Reading the Bible

I was listening to an XM radio program recently and a young woman called in for help with her problem. She was hooking up with a man who was married to another woman. She herself wasn’t attached to anyone else, so she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong. Nevertheless, some of her friends were telling her that what she was doing with this man was wrong because HE was married (apparently premarital sex would have been OK, but at least they thought doing it with a married man was wrong). This woman felt that what she was doing was fine because he was cheating, not her. The hosts to the program started discussing the issue. They sided with her, that she wasn’t doing anything wrong; it was the guy who was wrong because he was cheating. A background personality on the show piped in that he didn’t agree with them, that she was breaking up a family, so she was wrong too. He started saying, “You’ll lose your blessing! You’ll lose your blessing!” I thought, “Ah, there’s a Christian on this program.” So the main host started to scoff, and could tell from the language used that the guy was referring to the bible. “Where do you get that???” “Well, I’m not up to date on my references, but it’s in there! If you break up somebody’s marriage, you’ll lose your blessing!” So he obviously had enough church background, or Christian family influence, that he knew some biblical principles, but he didn’t know where his thoughts could be found. Well, he kept rummaging around until he was half quoting 1 or 2 of the 10 commandments. I think he said something like “Thou shalt not cheat on your spouse.” One of the hosts said, “What’s another one?” When he said “Thou shalt not kill” they started trying to figure out why someone would make these rules. “Oh, well, somebody took somebody out, so they wanted to put an end to that. And someone said ‘don’t cheat’ because they got cheated on. What are some more of those? I’ll bet we can figure out why they made all those rules.” Then they started looking on Google because they couldn’t remember any more of the c0mmandments. That’s all I heard because I had to get out of the car. Look at this article: While a recent survey conducted by Kelton Research showed respondents know more Big Mac® ingredients than Ten Commandments, taken on the whole the statistics are even more revealing: out of the 1,000 respondents, almost two in five (35%) can recall all six Brady kids, a quarter (25%) could name all seven ingredients of the Big Mac, but only just over one in ten (14%) can accurately list all Ten Commandments. I’m not criticizing non-Christians for not knowing the bible. I just find that it surprises me when they don’t. Somehow I feel that it’s teachings are more woven into our culture than they are. And I think I would be equally surprised at how little some people in my church know the bible. I had a professor who used to say, “Never under estimate how intelligent your people are. Never over estimate how much they know the bible.” This story is one reason I am so passionate about teaching the bible. If the only scripture you are planting in your spirit is what you get on Sunday morning, then I’m going to do my best to give you a good solid dose. That’s how important the scriptures are to us. Christians have always been ‘people of the book’. The bible is our source of truth and doctrine. It’s one of the key places we drink for life and sustenance. It is certainly the most reliable source of information and truth about who God is and how we can know him. But I’m hoping you’ll do more than just get a weekly dose on Sunday mornings, but that you’ll also act on my encouragement to apply a ’spiritual habit’ of reading and memorizing scripture as well. Will you join me in memorizing his word? Like I do with many of the things of life that are good for me, I cycle in and out of being ‘disciplined’ with my scripture memory habit. All I know is that if I don’t plant it in my heart – by memory – I am setting myself up to miss so much LIFE in life.

Storms (again)

I write about storms often. To me they represent something both beautiful and terrifying. Life growth usually happens in and after storms, but wow, do we ever hate them when we’re in them. Lots of my friends have tattoos. Sometimes they ask me if I’m ever going to get one. I always say that it would need to be something that has significant meaning to me. Storms are one of those things, but I can’t imagine being satisfied with a little storm on my bicep. It would have to be huge and intimidating to fit the image I have of a decent storm. Life has been stormy around here lately. When you’re in the middle of it, you wonder if it’s going to destroy you, don’t you? I was water skiing one time as a boy and my mom was driving the boat. A storm blew in, and we were hustling back to our dock/lodging. I was huddled down on my seat under a towel when lightning struck the water somewhere nearby. I remember it being the loudest sound I had ever heard. I was fully expecting electricity to light us up and throw us onto the shore. Maybe that’s when I really learned to pray! But we made it back safely, and soon the storm blew over. During Push (our pre-service prayer time) on Sunday, one of the men reported something he saw. He explained that storms around here (GA) usually hug the ground, and all you can see in the midst of the storm is more storm. But he had been places (Texas) where he would see the storm rise up, and when you looked toward the horizon, you could see light on the other side. That’s what he saw; a dark storm, but when you looked toward the horizon, you could see light on the other side of the storm. As a former farmer from West Texas, I know that picture. We always knew that a storm wasn’t terribly intense when you could see daylight on the other side. What he saw has been a great source of encouragement to me. The longer I walk this life out, the more confidence I have in our God who loves to rescue, grow, discipline, teach, stretch and shape. And he regularly uses storms to do it. Learning his ways builds trust in him – read faith. Maybe even more than when he makes life easy, storms followed by rescue/deliverance build faith. Storms blow in, and you start looking around for how he’s going to rescue you this time. For him to give us a picture of hope and light on the other side of this storm is quite comforting. Embrace?

Happiness

This article got me thinking about happiness and our unquenchable thirst for it.  The article is about online dating, and how it can be risky, esp. since it feeds our insatiable need to follow unrealistic feelings which are built upon scary foundations. Here’s a quote from the article:

We are living in a “Have it your way” culture. When we want it we got it, from on-line shopping with next day delivery, to bootleg movies being sent to our cell phones before coming to theatres. We have created a culture in which we expect to get what we want when we want it, and in the way we like it. It is no wonder then that on-line dating has exploded as a means for finding that special someone. Just log on to the site and search through a menu-list for your perfect soul mate.

What we do, however, is find this perfect soul mate, and a few years later, dump them for a more perfect soul mate.  After all, I haven’t been happy for a long time!

But such we are.  We have been trained in our world that we deserve happiness and have the right to pursue such happiness, regardless the cost to others around us.  J.P. Moreland does an outstanding job of pointing out, in several places, that our definition of happiness is  a pleasurable feeling, specifically, a sense of pleasurable satisfaction.  He goes on to demonstrate that due to its fragile and volatile core, we can never keep this feeling going.  We’re left with longings, tied in with a disconcerting feeling that we’ve been cheated, and we go on our journey in the pursuit of happiness, which we can never ultimately find – at least not the way we understand it.  We actually end up depressed in the midst of abundance.  I cannot recommend highly enough the two books linked above.  You see, people of old (like those who first wrote about the pursuit of happiness during our country’s founding) defined happiness as a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness.

The implications of our current pursuit of happiness are at least 2 fold.  1) we’ve been duped.  Our goal is impossible to attain.  2) it makes us self-centered and selfish.   If we had grown up with the classic definition of happiness stated above, we wouldn’t be living selfish lives pursuing feelings of happiness, but we might have a shot at living the kind of life that yields a deeper sense of a life well lived (and feelings of well being, satisfaction, and – happiness?)

Honestly, look at your life, and think of how many decisions you make based on what will give you those pleasurable feelings we call happiness.  How often do you feel cheated by life because you don’t have those feelings more often.

Working in the field I do, I am constantly torn by this dilemma.  You see, I have a really merciful disposition, so when someone is in my office telling me how unhappy she is with her husband, or he’s explaining why he doesn’t like to sacrifice for people who have less than he, because . . ., well, I feel their pain.  I find myself identifying with them and their pain.  It’s how I’m gifted.  But if I give in to it, I cheat them out of redemptive truth.

Someone close to me recently left her husband for a wealthy man.  She’s “happier than she’s ever been.”  It’s those fragile pleasurable feelings that make us do whatever it takes to find happiness.  She’s being duped.  She has left a lot of hurt people in her wake.  She doesn’t understand why I’m not happy for her.  After all, we’ve been trained to believe that someone’s happiness is what we should wish for them above all else (A major talk radio host has interviewed hundreds of people over the last few years by asking the question, “What did your parents want most for you – success, wealth, to be a good person, or happiness?”  85% said “happiness”)

Would it surprise you to find out that I believe the pursuit of happiness is wired into our very being, and that God passionately wants us to devote our lives to finding it?  John Piper explains it well in Desiring God.  The difference between our current pursuit of happiness and the biblical call to pursuing happiness is that the scriptures direct us to finding our happiness in and through a relationship with Jesus.  In that relationship, Jesus will direct us to lose our life to find it, and take up our cross (die!) and follow him.  In studying Jesus’ call to life and happiness, we find out that the ancients got it right.  Their understanding of a good life was one lived well, not one lived selfishly.

Jesus designed the world such that in pursuing happiness through him and living like he insists, we find that well spring of life and satisfaction, AND we don’t leave a scattering of hurt people and shattered lives in our path.  Instead, we GIVE life, and FIND life.  And happiness.

Go get it.

Lenses

My lenses on my  sunglasses have turned purple.  I swear they didn’t used to be purple.  Surely I didn’t just now notice!

You see, I buy my glasses from Zenni Optical and they are cheap cheap cheap.  They will tint any glasses you order for a mere 5 bucks.  That made my glasses cost $13.95.  That’s right, prescription glasses, cheap city.

But they didn’t used to be purple!  Or did they?

If they were, I just noticed.

We approach the bible with lenses.  We have certain expectations of what we will find in the text, shaded by the lenses we wear.  These lenses make it difficult to be neutral and then let the text teach us.  We think we already know what it says or means.

During one of my favorite classes, called ‘Interpreting the New Testament’, we all had to read a certain scripture and make ‘observations’.  An observation was some fact or point that virtually everyone who read the same passage would agree upon.  It was amazing how many ‘facts’ we thought we ‘observed’ were actually shaded by the lens color that we wear.  In our class, we disagreed on many apparent observations, and we were all Christians!  Imagine how a non-Christian might disagree.

One of the shadings we deal with is the culture we live in.  Basically, we read our culture back into the text.  That’s why I teach historical context in our Bible Study Toolbox class.

Since that day in class, I often think of my lenses.  Since I bring biblical messages on at least a weekly basis, I am continually studying and interpreting the bible.  What biases do I have?  What color lens am I looking through?  “God, let me see the truth here without letting those biases influence me.”  Despite all my efforts to remove them, I know my lenses are colored and it affects what I see.  Even so, when thinking of my lenses, I try to recognize how I’m bringing my predetermined conclusions to my reading and interpreting of the bible so that I can remove them.

Were those lenses always purple and I just now noticed?

Control

Before leaving seminary, I asked lots of the people who were influencing me (teachers, pastors, friends) to tell me what their favorite books were, or what journals they read regularly.  I got lots of good stuff.

My pastor at the time said, The Control Trap.  Really?  That’s interesting.  I was mostly getting all this heady, theological stuff from everyone else.

Ends up, he had dealt with some difficult people in the church, and this book was super helpful to him for understanding what was going on.

Well, this book is pretty much written for women.  It seems that lots of women have control issues, stemming mostly from a desire to make their world safe.  Makes sense.

Men tend to control for different reasons.  Like power.

It had never occurred to me before studying Matt 16 this week, how we try to control God.  It seems that the Pharisees and Sadducees were trying to be in charge of what miracles Jesus did, and required that he do things at their insistence in order to prove he was who he said.  And we’re still doing the same thing.

I’ll follow you if you’ll do this.
I’ll believe in you if you’ll save my business.
I’ll be faithful to my wife if you’ll make her more seductive.
I’ll be a missionary if you’ll . . .

Get the point?  It’s what Jesus called the ‘Yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  It’s insidious.  You be God, but I call the shots?  No, you’re God, and you call the shots.  I trust you.

It’s bound to happen sometime.

You remember the joke.

How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?

That’s easy, you say.  2!

Ha Ha Ha.  Moses didn’t take animals on the Ark, stupid, Noah did!

And then you feel stupid, because you knew that, and the more you try to convince everyone of that, the stupider you look.

So that’s how I feel after looking at my text for my sermon this week.  When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus for a sign, he told them that the only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah.  Fair enough.  Jonah was in the fish, dead, for 3 days.  Then, through a little wretching, God raised him from the dead.  So the religious leaders were going to get quite the sign – the resurrection.

But, alas, when I read the passage, my brain went ‘NOAH’ and I illustrated it in my message with the sign of Noah, the lovely rainbow.

bleh.

Oh well, maybe it’ll make me be more gracious in the future.  I can tend to hold theological integrity in a lofty position.  I guess I needed to be brought d0wn a notch or two.

Church Hopping 2

If this post doesn’t make sense, you might try looking at Church Hopping.  To start off, I enjoyed going to Freedom Christian Center.  I think the pastor (well, the husband.  They list husband and wife as co-pastors, which is fine, but kind of icky too) was right at my age, so that was a kind of connection point.

First impression:  Driving near the church, I was running about 5 minutes late.  There was a car in front of me with a couple and two kids in the back.  The mother was singing, waving her arms, and encouraging the kids to join in.  I thought, “OK, I’ll bet I’m behind some ‘free people’” and I was right.  I had been a little concerned that I would be under dressed in my lenin/comfy shorts and shirt.  Sometimes charismatic/pentacostal types really dress to the nines.  But walking into the building (which was easy to find, thanks to ping’s ‘bird’s eye’ view) I was following a couple with matching pony tails, lots of piercings, and several tatoos in view.  I knew then that I would be ok.

Once inside, I was greeted by a friendly lady who handed me a brochure which had what she called ”pretty much everything’ and I could tell that she would have talked more if I wanted, but left me alone when I cruised on by.  That was a good move.  She was the only person I spoke to for the entire time.  The music had begun when I went into the auditorium (probably about 300 or so people were there).  The band was playing and the pastor was standing in front trying to stir things up, yelling something about how excited everyone ought to be.  That’s one key difference between Vineyard and Charismatic/Pentecostal churches.  There’s no attempt to work up the crowd.  We want any excitement to be authentic/Spirit born.  If He shows up, people will be excited.  (Actually, often when he shows up, we’re more in awe and struck silent than anything). Even so, I was ok with the sentiment, as long as it wasn’t going on in my church.  After all, I’ve had the message before that we show more excitement at football games than we do for the King of Glory, so I was good with it.  It did me some good.  They had kids running around the perimeter of the church dancing.  Some had banners, others held hands with their friends and mothers, and danced in a circle.  I know that kind of thing is distracting, unless it’s a part of your culture.  I noticed that as kids got older, they had given up the practice.  For them it wasn’t cool.  I tried to sense the Spirit’s presence.  I was in kind of a funky mood, so I’m not sure what to say about that.

Since there were a number of people up front singing and dancing, and I wouldn’t draw an inordinant amount of attention, I went to the altar to bow down and submit myself to God.  In the end, this is basically why I chose this kind of church.  I wanted to put myself in a position to hear from God rather than just hear a good exegetical message. It was what I needed to do.

They recited a long confession about their giving just before the offering was taken.  Hmmm.  It was on the overhead, and was written with a lot of cheese, but it really impressed me.  The good part about it was that it kept before the people the church’s position on tithing etc.  That stuff is easy to forget, and it’s easy to get sidetracked about money.  For sure, I don’t think their theology in the confession was air tight (lots of presumption), but I have found myself trying to figure out how to do it in our context. Again, the Vineyard is just more attentive to good theology, in our humble opinions.  All that ‘radical middle’ stuff (a recent Vineyard book on the history of the movement is called ‘The Quest for the Radical Middle‘. It talks about how Vineyard is a ‘radical middle’ between evangelicals and Pentecostals. We do this by having the sound biblical foundation of evangelicals and the empowerment of the Spirit often found in the Pentecostals.).

The pastor gave several prophetic words  for some healings just before he preached (people call these ‘words of knowledge’, which is almost certainly not what Paul meant by the phrase when he used it).  That worked, I thought.  Then the message was on healing.  I wondered if he implemented the premessage words because of his topic, or if that was how he normally did it.  Even so, I’m so aware of how God is so present during and just after worship, faith is strong, and people are often touched then.  I’m going to start paying more attention to this time of the service.

The message was inspiring and helpful.  He pretty much taught that without using the words, that healing was in the atonement (God included it in the covenant, he said) and that all we need to do is have faith for it.  I won’t duke that out with him here.  It certainly is in there, but not necessarily completely accessible to us any more than some of the other things bought for us there as well, such as our sanctification.  The ‘already and not yet’ is really helpful here.

I was jealous of their diversity.  They had lots of young folks, like our church, more older folks than what we have, and lots of racial diversity.

After church, I went and picked up Dakine Diegos.  Ummmmmm.

Church Hopping

I really haven’t done it since we moved to Massachusettes in 1989.  We visited several churches before we decided which one we wanted to attend.  I see people doing it now when they come to the Vineyard.  I’m always gratified when people stick after visiting only once.  Sometimes we’re the first place they try and they never go anywhere else.  Often we never see them again.

So why am I thinking about it while on vacation in Florida?

I decided that I am going to go to church on Sunday all by myself.  I like to go to church on vacation.  Usually I’m having to run the show on Sundays, so it’s really be nice to go worship without any responsibilities.  I want to go all alone this time.  Kinda weird, but I just want to be alone.  Robin’s family wants me to go with them, but I don’t want the pressure of having to tell them how much I liked their preacher, and the service, and hearing about how everything is done and how well this works and here’s Sally who plays the piano, and Joe used to live in Athens and blah blah blah.  I know I know, I like it when people like that come to the Vineyard.  But I really need to be selfish about this event.  I want to be completely free (or as free as possible).  And alone.  So I need to make a good choice.

Unlike the church hopper, I only get one shot at it.  One hop.

But I can’t decide where to go.  There’s a Vineyard here in town.  There’s also a big Calvary chapel.  Then there’s the Church of God right up the street.  Do I want to go to the new Vineyard church plant and pray for that pastor?  Part of me would like to go to a wildly Pentecostal church and experience some over the top hypey Holy Ghost worshiping sweating shouting kicking the devil church.  And part of me wants to show up at the most high Anglican church service where you don’t dare whisper and sit in awe.  But I don’t think I can find that one here.  I’m fairly certain I’d feel it was dry and dead – unless I could find one of those charismatic Anglican churches.  And I don’t want to get sick from too much cheese.  That makes me want to go to the Vineyard.  Calvary Chapel would probably be fairly cheese free too.  But I’m not sure I’d get what I’m looking for this Sunday.

Hmmm.  What AM I looking for?  Freedom to worship.  The presence of God.  Maybe even the possibility of hearing a ‘word from the Lord’?

I’m going to pray and let the Holy Spirit lead me.  I think I already know where THAT’S going to take me.

Especially fond.

I like it when my mother tells each of her grandchildren, when no one else is around, that she loves them best.  I think my wife considers it a little psychotic.

When I pastored a church in Jayton, TX, there was an elderly man who died.  When I went to meet with the family, I asked them what they wanted remembered at the funeral, anything that would be appropriate in remembering this special man in their lives.  Before the funeral happened each of the 4 children, and several of the grandchildren had found me alone and told me, in their own way, the same thing.  “Daddy (or granddaddy) loved me best.”  “I was his favorite.”  Somehow this man had succeeded in making each of his loved ones feel like they were his favorite.  And they really believed it.  That may not be healthy, but I considered it a great success on his part.

When my mother tells her grandchildren that she loves them best, they glow, then say something like, “Oh Gran, you tell all of us that.”  But they still glow.

In The Shack, God likes to say about his various kids, “I’m especially fond of him (her).”  Even if he says that about all of us, I’m especially fond of the thought.

Book Craze

So, only 5 days after making fun of Christian trends and fads, I picked up and finished one, The Shack.

The first book that ever made me cry was Where the Red Fern Grows.  The last one was The Shack.  The first time, I was mortified that someone might be able to look into my bedroom, even with the door closed, and find out that I was crying while reading about a dog that died, and see tears running down my cheek.  Now I’m broadcasting it over the internet.

The book was very ripping, raw, and healing.  Some of the theology really sucked.  Even so, I enjoyed the fresh view of God that it presented.  The grace in it was over the top.  And if I was going to err in my presentation of God, I think I would err towards grace.  Read it.  Just don’t take it’s description of God too horribly seriously.  Let it free you a little from your ruts, then go read your bible.