Church Voices

We were riding in the car running errands the other day when our 4 year old daughter asked my wife to tell her the story of Jesus dying on the cross again.  She’s heard the story in her numerous illustrated Bibles we read her, as well as in Sunday School and during Children’s church.

So my wife replied somewhat to me, somewhat rhetorically, “Where do I Begin?”

Our daughter: “At the beginning.”

Makes sense.  So my wife and I together say, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

It gave us a good laugh at the time, but as children tend to do, my daughter got at the heart of much that is important to the story of Jesus with her simple answer.  I’m currently reading the book Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey.  In it she proposes Creationism as foundational to communicating the gospel.  I have to agree.  The story of Jesus’ death on the cross only makes sense in light of creation.  Which is why it can be difficult to evangelize in cultures (such as ours) that declare that we are only a part of nature which has it’s roots in itself (Darwinism is a form of this naturalistic worldview).

Maybe when we tell the story again, we really do need to start at the beginning.

Recently, I’ve been reading a post-apocalyptic comic book. It was pretty standard fare, civilization has fallen, and what’s left of humanity is scavenging the corpse of the fallen civilization to survive. During the course of this looting the group of protagonists come across a store house of wealth. There’s gold, cash and other valuables. One member of the looting party sees the lucre and says, “how much is all this worth”, the response by the de facto leader of the party is “nothing”.

Michael Spencer has a post up called One Stock That Needs to Drop. The stock in question is evangelicalism and Spencer makes several points as to why it needs to drop. I would guess that Spencer uses this metaphor because the current financial crisis is on everyone’s mind and the attending stock market drop that goes with it is the focus of many, many news stories. But as Spencer is clearly aware, the stock metaphor is especially apt because the value of stocks are based on the perception of how valuable they are.

A rumor made the rounds that Steve Jobs’ health is in decline, Apple’s stock goes down. There was no change in sales numbers, no change in assets, no change in anything but a whisper about the health of the lead man at Apple, and the panic sales were on.

While I doubt there will be a single watershed event like a post-apocalyptic event, or rumors of a health scare that will cause a single day drop, I do believe that the value of the stock of evangelicalism will leech away over time.

And that’s ok.

In fact it might be preferable. Because much like the character who, in the middle of a post-apocalyptic meltdown where food is scarce and safety is fleeting is busy gathering defunct currency, much of the current valuation of evangelicalism is based on a whole list of job descriptions that just no longer apply, and the more evangelicals try to chase those things the more time, and resources are wasted.

Politics, health, wealth, better living, wisdom, Amway, the power to force moral choices on society as a whole and marketing dollars have all been a big part of the valuation of evangelicalism, and all of it is an illusion. And if that illusion were to go away this instant, many people would go with it. And that would be a good thing. Because the church shouldn’t value any of those things, and the Christ didn’t resurrect to bring us those things. And eventually churches and lives built on those things won’t be able to sustain themselves.

Salvation, love, community, lives of service, humility, disciples, and redemption however, are all a part of the real value of the church. And none of those things have ever moved a stock price upward.

Some day, probably a day not too far away if it hasn’t come already, Christianity in the United States will be a shadow of itself in terms of measurements that matter to people who matter. And it doesn’t bother me at all. Because its time for the church to stop its two-fisted gathering of defunct currencies while the world around them is dead or dying.

Ellianna (our 4 year old): “Who raised Jesus from the dead?”

The question seems simple enough, but is actually quite profound.  Many people (and hymns, songs, etc) talk about Jesus rising from the dead as if of His own accord, but Paul in Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians as well as Peter say that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Why is it that many unchurched people in our society understand the importance and commitment involved in being immersed (baptized) while much of the church leadership in America places it’s importance below the Ten Commandments (or some other arbitrary delineation degrading immersion to a rule that can be qualified)?

I have known dozens of youths (often teenagers) who have expressed a desire to be immersed into Christ Jesus but whose parents have either refused or told them to wait.  In fact, there is a situation right now in our community where a father doesn’t want his daughter to be immersed because of the importance and weight of such a decision.  One that involves a lifelong commitment to faith in God.  You know, it is an important decision.  Being immersed into Christ is a proclamation to the world that you are committing your life to Christ.

That in and of itself should be enough to keep immersion in its place as part of the conversion experience.  (There are other reasons as well, but this post is not about them.)  Instead we have ministers and church leaders telling people that it’s akin to tithing.  (Hmmm, I don’t even know if that is true since many church leaderships in our country view tithing as a requirement that God makes of Christians.  Would they be the same people to be repulsed at the idea that immersion is a requirement of God to become a Christian?)  Immersion is not something you do when you become a more mature Christian, immersion is what is done to you to begin your journey following Christ Jesus.

I find it ironic that many Christians are so immersed in our culture that they are unable to see their own compromise to a dualistic worldview that results in privatized faith and often a rejection (in part) of Truth as revealed to us in God’s word, and yet many non-Christians have maintained a sense of that Truth despite a conscious rejection of it.

In this presentation by DA Carson he makes many great points, but there is one particular point that I’d like to single out. He illustrates this point by pointing out that when he’s in New York he never identifies himself as an evangelical because to the average secular New Yorker the word evangelical is the Christian equivalent to the Taliban, he concludes this statement by saying “if you don’t know that, then you’re not even in the discussion, go somewhere else”. This illustration caps off his general point that for many people today words like God, faith, spirit, truth, repentance, sin and every other “God talk category” mean something other than what someone with a Judeo-Christian worldview means. We often think that we’re writing on a blank hard drive when we’re communicating/evangelizing, but we’re actually dealing with a hard drive that already has files written on it that have to be changed before its possible to explain the gospel, or what the Bible says.

While this may be daunting, especially since it is a radical shift in less than a generation and a half, in some ways it makes the scriptures even more powerful because this was precisely the same culture Paul was dealing with once he left the synagogue and began to discuss, interact, preach, teach and speak with the polytheistic Greek population. In other words, our current culture, especially as you move into centers of secular populations, more directly reflects the cultures of Athens, Ephesus and other places Paul was founding churches, and so the methodologies and practices of Paul in these polytheistic centers are now relevant in the United States in ways they were not 40 years ago.

In Acts 17 Luke records Paul’s Areopagus address which is preceded with Paul giving the gospel, perhaps in a similar way as a street preacher might today. And this address is completely incomprehensible to his audience. Some dismiss him as a babbler, and others believe he is advocating foreign gods (it should be noted this second group was as wrong as the first group was dismissive, as they shuffled the Living God into the same category as pagan gods who were local and limited, just local and limited in a different zip code). So they bring Paul to the gathering of the Areopagus where they spent their time talking and listening to the latest ideas so that they can try to sort out what exactly this strange little man’s strange little ideas are.

And it is here that Paul begins re-writing the files of the gathering of the Areopagus so they can understand his strange little idea which we have come to call the gospel, and he begins by explaining God was neither local nor limited, but created everything, and everyone and is sovereign over everything. The gospel makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you begin with this understanding of God. The idea that Jesus’ work was planned from the beginning, and that he willingly gave up his life and was resurrected only works if you believe God controls everything from the creation of the universe to the close of the universe because if He does not then the death of Jesus is just another forgettable skirmish between deities in which one lost and died, and the other won and killed rather than the singular event that changed history.

I’ve always found the story of Alice in Wonderland to be more creepy than charming (which may or may not be a compliment). The story essentially is of Alice showing up in a world that makes no sense to her. She has no way of knowing what creatures are sentient, what powers are at work, who wishes her harm, who wants to use her presence for their own gain, and what actions will bring certain disaster. In other words, all of her assumptions, and all of her knowledge that has aided her well in her own world don’t apply, and will actually work to hinder her because she is plunged into a world that works in a fundamentally different way from her own. Many times when we give what is in our minds “the simple gospel” it isn’t so simple. We are essentially turning people into Alice and plunging them into Wonderland because we assume they inhabit the same world as the gospel.

Paul recognizes this fact and communicates accordingly in Athens. Rather than describing sin in legal context, he does so in a relational context using works from their own poets. It should be noted here (as DA Carson noted), that though the record of Paul’s address is very short, in all likelihood it lasted for several hours and these are the general headings under which he spoke which serves to further illustrate the care Paul took to insure the message he spoke was the message that was heard.

In fact, Paul takes this a step further and applies the principle not just to his communication, but to his conduct. In Acts 19 we are told of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, another pagan city filled with a specific pagan goddess. While there a riot initiated by makers of idols for Artemis is stirred up. What finally quells the riot is a plea from the city clerk that these men had neither “robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess”. We can assume that blaspheming Artemis would include saying things like Artemis isn’t real, or by going out and letting everyone know that they’re a bunch of idolaters on their way to hell. Something Paul did do on occasion, but apparently not on this one. Why not? Well, we can presume that Paul was familiar with the law in Ephesus and in order to continue operating there obeyed the law, one which inhibited particular evangelistic method rather than the practice of being a Christian. We see a similar discretion exercised in the previously mentioned passage in Athens where Paul sees the entire city filled with idols and is “greatly distressed”, yet does not begin his address by pointing out how evil and wrong his listeners are, (in fact he begins his address with a sort of compliment as to their religiosity).

Paul does all of this for the sake of the gospel. Can you imagine what the gossip of Ephesus would have been like if a riot had broken out in the city of Artemis which involved Christians? I doubt the story told from lips that worshiped Artemis to ears that listened for Artemis would have been all that complimentary, and would likely have resulted in the banning of all evangelistic and discipleship activity not to mention could have endangered Christianity’s protected status with Rome (as it was still not distinguished by Romans as separate from Judaism and so was a licit religion, at least for another couple of decades).

In Matthew 10 when Jesus sends out his disciples to spread the message that the Kingdom of Heaven is near he tells them they’re being sent out as sheep among wolves, and so they must be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. Being ministers of the gospel means far more than simply repeating the same few lines which make perfect sense to us. It means being shrewd enough so that the gospel is understood by those hearing what we say, and acting wisely enough that the best possible outcome for the spreading of the gospel occurs.

Why do people who claim to know Christ think that they are being good Christians by forwarding e-mails?  I claim here and now that they are being anything but Christian by forwarding those e-mails; they are being lazy, ignorant, timid, and fearful gossip mongers.  (I realize that many have been slowly deceived and pulled into this practice by others, but come on.  Take a minute to think before you act.  Just because it’s easy, doesn’t make it valuable.)

Instead of forwarding an e-mail that you haven’t checked the validity of by taking 30 seconds to look up on snopes.com or simply google it, why don’t you take that 30 seconds to do something useful and forward a dollar for every person on your e-mail list to our brothers and sisters in severe need in Asia (or some other continent) through one of these ministries: International Disaster Emergency Service, Gospel For Asia, Voice of the Martyrs, etc.

This article from by Becky Akers and published by Yahoo contains some penetrating insights about the nature of the church and the government. Read the whole thing but here’s the part I think is the main thrust:

Throughout history, Christians have usually been on the wrong side of government. The Roman Empire tortured Jesus Christ to death, then criminalized his friends. Later regimes continued that tradition. They routinely hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, and slaughtered people who clung to their Lord instead of the law. Something like 70 million Christians have died for their faith since AD 33.

The church thought to resolve this by grabbing government’s reins. But the same brutality soon surfaced. Believers weren’t safe unless they practiced precisely as their brothers in power dictated.

Incredibly, Christians suffered the same tortures and death at the hands of “Christian” rulers as they had from others. At various times in various nations, “Christians” have persecuted their fellows for acknowledging the pope, refusing to acknowledge the pope, baptizing adults instead of babies, baptizing babies instead of adults, etc. Tragically, Christians high on power forsake the Ten Commandments and the golden rule as quickly as anyone else.

The trouble doesn’t lie with Christianity but with power. The two have always been at odds. Political power is a synonym for “physical force,” for bending people to government’s will regardless of their inclinations, interests, or welfare. But Christianity is love – power’s antidote

I recently found out about the wedding of a homosexual friend of mine from High School.  I lost track of her shortly after graduating H.S. and was saddened to hear about it.  Being a minister, I’m often surprised and dissapointed to hear about the choices of other ministers.

Ministers take different approaches to doing weddings.  Some will only marry members of their congregation, some will marry any two Christians, some will marry any male/female couple, and some will marry anybody to anybody else.  Most conservative ministers won’t condemn another minister for their personal marriage policies, as long as that policy excludes the marrying of homosexual couples.  (Depending on where you live, my discussion of homosexual unions includes any kind of ceremony performed by the minister in recognition of the relationship of the couple.)

From Leviticus, we are shown that such relationships are an abomination (detestable).  But there are other things mentioned in Scripture that are equally, if not more detestable.  Deuteronomy 25:16 tells us that a person who uses dishonest weights and measurements is an abomination - “For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the LORD your God.”  I find it interesting that the act of a male lying with a male in Leviticus is an abomination but the very person themselves who acts unjustly is an abomination to God.  Ouch.  Would I be willing to marry two people who are dishonest?  Would I care if another minister was willing to do that?  Some might joke that they deserve eachother.

Marriage is important to the family.  Being rooted in Christ is more important.  I think this deals with the issue of correcting behavior of a person who is destined for Hell.  Kind of like standing on land yelling at a person who is drowning that they aren’t treading water properly, instead of swimming out there and helping them to shore.  I am glad when a person chooses not to sin, but it’s irrelevant compared with their relationship to God.  My role is not to help people be better sinners, but to share Christ with them.  So how do you love such a couple without approving or participating in their defiance of God?  How do you be Christ in their lives?

If I was still close to my friend, and she asked me to perform her ceremony, I would think long and hard about it.  A few years ago, I probably would have just said no.  Today, I’m not sure.  If I can marry a man and a woman who do not have Christ as their foundation, who are not in Christ, why draw the line at a homosexual ceremony?

While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. He was sitting and listening as Paul preached. Looking straight at him, Paul realized he had faith to be healed. So Paul called to him in a loud voice, “Stand up!” And the man jumped to his feet and started walking.

When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their local dialect, “These men are gods in human form!” They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul was Hermes, since he was the chief speaker. Now the temple of Zeus was located just outside the town. So the priest of the temple and the crowd brought bulls and wreaths of flowers to the town gates, and they prepared to offer sacrifices to the apostles.
Acts 14.8-13

In Lystra Paul continued to preach the gospel, while there a man was healed because he had faith, the response of the Lystrans is interesting. Instead of turning to praise the Living God and leaving behind their previous beliefs they instead integrate what they have just seen into what they already believed. In fact, as they go to worship Paul and Barnabus, Paul continues to explicitly tell them what they believe about the two of them is wrong. The scriptures record, that despite this brute force approach it was still difficult to stop the people from worshiping them.

Quite a bit of noise has been made from certain segments of Christianity about the certainty of belief, they have attacked any theology that allows for any re-assessment of belief in any portion of any of our theological positions. These segments of Christianity have much in common with the Lystrans who despite Paul’s clear preaching and the demonstration of the power of the Living God still integrated Paul and Barnabas into their wrongly held beliefs.

As followers of Christ we are called to the truth, but we are also keenly aware of our own shortcomings in terms of both sin and ability (if the two can even be separated). As such we need to find ourselves in the delicate high wire act of clinging to orthodoxy, yet open to rebuke and correction by the Spirit through the scriptures. If our first reaction to anything we disagree with is to condemn the advocate of such a position as a damnable heretic of the most idiotic kind and then to complain to those who agree with us that this is nothing more than “itching ear” false preaching, it may be that we find ourselves in Lystra, instead of reality, and bending our knees to our particular culture, or intellect instead of Christ.

Then Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
Acts 10.47-11.1

If you paid attention in Sunday school you know that the answer to the question “what is the word of God” has two proper answers: the Bible, and Jesus. You can write those down and move on to the next question.

Here’s the thing though, neither one of those answers are appropriate for what happened in Acts 10 and 11. These Gentiles didn’t receive a Bible (neither the Old Testament, nor the yet unwritten New Testament), and while you can argue they received Jesus in the sense of having faith in him, its not the same sense as “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”.

So what is the word of God?

Sometimes I come across someone who has a particular issue that has swollen so large in their mind that they can’t see or think of anything else. No matter what particular scripture they read, no matter what they are praying about it all comes back to that issue. The issue might be something like instruments in worship, worship style, once saved always saved, end times, pre-destination, or any other number of theological hot button issues that have occupied people through the years. When this happens invariably you end up with verse after verse being pulled out in defense of the scriptures, lots and lots of words spill out and phrases like “its right there in the Bible” pepper the fire-hose like stream of consciousness.

No matter how much scripture is found in this situation, there’s no word of God in it. Because the word of God isn’t just particular words written by prophets and apostles (and James) it is the core message of Jesus sometimes called the gospel. What the apostles and the brothers recognized as the word of God is what brought the Holy Spirit, and baptism:

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.

What this means is that you can spend a whole lot of time quoting a whole lot of scripture, and still not have the word of God.