Stephen King and Walt Disney; Gethsemane and Eden

Some notes from my study of Hebrews 5:1-10 So here we are after a discussion of what it means for Jesus to have fulfilled His obedience to the Father. He obviously had some decisions to make in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed for the Lord to allow the cup of suffering to pass from Him, yet he followed through with His mission on the cross. At some point, Jesus really didn’t want the cross. He didn’t WANT to feel the agony that he KNEW was coming. He didn’t want to feel the exhaustion. He didn’t want to pass out who knows how many times in the course of the day on which He took His beating. He didn’t want to feel the nausea and dry heaving the probably came from dehydration. He didn’t WANT the sting of blood and sweat in His eyes, which were probably nearly swollen shut, all day long. He didn’t want the stabbing pain of a hundred thorns pressing into His scalp that probably turned into a pounding headache, magnified by the dehydration He was already experiencing. He didn’t want to have to walk on feet that were bare and blistered carrying a hundred and fifty pounds on His already flayed back. He didn’t want to walk through a crowd of people spitting on His wide-open and flowing wounds. He didn’t want to be paraded through town, a disheveled mass of quivering flesh. In the hours before His death, how many times did He silently pray for death to come early? “Just end it NOW, Father! Why not NOW? Let Me die NOW! My friends are gone…I can’t walk…I can barely stand…I’m so thirsty, Lord…I’m so tired…my entire body aches…this hurts SO much…PLEASE bring me home…” BUT… He did it anyway. Jesus made a decision. He decided to submit. He decided to relinquish His will to that of the Father. He moved beyond the limitation of human emotion and desire. He said “yes” to the Lord and “no” to his own wants and needs. That night in the Garden of Gethsemane, He knew what was coming. He just didn’t care enough about the agony and humiliation to leave humanity hanging over an endlessly deep and dark precipice with no hope of salvation. He knew that WE needed Him…so He decided…in one moment He decided that God’s will was right. He decided that God would see Him through it all and that the Christ would be just that. He would become the slain Lamb who makes all things new. Jesus willed to go to a horrible end for us. The question I have is “To what length would I go for Him?” How far would I go to display the type of obedience, the iron will, that Jesus displayed in Gethsemane when He decided that He would do all of that for me? I want to say that I would do anything for Him. I really think I would, too! I just want to be the type of man who, when Jesus calls and says He needs me to go somewhere, just says “yes” to His will. I want to be the kind of man who lets go of my emotions and just wills myself to obey the Christ. The problem I have is that I don’t want the Garden of Gethsemane as much as I want the Garden of Eden. If I’m being honest, what I really want is just to walk through some sort of Walt Disney fantasy land where cute little birds light on my shoulder and a variety of smiling, happy rodents run at my feet as I stroll carelessly along, singing about what a beautiful day it is all while on my way to sit at the center of the garden and wait on God to come to me to have a cozy picnic all so that HE can enjoy MY presence! I want the ease of Eden and not the decision of Gethsemane. Gethsemane comes with an infinite number of crossroads. Gethsemane represents the choices I have to make. Eden is just the presence of God. There aren’t any decisions to make in Eden except for which tree I want to eat from. There isn’t any real will to be exercised in Eden. In Gethsemane, real life crashes in on us. My Gethsemane is more like a Stephen King novel than a Disney movie. It’s dark there. It’s twisted there. It’s foggy and confusing. People are dying, children get sick, jobs get lost. Betrayal, murder, and lies happen in Gethsemane and I have to decide in my own personal Gethsemane how I will react to the Lord. Will I bend to His will or will I cut and run? Will I decide that it’s all worth it in the end if I just say “yes” to the Father? Will I let go of emotions and even logic and decide that His will and His way are worth my allegiance? H. A. Hodges writes, “By our steady adherence to God when the affections [i.e., emotions] are dried up, and nothing is left but the naked will clinging blindly to him, the soul is purged of self-regard and trained in pure love.” May I be trained in this way.

The Church Needs An Enema

I don’t want to come off as critical here. I’m just asking questions and really just thinking and processing as I type these words. Here’s the big question that I am exploring right this very second: are North American churches God-centered or self-centered? Are they outwardly focused or inwardly focused? Is the church set up to give Christians a safe place to minister to other Christians or is the church set up to mobilize Christians to the community around them? In other words, is the church holding fast to its own wants, desires, and comforts, or is the church reaching out to the community and holding fast to those relationships, messy as they may be? I share the complaint with a number of people that the church seems to be constantly asking for money. Of course, I will not deny that the church does need money in order to operate. However, how much money does it need to operate? How much money does it need in order to meet community needs? How many full-time staff does a church need? How many programs does a church need for its members? I know a number of people who are engaged in ministry and aren’t even on a church staff. They don’t get paid a dime to work at a church. They have full-time jobs in the secular work force and engage in ministry after hours. I have been asking myself a lot of questions lately regarding how the church uses its resources to do ministry. Are we using our resources to keep Christians comfortable or are we using resources to help non-believers to see Jesus? If some folks can get involved in ministry on their own time and be effective in it, can a senior pastor reduce his support and perhaps work bi-vocationally even in larger ministries? What is it that a senior pastor actually DOES that others can’t be trained and equipped to do? I’m not knocking churches that have full-time senior pastors, but some senior pastors get paid to do things that stretch them way to thin to begin with. Is he (and should he be) the ONLY one who can visit sick people? Can the pulpit be shared? Can he delegate logistics to other folks? If the pastor is in the office or with Christians most of the time, how does he get to know those in the community who are lost? Shouldn’t he have a contact to the community that keeps him connected on a regular basis? Do we have to have full-time worship guys and youth guys on our church staff? I WAS a full-time youth guy. I filled my time, but I remember times when I filled it with some things that I could have done had I not been full-time at a church. (I ALSO remember being part-time and wishing I was full-time so I could get some of the ministry tasks done that were slipping, so there’s that, too...) Does the discipleship guy have to have an office in the church building, too? Now, depending on the church and the responsibilities of these folks, the answer is “yes, we do need our ministerial staff to be full-time”. However, I just am not sure that the first thing a church needs to do is start hiring full-time people and rounding out a staff just like every other church. Of course, we need someone to handle money, track people, answer the phones, make copies, etc, but these are folks who are not really considered ministerial staff (yes, they have a ministry, so I’m not knocking them. I’m just differentiating between “professional clergy” and others). I’m coming to the conclusion that there are some churches that need way more full-time administrative staff more than it needs full-time ministerial staff. I’m just not sure that today’s minister cannot serve the public better by having a job in the secular work force that connects with families than if they sit in the office all week long. Sermon prep is important, but there are pastors in the world who are able to pull off great sermons while working a job. (By the way, I do realize that in five years, I may be eating these words, as I need to be full-time at a ministry in order to get things organized and to accomplish the tasks necessary to carry out a successful ministry.) I think my reaction here is against bloated budgets that cause a church to begin to focus too much on money. I confess that I have, for years, had a problem with a church sending money away to and association in order to help the association to do ministry. Yes, I am in favor of cooperation, but why do we farm out the mission to an association? I am all in favor of missions and ministry, but can’t the church use its own dollars better and more effectively if it isn’t sending money to pay for the association’s rent, building payment, insurance, salaries, etc.? Why are so many communities crumbling physically and spiritually if the association is using those dollars for missions? My own hometown is, by our own association’s standard 70% unreached (I think it’s worse than that, actually). So, are we self-centered or God-centered? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being a judgmental jerk. I do know that when every other article comes out and says that the church is losing ground, we have to do something different. A new church with a new model and method for doing and financing ministry is definitely in order. Someone has to do something different. It’s almost like we need to make the shift from the proverbial country club and back to the rescue mission.

Applying the Old Testament Today

Note: Spacing and such don't transfer well from Word to this blog. Might be a little "discombobulated". Also, this is an essay I wrote in seminary...it was written for academic purposes and, thus, uses way bigger words than I normally use. Please don't accuse me of having a stick up my butt...enjoy! Introduction I must admit that I have been caught up in the argument that so many of the Old Testament laws do not apply as they are under the “old covenant” and I have struggled with how the ones that obviously do apply to me fit into my life. An example of one that I do not apply to me is Leviticus 19:27 (NIV), which states, “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” Instead of determining if it applies or not, there exists a method that helps me to investigate how it does apply. In so doing, I find that in what was a very specific instruction for ancient Israel has not been rendered useless by time; rather it can be applied by applying the five steps of principlism. In this essay, I intend to discuss the benefits of principlism and how it can help in studying the Old Testament. I will also use principlism as a method to do a brief devotional study of Leviticus 19:9-10. Principlism I believe that the greatest strength in the Mr. Hays’ approach is in that it avoids the pointless argument of whether or not a certain Old Testament passage applies or not. If Christians believe that the Bible, in its entirety, is the inspired word of God, then God’s word should be timeless and applicable to all situations. The principlism method gives students of God’s word a method by which he or she can use the Old Testament law to interact on a very deep level with God’s instructions in the Old Testament in a practical way. Hays states in his article that the method “may tend to oversimplify some complex issues.” I will concede that this may be a weakness, however I would contend that it might work to the advantage of those who tend to complicate God’s word. I will add that, as an added caution to using this step, there seems to be a bit of a subjective nature to step one in determining what a particular Old Testament Law meant in that day. There could be a propensity towards eisegesis or “guessing” that could lead the inexperienced Bible student astray. In this case, I would recommend either consulting a commentary or a pastor to gain insight and clarity before proceeding with study. My understanding of how to use the Old Testament law has been challenged and expanded in that I can utilize the steps for my own Bible study and enrichment. I confess that I am one to quickly brush off the “quirky” commandments that just seem odd by using the “that doesn’t apply to me” excuse. However, I am challenged to dig deeply and find where and how those same “quirky” laws can build my faith. This method of principlism gives a method that ties the Old Testament with the New Testament and helps believers to reconcile the old with the new. Reconciling the Old and the New Hays states in his article, “Jesus was not stating that the Law is eternally binding on New Testament believers.” It may not be binding, but that does not mean that it is not useful. The Law was put into place so that the nation of Israel could properly worship God and be adequately prepared for the advent of the Messiah. Once the Messiah came with the new covenant in his blood, the Law was fulfilled. It is interesting that a great many of the laws in the Old Testament are not only repeated in the New Testament, but they were intensified. Jesus not only fulfilled the Law, but He brought a new meaning to the law. Hays states that Jesus proclaimed, “that meaning of the Law must be interpreted in light of His coming and in light of the profound changes introduced by the New Covenant.” Jesus brought a new and deeper meaning to the law that causes believers to read it differently and apply it differently than it was originally meant. It is through Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law that New Testament believers are “no longer under the Law” and its requirements, but it “does not pass away” in that it is practically applicable. Addressing the Contradiction As has been lightly touched upon until now in this essay, there is a gigantic elephant under the table manifest in the contradiction that is inherent in discussing whether or not the Law is relevant to the New Testament believer or not. There are many questions that remain. “Do I follow the Law or not?” “Do I just follow the 10 Commandments and ignore everything else?” There are other questions, but I think these two will suffice for the purpose of discussion here. When Jesus says that the Law shall not pass away, I agree with Him, but not in that we are to follow the Law today. As I see it, the ultimate end of the Old Testament Law was not an actual end but a fulfillment in the person and work of Christ. The Law taught Israel how to be in right relationship with God until such a time as the Messiah could come and replace that Law with His death and resurrection. The fulfillment of the Law was the death and resurrection of Jesus. I believe that the Old Testament Law was a very literal set of rules for a time when God’s people needed very clear and detailed direction in how to live righteous and pure lives. There was no lens or filter through which to apply the Law other than a literal interpretation. Then Jesus came and changed everything. With the New Covenant in the blood of Christ, there comes a brand new filter through which to view and apply the Old Testament. The Old Testament is simply not to be taken as literally as it was originally intended save those commands in the New Testament, which Jesus repeated and validated. When we read the Old Testament Law, we now have to ask ourselves some new questions. We have to apply the teachings of Christ to glean meaning from the Old Testament. But doesn’t this just make sense? Do Christians not apply the teachings of Christ to just about every situation in order to glean meaning and make sense of the world? When I look at the Old Testament from this angle, even the “quirky” rules to which I referred earlier actually make some sense. Not cutting the hair at the sides of one’s head is not about literal grooming standards when Christ is applied to that scripture. This law becomes about loving Christ so much that I will do everything that I can to look differently from a corrupt world so that I am set apart for Christ’s mission. When Jesus Christ, the slain Lamb of God, is applied to bring meaning to the Old Testament something truly amazing happens. Crystal clarity comes as the Old Testament and the New Testament are found to be in a beautiful, perfect harmony and unity. Application: Leviticus 19:9-10 “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.” (NIV) Initial Meaning This was a law put into place for the benefit of the poor. This is obviously meant for someone who was looking for food to be able to pick through a harvested field and gather whatever he or she could in order to eat it or sell it. Differences Between Then and Now Farming is still widespread, but it is not a common activity for poor people to walk through a field in order to find that leftovers or gather that which a person or machine dropped during the harvest. Today, there are many more organizations created to prepare food or hand out resources to those in need so that the poor do not need to actually glean from a field for food. Universal Principles What I see here is a care for the poor. Those who have are required to have compassion on those who do not have. Foreigners who did not have the benefit of a large family from which to draw support should be cared for, as well. Correlation with the New Testament Among other passages, Matthew 25:31-46 comes immediately to mind in that Jesus tells of separating out those who love Him from those who do not by how they care for the poor and the needy. Application for Today If I am to show myself as a disciple of Christ, I am to make an effort to care for the poor and needy. I am to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the sick. Conclusion As discussed and actually proven in this essay, the Old Testament is truly applicable to today. I see the Old Testament as I see some of the senior saints in our congregation at New Bridge. I have some very dear old friends whose world fifty or sixty years ago looked very different from my own today, but they walked through many of the same issues through which I currently struggle. If I glean some of their wisdom, I may just avoid some mistakes in my walk with Christ. I look forward to gleaning countless lessons from my old friend, the Old Testament.   BIBLIOGRAPHY Hays, J. Daniel. “Applying the Old Testament Law Today.” Bibliotheca Sacra 158:629 (2001): 21-35. http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_law_hays.html (accessed Nov 20, 2011).

Filters and Lenses; Hebrews 4:11-12

God’s word pierces as far as dividing soul and spirit, but what’s the difference between soul and spirit? Isn’t a soul a spirit? Or isn’t a spirit a soul? There may be a division meant between natural thought and those impressions that come supernaturally. The word for “soul” is psyche, which is where we get our words that indicate the mind such as psychology and such. I think that the division meant here between soul and spirit indicates those thoughts and actions which comes from the deduction of the human mind/soul and that which is gleaned from the truth of the Holy Spirit, which is the mind of God. So dividing soul and spirit means that we can think about a problem all we want. We can work out a solution based on our impressions and the input of others. We can even develop our ideas and ethics by observing the world around us, but we cannot really know spiritual truth unless we get it from a supernatural source. The Word of God is that supernatural revelation from which we gain our truth. So in this way, the Word of God separates what comes from our own natural processes of discernment and shows us where they either align with or diverge from the heart of God. I grew up in Texas. I was just looking at some pictures of my old high school friends and remembering some of the good times we had in athletics, marching band, and in class and such. That caused me to reflect on my days in the Marine Corps, as well. As a young man in high school and in the military, I developed a number of ethical and moral stances that were based on my own interactions with people and with the world. These stances were also based on how I wanted to be treated and on what I wanted to get from and give to the world around me. I have to admit that a large percentage of the values that I landed on were not Biblical in nature at all. Some of my ethics were really admirable, but not really very many of them were. Most were pretty self-righteous and just plain selfish. I based all of my decisions on what my father and family taught me, on what I learned in the Marine Corps, and on what I selfishly wanted. Now, if I’m being honest, this is still true even at 42 years old. However there is a difference in the 42 year-old Dave and the 20 year-old Dave. I had no spiritual filter whatsoever through which to sift my thoughts. Now this was NOT necessarily a good thing. As a young man, I could tend to be pretty angry and violent. For a United States Marine, these qualities were actually validated and encouraged. Who wants a soft, sissified Marine in a recon unit, right? Am I still angry and violent in my heart? Yup. The difference is the lens through which I see the world and the filter through which I send my emotions before I let words come out of my mouth (those who know me would argue that I need to let the Holy Spirit filter me a WHOLE lot more)! For what it’s worth though, the Holy Spirit of God now tempers the natural Dave Wilde. I do my best to allow the Word of God to tease out the natural from the supernatural; the soul from the spirit; my own thoughts and desires from the thoughts and desires of God. The whole thing with “joints” and “marrow” indicates the depth to which the Word of God can go into our lives if we allow it. Historically the term “marrow” indicates the absolute deepest recesses of the human existence. I do my best to allow the Word of God to penetrate deeply to my own joints and marrow in order to root out darkness, bitterness, and evil. I let the Word shine light into my dark corners so I can see what’s there. When I see it, I try to sweep that junk out of there!

Touch My Wife and You Have A Problem: The Concept of Rest in Hebrews

Just some summary thoughts/notes from my study of Hebrews 4:1-11... The writer seems to be reminding his readers that the people did not enter into any sort of permanent rest in the days of Joshua. If they had, there would have been no reason to bring up the concept of entering rest after the fact except to bring up God’s goodness in providing rest. So the concept of “rest” seems to be a little vague here, but I’ll just tell you what I think is meant by the term “rest”. The term seems, to me, to indicate a faith journey. It’s a little like the concept of salvation. I am, as I am sitting here writing these words, saved by my faith. This means that I have come to a head and heart knowledge of who Jesus is. I have accepted that He is God, and that He died on a cross for my sins, that He was resurrected, and that He will come again. This isn’t the end of my journey, though. The day I came to this recognition of my need for a Savior and committed myself to it was only the beginning of salvation. When I die and cross the proverbial finish line of life, I will have completed my journey and will be saved in the sense of having finished the journey. Salvation is a work that Jesus does in my life that can only be consummated with my entry into heaven. Entering into rest isn’t just a “now” thing. It isn’t just that we are supposed to rest as believers because God rested on the seventh day. That’s just part of it. The rest that we receive now is the rest from seeking out the Lord and seeking out our purpose. If my wife goes missing, I am obviously going to go look for her. If I find her in her car broken down on the side of the road, I can rest from my distress in knowing she was lost, but she isn’t completely safe until I get her off of the side of the road and home. She can rest from her distress at having been sitting on the side of the road in a broken down vehicle. Will anything or anyone hurt her before I get her home? Not likely with a 6’4” prior service Marine who is most likely armed with a 9mm pistol and quite willing to do violence on her behalf if necessary (Sorry. Not very “pastorly”, but just being honest here…touch my wife and you have a problem…) escorting her home! She can rest from being exposed to whomever would hurt her or take advantage of her as she is now under protection that she trusts. CAN something happen to her? Well, theoretically, yes. She could walk away from my protection and be harmed, but if she’s smart, she will stay close and let me protect her. So she can rest in having been found, but she will experience the permanent rest when she is safely delivered home and is totally out of harm’s way. We experience rest from our wandering when we place faith in Christ. We can know that no matter what comes, we can be kept from harm as long as we stay close to Him. We know that our salvation will be completed, much as a journey home is completed, at the end of our lives. It is in that knowledge of future and permanent rest that we can experience the rest that confidence in Christ brings. So until our journey is finished, we would be well-advised to stay close to the one who can protect us and keep us until we are finally home.

Road Hogs, Organization Charts, and the Southern Baptist Papacy

From my study of Hebrews 3:4-6 Let me first state: I am about to step all over my own toes here. This passage makes a pretty bold statement about the hierarchy in the church today. We live in an age when clergy, while I agree that they (we, since I would consider myself clergy) have a special gifting, are sort of put up on a pedestal in a church. There is this thing that I call the “Southern Baptist Papacy” that I have a real problem with. In a lot of churches, whether those churches will admit it or not, the pastor is given a great deal of leeway and freedom. This leeway and freedom sometimes balloons into privilege. This privilege can sometimes become entitlement. (By the way, I’m not knocking my fellow pastors out there, I’m just pointing out something that I think I see a little too often.) There is a misconception today about the clergy, and I think it goes back to, or is at least illustrated by the tradition in the Roman Catholic Church of Papal Infallibility (again, not dogging Catholics, just making a point here, so just bear with me). The Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility, which was declared by the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870, basically states that when the Pope is exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians the doctrines on faith and morals that he declares are without error. In other words, if the Pope says that he’s making a statement for all Christians from the position of Pope (“ex cathedra”, or “from the chair”), then he’s always right. So hold that thought for just a second. When we look at the analogy of the “house” in Hebrews 3:4-6, there is nowhere in the house where the prophet (Moses) is given a different degree of preference from the rest of the servants in the house. I agree that Moses was special in that God chose him to do a great work, but he's still just called a servant here. VV.4-6 uses a sort of “construction language” to make a point about the Lord as a builder. The Church is considered to be the house that is being built here. God is the builder of the house. Moses was referred to as a servant in the house while Christ is the One OVER the house. Did you catch that? Jesus owns the house. It could be easily drawn from this passage that all Christians are servants in the house, which means that the house is, quite literally, built OF servants. This means that the entire church, clergy included, has service to God and others as an underlying principle. So let’s take a step back here. I don’t want to come off as critical (even though I am criticizing a little here). I want to paint a picture of what I think the relationship of the pastor of a church should be to the laity (that’s basically a churchy word for the non-professional church folks; non-professional ministry personnel, if you will) and the rest of the church. Organizational charts basically tell an organization who reports to who and who is someone else’s boss. I often think in organizational charts, so let me just try to think of it in that way. At the top of our church organizational chart is God. He is the builder of the house, like we just stated. Right next to God on the same line is Jesus, who is over the house, or church. Draw a line down to the next level and you have the church. Now let’s just say that line below God connects to the pastor of the church. Which direction do we draw the line now? Sideways or down? Is the pastor now OVER the rest of the church or on the same level as the rest of the church? Before I answer that question, let me first say that this organizational chart that we’re creating here has nothing to do with the administration of the church. A church needs someone to run the staff and to be a decision-maker. I’m just saying that for the purposes of this discussion, we need to separate out the temporal administration of the church from the ultimate authority and responsibility IN a church. So which direction do we draw the line? Lots of churches would draw that line straight down to the rest of the congregation. I don’t think that they necessarily do it on purpose. I think they do it with great intentions. However, I humbly think that this is wrong. I think this sets up the “Southern Baptist Papacy” that we talked about earlier. I think this gives the pastor of a church authority that he was never intended to have. I think the line should be drawn to the side. If Moses was a servant in the house, why would I not be a servant in the house with everyone else? Here’s how I see it: I am a member of the church. Those who come to the church are members of the church. I am gifted in a certain way. I am gifted to prophecy (preach; although I am not the ONLY one gifted to preach; and administrate.) As a pastor, I am a facilitator. Is the pastor the only one who has vision for the church? If you asked a teenager in your congregation what they would do differently in a ministry would you get an answer? Could you ask a police officer who attends your church what he thinks about the direction of ministry and get an answer? What if you asked a stay-at-home mom what her vision is for her children and how that relates to the church? Do you imagine that she thinks about those types of things? What about a middle school teacher? Do you think that person has been given a word from God about connecting the families in the community to faith in Christ? Do you think the high school principal isn’t burdened for meeting the physical needs of kids who go home on the weekend and may not eat until Monday morning when they return to school for breakfast? As a pastor, I preach and pray. I facilitate the church. I even have a certain vision for what the church can be. Here’s the question: is mine the ONLY vision? What if a pastor took a step back and started looking at his position a little differently? What if a pastor looked at the position of pastor as an equipper and supporter rather than “the boss”? What would it look like if I as a pastor (now I’m talking about myself here more than anything, so don’t think that I am self-righteously pronouncing that everyone else on the planet is doing it wrong and that I have all the answers) decided to let other voices and visions for church steer the direction of the church? How much pressure for ministry would be lifted from my shoulders? You know why people don't show up for business meetings? They feel like their voice often doesn't matter! Start letting the congregation make some ministry decisions and see where participation in the church goes. I think church will run best when a pastor “stays in his lane”, so to speak. Well, let me be clear here. I think a church will be most effective when the pastor “stays in his lane” and doesn’t run everyone else off of the road. There are a LOT of voices that represent a LOT of hearts that bleed for a LOT of people that attend churches in this great country of ours. I think it’s time to start taking the chance that some of those voices may have some really great ideas as to how to do ministry. In fact, some of those voices may have BETTER ideas for how to do ministry than the pastor! The thing is that those voices don’t have to be a threat to a pastor. If a person has an idea for ministry, it doesn’t mean that they want to kick the pastor out of the church and take over. It just means that God uses people; lots of people, to build His kingdom. When a pastor steps back and remembers that he’s just another member of a congregation doing the best he can with the gifting and calling that he has been given, he is freed up to listen and HEAR what God may be doing in the life of the church. He is freed up to let others lead and cast vision. The church if freed from the bondage of the vision squelching one-man show that is the “Southern Baptist Papacy”. Pastors, let’s all remember to stay in our lanes…my toes hurt…I need some ice…

Reppazent, y'all!

Thoughts from study of Hebrews 2:17-18 V.17-18 speak of Jesus identification with mankind. If I were going to truly try to help someone in an inner city project or in a place where there is little food, water, or other basic resources necessary for survival, could I do that if I did not go to that place? Of course, I could hear about it and send those resources, but would I really be able to help all that much if someone didn’t go there? How do you stamp out the root of the problem that causes a shortage of those resources if you don’t go and investigate in order to put a solution in place? The situation with Jesus becoming our sacrifice is a little like that. The major difference is that Jesus wasn’t just providing a resource for our survival. He WAS the resource. As we know, the OT sacrifice was an animal of some type. This animal was never going to be a complete sacrifice for mankind as it was simply not the same trade. The trade was simply blood for blood. In the OT case it was animal blood for human blood. If the sacrifice were to be truly complete, it would have to be human blood for human blood. Furthermore, it would have to be perfectly sinless human blood for sinful human blood. Animals can’t sin as they have no will to defy God, so it is true that a bull is a sinless sacrifice. However, as I just said, the bull can’t represent a human. Even some humans can’t represent other humans. You would never send a Chinese national who had never been to the United States in his life to go to the UN to represent the interests of the United States. Neither could God, at the end of the day, say that all humans on the planet could be redeemed by the blood of something that was not human. “But doesn’t this mean that God supports human sacrifice?” Well, I would agree with that if God ever allowed a mere human to be an adequate sacrifice for our sins, which He has never done in history. The one “human” that died for sinful mankind wasn’t JUST a human being. He was the God-man. He was human, but ALSO divine placing him in a class set apart from humanity. He linked humanity to the divine, but he was separate from humanity as well. So we have Jesus represented here as the sacrifice and as the High Priest who offered the sacrifice. As our high priest, Jesus offered Himself for us. Jesus was made like us, His brethren, in all things (V.17) so that he could perfectly represent us in all things. The way that Jesus represented us on the cross was as a substitute. Jesus stood in the gap for you and me. He basically said, “Yes these people are guilty. They are sentenced to death. Something has to die. That something will be me.” Death as separation from God has always been the penalty for sin. In the OT, when a person sinned, something had to die. It was either the person who sinned or an animal. An animal was not always going to work (3.5 billion people on the planet today X the number of sins committed daily = not enough animals to go around; therefore people would have to die for their sins for a literal lack of enough animals to die for sin). So what’s the answer? One final sacrifice for all forever. We don’t rely on death after our sin in order to be made right with God. We rely on a death that happened a long time ago. The problem FOR death is that death didn’t work on Jesus. He didn’t STAY DEAD! So now, instead of putting our faith in the blood of animals, we put out faith in the blood of Jesus, who overcame death. I won’t pretend to yet understand all of what happened when Jesus overcame death, but I will say that when Jesus overcame death on the cross, he became the sacrifice to which we could look and put faith for salvation. I think that the death that Jesus overcame was the necessity for any further death on the part of any animal or human to die for sin since He did it for us. I mean, we all still die. Jesus’ death didn’t make us all immortal or something crazy like that. It just means that His one death was the final one that was necessary for salvation if we decide to place faith in Him. The difference between believers and non-believers, even in the OT, was whether or not they placed their faith in the death of something to atone for sin. If a person let an animal be the sacrifice for sin in the OT or if they let Jesus be the sacrifice today, they are still putting faith in a system that God put into place for them.

I Hope You Die!

Some notes from my study of Hebrews 2:14-15... So Jesus destroyed the power of death, which is defined as the devil, or Satan. Well, what does that even mean? Clearly, Jesus hasn’t annihilated Satan. People still die, so death hasn’t been completely erased. If that’s the case, what is it about death that Jesus has destroyed? What is the true power of death? Well, when is death a bad thing? When does death have a negative power over people? Death has power in a couple of ways. First, it has the power to separate those who aren't believers from eternal life in Christ. Second, death has power in the fact that so many people are afraid of it. The power of death that I want to discuss here is the human fear of death. Death only has power over people who are afraid to die. People who aren’t afraid to die are sure about a number of things. The most important thing about which they are sure is their final state. Atheists believe that there is no afterlife. They believe that this life is all that there is. Christians believe that there IS an afterlife and that the afterlife is spent eternally in a place called heaven. Here’s the problem with atheism, though: I have never met a self-proclaimed atheist who was 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt, completely sure that there absolutely cannot be a higher power behind creation (which isn’t atheism. That’s agnosticism, but I digress). Some atheists will even concede that a higher being is possible, but they just don’t see that the evidence leads towards God. In other words, in the deepest of atheism, there is still doubt as to the final repose. I do not mean to demean what atheists stand for as I believe these to be people of great faith in their viewpoint. In fact, a lot of atheists have better reasons for believing what they believe than some Christians. However, it is the Christian who can have true confidence of what happens after death. In that confidence, there is no fear. To live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s a win-win situation. For the atheist, to live is to live and to die is…well, I’m not really 100% sure. My question is this: to whom is the self-preservation instinct more important? Of course, I’m not going to go out and do stupid things that will get me killed just because I know where my eternity will be spent nor would I ever suggest that an atheist can’t do selfless acts that could get them killed, either. Defending a child and acts of patriotism, for example, are some powerful motivators towards potentially lethal courses of action. I will say this, though. (Opinion Alert!) The man or woman who has settled his or her account with God is much less likely to fear death than those who have not. If someone attacks my wife or some other public place where there are people, I don’t have the fear of losing my life at all. I can defend life and not fear losing my own because I know what’s at the end. It’s not even a consideration. I don’t have to rely on my own training and/or willpower to overcome fear nearly as much as if I had no assurance of eternal life in Christ. Training and willpower aren’t wasted on the debate over whether or not a situation is worth my life. I already gave it away in trade for an eternal one. This is what the Bible means when it speaks of “dying to self”. My life isn’t my own anymore. I can defend someone I don’t even LIKE without fear or without having to weigh how much I like or don’t like that person. More than that, I can put someone else’s needs before my own because I am less concerned with my own needs and desire than those of others. Here’s my point: in this lack of fear, there is freedom. I don’t have to make decisions based on what will preserve my life. I don’t make decisions based on what will keep me comfortable. I can actually live my life without being slave to the possibility of death. Speaking for myself, I can say that this freedom from fear of death lends itself to a larger perspective. The larger perspective that the freedom from fear of death brings is an eternal perspective on life and faith. The bottom line is that I am going to die. One day, in some way, I will die. What will I do with the last thirty or forty years that I have on this planet? Will I spend my life on others? Will I decide to seek pleasure or comfort? Will I use those years to be sure others know WHY I have no fear of death? With a freedom from the fear of death, I can now look beyond today with no fear. I have accepted my own death and my eternity. I think that this new eternal perspective means a new outlook on how I will live this last half of my life. It means that I can make decisions that move beyond comfort and selfishness. To live is to accept death and to die to self. When we live our lives dead to our own flesh and desires, the physical end will be much easier to accept. So, at the end of the day, I guess I hope that I can continue to die daily. In fact, I hope you die, too!

Hope, Pumpkins, and Snotty Noses

Random thoughts after studying from Hebrews 2:5-9... So you have this passage that speaks of Jesus in two separate “times”, if you will allow me that. We have Jesus “a little lower than the angels” (VV. 7, 9), referring to His sojourn on earth as the God-man. We also have Jesus “crowned with glory and honor” (V. 9), referring to His exalted state. As both Creator and future Conqueror, Jesus is ruler over the earth and all of creation. In the exalted state, I would like to focus for just a bit here on his future return. In that, we have Jesus represented in what I like to call a Lamb vs. Lion contrast. Jesus was the Lamb of God in His humanity as He came to die on a cross. He will return as the Lion of Judah when He comes to conquer and reclaim what is His rightful inheritance. In a nutshell, you have Jesus existing on two entirely different levels. Honestly, they are almost polar opposites if you think about it. Of course, we can say that in His sacrifice He is a conqueror, but I’m looking at this in a bit more raw form and I want to keep these two “activities” of Jesus separate for the time being and to make a point. When you look at Jesus as a suffering servant in the past and as a warlord in the future, we find a certain tension. It’s a little like the tension I feel as a pastor and as a man of peace, yet I carry a gun and humbly consider myself ready to use it if the need arises. The tension when we consider the power of Jesus in His current state is different though. We aren’t talking about a person making a choice and balancing out beliefs here. If we’re being honest, don’t we sometimes ask ourselves if God/Jesus is so all-fired awesome and powerful, why don’t they just come on back now and get rid of evil and take us all home? Why all of the suffering, evil, war, and death RIGHT NOW? Why does evil HAVE to exist right now? The so-called Problem of Evil is one that has plagued the minds of Christians and atheists for hundreds of years. In fact, this is a major detraction by atheists from any belief in God that they may have. Atheists say that if God is so loving and compassionate, He would do something about evil in this world, right? I have a confession to make. Get ready for it. Are you sitting down? Here it goes: I see their point. It’s actually a PRETTY good point, if you take it at face value. The problem with this approach to the compassion of God is that it doesn’t go very deep. It’s one of those questions that only asks the questions and doesn’t wait for the answer. Are there answers to this question? Yes, there are. Do Christians sometimes give really stupid and vapid answers to this question? Yes, they do. (Disclosure: I just Googled the word “vapid” to be sure I used it correctly in a sentence…seems legit). So how do Christians often answer this question? The absolute dumbest response (even though it’s true) is to say something like, “Well, we aren’t God, so we can’t question God’s wisdom.” Okay. While I agree that this statement is technically true, there is a measure of laziness in it for some people that I just can’t get around. It’s a lot like saying, “God said it, so that settles it”. So what would be DEEPER answers to the question that might go beyond this watered-down, hippified, bumper sticker theology (yes, “hippified” is a word. It might be a Dave-ism, but it’s a word). Can we just have a little real talk here? I mean, let’s just be totally honest and take a look at the answer to this question with a dose of reality. Parenting today is not what it used to be. There was a day when parents let kids play in the dirt without bathing them in hand sanitizer. There was a time when parents told their kids that they didn’t get a trophy in soccer this year because their kids really weren’t very good at soccer (well, maybe they didn’t say THAT, but they certainly told their kids that others deserved the trophy more). There was a time when parents weren’t concerned with what music was playing at the moment of birth so as to create a less traumatic birth experience (I have never given birth, nor have I witnessed it, but I hear it’s pretty brutal, particularly for fathers who are within arm’s length of mom). There was a time when we gave our little pumpkins (sarcastic term for children) the truth. Today, we have to be sure everyone gets a trophy and that no one gets their little feelings hurt and that no one has to have any consequences for behavior. We live in a world in which parents live so vicariously through their children that they actually believe that a child’s behavior is a direct reflection of the parent’s own soul, desires, beliefs, and choices. We have created the greatest generation of entitled little pumpkins that the world has ever known. Is it any surprise that the entitlement mentality has bled over into the Christian world? Entitled Christians often ask the question about evil, just like atheists. There are a lot of great ways to answer the Problem of Evil, but I want to just focus on one here. I want to answer the question with a question: Since when did God exist to provide ANYONE with comfort? If we all agree that parents can create an entitled generation of Americans AND we agree that this is NOT a good thing, why do we think that an entitled generation in the Church is any better? We live in an in-between time right now in the church. Jesus’ first coming is the “already”. Jesus’ second coming is the “not yet”. Salvation history is in motion and it is sanctifying this world in preparation for Jesus to return for His bride. The bottom line is that in this time between “already” and “not yet” there are troubles. We have to remember that. Without darkness, how would be know the Light? Without hate, how would we know love? Jesus own words in John 16:33 give us hope. “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Take heart and remember that an age of hope is coming on the horizon. It absolutely dwarfs the pain of the present. Hang in there.

The Almighty F-150 and Consumer Commitment

We live in a fast food world. In fact, we live in a consumer driven world. Today, no one who produces goods really drives any market. It is the consumer who determines the worth of anything on the planet. Think about it. A car dealership can tell you how much they are charging for a vehicle, but if not one single person on the planet is willing to pay that much money for a car, then is it really worth the price the dealer is asking? If no one buys it or even wants to buy it, isn’t it’s worth exactly ZERO DOLLARS?! Buying a car, just like any other purchase, is about commitment. If I am willing to commit to an F-150, I will do whatever it takes to purchase (consume) that product. If enough people are buying F-150s, then the dealer doesn’t need to change the price. The dealer and the manufacturer both know that they are turning out a product that the general population (at least 6’4” rednecks from Texas like myself) are willing to go get and bring back home and drive around in. On a side note, what is it about an F-150 (by the way, it is called a PICKUP. It’s not a TRUCK! It’s not a PICKUP TRUCK! It’s a PICKUP! Get it straight, people! You get your man card pulled in Texas for foolishness like that!)? Anyway, I’m getting way off of the track here. So we were talking about commitment and consumerism. Christians are no different, really. I wrote a blog post yesterday (or was it the day before…) that talked about spiritual drift. I think that this spiritual drift is linked, in its own way, to a consumer driven church. Now, the consumer mentality of churchgoers isn’t necessarily all bad. It can be very informative for those church staff members astute enough to notice when people stop coming to their church because they will ask the question, “Why is this happening?” Here’s a bottom line in this life: we maintain commitments to products, values, and institutions as long as they fulfill our needs. As long as Ford keeps making a PICKUP that is as cool as the F-150, I will have one. As long as churches fulfill our needs for worship and discipleship, we will attend them. Now that I think about it, I suppose it depends on my needs when it comes to church? Sissies can drive pickups, right? I’M not a sissy, mind you, but you see what I mean. A guy can buy a pickup just for the image that it produces in the minds of other people. A guy can attend church for the same reason. The thing is this: the sissy in a pickup has to get out of the pickup eventually. He has to face the fact that he was unchanged internally by that pickup and find some other way to be changed. He bought the pickup for the wrong reason. The Christian who is attending a church for the looks eventually has to face the fact that he or she is either disciple or he or she is not. They have eventually leave the building. That person is attending a church for the wrong reason. Now, let’s just say that the church is turning out a product here (just as an analogy. I don’t mean to disparage the church or suggest that it’s just about business). Let’s say that the church is meaning to produce the gospel as its product. The goal would be to turn out as many products as possible, right? This particular product (the gospel) gets “bought” by the consumer (the average churchgoer). How do you know that the product is actually sound? In the case of the churchgoer, I would say that the churchgoer either matches the source of the product (the Bible/Jesus) or the churchgoer does not. How does the church consumer determine the worth of the product? Well, it’s by how easy/convenient it is to live out that faith. For some, it is easy to live out faith if there is absolutely no sacrifice or discomfort as a result of living out faith. For others, the ease and convenience of the product is found in knowing that the gospel is being lived out according to the source (the Bible/Jesus). So what’s the difference? The difference is how well the consumer KNOWS the source, in my opinion. Does the average churchgoer KNOW whether or not the gospel being preached in the church matches the source (the Bible/Jesus)? This is exactly why Martin Luther and the printing press were the absolute BANE of the church when they hit the planet in their time! When the common man could actually read the Bible in his own language, he could see for himself what the source said about the gospel. Now, they know what they are committing to! Now they can really decide to go all in for the gospel. In the church today, people will float from church to church looking for the right worship, the right Bible study, and right place for kids and teens, and the right outlet for ministry. They will look for places where they are comfortable and/or they will look for places where they can live out what they think is their best estimation of how the Bible/Jesus says to live life faithfully. The question that I leave this particular train of rambling thought with is this: what is the church presenting as the product? Sound theology or man-made, sissified, watered down, feel good, kumbayah, “let’s all hold hands and hug a tree” theology? People will find a church that meets their needs. Some just want to feel good. Some really want to live well for the gospel. I want to be in a church that produces the accurate gospel and not just feelings and good intentions.

Wine and Spiritual Drift

We live in a world where drifting has become the norm. Young people (I guess we’re calling them “Millennials” now…) drift through middle school, high school, and college. People drift in and out of jobs like they are changing clothes. Statistically speaking, most people will hold between ten and fifteen different jobs in their lifetime. An August 14, 2012 article by Forbes magazine stated that job-hopping is the new norm for Millennials. Millennials (people born between 1977 and 1997) expect to stay in a job no longer than 4.4 years on average. Adults are ineptly raising their kids with little to no moral code. There is a pervasive attitude among a lot of young people that causes them to refuse to commit to much of anything unless they decide that they have nothing better to do. Even among adults, conversations are non-committal. “Can you come to our neighborhood party? Well, let me check and see...” There seems to be an expectation of a lack of stability in life today that is a little frightening. It is almost as if INSTABILITY is where Americans find peace. If life is expected to be transient, then lifestyles will become transient, as well. Digging a layer deeper, can we really expect values such as truth and integrity to remain solid core values if trust and integrity are so transient (am I saying “transient” a lot?). Why hold to a solid set of values? According to today’s common thought, if your values don’t work where you are, that shouldn’t be a problem. Just change what you believe to match your context. Problem solved, right? The default setting for a lot of people today is comfort and not integrity. There is a drift, of sorts, happening in the church today. It isn’t necessarily a drift FROM values, per se, but a drift from the traditional. This drift (which I cleverly call “religious drift”) can be both positive and negative. I think there has been a certain amount of disenfranchisement happening with the younger population regarding spiritual things. The negative drift happens when people just give up on church. The positive drift happens when people decide to find a new context that better fits their personality. In Virginia where I live, there are churches on just about every corner and they represent just about every denomination or flavor of faith you can imagine. Where I live just outside of Richmond, I would say that the older, more traditional church outnumbers the contemporary church, but this is changing. There’s a change in the air around here that is really refreshing. Katy and I resigned our post a few months ago at New Bridge (actually, she resigned about a year ago to reenter the school system as an elementary autism teacher). In these few months of waiting for God to open up an opportunity in the local church for a senior pastor position, we have had an opportunity to visit a number of churches. Some of these churches are church plants. Most of these churches have extremely contemporary elements to include the worship, are COMPLETELY FULL with the young people whom I thought were leaving the church for good, and the fact that the one preaching doesn’t feel compelled to wear a suit is pretty validating for Ol’ Dave. Did you know that it’s possible for a man to deliver the word of God in jeans, Vans, and a collared shirt?! Heresy to some, but merely a change of context to others, but I digress. Here’s my point. At one time, I thought young people were drifting FROM church in general. I think I have realized that young people aren’t drifting FROM church. They are drifting TO a church context that is healthier for them. Even the ones who gave up on “church” for a while seem to be finding what they are looking for. According to some Lifeway research I read, for the first time in what feels like a really long time, the church is starting to gain ground (in 2014 there were about 4,000 church plants as opposed to the 3700 that closed. Maybe not MUCH ground, but at least it’s not much in the right direction!) It isn’t gaining ground in the form of the traditional church doing the same thing it’s always done. Older, more established churches CAN grow and reach young people, but they will not likely do that by not changing the way that they do things. We visited an older church in the area that brought in a new pastor a few years ago. They changed a few things they were doing and they are really killing it on their side of town! New wine in old wineskins or something like that? Where have I read something like that before? Hmm…not really sure…oh, well (psst…over here…that’s in Matthew 9 and Mark 2…go look it up…). So what’s my point? Well, I guess I would say to those who have been feeling marginalized by church that you should take heart. Get out there and look around. There is a church for you. If you’re in a church that has gone way too contemporary for you, there is no shortage of traditional churches. If you’re in a traditional setting that just isn’t speaking to you, DON’T GIVE UP ON THE CHURCH! If you’re thinking of just giving up on the church and not going, I have three words for you: that is stupid. There are a LOT of churches popping up all over the Richmond area, and evidently across the country that are speaking to different contexts. You might find one if you look, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there and be the “new guy” again. Don’t be afraid to visit around. The thing is that there is a church out there just waiting for you! You’ll know it when you find it. If this is you, I can tell you it is an exciting time of spiritual discovery in your life. Get out there and find that new wineskin!

Authority and Distraction

Just some thoughts I journaled as I wrapped up my study of Hebrews 1:5-14... Hebrews 1:5-14 can be summed up by saying that it refers to and exposes the writer’s belief that Jesus is a superior being on an equal plane with God. He says that Jesus, while being temporarily lower than the angels (Hebrews 2:7, 9; we haven’t gotten there, but be patient!), has risen to a status that is now far superior to them. In a day and age when religion is so watered down with feel-good philosophy and New Age heresy as related to angels and human wisdom such, how do we define authority? Even Christians (myself included) look to popular authors, speakers, and conferences for wisdom and inspiration. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, but books, sermons, and conference lineups are all rooted in flawed man rather than in the Word of God. Even in a sermon, a pastor is giving me HIS interpretation of Scripture. How many pastors in the last five years have fallen in one type of disgrace or another? So the question is, “Why would I give them more authority in my life than the Bible?” In the time of the early church, angels were given very high regard. They had reached what appears to be near mythical proportions and were so highly acclaimed that even the worship of angels began to surface as a new heresy. Angels have been popularized in movies and television shows like “Touched By An Angel”. I know people who collect angel figurines. I have talked with people who talked non-stop about their guardian angel (I’m not disparaging the idea of guardian angels. Some people approach angels with a worshipful attitude, though.) George Guthrie notes that angels are clearly both popular and big business in Western societies. The question is, how should the church respond to this cultural trend? Keeping in mind that the author of Hebrews uses his first audience’s respect for angels to speak to their need for a higher opinion of the Son… In Hebrews, it’s possible that some of the people for whom this sermon was intended had been having a problem with Spiritual authority and the writer may have been using an inflated view of angels for his jumping off point for a discussion of where they should be placing their trust and focus. Angel worship isn’t the problem that it once was, however Christians do end up worshiping at the altar of personality way too much. How do we avoid venerating people while respecting them? For example, I am a big fan of Matt Chandler, who is the pastor of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas. He would probably tell me to go look somewhere else for an example of Godly living, because that’s the kind of guy he is. Anyway, I listen to his messages, subscribe to his podcast, and I even watch how he preaches for pointers on style. I really respect the guy and if there is a person I follow in contemporary church culture, it’s Chandler (Francis Chan is another one, but he isn’t as active as Chandler, but I digress…). The question is this: “How do I glean from a man and avoid venerating his word as Gospel? How do I respect him, but avoid putting him on a pedestal that would cause his voice to supersede the word of God?” How do I let him be AN authority without allowing him to become ULTIMATE authority? The secret is that, first of all, it isn’t a secret, and secondly, it isn’t that hard. 1 John 1:1-3 (NASB95) 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. Here’s the problem: many of the people in whom we see the world placing trust and whom we allow to have spiritual authority are NOT Christians. I’m not calling any specific individual out here. I am, however, addressing how it happens. I have been asking teenagers for years now how they know if I am telling them the truth. The answer always seems to go back to that one passage when Paul was in Berea and they searched the Scriptures to be sure that what he was saying was true. What is it that we’re looking for, though? Yes, we want to be sure that the doctrines are accurate, but how many of those doctrines fall completely apart without the centricity of Christ in our lives? Can I NOT murder and still not be a believer? Can I NOT steal and still not be a believer? If a guy preaches on not murdering and not stealing, does that make him a solid teacher if that’s what we find in the Bible? My question would be, “Did he mention the name of Jesus at ALL anywhere in his message?” I think hype can distract us. Sometimes I feel like guys go out and get into ministry and they can’t WAIT to write and publish their first book. It’s almost like today’s clergy is trying to make a name for itself instead of making a name of Jesus. Is the person whom I am following (i.e. Matt Chandler) trying to make a bigger name for Jesus than for himself? Is he confessing that Jesus is God and not himself or herself as God? I think that’s how we test the spirits. It’s not some sort of vague spiritual entity that we are consulting with. We don’t go get a Ouija board and start asking it questions to get guidance on whom to follow and whom not to follow. We test the spirit of the man or woman in question. Does the life match Scripture? More specifically, does that life match what the Bible says about Jesus? It’s a challenging question. It’s a question that causes a bit of fear and trembling in my own life and ministry. As Katy and I enter a season of searching out our first pastorate, I hope that this reality continues to humble us and keep us real.

Three "ism's": You DO need air to survive!

I ran across some thoughts in a commentary that really made me start to think deeply about three “isms” that we run across almost daily and are at odds with one another in almost every way. The three “isms” are theism, modernism, and postmodernism. Theism is the belief that there is a god or gods out there somewhere. We typically run into theism in a form that believes that a god of some kind created the universe. Theism has many flavors, but it can basically be boiled down into polytheism and monotheism. The opposite of theism would be modernism. I don’t want to oversimplify modernism as it has far reaching cultural implications, but as it relates to religion it pretty much rejects the supernatural in order to give way to science. So we have theism at odds with modernism right out of the gate. One says, “Some god exists”. The other says, “No god exists”. Both of these worldviews are very dogmatic, meaning that they both think that they are the truth. If that’s the case, then they are mutually exclusive of one another meaning that no person can hold these two truths simultaneously and not be looked at as a total moron. I can’t think up is both down and up at the same time. It’s either one or the other. To believe otherwise relegates me to the aforementioned realm of the moronic. Now let’s take a look at postmodernism. Again, I don’t want to oversimplify postmodernism, but for the purpose of a short writing here, let’s just say that postmodernism believes that everything is relative. While theism would say, “Some god exists”, and modernism says, “no god exists”, postmodernism would suggest that “your god exists and my god exists”. On top of that, the postmodern view of religion would further suggest that everyone’s god, whether they exist or not, can all coexist peacefully. Now, we know that this is just crazy. There are way too many religions out there that would argue this point literally to the death. No devout Muslim would agree with this. No serious Christian agrees with this. So what is it that postmodernism is trying to do here? Well, I am of the opinion that this postmodern outlook on religion is simply trying to help people relate to one another peacefully. So a Christian who takes on a postmodern way of thinking, believing that nothing is concrete and that all is relative, would suggest that Jesus is that Way, the Truth, and the Life, but this isn’t necessarily the truth for everyone. Those who don’t believe in Jesus, well, they’re okay. It’s fine for them to believe that Jesus isn’t God since that is what is true for that person. I would like for you to imagine someone trying to spike a postmodern volleyball over a net. Now, I would like for you to imagine a solid Christian jumping up, blocking that spike so hard that the person spiking the ball falls to the ground crying in pain, horror, and humiliation while the blocker screams, “Get that weak garbage out of here!” Christian postmodernists need to grow a spine. Why in the world anyone thinks that it is appropriate to stand halfway between theism and modernism is beyond me. Is it okay for a Christian to think this way? I would submit to you that it is not and I will explain further (if it’s not self-explanatory already) why I believe that. The postmodern Christian is caught between two worlds: the dogmatic and the pragmatic. Dogmatic people stand on what is true. Pragmatic people stand on what works. Does it “work” for Christians to just try to get along with others? Well, I suppose that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is it okay when truth gets watered down? If Jesus is the way, truth, and life and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, then is it okay to say that this truth is okay only for those who want to believe it to be true? Is it less true if someone chooses not to believe it? Here’s the problem Mr. Postmodern Christian: if a person chooses to not believe it as a dogmatic truth, Jesus is still the Way, the Truth, and the Life and nothing changes the fact (not even unbelief) that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus. I can believe all day long that oxygen isn’t necessary for survival, but I can’t make that true. If the “rule of three’s” is true, after about three minutes without oxygen, I will become very, very dead. So, if some guy claims that he can live without oxygen and puts a plastic bag over his head, am I okay to just let him suffocate since we all know that he will die? Wouldn’t I try to stop him from doing something that will result in his own asphyxiation? At least poke a hole in the bag, right? If I allow him to have his own postmodern way, he will die. His truth is going to kill him. The dogma that is the human body’s need for oxygen will win over his hard headed and hard hearted belief that he doesn’t need air to survive! Let’s say that I allow him to hold this view and act on it and he dies. What now? Am I now responsible for his death since I didn’t do anything to prevent it when I could have? I guess the courts will decide that one, but the obvious parallel here is that in the life of a Christian, some things are just true and they are DEADLY true! Those who don’t believe that Jesus is God and that trust in Him is essential for salvation are putting a plastic bag over their heads. If I just say, “Well, that’s what is true for him, so I shouldn’t step on his rights”, then I am basically saying, “I don’t believe my own truth enough to do something about it”. When does it end? When do we take a stand and just live out lives like we REALLY believe this “Jesus stuff”?

How to tell when your vision stinks

So what do we do in a culture that demands that we NOT commit to anything? I have been involved with my wife in young adult ministry in our time in service and I can tell you that none are less willing to commit to anything than today’s young adult. It seems that they just aren’t sure what they are going to be doing on any given night. They seem to be afraid of making solid plans out of fear that a “better plan” may come along. “I can’t commit to going to a small group because someone might want to hang out.” “I guess we can go to our young adult group since we don’t have anything else to do.” Of course, this doesn’t describe ALL young adults, but it certainly does seem to be a pervading attitude. Also, it doesn’t just describe young adults. It is bleeding into adult attitudes, as well. However, have you noticed that once today's young adult population DOES commit to something, they are ALL IN? Not just partially supportive, but ALL IN! How do we build into people a commitment to the word of God? Is that even my responsibility? How do we take folks who are marginal or even nominal followers and help them to develop a real hunger for deep things? I think it’s about planting a compelling vision in the hearts and minds of believers. I am a firm believer that people don’t give their time, money, or talents to other people or organizations. They give all of those things to a compelling vision. A vision compels when it’s going somewhere. It compels when we can see progress. We don’t have to be winning necessarily. The vision just can’t be a stagnant pool of non-moving garbage! Maybe most importantly, vision is compelling when it is participatory. I don’t think most people, and I am particularly speaking of young adults here, want to just give their money to an organization and watch the work happen. I think people want to give themselves away to a cause and be USED in the effort! Maybe this is where church is going wrong today. Maybe we aren’t about EQUIPPING people enough. Maybe we are just communicating, “We don’t really want YOU. We just want your MONEY so that WE can do good things for Christ. You just sit over there and clap when we sing, okay? We the, ‘professionals’, will take care of the sick and hurting.” This is exactly the attitude that stagnates a church. It stops people from NEEDING to develop faith. Stagnant people means stagnant vision. After all, if I’m the only one who is going to do ministry in my church and the average congregant never has an opportunity to share faith, why is there any need to DEVELOP faith! There is no vision for that person to MOVE in faith, so he or she just sits still in worship and wonders why he or she is even there. People become stagnant when there is no expectation to do anything with what they are taught about faith. So what do they do? They wait for something else to come along that will speak to them. If we aren’t careful, the world will plant vision in our congregation. They will begin to fall away from the vision that God set forth in Scripture and begin to chase after meaning elsewhere. Today’s young adult was not built to be stagnant. They were built to keep moving and growing. Maybe we need to stop complaining about a lack of commitment and start really re-evaluating whether or not our vision is worth following?

Satan's "innocent" alternatives...

1 And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. 2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. 3 I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 4 they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?” New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Re 13:1–4. There is an intrinsic power in worship. There is also an intrinsic spiritual nature in man that engages in worship, even if the worship engaged is secular in nature. This is both good and bad. Man wants to worship and adore things. Take a look around at the number of entities that gain the recognition and adoration of people. We idolize sports teams, athletes, musicians, bands, politicians, preachers, models, The problem is that Satan knows this, too. One of the things that Satan is absolutely best at is mimicking good things. He does this in order to provide substitutes to those things that are holy. Think about it. Satan provides alternatives to love so as to pull us away from God’s true desire for love. He provides alternatives for justice so that we are pulled towards our own brand of justice and away from Gods desire for pure justice. He presents us with alternatives for hope. Is it any surprise that Satan provides us with an alternative to faith, as well? If he can just get us excited about ANYTHING that has nothing to do with Jesus he can begin pulling us away. It all seems innocent enough at first, right? I mean, I constantly struggle with my anger. Why not give in to it just a little and feel the power of rage? Why not give my heart to a football team so that my heart is pulled away on Sunday? Church will always be there, right? Why not just sit and keep staring at the woman who isn’t my wife? She’s pretty and I like pretty things, right? Subtle pulls away from true worship are what cause us to fall into sin. I’m only processing this for myself at this point, but I really feel like when I am focusing on the Lord and worshiping Him and Him alone, my worship of the worldly is eliminated. The struggle is real, folks!