Is The Bible Sufficient?

There is no shortage of Bibles for sale in our country.  Go to any bookstore, Christian or not, or online and you will find numerous selections to choose from.  Some of these choices are helpful, since pocket size Bibles and a larger study-size Bible are used for different purposes.  However, I am increasingly concerned that the smorgasbord of choices we have may be hindering us from the actual Bible itself.

Contemporary English Bibles come in a variety of translations.  While some might quibble the amount of different translations, I believe anyone who understands the difficulty and impossibility of offering a translation that conveys the meaning and intent of the original language and yet is free from criticism understands the need for a plurality of Bible translations.  The point is that if we have nothing else but a Bible translation (no additional commentary), we still are reading through a certain amount of lenses that all have their particular biases.  So why do we add more biases?

Allow me to explain.  Let’s look at some of the different choices of Bibles we can purchase.  There is the TNIV Strive: The Bible for Men, NIV Adventure Bible Updated; NCV Livin’ Out Your Faith Bible; NIV Celebrate Recovery Bible; Holman Christian Standard Bible Apologetics Study Bible; NCV Maximized Living Bible; NKJV Life Principles Daily Bible; The NKJV American Patriot’s Bible; NLT Abundant Life Bible New Testament; The Evidence Bible: Irrefutable Evidence for the Thinking Mind Comfortable King James; The NRSV Wesley Study Bible; NKJV New Spirit-Filled Life Bible.  This is just a sampling.  What each of these Bibles has in common is that in addition to the Bible itself, there are articles and/or additional commentary dealing with the particular slant suggested in the title.

To complicate matters, I read an article online today about a group from Charleston, West Virginia who is translating a Bible with the purpose “…to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities…”[1]  Apparently, it is no longer appropriate to allow the Bible to criticize and change our thinking.  Instead we will create a translation in such a way so it is in closer harmony with our particular mind-set, be it cultural, political, religious, etc…

I am concerned that our consumer approach to the Bible is getting in the way of hearing the Bible for what it is.  That instead of hearing what God wishes to communicate to us, our little additions are subtly forcing the Bible to communicate more and more what we want it to communicate.  This only leads to idolatry, where we place our image of God and our expectations of God and his will upon God rather than see God for who he is and hear him as he speaks, conforming to his will.  What are your thoughts?

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[1] http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20091203/US.REL.Conservative.Bible/.  Click on the link to read the full article.

A Small Serving of Vegetables Please!

“Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.  Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred” (Proverbs 15.16-17, TNIV).

I’ve been trying to reflect on this giant tidbit of wisdom the last few days.  I live in a culture that seems to ignore God more and more in pursuit of its own agenda…some of which looks very appealing, regardless of your religious convictions.  I am not immune to culture nor is anyone else.

Lord…please help us to be content with the small serving of vegetables, to feast on you and your ways alone.

“The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity” by Richard Beck

Here is the link to a little diddy titled The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity by Ricard Beck posted on his blog.  Richard Beck is a Christian and an Associate Professor at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas which means that he is an educator of students who for the most part are professing Christians. 

As a Christian minister and leader,I found this post to be spot on, very thoughtful and provocative, and well written.  I wish it could be published in every church bulletin.  Take a few minutes to click on the link and read.

“Faith and Fear” 1 John 5.5-12

The sermon is titled “Faith and Fear” from 1 John 5.5-12.  I preached this sermon on May 3, 2009 at the Kandiyohi Church of Christ in Kandiyohi, Minnesota.

Obedience: The Christian Apologetic

Walk in to most Christian bookstores or pick up a Christian book catalogue and you most likely will find a section entitled “Apologetics.”  Christian apologetics is that discipline which seeks to offer a positive defense for the Christian faith using philosophical arguments along with historical and physical evidences (generally categorized as ontological, teleological and cosmological arguments).  I had classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level dealing with this subject and I do believe there is a place for this discipline in the study and advancement of the Christian faith.  But is this the best apologetic we Christians have to offer an unbelieving world?

This morning I was reading from the Gospel of John, chapters 13 and 14.  This section begins with Jesus washing his disciples feet and ordering them to do likewise, since no slave is greater than his master and no pupil is greater than her teacher.  This is followed by Jesus’ prediction of his death and his command that his disciples love one another.  The fourteenth chapter follows with Jesus reassuring his disciples that he is the way and that those who love him will obey him.

However, in the middle of chapter fourteen, Jesus is posed a question.  After offering his own evidence to show his disciples that he is indeed from the Father, Jesus is asked “…But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world” (Jn 14. 22)?[1]  In typical fashion, Jesus gives a very direct but unexpected answer.  His reply begins… “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.  These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (Jn 14.23-24).  Jesus goes on to promise the coming Holy Spirit who will remind his disciples of this need for obedience and his promised return – a promise assuring his disciples that obedience will not go unrewarded.

Do we hear the call to obedience?  That word – obedience – is sometimes avoided in contemporary Christian thought out of some wrongheaded view that being obedient disciples is a works oriented salvation.  Not only is this wrong, it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as “cheap grace.”[2]

We want the world to become believers in Jesus Christ, hence the reason for Christian apologetics.  The question being asked of Jesus in 14.22 is why he doesn’t show the world who he is, assuming that if he does then the world would believe.  Jesus’ reply is that if his disciples, then and now, would have the world to believe in him then they and we need to be obedient to him.  Plain and simple, there is no substitution for obedience.  Obedience is the disciple’s best apologetic.  If we want to know what that apologetic looks like in practical use, we need to look at Jesus taking on the role of a servant and washing his disciples feet a week before he takes on the ultimate act of obedience by laying down his life on the cross in obedience to his Father’s will.

The Christmas/Holiday season is approaching soon.  Like the last several Christmas seasons, there will be a large debate over whether the public greeting should be the more generic term “Happy Holiday’s” or the more Christian influenced “Merry Christmas”.  Some Christians would have us to respond by going so far as to boycott those businesses that do not greet or well wish others with the phrase “Merry Christmas.”[3]  Why?  What is it that they are after by engaging in the practice of boycotting?  I assume they ultimately want everyone to come to faith in Jesus just like the rest of Christianity does.  Will that really happen by boycotting, by playing the political power-play games all too common in our secularized world?  Or will it happen when we learn to be obedient unto Jesus before the world, taking on the form of a servant and even laying our own lives down (metaphorically or otherwise) for the very people who wish to avoid the term “Merry Christmas” during the holiday season? 

Let the Gospel of John remind us once again: obedience unto Jesus Christ as his disciples is the very best apologetic we have to offer the world that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God!

 

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[1] All scripture quotations are taken from Today’s New International Version.

[2] “…cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 43-44.

[3] See http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147487233.

On Being Disciples in a Foreign Land

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”  (Jesus of Nazareth, The Gospel of John 17.15-19, TNIV)

“Beloved, I urge you, as aliens and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.  Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they may malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.”  (The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2.11-12, NRSV)

“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe…  They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all…”  (The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, ca., 2nd century AD, trans., Roberts-Donaldson)

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The first two quotes come from canonical scripture while the last comes from a post-apostolic writing.  However, this post-apostolic writing gives us a glimpse of how a very distant generation of Christians understood the paradox of being sent but sanctified, being aliens living out good works among a pagan and hostile world.

I must admit, some of what I read in the “Mathetes to Diognetus” quotation is not new to me.  For I have witnessed Christians in my life time who are striving to live a life of good-works (and praise God for that!).  Yet the quotation seems very foreign to the North American Christianity I am part of in the twenty-first century.  Why?

May the call of both Jesus and Peter along with the “Mathetus to Diognetus” quotation move us with an invigorated passion and imagination for how we can live as alien disciples sanctified and sent into a foreign land!

God’s Glory and Human Suffering

Yesterday I attended the Colorado Rockies baseball game against the San Francisco Giants.  Since it was “Faith Day” at the Rockies game, after the game there was a concert from a well-known contemporary Christian music band.  It was all good until I heard the lead singer give a speech (sermon?) about glorifying God.  It started out good, I agree that God is to be glorified and we as God’s creation are to glorify God.  However, he went on to speak about people suffering.  That is when it all went south. 

According to the singer, both cancer and the loss (death) of a loved one glorifies God.  Now I have no doubt that a person suffering with cancer or the death of a loved one can glorify God in the midst of such suffering.  But I do not believe that human suffering itself, something which is a result of the fall of the cosmos rather than its creation, glorifies God.  If it did, why is God trying to redeem the cosmos from suffering?  If suffering, which is part of the fall, glorifies God then why does sin, which also is part of the fall, not glorify God?

I came home last night, troubled by what I heard, and picked up my Bible.  I found my way to two particular passages, 1 Chronicles 16.8-36 and Psalm 72.  In the Chronicles passage, the Ark has been returned to Jerusalem and David has just finished offering up sacrifices unto God (v.2-3).  Now David calls upon the Levites to offer thanksgiving and praise to God (v. 4) and v. 8-36 serve as that call to worship.  In this call to worship, God is to be praised because he is holy (v. 10), because of his wonderous deeds (v. 12), because of the covenant he made with Abraham (v. 16, a globaly redemptive covenant).  This is the reason for the salvation language of v. 24, the reason why God is to be ascribes with glory (v. 24-30), and the reason why the entire cosmos offers praise to God (v. 31-36). 

In Psalm 72 there seems to be some paralell themes with 1 Chronicles 16. Here the Psalmist envisions a world where judgment is rendered with righteousness (v.2), where the afflicted and oppressed are cared for (v. 4), where such a righteous judge rules over the entire earth (v. 8-11) because this is the one who redeems.  Of course, this is God and this is the reason why God name is “glorious” and the earth is to be filled with his glory (v. 19) – something that happens when the world envisioned by the Psalmist becomes reality.

To borrow New Testament terminology, the two passages under consideration seem to suggest that God is glorified when the presence of his kingdom reign breaks forth upon this fallen world.  There is no hint that God is glorified by the continuous presence of evil (moral or natural) upon this earth.  If anything, death, either by natural causes or violent causes seems to detract from the glory of God.  I stand to be corrected but I neither see where the notion that cancer and death glorify God is biblical nor how it is coherent with a view of God who seeks to redeem the cosmos from suffering and death.

So why would a Christian who has the attention of 30,000 plus spectators (most of whom I assume are Christians) suggest that God is glorified by cancer or the loss of a loved one?  I don’t know.  Perhaps, his choice of words were accidental and not really a reflection of this theology.  But why did so many cheer to such a claim about God?  That is perhaps the more troubling question for me because so many seem to swallow whatever they hear from another prominant Christian voice without any hint of discernment being employed. 

I do believe that a person can glorify God even in the midst of a tremendous battle with cancer.  For I have witnessed first hand those who have glorified God while suffering in such circumstances.  But to say that God is glorified by cancer or some other form of suffering seems not only unbiblical and incoherent with a sound theology but it also seems to paint a portrait of God taking pleasure in the suffering of others because it brings him glory.

What do you think?

I Got Published

I will do a little shameless self-promotion here.  I just noticed that New Wineskins published my article “Enduring Life in the Mystery of God’s Goodness” and if you would like to read it just click on the title.  Thanks to Greg Taylor and Keith Brenton for the publishing.

Missions, Evangelism, and Idolatry

          Missions, evangelism…the Christian bookstores are full of literature geared to assist churches at becoming more evangelistic and more missional.  For those called into the vocation of missions and ministry, there are even seminary degrees focused on the specific studies of missions and evangelism.  Few Christians would deny that in some way and some capacity, the church is called into mission and a part of that call is to evangelistically announce the good news of Jesus Christ to those not belonging to Jesus Christ and his church.  However, is learning to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ the only important factor for evangelism?  If “sharing, telling, preaching, teaching, communicating, etc…” the good news is the first thing that comes to mind, have we skipped a step?

          See if you can hear the evangelistic implications in this scripture where the prophet Jeremiah calls Israel unto repentance:

“If you, Israel, will return, then return to me,” declares the Lord.  “If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ then the nations will invoke blessings by him and in him they will boast” (Jer 4.1-2, TNIV). 

Here Israel is being called to abandon their idolatry but not simply because this is a detestable offence to God and his glory.  To be clear, idolatry is an offense to God.  However, this passage illuminates another problem with Israel’s unfaithfulness.  Israel was called to be the missional witness of the greatness of God and this was accomplished through faithfulness…by living in covenant relationship with God (cf. Duet 4.5-8).  Without Israel’s faithfulness, how will the nations come to know the awesome greatness of God?  This is what Jeremiah recognizes.  If only Israel will abandon their idolatry then the nations will “invoke blessings” by God and “boast” in God.

          God’s mission is to all nations of the world and his people are thus vessels through which he accomplishes his mission.  Assuming the punitive consequences of Israel’s idolatry, Jeremiah deals with the bigger implications:

If Israel will return to their proper place of covenant loyalty and obedience, then God can get on with the job of blessing the nations, which is what Israel was called into existence for in the first place.[1]

The missional purpose of God and the missional calling of Israel have been thwarted by Israel’s idolatrous disobedience (unfaithfulness) to God.  The point is clear:

Let Israel return to their mission (to be the people of YHWH, worshiping him exclusively and living according to his moral demands), and God can return to his mission – blessing the nations.[2]

Mission, God’s mission, and its evangelistic thrust for Israel is not accomplished simply upon their ability to effectively and truthfully communicate the blessings of God’s grace.  Prior to any preaching or sharing of such good news, Israel’s evangelistic effort hinges upon their faithful obedience to God.

          There are deep implications for the Christian church.  We are called to discipleship in Jesus, to live obedient (faith) lives unto Jesus who is Lord.  It is this life of discipleship that bears witness to the Lordship of Jesus.  While the church still preaches and communicates the good news, without the witness of faithful living our preaching and communications of good news appears useless.  To be candid…it makes no difference if the church preaches Jesus Christ as Lord but lives as though he is not Lord.  It made no difference if Israel declared the greatness of God while living as though the idols were great. 

          I raise this issue because I am increasingly convinced that idolatry has become the biggest challenge to the Christian church living in North America and specifically the United States (you can read my previous two posts Idolatry, Then and Now and Idolatry, Then and Now: A Follow Up to understand some of my reasons for making this claim).  Idolatry is an obstacle to our missional calling.  How can we convince the people of our community and culture to become followers of Jesus if we are caught up in idolatry, either in the way we live or by the things we worship?  By way of example, what good does it do to claim “one hope” (cf. Eph 4.4) in Jesus Christ but functionally live as though hope resides in our finances, careers, retirement, government, etc…?

          I am now living in Brighton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, and have taken on the calling to help plant churches.  I am not the only one who has been called to this missional task.  Church planting efforts are taking place all over North America as well as all around the globe.  As part of this effort we must tell the good news of Jesus Christ but before we tell, our community must see a people who live out this good news in faithful obedience to Jesus.  This means we must deal with the issue of idolatry.  We must ask ourselves what are the idols, not only to call others out of such darkness but also to come out ourselves.  Until we deal with this issue, our vocal witness will remain weak at best and mute at worst.

Questions

1. What are the idols of the North American culture?  How do we discern their identity and the cunning schemes by which people, even Christians, are ensnared into such idolatry? 
2. With boldness and urgency, how do we truthfully but lovingly expose idolatry and call people to Jesus Christ within this context? 
3. Assuming that a rejection of certain culture idols will result in an unwelcomed counter-cultural stance, what does it look like for a church to balance such a life with the open welcoming nature that Jesus also embraced the world with?

 

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[1] Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2006), 241.  In chapter 6, Wright discusses numerous Old Testament passages that connect this missional intent to Israel’s covenant life with God.

[2] Ibid.

11 Years Ago Today

Eleven years ago today, August 8, 1998, in South Bend, Indiana at the former Don Moyer Church of Christ (now Living Stones Church), I took in marriage Laura Joan Martin to be my bride.  We will celebrate the evening by going out to a simple dinner at the Apoloosa Bar & Grill on 16th st. in downtown Denver.  The simple dinner is fitting of who we are…simple people, simple Christians.

As I reflect back on the last eleven years, it seems like such a short distance between 1998 and 2009.  Yet it has been eleven great years.  That is not to say that we have not had our challenges, most notable the unexpected death of our first child, Kenny.  Yet we have been blessed with eleven years, three children (Kenny, Caryn, and Jared), wonderful parents and families on both sides of the marriage, the blessing of have been priviledged to travel many places including Brazil, meet many new friends, and grow in faith together and in love for each other. 

At the center of it all is God.  I thank God that he has blessed me with such a wonderful wife as Laura, who is both a great wife and an equally great mother.  I know for certain that I would not be where I am today and who I am today if it was not for Laura and how God has worked through Laura to bless me.

The best way to describe our last eleven years is “aventurous love.”  I say that because love has certainly been the bedrock of our marriage, a love for each other and an even stronger love for God.  Yet it has also been adventurous.  I was raised in La Porte, Indiana and prior to meeting Laura, I though I would have remained in La Porte.  Since meeting Laura, we have visited approximately 35 different states, along with Canada and Brazil., we have made friends with people from all around the world, and now lived in six different states (AR, CO, MN, MO, NY, & TN). 

Thank you God and thank you Laura.  I love you God and I love you Laura.