There is much we can learn from the book of Job about suffering. His example demonstrates how we are to understand the meaning of suffering and how to respond to it.
We can also learn what not to do by learning from the example of Job’s friends. Job did not deserve the calamity that befell him soon into the story, emphasized in the first verse:
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
However, his friends could not accept he had done no wrong since they believed bad things do not happen to good people:
Job 4:5-8 5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. 6 Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? 7 "Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? 8 As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
As a result, they added insult to injury by urging him to repent of the sin that led to his affliction, to their shame. They were genuine in wanting to help their friend when they responded to his pain. They made sense of his circumstances the best they could and responded accordingly. Lacking perspective and understanding, they lacked the needed prescription that would provide healing. Like archaic medicine that used to cut patients to try to bleed the illness out them, their efforts only made the situation worse.
Bad medicine is only one example of the mismanagement of the body of Christ in the effort to “take care of” their wounded. Many well meaning “friends” take it a step further by choosing to “shoot” their fallen comrade, like a horse with a broken leg, “putting them out of their misery” rather than suffer the inconvenience of trying to nurse them back to health, especially given the odds they may not recover. This trend is most seen when dealing with leaders. Leaders are supposed to be strong so when weakness is exposed, responsibility is taken from them “for their own good.” Really, like the horse, they are seen as a liability since their ability to carry their load has been lost or diminished. Since no one knows what to do with them and followers feel betrayed that the one they were depending on to carry them suddenly needs to be carried, the wounded leader is simply ignored and left to die. As for the other leaders, like in the parable of the good Samaritan, their self-righteous belief in their own strength and credentials leads them to walk on the other side of the road, passing the bleeding man who was attacked by robbers because they are too busy or repulsed to stop and help. Those who passed may have even thought the man deserved it.
Some wounded do bring it on themselves, some do not. Unlike Job, everyone deserves punishment for something but it is a mistake to associate suffering as punishment for sin, deeming the sufferer as “deserving” of their condition due to some flaw in their character or history of poor judgment. While some sinful behaviors do need to be answered by leaving the one in bondage to their destructive behavior to learn the consequences of their rebellion, it is negligent and dangerous to group everyone in the category of “deserving it,” especially in the attempt to justify leaving one to die of their wounds.
The Biblical church is a hospital for the hurting and hopeless, inviting everyone in need of healing to come. Mercy is the Biblical response when pain is observed. Mercy requires being inconvenienced and uncomfortable, requiring one share in the sufferings of the one being helped. It cost the Good Samaritan time and money to help the wounded traveler. He even risked becoming sick himself by allowing himself to be soiled by the blood of the beaten man, something the “pure” religious leader were unwilling to do. Like those who chose to keep their hands clean, the final judgment may reveal those who thought they were healthy were actually more sick than the ones they were avoiding, afflicted by a cancer that leads to destruction.
Matthew 25:34-46 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' 40 And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' 41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' 45 Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Are You a Modern Thinker?
Creed of the Modern Thinker -Stever Turner
We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn.
We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
And the Russians would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky and when you hear:
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.
Joshua 24:14-15 14 "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn.
We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
And the Russians would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky and when you hear:
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.
Joshua 24:14-15 14 "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
Monday, December 1, 2008
Terrorists are Watching
In Colombia, a terrorist organization called FARC (Spanish - Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejercito del Pueblo, English – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army) has a long history of drug funded terrorism. Due to their anti-capitalist and anti-theistic dogmas, originating from their ties with the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party in the 60’s, employees of international companies and Christian missionaries have been popular targets for kidnappings and murders. Their involvement since the 1980’s with the cocaine trade in Colombia for funding served to increase their brutality. [i]
In an article by Christianity Today, a pastor named Alfredo Torres asked a FARC member why they hate Evangelical Christians so badly. The following is an article that evaluates the response:
· Evangelical pastors live well, at the expense of the people. He cited as an example a pastor of a church of 1,000 members who left San Vicente del Caguan. The pastor took his herd of cattle with him, rather than leave the animals for the needy of the community.
· Evangelicals take up offerings, but do not have a vision to improve society. The FARC leader noted the lack of an evangelical school in San Vicente. When the FARC organizes community projects, such as building bridges, everyone but the evangelicals pitches in to help. Yet the evangelicals are the first to use the bridge. The church places great emphasis on saving souls but does little to relieve physical suffering.
· Evangelicals are agents of U.S. imperialism.
· Evangelicals organize corrupt political parties.
· Evangelicals are anti-guerrilla. They believe the FARC are the only bad guys and that everything the government does is good, despite its rampant corruption.
Compass Direct news service, which monitors religious persecution throughout the world, read this list of charges to a former FARC sub-commander who has since converted to Christianity. Is this really what the FARC believes about evangelicals?
Yes, he replied, in addition to other things.
When peasants join a church, they will not follow the FARC.
Guerrillas can't get a foothold in a community with a church.
Thus, armed groups promote an image of the church based on gross ignorance or lies. For example, they allege that a woman who wants to join a church must first have sex with the pastor. They charge that the church is just a business; pastors keep tithes for themselves and have parties with the church offerings. Evangelicals, they maintain, are government agents who pacify people to make them submissive to the state.
These outrageous notions about evangelicals are obviously false. Yet Colombian church leaders acknowledge the church should do more to alleviate poverty and help the millions of displaced persons who have flooded the nation's cities. Some prominent church leaders are indeed wealthy, while their churches turn away the poor who need help.
When asked how the church could improve its image among the armed groups, the former guerrilla said simply, "Change." [ii]
How much more could we improve the image of the church in the U. S. by following the same advice? The world is watching and Christians are dying due to our apathy and deceit. Let’s clean our own house by rightly applying the gospel so we can rightly represent it as we take it to the ends of the earth.
[i] Wikipedia
[ii] "This article first appeared in (2/01/2004) issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188."
In an article by Christianity Today, a pastor named Alfredo Torres asked a FARC member why they hate Evangelical Christians so badly. The following is an article that evaluates the response:
· Evangelical pastors live well, at the expense of the people. He cited as an example a pastor of a church of 1,000 members who left San Vicente del Caguan. The pastor took his herd of cattle with him, rather than leave the animals for the needy of the community.
· Evangelicals take up offerings, but do not have a vision to improve society. The FARC leader noted the lack of an evangelical school in San Vicente. When the FARC organizes community projects, such as building bridges, everyone but the evangelicals pitches in to help. Yet the evangelicals are the first to use the bridge. The church places great emphasis on saving souls but does little to relieve physical suffering.
· Evangelicals are agents of U.S. imperialism.
· Evangelicals organize corrupt political parties.
· Evangelicals are anti-guerrilla. They believe the FARC are the only bad guys and that everything the government does is good, despite its rampant corruption.
Compass Direct news service, which monitors religious persecution throughout the world, read this list of charges to a former FARC sub-commander who has since converted to Christianity. Is this really what the FARC believes about evangelicals?
Yes, he replied, in addition to other things.
When peasants join a church, they will not follow the FARC.
Guerrillas can't get a foothold in a community with a church.
Thus, armed groups promote an image of the church based on gross ignorance or lies. For example, they allege that a woman who wants to join a church must first have sex with the pastor. They charge that the church is just a business; pastors keep tithes for themselves and have parties with the church offerings. Evangelicals, they maintain, are government agents who pacify people to make them submissive to the state.
These outrageous notions about evangelicals are obviously false. Yet Colombian church leaders acknowledge the church should do more to alleviate poverty and help the millions of displaced persons who have flooded the nation's cities. Some prominent church leaders are indeed wealthy, while their churches turn away the poor who need help.
When asked how the church could improve its image among the armed groups, the former guerrilla said simply, "Change." [ii]
How much more could we improve the image of the church in the U. S. by following the same advice? The world is watching and Christians are dying due to our apathy and deceit. Let’s clean our own house by rightly applying the gospel so we can rightly represent it as we take it to the ends of the earth.
[i] Wikipedia
[ii] "This article first appeared in (2/01/2004) issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188."
Friday, November 7, 2008
Embracing a Foreign Identity
This weekend, I will be meditating on the meaning of humility with pastor Ryan. Jill's devotion for today is a fitting context for remembering who we are and the world we live in are only a rediculously small part of history and reality. Humility is a response to knowing God and the story he has unfolded throughout history, giving context to today's reality and our identity in it. Knowing the story also reveals what tomorrow holds and toward what we should be striving. The story is about God, not about us. He has but granted us the honor of playing a part as it is told, as well as the priviledge of being a member of the audience who sees it unfold.
11/7/08
Embracing a Foreign Identity
Jill Carattini
The human world is “story-shaped,” espoused Brian Wicker in his 1975 book The Story-Shaped World.(1) That is to say, we live our lives amidst a sea of stories and storytellers, our own stories indelibly shaped by the narratives we embrace consciously or otherwise.
Like the story of Marxism or modern progress, consumerism or atheism, the Christian narrative invites the world into a story that shapes the world in which we live and see. It is a foreign story in terms of time and space; we cannot enter into the world of first century Palestinian Jewish living anymore than we can literally embrace the person of Christ. And yet, it is a story that claims to tell a universal tale, and it is Christ who speaks as clearly to our humanity today as he pulls us into stories and cultures far beyond our own.
In fact, the story of Christ invites us to see human nature, human history, and the “really human” in ways most meta-narratives cannot. As Richard Bauckham notes, “[The biblical narrative] does not, like the modern myth of progress, describe the human achievement of human goals or even a process of immanent reason at work in the historical process.”(2) But it does offer a glimpse of humanity in relation to its creator, God’s purpose, God’s covenant, and human freedom to interact with these realities. It offers a glimpse of our human nature by telling the story of the “truest” human. In a world where countless ideologies vie for our allegiances, the biblical narrative invites us into an understanding of human history where we encounter the one whose authority is ultimate and whose humanity is perfect. We who respond to Christ and join his story realize we have found more than a storyteller; we have found the story that tells us who we are.
Thus the biblical narrative is more than a worldview in the way that it narrates. Lesslie Newbigin describes the embrace of the Christian story as a commitment that must act out “in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.”(3) Christian mission, too, is therefore far more than the sharing of merely another story among many. For far more is conveyed than simply one more spirituality or worldview, and far more is at stake than offense or political inappropriateness. What is at stake is nothing less than the full integrity of our nature as human beings. For if the biblical narrative correctly shares what is truly human and invites us to follow the one who perfectly lived this humanity, then salvation is that which not only restores us to the divine but is also an action that restores us to humanity itself--to ourselves and to one another.
While pluralism, humanism, secularism, privatization, and countless other stories might speak convincingly into our culture, world, and individual identities, the story of Christ is the only story that offers such a holistic picture. As opposed to the dominating narratives whose concern is neither for truth nor the individual, the story God tells is one we are asked to evaluate in terms of truth and then invited to see our own stories completely within. In the words of Christ, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). While the missionary direction of the Bible is certainly one that meets us within a story, and the God we discover within it indeed embraces a story-teller identity, far from disappearing within a dominating narrative, we are invited to truly live within this story and the very kingdom it proclaims. We are invited to true and abundant humanity within a narrative that is continually moving us from the particular to the universal, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Brian Wicker, The Story-Shaped World (London: Athlone Press, 1975).
(2) Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 91.
(3) Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 17.
11/7/08
Embracing a Foreign Identity
Jill Carattini
The human world is “story-shaped,” espoused Brian Wicker in his 1975 book The Story-Shaped World.(1) That is to say, we live our lives amidst a sea of stories and storytellers, our own stories indelibly shaped by the narratives we embrace consciously or otherwise.
Like the story of Marxism or modern progress, consumerism or atheism, the Christian narrative invites the world into a story that shapes the world in which we live and see. It is a foreign story in terms of time and space; we cannot enter into the world of first century Palestinian Jewish living anymore than we can literally embrace the person of Christ. And yet, it is a story that claims to tell a universal tale, and it is Christ who speaks as clearly to our humanity today as he pulls us into stories and cultures far beyond our own.
In fact, the story of Christ invites us to see human nature, human history, and the “really human” in ways most meta-narratives cannot. As Richard Bauckham notes, “[The biblical narrative] does not, like the modern myth of progress, describe the human achievement of human goals or even a process of immanent reason at work in the historical process.”(2) But it does offer a glimpse of humanity in relation to its creator, God’s purpose, God’s covenant, and human freedom to interact with these realities. It offers a glimpse of our human nature by telling the story of the “truest” human. In a world where countless ideologies vie for our allegiances, the biblical narrative invites us into an understanding of human history where we encounter the one whose authority is ultimate and whose humanity is perfect. We who respond to Christ and join his story realize we have found more than a storyteller; we have found the story that tells us who we are.
Thus the biblical narrative is more than a worldview in the way that it narrates. Lesslie Newbigin describes the embrace of the Christian story as a commitment that must act out “in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.”(3) Christian mission, too, is therefore far more than the sharing of merely another story among many. For far more is conveyed than simply one more spirituality or worldview, and far more is at stake than offense or political inappropriateness. What is at stake is nothing less than the full integrity of our nature as human beings. For if the biblical narrative correctly shares what is truly human and invites us to follow the one who perfectly lived this humanity, then salvation is that which not only restores us to the divine but is also an action that restores us to humanity itself--to ourselves and to one another.
While pluralism, humanism, secularism, privatization, and countless other stories might speak convincingly into our culture, world, and individual identities, the story of Christ is the only story that offers such a holistic picture. As opposed to the dominating narratives whose concern is neither for truth nor the individual, the story God tells is one we are asked to evaluate in terms of truth and then invited to see our own stories completely within. In the words of Christ, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). While the missionary direction of the Bible is certainly one that meets us within a story, and the God we discover within it indeed embraces a story-teller identity, far from disappearing within a dominating narrative, we are invited to truly live within this story and the very kingdom it proclaims. We are invited to true and abundant humanity within a narrative that is continually moving us from the particular to the universal, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Brian Wicker, The Story-Shaped World (London: Athlone Press, 1975).
(2) Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 91.
(3) Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 17.
Politically Correct
My pastor's response to the election inspired me. His reflections have helped me see how truly detached I am from our country’s political arena. I’ve taken for granted the blessings of our country’s heritage and political structure. I’m compelled to become more aware and get involved.
Like Ryan, I am also concerned about government getting bigger, especially in the areas of responsibility that should be performed by the Church. Historically, the Church has played the greatest role in meeting the needs of social welfare. Public education was founded by the Church and evolved into what we now know as universities, from which some of the oldest and most prestigious schools today were founded. Modern medicine is also rooted in the Church’s long history of ministering to the sick. Providing for the poor is not only a deeply rooted ministry of the Church, it is a biblical mandate. The very principles on which our nation was founded and from which our laws were inspired were overwhelmingly informed by Scripture. Much has changed. Public welfare, state funded education, and the proposed government health care are out of context and reflect the misplacement of responsibility. Those on welfare need a hand up, not a hand out. Public education has been ransacked by secular, anti-theistic academics on whose altar we willingly sacrifice our children. The biblical definition of family continues to erode as well, leaving for the government the responsibility of caring for forgotten, elderly parents and wayward, fatherless children, shattered remains of broken homes left to feed on the scraps of institutionalized philanthropy. Believing the state can provide such ministries is as nonsensical as believing a machine has feelings; the intentions are good but the vehicle is hollow and heartless.
I don’t have a strategy but I’m confident of the answer: the Church has to take back their responsibility from the state in order to set things right. Such a proposal is almost laughable; the perfect God-sized project. Impossible is what God does best and what most glorifies him. Politically, it is what is known as a grass roots movement, the same context from which revivals and revolutions have grown, the context that leaves the instigator unknown. Coincidence and mystery are the ways the world defines the inexplicable movement of God of which only believers are able to enjoy the awareness of being a part and the only ones able to see who is responsible. Such times are known to us as awakenings, times the Church woke up from their slumber and recognized again the source of their identity and author of their purpose. No political system produces results like a theocracy. No political leader has the power to invoke change like our all-powerful, unchanging God. Therefore, my involvement begins by declaring as the psalmist:
Psalm 82:1-8 God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the “gods”: 2 “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? 3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. 4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. 5 “They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ 7 But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.” 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance.
In God will I trust, by his power will I move, and on his platform will I stand.
Like Ryan, I am also concerned about government getting bigger, especially in the areas of responsibility that should be performed by the Church. Historically, the Church has played the greatest role in meeting the needs of social welfare. Public education was founded by the Church and evolved into what we now know as universities, from which some of the oldest and most prestigious schools today were founded. Modern medicine is also rooted in the Church’s long history of ministering to the sick. Providing for the poor is not only a deeply rooted ministry of the Church, it is a biblical mandate. The very principles on which our nation was founded and from which our laws were inspired were overwhelmingly informed by Scripture. Much has changed. Public welfare, state funded education, and the proposed government health care are out of context and reflect the misplacement of responsibility. Those on welfare need a hand up, not a hand out. Public education has been ransacked by secular, anti-theistic academics on whose altar we willingly sacrifice our children. The biblical definition of family continues to erode as well, leaving for the government the responsibility of caring for forgotten, elderly parents and wayward, fatherless children, shattered remains of broken homes left to feed on the scraps of institutionalized philanthropy. Believing the state can provide such ministries is as nonsensical as believing a machine has feelings; the intentions are good but the vehicle is hollow and heartless.
I don’t have a strategy but I’m confident of the answer: the Church has to take back their responsibility from the state in order to set things right. Such a proposal is almost laughable; the perfect God-sized project. Impossible is what God does best and what most glorifies him. Politically, it is what is known as a grass roots movement, the same context from which revivals and revolutions have grown, the context that leaves the instigator unknown. Coincidence and mystery are the ways the world defines the inexplicable movement of God of which only believers are able to enjoy the awareness of being a part and the only ones able to see who is responsible. Such times are known to us as awakenings, times the Church woke up from their slumber and recognized again the source of their identity and author of their purpose. No political system produces results like a theocracy. No political leader has the power to invoke change like our all-powerful, unchanging God. Therefore, my involvement begins by declaring as the psalmist:
Psalm 82:1-8 God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the “gods”: 2 “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? 3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. 4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. 5 “They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ 7 But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.” 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance.
In God will I trust, by his power will I move, and on his platform will I stand.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Flavor of the Martyr
Since my late teens, after a first-hand exposure to third-world missions in Brazilia, Brazil, I have been enraptured by the testimonies of those who have given up everything for the sake of the call, especially those called to martyrdom. One who came to be one of my favorites was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, author of The Cost of Discipleship. During World War II, he was a formidable antagonist to the socialistic/fascist regime of Hitler both as a spiritual leader and participant in the German underground. His friends, knowing his uncompromising faith and character, feared for his safety as war broke out and tried to convince him to flee to safety within English borders. They managed to convince him for a time, but the compassion for his fellow believers in Germany who were being persecuted, his sense of duty to combat tyranny in his homeland, and his righteous anger against the apathy and indifference of the Church, drove him back to endure the hardship of battle on the front lines. In the article “Death of a Martyr,” written by Reinhold Niebuhr in his book Christianity and Crisis, Bonhoeffer is quoted from a letter he wrote to Niebuhr before returning to Germany as to his reasoning that drew him back:
“I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. . . Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make this choice in security.”
Years later he wrote in prison, “You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led. My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.” In 1945, in a German concentration camp that was liberated only a few weeks later, Bonhoeffer was killed for his role in opposing the existing regime, for opposing the forces of darkness.
Let me be clear by saying my purpose in posting Bonhoeffer’s testimony is not to compare Obama with Hitler; my purpose is not about Obama at all. We as the Church are asleep and our country continues to reflect the results of our apathy. Bonhoeffer was a major contributor to the ecumenical movement given his understanding of the powerlessness invoked by division, however he knew ecumenism would not happen until individual believers came to terms with the living God in whom they professed faith and the gospel they claimed to profess. Just as it is not possible to be in the presence of God without being changed, it is equally impossible to be in his presence without being called to action. As Christians we are made salt to be used as salt. “Naysaying Christians who would prefer to be salt kept in privatized bottles on isolated shelves must be reminded that the reign of God we proclaim calls for radical commitment to our identity (we are salt) and sacrificial immersion (salt must be dispersed in order to season).”* Like Bonhoeffer, let us go forth as salt, adding to our world the same evocative flavor.
*Jill Carratini, A Slice of Infinity, “Living With a Foreign Worldview.”
“I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. . . Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make this choice in security.”
Years later he wrote in prison, “You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led. My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.” In 1945, in a German concentration camp that was liberated only a few weeks later, Bonhoeffer was killed for his role in opposing the existing regime, for opposing the forces of darkness.
Let me be clear by saying my purpose in posting Bonhoeffer’s testimony is not to compare Obama with Hitler; my purpose is not about Obama at all. We as the Church are asleep and our country continues to reflect the results of our apathy. Bonhoeffer was a major contributor to the ecumenical movement given his understanding of the powerlessness invoked by division, however he knew ecumenism would not happen until individual believers came to terms with the living God in whom they professed faith and the gospel they claimed to profess. Just as it is not possible to be in the presence of God without being changed, it is equally impossible to be in his presence without being called to action. As Christians we are made salt to be used as salt. “Naysaying Christians who would prefer to be salt kept in privatized bottles on isolated shelves must be reminded that the reign of God we proclaim calls for radical commitment to our identity (we are salt) and sacrificial immersion (salt must be dispersed in order to season).”* Like Bonhoeffer, let us go forth as salt, adding to our world the same evocative flavor.
*Jill Carratini, A Slice of Infinity, “Living With a Foreign Worldview.”
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Undone
In light of the recent exchange of comments on Ryan's blog, this is a great article that speaks to the impact of modern technology on communication and sociology. Wouldn't it be great if we had the option of deleting words that come out of our mouth after hindsight reveals they shouldn't have been said? While we can't erase words that have already been spoken or undo actions that have already been done in reality, it is a comfort knowing God can. Through the power of grace, repentance presents our error filled lives for editing by our Savior, through which he can indeed make all our imperfections "undone."
10/29/08
Undone
Jill Carattini
Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” is an honor bestowed on a new or old word that is chosen for its representation of the year’s cultural milieu. Considered for this past year’s award were words such as “blamestorm,” a noun which describes a meeting that is held in order to find out who is to blame, “facebook,” a verb that means to look up a person’s profile on the popular networking site, and “pecksniffian,” an adjective which describes someone or something that is unctuously hypocritical. Ironically, the word that was chosen for best summing up the year 2007 is not in Webster’s dictionary and spelling enthusiasts are sure to be unamused by its peculiar configuration. “W00t,” spelled with double zeros, is an exclamation of joy, excitement, or triumph. It comes from a language used by computer programmers and online gamers, in which letters are replaced by numbers. Merriam-Webster’s president commented on the quirky technological choice: "It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It’s a term that’s arrived only because we’re now communicating electronically with each other.”(1)
Much has been said recently on the influences of technology, blog culture, text messaging, and internet search engines on the way we obtain and retain information, the way we interact with each other, and the ways in which we think. Merriam-Webster’s choice of “w00t” as its word of the year is just one demonstration of how we are adapting; it is indeed ironic that a dictionary should choose to praise a word that is not in the dictionary. Another study on “information behavior” conducted by scholars from University College London suggests that we may well be in the midst of a reprogramming of the way we read and think.(2) Some of their observations are fascinating; others are causing due alarm. Yet however we choose to look at it, technology is unquestionably shaping the way we see the world.
As someone who spends a great deal of time on the computer writing and editing, one of my most cherished technological functions is the ability to “undo” something. With the flip of two fingers--one on “control” and the other on the letter “z”--I can remove the sentence I just added the page, take back the word that did not quite fit, or reverse the effect of every previous command and restore my document to its original condition. No matter how many actions I have taken on the page, I can undo every one of them--and this is often useful! Technologically, it is a feature to which I have grown quite accustomed--so much so, that I find myself believing that nothing is really lost, and that everything can be undone, erased, or retrieved. And I cannot begin to calculate how many times I have thought about this function when I have needed it in places far from my computer screen.
Of course, reality never takes long to jar me back into a world with vastly different rules of operation. We cannot undo words that have already been said or take back actions that were less opportune than we anticipated. Hindsight, by definition, is a vision that is no longer available to us, no matter how urgently we would turn back time and “undo” what has been done. Our actions and inactions, words, lies, and blind spots cannot be expunged like a spreadsheet or a document. The biblical resolve that our “yes” be our “yes,” that consequences be weighed, and the cost of our action or inaction be counted at the outset is a far wiser and practical vision. And of course, it is far harder work. “But which of you,” asks Christ, “intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?... Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?” (Luke 14:28,31).
Warning the crowds to count the cost of discipleship, Jesus spoke in terms that would cause the faint and the indecisive to run. He also begged them to see that how we live, what we do and say, matters deeply and cannot be undone. We cannot undo foolish words spoken in anger, the regret of a lost opportunity, or the act of walking away from someone in need. Nor can we undo a life that let Christ pass by while we had our hands on other plows. But we can choose to live faithfully today. Christ invites us to fashion our legacy as faithful and dynamic followers from this day forward, ever looking to the one who is in fact able to undo a life that is anything less.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Stephanie Reitz, “Merriam-Webster’s Word of ‘07: ‘W00t’” The Associated Press, December 11, 2007.
(2) “Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future,” University College London Online Briefing, January 11 2008, http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf, accessed October 1, 2008.
10/29/08
Undone
Jill Carattini
Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” is an honor bestowed on a new or old word that is chosen for its representation of the year’s cultural milieu. Considered for this past year’s award were words such as “blamestorm,” a noun which describes a meeting that is held in order to find out who is to blame, “facebook,” a verb that means to look up a person’s profile on the popular networking site, and “pecksniffian,” an adjective which describes someone or something that is unctuously hypocritical. Ironically, the word that was chosen for best summing up the year 2007 is not in Webster’s dictionary and spelling enthusiasts are sure to be unamused by its peculiar configuration. “W00t,” spelled with double zeros, is an exclamation of joy, excitement, or triumph. It comes from a language used by computer programmers and online gamers, in which letters are replaced by numbers. Merriam-Webster’s president commented on the quirky technological choice: "It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It’s a term that’s arrived only because we’re now communicating electronically with each other.”(1)
Much has been said recently on the influences of technology, blog culture, text messaging, and internet search engines on the way we obtain and retain information, the way we interact with each other, and the ways in which we think. Merriam-Webster’s choice of “w00t” as its word of the year is just one demonstration of how we are adapting; it is indeed ironic that a dictionary should choose to praise a word that is not in the dictionary. Another study on “information behavior” conducted by scholars from University College London suggests that we may well be in the midst of a reprogramming of the way we read and think.(2) Some of their observations are fascinating; others are causing due alarm. Yet however we choose to look at it, technology is unquestionably shaping the way we see the world.
As someone who spends a great deal of time on the computer writing and editing, one of my most cherished technological functions is the ability to “undo” something. With the flip of two fingers--one on “control” and the other on the letter “z”--I can remove the sentence I just added the page, take back the word that did not quite fit, or reverse the effect of every previous command and restore my document to its original condition. No matter how many actions I have taken on the page, I can undo every one of them--and this is often useful! Technologically, it is a feature to which I have grown quite accustomed--so much so, that I find myself believing that nothing is really lost, and that everything can be undone, erased, or retrieved. And I cannot begin to calculate how many times I have thought about this function when I have needed it in places far from my computer screen.
Of course, reality never takes long to jar me back into a world with vastly different rules of operation. We cannot undo words that have already been said or take back actions that were less opportune than we anticipated. Hindsight, by definition, is a vision that is no longer available to us, no matter how urgently we would turn back time and “undo” what has been done. Our actions and inactions, words, lies, and blind spots cannot be expunged like a spreadsheet or a document. The biblical resolve that our “yes” be our “yes,” that consequences be weighed, and the cost of our action or inaction be counted at the outset is a far wiser and practical vision. And of course, it is far harder work. “But which of you,” asks Christ, “intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?... Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?” (Luke 14:28,31).
Warning the crowds to count the cost of discipleship, Jesus spoke in terms that would cause the faint and the indecisive to run. He also begged them to see that how we live, what we do and say, matters deeply and cannot be undone. We cannot undo foolish words spoken in anger, the regret of a lost opportunity, or the act of walking away from someone in need. Nor can we undo a life that let Christ pass by while we had our hands on other plows. But we can choose to live faithfully today. Christ invites us to fashion our legacy as faithful and dynamic followers from this day forward, ever looking to the one who is in fact able to undo a life that is anything less.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Stephanie Reitz, “Merriam-Webster’s Word of ‘07: ‘W00t’” The Associated Press, December 11, 2007.
(2) “Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future,” University College London Online Briefing, January 11 2008, http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf, accessed October 1, 2008.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Living the Gospel
Love is at the heart of the gospel and therefore, the heart of God and the theme of the Bible. The ten commandments were given in love to preserve love. The first five commandments describe how to preserve fellowship with God, the second five comandments describe how to preserve fellowship with others. Like any parent who loves their child, God does not define boundaries by “laying down the law” in order to make us miserable. He is not a tyrant and his law is not arbitrary. His law defines reality so that we may have “eyes to see” the difference between good and evil, freeing us from the deception of Satan, the father of lies and the prince of darkness.
The gospel is offensive because it is demanding and exclusive. It is demanding and exclusive because it is true; it demands a choice of either accepting or rejecting it and it excludes those who reject it. Hell is a consequence of choosing to reject the gospel, chosen by the individual who rejects the truth. Fellowship with God requires being made perfect by him through Jesus because it is the truth, the only way to be restored to him and to have the darkness of our blindness illuminated by the light, allowing us to see. Choosing to walk in the light results in fellowship with God and man as God intended according to the ten commandments. The loving manifestation of Christian fellowship is not duplicatable by the world and can only be known in the world by those who have fully embraced the truth of the gospel.
A big step that would help to bring clarity to the confusion related to the gospel would be for the Church to start living the gospel as a credible testimony of the truth. In order for this to happen, those who profess belief in Christ need to be clear about what it is they say they believe and submit themselves to be changed by it. Due to our failure to live the gospel, the world has good reason to doubt the gospel’s credibiilty. Only true fellowship will give credibility to the truth of the gospel, presenting fruit as the evidence we are connected to the vine about which the gospel story tells.
1 John 3:7-18 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
The gospel is offensive because it is demanding and exclusive. It is demanding and exclusive because it is true; it demands a choice of either accepting or rejecting it and it excludes those who reject it. Hell is a consequence of choosing to reject the gospel, chosen by the individual who rejects the truth. Fellowship with God requires being made perfect by him through Jesus because it is the truth, the only way to be restored to him and to have the darkness of our blindness illuminated by the light, allowing us to see. Choosing to walk in the light results in fellowship with God and man as God intended according to the ten commandments. The loving manifestation of Christian fellowship is not duplicatable by the world and can only be known in the world by those who have fully embraced the truth of the gospel.
A big step that would help to bring clarity to the confusion related to the gospel would be for the Church to start living the gospel as a credible testimony of the truth. In order for this to happen, those who profess belief in Christ need to be clear about what it is they say they believe and submit themselves to be changed by it. Due to our failure to live the gospel, the world has good reason to doubt the gospel’s credibiilty. Only true fellowship will give credibility to the truth of the gospel, presenting fruit as the evidence we are connected to the vine about which the gospel story tells.
1 John 3:7-18 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Truth According to the Deceived
Yesterday afternoon, I encountered one of the greatest obstacles to sharing the credibility of God's truth while talking to the son of the guy from whom I buy my chemicals. He believes truth is relative to what he believes is true. He said God is big enough to be God for every religion, not just Christianity. He doesn’t believe in hell either. How he sees God is all that is important to him and he said we could talk in circles all day and nothing I said would change that.
Despite his confusion regarding truth, what he said in the end is absolutely true. Truth adheres to the law of non-contradiction, the same evaluation for credibility as the scientific method. Absolute truth maintains its integrity without contradiction. Relativism, on the other hand, is a contradiction. To believe truth is relative, that there is no absolute truth, requires stipulating “truth is relative” is an absolute truth. Trying to meet on the common ground of absolute truth with a relativist would be like trying to meet on the common ground of reality with a mental patient who believes he is Napoleon. In both situations, there is no common ground.
If one is not interested in absolute truth, what would give my experience credibility? If one is interested in truth, the Bible is defensible as a credible source and a source for giving my experience credibility. If experience/belief contradicts the Bible, it is not credible, thus categorizing it among fantasies and opinions. God is the source of truth and author of Scripture, making it absolute and beyond opinion, thus making a relativist’s opinion as to its validity irrelevant.
John 8:31-32 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:42-43 42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
Despite his confusion regarding truth, what he said in the end is absolutely true. Truth adheres to the law of non-contradiction, the same evaluation for credibility as the scientific method. Absolute truth maintains its integrity without contradiction. Relativism, on the other hand, is a contradiction. To believe truth is relative, that there is no absolute truth, requires stipulating “truth is relative” is an absolute truth. Trying to meet on the common ground of absolute truth with a relativist would be like trying to meet on the common ground of reality with a mental patient who believes he is Napoleon. In both situations, there is no common ground.
If one is not interested in absolute truth, what would give my experience credibility? If one is interested in truth, the Bible is defensible as a credible source and a source for giving my experience credibility. If experience/belief contradicts the Bible, it is not credible, thus categorizing it among fantasies and opinions. God is the source of truth and author of Scripture, making it absolute and beyond opinion, thus making a relativist’s opinion as to its validity irrelevant.
John 8:31-32 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:42-43 42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Being Made to Minister
The making of a minister, portrayed by the Biblical, historical and present testimonies of all who have legitimately responded to the call, is a painful, terrible, yet wonderful process. Being made is the process of our flesh being crucified, the painful throws of our impending death. Such is necessary to grow in abundant life. The abundant life is a prerequisite for inheriting the necessary empowerment and direction God provides those whom he has called according to his purpose.
Below is a poem by an unknown author, quoted by Ravi Zacharias as well as Ryan in past sermons.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man;
when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
when He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
that all the world might be amazed,watch His methods, watch His ways.
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects.
How He hammers and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him,
into trial shapes of clay that only God understands,
while his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands.
How He bends but never breaks, when His good He undertakes.
How He uses whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses him
with mighty acts induces him to try His splendor out.
God knows what He’s about.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man,
watch His methods, watch His ways.
Being a follower of Christ means accepting the call to be a minister. Accepting the call promises difficulty and pain, reasons why few respond to the call. Nevertheless, the call to ministry is the call of a believer, and is the only way that leads to the kingdom of God.
Matthew 7:13-14 13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Below is a poem by an unknown author, quoted by Ravi Zacharias as well as Ryan in past sermons.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man;
when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
when He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
that all the world might be amazed,watch His methods, watch His ways.
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects.
How He hammers and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him,
into trial shapes of clay that only God understands,
while his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands.
How He bends but never breaks, when His good He undertakes.
How He uses whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses him
with mighty acts induces him to try His splendor out.
God knows what He’s about.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man,
watch His methods, watch His ways.
Being a follower of Christ means accepting the call to be a minister. Accepting the call promises difficulty and pain, reasons why few respond to the call. Nevertheless, the call to ministry is the call of a believer, and is the only way that leads to the kingdom of God.
Matthew 7:13-14 13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What is Good? Who Decides?
10/16/08
What Is Good? Who Decides?
Stuart McAllister
We live in an era of multiple images, increasing violence, and an overexposure to sexual advertising and media. The mood is dark; the feel is decadent. The very idea of goodness seems quaint, an issue of rhetoric, or a throwback to some bygone age. Perhaps we picture something like the movie Titanic, the romantic age of civility and order, yet all the while mixed with 90’s morality and behavioral patterns. “Whatever goodness is or was,” we might surmise, “it must have been something like this.”
The deeply expressed nostalgia in our culture is surely a sign of the hunger for something more solid, more lasting, and more secure--perhaps even something more virtuous. It is ironic then that much of the energy of our cultural artists and architects has gone into debunking and deconstructing all that is good and beautiful, only to replace it with the shallow, the ugly, and the ephemeral. The often culturally expressed desire for the good old days, for better times, or for people to be more civil and courteous again betrays our inconsistency. Though it has supposedly been redefined, the language of “the good” does not leave our vocabularies anymore than our hearts.
The massive contradictions and paradoxes that lie at the heart of our condition are too many to be catalogued. We seem to be experiencing a kind of cultural vaporization, where many ideas, practices, and values slowly but surely erode and then disappear. In such a time as this, what does it mean to be a sincere pursuer of the good?
I would argue that those who seek to offer hope, change, and good news to a nostalgic culture must wrestle with the issues both around us and within us. The good old days are not a lost hope, but perhaps a defining context for our lives. Nostalgia can be a misguiding illusion, or it can lead us to concrete questions about our place within this world. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here and what is wrong? What is good and who defines it?
Stanley Hauerwas speaks of the people of God as "resident aliens," a community of individuals who live aware of the past, present, and future. Those who follow Christ have come to see that he has placed us within a great story and a great creation, where it is God who first defined what is good and continues to characterize it. While contemporary society exerts enormous power and influence on defining the good, even as it proclaims who the definers of good shall be, the church proclaims another story. While the voices of a great multitude lose their hope of the future and awareness of the present in the power of a nostalgia that draws them to something else, the people of God demonstrate a community in history with a past, a present, and a future.
What does it mean to be the people of God? What is our calling and mission? How then must we live? We need to embody the Christian story and virtues in our lives and lifestyles. If we seek the heart of Christ for a way forward, those who follow in his way can be a most effective apologetic. But how we live is as vital as what needs to be said. The relational component of truth needs to be held together with propositional presentations. The power of community, rootedness, and story need to be explored, shared, and communicated to the world.
As followers of Christ, we must recover hope, model hope, and give hope, for we offer the “now” and the “not yet” of the kingdom. We offer a rich history, a hopeful present, and the best of futures: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again.
Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
What Is Good? Who Decides?
Stuart McAllister
We live in an era of multiple images, increasing violence, and an overexposure to sexual advertising and media. The mood is dark; the feel is decadent. The very idea of goodness seems quaint, an issue of rhetoric, or a throwback to some bygone age. Perhaps we picture something like the movie Titanic, the romantic age of civility and order, yet all the while mixed with 90’s morality and behavioral patterns. “Whatever goodness is or was,” we might surmise, “it must have been something like this.”
The deeply expressed nostalgia in our culture is surely a sign of the hunger for something more solid, more lasting, and more secure--perhaps even something more virtuous. It is ironic then that much of the energy of our cultural artists and architects has gone into debunking and deconstructing all that is good and beautiful, only to replace it with the shallow, the ugly, and the ephemeral. The often culturally expressed desire for the good old days, for better times, or for people to be more civil and courteous again betrays our inconsistency. Though it has supposedly been redefined, the language of “the good” does not leave our vocabularies anymore than our hearts.
The massive contradictions and paradoxes that lie at the heart of our condition are too many to be catalogued. We seem to be experiencing a kind of cultural vaporization, where many ideas, practices, and values slowly but surely erode and then disappear. In such a time as this, what does it mean to be a sincere pursuer of the good?
I would argue that those who seek to offer hope, change, and good news to a nostalgic culture must wrestle with the issues both around us and within us. The good old days are not a lost hope, but perhaps a defining context for our lives. Nostalgia can be a misguiding illusion, or it can lead us to concrete questions about our place within this world. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here and what is wrong? What is good and who defines it?
Stanley Hauerwas speaks of the people of God as "resident aliens," a community of individuals who live aware of the past, present, and future. Those who follow Christ have come to see that he has placed us within a great story and a great creation, where it is God who first defined what is good and continues to characterize it. While contemporary society exerts enormous power and influence on defining the good, even as it proclaims who the definers of good shall be, the church proclaims another story. While the voices of a great multitude lose their hope of the future and awareness of the present in the power of a nostalgia that draws them to something else, the people of God demonstrate a community in history with a past, a present, and a future.
What does it mean to be the people of God? What is our calling and mission? How then must we live? We need to embody the Christian story and virtues in our lives and lifestyles. If we seek the heart of Christ for a way forward, those who follow in his way can be a most effective apologetic. But how we live is as vital as what needs to be said. The relational component of truth needs to be held together with propositional presentations. The power of community, rootedness, and story need to be explored, shared, and communicated to the world.
As followers of Christ, we must recover hope, model hope, and give hope, for we offer the “now” and the “not yet” of the kingdom. We offer a rich history, a hopeful present, and the best of futures: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again.
Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Consuming Christianity
10/15/08
Consuming Christianity
Jill Carattini
There is a covered bridge in Georgia that extends over a scenic rushing stream. A well-worn trail leads its visitors to a succession of small cascading waterfalls over a series of massive rocks. Sitting atop one of these rocks recently, my husband turned to me and asked, "Do you ever think of the springs in France when you see a bottle of Evian for sale?"
My answer caught me more off guard than his question. I really hadn't ever thought of the springs, or the production, or for that matter, the importing that goes into the 20 kinds of bottled water we see on our grocery store shelves. In fact, I don't usually think about the origins of anything I consume.
Sociologists call this growing trend of perspective commodification, the progression of thought whereby the commodities we consume are seen in abstraction from their origins. For instance, when most of us think of chocolate, we rarely see it as having a context beyond our consumption of it. The land where it came from, the conditions of its production, and the community or laborers who produce it are realities disassociated with the commodity. In a culture dominated by consumption, commodification is becoming more and more of an unconscious worldview, and one which is shaping our habits of interpretation across the board.
Author and cultural observer Vincent Miller writes of how such a manner of seeing and interpreting is making us more comfortable with engaging religion as commodity, lifting certain portions of a religious tradition from its context and historical background.(1) Thus just as chocolate or bottled water is easily and unconsciously viewed as detached and even different from its origin and context, parts and pieces of religious traditions are increasingly being seen as goods from which we can pick and choose, commodities disassociated from the historical reality and context from which they arise. Such habits of interpretation might explain the current fascination with diverse and isolated spiritual practices; it could also explain the man on television who recently expressed his desire to design a tattoo portraying his version of the Crucifixion. Jesus, the Cross, and the resurrection become commodities isolatable from first century Palestine, detachable from the context of the Old Testament or the Christian story at all.
It is this ability to isolate and compartmentalize that also allows people to simultaneously affirm beliefs that would otherwise be contradictory. Miller cites an example from a Canadian survey that reports almost half of its participants asserting beliefs in both reincarnation and resurrection. Even a slight understanding of either concept would recognize them as incompatible, but in removing each from their traditions, the consumer mindset disorientedly and groundlessly insists on finding a way to embrace them both.
Someone once told me that the most comforting premise of the Christian worldview was, for her, the assurance of a beginning. The very first words of Scripture boldly claim that we are not lost and wandering in a cosmic circle of time and chance, isolated from any meaning beyond consumer preference. There is one who stood at the foundation of the world, who with wisdom, majesty, and purpose, caused life and history to begin. There was a first word, and it was uttered by one who continues to speak--not in detached fragments but in fullness--telling us who we are, where we came from, what is wrong with us, and how we can be made whole. There is a story that emerges from the beginning, and we have a place within the whole: "Indeed," concludes Peter, "all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed'" (Acts 3:24-25).
In Christ we live as recipients and guardians of a way of life in which belief and practice are intertwined with history, meaning, and hope. There is an origin to the grace we cling to; we are made whole because in Christ we are given a context, a story, a Source.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. (1) Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005).
Consuming Christianity
Jill Carattini
There is a covered bridge in Georgia that extends over a scenic rushing stream. A well-worn trail leads its visitors to a succession of small cascading waterfalls over a series of massive rocks. Sitting atop one of these rocks recently, my husband turned to me and asked, "Do you ever think of the springs in France when you see a bottle of Evian for sale?"
My answer caught me more off guard than his question. I really hadn't ever thought of the springs, or the production, or for that matter, the importing that goes into the 20 kinds of bottled water we see on our grocery store shelves. In fact, I don't usually think about the origins of anything I consume.
Sociologists call this growing trend of perspective commodification, the progression of thought whereby the commodities we consume are seen in abstraction from their origins. For instance, when most of us think of chocolate, we rarely see it as having a context beyond our consumption of it. The land where it came from, the conditions of its production, and the community or laborers who produce it are realities disassociated with the commodity. In a culture dominated by consumption, commodification is becoming more and more of an unconscious worldview, and one which is shaping our habits of interpretation across the board.
Author and cultural observer Vincent Miller writes of how such a manner of seeing and interpreting is making us more comfortable with engaging religion as commodity, lifting certain portions of a religious tradition from its context and historical background.(1) Thus just as chocolate or bottled water is easily and unconsciously viewed as detached and even different from its origin and context, parts and pieces of religious traditions are increasingly being seen as goods from which we can pick and choose, commodities disassociated from the historical reality and context from which they arise. Such habits of interpretation might explain the current fascination with diverse and isolated spiritual practices; it could also explain the man on television who recently expressed his desire to design a tattoo portraying his version of the Crucifixion. Jesus, the Cross, and the resurrection become commodities isolatable from first century Palestine, detachable from the context of the Old Testament or the Christian story at all.
It is this ability to isolate and compartmentalize that also allows people to simultaneously affirm beliefs that would otherwise be contradictory. Miller cites an example from a Canadian survey that reports almost half of its participants asserting beliefs in both reincarnation and resurrection. Even a slight understanding of either concept would recognize them as incompatible, but in removing each from their traditions, the consumer mindset disorientedly and groundlessly insists on finding a way to embrace them both.
Someone once told me that the most comforting premise of the Christian worldview was, for her, the assurance of a beginning. The very first words of Scripture boldly claim that we are not lost and wandering in a cosmic circle of time and chance, isolated from any meaning beyond consumer preference. There is one who stood at the foundation of the world, who with wisdom, majesty, and purpose, caused life and history to begin. There was a first word, and it was uttered by one who continues to speak--not in detached fragments but in fullness--telling us who we are, where we came from, what is wrong with us, and how we can be made whole. There is a story that emerges from the beginning, and we have a place within the whole: "Indeed," concludes Peter, "all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed'" (Acts 3:24-25).
In Christ we live as recipients and guardians of a way of life in which belief and practice are intertwined with history, meaning, and hope. There is an origin to the grace we cling to; we are made whole because in Christ we are given a context, a story, a Source.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. (1) Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005).
Monday, October 13, 2008
Every Tear
The article below gives answer to one of the most often asked questions of God: "Why do we suffer and what does it mean?" The meaning of suffering is found in the heart of the gospel and is the only place where legitimate and lasting healing can be found; hope is born of suffering, exemplified by God himself.
10/13/08
A Slice of Infinity
Every TearJill Carattini
My heart sank as the young mother told the interviewer how proud she was of her daughter. "She solved her own murder," Erin said with a proud but pained sincerity. Five year-old Samantha was the victim of a cruel and tragic murder, and her own tears were the evidence that sealed the case against her abductor. DNA in the form of teardrops was found on the passenger-side door of the killer's car, irrevocably making their mark on the crime scene, and poignantly making their mark on everyone that imagines them.
I don't know how to read stories like this without retreating to the deepest why's and how's of life. The abrupt ending to Samantha's life is another wretched symptom of a sick and desperate world. The problem of evil is a problem that confronts us, sometimes jarringly. But something else jolts my numbed mind awake in the midst of this story.
I had no idea our tears were so personally our own. Samantha's tears solved the case because there were none others like hers. They were unique to the eyes they came from, intricately a part of Samantha herself. In the pains and joys that cause us to weep, we leave a mark far more intimate than we realize. We shed evidence of our own makeup, leaving behind a complex, yet humble message: I was here, and my pain was real.
The problem of pain is only intensified by the personal nature of our experience with it. In our tears we all leave the markings of our existence within a broken and despairing world. Traces of our very makeup cry out for an answer to suffering, while at the same time pointing to the intricate and intelligent design of the one who made us. The thought stirringly brings new depth to the image of the sinful woman weeping at the side of Jesus, washing his feet with her unique tears.
Dorothy Sayers offers a most compelling description of the God willing to take on the limitations and suffering of his creation. In her book Creed or Chaos, she writes: "For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile."(1)
I know of no equal comfort in the midst of life's sorrow, no other answer to the problem of pain. The Son of God is as unique and personal a savior as the tears we shed crying out for him. Every tear is marked with the intricacies of our Creator. Every cry is heard by the one who wept at the grave of Lazarus. And in the promise of Revelation 7:17, we find the image of this hope brought finally to fruition: "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949), 4.
10/13/08
A Slice of Infinity
Every TearJill Carattini
My heart sank as the young mother told the interviewer how proud she was of her daughter. "She solved her own murder," Erin said with a proud but pained sincerity. Five year-old Samantha was the victim of a cruel and tragic murder, and her own tears were the evidence that sealed the case against her abductor. DNA in the form of teardrops was found on the passenger-side door of the killer's car, irrevocably making their mark on the crime scene, and poignantly making their mark on everyone that imagines them.
I don't know how to read stories like this without retreating to the deepest why's and how's of life. The abrupt ending to Samantha's life is another wretched symptom of a sick and desperate world. The problem of evil is a problem that confronts us, sometimes jarringly. But something else jolts my numbed mind awake in the midst of this story.
I had no idea our tears were so personally our own. Samantha's tears solved the case because there were none others like hers. They were unique to the eyes they came from, intricately a part of Samantha herself. In the pains and joys that cause us to weep, we leave a mark far more intimate than we realize. We shed evidence of our own makeup, leaving behind a complex, yet humble message: I was here, and my pain was real.
The problem of pain is only intensified by the personal nature of our experience with it. In our tears we all leave the markings of our existence within a broken and despairing world. Traces of our very makeup cry out for an answer to suffering, while at the same time pointing to the intricate and intelligent design of the one who made us. The thought stirringly brings new depth to the image of the sinful woman weeping at the side of Jesus, washing his feet with her unique tears.
Dorothy Sayers offers a most compelling description of the God willing to take on the limitations and suffering of his creation. In her book Creed or Chaos, she writes: "For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile."(1)
I know of no equal comfort in the midst of life's sorrow, no other answer to the problem of pain. The Son of God is as unique and personal a savior as the tears we shed crying out for him. Every tear is marked with the intricacies of our Creator. Every cry is heard by the one who wept at the grave of Lazarus. And in the promise of Revelation 7:17, we find the image of this hope brought finally to fruition: "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949), 4.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar
Lauren sent this story to me in an e-mail. Keep in mind when you read it that God's truth can be found anywhere, including other religions and even in the "you can do it!" motivational genre. The trick is to find what is in agreement with Scripture and apply it within a Biblical context.
The moral of this story concerns the limitless number of possibilities that become achievable simply by deciding not to complain. If such potential can be reached through the power of the human will, how much more through the power of God?
Related to our topic this week of fellowship, how many relationships have we destroyed due to our complaining? Gossip and slander are motivated by self-righteous complaining, pointing out the faults in others and complaining why they are not acceptable. Look for bad in situations and people and you will find it. Likewise, look for good in situations and people and you will also find it.
There is profound truth in the office cliche "attitude determines altitude." Knowing how high God is and his promise to give you wings if you trust him, how high are you willing to go? Complain and you will never leave the ground.
"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." John Piper
Galatians 6:7-10 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar
No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.
Mackay was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed me a laminated card and said: “I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk, I'd like you to read my mission statement.”
Taken aback, Harvey read the card . It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment. This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, “Would you like a cup ofcoffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.” I said jokingly, “No, I'd prefer a soft drink.” Wally smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.” Almost stuttering, Harvey said, “I'll take a Diet Coke.” Handing himhis drink, Wally said, “If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.”As they were pulling away, Wally handed me another laminated card. “These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.” And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature wascomfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.
“Tell me, Wally,” Harvey asked the driver, “have you always served customers like this?” Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. “No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining!Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'
“That hit me right between the eyes,” said Wally. “Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. Ilooked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”“I take it that has paid off for you,” Harvey said. “It sure has,” Wally replied. “My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previousyear. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.”
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and 20 told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting. Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
The moral of this story concerns the limitless number of possibilities that become achievable simply by deciding not to complain. If such potential can be reached through the power of the human will, how much more through the power of God?
Related to our topic this week of fellowship, how many relationships have we destroyed due to our complaining? Gossip and slander are motivated by self-righteous complaining, pointing out the faults in others and complaining why they are not acceptable. Look for bad in situations and people and you will find it. Likewise, look for good in situations and people and you will also find it.
There is profound truth in the office cliche "attitude determines altitude." Knowing how high God is and his promise to give you wings if you trust him, how high are you willing to go? Complain and you will never leave the ground.
"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." John Piper
Galatians 6:7-10 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar
No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.
Mackay was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed me a laminated card and said: “I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk, I'd like you to read my mission statement.”
Taken aback, Harvey read the card . It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment. This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, “Would you like a cup ofcoffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.” I said jokingly, “No, I'd prefer a soft drink.” Wally smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.” Almost stuttering, Harvey said, “I'll take a Diet Coke.” Handing himhis drink, Wally said, “If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.”As they were pulling away, Wally handed me another laminated card. “These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.” And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature wascomfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.
“Tell me, Wally,” Harvey asked the driver, “have you always served customers like this?” Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. “No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining!Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'
“That hit me right between the eyes,” said Wally. “Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. Ilooked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”“I take it that has paid off for you,” Harvey said. “It sure has,” Wally replied. “My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previousyear. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.”
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and 20 told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting. Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Are We the Body?
Acts 2:42-44 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
In verse 44, notice it says they had "all things in common." Think about those you are closest to, whether someone you are dating or a best friend. You feel close to them because you have a lot in common with them, you feel a connection, you feel comfortable with them. Trust grows with time and familiarity, resulting in the feeling like you could share just about any part of yourself and feel safe knowing they would not reject you because you are confident in their faithfulness to you. You feel like there is nothing to hide.
Unfortunately, such faithfulness and trust is not so easy to establish with people we don't know very well or with people that are different from us. This is human nature. Even lovable house pets like dogs are wary of strangers and require "getting to know" new people who come into their home. If the master isn't there, most dogs viciously bark their heads off and snarl to ward off strangers, except the friendliest dogs which we often refer to as "stupid" or simply call them a bad guard dog. Some don't take too well to strangers even if their master is present. It amazes me how much people and animals have in common.
Even more than 40 years after the civil rights movement, it is rare to find a church that has a balanced representation between races. It is also rare to find a church that is diverse in representation between the economic and social classes. Consider even how our small groups are segregated to the familiar, divided by age, marital status, gender or common interest. Our human nature draws us to the familiar where we feel safe, just like dogs.
However, verse 42 states the first church of the devoted had "all things in common." What could have caused such a breach of normality that even the most different among them felt they had everything in common? Read in the beginning of chapter 2 and you will see the source from which unity was born: the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, " For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." The Holy Spirit creates unity out of diversity, erasing the boundaries of segregation by drawing everyone together through the commonality of spirit and truth no matter age, gender, race, social or economic status, resulting in one body with one purpose.
Why is today's church not like the first church as described in Acts? The answer is in the word that described their level of commitment: they were devoted. We must remember our human nature is our sinful nature. Though wanting to be comforable is natural, it is not spiritual. Jesus made it clear following him would be anything but comfortable. The Holy Spirit dwells in the heart and defines the character of a fully devoted follower of Christ. Devoted followers reach out, not in because they have their master in common. Like dogs, when the master is present, everyone is family.
If you have the song below, listen to it and meditate on the lyrics.
"If We Are The Body" Casting Crowns
It's crowded in worship today
As she slips in trying to fade into the faces
The girl's teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know
Farther than they know
But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the bodyWhy aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way
A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgemental glances
Tells him that his chances are better out on the road
Jesus payed much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ
Jesus is the way
In verse 44, notice it says they had "all things in common." Think about those you are closest to, whether someone you are dating or a best friend. You feel close to them because you have a lot in common with them, you feel a connection, you feel comfortable with them. Trust grows with time and familiarity, resulting in the feeling like you could share just about any part of yourself and feel safe knowing they would not reject you because you are confident in their faithfulness to you. You feel like there is nothing to hide.
Unfortunately, such faithfulness and trust is not so easy to establish with people we don't know very well or with people that are different from us. This is human nature. Even lovable house pets like dogs are wary of strangers and require "getting to know" new people who come into their home. If the master isn't there, most dogs viciously bark their heads off and snarl to ward off strangers, except the friendliest dogs which we often refer to as "stupid" or simply call them a bad guard dog. Some don't take too well to strangers even if their master is present. It amazes me how much people and animals have in common.
Even more than 40 years after the civil rights movement, it is rare to find a church that has a balanced representation between races. It is also rare to find a church that is diverse in representation between the economic and social classes. Consider even how our small groups are segregated to the familiar, divided by age, marital status, gender or common interest. Our human nature draws us to the familiar where we feel safe, just like dogs.
However, verse 42 states the first church of the devoted had "all things in common." What could have caused such a breach of normality that even the most different among them felt they had everything in common? Read in the beginning of chapter 2 and you will see the source from which unity was born: the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in Matthew 18:20, " For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." The Holy Spirit creates unity out of diversity, erasing the boundaries of segregation by drawing everyone together through the commonality of spirit and truth no matter age, gender, race, social or economic status, resulting in one body with one purpose.
Why is today's church not like the first church as described in Acts? The answer is in the word that described their level of commitment: they were devoted. We must remember our human nature is our sinful nature. Though wanting to be comforable is natural, it is not spiritual. Jesus made it clear following him would be anything but comfortable. The Holy Spirit dwells in the heart and defines the character of a fully devoted follower of Christ. Devoted followers reach out, not in because they have their master in common. Like dogs, when the master is present, everyone is family.
If you have the song below, listen to it and meditate on the lyrics.
"If We Are The Body" Casting Crowns
It's crowded in worship today
As she slips in trying to fade into the faces
The girl's teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know
Farther than they know
But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the bodyWhy aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way
A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgemental glances
Tells him that his chances are better out on the road
Jesus payed much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ
Jesus is the way
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Do You Think It's Funny?
Ravi Zacharias presented in his most recent sermon an evaluation I have paraphrased below that is also helpful for determining the position we have placed God in the order of our priorities :
If Jesus is not lord, our body becomes our soul, the source that defines eternal importance. Consequently, our emotional responses are deformed, turning them upside down in their expression. What provokes laughter and what breaks a person’s heart reveals their perception of eternal value and earthly priority. One who is a slave to righteousness will not find joy in an abomination, trivialize the sacred, or respond to blasphemy with indifference. Therefore, is it possible to be a devoted Christ follower and be entertained by what Hollywood is offering as entertainment? The ability to handle emotions in legitimate expressions is evidence of a heart and mind surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
If Jesus is not lord, our body becomes our soul, the source that defines eternal importance. Consequently, our emotional responses are deformed, turning them upside down in their expression. What provokes laughter and what breaks a person’s heart reveals their perception of eternal value and earthly priority. One who is a slave to righteousness will not find joy in an abomination, trivialize the sacred, or respond to blasphemy with indifference. Therefore, is it possible to be a devoted Christ follower and be entertained by what Hollywood is offering as entertainment? The ability to handle emotions in legitimate expressions is evidence of a heart and mind surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Harmonized Priorities
A disciple is a student who imitates the doctrines and identity of their teacher, who submits their identity and will to the authority and leadership of their master, thus informing their order of priority.Prioritizing starts with what is most important and works down from there. That’s why the day should start with our greatest priority - meeting with God, gaining eyes to discern eternal value, bringing everything into its proper order underneath. Without adjusting our perspective, we are consumed by temporal matters: order is lost, major becomes minor and minor becomes major; the result is chaos. Is there any question as to why so many who claim to be Christ followers complain they don’t have enough time and money when they have failed to apply the basics, seeking and submitting to God’s eternal view by coming to him on his terms? Ravi Zacharias says, “. . .if you do not know how to worship in spirit and in truth, even God will disappoint you, because you will end up using him, you will end up not coming to him on his terms.” True worship is the means through which we gain access to the perfect pitch required to sort through the noise, to be able to harmoniously resolve the dissonance in our life and world, eliminating the waste of time and resources due to being tone deaf. When you are in tune, you will find yourself dancing to the music.
The Risk of Thirst
10/1/08
A Slice of Infinity
The Risk of Thirst
Jill Carattini
"Air is our element," writes Frederick Buechner, "but water is our heart's delight."
I grew up in a town less than a mile from Lake Michigan, where a lake--if not the Lake--was almost always nearby and often the essential ingredient of our pastimes. Even on the hottest days of summer, water was never in short supply. I don't remember having to take turns with our neighbors to wash cars or water lawns with the intention of rationing the water supply like we do in Atlanta. I remember well-watered parks, the intricacy of the color green, and Lake Michigan as a seemingly endless body of water.
The first time I left West Michigan, I was struck with the sickly feeling of being confined and dehydrated. I was landlocked in Israel, and found myself dreaming often of water.
Israel is an arid land where water is scarce and fought over, its dry season is unrelenting, and its rainy season short-lived. In fact, even in the height of the rainy season, the average is only 2-5 days of rainfall a month. Most of the year there is no rainfall at all. “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you,” sang David, “as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1). As I panted through the Negev and breathed the dust of Jerusalem, this was not the only scripture that came to life.
The Israelites were a people who knew well the pang of thirst and the uncertainty of dry-spells, and they found it a fitting metaphor to understand their spiritual geography. "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?" (Psalm 42:1-2). Likewise, the God of Israel found it a telling description for the restless and wandering children of Israel. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13).
I had never thought much about my relationship with water before my path to it was narrowed and its costliness filled my dreams with thirst. But in the dust of Jerusalem, I realized just how a similar resemblance this bore to my relationship with God. Christianity suddenly seemed a worldview that was asking so much more of me than I knew as a teenager in West Michigan surrounded by wells of faith and belief. Christ suddenly seemed to be likening himself to a very particular kind of water--one I could not readily find myself, one that had no substitutes, and one I desperately needed. Standing in a dry land, I saw my weariness, my urgent thirst, and the difficult way of the one who satisfies it. The longing of a soul for God was suddenly more specific and demanding than I realized.
In his novel The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis portrays a picture of the risk required of the thirsty. Jill was parched with thirst and staring at a stream whose sound and sight seemed almost to call her name, but she did not run forward. "I daren't come and drink," she said. And she had good reason to hesitate. Sitting beside the stream was the motionless bulk of the Lion. To her utter surprise, he responded to her. "Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion of her refusal to come. "Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream," said the Lion.
For the people of Israel, God was both their physical and spiritual hope: "I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water" (Isaiah 41:18). For a girl with the abundance of Lake Michigan in her heart, God is the same: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’" (John 7:37-38). The invitation is risky, the water is costly, but for the thirsty, there is no other stream.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
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A Slice of Infinity
The Risk of Thirst
Jill Carattini
"Air is our element," writes Frederick Buechner, "but water is our heart's delight."
I grew up in a town less than a mile from Lake Michigan, where a lake--if not the Lake--was almost always nearby and often the essential ingredient of our pastimes. Even on the hottest days of summer, water was never in short supply. I don't remember having to take turns with our neighbors to wash cars or water lawns with the intention of rationing the water supply like we do in Atlanta. I remember well-watered parks, the intricacy of the color green, and Lake Michigan as a seemingly endless body of water.
The first time I left West Michigan, I was struck with the sickly feeling of being confined and dehydrated. I was landlocked in Israel, and found myself dreaming often of water.
Israel is an arid land where water is scarce and fought over, its dry season is unrelenting, and its rainy season short-lived. In fact, even in the height of the rainy season, the average is only 2-5 days of rainfall a month. Most of the year there is no rainfall at all. “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you,” sang David, “as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1). As I panted through the Negev and breathed the dust of Jerusalem, this was not the only scripture that came to life.
The Israelites were a people who knew well the pang of thirst and the uncertainty of dry-spells, and they found it a fitting metaphor to understand their spiritual geography. "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?" (Psalm 42:1-2). Likewise, the God of Israel found it a telling description for the restless and wandering children of Israel. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13).
I had never thought much about my relationship with water before my path to it was narrowed and its costliness filled my dreams with thirst. But in the dust of Jerusalem, I realized just how a similar resemblance this bore to my relationship with God. Christianity suddenly seemed a worldview that was asking so much more of me than I knew as a teenager in West Michigan surrounded by wells of faith and belief. Christ suddenly seemed to be likening himself to a very particular kind of water--one I could not readily find myself, one that had no substitutes, and one I desperately needed. Standing in a dry land, I saw my weariness, my urgent thirst, and the difficult way of the one who satisfies it. The longing of a soul for God was suddenly more specific and demanding than I realized.
In his novel The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis portrays a picture of the risk required of the thirsty. Jill was parched with thirst and staring at a stream whose sound and sight seemed almost to call her name, but she did not run forward. "I daren't come and drink," she said. And she had good reason to hesitate. Sitting beside the stream was the motionless bulk of the Lion. To her utter surprise, he responded to her. "Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion of her refusal to come. "Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream," said the Lion.
For the people of Israel, God was both their physical and spiritual hope: "I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water" (Isaiah 41:18). For a girl with the abundance of Lake Michigan in her heart, God is the same: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’" (John 7:37-38). The invitation is risky, the water is costly, but for the thirsty, there is no other stream.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
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The Fellowship of the Unashamed
I found this on Ryan's blog - it defines my heart's cry, my passion, my commitment. I pray all of you can embrace it for yourselves.
"It is purported that this confession was found in the journal of a young pastor in Zimbabwe who had been martyred for his faith. It is the most compelling commitment to Christ I know."
I am part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.”I have Holy Spirit power.The die has been cast.I’ve stepped over the line.The decision has been made.I am a disciple of His.I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity.I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded.I now live by his presence, lean by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear.I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed.I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.I won’t give up, shut up, let up, or slow up ’til I’ve preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.I am a disciple of Jesus.I must go ’til He comes, give ’til I drop, preach ’til all know, and work ’til He stops.And when He comes to get His own, He’ll have no problems recognizing me-my colors will be clear.
"It is purported that this confession was found in the journal of a young pastor in Zimbabwe who had been martyred for his faith. It is the most compelling commitment to Christ I know."
I am part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.”I have Holy Spirit power.The die has been cast.I’ve stepped over the line.The decision has been made.I am a disciple of His.I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity.I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded.I now live by his presence, lean by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear.I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed.I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.I won’t give up, shut up, let up, or slow up ’til I’ve preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.I am a disciple of Jesus.I must go ’til He comes, give ’til I drop, preach ’til all know, and work ’til He stops.And when He comes to get His own, He’ll have no problems recognizing me-my colors will be clear.
Eyes to See
First, if you haven't already, read the post "Shock and Awe." The excerpt I included from The Chronicles of Narnia describes how perception is skewed by the desires of the heart. Desiring God results in the desires of our heart being changed, making us hungry for and finding desirable what is good, revealing what we once thought was good as rotten, maggot infested garbage, leaving little question as to why we were sick. In the presence of God, we are as children in the arms of their parent - safe, loved, protected, fulfilled. Knowing God yields the humility that the most powerful force in the universe, creator of the heavens and earth, the most creative and masterful of artists, not only knows your name, but calls you his child.
Truly, one would have to be blind not to see him given such overwhelming evidence. However, like the witch, blindness is caused by a shroud of evil which originates in the heart. Facing the evil inside, crying out to be saved from the darkness, lifts the shroud, revealing such sight you can hardly breath, leaving you speachless, finding no words that could possibly communicate such wonder. Having gained such sight, there is also remourse, realizing that despite the crowds of people around you, you are one of the few who can see the obvious, such that you may wonder if perhaps you are halucinating.
Psychosis (a condition in which a mentally ill individual lives within their own obviously fictional reality) is the end result when society accepts relativism as the norm. To deny absolutes is psychotic, just as denying laws for the common good of man is anarchy, or denying the laws of science absurd. For example, the result of one who chooses to reject the truth of the law of gravity, choosing to believe they can fly, then jumps from a building, will meet reality head on as their head smashes like a pumpkin on the concrete. The only superman was Jesus. It is only in him one can fly.
In every academic discipline, every construct of thought, and every evaluation of historical validity, the life, claims, and truth of Jesus are the most consistent. Galileo, Socrates, Einstein, etc. are remembered historically as ahead of their time but were persecuted while they were alive because the truth they discovered was so strange to their peers. What confirms the reality of what I have and am seeing, what I have learned and continue to learn, that I'm not hallucinating or imagining it, is the same undeniable, verifiable consistency of the truth. Jesus could not have been an ordinary man or even an exceptional teacher. His life proved him to be anything but ordinary and his claims were either true or a lie; if they were a lie, he was not a good teacher at all - he was a lunatic.
Truth is stranger than fiction, meaning the fact I see the truth, am defined by it, and define reality in agreement with it, lead the blind to believe I'm also crazy, as if I live in some fairy-tale reality of my own making. The blind believe if they can't see it, it is not "really" there. Reduced to the challenges of understanding and navigation intrinsic to darkness, they wander through life bumping into obstructions and each other, falling into holes, and getting lost in the woods. It would be funny if it were not so sad, especially when they say I'm seeing things.
Truly, one would have to be blind not to see him given such overwhelming evidence. However, like the witch, blindness is caused by a shroud of evil which originates in the heart. Facing the evil inside, crying out to be saved from the darkness, lifts the shroud, revealing such sight you can hardly breath, leaving you speachless, finding no words that could possibly communicate such wonder. Having gained such sight, there is also remourse, realizing that despite the crowds of people around you, you are one of the few who can see the obvious, such that you may wonder if perhaps you are halucinating.
Psychosis (a condition in which a mentally ill individual lives within their own obviously fictional reality) is the end result when society accepts relativism as the norm. To deny absolutes is psychotic, just as denying laws for the common good of man is anarchy, or denying the laws of science absurd. For example, the result of one who chooses to reject the truth of the law of gravity, choosing to believe they can fly, then jumps from a building, will meet reality head on as their head smashes like a pumpkin on the concrete. The only superman was Jesus. It is only in him one can fly.
In every academic discipline, every construct of thought, and every evaluation of historical validity, the life, claims, and truth of Jesus are the most consistent. Galileo, Socrates, Einstein, etc. are remembered historically as ahead of their time but were persecuted while they were alive because the truth they discovered was so strange to their peers. What confirms the reality of what I have and am seeing, what I have learned and continue to learn, that I'm not hallucinating or imagining it, is the same undeniable, verifiable consistency of the truth. Jesus could not have been an ordinary man or even an exceptional teacher. His life proved him to be anything but ordinary and his claims were either true or a lie; if they were a lie, he was not a good teacher at all - he was a lunatic.
Truth is stranger than fiction, meaning the fact I see the truth, am defined by it, and define reality in agreement with it, lead the blind to believe I'm also crazy, as if I live in some fairy-tale reality of my own making. The blind believe if they can't see it, it is not "really" there. Reduced to the challenges of understanding and navigation intrinsic to darkness, they wander through life bumping into obstructions and each other, falling into holes, and getting lost in the woods. It would be funny if it were not so sad, especially when they say I'm seeing things.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Encore!
08/20/08
Encore!
Jill Carattini
I have never been so tired as I was when I stepped on that plane; neither have I been so happy for so many empty seats. I was dreaming of a two hour nap before I even found my place. Of course, as is usually the case in situations like these, when one is intent on being anti-social and insistent on having earned the right to be so, I found myself not only with a companion, but with an animated, loquacious, first-time traveler. The young woman beside me had been a child as she watched the events of September 11th unfold and had determined then never to travel by airplane--that is, until today, when events reared a need to break her own rule. She was terrified and excited and inquisitive all at once. She also noticed things I’m fairly certain I have never noticed in all my years of travel, commenting with elation, curiosity, or confusion on every single one of them. By the time we landed, I not only had a new friend, I was wide awake to the disheartening reality of all I fail to see around me.
It would seem that repetition has a way of lulling us to sleep; monotony a way of robbing us of sight, or else leaving us in the stupor of disinterest. Real life examples are readily available. How many news stories do we need to hear about violence or suffering, racial oppression or injustice, before we fail to hear them at all? For that matter, how many stories about something small but positive do we really take in before we respond in boredom? How many times do we need to sit on an airplane or see the bird outside our window before the marvel of flight simply goes without notice? Like most adults, we learn to tolerate the repetitious by learning to operate on auto-pilot.
And yet, I am certain, even among the most skilled of auto-pilots, there was a time when we found ourselves, like every child, delighting in the monotonous, longing for another minute with grandpa, another page of the story, another trip down the slide. The incongruity is unmistakable. How can our failure to see be blamed on monotony, unconscious living attributed to the repetitive, when at one point monotony and repetition were not only tolerated but invigorating? Blindness can easily be blamed on the world around us--and there is certainly reason to consider the daily effects of all that bombards our senses--but perhaps this is too easy an answer. Perhaps the scales on our eyes are multiplied not by the many repetitions in life, but by our failure to see life in the many repetitions around us.
Jesus spoke of the kingdom as belonging to the likes of little children, and many have speculated the child’s ability to see the world with wonder as one of the reasons for it. G.K. Chesterton saw the child’s ability to revel in the monotonous as another. The child’s cry for more, reasoned Chesterton, is a quality of the very God who created them. “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”(1)
For the child on the slide or the toddler with a story, “Do it again!” is far from a cry of boredom or routine, but a cry for more of life itself. This is likewise the joy of the psalmist, the cry of the prophets, and the call of Christ: “Consider the lilies, how they grow...if God so clothes the grass of the field...how much more will he clothe you?” (Luke 12:27-28). Jesus asks that we consider the kingdom around us like little children, and thus, something more like God--finding a presence in faithful recurrences, grace in repetition, rumors of another world in the ordinary world around us. Here, even those within the most taxing of life’s repetitions--the daily care of an aging parent, the constant burden on the shoulders of those who fight against injustice, the labor of hope in a difficult place--can find solace. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope,” said Jeremiah in the midst of deep lament. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning...‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24, emphasis mine).
Morning by morning, the daily liturgy of new mercies comes with unapologetic repetition to all who will see it, the gift of a God who revels in the creation of yet another daisy, the encore of another sunset, the discovery of even one lost soul.
Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Copyright (c) 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM)
(1) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 65-66.
Encore!
Jill Carattini
I have never been so tired as I was when I stepped on that plane; neither have I been so happy for so many empty seats. I was dreaming of a two hour nap before I even found my place. Of course, as is usually the case in situations like these, when one is intent on being anti-social and insistent on having earned the right to be so, I found myself not only with a companion, but with an animated, loquacious, first-time traveler. The young woman beside me had been a child as she watched the events of September 11th unfold and had determined then never to travel by airplane--that is, until today, when events reared a need to break her own rule. She was terrified and excited and inquisitive all at once. She also noticed things I’m fairly certain I have never noticed in all my years of travel, commenting with elation, curiosity, or confusion on every single one of them. By the time we landed, I not only had a new friend, I was wide awake to the disheartening reality of all I fail to see around me.
It would seem that repetition has a way of lulling us to sleep; monotony a way of robbing us of sight, or else leaving us in the stupor of disinterest. Real life examples are readily available. How many news stories do we need to hear about violence or suffering, racial oppression or injustice, before we fail to hear them at all? For that matter, how many stories about something small but positive do we really take in before we respond in boredom? How many times do we need to sit on an airplane or see the bird outside our window before the marvel of flight simply goes without notice? Like most adults, we learn to tolerate the repetitious by learning to operate on auto-pilot.
And yet, I am certain, even among the most skilled of auto-pilots, there was a time when we found ourselves, like every child, delighting in the monotonous, longing for another minute with grandpa, another page of the story, another trip down the slide. The incongruity is unmistakable. How can our failure to see be blamed on monotony, unconscious living attributed to the repetitive, when at one point monotony and repetition were not only tolerated but invigorating? Blindness can easily be blamed on the world around us--and there is certainly reason to consider the daily effects of all that bombards our senses--but perhaps this is too easy an answer. Perhaps the scales on our eyes are multiplied not by the many repetitions in life, but by our failure to see life in the many repetitions around us.
Jesus spoke of the kingdom as belonging to the likes of little children, and many have speculated the child’s ability to see the world with wonder as one of the reasons for it. G.K. Chesterton saw the child’s ability to revel in the monotonous as another. The child’s cry for more, reasoned Chesterton, is a quality of the very God who created them. “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”(1)
For the child on the slide or the toddler with a story, “Do it again!” is far from a cry of boredom or routine, but a cry for more of life itself. This is likewise the joy of the psalmist, the cry of the prophets, and the call of Christ: “Consider the lilies, how they grow...if God so clothes the grass of the field...how much more will he clothe you?” (Luke 12:27-28). Jesus asks that we consider the kingdom around us like little children, and thus, something more like God--finding a presence in faithful recurrences, grace in repetition, rumors of another world in the ordinary world around us. Here, even those within the most taxing of life’s repetitions--the daily care of an aging parent, the constant burden on the shoulders of those who fight against injustice, the labor of hope in a difficult place--can find solace. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope,” said Jeremiah in the midst of deep lament. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning...‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24, emphasis mine).
Morning by morning, the daily liturgy of new mercies comes with unapologetic repetition to all who will see it, the gift of a God who revels in the creation of yet another daisy, the encore of another sunset, the discovery of even one lost soul.
Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Copyright (c) 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM)
(1) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 65-66.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Eyes Fixed on the Shepherd
This story is making its way around. David Jeremiah used it on his blog yesterday from which Ryan Whitley borrowed it for his blog. Now I’m borrowing from him. Good story!
"In his book, A Turtle on the Fencepost, Allen C. Emery tells of a night he spent on the Texas plains with a shepherd who was keeping two thousand sheep. The shepherd prepared a bonfire for cooking supper and providing warmth. The sheep dogs lay down near the fire as the stars filled the sky.Suddenly Emery heard the unmistakable wail of a coyote with an answering call from the other side of the range. The dogs weren’t patrolling at the moment, and the coyotes seemed to know it. Rising quickly, the shepherd tossed some logs on the fire; and in this light, Emery looked out at the sheep and saw thousands of little lights.Emery writes, “I realized that these were reflections of the fire in the eyes of the sheep. In the midst of danger, the sheep were not looking out into the darkness, but were keeping their eyes set toward the shepherd.”
Our society has plenty of grass covered hills that lead many sheep to wander from the flock, believing them to be greener pastures. They decide to trust their own sight rather than the Shepherd’s leadership to provide for their needs. Sports, hobbies, money, work, gadgets, family, relationships, etc. may look appetizing and may be nutritious but if outside the leadership of the shepherd, seemingly good things may be a dangerous distraction. When darkness comes stray sheep will find themselves all alone, still surrounded by delicious grass but completely vulnerable to the enemy.
Hearing again from the mother of Protestant reformer John Calvin, we learn how to avoid the appeal of greener pastures:
“Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.”
Goodness (or pleasure from) a product of creation must not serve as a substitute for the goodness of (and pleasure from) the presence, leadership and blessing of the Creator/Shepherd. His rod and his staff may seem unpleasant as they keep us in line when all is well but are much more appreciated when bashing the roaring lion between the eyes when he tries to devour us. For correction and protection, the rod and staff are sources of comfort to those who trust and have faith in the leadership of the Shepherd. With eyes fixed on him, we can be assured the pastures to which he leads us will be the greenest of all.
Psalm 23:1-6 A PSALM OF DAVID.The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
"In his book, A Turtle on the Fencepost, Allen C. Emery tells of a night he spent on the Texas plains with a shepherd who was keeping two thousand sheep. The shepherd prepared a bonfire for cooking supper and providing warmth. The sheep dogs lay down near the fire as the stars filled the sky.Suddenly Emery heard the unmistakable wail of a coyote with an answering call from the other side of the range. The dogs weren’t patrolling at the moment, and the coyotes seemed to know it. Rising quickly, the shepherd tossed some logs on the fire; and in this light, Emery looked out at the sheep and saw thousands of little lights.Emery writes, “I realized that these were reflections of the fire in the eyes of the sheep. In the midst of danger, the sheep were not looking out into the darkness, but were keeping their eyes set toward the shepherd.”
Our society has plenty of grass covered hills that lead many sheep to wander from the flock, believing them to be greener pastures. They decide to trust their own sight rather than the Shepherd’s leadership to provide for their needs. Sports, hobbies, money, work, gadgets, family, relationships, etc. may look appetizing and may be nutritious but if outside the leadership of the shepherd, seemingly good things may be a dangerous distraction. When darkness comes stray sheep will find themselves all alone, still surrounded by delicious grass but completely vulnerable to the enemy.
Hearing again from the mother of Protestant reformer John Calvin, we learn how to avoid the appeal of greener pastures:
“Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.”
Goodness (or pleasure from) a product of creation must not serve as a substitute for the goodness of (and pleasure from) the presence, leadership and blessing of the Creator/Shepherd. His rod and his staff may seem unpleasant as they keep us in line when all is well but are much more appreciated when bashing the roaring lion between the eyes when he tries to devour us. For correction and protection, the rod and staff are sources of comfort to those who trust and have faith in the leadership of the Shepherd. With eyes fixed on him, we can be assured the pastures to which he leads us will be the greenest of all.
Psalm 23:1-6 A PSALM OF DAVID.The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Collapsible Walls
A Slice if Infinity
08/14/08
Collapsible Walls
I'Ching Thomas
At certain times of the year, an extremely ferocious wind from the mountain blows through the city of Bursa in Turkey. This wind, named Lodos by the locals, is so strong that if you were anything short of a 100 pounds, you would be blown off the street when it hits.
A few years ago, when Lodos was making one of its many visits, a grade school building collapsed and tragically killed six schoolchildren. Later, officials blamed the poor structure of the building's walls for the cause of the crash. The public claimed that had the walls been properly constructed according to safe building standards, the school would have been able to withstand the destructive blow of Lodos and the unfortunate incident would not have occurred.
In a separate incident, some musicians were tearing down parts of their house to build a music studio. Imagine their horror when they found newspaper stuffed between the bricks of the walls of the house! Apparently, the contractor appointed to build the house used paper to gap between bricks to save on costs and make more money from the project.
Such reports sound peculiarly like what Jesus warned in one of his parables. In Matthew 7:24–27, he tells of two builders--one wise and another foolish. The houses of both builders look sturdy in fine weather, but the test always comes with the storm. The one who built his foundation on the rock had his house still standing after the rain and flood, but the house of the foolish man came crashing down after the storm, as it was built on sand.
The original audience of this parable knew very well what Jesus was talking about, since theirs was a land known for its torrential storms. Through this familiar analogy, Jesus was warning his followers that only those who take heed of his teachings and live out what they had learned from him will withstand the storms of life and ultimately the final test on judgment day. Any shortcuts or shoddiness will eventually be revealed.
The devotion of those who pretend to have faith, those who simply pay lip service, those who have faith in faith instead of trust in Jesus, will be tested and proven powerless and unable to hold up under pressure. Even those who merely have an intellectual commitment to the teachings of Christ will find that their structure will fool no one when the storms of life come.
In Ezekiel 13:10–13 a similar warning is given to those who cover up the weak wall that they have built with whitewash. The Lord assures that the storm will come and the foundation of those whitewashed walls will be leveled along with the destruction of its builder. Clearly we live at a time in history when the storm is beating endlessly against the foundation of our walls from all directions. Our belief in an absolute standard of morality is confronted by relativism; our conviction in the authority of scripture is challenged; our reverence in the person of Christ is mocked, and our attempt to live a simple lifestyle is constantly distracted by the lure of consumer advertising and its promise of a better life.
Yet, there are no two ways about it: if we are to be like the wise builder, then we must construct our foundation on the rock by practicing the righteousness we have learned.
As Thomas a Kempis writes in The Imitation of Christ, "To many the saying, 'Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,' seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'" We will find that the cost demanded of us is no less than a radical submission to the exclusive lordship of Jesus. However, the reward comes when we find our house still standing after the final storm leaves and when the sun breaks through again.
I'Ching Thomas is associate director of training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Singapore.
08/14/08
Collapsible Walls
I'Ching Thomas
At certain times of the year, an extremely ferocious wind from the mountain blows through the city of Bursa in Turkey. This wind, named Lodos by the locals, is so strong that if you were anything short of a 100 pounds, you would be blown off the street when it hits.
A few years ago, when Lodos was making one of its many visits, a grade school building collapsed and tragically killed six schoolchildren. Later, officials blamed the poor structure of the building's walls for the cause of the crash. The public claimed that had the walls been properly constructed according to safe building standards, the school would have been able to withstand the destructive blow of Lodos and the unfortunate incident would not have occurred.
In a separate incident, some musicians were tearing down parts of their house to build a music studio. Imagine their horror when they found newspaper stuffed between the bricks of the walls of the house! Apparently, the contractor appointed to build the house used paper to gap between bricks to save on costs and make more money from the project.
Such reports sound peculiarly like what Jesus warned in one of his parables. In Matthew 7:24–27, he tells of two builders--one wise and another foolish. The houses of both builders look sturdy in fine weather, but the test always comes with the storm. The one who built his foundation on the rock had his house still standing after the rain and flood, but the house of the foolish man came crashing down after the storm, as it was built on sand.
The original audience of this parable knew very well what Jesus was talking about, since theirs was a land known for its torrential storms. Through this familiar analogy, Jesus was warning his followers that only those who take heed of his teachings and live out what they had learned from him will withstand the storms of life and ultimately the final test on judgment day. Any shortcuts or shoddiness will eventually be revealed.
The devotion of those who pretend to have faith, those who simply pay lip service, those who have faith in faith instead of trust in Jesus, will be tested and proven powerless and unable to hold up under pressure. Even those who merely have an intellectual commitment to the teachings of Christ will find that their structure will fool no one when the storms of life come.
In Ezekiel 13:10–13 a similar warning is given to those who cover up the weak wall that they have built with whitewash. The Lord assures that the storm will come and the foundation of those whitewashed walls will be leveled along with the destruction of its builder. Clearly we live at a time in history when the storm is beating endlessly against the foundation of our walls from all directions. Our belief in an absolute standard of morality is confronted by relativism; our conviction in the authority of scripture is challenged; our reverence in the person of Christ is mocked, and our attempt to live a simple lifestyle is constantly distracted by the lure of consumer advertising and its promise of a better life.
Yet, there are no two ways about it: if we are to be like the wise builder, then we must construct our foundation on the rock by practicing the righteousness we have learned.
As Thomas a Kempis writes in The Imitation of Christ, "To many the saying, 'Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,' seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'" We will find that the cost demanded of us is no less than a radical submission to the exclusive lordship of Jesus. However, the reward comes when we find our house still standing after the final storm leaves and when the sun breaks through again.
I'Ching Thomas is associate director of training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Singapore.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
My Journey to Apologetics
Asking lots of questions has been a characteristic of my personality for as long as I can remember. My reasoning starts with broad purpose and ends with narrow specifics, leaving lots of questions pertaining to details without a defined purpose. “Why?” was a question I learned annoyed most people if asked too often, especially of those in authority, but one I very often needed answered. According to Myers Briggs, I am an ENFP. One of my counseling professors described my mind as a jumbled mess of details, lacking the efficiency of the larger percentage of the population who have brains that neatly process and categorize information. In other words, I have to sort through “the mess” before I can use the details. Efficiency often eludes me since I often never make it to the details. Other stereotypes that apply to me are: “messy,” “scatterbrained,” “not detail oriented,” “visionary,” “dreamer,” etc.
I confessed faith in Christ for the first time when I was eight years old. I think my motives were more informed by wanting to be included when the Lord’s Supper was passed than by conviction. Nevertheless, that was where my journey began.
Not long after my profession of faith, I became aware of a disturbing disparity between what the Bible says and the way people live. I did not interact very well socially. My feelings were easily hurt which made me easy prey for school yard predators. There were occasions I fought back but I typically cried afterward no matter how well I did. My social environment was not very different in church. I went to school with most of the other kids, many of whom were just as mean. I asked my teachers questions but did not get relevant answers. Most of the responses I remember tried to make the Bible relevant to culture, subject to “interpretation.” One response I remember that most notably disturbs me now given its blatant contradiction to Scripture is “God did not make you to be a doormat.” (See “Doormat Theology” on my blog.) I never learned persecution is to be expected. I was never taught the blessing of suffering. I did not understand why I could only reach the “mountaintop” on youth trips. I was unable to connect meaning with rituals like “quiet time.”
Though frustrated, my hunger to find the connection between life and truth led me to believe I was called to ministry. I felt best when I was serving others and adults affirmed me to be a good candidate. School also seemed a reasonable place to find answers. I could not have been more wrong. Education only confused me. The more I learned about church history, theology, and denominationalism the more frustrated I became. I expected to learn how it all fit together but only discovered more and deeper levels of disagreement and conflict. Despite growing in knowledge, my confidence diminished due to learning how little I really knew, how many of my questions remained unanswered, and how many new unanswered questions I discovered. My identity became even less defined as I became less certain of what I believed. I lived in shame for not living up to who I thought I should be. Unable to reconcile the dichotomy of my sinful and spiritual wills, I found comfort in defining my identity by who I hoped to become, choosing to ignore my then present feelings of fear and insufficiency. Despite the many very real spiritual encounters I had with God, I could not claim I was victorious over sin because it was still there. My hope was I would one day overcome it. I tried to act right even though I did not feel right. I tried to hide my weakness under a shroud of self-righteousness, affirmed by the approval of people who could not see through it. I constantly needed approval to maintain my own self-delusion that I was who I pretended to be, confirming my real identity and feelings remained hidden under my disguise.
The resulting despair and anxiety of my addiction and lack of direction were devastating. I looked for answers in counseling but found more contradiction. I discovered counselors, doctors, professors, pastors, and elders are all fallible, categorically proven by the misdirection, misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of people in whom I naively and unrealistically trusted. Opinions were revealed to be worthless in regard to truth. In my despair, I drifted further and further from the identity I hoped to achieve.
Eventually, like the prodigal son who was eating with the pigs, I accepted God was my only hope and His truth was the only constant, reliable source I could trust. I began my search for answers again, driven even harder by my even more desperate need to find them. I learned a great deal more in seminary and found answers to most of my questions, yielding confidence unlike I ever experienced. However, I still lacked the means to connect them all together. Armed with the sword of truth, I wielded it as a weapon in defense of myself rather than God during a time of brutal warfare with the enemy. Claiming for myself the integrity of the truth, I boldly sliced my attackers with proud indifference to their pain. I used it to expose weakness in others and defend my own. Proudly undefeated, I found myself all alone. Devastated yet again, this time by pride and self-pity, I discovered apologetics, through which God took my sword and used it against me. In solitude, he cut me to the depths of my heart, inflicted excruciating pain, exposed every dark shadow in my heart with blinding light and painfully rescued me from the darkness, bringing to convergence truth I thought I had learned, experiences I thought I understood. The scales fell from my eyes, opening them to the new blindness of His glory revealed, thus finally and objectively defining my identity and purpose.
Apologetics provides the discipline my brain needs to make sense of the quandaries of daily life, starting with the broad purpose, maintaining its integrity as it is applied to all the specifics, defining the purpose of every detail. It is a powerful battle strategy against the enemy. It is a Biblical model, especially demonstrated by Paul. I have continued to devour apologetic literature since I opened the first book, unable to consume enough. Its function for me is like a key needed to break a complex code to open the door to fellowship with God and man. It brings order to confusion. It is beyond opinion. It produces unity from diversity. It is a vehicle for exploring the depths of God that can be explored. Not everyone needs it. Thankfully, not everyone thinks like me. Since I need it, I’m thankful God provided it for me and used it to change me for the purpose of using it to change others.
I confessed faith in Christ for the first time when I was eight years old. I think my motives were more informed by wanting to be included when the Lord’s Supper was passed than by conviction. Nevertheless, that was where my journey began.
Not long after my profession of faith, I became aware of a disturbing disparity between what the Bible says and the way people live. I did not interact very well socially. My feelings were easily hurt which made me easy prey for school yard predators. There were occasions I fought back but I typically cried afterward no matter how well I did. My social environment was not very different in church. I went to school with most of the other kids, many of whom were just as mean. I asked my teachers questions but did not get relevant answers. Most of the responses I remember tried to make the Bible relevant to culture, subject to “interpretation.” One response I remember that most notably disturbs me now given its blatant contradiction to Scripture is “God did not make you to be a doormat.” (See “Doormat Theology” on my blog.) I never learned persecution is to be expected. I was never taught the blessing of suffering. I did not understand why I could only reach the “mountaintop” on youth trips. I was unable to connect meaning with rituals like “quiet time.”
Though frustrated, my hunger to find the connection between life and truth led me to believe I was called to ministry. I felt best when I was serving others and adults affirmed me to be a good candidate. School also seemed a reasonable place to find answers. I could not have been more wrong. Education only confused me. The more I learned about church history, theology, and denominationalism the more frustrated I became. I expected to learn how it all fit together but only discovered more and deeper levels of disagreement and conflict. Despite growing in knowledge, my confidence diminished due to learning how little I really knew, how many of my questions remained unanswered, and how many new unanswered questions I discovered. My identity became even less defined as I became less certain of what I believed. I lived in shame for not living up to who I thought I should be. Unable to reconcile the dichotomy of my sinful and spiritual wills, I found comfort in defining my identity by who I hoped to become, choosing to ignore my then present feelings of fear and insufficiency. Despite the many very real spiritual encounters I had with God, I could not claim I was victorious over sin because it was still there. My hope was I would one day overcome it. I tried to act right even though I did not feel right. I tried to hide my weakness under a shroud of self-righteousness, affirmed by the approval of people who could not see through it. I constantly needed approval to maintain my own self-delusion that I was who I pretended to be, confirming my real identity and feelings remained hidden under my disguise.
The resulting despair and anxiety of my addiction and lack of direction were devastating. I looked for answers in counseling but found more contradiction. I discovered counselors, doctors, professors, pastors, and elders are all fallible, categorically proven by the misdirection, misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of people in whom I naively and unrealistically trusted. Opinions were revealed to be worthless in regard to truth. In my despair, I drifted further and further from the identity I hoped to achieve.
Eventually, like the prodigal son who was eating with the pigs, I accepted God was my only hope and His truth was the only constant, reliable source I could trust. I began my search for answers again, driven even harder by my even more desperate need to find them. I learned a great deal more in seminary and found answers to most of my questions, yielding confidence unlike I ever experienced. However, I still lacked the means to connect them all together. Armed with the sword of truth, I wielded it as a weapon in defense of myself rather than God during a time of brutal warfare with the enemy. Claiming for myself the integrity of the truth, I boldly sliced my attackers with proud indifference to their pain. I used it to expose weakness in others and defend my own. Proudly undefeated, I found myself all alone. Devastated yet again, this time by pride and self-pity, I discovered apologetics, through which God took my sword and used it against me. In solitude, he cut me to the depths of my heart, inflicted excruciating pain, exposed every dark shadow in my heart with blinding light and painfully rescued me from the darkness, bringing to convergence truth I thought I had learned, experiences I thought I understood. The scales fell from my eyes, opening them to the new blindness of His glory revealed, thus finally and objectively defining my identity and purpose.
Apologetics provides the discipline my brain needs to make sense of the quandaries of daily life, starting with the broad purpose, maintaining its integrity as it is applied to all the specifics, defining the purpose of every detail. It is a powerful battle strategy against the enemy. It is a Biblical model, especially demonstrated by Paul. I have continued to devour apologetic literature since I opened the first book, unable to consume enough. Its function for me is like a key needed to break a complex code to open the door to fellowship with God and man. It brings order to confusion. It is beyond opinion. It produces unity from diversity. It is a vehicle for exploring the depths of God that can be explored. Not everyone needs it. Thankfully, not everyone thinks like me. Since I need it, I’m thankful God provided it for me and used it to change me for the purpose of using it to change others.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Why Can't I Just Be a Good Person?
I was preparing to write about the definition of "good" when I discovered it was the topic of "A Slice of Infinity" for today. I plan on writing more about it so this article will serve as a good introduction.
07/17/08
Why Can't I Just Be a Good Person?
Michael Ramsden
"People are basically good," writes one poet. "It is only their behavior that lets them down."
It is remarkable to think there are many today who believe they are good enough to get into heaven. Perhaps there is so much bad news about others that they conclude by comparison they are superior, and thus, deserving of a place in eternity. But then it is even more remarkable that when Christians claim they know they are going to heaven, they are regarded as being conceited, boastful, and arrogant. People immediately ask: How can they think that they are better than everyone else?
The fact that the same person can think of himself as superior to others, while at the same time criticizing Christians for arrogance, underlines one of the effects of living in a postmodern world. Though the contradiction is frustrating, Christians need to be able to respond coherently to the questions at hand: Why can't I just be a good person? Isn't it unfair of God to say that you can't get into heaven unless you believe in Him, even though you have been a good person? Who does He think He is?
Jesus was once asked a similar question by a group of inquirers: "What must we do to do the works God requires?" (John 6:28). Interestingly, the question was posed in plural form; it seems they were looking for a list of good things to do. But Jesus replied in the singular, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent" (6:29).
Of course, in the minds of those who feel they have lived a good life, Christ's answer will not go unchallenged. What makes belief so special? Surely what we do is far more important than what we believe. How can a good person, who is not a Christian, be denied access on the basis of belief?
The difficulty here lies in the assumption that is being made in each of these questions--namely, that there is such a thing as a good person. Jesus again offers further clarification in the form of question and answer. He was once asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 18:18). The theory of the questioner was clear: Jesus is a good person; good people go to heaven, so what must I do to be in the same group? But Jesus's reply was surprising. "Why do you call me good?" he asked (18:19). He then answered his own question: "No one is good--except God alone."
The simple truth is that the issue is not about good people not getting into heaven. Alas, the problem is much worse! Jesus seems to define goodness in terms of being like God, and on that basis there are no good people anywhere. Thus, the real question is not about who is good enough to get in to heaven. The real question is how God makes it possible for anyone to get in at all. The answer is that we need to be forgiven, and that forgiveness is won for us through the Cross.(1)
In fact, this is precisely why the Gospel is called Good News, and why we do well to declare it. The good news is that getting into heaven is first and foremost about forgiveness. The Christian testimony is, in fact, far from arrogant! Christians can be sure that they are going to heaven, not because they are good, but because they have received forgiveness by believing in Christ.
In other words, if we will trust in and rely on Jesus--his promises, his person, his life, death, and resurrection--we can be sure that we are saved. Christians are not good people because they live morally superior lives to everyone else. They have been made "good" in God's eyes because Christ has made forgiveness possible--because Christ has extended his own righteousness to those who will believe. Good people will certainly go to heaven. However, the path to goodness lies not in religious observances or respectable acts, but in the forgiveness of a good God, given to us through the Cross of Christ.
Michael Ramsden is European director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in the United Kingdom.
(1) For further reading on this subject, I recommend The Cross of Christ by John Stott.
07/17/08
Why Can't I Just Be a Good Person?
Michael Ramsden
"People are basically good," writes one poet. "It is only their behavior that lets them down."
It is remarkable to think there are many today who believe they are good enough to get into heaven. Perhaps there is so much bad news about others that they conclude by comparison they are superior, and thus, deserving of a place in eternity. But then it is even more remarkable that when Christians claim they know they are going to heaven, they are regarded as being conceited, boastful, and arrogant. People immediately ask: How can they think that they are better than everyone else?
The fact that the same person can think of himself as superior to others, while at the same time criticizing Christians for arrogance, underlines one of the effects of living in a postmodern world. Though the contradiction is frustrating, Christians need to be able to respond coherently to the questions at hand: Why can't I just be a good person? Isn't it unfair of God to say that you can't get into heaven unless you believe in Him, even though you have been a good person? Who does He think He is?
Jesus was once asked a similar question by a group of inquirers: "What must we do to do the works God requires?" (John 6:28). Interestingly, the question was posed in plural form; it seems they were looking for a list of good things to do. But Jesus replied in the singular, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent" (6:29).
Of course, in the minds of those who feel they have lived a good life, Christ's answer will not go unchallenged. What makes belief so special? Surely what we do is far more important than what we believe. How can a good person, who is not a Christian, be denied access on the basis of belief?
The difficulty here lies in the assumption that is being made in each of these questions--namely, that there is such a thing as a good person. Jesus again offers further clarification in the form of question and answer. He was once asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 18:18). The theory of the questioner was clear: Jesus is a good person; good people go to heaven, so what must I do to be in the same group? But Jesus's reply was surprising. "Why do you call me good?" he asked (18:19). He then answered his own question: "No one is good--except God alone."
The simple truth is that the issue is not about good people not getting into heaven. Alas, the problem is much worse! Jesus seems to define goodness in terms of being like God, and on that basis there are no good people anywhere. Thus, the real question is not about who is good enough to get in to heaven. The real question is how God makes it possible for anyone to get in at all. The answer is that we need to be forgiven, and that forgiveness is won for us through the Cross.(1)
In fact, this is precisely why the Gospel is called Good News, and why we do well to declare it. The good news is that getting into heaven is first and foremost about forgiveness. The Christian testimony is, in fact, far from arrogant! Christians can be sure that they are going to heaven, not because they are good, but because they have received forgiveness by believing in Christ.
In other words, if we will trust in and rely on Jesus--his promises, his person, his life, death, and resurrection--we can be sure that we are saved. Christians are not good people because they live morally superior lives to everyone else. They have been made "good" in God's eyes because Christ has made forgiveness possible--because Christ has extended his own righteousness to those who will believe. Good people will certainly go to heaven. However, the path to goodness lies not in religious observances or respectable acts, but in the forgiveness of a good God, given to us through the Cross of Christ.
Michael Ramsden is European director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in the United Kingdom.
(1) For further reading on this subject, I recommend The Cross of Christ by John Stott.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Psychosomatic and the Lord's Supper
The following article articulates an apologetic connection I made between a conversation I had with my father some time ago about psychosomatic illness and his reminder today concerning a couple of articles he sent me about the significance of the Lord’s Supper that I had yet to read. It is a weird connection but a profound truth!
It is ironic you included the definition of psychosomatic with an inquiry concerning the articles about the Lord's Supper. I had not examined the articles closely until you reminded me today. Both articles focus on right attitude and perception based on right theology which defines the significance and meaning of the ritual. Rightly participating in the meal subsequently produces right self-awareness, confession, grace, healing, and growth of the fruits of the spirit. Wrongly approaching the meal results in ritualism and legalism, i.e. distorted or lost meaning. Wrong attitude and perception based on wrong theology work like disease, taking meaning from worship and life from the body of Christ, resulting in emptiness, decay and death. While this philosophical approach is profoundly true and rightly applied for defining the significance of the Lord's Supper, its application is universal and serves as the foundational approach for defining truth (theology), applying it (hermeneutics), and defending it (apologetics).
So where does psychosomatic come in? Psychosomatic is a psychological term defined by the science of psychology.[1] One of the greatest weaknesses of science is its failure to define or prove the intangible. This failure is potently exposed by an illustration called Aunt Matilda's Cake:
"Let us imagine that my Aunt Matilda has baked a beautiful cake and we submit it for analysis to a group of the world's top scientists. The nutrition scientists will calculate the calories in the cake and tell us of its effect on the body; the biochemists will inform us about the structure of the proteins and fats in the cake; the chemists will describe the elements involved and their bonding; the physicists will be able to analyze the cake in terms of fundamental particles; and the mathematicians will no doubt offer us a set of elegant equations to describe the behavior of those particles.
“Now that these experts have given us an exhaustive description of the cake, can we say that the cake is completely explained? We have certainly been given a description of how the cake was made and how its various constituent elements relate to one another, but suppose we now ask them why the cake was made. The grin on Aunt Matilda's face shows that she knows the answer, for she made the cake, and she made it for a purpose. But surely it is clear that all the scientists in the world will not be able to tell us why she made it. Unless Aunt Matilda reveals the answer, they are powerless. Their disciplines can cope with questions about the nature and structure of the cake but they cannot answer the "why" question. Now, the artists among us will add the science is limited in another sense - it cannot comment on the sheer elegance and aesthetic appeal of the cake, nor could it comment on the quality and truth of a a poem written about the cake. Many important aspects of reality are simply outside the provenance of science."[2]
Every soul is born in a body is doomed by the inherited curse of sin to die physically and spiritually. While grace grants eternal life to the soul and the promise of a new body, there is no salvation for the earthly body. Every moment from the time we are born is one moment closer to our inevitable physical death. That is why the relationship between our intangible minds and spirits and our earthly bodies is scientifically undefined, resulting in the allocation of medical treatment to the partitioned sciences of medicine, psychology and psychiatry (while holistic medicine does attempt to treat the whole person - body mind and spirit, it is recognized as philosophy rather than science, relegated to the unscientific "arts" that answer the question "why?").[3] Psychosomatic is a term that defines the link between some physical and spiritual maladies but fails to define how and why the link exists or how to treat it. Likewise, the paradox of the Biblically defined potential for spiritual benefit due to physical suffering adds to the confusion when trying to diagnose symptoms of physical illness caused by spiritual/emotional illness. Further, ". . . in common with the rest of humanity, scientists have preconceived ideas and worldviews that they bring to bear on every situation," meaning a doctor may be inept to treat a psychosomatic illness due to their own psychosis.[4]
My conclusion is right attitude and perception based on right theology is not only necessary to find meaning and benefit in liturgical rituals like the Lord's Supper, but to find meaning and benefit in all aspects of life which includes our physical bodies. While being right is the best prescription for good physical health given the spiritual healing and nourishment it provides, it does not prevent physical suffering since our earthly bodies still must endure the process of dying. Nevertheless, being right sheds light on darkness, gives life to death, and makes even bad feelings good - a prescription medicine cannot define much less write.
[1]The constant and inseparable interaction of the psyche (mind) and the soma (body). Commonly used to refer to illnesses in which the manifestations are primarily physical with at least a partial emotional etiology. www.med.umich.edu/nursing/psych/staff/orient/words.htm
[2] Ravi Zacharias. Beyond Opinion, Living the Faith We Defend, John Lennox, "Challenges from Science," pp. 113-114.
[3] Holistic medicine is a broadly descriptive term for a healing philosophy that views a patient as a whole person, not just a disease...www.capecodhealth.org/body.cfmMedical care involving the treatment of the whole person - body, spirit and mind. Many holistic techniques have never had their efficacy or safety evaluated.www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary007_h.htm
[4] Ravi Zacharias. Beyond Opinion, Living the Faith We Defend, John Lennox, "Challenges from Science," pg. 112.
It is ironic you included the definition of psychosomatic with an inquiry concerning the articles about the Lord's Supper. I had not examined the articles closely until you reminded me today. Both articles focus on right attitude and perception based on right theology which defines the significance and meaning of the ritual. Rightly participating in the meal subsequently produces right self-awareness, confession, grace, healing, and growth of the fruits of the spirit. Wrongly approaching the meal results in ritualism and legalism, i.e. distorted or lost meaning. Wrong attitude and perception based on wrong theology work like disease, taking meaning from worship and life from the body of Christ, resulting in emptiness, decay and death. While this philosophical approach is profoundly true and rightly applied for defining the significance of the Lord's Supper, its application is universal and serves as the foundational approach for defining truth (theology), applying it (hermeneutics), and defending it (apologetics).
So where does psychosomatic come in? Psychosomatic is a psychological term defined by the science of psychology.[1] One of the greatest weaknesses of science is its failure to define or prove the intangible. This failure is potently exposed by an illustration called Aunt Matilda's Cake:
"Let us imagine that my Aunt Matilda has baked a beautiful cake and we submit it for analysis to a group of the world's top scientists. The nutrition scientists will calculate the calories in the cake and tell us of its effect on the body; the biochemists will inform us about the structure of the proteins and fats in the cake; the chemists will describe the elements involved and their bonding; the physicists will be able to analyze the cake in terms of fundamental particles; and the mathematicians will no doubt offer us a set of elegant equations to describe the behavior of those particles.
“Now that these experts have given us an exhaustive description of the cake, can we say that the cake is completely explained? We have certainly been given a description of how the cake was made and how its various constituent elements relate to one another, but suppose we now ask them why the cake was made. The grin on Aunt Matilda's face shows that she knows the answer, for she made the cake, and she made it for a purpose. But surely it is clear that all the scientists in the world will not be able to tell us why she made it. Unless Aunt Matilda reveals the answer, they are powerless. Their disciplines can cope with questions about the nature and structure of the cake but they cannot answer the "why" question. Now, the artists among us will add the science is limited in another sense - it cannot comment on the sheer elegance and aesthetic appeal of the cake, nor could it comment on the quality and truth of a a poem written about the cake. Many important aspects of reality are simply outside the provenance of science."[2]
Every soul is born in a body is doomed by the inherited curse of sin to die physically and spiritually. While grace grants eternal life to the soul and the promise of a new body, there is no salvation for the earthly body. Every moment from the time we are born is one moment closer to our inevitable physical death. That is why the relationship between our intangible minds and spirits and our earthly bodies is scientifically undefined, resulting in the allocation of medical treatment to the partitioned sciences of medicine, psychology and psychiatry (while holistic medicine does attempt to treat the whole person - body mind and spirit, it is recognized as philosophy rather than science, relegated to the unscientific "arts" that answer the question "why?").[3] Psychosomatic is a term that defines the link between some physical and spiritual maladies but fails to define how and why the link exists or how to treat it. Likewise, the paradox of the Biblically defined potential for spiritual benefit due to physical suffering adds to the confusion when trying to diagnose symptoms of physical illness caused by spiritual/emotional illness. Further, ". . . in common with the rest of humanity, scientists have preconceived ideas and worldviews that they bring to bear on every situation," meaning a doctor may be inept to treat a psychosomatic illness due to their own psychosis.[4]
My conclusion is right attitude and perception based on right theology is not only necessary to find meaning and benefit in liturgical rituals like the Lord's Supper, but to find meaning and benefit in all aspects of life which includes our physical bodies. While being right is the best prescription for good physical health given the spiritual healing and nourishment it provides, it does not prevent physical suffering since our earthly bodies still must endure the process of dying. Nevertheless, being right sheds light on darkness, gives life to death, and makes even bad feelings good - a prescription medicine cannot define much less write.
[1]The constant and inseparable interaction of the psyche (mind) and the soma (body). Commonly used to refer to illnesses in which the manifestations are primarily physical with at least a partial emotional etiology. www.med.umich.edu/nursing/psych/staff/orient/words.htm
[2] Ravi Zacharias. Beyond Opinion, Living the Faith We Defend, John Lennox, "Challenges from Science," pp. 113-114.
[3] Holistic medicine is a broadly descriptive term for a healing philosophy that views a patient as a whole person, not just a disease...www.capecodhealth.org/body.cfmMedical care involving the treatment of the whole person - body, spirit and mind. Many holistic techniques have never had their efficacy or safety evaluated.www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary007_h.htm
[4] Ravi Zacharias. Beyond Opinion, Living the Faith We Defend, John Lennox, "Challenges from Science," pg. 112.
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