Considering Intentionality in Evangelism

I was confused by the beginning of Mark Bechtle’s chapter, Intentional Sharing, in Evangelism for the Rest of Us. It is a story of unintentional sharing. It was the story of a plane ride during which the passenger next to him kept asking questions. He does make a good point, be prepared and responsive to opportunities that God provides. That isn’t intentional sharing, or at least not what I think about when I hear the term.

“Our job is to genuinely love the people in our lives and share the experiences of life with them.”

He affirms much of what he’s been saying throughout the book. He adds that “we need to be intentional about our efforts” but doesn’t really help us think that through. For him, a large part of intentionality is about the need to be prepared. This is pretty much what I covered in my previous post.

He does mention a job he had in which everyone was asked to develop an “elevator speech.” A concise, thoughtout speech you could give to let people know “What you do?”. He applies this to “What is Christianity?” We should prepare ahead of time by having just such a brief articulation about the heart of Christianity. Or come up with a tweet that captures the essence of Christianity.

Applying triperspectivalism to this we can have three types of prepared messages to draw upon.

Normative: what does the Scripture say? Develop a few as mentioned previously: the Roman Road, The Great Story (a history of God’s dealing w/humanity: creation, fall, redemption, glory), or other.

Existential: how did God work in my life? This is your testimony, however unexciting. You may have grown up in the church, but at some point you owned it even if it was not dramatic. This connects the gospel with your life.

Situational: how has God sustained me? This connects the gospel message (normative) and your life (existential) with circumstances in the life of the person you are talking with. It can be as simple as “the political chaos drags me down at times, but then I remember ….”. Or it can be a story of finding hope in the midst of loss, affliction etc. Be honest about your struggle with sin and/or misery. What you are looking for here are entry points for the gospel.

Bechtle wants us to make friends intentionally. Apart from making friends with non-Christians you’ll be limited to talking with people on the plane or clerks at stores. It bears repeating: genuine friendships, not repent or I won’t be your friend pseudo-relationships. We had friends in FL with whom we’d share the gospel when opportunities arose. The change in our friendship came because we moved, not because they didn’t repent and believe like we’d hoped.

So…

1. Choose to be around non-Christians. They aren’t lepers! And you shouldn’t be a Pharisee (see Luke 15 and the parables of the lost things).
2. Remember it is a team effort. If they are in your life they may meet others who are in your life who will also communicate the gospel to them.
3. Build trust. You aren’t a salesman, so consistently love them before offering the gospel in a way which comes off as weird and unnatural. Don’t try too hard. “This pretzel reminds me of the Trinity….”.
4. Be patient. It may take years of faithful witness. It will also take time for you to develop skills in evangelism. I tell my kids, every good thing takes practice. You don’t master anything in 3 hours. It takes thousands of hours.
5. Find your own voice. I tell  this to young preachers too. You aren’t x, y or z. You are you. God made you to speak truth, and who you are will shape it to some degree. I believe it was Stott who called preaching “truth through personality.” Your personality & experiences will also shape your evangelism. But if you’re using Chick Tracts, repent.
6. Be involved in community life, not just church community life.
7. Leave a trail of bread crumbs. Don’t hide that you are a Christian. When appropriate mention church. “My pastor loves that restaurant.” “Our community group at church was discussing that last week.”
8. Point people to Jesus. We are like floodlights, helping people see the One who matters. He is the hero of the story, not you.

One thing I’d like to add. Ask permission. Don’t just launch into your gospel presentation at any opportunity. Try something like “I’ve struggled with that too. My faith in Christ helped me through that struggle. Can I tell you about that?” You are respecting their boundaries, loving them. They will be more likely, from a human perspective, to listen than if you force the message on them.

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Considering Good and Angry

We all struggle with anger. It is part of the human experience. Some of us struggle more than others. And our struggle may be different. Some people struggle to show anger. Others are always a road rage incident waiting to happen. Books about anger are varied in their approach and their quality.

Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness by David Powlison is a new book about anger. It is one of the better books on the subject of anger.

He begins by identifying our problem with anger. It isn’t simply the guy with the red face, huffing and puffing while he yells at everyone. Anger is more nuanced than that. It is also expressed in irritation, frustration, complaining and arguing. When we have a more appropriate, more encompassing definition we see that we all have anger issues. He describes the various relationships we have with anger, and the lies we can believe about our anger. He spends time explaining that this book really is about you, and everyone else.

He then explains anger as a function of love. If you never get angry you really don’t love anything or anyone. This is why God gets angry: He loves. He loves His people. He also loves all that is good and holy. Anything that harms His people or violates His goodness is subject to His anger. He responds with anger. Because He is righteous, His anger is always in the proper measure and about the proper things. Ours? A mixed bag. Sometimes we are angry because our “rules” are broken, our kingdom threatened; not God’s. Or our anger is too much or too little for the sin in question.

This means that anger is “natural”, a part of being in the image of God. But like that image, it is now distorted because of our sinfulness.

Powlison moves into the constructive displeasure of mercy. It “holds out promises of forgiveness, inviting wrongdoers to new life.” Anger can motivate to destroy sin. But it can also motivate us in constructive directions like patience and forgiveness. Anger isn’t always given the final word, sometimes that word is forgiveness.

“God is love, and God is slow to anger. He intends to make us like himself. To be slow to anger means you are willing to work with wrong over time.”

He distinguishes, quite helpfully, between attitudinal forgiveness and transacted forgiveness. The first is about you. It does not require the other person to ask for forgiveness. It is about letting them off the hook, absorbing the loss so you no longer want to destroy them. This enables you to approach them to reconcile which is the essence of transacted forgiveness: reconciliation. You can forgive without being reconciled (with an abuser for instance). Remembering that it requires two to be reconciled, you can forgive even though the other person doesn’t want to be reconciled or admit they’ve done anything wrong.

“The attitudinal forgiveness means you can always deal with things that poison your own heart. Transacted forgiveness and actual reconciliation are desirable fruits, but not always attainable.”

He then moves into two other aspects of constructive displeasure: charity and constructive conflict. Charity is, in some ways, hard love or love in hard times. You continue to seek what is best for the other person. Constructive conflict moves toward the person to do that hard work of not simply reconciling, but addressing the sin that sabotages the relationship.

The chapter entitled Good and Angry? focuses on God and His anger. His anger fills the Bible because the Bible is filled with humanity’s rebellion. Our anger does not need to be suppressed, but remade, redeemed. He then moves to James 4 to help us explain why we get angry. We are looking out for ourselves and our kingdoms. I noted in my margin that “we are all Frank Underwood building our own house of cards.” He then moves us to the reality that God gives more grace and what change looks like.

Powlison than proposes 8 questions to take your anger apart so you can be put back together. These questions are attempts to apply what he’d been talking about from James 4.

He then has a series of chapters on tough cases: forgiving unspeakable sins, the everyday angers, being angry with yourself and angry with God. This was, in my opinion, some of the best material in the book. He addressed topics that aren’t often addressed, at least helpfully.

While this is a very good book, I thought the real strength was in the second half of the book. He uses questions at the end of each chapter to help you process and apply the material. I need to go back over those questions. Since anger is such a common problem this would be a helpful book for pastors, elders, parents and just about everyone. It is accessible, easy to understand and helpful. It is a helpful addition for your library.

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Considering How We Perceive Public Figures

Year ago Charles Barkley made all kinds of waves with his “I am not a role model” commercial. It makes a pertinent point. Athletic ability is not to be confused with character. Although this commercial is over 20 years old, we still struggle with this concept.

Some athletes appear to be teflon. Their indiscretions and/or alleged crimes are quickly forgotten, or never earnestly discussed. Others face a lifetime of disdain from the public for their indiscretions and/or alleged crimes.

I used both terms because some people do some things that are morally evil but which are not crimes. For instance, when Tiger Woods crashed his car that day we learned that the man who is possibly the greatest golfer in history is also a sex addict and deviant. As far as we know he didn’t break any laws. His actions, however reprehensible, were between consenting adults.

And then there are the allegations against Kobe Bryant. Only God, Kobe and the hotel worker know what actually took place that night in Colorado. He managed to avoid criminal charges but it ended up costing him quite a bit of money, including that huge diamond to make atonement to his wife.

Neither Tiger nor Kobe are reviled today. At his last All-Star game this weekend, Kobe was applauded and honored. He was a great basketball player, and should be honored for that. Yet it also seems that we’ve somehow forgotten about that night in Colorado (and I’m sure he’s glad about that). Mike Tyson has some how become viewed as popular and desirable again even though he was convicted of rape (the actors in The Hangover were reported to be excited to work with him, but despised Mel Gibson). Director Truman Capote remains in Europe an admired artist with a statuary rape charge hanging over him. Bill Clinton survived numerous allegations and impeachment to remain a celebrity President.

Other athletes don’t have it so easily. Pete Rose is a divisive figure. There is a small group that wants to move on from his gambling on baseball, but most people seem to want his role as pariah to continue. Barry Bonds is still not liked by most baseball fans. John Edwards became politician non grata.

Why is it that we give some people a pass, and make others pay the rest of their lives?

It isn’t about how nice the celebrity or star appears. Tiger was never known for being congenial. Kobe doesn’t have a reputation for being an all-around great guy.

It isn’t about talent alone. Bonds was the greatest player of his generation but remains a largely hated figure.

This is quite the confusing conundrum. Why do we disremember (choose to forget) the indiscretions and crimes of some celebrities and public figures, but not others? We somehow omit these events when we talk about them. This is not just compartmentalization- separating their personal and professional lives. We don’t say x is a great athlete/politician/actor but a horrible person. We extend their greatness to include their character, even if it is not warranted.

Another interesting conundrum is the tipping point for particular celebrities and public figures. For years the rumors regarding Bill Cosby were ignored. Suddenly they began to matter. The man behind many beloved figures- Fat Albert, Dr. Huxtable and more- was suddenly one of our most hated men. Why do we suddenly re-remember, making those events a part of that person’s history again?

Some of that is shifts in public perceptions regarding the alleged offense. Sexual assault is now taken more seriously. But this doesn’t explain everything. The example would be Kobe. So perhaps it was the overwhelming number of allegations that sunk Cosby.

Another factor is the advent of social media. Stories that died rather quickly in the past can take on a life of their own now as people share information (whether fact or rumor) on Facebook, Twitter or blogs. This can impede our attempts to disremember. Or, in some cases, aid them thru mass disremembering as people reject the allegations.

We all have actions we regret; parts of our personal history that we want to omit. Some of us are haunted by them. Some of us are able to deceive ourselves into thinking those events never happened. For instance, in 2003 Val Kilmer played adult movie star John Hughes in Wonderland, which was about the murders in Hollywood connected with Hughes. The premise of the movie was that Hughes played a role in leading the killers to the house, and actually participated in the robbery and murders. He dis-remembered, telling himself it didn’t happen until he actually believed it. Some of us have mastered it in our personal lives.

As a Christian I have to deal with those parts of my story that are unpleasant. I can’t be haunted by them, but I can’t pretend they never happened either. Confessed to God, they are pardoned because of the work of Christ. When I remember them I have to also remember His pardoning work precisely so they don’t haunt me and control me. But I don’t pretend they don’t exist. I acknowledge them as a part of my story, the ugly part which displays the mercy and patience of God with me in Christ. I incorporate not only my sin but Christ into my story.

Public figures who are Christians can be honest about their pasts. They speak with regret, not gladness. But they have no need to hide it. They don’t need, nor do they need us, to disremember it.

We need to change our relationship with our heroes, and celebrities. Rather than compartamentalize or disremember, we can integrate their stories. We can see their virtues, and their foibles. We don’t have to expect them to be perfect, and we don’t have to deny their wrong-doing. But we can evaluate their wrong-doing. It is okay to get rid of your Aaron Hernandez shirt. There can be points beyond which you can’t go, so to speak. Our desire should be to know, and act upon, the truth. It should not be to deny the truth. We don’t need to “shut down” allegations, but rather evaluate available evidence as best we can.

The issue for us isn’t the avalanche of noise created by social media, or the media. The issue should not be the shifting sands of public morality. We don’t have to follow the crowd like a pack animal. We can be principled, wise and gracious. Being gracious is not ignoring the offense, but acknowledging it while determining this isn’t the sum total of the person. This also means that we treat others fairly, not favoring particular people and castigating others who’ve been alleged (or have actually done) far worse. This means we don’t ignore the allegations against Christians who are famous. In all cases we let the evidence speak, and then evaluate how we will respond to them. This is because no one is “all good” nor “all bad”.

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Considering Women of the Word

Our women’s ministry is called WOW- Women of the Word, indicating our desires for them to be women in whom the Word of Christ dwells richly. So when Crossway sent me a copy of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds by Jen Wilkin (ebook), I was a little intrigued.

Last year I brought our men through Bible Study so they would learn how to study and teach the Bible. WOW is much shorter, and seeks to address things from a woman’s perspective (lots of illustrations I wouldn’t understand) while also offering some warnings against “feminizing” it. She does want them to remember it was written to both men and women.

Overall I thought it was a good book to help women dig deeper into the Scriptures. She was quite clear, succinct (I could learn from this) and interesting (probably more so if I were a woman and was familiar with things like rhumba tights). Her study plan is really about depth and she makes some wise warnings about how this all takes time. Her goal is for women to use this method in their personal study or when studying a book of the Bible as a group.

She starts with what she calls a series of “turn arounds” or ways in which she was reading things wrong and needing to begin reading them. She also realized that the Bible is primarily about God (and secondarily about us), the mind matters because it transforms the heart. These are two important things to know or you will make the Bible into a self-help book meant to make you feel good. This is the ever-present danger of therapeutic moral deism.

“But our insecurities, fears, and doubts can never be banished by knowledge of who we are. They can only be banished by the knowledge of ‘I am.'”

Her second chapter is “The Case for Biblical Literacy”. She wants women to develop a working knowledge of the whole Bible, how it all fits together, instead of a patchwork understanding (similar to one developed by children’s SS lessons and a steady diet of topical preaching).

“Sound Bible study transforms the heart by training the mind and it places God at the center of the story. But sound Bible stud does more than that- it leaves the student with a better understanding of the Bible than she had when we started. Stated another way, sound Bible study increases Bible literacy.”

She lays out a few bad methods. In the Xanax approach, you are looking to take away bad feelings, and look for just the right passage. It makes the Bible about you instead of to you. There is the Pinball approach in which you bounce around like a pinball without any thought to the context and purpose (and therefore the meaning) of a text. There is the Magic 8 Ball approach where we simply look for what to do in a crisis rather than learning who we are to be in Christ. The Holy Spirit transforms us.

Bible literacy, she rightly argues, keeps us from falling into error. If we know the whole of Scripture we can notice if someone is abusing a part of Scripture. We will also be better prepared to answer the charges of our critics. Bible literacy is not developed overnight. It takes time to read for both breadth (devotionally) and depth (study). It takes reading the whole Bible repeatedly to see patterns, references and allusions to other passages. It takes years, and in our microwave society most people don’t want to invest that kind of time unless they grasp how important it is. Perhaps I’m weird, but no one told me to do this. I just did it.

Her plan or method is to study with the 5 P’s: Purpose, Perspective, Patience, Process and Prayer. Much of what she lays out is what a pastor regularly does in sermon preparation minus the crafting of said sermon.

Purpose is important. It is about understanding the purpose of the Scriptures AND the purpose of that particular portion of Scripture. As a whole the Bible is about redemption, a redemption story. Particular passages are stories of redemption within the story of redemption. They progressively reveal God’s greatness and the greatness of His plan. We begin to look for how each text fits into the whole text instead of viewing it as an isolated, independent text.

Perspective is asking questions of the text to understand its purpose which will help you understand its meaning in due time. This is the process of understanding the historical and cultural context of the particular book. We want to see it, as best we can, as the original audience did instead of just putting our 21st century American presuppositions and experience on the text. We did much of this in English class as we studied literature. Who wrote it? When? Why? To whom was it written? What genre or style?

Patience remembers that digging deep takes time and effort. It is applying the concept of delayed gratification to Bible study. We remember that our efforts have a cumulative effect. We will have to be patient with ourselves. We will fail. We will find reasons to not study on a particular day. We will discover we have grossly misunderstood texts. We will have to be patient with the process, refusing to take short cuts. There will be patience with our circumstances which may present hindrances to study. There will be plenty of reasons for patience.

“Could it be that feeling lost is one way God humbles us when we come to his Word, knowing that in due time he will exalt our understanding?”

Process is the main portion of the larger plan. This is the nitty-gritty. She wants women to own the text through lots of hard work. Owning it means understanding its original meaning, attempting to interpret it and then make application from it. She wants you to read it repeatedly so you notice the flow of the argument or story (depending on the genre). She wants you to break out the colored pencils/pens (on a copy of the text) to note verb tenses (yes, they matter), subjects and all that grammar jazz. Yes, she wants you to outline the passage and put notes in the margin of that copy of the text. She wants you to compare different translations and see why they differ (when they do). She wants you to crack open a dictionary to understand words that are used that you don’t commonly use. Yes, this is hard work and not always exciting but if we want to understand a text’s original meaning (what it says) it is necessary work.

We then move to interpretation or what the text means. She wants you to hold off on the commentaries until you develop your own interpretation. I’ve seen others say the same thing. Generally that is a good idea. But sometimes you do struggle with “what it says”. Commentaries aren’t just interpretations, but also help us get what it says because sometimes the text is hard to discern, or parts of it. It is important to read 2-3 commentaries so you don’t fall into a cult of personality (“well, Bultmann says” repeated ad nauseum). There is more hard work here: looking at cross references, paraphrasing and just plain thinking. Yes, sometimes you just sit there and think (also known as meditating on the Word of God).

Once you know what it says, and what it means you can ask how it applies. What am I to believe about God? What am I to believe about myself? What does God call me to do in dependence upon Him? This takes thinking about the text, myself and my circumstances.

Prayer is a short chapter. The point is we are to pray all through the process, knowing that we need the Spirit’s help to illuminate the Scriptures so we can understand the Word, ourselves and our circumstances (yes, I’m adding a little Frame to her thoughts).

She then has a chapter in which she demonstrates her process using James 1. This way you can see it in action and have a better idea of what she has been talking about. The book concludes with some encouragement for teachers in how to bring the fruit of this into a group setting, and then a call to seek God. The purpose of all this is to know God, not just gather information.

This is a good introduction. I would quibble with some of the books she recommends because of the theological commitments and method of interpretation used which I think distorts the Scriptures. Yes, I’m talking Dispensationalism. I’m not saying she is a dispensationalist particularly since focusing on the whole story is more of a covenantal perspective of Scripture (which focuses on the unity of Scripture). Just one of those weird things that passes through my mind.

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Considering The Morality of God in the Old Testament

One of the newer challenges to God and the Scriptures is to question the morality of God, particularly in the Old Testament. Both atheists and liberal theologians are finding this to be a fertile field right now. It is this challenge that Greg Beale meets in his booklet The Morality of God in the Old Testament.

He does not simply dismiss the charges made by others that God is essentially immoral to command acts often considered evil. His response is a mere 40 or so pages. It is not easy reading, but rises to the challenge. He lays out a 5-fold approach that he believes answers this problem. But first he mentions 2 common, but unsatisfactory, responses.

1. Wartime Ethics Are Legitimately Different from Peacetime Ethics. Tied into this is the fact that we tend to judge the Scriptures based on our wartime ethics. As late as Vietnam we had no problem engaging in carpet bombing. In more recent conflicts we are loathe to harm civilians (unless using drones) in policies that often put our soldiers at risk. We are concerned about perception and ignore the reality of the threat they face in conflict. But this booklet isn’t about that ethical dilemma. While it is common for us to speak of a wartime ethic, Scripture doesn’t seem to offer us one explicitly.
2. The Divine Command to Kill All Women and Children Is Not Meant to be Taken Literally.  Some argue that documents  from the ANE use exaggerated language in describing conquest similar to this. It refers essentially to thoroughly defeating the enemy. It functions as a rhetorical device. However, the Scriptures clearly indicate that particular people, like Rahab, were spared because they aligned themselves with Israel. Others escaped. So this argument does not seem to hold.

His proposed 5-fold approach tries to look at the problem from different angles. It is not a simplistic answer to the questions raised by atheists, agnostics and liberals. It is, I think, a thorough answer.

1. The Commands Demonstrate God’s Justice in Response to Their Immorality and Idolatry in a Unique Redemptive-Historical Circumstance. That is a mouthful! During Abraham’s years in the Promised Land, we are told the Canaanites’ sin was not yet full. God was not ready to judge them. See how patient He is with societies and cultures. It was not that Abraham’s family wasn’t big enough, but they hadn’t sinned enough yet. By the time of the conquest they had. God was not just giving Israel the land, but judging the Canaanites. This is unique because there is no other Promised Land that needs to be conquered. The commands were not binding, but tied to the circumstances of the conquest. He was using the Israelites to execute His justice against them (just as He would Assyria against the Northern Kingdom and Babylon, and later Rome, against Judah). Everyone died because everyone was guilty and part of an utterly corrupt culture.
2. The Commands Were to Remove Moral Uncleanness as Part of a Unique Redemptive-Historical Commission to Purify the Land as a Sanctuary. He goes back to the Garden and the Creation Mandate. Adam was to expand the borders of the Garden as a sanctuary for God. Israel was to treat the Land as a sanctuary. They were a corporate form of Adam as a kingdom of priests. After the conquest, the civil law laid out severe penalties for those guilty of similar sexual and cultic sins as the Canaanites.
3. God’s Sovereignty Justifies His Command to Annihilate the Canaanites. As the Scriptures teach, He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy and hardens whom He will harden. And judge too!. God is free to deal with us as He chooses. While we may be relatively better or worse that other people, in God’s eyes we are all sinners who fall short of His glory and have earned the wages of sin which are death. God is free to annihilate any nation He wants to annihilate. We usually see His patience and mercy, and therefore presume upon them as if they were required of Him.
4. God’s Command is an Anticipation of the End-Time Judgment of All People, and Thus a Suspension of the Expression of His Common Grace to Unbelievers during the Epoch of Israel. This is pretty much Kline’s intrusion ethic. This is an intrusion of the final judgment in which God will annihilate all who are not His. This is not the only type of the final judgment we see in Scripture. We also see the destruction of Samaria, Judah, Babylon, Assyria and other nations. There is evidence for this in how the NT uses the OT in judgment passages.
5. God’s Command and the Imprecatory Psalms Anticipate the End-Time Judgment When Love of the Unbelieving Neighbors Ceases. While we are to love our neighbor now, in the final judgment we will not love all our neighbors but only those who love Christ as we do. God’s mercy and patience toward unbelievers reaches an end. He reveals His holy hatred for sin and the wicked.

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Considering a Quick Trip Home

The deal is the deal.

Sometimes.

Because sometimes the deal changes.

My parents were supposed to visit us in NY for a few days. My father has some things he wanted to talk about. But when your mother has Alzheimer’s things can change. She wasn’t up for a long ride to New York, and she really wasn’t sure who she was going to visit.

My father called an audible, which was okay. I’m not really sure how to handle this development with my kids. I’m not sure how they will respond if they realize my mother has no idea who they are.

So I agreed to travel to them and spend a night at a friend’s house. My plan was to leave around 7 am. Man plans, and God laughs. No, nothing dramatic. I just wanted to do a few things before I left. I packed light, except for books.  I needed my caffeine fix so I made tea. I needed a travel much to keep it in so I borrowed one from my in-laws. By the time I wrote down the routes I wanted it was nearly 8 am. I was off. I could still make it to NH around lunchtime.

Just before I reached the end of Route 8, about 10 minutes away, I realized I forgot the book I was going to give to my father. I’d picked up an extra copy of Keller’s Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. I’m not sure he’d read it, but you never know what the Spirit might do. I knew that I should have taken it out the night before. Well, heading back wouldn’t cost too much head back and I really didn’t want to mail it. So I turned around. When I left, for real, it was 8:30. I didn’t see a cup holder, so I had to pull over to secure the travel mug because things were sliding around. Things just weren’t starting off well.

The radio in the Subee ( the nickname for  the Subaru) doesn’t have an aux jack, so I had to settle for the few stations. These were not good options. Mostly they were NPR. I learned quite a bit about Albany’s politics, including the stat that since 2000 10% of the state legislators have left due to corruption of one kind or another. I actually made pretty good time into Vermont. At times I got stuck behind the scenic drivers, the ones who drive 10-15 miles below the speed limit for unknown reasons. I recently read the Heidelberg Catechism on providence (actually I’m reading Kevin DeYoung’s book on it). I was neither patient, not thankful. I have a ways to go yet in this thing called sanctification.

When I finally took a sip of my tea, I made a shocking discovery. Teaffee! The coffee taste from the mug overpowered the taste of my tea. Not good, not good at all I say.

I had to change the station a few times to another NPR station, usually, as I made my way across Vermont. I often stop at a restaurant near the Quechee gorge. This time I was a little early for lunch when I arrived in Quechee. I tried to call my father to see if they had lunch plans but I had no service. That is another common problem alone Route 4 in Vermont. Shortly after getting on 89 I called my father and talked to him. We would be getting together for lunch. No more than 2 minutes after hanging up with him the highway became a parking lot. I had just passed an exit and was drawing near to a turn around. I quickly used my map app (thankfully I actually had service) and discovered a road that ran parallel to the highway to get me to the next exit. I turned around and got off the highway at the exit.

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Considering Future Glory in Marriage and Church

One of the phrases that sticks with me from The Meaning of Marriage is that of future glory. Keller points to places like Ephesians 5 to contemplate this idea of our future glory.

²⁵  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Jesus gave himself up for the church for a few reasons mentioned here (and others elsewhere). He sets her apart. He has cleansed her in order to present her to himself. Her new condition is one of splendor, without blemish. Paul is mentioning the future glory of the church. And this is to be the model for the husband, to consider the future glory of his own wife.

I’m currently editing my own book on marriage, and grappling with this passage. We tend to get stuck in the tension between their dignity as image bearers and their depravity as sinners. Each of us tends to err in one or the other extreme. We can focus on their dignity so much that we idealize them, worship them and don’t address the sin they do commit. It is almost like you remain forever in that infatuation phase when all you see is what is good about a person and not their faults and failings.

But most people who are married for any length of time tend to slowly drift toward the other extreme. Their failures and faults loom large since we see them on display regularly. We grow weary of these things, apart from grace.

This grace is two-fold. First, there is forgiveness. No marriage, or any relationship, can survive without forgiveness. It is like grace’s in-door plumbing system. It refreshes those how are guilty, and removes our “waste” from the relationship. Without it the relationship begins to look like one of those houses in Hoarders, filled with animal excrement, mold and filth. It is an assault on one’s senses. Forgiving one another is rooted in Christ’s atonement. Paul goes there at the end of Ephesians 4. Since we have received grace from God, we are to grace one another. We forgive because we have been forgiven!

Second, there is contemplating their future glory. Your spouse will not always remain as they are now. In our saner moments we notice how much God has changed them already. My wife sees this most clearly whenever we spend time with my family. I am increasingly less like them.

But we also need hope, and God provides that in passages like this. All of the members of Christ’s bride will appear before him in splendor, without blemish. We need to keep this thought before us. He or she will one day be just like Jesus in their character. Their personality will remain, in purified form, but they will no longer have their faults and failings. Their blemishes will be gone.

And one of the means that God uses to accomplish this, one set of circumstances in which he applies the work of Christ, is marriage. If you are married, this is probably the primary place. He has others, so if you are single don’t worry, he’ll apply them to you as well. You are one of the means as you increasingly treat their sin as Jesus does. Yes, you become a living representative of Jesus to them as one in whom the image of God is being restored. You are patient, merciful and yet firm with their sin. You call them out, AND to repentance on the basis of God’s mercy in Christ. You aren’t doing it to win an argument or keep them in their place so you can feel superior. You are pursuing their sanctification with humility and love.

In our community group recently I also applied this to our experience with the church. We often begin our time at a church in an infatuation phase. The pastor’s sermons are awesome, people friendly etc. Eventually we being to see their sin. We begin to be sinned against. What do we do? Depends. If we are not actively impacted by grace, we get angry and leave. But grace enables us to forgive the sins of the local church and contemplate (as well as pursue) her future glory.

⁶ And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1

Paul here contemplates that future glory with regard to the Philippian church. God is the one who began this, and will finish it. Paul rested in that. We need to as well. If we are sure of this, like Paul was, we can be patient and merciful with our fellow church members- forgiving them, correcting them, offering them mercy in the midst of their sin.

If we don’t, our church life will become like so many marriages: cold, distant, lifeless and ending in divorce.

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Winter 2010 Preaching Schedule

Yes, I can’t believe I had to type in 2010.  Only one more year to go, or is it 2?  I plan to be preaching for some time as God displays His patience and graciously calls people to repent and believe the Great New about His Son and Jesus’ work on the behalf of sinners.

January 17 Desert Springs Presbyterian Church Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

January 24 Frostproof ARP Church  Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

February 7 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach,  Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

February 14 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 1  The Runaway Prophet

February 21 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 2  The Grateful Prophet

February 28 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 3 The Repentant Prophet

March 7 Desert Springs Presbyterian Church  1 John 5:21

March 14 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 4  The Angry Prophet and the Gracious God

March 21 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, John 15:1-16  No Pain, No Gain

March 28 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach  1 Corinthians 5  Christ- the Passover Lamb

(Subject to change in accordance with the providence of God)

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Considering the Pastoral Search Process

A book I was reading this morning led to me to think some more of the process of searching for a new pastor, and the fact that it is a process.  If I get around to writing my book on the subject, I’m sure this will get in there.

Though the goal to find a pastor, churches should see the process as just as important as the outcome.  The process is about time, patience and love.

Some churches don’t give the search the proper time to work the process well.  They rush the process instead of seeing it as an important time to understand who they are, where they should probably be going, and how they should probably get there.  What often happens is they look for the guy who has the strengths the previous pastor lacked (if it didn’t end well), or a carbon copy of the previous pastor (if the pastor retired or left unexpectedly in a time of relative peace).  All this takes time, more than you can do in a 2-3 hour meeting once a week (if you’re lucky).  Committees need to invest larger chunks of time to work through these issues, and applicants.  I’d suggest Saturday afternoon or morning meetings- larger blocks of time to pray, think and plan.

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Considering Spurgeon on Waiting

This was sent to me by a church secretary when I sent my info in to apply.  Very nice lady.

Waiting, Not Running

“Truly my soul waits upon God: from Him comes my salvation.”

—Psalm 62:1

“Blessed posture! Waiting truly and only upon the LORD. Be this our condition all this day and every day. Waiting His leisure, waiting in His service, waiting in joyful expectation, waiting in prayer, and content. When the very soul thus waits, it is in the best and truest condition of a creature before his Creator, a servant before his Master, a child before his Father. We allow no dictation to God, nor complaining of Him; we will permit no petulance and no distrust. At the same time, we practice no running before the cloud and no seeking to others for aid: neither of these would be waiting upon God. God, and God alone, is the expectation of our hearts.

“Blessed assurance! From Him salvation is coming; it is on the road. It will come from Him and from no one else. He shall have all the glory of it, for He alone can and will perform it. And He will perform it most surely in His own time and manner. He will save from doubt, and suffering, and slander, and distress. Though we see no sign of it as yet, we are satisfied to bide the LORD’s will, for we have no suspicion of His love and faithfulness. He will make sure work of it before long, and we will praise Him at once for the coming mercy.”

— C.H. Spurgeon

“In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”—Isaiah 30:15

How little did I realize how much I needed to hear that today.  I sit and wait while a church interviews a few guys with more experience in a particular area.  The door is not closed, but it isn’t wide open either.

 

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Considering Job’s Desire for Death

Things take an ugly turn in Job 9-14.  Job’s friends continue to claim he suffers for his sin.  Job continues to declare his innocence.  This does not mean he thinks he is perfect- just that there is no sin he has hidden from God, no sin which he has refused to confess.  He upholds the righteousness of God, knowing he cannot argue (successfully) with God.  All he can do is plead for mercy.

Then we see an inkling of something:

“I despise my own life.” (9:12c)

“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.” (10:1

Job has something of a death wish.  On the one hand he wants vindication.  On the other he fears that God will destroy him.

Zophar the Naamathite chips in with the incomprehensibility of God, … and Job’s obvious sinfulness.  If Job will just repent God will let up and restore him.

Job essentially responds, mockingly, “you are the man, and all wisdom will perish with you.”  He laments his lousy group of counselors.  “Come on, Zophar, show me my sin!”

Finally he returns his comments to God.

“If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me until you anger has passed!”

Job basically wants God to finishe him off.  He can no longer bear the pain of this hardship and wants God to hurry up and end his life.

Have you ever felt that way?  No, not suicidal.  This is not Job wanting to take his own life.  This is Job wanting God to end his pain by ending his life.  Job is hitting bottom, and it is scary.  His patience and perseverence are on the verge of collapse.  He isn’t sure how much more he can take.

Thankfully, God doesn’t honor this request.  His plan is not to destroy Job- but to show that Job loves Him even when life isn’t grand.  He’s out to show that Job loves God more than he loved his kids, wife and possessions.  And Job is struggling with this, just like the rest of us.

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