Month: December 2013
Are you the “Oil of God’s Joy” In this Life?
Colossians 3:12
New International Version (NIV)
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
There is an old story of an elderly man who always carried a little can of oil with him everywhere he went, and when he would go through a door that squeaked, he would squirt a little oil on the hinges. If he encountered a gate that was hard to open, he would oil the latch. And so he went through life, lubricating all the difficult places, making it easier for all those who came after him. People called the man eccentric, strange, and crazy, but he went steadily on, often refilling his can of oil when it was nearly empty, and oiling all the difficult places he found.
In this world, there are many lives that painfully creak and grate as they go about their daily work. Often it seems that nothing goes right with them and that they need lubricating with “the oil of joy”, gentleness, or thoughtfulness. Do you carry your own can of oil with you? Are you ready with your oil of helpfulness each morning? If you offer your oil to the person nearest you, it may just lubricate the entire day for him/her. Your oil of cheerfulness will mean more than you know to someone who is downhearted. Or the oil may be a word of encouragement to a person who is full of despair. Never fail to speak it, for our lives may touch others only once on the road of life. and then our paths may diverge, never to meet again.
The oil of kindness has worn the sharp, hard edges off many a sin-hardened life and left it soft and pliable, ready to receive the redeeming grace of the Savior. A pleasant word is a bright ray of sunshine on a saddened heart. Therefore give others the sunshine and tell Jesus the rest.
We cannot know the grief
That men may borrow;
We cannot see the souls
Storm-swept by sorrow;
But love can shine upon the way
Today, tomorrow;
Let us be kind,
Upon the wheel of pain so many weary lives are broken,
So may our love with tender words be spoken.
Let us be kind.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Romans 12:10
Follow the Blue Print of God Rather Than “You”
“If we are to understand the point of this section as a whole, we must recognize that the phrase ‘whose faith is weak’ has a special nuance in this context. ‘Faith’ refers not directly to one’s belief generally but to one’s convictions about what that faith allows him or her to do. The weak in faith are not necessarily lesser Christians than the strong. They are simply those who do not think their faith allows them to do certain things that the strong feel free to do. What Paul wants the strong to do is not simply extend grudging tolerance to the weak, but to welcome them (the verb proslambano, used here, means to receive or accept into one’s society, home, circle of acquaintance). They should not allow differences over ‘disputable matters’ to interfere with full fellowship in the body of Christ.”
Romans 14:22 (New International Version)
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
HOW TO GET ALONG WHEN YOU DON’T SEE EYE TO EYE
It is said that when the British and French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive, then support them when they attacked the city. Phipps’ navy arrived early. As the admiral waited, he became annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral, so he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships’ cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the “saints.” (Daily Bread) Unfortunately, the same could be said for many Christians today. When God calls on them to do something great for Him they have nothing left to give for they have used up their ammunition shooting at the saints.
Throughout church history churches have split for the stupidest of reasons. Some have split over the issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Locally some have split over whether it is spelled Immanuel or Emmanuel. Some churches have split over whether to sit on pews or chairs. Surely there has to be something of more significance in the church today than what type of furniture we will park our “duffs” on. Surely there has to be for if there is not then the church is finished.
An issue of National Geographic included a photograph of the fossil remains of two saber-tooth cats locked in combat. To quote the article: “One had bitten deep into the leg bone of the other, a thrust that trapped both in a common fate.” The cause of the death of the two cats is as clear as the cause of the extinction of their species. They could not survive because they were too busy fighting each other and the same can be said of the church today. As the apostle Paul put it: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Galatians 5:15).
Satan is a master at using controversial issues to distract the church from her true mission in the world. A former police officer tells of the tactics of a group of thieves: “They enter the store as a group. One or two separate themselves from the group, and the others start a loud commotion in another section of the store. This grabs the attention of the clerks and customers. As all eyes are turned to the disturbance, the accomplices fill their pockets with merchandise and cash, leaving before anyone suspects. Hours — sometimes even days — later, the victimized merchant realizes things are missing and calls the police. Too late.” (Tom McHaffie) How often this strategy is used by the Evil One! We are seduced into paying attention to the distractions, while our churches are ransacked. In this case we have lost not our merchandise, but our mission. And a church without a mission will soon be out of commission.
Paul tells us that we are to “Live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:16). But how can we live in harmony when there are so many controversial issues that divide us? Paul gave the church in Rome some practical, step-by-step instructions on how to be in H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. with one another in Romans 14:1-15:7. We can learn from this information because we today have much in common with the Roman church. The Roman church was not divided in their faith. They all believed that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life and that as such He was the only way to get to heaven. They believed that there was only one God and that Jesus Christ was His Son. They believed that Jesus died for their sins and that He rose again on the third day and that He was coming back again one day. However, they were divided on many nonessential details of the Christian life. There were some in the church who had some very strict convictions concerning things like particular days of worship and types of diets and they considered those who disagreed to be too liberal. Others, however, had an equally strong conviction that in Christ they were free from such constraints and they considered the others to be narrow minded. And so the Roman problem becomes all too familiar. Paul says that the solution to all of this is to stop condemning one another and start excepting one another. As we study today’s passage together we will discover Paul’s seven steps to H.A.R.M.O.N.Y.
SEVEN STEPS TO H.A.R.M.O.N.Y.
1.Hold Back Judgment on Disputable Matters. (14:1)
Here we see that the Bible forbids us to pass judgment on matters that are disputable. What is a disputable matter? A disputable matter is an issue on which scripture is not clear. The disputable matters to which Paul speaks are concerning diet and dates. Some believed that certain days like the Sabbath or other religious holidays were to be considered more sacred than others. They also held to certain dietary rules like not eating meat — probably because the meat in the market place had been offered to idols. The other group believed that all days were the same and that if you gave thanks to God for the food there was no problem with eating it and enjoying it. Who was right and who was wrong? Paul says that neither group is wrong because these issues are nonessential to Christian faith and practice.
What are some other examples of disputable matters? Frequency of taking the Lord’s Supper, modes of baptism, styles (of clothing, hair, music, ect.) and end times scenarios are all examples of issues that are nonessential to the Christian faith. And yet all of these issues have been sources of division among Christians. There was a time when Christians killed other Christians because they believed the others baptized incorrectly. One of my former pastors told me of a time a guest evangelist in his church taught that Christians would have to go through the Tribulation period and that another pastor from that town who was at the meeting became irate and insisted that he not allow the evangelist to continue his series of meetings. When it comes to styles you don’t have to like it, listen to it, or look like it but you cannot judge it. You don’t have to support it, agree with it, or propagate it but you cannot condemn it.
If the scriptures do not speak clearly on an issue it is because God has given us freedom to choose in this area. The Roman Christians were free to choose to keep the Sabbath as a sacred day but they were also free to choose to hold days as being the same. The Roman Christians were free to choose not to eat meat but they were also free to choose to eat meat. There are many things that Christians are free to do or free not to do, but the one thing we are not free to do is to pass judgment on disputable matters.
2.Avoid Looking Down on Those Who Don’t Share Your Convictions. (14:2-4)
Paul says that the one who is strong in the faith and therefore understands that he is free from legalistic constraints in disputable matters must not look down on those who don’t believe they have such freedom. He also says that those who are weak in the faith and therefore feel that they must follow certain rules must not condemn those who don’t follow their rules. Why not? Because the other person is not your servant, but God’s. And so they answer not to you, but to God. And furthermore we see that God has accepted them both. Therefore, we dare not look down on the one whom God has accepted.
Of course, it is man’s tendency to look down on those who hold different views than himself whether those views be religious or political. So the next time you are tempted to look down on someone either because they do not share your freedom or because they don’t share your strict convictions remind yourself that you are not better than them nor are they better than you. Remind yourself of what the apostle Paul had to say about himself. “I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle” (1 Corinthians 15:9). “I am less than the least of all God’s people” (Ephesians 3:8). “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). If that was true of the apostle Paul then it is certainly true of you and so you have no right to look down on anyone.
3.Realize That You Must Live for the Lord Alone. (14:5-12)
It was the final hole of the 1961 Masters tournament, and golf legend Arnold Palmer had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. He felt he was in pretty good shape. As he approached his ball, he saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. The friend motioned him over, stuck out his hand and said, “Congratulations.” Arnold later said, “I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus.” On his next two shots, he hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. He missed the putt and lost the Master’s because he had first lost his focus. (Carol Mann, The 19th Hole, [Longmeadow], quoted in Reader’s Digest) Arnold Palmer was not on that golf course that day to renew old acquaintances. He was not there to accept congratulations. He was there for one purpose and one purpose only — to put the ball in the hole.
We are not on this earth for the purpose of exercising our freedoms. Nor are we here for the purpose of adhering to strict religious convictions. We are here for one purpose and one purpose only — to live for the Lord. If we exercise our freedoms, we do so for the Lord. If we adhere to strict religious convictions, we so do for the Lord. If we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. And if we ever lose focus on that purpose then we, like Arnold Palmer, are in serious trouble. Arnold Palmer’s old friend may have been offended if Arnold had ignored him that day back in 1961, but Arnold would have fulfilled his purpose. Some people may be offended if you are more concerned with pleasing the Lord than you are with pleasing them, but at least you will have fulfilled your purpose. If you can please people and please the Lord at the same time, that is wonderful. But, if you can’t, make sure that you please the Lord. Paul said, “We make it our goal to please him [God]” (2 Corinthians 5:9). He also said, “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
4.Make Sure You Don’t Put Obstacles in the Way of Others. (14:13-18)
It is true that in Christ we have been set free from the law and legalism, however, we must not flaunt this freedom in the faces of those who are weak in the faith. Also those who have strong convictions are not to beat others over the head with those convictions. We are to exercise our freedoms and carry out our convictions in ways that do not cause our fellow Christians to stumble.
This section is primarily addressed to those who are strong in the faith and have freedom in disputable matters. You see faith results in freedom. The stronger the faith, the greater the freedom. The weaker the faith, the smaller the freedom. It is important to notice that Paul says that both groups have faith. In other words both groups have saving faith and are, therefore, true Christians. It is just that some are stronger in faith than others and those who are stronger in faith must be careful about exercising their freedoms in the presence of those who don’t have such freedom. The danger is that those who are weak in the faith may be tempted to participate in the freedoms of those strong in the faith when they themselves do not have that faith. This is dangerous because if anyone believes something to be wrong then it is wrong for them even if it is not something God’s word forbids. You see, it is a sin to violate your conscience. You must be, as Paul says, “fully convinced.” Because “everything that does not come from faith is sin” (v. 23). So if the exercise of your freedom causes a fellow believer to violate their conscience and sin you have “destroyed your brother for whom Christ died.” Paul includes himself in the group who are strong in the faith and have the freedom to eat anything, but he says that it is better to voluntarily restrict one’s freedom than to cause others to stumble by exercising it. In 1 Corinthians 8:13 he puts it this way: “If what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.”
Before we move on I want to share a word with those of you who may have had an obstacle placed in your way by someone. The greatness of our lives is often determined by the size of the obstacles we have had to overcome. If we can face an obstacle and overcome it, we become better, stronger people because of it. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that you can put an obstacle in someone’s way and justify it by saying you are just trying to make them stronger. What is does mean is that if someone has put an obstacle in your way then with God’s help find a way over it, around it, or through it.
Bette Nesmith had a good secretarial job in a Dallas bank when she ran across a problem that interested her. Wasn’t there a better way to correct the errors she made on her electric typewriter? Bette had some art experience and she knew that artists who worked in oils just painted over their error. Maybe that would work for her too. So she concocted a fluid to paint over her typing errors. Before long, all the secretaries in her building were using what she then called “MistakeOut.” She attempted to sell the product idea to marketing agencies and various companies (including IBM), but they turned her down. However, secretaries continued to like her product, so Bette Nesmith’s kitchen became her first manufacturing facility and she started selling it on her own. When Bette Nesmith sold the enterprise, the tiny white bottles were earning $3.5 million annually on sales of $38 million. The buyer was Gillette Company and the sale price was $47.5 million (Crossroads, Issue No. 7, pp. 3-4). When it was all said and done that was one obstacle Bette Nesmith was glad she had to face.
5.Only Do What Leads to Peace and Mutual Edification.
What is good is bad if it leads to disharmony and does not build up the church. In Romans 12:18 Paul writes: “If it is possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” He says, “if it is possible” because he knows that it is not always possible to please people. You know the old saying: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Well it is also true of pleasing people — “You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” But the point is you need to do your part — the part that “depends on you.”
I would like to share a poem with you titled “A Builder or a Wrecker.”
As I watched them tear a building down
A gang of men in a busy town
With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and the side wall fell
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.”
“I can easily wreck in a day or two,
What builders have taken years to do.”
And I thought to myself, as I went my way
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by rule and square?
Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks to town
Content with the labor of tearing down?
“O Lord let my life and labors be
That which will build for eternity?”
-Author unknown
The only question is: “Will you be a builder or a wrecker?”
6.Never publicize your personal convictions.
Why does Paul tell us to keep our personal convictions concerning these matters between ourselves and God? Because our personal convictions are just that — personal. If they were meant to be corporate God would have put them in His word. But He didn’t. He gave them to you personally and they should stay between the two of you.
There was a woman in Charlotte, North Carolina who set a world record while playing a convenience store video game. After standing in front of the game for fourteen hours and scoring an unprecedented seven and a half million points on the game she was pleased to see a TV crew arriving to record her efforts for posterity. She continued to play while the crew, alerted by her fiance, prepared to shoot. However, she was appalled to see the video screen suddenly go blank. While setting up their lights, the camera team had accidentally unplugged the game, thus bringing her bid for ten million points to an untimely end! The effort to publicize her achievement became the agent of her ultimate failure. It is often unwise to go public.
7.Yield Personal Preferences for the Common Good.
Paul is saying here that we should not insist on doing things our way. Insisting on doing things my way is the world’s way, not the Christian’s way. Paul holds up Jesus Christ as the ultimate example of someone who, rather than pleasing Himself, gave up His personal preferences for the good of mankind. We know from the scriptures that it was not Jesus’ personal preference to suffer and die on the cross. When He was praying in the garden prior to His arrest He asked God if it would be possible for that cup of suffering to pass from Him. However, He also prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” If Jesus didn’t insist on His way, who do you think you are to insist on your way.
In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn’t a technology problem like radar malfunction — or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship’s presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late (Closer Walk, December, 1991). If we continue on our present course, we will share in their fate.
Selfish Christianity
John 6:22-27
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
22 The next day the crowd that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other small boat there, except one, and that Jesus had not entered with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples had gone away alone. 23 There came other small boats from Tiberias near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. 25 When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?”
Words to the People
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”
Think honestly about this question: Which interests you more—who Jesus is or what He can do for you? I’m afraid that too many of us are more concerned about what the Lord can give us than we are about getting to know who He is.
But this is nothing new—Jesus had the same problem when He walked on earth. The crowds often sought Him out for what He could do for them. Even though their needs were quite often legitimate, Christ knew their motives.
There is a fine line between selfishly trying to use the Lord to get what we want and humbly coming to Him with our needs and struggles. Some of the issues we bring to Him are so pressing and urgent in our minds that our desire for Him to take action in the way we want becomes greater than our willingness to submit to His will. At times, what we call “faith” is really a demanding spirit.
We must remember that our earthly needs will come to an end, but Jesus Christ will remain forever. If our prayers have dealt only with presenting our requests to the Lord, then we are missing a great opportunity to get to know the One with whom we are going to spend all eternity. Let’s invest time in pursuing intimacy with the great God who created us. Then we can enjoy all the benefits of that relationship forever.
How much of your communion with God is devoted to your needs—even legitimate ones? Are you spending any time getting to know the Lord? Although God delights in our prayers and tells us to pray about everything, He also wants us to come to Him just because we enjoy being with Him.
Am I blaming my Leaders for ‘The Culture’ for Our Distorted View of God?
Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
Pablo Picasso
Dichotomy
“In contrast to trichotomy, the view accepted by most scholars is that man is dichotomous, or consists of two parts; a material aspect, and a non-material aspect. The non-material part is called by many different names; soul, spirit, mind, life force, or any of a dozen or more equivalent Scriptural words. These are not separate parts of a person, but are just different words for the different aspects of the non-material aspect of man.” [1]
Relevant passages
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:23
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12
“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.” – 1 Corinthians 14:14
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Matthew 10:28
David F. Wells has written his book again. Indeed, reading a new book by Wells is something like my experience of reading new books by Anne Lamott. About 15 pages in, I find myself asking: Isn’t this the same book, again?
Readers who pick up Wells’s latest, God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World (Crossway), will find themselves covering the same ground he’s covered since No Place for Truth (1993).
Wells—a historical and systematic theologian at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary—has a fairly simple “big idea”: a tale of loss and recovery. Culture has corrupted the church, and renewal means returning to a set of views we have lost. The argument is couched in potted histories that paint thinly with broad brushes, highlighting how the church has been corrupted by modernity and, especially, post-modernity. For Wells, the word is shorthand for everything-wrong-with-the-world.
The genre is pitched somewhere between jeremiad and rant, with predictable protests, retreaded cliches, and lots of complaints about the 1960s. It’s like how I would expect a theological grandfather to harrumph about “kids these days.” It will convince no one who doesn’t already agree.
Because we’ve listened to the culture rather than Scripture, we’ve been suckered into a therapeutic rather than a moral view of God: God is reduced to a Therapist and Concierge. Even many conservative evangelicals effectively worship the god of Oprah. On this point, Wells’s diagnosis is helpful.
False Dichotomies
But what’s the antidote? As in his previous books, God in the Whirlwind outlines the “view” that needs to be recovered. This view has two countercultural features.
First, we need to recover a sense of the objectivity of God, the otherness and transcendence of God. “God stands before us,” Wells emphasizes. “He summons us to come out of ourselves and to know him. And yet our culture is pushing us into exactly the opposite pattern. It is that we must go into ourselves to know God.” Elsewhere, Wells writes, “When God—the external God—dies, then the self immediately moves in to fill the vacuum.” God begins to look like us writ large.
Second, we need to learn to focus on the character of God, which Wells describes as “holy-love.” By doing so, he is trying to hold together what we too often separate: Our therapeutic gods are loving but not holy; and our moralistic and legalistic gods are holy but not loving. But the biblical understanding of God, revealed above all in Jesus Christ, is holy-love. Wells ranges across the Bible to show how this holy-love runs counter to the erroneous cultural habits we’ve acquired.
But this also locates the book’s limitations. Let me highlight two.
First, both the analysis and the prescription traffic in false dichotomies. “The shaping of our life is to come from Scripture and not from culture,” Wells writes. But isn’t Scripture itself the product of a culture (many cultures), and doesn’t the gospel invite us into the alternative culture of the body of Christ? Our goal is not a biblical viewpoint bereft of culture, but a cultural formation that’s biblically infused.
Perhaps the most puzzling (false) dichotomy is Wells’s emphasis on the objective versus the subjective. This would confuse Augustine, for instance, who wrote: “Do not go outside yourself, but enter into yourself, for truth dwells in the interior self.” Yet no one would confuse Augustine with Oprah.
Indeed, Augustine’s Confessions recount the interior journey of a soul toward the majesty of God, culminating in the meditations of Book 10: “Through my soul I will ascend to him.” By turning inward, Augustine’s self-confidence is destabilized. “People are moved to wonder by mountain peaks, by vast waves of the sea, by broad waterfalls on river, by the all-embracing extent of the ocean, by the revolutions of the stars. But in themselves they are uninterested.” Yet he finds his own interiority more awesome precisely because it is unfathomable: “I find my own self hard to grasp. . . . I never reach the end.”
But in this internal vertigo, he also finds the One who is greater: “You are my true life.” “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you.”
Instead of reverting to Wells’s dichotomy of the objective versus the subjective, what if we engaged modernity with this kind of Augustinian strategy? What if we invited our neighbors (who are, admittedly, focused on the self) to honestly probe their depths? Might they learn to recognize—yes, even feel—the Creator who beckons from within?
The inward turn is not the problem. It’s that people don’t go far enough to experience the inadequacy of the self. They might be better served by exploring the writings of David Foster Wallace than by reading God in the Whirlwind.
Beat of a Different Drummer
If the book’s diagnosis of our cultural situation is off the mark, so too is its prescription. Wells rightly appreciates that we Christians have absorbed the cult of the self by osmosis. Nobody convinced us to view God as our concierge; to the contrary, this is more like what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls a “social imaginary” that we absorb unconsciously through the stories, images, and mythologies that suffuse our cultural milieu.
In other words, we are not just “thinking things” who have been “taught” to see God this way; we are desiring creatures who have been trained to “imagine” God this way. And our imagination is formed on a visceral, even unconscious level. It doesn’t just change how we think; it shapes how we love.
Yet while Wells is attentive to the dynamics of our cultural deformation, he is oddly flatfooted when it comes to imagining reformation. He prescribes an intellectual antidote for an imaginative disorder.
Late in the book, he introduces a metaphor that actually touches on this point. As Wells puts it, believers “live in the midst of their culture,” but “they live by the beat of a different Drummer. They must hear the sounds of a different time, an eternal time, [and] listen for the music from a different place.” The challenge is one of attunement: “How are we going to hear this music? How are we going to hear the Drummer whose beat gets lost in all of the noise of our modern world?” Indeed, this is the psalmist’s question, too: “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (137:4, NASB).
But the metaphor is better than Wells’s actual prescription. Instead of inviting us to absorb the rhythm of the Spirit, he prescribes a regimen of music theory, “a framework of ideas.” But if we’ve been following the wrong drummers, isn’t that because their beat got our toes tapping and captivated our imaginations?
The Spirit reforms our imaginations by a similar dynamic. By inviting us to inhabit the rhythms of embodied, intentional Christian worship, God not only informs our intellects but retrains our heart’s desires. Worship, then, is not just how we express what we already believe. It is also formative—an incubator for a biblical imagination.
Amid the whirlwind of modern culture, what we need most is not a better message, but a fresh encounter with the holy-lover of our souls, who will sweep us off our feet.
Preachers Self Worth; Methodology Gospels
I’ve said many times before that I believe that some people who were Christians and left the faith or those who reject Christianity altogether do so not because of any objection to the teachings of Jesus Christ. They object to the actions of Christians themselves
The Christian Post recently reported that mega church minister, Bishop, I.V. Hilliard, of the New Light Christian Center in Houston, made an interesting proposition to his congregation. According to the article, the church’s “Aviation Department” (yes, you read that correctly — aviation department) declared that the pastor’s helicopter (yes, you read that correctly — pastor’s helicopter) needed new blades. Click here to read the appeal letter.
This event is the same song but different verse of the prosperity gospel; this gospel promotes a tit-for-tat relationship with God. Since God wants you to be blessed and rich and prosperous, then giving to God will active that divine power within your life. At issue here is not only Bishop Hilliard’s request of money from the congregation for new helicopter blades, but also that Bishop Hilliard says that you will have divine favor in 52 days or 52 weeks if you donate $52. My initial reaction was “why not $40; that at least is a Biblical number?” Also, that’s quite a lengthy time frame — either a little over seven weeks or an entire calendar year. The problem with this mentality is that you will then start to look for it even if it is nowhere to be found.
It’s like having a pain in your leg and thinking that you have a serious medical condition because one article on WebMD or some forum post confirmed your suspicion. When we do that, we often disregard the mountain of other articles that state that your leg pain is merely a muscle pull. We want it to be one way so badly we are willing to disregard everything else. After those seven weeks are up and there still is no brand new Cadillac with a sun roof, XM Radio, and a V-8, then we are going to use the remaining time of our year to make the puzzle piece fit. This is not what God called the church to do; God does not call the church to try to solve the puzzle of whether something is a blessing because the church bought new helicopter blades.
What about that single parent who is faithful to their God and needs a car for work or school but can’t fork over $52? Are they just up a creek? Do they not reap the rewards of God’s blessing under this theological framework?
This type of theology is predicated on the notion that God only does for you when you do for God. Last time I checked, that is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Giving to God does not mean that one will receive back from God. Giving in all of its many forms is about one’s response to God. God has gifted humanity with many different things, and our understanding of God and our relationship with God dictates our type of giving. We use the rule of giving 10 percent of income or goods, but study after study show that this is not the case for much of the Christian populace.
Is this the reason so many people have joined the Christian faith over the centuries? Is a relationship with God and with Christ merely about a new car and a financial stability? If this is the case then I believe we have missed the point of the Gospel. The Gospel compels followers of Christ to be selfless and to give up our possessions that can rust and break down. The Gospel is centered on the notion of the other, the lonely, the downtrodden, the outcast; they are the ones we are called to serve. Our faith should not be dictated on giving just because we want something. Our giving should be an expression of our faith in thanksgiving for what God has done for us. God does not care how big or how small it might be.
Bishop Hilliard did release a statement in response to the uproar. He mentions a few scriptures here and there but the one that he discarded was the one where Christ said one cannot serve God and money.
I’m not a minister of a mega church but I hope that if I were, I would not have a helicopter but rather use the money to feed the homeless or dig wells in Africa or something else more useful. This type of theology is appealing to some but some see the plight of the world — the hungry, the struggling, the hurting — and believe a helicopter for a minister is a waste of money. If the minister has nicer suits and transportation that most of his/her congregation, then is there disconnect between the printed words of Christ and the real world.
If Christianity is about giving to get … then it is doomed to fail.
Help Make a Change;Unjust Mandatory Minimums
Mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines require defendants successfully convicted of a crime to be sentenced to a minimum length of time in prison. They eliminate judicial discretion in the determination of punishments for particular crimes. In cases involving mandatory minimum sentences, judges cannot reduce the sentence for any reason. Juries determining guilt or innocence in mandatory minimum sentences are often not informed of the mandatory sentence in order to prevent sentencing requirements from interfering in their decision. Mandatory minimum sentencing was initially developed by Congress and applied to the use and possession of marijuana. California’s “Three Strikes” rule is one example of a mandatory minimum sentencing requirement.
Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. recently said that his top priority is to improve the criminal justice system. He can start by pushing Congress and the United States Sentencing Commission to fix the unfair problem of excessive mandatory minimum sentences.
The commission reported recently that in the 16-year period through fiscal year 2011, the annual number of federal offenders “increased substantially,” from 37,091 to 76,216. The commission previously explained that “excessively severe” mandatory minimum sentences added heavily to this increase and to overcrowding in prisons.
Federal judges are acutely aware of this issue. Judge John Gleeson of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, for one, has been a vigorous critic of mandatory minimum sentences. In an opinion last year, he criticized federal prosecutors for seeking those sentences against defendants who are not “leaders and managers of drug enterprises” and Congress for laws that focus too heavily on the type and quantity of the drugs involved in a crime rather than the role the defendant played. This has meant that low-level offenders are often given sentences equal to those of major offenders.
Dear Aaron–
The time is NOW to support federal sentencing reform. We need your support on Tuesday, December 10. All it will involve is five minutes and picking up your phone – but your help could make a big difference!
On Thursday, December 12, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will meet to begin discussing mandatory minimum sentencing reform and the Smarter Sentencing Act, S. 1410. If passed, that bill would benefit thousands of nonviolent federal offenders facing mandatory minimum sentences (including some crack offenders who are already in federal prison).
If you live in one of the states listed below, now is the time to call your U.S. Senator(s) on the Judiciary Committee and tell them to vote in favor of the Smarter Sentencing Act or, if they are already supporting the bill, to thank them for doing so. Please participate in our national call-in day on December 10 if you live in one of the states listed below. Here’s how it works:
1. On Tuesday, December 10, 2013, call 202-224-3121. Ask to speak with your Senator. You will be transferred to your Senator’s office. Only people who live in one of the states listed below should make the phone calls.
Your State
Senator(s) to Call
Message to Use (see below for script)
Day to Call:
Tuesday,
December 10, 2013
Alabama
Jeff Sessions
Support S. 1410
Arizona
Jeff Flake
Support S. 1410
California
Dianne Feinstein
Support S. 1410
Connecticut
Richard Blumenthal
Support S. 1410
Delaware
Christopher Coons
Support S. 1410
Hawaii
Mazie Hirono
Support S. 1410
Illinois
Richard Durbin
Thank you
Iowa
Charles Grassley
Support S. 1410
Minnesota
Amy Klobuchar
Support S. 1410
Minnesota
Al Franken
Support S. 1410
New York
Chuck Schumer
Support S. 1410
Rhode Island
Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you
South Carolina
Lindsey Graham
Support S. 1410
Texas
John Cornyn
Support S. 1410
Texas
Ted Cruz
Support S. 1410
Utah
Orrin Hatch
Support S. 1410
Utah
Mike Lee
Thank you
Vermont
Patrick Leahy
Thank you
2. Share your message. When you are transferred to your U.S. Senator’s office, speak with the person who answers the phone (you won’t be able to speak directly to the Senator). Using the chart above, pick the appropriate message to use with your Senator:
Support S. 1410 Message:
Hello, I’m a constituent, and I’m calling to ask the Senator to vote in favor of mandatory minimum sentencing reform like the Smarter Sentencing Act, S. 1410, at this Thursday’s Judiciary Committee markup. The Senator should vote to reform mandatory minimums because they are unfair, expensive, and don’t keep us safe. Thank you for considering my views. [Optional: share your story of how mandatory minimum sentencing laws have impacted you or your family.]
OR
Thank You Message:
Hello, I’m a constituent, and I’m calling to thank the Senator for supporting mandatory minimum sentencing reform and the Smarter Sentencing Act, S. 1410. The Senate should vote to reform mandatory minimums because they are unfair, expensive, and don’t keep us safe. Thank you for considering my views. [Optional: share your story of how mandatory minimum sentencing laws have impacted you or your family.]
3. If you are calling more than one U.S. Senator from your state, repeat Steps 1 and 2 with your other U.S. Senator.
We do not expect the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on the Smarter Sentencing Act or any other bills on December 12 – but that hearing is the beginning of the debate on what mandatory minimum sentencing reform will look like. It is very important that the Senators go into the hearing knowing that their voters support sentencing reform. Remember: Your U.S. Senators won’t support sentencing reform unless they know that you do!
So, mark your calendars and plan to call the U.S. Senate on December 10, 2013!
Thank you for your support and your help. Together, let’s tell the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that we want mandatory minimum sentencing reform!
Sincerely,
Molly
Molly Gill
Government Affairs Counsel, FAMM
Actions and Results
The D.B. Cooper investigation
( FBI / European Pressphoto Agency )
An artist’s impression from 1971 of the hijacking suspect known as D.B. Cooper. The FBI is looking into a tip from a witness who contends the hijacker died 10 years ago. The witness was brought to the FBI’s attention by a retired law enforcement officer. An FBI agent provided few details, but said the bureau considered the tip credible. The bureau is attempting to match fingerprints taken from belongings of the dead man to fingerprints gathered 40 years ago from the cabin of the jetliner that Cooper hijacked.
Romans 5:12-19
New International Version (NIV)
Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
On November 24, 1971, a man known today as D. B. Cooper hijacked a commercial flight between Portland and Seattle by threatening to blow up the plane unless he received $200,000. After landing to receive the ransom money, he ordered the plane back into the air. Then he lowered the rear stairs of the 727 aircraft and parachuted into the night. He was never captured, and the case is still unsolved. This act hastened the age of aircraft security in which trust and confidence have been replaced by suspicion and fear. What he did affected us all.
The Bible describes two actions that changed the world in a far more significant way. Through Adam’s choice, sin and death entered the world, “and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” ( Romans 5:12). But through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, God provided a remedy for the results of sin. “Through one man’s [Adam’s] offense judgement came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s [Christ’s] righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”
Christ did what no one else could do when He broke the power of sin and death by His resurrection. He offers forgiveness and eternal life to all who will accept His gift. And for that we thank Him with all our hearts.
When Adam sinned, death spread to all
One act condemned the human race;
But Jesus’ death upon the cross
Provides mankind God’s saving grace.
The cross of Christ can cure the condemnation of Adam’s choice.