Category: Uncategorized Page 14 of 71

THAT the church is to be involved in evangelism is rarely the question.

HOW we should be about that business can generate conflict and fear.

It is no secret that I favor a relational, friendship style of witness over a directed, confrontational style. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main ones is that culturally we have moved into an era where the directed method may produce ‘decisions’ but rarely produces disciples, and may, in fact, harden others. I myself have little patience with any stranger who wants to ‘sell’ me something, be it vacuum cleaners, a political candidate, or Christianity.

Gordon MacDonald winsomely does a much better job than I could ever do in modeling the alternative in this helpful article. In it he details one example of how he and his church (an important part of this) loved someone and incorporated him into his life and the life of the church, with the result that this someone came to faith in Christ.

I never asked my friend if he’d yet given his life to Jesus. I just created the circumstances in which he began doing it: giving his life to Jesus, I mean. I have no idea when he (or his wife) completed the faith transaction. I just know that everything about these two wonderful people over a period of a year began to show the “Christian!” brand, in the best sense of that word….

I was never conscious that I was implementing some evangelism method. But I suppose it was a method of sorts. It was evangelism by first belonging. Rather than making him jump through doctrinal and ceremonial hoops before saying he belonged, we declared from the get-go: be family with us, and in the process you’ll discover what we’re about, and you’ll find what you’re looking for in Jesus.

Thanks to Geoff for the link.

Hope is always a bit unrealistic.

The reason some of us – myself a prime example – retreat to the confines of what we proudly call ‘realism’ is because we are afraid to hope. Hope is not only unrealistic, it is fearful.

Hope is the longing that one’s desires will somehow be fulfilled. The single gal hopes for a suitor. The married couple hopes for a child. The college graduate hopes for a job. The sports fan hopes for a victory. The church hopes for stability and prosperity. Such hopes are variously realistic and unrealistic.

But if we have hoped and have seen our hopes dashed, it will not be long before we are afraid to hope any longer. Hope draws our fragile emotions out into the open where they are vulnerable once again to being beaten to death by disappointment. After a hurtful breakup, or the third miscarriage, or the fourth rejection letter, or the fifth pastor in seven years, we may have no more desire to risk disappointment. We retreat, fearfully, into what we call realism. It protects us from hope. It protects us from hurt. It’s not a happy place, but it is a safe place.

My sports obsession has given me insight here, insight that I see as applicable in the more serious affairs of life.

After the Tampa Bay Rays lost the second game of their best of five series with the Texas Rangers, I lost all hope. I was a realist, of course. They stood a 13% chance, statistically, of coming back to win the next three games. I watched game 3 with no emotion, and no fear, because I had no hope. To watch without hope was safe. To hope would have introduced the risk of hopes being unfulfilled, and I did not want to face that.

But they won game 3 and game 4. Now, they play Tuesday night with a chance to advance to the American League Championship Series. And I find myself trying to put away all hope, because of my fear of disappointment. I want to hope, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll face the frustration of disappointment.

That is a window into my heart and my sin, but I believe it to be a window into the hearts of many. We have been broken so many times, that we refuse to hope anymore. The only way to be open to hope again is to find a place to stash the fear. And I don’t know any way to do that other than to be reminded that I am a beloved child of God.

I can never know beforehand whether the Rays will win or not. And I cannot tell another whether he or she will find a mate or have a child. And I cannot know whether my church will prosper or falter.

But I can know that whether any of these things come to pass or not, none of them change the way God looks at me. His embrace never slackens. His heart never grows cold. And when I look into his face, the candle of hope can flicker once again to life.

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I cannot tell from day to day how many will or will not be reading this blog. I would benefit from hearing your thoughts on these reflections, or some word of your experience, regarding the intersection of fear and hope.

A lost fragment of the Bible has just been found which sheds light on yesterday’s post.

Scholars are still studying this fragment to determine its place in the canon of Scripture. However, it appears to be a portion of a conversation between Moses and his brother Aaron. Israel is pinned between the Red Sea and the advancing Egyptian army. In the fragment, Aaron comes to Moses, and says:

“I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I’m a realist. We’re toast.”

As I said, scholars are still debating the authenticity of this fragment. Rings true to me.

I have spoken, with pride, and from the pulpit, the fact that I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a realist.

I now repent of such notions.

When I have said such things, it was to separate me from the irrational, polyanna-ish view of life which suggests that all is right with the world. It’s not and so a dose of what we call biblical realism is certainly necessary.

And yet it is far too easy to settle into ‘realism’ as an abandonment of hope. We can look at a situation, a marriage, a church, children, or whatever, and claim that we are being realistic about the situation as we paint the grimmest of possible outcomes. In so doing, we may  under the banner of realism be wrongly subduing hope.

Hope, really, is always just a bit unrealistic, isn’t it? Jesus encouraged his disciples to expect him to rise again from the dead. But they were realists. Peter’s friends prayed for something, but obviously not his release from custody. They were realists, after all.

Hope is always unrealistic. There is a place for rational evaluation of circumstances. But there is no place for rational evaluation displacing hope. And we who claim to be realists, we are all so good at displacing hope.

I am still neither a pessimist nor an optimist. But I do not wish to be a realist if that means emptying life of hope.

So, I’m hopeful. I think that is where we are supposed to be.

I’m too busy to blog myself right now, and so I am ‘inviting’ Dr. John Frame to do my blogging for me this morning.

All Christians confess in at least a theoretical way that repentance is important. We believe that all are sinners. Practically, however, we find it difficult to admit — whether to others, to ourselves, or to God — that we have personally done wrong and need to change.

“When someone criticizes our behavior, our first instinct is, too often, to defend ourselves. Although we confess in general terms that we have sinned, we don’t want anyone to think that we have sinned in any specific way. That attitude is even more prominent among people in authority. For them, the stakes are higher.

“For a prominent person, to admit to sin is to endanger the status that one may have carefully nurtured for a long time. So when a Christian leader freely admits sin and asks for forgiveness, many of us find that strange. It is impressive, however, not only because of its rarity, but also because of its profoundly biblical character. It marks people who aim to lead as servants, rather than as masters (Matthew 20:25-28).”

[John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, pages 331-332.]

In a nearby community, recently, a father was walking his daughter, who has cerebral palsy, to the bus stop for school when in tears she confessed to him how others on the bus treated her. Admittedly not handling the situation in a proper way, he stormed on to the bus issuing profanity laden threats to the other students and the driver of the bus. He was arrested and later apologized for behavior that most of us fully understand.

Today, a woman from a nearby church issued a grace filled statement reflecting not only a deep understanding of the situation, but also a knowledge of the Gospel that brings both bullies and the tormented together.

“I am comforted by the thought that one day, those of us who’ve come to realize our need for Him will sit together at the Master’s table—those who have been bullied and those who were the bullies.”

The whole is printed below:

All month, I have been following the story of James Jones, the Florida dad who was compelled to stand-up for his teenage daughter who lives with cerebral palsy. Running on emotion and leaving his logic behind, he stormed onto a Seminole County school bus to confront the kids who were bullying his daughter.

It’s so sad and frustrating to see kids who are different being bullied today. I understand this better than most. I have Cerebral Palsy. I was teased and bullied all through school. As a small child, kids compared me to the Weebles from a toy commercial during the early 70s. “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” Thirty-five years later, and I still feel as if people are going to sing that song to me when I enter a room.

As a student high school, it was so much worse—with kids breaking the equipment I needed to be successful. My sophomore year, three different tape recorders were destroyed. The last straw for my mom was when I came home in tears because the boys were throwing one-inch nuts and bolts at my head. When my mom went to speak to the teacher, he said he would not have the problem if I were not in the class! The following year, I went to private high school, where I was on the homecoming court and was prom queen! Ok, so my graduating class was small.

I say this all to say this has gone on for decades. Sadly, it’s what kids do. What I’ve come to realize is that God is bigger than people and holds each of us in the palm of His hand. I wish it were different and that we would all see the value of people for who they are.

We’re all sinners in need of a Savior. I am comforted by the thought that one day, those of us who’ve come to realize our need for Him will sit together at the Master’s table—those who have been bullied and those who were the bullies. The Master loves us equally, and that is more than I can fathom.

The quote below is from Donald Carson’s commentary The Gospel according to John and references the following words of Jesus:

Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

John 7:24 “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

John 7:17 “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.”

Carson comments:

“In an age when Matthew 7:1 has displaced John 3:16 as the only verse in the Bible the man in the street is likely to know, it is perhaps worth adding that Matthew 7:1 forbids judgmentalism, not moral discernment. By contrast, John 7:24 demands moral and theological discernment in the context of obedient faith (7:17), while excoriating self-righteous legalism and offering no sanction for censorious heresy-hunting.” (page 317)

Wise words worth pondering.

Context is everything in interpretation.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

The picture above is of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ welcoming Rays batter Reid Brignac ‘home’ after his game winning home run late Monday night.

Can the reception of God’s redeemed people be anything less when He calls us home?

I’m moved by the thought.

Occasionally there comes an article that I wish I had written. Such is this rant about worship music. The author pinpoints so many faults in current worship music that one is moved to return to exclusive psalmody.

Two examples which have bothered me for some time are these:

2. It’s so repetitive. I mean, come on, how many times can you repeat “His steadfast love endures forever” before you start thinking the song is going to go on forever? Examples: here and here.

4. There might be too much emphasis on too intimate a relationship with God, using first-person singular pronouns like “me” and “I” or second-person pronouns like “you” instead of words like “we” and “God”. This fosters a spirit of individualism, and it generates an atmosphere of religious euphoria rather than actual worship of God. Worship should be about God, not about us. Or what about the ones that use physical language to describe God and our relationship with him? Can you really stomach the idea of tasting God?

Read the whole here. My link to this was here.

[Note: in glancing at the comments on the initial post, I realize, again, that some of us are ‘irony-challenged’. Read the whole and you will (should?) get it!]

I think I will change the name of this blog to ‘Scribblings’. Though it’s been some time since my last post, I continue to scribble notes for possible posts.

If all I had to do was post the scribblings, I’d be here with much greater frequency.

At this point I have exactly 100 scribbled but undeveloped blog posts on the computer, several literally scribbled on notes of paper, and one or two in my head.

I have a friend who says that I should not take too much time in preparing blog posts, but that the nature of the medium means I am to just, in his words, ‘let it rip’.

As fun as that would be, it is a scary thought. I can get in enough trouble when I’ve carefully thought about what I want to say. Shooting from the hip for me leads to shooting myself in the foot. Can’t go there.

I’ve not had any time to really even ‘let it rip’ though. In my new world, there is not the margin in my rhythms that blogging once filled. I will find them again.