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).