When Something Sticks with you

This spring I heard a message from Tim Keller, the Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He was one of many speakers at the Gospel Coalition Network but his message stood out the most to me. His message was entitled, "The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry" and it was specifically about the Gospel's power to expose and defeat the idols of a culture. He asserts, rightly so I think, that the Gospel must confront the idols of a culture if it is to free us to worship the living God.

I hope you will click on the title above and invest 60 minutes of your time to listen to Keller. It has caused me to think differently about idolatry and to wonder, "What are the prominent idols of my culture?"; "How effectively do I expose these idols in my preaching and teaching?"; "What are the idols that I cherish and that I must lay aside for Christ?"

Fancy seeing you here!

It was great to see my friends Arnold and Roseanne Franke in Grand Rapids. Arnold, Roseanne and I all attend Eden UCC in Edwardsville, Illinois. Roseanne came to General Synod as a delegate for the Illinois South Conference. Arnold accompanied Roseanne to Synod to share in all her experiences. While she was there Roseanne was recognized as an honored laywoman in the UCC. Roseanne was recommended for this award for all of her mission work on behalf of the wider Church and the people of Ecuador. Congratulations Roseanne!

My reflections on General Synod 27

It's been four months since my last post and for that I am embarrassed. I am calling a DO OVER and will once again begin to post. I was a recent visitor to the United Church of Christ's General Synod 27 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As you can imagine, my mind is mulling over and processing my experiences.

In case you don't know much about the General Synod, it is the national gathering of the United Church of Christ and takes place every two years. I attended, not as a delegate, but as a Voice Without Vote representative of Faithful and Welcoming Churches a.k.a FWC. This was one way I could help elevate our voice to the wider Church.

My wife also attended as a visitor. We worked the FWC display booth handing out lip balm and literature and answering questions about our organization. We attended one of two FWC sponsored workshops on "Essentials and Non-essentials: the formula for unity" and a FWC sponsored luncheon.

In addition to all our other FWC activities, Jami and I had the opportunity to connect with people on a more personal level. We attended the luncheon for the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns. I also reconnected with several classmates of mine from Eden Theological Seminary. Jami ran into several people she met through various UCC message boards. It felt like a homecoming and I liked it.

I'm looking forward to our next family reunion in 2011.

Lessons from a Troubled Governor

I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect upon the life of a troubled Governor. No I'm not talking about former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, though there are many things we can learn from his recent fall from power. I want to look at Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Palestine. Pilate is famous for overseeing the trial of a Jewish man from Nazareth named Jesus.

Read a portion of Pilate's exchange with Jesus and join me in thinking through the implications of this exchange:

John 18:37-38 - "'You are a king, then!' said Pilate. Jesus answered, 'You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of
truth listens to me.' 'What is truth?' Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews ...."

Jesus asserts here his reason for coming from heaven, to testify to the truth. Jesus mission is to communicate truth to us. He also mentions that people fall into two categories:

1) Those who are on the side of truth
2) Those who are not on the side of truth

At this point our beleaguered Governor asks an important question. "What is Truth?" The scriptures don't report Pilate's tone of voice, only his words. Was his question laced with sarcasm? Was it a genuine question from a man seeking answers? We may never know. What we do know was that Pilate was in the presence of the one who could direct him to the truth and yet he walked out on him before he received an answer.

What do you think of Pilate's question? What is truth? How do you define it? How do you recognize it? Pilate's question is an important one and it would benefit us to know how to answer it.

More important than your answer to this question is your attitude. What is your heart attitude toward the truth? Are you a person on the side of truth? Are you loyal to the truth where ever it may lead you? I believe that if you are seeking the truth it will lead you to Jesus, the one who came to bear witness to the truth. In fact I am a Christian because I found the claims of Christ to be true. What about you?

Do you wonder if Christianity is really true? Have you ever questioned the faith? Have you ever examined the claims of those who question the Christian faith? If you would like to wrestle with truth and its implications for you then I invite you to read the debate I am participating in on the Eden United Church of Christ Facebook page. The debate is titled, "Debate - Is Christianity Really True?" and it can be found here. I hope you will give much thought to the matter of truth and that you will find yourself to be on the side of truth.

veritas vos liberabit -"The truth shall make you free."

Are you a "Good" person?

Do you consider yourself a good person? Come on now, before you read any further, what do you really think? I believe most people would answer yes. I would guess that over 90% of the people I have asked have said yes. But are we really good people?

I am currently working on a workshop that I will be co-leading in March about the importance of healthy dialogue in the Church. To prepare, I purchased a copy of A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths by Annette Simmons. I first met Annette when she lead a dialogue process in the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ. I found her teaching helpful and thought I might share her insights with my colleagues in Southern Illinois.

As I worked my way through the introduction, I came upon these words. "Finally, I believe you must hold two basic philosophical assumptions. The main one is that people are basically good. If you think people are bad at the core (e.g. greedy, exploitative, mean), there is no point in dialogue." (A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths, xvi)

As I think about Annette's words I can't help but hear the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter three.

Romans 3:10-11 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even
one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. "

Now it would be easy to dismiss Paul's words as the Bible and therefore irrelevant to the "real" world. But I take Paul's words or should I say the Holy Spirit's words very seriously. What say you? How do you respond to the assertion from the Bible that you and I are not good people?

I would love your response to this inquiry. Please offer your comments below. Remember to think through the implications of the Bible's assertions as well as to its denial. If you have other scripture verses that would further the conversation, please include them as well.

A Fresh Start???

Well I am quite ashamed. I haven't posted anything on this blog in a long time. I recently had an individual from out of state tell me I needed to update my blog. It got me thinking. (I know that's dangerous, don't hurt myself, etc. - No need for the jokes.)

Why don't I blog more? Why can other people regularly post articles to their blogs and I can't? I used to say it was because I was too busy. The reality is everyone is busy. I used to say that my mind was empty. (Again no jokes please!) I have thoughts and ideas regularly that would make worthwhile posts to this website. The reason is I lacked the discipline to just do it.

Just do it. That's my new motto for the year. So keep looking for an update on the old blog page. I have some ideas and even some questions I hope to raise. I hope you can respond and maybe even help me as I continue to stumble forward in my walk with Christ in 2009.

A "Godspell" has been cast over me.

Over this past weekend my Church hosted three performances of the play Godspell by John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz. 10 very talented young adults told the story of Jesus through music and creative drama. The play was well attended with over 200 people at each of the three performances.

I think the music of Godspell is powerful. The dramatic retailing of the parables is creative and the story very easily captures your attention and imagination. The part that I found most moving was near the end. Jesus had just celebrated the Passover with his disciples and was saying goodbye to each of them. As Jesus approached each of his disciples, he shared a special moment with them. He engaged them in a secret handshake and a time of close tearful embracing.

As I watched that scene, I couldn't help but consider the human emotions of Jesus Christ. Jesus must have loved his friends very much. His affection toward his disciples had to be great and the fact that he told them they were his friends indicated his emotional attachment to them.

As I watched the special handshakes that Jesus shared with each disciple, I couldn't help but think of how Jesus related to each of them individually. It got me thinking about how Jesus relates to each of us in a personal, individual way. This play really helped me to think about Jesus' love for me as an individual and it made me long for that kind of personal intimacy with him that he must have shared with his followers.

Godspell was wonderful in that it reminded me of the intimacy with Jesus that I long for. The play was great and I highly recommend it to anyone who would see it.

Dismantling the Darling of Diversity, Part 2

In my previous post I shared how one of my colleagues in ministry made an assertion that the New Testament contained a diversity of contradictory ideas about the identity of Jesus Christ. She asserted that the various writers of the New Testament had different ideas about exactly when Jesus Christ became the Son of God.

She asserted that the Apostle Paul, author of the majority of the New Testament taught that Jesus became the Son of God at his resurrection. No specific bible passage was referenced but I assume she was appealing to this one:

Romans 1:3-4 "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:"

Is Paul in fact asserting that Jesus became the Son of God at his resurrection? Absolutely not. The words "with power" are the key to understanding Paul's thoughts. When God the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead, it was his dramatic way of saying "this is my Son". To assume that Jesus wasn't God's Son before the resurrection from this text is to make a faulty reading of the writings of Paul.

Consider this as an illustration: You enter a room and David Roberts (my father) and I are both there. We are both strangers to you. You immediately start a conversation with my father and after about twenty minutes of small talk he says to you, "and this is my son John". Did I only become his son at the moment he made his statement to you? Of course not. He only identified a preexisting relationship he and I already had. Paul is simply asserting that God did the same thing in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

In fact later on in the same letter Paul provides more evidence to dismiss this idea that he believed Jesus became God's Son only at the resurrection. He equates the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ and God the Father. Look closely at the following text and see an argument for the Church's teachings about the Trinity.

Romans 8:9-11 "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Did you catch the flow of Paul's words? Did you see how he equated the Spirit of God with the Spirit of Christ living within the believer? Did you see how he equated the Spirit of Christ living within you to Christ living within you? Did you see how he asserted that if Christ is living within you that the Spirit of the Father (Him that raised up Jesus from the dead) is also living within you? Paul believed Jesus Christ was as much God as the Father was, hence his willingness to interchange terms in this section of scripture.

Consider also Romans 10:9-13 "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."

Notice how Paul is speaking of the necessity of confessing Jesus as Lord? In the last sentence he quotes from the Old Testament book of Joel 2:32. Notice that the word LORD is all capitals. In this Old Testament passage the word LORD is the proper name for God. By referencing this quote Paul is implying the Jesus as Lord is God. Paul would assume that Jesus would possess all of the attributes of deity especially the attribute of being eternal. In Paul's understanding, Jesus wouldn't be man becoming God, He would be God becoming man.

I didn't even take the opportunity to examine any other writings from Paul. Consider if you will, Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Titus 2:13 to name a few. Paul clearly taught what the Church affirms namely that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Next week we will look at the Gospel of Mark to see if his understanding of Christ is any different.