Monday, December 24, 2012

Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus–What Does It Reveal About God?

Text: Matthew 1
Discussion Outline
Discussion Audio MP3 (61 minutes)

Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, though based on history, is not about history. Its purpose is strictly theological. The genealogy is the entire first chapter, not just the first seventeen verses. The first seventeen verses provide the context and explanation to Jesus’ origins as described in the remainder of the chapter.

Jesus’ genealogy shows three things:

  • The relationships between justice, mercy, and law. God’s justice is his mercy, not his wrath. Wrath is the catalyst for mercy. (I.e., there are two choices when faced with wrath: to give out what is deserved, or to respond in mercy. God chose the latter.) God’s mercy transcends the processes and demands of the law.
  • Faithfulness is the undivided pursuit of justice (aka, mercy). The human individuals commended in the genealogy exhibit this kind of faithfulness. This foreshadows the life of Jesus and through it the portrait of God he paints for us. (Faith/Faithfulness is not belief in God.)
  • There are two types of community: one is based upon blood lineage, the other is based on mercy and faithfulness. Jesus chose to be grafted, through law, into the human lineage. By doing so, he opened the way for all humankind to be grafted into the community of faith, through his (Jesus’) mercy and faithfulness.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

High School Christmas Concert

Last evening (Dec. 10) the Petersburg High School music groups performed their Christmas concert. Our Amy is in the choir so you get to see and listen to the choir portion of the concert. The HD version of the video was way too large to upload, so you’ll just have to make-do with the SD version.

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Jesus would have been a poor church growth consultant

Some recent events got me thinking about why church organizations seem to be obsessed with high-profile PR and organizational growth. When I compare that with how Jesus went around his business, the two seem quite different.

Particularly in the gospel account of Mark, Jesus repeatedly tells people who have experienced and witnessed miracles to not tell anyone. When Jesus drives out a legion of demons from a man, the man wants to follow Jesus. But Jesus, instead of taking along this “trophy”, tells the man to go back home.

During the first phase of his ministry, Jesus’ popularity increases and at one point five-thousand men gather around him. With a miraculous feeding this would be the perfect time to pitch some good PR to increase his numbers. But instead Jesus talks about “eating flesh” and turns most people away from him.

On Palm Sunday throngs of people gather around Jesus as he enters into Jerusalem. He is in perfect position to gather more of the masses around him and take over the city. But instead he retires to Bethany and then gets himself crucified. By the end of the week only a handful of women and John are left to see Jesus die on the cross.

If Jesus was a church growth consultant today, he wouldn’t get hired.

What was Jesus possibly thinking? Didn’t he want the good news go to all the world? Why reject PR opportunities handed to him? Why intentionally trim the number of people following him?

The reason I can think of is that Jesus valued fidelity to his values over any kind of growth. Jesus didn’t want people who were only around him for adventure, thrills, and the potential for promotion, power, and profit. Jesus only wanted people who were willing to put in the hard effort to learn his ways. Jesus knew that only fidelity to his way would keep his people together over the long haul. Growth in numbers without fidelity to Jesus’ character would be worse than The Way going the way of extinction.

Self-promotion was antithetical to Jesus’ way. Jesus knew his Body would naturally grow as healthy members multiplied organically, not through high-profile PR or focus on “growth methods”.

Maybe Jesus was an expert church growth consultant. Just not the kind churches today want to hear.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

My worldview might be Orthodox

I just read a post by Frank Schaeffer over at Patheos, titled, Why Evangelical Bible Idolatry Sucks and Why I Go to a Greek Orthodox Church Even Though It’s A Mess Too. The way he describes his theology and worldview, as formed by the Greek Orthodox church, many aspects are very close to how I’ve come to see things. Does that make me more Orthodox in comparison to other branches of Christianity?

What are some of the examples of Orthodoxy that resonate with me? Here are a few examples, in order.

“Love Trumping Theology”

I find the above phrasing a tad confounding. It means, “The practice of love takes priority over theological correctness.” Schaeffer writes,

This loving “swooping up” also changes brains by producing a sense of benign tribal belonging, in this case to a mostly benevolent tribe. It isn’t about correct belief, let alone if the Bible is “true” (whatever that means) but about the brain-changing effect of community and the humbling mystery of unconditional love experienced in the “ordinary” in a sacramental context.

Absolute Certainty is Unattainable

Religious belief is a personal conviction based on available knowledge, personal experience, and ultimately, personal choice as to what to believe.

To believe something – rather than just stumbling into a malleable opinion — you’d have to have considered all the options. And that’s impossible.

Perfection is Found Only In Jesus

The Bible is not perfect. Is it not inerrant or infallible. It is a record of human thought describing God.

If Jesus is God then Jesus has the right to contradict the very imperfect book in which he has the misfortune to have his biography trapped. Jesus transcends the book he’s trapped in. He does this because he is the perfect fulfillment of an imperfect human tradition.

Jesus is more important than the Bible.

Jesus does not “fit” any “biblical interpretation,” which makes the text less important than him.

Christus Victor

Legal, forensic, penal-substitution models of the atonement are rejected as false and harmful ways of representing Christ’s work on the cross.

Jesus introduces the transforming possibility of nonviolence and forgiveness to our retributive primate way of being human that ensnares the rest of the Bible.

Until Jesus, the Bible is the story of retributive sacrifice to an angry “god” modeled on a pagan paradigm. Jesus ends sacrifice. Jesus is the opposite of a “substitutionary atonement.” He is the contradiction of human conceptions of justice projected on a “god” created by pagans and Jews in our own retributive image. This is where Jesus smashes “atonement theory.” Jesus’ death is an act of grace not the violent continuation sacrifice. Jesus’ death stops the sacrificial principle — the dark side of religion – forever.

Value of Uncertainty and Relationships

Modernism and the Western European influence place great value on certainty. Salvation does not require certainty. Rather, it requires community.

Some of the earliest Church Fathers — who themselves were partially responsible for the formation of the canon of the New Testament portion of what would (400 years later) become “The Bible” — believed that portions of “Old Testament” scriptures pointed to this apophatic anti-certainty anti-theology approach…

The more mystery-orientated Orthodox Church is less split than the more theologically inclined Western Church with its Reformation and all that followed…

The more you read about the Word the less you know the Word because the Word does not live in a book but is an actuality to be experienced. Truth is not to be found in writings about The Truth but only in The Truth within a living, not academic relationship…

In Jesus’ day, holiness codes of “correct belief” kept Jews from experiencing the full rich human community. They lived in separation from the “other” and the “unclean.” Likewise virtually every church today — including the more juridical and right wing and evangelical-influenced parts of the Orthodox Church — has some form of holiness code… And Jesus courted disaster because of the way he showed extraordinary mercy to those who had been deemed “outside” the grace of God…

According to the humble apophatic tradition the goal of discipleship is not about making sure we behave so that God will accept us. It is rather about maintaining strong relationships with other people and through that action, through this “spiritual kiss,” as St. Maximos says, the soul comes to the Word of God, because it gathers to itself the words of salvation—in other words mercy and love.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Sermon: God’s Unorthodox Provision

Text: 1 Kings 17:8-16; Luke 4:25-26
Audio MP3 (18 minutes)
Location: First Presbyterian Church, Petersburg

This sermon takes a look at the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Typically the story is seen as the example of great faith of the widow when she, through faith in Elijah’s God, she provides for him first. This sermon takes a look at the story from Elijah’s perspective: how he is commanded to go to the heart of Baal worship and ask for help from a pagan, a woman, and a widow. This is a story of God’s faithfulness to his servant by providing for him through someone completely outside of cultural and religious orthodoxy.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Being Consumed–Consumerism

The following are excerpts from the second chapter, “Detachment and Attachment”, of Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William T. Cavanaugh. This chapter is a critique of the modern consumer culture and the ways in which it is at odds with biblical teachings. The chapter concludes with suggestions on how Christianity should approach the “things” of this world.

The first chapter excerpts can be found in this earlier blog entry.


“What really characterizes consumer culture is not attachment to things but detachment. People do not hoard money; they spend it. People do not cling to things; they discard them and buy other things.”

“In a consumer society, detachment occurs in both selling and buying, and anything can be sold: healthcare, space, human blood, names (‘Tostitos Fiesta Bowl’), adoption rights, water, genetic codes, the rights to emit pollutants into the air, the use of one’s own forehead.”

“Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else; that’s why it is not simply buying but shopping that is the heart of consumerism.”

“Consumerism is an important subject for theology because it is a spiritual discipline, a way of looking at the world around us that is deeply formative. In many ways, consumerism has affinities with the traditional Christian views of how we should regard material things. We will need to explore where consumerism and Christianity converge and where they party ways.”

“For many people, consumerism is a type of spirituality, even if they do not recognize it as such. It is a way of pursuing meaning and identity, a way of connecting with other people.”

“The problem is a much larger one: changes in the economy and society in general have detached us from material production, producers, and even the products we buy.”

“There is no need to romanticize preindustrial society. But the difference in our attitudes toward material things can hardly be overemphasized. We used to make things; now we buy them.”

“Not only do we not make the things we use; more and more, we don’t make any things at all. Why should we care? Perhaps because it has something to do with widespread negative attitudes toward work in our society.”

“In a reversal of Genesis, ‘man is treated as an instrument of production, whereas he … ought to be treated as the effective subject of work and its true maker and creator.’ The people who make our things are referred to as ‘labor costs,’ which naturally need to be ‘minimized.’ And one of the key ways to reduce labor costs is to move production overseas, where wages are much lower and protections for workers are much more lax.”

“Naomi Klein argues that the goal of a transnational corporation is a kind of transcendence of the material world. Such a corporation

attempt[s] to free itself from the corporeal world of commodities, manufacturing and products to exist on another plane. Anyone can manufacture a product, they reason … Such menial tasks, therefore, can and should be farmed out to contractors and subcontractors whose only concern is filling the order on time and under budget … Headquarters, meanwhile, is free to focus on the real business at hand – creating a corporate mythology powerful enough to infuse meaning into these raw objects just by signing its name …

After establishing the ‘soul’ of their corporations, the superbrand companies have gone on to rid themselves of their cumbersome bodies, and there is nothing that seems more cumbersome, more loathsomely corporeal, than the factories that produce their products.”

“Most of us would never deliberately choose our own material comfort over the life of another person. Most of us do not consciously choose to work others to death for the sake of lower prices on the things we buy. But we participate in such an economy because we are detached from the producers, the people who actually make our things.”

“Globalization has increased our awareness of, and sympathy for, other times and places. At the same time, however, it produces a detachment from all times and places… Because our consumption can take us anywhere, we are nowhere in particular.”

“This detachment tends to characterize our attitudes toward the products we buy. Far from obsessively clinging to our stuff, we tend to buy and discard products easily… The products we buy are mute as to their origins, and the people we buy them from can tell us little. Products say nothing about where they come from and how they are produced, and we scarcely bother to wonder.”

“This does not mean that we have become indifferent to the products we buy. On the contrary, as human relationships fall away from the process of buying products, relationships become more direct between ourselves and our things… Marketers know that consumption could never keep pace with production if encounters with products were encounters with inert things. The product must be made to sing and dance and enter a new kind of relationship between itself and the consumer. Over the course of the twentieth century, marketing moved from primarily offering information about a product to associating certain feelings with a product… ‘Branding’ – that is, getting people to identify with a particular corporate brand – is about creating relationship between people and things.”

“Such relationships [between people and products] are not made to last. There would not be a market for all the goods that are produced in an industrialized economy if consumers were content with the things they bought… The economy as it is currently structured would grind to a halt if we ever looked at our stuff and simply declared, ‘It is enough. I am happy with what I have.’”

“the truth is, however, that we do not tend to experience dissatisfaction as merely a negative. In consumer culture, dissatisfaction and satisfaction cease to be opposites, for pleasure is not so much in the possession of things as in their pursuit.”

“Consumer culture is one of the most powerful systems of formation in the contemporary world, arguably more powerful than Christianity. While a Christian may spend an hour a week in church, she may spend twenty-five hours per week watching television, to say nothing of the hours spent on the Internet, listening to the radio, shopping, looking at junk mail and other advertisements.”

“Such a powerful formative system is not morally neutral: it trains us to see the world in certain ways. As all the great faiths of the world have attested, how we relate to the material world is a spiritual discipline… ‘Corporate branding is really about worldwide beliefs management.’”

“Consumerism has certain affinities with the great faith traditions of the world because, as we have seen it, it trains us to transcend the material world.”

“[Things] are not ends but means toward the enjoyment of God. According to Augustine, created things are to be used, but only God is to be enjoyed.”

“The restlessness of consumerism causes us constantly to seek new material objects. For Augustine, on the other hand, the solution to out dissatisfaction is not the continuous search for new things but a turn toward the only One who can truly satisfy our desires.”

“Consumerism is a spiritual discipline that, like other spiritual practices, lends itself to a certain practice of community.”

“Consumerism allows us to identify with other places and other cultures through our purchases… [These identifications only offer virtual solidarity.] The virtual becomes a substitute for concrete political solidarity, or to put it another way, a fundamentally different act – consumption – is substituted for political action. In the Christian tradition, by contrast, one’s attitude toward material goods is closely tied to an imperative of concrete solidarity with others. When the rich young man approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to attain eternal life, Jesus says to him, ‘Go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor…’ For Jesus, detachment from material goods went hand in hand with attachment to Jesus himself…”

“According to Aquinas, humans have dominion over material things only ‘as regards their use.’ In other words, this is God’s world, and we are just using it for the time being. Any dominion we have over creation is given to human beings in common by God… We may posses property, but use it only for the common good, especially for the sake of the neediest among us.”

“In the Christian tradition, detachment from material goods means using them as a means to a greater end, and the greater end is greater attachment to God and to our fellow human beings… Consumerism supports an essentially individualistic view of the human person, in which each consumer is a sovereign chooser. In the Christian tradition, the use of material things is meant to be a common use, for the sake of a larger body of people… Paul says, the members of the body who seem weakest are the most indispensable… The poor and the needy are not just objects for individual charity; rather, they are indispensable because they are part of our very body.”

“There is no question about whether or not to be a consumer. Everyone must consume to live. The question concerns what kinds of practices of consumption are conducive to an abundant life for all.”

“In the Eucharist, Jesus offers his body and blood to be consumed.

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’ (John 6:35).

The insatiability of human desire is absorbed by the abundance of God’s grace in the consumption of Jesus’ body an blood.”

“It would be easy enough to assimilate the consumption of the Eucharist into a consumerist kind of spirituality. The presence of Jesus could become another kind of commodity to be appropriated for the benefit of the individual user. Indeed, much of what passes for Christianity in our culture today is addressed to fulfilling the spiritual needs of individual consumers of religion… The practice of the Eucharist is resistant to such appropriation, however, because the consumer of the Eucharist is taken up into a larger body, the body of Christ. The individual consumer of the Eucharist does not simply take Christ into herself, but is taken up into Christ.”

“The act of consumption is thereby turned inside out: instead of simply consuming the body of Christ, we are consumed by it… In the Christian view, we do not simply stand apart, as individuals, from the rest of creation…”

“If we remain satisfied with the unity of our own communities, however, we have not fully grasped the nature of the Eucharist. For becoming the body of Christ also entails that we must become food for others. And this often involves moving beyond our own communities and comfort zones.”

“If we are identified with Christ, who identifies himself with the suffering of all [c.f., Matthew 25:31-46], then what is called for is more than just charity. The very distinction between what is mine and what is yours breaks down in the body of Christ. We are not to consider ourselves as absolute owners of our stuff, who then occasionally graciously bestow charity on the less fortunate.”

“Our temptation is to spiritualize all this talk of union, to make our connection to the hungry a sentimental act of imaginative sympathy. We could then imagine that we are already in communion with those who lack food, whether or not we actually meet their physical needs. We might even wish to tell ourselves that our purchases of consumer goods do in fact feed others – by creating jobs. But we have no way of knowing if such jobs create dignity or merely take advantage of others’ desperation…”

“Things are not ends in themselves; they are means to greater attachment to others. We are not to cling to our things, but to use them for the sake of the common good.”

“A sacramental view of the world sees all things as part of God’s good creation, potential signs of the glory of God; things become less disposable, more filled with meaning. At the same time, a sacramental view sees things only as signs whose meaning is only completely fulfilled if they promote the good of communion with God and with other people.”

Monday, October 15, 2012

PHS Fall Concert (Choir)

Tonight, Petersburg High School music groups performed their first concert of the school year. Amy is in the choir this year.

The choir performed four numbers (audio file links to each) –

  1. The Star-Spangled Banner
  2. I’ve Got a Name
  3. Deep River
  4. God’s Gonna Set This World on Fire

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Sunday, October 14, 2012

Sermon: Two Facets of Godly Love

This is a sermon I preached at the Petersburg Lutheran Church today, October 14. In brief, the thesis is: Choosing to follow Jesus’ command to love as God loves risks suffering and sacrifice.

Here are my key points –

  • Love is not synonymous with a relationship
  • Love precedes any relationship
  • Jesus loved all, but he did not enter into relationship with every person
  • Love is a choice to serve others, to think good of them, and to work in their best interests
  • Love is a choice to give up (sacrifice) our rights, if necessary, in order to lift others up in service
  • Love can be rejected, abused, and may succumb to loss; resulting in suffering
  • Jesus chose to love this world, knowing that his love would be rejected and abused; but he also knew that the rewards of loving would be far greater than any sacrifice and suffering

Sermon text (doc)
Audio (20 minutes; includes reading of Mark 10:17-31, today’s Gospel portion from the lectionary)

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Being Consumed–The “Free Market”

The following are excerpts from the first chapter, “Freedom and Unfreedom”, of Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William T. Cavanaugh. In this chapter, the current state and practices of capitalism and the free-market are critiqued, and a more appropriate approach to the free-market, informed by Christian theology, are suggested.


“There is no point to either blessing or damning the ‘free market’ as such. What is required is a substantive account of the end of earthly life and creation so that we may enter into particular judgments of what kinds of exchanges are free and what kinds are not.”

“A market is free if people can satisfy their wants without harming others…”

“Augustine’s view of freedom is more complex: freedom is not simply a negative freedom from, but a freedom for, a capacity to achieve certain worthwhile goals. All of these goals are taken up into the one overriding telos of human life, the return to God.”

“Freedom is something received, not merely exercised. Therefore, in order to determine whether a person is acting freely, we need to know much more than whether or not that person is acting on his or her desires without the interference of others. In Augustine’s view, others are in fact crucial to one’s freedom.”

“… There are true desires and false desires, and we need a telos to tell the difference between them.”

“The key to true freedom is not just following whatever desires we happen to have, but cultivating the right desires.”

“… Augustine’s broader point about the relationship of desire to ends is valid, and it goes to the heart of our discussion of the freedom of the free market. The point is this: the absence of external force is not sufficient to determine the freedom of any particular exchange. In order to judge whether or not an exchange is free, one must know whether or not the will is moved toward a good end… Where there are not objectively desirable ends, and the individual is told to choose his or her own ends, then choice itself becomes the only thing that is inherently good. When there is a recession, we are told to buy things to get the economy moving; what we buy makes no difference. All desires, good and bad, melt into the one overriding imperative to consume, and we all stand under the one sacred canopy of consumption for its own sake.”

“To desire with no good other than desire itself is to desire arbitrarily. To desire with no telos, no connection to the objective end of desire, is to desire nothing and to become nothing.”

“The problem with the ‘free-market’ view is that it assumes that the abolition of objective goods provides the conditions for the individual will to function more or less autonomously. The reality, however, is quite different. For, as Augustine sees clearly, the absence of objective goods does not free the individual, but leaves him or her subject to the arbitrary competition of wills. In other words, in the absence of a substantive account of the good, all that remains is sheer arbitrary power, one will against another. This is what Augustine calls the libido dominandi, the lust for power with which Pharaoh was possessed.”

“In the absence of any objective concept of the good, sheer power remains.”

“[Business defending increasing disparity between executive and employee pay.] In other words, it it considered good business practice to maximize the disparity of power between employer and employee in order to increase the profit margin of the corporation. All of this is done in the name of ‘free’ trade. As Augustine saw, in the absence of any substantive ends, what triumphs is the sheer lust for power.”

“When they [businesses] blame the move [off-shoring of labor] on necessity, they recognize a very real sense that the ‘free’ market does not leave them free to act in ways that they might believe are more just.”

“Considerations of goodness and justice only seem to apply to the [theoretical] capitalist system as a whole. Friedman and other free-market advocates argue that capitalism as such is the best system based on its ability to give people what they want. A system that is allegedly based on individual rights is thus ironically justified by a utilitarian justification of the system as a whole, to which individuals and their freedom are sacrificed.”

“However, in order to judge which exchanges are truly free and which ones are not, one must abandon Friedman’s purely negative and functionalist approach to freedom and have some positive standard by which to judge… Once we admit that freedom defined strictly negatively is inadequate, we are pushing ourselves toward the recognition that Augustine was right; to speak of freedom in any realistic and full sense is necessarily to engage the question of the true ends of human life. Yet such ends are precisely what free market advocates would banish from the definition of the free market. To enter into judgments about the freedom of particular exchanges, we must abandon Friedman’s definition of a free market, and we must also abandon any claims for the goodness of ‘the free market’ as such. There is no point to claiming that ‘capitalism produces freedom’ unless one wants to claim that ‘any economic exchange that produces freedom is capitalism,’ in which case one has simply uttered a tautology.”

“There is simply no way to talk about a really free economy without entering into particular judgments about what kinds of exchange are conducive to the flourishing of life on earth and what kinds are not… From a Christian point of view, the churches should take an active role in fostering economic practices that are consonant with the true ends of creation. This requires promoting economic practices that maintain close connections among capital, labor, and communities, so that real communal discernment of the good can take place. Those are the spaces in which true freedom can flourish.”

Monday, October 08, 2012

Following by Not Following

As Christians we tend to have a stereotype definition of disciple. To us a disciple is usually patterned after The Twelve that Jesus selected, and who followed him during his ministry. This, however, is a very narrow definition of a disciple of Jesus.

We often forget that in addition to The Twelve, there were at least seventy (or seventy-two) others1 who were with Jesus during much of his ministry. Furthermore, Luke notes there were women who followed Jesus2.

We also have the idea that these disciples followed Jesus without interruption throughout his approximately three-and-a-half year ministry. But reading the different accounts of the calling of his disciples3, we can see that Jesus’ ministry was divided into phases: the early part appears to be more laid-back while the intensity increases during the latter phase.

We also make the wrong assumption that The Twelve (and the Seventy) represent the entire class of people who believed in Jesus. We need to recognize there were many more that believed in Jesus and were his disciples that didn’t follow him in the way the Twelve did4. We need to recognize the unique case of the Twelve (and possibly the Seventy). Jesus knew his time with them was very short, that he had to teach them a revolutionary way of thinking about the Kingdom that was contrary to everything that they had known, and that these were going to be the leaders of the new Kingdom after he was gone. These factors do not directly apply to followers of Jesus today.

Are there any examples of disciples who didn’t follow Jesus day-to-day? Yes. We find a brother and two sisters: Lazarus, Martha, and Mary of Bethany. Bethany and the siblings are first mentioned in connection with Jesus in Luke 10:38-42 when Jesus stops at their home and Martha chides Mary for not helping with hospitality duties. They are next mentioned in connection with Lazarus’ resurrection in John 11. Bethany makes its third appearance during Holy Week as Jesus’ place of respite prior to his arrest (Matthew 21:17; Mark 11:11,12; Luke 19:29). A fourth appearance is found in Matthew 26:6, Mark 14:3, and John 12:1-8 where Mary is found anointing Jesus with expensive perfume.

What can we observe from these friends of Jesus in Bethany? Unlike the Twelve and the Seventy, these friends with whom Jesus appears to have had a very close relationship, did not leave their homes to follow him. They stayed where they were, and their home became a place of refuge for Jesus. It was a place where they could minister to Jesus in their own way. They did not have the benefit of seeing and hearing Jesus on a daily basis, but they had a unique and special relationship with Jesus that could not be had while on the road and sleeping in the fields.

What should we conclude from this brief examination of three different types of disciples?

First, we need to broaden our definition of a disciple. Not all disciples of Jesus are called to leave everything behind to follow him. For some it may mean occasional periods of concentrated dedication during their otherwise, normal lives. For some others it may mean staying where they are, living life within its typical confines and serving Jesus in their own way.

Second, we must not take the unique situations of The Twelve and directly apply Jesus’ interactions with them to 21st century discipleship. We can seek to learn general principles and adapt them in appropriate ways. Perhaps some of Jesus’ extreme methods might be useful to some people, some of the time.

Third, we must recognize that every person is created uniquely, with unique combinations of gifts, abilities, interests, relationships, history, experiences, families, etc. We must not attempt to define discipleship in a uniform manner and fit people to that singular mold. Rather, we need to be sensitive to each person’s unique calling and not diminish how they have been fashioned to serve. There may be some that are made to give up all the comforts and security of modern culture and serve in areas totally foreign. Many others are not designed for that sort of service. All service is equally valuable and we must learn to recognize and appreciate equally the service that each person provides.

We can follow Jesus by not following – by rejecting the narrow definition of what following Jesus means.


1 Luke 10:1

2 Luke 8:2

3 John 1:35ff describes a call of the disciples immediately following Jesus’ baptism at the beginning of his ministry at and near the Jordan River. Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20 show some of the same disciples being called by the Sea of Galilee during a later period in Jesus’ ministry.

4 1 Corinthians 15:6. Paul writes that Jesus appeared to 500 of his disciples after his resurrection.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Meaning of “Sacrifice”

This morning I had about 30 minutes on the local Christian radio, KRSA, and discussed the topic of “sacrifice”. Below are my notes.

  • What does "sacrifice" mean? What images rise up when you hear that word?
  • Giving up or going without stuff. Giving up positions. Choosing to suffer hardships. Moving to a place away from comfort and convenience.
  • Most of us in developed nations don't ever really sacrifice.
  • What does it mean to sacrifice to God?
  • Romans 12:1-2
  • Paul writes that we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Following verses seem to indicate this sacrifice is in the context of transformation of the mind and in learning humility and service.
  • This is in line with Philippians 2:1-8 – Jesus’ example of sacrifice
  • This ends with sacrifice demonstrated through death on a cross. Is death on a cross the sacrifice we are instructed to offer to God?
  • Luke 9:21-25 – denying self, taking up the cross
  • Is death the sacrifice, or is death the result of an earlier event that is the true sacrifice?
  • Sacrifice is giving up one's rights, privileges, entitlements.
  • Sacrifice is, most of all, giving up the right to vengeance and retribution, the right to seek punishment against those who have hurt us, abused us, betrayed us.
  • Sacrifice is the choice to let go of our hurts and instead embrace love and forgive those who have hurt us.
  • Luke 23:34-35 - this is the pinnacle of sacrifice. Jesus is the one human being in history who had the right, authority, and the power to exact vengeance and retribution upon all who hurt and abused him. But he chose to let it go and instead embrace forgiveness through love.
  • Micah 6:6-8 - what kind of sacrifice does God want?

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Book Review: Healing the Gospel

Healing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the CrossHealing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross by Derek Flood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The primary thesis of this book, as I understood it is this: The retributive justice championed by the penal substitution model of Christ's atonement is false. Christus Victor, the classic and dramatic model of the atonement, reveals the other model for the falsehood that it is and then destroys it through the restorative justice that Christus Victor represents.

In short, all Christians and anyone interested in Christian theology ought to read this book. In the end you may still not agree with it, but it is important to understand the development of penal substitution theory that was based on the perspectives of the medieval church period. It is important to understand that there are other ways of understanding and interpreting the nature and importance of Christ's work through his life, death, and resurrection. It is important to understand that penal substitution is not rejected simply because it seems offensive, but because there is substantial biblical support for an alternative view, that in the author's and this reviewer's perspective, is more coherent with the whole of scripture.

Derek Flood does an excellent job of laying out the evidence for Christus Victor and against penal substitution. He goes through and logically dismantles the usual arguments in favor of penal substitution. He spends one chapter in this book working through the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 52-53 and shows that instead of God demanding some kind of punishment, it shows humans and the natural consequences of sin caused Christ to undergo suffering. The Appendix in the book is one of the most important portions as Mr. Flood works through the proper understandings of key soteriological terms: righteousness, justice, justifies, justification, and wrath. He shows how these should not be interpreted within a legal, forensic framework, but in a restorative and natural consequences framework.

This book builds upon Gustaf Aulen's original "Christus Victor" work. Aulen's work is quite scholarly and in it describes the history of the development of the three models - classic (Christus Victor), objective (Latin, penal substitution), subjective (moral influence) - of the atonement. Aulen's shows how classic is best supported by scripture and history.

What Mr. Flood does is take the next step. If one accepts Christus Victor, then the other models are not only inadequate, but they are false, particularly the penal substitution model. Mr. Flood explains how Christus Victor is, in particular, the antithesis of the penal substitution model and how the p-s model not only does not treat sin seriously enough, but it portrays a picture of God that is diametrically opposed to that which Jesus came to reveal.

Christians accept the Bible as the revelation of God. By "revelation of God" I don't mean in the sense of God reveals things but rather in the sense it shows humans what God is like. How one chooses to understand the cross and the atonement is critical for interpreting the rest of scripture. It is the lens through which we see God and how we portray God to others. If we get it wrong, we unknowingly end up lying about God. This book provides a clear differentiation between two ways of viewing God. It is critical to learn the support and reasoning behind the two opposed views and make the right choice.

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Book Review: Seven Glorious Days

Seven Glorious DaysSeven Glorious Days by Karl W. Giberson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The purpose of this book is to show that evolutionary processes can be one way of explaining the account of creation found in Genesis 1. Given the scientific data available today, the author's perspective is that theistic evolution is the strongest explanation for the universe and life as we currently understand them.

This book requires that readers set aside any sort of fundamentalist and historical reading of the Genesis account. It must be seen as an origin story that was an attempt by the early Hebrews to construct a meaningful narrative within the confines of their knowledge, beliefs, and culture. For most liberal Christians and those who do not hold to a literalist hermeneutic, this should not be a problem. For conservative Christians I suspect this book will be difficult to even read as it violates certain fundamentals that are part of that worldview.

Atheists will also find plenty with which to object. The author assumes the existence of God that is personally involved with the universe. Particularly in the final chapter the discussion is around how God can enter into the universe and guide its development within the confines of the natural order that he initially set up.

The book discusses various branches of science - cosmology, astrophysics, biology, to name a few - in support of theistic evolution. The author writes in a way that is accessible to those without extensive scientific background; it steers clear of highly technical language. I have some experience of sitting through technical lectures on cosmology and astrophysics and what the book offers appears to be coherent with available scientific data. Because of that I assume the data and interpretations given in other areas are also sound.

One issue that the author does not address is the existence of death before sin. This may be a problem for many Christians who take the position that death is a direct result of sin. However, it is possible to take several other positions that allow for the existence of biological death prior to a moral fall. By not sufficiently explaining this dilemma, I believe the author weakens his argument for theistic evolution.

Overall I found this book useful in learning about how one might reconcile scientific data with the creation account of Genesis. Whether or not one ultimately agrees with the thesis of the book, it suggests that one need not take a purely naturalistic, materialistic stance toward the evolutionary process.

View all my reviews

Monday, October 01, 2012

Exchanging One Legalism for Another

“Christianity is not about rules. It’s about a relationship.”

That or something similar to it is an oft-repeated phrase that Christians use to warn themselves against legalism. Legalism is commonly defined as following the law, the rules in order to merit God’s grace and consequently, salvation. Legalism is relying on one’s own efforts to be right with God.

I’ve been reading a number of books recently that deal with the topic of grace and relationships in the Christian life. All reject the kind of legalism that focuses on law-keeping and right actions. They all agree that the goal of the Christian life is to be in a right relationship with God.

Here is where I see problems with what I’ve been reading. Right relationship is often described in terms of right relational attitudes. The authors come up with a list of desirable, relational attitudes. What I see is a replacement of one set of rules for another. The reader is told to give up behavioral rule-keeping, but is then given a checklist of correct attitudes. Behavioral legalism is abandoned, but there is a danger of adopting relational legalism. Both are equally ineffective when it comes to getting into a right relationship with God.

Neither is the old legalism completely abandoned. Somewhere, almost invariably, is presented that as part of one’s own evaluation of their relationship to God, they will have taken off the old. And how does one evaluate whether or not the old has been removed? By appealing to the old rules, of course –  usually in the form of “not doing” immoral actions. There remains, then, a great temptation to revert to the rule-based method of defining what a right relationship looks like.

At this point an objection may be raised. Don’t many of the epistles contain exhortation to develop good fruit, i.e., proper attitudes, when in a right relationship with God? My question in response to to this objection is this: are these “exhortations” a prescription toward more sanctified living, or are they a description of what automatically happens in a right relationship? These lists (such as the list of spiritual gifts and immorality to avoid found in Galatians 5:16-23) can be seen as a way of measuring and growing a relationship with God (the prescription method). Or they can be seen as descriptive of what naturally happens with a Christian when they walk with God.

Specifically with the passage in Galatians, in our English translation we interpret the “but if you are led by the Spirit” to be a conditional. But it can also be understood to read “but because you are led by the Spirit.” The latter is more in line with how the section begins in v.16 where it reads, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” This passage is not prescriptive. It is not telling the Christian to focus on either avoidance of the bad, or to focus on developing the right attitudes. It is simply descriptive of what happens when a person is in a right relationship with God.1

The problem with both kinds of legalism – rule-based or relationship-based – is the preoccupation with self. With the former it is navel-gazing asking myself, “Am I doing the right things and avoiding bad things?” With the latter it is still navel-gazing, asking myself, “Am I developing the right attitudes? Am I avoiding deeds of the old nature?” The focus is still “me.”

Jesus’ parable of the final judgment, the sheep and the goats, found in Matthew 25:31-46, illustrates the above. The sheep, on the right, have no idea that they are sheep and are in a right relationship with God. Their focus has never been on themselves and whether or not they are doing the right things, avoiding the bad, or having a right attitude toward God. Their preoccupation is service for others, without making a conscious effort to do so. The goats, on the left, are shown to have no genuine concern for others. Implicitly this indicates a preoccupation with self. The goats are “clean” as are the sheep. The goats are not overtly evil people. They, therefore, can be seen to represent those who claim to follow Christ, those who claim to belong to God. They are not in a right relationship with God because their preoccupation is with self (c.f., Matthew 7:21-23).

I think that one reason why relational legalism is such a temptation and trap is that Christianity has not adequately defined what a right relationship is. There is nowhere in the New Testament where we can find it explicitly defined. Thus we must resort to building a definition via inference. It is easy to take the lists of good, moral attitudes in many of the epistles and use them to build a definition. But as I wrote earlier, these lists are not prescriptive. We cannot grow our relationship with God by focusing on how short we fall of meeting these descriptions.

So how do we grow our relationship with God? How should we define a right relationship with him?

It is instructive to refer to John 13-17. In his final discourse Jesus could have said many things. But in John’s longest recorded single discourse, Jesus’ instruction is singular, in two parts: 1) Abide in me; 2) Love one another. Jesus could have listed all sorts of attributes and attitudes that he wanted his disciples to develop and by which they could measure growth. Jesus does nothing of the sort. His instruction to his disciples is to become preoccupied with him and with others; i.e., focus away from self. I believe that is the most concise and only definition of “right relationship with God” that we need. I believe this definition most accurately characterizes the “sheep” of the Matthew 7 parable mentioned earlier.

I agree that Christianity is right to warn against rule-based, behavior-based legalism. Christianity is right in emphasizing that what God wants is a right relationship with him. There is much in current Christian literature that is good, but I believe that many of them define “right relationship” in a manner that can lead to relational legalism. We must avoid that at all costs. Both types of legalism is essentially a focus on self. Jesus tells us that in order to avoid legalism and develop a right relationship, we must stop focusing on self.

We need to stop our navel-gazing. It is not about whether or not we see ourselves doing good or bad, or we think we have right or wrong attitudes. It is all about looking away from ourselves – and instead to God and toward people around us. If we focus on the goodness of Jesus, we will bear fruit without having to be conscious about it.


1 These morality lists are also cultural and literary conventions of the Greek and Roman world. The New Testament writers are simply following what is the norm for them and what their audience expects to see. That does not make such lists inappropriate, but neither are they strictly right or necessary.

Friday, August 31, 2012

How Not to Give Speeches

One political national convention is now finished with another to come next week. Watching and listening to the primetime coverage, the closest thing I find to compare it to is a stereotypical, religious, revival meeting. There was a token amount of attempts at appealing to those outside the party, but it was mostly about energizing the insiders and providing the necessary impetus to carry forward their mission over the short term – to get their nominee elected.

The speeches were full of flowery and fiery rhetoric, frequently without much or any support for the conclusions listeners were given. There was plenty of appeal to emotion, appeal to personality, appeal to party loyalty. There was little to no appeal to good, sound logic and critical thinking – except perhaps critical thinking to sort out integrity vs. misrepresentation and spin.

Earlier I likened the convention to a religious meeting. Suppose it was a religious meeting and the speakers were pastors and religious leaders. Would we allow the sort of speeches (referring to use of rhetoric rather than subject matter) that were given during the convention? For the sake of argument let’s suppose that all speakers were speaking truthfully. Would we want pastors to be saying things that could raise questions about their truthfulness, even if they were ultimately determined to be true? Shouldn’t pastors stay well clear of the edge and stick to things that are plain and clear? Some religious speakers do appeal to emotion and personality, but that doesn’t make it right and for Christians who follow the bible, at least how I understand it, those are techniques to be avoided.

Do we have a double standard when it comes to political speech vs. religious speech? Is that appropriate? acceptable? Or should we apply the same standards to both types of speech? Both types of speech attempt to persuade, to cause people to make judgments, to inspire people to action. I believe the same standards should be applied to both.

Both political and religious speech should steer away from questionable practices that involve attempts to manipulate information and people. Both should stick to use of sound reasoning principles. Excitement should come from truthfulness rather than artificial attempts to whip up the emotion.

If there is one thing I learned from the convention speeches it was this: examples of what not to do in sermons and speeches I give.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Sermon: The Prophet Who Didn’t Like His God

Passage: Jonah
Audio MP3 (37 minutes)
Key Texts: Jonah 4:10-11; Luke 6:35-36

I think if asked about the story Jonah, most people first think about the big fish that swallowed him. The fish is mentioned only in three verses out of the entire book. The book ends with a question from God about his mercy and that is where the main theme is to be found.

This sermon was given at the Presbyterian Church.

Friday, August 03, 2012

Boxes and Labels

When many of us decide to clean, sort, and organize the chaos that is around us we might set up a bunch of boxes and label each one. We may not actually write labels and stick them on the boxes, but in our minds we know what the contents of each box are. As we go through the process of sorting we place items that we come across into one of the boxes based on the labels given to them.

We don’t put labels onto boxes just in the arena of our stuff. All of us create boxes and labels for everything that exists in the world around us, including people, including ourselves. We identify others and ourselves according to gender, ethnicity, social status, gender, political affiliation, religious affiliation, employer, occupation, and the list goes on ad infinitum.

Every single box we set up means there are those who are inside and those who are outside. Every single box both unites and divides. As long as there are boxes, there can be no peace.

As I write this the 2012 London Olympics have been going on for about a week. The Olympic rings symbolize the uniting of diverse peoples. Yet the very nature of competition divides. Athletes are divided by nations. Even within a national team individuals can be pitted against one another because only one can win the gold (albeit rare occurrence of a tie).

Last night I saw Gabby Douglas win the all-around gymnastics gold, the fourth American to do so, and the first African-American. She did a great job and I congratulate her for her hard work, dedication, and the results that came from them. She should be proud of her accomplishments.

The thing that caught my attention watching the NBC coverage was how quickly they had to make the observation that this was the “first African-American gymnast” to win all-around gold. I do understand how important this historical accomplishment is, yet I am saddened that after all these years we still must place people into boxes and qualify accomplishments based on labels.

I don’t believe America can be a “nation… indivisible” until it is able to let go of these distinctions. Likewise there can be no global peace until national and ethnic interests are placed behind the common worth and value of all humanity. (Now I don’t believe the ideal will ever occur in the present age, so I do accept the inevitability of having to work through “boxes” such as nations.)

I don’t like to self-identify as a Christian because in addition to all the connotations that come along with the word, both good and bad, it sets up a wall – I’m inside the “Christian” box and you might or might not be, depending on your confession of faith. Implied there is that if you are in the box, you’re automatically my friend and if not, you’re not. (Reality is, obviously, more complicated.)

I admit that I place people into boxes with labels. It’s easy to do. It’s easier to make sense out of the world when I can pigeonhole each person into their boxes. But I don’t want to do that. I want to learn to be able to see every person as a human being and nothing else.

When I read the story of Jesus and reflect upon his life, I get the sense that he viewed every person as a friend1, even if the feeling was not reciprocated (eg., Judas at the betrayal – Mt. 26:50). That is where I want to be: to be able to see as friends even those who are hurting me. I want to get to the place where I no longer have any boxes and the only label I possess to place onto people is “friend.”

Paul writes (Rom 10:12; Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12:13; Col 3:11) that in God’s family there are no distinctions. Does becoming part of the Church somehow supernaturally erase distinctions? No, the distinctions and labeling are part of the sin problem. I don’t think Paul is writing that labeling people outside the Church is okay. I think he is writing that the Church needs to work on throwing boxes and labels into the rubbish heap. As the Church does that, she will no longer see the world through those lenses either, and instead will be able to see the world as Jesus sees it: friends. Not every person will accept the Church as a friend, but that must not prevent the Church from seeing every individual as a friend. Our identities as individuals and communities should not be on those things that can cause divisions, but only on things that can unite. Easier said than done, however.


1I am not writing about salvation here and belonging to God’s family. Jesus doesn’t force anyone to be his friend, and he clearly taught that salvation implies mutual friendship. What I am writing is that Jesus did not consider anyone his enemy – that category does not exist for him – but that does not prevent a person from considering Jesus their enemy.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

On-Air Radio Talk–Sports and Gospel

Why do sporting events draw so many viewers as opposed to the communication of the gospel?

I had the opportunity to spend about 25 minutes on the local Christian radio, KRSA, to talk about whatever was on my mind.

With the Tour de France just having ended and the London Olympics starting and going for the next couple of weeks, I talked about sporting events drawing the attention of millions of people and why people are so drawn to them. I then discussed our communication of the gospel and why it doesn’t seem to have the draw that sporting events do.

People watch sporting events not primarily for the stats, the scores, and certainly not for the rules and regulations. People watch because in each competition, in each event, there is a story that unfolds that grabs our heart and our emotions.

Similarly in our communication of the gospel, we can opt to talk about theology and doctrines, or we can choose to talk about the story. Which grabs the attention of someone unfamiliar with Jesus? Which do most people enjoy? It’s not that theology and doctrines aren’t important or have no value. There is much that is important to rules and regulations in sports, but the focus is not on them but on what happens – the story that unfolds. It should be the same with how the gospel is communicated: for the presenter, theology and doctrine forms a framework but that is not what we are to communicate. Rather we should be focusing on the story: its appeal and enjoyment. Jesus should be seen as the hero in whom our fears die and our hopes born.

Full discussion audio

Monday, July 09, 2012

Falling into the trap of doing Bible study

Pretty much all Christians agree that regular time spent with our Father is an important aspect of the Christian life. There are certainly plenty of tools to help us along: Bible reading plans, daily devotional books, e-mail devotionals, etc..

While we pursue this “spending time with God” objective, there is a trap – a trap of falling into Bible study. I find that simply reading a section of the Bible or reading a devotional thought, often seems as if I haven’t really accomplished anything. Some devotionals aren’t helpful in this regard either, because they close with questions such as, “What is God telling you in this passage?” or “How can you apply this passage to your life?”

These devotionals turn “Spending Time with God” into a scheduled business meeting: I read a passage from the Bible, perhaps and associated devotional thought, and then before I leave the “meeting” I somehow must convey back to God what it is all supposed to mean. The temptation is to do Bible study, then and there: pull out the commentaries, Greek resources, dictionaries, etc. Until I can check off a few accomplishments, my “Time with God” isn’t done.

Is that right? All of us at one point have been children with parents or guardians, people that we associated with as family. Some of us are now parents or grandparents with children of our own. When we spend time with our families, do we treat our time as business meetings where each person must complete some sort of checklist activity until we are free to go? I think not!

However well-intentioned questions at the end of devotionals may be, however well-intentioned teachers may have been in instructing us in the how-to’s of spending time with God, I suspect many of us, myself included, have missed the point. It is not a business meeting where we must somehow develop responses to a set of questions, or find solutions and applications to what we just read. Often I think we do this to assuage some sort of guilt feelings about not doing enough. We feel that if we put more effort into Bible study somehow it is more “quality time” than simply reading and praying.

Most of our family conversations isn’t about teaching or searching for applications. It’s simply about sharing what is going on, finding out about one another’s lives, and communicating our hopes and fears. Only occasionally do conversations become problem-solving sessions. Even then many times we don’t just sit there and hammer away until the problem is solved. Rather, we will likely go our separate ways and perhaps sometime during the day when we are involved in something completely different, an insight may form in our minds.

Our time with God, I suspect, is supposed to more resemble our family conversations. We share our hopes and fears, our problems with God. He in turn speaks to us through the Bible, through other works of inspiration, through reminders of what we may have seen and heard in the past. Sometimes it may be good to spend some time then to figure out some things, but mostly it shouldn’t be about trying to figure out what God is trying to say to us and how what we read might be applicable in our immediate lives.

I’ve experienced some of the most insightful thoughts form long after I’ve read or heard a passage or devotional. They’ve had a chance to simmer and meld with other words, passages, and life experiences. Perhaps it can be likened to a raw carrot: it is perfectly edible and good on its own, but when it is placed into a pot, with some liquid and other ingredients (herbs, spices, other vegetables, meats), and allowed to simmer and stew for some time, the result is good in a way that is different from simply its raw form.

Bible study is good and has its place. But don’t let your “Time with God” constantly turn into Bible study.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Sermon: Peace Be Still

Today’s sermon at the Presbyterian Church.

Passages: Mark 4:30-5:20; Isaiah 9:6; Hebrews 2:14-15; 1 John 4:15-19
Sermon audio MP3 (26 minutes)

The passage in Mark is a parable followed by two stories: the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus calming a storm, and Jesus driving out the unclean spirit from a man at Gerasene. I see a common thread of peace (or shalom) going through all three of the pericopes and that is what I discuss in today’s sermon.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Book: Grieving a Suicide

This is a review I posted at GoodReads. The book may be purchased from Amazon.

 Grieving a Suicide: A Loved One's Search for Comfort, Answers & HopeGrieving a Suicide: A Loved One's Search for Comfort, Answers & Hope by Albert Y. Hsu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As other reviewers have noted, this book does approach the subject from a strongly Christian perspective. That said, however, it contains valuable information that can be of help to survivors and to those seeking resources for helping survivors.

I recently completed a Suicide Postvention Trainers training through NAMI and the Connect Project. This book mostly tracks what was presented as best practices in the training. I only found a few minor quibbles that raised my eyebrows. The author provides a generous list of suicide prevention and survivorship resources in an appendix to the book.

As for the theological perspective I'm sure not every Christian will agree with every position of this author. I certainly had some disagreements. However, in the big picture I believe the author builds and presents a compelling case for a compassionate and loving God that suffers with those who suffer, including those who have taken their own lives.

I can highly recommend this book to Christians interested in suicide and its survivors, to pastors, to mental health professionals seeking to understand a spiritual perspective, and to all who are struggling with the issues around suicide.

View all my reviews

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The Gospel - what, who, why, when, how?

An oft-asked question is this: What is the gospel? There is even a book (What Is the Gospel? (9Marks)) by that very title.

Lately I’ve been reading a book, Winning a Generation Without the Law: Essentials of the Gospel for a Postmodern Culture, where the author writes that for far too long, Christians have confused and/or combined the “what” of the gospel with the process, or the “how”, of it. The author repeatedly emphasizes that even though the “how” is not unimportant, it is not the core of the gospel that Christians are called to communicate. The author points out that Christians should extract the “what” of the gospel and make that the center of their evangelism.

I can see his point, and it makes sense. For someone who is suffering from a physical disease, it doesn’t matter how medicine, surgery, etc. works; it just matters that something is available to reverse the ailment and return that person to health. It doesn’t even matter why the doctors and nurses want to help him: it could be that they care (hopefully), but it could be for purely their job ad nothing else. The who and when of the discovery or development of the cure isn’t terribly important to the patient, either. All that matters is that right now, someone is available to administer the medication, provide the procedure, etc. to reverse the course of disease.

In a similar vein, to someone who is dying spiritually, it really doesn’t matter who, when, why, or how the gospel, the cure to spiritual death, came about. All that matters is that something is available now to cure the disease and bring life. The rest can be helpful and informative once the cure is in place.

The disease is death. The cure is the gospel. It is found most succinctly, I think, in Hebrews 2:14-15 where it reads:

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (ESV)

Death is perhaps the one universal fear. People throughout the ages and across cultures have tried to escape it and stall it, through religion, through knowledge, through producing descendants, through feats of renown, etc. Through this fear people end up in slavery to all sorts of things, some more destructive than others, but all ultimately cannot conquer death.

The gospel is that death is defeated; that death need not be feared. When the ultimate fear is vanquished, people are free to be themselves, as God intended.

John 3:16 implies what the gospel is, but it is more about its “why”:

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)

The accounts of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection? They answer the “who”, “when”, and “how”.

Talking to someone about Jesus, his death, and his resurrection isn’t terribly helpful without first communicating that the one foe, death, that has the potential to ultimately destroy every person, has been defeated, defanged, destroyed itself. Once the “what” of the good news, the gospel, is known, we can then go on to the why and how it was accomplished.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Plans to prosper[?] you… Jeremiah 29:11

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

The above text is frequently quoted as a promise that God has plans for each of his people, and that the plan includes some kind of “prosperity,” usually with a caveat that this prosperity doesn’t necessarily mean material riches (thought it could), but rather, a more general kind of success.

Well, this morning I listened to the text (and I must add that the speaker said nothing about “prosperity” but rather the general promise of God’s good plans) and when I looked it up in my preferred version, the English Standard Version, I saw “welfare” instead of “prosperity.”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (ESV)

Welfare has a rather negative connotation in the United States at the present time. Certain segments of the populace equate it with government socialism. (I suppose taken literally, using today’s context, this text could be used as “proof” that God encourages “welfare”…)

That got me wondering what the Hebrew word was. When I looked up the text, the word translated as “prosper” and “welfare” was shalom. Here is a list of various English translations of Jeremiah 29:11 at Biblegateway.com. The most common word is “peace” followed by “welfare” though I see other words including well-being, success, and good.

When we see that the Hebrew is shalom, we know that “welfare” in the above text can’t mean government handouts and “prosperity” cannot mean an increase in wealth. Although shalom is most frequently translated as “peace”, even that fails to fully encompass what Jeremiah is attempting to capture.

The Holman Bible Dictionary describes shalom as a “sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His presence… Its basic meaning is ‘wholeness’ or ‘well-being.’” Among some other explanations of shalom I have seen include: a restoration of all creation to its original, intended order; a restoration of the relationship between created and Creator; a perfect harmony.

The 21st Century King James Version seems to preserve the most literal sense of this text:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (KJ21)

What this translation brings out is that the “plans” implied in other translations are not as definite as it often is made to sound. Rather they are more like “hopes” that parents have for their children’s future. Parents want good things for their children, but they cannot (or should not) force their hopes as definite plans onto their children. If the child freely chooses to accept, the parents provide whatever is necessary and within their means to help their children fulfill those hopes, and at that point hopes become plans. Should a child choose some other way, it (generally) doesn’t mean the parents cut off support.

The difference between parents and God is that parents are flawed themselves, whereas God is not. So parents’ hopes may be flawed and it may turn out that a child’s own decisions could turn out better than what the parents had hoped. God is perfect, so whatever he hopes for his children is the best possible outcome. Even so, God allows his children to choose the path they take and will continue to support them.

The next three verses in Jeremiah (29:12-14) contain the conditions under which God’s hopes for his children become plans. The condition is to seek God and to pray for his will. When his people do that, God promises he will be found, his hopes will be made known to them, and he will provide the means through which his hopes become their plans.

What is God’s hope for his people – for us? To brings us back into shalom with him.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Sermon: Life Is Belonging

Text: Luke 18:9-30
Sermon Audio (45 minutes)

“Who are you?”

“What do you want?”

How can we enter the kingdom of God? How can we inherit eternal life? How are we accepted into God’s family, his community?

Luke records three ways in which Jesus responds to these questions in Luke 18: the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector; Let the Children Come to Me; and the Rich (Young) Ruler.

This sermon was given at the Lighthouse Assembly of God in Petersburg.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

A Short History of Ordination

An e-mail from the Ministerial Dept. of the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists included a link to a lecture video on a short history of ordination in the Christian church. It’s good to listen to it (viewing is optional since the camera doesn’t pan to the slides) but for those not inclined to spend the 36 minutes, here are my notes.

Darius Jankiewicz (Yun-kye-vich) is an Australian of Polish birth. He emigrated from Poland to Australia in 1986 and there attended Avondale College. After a few years of ministry in Sydney, he and his wife moved to Berrien Springs, Michigan, to continue his education at Andrews University, where he first completed an MDiv and then a PhD focused on historical theology and specifically Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Following his studies at Andrews, he returned to ministry in Australia (Tasmania) and then became a missionary teacher at Fulton College in Fiji. From there, he was invited to become an associate professor of historical theology at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He has been married to his lovely Australian wife, Edyta, for over 22 years and has two wonderful daughters, Caitlin (13) and Ashley (11).

This presentation was given at the 2012 Women Clergy Conference sponsored by the NAD Ministerial Department. nadministerial.org/

  • There is no clear, unambiguous support for ordination on any kind in scripture.
  • Laying on of hands, when found in scripture, is most often associated with healing, and then with granting of spiritual gifts.
  • Ordination is derived from political practices of the Roman empire where individuals were granted entry to a higher class of society.
  • Tertullian was the first to introduce the practice of ordination into Christianity.
  • He wanted to show that Christianity was a reasonable religion acceptable to pagan Rome because of similar practices.
  • He knew exactly what he was doing - that he was introducing hierarchy into the Christian religion.
  • Bishop/pastor, elder, deacon - threefold distinction traces back to Iganatius - in Acts, there is no distinction.
  • In name of unity, power is centralized in one person.
  • Prior to this time, each local church had multiple "bishops."
  • Hippolytus - each office requires separate ordination.
  • Iranaeus - in the name of unity, introduces concept that ordination confers a special spiritual gift of truth and discernment; i.e., infallibility; and this gift granted by succession of ordinations.
  • Tertullian - introduces distinction between clergy and laity.
  • Cyprian develops concept of Christian priesthood where ordained priests are now mediators between laity and God; i.e., ordained clergy required for sacraments; authority of ordained clergy increases.
  • Augustine introduces the concept of an "indelible seal" of ordination, raising ordained minister to a higher spiritual level, a privileged order, and becomes channel of grace to laity.
  • In three centuries, Christian ministry changes from functional to sacramental.
  • Absolute ordination; ca. 4th-5th century - ordination (laying on of hands) assigned to person, rather than task. Ca. Council of Chalcedon. Prior to this, ordination was for a person to accomplish a task in a particular community.
  • Towards end of 5th century - Pope Gelasius irked by reports of (impl. ordained) women ministering in churches.
  • The practice of ordination only being allowed to be performed by ordained ministers dates back to Hippolytus. In Acts, all believers lay hands on Paul and Barnabas to set them aside for a specific ministry task.
  • Jerome - utters that Christian community cannot exist without ordained, male ministers.
  • Reformation did not alter ordination practices.
  • First face of Adventism - no priests, no organization.
  • Adventism realized some organization necessary for mission.
  • Adventist ordination was originally functional. But has it changed to become sacramental?
  • Two models of the church - both have organization - but function in different ways.
  • 1) Church as an organization; 2) Church as a missionary movement.
  • 1) Organization is essential for the existence of the church. Organization understood sacramentally - salvation comes from the organization. Dedicated to preservation of the organization, in the name of unity. Goal of church is mediation of salvation to its members. Ordination is a big issue.
  • 2) Organization is not essential for the existence of the church. Understood functionally. Organization does not save anyone. Organization seeks to preserve mission. Goal is mission to the world. Organization can be changed and adapted to mission. Ordination is not an issue.
  • The longer an organization exists, the more it is tempted to become sacramental.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Working out your own salvation

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13 ESV)

How many interpretations and applications of this particular two verses have you heard and read in your lifetime? Has it ever troubled you on reading it? It certainly has been a source of confusion and contradictions in my mind.

I heard it read over this past weekend and that prompted me to look at the passage again. By following a few basic rules of interpretation, I hope to bring a little more clarity to this passage.

Perhaps the most egregious error is simply lifting the two verses out of context and trying to make them say something they were never meant to say.

A second problem is trying to interpret the verses in the Western, Modernist, Individualistic context rather than the Middle Eastern, Ancient, Collectivistic context. Here I am indebted to Reading the New Testament series of commentaries on pointing out that “salvation” does not necessarily refer to individual salvation when found in the New Testament. (It should be noted that particularly in Paul’s writings, “salvation” is often NOT in the personal salvation sense that we Western Christians have been conditioned into thinking.) Rather it can have something to do with the community and how it experiences salvation.

When the verses are lifted out of their contexts and words are assumed to mean something they don’t, we end up with misinterpretation and confusion.

Two typical, traditional, and polar interpretations of the passage above are as follows:

1. You, as a singular Christian individual, must do your part in the process of salvation. God provides the power, but you have to provide the effort. You will do this with fear and trembling because you never can be certain if you are doing all that you are capable and required to do.

2. You, as a singular Christian individual, can never do anything to work out salvation on your own. To do so is futile; hence the fear and trembling. You must rely completely upon God to work in you to accomplish your salvation.

I suggest that neither of the above is a true and accurate interpretation of the text.

Let’s first deal with the issue of context. Verse 12 begins, “Therefore.” This is always an indication that what follows derives from what came just before. In this case what came just before was Jesus’ attitude of humility in comparison with how the people of the world relate to one another – with selfish ambition and conceit. This section on humility is an exhortation to the Christian community to follow the example given by Jesus in how they relate to one another, and through humility achieve unity of love and purpose. Notice that there is nothing here about individual salvation – that of “getting saved” that a modern Christian might typically associate with the word “salvation.”

But even that preceding passage, beginning in the first verse of chapter 2, begins with a connecting word, “So.” That means the context for 2:12-13 begins some place in chapter 1. A good place to set the flag for the start of the context is 1:27.

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.”  (Philippians 1:27-28 ESV)

Notice that Paul is speaking to the entire church at Philippi. His concern is that they stand united and to work together for the gospel, and that they not be frightened by hostility and threats of those that oppose them. Notice that he is also concerned about his absence from the church at Philippi, but that he is confident of their Christian walk regardless. Notice, too, that the word “salvation” is used in verse 28. Given that 1:28 and 2:12 occur in proximity and within the same contextual setting, we ought to interpret the two occurrences of “salvation” to mean the same thing.

In 1:28 “salvation” is not being used in the sense of “getting saved” or “getting to heaven” but rather in the sense of “external displays of the reality of belonging to God.” These external displays include: standing firm, unity in spirit, striving together for the gospel, courage in the face of threats.

The Philippian church is experiencing conflicts against them (1:29-30). Paul writes that this is to be expected. Paul’s exhortation (which follows in chapter 2) is to continue in the manner they have already shown to be living their salvation life. As a reminder Paul then describes how Jesus lived his life and faced the ultimate conflict of his life.

It is in this context of living life in the present, within a community, one that belongs to God, that Paul writes “therefore… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” He is writing not about individual salvation but about living out a saved life, as a church, as a community. He is writing that a saved community, living its daily life with courage and unity in the face of conflicts and threats, demonstrates the love and power of God for the world to see.

It is in this context that “fear and trembling” must be understood. It is not indicative of uncertainty or cowardice, but rather a sense of profound humility and respect in that the church has been given such an awesome responsibility for portraying God to the world.

Paul writes that such a life is not necessarily easy. He writes that he wishes he could be with them, but because he cannot he expresses confidence that they can “work out your own salvation” without his immediate presence. But Paul adds that his presence isn’t really necessary, because God will provide all that is necessary to make sure the church will not fail in its mission.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

It’s Not That Simple - 2

Question: What is LIFE?

Ah… such a simple question. And a simple answer, too: “Life is ______.” Wait… okay, so how do you define life? Hmm… Maybe it isn’t so simple. I have a sneaking suspicions that the answer for most people is “life is what I think (or believe) life is.” Yup, a rather circular, incestuous reasoning.

“Wait a minute,” you protest, “I know what life is because ______ describes what it is.” That blank could be filled in with any number of options: a branch of science, a religious text, a school of philosophy, among others. But ultimately is comes down to, “I know what life is because of what I have chosen to accept/believe as an authoritative source.” Guess what? Your authoritative source isn’t necessarily accepted by every single human being.

Even in the case of science there is no unequivocal definition of what life is. Do chemical processes define life? Or maybe it’s biological? Or is it a combination, i.e., biochemistry? Does the branch of physics have anything to contribute? Science has come up with a consensus description of what what something called life generally shares, but that is far from a indisputable definition. It seems that even in science, it comes down to “I know life when I see it.”

If something as objective as science cannot form a precise definition of life, should we expect reliance on other sources to be any more precise and accurate? Perhaps not. Interpretations of religious and philosophical sources are far more subjective than interpretation of scientific data.

What precipitated this thought was the topic of “pro-life.” Now, if taken literally, pro-life simply means “for or promoting life.” I’d wager, except for a few sociopaths, no one is anti-life and all would agree they are pro-life. Is that how pro-life is used? We all pretty much know that pro-life is an euphemism for anti-abortion.

If the description of life was simply limited to the biological – e.g., a single cell containing growth and reproduction capabilities, ability to taken in food, ability to respond to external stimuli – a zygote would indeed be life, as well as a single cell amoeba, bacteria, spiders, ants, mosquitoes – and someone who professes to be pro-life would be bound to protect all of the above.

If the description of life was, instead, provided through ontology – e.g., the ability to think, feel, love – then only certain higher-order creatures would fit that description. Amoeba, bacteria, spiders, and ants certainly would be excluded. Cats, dogs and birds might be in an intermediate state. A human zygote… strictly would not be life, though it would have the potential for life if allowed to successfully grow and mature beyond some certain point. Ah, but what is that point?

The reality is that all of us combine the scientific and onotological descriptions of life. No two of us combine them in exactly the same manner. The result is that the description of what life is will vary between every person.

Therein lies the complexity of the pro-life/anti-abortion issue. Every person stands on a different foundation: some just slightly different, others vastly so. Even those who share sources of authority can disagree widely because of different methods of interpreting those sources and thus come to polar opposite conclusions. As I described in an earlier post, each person believes they are right and believe they are doing the right thing, but they may be in fact be wrong, and in complex cases no one can know for certain if they are right or wrong.

LIFE. It’s not that simple.