Another Brick in the Wall

We all wish life could be easier and following Jesus could be made simple.  Discipleship with great benefits and little cost but discipleship simply does not work that way.  I wish it could be as easy as the day I could not find twenty dollars looking through a mountain of clothes.  I said a quick prayer, opened up the dryer and the a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill was sticking out and neatly folded like two towels resting on top of each other.  I laughed and thought about how God cares for us in the tiny things and not just in the big things.

When heaven invaded earth that first Christmas, this was not a sanitized Christmas story with cheerful angels and clean mangers.  The Christmas story is filled with scandal like an unwed mother about to have a baby and a young couple on the run from a tyrant King.  The Christmas story is not just a sweet and tender story but a bitter-sweet one filled with fear and violence.  The Christmas story is both messy and difficult to posses just like following Jesus is not an easy task.

Since Jesus came to a community of people and still does, the church needs to get a lot more messier as it turns from being a membership group to a discipleship group.  Things are not going to get easier for the church but a lot harder and many people just don't want to sign up for "hard!"  Just like the early Israelites looked foolish walking around the walls of Jericho, the church may need to get really low and look mighty rediculous to a world filled with walls.  Will the church walk through the walls and do the difficult and neccesary work of God's kingdom building or will it prefer the comfort and safety and retreat within its own man made walls?  God wants to break down the walls and its the church's divine moment to follow God by faith and start walking through walls which only God can bring down in the end.  The world may be placing another brick in the wall but God wants his people to walk through walls like his resurrected Son did among his disciples.  If Jesus walked through walls, isn't it time the church did?

Reflections

In the quiet of the moment, I listen and tremble.  The Lord gave me Isaiah 59:9-21 to meditate on today.  When I read the Word of God, great trembling came over me.  The first part was about the darkness and our sins are ever before us.  We think we see but we are like blind men groping in the dark.  We seek justice but it is no where close to us.  Lies abound and truth fails and has fallen in our streets.  And God looked for one man or woman who would be an intercessor and pray for the people and the land but there was none.  I am striken and struck in the heart.  I must pray and then I must pray more.  I am naked and exposed and I need God's covering.  Great fear will come upon the West.  The coastlands will reap God's fury.  An enemy will come in but have no fear, God will be against the enemy.  God's Spirit gives us words we must speak and we can not keep hidden.  Even our children will arise and speak the Word of God.  Maranatha!

And Now For Something Really Scary

Today is Halloween and I just had my first kids dressed in scary constumes to my door.  These little globlins and monsters still looked cute.  But there are scary things happening in the world right now that simply seems out of people's control.  People are scared about the upcoming Presidential election and who is going to win.  Whoever wins, I pray for God's best for them and the nation as well as all nations around the globe.  Today I went to the local jail to visit someone who is locked away from society for a non-violent crime.  This young man seemed to have a peace about him as he was trusting God and Jail is not a scary place when God is there among even the least and the forgotten.
People have been watching there TV sets viewing the terrible destruction on the East Coast by a devastating hurricane.  Watching people screaming and fleeing their homes in terror as either fire or water was sweeping through their neighborhood leaving a huge path of destruction that will cost billions to replace and repair.  People are scared about the economy and the future yet there is a wonderful peace and sense of joy that goes before me as I know God who holds the future for us.  Maybe even some people are scared of God.  Scared of hell and judgement or think that God is somehow mad at them.  As I have been reading the book of Job, here is a man who lost everything and still put his trust in God.  I wonder if we lost everything, homes, security, lifesavings, insurances, water, power, and the like, is God enough?  Or is our personal happiness and success and prosperity all tied up with the things God has given to us rather than in God?  For Job, the one thing he could not stand was God not being with him in his adversity.  All Job wanted in the end was God.  What do you want in the end?

The Substance of Symbols

The Christian faith has traded the politics of Jesus for the politics of the world.  We don't believe in the church in more but we do believe our political leaders can do more for change than anything else in this world.  So it's becoming more difficult to see where American Christians faith ends and their politics begin.  We have traded our spiritual birthright for a pottage of political stew.  People can believe for example that the Presidential elections will have huge ramifications on our society for ill or for good.  At the end of the day, we believe the political pundits, spin-doctors, and talking political heads that if we just elect one more "right" political leader, a better America is not far behind.

When it comes to the politics of our day, empty symbols and style mean more than substance.  And yet God's Word is filled with symbols that are full of substance if we only had eyes to see.  How is it we seem to not appreciate paradox, hyperbole, and poetry anymore?  One of my favorite Christian poets is T. S. Eliot, listen to his words from his "Four Quartets."

In order to posses what you do not posses,
You must go by the way of dispossession,
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know.

Can you hear it?  Not with your physical ears but with your spiritual heart.  Do you sense the blazing holiness of God and your own little significance in light of God's?  Do you taste God's goodness and feel his presence?  We prefer style and looks over substance and reality.  It makes no demands on our lives.  But when we truly understand the substance of God's symbols on our lives, then nothing can remain the same!

Dangers of Christian Discipleship

"God is not a divine slot maching that gives our the coins of grace when the right numbers appear"
- Stephen Rossetti


1.  One danger of Christian discipleship is confusing magic with God's power.  Magic is about our controlling God or making spiritual things happen.  God's power is about His grace and His control, not ours.  We are totally in God's debt and not the other way around.  When we think of magic, think about magicians for example who controls the illusion.  But Christian discipleship abandons all human control and surrenders oneself to the "Holy Other."

2.Another danger of Christian discipleship is as one makes progress, one begins to think more highly of oneself and more judgmental of others.  Spiritual egotism and pride can creep in where we condemn other Christians for not having the same kind of commitment or devotion that we have.  Our delight must be on fulfilling God's will and not getting our way.  Christian discipleship is never about God owing us or needing us.  It is all about our need and total desire for God.

3.  A third danger of Christian discipleship is to have misconceptions about the Christian life or God.  When we believe God has to answer our prayers or bad things do not happen to faithful disciples will always disappoint and may even cause some people to abandon their spiritual life with God all together.  Radical discipleship takes radical faith.  We must learn to trust God no matter what the circumstances or no matter how dark the night.  Even when our life is touched by evil, we know that not even this, can separate us from God's love and that God may yet bring some good out of a very terrible or bad situation.

4.  Lastly, Christian discipleship is not something we arrive at but are always on a journey.  We are more learners than teachers.  We are on a journey on downward mobility to the poor the least and not on an upward journey of worldly success and affluence.  Ultimately, the way of Christian discipleship is not about the intellect for knowledge "puffs up" but it is about humility, the more we know we don't know, and the way of the heart that has reasons that our mind will never fully understand.

Surprised by God

"The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8)

If there is something the church needs to recapture again is a child-like faith.  A sense of wonder, mystrey, and beauty.  A child-like delight and a rapturous joy that surprises us at every turn.  I love surprises and its a part of my very being and indentity.  Watching and expecting around every corner is Gof who wants to surprise and delight us.  This life of joyful surprise is elusive for so many today.  Some people don't even like surprises anymore because they are so used to being in control and managaing their circumstances.  Is it no wonder that joy seems so elusive to so many?

God delights in us and wants us to delight in Him.  Unless we begin to live our lives in such a way to receive his grace, listen to wind of the Spirit, we will miss many opportunties of delight and wonder.  God wants to surprise us and give us the wonderful gift of His presence.  This gift cannot be earned or controlled.  It can only be received by child-like faith.

I like the picture above because the face shows a kind of child-like wonder and looking towards God who is full of surprises.  The girl in the picture also strikingly looks like my youngest daughter who just turned twenty one.  She called me this weekend and is engaged.  Life is full of surprises and many twists and turns.  I am happy for the love and joy my daughter has found in a wonderful Christian man whose name is Raphael.  May God continue to fill them both with the love, wonder, and the beauty of God.  And may God take them on this incredible journey together as they experience the many surprising manifestations of God!

How does a follower of Jesus handle Rejection?

I have been in deep reflection today and I think of the countless of followers of Jesus who have called it quits and hung up their servant towel.  One might think this happens because of isolating themselves from others or feeling like they are all alone.  More often than not its because someone or a group of people simply rejected their viablility as a member of God's church.  They did not really count or it was easier to reject them than to do the hard work of reconciliation.

As I meditate on God's Word this morning, these words really hit home.  Matthew 11:16-19 says,

"But to what shall I liken this generation?  It is like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to their companions, and saying:

We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
and you did not lament.

For John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, "He has a demon."  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend to tax collectors and sinners!'  But wisdom is justified by her children."

There are several striking features from this text.  One is even Jesus and his followers were harshly criticized and rejected.  All of Matthew chapter eleven is in the context of the rejection of John the Baptist and then Jesus and his followers.  The chapter ends with a beautiful invitation from Jesus for all the hurting, oppressed, and struggling people to come to him for he will give them rest to their weary souls.

"How is it with your soul?"  This is one of the major questions a group of Christian leaders ask each other every week in which I am a part of.  Soul care!  Are we really taking care of our souls and what are we feeding our souls?  And what about criticism and rejection?  I find the things we tend to get offended or mad about is quite petty compared to the kind of rejection that Jesus and his disciples experienced.  When is the last time someone has called you "Satan" or "you have a demon?"  When is the last time someone called your moral integrity into question?

And these last words haunt me and stir my soul.  "Wisdom is justified by her children."  Are we going to follow the wisdom of Christ?  Will we be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves?  How we respond to rejection will show the kind of integrity and strength we have or do we fold under pressure?  Are we acting like children of the most High God or are we acting childish or worse, not like a children of God at all?

Snapshots of Heaven and of Earth

"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" -  Neil Armstrong (first man to set foot on the moon)

I have been reading Genesis and I am amzed at the beauty, symmetry, and flow of the biblical story of creation.  The grandeur of God and the beauty of nature is set forth in stunning ways like photographs on display for all to be seen.  As we read and look at these powerful images of creation, let's not confuse science with creation but a picturisque view of the Creator of science.  There is an intended progress and climax as the days of creation move towards man and woman and the seventh day that never ends, rest and peace with God.

People need to pay closer attention to the details and the historical background of the Genesis story.  These days are not written to satisfy scientific curiousity or are they a chronological biogrpahy.  They are a fulfillment of the theological providence of the one true God.  Each day is like an incredible photograph or beautiful picture that is like a collected arrangement on a decorated wall.  The issue of Scripture here is not when the pictures were taken but how they contribute to the overall arrangement and meaning of the display.

Neil Armstrong has recently died and I am reminded of the great event when Buz and Neil took holy comunion as they looked at the world from the dark of space.  What a wonderous holy moment that must of been before Neil Armstrong took those first momentous steps on the moon.  Can we also see the beauty, mystery, and wonder of God in the universe?  When we look, really look, our very breath is taken away by the overwhelming presence of God who created us and everything we see around us.

Imaginations from the Spirit

It does not take a rocket scientist for people to look at the church today and see that it is in trouble.  There are four times as many churches closing as there are new ones starting.  There seems to be a lack of nerve and courage for many western Christians as the church continues to not disciple its own members much less produce the kind of environments that would disciple the community around them.  Where are the saints of God?  Where are the prophets and poets and dreamers of God?  It seems like when modern Christians read their Bible (if they read it at all), they lack imagination to engage the biblical text and the world around them.  I suspect there was more Christian imagination going on in the monestaries of the time people want to call "the dark ages" than the kind of stunted imaginations today that can't see what God is doing around them and fails to dream daring dreams for God.  So let me start with one example on how Christians need to "see" farther and go deeper when it comes to God's Word and how it works out in the world.

There is a incredible encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees over the Mosaic law and its meaning.  The whole issue concerns divorce and can people get divorced for almost any reason?  Jesus answers them in the nineteenth chapter of Matthew and tells them "what God has joined together, let no one separate."  There is so much more to say here but I want to focus on the follow-up question to Jesus about why did Moses give the permission to divorce like he did?  This was not just Moses words but a commandement given from God.  Jesus says in verse eight that "because of the hardness of your hearts, (God) permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

Jesus answers the question of why does God allow for divorce?  Because of the hardness of our hearts.  It is not God's will that people should get divorced, God hates divorce (check out the last chapter of the book of Malachi).  But doesn't God's Word give permission or says it's okay to do it?  Unless we understand the spiritual meaning of God's Word and read the Bible with spiritual eyes and not just eyes of flesh, we will miss both the intent and meaning of many Scriptures.  Some people get hung up on all the violence in the Bible, the brutal treatment of women at times, slavery, holy wars, and polygamy.  Why are these things in the Bible and why does it seems like the Bible condones or give permission for such things?  Because of the hardness of our hearts!  Until we start reading God's Word with out hearts and not just our heads, our hearts may stay hard and unchanged rather than being transformed by the heart of God.

End Times Series at my church

God directed me a number of years ago, like maybe ten, to not study on end time issues too much.  Well, recently, He has brought to my attention some interesting things and it culminated when our pastor preached a series on the end of the world as we know it based on the Apotles Creed!  You can listen online here!  If you click on the listen it will take you to a new page.  Then if you want, you can obtain the file by right clicking on the download word and saving it to your computer hard drive.

Dreaming of Defending God

You know you are thinking too much when you dream of defending God from intellectual assaults by both skeptics and wounded believers.  I had a dream last night where I was defending God from both staunch atheists and skeptical believers.  They both read the Bible in the worst light and thought of God more as an evil monster rather than a good master.

I remember in my dream thinking and debating with others how God seems to lose no matter which way one turns.  If God intervenes in our prayers or circumstances, then God is arbitrary and morally inconsistent.  If God does not intervene, God is impotent and like a divine child abuser watching his children suffer.  In other words, no matter what God does or doesn't do, God loses in the end.

G. K. Chesterton is one of my favorite writers and he says something similar about the church.  He says, "The church is accused of restraining sexuality too much at the same is is accused of restraining it too little . . . The church is accused of showing contempt for women's intellect.  But at the same time the great sneer at the church in most countries is that "only women" go there . . . The church is criticized for being too political and too worldly, but also for not being involved enough in politics and being too unworldly.  It is blamed for despising Jews, and also despised for being too Jewish!"

If You Can't Take the Heat, Then Get Out of the Kitchen

When people think of the relationship between science and religion, one more thinks of warfare than friendship.  People seemed forced to choose between science guiding their life or religion.  Can't it be both?  And unless we are careful, one can turn religion into a science and science into a religion.  Neither of these two options are good!  If one listens to atheists who mock Christian fundamentalists and fundamentalists who mock atheists, they both read the Bible democratically and literally!  One calls the an theist a fool which is ironic since the Bible was writen to religious folks.  And atheists who also read the Bible with a crude literalism try to make the Bible look foolish which is ironic because the Bible is God's love letter to humanity, not hate-mail to those who don't believe in God!

So now we find ourselves in a culture war with atheists using science as a weapon against religious ideas and people of faith using the Bible as a club against the irrelgious folks!  And God help those crazy folks caught in the middle who believe in science and religion or evolution and creation.  What we have in today's culture wars are scientists who are telling their colleagues who happen to  be Christians, "get out of the kitchen if you can' take the heat" when it comes to science and Christians telling other Christian scientists, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" when it comes to the Christian faith.

But isn't science really concerned about "how" questions and Christian theology with "Why" guestions?  Can't they both be partners in dealing with every day realities of life?  For example, isn't a kettle boiling because burning gas heats the water?  The kettle may also be boiling because somebody wants a hot cup of tea.  Do we really have to choose between these two answers?  Doesn't one have to do with natural causes and actions and the other with intentionality and purpose.  Can't they both be true at the same time like light is both a wave and a particle?

The New Disney Bible

"REACH FOR THE SKY" - Woody, from 'Toy Story'

There seems to be specialized Bible for every occassion, gender, and ethnic group out there.  It can get as specific as "The African-American Charismatic Women's Bible."  So I have a suggestion for all the ways people tend to appraoch the Bible and grab the good stuff and leave what they don't like.  How about "The New Disney Bible?"  We have been disneyfying Bible stories for years.  Give them all happy endings and teach a few good moral lessons along the way.  And please, don't worry about this Bible being accurate in details or calling for sacrifice or asking tough questions.  This Bible is to comfort the comfortable and leave out the hard sayings of Jesus or the high cost of discipleship.  The Bible is actually a dangerous book.  I think I will put it inbetween my Lord of the Rings trilogy that is filled with wonder and powerful images and my Bram Stocker "Dracula" book which can be scary like the Bible.

Okay Disney girls, say "Cheese!"

Dead Man Walking

God has been stripping me of all my illusions.  You believe the past is healed and you have moved on.  Then something bad happens to someone else that reminds you of your own past wounds.  All the sudden, all the pain and brokness comes rushing back once more.  I thought it was gone.  I thought I had dealt with it.  More work . . . more vulnerability as one steps back and asks God once again to do the deeper work.

The Jesus File

"ILLUSIONS MISTAKEN FOR TRUTH ARE THE PAVEMENT UNDER OUR FEET"
 -  The Poisonwood Bible

There are many illusions that even Christians fall prey to.  One pervasive one today is the American empire is what is for right and good in the world and will somehow even usher in the final judgment of Christ and His Kingdom.  How many times do we hear that if the right political candidates do not get democratically elected, then we are all doomed.  This kind of apocalyptic nay-saying has nothing to do with what Scripture teaches in regards to Jesus and the final judgment.

I was going to someone's house this week and I got bitten by a dog (in the face no less).  I was under the illusion that if I ever encounted an attacking dog, I could beat it and if need be, kill it.  I would be the victor with the dead dog held in my arms and hands.  What I realized this week is the dog bite I received was only a warning or a "back off" bite.  It was certainly not an all out attack.  If this dog wanted to, I would be the one dead in the jaws of the beast (the dog) rather than the other way around.  This whole incident has changed my mind and broken a long-held illusion of mine.

Illusions?  Do you have any?  And if it's an illusion, how would you know anyway?

Dying to Self

Over here someone posted a question about dying to self.  Since it is something that has been on my mind for a while now, I posted a response.  Enjoy!

Mondays With My Old Pastor

"SERVING GOD IMPLIES ENTERING A BATTLE, AND IT IS WISE TO REMEMBER THAT IN A BATTLE THERE ARE NO SOLDIERS WITHOUT WOUNDS"  -  Jose Luis Navajo

Battles can wound us and leave us crippled.  I am reminded how fragile life can be from a friend who because of self-inflicted wounds cost him his job as a leader in the church and another friend who was so battled scarred, not from the enemy, but from the leaders he served with that he just threw in the towel and quit.

I just started reading Jose Luis Navajo wonderful book, "Mondays with my Old Pastor (Thomas Nelson, 2012).  It is about a pastor almost fifty who is going through ministerial burnout and constant tiredness.  He knows there is something terribly wrong but he hides from the people who know him best.  Finally he takes his wife's advice and he see his old retried Pastor on Mondays.

If anyone is serving in a church and facing the three headed dragon of discouragement, frustration, and disillusionment, here is a book to read.  The book is centrally about how the cross of Christ can bring healing and restoration to tired and lonely souls.  Life doesn't start at almost fifty but it does start at Calvary.  It is only looking at the cross that we can really see and discover how valuable we really are to God!

Quest For the Historical Follower Of Jesus

"THE CHURCH HAS BECOME FOR MANY A CARTOON OF SELF-PRESERVATION, A PICTURE OF COSMIC CLUELESSNESS"  - Robin Meyers

"Going to church today" is safe, predicatable, and tame.  People do not think of the church today as risky, dangerous, or subversive.  The church more looks like the world and the status quo than the world becoming more like the church.  If we are really honest about the church, nobody expects anthing truly important to happen there.  People in the world are unimpressed with the church and the things that people argue and make decisions over in the context of the church often don't matter in the end.  We have spent decades studying "the search for the historical Jesus" but what about the historical community we call the church?  Scripture says we can only know Jesus by following him.  But maybe in the barreness of religion, people can find true faith?  Maybe in the death of the church, people will experience resurrection and new life.  The church has focused on the wrong questions for way too long!  The question for the church today is simply this: "What kind of community and what would it look like to bring us back from the dead?"

What would happen if the church was driven by the justice of God rather than the justice of some political system?  What would happen if Christians really came into contact with their ancient roots and the mystical faith that has empowered Christians through the centuries?  What if Christians radically considered nothing less than authentic community no matter where it is found?  Can we leave behind communities of comformity for communities animated by God's Spirit?  This is what much of the church looks like in the global Southern hemisphere of the world.  What about Europe and the American West?  Or here is another picture from Robin Meyers,

"Jesus was political.  He was a dangerous subversive, not because he wanted to help individuals escape a perishing world and make it "up" to heaven, but because he wanted to bring heaven's justice "down" to earth" (The Underground Church, p.56-57).

Seeing God #3

In May 2009, and I cannot remember the date, but I think it was early, I heard this song for the first time, This Love by Stavesacre.  Unfortunately, it cannot be heard in its entirety on You Tube, but the lyrics are here.  I think the lyrics are wrong in the chorus however.  I think he says it "Taking sides, it sends and it divides...

Anyway, this song was on the album Speakeasy which was released in 1999 and what I find of God is how I could have bought the cd prior to this as I really liked the song "minuteman" but for whatever reason I had not.  This Love is my absolute favorite song and the song I had searched for all of my life.

Seeing God #2

I have struggled for a while now, so it was probably Monday, May 28, 2012 and I asked God for His consolation because I was in such a bad place.  So, I worked the next day and I worked around home.  The subway had K-love playing this song: The Hurt & the Healer.  Then I was perusing Youtube and this video was on the main page:   NBA Commercial which is originally this song:  Live Forever.  I would say that Drew Halcomb and the Neighbors have some Christian background because his wife has an album about the Psalms here.  I am completing this post July 2, 2012.

Seeing God #1

This song I listened to for the first time just prior to April 18, 2012.  It is a little loud, but the song is about a subject that I think about a lot and I bet lots of people think about as well.

Song POD Lost in Forever

Update 7-2-2012

I just posted an update here:http://christianmystics.com/members/seeraftertruth/activity/5337 of what is going on in my life right now.

Whatever Happened to Marriage?

People want to discuss or debate the lagalities or "rights" of gay marriage but I want to ask a deeper question, why should the church being doing marraiges that are sanctioned by the empire or state?  Do our rights come from God or the state and does the state sanction the church today?  The family in the Scriptures are to be under God's rule and kingdom and resist the ways of the world.  Unless one is part of an Almish family, the family has taken its marching orders more from the world than it has from scripture or the church.  The family is not only in trouble but it has already been redefined way before people started bringing up the gay marriage issue.  If all marriage is about as a contract between two-consenting adults then why not a whole lot of alternative situations that our society has not even talked about yet (it may get there if society hasn't totally disintegrated before then).

Christian families for the most part do not disciple one another in the home.  People expect the church to disciple their children and the church expects the parents to do it so hardly anyone is doing it.  One would be hard-pressed to find families that have "alter-times" or moments of prayer, worship, and Bible study.  Parents for the most part do not have "faith-talks" with their children and in our American society or privacy and everyone owns their own home, Christian homes as places of hospitality and open to strangers is almost non-existent.  These were the defining marks of kingdom families in the early church that has been lost by modern families in our industrialized and materialistic age.

Marriage is not only entangled with the state but for many churches and ministers who perform weddings, it does not matter whether the people are believers or not or whether they havbe been married multiple times.  The church has been living with these compromises for so long that when it comes to the relationship between the church and state, it has been for better or for worse.

Christian marriage is not just a contract or covenant but it is a sacrament.  Marriage is not about individuals but its about families and their relationship to God's kingdom and church.  Marriage and eucharist were integrated historically but since they have been separated, so the direction of marriage has become secularized and has lost much of its meaning.  For marriage to be fully Christian, this divine mandate to discipleship must be regained or marriage will continue to lose itself to both the state and continue to lose its value in our modern world.

Reflections for the Journey

1.  Be generous to others, especially those who disagree with you.
2.  Be open to new possibilities God may be presenting to you.
3.  We cannot pick and choose what kind of God or Jesus we want.
4.  Really listen to what others say and not what you want them to say or what you think they should
     say.
5.  Continually be moving in the direction and destination God intends for you.  Avoid stopping and
     side trips.
6.  There will be disappointments on the journey with God.  Don't be surprised or shocked when
     things don't turn out the way you expect or go differently than what you want.
7.  Do not waiste time in life majoring on minors or focusing your energy on the tyranny of the
     urgent.  Relax and enjoy what God has put in front of you at the moment.

Creeds or Deeds or Both?

[Picture of the late Chuck Colson, Founder of Prison Ministries -  "You will be missed!"]

"We need Christians to not only do good deeds, but to know the creeds"  -  Chuck Colson

NO CREED BUT CHRIST - Early American Church Slogan

We live in an age where people are sick of the church fighting over creeds, doctrinal differences and distinctives, and where are the deeds from the church that make this a better world to live in?  Beliefs are under attack in our gray world and Christian deeds and saints modeling them are a rare commodity.  The world has quit listening to the church for many reasons but one of them is the church's own inner divisions, contradictions, and arguing over things nobody cares about!

The power of God's story redeeming and healing us still grabs people's imaginations and changes people's hearts but even this is getting lost under the rubble of theological squabbles over the atonement and academic duels over theology where it seems the biggest loser in the end is the church.  Is the Bible simply a bunch of arguments to use against others or is there this grand story within the Bible that wants to turn this world right-side up again?  Is the issue we would rather be right than loving? 

We can not throw the creeds out because they are signposts to our faith (without them, we are more likely to lose our way and might even get lost).  But creeds should not be used to separate from other followers of Jesus or think church unity means uniformity of belief.  There is a uniformity that God desires but the focus can not be on creeds but on Christ.  The focus can not be simply on beliefs but on the uniformity of the Spirit.  It is the Spirit of God that reveals both our relationship to one another and the unity of the Church. 

Maybe we need more poets in the church to help us understand the Scriptures.  Maybe we need more Christian mystics to show us what a disticntive Christian lifestyle might look like?  Maybe we need to sing the faith more with songs of praise like "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord."

Why are we not scandalized by Jesus today?

"SCANDALS ARE INCONVENIENT TRUTHS"  -  David Instone-Brewer

Jesus is this radical revolutionary that had everyone talking in his day, especially the way he scandalized most God-fearing folks.  Jesus often said the wrong things, hung around the wrong kind of people, and did things that were at least shocking in his day.  At the end of the day, Jesus said many things that people did not really want to hear.  Why is it that Jesus sounds so polite and respectful and would never harm a fly today? (he must have been vegetarian as well since we know he would certainly not hurt animals).

I am reading two books that are rocking my safe little world for the moment.  One is Dr. David Instone-Brewer book "The Jesus Scandals" and the other is Robin Meyers "The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus."  Instone Brewer is a Baptist minister who has such a great literary flair to his writing.  He is a researcher and knows how to take dry academic studies and put teeth and bite into them.  Robin Meyers is a self-described liberal preacher but actually cuts through a lot of the conservative-liberal rhetoric and gets straight to the heart of issues better than I have seen in a long time.  Both books encourages people to be radical disciples of Jesus or non-status quo revolutionaries for God.  I dare you to read them.  These books will not let you stay where you are and will challenge you in fresh ways.  Be warned, these books are not for the spiritually timid!

Seeing God in Everything

I recently began reading, at the inspiration of the post by my friend here, Meister Eckhart (Meister is German for Master - just read that today in the introduction to the Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart).  (Interesting side note - Meister is not his first name.  In the Eckhart book, which is an older work, the translator said that after the title of Meister was given to Eckhart, he was then known (from that time on) as Meister.  My observation is I am not aware of any other individual known by that title from antiquity.)

Anyway, I first purchased the older work and its first chapter is a series of talks.  The main emphasis just in this chapter alone that is very challenging is to see God in everything, and Eckhart means everything.

So I also purchased and read On Becoming a Mystical Christian.  I read this before I got the Eckhart book.  So I am reading English's book and he references this song.  Not even a Christian band, but wow what a work of Art.  It took me a few times to "get" the whole video, but God is there in it.

So I am going to post a few posts of various things that draw me to God.  Right now it is going to be new songs/music that God comes through to me.

Synagogue and the Church?

"THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH WENT OUT FROM THE RESURRECTION SIDE AS THE CHURCH OF THE LAMB WHO HAD BEEN SLAIN BUT IS FOREVER TRIUMPHANTLY ALIVE; BUT THE JEWISH CHURCH WENT OUT FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE CROSS INTO HISTORY AS THE CHURCH OF THE SCAPEGOAT, CAST OUT AND SCATTERED OVER THE EARTH UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE CRUCIFIED JESUS"  -  Thomas F. Torrance

If we are honest, there are many contemporary theologians that really do not help the church but there are a few who do shine like stars in the night.  By contemporary, I mean more recently dead in the last century.  Giants like Karl Barth, John H. Yoder, Lesslie Newbigin, and Thomas Torrance.  Torrance is one of those brilliant church historians and theologians that has flown under the rader for many.  Here is a quote from his brilliant work, "The Mediation of Christ":

"How can we Christians claim to proclaim atoning reconciliation through the cross of Christ when we contradict it by refusing to be reconciled with one another . . . and bear witness to Jews about Jesus Christ as the mediator of reconciliation with God? . . . Only when the deepest schism of all is healed in the body of the one people of God . . . it will take root in all the peoples and nations of mankind . . . God has been making it clear to us in our day, as perhaps never before since the first century, that Israel retains in the purpose of God's grace an essential role in the mediation of reconciliation, and that the Christian church will not be able to fulfill its own mission in proclaiming that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, except in so far as it is incorporated with Israel in the one mission of God's love for all his creatures.  That is what the fullness of the mediation of reconciliation in Jesus Christ means" (p.46).

Retro-Christianity

"STAND BY THE ROADS, AND LOOK, AND ASK FOR THE ANCIENT PATHS, WHERE THE GOOD WAY IS; AND WALK IN IT, AND FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS" - Jeremiah 6:16

Christianity is heading all over the place and going in many directions.  People struggle today as much with "which church?" as well as "which Bible?"  Churches more often compete with each other in today's consumer market and Christian bookstores which are going the way of the dinosaur display the many versions of the Bible like picking a Bible is like what kind of dress are you going to wear or what kind of deordorant are you going to put on?

There are some Christian groups that earnestly desire a better way of doing church today or if you prefer, can we get back to the ancient way of the early christians?  Reform and restoration movements abound and even these groups it seems may have started in the Spirit but have ended up in the flesh.  So what is a Christian to do in all the chaos and confusion?  Michael Svigel, a Protestant church history teacher tries to skillfully and carefully point people back to the ancient markers and ancient practices of the early church and patristic church fathers while appreciating all of church history throughout the ages.

Although I applaud Svigel's suggestion and directions especially for Evangelicals and the Evangelical church today, there are some glaring problems or nagging questions in all this?  Did the Reformation have to happen and visible separation and disunity where God wants us all to stay put?  And should we not listen and learn from the two most ancient church traditions, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox?  Are there not some insights and pitfalls they could teach us in mining the riches of the ancient church traditions? 

There also seems to be an underlying individualism in studying church history and discipleship.  Private study is important but is that all there is to discipleship and history?  What about the corporate dimensions of study from examing Scripture with orthodox Jews to the Eastern Orthodox?  What about living out the Christian life in monastaries, Almish counter-cultural communities, or long group retreats designed to sharpen spiritual thinking and spiritual living in a secular age?  Maybe some of these ideas sound too radical but one still needs to raise the question to Evangelicals?  Are you willing to get so radical in your faith so as to get outside your comfort zones, your preferences, your respectable ways of doing Christianity?  Now that's the question and the rub!

Alien Apocalypse

"IF WE CAN'T PROTECT THE EARTH, WE WILL $%&# AVENGE IT!" -  Tony Stark

I am a hard-core sci-fi fan so I loved watching the long-awaited "Avengers" movie with superheroes fighting the bad guys as well as the movie "Battleship."  Both of these movies had good stories, lots of humor, and both were about aliens trying to destroy or annihilate mankind.  Sci-fi fans who like big action scenes, great special effects, and aliens from another world won't be disappointed.

When it comes to Christian ethics, we have moved in the movies from 'kill or be killed' to 'exterminate or be exterminated' so what are Christians to do?  Is the basic premise of survival of the fittest?  The strongest or most technologically advanced wins in the end?  Not only are we not sure how to think about Islam or Jihadists but what are we to think about the troubling paasages in the Bible that tells God's people to utterly destroy another race and show them no pity?

American Christians think vengeance is more our perogative today than God's.  If someone starts a fight, we will finish it!  Someone messes with our country, we will mess with you back ten times worse!  How any of this is supposed to be following the Jesus of Scripture much less the martyred lived of the earliest Christians is beyond me.  Some Christians are so intimidated by angry atheists that they either want to ignore the troubling texts in the Bible or perform their own kind of "textual cleansing."  Or worse, Christians want to blame the worst parts of the Bible on the Jewish race while they give themselves a pass. 

We tend to forget that the Older Testament of the Bible is the Bible that Jesus read and preached.  Nor was the message simply one of God's people was to exercise God's wrath on others so that they could receive a manifest destiny.  It was more a message of "If we do not recognize God's will in time, we may be next in line for God's wrath and removal."  Even Peter spoke in the newer testament that judgment starts with God's house (God's people).  Something Christians should not take lightly or casually today.

Are Zombies Among Us?

"Wake UP O' Sleeper, Wake UP"  -  The Bible

We all love to watch a good old scary movie.  Our culture today especially seesm fascinated with the undead or zombies.  Are zombies like angels, among us unawares?  Unfortunately, there are many in the church who have either spiritually fallen asleep or act like the walking dead rather than the spiritually powerful alive!

Here are some ways to spot zombies who happen to travel in groups, so don't be surprised if they show up at some church service near you.  Zombies are stiff and take themselves too seriously.  Zombies walk in crowds because they have an uncontrollable desire to be accepted by others.  Zombies feed off the living and try to suck the life out of others.

This is a wake-up call:  Jesus doesn't want spiritual zombies, he wants a bride (the church).  God the Father doesn't want zombies, a Father simply wants children.  The Holy Spirit doesn't want zombies, the Spirit of God wants us to walk in its light and power, not in our own deadness and powerlessness.
Don't be a part of the walking dead but join God's powerful army of life everlasting!

Is the Bible a Rubik's Cube?

"DOES GOD PLAY DICE WITH THE WORLD?"  -  Albert Einstein

If many of you are like me, you tried the rubik's cube and without much success.  The goal was to get all the six different colors all on each side of the cube.  If you were able to get one side of the cube with the right colors but no farther, you matched as far as I ever got.  Some people want to approach the Bible like a Rubik's cube.  It's like a large jigsaw puzzle or mathematical code that simply needs to be decifered and figured out.

Two Christian movies that take a kind of rubik's cube approach to the Bible and think they have unlocked its secret code are "The Omega Code" and "The Genesis Code."  The Omega Code basically put the first five books of the Bible into a computer and came up with an elaborate way to predict future events, or so they say.  The Genesis Code is a new movie aimed at young adults who may be struggling with resolving the tension between science and the Bibe.  Evolution says the world or universe started 16 billion years ago and the Bible says God created everything in six days.  They take higher mathmatical calculations, Einsteinian physics and try to suggest that science now proves the Bible.  How?  God's perspective in six days was actually from our perspective in time and space, billions of years.

The problem with all these kinds of views are none of them take seriously the way Scripture is written much less that most Christians throughout history would have no idea what these secret codes are until modern man later came along to solve these riddles or puzzles.  The best way to understand the Bible is to read it rather than trying to get some math wizard or computer expert to find some secret code waiting to be unlocked within the Scriptures.  If there is a secret code that unlocks Scripture, then the Bible already reveals that mystery which is the Messiah Jesus Christ.  Shalom!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the State Capital

CHRISTIANS HAVE SO EMBRACED PARTICIPATION IN THE 'EARTHLY CITY' THAT THEY HAVE LOST THEIR PASSPORT TO THE 'CITY OF GOD'  -  James K. A. Smith

I have a passport to leave the United States which I have not used.  My daughter went to Haiti this year on a mission trip but I am prayerfully waiting for the day to use my passport and minister and serve others in another country.  I remember growing up in the church as a boy being taught that "Christians can be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good."  What I have seen in my later part of life that Christians are so earthly minded that they are no heavenly good."

Here are some questions for contemporary Christians to explore:

1.  How do the politics of Jesus differ from our worldly politics?
2.  How does Christ's call to discipleship touch our politics?
3.  How can the church both transform the system we live in while transforming the heart?
4.  Which empire are we serving, God's or our country?
5.  Which are more important to us?  Principles like democracy, justice, and freedom or embodied worship, the cross, and suffering discipleship?

Does God Read Derrida?

WHO IS DECONSTRUCTING THE DECONSTRUCTIONISTS?  -  Millard Erickson

It is no secret that the church in North America is in decline and in trouble.  There are many diagnosis's to the problem but one that the church has been flirting with for a few decades is a more postmodern Christianity.  Modernity had it strengths and weaknesses but the world the church finds itself in is so different that modern or older versions of doing church simply won't work.  Newer models like missional or emergent or postmodern are the new teachers for our day.

For people who can take the strengths and leave the weaknesses of postmodernity and make their faith better, then more power to you.  For those who want to posit postmodern against modern and make this another place for the church to split over, the church does not need one more division among the many divisions that already exist.

One of the amazing things is how Christians can hitch their wagons to almost anything new or faddish all in the name of being progressive or newer is better.  I certainly believe Christians can learn something from their critics but what happens when the critics become Christians tutors unawares?  Most of the leading postmodern philosophers like Derrida, Focault, and Lytard were all French Jewish atheists.  Should the church be charting its future course from one of radical skepticism?  And is there anything left saving or contructing after all the radical deconstructing is finished if it ever is?  Is it possible that the way forward for the church is for it first to understand it's past, where it's been, and who it has become?  Rather than Christians trying to deconstruct God or Jesus or the church, maybe its time God start deconstucting us?

How to Read the Bible

WHEN PEOPLE CEASE TO BELIEVE IN THE CHURCH, THEY WILL SOON CEASE TO BELIEVE IN THE CHURCH'S BOOK  -  Carl Braaten

The prophets in the Old-er Testament spoke not about a famine in the land of food but a famine in the land of God's Word.  The Bible in America is often used to justify people's own bias and agendas than it does to surrender oneself to an untamed God.  The divisions and contradictions are legion.  For example, many Pastors in America refuse to participate in perfroming a wedding for gays but have no problem marrying people who have one or both been married multiple times.  It's like we listen to a select group of scriptures in the Bible while we ignore the rest.  And how do others read the Bible from other cultures or from other countries?  Not only does the church need to recover from private interpretation and Bible study disconnected from the corporate church, but what about reading the Bible in a global context?  Let me give two examples of reading the Bible in new ways that shatter our tidy little scriptural boxes.

In First Corinthians, the Eleventh chapter, Paul sepeaks about men worshipping with their heads uncovered and women worshipping with their heads covered.  How this works in one's culture is where issues of honor, shame, holiness, and faithfulness connect.  Jewish men for example wear a small cap when they worship.  We need to be reminded that Jewish worship is the very context where the Bible originated and came to us all.  Can it be Jewish men wearing a head covering shows their commitment to God's covenant and honors the one true God contra all false Gods?  Is this not the problem of women who did not care about wearing a head covering during worship in their society of their day?

Another example, a man from Brazil was talking to me about the prohibition of eating pork.  He told me that by this ban, God was teaching his people today that they should eat pork.  This certainly caught my attention and here is what he basically told me.  God's concern is for life and health.  Eating pork in biblical days was unehalthy and dangerous so God ordered a ban on pork.  Today my people are starving and because of technology, we can keep our children from starving.  This is why God is telling us to eat pork today.

How To Pray

"HELP ME, O GOD, TO PUT OFF ALL PRETENSES AND TO FIND MY TRUE SELF"

Yesterday was the National Day of Prayer.  This is a particular day of the year that people of faith pray for their country, leaders, churches, communties, families and children.  Any time people gather to pray is good versus the opposite of people not going to God in prayer.  After saying that, I wish there was more honesty, more humility, less of us and more of God in our prayers.  Here are some guidelines I wish more of us would follow when it comes to prayer.

1.  Ask God to teach you how to pray like Jesus's disciples asked him to teach these faithful Jews who knew a style of prayer but saw something in Jesus' prayer life that they wanted and needed.

2.  Read the Psalms and Paul's prayers in his letters to see how prayers were started, what was there content, and how did they en?.  Pray the scriptures.  Pray the Lord's prayer.  Pray in the Spirit.

3.  Listen to God to hear from heaven and pray God's thoughts and heart when you pray.

4.  Go and see if there is a place to enter into ministry, sacrifice, and service for others in your prayers.

Meditations on the Will

Since my boys were born in 2004, I have been journal writing on a continual basis.  I first decided to write to them spiritual writings or whatever I felt was important to communicate with them.  Since then it has developed more than I had anticipated.  I am extremely busy with life, working full time and parenting so I have a somewhat regimented writing system where I write at certain times.  In the last few weeks, it has arisen within me the desire or understanding that I need to put these writings together in a "book" format, although as will be clear, these are more like a series of devotional/meditative writings than anything else.  The organization is completely spontaneous.  First I just dated everything.  At some point I began to label entries by topic.  What will eventually follow is probably, at this point, is probably at least 100 entries.  One of the writings began as an article, but that even is consistent with everything else.  Suffice to say, I have much more meditation in me that is  undeveloped, but hopefully with time I will be able to "complete" this development.  The title of my writing is "Meditations on the Will."  I hope to be able to post an entry a couple of times a week.

Wishful Thinking

DOUBTS ARE THE ANTS IN THE PANTS OF FAITH.  THEY KEEP IT AWAKE AND MOVING  -  Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner is a poet, a scholar, and a theologian.  He writes and says things in ways that rings true in our hearts and our uttermost being.  Here are some excerpts from his "Wishful Thinking" that should stir our imaginations for God and challenge us to a higher way of seeing and doing:


1.  When it comes to prayer, "Even if God does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself.  And maybe at the secret heart of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for?"

2.  "We condemn in others the wrong we don't want to face in ourselves."

3.  "We think of eternal life, if we think of it at all, as what happens when life ends.  We would do better to think of it as what happens when life begins."

4.  And here are words of Buechner that are so mysterious, so sweet, so powerful, I lose my breath at the reality of what he says as God's spirit is like a fire in my bosom or belly.  Buechner writes,

"When our faith is the strongest, we believe with our hearts as well as with our heads, but only at a few rare moments, I think, do we feel in our stomachs what it must be like to be engulfed by light."

Unless one has been engulfed by light and has experienced 'the Holy,' one will have no idea on earth what Buechner is talking about since only those who have been touched by heaven like this can truly know what it means to be embraced by the fire of God.

Everyday Mystics

MYSTICS BELIEVE THAT HEAVEN IS MORE REAL AND SOLID THAN EARTH

Most of us rarely come across someone who speaks or acts like a mystic.  Someone whose very presence smells like Christ and whose very nature reminds you that there really still are saints today.  Someone who was often misunderstood and lived during the 14th century was Meister Eckhart.  We need everyday mystics today.  Listen to Eckhart's words and wisdom for today:

"A man who has been well off for many years, loses it all.  He ought then to reflect wisely and thank God for his misfortune and loss, for only then will he realize how well-off he was before.  He ought to thank God for the well-being he enjoyed for so many years . . . If then, it is true that all that is any good for comfort is lent to man to care for it, what complaint has he when God wants to take it back?  Let him rather thank God that he lent it so long."  -  Meister Eckhart

Random (Spiritual) Thoughts

"THE QUESTION, YOU SEE, IS NOT TO PREPARE BUT TO LIVE IN A STATE OF ONGOING PREPAREDNESS SO THAT, WHEN SOMEONE WHO IS DROWNING IN THE WORLD COMES INTO YOUR WORLD, YOU ARE READY TO REACH OUT AND HELP"  -  Henri Nouwen


Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping because my brain just doesn't want to shut down.  Descarte said, "I think therefore I am."  If that is true, then my existence is strongly confirmed.  Here are some random thoughts about the spiritual life.  I hope you enjoy.  Maybe more important, I hope you think about them:


*It is easier to enjoy beauty than sense the holy.

*It is easier to taste delicious food that to taste God's goodness.

*It is easier to discipline the physcial body than to discipline our spirit and soul.

*It is easier to run head on into an accident than to run head on into God.

*It is easier to become distracted by the things of this earth than to allow heaven to invade us here on
  earth.

Just some thoughts for the day . . .

If Jesus is Alive, Why do we Act as if he Never Lived?

"THE HERMENEUTIC OF SUSPICION HAS BEEN SAFELY APPLIED TO THE HISTORY OF JESUS BUT NOT TO THE HISTORY OF THE HISTORIANS"  -  Tom Oden

Bart Ehrman has been celebrated by atheists for being a New Testament biblical scholar who ended up losing his faith.  Ehrman is a prolific writer who presents many challenges to Christians from the corruption of the New Testament manuscripts to presenting contradictions within the Bible.  Anyone whose been in or around the church knows that Christians often wound or shoot their own.  But now that Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist?" came out confirming that Jesus was really a historical flesh and blood person, the mythicist atheists are furious at him.  Ehrman is scorned, ridiculed, and mocked by some in the atheist community because he confirmed the historical Jesus rather than destroying him.  Since some of these atheist scholars speak about objectivity and nuetrality, one wonders why the scathing remarks aimed at Ehrman?

The sad truth is there is very little written by biblical scholars when it comes to those who believe that Jesus never really existed or lived?  Many Christian scholars simply ignore or don't even think the mythicists are worth responding to.  Probably the best scholarly work to date dealing with some of these issues is "The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliablility of the Synoptic Tradition" by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory Boyd.  An indepth analysis of mythicists arguments on the internet and detailed responses to them are given by James Patrick Holding and company in "Shattering the Christ Myth."  It might be surprising to some that there is a huge amount of books out there contending that Jesus never lived and he is a legend that follows other pagan myths to old hero legends.  Of course the mythicists love to make arguments from silence, present similarities without noting the differences, and often present other historical legends or myths that are later than the Jesus story rather than prior to it.

At the end of the day, however one wants to deal with the radical skepticism of the mythicists, the more troubling issue for me are the countless numerous Jesus followers today who say that Jesus is mystically real and alive yet live like he never existed at all.  For a growing number of people who have not even read the Bible, when people look at your life, what will it tell them of the Bible you have supposedly read and are supposed to be following?

God Helps Those Who Are Dying For Him

"God helps those who help themselves"  -  "No, it's NOT in the Bible!"

How much of our compassion or politics is based in the rule of people need to be good Americans and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?  To be a "good Christian" somehow gets translated into being a "good person."  The whole basis for God sending Jesus to our planet was because we cannot help or save ourselves.  The meaning of life starts with a death.  Faith and love on God's terms means we die to our own way of thinking, to our way of planning, dying to our past, dreams of our own making, that we die to self and attachment to this earth.  There are many things we hear about faith but faith is like dying!  The world doesn't need more good intentions but it needs a few more deaths.  Death to greed, death to pride, death to having to be in control and things always going our way.  I really believe there would be a lot more singing in this world if our lives were more dead to ourselves and more alive to Almighty God!

Is Our Love Scandalous?

"BE NOT ANGRY THAT YOU CANNOT MAKE OTHERS AS YOU WISH THEM TO BE, SINCE YOU CANNOT MAKE YOURSELF AS YOU WISH TO BE" -  from 'The Imitation of Christ'

Are you happy?  Do your words and actions show it?  Is our life filled with wonder and joy or cynicism and complaint?  Many of us are not happy because we are unforgiving and we are unforgiving because we think we are better than others.  When it comes to love, there are various degrees of it.  There are those who do not love because they feel superior to everyone else.  There are those who love that feels equal to everyone else.  And finally, there are those who love who glady take the lower place.  Where are you on the love scale?

Encountering Jesus

Wow, a good script and good acting are hard to find in Christian movies that typically don't have the budget or technology of hollywood movies.  But I was happily surprised in watching "The Encounter."  This movie is about several people traveling down the same road (life?) and the road is washed out ahead so they all go to a diner.  And who happens to be the cook serving everyone but Jesus.  Of course some of the people had some very hard "why?" questions for Jesus and the movie does a good job and pulls off the almost impossible in not only giving good answers to some of the toughest questions people have come up with in the past but giving answers that sound like "what would Jesus say" or doing it in such a way that does some kind of justice to Jesus.  Jesus is portrayed as a man full of grace and truth and he speaks the truth with love to these people as he asks for their loyality to him. 
Any how, check it out, I don't think you will be disappointed.

Shut Up and Sit Down!

"WHAT THEN REMAINS TO THE MAN FORMED IN GOD'S IMAGE? THERE REMAINS TO HIM A SOUL FULL OF GOD AND A BODY FULL OF SUFFERING"  -  John Tauler

People don't always know what to do with Paul's words to women.  One place in Corinthians the women are giving prophecies and another place they are told to shut up and sit down (1 Corinthians 11, 14).  But maybe these words should not just be applied just to women.  Maybe God is telling all of us to shut up and sit down, even men!  Maybe in the fast-paced busyness of life, God says to us like parents would to their children, "stop running," "slow down," "be still," and "stay where you are!"  Can we pause, look, and listen?  Isn't God speaking to us in every waking moment of our life and even in our moments of rest and sleep?  What appointments or work is more important than our time with God?

Does God Behave Badly?

AMERICAN VIOLENCE IS THE NECESSARY AND INEVITABLE EXPRESSION OF OUR CONFLICT BETWEEN OUR DECLARED PRINCIPLES AND OUR UTTER FAILURE TO LIVE BY THEM  -  Thomas Merton

David Lamb explores issues that many people have wondered about, even Christians.  Does God behave badly, especially in the Old Testament?  Is God angry, sexist, or racist?  And what was the deal about the Canaanites?  Yes we know about God giving Israel the promise land but did it have to at such of great cost of so many people dying?  Some people like to throw out words like genocide, mass murder, ethnic cleansing when it comes to some of the violence in the Bible.

When it comes to problems like polygamy, slavery, and war in the Bible, much of it comes under what Jesus said about divorce when he said, "It's because of the hardness of your hearts."  But several things we need to keep in mind when it came to warfare and the Cannanites, God showed great mercy and patience for a long time before judgment came upon these people.  The Canaanites were a wicked and brutal people and much of warfare in biblical days was quite brutal.  And even though it appears in the Bible that the whole Canaanite race was wiped out, this is simply not what happened.  The Canaanites keep showing up later in Israel's history and the Canaanite campaign was not so much of slaughter as it was of driving them out of the land.  Because Israel did not drive them all out, this lead Israel into their own apostasy and idolatry later which had terrible consequences for Israel.

Another biblical story that sounds terrible to modern ears is where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son.  What loving parent would do such a monstrous act?  But we miss how important it is in hearing God's voice and following God in obedience.  Abraham thought that perhaps God might resurrect his son but he did not know.  He simply followed God in faith knowing that somehow God would provide and God did.  God provided a ram that was sacrificed instead of his son.

The Jewish reading of the story is God is not so bad because God is only testing Abraham.  But from a Christian perspective, the story goes further showing that God is willing to sacrifice himself for us all.  Some people after reading this story may question, "What kind of God could ask a father to sacrifice his own son?"  But Christians can respond with their own question, "What kind of God would sacrifice his own son to redeem sinful people?"

The Christ-Haunted Church

"DOES NOT OUR PREACHING CONTAIN TOO MUCH OF OUR OWN OPINIONS AND CONVICTIONS AND TOO LITTLE OF JESUS CHRIST?"  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When it comes to discipleship and Christians living a cross-shaped life for God, it is difficult to find such men and women.  Two Christians writing from very different contexts and coming at things very differently are Soren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Both of these men lived during times when everyone thought they were a Christian and very few were living it.  Both of these men wrote long treatises challenging Christians from every decade to be more like Christ in their every day habits.  Kierkegaard died almost unnoticed during his day and Bonhoeffer died as a war criminal by Adolf Hitler.

So here is the little exercise I am doing.  I am reading Kierkegaard's "Training in Christianity" along side Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship."  Both offer visions of what it means to be counter-cultural Christians and both offer critiques of a church that has subcumbed to religious pride and congratulating itself while the world burns around it.  Where this little exercise will lead I do not know.  All I know is I must follow it wherever it leads just like I follow Christ but never know where that is taking me like the wind that blows wherever it wills.

Does God Hate Amputees?

"YOU HAVE TO GET THROUGH THE UGLY PLACES TO FIND THE BEAUTIFUL ONES"  -  Rob English

Someone asked Dinesh D'Souza during a discussion by an angry atheist, "What does God have against amputees?"  Why doesn't God heal amputees?  The man asking was not missing any limbs and seemed to have a certain glee about asking the question.  Obviously it's questions like these that atheists like to throw at Christians to trip them up.

Of course in responding to the question, someone might also ask, "If a missing limb is evidence that God hates someone, is a beating heart and well-functioning body evidence that God loves them?"  If evil and suffering are evidences against God, shouldn't goodness and blessings count as evidence for God?

If God is the Creator then all of life is a gift.  If some people have more in life than others or live longer, is that a legitimate cause to complain against the Creator?  If God is more generous to someone else, does that take away the life we now posses?  The truth is, after people recover from injuries, their life and sense of happiness is usually like most other people.  We may demand miracles like for missing limbs to grow back but isn't life itself the great miracle?  To still be captured by God's grace, to be filled with awe and child-like wonder, to fear and be full of a sense of God's presence, now that is a beautiful life.  Jesus taught it would be better to go without some body limb and know God for eternity than to spend eternity apart from God with one's body fully in place.