to try to write a novel. I hesitate to say this, because the whole thing could fall apart like a house of cards, but lately I've gone from toying with a few ideas to actually writing them down, working them out. I have no pretentions about writing a great novel or even a very good one, but I think it would be fun just to give it a whirl. And fun is my one goal, by the way. Fun, and finishing. I want to have fun with it, and I hope to finish it. But I don't have any qualitative goals. This thing could be comically bad, and that would be just alright with me.

So, what does all this mean for gratitude & hoopla? I dunno. Maybe shorter posts that simply link to other blogs, ala the good milton at Transforming Sermons. We'll just have to wait and see. What will remain constant, though, is gratitude. And hoopla. Because God is really really good!

The Centrality of the Cross

2006-07-18T07:23:00.000-04:00

If you cruise around the Christian blogosphere, you'll find the occasional blogger who distinguishes himself as a Cross-centered or Christ-centered or perhaps a Gospel-centered blogger. The very fact that these terms are in use points to the reality that it is possible to be a Christian and yet be "centered" on other things.

As I've progressed as a Christian I've developed in my understanding of what should be central. I don't insist that everyone agree with me (or they're not true-blue Christians!), and I fear that I may sound rather pompous and know-it-all-ish here, but I've simply identified the doctrinal hook on which I personally intend to hang my hat. And so, yes, I'm one of those who might be overheard calling my blog (or my doctrine) Cross-centered. I count among the many like-minded bloggers such fine folks as Brad at Broken Messenger, Mark at GospelDrivenLife, and Cruv at To Tell You the Truth, to name just a few (there are many others).

Now, I've been following Jesus for about 15 years. My first church was Lutheran, and there the central thing (doctrinally speaking) might be summed up with the old Latin phrase, sola fide, faith alone. This was all well and good, and it is a doctrinal understanding that is as Biblical as can be, but I'm not sure that it's really at the center, the very core of what I believe. Very near the core, perhaps, and very dependent upon what is at the core, but not the core itself. And to treat it as the core belief, the one thing without which all of the other doctrinal pieces fly apart like stars in an exploding galaxy, will lead inevitably to problems. And did.

When I left the Lutherans (for various reasons both doctrinal and personal), I wasn't exactly sure of what I was looking for as an alternative. This question of centraility--what should be the central theme, the core message--didn't really occur to me. I guess what I'm saying is, I've come by my understanding of the centrality of the cross of Christ in a gradual and rather piecemeal fashion.

Now I'm a Vineyard guy, and I love my church for all the reasons everyone else loves it. Mainly, there's a lot of love there. At the Vineyard the core doctrine has to do with their understanding of "the Kingdom of God." George Eldon Ladd's slim book, The Gospel of the Kingdom, lays out this doctrine in fine fashion.

Now, as with Luther's doctrine of sola fide, Ladd's delineation of the meaning of the Kingdom of God for Christians is something I honor very highly. I've got no argument with it at all. But in practical terms it is not, in my opinion, the primary New Testament truth on which all other truth depends. Yes, it is very nearly central (or, to change the metaphor, "foundational"), but not quite. And to treat it as the central thing can lead to problems. And does.

The Christians at Corinth, in the first century, placed various things at the center of their doctrinal understanding (the charismatic gifts, for example). Paul takes them to task for that. In fact, he wrote his letters to the Corinthians in a white heat, eager to correct false or misleading emphases, to make the Corinthian Christians understand what was truly the one thing, the central thing upon which all other Christian "things" must be anchored. He said, "I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

I'll have more to say on this, but for now just go read Brad's post called The Greatest Doctrine. It says everything I just said, only better.

Peterson on Taking up the Cross

2006-07-16T06:38:00.000-04:00

Eugene Peterson, in his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, speaking of Christ's call to his disciples to "pick up your cross and follow," says this:

I don't know of any part of the Christian Gospel that is more difficult to move from the pages of sacred Scripture and the honored volumes of theology into the assumptions and practices of our everyday Christian lives.

Boy, I like that. And I don't believe it is a truth that is often faced, or that we often allow to challenge us. This is a place, a verse, that can speak a "who goes there" into the life of a disciple. Unless you are willing to take up your cross, you shall not pass.

Me, I don't know exactly what that might look like in my own life. Peterson says that, generally speaking, it looks like self-sacrifice. Putting aside personal interest and comfort in favor of the interests and comfort of others. He writes:

We begin our morning prayers with Jesus, "Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet . . ." (Mark 14:36) And our "yet . . ." trails off: instead of completing Jesus' prayer ("not what I want but what you want") we begin entertaining other possibilities. If all things are possible for the Father, perhaps there is another way to do something about what is wrong with the world, a way by which I can help out and make things better other than through a sacrificial life. In the jargon of the day, we pray: "sacrifice is not one of my gifts--I want to serve God with my strength, with my giftedness." It's a strange thing, but sacrifice never seems to show up on anyone's Myers-Briggs profile.

Graceful Words

2006-07-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

Mark McMinn, in an article for Christianity Today (back in 2004) wrote:

Karl Barth, the 20th-century Swiss theologian, shows the absurdity of [pride]. Our pride demonstrates how much we want to be like God. Meanwhile, God—the eternal and majestic Creator, filled with all power, knowledge, and goodness—empties himself in the form of Jesus, even to the point of a violent and horrific death on trumped-up charges. Humans are puffed up in pride as God is emptied in humility. It is absurd.

But it is nonetheless real. While pride blinds us spiritually, our defense mechanisms—the psychological armor we use to protect ourselves from seeing the truth about ourselves—keep us in the dark, and for good reason. If we live in a world without grace, then our defense mechanisms are the only things keeping us from the precipice of despair.

Taking a Break (sort of)

2006-07-11T08:35:00.000-04:00

Well, folks, I have not felt this disinclined toward blogging--and for this long--since I started nearly four years ago. It's a mood that can change in a day of course, but I think I'm going to blog sparingly in the coming days. Everything is fine. I'll continue to keep tabs on my favorite bloggers and I think may post briefly from time to time, but for the next week or two (I suspect) that will be the extent of it. Unless of course I change my mind . . . .

Saturday Re-wind: Patricia

2006-07-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

This is an old post from Mr. Standfast, better than 2 years old now, a tribute to my mother. Since then her husband has passed away and now she's dealing with breast cancer (btw, I know she'd appreciate your prayers). She's tough as nails, though. Everything I wrote about her 2 years ago still holds true today:

Her name is Patricia Imogene. She was born on a farm in southern Indiana. Like many people who grow up on a farm, she has always been both gentle and tough--soft, but stubborn--like saddle-leather. When she was a girl, her father died, and her mother moved the family into town. That would be Columbus, Indiana. This must have been a very hard time in her life, but I'm only guessing, because she never spoke of it much. She has never been one to speak of such things, except in the most matter-of-fact way. Later, she married her high-school sweetheart. I don't know, maybe he reminded her of her Dad. He was smart, funny and ambitious. He joined the Navy. They moved a lot. Home was always very far away. After a while things began to turn very bad. Rotten, that's her word. She learned to curse like a sailor. When it was all too much, she divorced him and moved to another state. Three kids. No job. No friends. No child-support in the mail, as promised. But she kept everything together. She held on. She did the best she could. She poured herself out for her children. That's a cliche, but that's what you really need to know about her. She worked as a seamstress in a factory, sewing cushions. Eventually she married again. She learned to drink like a truck-driver when his shift is done. Her kids grew, and had the usual troubles, some of them quite bad. She made mistakes, but she kept on pouring herself out. It was just a matter of fact. Her mother-love was stubborn, unpretentious, unassuming, sacrificial, and overcoming. She loved when it didn't seem to matter or make sense. She kept on and kept on and kept on.

Now she's taking care of her husband, who's in failing health. Her children have scattered. They write, they call, but they seldom visit. The farmland of her childhood is all paved over. The place where her dog went to die, after it had been kicked by the horse--paved over. If you ask her how she's doing, she says, "Oh, fine, I guess. Can't complain. It wouldn't do any good anyway."

Listen. Here's all you really need to know about Patricia Imogene. She drank the cup she was given. Sometimes it was sweet, sometimes bitter, but she drank it up. She lived her life.

Grace-blogging

2006-07-06T07:32:00.000-04:00

That five-day blogging break was not planned, but certainly welcome. And now it seems like a fine time to re-assess what gratitude & hoopla is all about. This is the sort of thing I need to do from time to time, to keep me from getting off course.

Gratitude & hoopla should be, first and foremost, a grace-centered blog. I love and admire the other grace-bloggers out there. Brad at Broken Messenger, Mark at Gospel Driven Life, the gang of all-stars at Together for the Gospel, and of course the inestimable Milton Stanley at Transforming Sermons, among others. May I be counted among them.

The ease with which we Christians allow ourselves to be diverted to other things is really quite remarkable. We drift. We need an anchor. In the past year or so I have made a detirmination to spend the rest of my life investigating the riches of the grace that is to be found in Christ Jesus. As a subject of study, it is inexhaustable. As a tool of ministry, it is ever-relevant. As a weapon against the wiles of the evil one it is ever-powerful.

In the little epistle to Jude near the very end of our Bible, the unknown author warns about "ungodly people, who pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Notice how closely associated are the perversion of grace and the denial of Christ's lordship. Christ and grace are inextricably bound. To preach grace is to preach Christ, and especially His cross. A preacher may have many other things to say and do, but if in the midst of it all he loses this focus, he is no longer preaching the Gospel.

I say all that in order to come at last to this: gratitude & hoopla only exists as a tool to remind both its readers and its author of the inexhaustible riches of the grace that is found in Christ Jesus.

Just Stopping By

2006-06-30T08:13:00.000-04:00

I'm just stepping in to say, go read Brad's recent post, Paul & the Gospel. Cross-blogging at its best.

I'm leaving for Boston later today to see my son, Tim, in a performance of Romeo & Juliet (playing the fesity Sampson). Cool, huh? My son Tim. What a guy. Painter of extravagant canvases that he stores, sometimes, in my shed, composer of delicate and tasty animation soundtracks (well, just one so far), and now he "strides the boards" in a shoestring theater in Boston. Is there another quite like my son Tim? I think not.

On Indulgences in the Modern Church

2006-06-29T07:28:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's post seemed to touch a soft spot for several people. American consumer culture makes us all its victims, treats us all as nothing more than sources of profit, and the deceit-ridden promotional strategies by which that culture perpetuates its existence does so first by drawing our hearts and minds to believe preposterous claims, and thereby causing us to volunteer the cash from our wallets (which is, after all, the whole point). We have all been acculturated to this process and hardly recognize the lies any more. The sad thing is, this mindset, these strategies, are endemic in the American consumer church, and yet we all seem perfectly willing to play the game.

Please understand me: I am not against selling. I am not against buying books and videos and going to conferences. But what appalls me is that the secular world's methods have been accepted hook line and sinker as the way to promote these products. Appeals to human vanity and pride, promotion of insecurity if you don't buy the product, over-the-top promises--and all this leading to a lifestyle of incessant consumption as we search for the one product that will finally fulfill its promises.

But what if God cannot be bought in the marketplace? What if freedom and joy were priceless, beyond the purchasing power even of Buffett and Gates, and the only way to receive it was as a gift? Surely the Christian marketplace undermines the reception of this truth even as thoroughly as, say, the indulgence-sellers of Martin Luther's day. If there is ever to be a new reformation, we will have to once again throw the profiteers out of the temple.

A Brisk Market in Christian Idols

2006-06-28T07:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I quoted extensively from Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, and I'm going to stay with it a little bit longer. Drawing his cues from the reactions of the various witnesses to the resurrection, he says that the attitude of wonder prompted by the sight of the risen Lord had five components:

1) Unpreparedness--no one was ready for a resurrection like this.
2) The uselessness of experts--no one can master awe. The "experts" were all wrong.
3) The prominence of marginal companions--this thing is not just for VIPs.
4) The quiet out-of-the-wayness--no spotlights, media alerts, showmanship
5) Fear--holy flabbergasted fearful wonder.

These five are typical characteristics of the human response to resurrection. Peterson sums it up in the common word, "wonder." He says that the reawakening of this kind of wonder is a part of our new life in Christ, but that life in this world--and especially in the workplace--tends to crush it out of us. In response, we learn to accept the wonderless drudgery of the workplace and seek spiritual highs in other settings. Here's how Peterson puts it:

A huge religious marketplace has been set up in North America to meet the needs of people just like us. There are conferences and gatherings custom-designed to give us the lift we need. Books and videos and seminars promise to let us in on the Christian "secret" of whatever we feel is lacking in our life: financial security, weight-loss, exotic sex, travel to holy sites, exciting worship, celebrity teachers. The people who promote these goods and services all smile a lot and are good looking. They are obviously not bored.

It isn't long before we are standing in line to buy whatever is being offered. And because none of the purchases does what we had hoped for, or at least not for long, we are soon back to buy another, and then another. The process is addictive. We have become consumers of packaged spiritualities.

This also is idolatry. We never think of using this term for it since everything we are buying or paying for is defined by the adjective "Christian." But idolatry it is nevertheless: God packaged as a product; God depersonalized and made available as a technique or program. The Christian market in idols has never been more brisk or lucrative.

Sabbath Wonder

2006-06-27T07:42:00.000-04:00

I've been sharing lately from Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. Half the reason for this blog, after all, is to share from the books I'm reading. Peterson's discussion of the value of Sabbath-keeping has been helpful to me. I have not the time to cover this chapter in detail, but I wanted to share a few points anyway. Peterson associates Sabbath-keeping, for one thing, with the cultivation of wonder. In that regard he quotes the always quotable G. K. Chesterton:

What has really happened during the last seven days and nights? Sometimes we have been dissolved into darkness as we have been dissolved into dust; our very selves, so far as we know, have been wiped out of the world of living things; and seven times we have been raised alive like Lazarus, and found all our limbs and senses unaltered, with the coming of the day.

Peterson associates Sabbath-keeping with the cultivation of a sense of wonder; wonder before God and wonder before God's creation. And this wonder is born of resurrection. As the Chesterton quote indicates, it is resurrection wonder. Concerning the resurrection of Jesus, Peterson draws five conclusions about resurrection.

1. The resurrection of Jesus, however much it seems to have been predicted of old and however much it was mentioned by Jesus himself, took everyone by surprise. Peterson: "Nothing here is quite analogous to the usual categories by which we understand ourselves--psychological development, for instance, or moral metaphysics. We inhabit a mystery. We must not pretend to know too much."

2. No one involved in Christ's resurrection appearances did anything to prepare for the event. As Peterson says, "There is no 'working up' of a readiness for wonder." There are no experts at this. We are all beginners here. Was this part of what Jesus meant when he said we must enter the Kingdom "as little children"?

3. Marginal people play a prominent role. This seems an important point for the modern church to hear well. "The men and women who are going to be most valuable to us in cultivating fear-of-the-Lord wonder are most likely going to be on the edge of respectability: the poor, the minorities, the suffering and rejected, poets and children."

4. This point relates to Shane Claibrone's suggestion that the American church needs to de-spectacularize. Peterson speaks of our penchant for "surrounding important events with attention-getting publicity." He adds, "Bright lights and amplification are not accessories to the cultivation of wonder."

5. This, says Peterson, is the most important point: "fear is the most frequently mentioned response to Jesus' resurrection." He continues:

We're afraid when we're suddenly taken off guard and don't know what to do. We're afraid when our presuppositions and assumptions no longer account for what we're up against and we don't know what will happen to us. We're afraid when reality without warning is shown to be either more or other than we thought it was. Fear-of-the-Lord is fear with the scary element deleted. And so it is often accompanied by the reassuring "fear not." The "fear not" doesn't result in the absence of fear, but rather its transformation into "fear-of-the-Lord." But we still don't know what is going on. We still are not in control. We still are deep in a mystery.

Peterson on Sabbath Keeping

2006-06-26T07:25:00.000-04:00

God's creation rhythms, brought to completion in the Sabbath rest commands, are reproduced in our lives through acts of worship in a structure and place and time that enable our participation. When we walk out of the place of worship we walk with fresh, recognizing eyes and a re-created, obedient heart into the world in which we are God's image participating in God's creation work. Everythinig we see, touch, feel, and taste carries within it the rhythms of "And God said . . .and it was so . . . and it was good . . ." We become adept at discerning the Jesus-signs and picking up on the Jesus-words that reveal the presence and the glory. We are more deeply at home in the creation than ever.

From Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (p. 113)

The Wisdom of Spurgeon

2006-06-24T14:32:00.000-04:00

I just love this Spurgeon quotation:

I often find myself like this:—I have been praying that the Holy Spirit might rest in my heart and cleanse out an evil passion, and presently I find myself full of doubts and fears, and when I ask the reason, I find it is this:—I have been looking to the Spirit's work until I put the Spirit's work where Christ's work ought to be. Now, it is a sin to put your own works where Christ's should be; but it is just as much a sin to put the Holy Spirit's work there. You must never make the Spirit of God an anti-Christ, and you virtually do that when you put the Spirit's work as the groundwork of your faith.

Thanks, Broken Messenger, for the timeless quote.

Cross-Quotes

2006-06-23T07:37:00.000-04:00

Charles Spurgeon:

It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed.

Mark Dever:

[W]e would do well to accept our guilt and admire God's grace, to let the Holy Spirit encourage us by the Savior's self-denying love to follow his example, and to savor God's love to us in this almost incredible sacrifice.

Both quotes from Dever's article, Nothing but the Blood [HT: Stronger Church]

Eugene Peterson on Glory

2006-06-22T07:07:00.000-04:00

In Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, author Eugene Peterson comments at length on the use of the word "glory" in John's Gospel. He points our attention to chapter 12, when Philip and Andrew come to Jesus with the news that some Greeks have asked if they might meet with Jesus. This could be Jesus' opportunity to reach a wider audience. But Jesus, as so often in John's gospel, answers ambiguously. In fact, he speaks of his own death.

And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." John 12:23-26

Now, here's an excerpt from Peterson's wonderful commentary on this passage:

Jesus begins and ends this passage with the word "glory." Glory, the brightness of God's presence right here on our home ground, clearly has something, maybe everything, to do with his approaching death and burial. This is going to take some relearning. The dictionaries and word studies in Hebrew and Greek, the etymologies and definitions that we are so fond of, at this moment are radically relativized. Jesus takes the brightest word in our vocabularies and plunges it into the darkest pit of experience, violent and excruciating death. Everything we have associated with glory has to be recast: we have entered a mystery. (p.101-2)

De-spectacularize!

2006-06-21T07:40:00.000-04:00

Someone gave me a copy of Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution, and I just finished reading it last night. Now I'm passing it on to my son, Tim, and I hope that after reading it he passes it on to someone else. Whatever one may think about Shane's utopian political agenda (he's sort of an Evangelical Socialist), I found much in this book to commend itself. One of the elements of modern-day American Christianity that Claiborne sets himself against is our love-affair with bigness. Shane calls on his reader's to "de-spectacularize." Jesus says the Kingdom comes quietly, invisibly, spreading its influence like yeast in dough, but the corporate model of growth--bigger and bigger buildings, more TV networks--seems distinctly counter to that.

De-spectacularize! Yes, I do think he has a good point here. I think we need to challenge ourselves to imagine an alternative. Our addiction to growth (and the real benefits that it brings) is the root cause of the flight of many churches from our urban centers to the more roomy (and wealthy) suburbs. Thus the urban poor, no longer our neighbors, become the distant objects of our charity. Claiborne's answer is to return to the city, establish communities there, houses of hospitality, simply being good neighbors. He accepts and revels in the 2-or-3 together approach to ministry, where "church-life" has become, well, just plain life. I highly recommend Irresistible Revolution. It challenged me. It just may challenge you too.

Quotatious

2006-06-20T07:50:00.000-04:00

Tony Campolo said:

If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America.

Found in Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution (p. 269)

More Notes on 1 Peter 1: Hopeful Exiles

2006-06-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

The first chapter of Peter’s first epistle is in itself a concise little masterpiece. Not unlike Paul’s opening chapter to the Ephesians, this one paints the believer in the midst of a vast timescape, an interlocking pattern of past, present and future.

Like Paul, Peter presents a worldview that sweeps all the way back to the time "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4; 1Pet 1:20), and forward to "the fullness of time" (Eph. 1:10; 1Pet 1:5). But the intermediate stage, that which we call the present, is primarily described by both authors as a time of hope (Eph 1:12; 1Pet 1:4).

The condition of the believer, according to Peter, is that of a hopeful (though for a time beleaguered) exile. He is guarded by the power of God through "various trials" (v.6), which are assumed to be the inevitable lot of the exile (not, it should be noted, a brief aberration attributable to his lack of faith). The one thing that separates the believer from the unbeliever in the midst of trials, then, is that he has an undying hope (v.4). Hope is the red badge of courage of the believer. Hope is his identifier, the living emblem of his faith.

In what then is this hope placed? In the eventual full revealing of salvation, when suffering and trial will at last end (v.5). When, in fact, the believer’s status as exile will be finally annulled, and he will receive an inheritance that will never, like mortal things, suffer decay or corruption.

All this would seem a rather wispy hope, the ultimate pie-in-the-sky, except that it is founded on a past event which was attested to by many witnesses–the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Peter’s words: "[God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (v.3). This past event, which the NT writers never feel pressed to defend (as if it were something no one could be expected to believe), provides the foundation for the Christian’s future hope. Furthermore, it was prophesied long ago by prophets who knew even then that it was to be a far future event (v.12).

So here we have the current situation: the believer is an exile, far from home, and yet he remains hopeful of a day when the full measure of blessing, which is nothing more than his inheritance (through faith), will one day be revealed. Though in the meantime he is "grieved by various trials," these will not last forever. In fact, even the trials and suffering will result in praise and glory to God. How can this be? Because in the end, when his salvation is fully revealed, that faith he held onto through all the fiery trials will be proven justifiable and right.

It is fashionable to emphasize the now aspect of the now/not yet Kingdom dichotomy, such as the gifts of the Spirit, which serve as confirmatory down-payments of the "inheritance" to come. But here Peter reminds us of that coin’s other face. Trials and suffering, grieving, are inevitable. To this extent, the kingdom has not yet come. But the wonder is that even these trials will result in praise and glory to God (v.7). Since this is the case, our whole attitude toward suffering is (or should be) transformed. We are able to rejoice in the midst of it (v.6). Amazing! How much rejoicing in trials have you done lately? In my case, the answer is none!

But here’s what Peter has to say. Since you have this hope for a certainty, prepare yourself for action (that is, for the purpose of facing your inevitable trials), placing your hope fully “on the grace that will be brought to you” when Christ returns (v.13). In the meantime, let your behavior be holy (v.15), conduct yourself with fear (v.17), knowing that you were ransomed by the blood of Jesus from futility of the flesh (v.18). Love one another sincerely (v.22), for the living word of God abides in you (v.23), and is vividly represented by the manner in which you live.

A Contrast

2006-06-18T08:47:00.000-04:00

I've met some interesting people lately. I talked to a man who was weary and broken. His life was truly in shambles and his prospects grim, but he faced his afflictions with a kind of wry humor. I spoke to him about God, and he told me gently that he wasn't sure that he could call himself a Christian, but then he thanked me warmly for my prayers.

I also talked to a man who was standing on a street corner with a flag that bore the image of a cross. Fine. Here was bold a Christian, right? But I found him to be as cold and hard a man as I have ever met, full of ugly indignation (but I'm sure he'd have called it "righteous").

Here's the thing. I liked the guy who wasn't sure he was a Christian much better than the one who boldly proclaimed it. Hmmm.

Notes on 1 Peter 1: Joy in Suffering

2006-06-17T06:41:00.000-04:00

Peter addresses his first epistle to the "elect exiles of the dispersion." Elect exiles, that's a nice label. In the following verses Peter will describe a time of glory to come, refer briefly to a time that has been, all so that he might place the present suffering of these exiles in an appropriate context.

That word, "exiles," is the key to understanding their present situation. God's children are exiles in this world. To be an exile is to be far from one's natural setting, to be among strangers. Perhaps the language of the natives is difficult for you, and the customs strange. To be and exile in the Mediterranean world of Peter's time was, we may suppose, to be required to endure suffering. Nevertheless, even this condition of exile is "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." And it has a purpose: it is "for the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood."

My daily Bible-reading plunked me down here this morning, in the first letter of Peter. Several commentaries describe the recipients of Peter's letters as exiles in the civil, not the spiritual or metaphorical sense. They were quite literally exiles from their homeland. But isn't it interesting that Peter says it is according to God's foreknowledge, which suggests that God allowed it to happen for his purpose--indeed, perhaps for the spreading of the Gospel to Asia Minor.

Notice this: as so often in the New Testament epistles, Christians are urged to endure suffering, and assured that it actually has a redemptive purpose in God's plan. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the NT writers ever pray for an end to suffering, but instead they pray for patience, endurance, steadfastness under suffering. This is so very different from modern Christianity. We tend to confront every instance of suffering with earnest prayers for God to miraculously intervene and bring it all to an immediate end, so that the sufferer can then "walk in victory."

Hmmm. There seems to be a disconnect here somewhere. Doesn't Paul go so far as to say that we should even rejoice in our suffering, because it builds our character, and character leads to hope, and hope does not disappoint [Romans 5:3-5]? Elsewhere, we're told that patience under affliction (called longsuffering in the KJV) is a gift of the Spirit. What a beautiful old-fashioned word that is: longsuffering. How often do we pray for that now: may God give you the gift of longsuffering.

No, we pray instead that we should never need such a gift. Oh, but we shall, my friends. We shall. If we have not already, we shall. And if you endure it, if you persevere, it shall result in "praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" [1Peter 1:7]. Imagine that.

Something's Going On Around Here . . .

2006-06-15T17:57:00.000-04:00

Something strange is happening around here. I mean, I keep running into posts like this from Today at the Mission:

We'd rather have a Christian lifestyle than to have Christ. We'd rather our faith be reduced to Sunday mornings with personally satisfying worship and a sermon that challenges us to a brief conversation in the car on the way home before having lunch and then getting some stuff done. We're enamored with being Christians yet we have little or no idea who Christ is, and we have no idea how to live as one who bears his name. [HT: Maced with Grace]

And then there's what Buzz said over at Gathering Wool:

Somehow, I had moved from the days of wondering how the church could build Jesus Cathedrals and family life centers when Jesus never said to do that, to helping to lobby for one in my home church.

Somehow, I moved from being critical of those who are "playing church," to actually playing church.

Somehow, I moved from being a Jesus freak to being a church freak.

When did that happen?

How did that happen?

More importantly, what am I going to do about it?

Hmmm. This is getting sticky. Like Buzz, I'm reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution. It's messing with my head. Although I don't necessarily buy into every aspect of the author's worldview, I can't help thinking his critique of the American church is fundamentally sound. You see, the chasm between being Christian (a cultural label) and being Christ-like (following in the Jesus way) seems to have grown distressingly wide even while we were busy doing church. With Buzz I keep asking,

How did this happen?

and

What can I do about it?

Can we talk?

2006-06-14T08:20:00.000-04:00

In my experience, the church (by which I mean church people) has always been afraid of honest dialogue. By that I mean, we have been afraid of forthright give-and-take that may even include some degree of criticism. The two churches that I have been involved with in my time as a Christian, although very different, have had this in common. With regard to themselves, their practices and beliefs, they are insistently positive. The first was able to keep honest criticism (along with dishonest) at bay simply by condemning every speck of criticism as clear evidence of heresy. My present church, on the other hand, is simply awash in positivity and happy-talk. You know, every song is "anointed," every message the best ever, every thought that pops into our heads an "impression" from the Lord ("I'm getting a picture..."). A more measured response seems like faith grown cold. C’mon, fella, where’s your joy?

Oh, well. The last thing I want is to come across as God’s official church-corrector. But there’s something about all this happy-talk that seems decidedly un-Biblical, un-Christian. Last week in church we sang five or six celebratory worship songs, not one of which mentioned Jesus nor intimated the real reason why we should be happy at all? All of them were insistently, even perversely, I-centered. You know the type: I’m happy, I’m free, I’m dancing, I’m singing, I give you all my heart, all my soul, etc.

So you might think I’m suffering from a little happy-clappy overload, but that’s not really the problem. I can be as happy-clappy as anyone. But I have this nagging feeling that week after week we’re simply not hitting the mark, nor even aiming at the right target. Something is missing. A plain-spoken sense of our own inadequacy, and Christ’s all-sufficiency. The Gospel, straight up. My need, and God’s provision in the cross of Christ.

When we first came to my church, we were frankly church-shopping. We were looking for freedom, yes, and expressive joy, and sold-out faith. But at the bottom of all this, at the foundation, we knew, would have to be Jesus. I remember telling Laurie, “I just want to hear about Jesus.”

And now it seems to me that with all the fervor and enthusiasm and mission-trips for the youth, etc., Jesus is, while not entirely forgotten, not entirely central either. It amazes me that a people that made such a fuss about Mel Gibson’s Jesus-movie can in actual practice have so sidelined the Savior. Is there a cross in your church? Not in mine.

Christ and Creation

2006-06-13T07:45:00.000-04:00

Eugene Petrson on Christ and creation:

The birth of Jesus provides the kerygmatic focus for receiving, entering into, and participating in creation, for living the creation and not just using it or taking it for granted. ... In the act of believing in creation, we accept and enter into and submit to what God does--what God made and makes. We are not spectators of creation but participants in it. We are particpants first of all by simply being born, but then we realize that our births all take place in the defining context of Jesus' birth. The Christian life is the practice of living in what God has done and is doing. We want to know the origins of things not to satisfy our curiosity about fossils and dinosaurs and the "big bang" but so that we can live out of our origins. We don't want our lives to be tacked onto something peripheral. We want to live origin-ally, not derivatively.

From Eugene Peterson Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

I don't mean to be negative, but . . .

2006-06-12T07:32:00.000-04:00

10 Things to Quit Worshipping:

1. Quit worshipping your country.
2. Quit worshipping your brand of Christianity.
3. Quit worshipping your political agenda.
4. Quit worshipping church programs.
5. Quit worshipping leaders.
6. Quit worshipping positive thinking.
7. Quit worshipping busyness.
8. Quit worshipping enthusiasm.
9. Quit worshipping love (or any other Spiritual gift).
10. Quit worshipping your heart.

Blogging Grace

2006-06-08T15:49:00.000-04:00

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, says:

In other words, rules can never produce virtue. Rules have a place, but a lesser place in terms of the time and attention we devote to them. Only grace and faith in Christ can produce virtue.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

2006-06-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

I've begun reading two very fine but very different books lately. One of them I've mentioned (and quoted) recently: Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth. The other, which I've just started, is Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

I expect to be quoting frequently from both of these books (such is my confidence that their wisdom will be well worth sharing). So, without further ado, here is Peterson, on the opening page of his introduction, explaining the theme of his book, which he calls "spiritual theology":

The end of all Christian belief and obedience, witness and teaching, marriage and family, leisure and work life, preaching and pastoral work is the living of everything we know about God: life, life, and more life. If we don't know where we are going, any map will get us there. But if we have a destination--in this case a life lived to the glory of God--there is a well-marked way, the Jesus-revealed Way. Spiritual theology is the attention that we give to the details of living life on this way. It is a protest against theology depersonalized into information about God; it is a protest against theology functionalized into a program of strategic planning for God.

On Holding Fast and Drawing Near

2006-06-07T08:02:00.000-04:00

Many people seem drawn to the strenuous action verbs of the Bible (strive, run the race, fight the fight, etc.), but in fact I think these often metaphorical passages suffer the violence of being wrenched from their contexts and made to serve purposes other than that for which they were intended. Men especially (and men's groups) are singularly noted for this. We don't seem to want to hear about resting, abiding, drawing near, so much as working, running, fighting, and winning prizes.

I've been reading Hebrews lately, and I find there that the characteristic imperatives, repeated many times, are 1) to enter or draw near, and 2) to hold fast (to our faith). And in fact these two action verbs are closely related. We do not draw near except by faith. Drawing near (to the throne of grace, to God) is an action we are only able to take through faith. So, we must hold fast to our faith (or to our confession, or to our confidence, or to our hope), and thereby, trusting that Jesus has made a way for us to approach the throne of grace, we draw near.

This is the basis of our relationship with God. It seems to me that much of Hebrews is spent elucidating this fundamental framework. All talk of "running races," then, must be embedded in this foundational understanding that any good thing we can ever do comes as a grace-gift from the throne of grace to a people who never deserved such largesse, but have received it nonetheless, through the blood of Jesus.

Well, as you may have noticed by now, I've got a "thing" about sermonic exhortations to work hard, to win the prize, etc., which seem to skimp on Jesus and his cross. These kinds of sermons seem to be adrift in the language of self-help, with a Christian gloss painted on. They lead at best to flurries of church activity followed by periods of exhaustion, frustration, or drift. I am convinced that the only real foundation for any such exhortation is the blood of Jesus. Our walk of love and obedience, if we are to walk it consistently, is going to be a response to the great love with which the Father has loved us. Come what may, I'm going to hold fast to this confession.

On Christian To-Do Lists

2006-06-05T07:23:00.000-04:00

My consideration of the subject of Biblical rest began with this passage from Hebrews 4:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

"That rest" is called "the Sabbath rest" in the previous verse. It is yet to come. It has not yet been achieved. It remains to be entered into. And so, "therefore let us strive to enter that rest . . ."

This is the "not yet" aspect of Kingdom rest. Like peace, like lions laying down with lambs, like every form of perfection that God has "prepared" for His people, we have not yet taken hold of it. Although we have all sorts of reasons to be confident about one day receiving it, it remains not yet. As Paul wrote to the Philippians:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

So there is certainly a need to press, to pursue, to take hold of and not let go.

All well and good. But if the Christian life is all about race-running, then perhaps all we really need is a good coach with a stirring you-can-do-it pep-talk. Keep on, you can do it. Run hard, you can do it. Memorize Scripture, you can do it. Pray unceasingly, you can do it.

What? You're not doing it yet? What's wrong with you?

Is this a problem, or am I just making this up? To tell you the truth, as should be clear by now, I can't really relate to these pep-talk sermons. I want to tear up these Christian Can-Do lists. Somehow, I can't help thinking they miss the point.

Let's go back to the Philippians verse. Look at the prior verses, in which Paul says, Everything that I once counted as valuable, working hard for with all diligence, I now count as rubbish. I've let it all go so that I might "gain Christ and be found in Him." He then unpacks this phrase--"to gain Christ and be found in Him". What does he mean? To gain Christ, he will explain, is to be like Him. It is, I think, another way of saying "conformed to his image." In this passage he sums up that conformity with reference to His victory over death (the power of his resurrection) and to His complete self-submission ("the fellowship of his sufferings").

Now, all this sounds rather strenuous. Anything but "restful." I thought salvation was by faith alone. But of course it is. Paul never misses the opportunity to remind his readers of just this, and he doesn't miss it here. All that sharing in Christ, having his likeness, being found in Him, is equated simply to this:

not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

At the end of the chapter, Paul will warn his readers about those teachers who offer a righteousness based on law-keeping, performance, doing-doing-doing. He calls such teachers "dogs." More to the point, he calls them "enemies of the cross." And he says, as a counterpoint:

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

It all comes round to this. In all our working, it is Christ working in us. Paul always makes sure to adjust the focus so that it is Christ who comes clear in the center of the picture. Christ, and His cross.

We cannot transform ourselves. To try to do so is to find ourselves among "enemies of the cross." So it seems the message here is Christ-centered and cross-centered, not race-centered. In the final analysis, we cannot strain after perfection; it must be given us.

Kingdom Rest

2006-06-03T08:14:00.000-04:00

Not long ago I heard a sermon that was almost entirely a recaptiulation of the story of Rudy, who always wanted to play football for Notre Dame and pursued this dream with dilligence and persistence. It was a struggle, and he kept at it, and though many people didn't think it was possible and told him so, he never lost hope, etc. etc.

I think the point of the sermon was that we should all be more like Rudy. It had the character of a pep-talk, intended as encouragement, but I couldn't find the Gospel anywhere in that message. It was all about confidence and hard work and persistence in order to reach your goal, with nothing about redemption, nothing about rest, no hint, in fact, of the Cross.

I think it's fairly easy to fall into this trap as an encourager. It's the you-can-do-it trap. As encouragers, we want to give hope, and in fact we've all grown up with this sort of encouragement. It's easy, it sounds good, and, well, perhaps it has its place. After all, we have all faced challenges before which we were tempted to give up, but words of encouragement have helped us carry on, push through, even conquer.

Nevertheless, the message of Jesus is, "Come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt 1:28-30). But how does this message jibe with Paul's frequent characterization of his own life of tireless struggle, race-running, goal-pursuing, etc.? Wasn't Paul a Biblical Rudy, striving to win his crown of glory?

I'm not going to answer these questions today, simply because I don't quite feel equipped to do so. But I will go this far: Biblical "rest" is the character of life in the Kingdom of God. It is life as God intended. Work--back-breaking, life-shortening labor, producing much sweat and little fruit--this is the predominant character of life in this world since Adam's fall. God said it would be so (Gen 3:17), and it is.

So Christ's promise of rest is closely associated with God's overall plan of restoration. And of course we have learned to think of these Kingdom things not merely as "yet to come," but also, for the redeemed of God, in some degree a verifiably present reality. That is, we who are in Christ can experience rest.

Well, although I haven't really answered my initial questions regarding rest and labor, I've made a start at thinking about these things. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts as well. More on this in the coming days.

The Content of Redemption

2006-06-02T07:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I never intended to miss nearly a whole week of blogging, but my mornings have been busy lately, and blogging has had to take a back seat (probably a good thing). Last time out I promised to talk about "rest" as it is used in the Bible, but as I have thought about it the subject just seems to broaden quickly in my mind, and soon I am thinking of the whole Creation / Fall / Redemption / Restoration saga that is the Bible story. So then the question becomes, where does Biblical rest--or more precisely, not only rest by its opposite, work--fit into that plan?

I hope to consider these things in the coming posts, but first I want to share with you a quote from Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth. A year or two ago it seemed that every Christian in the blogosphere was reading this book, but I'm just now getting around to it. In her opeing chapter, she's speaks of God's command to Adam and Eve--"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it"--as nothing less than a Cultural Mandate. A mandate to build a social world (a culture or civilization) and to harness the natural world. This, broadly speaking, is our calling. Pearcey writes, "The Fall did not destroy our original calling, but only made it more difficult. Our work is now marked my sorrow and hard labor."

But God's plan of redemption is a plan to reverse and ultimately nullify all the deleterious effects of sin. It is a plan of restoration. In the end, the universe will once again fully reflect the glory of its Creator. And we Christians, as the first fruits of that redemption plan, are expected to take part, by the power of the Spirit residing within us, in this mighty restoration project.

Because of Christ's redemption on the cross, our work takes on a new aspect as well--it becomes a means of sharing in His redemptive purposes. In cultivating creation, we not only receive our original purpose but also bring a redemptive force to reverse the evil and corruption introduced by the Fall. We offer our gifts to God to participate in making His Kingdom come, His will be done. With hearts and minds renewed, our work can now be inspired by love for God and delight in His service.

The lesson of the Cultural Mandate is that our sense of fulfillment depends on engaging in creative, constructive work. The ideal human existence is not eternal leisure or an endless vacation--or even a monastic retreat into prayer and meditation--but creative effort expended for the glory of God and the benefit of others. Our calling is not just to "get to heaven" but also to cultivate the earth, not just to "save souls" but also to serve God through our work....

This is the rich content that should come to mind when we hear the word redemption. The term does not refer only to a one-time conversion event. It means entering upon a lifelong quest to devote our skills and talents to building things that are beautiful and useful, while fighting the forces of evil and sin that oppress and distort creation.

from Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey (p.48-49)

Rest

2006-05-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

My daily reading this morning brought me to Hebrews 4, with its stirring final sentence:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

I don't have much time this morning, but I think I'd like to settle right here for the next couple of posts. The author's extended disquisition on the subject of "rest" raises many questions in my mind. For example what is the place of "striving" in the Christian life? Or to put it another way, what sort of striving is approved and encouraged by God, and what sort is disapproved and discouraged? How does one strive to enter into rest? And what is the connection between rest and grace? More on these matters in the days to come.

Quotatious (2)

2006-05-26T09:20:00.001-04:00

The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God.

J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Don't Be Ashamed!

2006-05-25T06:35:00.000-04:00

Paul says, "Don't be ashamed of the testimony" (2Tim 1:8) Don't be ashamed, in other words, of the message of the gospel that God has entrusted to you. Have you ever thought about the Gospel of Jesus Christ as something entrusted to you? If you are a preacher then I'm sure you have. And the trust is that you will share it.

The word "shame" seems often to be associated with defeat in the Bible. The Psalmist, for example, again and again depicts a situation in which he is surrounded by countless enemies stronger than himself, and he cries out to God, let me not be put to shame, but let those who come against me be put to shame (see for example Psalm 25:2 and many other).

In Paul's second letter to Timothy, the inference is strong that ministers of the Gospel are coming under attack, and many have indeed been put to shame (see v15). They have turned their backs, run and hid. They were not willing to "share in suffering for the gospel," as Paul says (v8b). And how does one find such willingness? Well, it is only "by the power of God," says Paul. Which brings us around again, as usual with Paul, to faith.

So we have here a picture of Timothy, whom Paul suspects may be feeling somewhat shy about exercising his ministerial gift (which in my opinion was probably preaching) out of fear of persecution. Paul's argument goes like this:

Timothy, my son, you have a deep faith abiding in you, so I urge you to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you--your gift of conveying the good news of Jesus Christ--and don't let fear or timidity hold you back. Be willing to share in the suffering of Christ, as I myself have done, only by the power of God. After all, Timothy, ours is a holy calling. God purposed us to be his message-bearers in Christ before the ages began! By this message we are able to bring life and immortality to light to those who sit in darkness, which is a part of God's eternal plan. So don't panic. God has given you a spirit not of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Meanwhile, he is more than able to guard what he has entrusted to you. So then, be strengthened, Timothy, by the grace--the whole wonderful and ever-sufficient bounty--that is in Christ Jesus.

See how God-centered is Paul's focus. Everything, aboslutely everything, that he relies on for his strength is found it seems in Christ. Paul is relentlessly dependent on God and on the things of God. That's where he puts his focus, that's where he trusts, that's where his hope lies. May it be so also with us.

Quotatious

2006-05-24T16:00:00.000-04:00

Christianity is not for the well-meaning; it is for the desperate.

Scottish theologian James Stewart

Fan it! (2)

2006-05-23T07:17:00.000-04:00

[I have no illusions that any of these notes of mine on Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy might be somehow fascinating to others, but the process seems helpful to me. If you're interested, the previous posts in the series are here, here, here, and here.]

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2Tim 1:6

All the pastoral instruction that will follow in this epistle hinges on this verse. That's my impression. Paul says, I remember your faith, and how you were raised in it by a godly mother and grandmother, and "for this reason" I remind you now to fan into flame (stir up, rekindle) the gift of God in you. Paul is going to follow this exhortation with much pastoral instruction, but it will do Timothy no good if he does not first stir up again that gift that Paul had conferred on Timothy by the laying on of hands.

Whatever this gift may be, it's rekindling is dependent upon--or follows from--the faith that has been resident in Timothy since his youth. So here's the picture. Timothy has a longstanding faith, which was inculcated in him by a godly mother and grandmother. In addition, Timothy has a "gift of God," which was conferred upon him by Paul, his spiritual father and mentor. But the gift, whatever it may be, needs stirring. It needs to be re-ignited. Perhaps it has fallen into disuse, or lies dormant. Given Timothy's faith, that's just not right. The basic structure of Paul's exhortation here is, given your faith, stir up your gift.

But what is this gift of which Paul speaks? In my opinion, it is Timothy's ministry, or is his ministerial gifts. That's why so much of what follows is ministerial instruction--how to be a good shepherd of his flock. Perhaps Timothy had drawn back, from fear, but Paul quickly reminds him that the Spirit in him is not a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

But all this leads me to wonder--how do you stir it up? How do you rekindle it? Good question, thinks I. More on this tomorrow.

Fan it!

2006-05-22T07:02:00.000-04:00

Today I want to take a look at the imperative statements in 2 Timothy 1. This epistle is above all a mentoring letter. Paul, Timothy's mentor, is pouring out his final instruction and encouragement, quite as if there was no tomorrow. With a tone of urgency, he repeats to his son in the faith certain fundamentals, summoning him again to the fullness of his calling as a minister of the Word. I thought it would be instructional to list some of these imperatives of Paul to Timothy in this first chapter (and one from the second).

Imperative #1: For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

The "reason" alluded to here, by the way, was Paul's assurance that the gift of faith dwelt in Timothy. Timothy, Paul is certain, is a man of sincere faith. Therefore, he says, fan into flame the gift of God in you, for after all you have no reason to fear, since you have been given a spirit of power and love and self-control. Note: Paul justifies his imperative to fan the gift of God into flame by saying, I know your sincere faith. In faith, then, fan your gift into flame. Although the world may give you cause to fear the bold display of your faith, God has given you such things as make fear and timidity seem foolish and immature: power, love, and self-control. So fan it!

Imperative #2: Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God...

One senses that Timothy may have suffered at times from fear and timidity. So Paul enjoins him, since after all you have been given a spirit of power, love, and self control, you needn't be ashamed of the testimony that it is your burden to preach. Be bold and up front about the Gospel, he seems to be saying. You have nothing to fear, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Imperative #3: Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

As Timothy's mentor, Paul had left Timothy a pattern to follow. The pattern is "sound." Just as Paul, way back at verse 1, had described his ministry as being "in accord with the promise that is in Christ Jesus," here he says that the pattern or model which his life represents to Timothy (and to us) is characterized by "the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus." Paul is always keenly aware that his ministry is all about being "in Christ" and what that really means.

Imperative #4: By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

That deposit which has been entrusted to Timothy is, I surmise, the "testimony" mentioned back in verse 8. There the imperative was "do not be ashamed of it." Here, "guard it." It is the testimony about Jesus Christ, the very content of all Christian ministry. Paul had summarized it at verse 10: "... which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Guard that. Guard it by the Holy Spirit.

In summary, then, these 4 imperatives amount to a recommissioning of Timothy to ministry. Let it be so also with us. Let Paul address you, Believer. He says, "I know of your faith. Therefore, in faith fan into flame the gifts that God has given you. Don't be ashamed to speak out and walk out what the Father has deposited in you. Follow the pattern of Godly teachers and mentors, and guard the testimony that has been entrusted to you, guard its core truths about Jesus, even if you have to suffer for them. Though others may fall away, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus (imperative #5).

Grace, Mercy, & Peace

2006-05-21T07:19:00.000-04:00

[I'm blogging through Paul's second letter to his son in the faith, Timothy. The first post in the series is here, and the second here. I'll keep going until it stops being interesting to me!]

Now we come to the blessing that is always present in Paul's letters in one form or another. "Grace, mercy and peace from God the father and Christ Jesus our Lord."

A few comments:

1) In all his epistles, excepting the two addressed to his beloved son, Timothy, the greeting is this: Grace to you and peace. But to Timothy he specifies a third ingredient: mercy. I wonder why? Is Timothy undergoing a particular trial at this time, or is Paul, out of sheer love for Timothy, simply overflowing with favor toward him, "piling on" the blessings?

2) Interestingly, when Paul concludes his letters, all of them (I believe), he does so with a simpler blessing: "Grace to you." It's as if the peace had been granted through the very words of his epistle and therefore need not be prayed for again.

3) The 3-fold favor that Paul bestows here is "from" the Father and the Son. Don't pass over that fact lightly. Paul is opening his letter with a blessing that comes through him from God the Father and the Lord Jesus. He is absolutely confident in this. He is not, in other words, simply "talking through his hat." Are we able to confidently speak blessings into the lives of our friends, unabashedly speaking as God's representative?

Four Thoughts

2006-05-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

1. From Quiet Time Guilt, by Greg Johnson:

There are two religions calling themselves evangelical Christianity today: Strength Christianity and Weakness Christianity. Strength Christianity is that religion which places both feet squarely on the Bible and proclaims, "I am strong. I sought the Lord. I’m a believer. I’ve turned away from sin. I read my Bible and pray every single day. I’m for God!" Weakness Christianity, by contrast, places both knees squarely on the Bible and says, "I am weak, but the Lord has sought me. I believe, but help now my unbelief. I fail and am broken by my continued sinfulness. Have mercy on me, Lord, and grant me favor, for apart from you I can do nothing." [HT: Reformation21 Blog]

2. Others have made the point, but none have made it better than C. S. Lewis:

I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began "Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen". But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer be sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. [HT: Eight Strings]

3. VineyardUSA.org publishes a nice church-planting magazine called Cutting Edge. The latest issue is here. A perceptive and perhaps overdo (at least in the Vineyard) quotation:

These days a sense of self-congratulation seems to pervade many songs. We seem to be impressed, not with our works (because that would be heresy) but at least with the admirable way we’ve responded to grace. This trend is also evident in the many songs of outrageous promise: Forever I’ll love You, Forever I’ll stand, I will sing of Your love forever, Over oceans deep I will follow, and so on. That last promise sounds like the one Peter made. One wonders whether we might be singing in praise of our own competence.

4. Finally, would that all Christians might read the following words every Sunday morning before they go to church:

"The gospel is not 'God loves us,' but 'God loves us at the cost of his Son.'" (Derek Thomas)

[HT: Ligon Duncan at Together for the Gospel]

Timothy, My Beloved Child

2006-05-20T07:27:00.000-04:00

So we learned a couple of things (at least) from the opening sentence of Paul's second letter Timothy. 1) Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus. That is, he was commissioned by Christ to be His representative. And 2) this apostleship is "according to the promise that is in Christ Jesus." I said yesterday that there was something mighty in these words. Paul speaks much of being "in Christ" in his letter to the Ephesians. The unity of all believers is found just here--in their being "in Christ." And for Paul it is not simply a spiritual or ethereal statement, religious mumbo-jumbo, but a practical day-to-day reality. His representation of Christ (as an apostle) is according to, in line with, all that has entered into him by means of his having entered into Christ. Such things as are elsewhere called newness of life or the fruit of the spirit.

And so we come to verse 2:

To Timothy, my beloved child

The first mention of Timothy in the Scriptures is at Acts 16:1. Paul was on his 2nd missionary journey into Asia Minor, accompanied by Silas. On his first journey he had established a fledgling church at Lystra. Now, returning after several years, he finds a young believer, Timothy, spoken well of by all, the son of a pious mother and grandmother (as we will soon learn). Paul immediately sees that Timothy will be useful on this mission trip, and the young disciple is no doubt eager to join Paul. Thus begins a relationship that will blossom from that of apostle and acolyte to spiritual father and son.

When Paul writes to the Romans (from Ephesus) he sends greetings from Timothy.

When Paul needs to send a representative into a difficult situation at the Corinthian church, he sends Timothy not once but twice.

When Paul is suffering his first Roman imprisonment, Timothy is among those attending to his needs.

And when the Thessalonians, who are undergoing persecution, need some encouragement, Paul sends Timothy.

But by far the longest description of Timothy is at Philippians 2:19-24:

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.

"As a son with a father he has served me in the gospel." That was Timothy. When Paul spoke of him to others, he usually referred to him as a brother in the Lord. But here in Philippians, and in the two surviving personal letters to Timothy, Paul refers to Timothy with the unreserved love of a father. "To Timothy, my beloved child."

Blogging the Word: 2 Timothy 1:1

2006-05-19T06:43:00.000-04:00

I've decided to blog through Paul's 2nd epistle to Timothy. Today's post is the first in that series. I'm motivated to do this because I think it will help me to read and understand the letter more clearly if I write about it as I go. Because, let's face it, sometimes we read well, sometimes poorly. Sometimes as we read our minds wander here and there, and still we read on mechanically, uncomprehendingly, even while our thoughts are far away from the printed page. That's me. I suspect it's you as well.

I'm going to move slowly, a verse or two at a time, posting my comments and questions as I go. I am no Bible scholar, no well-trained exegete. These will simply be the thoughts of a reader. The goal is to read well. To read with understanding. As a "people of the Book," this seems like a worthy goal for us all.

BTW, I choose to begin with Paul's second letter to Timothy, simply because it happens to be next in my Bible-reading plan. Here's the opening verse:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus...

Now, every NT reader probably knows that, in ancient correspondence, it was the normal procedure for the letter-writer to introduce himself right at the start. The ancient reader thereby always knew, from the very first words, who it was that had written the letter.

Put yourself in Timothy's shoes. The letter is from Paul. Paul, his father in the faith. His mentor, who almost single-handedly brought the Gospel to the Gentiles. Paul, the prisoner. Paul, the old man. Paul--we will soon learn--cold and alone.

The imprisoned Paul writes a letter to the younger Timothy, whom he thinks of with the love of a father. "Paul, the apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God." Yes, that Paul. And nothing could be more certain that his apostleship was, indeed, by the will of God, for no one knew that better than Timothy. And then we read this: "according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus." Paul's apostleship is in accord with--in line with--consistent with--the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.

How quickly Paul blows open the mundane etiquette of letter-writing to immediately let mighty things enter in. The promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus. What is he talking about? In a word, the Gospel! The promise of life--it's a phrase that catches up all the promises of the Gospel and is perhaps grandly summarized in the words eternal life. We could spend a lot of time here. But perhaps it would be best to close these thoughts by remembering Paul's words to the Roman Christians, written some years before, when he said this about the faith of Abraham:

No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

That was Abraham. That was Paul.

The Mystery of the Kingdom

2006-05-18T06:33:00.000-04:00

A couple of days back I talked about the "mystery" of the Gospel. That was Paul's word in several places for the message that he preached. Now, perhaps he was making a point by using a word common to the mystery cults of his day, but it remains true that the Gospel message embodies something much larger than that which the human mind can grasp by purely rational processes. On this score, here's a relevant passage from George Eldon Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom:

This is the mystery of the Kingdom: Before the day of harvest, before the end of the age, God has entered into history in the person of Christ to work among men, to bring to them the life and blessings of His Kingdom. It comes humbly, unobtrusively. It comes to men as a Galilean carpenter went throughout the cities of Palestine preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, delivering men from the bondage of the Devil. It comes to men as the Disciples went throughout the Galilean villages with the same message. It comes to men today as disciples of Jesus still take the Gospel into all the world. It comes quietly, humbly, without fire from heaven, without a blaze of glory, comes like seed sown in the earth. It can be rejected by hard hearts, it can be choked out, its life may sometimes seem to wither and die. But it is the Kingdom of God. It brings the miracle of the divine life among men. It introduces them into the blessing of the divine rule. It is to them the supernatural work of God's grace. And this same Kingdom, this same supernatural power of God will yet manifest itself at the end of the age, this time not quietly within the lives of those who receive it, but in power and great glory purging all sin and evil from the earth. Such is the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Lewis on the Maledictory Psalms

2006-05-17T17:35:00.000-04:00

Nate at Eight Strings quotes extensively in his latest post from Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis. Lewis is commenting on the "maledictory" passages in the Psalms, those disturbing verses that seem to be driven by hatred and spite rather than love and mercy. We avoid them like the plague, we Christians. I myself have often read a Psalm aloud in my small group or to a friend, hoping to bless my hearers, and found myself picking over these passages like a man in a minefield.

Lewis, of course, is able to shed some significant light on these matters, and although he doesn't really make these passages any more palatable--how can they be? why should they be?--he at least helps us to think about these things more clearly.

Just let me say this about that . . .

2006-05-16T08:07:00.000-04:00

Okay, everyone is talking about The Da Vinci Code. Except me. I'm not one of the 63 million (or something) who have read the book, although I'm not saying I never will. But in keeping with my cranky refusal to get down and dirty with the latest Christians vs. the world controversy, I'll just let this one pass. Because, let me assure you, it will. Even as Gibson's The Passion of the Christ wasn't the incredible turning point in modern cultural history (or even church history) that many predicted it would be, just as The Prayer of Jabez is now a faint ping on the radar screen of history, and Purpose-Driven Christians are getting harder to find every day, so this Da Vinci thing too will pass like a summer storm. I'm tellin' ya!

The Mystery of the Faith

2006-05-15T07:50:00.000-04:00

When in doubt, blog the Gospel. That's my blogging rule-of-thumb.

So I'm sitting here wondering what to blog about, and I remember, oh yeah, that's right, blog the Gospel!

And then I think of my Bible-reading this morning. First Timothy, chapter 3. Paul uses the word "mystery." He uses it twice. At verse 9, speaking of the qualifications for deacons:

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

And it surprised me here that Paul, in speaking of the fundamental qualifications for serving in a position of authority, doesn't simply say, they must hold to the faith with a clear conscience, which I'm sure would have sufficed to convey his basic meaning, but he says, the mystery of the faith. They must hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

I want to pause over this word. It strikes me that we can grow so familiar with formulas of our faith that we no longer understand it as "mystery." Later, at verse 16, Paul uses the word again: "the mystery of godliness."

It's a shorthand phrase for our confession, for all that we believe. In one form or another, by one dead-end method or another, men had pursued the ill-defined will-of-the-wisp, godliness, for centuries. And never captured it. But even for those who found it, like Abraham, like Moses, it remained a mystery. Moses walked with God, yes, and yet God, he knew, was always infinitely more, was always other, was always beyond. In godliness we find something right here in, as Eugene Peterson calls it, "the walking-around-world," that is nevertheless strange, connecting us to the utterly above and beyond, the unknowable, untouchable, and ultimately impossible to comprehend.

In another place Paul speaks of this same mystery, the mystery of faith, the mystery of Godliness, as "Christ in you, the hope of glory." That's Colossians 1:27. We Christians are to be hotspots of the eternal and unknowable at work in the ordinary walking-around world. I ask myself, is it true of me? Have I been, in my daily dealings with others, mysterious? I don't mean to be glibly mystical here, but I'm supposed to be a connecting-point to heavenly things.

Well, let us not drain the mystery out of the Gospel. Let us not think it is merely a matter of words, assertions, confessions, etc. God's ultimate plan is to draw us to Him, and that is a mysterious thing to say and believe. This is what we proclaim, a mystery. A secret knowledge now revealed and yet remaining, nevertheless, quite strange, deeply mysterious.

On Being a "Discriminating" Charismatic Christian

2006-05-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

I wrote yesterday of being "a critical Christian." But of course the word critical has, for many, an automatically negative connotation. The first of seven definitions at Encarta says, "tending to find fault with somebody or something, or with people and things in general." Synonyms might be: captious, fault-finding, censorious. Hmmm.

But then there's another side to this ill-favored word: "characterized by or involving careful and exact analysis and evaluation" (from WordSmyth). Here the synonyms would be: evaluative, discriminating, discerning, investigative.

Thing is, many Christians, perhaps especially the charismatic variety, tend to want to exempt themselves and their own thoughts and notions from this exacting process, and they do so by prefacing their thoughts with words like, "The Lord is telling me. . ." Or, "I'm getting a picture . . ."

Who has not known the Charismatic Christian who uses this sort of language to privilege his own beliefs, ideas, or impulses? It reminds me of the time some friends of mine went to the Toronto Airport Vineyard. A young person there spoke a prophecy over one of these fellows, and when the recipient expressed some skepticism about the "revelation," the young prophet replied, "Hey, it's my vision, man. Don't dis my vision."

Oh, well. So much for testing the spirits. But my point is that thought, human reason, which is after all a gift of God, gets disempowered in this process, and becomes something like an ugly step-sister to revelation.

I need to add here that I am a "charismatic" Christian, but I do believe there is a healthy approach to these matters, and that this "disempowerment" of the mind is not inevitable among us. And to help me think this through, I'm hoping soon to read Full Gospel, Fractured Minds? A Call to Use God's Gift of the Intellect, by Rick M. Nañez.

On Being a Critical Christian

2006-05-11T07:38:00.000-04:00

A while back, over at Together for the Gospel, C. J. Mahaney posed the question, what is the most serious threat to the Gospel today? The question has stayed with me, bugged me, nagged at me, ever since. I know what I want to say in answer. I don't know if it's really the "most" serious threat, but I think it's pretty high up the list. I'm speaking of glib happy-talk and positive-thinking messages among Christians.

This kind of thing usually goes under the label "encouragement." Joel Osteen is, of course, the reigning master here, but I'm not going to pick on him. The problem is rampant. I think there are probably many negative ramifications, but I want to look at one in particular. The absence of a critical perspective--of critical engagement with, for example, a religious book, film, pastoral message, or church program. Instead, we in the church tend to aggregate at two opposite poles--that of the hyper-critical (you know them well, I'm sure, and no explanation is needed here), and on the other end of the spectrum the glib boosterism that must allow everything that comes from the pastor's lips, or from the current Christian bestseller, etc., to pass without inspection.

We all remember, if we belong to churches that got swept up in the "purpose driven" thing, the spirit of hyper-acceptance, insistently uncritical, with which people were expected to receive that book and its message. The marketing people at Christian publishers know how to take advantage of this attitude, and they do so with distressing ease. That's because we're suckers for "the next big thing." As consumers, we're no more independent or careful than kids at the video-game section of Walmart.

Douglas Groothuis addressed this very issue recently [HT: Transforming Sermons]. He speaks of the "constructive curmugeon" (what a good phrase):

The curmudgeon is constructive in that half-truths, bovine excrement, fashionable nonsense, unfashionable nonsense, and other offenses to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful need to be exposed so that the light may dawn and reality be revealed. Reality denudes us all in the end, no matter how much we hate it. The curmudgeon tries to love reality, deep reality--whatever the cost. She or he encourages others to love reality as well, come what may.

The sub-head over at Wade Hodges' blog is right on: "without disagreement, nothing can be learned." I (ummm) agree. And the corollary to that statement is, "When disagreement is discouraged, people remain ignorant."

Finally, at the risk of being overly-dramatic, let me just say that the day will come when a cleverly marketed product will come along, taking advantage of a long-entrenched spirit of uncritical acceptance, and sweep much of the church off its foundation and cornerstone, leading many astray. [Mark 13:22-23] We are called to be watchful, to test the spirits, and to know how to read the signs of the times. In short, we are called to be "educated" Christians. That's why we need to encourage a culture of healthy, constructive, and intelligently critical engagement with every text, especially those which comes under the label, "Christian."

UPDATE:Doug Groothuis wrote an excellent follow-up called Cheerful Curmudgeon Weighs In. This post says, in my opinion, just about the "last word" on the subject.

Good Question

2006-05-10T06:37:00.000-04:00

I signed up a while back for Michael Card's weekly email devotional. As you might expect, it's powerful and thought provoking, not ducking the tough questions. Anyway, here's a piece of this week's devotional musing:

Whenever Jesus reveals Himself in a new way, He invariably must tell the disciples, "Don't be afraid." In our current passage (Mark 6:47-50), when Jesus walks on the water he must say it, to the synagogue ruler (Mk 5:36), to Jarius (Lk 8:50), after the Transfiguration (Mt 17:7), after the Resurrection (Mt 28:10). The question begs to be asked; Has Jesus ever revealed Himself in such a way to me or my congregation? Have we ever been so utterly amazed by His awesomeness that we required to hear those words, "Don't be afraid. It's Me!"

More on Colossians 4:2-4

2006-05-09T07:56:00.000-04:00

Paul advises the Colossians to pray unceasingly, with watchfulness and thanksgiving, and then asks that they pray for him--specifically, that a door may be opened for the Word (that a door may be opened for him to speak/declare/proclaim "the mystery of Christ"). Paul, you will recall, is writing this letter from his first Roman imprisonment. His goal is and has ever been to speak of the mystery of Christ everywhere, even in the midst of hardship, and always to "make it clear."

Shouldn't that be our goal, too. As I said yesterday, I personally have not often spoken with people outside the church about Jesus. It's really rather sad, come to think of it. But before I left for my recent vacation, I sat down and wrote out three major goals, or points of focus, that I wanted to work on in my life.

1. To love and honor every person I deal with throughout the day
2. To pray watchfully--that is, to be watchful of the need for prayer throughout the day and to leap quickly into that situation with prayer
3. To talk about Jesus with people ("proclaim the mystery of Christ")

All three of these goals, taken together, describe oa lifestyle that is far beyond what I am living or have ever lived. God, give me the grace to grow in these three areas.

Vigilante Prayer and Open Doors

2006-05-08T07:36:00.000-04:00

I've been dwelling on Colossians 4:2-4 lately. Take a look:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

I'm struck by this idea of praying watchfully. Pray steadfastly, Paul says, being watchful and thankful. I think that's way cool! I want to do this. I want to have an attitude of vigilance, being eager to pray for whatever need springs up. To pray watchfully. Maybe I'll call it vigilante prayer.

The second part I'm intrigued by in this passage is the phrase "an open door for the word." It was Paul's mission, his heart's desire, to proclaim the message of the Kingdom everywhere he went. That's what Jesus did. That's what the other disciples of Jesus did as recorded in Acts. But it's not just "scattershot" proclamation. Paul is looking for an open door for the Word.

I've got a hunch that God shows us these "open doors" every day, but we pass them by. These are the things I want to work on in myself. I want to be a vigilante of prayer, and I want to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom from day to day (or, to put it another way, tell someone about Jesus!). This Kingdom news is a mystery, but also something that one may "make clear," which is, says Paul, only how we ought to speak. Lord, show me your open doors, then give me the grace to make clear the mystery of Christ.

I want this to be more truly and thoroughly my way of life. How about you?

Are we peculiar?

2006-05-06T13:05:00.000-04:00

While I was down South I saw a higher density of churches than I have ever seen here in the Northeast, which of course comes as no surprise. One of them, as I recall, sported a prominent billboard with the following message: "A Holy God, A Holy Place, and Regular People."

This striking reluctance to apply the descriptor, "holy," to the people of God, a reluctance on proud display, seems to me most sad. The NT writers had no trouble referring to the people of God as set apart, peculiar, and, yes, even holy.

I am reminded of all this as I near the finish of John Bright's wonderful book, The Kingdom of God. This book is powerfully convicting me. Although it was written over 50 years ago, its assessment of the Church seems as appropriate today as ever. On the matter of being "set apart," here's what Bright has to say:

God help the church that so blends into society that there is no longer any difference! Such a church will produce no quality of behavior other than that which society in general produces. It will take on the prejudices of society, and even d emand that its gospel support such prejudices. It will make itself a tool of society whose main business is to protect and to dignify with divine support the best interests of its consitutents. And that is stark tragedy! The end of it is a poverty-stricken church which utters no Word, states no demands, summons to no destiny--but has a host of activities that you would enjoy. And such a church is not the peculiar people of God's Kingdom: it has failed to be the Church and needlessly cumbers the ground.

On Spiritual Absent-Mindedness

2006-05-05T10:25:00.000-04:00

This comes from Jill Carratini at Slice of Infinity:

Gallery statistics report that the average time a person spends looking at a particular work of art is three seconds. To those who spend their lives caring for the great art museums of the world, I imagine this is a disheartening sight to behold day after day. It would have been interesting to hear the thoughts of the St. Petersburg curators who watched as Henri Nouwen sat before Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son for more than four hours.

I wonder how often I am more like the three-second viewer than a captivated Nouwen, moving through my days with my eyes barely open. How often am I surrounded by the presence of God, but unaware and unseeing—missing, in my absence, the bigger picture?

I'm back!

2006-05-03T06:55:00.000-04:00

Back from my long journey. Ah, home! I had a wonderful trip, my first ever foray into the South. The Blue Ridge rocks! Virginia rocks! North Carolina is now my official home away from home. I was quite captivated. The people are way friendly, and there is an ease and a gentleness among them that is not so common up here in the Northeast.

Then there was Merlefest. No, Swapblog fellows, I did not get Gillian Welch's autograph, but I saw her act on three seperate stages this weekend. She kind of swept through the festival like a whirlwind. Her recordings simply don't even come close to doing her justice. The same can be said for Chris Thile and Nickel Creek. But the great thing about Merlefest was not any one performer or group, but the opportunity to simply soak in the music. I come away with the conviction that I really do need to make music and singing more a part of my life again.

The best "Southernism" I heard all week might have been in church on Sunday morning. Laurie, Nate and I attended a Morningstar church in Wilkesboro. The pastor there interrupted his message for a moment to say, "Y'all lookin' at me like a cow at a new gate!" Hmmm, us city-folk can only surmise what that must be like.

Finally, I want to send out special thanks to some gracious folks that I met up with on my journey. First of all, Milton and family. Thanks so much for your kindness toward us on the way down. It was a pleasure to meet you, Milton, and don't forget that proposal I made to you.

Then there was Curt and Julie. I believe I have made some good friends in you folks. And also Chet and Irene. You two are awesome! And by the way, Chet (who has been a reader of mine here), don't you think it's time for you to start blogging? And let me not forget Randy--you are a real sweetheart. Keep on keepin' on, brother!

That's all for now. I will have more to say about the "spiritual" aspects of this journey in the coming days (I hope).

UPDATE: Other bloggers reporting on Merlefest:
Bear Witness . . .
BlogCritics.org

Heading South!

2006-04-21T08:03:00.000-04:00

This is my last post until May 3 (I'm guessing). I'm very excited that Laurie and I will be traveling south to Pennsylvania (to visit my mother) and then on to North Carolina, to visit the one and only Nate. What's more, our path runs very near the home of Milton Stanley of Transforming Sermons, so it looks like we'll be having a brief blogger meet-up there! Woo-hoo! Finally, we'll be spending a few days at Merlefest, where we will see, among many other outrageously talented players and performers, the likes of EmmyLou Harris, Bela Fleck, John Prine, Nickel Creek, and Gillian Welch! Double woo-hoo!

I said yesterday that I thought I might be undergoing a kind of reformation in my spirit. All that I really desire for my life is that I represent the Gospel with freedom and joy on an every-day basis. You've heard the metaphor of the camel's nose under the tent? The idea is, once the camel gets its nose under, the rest is soon to follow. Well, I want to be the camel's nose under the tent of this world (my little day-to-day portion of this world, anyway). It's a Gospel-camel, you see, and when I interact with people around me who are, to their unbeknownst danger, citizens of this world, I want to be that impossible-to-miss snout of one honking great camel called the Kingdom of God! How's that for a flamboyant metaphor!

So I leave you with this. Let's be as bold and stubborn and as recklessly unstoppable about the love of God as that camel. See you in a coupla weeks.

Shalom!

The Kingdom of God

2006-04-20T08:57:00.000-04:00

As I'll be going on vacation in a couple of days, I'm loath to start anything new here. But not only that--it seems I've been going through a period of re-assessment and re-focus in my spiritual life lately. Maybe it's even a "reformation"! This is something I'll probably blog more about when I get back, and perhaps the time away will even help me in this process.

But for now, I'd like to share a passage from another book I've been reading. The book is called The Kingdom of God in Bible and Church, by John Bright. Published back in 1953, it is an examination of the Biblical concept of a "kingdom of God" as it evolved within the pages of Scripture as well as the pages of Biblical history. Each chapter is for me a kind of mountain trek. The reader senses he is following and expert guide, with the last pages of the chapter providing a kind of grand vista from the very peak. Thus, in his chapter on Isaiah 40-66 (what is often called the Second Isaiah), Bright elucidates the historical and theological significance of Isaiah's Suffering Servant theme. As Bright sees it, the Suffering Servant is far more than a conveniently conforting metaphor ("He died in my place"), but a direct challenge to all who call themselves followers of Christ. And his words are every bit as relevant now as they were 50 years ago:

As for the cross of the Servant, it is not strange to us. We own to a crucified Savior. In that we stand in the mainstream of the Christian faith from the beginning onward, and we do well to do so. We enthrone the crucified Savior in stained glass, wood, and stone--and in doctrine. To that cross we look for salvation. But we want that cross not at all. Indeed we would have it the chief business of religion to keep crosses far away. We want a Christ who suffers that we may not have to, a Christ who lays himself down that our comfort may be undisturbed. The call to lose life that it may be found again, to take up the cross and follow, remains mysterious and offensive to us. To be sure, we labor to bring men to Christ, and we pray, "Thy kingdom come." But our labor we see as a labor of conquest and growth, successful programs and dollars. Can it be that we are seeking to build the Kingdom of the Servant--without following the Servant? If we do so, we will doubtless build a great church--but will it have anything to do with the Kingdom of God?

Let us then be reminded that the task of the Church is not and cannot be other than the Servant task. We pray as we have been taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come." And the answer we get is the answer of the Servant: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross." We renew our prayer, "Thy kingdom come," because we have no other prayer to pray. But we renew it with the deepest confession of sin: have mercy upon us, for we are unprofitable servants! [emphasis added]

Closing Off the Light

2006-04-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

The following quotation was found on page 106 of Fergus M. Bordewich's Bound for Canaan, which is a history of the "Underground Railroad." Bordewich is describing the means by which slaveholders used the legal system to insure that slaves would remain in perfect ignorance. This goal was all-important to the maintenance of the slave system, and it was pursued assiduously, especially after the Nat Turner rebellion of 1832. For example, all blacks (slave or free) were banned from attending religious services unless accompanied by whites.

Where schools for slaves existed, they were suppressed. The Virginia House of Delegates declared, in 1832, "We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light can enter . . . [their] minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field, and we should be safe.

I am astonished by the sheer bluntness of this remark. And notice how completely at odds it is with the intent of the Gospel . . . a Gospel that these men professed. Amazing!

Five Days until Vacation!

2006-04-18T06:48:00.000-04:00

That's right. We leave Saturday morning, heading south to the great state of North Carolina. We will be cruising down to Ashville to see Mr. Eight Strings himself and enjoy some Piedmont hospitality. We may take in a Civil War battlefield along the way, gander at the Blue Ridge Mountains, and spend a few days at Merlefest, listening to some of the finest bluegrass players in the world. All of which is my way of explaining that gratitude & hoopla will be dormant for about 10 days, starting next Saturday. Until then, however, I'll be making my usual morning blog-rounds.

I Dare Not Ask to Fly from Thee

2006-04-15T07:02:00.000-04:00

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

[from O Love that Will Not Let Me Go, by George Matheson and Albert L. Peace]

"A Violent Grace"

2006-04-14T08:05:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks back I started reading a little book by Michael Card called A Violent Grace. With this book Michael entered into the long literary tradition of written meditations on the crucifixion of Jesus. I've been reading a chapter a day, and I realized about half-way through the book that at that rate I would be reading the last chapter on Easter morning! There's something really sweet about that!

Anyway, I love this little book. Michael Card is of course a songwriter, a creative artist, and the really special quality of his book is the way in which each "meditation" balances the rational and the imaginative. It is, throughout, the work of a mind and imagination that has been humbly submitted to the Cross, and the joy of this book is the deep joy that that can only be received in that place.

Here's a passage from the book, from a chapter entitled "He Died and Was Buried so that the Grave Could Not Hold Me":

Meanwhile, in the borrowed tomb, God was keeping His promise. "For I am going to do something in your day that you would not believe, even if you were told" (Habakkuk 1:5). "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death...." (Hosea 13:14).

In some mysterious way that I don't understand, the tomb during those hours became God's workshop to undo the tragedy of Eden.... Only one man--completely just and holy--fully man and fully God--could undo such a disaster. A second Adam. And that one man had just allowed himself to be brutally executed and buried. Jesus was not unconscious; He was dead. He was not holding out with a last-minute miracle; the last minute had passed. He was not waiting; His will and mind and pulse simply were no more.

But God--His Father and yours and mine--had a plan: "For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ" (Romand 5:17).

Jesus' corpse lay stretched out in that tomb because it was God's will that, in order to pay our ransom, He meet sin and death alone in the dark.

In those hours, violence reigned absolute, and all creation waited for the Father to make His move.

On Not Moving On from the Gospel

2006-04-13T08:18:00.000-04:00

I said yesterday that even very fine things, "Biblical" things, can distract us from that which is in fact the essence of all Biblical things--that is, the cross of Christ. Matthew Henry said:

Though the Scriptures are the circumference of faith, the round of which it walks, and every point of which compass it touches, yet the center of it is Christ; that is the polar star on which it rests. [HT: Gospel-Driven Life]

All truly Biblical things cluster around the Cross in varying degrees of proximity, but all of them point in awe-struck wonder to the Cross, to Christ's victory at Skull Hill.

If "I am not ashamed of the Gospel" means anything at all, it means I am willing to see all things in the light of that victory. Why? "For it is the power of God to everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16) As John Stott has said, "Let us never move on." And as Mark Lauterbach says, "Let us never give our people any hope of heaven or holiness but the Redeemer's glorious work for us."

Some people might say, "Oh, but I'm all about the Holy Spirit." Be careful with that, because in fact the Holy Spirit is "all about" the crucified Christ. Some Holy Spirit teaching seems to have "higher knowledge" pretensions. For some, the Gospel is nothing more than a memento from the past, brought down from its honorary shelf and dusted off each Eastertide, perhaps, only to be put back in its proper place afterward so that we can all move on to bigger and better things. But listen to what Andrew Murray says in his book, The Prayer Life:

The Holy Spirit ever leads us to the cross. It was so with Christ. The Spirit taught him and enabled him to offer himself without spot to God. It was so with the disciples. The Spirit, with whom they were filled, led them to preach Christ as the crucified one. Later on he led them to glory in the fellowship of the cross when they were deemed worthy to suffer for Christ's sake.

Paul said, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1Cor 1:22) And he said that, be it noted, to a Spirit-filled church. In the final book of the Bible--which is called, significantly, "The Revelation"--the second Person of the trinity is depicted at times as a wounded lamb, and then again as one who wears a white robe that has been dipped in blood. Even in eternity, you see, our attention will be riveted by the visible reality that all the glories of that place were purchased for us by the crucified Jesus. Halelujah to the Lamb!

The Gospel in Church?

2006-04-12T07:28:00.000-04:00

A while back I wrote a sentence--expressed an opinion--that has continued to echo in my mind, to persist in my thoughts, to pop up again and again, requiring attention. The thought was this--I don't hear the Gospel much in my church.

Now, I don't mean this as a bitter complaint. I mean it as an observation, one that needs testing. Furthermore, I love my church, but I'm also realistic about it. Sunday morning is not always going to satisfy my deepest spiritual longings. Lord knows, I wouldn't want to be put to the test every Sunday morning, as our pastors are, week after week. We need to give these folks a lot of grace. Not only that, but I may be wrong! If there's something that I think I'm not hearing, it could be because I'm not listening.

Nevertheless, I believe it's true that in the the course of all the Sunday morning hullabaloo, the Gospel of Christ often slips through the cracks. If you've been keeping up with the gang over at Together for the Gospel, you've probably given some thought to a couple of questions C.J. asked a while back:

1) What is the Gospel?
2) What is the most serious threat to the Gospel today?

Good questions, both. Really good questions, that we should all consider carefully. C.J.'s post on this subject is here.

The fact is, we can espouse Biblical themes, talk about God, exegete the Scriptures to our heart's content, and yet never come to a clear rendition of the Gospel of Christ. In fact, there are plenty of worship songs about God that would pass muster in any Unitarian church on the planet: God is great, God loves us, let's party! Can I just say this: I'm really tired of those songs.

What is the greatest threat to the Gospel? Forgetfulness, maybe. Or the normal human thirst for something new. Or moralism. Or the sincere desire not to offend. Or perhaps just spiritual a.d.d. All of these things, I suppose, and more.

Daniel Cruver at Eucatastrophe is in the midst of an excellent consideration of this theme. The series of posts addresses the question, "Is it a Christ-centered sermon?" People, this is a really good series, addressing a a question that every Christian church-goer needs to be asking. I urge you to read the whole series, beginning here.

And that's really all I have to say for now. It's frighteningly easy to drift away from a Gospel-centered message, and not even know it! It is frighteningly easy to talk much about Jesus but completely miss the Gospel. We should be careful about this. That is, we should be full of care. It should matter above all other things.

Life is Short . . . Read a Book!

2006-04-11T07:49:00.000-04:00

Libraries are a problem for me. They are full of books, free books, and well, how do you resist that kind of temptation? You get a good book in your hand. You flip its pages casually, wondering if you have time to read it. Perhaps its new, and the volume has a crisp feel to it, the pages have that fresh-paper smell. You turn it over in your hand, get a feel for it, read a blurb or two from the back cover. You flip it open and read the opening paragraph. Oh, yes, that's the real test. The opening paragraph will cinch the deal. Next thing you know, you're taking another book home, a book you can't possibly find the time to read.

This is at least one version of "the good life" that I can relate to. An abundance of books. At the library. Yours. Mine. Just waiting for you. Yesterday the book in my hand was called Bound for Canaan, by Fergus M. Bordewich. Subtitled, "The Underground Railrad and the War for the Soul of America." Mmmm, I've always wanted to read about that. Here's the opening paragraph:

The year is 1844 or 1845. The night air is acrid, as it always is in Madison, Indiana, with the smell of the slaughterhouses and tanneries that line the north shore of the Ohio River. It is almost ten o'clock, and in this era before electricity, the night is profound.

That's it! A historian with a flair for story-telling! I'm bringing this one home. No, I haven't got time, but nevermind that. Life is short. Read a book.

The Other Sinner: Relational Decline and It's Antidote

2006-04-10T07:57:00.000-04:00

I picked up an old notebook yesterday and found the following words scrawled on the final page. They're my words, written some time ago, I don't remember when. It's rough, and I'd obviously intended to polish it up, to work out its thought, but here it is unpolished.

We're all living in the aftermath of one sin or another. Our own, and those of others. That's an ongoing reality--life as we know it. In our relationships we encounter him often--"the other sinner." We learn to be careful, to not be drawn out into the open, to be guarded, wary, untrusting. And the gifted among us learn not to show it.

Let me take you back to the Garden, where it all began. You are Adam. You are Eve. You've just listened to the serpent and allowed yourself to respond to his carefully calibrated nudge. This little parable is going to to be repeated again and again, ad nauseum. There will be the hiding, then the faux "coming out," fig-leaves and all, that is only a more subtle and deceptive kind of hiding. This "here I am" is just a more carefully considered lie.

And the thing is, we all know that this is the way of it. Thus, in our relationships, there is always an element of suspicion, a questioning of motives. This seems absolutely necessary, reasonable, and justifiable. But it is a tool of the destroyer. This justifiable mistrust leads inevitably into relational decline--the progressive corruption of relationship. Who has not seen this? Who is not sadly familiar?

What is required here--Lord, help us--is that we respond to others as if they were not sinners. As if there were no ground for judgement. Is this not the essence of enacted forgiveness? And is this not the way back from the precipice of relational despair?

A Reader's Prayer

2006-04-09T08:15:00.000-04:00

[excerpted from John Baillie's A Diary of Private Prayer, p. 133]

O Thou who art the Source and Ground of all truth, Thou Light of lights, who hast opened the minds of men to discern the things that are, guide me to-day, I beseech Thee, in my hours of reading. Give me grace to choose the right books and to read them in the right way. Give me wisdom to abstain as well as to perservere. Let the Bible have proper place; and grant that as I read I may be alive to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in my soul.

Well Said

2006-04-07T15:24:00.000-04:00

Oh my, this is so good, I'm going to quote it in full. Find it at Aron's great blog, Some Thoughts:

Someday I’d like to be flipping by the token “Christian” channel and hear, instead of (and I loosely quote) “send us your special Passover double portion blessing seed gift of $200 or more today, and we’ll send you this plastic Jewish Mazuzah for your doorpost with the 7 promises of God written on a scroll inside,” –instead, I’d love to hear, “but please, if you’d really like to thank us for this programming, don’t send us anything unless or until you’ve supported your local congregation first. Then, and only then, donate to us if you wish. But your local church family comes first. And no, we don’t have any operators standing by to pray with you–please call a friend from your local congregation and go for a chat over coffee–or better yet, share your prayer needs with your small group, and pray about them on the spot. And finally, if you want to help feed the hungry or clothe the naked, call your local soup kitchen or homeless shelter first–then, if you wish, call us afterward. Fight the inclination toward anonymity, and the tendancy for easy-bake relationships. Do not forsake the gathering together of your local church community.”

A Nation of Sojourners

2006-04-07T07:37:00.000-04:00

You can make a kind of portrait or character-study of a person who reads a lot simply by mapping the books he reads. Each reader will have a unique list, unlike that of any other, so that the list itself is a kind of character-study or mindprint.

One important aspect of reading is that it connects us with the flow of human thought and imagination through the ages. In our age we have largely abandoned the notion that this is at all important. We are expected to be aware of the past only insofaras we can justify scorning it as irrelevant. It is considered more important to revel in pop culture than to know and relish our human heritage.

But for others, their is a kind of thirst for books which, once acquired, is never lost. I know people who would walk through a bookstore with bored disinterest. I know people, intelligent people, who believe they have a kind of mental-block or disability which prevents them from reading, even though they'd like to. I confess I don't understand this attitude.

This morning I began reading a book called The Kingdom of God, by John Bright. The book was written in 1950, but the author draws on a wealth of knowledge acquired through his own reading and study, which he then passes on to his readers. His book then is our access point to his lifetime of study. Or think of it this way: his lifetime of study was molded into the unique shape that is his book, and the book is a "view-finder" through which we catch glimpses of earlier thinkers and writers. In reading his book we are looking back over a path that he alone tread, and seeing along that trail the signposts of other thinkers and writers who contributed something to his understanding. That's why, if you like the book, its footnotes and bibliography are a kind of goldmine from which to select further fruitful reading.

Well, I had no intention of saying all this when I sat down to blog this morning. In fact, I didn't know I had these thought rattling around up there at all. What I really wanted to do was share a passage from Bright's book. Bright is considering the establishment of the Israelite kingdom under David, and the close association of that kingdom with the "temple cult." The temptation for Israel, he says, was to so closely associate the promises of God with the Davidic kingdom as they knew it as to believe that God's purposes in history were realized and completed in "the existing order."

I think this qualifies as a "deep thought," and it raises a question we would do well to ask ourselves. With regard to Israel, Bright puts the matter this way:

Would the robust confidence in the future which had activated her and driven her on to the Promised Land, and written in her spirit--though she may not have known it--the vision of a city not made with hands, be saitisfied with the city of Jerusalem and the material plenty which Solomon could provide?

Applying the same questions to our own situation--or, more precisely, to the United States in 1950--Bright asks,

Will our destiny as a nation which calls itself Christian be satisfied in terms of the economic prosperity and the national might which we have created? Will we seek no higher salvation than that the present order can provide in terms of increased income, autmobiles, and television sets? What is worse, will we, because we have churches and because our political forms are hospitable to their growth, assume that the present order is the God-ordained order which God--if he be just--may be called upon to defend always? The people that answer that question so, will see it as the sole function of religion to support and to hallow in the name of God its own material best interests. But it will never begin to understand the Kingdom of God.

Think about these things. It is always good to remember that, if we truly are a Christian nation, then we are a nation of sojourners for whom no earthly nation can really be considered home.

A Grace-filled Misfit

2006-04-06T07:38:00.000-04:00

This morning I finished reading a little collection of the writings of Rich Mullins: The World as I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin. This book reminded me of why I loved Rich's music, and also that he was one of the rare ones. I know one or two guys like Rich. They are my favorite people in the world. Grace-filled misfits. Ragamuffins. People who, once having heard the words, "What does it profit a man that he should gain the whole world, but lose his soul," live the rest of their lives in ernest abandonment to that truth.

Anyway, Rich was one-of-a-kind. I'd like to quote his little book at length, but in the interest of brevity, I'll just try this one on for size:

I hope you see the faithfulness of God in everything He has made. I hope you learn to trust that all of this is His care sworn to you. But mostly, I hope you know Jesus through whom God has wildly and ferociously loved us. I hope you know and that you become sacramental to your neighbor who God also loves passionately. I hope you leave them little doubt about His love and the victory Jesus won over hate and death.

Dead White Blogger Alert!

2006-04-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

Oh boy, now Geoffrey Chaucer has a blog. I mean, "hath." Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.

Vietnamese Noodle Soup for Four Please

2006-04-04T09:55:00.000-04:00

Well, the list of "people I know who blog" is growing longer all the time. Check out Vietnamese Noodle Soup for Four Please. Josh and April, who are worship leaders at my church, are blogging their adoption adventure, as they prepare to travel to Vietnam to meet Ruby, their new adopted daughter. Go on over and say hello, why don'cha?