Sole Jones

Doug Pagitt's Evangelism in the Inventive Age

2012-01-19T22:24:00.001-06:00

I like Doug Pagitt. My wife and I met him on the North Little Rock stop of his book tour for A Christianity Worth Believing. He was working his way through the room, chatting and laughing, shaking hands. He made his way over to us and visited for a couple of minutes before moving on again. A friendly, likable guy.

So now we come to his new book, Evangelism in the Inventive Age, the latest in his “Inventive Age” series, and I’m predisposed to like it, too. Doug posted a message on his blog about giving away pre-release .pdf copies of the book if some people would be willing to blog about it, and I jumped in with both feet.

Does your evangelizing seek to bring people into conformity or help them achieve transformation? This is one of the first issues tackled in section one, and I think it’s a good question, highlighting a common problem we run into: people often reject our evangelism efforts because they sense we’re trying to control them, that we want them to conform to our way of life.

Doug goes on to point out the effectiveness inherent in each approach. Think weight loss. If you go on a crash diet, you might lose weight and hit your target. After the diet’s over, however, your weight creeps back up and you find yourself back in the same boat or worse. If instead, you transform the way you eat, picking new, healthier patterns and habits, you might lose weight at a slower rate, but the change is more likely to be permanent.

“Conformity is temporary,” Doug says, and then goes on to deal with how to engage in transformative evangelism instead. It involves the word resonance. You hear people say “Oh, that resonates with me. I’m really in tune with that,” all the time, and Doug makes good use of it here, so the stage is set.

Next up, sections two and three, where Doug gets more into just what this “Inventive Age” is all about.

Quick Look at Psalm 131

2010-08-27T11:38:00.001-05:00

Ps 131 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

Man, I love this psalm. It’s a huge confession, this gateway to humility, this doorway to peace in the midst of turbulence. When I can’t figure something out, this is where I go. When I’m so confused, or overwhelmed, or disgusted by life’s circumstances or the mystery of other people, when I need to just shrug my shoulders and get on with things, this is what I do.

First, a little self-examination. Is my heart proud? Do I think I’m self-sufficient? Is this circumstance within my comfort zone and therefore a potential area of pride? I have to remind myself at times that I don’t want to have a proud heart; I don’t want to go down that pathway, because it can easily lead me into haughtiness.

Haughtiness is being a jerk, thinking I’m better than others. It’s dehumanizing to those around me, too. If I don’t want to be proud, it’s because I sure don’t want to be haughty.

Then comes the letting go, the turning away. This is like getting rid of that bad to-do list that you had no hope of finishing, or giving up the idea of fixing that thing that was way too broke for you to fix anyway. This is great stuff, and the more reluctant you’ve been to give this whatever up, the greater the relief when you do reach this state of grace, this opening of your hand. You can’t fake this; it’s an act of balance, coming right out of the inside of the experience. You’re either stepping free of something that had you bound, or it doesn’t really happen.

Quick Look at Ps 113:5-6

2010-08-25T15:12:00.001-05:00

Ps 113:5-6 Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?

I love this quality of the Lord’s to stoop. This action, stooping to us, is usually offensive from a human, but for the Creator of the universe to take notice of what’s going on in our personal little pocket-world is simply fantastic. We get ignored by plain, silly humans all the time. But our God doesn’t ignore us.

And He doesn’t just turn His eye our way, either. That would be sufficient, what with His super x-ray vision. I mean, He could know anything about our condition with the tiniest glance. Well, heck, He wouldn’t even need the glance. He just knows. But He’s so cool; He stoops over to get down on our level, to check us out. He really, really loves us.

Kathleen Norris on Childhood Epiphanies

2010-08-13T12:16:00.001-05:00

From her book The Cloister Walk:

"If we teach children when they're young to reject their epiphanies, then it's no wonder that we end up with so many adults who are mathematically, poetically, and theologically illiterate."

As usual, Kathleen's on to something. Now, how do we reawaken our deadness to epiphanies?

Quick Look at Psalm 141:3-4

2010-08-04T09:14:00.001-05:00

Ps 141:3-4 Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies.

This fits right in with James 3, depicting the tongue as the gateway to our attitude, and our attitude as the gateway to our actions and affections. This is why saying negative stuff is so dangerous. It’s not that it’s magic and something has now been inadvertently cursed. It’s what it does to our attitudes. Like pouring salt on your garden plants – it just kills.

Quick Look at Psalm 146:7-9

2010-08-04T09:06:00.001-05:00

Ps 146:7-9 He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. I love this statement of what it is that the Lord does. To wit:

1. He takes up the cause of the oppressed

2. He feeds hungry people

3. He frees imprisoned people

4. He gives sight to the blind

5. He lifts up the weighted down

6. He loves His own

7. He watches over the different

8. He takes care of those who need care

9. He messes up the ways of the wicked

You know, I think I can really get into having a savior like this…

Quick Look: Ephesians 4:11-24

2010-01-30T22:28:00.005-06:00

(11)...this gives the structure (generally speaking) of the whole church
(12)...what's it for? for equipping and edifying
(13)...UNTIL we're unified and Christ-like
(14)...the time is over for being a child

what's being a child? being tossed to and fro and carried about (away) by:

doctrine
trickery

(15)...let's try a couple of things:

speaking the truth in love - this might be as simple as being honest with ourselves
grow up into Christ-likeness

(16)...that brings about health in the body of Christ
(17)...no longer walk in the futility of your mind (the way things seem to you)
(18)...here's what happens to those people (walking in the futility of their mind):

their understanding is darkened
they are isolated from life in God

why? because isolated from God, they're left with inadequate resources

(19)...past feeling = past hearing from God at this point and therefore have given themselves into all kinds of bad practice
(20)...but that's not how you learned/experienced Christ

i say "experienced" because learned = what you have come to know, and to know is to experience...

(21)...if you're actually in the club, you'll know to:
(22)...put off (take off, like a jacket) the old man

what's the deal with the old man? he's subject to the law of entropy... he grows corrupt

corrupt could equal disfigured - computer programs that get screwed up and no longer function correctly are said to be corrupted
how does he grow corrupt? the deceitful lusts... that means following these misinformed notions that people are subject to

(23)...and reboot your brain
(24)...and put on (like a jacket) the new man, which is to imitate Christ...

Interesting Post: Coker on Haiti

2010-01-30T22:26:00.000-06:00

Jason Coker of Pastoralia is fast becoming one of my go-to guys. I'm always fascinated by what he has to say. Today's post on Haiti is no exception.

Fitch Is the Bomb

2010-01-27T21:57:00.002-06:00

David Fitch wrote this article about a year ago. I'm highly impressed, as is my usual reaction to most Fitch-items. Today I want to concentrate on one paragraph in particular, putting the term missional into high resolution. Here it is:

When we plant today, we survey the land for the poor and the desperate, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. We seek to plant seeds of ministry, kernels of forgiveness, new plantings of the gospel among “the poor (of all kinds)” and then by the Spirit water and nurture them into the life of God in Christ. We gather on Sunday, but not for evangelistic reasons. We gather to be formed into a missonal people and then sent out into the neighborhoods to minister grace, peace, love and the gospel of forgiveness and salvation.

I love that idea of "survey the land" and the object of that survey, the poor and desperate of every stripe. This desire to help, and the accompanying recognition of ourselves as being in that number... I find that very encouraging.

He winds up the paragraph talking about the why behind our Sunday gatherings: to be formed as a people that can knit the "redeemedness" of our lives with the lives of others. Sweet.

Will Jesus (Introduction)

2010-01-27T18:02:00.000-06:00

Karen Zacharias' introduction makes reference to the heavily Oprah-plugged The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, and that becomes the perfect launching pad for her discussion of American prosperity doctrine in general. Pretty quickly, she gets into some pithy observations.

"It's a perfect theology for people with means."
- Yah, nothing says "You're right!" like success. It's a gimme from the peanut gallery most of the time. We say, "Well, he must be doing something right..."
"However, it's a terrible theology for the poor and downtrodden."
- Yah, once again, we reaffirm this like it was true: "...it's just my luck..." "I must not be living right..."
"...whatever blessings we enjoy may be more the result of good geography than good theology."
- I really, really like Karen's willingness to let the fur fly. This is hard for a lot of Americans to come to grips with. We've been so schooled to believe that our wealth is a direct result of 1) the Christian principles of the founding fathers, or 2) our ongoing support of Israel, or 3) our exceptionally large number of televangelists (more about that in Chapter 1). Anyway, since we believe we got the good stuff because we were good, we tend to think that we can keep it - yah - protect our stuff by continuing to be good (our version of good). It boils down to this: we operate under an illusion of control. I think this book is going to punch that notion right in the solar plexus. In fact, the next Karen quote does that very thing.
"...we are not masters of our own universe."
- Told ya. We'll finish up the introduction next time.

New Book! Karen Spears Zacharias' Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide?

2010-01-26T19:00:00.000-06:00

New Zondervan book by Burnside Writers Collective regular Karen Zacharias. It's called Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? ('Cause I Need More Room for My Plasma TV) and I can hardly wait.

I read the foreword by Steve Brown and in it he says 1) "I have no idea why Karen asked me to write a foreword to this book," and 2) "...while reading this book ... [I] winced. Wincing is good if God is in the wincing."

In a second foreword, fellow-Burnside-colleague Susan Isaacs says, "No, you're not alone in your nagging suspicion that God's kind of wonderful is something more weighty and difficult than mastering a prayer or a key to success; and that it's more often found among the least of these."

Yup, Karen's book is something of a riff on prosperity doctrine. And, if the part I've read so far is any indication, it's really funny as well.

Next post, I'll deal with Karen's Introduction, which, unlike many books, proved an excellent starting place.

Interesting Post: Austin Mustard Seed

2010-01-26T18:30:00.000-06:00

I was reading the other day, and came across some strange ideas, the blog of John Chandler, pastor of Austin Mustard Seed. Okay, that's a lot of links.

So here's the link I found so interesting. The congregation was contemplating silence and the post lists the quotes they were considering, and one in particular hit me, from Dallas Willard:

"So if we really intend to submit our bodies as living sacrifices to God, our first step well might be to start getting enough sleep. Sleep is a good first use of solitude and silence. It is also a good indicator of how thoroughly we trust in God."

Wow. Right. Between. The. Eyes.

Quick Look at 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

2009-07-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

In 2 Cor 12:7-10 (TM), Paul discusses his infamous thorn in the flesh, and it proves to be a rich field of study, mainly because we have here the primary human author of the New Testament, and he’s not getting what he asks for in prayer. I’m sorry, but that’s notable.

The first thing you notice is that he sought the Lord three times for the thorn to be removed, so it’s clear that it was a big enough deal for him to ask, and then he didn’t just ask, he sought the Lord, pleading. What I get from this is three full-blown seasons of seeking God’s will on this, and he finally hears God’s answer, so he hung in there.

The second thing you get is that answer. “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” This is all your gonna get. This is a ticket for a free ride to quit whining, to get on with life, a dry-eyed, clear-path trail through the ruins of whatever-you-were-hoping-for, onward to what your life is actually going to be.

You are given grace, which is the free ticket part of the whole deal: it’s grace, stupid. Duh. It’s the guarantee that you can, indeed, make it through this. Sometimes we complain that a person doesn’t seem too concerned about whatever trouble they’ve found themselves in, but isn’t that the goal? That particular point could probably stand a lot of unpacking, and maybe I will do that at another time, there is a kind of indifference to results that indicates no direction, no drive, no ambition, but that’s often misconstrued for the actual working of grace, that allows you to despise (think Jesus despising (TM)the shame of the cross) all that as you keep your gaze fixed on the prize. We too often get derailed by minor points, or troubles that are beside-the-point. Grace is like peace in these situations; it lets you move on.

The third thing you get is how not-high-minded-or-spiritual this grace thing is. It’s a huge, cool thing. Do you see people born into money acting all apologetic or thinking they’re failures? Not as a general rule, you don’t. But they’re recipients of grace, also. So maybe we should take a cue from them whenever God decides to give us a free ride, and not hang our head about it.

Paul goes on to talk about bragging about his infirmities, “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Look at me, Paul says, this is POWER.

Blue Parakeet: Chapter 4

2009-07-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

In chapter 4 of Scot McKnight's fine Blue Parakeet, it's all about story and the retelling of the story with fresh nuance at each and every turn. He calls these retellings "wiki-stories" in the manner that the Wikipedia is put together article by article - hey, in some cases word by word, by the bearers of remarkably different viewpoints united in a common cause; it's a distributed model for a post-Babel world. What else could serve such a disparate, dispersed people?

Scot uses Mt 4:1-11 (TM) to illustrate the idea of wiki-story. It's the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, and Scot explains that this could serve as a "perfected" retelling of either Adam & Eve's temptation, or the wilderness travails of the children of Israel. Either one works; indeed, maybe that's the point - Jesus steps in to whatever story and, in walking through it again, redeems it and reconciles it to Himself. And just this small taste, this one example, starts to open up an entire universe of possibilities for us: maybe this is how the ministry of reconciliation actually works! And then we're able to make the traditional application of rebuking Satan and his temptations with scripture just like Jesus, only now, through this reading of the story as a wiki-story, we're suddenly much more solidly grounded, more thoroughly prepared for the vagaries of life.

The Bible is flexible. It's vast. It's wide, covering a bazillion different things, and it's deep, restating some themes over and over with subtle variations, fitting itself through these countless iterations closer and closer to where we actually are, wherever we've actually washed up, painfully in need of rescue.

The Network of Conversations

2009-06-24T22:44:00.001-05:00

Finnish sociologist Niklas Luhmann stated that “community is a network of conversations.” This is one of those quotes that immediately strikes you as being true, even when you don’t understand it. I have a pretty good idea about usage of the word “conversations” in emergent circles. In fact, I guess that it’s very closely related to my use of the word “negotiate,” or “sitting down at the table.”

Think of negotiating “in good faith.” How’s that defined? You have notions of transparency and fairness… in short, the Golden Rule, so that community becomes a network of Golden Rule participants. I was concerned that saying proper negotiating follows the Golden Rule is stating the obvious, especially when you could say that proper anything follows the Golden Rule. However, to put the emphasis on conversation heightens the attention to communication, the transparency side of negotiations, and using the word “negotiations” acknowledges that each party has its own set of interests; i.e. we don’t operate and relate in a bubble devoid of interest, and we are not all the same.

A pressure point in negotiations happens right here when parties realize that their interests do not map with those of other parties. You hear statements like, “I thought we were on the same page,” and the words carry a tone of betrayal and disappointment.

This isn’t right, though. Indeed, it betrays a certain naiveté to feel this shock. Of course the other party or parties have a different set of interests from my own. We should realize this.

What should inform this is another question: what is germane to this particular project? We are seeking to set scope. Are we on the same page? The only page that matters is the most local one that covers the project. Do our interests within the scope of the project map to a tolerable level of congruence? This is why Jesus says (TM) that if they're not against us they're for us.

Most misunderstandings where there wasn’t an out and out transmission error, in other words, where all words and intentions got transmitted and received correctly (transparency), fall under the category of scope error.

Going Up to Jerusalem

2009-06-23T10:15:00.001-05:00

They were going up to Jerusalem with Jesus. What they were expecting was a blockbuster Michael Bays film: lots of explosions, collateral damage. Zap! Pow! What they got was an indie film with a confusing ending that wasn’t really an ending.

A Quick Look at Psalm 81:11-12

2009-06-19T16:35:00.001-05:00

Let's take a quick look at Psalm 81:11-12. (TM)

"...My people..." Even in the midst of our disobedience, even in the midst of punishing us, God considers us to be His people. We would do well to remember Hebrews 12:6 (TM), "For whom the Lord loves He chastens..."
"...would not heed My voice..." The opposite would be the way to go. Heed, according to OneLook.com means "pay close attention to..."
"...So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart..." A direct consequence of that stubbornness. God has the reputation of not staying where He's not wanted, and this passage would seem to support that.
"...To walk in their own counsels." This is reminiscent of Isaiah 55:8 (TM), where the Lord says that neither our thoughts nor ways measure up to His. Choosing our own way is a bad move, and He will let us do just that if we insist.

Quick Look at Psalm 81:7

2009-06-17T22:47:00.001-05:00

Let's take a quick look at Psalm 81:7 (TM).

You called in trouble, and I delivered you... - Isn't this so typical of the Lord, the very type of thing that causes Him to be named Faithful and True?
...I answered you in the secret place of thunder... - I love this secret place of thunder... secret, and therefore mysterious... thunder, and therefore powerful. I think it really is just like thunder when the Lord drops something heavy on you. It rattles everything, even the foundations. And nobody else is even aware of it many times, so that it's secret at the same time.
...I tested you at the waters of Meribah... - This refers to the first time (TM) Moses was instructed to strike the rock, satisfying the thirst of the Israelites. It's funny how it says here that God tested the children of Israel, and in the Exodus passage it says that the people tempted God by asking "Is the Lord among us or not?"

Kind of makes you think this could be a diagnostic: If I'm thinking that I'll just smart off at God about my situation, maybe I'm just being tested after all.
Maybe it's the tell-tale sign that He's right there, though unseen, and He's involved. That's a nice thought.

Quick Look: Psalm 47

2009-06-15T22:27:00.001-05:00

Let's take a quick look at Psalm 47 (TM).

You read verse 1 of this psalm and you're taken immediately down memory lane with the children's chorus, which is unfortunate in a way. The chorus leaves out so many good bits!

v2 This verse states what is perhaps obvious, but just how obvious is it that
- 1) the Lord is the Most High, and
- He is awesome?
Even in our gatherings at church, do we act as though He is awesome? Not really.
v3 I think this states Israel's expectation right up until the time of Christ, and was indeed the plainly stated role they imagined for their Messiah.
v4 This puts things perhaps a bit more ambiguously, foreshadowing the Suffering Servant role that the Messiah would actually fill. It's a good place for us to be, being willing and able to readily admit that God will choose our inheritance.

Jonestown, 30 years later

2008-11-20T17:47:00.000-06:00

Here's a link from boingboing about Jonestown and related stuff. I was in college when this happened. I think it's important, and something everyone should be informed about. We mustn't blindly follow anyone, and there were clues aplenty that Jim Jones was up to no good.

More about this later. Do any of you remember any of this stuff?

Yancey at CT on Diagnostics for Congregations

2008-11-19T17:42:00.000-06:00

Philip Yancey (Wikipedia article) has an interesting article on Christianity Today called "Denominational Diagnostics." I wouldn't have called it that, because it doesn't seem to have too much to do with denominations. He talks about being able to sense the "aliveness" of the congregation within a very short amount of time, based on 1) talk going on in the foyer, 2) presence of laughter, and 3) what activities and issues were highlighted on the bulletin board.

Read the entire article. What Yancey says he found at the heart of his quick impressions were three things.

Diversity - I think he was getting at the idea that diversity showed tolerance of personal differences and the absence of any one group dominating everything. I bet everyone's been in a congregation where actions and attitudes were highly restricted so as not to upset the "alpha" group. When that's not happening, it's a good sign.
Unity - We could easily get into centered vs. bound sets here, a fun topic to be sure. Unity could simply be strongarm tactics - "be like I tell you to be or you're not welcome here." But that would go against the diversity point above. Unity shouldn't be based on blind conformity, but on a cherished common ground, hopefully in the case of churches - Christ.
Mission - Is the church obviously trying to make disciples, and are they doing so in some positive, uplifting way that includes large doses of love?

Fitch on Psalm 37

2008-10-31T17:22:00.000-05:00

David Fitch put up a good post yesterday. He's at it again, outlining right-thinking for churches and their leaders.

Here, he's talking about when times get tough. Belt-tightening, all that kind of stuff. The pressure is on to keep cash flow going. You've got to pay the bills, or as he puts it here, you've got to get pragmatic. And this is in the context of a missional church, where you're already straining credulity, you're already pushing the envelope. Let's face it, you are not doing things just like the successful church down the block.

He says there are three things about missional churches that ought to help.

They tend to keep building expenses minimal
They tend to utilize multiple bi-vocational pastors that can weather difficult economic times
They tend to live more communally, achieving economies of scale

Then he quotes Psalm 37:1-6 (TM), recommending it for - get this - spiritual formation! This is potent stuff, radical even, a true humility right in the normal practice of a front-line pastor.

I really like David Fitch.

Alan Hirsch on Planting the Gospel

2008-10-30T07:08:00.000-05:00

Alan Hirsch has a fine post based on a quote by Dr. D.T. Niles of Sri Lanka. Hirsch suggests that we replace the term church planting with gospel planting. Here is Dr. Niles' quote:

The Gospel is like a seed, and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Israel, a plant that can be called Jewish Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries come to our lands they brought not only the seed of the Gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flowerpot, take out the seed of the Gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.

I think this is quite powerful, and I would suggest that cultural soil is fractal in that this principle of soil applies not just to the largish entity thought of as a culture, but it applies equally as well to each successively smaller sub-culture, right down to the individual level.

I particularly like how Dr. Niles talked about breaking the flowerpot. A lot of rejection we see in evangelism is not an out and out rejection of Jesus, it's a rejection of our flowerpot, the container in which we bring the gospel. A lot of situations where people do not go forward with Jesus are simply flowerpot problems.

Like it or not, we add a lot to the gospel when we share it. We do this without realizing it; it's unintentional, but real nonetheless. I think Hirschy is encouraging us to plant the gospel as cleanly as possible, enabling the hearer to really accept it, embed it into their lives.

contamination video

2008-10-30T06:32:00.000-05:00

This is a really great video over at small ritual.

grace - contamination 1 from steve collins on Vimeo.

What do you think?

Radical Humility 2

2008-10-23T19:07:00.000-05:00

Let's look in Philippians 2, verses 5-8 (TM).

"Let this mind be in you..." This is an invitation to a kind of incarnation, this mind "... which was also in Christ Jesus..." It's also a doorway into His humility.
"...Who, being in the form of God..." This echoes:

Paul's words in Hebrews 1:3 (TM) where he calls Jesus "the express image" of God.
John's words in John 1:1 (TM) where it says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Jesus' words concerning Himself in John 14:9 (TM) where He tells Philip something like, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father."

"...did not consider it robbery to be equal with God..." This is a really difficult translation. I don't think the NKJ does it justice. NIV says, "...did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." which seems much more clear. This seems (to me) to reveal so much about the Lord's humility:
- "...equality with God..." - This is Jesus. Equal. With. God.
- "...did not consider..." - Jesus had a choice, an opinion. There's no hubris in Him.
- "...something to be grasped..." - For one thing, Jesus could step out of and back into these privileges at will. In Matthew 4:6 (TM), we see through Satan's quote of Psalm 91:11, 12 (TM) that this is true. Through this sober self-assessment (TM), the Lord saw Himself as He truly is and acted confidently based on that.
"...became obedient to the point of death..." - Here we see this extreme form of humility resulting in an absolute form of obedience. No wonder that Jesus labels obedience the truest mark of love (TM).

Quick Look: Psalm 146

2008-10-23T18:07:00.000-05:00

Let's take a quick look at Psalm 146 (TM).

"...Do not put your trust in princes..." This is not in contradiction to the radical humility of Psalm 141 (TM) where it says, "...Let the righteous strike me..." and indicates God's person, the righteous, acting on God's behalf - the trust is really in God, resulting in our submission to God's correction through even imperfect man. Here in Psalm 146 it simply says not to put your trust in princes, meaning don't put your trust in any man, even those at the top of the food chain.
"...on that very day their plans come to nothing..." This is why you can't put your trust in them: they won't necessarily be around to put their plans into action or make their stated intentions reality.
"...Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob..." This is in contrast to princes.
"...the Maker of heaven and earth..." This emphasizes the scope of His power, infinite, and the length of His days, without beginning or end.
"...the Lord, who remains faithful forever..." Here's a killer reason for putting your trust in God: His faithfulness, His loyalty. Power alone isn't sufficient criteria. The very powerful might be completely indifferent to you, or worse, might be bent on your destruction, but the Lord has pledged Himself to us, and His word is true.
"...Who executes justice for the oppressed..." I love this justice stuff, and so apparently does God. It's what defines the good guys versus the bad guys, even though we now know that there aren't necessarily any strictly good guys other than the Lord, but this is the criteria for trying to be part of the good guys' team: 1) identification with the oppressed - we've all been there, even if we're only oppressed by our own foolishness, and 2) an interest in basic decency and fairness, a desire to treat people well and live in community with them.
"...The LORD sets prisoners free..." Notice how similar this language is to Isaiah 61 (TM), which is the passage Jesus read from in Luke 4 (TM) when announcing the beginning of His ministry. All this is named here as appropriate reasons for trusting the Lord instead of man and it has to do with His stated purpose for being on earth. I think that's a slam dunk. It's convincing; it's compelling. Folks go for self-help or personal growth all the time, with a fraction of these prospects.
"...the LORD gives sight to the blind..." Talk about personal growth. I need this. I'm so blind to all kinds of things - the truth about myself being at the top of the list. The Lord is worth of your trust because He shows you how things really are.
"...the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down..." Do you feel beaten or bruised or just really, really tired? He lifts you up if you allow it. This is a picture of restoration. Has the weight of whatever it is you've been carrying gotten just too heavy? The Lord lifts you up. "Come to me," says Jesus (TM). "Cast all your cares on Him," Peter tells us (TM).
"...the LORD loves the righteous..." The Lord loves those who join Him. He loves everyone else, too, I believe, it's just that this is how you allow His work in your life. You join up.

Radical Humility

2008-10-11T14:38:00.004-05:00

Brenton Brown has a song called "Humble King." In it he says, "You are the God of the wounded / The friend of the weak / You wash the feet of the weary / Embrace the ones in need / Oh I want to be like You, Jesus / To have this heart in me / You are the God of the humble / You are the humble King."

In an earlier post, I was talking about the radical humility that occurs when we tell the Lord we will accept correction, not only from the Lord Himself, but even from His people, the righteous. This is all the more remakable for the knowledge that these people will be hypocrites, failures, people coming up short personally in the very same areas in which they are giving advice. In essence, people just like us.

This takes some kind of nerve, some kind of desperation, or, most likely, a little of both. Desperation, because we must be desperate to not isolate ourselves, not cocoon, not withdraw to lick our wounds in private. That's the first instinct for so many of us when trouble comes or when we've failed. We're embarrassed. We retreat.

Nerve, because not only are we not retreating, but going public - not just going public, but submitting to the kind (or not so kind) words of the very ones from whom we wanted to hide. It takes some kind of nerve, and some kind of desperation, to stay a course like that.

Paul instructs us to admonish one another in both Romans 15:14 (TM) and Colossians 3:16 (TM), and that requires this kind of humility. I like the fact that love covers a host of sins (TM), because that's what is needed for this to work. We have to be a community of humility in order to receive this kind of input from each other.

Required In Both Directions

Radical humility is required for the one giving the correction as well. Jesus warns us against hypocrisy when He tells us to remove the log (TM) from our own eye in order to deal with the speck in our brother's eye. I think it's noteworthy that He doesn't say just stick to your own eye and leave your brother's eye out of it. That's what generally happens when we manage not to meddle. We say, "it's none of my business." Jesus, however, calls us into community and instructs us on humility.

Blue Parakeet: Chap 3 - 5 Shortcuts

2008-10-08T17:45:00.000-05:00

Chapter 3 is really good! Scot outlines five shortcuts that we typically take in reading the Bible. Before I give them, here's a kind of structure for all five.

Overview/Generalization

we see God in some exclusive way or system - the emphasis is shifted, changed
our relationship with God is determined by this system

this leads us to hide something and lie to cover it

the better way is to be non-exclusive, i.e. get over our need to have everything explained

Okay, now on to the details...

Shortcut 1: morsels of law

sees God as cranky, impatient, judgemental - the emphasis is on His righteousness
our relationship with God becomes dependent on our being good

this leads us to hide our behavior and lie about it

the better way is found in the writer of Psalm 119 - the law leads him to deeply love the Lawgiver

Shortcut 2: morsels of blessings

takes a lot of those blessings out of context - sees God as a doting grandmother
our relationship with God becomes diagnosed by "are we being blessed?"

this leads us to hide our circumstances and lie about them

the better way is to read the entire story, seeing the ups and downs

Shortcut 3: inkblots

sees God as we see ourselves - emphasis becomes justifying our story
our relationship with God is defined by tweaking the facts

this leads us to hide non-supporting facts and lie about their existence

the better way is to admit that I can't explain the mysterious

Shortcut 4: mapping God's mind

sees God as finite, understandable - the emphasis becomes categorization
our relationship with God is defined by how smart we are

this leads us to hide our doubts and lie about our certainties

the better way is to admit that we don't know

Shortcut 5: maestros

sees God from a chosen POV - emphasis is on code words more than relationship
our relationship with God is defined by our personal, particular Biblical view

this leads us to hid parts of scripture and lie about their significance

the better way is to take it all in without ignoring things that don't fit - of course to do that, you have to admit that your favored way of viewing things is unable to explain everything

More about each of these later.

Quick Look: Psalm 141:1-5

2008-09-29T17:50:00.000-05:00

Let's look quickly at the first five verses (TM) of this excellent psalm.

"LORD, I cry out to You; make haste to me!..." - Sometimes we have to reach a broken-type place in our experience to allow ourselves to cry out to God for help. There's something within that wants to remain in denial many times, and a cry this child-like isn't conducive to denial. In those times of denial, our control seems so fragile, so on -the-brink, that we dare not give voice to the request within us. But things are so much better for us when we do!
"...Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice..." - This is so humble, and so down to earth. I like this aspect of prayer, this laying down of all my cards, and I'm grateful for the Lord's willingness to accept it. We can humbly ask for our prayer to somehow be more acceptable than it really is, and in the Lord's economy, that has an effect. I think that somehow it makes us more mindful of the attitude of our heart, and calls us back to the listening side of prayer as we form the request "Let my prayer..." It calls us to consider, like the Philippian jailer (TM) "...what must I do..."
"...Set a guard..." - Maybe it starts to dawn on us that we are unable to do this stuff alone. Maybe we start to call on the Lord to do some things for us, stuff that He wants us to do. "Set a guard over my mouth" puts the onus onto the Lord, and done correctly, we trust Him to help us in our problem areas. Maybe we start to get a notion of what it means to abide, to be and stay attached to the Vine (TM).
"...Let the righteous strike me..." - Now we're talking radical humility. It's one thing to be humbled before the Lord in private, but here the psalmist actually says that correction from other people will be welcome. And I think that "the righteous" here simply refers to those belonging to Jesus. It's His righteousness, not theirs, so the humility in this passage is the welcoming of correction from imperfect but forgiven humans. That's what is radical about this humility. It calls us to bite back on sharp retorts and "what about your problems?" and all those kinds of protective things we do to save face. I think I'll post about this more in the next day or so.

This psalm points out something incredible: when we ask God to modify our prayer, it inevitably leads to modifying us. Hmm, mercy in action.

Blue Parakeet: Chapter 2, Part 3

2008-09-27T21:56:00.001-05:00

In the last post, I opined that the middle road between too much tradition and not enough was part of the big idea of part two. Well, guess what he comes out and says in part three?

Oh, yeah.

We read this: "Reading the Bible with the Tradition gives us guidance but it also gives us freedom to differ with Tradition." Pretty middle of the roadish to me, but I will say once again, maneuvering a middle path between two extremes is both difficult and worthwhile.

Here's my take on what this third way expresses: we read the Bible with one eye on the way it's traditionally been read. Which tradition? Well, tradition in this instance can include more than one interpretation. I don't know if Scot believes that, but practically speaking, this is what you and I are going to see and deal with, not knowing in a scholarly way just how close our little "t" tradition fits with the big "T" Tradition to which he refers. In addition to that, many Christians have different views competing for the title of "Tradition." Some people go to more than one church. Some read books by leaders outside of their local church's purview, or watch sermons on TV.

I guess that, for most of us, "Tradition" will have to refer to what is understood to be traditional within my denomination or local church or Christian authority. Look at it in this light first, and you need to have a darn good reason for departing from this understanding.

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Bible Reading

Now, what about the Holy Spirit? It's always been my understanding that we read scripture with the help of the Spirit. That's what has to happen on an individual basis. Of course, once we start discussing what truth the Spirit has lead us into (John 16:13) (TM), then we will start to find differences and have disagreements. Let's not let this be the end of the story as is so often the case, but rather the beginning of a long and fruitful dialog in which each party learns of and decides to remove planks and specks from their own eyes, moving together into a better understanding of the Lord, and a closer walk with Him.

Next, we get into Chapter 3.

Quick Look: Psalm 106:1-4

2008-09-24T18:54:00.000-05:00

Let's go quickly through the first 4 verses of Psalm 106 (TM).

"...my heart is steadfast..." - I take this to be a pledge, and sort of like the single eye that I've posted about before. I think it's worth thinking about here.

I tell the Lord that I'm bringing my focus to bear on Him

It might even be true. I certainly better believe it to be true, but honestly, sometimes we don't get it done.
It's an entirely good thing to make these confessions of intent to the Lord.

"...I will sing and give praise..." - more intentions - this is goal setting on a spiritual level...

When you are at this level of tenderness toward God, these kinds of declarations are entirely normal
I think this speaks toward our being made 1) in His image, and 2) with an urge to return to Him, that ignites really only (TM) when the Holy Spirit is calling us...

"...even with my glory..." - this is a curious turn of phrase - NIV says "...with all my soul..."
"...Awake, lute and harp! I will awaken the dawn..." - I take this as more joyful exuberance

It's hyperbole, and that's okay. God can handle it.
It shows that certain willingness that demonstrates the fact that walls are down, and we are radically open to the Lord.

"...I will praise You, O LORD, among the peoples. And I will sing praises to You among the nations..." - here we're not ashamed (TM) of the Lord, or of sharing about what He's done for me...
"...For Your mercy is great above the heavens, and Your truth reaches to the clouds..." - both the mercy and the truth of the Lord are all encompassing

Blue Parakeet: Chapter 2, Part 2

2008-09-24T18:31:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging through Scot McKnight's brand new The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. All these posts start with Blue Parakeet: I hope you'll join me. Don't forget to subscribe to my RSS feed!

In this second part, Scot talks about reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther. Both put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people, but they also put catechisms and commentaries into their hands. Scot tells us their aim was to summarize and give an overview of the faith so that the people might not dive off into a lot of needless error. I was relieved when Scot got around to saying that we could reduce tradition down to the non-negotiables such as the Apostles' Creed and go from there. It put me in mind of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. This is good, because we don't want to go back to the bad old days when every denomination thought every other denomination was going to hell. If post-modernism does anything for us, surely it's to protect us from that kind of hubris.

What you want is the smallest possible set of non-negotiables because, given that we are looking "through a glass darkly" (TM), that's how you avoid excluding people from fellowship in error which may satisfy us, but hardly satisfies the purpose of the Bible. And maybe that's key to a couple of the most basic realizations we can have: 1) relationship trumps being "right," and 2) the Bible is without error, but we frequently find ourselves and the way we read the Bible (by this I mean our interpretation) in error. Jesus said that the Spirit would lead us "into all truth" (TM), but He didn't say it would happen by today (or even this side of the grave). So chill a bit.

Scot's making a powerful argument here for middle ground, for not going against the core of our 2000 year old community, and for not fabricating rigid requirements beyond that core. It takes discipline to stay in the middle and not give in to either extreme: too much tradition or not enough.

Next, the third way of reading from Chapter 2.

Quick Look: Psalm 103:11-14

2008-09-23T17:16:00.001-05:00

A quick look at Psalm 103:11-14 (TM):

"...as the heavens are above the earth..." - way up there - one of those BIG type of comparisons
"...so great is His mercy... - ginormous mercy - this is exactly the kind of mercy we need
"...toward those who fear Him..." - who regard Him correctly, who are in awe of Him - there's a place in us that has to be willing to be a sheep and therefore enter the privilege of recognizing His voice, a place in us that has to be willing to be awed in order to experience this greatness, and as I've discussed before, it takes grace just to have the opportunity to be awed (think Moses and the burning bush) (TM)
"...as far as the east is from the west..." - in parallel to the heavens above the earth statement before - another gigantic comparison
"...so far has he removed our transgressions from us..." - this makes me think of 1) forgiveness, 2) the beginning of sanctification, though we find it all to easy to return to our wrongdoing (TM)
"...as a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him..." - a picture of our adoption
"...for He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." - this is what the haters forget about - God is not surprised when we goof up, when we fail to deserve (TM) what He has for us

Commitment to What Matters

2008-09-22T22:57:00.001-05:00

This is why I like David Fitch. Think of it... We're getting too many people around here - let's plant a couple of churches! Let's do away with one Sunday morning service per month, kicking it out into home groups, and - oh yeah - we'll let those offerings go 100% toward outreach in those neighborhoods! Etc...

This is the kind of thing I find really appealing, where the mission is more important than the institution. That sounds pretty simple, but I'm thinking it's in shorter supply than we like admitting.

Blue Parakeet: Chapter 2 Begins

2008-09-19T18:10:00.000-05:00

Chapter two is a little more complicated. It starts off with the story of the blue parakeet, and I'll be honest, at first I wasn't too sure about that bird. We'll see. He goes on to talk about three ways of reading the Bible, the first of which is reading to retrieve, or "reading the Bible to retrieve biblical ideas and practices for today." This seems very natural and straightforward. For instance, we see in the Bible "Thou shalt not kill," and so we retrieve that forward and live by it. Other things are not quite as clear.

Scot makes reference to Paul's intention to be all things to all people, as being a strategy of "constant adaptation." That word adaptation is crucial. It says that somehow we take the meat of biblical ideas and embody them in 21st century practice.

The point being made here is that New Testament practices don't take place in a vacuum, but in their own local context. It's tricky business to move a biblical idea or principle from one context to another without disturbing either the idea or the context. Maybe something like that is what Jesus had in mind when he spoke about wineskins. (TM) The new wine of whatever the Spirit is doing in us through a particular passage can't be restricted by the context of an old wineskin, unsuited to fresh fermentation.

Scot says, "...if we read the Bible properly, we will see that God never asked one generation to step back in time and live the way it had done before." That's a mouthful, and a little troubling as well.

It's difficult for your average person to see a call back to biblical values as not being a call back to those same behaviors, practices, and attitudes. You see that in songs like "Give Me That Old-Time Religion." You see it in Samuel rebuking Saul's disobedience (TM). So I think Scot should have explained this in a little more detail, or a little more clearly. This would lead some people to raise an eyebrow, or worse, to wonder about just where Scot was going with this.

That's the reaction of your more conservative readers, while those of a more progressive bent might sniff a little at Scot's statement, "...if we read the Bible properly..." They will think Scot is saying he has the one true way of reading scripture when I don't believe that's his point at all. I'm sure this will be developed further as we get into the book, that God speaks in each generation in the ways of that particular generation. His truth is universal, but He speaks locally.

This is getting fun. Next, the second way of reading...

Quick Look: Psalm 86:11

2008-09-19T06:37:00.000-05:00

Quickly, Psalm 86:11 (TM) in four parts:

Teach me Your way
I will walk in Your truth
Unite my heart
to fear Your name

Teach me Your way

I'm open to what You want to teach me, Lord
You might use multiple sources - scripture, prayer, people, circumstance

I will walk in Your truth

this phrase supplies the why of the teaching
it's like "Teach me Your way so that I can walk in Your truth"
I think it also shows a willingness and an intention to do that

Unite my heart

NIV says "...Give me an undivided heart..."
the undivided heart, like the single eye of the KJV Mt 6:22, gives us a crucial ability, as seen in...

To fear Your name

... the ability to correctly regard the Lord
fear - awe, proper respect
look at what this did for Isaiah in Is 6 (TM) - it pulled things into sharp focus
this is the result of grace, not really achievable on our own, and it puts our heads and hearts into a place able to have the relationship desired by the Lord

Blue Parakeet: One More Thing About Chapter One

2008-09-17T21:09:00.001-05:00

In the next to last paragraph of chapter one, having related several examples of a different person seeing a given scripture differently, Scot says this:

By such personal encounters we are driven to think aloud about what we believe, we are driven to think more carefully about what we think, we are driven back to the Bible and how we read it...

That quote really disturbed me, and here's why: way too often, maybe it's even the default, but it would be really hard for most of us to characterize an encounter with someone carrying a significantly different idea or viewpoint as personal, in fact, the person disappears completely, and we found ourselves dealing only with the idea.

This is the opposite of what we talked about earlier today. I think Jesus prefers us to engage with people, not shadow-box with ideas. What do you think?

Blue Parakeet: How, Then?

2008-09-17T17:40:00.000-05:00

Continuing in chapter one, Scot gets to a really meaty question: "How, then, are we to live out the Bible today?"

He ties it into relationships, and I think that's crucial. It's a lot easier to be mean, to be a hater, to solo off into some weird doctrinal smackdown of somebody else (somebody Jesus, by the way, died for) when you're not with them.

It's a lot simpler to love being right all the time when you don't have to deal with the carnage your ideology causes in someone else's life. It's a whole lot more fun to think that the answers you've arrived at are obvious.

Scot reminds us that this isn't very often the case. He tells the story of one his students asking a difficult question, and it's easy to see that Scot cares about the student more than he cares about having a snappy comeback, or winning an argument. I like the way he says, "I'm open!"

Next, chapter two.

Exodus

2008-09-17T17:03:00.002-05:00

Today, Scot McKnight has a post about Rob Bell's newest book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Worth reading, as always, and it sparked some thoughts in me, as well.

The first thing that really caught my eye was Scot's discussion of Exodus - God's liberation of the oppressed. I think this is a very natural way of looking at the Bible's message. It's found in the concerns of the Social Gospel, in James 2:15-16 (TM), in the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:35 (TM) and Luke 3:11 (TM) - just all over the place.

Here's how it strikes me: oppression occurs in your place, and you cry out to God. After some amount of time, when He finds it appropriate, He comes and takes you to the promised land.

The promised land might be somewhere else, or it might somehow be right here.
He might vanquish whatever is oppressing you, like Jesus did for the Gadarene man (TM), possessed by a legion of demons.
He might reveal something of Himself that changes everything, like it did for the woman at the well (TM).
He might do an Exodus (TM) on you.

Doesn't this strike you like a Shane Claiborne thing? You know, seek out the oppressed and then try to help them. There are multiple instances of Black Moses.

I mean, doesn't this remind you of presence ministry (TM)? We seek out the oppressed, offer them relief, and invoke the presence of Jesus. This is very cool.

Scot McKnight's Blue Parakeet: It Arrived!

2008-09-16T18:41:00.000-05:00

I got it in the mail yesterday. I started reading it.

It's very readable, and I suspect that readability, in and of itself, might be a key point for potential readers of Scot's book. Here's the deal: I'm not a scholar, and while all of Scot's work (that I've seen) is readable, I've always found his blog, Jesus Creed, to be the most readable. This book is readable like his blog, and that's a good thing, a very good thing.

It starts right off with Scot's account of the prayer at camp that changed everything. I think these kinds of stories are great; I think that almost every Christian has one (or several) of them; I think they need to be hauled out, dusted off and shared.

Just the process of thinking through what your story or stories might be is a beneficial exercise. It got me thinking about my trip to church camp the summer following my seventh grade year. We were given a slender booklet called "Your Quiet Time," or something like that. I remember it had a glossy white cover, center-stapled, and a green leaf motif imprinted on the front. I was fascinated with it. We were sent out on our own to work through part of it that first day. I remember winding up down the hill close to the tennis courts and swimming pool, sitting under a tree. I remember reading about the "ACTS" form of prayer: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

That entire week was huge for me, and did a lot to define who I would become, and what kinds of values I would hold dear. Scot does this in chapter one, detailing his sudden transformation into voracious Bible reader and student.

Then the fun started.

He jumps right into the notion that we all pick and choose from what we read in the Bible. This is a divisive topic, but Scot handles it the way he handles everything on his blog: fairly and equitably. This ability to handle divisive topics in a friendly, considerate way is one of the great strengths of Scot's ministry, and it's in evidence here.

People want to believe that they are the good guy, they wear the white hat, they are the ones with reason and intellect and all right thinking on their side! Therefore doing the right thing is like falling off a log - easy, easy, easy. "Hogwash!" says Scot, and an honest scan of my own personal history leads me to agree with him. We are "Biblical" on a few select points, and "not-so-Biblical" on others, and our tribes tend to convene at least part of the time around how we draw these categories.

If you are a cranky person, you won't find this very palatable. But I believe this book can help. More on chapter one tomorrow.

Quick Look: Psalm 71

2008-09-16T17:36:00.000-05:00

Let's dip into this one (TM) and see what crops up.

"In You, O LORD, I put my trust..." Tells right where the trust is going - it's in the Lord Himself
"...Let me never be put to shame." Now we get the "what" of the trust. What am I trusting the Lord for? For everything, really - to save me from humiliation, and that makes it so personal. The shame that means something to me might be entirely different from what could cause shame for you. But we trust the Lord to keep us free of that.
"Deliver me..." Start with the end in sight. I'm in trouble. I'm desperate. What is it that I need? I need to be delivered.
"...in Your righteousness..." Well, we knew it wasn't going to be our righteousness to pull us out of the jam. It's the Lord's righteousness that is strong enough and real enough to give aid to us.
"...and cause me to escape..." Again, the goal is clearly kept in sight. I'm in trouble, and I need to escape it! I don't think we fool God by beating around the bush, nor do we sneak one in on Him and trick Him into somehow helping us...
"Incline Your ear to me, and save me." We all want to be heard. (TM)
"Be my strong refuge..." This is key, because of what it says about my perception of the Lord's role in my life. I'm asking Him to be my refuge, implying that 1) I'll go to Him, seeking Him out of my own volition, and 2) I can stay there and ride out any storm.
"...to which I may resort continually..." No time for shame or embarrassment here - just put the Lord on your speed dial and keep Him there - use that contact. It's what He wants, anyway.
"...You have given the commandment to save me..." This clinches it: it is the Lord's stated will to save me, to help me, to rescue me, regardless of where I fall on the good-life or wise-choices meter.

Quick Look: Psalm 46

2008-09-10T17:44:00.000-05:00

Let's take a quick look at the first three verses (TM) of Psalm 46 (TM).

Refuge - The place to go when the chips are down... It's the place of safety, our first choice.
Strength - The engine for coping with anything that comes our way... The Lord is the primary resource on which we should draw.
Very present - This is so cool... The NIV says "ever present," but I love the word "very" being there in the NKJV for emphasis, as in "is He there?" "Oh, He's very there." The Lord is always present with us, even when it feels like He's not.
Help - God is able to help us in the here and now - I can offer the usual caveats here: help is not always what you wanted , not always what you hoped for, but God's help is in your best interest.
In trouble - This is when the chips are down, when the going gets rough, when we feel overwhelmed.
Therefore - Here comes the conclusion, based on all the preceding information...
We will not fear - This is probably an ideal, the outcome that we shoot for, the reality we've been promised, but find difficult to achieve. Still, in the face of our difficulties, we owe it to ourselves to strive for this, to remind ourselves that because of all these things - God is our refuge - God is our strength - He is here in the midst of our crisis - we are not left with fear as our only option. There is a path out of the crush of this flood of adrenaline, this pervasive cloud of anxiety.

Phariseeism

2008-09-05T11:08:00.001-05:00

There's a post at NextReformation entitled "colonizing" in which Len says this:

One of the results of the death of Christendom and the collapse of modernity is the exposure of the pious, all-knowing attitude on the part of those of us with power. We had all the right answers, and all the right methods, and we had God in our collective pockets. If everyone around us would just get with our program.. they too could be happy and successful in western terms, and have services in mega-churches.

Isn't that a spot-on definition of Phariseeism?

Peter and the Pre-Conceived Notion, Part I

2008-05-01T15:52:00.001-05:00

In Acts 10, we find Peter in Joppa, fresh from raising Dorcas from the dead at the end of chapter 9. Peter is completely satisfied that Christianity is a Jewish experience, and why not? He’s having tremendous success in his ministry, the Lord is blessing, things are going really well.

Does being satisfied equal complacency? It might, if you hold your mouth just right. The Wiktionary defines satisfaction as “the fulfillment of a need or desire.” It defines complacent as “… uncritically satisfied,” which I find very interesting.

Uncritical can mean indulgent in that you don’t apply proper standards. In this case, it would mean that you got satisfied too easily. Let’s look at an example.

In Luke 12, Jesus is telling a story about a man with great success. This person has more harvest than he can handle, and he makes plans to tear down his old storehouses, and build bigger ones in their place. Then he figures he’ll retire and live a life of luxury, having acquired all that he could possibly need.

“Fool!” says God, “Tonight your soul will be required of you. Who’s going to get all this stuff you’re so proud of?”

This story is sandwiched between a person in the crowd asking Jesus to arbitrate an inheritance dispute and Jesus devaluing earthly goods. “Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.”

One specific implication is that our assessment of any situation can be incomplete. The rich man felt that he had everything covered. On paper he certainly did. You total up the cost of your needs in one column, and total your assets in another. Do total assets cover the total cost of needs?

Jesus seems to be saying that we too often don’t account for our real needs very well.

Consider the spendthrift, a person that wastes money. If you pinned them down and asked them about their spending, they would probably tell you that the expenditures were for needs, and actually not frivolous at all. You, being the more practical type of person, see straightaway that they are fooling themselves.

Jesus is immensely more practical than we are, and He’s many times telling us that we’re fooling ourselves even when we think we’re being very objective.

Proverbs 1:32 says that “… the complacency of fools will destroy them.” Substituting our Wiktionary definition of complacency we get, “… the uncritical satisfaction of fools will destroy them.”

Being too satisfied will destroy us.

Shtick

2008-01-10T13:23:00.000-06:00

Shtick: (from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary) an attention-getting or theatrical routine, gimmick, or talent.

Lots of shows use shtick. A great case in point was the opening season of NBC's Crossing Jordan, starring Jill Hennessy. Here's how it worked. Our intrepid coroner, Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, played by Hennessy, would invariably hit some totally baffling set of clues in her case. Things simply didn't make sense, couldn't make sense, would not make any sense whatsoever, totally unsolvable, headed for Lilly Rush's troupe over at Cold Case twenty years in the future, except that even they, even then, wouldn't be able to solve it. Yada yada yada. Total dead end.

But then comes the shtick. Jordan decides to role play the crime! Brilliant! Jordan and one of her cronies begin to relive the events, and, and... it's like they begin to channel stuff from the scene of the crime! They are literally flooded with insights, and in no time at all the previously unsolvable is completely worked out and solved, arrest warrants soon to be served, everyone wiser and full of job satisfaction, except for the bad taste left in your mouth from proximity to heinous crime, a screwed up personal life, and working in a morgue.

Once the show was on a while, they quit role playing every week. I think they call this a show finding it's stride. Anyway, they dropped that part of the shtick and went on to become whatever the show is now. But for a while, the shtick was de rigeur.

We do that in church as well. When we say, "you have to do it this way," but this way is arbitrary, then you're fooling around with shtick. Moses was fooling around with shtick when he took up the stick and hit the rock for the second time, even though God said to speak to the rock this time around. Water gushed forth; the shtick is powerful, but for the wrong reasons.

Let us be wary of shtick.

Possible reasons you're not hearing

2007-03-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

Why aren't you hearing the voice of the Shepherd, or why isn't your radio tuned into KSHP – Radio Jesus? Maybe He's being quiet right now.

Go to Exodus 2 and 3 (TM) and do the math. Moses was in Pharaoh's court for 40 years, then he killed that dude and had to run off to Midian for 40 years, where he married and had two sons. At the end of that time, he's leading a flock of sheep on the backside of the desert. . . and that's where he saw the burning bush. The last 40 years of his life were spent leading the Israelites. (Acts 7:23-36) (TM)

The backside of the desert! We hear preachers talk about the backside of the desert. It's a powerful image, far removed from civilization, completely deprived of so many creature comforts. And there's nobody to talk to, and no one talking to you.

But God had put Moses there for a reason. We don't know exactly what reason, but a couple come to mind. 1) He needed time off to recover from killing someone. 2) He needed time to mature by being a shepherd, a husband, a father, even a stranger in a strange land.

In the New Testament, we see Jesus driven (TM) out into the desert by the Holy Spirit, no less, for 40 days of fasting and preparation at the front end of his ministry. So, if you feel like you're not hearing God's voice, it might be that he's got you in a time of preparation, that he's getting you ready for your greatest service yet. Three more possible reasons later.

Jesus, the Shepherd King - John 10

2007-03-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

Look at John 10 (TM).

Anatomy of a shepherd as observed by sheep

you know his voice
he comes in through the gate, not over the wall or through the fence
he lays down his life for you
his purpose is for your benefit

Anatomy of a thief

steal
kill
destroy

Just a thought or so to chew on for Sunday. What is one way the Shepherd looks like to your average sheep? Assuming the sheep's observational powers are undamaged, of course.

Well, he recognizes the voice of the shepherd. Is this because of long association with the shepherd? Not really. Jesus has just, in chap 9 (TM), healed the man born blind. The pharisees then overhear this comment by Jesus: "For judgement I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."

So they say, "Are we blind, too?" To which Jesus basically says, "Yes, because you claimed to be able to see when you couldn't. So your sin remains."

Then we go directly into chap 10, and this parable about the Good Shepherd, so I would say that it's not long association with the shepherd's voice, but something fundamentally shepherdish about the voice, that willing sheep are able to recognize. What's that mean? It means that any regular sheep can and will recognize the Shepherd's voice when finally he hears it, if he can hear it.

Should we be encouraged or discouraged by this idea? I think we should be encouraged, because no special ability or talent is required. It's an ability common to sheep, to recognize the voice of the Shepherd.

Think his voice has been in short supply for you lately? There's more than one thing that could account for that. More later.

Cultural distance

2007-03-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

Alan Hirsch has a fine post in which he posits the exact thing Robby and I have been talking about lately.

We're at New Century, slurping away at our Egg Drop soup, talking about small groups and problematic Sunday mornings and the possibility of doing something on, say, Thursday evenings.

"We could meet at Andy's or something," I say, crunching on some bell pepper, wishing I could have a spring roll (too many carbs).

"Dude," says Robby, "what if some of the couples were willing to have it in their house maybe once a month or so? You'd have the added possibility of reaching unchurched people in each of their neighborhoods." He punctuated the remark by biting into his spring roll.

This is exactly what Hirschy is talking about, when he's going on about cultural distance and the like. In our little corner of the world, just going into a church building is a cultural barrier for a lot of unchurched folk, and then, getting into the vehicle to go somewhere unfamiliar is another. So the idea of bringing the small group right into people's neighborhood is an attractive one, if any of you guys feel like that might be a possibility for you. We'll talk about it more, later.

What is church?

2006-12-28T08:28:00.000-06:00

Alan Hirsch makes this excellent post concerning the definition of church. I'm impressed with the entire thing, but especially the second point down at the bottom of the post.

Alan says that a definition of church must include this activity: "Cultivate covenant community." Hey, three consecutive occurences of "c" in a row! Let's unpack it for just a second.

Cultivate. This is what you do in the garden to help your plants grow. You rake and hoe around the plants to kill weeds, and to keep the soil stirred up and soft which helps watering be more effective and allows nutrients to get more directly to where they need to be. It's putting forth effort toward the good of the plant.

Covenant. This is a promise. It's the nature of relationship in the church, because our common denominator is Jesus, and our relationship to him. We have in common our promise to him, and that includes promises to care for each other, to be involved in each other's lives.

Community. This is actually being together. Most people are involved in multiple communities. Work. School. Friends with whom they stay in regular contact. Church. Small group (Sunday School is one).

10 things i love beginning with the letter 'M'

2006-12-22T13:49:00.000-06:00

Antony suggested this meme and assigned me the letter 'M.' I'm afraid this is way too long, but here goes.

Mercy –

I love receiving this. I love being merciful, also. Goes right along with empathy and encouragement. It's a relational act, this giving of mercy. If you're not pulled closer in relationship as you give mercy then I think it's indifference. If you're not pulled closer in relationship when you receive mercy then I think it's ingratitude. It's a formative element in relationships.

Memes –

I'm fascinated with memes. Units of cultural information that spread by verbal or physical repetition, is what the Wiktionary says, more or less. The power of a bad meme is scary. I find their viral nature very interesting.

Mars Trilogy – Kim Stanley Robinson –

_Red Mars_, _Green Mars_, _Blue Mars_, _The Martians_ (put out after the trilogy, it's stories that didn't make it into the trilogy, plus other stuff). I love the way this guy writes. I love the characterization. I love his voice, though it is not as evident here as it was on earlier novels like _The Memory of Whiteness_ and _Icehenge_. I love that he's a big fan of prog rockers Yes. I'm a big fan, too.

Music –

I love music. I've been playing guitar for over 30 years. I love the layout of the fretboard. I love theory, without knowing a great deal of terminology. I love melody. When I was a sixth grader, we lived in married-student housing, a small apartment. I was taking piano, but had no piano on which to practice at the time. I really wanted my dad to get me a cheap little melodica – basically a song whistle with it's own little one octave piano-like keyboard.

"What would you do with it?" my dad wanted to know.

"Sit around and play melodies," I said. This explains a lot about me.

Mullins, Rich / Mark Heard –

Our sadly departed poets laurate of Christian music. I love the stuff these guys did. Favorites of their catalogs: Mullins – _A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band_ / Heard – _Satellite Sky_. Mmm mmm good. I think we lost a lot when these two departed.

Marsha –

This is my wife of 25 years, and my best friend. That sounds really mushy, but there you go. She's smart, funny, good-looking, and the mother of my three children. She's who I want to talk to most of the time. She's who I want to sit beside quietly when nothing needs to be said.

Maledil –

From C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, this is the fictional cosmic name for Jesus, so I'm using it here as a cheat to mention Jesus, our Emmanuel (I could have put Manny, like in Philip K. Dick's _The Divine Invasion_), so it also functions as code for the Incarnation, or incarnational.

Meta –

I really love this whole thing. Meta-document: a document about documents. Meta-map: a map about maps. Meta-narrative: a master narrative informing all subsequent narratives.

I think we're headed more and more in this direction in the church, because we're more and more aware of how things change. We don't want to tie up our local church bodies years down the road after we're gone, so rather than write up by-laws of this is what a staff must consist of, we're starting to write down something like meta-by-laws, which would consist of things like "how do we decide to change the staff line-up, and what might some helpful guidelines be?" And even include some stuff like, "and this is why we think that's a good idea," and maybe even "here's our reasoning based on these scriptures," which would be, you see, not proof-texting, but simply the sharing of criteria, so that future generations could see where we were coming from, and decide if that was still the best application of scriptural understanding.

Meta is the thing that helps you think like this.

Missional –

I'm just learning about this, through blogs and books and sometimes podcasts. But I like the idea. I know it's kind of trendy, but I think there's meat there. I think this is a useful way of looking at stuff, as long as we don't fall for just looking and theorizing and never actually doing the stuff.

Mother Theresa –

What little I know about Mother Theresa is really appealing. Humility. Service. Love for Jesus as he appears in the guise of the poorest and sickest. When I think of how I would like to be, how I would like to pursue becoming more like Jesus, this is one of the major human examples that come to mind.

Love in the middle

2006-12-22T06:38:00.000-06:00

Col 3:14 (NIV) "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (TM)

Binds is the key word here. Holding together. Taking disparate items and joining them together into a useful compound. Unity.

Love is kind of like the milk in a batch of pancake batter. You mix the milk in thoroughly, but you don't stir forever. Your batter can handle small lumps of dry flour in there, because the milk will soak in during the cooking process and moisten it. But if the lumps are too big, then you'll have big, gross, icky lumps of dry flour in your mouth when you're eating.

So what's the point? Love needs to permeate every level, every part of your project, your community, your life, your whatever. You don't need to force it or be a nazi about it, because love just needs to be in close proximity to do its thing. It will have its influence on everything nearby.

Love at the beginning

2006-12-14T21:30:00.000-06:00

Mt 22:36-40 (NIV) "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (TM)

So love is foundational. That means it's something you build on. That means it's a pre-requisite, meaning, you need it first. Then the other stuff. It's not just that Jesus says these are the two greatest commandments. That's pretty big, all right. But, no. It's that he said, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." That's what makes it foundational. Jesus saying first love, then everything else.

So that might be a good thing for us to be mindful of. Love first, then everything else.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Outline for Sunday 17 December

2006-12-14T12:24:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

1 Whether I can speak with the utmost intelligence or the greatest spiritual insight, without love I'm just making noise.
2 If I'm able to say what God's up to, and understand my environment, and figure out all kinds of things, and if I can hear God and work in concert with him, but don't have love, I'm nothing.
3 I can give away everything to help the poor, or even become a martyr for the faith, but without love, I've gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy, or boast, or become proud.
5 It's not rude, it doesn’t look to please itself, it doesn't fly off the handle quickly, it doesn't keep score.
6 Love isn't happy about bad things, but good things, true things.
7 Love does this: protects, trusts, hopes, and hangs in there no matter what.
8 Prophecies will one day end. Tongues will one day quit. Knowledge will one day pass away. But love never quits, never fails.
9 We know only partly, and we can prophesy only partly.
10 But once the perfect comes, it doesn't leave any room for the imperfect.
11 When I was a child, I acted like a child. But now that I'm a man, I've had to put away childish things.
12 Now what we see is like what you see in a really bad mirror, but then what we see will be like standing face to face. Now I only know some, my knowledge is incomplete; but then I'll know details and the big picture, just like Jesus completely knows me.
13 These three remain: faith, hope, and love. The single greatest one is love.

1 Peter 1:3-13, 18-21 Outline for Sunday 10 December

2006-12-07T18:15:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

3 Praise God! Through his mercy, God has allowed us to start fresh in new hope through raising Jesus from the dead,
4 and into a forever inheritance, kept in heaven for us,
5 who, by faith, are protected by God's power until the day we have it all.
6 You can count on this, and be really happy about it, even though you might have to go through some tough times on the way there.
7 Gold put through the fire shows its purity; faith put through trials shows its reality when Jesus returns
8 Even though you haven't seen Jesus, you love him, and even though you don't see him now, you are experiencing super-strong happiness
9 because of the work of this faith in you – you're being saved
10 The prophets were looking forward to this salvation, really searching it out,
11 They were trying to find out when all this was going to happen,
12 And it was revealed to them that it was to be in the future, so their work was serving us (as future persons) rather than themselves, when they talked about the gospel. Angels would love to look into this stuff.
13 So get ready. 1) Be self-controlled, 2) depend on God and nothing else.
14 Be obedient like a good child. Don't shape your life around the evil desires you had when you didn't understand anything about God.
15 Instead be holy like God is holy.
16 God's the one who says that.
17 Since you call on a God who sees everything for just what it really is, live like a stranger here on earth, never completely comfortable with things, and have a healthy respect for God's desires.
18 Because you know that it wasn't earthly stuff like gold or silver that redeemed you from the empty way of life our culture is steeped in,
19 But with the special, donated blood of Jesus, like a sacrificial lamb without any blemish, completely perfect.
20 This sacrificial plan was in place from the beginning of the world, but only revealed to humankind late in the game.
21 It's through Jesus that you're able to believe in God, who raised Jesus from the dead and drew all eyes to him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Isaiah 55:1-13 Outline for Sunday 26 November

2006-11-21T06:47:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

1 If you're thirsty, come here. If you have no money for food, come here. You can get what you need here for free.
2 Why spend money on things that don't feed you? All the things you need are found here. They're very good.
3 Listen to me, and come here. Life is here. I promise my love to you like I promised to David.
4 Not only was David great at leading the people, he was also a great example.
5 You will have unbelievable things to do, and people will come to you in unbelievable ways, all because of the Lord's annointing you, or painting you, with a bit of himself.
6 Seek the Lord now, while the notion is still with you. You have no guarantee that you will be able to find him later. The problem will be with you, not him. Strike while the iron is hot.
7 If you're on the outs with God, turn to him, and he will receive you as he forgives you.
8 "This might not seem likely or make much sense," says the Lord, "but then, you're not me."
9 "My ways are way higher than your ways."
10 "Just like the rain and snow come down, and don't evaporate back up to heaven without first watering the earth,"
11 "that's how it is with what I say. My words don't return to me empty, but get done what I wanted to get done."
12 "So you'll be seriously happy, heavy joy, and with perfect peace. Even nature will be transformed, a lasting monument to me, living evidence."

On the relative merit of your idol

2006-11-17T06:29:00.000-06:00

Isaiah 44:9 (NIV): "All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame." (TM)

Super heavy, a real condemnation, which is to say: in this verse, God has taken the gloves off. He's laying down the law with little regard for what kind of impact it makes, or maybe that's exactly what he's doing. It's a very straight-up kind of statement.

"All who make idols are nothing" ties your very existence to him, which is only appropriate, given that he created us. And so our very existence is tied to our relationship to him in proper context. What is idol making if not the act of put something else ahead of God in our lives? And when you do that, presto, you fade out shockingly fast, just like the weekly victim on Without a Trace.

Now, for blissy types or those simply in desperate need of a good night's sleep, that might sound okay, but don't kid yourself. Bliss requires a presence, sleep is something you sink into, and what God describes here provides a platform for neither of those occupations, or anything else at all, for that matter. No matter how spacey you might be, you do want to be present for all of life's little joys. Replacing big G God with some little g god just takes yourself off the table, out of play, nowhere.

Then he says, "and the things they treasure are worthless." Which means that making an idol of something is of no point whatsoever. It means that if you catch yourself making an idol, you shouldn't only stop it, but now you need to reevaluate everything. How have my values changed such that I would be making an idol?

Because repentance is an actual turning away from prior activity, identifying root causes might be a useful tactic. This is a Spirit-lead activity. We shouldn't rely only on our own perspective to unpack our sin. Our perspective lead us into the sin in the first place. So lean on the Lord, not your understanding. (Proverbs 3:5) (TM)

Let's Dig Ourselves into This Hole Just a Little Bit Deeper

2006-11-15T22:37:00.000-06:00

Isaiah 41:5-7 (NIV): "The islands have seen it and fear; the ends of the earth tremble. They approach and come forward; each helps the other and says to his brother, 'Be strong!' The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer spurs on him who strikes the anvil. He says of the welding, 'It is good.' He nails down the idol so it will not topple." (TM)

In verses 1 – 4, Isaiah is writing about how God is challenging everyone to come to a little contest, a contest to see which is the strongest of the gods: God, or all the idols made by man.

It's as though they can't resist, because here they come. They're scared to death – the end of verse 5 says that the ends of the earth tremble. You'd think they'd be caving in, trying to imagine what to say to God, or how to apologize to him for their failures in the past to acknowledge him as God.

However, that's not what's going on. They're encouraging each other, telling each other to be strong. "Hang in there!" they're saying. "It's going to be okay," they're telling each other, but that's hardly the case, and how could anyone think that it would be?

It's disturbing, this tendency we possess, to clench our eyes all the more tightly shut against what, in 20/20 hindsight, is so clearly the word of the Lord. At the same time, we clutch our foolishness closer and closer, as if it had life, as if it had some ability to help us.

In verse 7, we see the different crafts getting their heads together, working on the idol together, and encouraging each other in their work. "One more thing, boys," they say. "Let's nail it down real good, so that it won't fall over!"

How do you prop your idols up? What do you do to make sure they don't fall over 1) from their own weight, or 2) (the more obvious reason), because they can't stand on their own?

The Lord is calling us forward to a place where we'll compare the relative merits of all gods, great and small. The only greatness a "small 'g'" god can have is the greatness you give him by allowing him to dominate your life. Idols are already having a bad effect on you. Don't dig the hole deeper by propping them up, or by trying to "improve" them.

Isaiah 40:18-22, 41:5-7, 44:9, 18-20, 45:20-22 Outline for 19 November

2006-11-15T18:09:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

40:18 To what can you compare God?
40:19 An idol: different craftsmen make it and adorn it.
40:20 For someone too poor for a fancy one, they look for wood that won't rot and for a good craftsman so the thing won't fall over.
40:21 Do you still not understand?
40:22 God is so huge. He sits on his throne above us, and we're like grasshoppers beneath him. He spreads the heavens to suit himself as his personal canopy or tent.
41:5 Everyone has heard the Lord's challenge, to come to the God vs. idols contest, so they come.
41:6 They encourage each other to be strong.
41:7 The different craftsmen encourage each other as they make last minute adjustments to their idol. They nail it down so that it will not topple.
44:9 Everyone who makes an idol is nothing; the things they love are worthless; anyone that takes up for them is blind and shamed by their own ignorance.
44:18 These people know nothing. Their eyes don't work, being sealed shut, and their minds are the same way: closed, so that no truth can get in.
44:19 None of these people has the power of mind to realize that they themselves constructed these idols out of the everyday things of their lives: half of this wood I burned for heat, I cooked over it. Am I now going to go against the living God and make another god out of the wood that is left, and then bow down to it and worship?
44:20 Even though this person is feeding on ashes, his heart is so tricked and deluded that it prevents him from realizing. He can't save himself by saying, "Isn't this just a creation of mine? Isn't this just a lie?"
45:20 All you people come and listen. People with idols are ignorant. People that pray to gods that cannot save are ignorant.
45:21 Discuss this among yourselves. Who predicted this a long, long time ago? It was I, the LORD. There's no one like me, no God but me, your savior.
45:22 Turn to me, and be saved. I'm your only chance.

Instead of grasping at straws

2006-11-10T07:03:00.000-06:00

Praying through Lauds this morning, there was this short reading: 2 Cor 12:9-10: (Jerusalem) "I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong." (NIV) (TM)

". . . very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast. . ." is blowing me away. I guess, even though I didn't know it, that I'm so performance oriented, that I'm no different from anyone else. I'm just carrying this pride, and these expectations of myself in a different arena. I'm thinking about my issues with the soccer team (that I coach) here.

I can say (and I do mean) that I don't care if we win or lose. But if we perform badly, or give subpar effort, I experience really bad feelings – things I don't want to have anything to do with: disgust, self-loathing, worry over what the parents will think of me as a coach, aggravation at the players. So I'm as bad, really, as someone just obsessed with winning. All I've done is shift it over a bit.

And this is saying that I should be "very happy" to brag about my deficiencies in this area. Because this will cause the "power of Christ" to "stay over me." I guess this is to prevent me from applying a Band-Aid and opting for that brand of self-sufficiency instead of choosing to keep Jesus "on the job" for this area, a known deficiency. Some people don't like this type of self-deprecation, feeling that the person doing it is fishing for a compliment, or calling undue attention to themselves, but this passage seems to offer the behavior prescriptively. Talk about how you're a screwup.

I bet there's a right and wrong way to do it, though. I'm sure we can be more aggravating about this than we have to be, and that's probably where the distaste I was talking about comes from.

We evangelicals don't like to acknowledge weaknesses, much less brag about them. Maybe this reflects on the Ted Haggard thing that Scot McKnight blogged about on Nov 6 under "Ted Haggard and the Evangelical Environment": "Christians and pastors, because of the environment of condemnation of sin and the absence of a mechanism of confession, bottle up their sins, hide their sins, and create around themselves an apparent purity and a reality of unconfessed/unadmitted sin."

So my response to this scripture will be to not pretend I can handle my shortcomings, that I will brag on the Lord's willingness and ability to drag me through these weaknesses I have, that I will trust him, and not me, to successfully deal with these things.

Love and peace. Love and peace. Love and peace.

Grasping at straws

2006-11-09T22:16:00.000-06:00

Isaiah 8:21-22, NIV(TM): "Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness."

Sometimes we avoid doing what would obviously be the right thing to do. And following that, sometimes we keep trying everything but what we should do. We'll try anything.

That's the case here. Instead of taking their problems to the Lord, they've at least toyed with the taboo (see Deut 18:10-12 (TM)) idea of trucking with mediums, while avoiding the Lord with their problems.

That refusal is the springboard to a whole world of misery. From that point, they go on to try one thing after another. They have a hunger to see things happen, but find themselves unwilling to seek the Lord. When nothing works, they will become so frustrated that the scripture says they "will curse their king and their God." The irony is a little strong. Grasping at straws, they find themselves completely in the dark.

Paul talks about this in Romans 1:21 (TM) where he says about people who refuse to acknowledge God as God: "their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

A grim, cautionary tale for us.

Isaiah 8:18 - 9:7 Outline for 12 November

2006-11-09T21:44:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

8:18 We are signs and symbols in our place
8:19 Why ask dead people, or try some tricky device for getting at the truth? Ask God.
8:20 No other source of information is any good.
8:21 Resultless yet hungry for results, they will try one thing after another. When they are really starving for results, they will blame all authority over them.
8:22 They will look around again, and find no hope, and they will just be stuck.
9:1 No more gloom for those who've been hurting.
9:2 Those walking in the dark have seen a great light. For those living in the valley of the shadow of death, it's like a light has dawned.
9:3 God, you have created joy.
9:4 This joy comes from your removal of the yoke that enslaves them, the bar across their shoulders, and the rod that punishes them unfairly, an impossible victory, just like Gideon's defeat of the Midianites.
9:5 All implements of war will be collected and burned, no longer needed.
9:6 Why? Because we've been given God's son, his child has been born to us, and this child will take care of us, judging us fairly. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, being the very word of life, Mighty God, being the express image of God, Everlasting Father, having the heart of a father, and Prince of Peace, as just his presence brings storms into submission.
9:7 It will just get better and better. It's the Lord's enthusiasm for taking care of us, his enthusiasm for justice, that will get this done.

Rebellion

2006-10-31T05:55:00.000-06:00

Isaiah 1:3, Amplified : "The ox [instinctively] knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib, but Israel does not know or recognize Me [as Lord], My people do not consider or understand." (NIV) (TM)

The Amplified bible tells us that the flavor of "knows" is "instinctive," meaning automatic. So, the ox automatically knows his owner. This echoes Jesus in John 10:14, "I know my sheep and my sheep know me." This is the natural order of things. Jesus walks in, and you just know it. You recognize him in some natural/supernatural way, because he's the one who made you. If you're open in any way, you get it.

The Amplified says that the donkey knows his master's crib, the NIV says his owner's manger. The message is the same: the donkey knows his place is what the master has provided. The correct order of things is to know where you belong.

If you don't have the willingness to have this type of recognition, then you're in rebellion. The Lord is saying that this is as easy as pie, but his people Israel just don't get it, and the idea is that they choose to be this way. Look at the Amplified for Isaiah 1:4.

” Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised and shown contempt and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have become utterly estranged (alienated)." (NIV) (TM)

Isaiah 1:2-4, 10-20 Outline for 5 November 2006

2006-10-30T18:26:00.000-06:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

2. Listen up! The Lord says, "I brought up children and they have rebelled against me."
3. "Animals know their master, but not my people."
4. This whole group is guilty and corrupt. They have turned their backs on the Lord.
10. You're as sinful as Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to the word of the Lord. Measure yourself against the law.

a. Romans 3:20 (TM)

11. "I'm not into all these offerings you bring to try and buy me off. It doesn't do anything for me."

a. 1 Sam 15:18-23 (TM)

12. "You come before me, but not when I've called you."
13. "Don't try to bribe me with an offering. You're not even in the ballpark."
14. "All your ritual is pathetic. It's a pain."
15. "When you reach out to me, praying for something, I'm going to deliberately not see you, even if you pray and pray and pray. You're hands are bloody; you're in the wrong; you're guilty."
16. "Clean that up! Deal with those things correctly. Get forgiven, and really repent; turn away from your evil deeds."
17. "Learn to do the right thing and do it. Love justice. Take up for the weak."
18. "Let's talk this through. Though you are as guilty as can be, you don't have to remain that way. You can be guilt-free."
19. "If you have the right attitude and obey me, you will have it good."
20. "But if you fight me and rebel, you'll be destroyed."

2 Tim 3:1, 10-17, 4:5-8 Outline for 29 October

2006-10-23T06:39:00.000-05:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

3:1 Terrible times ahead
3:5 There will people that are religious on the outside, but who don't tap into, or even acknowledge the power there

a. Avoid these people

3:10 You know all about me: my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
3:11 persecutions, sufferings – all the stuff that happened in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. But the Lord rescued me from all that.
3:12 In fact, all serious followers of Jesus will be persecuted
3:13 while evil people and fakes will just get worse, deceiving and being deceived
3:14 But you:

a. Continue in what you've learned

1) remember that you've been convinced of it
2) remember who you've learned it from

3:15 You've been learning the scripture your whole life

a. it's able to make you wise for salvation

1) through faith in Jesus

3:16 Scripture is:

a. God-breathed and therefore useful for:

1) teaching us
2) showing where we are wrong
3) correcting us
4) training us in righteousness

b. so that we can be properly equipped for whatever

4:5 Do this:

a. keep your head in all situations – stay calm
b. put up with hardship – endure it
c. share the good news
d. do your complete ministry – do all the things needed/required

4:6 For:

a. I'm being sacrificed, like pouring out a drink offering
b. my life is drawing to an end

4:7 I have:

a. struggled to make certain I have done what I was supposed to
b. completed all that I was assigned to do
c. kept the faith, meaning:

1) I haven't abandoned or betrayed the Lord
2) I took my orders from God speaking to my heart
3) I've maintained and pursued a deeper relationship with the Lord

4:8 I will be rewarded by the Lord, and so will all who have wanted desperately to see him

You could be, like, a nice bowl

2006-10-20T18:57:00.000-05:00

2 Tim 2:20-21, NIV: "In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work." (TM)

Here's the figure: you are the house, your life is the house. It's a large house because people are complicated. You've got gold/silver things in your life, as well as wood/clay things. Go caveman for a second: gold/silver good, wood/clay bad.

So what are these things? I would say they are areas in your life. You might call it something different. Activities. Attitudes. Whatever. Anyway, in our example they're like bowls. The gold/silver ones are intended for "noble" use, i.e. for food that you're going to eat. The wood/clay ones (unsealed, this is the first century) are for trash, unclean stuff. You wouldn't take your trash can and eat out of it. By the same token, the Lord doesn't want to use trash cans for his work. So that's why we're called on to clean up our act, so that we can be used for whatever he wants to use us for.

Why's that a big deal? It's to keep ourselves, and specifically our trash, out of the mix. And yet God has chosen to use us for doing stuff. What's he to do? Get us to clean our act up.

Notice that this is not a requirement for being saved. You don't have to clean up your act before you come to Jesus. You come just as you are for that. The desire for change and the desire for Jesus are the only requirements. What this is, is a requirement for being used. For getting off the bench and into the game. For shaking things up and doing your part for the kingdom.

We all want to be able to do things for the ones we love. This is how you qualify to be able to do those type things for God.

Nevertheless

2006-10-18T06:50:00.000-05:00

2 Tim 2:19, NIV: "Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: 'The Lord knows those who are his,' and, 'Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.' (TM)

Paul has just been talking (in verses 17-18 (TM)) about Hymenaeus and Philetus. They have messed up big time, teaching that the resurrection had already come and gone. This was causing believers trouble, the NIV saying it was "destroying" faith, while The Message puts it more mildly, saying it was "throwing believers off stride." This probably represents the two extremes that occur when false teaching is introduced into the church: being thrown off stride on the one hand, and destruction on the other.

So Paul says, "Nevertheless." That means, all this bad stuff has happened, for sure, but anyway, but still, but in spite of all that. . .

In spite of all that, God's work stands firm, the church's foundation stands firm, and Paul says that it is sealed with two inscriptions.

One says that the Lord knows who belongs to him. Have you ever been a member of something, and the top dog won't give you the time of day? Maybe the leader doesn't even know who you are. That's discouraging, but God is not like that. He knows everything about you, even how many hairs are on your head. And when you belong to him, he knows about it. He is totally aware that on August 16, 1998 or whenever, you gave your heart to him. You know how embarrassing it is when someone who should know who you are, doesn't? That never happens with God. He knows, and he knows you.

The other inscription says that if you claim the Lord then you have to turn away from bad stuff. A lot of people hear this and think that they're expected to immediately and suddenly become perfect, never sinning, never falling short in any way of what God wants from them, but that's not what this verse is saying.

This verse is talking about your whole life. Look at 1 John 1:8-10 (TM) and Romans 7:15 (TM). The point is that we all struggle; we all make mistakes. You are going to fall short at times. I am going to fail sometimes. But turning away from our failures has to be done. If it's a problem with hating Fred, then I have to turn away from hating Fred, and turn toward loving him the way Jesus wants me to. I might do something hateful to him again tomorrow at 3:00 pm. This means that at 3:01 I'll have to turn away from hating Fred again, and I'll have to do it again as many times as it takes. That's what this second inscription means.

Watch your mouth in both directions

2006-10-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

2 Tim 2:16, NIV: "godless chatter." The Message: "pious talk that is only talk." Looks like two sides of the same coin, doesn't it? On the one hand, "godless chatter" sounds like things we say that we really shouldn't say - mean things, ugly things. And on the other hand, "pious talk that is only talk" sounds like somebody trying to appear religious, or to appear really together spiritually. Both are bad, and the advice in the verse is good: don't do it. Those who do just get more and more ungodly, or further and further from reflecting Jesus.

What comes out of your mouth is really important. Jesus talked about it in Mt 15:10-11 (TM). Some pharisees and teachers of the law had come to him with a complaint that his disciples were not washing their hands as the dietary traditions demanded. Jesus skewers them on their own inconsistencies, and then he delivers the real teaching. "What goes into your mouth isn't what makes you dirty. What comes out of your mouth is the thing that makes you dirty."

Peter asks for a further explanation a little later, and in verses 17-20 (TM), Jesus tells him that food goes into the body and then out of the body, but what comes out of our mouth comes from the heart. Mt 12:33-35 (TM) says that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Meaning that, when you're bumped hard enough, what comes out of your mouth will be evidence of what is in your heart.

James talks about this, too. In 1:26 (TM), he says that not keeping your tongue in control means your religion is not operating the way it should. In 3:3-5 (TM), James gives a couple of examples.

We put a bit in the mouth of a horse, and by that we guide it around. The idea is putting control over our own mouth, and that affects our entire person. Are you an angry person? Control your mouth, and that can begin to change. Are you a negative person? Control your mouth, say things that are more positive, and you will become a more positive person.

The second example is a big ship with a little rudder. I mean, all rudders are little, compared to the ship, but even so, the little rudder steers the big boat around. The idea here is very similar to what we talked about with the horse. The mouth is our control point. Exert control there, and you will begin to have more control over your entire life.

K.I.S.S.

2006-10-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

2 Tim 2:15, NIV: " Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." My outline said, "Do your work with confidence, having no reason to be ashamed of your work, and K.I.S.S." What do I mean by the "Keep it simple?"

You hear football commentators talk about a running back going north and south, as though this is a really good thing, and it is, it is indeed. It means that the running back doesn't spend much time making a lot of fakes, or just running toward the sideline, but rather he's taking the shortest path to paydirt, running north and south, the straight line to the prize. Paul is saying something like that. Spiritually speaking, we should not spend too much time on lace and frills and what not, but rather on making headway toward our goal. North and south. That's what K.I.S.S. means right here.

It has to do with the "correctly handles the word of truth" in the NIV. Eugene Peterson rendered that as "laying out the truth plain and simple" in The Message. It's another way of saying focus on what's real. Focus. If we can correctly handle the word by sharing it plain and simple, then we've somehow reminded ourselves to keep it simple, not complicated by opinions or silly quarrels.

And what we can do for the Lord is the stronger for it.

2 Tim 2:14-26 Outline for 22 October

2006-10-15T14:38:00.000-05:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

14. Continue to remind them of the essentials.

a. Warn them not to quibble over non-essentials

1) it is of no value
2) it's only bad for those who listen

15. Do your work with confidence

a. having no reason to be ashamed of your work
b. K.I.S.S.

16. Watch how you talk

a. ungodly talk makes you less and less godly
b. pious talk that isn't actually reflected in your life just hurts you continually

1) it accumulates in you

17. Bad talk, whether it's the godless chatter or the religious posturing, can be infectious

a. hurting others with your sickness
b. Hymenaeus and Philetus are examples

18. Their talk has led them away from the truth

a. they say the resurrection has already happened
b. they are harming some people's faith

19. But God's foundation stands as firm as ever

a. Engraved with "If you name God's name, turn away from wickedness."

20. In a nice house, there are containers for good things, and containers for garbage
21. be the kind of container that's for good things, by cleansing yourself of the other uses

a. this clears the way for God to set you apart

1) useful to the Lord
2) and versatile – ready for anything

22. Run, don't walk, away from evil desires

a. pursue, instead, these things:

1) righteousness
2) faith
3) love
4) peace

b. and do so in community, with those who really want to go after God

23. Don't get into these stupid arguments

a. they just make for fights

24. Because you must not be getting into fights

a. instead he must

1) be kind to all
2) be able to teach
3) not be resentful

25. When people oppose you

a. gently teach them

1) in hopes that God will grant them repentance

A) and that this will lead them to experience/know the truth

26. So they can come to their senses

a. so they can escape this trap of the devil's

1) the devil has taken them captive for the purpose of doing what he wants them to do

You have been conceited

2006-10-14T00:19:00.000-05:00

Verse 3 is a diagnostic. You know, like the mechanic at the dealership hooks your car up to a machine and runs diagnostics to see what's wrong. Well, this is a diagnostic, and here it is. If someone is spreading wrong ideas and they won't agree to the words of Jesus and they won't agree with other godly teaching. . . That's three things, quite a lot, so we're not talking about people who are simply wrong, but rather people who are wrong and cannot be persuaded even by Jesus himself. They are stuck in their wrong-headedness and really proud of it. The first part of verse 4 completes that thought. This person is conceited and understands nothing.

We shouldn't read the word "conceited" here as some kind of hate word. We say something like "he's so conceited," and we basically mean that he's the devil, I hate him, and so on, but that's not what Paul, or the Holy Spirit through Paul, is saying here. He's saying this person is so full of his own thoughts and ideas that there's no room for God's ideas.

Each one of us has been at this point at least once in our lives. When, in our minds and from our perspective, our ideas got bigger than God's ideas. You want an example of this? Look at Acts 10. Peter has a vision of this huge sheet coming down with different animals on it, and a voice says, "Kill and eat."

Peter had been a Jew before he knew Jesus, and the Jews have some strict dietary laws. This stuff on the sheet was against the law for Jews, what Peter had been, and so Peter says, "No way. I have never eaten anything unclean!" Which is what that kind of food was called by the Jews.

The voice from heaven says, "Don't call anything unclean that God has made clean." The Bible says this happened a total of three times.

Do you see how Peter had his head full of his own idea? And God kept telling him, "Don't call this stuff unclean because I've made it clean." Or, ineffect, "Peter, you're wrong and I'm right. Now wise up."

And amazingly, Peter still argues. He's not a bad guy, he's just conceited. That's conceit in it's simplest, least mean-spirited state. It's how most of us get conceited.

The rich are vulnerable

2006-10-12T18:35:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about verse 9. My paraphrase said "People who want to get rich are vulnerable." What the NIV says is "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." (TM)

It's like you open your heart up in a dangerous way when you want to be rich. There are other examples of this same thing.

Imagine a boy who wants to be regarded by his peers as brave or daring, he thinks that will solve all his problems, and so he decides that he will attempt something very dangerous, like maybe jumping his bike over a ditch filled with broken concrete, pieces of rebar sticking up into the sky.

Imagine a young, single mother with a new boy friend, and she thinks that he completes her, that this relationship with him will solve all her problems and make her feel appreciated, but he doesn't really like the children, and he's about to walk because of them. So she does something awful to the children, because they're in the way of the thing that will fix her life. That one's been in the news.

Imagine a young man who believes that having plenty of money will fix all his problems, make his life more exciting, and cause people to respect him in a new way, so he lays aside all conviction and does anything it takes to make it: he ignores his family, he betrays friends, he does things that are dishonest, anything to make the dollars.

All of these examples show a vulnerability that occurs when we decide to really go for it, placing our trust in something other than God. A quick search through the NIV for "our trust" yields interesting results. Six of eight verses directly support this thought. One shows the opposite (placing trust in false gods results in shame). One (the one from Titus) is talking about something else.

Psalm 62:8 (TM) is my favorite. "Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."

One more time about treasure in heaven

2006-10-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

This business about coin seems so apt, so crucial.

Say you just came across something that turned your world upside down. It's so exciting; it's so fascinating. It's just what you'd love to devote all your free time to. If it makes you happy, it must be the thing you ought to do, right?

Sometimes we feel that any pretty little thing that catches our eye is put there by God Himself. That's not necessarily true. We have a theology of open doors that goes right along with that. We think that any opportunity must be a divine appointment. That's not necessarily true, either.

American culture tells us that the greatest good is to "follow our dreams." Anything might be sacrificed to facilitate this one thing. Think of it: you might sacrifice anything for a sufficiently amazing outcome.

And you might be throwing away your chance to lay up treasure in heaven.

It's a matter of opportunity cost.

Additional thoughts on treasure in heaven

2006-10-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Message puts it this way: Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life. (1 Tim 6:17-19)

It echoes the parable of the talents (TM). I'm thinking that this is a model of how to lay up treasure in heaven. You take what is a big deal to you, in this case rich people and their money, and you turn that thing upside down – give it away, don't depend on it.

And notice, there are some rich people who aren't caught up in their money, but that doesn't let you off: it's still your big responsibility; it's still the area where you've really been gifted. You can't simply walk away from this stuff and say, "It's not important to me." You have to somehow turn it back over to God.

This seriously echoes what David said about giving things to God. (1 Chr 29:14) It echoes the parable of the talents. The master gives each person a number of talents. When he returns, the scope of the inquiry is very narrow: exactly what he had given them, and nothing else.

Give an accounting of what you did with the talents given you. All else is beside the point. Could it be that this is a key to laying up treasure in heaven? Sometimes it would seem that the conventional wisdom about heavenly treasure is generic. Generic in that you put money toward it somehow; it's an investment in some way. It doesn't seem to matter what it is, just pick a heavenly investment vehicle and . . . invest. Any coin will do.

But not any coin will do. The only coin the Lord is interested in receiving seems to be the self-same coin that He gave. Pay Caesar in Caesar's coin.

1 Tim 6:3-12, 17-19 Outline for Sunday 15 Oct

2006-10-09T10:41:00.000-05:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

3. If anyone:

a. teaches false doctrines
b. does not agree to words of Jesus
c. does not agree with godly teaching

4. Then he's a big, ugly dummy

a. Unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in: stuff

5. Constant friction between men of corrupt mind

a. they've been robbed of the truth
b. they think godliness is a way to make money

6. But godliness with contentment is really good
7. We came into the world with nothing, and we'll take out nothing
8. Food and clothing are enough
9. People who want to get rich are vulnerable
10. The love of money is the root of many evils

a. it has led some astray from their faith

11. But make sure you run, don't walk, away from all this

a. instead pursue these:

1) righteousness
2) godliness
3) faith
4) love
5) endurance
6) gentleness

12. Fight to seize and hold on to the faith (God-given)

a. Remember how you came to faith (God-given), and who was there with you

* * *

17. Tell the rich to strip themselves of pride and self-sufficiency because of their money

a. which is here today and gone tomorrow

18. Tell them to:

a. do good
b. help others
c. be generous and willing to share

19. This is laying up treasure in heaven

From verses 17-19, I'm thinking that this is a model of how to lay up treasure in heaven. You take what is a big deal to you, in this case rich people and their money, and you turn that thing upside down – give it away, don't depend on it.

And notice, there are some rich people who aren't caught up in their money, but that doesn't let you off: it's still your big responsibility; it's still the area where you've really been gifted. You can't simply walk away from this stuff and say, "It's not important to me." You have to somehow turn it back over to God.

This is very reminiscent of David's confession before the Lord: "...for all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You." (1 Chr 29:14 (TM) )

1 Tim 4:6-16 Outline for Sunday 8 Oct

2006-10-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

Here's an outline for this week's scripture. You can always click TM for the passage in The Message .

6 You've had the advantage of being raised in the faith ( God-given ) and received sound teaching: pass it on.
7 Don't stray off into foolishness ( 1 Tim 1:6 ) TM , but concentrate on becoming more godly.

A. In terms of service, and doing things, we concentrate on others, but in terms of criticism, or speculations, we must concentrate on ourselves
B. Tend to your own knitting
C. John 21:21-22 TM

8. Working out your body is okay

A. Working out your spirit towards a disciplined life is good for everything
B. It's of benefit in this life and the next

9. This is a faithful (God-given) statement and you can count on it.
10. This is why we're so invested, so insistent: we are totally counting on the living God, who is the savior of all, especially believers.
11. Publish this. Insist on it.
12. Don't be handicapped or pre-judged by your youth. Demonstrate the truth that lives in you by:

A. word – what you say – James 1:26 TM
B. conduct – what you do -
C. love – 1 Cor 13 TM – putting others first
D. spirit – attitude – how you go about what you say and do
E. faith – ( God-given ) – how you stick with what God has given/shown you
F. purity – walk what you talk – this only happens as God makes changes in you

13. Hang in there

A. reading Scripture
B. giving counsel/exhorting/encouraging
C. teaching/explaining – we always have a reason that is demonstrable from the Bible

14. The gift in you

A. recognized and acknowledged by others
B. don't neglect it even if you're not always able to use it
C. keep it limbered up

15. Think about these things

A. Give yourself entirely to them
B. Your progress will be evident to all

16. Hang in there with a firm grip both on your character and what you teach – stay focused

A. It will lead to both salvation in you and those you influence

At Arm's Length Not Encouraged

2005-06-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

Maggi Dawn posts today about a story from Simon Goldhill's recent book, and it concerns the hard saying of Jesus from Mark 4:11-12. I think that Jesus' comment about "those on the outside" refers to the ones who "have no need of a physician," the very people who are too cool to want to be healed, or too proud to admit their need for it. But the insiders get things explained to them, apparently because they choose to be insiders, because they are pursuing their relationship with Jesus, and not simply looking for "n Practices of Highly Successful People."

It's the old "seeking His hand, but not His face" thing. I guess a lot of the people listening to Jesus were doing just that -- looking to pick up some pointers so they could go back to their own life perhaps a little better equipped for whatever they might be facing. Definitely not like Peter, who said, "Where else can we go?"

Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 6:9-10. God knows with whom He's dealing. These, for the most part, are the very people who want to keep God at arm's length, people who want His principles but not His presence. I mostly think, "ouch," because how many times does that describe me?

It's grace to be curious about God. It's grace to know you're inadequate. It's grace to care enough to want something better.

Group blog - Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline

2005-06-03T10:11:00.000-05:00

This is part of MessyChristian's group blog effort.

I've had this book for a long time, reading bits and pieces. I read Foster's Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home years ago, and it had a major impact on me. I also have his Freedom of Simplicity, but have yet to read much of that, either. Are we sensing a pattern yet?

Well, on to the intro. Foster blew me away with his quote of Colossians 2:20-23. In it, he shows all exercise of the will in resisting sin as worship of the will. This really makes sense, and I'd never thought of it before. A key phrase is in v 20: "... as though living in the world..." The implication is that we are not living in the world, but are seated in heavenly places with Christ (Ephesians 2:6). So this striving after fleshly regulations plunges us right back into the realm of flesh ("living in the world"), instead of continuing on and seeking "those things which are above, where Christ is..." (Colossians 3:1)

For me, this puts "seek ye first" into a new light.

Symptomatic 3

2004-07-19T06:14:00.000-05:00

Text: Exodus 19:12-13, 21-25 20:18-19

"It will kill us!" said the Israelites.

This is entirely opposite of the way Moses responded to God. When Moses saw the burning bush, he turned aside and went to look. (Ex 3:3) Then the Lord called out to him by name. (Ex 3:4) And Moses simply said, "Here am I."

In verses 5-6, God tells him 1) do not come near, 2) take off your shoes, this is holy ground, and 3) I am the God of your fathers. And finally Moses flinches. He hides his face because he's afraid to look.

But he doesn't run away. He want's to be where God is. He stands his ground; he doesn't withdraw.

Why do the Israelites withdraw? They draw back from God instead of drawing near to Him. God didn't have their feet nailed to the ground, so they were free to do so. Moses was free to walk away also. We have that same option every day, but even if God had nailed the Israelites' feet to the ground, they wouldn't have really drawn near, so the withdrawing is just a symptom of something. Of what?

These people had been there in the thick of things. They'd been through the plagues, they'd been miraculously given all this jewelry by the Egyptians, they'd been across the Red Sea. They'd been fed manna, had bitter water sweetened, and received water from the stricken rock. They'd seen Amalek defeated strictly because Moses' arms were held aloft.

They'd seen God do for them repeatedly, and it did not produce the desire in them to draw closer. What condition could produce this result?

Symptomatic 2

2004-07-14T20:13:00.000-05:00

Text: Exodus 19:12-13, 21-25 20:18-19

The need to be careful became the excuse for what? For not getting in any deeper. And make no mistake about it, drawing close to God is deep water. Very deep water, the kind that can swamp you, overwhelm you. The kind of water that washes away not just your mistakes or your past, but even your (flawed) sense of self.

Here's what happened: the children of Israel flinched. And that's cool; almost everyone flinches. But they didn't just flinch; they withdrew. Backed up, fled, whatever. They evacuated that place of intersection where the Divine was getting all set up to touch the common, to render it ... abundant. In chapter 20 they tell Moses, "We'll listen to you. Go find out what we're supposed to do and we'll do it. But we don't want to hear directly from God. It'll kill us!"

Symptomatic

2004-07-13T19:36:00.000-05:00

Text: Exodus 19:12-13, 21-25 20:18-19

This is so much like the way the serpent deceived Eve that it's scary. The serpent took advantage of Eve's circumstances, because Eve had not heard the word of the Lord directly. Here in Exodus, the Lord is trying to get the people into the experience, allow them to hear God's voice - to have and hold the experience itself so that their belief could be that much stronger. But the people withdrew.

So they put themselves into Eve's dilemma: they didn't actually hear God's voice speaking His words, just something like a voice, noise and indistinct weirdness that time would allow them to explain away. But it's the why that's bugging me.

In 19:12-13, God tells Moses to set bounds around the base of the mountain. "Take heed," He says, warning that no one go into the mountain or touch the borders of it. Yet, when the trumpet blew a long blast, the people were to come up to the mountain. Just so far, and no farther.

All that seems a bit strange at first glance, but it makes sense when seen as events occurring at the intersection of the finite and the infinite.

God is too much for finite man to experience, to the point of death. So man has to be protected if he's to be in the same space. Hence the bounds set around the mountain.

After all the preparations the big day comes and God comes down on the mountain and the people come up to it and Moses goes on up to his audience with God. Once he gets there, God tells him to go back down and warn the people one more time not to break through the bounds lest they die. Moses says, like, they can't come up because we set those bounds around the mountain like You said, Lord.

But God insists, and so Moses goes back down to tell them. Was God over-estimating His own popularity? I don't think so. I think He was giving Moses the picture of what their reaction should have been. They should have been eager to draw near. But they had been instructed to be careful, and that became the excuse.