Swine Flu, The Gospel, and Paquin Towers

The Swine Flu has dominated the headlines for the past few days with news of at least 150 dead in Mexico and now one death reported in the United States. Although approximately 35,000 Americans die of influenza each year, new flu viruses pose a different kind of danger because there isn't a vaccine available and they can attack and kill people of all ages. The great fear among national health professionals is that there is a chance that there will eventually be a pandemic such as the one that occurred in 1918 when 100 million people died worldwide.

Rodney Stark writes in his book, The Rise of Christianity, about how early Christians responded to severe health crisis. It seems that some sort of epidemic hit Rome in the year 189. The most prominent health professional at the time was a man named Galen. It's interesting to look back and observe the different responses of the Roman pagans and the early Christians.

It is believed that Galen, along with most of the affluent people in Rome, left the city. The Christians had the opposite response. Instead of looking out only for themselves, they risked their lives to help others. This is one of the events that later led to the Roman emperor Julian to say:

"The impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, everyone can see that our people lack aid from us."

Stark attributes the different reactions (fleeing to protect oneself and staying to help the sick at great personal risk) to doctrinal beliefs. Essentially he says that the pagans lacked the religious motivation to love others at personal cost nor did they believe in eternal life. Meanwhile, Christians uniquely believed in a Savior who had sacrificed himself for their sins and promised eternal life to all who believed. Because they believed these two specific doctrines, Christians felt compelled to stay and serve the sick and they didn't fear death.

While it is highly improbable that swine flu will cause a great crisis in our country, there are plenty of other ways for us as Christians to live out the gospel to the poor, sick, and hurting in our community. One small way is to come help work at Paquin Towers on May 9. This will give us a chance to love people in our community in the name of Christ. You might consider rallying your small group to come together to the work day or you might invite a friend to join you.

Stark quotes Tertullian, another church father, as saying:

"It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. 'Only look,' they say, 'Look at how they love one another.'"

Wouldn't it be great if that were Christians' reputation in Columbia--that we known for loving other people. I guess that's what Jesus had in mind when he said, "By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:35)."

Our Trip to the Gospel Coalition Conference

Last week we took 17 of our staff to the Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago. It was a time for us to participate together in a conference attended by over 3,300 people, mostly pastors, and a surprising number of them in their 20's or early 30's. That was exciting for me to see, and motivating for our staff to be a part of. The conference speakers were some of the pastors and authors who have been highly influential in shaping what we teach and how we do things at The Crossing: Tim Keller, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Bryan Chapell (the President of Covenant Seminary who significantly changed/developed my preaching in seminary), D.A. Carson, and others. Every church leadership kind of has their people that they regulary read and listen to for theological guidance and motivation in ministry: these are our people.

It was a fantastic opportunity for The Crossing to continue to invest in the development of our staff in their understanding of the gospel and the ways that believing and teaching and living by the gospel affects our lives. And it was a rewarding time for us to spend four good days together as well.

Here is a link where you can listen to or watch every one of the talks that were given at the Gospel Coalition Conference for free! Just click on any main-session talk and you can choose between watching it on video or just listening to audio. Most of the workshops at the bottom are only available in audio. Right click or control-click (on a Mac) on the audio option, and you can save as (download) an mp3 file to add to your iPod to listen to while driving or working out or cutting the grass, etc. What amazingly easy opportunities we have these days for hearing and learning such great truths! This kind of technology didn't even exist just 10 years ago. So try to take advantage of it.

Keep in mind that this is stuff mainly geared toward pastors, but it is certainly applicable to anyone desiring to influence others in ministry. And that eventually should be pretty much every Christian. Right? If you're a small group leader, or children's or student ministry leader, or any other kind of leader at The Crossing (or your church wherever), I believe you'll find many of these talks well worth your time.

Our staff favorites were Tim Keller's and John Piper's and Bryan Chapell's talks. I did not hear Ligon Duncan or D.A. Carson speak, but I was told later by Shay that they were also very good. So I'll download and listen to them this week myself. You may find the Panel Discussion interesting as well. I know many of our staff thought it was the best thing there. Jeannette attended a workshop taught by Michael Bullmore, which she said was excellent. I noticed that it's the only workshop not available to listen to, but HERE is a link to what I think is basically the same talk he gave elsewhere available the Gospel Coalition's website. My recommendation is that if you listen to one talk from this conference, choose Tim Keller's. Very good.

Thanks for reading.

Photons, Freedom, and Sovereignty

I was recently having a great conversation with some folks about the relationship between God’s sovereign reign over his creation and human freedom. The question was posed to me: “What are the percentages?”
“The what?”
“The percentages. What percent of the sovereignty do we have in our decision making and what percent does God keep for himself?”

It is a fair question and it makes total sense. This is how our world works every single day. Either your boss defers the decision to you or he keeps the last word for himself. You both don’t have total freedom of the decision. Either the child gets to decide what he will wear out that day (in which case it will probably be pajamas) or the parent decides for them (in which case it probably will not be pajamas). They both cant have total freedom of the wardrobe selection. It doesn’t work that way.

It struck me that this is probably a very common view among Christians today. We assume freedom is a zero sum game. Either God is in control of everything and we humans have no real free will, or God has carved out a slice of the “sovereignty pie” and handed it over to us to live as we wish but in doing so he surrendered control of that slice of his creation.

So, what are the percentages?

The fact of the matter is that the Bible never once assumes that human freedom and God’s sovereignty are mutually exclusive.

The writers of the Bible unashamedly claim we are completely free and God is completely sovereign – often in the same chapter, sometimes in the same sentence.

Consider just one:

Philippians 2:12-13
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So which is it? Do I work or does God? What are the percentages?

It is clearly 100% of both. This assumption is found again and again from Genesis to Revelations. The compatibility of freedom and sovereignty is the common assumption of every single Biblical author. It is what the Bible teaches.

I admit (freely ☺) that there is deep mystery at work here. We will not be able to tie a nice bow on this and settle a centuries-long debate. Instead of failing at that task, lets just step back for a minute and consider each side separately.

If we think only about free will for a moment, the concept makes complete sense to our everyday experience. There is no deep philosophical puzzle. No tension. We wake up, make some decisions during the day, act on those decisions and eventually go to sleep. Easy.

Likewise, if we consider God’s sovereign rule over his creation, it makes complete sense that the author and creator of the cosmos would retain control over what he has made. It is true of authors and their novels, musicians and their music, inventors and their machines. If you make it, you can control how it functions and operates. No mystery here either.

Considered alone, human free will makes total sense and God’s sovereignty makes total sense. But as we focus in on one, the other becomes more and more fuzzy. It is difficult for us to hold both in our minds at the same time. We have trouble fitting them into the same equation.

Now that we put it like that, however, this sounds exactly like something that happens in our physical world every single instant across the universe.

Turn off your lights.
Now turn them back on.

What is light made of? The small packets of energy that ‘carry’ light are photons. Photons behave in the same way - have all the same properties – as other particles in our physical world. However, light also functions as a wave. It has all the properties and behaves in the same way as other energy waves (sound, heat) in our physical world.

So which is it, a particle or a wave? What are the percentages?

Werner Heisenberg (German physicist in the 1900s) discovered the Uncertainty Principle that applies to the measurement of light. The principle effectively states that we can measure the exact position of a photon (particle) OR we can measure its speed (wavelength). We cannot have precise measurements of both at the same time. As one comes into focus, the other gets more blurry, and visa-versa.

We know, on mathematical authority, that both these measurements exist and are equally real. Light is 100% photon and 100% wave. Each makes sense when we examine it alone. However, it is physically impossible to hold both qualities in our mind at once, there is not a single equation that both can fit in.

I find this illustration helpful. You may not, in which case I apologize for wasting your time on this blog post, but things like this help me approach the mysteries of God with a proper humility and perspective.

The freedom / sovereignty relationship is a mystery of grand proportion, to be sure. We will never grasp the whole picture. But it is the height of arrogance to claim that since both parts cannot be understood together that one of them must be false. I agree that they don’t fit in the same equation in our little minds. I disagree that this is any threat at all to the clear Biblical teaching that both are 100% true.

After all, if we are comfortable with mystery in our physics equations, we ought to be comfortable with a little mystery in our understanding of the eternal, powerful, creator of the universe (the creator of those very laws of physics we cant quite hold in our minds all at once).

Thanks for reading.

Lessons from a Day Spent Watching Technology

Recently, in preparation for a talk I was giving, I tried to make a list of every piece of technology I came across in a single day. The list got very long, very quickly. I wrote down everything from the pen and Post-Its I was making the list on to things like the internet or television. The list was made up of not only high-tech things like a cell phone, but low-tech things like the screw on the cap of my tube of toothpaste. The act of watching my life that closely, examining it for ways it is affected by technology was an unusual but eye-opening process. Here are a few thoughts I had while I was making the list:

• My list was nowhere near long enough. I quickly came to realize that even the things I did write down were themselves products of a long chain of technology. The Post-Its began as trees and then were cut, milled, processed into paper, then shipped, packaged, and sold. The pen in my hand came from a factory full of technology. It was designed and engineered to precise specifications. Hundreds of hours of human creativity went into producing that single pen. The real list would be both wide and deep. Not only that, but some things were too dense with technology to possibly list all the technologies that made them up. For my car I just wrote "car," yet how many hundreds of pieces of technology are involved in driving my car? Everything from the fuel that the engine burns to the seat belts and airbags.
  

• Every inch of my life has been shaped by technology. Every thing I touched, tasted, saw, and heard, and smelled. From the toothbrush I cleaned my teeth with to the internet is a product of human creativity. There is no escape from it. From the first moment I woke I was surrounded by it. I had 20 items on the list before I left my bed. The air that I breathe, the chemistry of my body, the content of my thoughts, the waves passing through my body are all shaped by technology.

• This is what we were made for! We are made in God’s image and he set us down in the world and bid us to be fruitful and multiply. God commanded humanity to subdue the earth. The word subdue here has so many negative connotations, but in its essence it means to make the world livable. To create those things which will contribute to human flourishing. We have used our minds and hands to come up with such a wonderful array of things. The fact that we create is a good part of what it means to be human. Technology is a gift, not something to be ashamed of.

• That means not only building things, but improving them. It is a good thing to improve on the things we make. Don’t just build houses, but build houses that keep you more dry, more safe, more warm, more comfortable physically and mentally. Build houses that foster human community, houses that are places your children will love and then really live in them, make memories. Have Christmas morning in them and make them beautiful spaces to inhabit.
  

• Despite the wonderful array of our creativity, our creation is nothing compared to God’s. I found myself thinking about how all of this was only re-arranging what he had made. We are, as Tolkien put it, sub-creators. This is not to diminish our work of creating, this re-arranging is what he made us for, but his work is on a completely different level. In the morning I sat in the kitchen and heard the birds singing and realized that he was the one who made the songs of the birds. He made living things that reproduce themselves. He made the atoms in the table I was sitting at and the things that make up those atoms, and he did it all from nothing.

• Finally, if you really think about the list you begin to praise God. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it and all of it reflects his glory! The fact that it exists at all is a testament to God’s glory and what we have done with it is too. The Bible says that God made all things and not only that, continues to sustain their very existence because he is committed to them, knows them, and cares for them. If that even my nail clippers are a testament of God’s care for me, and if that doesn’t make you thankful you aren’t paying attention.

Landscaping and Fruit-Bearing

It was 85 degrees here in Columbia yesterday. Supposed to be 78 today. And 81 tomorrow. The sun's shining. The grass is greening, dogwoods are blooming, and trees are leafing. Spring has finally sprung.

If you're like me you deeply appreciate the beauty of spring with its unique aromas and sights. Fresh cut grass, the smell of flowers, and the like raise my spirits just about this time each year. But there is a down side to all of this. I had to mow again yesterday. And seeing that I hadn't changed or sharpened my blade in years, I switched it out. Should have been simple and quick, but things like that never seem to be. But for me to compete with the lush shade of green found in some of my neighbor's yards there are other chores to be undertaken. Fertilizing, weed control, weed-whacking.

I'm not just content to have a good looking yard, I want flowers and trees and bushes of all varieties. Some of you are like me, and you've spent some time trying to cultivate a garden, whether floral or vegetable. Others of you have annual aspirations of doing so, but never quite get around to it. Here's why: maintaining a beautiful garden is hard. I've had to dig up the old soil and lay down the new. I have to fertilize every few weeks, water regularly (especially in August), trim and prune, and the list goes on.

Fruit in gardening and lawn care doesn't come cheaply or easily. It takes diligence, knowledge, patience, and discipline. And you've got to love what you're doing, you've got to love the outcome you trust will come enough to put up with all the toil.

Spiritual fruit is not all that different. Just like we'd all love to have a lush garden surrounding our house, we'd all love to have the maturity and righteousness we see in the men and women we look up to. But it takes a level of discipline and diligence that we are sometimes unwilling to commit to. I recall a great bible teacher who was asked how he could teach the Scriptures so well and so often. His answer was that he spent about 2-3 hours reading and studying Scripture daily. I'd love to be able to teach like him...but to this point I've not been faithful enough or disciplined enough to spend the time that is required.

Seeing the fruit of a beautiful garden and manicured lawn is not rocket science. Neither is seeing spiritual fruit in our lives. Faith, discipline, obedience, patience, self-control, etc., etc. These are the means by which we grow. God has spelled them out for us in his Word. But how would we know if we are not reading it? If we are not praying daily? If we are not being challenged and encouraged by fellow Christians?

I'm heading to Strawberry Hill Farms this afternoon to grab some flowers for the year (if you live in Columbia look them up online...definitely the place to shop). But while I diligently maintain my lawn and grow my garden, I pray that I will more diligently and more faithfully pursue growing in righteousness and in my relationship with the Lord. I pray the same for all of you.

If You Lose the Bible, You Lose God

I was reminded of a critically important truth this week by a former professor of mine, Bryan Chapell. Speaking on 2 Timothy 3:10-4:5 at a conference I was attending, Dr. Chapell mentioned the stark consequences of a failure to hold fast to the Bible’s trustworthiness (listen to the entire message here). The gist of what he said on this particular point can be expressed in the following pithy and necessarily provocative statement: if you lose the Bible, you lose God.

Understand that Dr. Chapell’s point is not a new one. It has been continually advanced by generations of historically orthodox Christians, particularly in the last 150 years or so and largely in response to modernist and post-modernist critiques of the Bible’s reliability (for a good introduction to these controversies, try Ancient Word, Changing Worlds by Stephen J. Nichols and Eric T. Brandt). For this and other reasons, it’s a statement well worth briefly unpacking.

Toward that end, suppose that the Bible is not, in fact, what it claims to be. That is, suppose it is not the faithful record of God’s own voice (see 2 Tim. 3:16 and 2 Pet. 1:20-21), and thus bedrock foundation of truth (see Psa. 12:6, John 17:17, Psa. 19:7-11, and many other passages). Suppose rather than it contains a significant degree of error, resulting in a distorted picture of the subjects on which it speaks, the most important being God himself. Assuming this to be the case, the fundamental question becomes simply this: how do we determine what constitutes truth and what constitutes error within the Bible’s pages?

It does not take a great deal of thought to begin to understand just how problematic this question is. If the Bible itself is not the reliable standard by which we may measure truth claims about God, what is? Who then may speak of him and for him with authority? As I’ve mentioned recently on this blog, several generations of scholars have in various ways attempted to sift through what they believe to be the fanciful and distorted aspects of the Bible to arrive at the “real” truth about Jesus, God, etc. But the conclusions they’ve reached have been far from uniform. What then commends one set of conclusions over another?

Eventually, the answer will boil down to the individual. You and I will be the arbiter of whether truths about God (or anything else for that matter) are actually present within the pages of the Scriptures. And while that might sound initially attractive to ears shaped by the predominantly individualistic, anti-authoritarian culture in which we live, it is in the end a sure path to self-idolatry. That is, we will judge who we think God is based upon what we desire him to be—a picture that almost unfailingly looks a great deal like ourselves.

In light of this, we’d do well to ask ourselves another question: if we’re to be brutally honest, can we judge ourselves as really qualified to make God in our own image? Do we have the perspective, the wisdom, the moral character to play deity? To look proverbially both out the window and in the mirror is to find a powerful argument against at least the desirability of such a path.

Yes, none of what I’ve written offers a positive defense of biblical inerrancy and authority—doctrines that I robustly affirm. That will need to be articulated at another time.* But I do hope it provides a better sense of what implications are involved in the alternative.


*In the meantime, for very readable introductions to many of the relevant issues, see Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, and the chapter 2 of Wayne Grudem’s Bible Doctrine, entitled “The Authority and Inerrancy of Scripture.”

Mathew Patrick Brown (2009-2009)

Many of our staff are out of town at a conference this week which explains the absence of blog posts. In light of that I thought that I would pass on a moving story about a couple who adopted a baby boy knowing that he would only live a short time.

HT: Justin Taylor

Dying While They Live

Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon starred in a critically acclaimed 1995 film, Dead Man Walking. The film was well received and remembered largely due to the superb writing and acting. But it was memorable for another reason as well -- what a title!

The power of that phrase, dead man walking, is quite profound. It is reminiscent of a passage Francis Schaeffer penned years ago, found in The God Who Is There:

"These demonstrations which we have been talking about are the expression of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness. Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expressions...These men are dying while they live; yet where is our compassion for them? There is nothing more ugly than a Christian orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion."

Dying while they live. Is that how you see non-Christians? It is an uncomfortable truth that if the Bible is true, if God's words are trustworthy (and I believe they are), then there really is only one way to heaven (through Christ) and there really is only one other option for eternity (hell). The Bible says we all stand under a death sentence because of the sin that permeates our lives and our hearts. The decisions we make, the words that spill from our mouths, the thoughts that enter our brains, these are all evidences of our sinful condition. In that manner, we were all dead men walking.

But Christ's sacrifice has opened the way to salvation, to spend an eternity with him instead of an eternity separated from him. We've been saved. But in our world, there are millions who are still under that death sentence. They are literally dying while they live.

But what is our reaction? What is our attitude? All too often we are a people lacking in compassion.

This is the part of the blog where I share something shameful and embarrassing. In St. Louis, near Chesterfield, the mid 90's brought the community a gleaming white Mormon Temple. Much hoopla surrounded it at the time. And for good reason, it's gorgeous. With my travels to seminary I have the pleasure of passing and admiring the architecture four times a week (not to mention the eye to detail in landscaping and floral gardens).

However, as a wise and brash 15 year old, my attitude was a little different as I would pass it. I can recall a trip with my parents which took us past the temple shortly before its completion. My mother commented on how beautiful it was. On the other hand, I was busy not admiring the beauty, but instead saying, "Too bad they're going to hell."

May God forgive me. Looking back I'm surprised my father didn't choke me. How insensitive? How selfish? How prideful? But this is Schaeffer's point exactly. We lack compassion for the lost.

It is right for us to see reports on the news of murder, abuse, and robbery, and have genuine anger well up inside of us because things are not as they should be. But is anger the only emotion that ever wells up in you? Do you ever feel sorry for them? Do you ever pray for their souls?

What about your mother? Or sister? Or dear friend? Or some other relative that isn't trusting in Christ? Do you pray for them? Do you mourn them? Or do you move about your life without batting an eye at the fact that they are literally dying while they live?

May we as a church, and as individuals, not be what Schaeffer loathed (and by the way, I'm pretty sure God does as well). May we not lack compassion. May we not lack understanding. For the world around us is truly dying as it lives.

The Emptiness of Atheism

The New Statesman has an interesting article by A. N. Wilson explaining his move from atheism to belief in God. Wilson is a well known English novelist and critical biographer who some years earlier had considered himself a Christian. So if you're keeping score at home his journey has moved from Christianity to atheism and now back to theism of some sort.

What I found interesting were the issues that caused him to reconsider his atheism and return to belief in God. Here's an example...

Watching a whole cluster of friends, and my own mother, die over quite a short space of time convinced me that purely materialist “explanations” for our mysterious human existence simply won’t do – on an intellectual level.

If there is no God and human beings are nothing more than a collocation of material substances, then the deep sadness that one feels at the death of a loved one is irrational. But when you are in the situation of watching someone you love die, it is impossible to deny that there is more to a person that the materialist acknowledges and that human beings have souls that live on beyond their physical bodies.

Here is Wilson again...

I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

I know that there has been much debate over whether the atheist's worldview gives a rational, consistent basis for morality. According to Wilson, a man who had been approved of by Dawkins and Hitchens, it is wrongheaded to believe that morality is simply a "human construct" as atheism advocates. Bonhoeffer could endure death because he had something greater to look forward to (being with God) than anything this world had to offer.

Then on the Q and A with Wilson...

Q: Do people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins simply not get life?
A: I think on the whole that's right, that clever as the professional atheists are, they are missing out on some very basic experiences of life.

Q: What's the worst thing about being faithless?
A: The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious.
Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life.

This last exchange reminds me of one of Peter Kreeft's lines in defense of theism: “Bach’s ‘B Minor Mass’ exists; therefore God exists.”

Read the article here and the Q and A here.

What Will Your Name Be in Heaven?

If you listened to my sermon this past Easter Sunday, perhaps you noticed that my title—“What Will Your Name Be in Heaven?”—was never addressed in the sermon. That’s one of the unfortunate things about having to turn in our sermon titles on the Wednesday before the Sunday we preach. Things can change considerably in sermon writing over a period of four days. Because of time (I could NOT even think of “going over” on Easter Sunday!) I had to cut the part of my sermon that would have made sense from that title. Hence, my title for last Sunday made no sense at all. Oh well. I still think it is well worth discussing with you here in this blog entry.

The idea was sparked by reading C.S. Lewis’ excellent book, “The Problem of Pain” (which I highly recommend). An interesting chapter toward the end of the book (chapter 10) is an insightful and thoughtful little reflection on our resurrection and restoration in heaven (those more familiar with C.S. Lewis will recognize that in many ways they are similar expressions to his more-often quoted phrases from Lewis’ “The Weight of Glory”—we sell both at our bookstore). Of course, I now have the luxury of citing quite a bit more of Lewis’ thoughts from this chapter than I would have been able to do in a sermon—easier to read in a blog than follow as quotes in a sermon.

So below is what I thought were some of his more notable excerpts:

“There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in or heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words. …You have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life. …Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction… something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat’s side? …Some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which … night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. …[If you ever truly found it], beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’”

But then Lewis gets to something interesting as to why each of us are different in so many ways. Why is that? What is God's reason for that? Did God have something in his eternal mind—for his eternal purposes—in making each of us different souls? How do we see hints of that now in our inner longings? Will our differences be significant in heaven? Here’s what Lewis writes as he continues his mediation on our instinctive, inner, unspeakable longing for heaven:

“We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul. …This signature on each soul may be a product of heredity and environment, but that only means that heredity and environment are among the instruments whereby God creates a soul. I am considering not how, by why, He makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key; and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance. Or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you—you, the individual reader. …All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction.”

“…God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it. …The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.

This Lewis cites Jesus’ promise to his people Revelation 2:17, “To those who are victorious, …I will also give each of them a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (TNIV). Lewis continues:

“What can be more a man’s own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the Divine beauty than any other creature can. Why else were individuals created, but that God, loving all infinitely, should love each differently?”

What I particularly like from this is that, in the renewed, physical, restored earth that will be the kingdom of God in heaven, our physical, resurrected, eternal bodies will still retain our unique individuality, but it will be a sinless, gloriously interrelated individuality (in some ways, perhaps, like the Trinity), where we exist as distinct persons who are one community with God and with each other and, in some ways, one with a restored nature (restored animal life, plant life, etc.) on earth. This is our instinct since the Garden of Eden, which is why the idea of being “one with nature” is a common concept of paradise in everyone. But while being conformed to Christ's image, we will still be individual persons with God-given differences, just as we are now in our fallen state. But these differences will not compete with one another or be threatened by one another or jealous or envious of one another, but rather, they will wonderfully compliment and selflessly enjoy one another for our differences. Our differences were made like a key to a lock for an eternal purpose God has in mind for us in electing and redeeming us in Christ. We’ll be given a new name by Christ—one just between us and him—an identity unique to us so that we can serve and glorify and worship God in a way only we will be able to do and that will uniquely, truly, fully, finally, satisfy us and glorify God. Our unique interests now are just a shadowed hint of it—what our specially designed role and work and worship will be then in the kingdom of heaven on earth. And we will enjoy that role as work and worship more than we can possibly imagine now.

I can’t wait. But I have to. And so do you. Just wait. Wait.

Thanks for reading.

Functional Atheism

To start, a question: Is it harder to live as a Christian in today’s modern Western world than in any other time since Christ?

The question is a tricky one to answer. In many respects we must say ‘no.’ The human heart in every age and every culture has always relentlessly rebelled against God and it has never been easy (or even possible) to know God without excessive grace given to us from above. This is true of the Western world today just as much as any other culture. However, in a certain sense I think we can also say that it is, indeed, harder to live as a Christian in today’s world than in any other time in history.

Craig M. Gay has written a fantastic treatise of our current cultural milieu – The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It’s Tempting to Live As if God Doesn’t Exist.

The title says a lot. Gay sets out to explain the very structures of thought that have become the default mode in our modern world.

This is his thesis in his own words:

Contemporary society and culture so emphasize human potential and human agency and the immediate practical exigencies of the here and now, that we are for the most part tempted to go about our daily business in this world without giving God much thought. Indeed, we are tempted to live as though God did not exist, or at least as if his existence did not practically matter. In short, one of the most insidious temptations fostered within contemporary secular society and culture, a temptation rendered uniquely plausible by the ideas and assumptions embedded within modern institutional life, is the temptation to practical atheism. (emphasis his)


Comprising the bulk of the study is Gay’s careful analysis of 4 of the most foundational institutions of our modern world: politics, technology, economics, and culture. In each of these spheres he guides us through the intellectual history that has brought us to the present condition – the condition in which these institutions function just as well, just as efficiently, and with the same ‘end game’ whether God exists or not, in other words, a thoroughly secular condition. Moreover, he highlights instances of the practical atheism that pervades our culture’s worldview.

A smattering of his insights:

- “Something very much like religious faith has often been placed in the [political] state and in the possibilities of political-social change.”

- “Science assures us that life’s real purposes do not transcend nature, but are embedded within nature in such a way as to be scientifically discoverable.”

- “Modern economic life is dominated by the calculation of self-interest; its horizons are wholly temporal; and it is increasingly impervious, or at least resistant to, substantive religious reasoning.”

- “The individual has thus become something of a god in contemporary culture. Not only has the self become the object of essentially religious devotion, but the attributes once reserved for divinity, particularly aseity (self-existence) and absolute creativity, are now assigned to self-constructing individuals.”

His summary of the situation:

We have tried to show that secularity is quite literally built into the central institutions of modern society and culture both theoretically and practically, and that this is why modernity has proven to be so corrosive of Christian faith and why it is so resistant to substantive theological criticism…. And so, although the temptation to godlessness is not new, it has been rendered uniquely plausible, attractive, and even imperative under modern, and now presumably “postmodern,” conditions…. This is the way of the modern world.

All this leads to an obvious question: How do we live (and even thrive) as Christians in a world that is so thoroughly secular? What is our role as Christians in a world in which the very default structures of thought that pervade our everyday existence are functionally atheistic? Or, as Gay puts it, “how, as Christians, do we go about living in but not of this modern world?”

His answer is balanced and insightful: we must be prophets to our culture. That is, we must care deeply about the issues of our world – the same issues the realms of politics, technology, economics, and culture address. We must challenge the secularity, the functional atheism that lies at the heart of our modern culture. We must fight against the narcissism that defines so many modern lives. But at the end of the day we must never make these issues – worldly issues - our ultimate purpose.

In short, the “prophetic stance” requires us to take political, economic, and cultural realities seriously for the sake of our neighbor, but it forbids us from taking them with ultimate seriousness for precisely this same reason.

Then later:

For our cultural prognosis to be truly Christian, then, top priority must always be given to the conversion of souls.

Overall, the book is a fascinating study of the way our world works. You have probably gathered even from the small selection of passages quoted here that at times Gay takes us through pretty deep waters. It can be slow and careful treading at times, but at the end I found the insight was well worth the effort

Wendell Berry on Thinking Little

Wendell Berry writes in his essay, Think Little, of the tendency for Americans, who have, according to him, lost their "private life" to think of change in increments of organizations, rather than actually changing the way they live their own lives.

He writes:

"... The citizen who is willing to think little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving a problem. A man who is trying to live as a neighbor to his neighbors will have a lively and practical understanding of the work of peace and brotherhood, and let there be no mistake about it - he is doing that work. A couple who make a good marriage, and raise healthy, morally competent children, are serving the world's future more directly and surely than any political leader, though they never utter a public word. A good farmer who is dealing with the problem of soil erosion on an acre of ground has a sounder grasp of that problem and cares more about it and is probably doing more to solve it than any bureaucrat who is talking about it in general."

There is a lot wrong with this broken world. We can't change it all, but we can make some impact on that small piece of it to which we are called. Our jobs. Our families. Our homes. The ground we build our homes on. Each of our lives extend into many smaller spheres. Berry says, and I believe the Bible would agree, that living faithfully in small, consistent ways has incredible changing power. We have to think little, however. Everyone wants a big place in the story, but in pursuing that large place we may miss out on the small, mundane chances to be faithful unfolding every day around us. The irony here is that if there ever will be a larger work it will only be the collection of many tiny faithfulnesses that grow in a life or in a church or in a community. It may be foolish to imagine having the one without the other, or in longing for a larger work without ever having learned the lesson of the small and the simple.

Resurrection Cookies and Family Easter Ideas

Below is a recipe I ran across that may be a fun and meaningful way to help your kids understand the significance of Easter. What are some ways you have found to help your children understand the Easter story? I imagine many of us would like to learn ideas from one another. Feel free to comment.

Resurrection Cookies

1 cup pecans (halves or whole)
3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vinegar
pinch of salt
wooden spoon
Ziploc bag
Bible
Tape (Packing tape works best)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place pecans in Ziploc bag and let children beat them with the wooden spoon until broken into small pieces. Read John 19:1-3 and remind them that after Jesus was arrested, He was beaten by the Roman soldiers.

2. Let each child smell (or taste) the vinegar. Pour 1 tsp into the mixing bowl. Read John 19:28-30 and explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross, He was given vinegar to drink.

3. Add the egg whites to the vinegar. Eggs represent life. Read John 10:10-11 Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life.

4. Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it, then brush it into the bowl. Read Luke 23:27. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed Jesus' followers as well as the bitterness of our own sin.

5. Add 1 cup sugar. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because of His great love for us. He wants us to know and belong to Him. Read Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16

6. Beat with mixer on high for 12-15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3. Explain that the color white represents the purity of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.

7. Fold in the broken nuts. Drop by teaspoons onto a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper (or parchment). Read Matt. 27:57-60. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.

8. Place the cookie sheet into the preheated oven. Close the door and turn the oven OFF. Give each child a piece of tape to seal the oven door. Read Matt 27:65-66. Explained that Jesus' tomb was sealed.

9. Go to bed. Read John 16:20 and 22. Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers were very sad when the tomb was sealed.

10. On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are empty!! On the first Easter Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. Read Matt 28:1-9. HE HAS RISEN!!!

John 3:30

It is not a bold or poignant statement to say that one of the defining questions of Christianity is "who are you living for?" Our ultimate allegiance in life is the grand overarching question of our faith.

But the difficult part of "living for God" is in all the details that accompany it. You see, living for God means NOT living for myself. And even though I'll intellectually sign off on that quickly, the real nitty-gritty applications that it has on my life aren't as easy.

Here's one: I like being made much of. I like being recognized for my accomplishments. I like being honored and glorified. For being a nice guy, a good athlete, an intelligent thinker, a good communicator, a caring friend, a diligent and talented worker. In my shameful moments I love the thought of people leaving a conversation with me saying to one another, "Wow, he is really wise and well-spoken, huh?" or "You know, if everyone were that selfless and caring the world would be a better place."

You all know what I'm talking about. My personal desire for self aggrandizement may exceed your own, but it is not wholly different. This verse, John 3:30 is one that my soul often fights against.

"He must become greater; I must become less."

I'm ashamed to say that at my core, I don't really want to become less. I want to become greater. But that's not the way faith works, as I grow genuinely in faith Christ is more and more exalted in my life while at the same time, I am less and less concerned about my own glory and recognition.

In our bad moments, when our guard is down, we all naturally want our church, or ourselves, or our business to be honored, glorified, revered, applauded. But when it's all over, none of that matters. Dave Cover once said something along these lines during a staff meeting, "Nothing could more futile than living for the glory of The Crossing."

The Crossing will pass away, K-Life, Young Life, Campus Crusade, State Farm Insurance, the University of Missouri, every establishment we work for and believe in will pass away. You and I will pass away. At the end of it all they are not significant. But God and his glory is. Let us live for that. For in living for Him alone can we find signifance.

Is the Cross Unjust?

In response to my post last week on the importance of the resurrection, I received this honest and thoughtful comment: “I've had discussions with various friends who tell me that Jesus's death as well as the Old Testament scriptures makes it seem like we have a God that requires blood sacrifice to be happy. That seems really pagan and messed up to a lot of people, so how do we resolve this?” Since many people, including some confessing Christians, express doubts and even objections to the idea of God requiring Christ’s painful and bloody death on the cross as payment for our sins, this is an important question. And what better time than Good Friday to talk about Christ’s death? So here are a few thoughts that I think bear on the issue.

One place we might begin is to consider an oft-quoted portion of C. S. Lewis’ essay “God in the Dock,” found in the outstanding collection that bears the same name (note that the “dock” in an English courtroom is the place where the accused sits):

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock.

I bring this up because it introduces an important point. If the biblical God really exists, he is the sovereign Lord over all creation. He is also the definitive standard of both righteousness and love. In fact, we wouldn’t even have any meaningful notion of what these things were if not for him. So then, the question needs to be respectfully raised: what justification might we have to object to his requiring a sacrifice of blood for sin? Put more broadly, what right do we have to stand in judgment of God? With what standard will we take his measure and find him lacking?

On the other hand, if God exists, but he’s not always represented accurately in the Bible, how can we know him? Who gets to decide what God is and isn’t like? Do we leave it to every person to form his or her own opinion? How then do we judge between conflicting views? Should we rather leave it to a group of scholars to sift through the errors and falsities of the Bible and pronounce authoritatively on who God is? But then what do we do with the tendency for each generation of such scholars no longer tethered to the biblical witness to find God to be very similar to their own image? Can we trust in these pictures? Won’t a new generation challenge the prevailing view soon enough?

Considering a third alternative: if we claim God’s supposed bloodthirsty nature is an argument that he does not exist, we run into still another problem: where do we get our notions of just and unjust, right and wrong, good and bad, etc. Lewis is again illustrative here. Concerning the charge he had once leveled at God, he writes this in Mere Christianity:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

Substitute the word “God” for “universe” and the force of Lewis’ argument is brought to bear on our own question. If you dismiss God’s existence on the basis that it would be too cruel and unjust to subject his Son to horrifying suffering on the cross, where will you find any suitable foundation on which to support your view of justice in the first place? Who or what determines what is just in a world without God?

All these arguments are admittedly presented in their barest form. And while I believe them all to have a great deal of force in the end, we would do well to consider their ability to answer various objections, a task beyond the limits of this post. At a bare minimum, however, I hope to suggest that taking God to task for requiring Christ’s blood as atonement for sin is not so easily done.

Having said all of that, I do want to affirm that both the OT and NT present the idea that a sacrifice of blood is needed to deal with our sin against God—with the OT examples actually pointing forward to their ultimate fulfillment in Christ shedding his own blood on the cross. Moreover, I would argue that God’s sending his Son to be crucified makes a great deal of sense when placed in the larger biblical framework, a framework that (1) portrays God’s own holiness and righteousness, as well as his sovereign and rightful claim on our allegiance, as being much more profound than we might otherwise think (see, for example, Psa. 96:9; Isa. 6:1-5; Rev. 4:11, 15:3-4), and (2) maintains that our sin against him is consequently a very, very serious matter, justly deserving God’s wrath and ultimately our death (Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 6:23). Not incidentally, this is why so many people are shown in the Bible to be scared spitless when confronted with God’s holy and glorious presence.

But though these things are central and non-negotiable in the biblical perspective, they don't present us with the entire picture. The God whose righteous nature issues in his deliberate and appropriate wrath against sin is also repeatedly described as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (see Exo. 34:6; Psa. 103:8; Jonah 4:2, etc.). Further, the apostle John can even make the incredibly significant assertion that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

This leads to the central tension of the biblical storyline: how can God demonstrate both his righteousness, which relentlessly demands a just payment for sin, and his love and mercy toward people who stand guilty of rebellion against him? His solution to this dilemma is the cross. Paul explains in a crucially important passage of his letter to the Romans:

For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:22-26)

Though page after page could be written on the significance of these verses, I’ll make only three important points:

1. Because of his righteousness, God cannot pass over sins forever. He must deal with them (v.26).

2. God therefore put forth Jesus as a “propitiation” (NIV: "atonement") by his blood. The word denotes a sacrifice for the satisfaction of wrath. Christ's death on the cross fully met his righteous requirement of punishment for sin. (Indeed, it was the only sacrifice available to us that could do so--see Hebrews 10).

3. God did this so he could be both “just,” in that he exacted the proper payment for sin, and the “justifier,” the one who, motivated by his mercy and love and solely on the merit of his Son, accepts those who place their faith in Christ as perfectly righteous in his eyes and consequently no longer deserving of punishment (see Rom. 5:1; Eph. 1:7, 2:4-9; 2 Cor. 5:21)

Seen in this light, God sending his beloved Son to the cross is revealed as nothing like blood soaked barbarism. It is instead a carefully purposed act of both perfect justice and astounding mercy, the very heart of the good news that is the biblical gospel.

Why Pray If God Elects?

I received an email from a woman who used to attend The Crossing but now she and her husband live elsewhere. She opens the email by telling me how she is leading a Bible Study with 12 women and only 4 of them are Christians. Then she writes this…

“If God has ultimately predestined each person before the beginning of man, then why should I spend time on my knees and investing in all of these relationships with women that don't know Him? Again, I know it's a lie but I can't find the truth.... I am sacrificing what little time I have with my husband in hope that these women come to a saving faith in Christ. Why, if ultimately it isn't their choice? I know God is sovereign and I know that it's not for me to decide what is just and fair... but how should I as a believer be spending my time in a way that is pleasing to Him?”

Here’s my answer…

It is great to hear that God is using you in your new city. Your heart for people is as strong as ever, and you continue to ask good questions. I think the question you’re asking this: “If God sovereignly chooses or elects those who will believe in him, then why should I sacrifice my time to pray and share the gospel with people? After all, won’t he bring to faith those he has chosen whether or not I pray for them and share Christ with them.”

Let me take a stab at answering that question by giving you 7 reasons that prayer and outreach are compatible with God’s sovereign and unconditional election.

But first let me briefly define the term “unconditional election.” In his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem defines it this way: “Election is an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them [this is the reason it is called “unconditional”—God’s choice is not based on a person’s faith], but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.

1. God’s election motivated Paul to endure great suffering.

2 Timothy 2:10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

Now think for a moment about all that Paul endured. According to 2 Corinthians 11 he suffered imprisonments, countless beatings, and was often near death. On five different occasions he was subjected to 39 lashes by the Jewish authorities, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was shipwrecked. And the list goes on and on and on. So Paul believed that the normal way that the elect came to faith is through the labors of Christians and sometimes even through their sufferings.

2. God’s election motivates us to “stay the course” in ministry.

Acts 18:9-11 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city." So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

Now if election meant that our efforts and ministry didn’t matter, we’d expect Paul to say something to the effect of, “Well since God has people in this city, I guess that I will head somewhere else.” But Paul does the exact opposite. He stays and ministers another eighteen months. Why? Because he knows that divine election doesn’t in any way negate his need to minister to people.

3. God’s election doesn’t negate the significance of secondary causes.

Do you think that God knows when you will die? Of course you do because God knows all things before they happen. In Psalm 139:16 we learn that all of our days were written in God’s book before one of them ever happened. So let me ask you another question, “Why do you breathe. Or eat. Or look both ways before walking across a busy street” In other words, if God knows exactly when you will die, then why do you do the things that keep yourself alive? Aren’t those things rendered unnecessary by the fact that God has already established the day you will die?

My guess is that you’d say that you breathe and eat and take common cautions because those are the means that God uses to sustain your life. Intuitively, you understand that God’s sovereignty over your living and dying doesn’t render your actions useless, nor does it promote irresponsibility. Well in a similar way, God has already established who will come to faith in Jesus but prayer and personal outreach are the means he uses to bring about their faith. God’s sovereignty over salvation doesn’t render your ministry useless, nor does it lead to apathy if it is properly understood.

4. God’s election didn’t stop Jesus from calling people to faith.

Matthew 11:25-30 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Jesus affirms that God hides truth to some and reveals it to others. And then in the very next verse, Jesus issues a call for people to come to him in faith. Jesus didn’t believe that God’s sovereignty in salvation alleviated Christians’ responsibility to share the gospel, nor did it alleviate a person’s responsibility to believe the gospel.

5. God’s election didn’t stop Paul from calling the church to pray for the progress of the gospel.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you.

Notice that within just a few verses of each other Paul could discuss the fact that salvation was due to God’s choosing and yet ask the church to pray for the success of his ministry efforts. So clearly the fact that God chooses (or elects) some for salvation didn’t lead him to prayerlessness.

6. God’s election actually motivates us to pray for people’s salvation.

If God does not sovereignly elect people to salvation, then it doesn’t make any sense to pray for their salvation. For just a moment let’s say that a person’s salvation is left up to him alone. In other words, God gives the person freedom to believe or not believe but he doesn’t cause them to believe. If that were the case, why would you pray and ask God to cause the person to believe? Why would you ask God to make the person a Christian?

It only makes sense to ask God to do things that you believe he does. If God doesn’t cause a person to believe the gospel, then don’t ask him to do just that. But here’s the rub: When you pray you often ask God to cause a friend, a classmate, or a family member to become a Christian. And rightly so. But what we find is that your prayers reveal that you believe that it is God and not the individual who ultimately determines whether someone believes the gospel.

Here’s how John Piper puts in The Pleasures of God…

“People who really believe that man must have the ultimate power of self-determination, can’t consistently pray that God would convert unbelieving sinners. Why? Because if they pray for divine influence in a sinner’s life, they are either praying for a successful influence (which takes away the sinner’s ultimate self-determination), or they are praying for an unsuccessful influence (which is not praying for God to convert the sinner). So either you give up praying for God to convert sinners or you give up ultimate human self-determination.”

7. God’s election should bring us great comfort and hope.

J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God…

“While we must always remember that it is our responsibility to proclaim salvation, we must never forget that it is God who saves. It is God who brings men and women under the sound of the gospel, and it is God who brings them to faith in Christ. Our evangelistic work is the instrument that He uses for this purpose, but the power that saves is not the instrument: it is in the hand of the One who uses the instrument. We must not at any stage forget that. For if we forget that it is God’s prerogative to give results when the gospel is preached, we shall start to think that it is our responsibility to secure them. And if we forget that only God can give faith, we shall start to think that the making of converts depends, in the last analysis, not on God, but on us, and that the decisive factor is the way in which we evangelize.”

Here’s a Film Tip for You…

Perhaps the one film I’ve enjoyed most this past year is a not-so-well-known gem called The Visitor. It’s actually a 2007 film that my wife and I saw at the Ragtag in 2008. Lead actor Richard Jenkins was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Visitor, playing a depressed widowed professor who discovers an immigrant couple squatting in his Manhattan flat, and he reluctantly, then enthusiastically, becomes wrapped up in their lives.

That doesn’t sound like a very compelling plot for a great film, but au contraire my friend. If you like to watch good acting, great directing, a thoughtful script with slower dialogue containing realistic, at-times awkward, silences where moral and spiritual and ontological wrestling is taking place within—where real human relationship and soulishness is explored and developed—you’ll love this film as my wife and I did. There are no sex scenes or gratuitous exploitations of sexuality (it’s rated PG-13 for brief strong language), so it’s safe for kids. But it is perhaps too deep and slow moving to keep even older kids’ interests. I think more thoughtful teens will enjoy this film too. Jeannette and I were enthralled from beginning to end.

So I highly recommend this film to you. It is not a Christian film, or a film containing any kind of subversive Christian message. But it does have themes that are certainly worth discussing as realistic to the gospel and the realities of the human condition. How does this film show us more of what it means to be human? To have a soul? To value others as human beings created in the image of God? To love? To live in community? The desire to sacrifice for others? To have a need for artistic expression and creativity? How does this film better show us certain realities of human fallenness? That we are a glorious ruin as human beings created in the image of God but fallen? And there are other good questions to be asked and discussed as well. Watch it with others who enjoy thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation. Watch it at a time where you are free from distractions. Watch it on a good TV if you can that shows well the details of facial expressions. Watch it.

The True Color of Our Environment

You have probably seen many optical illusions before. Usually it is pretty easy to see how they work. I ran across one, however, that I still have a hard time believing is real. Have you ever seen this picture before? The squares labeled 'A' and 'B' are actually the same color.

If you don't believe it, click here to see proof that they are, indeed, the same shade of gray.

This picture is designed to illustrate one simple thing: the environment an object is in shapes how we view it.

This is true of most things in life. The first example that should spring immediately to everyone's mind is the recent trip the MU basketball team took to the Sweet 16. Remember back to the lead that Mizzou held over Memphis. With 2:15 left in the game we were up 6 points. Yet not a single Mizzou fan in the country was happy about the situation.

Why not? If you would have told me before the game that while playing for a chance to go to the elite eight against a top 5 team with the most wins in the country, the longest active winning streak, and some of the most athletic players in college basketball we would be holding a 6 point lead with 2:15 left I would have been ecstatic. But not one of us was in a good mood at the moment. (Don’t lie to yourself, you were as nervous as everyone else). The reason we were scared and not ecstatic is the context of the moment. Sure, we were ahead 6, but just 5 minutes prior we were ahead 12, and 8 minutes prior to that we were ahead 24. The 6 point lead didn’t seem so exciting when it was placed in the context of a 24 point point lead. We viewed it in a different shade of gray.

Another example of this truth at work is the perception we have of our own goodness. You and I are used to comparing ourselves to those around us: our friends, our family, our fellow church-goers, our colleagues. We see the standard of morality and righteousness (and sinfulness) that is par for the course and rank ourselves in comparison to that average. In certain circles the average is a little higher than in others. For example, if you or I were to drop into a mess hall of prison inmates, we may be the shining beacons of moral goodness in the room. Our gray may look very close to white. However, if we were dropped into a room of nuns serving with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, we might be a little less eager to share the naked truth of our moral condition. Our gray may look a little darker amongst the company.

CS Lewis (in a passage I cant currently find) asks a fascinating question: What if the moral expectations of our world as a whole has fallen so low that what passes for incredible moral achievement here would be the bare minimum expectation of decency in a more normal world? What if what passes for moral decency here - par for the course - would be viewed with disgust in a world that is functioning properly?

The truth of the matter is much closer to his suggestion than we ever realize. We are far more sinful than we know. The standard of God’s holiness is far more perfect than we can imagine. Acts of kindness and generosity that makes us proud of ourselves in this world are viewed from heaven as sad little attempts at righteousness that fall profoundly short of God’s intended design for human interaction.

We are surrounded by shades of gray that make us feel as though we are far whiter than we truly are. If we could see ourselves in the ACTUAL context of REAL righteousness – next to the blindingly bright purity of Christ - we would be appalled and ashamed at how dark, ugly and dirty we really are. We would be mortified.

I wouldn’t know this is true unless I had access to the revealed word of God. I would look around this world, I would study my context, my environment and conclude that I was a pretty good guy after all. I would have no notion of the idea that everything about our existence on this fallen planet is abnormal. I would think it is par for the course and that my pathetic little attempts at righteousness were heroic achievements. I would be confident that if God were to look in on my life he would be pleased. I would say idiotic things like "I am a pretty good person."

Thank God for his word. Thank God for the message of the gospel. Thank God for revealing to me my true condition so that I can say with Paul, “What a retched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death, from the true color of my sinful soul?”

But so that I can also say, with Paul and all the saints through history who got it, who saw the true color of their soul and ran desperately to the God of grace,

“Thanks be to God for the white robe of Christ that covers my dark sin.”

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete… (Rev 6:11)

Wendell Berry on Machines

Wendell Berry writes in his essay, Feminism, the Body, and the Machine, about another essay he wrote in Harpers in which Berry details his reasons for not choosing to buy a computer. Harpers received several critical responses from readers of Berry's piece and Feminism, the Body, and the machine is a response to his critics. The essay was written in 1989 but is timely today. Berry's themes are exactly what the title would indicate; he responds to feminism, how to body and work interact, and what the machine is doing to human life, which were also the main themes of his criticism. I think the essay is worth reading. Please overlook the irony that I am blogging about someone who refused to buy a computer.

Berry writes:

"... But a computer, I am told, offers a kind of help that you can't get from other humans; a computer will help you to write faster, easier, and more. For a while it seemed to me that every university professor I met told me this. Do I, then, want to write faster, easier, and more? No. My standards are not speed, ease, and quantity. I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with a pencil, I have written too fast, too easily, and too much. I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine."

This quote struck me as something wonderful because it deals in questioning the underlying assumptions of our culture. It brings up this itching feeling that we have been using the word "need" all wrong. We may not "need" what we think we need. In fact, we may simply want it, and our wanting may be undoing things that should not have been undone.

A culture's technological advances serve its idols. Computers make sense for a lot of reasons, one of which being that our culture idolizes speed, ease, and quantity. Living Christianly in such a culture means living in such a way that questions the underlying assumptions, and finding a way to live under the rule of the real God, not the rule of smaller ones. The Church ought to be different, and anyone who really experiences the Church should experience that difference as something incredibly beautiful - because the difference sifts down like snow from a God who is incredibly beautiful. That challenge lays a question at our feet: how different will we be and why?

Making Ourselves Do Things We Don't Want To Do

I was always taught that self-discipline was a matter of will. I'm not so sure that's completely right anymore.

It's 1:30 am on Friday night/Saturday morning. I have a long to-do list this weekend. Heck, I had a long to-do list last week for that matter, and all those boxes sure aren't checked. You know what I'm talking about. You've got that list too. I know what I'm supposed to do. The problem is this: I just don't wanna.

My "don't wanna" list is full of duties that wear me down and burden me. Do you feel that way? Many of us identify with Cicero, Maximus' servant in Gladiator. When asked if he ever finds it hard to do his duty, he responds: "Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to."

Do you feel enslaved to the "I don't wannas?" Do you feel like the city walls of your life have been stormed and taken hostage by an ever-increasing list of duties and responsibilities? The "sometimes" seem so few, and the "rest of the times" seem so many.

The "don't wannas" are easy enough for each of us to see in our lives. Wash the car. Do the dishes. Take out the trash. Be nice to my wife even though I've had a bad day, week, or decade. Exercise. Tithe. Read the bible. Work. Play with the kids.

I don't think the solution is "suck it up." That's basically what most of us were taught. "Life stinks. It's mundane. Quit whining and do what you've got to do. Nobody likes it, but this is just the way life is."

I say hogwash.

My God didn't create me to be mundane or insignificant. He didn't create me to pursue life-less, joy-less duty. Many moments in life feel tedious and pointless. But they're not. The Apostle Paul says this: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." ~ 1 Corinthians 10:31

God's solution isn't at its core, "suck it up." It's "believe that I have a plan." "Have faith that I have a purpose for your life, one that is glorious and significant." All of our moments can be used to glorify God. Don't waste them.

But does that mean that we'll never run into something we don't want to do? Of course not.

The issue, once again, is faith. We have faith that our discipline at the gym will pay dividends months or years down the road. We don't see results tomorrow or the next day. Likewise, when we discipline ourselves to read God's Word daily, we are putting our trust in a promise that God will do something in our hearts, that he is changing us. When we are disciplined with our money, being generous givers, we are trusting that God's plan for our finances is better than our own.

Self-control and self-discipline are vital to the Christian life. The Apostle Paul is a great example for us in that way: "But I discipline my body and keep it under control...(1 Corinthians 9:27)" But discipline does not come from my will and strength alone. It comes from trusting in what God has for me, in having faith that his will and plan are best.

The Vital Importance of the Resurrection

I could be wrong, but I think it would be fair to say that most evangelical Christians, if asked to give a very brief description of what Jesus accomplished, would be initially inclined to say something like “he died for our sins.” This hunch is supported by the fact that the universally recognized symbol of our faith is the cross, the very instrument of death on which Jesus forfeited his life. And there is nothing inherently wrong with this perspective. After all, the Bible itself sometimes points to Jesus’ death on the cross as a summary of the gospel (see, e.g., Mark 10:45, 1 Cor. 2:2 etc.).

But while I don’t think we as Christians can overemphasize the cross, I wonder if we sometimes fail to appreciate the significance of the resurrection. That statement might seem ridiculous at first glance. But ask yourself this: if you had to explain to a friend why it was important for Jesus not just to die, but also to be raised to new life, what would you say?

For help with all of this, we’d do well first to turn to the apostle Paul, particularly his extensive treatment of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. Consider first his startling statement in v. 14: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” He continues in v. 17-19: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Make no mistake, says Paul, the resurrection means everything. If it didn’t happen, the whole game is up. His preaching is meaningless and those who believe it are all living a tragic lie.*

*As an aside, Paul’s assertions form one of the most powerful reasons why it’s simply not tenable for someone to say, “No, I don’t believe in Christ’s resurrection, but I don’t need that for my Christian faith to be meaningful”—a statement commonly originating from scholars (and others) in the inevitable throng of TV and magazine treatments of Jesus during the Easter season.

Why is Paul so exercised on this point?:

1. The resurrection the open declaration by God that Jesus is who he claimed to be, including that he was the Messiah or Christ (the two words mean the same thing in Hebrew and Greek respectively), titles that point to his status as God’s agent of salvation on behalf of his people. This is why Peter, after a long discussion of Jesus’ resurrection, says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36, my emphasis). Why listen to Jesus? Why pay attention to what he did? Because he was once clearly dead, but now he lives again.

2. Related to this is Paul’s assertion that Jesus was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Tom Schreiner, in his commentary on this verse in the ESV Study Bible, explains succinctly: “When God the Father raised Christ from the dead, it was a demonstration that he accepted Christ’s suffering and death as full payment for sin, and that the Father’s favor, no longer his wrath against sin, was directed toward Christ, and through Christ toward those who believe. Since Paul sees Christians as united with Christ in his death and resurrection (6:6, 8-11; Eph. 2:6: Col. 2:12; 3:1) God’s approval of Christ at the resurrection results in God’s approval also of all who are united to Christ, and in this way results in their ‘justification.’”

3. Returning to 1 Corinthians 15, Paul also notes, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ “ (vv. 21-22). Because Christ has been raised, so also will those who are united to him by faith (i.e., those who are “in him”) be resurrected to a new life. This is why Paul describes Christ as the “firstfruits,” the first sampling of the full crop and thus an indication of what was to follow. The resurrection is a witness to the fact that all Christians will one day taste what Christ experiences now.

4. And what is that? Paul give us a tantalizing glimpse. Our bodies, now perishable, dishonorable, weak, and merely natural, will one day be raised imperishable, in glory and power, enlivened and directed by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 15:42-45). Our frailties, fears, and frustrations will all be gone. Paul continues: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (vv. 51-56).

Doubtless more could be said. But hopefully the above will help us to remember, particularly in this Easter season, why an empty tomb witnessed nearly 2000 years ago is such a big deal indeed.

The Power of Forgiveness

If you were at the Mens' Breakfast earlier this year, then you heard Scott Meyers say that one of the key events that changed his thinking about Christianity and eventually led him to becoming a Christian was the way that the Amish community in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania forgave the family of the man who killed five girls (6-13) before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.

There is something powerful in forgiveness that touches the human soul. Most of us have a difficult time forgiving others for relatively small wrongs so it is amazing to watch forgiveness play out when it involves something as serious as the loss of life. When people watch Christians forgive, they ask themselves questions like, "Could I forgive someone who did that to me?" or "Where do they get the ability and power to forgive like that?"

You probably heard that pastor Fred Winters was fatally shot while preaching during the first service of The First Baptist Church in Maryville, IL on March 8. What you may not be aware of is that his widow, Cindy Winters, was recently on the CBS morning show to discuss the event and explain that she and her kids have forgiven the killer and are even praying for him. The video is below and well worth watching.

Before you watch it, here are a couple of thoughts that I had after viewing it.

1. Is there anyone that I need to forgive or ask forgiveness from?

2. Is it right (and biblical) to forgive someone who hasn't admitted wrongdoing or even asked for it? For that answer (along with a lot of other great information) I recommend that you read Chris Braun's book Unpacking Forgiveness. You can get it online or at the church bookstore.