Josh McClellan

One of my favorite book series’, and accompanying move series’, is the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Tolkien’s rich story has much to say and offers a wealth of spiritual principles (though some have taken the story and tried to spiritualize some of it in a way Tolkien never intended).  One of my favorite parts in the movies comes at the end of the first movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring.”  Frodo has realized that the fellowship is broken and he will have to continue his personal journey to destroy the ring by himself.  Before he leaves, he sees Aragorn as he is running from Boromir who has tried to take the ring from him (for those non-Lord of the Rings watchers, sorry, the story may be difficult to follow!).  After a brief conversation, Frodo says to Aragorn that he must continue now by himself.  Aragorn takes Frodo’s hands, looks him in the eyes, and says to him, “I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of Mordor.”  And Frodo looks back and replies to his friend, “I know.”

It’s a rather insignificant scene when examined within the broader scope of the story.  There are far more dramatic and breathtaking scenes that grab one’s attention.  But this encounter was always very powerful to me.  I found Aragorn’s words to be stirring (interestingly enough, this moment for Aragorn was also a major turning point in his own life as he denies the ring, unlike his ancestors). 

As I reflected on the commitment and courage of Aragorn’s words I was reminded of the call to discipleship, to follow Christ.  In fact, Aragorn’s words are more biblical than we might think.  Jesus’ call throughout the gospels was simple and direct, “Follow me.”  It was a call to be a disciple.  And the bulk of Jesus’ teaching on discipleship came, in both Luke and Mark’s gospels, as Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem to be crucified. 

There is something of IMMENSE value to be seen here.  The call to follow Jesus wasn’t a call to wonder, it was a call to go to a very particular place, just as His life was always meant to move to a particular place.  Indeed it is the very place He was going as he called people to follow Him and explained what a life of following Him was all about.  And that place was the cross.  Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem was a journey that would end at Calvary, strung up naked and beaten on a piece of wood, bruised and suffering, but victorious and triumphant. 

The imperative to follow Him begs the question, “Where to?”  To a cross.

Certainly the Cross of Christ was a cross meant for only Him to bear.  Only His death would atone for sinful humanity’s sin.  Peter is rebuked for thinking of hindering this sacrificial act in Matthew 16.  However, Jesus tells his hearers on a number of occasions that if anyone wishes to follow Him they are to take their cross. 

To follow Jesus means a number of things, but first and foremost it means to follow Him to the cross.  And a cross means suffering.  It means sacrifice.  It may even mean death (spiritual death certainly if not physical death as well).  It means the denial of everything.  It means a life of selflessness and humility, even shame before the world around us.  But it also means victory and triumph.  And glory.

“I would have gone with you to the end, even into the very fires of Mordor.”  When Jesus stands before us in His Word and beckons us to “Follow Me,” what He is really asking is whether we will follow Him to the end, even to a cross. 

This is the call of discipleship.

People often struggle understanding the proper relationship of faith and works in the Christian life.  Often times people will find themselves at one extreme or the other, living out a works based salvation, or showing relatively no concern at all for living out one’s faith through faithful obedience to the commands of Jesus, thinking that God has forgiven them and they are now free to do whatever they want. 

Certainly the book of James receives a great deal of attention when discussing such themes, asserting that faith without works is dead.  The book of James has probably been regarded as the black sheep of the Bible because of its strong emphasis on works.  However, throughout the New Testament one will find references to the necessity of works (which is the manifestation of obedience) as the evidence of genuine faith and transformation, just as James claims in his own epistle.

One very powerful reference is found in 1 Corinthians 15:10.  It says this:  “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked (labored) harder than all of them – yet, not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Paul speaks of the grace of God here in this verse.  He states that this grace has accomplished something in his life.  However, that work is not a momentary work, but a continuous work.  In fact, Paul’s very labor, his proclamation of the gospel, his planting of churches, his suffering for the gospel, his discipleship of young believers, his instruction to local congregations, etc…, all of it, is the work of grace. 

This is a powerful statement.  It makes clear that grace is not a static thing, but dynamic.  It is an active thing.  It is doing something in the lives of those upon whom it has come to rest.  Grace has labored in Paul.  The gracious and unmerited favor of God, the redemptive power of God through the death of Christ on the cross, has not simply forgiven, but transformed, and has continued to manifest its presence through faithful labor for the sake of the gospel and personal sanctification of the believer.

Those under grace are those who labor tirelessly for the gospel.  They work.  Not to earn anything but to honor.  Certainly love and worship motivate greater sacrifice and service than duty and obligation.  Grace works.  If we are indeed under grace, then our lives should be committed to consistent and sacrifical labor for the gospel.

I have to come to realize that obedience is simply not a part of most our spiritual paradigm here in America.  We come to church, I think, with the intention of hearing from God, of being engaged by the message, even being wowed by something new and fresh.  But few of us walk out the doors with any intention of really doing whatever it is we have heard spoken.

Sometimes this may not happen because the teaching offered was simply poor and did nothing to admonish its hearers to pursue obedience in a particular area of their lives.  But, this same thing occurs in churches where the preaching is often sound and substantive and clear.  I have become convinced that the problem is not always with the sermon, but with the spiritual worldview of the hearers.  They simply approach their faith with no real focus on responding to God’s Word in obedience.  Sure, we’d never deny that we are supposed to be good Christians and do what God tells us to, but any real obedience comes typically only when it is convenient and personally beneficial.

We simply don’t disciple people to value obedience.  Most of our discipleship focuses on knowledge disconnected from faithful practice of these commands and truths discovered.  Knowledge is by no means a bad thing.  However, unless it leads to obedience, it is of little value.  How often is reading our Bible the first thing we tell new Christians to do?  Again, this is certainly not a bad thing.  But what if the first thing we did with a new believer was show them that the Bible tells us we are to share our faith with those around us, and then sent them off to share the gospel with three people the following day?  See the difference?

Unfortunately most of the Christianity lived out around us has focused essentially on experiencing God rather than obeying God.  We skip from one experiential high to the next thinking that we are somehow partaking of real Christian faith, when in reality, we’ve missed it.  Nothing about our lives has changed.  We haven’t put aside our own desires on a daily basis to commit our lives to the purposes of God.  We don’t even think about obedience.

Jesus commands us in Matthew 28:19-20 to teach those we are discipling to obey everything He has commanded us (for a further explanation of Matthew 28:19-20 see the blog post entitled ‘A Call to Make Learners’).  Our call is to teach people to obey.  If we don’t teach people to obey, then we have failed, and whatever we have taught them is of little consequence.

Obedience is the evidence of genuine conversion.  Obedience is the goal of every true follower of Jesus Christ.  Obedience is what we do.  We must shift our spiritual worldviews to make obedience to the commands of Scripture our first priority.

Let’s get right to the point:  the more I read the Bible the more I see a glaring omission from western Christianity.  And that omission is prayer.

Unfortunately this omission is not present only among the theologically hollow evangelical mainstream, but most of the theologically sound, biblically faithful segment as well.  A great many authors I have great respect for simply do not make a priority of prayer in their books on healthy churches, church growth, and spiritual revival.  Undoubtedly they would never deny the importance of prayer.  But when the rubber meets the road, it finds little priority in our writing or our preaching, much less our practice.

We have simply found our security in man, means, and methods for far too long.  And even those who embrace a more God-centered theology still appear to make little of a prayer-saturated faith (comfort and ease, along with a misguided commitment to a host of responsibilities that really weren’t meant for elders, have probably produced this).  New programs and resources are lauded as the necessary means to evangelistic fervor and effectiveness.  I’m not against resources by any means, but if we think a better evange-cube or a new catchy outline is what we need to put our faith in to reach lost people, we need to ask ourselves whether we’ve actually read the Bible or not.  The Bible, along with the church through the centuries, testify clearly that a praying church is a vibrant and powerful church. 

I regret that I am as much a product of the church culture in which I live as so many others are.  Even as I learn the significance of prayer to the mission of the church and the spiritual fervor of the believer, I find myself a resistant student, wrestling to make a priority of prayer in my daily life.

When one examines where the Holy Spirit is moving most powerfully in the world, they will discover that the church in these places is committed to faithful prayer.  It is also probably worth acknowledging that typically a comfortable church isn’t a praying church.  The suffering church is driven to its knees out of desperate need for supernatural intervention.  This has surely caused us to approach prayer apathetically. 

True, biblical, and sincere prayer is at its core, a declaration of inability and dependence.  It recognizes, simply from the act itself, that only the powerful work of God’s Spirit can accomplish the kind of transformation that repentance and salvation brings.  It resoundingly proclaims that we are desperate for God amidst our own insufficiencies.

The Bible is not ambiguous in what it calls us to do.  We merely have to ask ourselves whether we are going to do what it says or not.

God forgive us, forgive me, for my stubbornness.  Teach me to pray.

The word mystery has become increasingly popular in the church today.  This is primarily due to the postmodern rejection of modernity’s arrogant claim to be able to discern truth objectively through scientific progress and advancement.  Postmodernity is far more honest and humble.  We can’t really know truth, at least not one all encompassing absolute truth.  It is relative and determined by the community.  Within the church (which may be a somewhat generous concession for some within the movement), a movement known as the emergent church has embraced, at the very least, a certain degree of this perspective, and asserts that God is mysterious and beyond comprehension.  It is arrogant to claim to really know God and all that He is with complete certainty because God is too big to understand that way.  To think that within the narrowness of our own perspective we can capture all that God is, is simply arrogant.

This idea has taken well among many in churches (undoubtedly because it is culturally appealing).  But it, like any idea, must be examined thoughtfully by the Scriptures.  I fear it is an idea that can lead to a number of dangerous beliefs if not understood properly.  The important questions related to it are:  what exactly does it really mean? and what is the point, what is the value of it?  I’d like to try and unpack what the so called “mystery” men really mean when they speak of mystery in relation to God.

The first step is clarifying the doctrine that is being discussed.  This may seem rather trivial, but it is actually of the utmost importance.  The quick and easy answer here is that what is being dealt with is the doctrine of God.  When speaking of how God relates to Himself as Trinity, who He is in terms of His infinitude, His eternality, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence, and His inexhaustible perfections, He must be seen as mysterious.  Certainly finite human beings would not claim to be able to grasp the fullness of these things.  It is simply impossible.

Any Christian would not question this.  We are obviously not God.  We clearly are finite beings incapable of understanding the fullness of such a being.  Surely this is not all that these particular teachers mean when they are claiming that God is mysterious.  Indeed it is not.

The doctrine they are really seeking to address is not the doctrine of God, but the doctrine of revelation.  This is a critical point to recognize.  What they are really asserting is that there is a degree of mystery to His revelation of Himself to us in the Bible.  There is not only one clear way to read and interpret the Bible.  We discover new ways to see it and understand it as we continue to approach it from different angles:  cultural perspectives, periods of time, etc….  In this sense God and how He works can never fully be figured out or nailed down.  The community determines how to understand these things together in their particular context.  For them, this makes God’s work diverse and rich and new.  However, unlike with the doctrine of God, this belief is not accepted by all Christians.  Understanding which doctrine we are really dealing with is crucial to understanding their assertion rightly and being able to evaluate it.

I would contend that such a view of revelation is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches.  There is nothing about God’s revelation that is mysterious.  Can any given man plumb all the depths of what God says to us in the Bible?  No, but that revelation is clear and understandable, not mysterious.  On a fairly basic level, to assume that God cannot communicate clearly to us implies incompetence or inability.  This we would surely not affirm.  To assume that He did not intend to be understood betrays the very essence of communication.  No one communicates for any other reason than to be understood.  Mysterious revelation is incompatible with these basic assumptions.

First, the idea of mystery, as it is used in the New Testament, always speaks of mystery revealed.  In Ephesians 2 Paul speaks of mystery, but proceeds to clarify what this mystery indeed is.  Paul is very clear in Eph. 2:6.  He says:  “This mystery is…., and then proceeds to tell his audience very clearly what the mystery which had not been made known to previous generations actually is.  In Colossians 1:26-27 Paul again speaks of the mystery that is now revealed.  Colossians is a particularly significant place to speak of mystery revealed for Paul.  Paul is responding, in his letter to the Colossians, to a particular heresy referred to as the Colossian heresy (creative huh?).  Some believe this heresy was Gnostic in nature.  Others believe it was more of a Jewish mystical syncretism.  Regardless, both of these religious worldviews were grounded in the revelation of secret mysteries to only a select few who went through the appropriate rights of passages to partake of this special and secret knowledge.  Paul is distinguishing Christian revelation in Christ from this kind of mystical, secret knowledge.  Christianity is mystery revealed, and revealed to all.  Mystery is always mystery revealed in the New Testament.  The explicit references to mystery in the New Testament texts never speak of anything that has yet to be made known.

Second are the New Testament’s statements on the nature of revelation itself.  The New Testament authors speak of revelation in two ways:  as having come in the person of Jesus Christ and having come in the words of the Holy Scriptures.  In regards to revelation as having come in the person of Jesus Christ, Hebrews 1:1-4 is of great significance.  It states that while God has spoken in the past through prophets at various times and in various ways, He has spoken in these last days through His Son.  This is a powerful statement.  Revelation that previously required various times and ways, has now been finally and fully displayed in one full and sufficient way through the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself.  God has said all that he wants to say fully and completely in Jesus.  Hebrews 1:3 goes on to say that the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being (I get chills when I read this verse!  So incredible.).  Exact representation literally speaks of a stamp.  Jesus is the perfect stamp of God.  This is not a God that is looking to hide.  He is showing Himself as fully as he possibly can in Jesus.

The Bible also testifies to its own clarity.  Jesus expected His countrymen and hearers to understand what the Old Testament Scriptures said.  Over and over he said to them, “Have you not read?”  “Have you not heard?”  There was an expectation of understanding and comprehension.  2 Timothy states that the Word of God is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training and righteousness.  How can the Scriptures be useful for rebuking and correction if they aren’t clear enough to distinguish one way from another?  Right from wrong?  The only rebuking the proponents of mysterious revelation do is toward those who argue for the clarity and objectivity of the text of Scripture.

There is simply no biblical justification for believing that God’s revelation to His people is to be approached as mysterious and vague (and subject to experience first and foremost).  It may be present in the ideologies of our day, but not in the words of the Bible itself.

The final question to be posed is this:  what is the true value of “embracing the mystery?”  Its proponents would probably say that it makes God bigger and richer and more glorious.  It doesn’t narrow Him down to one way.  Who God is and how He works finds expression in a variety of ways, displaying the depth and breadth of who God is.  To be honest, this sounds like a pretty good answer.  The problem is where an answer like this could lead.  Many may take this kind of idea and apply it to worship styles and corporate worship environments, for example.  God can be worshipped in many ways in this regard.  This seems rather harmless.  And it may be to a certain degree.  However, it is a short jump into things such as relativism and pluralism.  What starts as something about worship styles and life experiences ultimately leads these same people to rationalize God speaking to people in other religions and approaching God speaking only one way in the Bible as narrow-minded and arrogant.  Experiential spirituality may not start here, but it will always end here.

What an idea like this truly offers people is the justification they need for developing a faith of their own making.  Clarity, by its very nature, narrows the possibilities.  Ambiguity, by its very nature, widens the possibilities.  We really don’t have to affirm homosexuality to be sinful anymore.  We really don’t have to believe there is only one way to God.

Mystery doesn’t make God bigger and greater and more glorious.  Ignorance never produces more passionate and reverent worship and surrender.  Only as we come to see God for He truly is, revealed clearly in the fullness of glory, will deeper worship, greater love, and more radical devotion be inspired.

Carl Henry, one of the great theologians of the 20^th century said this, “Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which He alone turns His personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of His reality.”  Christians are stewards of divine mysteries, but not ones that continue to be hidden.  These mysteries are revealed and known.  Praise God that we can indeed know Him and His ways truly.

On a number of occasions I have heard someone asked the question, “Is there anything that would cause you to walk away from Christianity?”  To this they replied, “No.  There is nothing that would ever cause me to walk away from my faith.” (Typically this is followed by some sort of comment about having had a real experience with God).

This sounds like the response of a strong, confident, unshaken faith.  But in reality, it is an answer with little integrity and may reflect a poorly reasoned faith.

Certainly Christianity is more than intellectual ascent to a set of ideas.  Christianity is not simply about understanding God, but about worshipping God.  A well-reasoned faith is not necessarily a genuine, transforming faith, a faith that loves God and honors Him with its utmost devotion.  However, this kind of genuine faith is only produced from a right understanding of who God is, what He has done and is doing in the world, and why we need Him.  There are not many ways to understand these things but one way.  And so we must seek these truths, discerning what is true and what is error, that our faith may be grounded upon truth, a faith that is reasonable, thoughtful, and durable.  Our faith must be more than subjective experience.

The point to be made is this:  there must be a set of conditions upon which we would abandon our faith if it is to be truly genuine and grounded on a particular set of truth claims.  If those truth claims can be shown to be untrustworthy and false, we should walk away.  Our faith lacks integrity unless we are willing to acknowledge this.

Lest one think that this is not biblical, let us examine Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:13-15:  “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”  Paul was acknowledging that if Christ is not truly resurrected then our faith is in vain.  We should walk away.  If the ideas that Christianity is grounded on can be shown to be untrustworthy then they should not be embraced and believed.

For me personally, there are two things that would lead me to abandon Christianity.  The first, like Paul, concerns the resurrection.  If the bones of Jesus Christ could be identified and shown to be His, then I too would walk away from Christianity.  I have absolutely no idea how anyone would prove that a particular set of bones would actually be Jesus’, but if it could be done in a convincing way, I would concede the error of Christianity’s claims.  However, the resurrection is quite possibly the most indestructible reality of the Christian faith.  There simply are no good responses to the truthfulness of Jesus’ bodily resurrection.  I don’t believe this truth will ever be proven false.  But if it is, then I must respond as Paul would.

The second thing that would lead me to walk away from Christianity is a solid case against the reliability of the Christian Scriptures, the Bible.  Certainly there are many arguments that have been made through the centuries against the Bible.  Some of them have been better than others.  I have studied them all and have found them to be uncompelling in the end.  The Bible is simply the most reliable, trustworthy document the world has ever seen.  I believe it records historically verifiable events and is available to us today as it was recorded by its authors.  I also believe it reflects supernatural authorship through its prophetic utterances, particularly related to the future coming of the Messiah, and possesses a unity and cohesion that is remarkably unhuman.  If the Bible is not a reliable record then we have no foundation.  I believe what I believe because the Bible says so.  If the Bible can be shown to be a poor source of divine truth, it must be discarded and the faith it reveals must be as well.

I am confident that these things are indeed true, and so I embrace the Bible’s story and claim to truth.  However, should either of these foundational realities:  the real bodily resurrection of Jesus and the reliability of the Bible, be shown to be false, our faith is truly in vain.  Fortunately, these realities have proven to be a sure foundation for two thousand years.  I don’t expect that will change.

What in the world does that even mean?  It sounds pretty technical, but in reality it is rather simple.  A polytheist is someone who worships more than one god.  And functional speaks of how someone actually functions and lives, not simply what they profess with their mouth.  Hence the question is, are we people who really worship many gods?

The obvious answer is no.  Of course not.  Christians worship only one God.  There is only one God, the God presented in the Bible.  All true Christians readily acknowledge the truthfulness of this.  But my concern is whether the way they live their lives is consistent with such a confession.  And I think many of us have deceived ourselves.  We claim to worship only one God, but in reality our worship and devotion is shared.  And God simply will not tolerate sharing worship.

Deuteronomy 16:21 offers a strong, clear warning against this.  It says, “Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates.” 

Notice the language in the first phrase of the verse.  It commands Israel not to set up (which literally means to plant, another great picture) Asherah poles, poles used in the worship of the goddess Asherah, beside the altar of the Lord.  The picture is one of shared space.

I believe there is a valuable truth presented to us in this important verse.  Israel’s warning was not about getting rid of YHWH, but about sharing their worship with other gods as well.  It wasn’t that Israel would be tempted to tear down the tabernacle/temple and be rid of YHWH.  Their temptation would be to worship other gods along side of Him. 

But YHWH would have none of this.  Because he is the only true and living God, this is absolutely unacceptable.  While other gods are real in the sense that they provoke real worship and devotion from their followers, they are not real in that they genuinely do not exist.  Thus, God cannot stand worship due to Him, the one true God, being offered to gods that do not even exist.  The end of Deut. 16:21 states that He hates it.

The critical point to be understood is that God expects EXCLUSIVE worship.  He does not share worship, devotion, commitment, allegiance, or love.  The first two commandments imply the same.  He is the only God and Israel is to have no gods before Him.  Likewise, they are to make for themselves no idols.  Worship of YHWH is to be exclusive.

In many ways, we are like the Israelites.  Our problem is not that we don’t want to worship God.  It’s not that we want to get rid of Him.  We just want to set up altars to other gods next to him and worship them too.  We want to share our worship.  We love God, but we love other things too.  We worship God, but we dedicate and serve other gods as well.  We will attend church and read our Bibles and pray and love others, but also pursue our own life goals, seek our own relational fulfillment with other human beings, and commit ourselves to the pursuit of earthly pleasures.  Unfortunately this will usually suffocate God out as we surround Him with new idols and objects of worship. 

The question we must answer is not whether we love God and worship God, but whether we love and worship ONLY God.

Spurgeon once said:

“The church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is the Prince of Peace; its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition.  The spirit of war is at the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the gospel.  Yet nevertheless, the church on earth has, and until the second advent must be, the church militant, the church armed, the church warring, the church conquering.  And how is this?  It is in the very order of things that so it must be.  Truth could not be the truth in this world if it were not a warring thing, and we should at once suspect that it were not true if error were friends with it.  The spotless purity of truth must always be at war with the blackness of heresy and lies.”

And those who bear its burden must always be warring against those who oppose it.  For God’s glory and for the redemption of the nations.

This is a radical statement.  Particularly when read in this culture.  To view truth this way is to see it as the absolute, exclusive, unalterable thing that the Bible presents it as.  But for most in this culture, this simply will not do.  Truth is fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing.  It is moldable, pliable, and flexible.  It can conform to ideologies and preferences.  It can be reshaped by the community to fit the context.  And when truth is seen in this light, there is nothing left to defend, stand up for, or protect.  There is nothing left to fight for.  Because there isn’t just one way.

This has rendered the truth largely dulled and its believers largely indifferent and lazy here in the church in America.  Our voice is one simply among many.  And whatever resonance it might have is drowned out by the plethora of other voices that surround it.

Brothers and sisters, THIS simply will not do.  The New Testament presents a church unlike much of what marks us here in America today.  It presents a church that has gone to war.  A church that recognizes and embraces opposition.  And a church that knows its weapon is superior to every other the world might ever manufacture:  the gospel.

Let me make an important point before I continue, however.  With the rise of militant factions of Islam (though all of Islam is essentially a militant religion, despite the fact that political correctness and liberal civil activist organizations yell and scream when this is publicly acknowledged), war language has become associated with terrorism and the like.  This however, is not the picture the New Testament presents either.  First, this war is a war for the truth, for ideas, first and foremost, not a war against people (though we must, by default, stand against those in one sense, who stand against us in the fight for the truth).  Second, Christians are called not to kill for the truth, but, when necessary, to die.  The call to Christian warfare is not a call to blow people up and take over the government.

What must we do to be good soldiers?  True warriors?

We must be willing to sacrifice.  Every time a soldier steps into harms way for the nation he has taken an oath to defend, he does so aware of the sacrifice that may be required of him.  To be a soldier means living with this possibility each day.  So it is with Christians.  We simply will not serve as good soldiers/warriors unless we are willing to pay a price.  We must come to grips with this reality.  We have enjoyed the comfort and ease of our church culture for too long.  Warriors have to be willing to pay a price.

We must be prepared.  Warriors are trained and groomed for the day they will step into battle.  Intense and challenging preparation is necessary because of what’s at stake.  Many of us forget what is at stake in the war for the truth.  Eternity hangs in the balance in this war.  This is not simply a fight for ideas, but for the eternal destination of human souls.  Ours and theirs.  Much is at stake.  We goof around in the church watching television and indulging in worldly pleasures because we have lost sight of what is at stake.  When we realize what is at stake, we will find ourselves committed to proper preparation for the battle that rages around us.  Whether they like it or not, the follower of Jesus does not live on a playground.  He lives on a battlefield.  Prepare accordingly.

We must learn to follow orders.  Enough of the milktoast, Jesus is my buddy theology preached in most churches today.  He is our Lord, our Master, our King, and our commander in chief.  He gives orders, not suggestions.  It is His right to command.  It is our responsibility to obey.

J. P. Moreland presents an appropriate picture of what this kind of Christian should look like:  “In my view, we evangelicals are simply not producing intelligent, articulate, winsome leaders who have the spiritual power and intellectual training to outlive and outthink those outside the church.”

Let us find no pleasure in petty civilian life and worldly indulgences (2 Timothy 2:4).  Let us look for no shortcuts or find no value in comfort and ease (2 Timothy 2:5).  And let us labor tirelessly to that end (2 Timothy 2:6).  These are the marks of a good soldier (2 Timothy 2:3).

Spurgeon understood all of this.  His writings display this clearly.  I end with one final quote from the great preacher:  “God chooses not milksops destitute of backbone, to wear His glory upon their faces.  We have plenty of men made of sugar nowadays, that melt into the stream of popular opinion; but these shall never ascend the hill of the Lord, nor stand in His holy place, nor wear the tokens of glory.”

This is a call for warriors.

Our problem here in the church in America is not that we aren’t willing to acknowledge our failure.  In some ways, we have even exalted and glorified failure in this culture.   But that is another topic altogether for another time.  We speak of our sinful imperfections.  We speak of our disappointments.  We speak of not living up to the expectations that we should.  We speak of failure.  These ideas we are not afraid of.  We admit them readily.  We even find some degree of comfort in them.  I remember hearing a song by a Christian band a year ago and the chorus of the song simply repeated over and over, “We are free to fail” (There is a lot to learn about mainstream evangelicalism from contemporary Christian music!). 

Our problem is we are actually unwilling to call all of this “failure” what it truly is.  The Bible presents us with a picture of two kinds of people.  Obedient and disobedient.  In reality, all of our imperfection is rebellious disobedience.  This of course sounds far more offensive.  It has no positive ring to it.  Why do I have to go and make everything sound so negative?  Well, the goal is actually to sound more biblical.

Here’s some of what the Bible says about obedience and disobedience.  We’ll begin with the most important verses in the Old Testament, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-6.  Here Israel is commanded to love the lord their God with all their heart, soul, and strength.  And in v. 3, just prior to this critical command, Moses, speaking on behalf of God says, “Here O’ Israel, and be careful to obey.”  Again, in Deuteronomy 13:4, in an important passage warning Israel to stay away from idols and false gods, God says to His people, “it is the Lord your God you must follow, and Him you must revere.  Keep His commands and obey Him.”  In 1 Samuel 15, Samuel tells Saul, in his rebellion against God, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.  Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He has rejected you as King.”  These are powerful and revealing words for us to reflect on.  Psalm 119:33-34 says this, “Teach me O’ Lord, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end.  Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.”  Every verse in Psalm 119 uses one phrase or another to communicate obedience to God’s commands. 

The New Testament doesn’t shy away from such language either.  Most noteworthy is the Great Commission of Matthew 28:20 itself.  Jesus tells His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations.  And the final phrase of this command is, “and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  The call to make disciples entails teaching them to obey, and to obey everything for that matter.  Romans 6:16 tells us that we are slaves to the one we obey.  We are saved from bondage and obedience to sin and death and are liberated to obey God, the good master.  1 John 5:3 tells us that love for God is to obey His commands.  And finally, John 14:23 states, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”  John 14:15, 21, 24, 15:10, 14 say the same.  These are simply a fraction of the Bible’s words on obedience and disobedience.

The reason we find disobedience so repulsive a thought is because of what it implies.  Disobedience implies having been given commands.  And we definitely don’t like that in this culture.  How dare anyone give commands or orders.  We prefer a God who gives us some goals and some encouragement, but no commands. 

Disobedience also implies accountability.  We are responsible to someone for our actions.  We definitely don’t like that either in this culture.  How dare anyone tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. 

Disobedience implies authority.  It assumes that someone has the right and power to command us.  At the risk of becoming monotonous, this idea simply won’t do in our culture either.  We exalt personal autonomy and freedom.  Not submission or surrender.  There are few things more revolting in this culture than the notion of authority, at least any external authority. 

Finally, disobedience implies consequence.  When we disobey, we receive a consequence, or punishment (or discipline for that matter).  In a culture of victims, this simply isn’t fair either.  There is always someone else to blame for things.  I shouldn’t be held responsible, so I shouldn’t have to face a consequence. 

I would contend that few of us go through our days with even the slightest inclination that the way in which we are living out our lives is simply a question of whether we are living obediently or disobediently toward God and the commands He has given us to live by.  We’re certainly willing to admit to falling short and failing.  Yet few of us wish to call it what it truly is: disobedience.

We would do well to maintain a biblical view of human sinfulness, even the sin that occurs after our conversion.  And if we claim ignorance, when God’s Word is readily available to us, we really only prove that our rebellion is of the lazy variety.  Let us call our “failures” or “shortcomings” what they are.  And let it challenge us to pursue obedience more passionately than we might otherwise.

Persecution and suffering have been relatively foreign to the Christian experience of most westerners in the last 100 to 150 years (that is a soft date, don’t take it too literally).  Sure, people have paid a price for speaking the truth at times.  Men and women have been opposed for their convictions.  However, in a culture that has been shaped by a Judeo-Christian worldview in many ways (not all by any means), and has made a priority of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, few have truly been required to suffer for what they believe.

In some ways I think this can be seen as a tremendous blessing.  I think God has used it for the furtherance of His kingdom.  I think we can be grateful for such freedom and liberty and protection from unjust religious oppression.  A proper value for human life and religious expression, which are good things, are behind this and should be commended in my opinion.  On another level, however, it seems to me more curse than blessing at times.  This same cultural climate has produced a weak and milktoast church in many ways.  We know little of sacrifice.  We know little of true commitment.  We know little of hope in a better life to come since life is pretty good for us right here right now.  We know little of suffering.  And if suffering is a crucial part of the Christian experience (as I believe it is biblically), we must admit that our faith doesn’t need the Constitution of the United States in order to prosper.  We find a certain degree of false security in such provisions. 

I don’t think one cultural context is necessarily better than the other, but I do think we must be cautious to recognize the dangers that we face as Christians in the particular context we find ourselves.  Hence, I believe we should be mindful of the kind of faith our brothers and sisters in persecuted lands do possess.  I believe it can prove helpful for us.  For this reason, I would like to offer a few suggestions regarding what I have learned, and believe we all need to learn, from the persecuted church.

Statistics tell us that more Christians have been martyred for their faith in the 20^th century than all 18 centuries previously, combined.  This is a rather eye-opening piece of information.  Most of us in America are so disconnected from what is happening spiritually in the rest of the world that we would never imagine that it could be so.  We have many brothers and sisters that suffer greatly for their faith in Christ.  We must listen to them.   

So what should we learn from our persecuted brothers and sisters?  There are probably a host of things.  But here are a few I think are valuable for us.

First, hostility and hatred do not thwart the advance of God’s kingdom.  Most of the places that the church is growing most rapidly are the same places experiencing the greatest persecution.  The protection of first amendment rights is not essential for the advance of the gospel.  Most of us in America are scared and intimidated by rejection and hostility.  We whine and complain when people come against us (just like everybody else in this culture).  This is not only to be expected (Jesus told His disciples that all men would hate them on behalf of Him), but should never be cause for discouragement or quitting.  Peter and John left the prison rejoicing after being counted worthy to be beaten for testifying to the name of Jesus Christ in Acts 4.  We have got to get over people not liking us or people getting mad at us for what we believe. 

Second, we would do well to remember that Christianity is not about stuff.  Worldly stuff that is.  Our persecuted brothers and sisters have their homes, their property, their jobs, their families, etc…, everything that is theirs, at times taken from them.  If Christianity is about getting stuff, i.e. materialistic gain, then these brothers and sisters don’t love God very much.  God did not come to fill our bank accounts or give us new cars.  He came to reconcile us to Himself and give us hope for an inheritance that will not perish (by the way, let it be recognized how incredible this idea really is.  Inheritance means something handed down to us from our fathers.  If this is the case, the Bible tells us that what we get is everything that is Gods.  And that inheritance never fades.  It never dries up.  It lasts forever.  Everything that is rightfully Jesus’ as God’s Son becomes ours.  That, my friends, is an overwhelming thought).  Less in this life sets our hope on a better life to come.  We need to forget about stuff.  It’s going to burn up.  It has no value.

Third, church is not all about methods and programs.  I believe that if national persecution broke out next week here in America, 95% of the books in our Christian bookstores would become instantly irrelevant.  No one would be buying books about becoming a better you or how to throw effective block parties to reach their community.  Everything would change.  Our persecuted brothers and sisters don’t have any use for that stuff.  Now, I understand that cultural contexts shape the kinds of ways we go about reaching people.  I’m not saying some of those things have no value for us here where we live.  My point is that we tend to rely far too heavily on methods and means and man to accomplish the advance of the kingdom and the salvation of sinners.  We have become far too confident in our own abilities.  That’s why we don’t pray.  The persecuted church, without exception, is a praying church.  Why?  Because God is all they have to trust in.  Unfortunately, we spend little time praying in America because we don’t put our trust in Him nearly as much as we do in our methods.  We have to stop trusting in methods and strategies and catchy vision statements.  The New Testament gives us a simple answer regarding how the kingdom of God advances (simple does not necessarily mean easy however.  There is an important difference between the two.).  The church grows when God’s people preach, pray, suffer, and live holy lives.  This doesn’t sound very “strategic” but it seems to work for our brothers and sisters. 

Fourth, Christian worship is not all about performance value.  Again, I am not trying to condemn everything about how we do church here in America.  I don’t think it’s a bad thing to seek excellence and quality in what you do.  I do, however, think we need to recognize how performance driven Christian worship has become in our culture.  The persecuted church doesn’t waste time trying to entertain people.  I doubt anyone leading the singing in their churches ever competed on American Idol Iran.  Popular pastors are not ones that tell the funniest stores.  Paul talks about one person bringing a hymn, another a spiritual song, another a proverb, another a testimony.  There is a refreshing sense of community, sincerity and informality in this sort of approach.  I have been a part of services like this.  It’s not the only way to do it, but it certainly is edifying and I think a healthy corrective for much of the performance drivenness that can be found in most of our church culture.

Fifth, you don’t have to have big buildings to grow.  Again, I don’t want to be overly critical here nor dismiss how different contexts merit different approaches.  But I often shudder to think what God would say about our multi-million dollar church facilities and campuses.  Is this the best stewardship of our financial resources?  Is this critical to seeing our churches really continue to grow and prosper?  Is God impressed by these?  Our brothers and sisters in persecuted lands sneak in and out of houses and fields.  And people keep getting saved.  And more churches keep popping up.  I think we would do well to remember what we should trust in for kingdom growth and expansion.            

Sixth, we must learn from their courage and boldness.  Most of these brothers and sisters live day to day, unaware of what sacrifice tomorrow may hold.  What price there may be to pay.  we must honor their courage by learning from their example.  They have so much for us to see in this regard.

I think I’ll stop there.  There’s probably enough there to get under someone’s skin.  Certainly I’m not saying we have to do everything the way that things are done by our persecuted brothers and sisters.  I simply think it is worth our time to maintain perspective on some of the dangers we face in the church here in our culture.  Like any church, the persecuted church is not a perfect church by any means.  They deal with their own weaknesses.  Yet, we would do well to learn from them.  They have much to teach us about faithfulness in laboring effectively for the advance of God’s kingdom.  May we be humble enough to acknowledge some of our weaknesses and learn from them.

“What Christianity Has Going For It”  will continue in the coming weeks, but I would also like to offer a  post regarding the topic of religious pluralism, the question of whether there are indeed many ways to God.  It is an important topic and extremely relevant to anyone of faith that lives in America today.  This can be seen from research conducted recently.  That information and link can be found in my previous blog “Religion in America.”  It informs us that large majorities of the major religions present in America believe their own faith is not the only way to God, and that other religions teach equally valid truth as theirs.  What I would like to do now is deal with what I believe is the fundamental issue related to this topic of religious pluralism.  We will then look at some of the most common questions asked by many relating to the topic.

Let it be noted, this is not a defense of Christianity/biblical theism.  This is simply a critique of religious pluralism.  Just because religious pluralism might be false, doesn’t mean Christianity is true.  It must also be remembered that to make a case for religious pluralism is to oppose not just the Christian faith, but every world religion with the exception of Hinduism.  Hinduism is the only major world faith that asserts at least a level of religious pluralism.  Therefore, even if religious pluralism is found to be unsubstantial, it does not necessarily mean that Christianity is right.  Any revelatory faith/worldview could be the true faith.  I think this is important to understand.  On the flip side, if religious pluralism is right, everyone is wrong.  As we will see, any revelatory worldview (religion that is based on revelation from God) is incompatible with the idea that one can get to God any number of ways.  Therefore, if one is a religious pluralist, then that individual believes not only Christianity, but Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, etc… are all wrong.  My intention here is not necessarily to make a case for Christianity, but to show the inconsistency and falsehood of religious pluralism.

D. A. Carson, one of the most noted New Testament scholars in the world today, wrote a book about ten years ago in response to this increasingly influential idea of religious pluralism.  The title of the book was “The Gagging of God.”  Carson got it right.  When it comes right down to it, the question of whether there are many ways to God is about revelation.  The idea that God has revealed Himself.  That He has spoken.  Hence the title, “The Gagging of God,”  for religious pluralism gags God.  It does not allow God to have spoken.  Ultimately, religious pluralism ONLY WORKS if God has not spoken or revealed Himself.  Hopefully it will be clear by the end of this entry why this is the case.  Again, this is the fundamental issue at stake in the question of whether there are many ways to God.

One must understand that nearly every religion in the world is built on the idea that God has spoken, whether through a text or through people (prophets, sages, etc…).  Christianity has the Bible.  Islam has the Quran.  Mormonism has the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants (revelation that comes through the prophet, which continues to happen) and the Pearl of Great Price.  Judaism has the Old Testament.  New Age has spirit guides.  And so on and so forth.  Each of these faiths believe that God/gods have revealed things to man.  That what they claim has come not from men, but from god/gods themselves.  This means that they carry divine authority.  This is a final word.  And so the problem with religious pluralism arises.  If all religions are true and lead to God, how can they all have something that God actually said?  They all say completely different things.  How can God be eternal and three in person while one in nature (Christianity) but also be a man who wasn’t eternal but eventually became a God through proving himself worthy through a period of mortal probation (Mormonism)?  How can there be one God (Islam) but also 3.5 million gods (Hinduism)?  How can one go to one of two places after death (Christianity) and also be reincarnated over and over (a number of faiths, most notably Hinduism)?  How can one go to heaven to reside with God (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) and also be absorbed into a sea of undifferentiated being (Buddhism), or get to become a god themselves and rule over their own creation (Mormonism)?

It doesn’t take a great deal of common sense to see that these ideas contradict each other.  They are incompatible.  They can’t all be right.  Not if they all came from God.  Despite the efforts of many to try and show that religions are basically all the same (primarily based on morality rather than truth claims), the ideas they each teach are irreconcilable.  The religions of the world simply are grounded on teachings about God, man, salvation, and eternity that cannot fit together.  They each paint opposing views of what is happening in the world.  They cannot all have come from the same God.  Maybe there are many gods who have each revealed these things to man, but this presents problems of its own.

The religious pluralist must then assert that the only way there can be many roads to God is if God has not spoken anywhere through any faith.  If God has revealed Himself somewhere (wherever that is), then that makes everything else false and means that there can only be one way.  Every sacred text, every divine revelation through any man, are therefore simply man’s attempts to get to God, but carry no authority from God, for they aren’t from Him.  They are simply man’s best attempts to understand the world and get to God.  God has left us to fend for ourselves.  If religion is then man’s attempt to get to God, and none of us really know in the first place, because God hasn’t told us, then God is justified in accepting people from different faiths.  But if God has spoken somewhere and made Himself known, then we are not left in ignorance, and are not justified in simply doing our best.  We have to do as He tells us.  He wants to be known, for He has spoken.  He intends to be understood, for this would betray the very purpose of communication if He did not.  And, we are accountable to it, for there is no reason to say it if we aren’t expected to be held accountable to it.

Remember also that the religious pluralist is not an atheist.  They do not believe there is no God, for they claim that man will be with God ultimately.  They must therefore put their trust in a god who has distanced himself from mankind and not spoken to him.  Who has left us to fend for ourselves.  The religious pluralist would claim they believe in a god who is compassionate and loving, for he accepts people from all faiths.  And yet, the reality of a god who has implanted in us such a longing for the divine as human beings, and yet left us to wander through life in ignorance, seems more cruel to me than kind and compassionate.  I believe, deep down, humanity lays their heads down at night and wants answers.  They may not like them or want to live by them, but they long to know.  They long for something from God Himself.  This idea, even if God has truly only revealed Himself in one way through one faith, permeates humanity.  For our religions, even our false attempts to get to God, claim revelation from God Himself.  The religious pluralist, thus opposes pretty much every religion in the world.  It opposes a God who has revealed Himself to man.  It opposes divine involvement or interaction with mankind.  This to me is a hard sell, and would seem a hard sell to more than 90% of the people on the planet, not simply Christians.  For they too believe God reveals Himself, somehow, in some way.

This is of course a simple introduction to the discussion on religious pluralism.  There is much more to say.  This however, is the foundational issue, I believe, that must be addressed if we are to draw any conclusions at all regarding whether there are many roads to God.  One simply cannot claim that many roads lead to God and believe that God actually comes to us through them, as they each assert themselves.  Religious pluralism only works if all of them are wrong and none of them have anything that ever came from God Himself.  They are all just man’s best attempts, assembled for whatever purpose their authors or spokespersons intended them, selfish or well-meaning.  Revelation is the key.  I believe there is good reason to believe that God has revealed Himself, even if it is not through the Christian Scriptures (though that is where I believe He has revealed Himself).  This would make religious pluralism impossible and wrong.

Now for some frequently asked questions.

First:  What if someone is sincere in their belief?  Would God really send them to hell?  Let me answer this question on several levels.  It is a question that sounds good on the surface, but really betrays common sense when we see it for what it is.  If this is the case, was Hitler justified in murdering 5 million Jews if he really sincerely believed it was the right thing to do?  I think all of us would say of course not.  We used to believe the earth was flat.  But now we know it is round.  If someone truly, sincerely believed it was flat, did that make it flat?  No, of course not.  One final illustration.  If a student gets a question wrong on a test, but goes up to the teacher and tells them that they got the question wrong, but they really believed it was right, so they think the teacher should give them credit for it, is the teacher going to give them credit for it?  Of course not.  Being sincerely wrong doesn’t count anywhere else in life.  It sounds great to some when it comes to religion, but it really doesn’t make any sense.   I think this idea is also fed by an understanding of religion as being about living good lives that have the appearance of goodness, and thus, if one appears to live a good moral life, then why wouldn’t God accept them, regardless of what they call themselves?  This approach obviously puts little value on propositions (truth claims themselves), but also sees morality as the key to acceptance before God.  The Bible, however, makes it clear that goodness is never good enough, and has no basis for justifying us before God.  Only what Jesus did for us on the cross can do that.  Being moral will never be good enough.  And neither will sincerity apart from truth.

Second:  Isn’t it arrogant for one group to claim that they have the right answer?  This question is obviously fed by the idea that we probably can’t know truth at all, even though that’s ridiculous when we look around us at the world.  Why learn anything if we can’t really know anything for sure anyways?  If knowing something to be true makes one arrogant then we’ve lost any sense of reality whatsoever.  Nevertheless, there is a greater flaw in this question than even the issue of relativity and truth.  What one forgets is that for the religious pluralist to be right, pretty much everyone else has to be wrong.  The religious pluralist claims that no one has the right to claim access to God or the right to claim exclusive truth.  Thus, they claim everyone who doesn’t agree with them to be absolutely wrong as well.  This is no less arrogant.  They may look like they are being tolerant, but they are not because almost everyone in the world believes in exclusive truth, that only their faith is right.  The religious pluralist is essentially telling all of them they are wrong by asserting what they believe.  So they are really being even less tolerant than one who believes in exclusive truth.

Third:  Is there anything right in other religions?  Yes, there are things present in other faiths that may be truthful.  But this does not necessarily mean that it came from special revelation from God.  God endowed all men with a moral compass, consciousness, and His image (whatever that entails.  There are many opinions).  This gives us much in common as humans and will undoubtedly flesh itself out in our religious belief, even if our faiths are different and not necessarily from a special revelation from God.  Thus, there will be commonalities and some truthfulness to certain things that can be found in some different faiths.  But this does not necessarily mean what they teach about God and salvation are the same or equally true.  In reality, religions have far more differences than similarities.

Fourth:  Aren’t all religions basically the same?  We’ve already touched on this some, and some of the answer to the last question will apply here as well, but just to clarify, the world’s religions claim contradictory things about the fundamental questions we ask, questions about God, man, salvation, and eternity.  Our commonalities are mostly pragmatic ones, things that deal with moral issues, but most of our ideas or propositions are radically different.  In addition, few of the world’s religions and their followers believe that other religions believe as they do, many of them killing each other over their differences.  The idea that we’re all basically the same is pretty much an American idea, but is not shared by most of the rest of the world.

Fifth:  If only one religion is right, why are there so many religions?  Because man rejects the truth and develops religions and beliefs of their own making, both in their ignorance and in their rebelliousness.  We find new ways to do this because we find new ways to selfishly control people for our own purposes and achieve our own ends, and because we find new ways to be sinful and rebellious.  We make new idols to worship.  Plus, one right answer automatically makes every other answer wrong, leaving many possibilities for getting something wrong.  There can be lots of wrong answers to a question, but only one right one.  This should make sense to us.  Why doesn’t it make sense to us as it applies to religion?

Sixth:  What about all of the people who never did or never will hear about Jesus?  This is a great question, and a challenging one.  Nevertheless, there is a clear biblical answer.  The Bible does several things.  First, in Romans 1 it tells us that that God has made Himself sufficiently known that all men have seen enough to make them accountable to God for knowing who He is.  And yet they have rebelled against that knowledge and rejected it.  Thus there is sufficient reason for them to be fairly condemned.  Secondly the Bible commands Christians to go and take the message of the truth into all the world with urgency.  This is irreconcilable with the idea that those left in ignorance will be all right.  We must go, and must go urgently so that many might hear and believe.  Whether one is comfortable with the answer or not, this is what the Bible declares.

These are a few of the most frequently asked questions related to the subject.  Hopefully the answers are helpful and clear.  The religious diversity around us, and the move towards a very experiential form of spirituality that finds little value in truth claims has left us thinking that we can get to God in a variety of ways.  With all of this diversity, how can only one group be right?  If people in all religions experience God, and feel God, and live good lives, how can they not go to heaven as well?  These types of questions have brought us to where we are today in our culture.  Hopefully, however, we can see more clearly that there are a number of reasons to see these ideas as weak and unlikely.  There are, as it appears to me, far more reasons to reject such an idea than accept it.

Racism is a topic that always seems provocative and relevant.  Obviously America has dealt with racism and in many ways has made positive social steps toward minimizing racist attitudes and behavior.  With racial and ethnic diversity increasing in America, as well as the emerging “global village” due to the internet and media advances, exposure to other cultures and peoples has helped many find greater comfort and value for others that are different.  Nevertheless, racism has obviously not been eliminated.  Racism, however, is not unique to America and it’s approximately 225 years of existence either.  It has existed in the world through most of its history.  A quick tour through history makes this rather clear.  Racism can be found in many places and many cultures both now and in the past.

How does the Bible feel about racism?  Probably the way we would expect the Bible to feel about it.  It opposes it.  However, it opposes it for more reasons than we might think.  Obviously the Bible promotes both respect and dignity for human life.  All human life.  This I think we all understand.  The Bible also commands love for one’s neighbor.  This is understood to include any of those one may come in contact with, not simply the person who lives adjacent to them.  Clearly racism is an offense to these truths.  These are obviously sufficient reasons to oppose racism and what such attitudes toward others can lead to.

Racism, however, is offensive to God for another reason.  Another important reason.  A reason that strikes at the heart of the gospel itself.  The Bible is a story that reveals to us God’s plan to save humanity.  And this plan is not limited to a select group of people (speaking of ethnic peoples or groups).  In Acts 1 Jesus commands his disciples to be His witnesses (i.e.  preach the gospel) in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.  The book of Acts then displays for us the powerful advance of the  gospel just as Jesus had commanded.  The apostles and the early Christians would do as they had been told by Jesus.  The twelve apostles themselves would die across the known world.  Some tradition holds that these apostles would advance as far as modern day England, India, and even further East.  They literally went to the ends of the earth. 

In addition, the book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of heaven.  In this vision provided for us in Revelation 4, we see the throne room of heaven.  And present before the throne of God are people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.  The book of Revelation paints a picture for us in which salvation will be universal (not universalism), for people from EVERY nation, tribe and tongue will be present with God.  God does not simply value all human life as that which is created in His image, His heart is that people from every culture and nation be present with Him in the new heaven and new earth.  God’s redemptive plan is not complete until all peoples have been gathered into the fold. 

Racism, therefore, is an attitude (and leads to behavior) that stands against the very heart of the gospel and God’s redemptive purpose in the world, God’s purpose to save all mankind, people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.  God’s heart beats for all peoples, they all have a place in the new heaven and earth.  And so we too must have the heart of God for all peoples.  Racism is indeed an offense against the very heart of God and His redemptive purpose and plan.  May we as Christians be certain such sinful attitudes are not in our hearts.

I was having a conversation with one of our students a couple of weeks ago in which we were discussing the spiritual growth that has occurred in his life over the last couple of years.  God had indeed done a great deal in his life over that period of time.  At the end of the conversation we were talking about the need to be consistently sitting under good biblical teaching and the foundation that it is for a believer in their pursuit of Jesus.  And then he said this, “You know, two years ago I couldn’t have told you the difference between a good sermon and a bad one.”  He was just offering up a word of personal reflection.  And yet, it was a clear, accurate, and insightful word on not only his own life, but most that live in this country and the culture that shapes it.  We have absolutely no clue how to be discerning, how to discern truth from error, dangerous from safe, healthy from unhealthy, good arguments from bad arguments, a biblical word from a non-biblical word.  If something is packaged in a way that appeals and it makes us feel good, then we are all for it.  We are consumers to the core.  And we are paying a price for it in the church.

This cultural trend obviously effects the religious choices that individuals make.  The truth claims of various religions are carrying less and less weight when one is deciding what faith system to embrace.  Typically how one feels they fit into the congregation, what kinds of programs the church offers for them and their families, and how the church will provide for their particular needs (whether spiritual or physical) are some of the main priorities in making their faith choices.  Not that these things are inherently bad in and of themselves.  They are however, poor criteria for evaluating the truthfulness of a faith’s message in and of themselves.

This trend, however, also effects those who are already a part of churches or faiths.  Within the evangelical community alone one will find a variety of differences in beliefs regarding many things.   Some of these differences are more important than others.  Nevertheless we don’t agree on everything (not that we have to either.  Unity on the essential, liberty on the non-essential).  The danger is not necessarily that we differ (though at times it is indeed).  The danger is that most who embrace a particular church’s teaching probably don’t do so because they have thoughtfully and reverently examined the Bible and sought to live in accordance with it.  Maybe they grew up in it.  Maybe lots of their friends or community were accepting of it; it was the popular way to go.  Maybe it looked good to them and it felt right.  Whatever the reason, a discerning spirit was most likely not behind their choice.  And that is dangerous.

How do we learn to be more discerning?  I’d like to offer a few thoughts on how one can be better equipped to evaluate certain things (in this case, biblical truth), so as to live more faithfully in this truth God has revealed to us.

1.  Look at more than one perspective.  G. K. Chesterton once said that he did not fear the man of many ideas, but the man of only one idea.  This is an excellent observation.  The man of many ideas has examined the various approaches to something, weighted them, seen the pros and cons, the evidence on each side, and then made a choice.  This man will have better reasons for believing what he believes, is less likely to be taken by bad ideas, and will also be better at interacting with others regarding what he believes.  The man of one idea is far more likely to be deceived.  He is far less likely to be able to defend what he believes.  He is also more likely to be abrasive and unloving in his interaction with others on such issues.  We must learn to look at other perspectives.

As a side note, if we think in the church that failing to expose our children to other perspectives will ultimately protect them, we are misguided.  Would we rather them learn about Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Age, Buddhism, evolution, pluralism, etc… from those in the world or from within the faith community?  The absence of truth is far more important than the presence of error.  We must show them that Christianity stands up to scrutiny and critique.  It shows itself a superior way to view the world and to live in it.  We should be doing this rather than their college professors and hollywood actors and actresses.  If what we believe is true, we must not fear other perspectives.  Unfortunately, the problem is usually that those in positions of teaching and influence have never done such examination themselves.  And so the cycle continues huh?

2.  Learn how to make an argument/defend something.  Again, the influence of the culture has hurt us here.  If relativism is true, who cares about the pursuit of truth?  Who cares about trying to defend what you believe?  There really is no need if one is a true relativist (which is impossible for anyone to really be in the first place).  Hopefully, however, for those of us in the church who accept the teaching of Scripture (and use common sense), we understand that truth simply cannot be whatever I want it to be.  Or what my friends want it to be.  Or what my parents want it to be.  It is ultimately what God says since He is the source of truth.  And He reveals this truth to us in the Bible.  So as we go to the Bible to learn truth we must accept that it too doesn’t mean whatever I want it to mean.  It is then helpful to learn how to make a case for what one finds in the Bible.  Learn how to defend what you believe from the text of Scripture itself.  See if you can make a better case than one can make for an opposing view.

This may seem rather elementary to some.  Unfortunately, however, it is not.  Most of the young people I have worked with through the years have no idea how to do this.  And why should they?  They really aren’t taught to do this anywhere else.  Even in the public school systems learning is about regurgitating the material handed to them.  Teachers are often more concerned about test scores than critical thinking (this is not all their fault either.  School standards and priorities, along with class sizes leave them little opportunity to oppose this).  The bombarbdment of visual media has caused style to be more vauable than substance.  It’s not hard to see how we have gotten here.  It is hard to envision how we fix it.  We must teach people in the church how to let the text be authoritative and how to make arguments from it.

3.  Learn how to read.  In 1939, at the New York’s World Fair, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered the opening dedication for the event.  What made this dedication unique was the fact that it was done in a live broadcast by NBC from atop the Empire State Building.  A week earlier the RCA building had been dedicated at the first television news broadcast.  The age of the image had come.  Reflecting on the impact of television at the time was the fair’s science director, Gerald Wendt.  Wendt had this to say, “democracy under the influence of television, is likely to pay inordinate attention to the performer and interpreter rather than to the planner and thinker.”  Arthur W. Hunt III, author of “The Vanishing Word,” says this in response to Wendt’s prophetic insight, “This is perhaps the first insight that television would not be a conducive medium for serious discourse.  Wendt apparently understood that even if television was used for the “public good,” thinking could never be a performing art.”  Wendt and Hunt both clearly saw the impact of visula media on America.  Visual media leads away from thoughtful discourse and thinking.  it exalts the performer over the the thinker.  If this is not an accurate reflection of American culture, I don’t know what is.  So what do we do about it?  Surely the answer isn’t to get rid of our computers and televisions.  No, but we must learn to see the impact they have on us and learn how to minimize the detrimental effects it can have on us (and that may actually mean turning the tv and internet off a little more!).  One of the primary ways to do this is to read more.  There is probably nothing I could say that would be more unattractive today, but it is worth doing.  Reading helps us value thinking far more than television.  It is not the whole solution, but I believe it is a step in the right direction.

These are three thoughts that could prove helpful.  Other thoughts are welcome.  Let us learn to be discerning, that we might know the truth.  And let us be students of God’s Word that are filled with same spirit that filled the Berean Christians, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  Acts 17:11.

Tomorrow Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the next President of the United States. Much ado has been made of the new President-elect in the last year. He has captured the attention of a nation with his charisma and his message. Many, unhappy with the direction of the country in recent years and finding their financial situations strained, have turned to this new President and the rhetoric of change that he has so convincingly “preached.” Things are bad (or at least we are told). Somebody has to fix it.

Obviously part of the attention Barack Obama has received is due to his color of skin. And for that he is indeed noteworthy. It is a good day in American history in this regard. Slavery and racism are wrong, and while these things will never be completely gone (for these wrongs are rooted in the selfishness of the human heart, which will always be with us), we have taken a positive step forward as a nation. Despite this, and despite my own youth, I cannot remember seeing any President step into office with as much fan fare. Neither have many I have spoken to.

Many have exalted this man as they seek the life they feel they have lost, or quite possibly have never had. He will fix our problems. He will get things back to the way they should be.

What is behind this clamor is an insatiable lust for material gain and financial prosperity. Life is about me. And it’s about me getting as much as I can. America has seen the extravagance of its wealth prove to be less stable than it had thought and it does not like it. And so many are looking for a savior. And they believe they have found him.

Human beings are interesting creatures. It is amazing how easily we can be deceived. Satisfied with so little. C. S. Lewis once said that it is not that our passions are too strong, but that they are too weak. We are too easily satisfied when there is far more to be had. “We are half-hearted creatures fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when something greater is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.”  We are convinced that our greatest salvation, our greatest need to be fulfilled, comes in the form of a meaningful romantic relationship. A large house. A stadium full of people chanting our name. Tax relief. These are our most pressing needs. We are consumed with the pursuit of these things. We search for the one/ones who will lead us to them.

We are not the first people to search for such things. Humanity, it would seem, has always been pursuing these ends. It was especially true in the days of Jesus. Jesus was pursued by great crowds, but mostly because he made them well and gave them food to eat (it is estimated that as much as 90 percent of the Jews in Palestine in the first century were deeply impoverished due to Roman taxation). These Jews were indeed looking for a savior, but one that would save them from Rome, not so much from their sin. Ultimately they would have Him crucified because His salvation was not the one that they wanted.

Therefore, let us remember several things as our new President assumes office. First, we have a more pressing need than financial gain and material comfort. Jesus said what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose His soul? Timely words for America. We are desperately in need of salvation, but not from the Bush administration. We have much bigger problems than foreclosure and job security. We are dirty inside and I believe each of us knows it when we lay our heads down on our pillows at night. What about our souls? What about our “badness?” Eternity looms in the distance for each of us. It stalks us. Barack Obama will save no man from their sin. He offers nothing to the one who will soon pass from this life into the next. Only Jesus has a say in what happens from that point on. Questions regarding our standing before God, the question of our eternity, should consume us far more than whether we will be able to afford a new car this year.

Second, our new President is nothing more than a man. He is a civil servant, not a messiah. Will we foolishly put our hopes in a mortal man? Even if it is for such meager things as money and economic prosperity? God is the giver of all things. He also appoints kings and rulers and removes them. They are men, just as the one sworn in tomorrow is.

And thirdly, tomorrow is not a bad day. But it is an important day. And worth reflecting on. May Christians be sober-minded as we move into the coming days and years. Let us not be deceived, for the change we need cannot be delivered by a President. Even the President of the United States. And let us take heart, for Jesus has overcome the world, and is a true and trustworthy Savior.

Blogs have been short in their coming the last few months, and likely will be sparse for the next couple of months as well. Nevertheless, a topic may set itself upon my mind and find its way onto the computer screen periodically. Hence this particular post. The glory of God is what I would like to discuss. The Bible is a story that is concerned, at its heart, with the glory of God. For one that is both serious and honest in their approach to Scripture, they will no doubt acknowledge that the Bible, in its telling of creation and redemption, speaks to us about God supremely, not man. God’s purpose in creation and redemption was that He might reveal Himself to man (and more specifically the Son), that man might know His glory and His worth.

The question must then be asked, “what does it mean for man to know God in His glory?” There are probably a number of ways to express it, none of which may be wrong. Certainly to know and behold the glory of God means to see Him in His power and authority, His holiness, and all of His many perfections, i.e…love, mercy, compassion, justice, righteousness, etc… To reflect on God’s perfect knowledge, His ability to be present everywhere at all times, His eternality, and a host of other divine attributes, is to know His glory and His worth. To dismiss these as anything other than the beholding of glory would be a mistake. Nonetheless, there is an additional element that should be considered as it relates to what it means to know God glory, and to live in light of that glory.

The Old Testament, written in Hebrew, uses the word kavod to express the idea of glory in relation to God. And like most Hebrew words, offers a word picture to clarify its meaning. The word kavod means weight or heaviness. Thus to experience the glory of God is to feel the weight of God. To know God’s glory is for Him to be heavy upon us. It is a rich concept with a number of implications.

First, it reminds us that our proper place before God is on our knees. To behold God in His glory, in all of His perfections, is to understand the greatness and supreme power and authority of God. And to understand this properly means that we understand our own lack. Thus humility is the first response to God’s glory. The penitent, humble man kneels before God, acknowledging his unworthiness. God’s glory presses us down, His weight refusing to allow us to remain upright in our pride and self-aggrandizement. To know God in His glory manifests itself in our humility.

Second, it speaks to the seriousness with which we must embrace God. To know God in His glory is to take Him seriously. To approach God flippantly and treat Him flippantly in the way we live our lives reveals that we do not know God in His glory truly. To read God’s Word, to hear His Word, His command, and to ignore it, to take it lightly, is to display one’s blindness to God in His glory. The weight of God demands seriousness, attention. It is to be concerned with Him, to be mindful of Him, to be captured by Him. He who responds lightly to God does not know Him in His glory.

Third, it displays itself in how it displaces the other priorities in our lives. To know God in His glory is to be consumed and overwhelmed with not only His person, but His purposes. It finds what He does, as well as who He is, as being worthy of our seriousness. And if God’s end is to glorify Himself, which happens as sinners are saved and live lives of worship and devotion to God, then that end must be ours as well. It must be our enduring passion above all things if He is indeed worthy of supreme worship and devotion, if His glory, His weight, is ultimate. Thus, to know God in His glory is to let the purposes of God become the weight that guides the direction of our lives. To find other things more important, to find other things to be heavier, is to deny having been captured with God’s glory. God, and all that drives God in the pursuit of His own glory must be weightier to us than everything else in our lives. Unfortunately there is no way to hide this. Our lives are the proof.

To know the glory of God is to live with the weight of His glory on our shoulders, driving us to our knees, pushing us into greater seriousness toward Him, and displacing all other priorities as secondary to His. If this is indeed the case, it is likely that we must unfortunately admit that we do not know His glory as we may think we do. And yet, His Word, the revelation of God in the fullness of His glory, sits next to our beds or on our coffee tables every day. If we would only delve into it, allowing God to capture us with His greatness and worth. May the heaviness of God fall upon us like an anvil. May His weight displace the weightless things that typically guide our lives.

Several decades ago, when young people were asked what they wanted to become when they grew up, their answers were typically of a particular variety: civil servants such as firefighters, police officers, and doctors. In speaking of the culturally dominant definition of masculinity that traditionally guided our nation, Anthony Rotunda, in his book “American Manhood,” defines manhood as “a man’s expectation to rank duty above personal ambition. He was to fulfill himself through public usefulness more than through economic success.” Such answers are consistent with Rotunda’s claim.

However, recent studies have revealed a dramatic shift in the career ambitions of our nation’s young people. Today students overwhelmingly respond to the question of what they want to be when they grow up with the answer, “To be famous.” Celebrity culture has come to embody everything our nation holds to be worth pursuing. It is the physical manifestation of “the good life.” Sex, beauty, health, and wealth are all believed to be attained through a life of fame and celebrity. It has been observed that, “the good life projects a vision of happiness that comes from having the best physically (sex, beauty, and health), intellectually (information and knowledge), and financially (wealth). We want all of it quickly and effortlessly (convenience), and we find the epitome of this good life in the celebrity media star.” (“Everyday Theology” ed. By Kevin J. VanHoozer, 71). Simply look at the checkout line at a local grocery store to see the proof of this.

Unfortunately the church has not been immune to this kind of perspective either. Young people inside the church share this kind of ambition equally with those outside of the church. Look no further than the large number of Christians that compete in television shows like American Idol. Not only do they compete, but many have found great success. Multiple winners have claimed to be Christians, including the most recent winner, who has apparently served as a worship leader. The second runner up this past season was also a worship leader in an evangelical church. Undoubtedly many will claim that such pursuits are simply an opportunity for the furtherance of the gospel through greater platforms of influence. And this may be true. Still, one must wonder whether these kinds of pursuits provide the opportunity for Christians to promote their distinctiveness or whether they display the churches’ commitment to the same values and pursuits that the world embraces.

How the church lives in relationship to the culture will obviously affect how one views such endeavors. My interest, however, is more specifically related to the celebrity culture that has not only pervaded our culture, but continues to shape how the church understands what “the good life” really is, and more importantly, how the pursuit of the celebrity life stands up against the life the Bible calls believers to pursue.

Possibly the best example of a celebrity in the Bible is Solomon (“Everyday Theology” ed. By VanHoozer, 76). He had all the sex he could probably handle with 700 wives and 300 concubines. He was known as the wisest and wealthiest man in the world. Not only did he build the Lord’s temple, but an even more extravagant palace for himself. Solomon enjoyed all of the comforts and pleasures of this life to their fullest extent. His life was indeed a life of lavishness and excess. And yet, the Bible also tells us that Solomon’s final evaluation was unfortunate. 1 Kings 11:6 tells us that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, unlike his father David. Nehemiah 13:6 tells us that future generations did not celebrate Solomon’s life, but lamented his faithlessness. The first words of the book of Ecclesiastes, a book who’s authorship is most commonly asserted to be Solomon’s, declare that all things are vanity, a word that speaks of brevity, like a wisp of smoke. These words are powerful considering they came from a man who was granted wisdom and wealth greater than that given to any man. They reveal an emptiness left from all of these things. These words expose the life of the celebrity as something less than “the good life.”

Jesus’ life is particularly noteworthy, and displays a life that runs in direct opposition to the celebrity’s life. As the one who embodies perfectly what the good life of the gospel truly is, Jesus’ example is of supreme importance. Jesus possessed greater fame, glory, honor, and worth than any human could ever possess. Still, as Philippians 2:6-8, tells us, He did not cling to these things, but took the form of a slave. He humbled Himself and embraced a life far more servile than He deserved. We know that sex held no sway for Jesus, as He remained unmarried (despite Dan Brown’s fascinating fiction), and was celibate throughout His life. Isaiah 53:2 tells us that He possessed no physical beauty to attract us to Him. We know He told His followers, and even those who would aspire to follow Him, that the Son of man has no place to lay His head in Luke 9:58, a luxury enjoyed by foxes and birds, but not Him or His followers. Possessions and worldly comforts were simply not part of His life here on earth. 2 Corinthians 8:9 tells us that Jesus embraced poverty (probably a reference to physical poverty to some degree, but also to becoming human more generally as well) for man’s sake. He came to earth in what was essentially a barn and lived as a member of a working class family. His life was sacrificial and substitutionary. He lived a life that found more rejection than acceptance. His joy was in doing the will of the Father, displaying His glory through death, sacrifice and suffering, and declaring the arrival of God’s kingdom.

If we intend, as Jesus’ followers, to be faithful to live as He has commanded us (and as He embodied for us), we must recognize that this will oppose how the culture around us teaches us to live. Let us not be deceived. Let us remember that the gospel is good news, not bad news, news that liberates us from the bondage of sin, reconciles us to God, and offers man joy, peace, and hope that even the best this world has to offer simply cannot provide. And may the example of Jesus’ own life challenge us to be more like Him and less like the culture that surrounds us.

At the heart of Christ’s work on the cross is the display of His glory.

John Calvin once said: “For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theatre, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross….If it be objected that nothing could be less glorious than Christ’s death….I reply that in that death we see a boundless glory which is concealed from the ungodly.”

The Bible tells us that God is the supremely happy God. His joy is limitless and His throne room is the most joyful place in all the universe. God delights in who He is and all that he does. And what the Father finds His greatest delight in is His Son. At both Jesus’ baptism as well as His transfiguration, the Father affirms the great pleasure He finds in His Son. John Piper says this: “When God declares openly that He loves and delights in His Son, He gives a visual demonstration of the Son’s unimaginable glory. His face shown like the sun, His garments became translucent with light, and the disciples fell on their faces. The point is not merely that humans should stand in awe of such glory, but that God Himself takes full pleasure in the radiance of His Son. He reveals Him in blinding light and then says this is my delight.”

In John 17, on the eve of Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus goes away to be with the Father. In His great mercy, God allows us to be a part of the conversation shared between the Father and the Son on that evening. John 17 is truly a passage unlike any other in Scripture. Those who read it are invited into the Holy of Holies, so to speak. And Jesus, focused on the events of the coming morning, begins His time with the Father with these words: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you….I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the foundation of the world….Father, I desire those you have given me to be with me where I am, that they would see my glory, which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:1, 4-5, 24). Jesus understood clearly that the events of the following morning were central to the display of His glory.

To understand the work of Christ on the cross is fundamentally to gaze upon the beauty and majesty of all that makes Him a God worthy of our worship and devotion. All of His perfections are displayed supremely at the cross. His holiness, His justice, His righteousness, His mercy, His compassion, His love, his humility, etc… All of them are most powerfully exhibited there. These are the things that make Christ glorious. These are the things that declare His worthiness of our adoration and allegiance. While Christ is purchasing salvation for mankind, He is revealing Himself in the process. And it is as if, as His arms are stretched out upon the cross, He invites the world to stand and gaze, to behold Him in all the splendor of His glory and power.

Let us remember to see the cross of Christ as the supreme revelation of God to man. Nowhere else will we see all that God is so clearly put on display to mankind. May we, like Calvin, find in the cross a splendid theatre.

Many today proclaim a message about God that, quite honestly, paints Him as a desperate and weak deity, enslaved to the whims and desires of humanity.  Even many preachers present God as one that would die for you even if you were the only person in the world (a hypothetical scenario that is worthless and betrays the reality that God has created).  God is pleading with people to turn and love Him.  He is desperate for our affections.  He will do whatever it takes for you to turn to Him.  Some of these ideas could probably be presented with a degree of truth.  However, the cumulative effect of a man-centered theology such as much of what one will find in America creates a God that is simply weak.  And when one comes to the cross, they come to a God that will simply go as far as he can to win the affections of mankind, hoping that they will appreciate what He has done and surrender their lives to Him, but lacking the ability to do anything more.

The Bible presents us with a vision of a God that cannot be so easily toyed with and manipulated, a God that reigns sovereign over salvation, that begs for no one’s affections, and that possesses authority to accomplish all that He wills.  Indeed the work of redemption accomplished by Christ is to be understood through this same lens.  The early church would speak of Christ “reigning from the cross.”  Jesus tells us Himself that no one takes His life from Him, but He gives it freely, of His own will.

Many in the first century would have found the claim that a crucified Jew could be the God of the universe utterly absurd.  This would appear to them a conquered deity at best, a fraud at worst.  And yet Jesus was anything but a conquered deity (and no fraud).  The picture of Christ on the cross is quite possibly the most powerful vision of God’s supreme rule over His universe that He could have possibly painted.  The pervasive and inescapable death that every human being that walked the earth would ultimately meet was to find defeat at the cross.  Jesus reigns over man’s greatest enemy.  Slavery that could not be removed by anything other than the death of God Himself was not an impossible task for that God.  Jesus Christ crucified is an exhibition of complete and absolute sufficiency.  His righteousness can satisfy the requirements of God’s justice.  His supreme love can endure wrath and punishment on man’s behalf.

The cross is, above all things, a display of power, authority and rule.  God controls His universe.  He purchases and secures salvation for His people.  This is done and sure.  His work will accomplish that which it was intended to do.  The cross is not God pleading with humanity.  It is a declaration of matchless authority and control.  It is sovereign rule.  When we behold the cross, may we behold God on the throne.  God in control.  God in power and glory.  Let us cast aside the idol of a god that has surrendered human history and His glory to the fickle whims of sinful humanity, who serves our purposes rather than us serving His, who begs us, when we should be begging and pleading for His mercy.

Certainly the title is one that will probably elicit a variety of responses.  Certainly these things are not wrong in and of themselves, but maybe simply for the sake of provocation, I offer the thought in order to introduce the present topic.

St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel everywhere you go.  If necessary, use words.”  It is a well known quote that many Christians have not only heard but have greatly appreciated.  There are probably many who have the quote on their favorite quotes section on Facebook!  Francis’ words are clearly a call to Christian service and love of neighbor.  These things are obviously important and essential for anyone committed to Christ.  However, Francis’ words must be examined with much caution, for the content of the gospel is far more than an act of Christian service and love.  In reality, if I don’t use words, the gospel cannot be understood.  What is to distinguish our kind deed from that of any other religion that teaches concern for others?

St. Francis’ words are particularly unhelpful when one considers the religious climate of the day here in America.  Propositional truth claims are worthless and acts of compassion and service are discerned to be a more appropriate base for religious content.  Political correctness and the inclination in this culture to be offended by anything that might sound even remotely disagreeable lead less courageous Christians to simply resort to a kind act.  No one will be offended by that.  It becomes an excusable way of not talking about the truth claims present in the Christian gospel.  Thus, it becomes easy and popular to relegate Christian proclamation to community service.  For crying out loud, practically every actor or actress in Hollywood has built a well in Africa or handed out food on Thanksgiving.  Surely the gospel is more than this.

The Bible teaches that the work of Christ is a work of the heart first and foremost.  It is a work that begins within the human soul, and then, and only then, produces a life of commitment and love on the outside.  Meeting human needs is completely insufficient in and of itself to transform the human soul and bring spiritual life where there is only death.  The message of the gospel, the truth of the gospel, is the only thing that can do that.  Our concern must be not only for physical needs, but more importantly, for spiritual needs.  If the opportunity to meet the former provides opportunities to meet the latter, then praise God.  But it is not enough to stop there.  Jesus came not simply to feed people and meet physical needs (though He certainly did this), but to address the deeper spiritual need of spirit regeneration.

Now certainly the gospel cannot be disconnected from a commitment to Christian love and service.  The truth of the gospel must be seen both as we declare the gospel with our mouths as well as our lives.  Our lives help make the gospel believable.  Claiming high intimacy with God while fostering no intimacy with people is certainly a danger.  Let us not cease from serving others and caring for those in need.  It is biblical and Christian to do so.  And yet, that will not be the challenge we face today in this country.  The challenge will be not to disconnect the gospel from the vocal proclamation of man’s inherent sinfulness and need for spiritual rebirth, which comes about only through embracing and trusting in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The challenge will be whether we will be courageous enough to speak up about the true content of the gospel, even when it offends those around us.  We must speak up, not simply live out.  Paul tells us in Romans 10:14:  “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”  Paul speaks not necessarily of what they have not seen, but of what they have not heard.  SINNERS MUST HEAR THE GOSPEL.

Let us remember that humanitarianism is not the gospel.  We have not been faithful to the full biblical mandate to proclaim the gospel if we have simply been nice to those around us.  Therefore, I conclude with this charge:  Preach the gospel everywhere you go.  And use words.  It will be necessary.

The last blog dealt, essentially, with the tendency in this culture to equate the gospel with physical provision accomplished through Christian service. Again, this is not wrong, but must not be disconnected from the vocal proclamation of the gospel and the truths that must be acknowledged and surrendered to for genuine transformation and regeneration to occur. This blog will address another danger to the gospel here in America, namely the tendency to equate the gospel with relational happiness and a community to find belonging in.

Here again we must be clear about what is wrong and what is not. Obviously relationships and relational investment in the lives of lost people is hardly wrong. They are often critical to people’s conversions. Community is a biblical concept, there is no denying this either. And yet, many today have made relationships and community into the good news of Christianity, the very essence of the gospel message itself. Recently I listened to an advertisement on a Christian radio station. It began by addressing the loneliness and isolation that many today experience. Human beings are made for relationships they say. It then continues by proclaiming that the answer to this great need can be found just down the road at a local church, where friends and family are waiting to meet them. Notice what this message is ACTUALLY communicating: come be a part of the church in order to meet your relational needs.

Now, some might see this as harmless. However, the gospel is again at stake here. Is the good news of Christianity that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brings us into right relationship with God (which then leads to belonging and community in the church) first and foremost, or is it that it simply provides us with a new set of friends that help us meet our relational needs? The correct answer, at least biblically, is the former.

Some may see this as not only subtle, but a matter of splitting hairs. Is it or not? I would argue that it’s far more than splitting hairs. And here are two reasons why.

First, as with the argument in the previous blog, there is nothing distinctly Christian about relationships in and of themselves. Someone doesn’t need the church to find community. Go to a bar. That’s why people pay way more money for beer at a bar than just buying their own and staying home. Community is why they go there. I’ve heard it said that the bar is the lost man’s church. There is probably some truth to the expression. Go to a gym. Join the PTA. Get to know your neighbors. You can find friends in all kinds of places. You can also find friends in lots of false religions. Occults are some of the friendliest places one will find (until one gets further into things). Surely this is not the good news Christianity brings to the world. If it is, it’s not very impressive (or unique). We water down the gospel when we turn it into something primarily concerned with relational impoverishment.

Second, this kind of emphasis can shield people from understanding what their real need is and how Christ comes to address it. Humans have always been deceived, misunderstanding what is truly important and what is not. Our standing with God is our greatest need. We may have family problems, we may have marriage problems, we may have work problems, we may have health problems, etc…, but none of those, as pressing as they may seem to us every day, is anywhere close to being our biggest problem. They are not our most urgent needs. Our standing before a holy God, our maker, sustainer, ruler, father, and judge, is what matters more than anything. Eternity is at stake here. Eternity is not at stake with any of those other problems.  D. A. Carson in his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, says this:  “If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, He would have sent an economist.  If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, He would have sent us a comedian or an artist.  If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, He would have sent us a politician.  If He had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.  But He perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from Him (emphasis mine), our profound rebellion, our death; so He sent us a Savior….Worse, many in this generation attend church to find peace and happiness, not pardon and holiness.”

I fear that far too many people come to church because they like the people in their Sunday school class, or they like playing church league softball, or they like that their kids have a Christian influence on their lives, but they never address their real need for Christ and they never really commit themselves to true Christian discipleship. They’re just looking for relationships. Community. Belonging. And they do this because of the great relational emptiness many in our culture are looking to fill, and because this is who we’ve told them we are as the church. And as long as they continue to fill pews/chairs/bar stools/whatever else people sit on in church nowadays, many church leaders won’t stir the pot. And so people are left in their deception. Church may indeed really not be about God when it’s all said and done for many churchgoers, as absurd as it may sound.

Relationships, like our witness of love and service, open doors and provide opportunities to share the message of truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We should certainly invest relationally in people’s lives, both believers and non-believers alike. But again, this will not be our challenge in this culture. Our challenge will be focusing on man and God, rather than man and fellow man. Our challenge will be addressing their deeper need of sinfulness before a holy God, a message that most people don’t want to be confronted with. Biblical community should also be understood as being selfless and sacrificial rather than self-fulfilling and receiving. Our community is driven by our common purpose of fulfilling the great commission, not simply meeting personal needs. It has always been ministry driven and kingdom focused. So understanding the purpose of biblical community and relationships is also helpful in maintaining proper balance.

Relationships are not the gospel. Relational fulfillment is not the good news of Christianity.  It is not what the church has to offer the world first and foremost.  Jesus satisfies the wrath of God on our behalf and gives us His righteousness so that we can become children of God and not enemies of God. This provision ensures eternity with Him first and foremost. This is the good news. Relationships with the unbelieving back provide the opportunity for the gospel’s hearing.   Relationships, belonging and community with other believers are a by-product of the marvelous work God has done in our lives. Satisfying and purposeful yes, but the gospel by no means. Let us be cautious in making sure we get the gospel right.

Recently the themes of endurance and perseverance have seemed prominent in my study of Scripture and in the books I’ve been reading.  It has become glaringly apparent to me how little this is truly appreciated by much of the church in America today.  Thus, it would do us well to be challenged in this particular area of our faith.

John Piper, in his book entitled “Roots of Endurance” (from the Swans are not Silent series), offers as clear and precise an evaluation of our culture as I have read in some time.  He says this:  “One of the pervasive marks of our time is emotional fragility.  It hangs in the air we breathe.  We are easily hurt.  We pout and mope easily.  We blame easily.  We break easily.  Our marriages break easily.  Our faith breaks easily.  Our happiness breaks easily.  And our commitment to the church breaks easily.  We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition….When historians list the character traits of America in the last third of the twentieth century, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve, and perseverance will not be on the list.  The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem.  It will be followed by the sub-headings of self-assertiveness, self-enhancement, and self-realization.  And if we think that we are not children of our times, let us simply test ourselves to see how we respond when people reject our ideas or spurn our good efforts or misconstrue our best intentions.  We all need help here.  We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters.”  Piper then goes on to challenge his readers to expose themselves to the men and women of God that have gone before us who have endured in the midst of deeply trying circumstances.

Others have seen the same.  D. A. Carson notes, “Great endurance and patience:  the expression suggests both the kind of stamina that gets under a burden and carries it with enduring fortitude, and the kind of stamina that knows how to possess its soul in patience.  Those are not virtues that are popular in our age.  We extol champagne:  lots of fizz and a pretty good high, but having no nutritional value for the long haul.  In an age when tempers are hot, quick solutions are ardently courted, success is revered, victory is cherished, independence is lauded, and easy triumphs are promised, great endurance and patience at first glance seem like less than stellar qualities.”

These observations ring with much truth to me.  About a year ago I remember watching a 20/20 special which examined the challenges being faced by many business owners in relation to the new work force.  Unlike their predecessors, this generation of Americans appears to be less motivated and easily bored.  In an attempt to better understand why this happens to be this way, one of those interviewed remarked that this generation grew up with rooms full of participation trophies (so to speak).  His point was this:  this generation of adults are used to being rewarded simply for showing up.  In attempt to keep from hurting anyone’s feelings, every child was given an award/trophy.  Hence, they are not used to being challenged in order to earn good things.  They have been given to them so that they will not feel bad about themselves (Piper’s little self-esteem comment fits nicely here).  Likewise, anyone who keeps up with current news can hardly go a week without seeing a celebrity or athlete or politician apologizing for a remark that hurt someone’s feelings.  The verdict is this:  we are truly a culture with no backbone.  Tap us and we crumble.  Mix a little difficulty in there and we fold.  We have cultivated a generation of babies.

Piper is right.  To pretend that this cultural climate does not press in on us is to display tremendous naivete.  It does.  We can see it in the way we respond to life’s situations.  I work with college students (primarily Christian college students), a stage of life marked by a great many unique elements, as young people transition into adulthood (a process that has become severely lengthened in the last 30 years however!  Every parent with a 25 year old still living at home knows what I’m talking about.  Or a 30 year old.).  I observe their lives as they traverse new challenges and new circumstances.  Endurance does indeed seem a precious commodity at times.  We are easily broken.

In light of this, we must not pretend that there are not some healthy examples of great endurance and determination in our midst.  I know several in my church as well as several on the collegiate ministry team I work with that are examples for me and others.  Students I have worked with in the past as well as presently also come to mind.  I treasure their faithful witness to this great command in Scripture.  I can think of a couple of people right now who are far more qualified to write of these things than I am because they have lived these commands out far more faithfully than I have.  Unfortunately, however, this is not the prevailing spirit of our age, both outside of the church as well as within.

What then must we do to be people who defy these tragic tendencies?  Several things:

First, we must remember that the life of the Christian is accomplished through the gracious working of God’s Spirit, not some great untapped human potential that lies within us.  Motivation is not the key, surrender is the key.  Coming to the end of ourselves and discovering the sufficiency of Christ is at the heart of all Christian triumph and the same is true here.  So we must recognize dependence on the Spirit of God for this type of consistent, patient, joyful, endurance to the end in our lives.

Second, we must acquaint ourselves with the weight given to this particular command in Scripture.  It fills its pages.  It is not an expendable part of Christian faith, but an essential element.  James begins his epistle (rather abruptly I might add) with a lengthy exhortation to endure.  Indeed one might describe James’ epistle as clarifying what true faith looks like.  And the first place he goes is to endurance.  True faith must be enduring faith.  In fact, James asserts that trials are essentially Christian cross-training.  They are the battlegrounds upon which perseverance is nurtured and strengthened.  Hebrews 12:3 tells us to consider Christ, who endured such great opposition from sinful men, so that we will not grow weary and lose heart.  Hebrews 12:1, just prior to that, commands us to run with perseverance.  In 2 Timothy 4:7 Paul speaks of fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith.  Romans 5:3-4 says that our sufferings produce perseverance, our perseverance character, and our character hope.  There are many more, but hopefully you get the point.  The doctrine of eternal security has historically been understood as the perseverance of the saints.  It’s not that we somehow get stamped when we a pray a prayer and then we can just sort of stumble in and out of whatever we want and then get into heaven one day.  True salvation manifests itself in perseverance, enduring to the end, even through trial and tribulation (which again, are not communicated to be optional in Scripture, but are sure).

Third, we must expose ourselves to examples of enduring faithfulness.  We should seek both to know those who have gone before us, as well as those in our midst.  Their witness to us is critical to the seriousness and diligence with which we approach our own endurance.

Fourth, we must pray.  Paul prays for the Colossian believers in Col. 1:11 , that they may have great endurance and patience, having been strengthened with all power according to His glorious might.  We must pray for God to allot a great portion of His grace and strength to us, that we might have endurance that pursues excellence and displays joy and labors for the gospel until the end.  We must not forget that this kind of endurance is not normal, it is supernatural, thus we need supernatural strength to accomplish it.  If it is His power that produces such endurance, then we must faithfully beseech God for it!

There are many other things that would obviously serve us well in our commitment to endure, but these are a few thoughts that hopefully will prove useful to those whose hearts yearn to have roots that run deep, so as not to be easily uprooted.  Whose souls hunger to be steady, not easily tossed to and fro.  Whose thoughts treasure the future expectation of a crown of life for those who persevere to the end.  Whose spirits might be bent, but are never broken.  Whose hands and feet and eyes and mouths labor tirelessly so as to finish the calling entrusted to them.

Let it be said of us that our hearts were strong and not weak.  Fixed and secure, not rickety.  Unwavering even in the storm, not quick to jump overboard.  Faithful to the end.  May we hunger and thirst for these in a day when their value is ignored, for there is a heavenly city that awaits where their value will be acknowledged and their worth cherished forever more.

A simple introduction to Islam reveals that it is a faith centered around a man by the name of Mohammed, God’s prophet and recipient of divine truth that is recorded in a book entitled the Quran. Mohammed lived in the early 600’s A.D. And Mecca, a city in present day Saudi Arabia, is Islam’s holy city. The Quran teaches that Mecca is the oldest and the greatest city that has have ever existed. Mecca is believed to be the location where Adam discovered a large black rock, a sacred object that currently resides within the temple in Mecca today. Abraham later found the rock and restored it after it had been lost. Mecca is thus a holy city, and became the object of Mohammed’s desire, a city that was to be the center for Islam. Or so it would seem.

Recent archaeological discoveries, however, have produced some fascinating evidence that would seem to indicate the story the Quran tells and the story history tells are two different stories regarding the importance of Mecca.

First, every good Muslim is familiar with what is called the Hijra (or Hegira). It is the pilgrimage to Mecca to worship at the temple there. It is a journey that also reflects the journey Mohammed took from Mecca to Medina. It has traditionally been believed that Mohammed made this journey with his followers from Mecca to Medina in 620 A.D. However, recent evidence appears to indicate that Mohammed was actually interested in a journey resembling that of Abraham from Ur to the land of Canaan, the “promised land.” This journey would have taken Mohammed the opposite direction and to a completely different region. This would have been a completely different journey than what Islam has traditionally affirmed to be the journey Mohammed originally took.

Second, Muslims are to practice Qibla, prayers offered five times a day to Allah (the Muslim name for God). Muslims will face East when they pray, intentionally directing their prayers to Islam’s holy city, Mecca. Each Muslim mosque will have a tower attached to it called a minaret as well. A minaret has a window near its top that is open toward Mecca. From here faithful Muslims are led in their prayers toward Mecca. Recent archaeological digs have unearthed very early mosques in the last decade, mosques dating to somewhere between 660 to 700 A.D. (Mohammed died in 632 A.D.). What has been discovered is that the minarets on these mosques do not point South toward Mecca as they should, but point rather to somewhere Northwest of their location. Some might argue that this is simply the result of a lack of technology and specificity in design. But such an argument holds little weight in light of the fact that the difference is nearly ninety degrees in most cases, and the inhabitants of that area were living in the desert. Their very survival depended on the ability to know where they were going or else they would die. These mosques appear to indicate that prayers may not have originally been offered to Mecca, but to a different location.

Third, Mecca is not given the place of prominence in historical archives that the Quran would seem to indicate. While the Quran explicitly states that Mecca is a city of great prominence through human history, the greatest of all cities, there is not one single historical document that even mentions the city of Mecca prior to one hundred years after the Quran was written (this would be somewhere in the early to mid 700’s A.D.). This document, of all things, was a Greek navigational chart. And this is the first mentioning of Mecca in any historical record. Additionally, Muslim tradition claims Mecca to be a city of prominence because of its placement on a critical trade route in that area of the world. However, Mecca is an isolated city that appears to have never been located on any early trade route. The primary routes were located significantly North and West of Mecca.

Fourth, the Quran states that Mohammed hated the Jews and that he severed his ties, once and for all, with the Jews in 622 A.D. Again, history appears to tell a different story. Historical documentation indicates that Mohammed, allied with and aided by the Jews, attempted to take the city of Jerusalem back from the Christians around 630 A.D. Thus Mohammed’s hatred for the Jews, if it existed at all, could not have provoked a rejection of them at the date the Quran and Muslim tradition affirms. Mohammed appears not to have hated the Jews or their sacred city.

Fifth, the Dome of the Rock mosque, located on the temple mount in Jerusalem, seems not to be the structure that it originally was. A thorough examination of the supposed mosque reveals that the minaret present was not part of the original structure. A number of renovations even occurred as late as the 1500’s A.D., hundreds of years after the Dome of the Rock’s original construction. Much was progressively added through the centuries.

What does all this say? It appears to indicate that Mohammed’s interest was not in Mecca, but in Jerusalem. Mohammed’s Hegira would have taken him to Jerusalem. The minarets pointed toward Jerusalem. Mecca shows no record of importance at all in history. Mohammed is confirmed historically to have been fighting for Jerusalem as late as somewhere around 630 A.D. And the Dome of the Rock appears to have originally not been a mosque, but a temple to receive prayers, not send them. Mohammed believed it was his destiny to fulfill his and the Hagarene’s birthrights (Hagarene’s were regarded as the descendants of Ishmael) to reclaim Jerusalem, not Mecca. The shift to Mecca would have been a later development within Islam that would not have been consistent with Mohammed’s intentions, or his original revelation in the Quran.

In this case, the Quran and the Hadiths (Muslim traditions) appear to be glaringly opposed to what history attests to. And if history’s account is true, much of Islam’s foundation becomes incredibly shaky.

Much of the information offered in this blog can be found at www.answering-islam.org. It is an excellent online resource for studying Islam. You can also find a link to some of this information at debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/qurarch.htm.

“That offended me.”  Few phrases are probably more regularly used in this culture and in this time.  We seem to be offended simply by a mere difference of opinion.  Confront someone with a new idea or a dissenting perspective and the response is often the same.  This is one of the great paradoxes of our culture.  The tolerant simply cannot tolerate.  Few cultures have ever been so prone to have their feelings hurt. 

This of course, has presented challenges for the church.  Attempt to share the gospel with someone and they take it as pushy and offensive.  Say something disagreeable even within the church and someone will get angered and leave.  Make no mistake, Christians say and do things that are selfish, unloving, and sinful.  This certainly is not acceptable.  And yet, whether a Christian’s actions are intentionally loving or not, many respond weakly. 

How are Christians to live faithfully in light of these cultural trends?  How do we respond biblically to a cultural that finds itself so easily offended?

First, we must remember that the gospel will offend.  This is inevitable and sure.  On several occasions Jesus told his disciples that He had not come to bring peace, but a sword, to divide father and son, mother and daughter, and so on.  Jesus told His disciples that all men would hate them on account of Him (this of course meaning people everywhere, not every single person).  The entire New Testament tells the story of God’s people taking the gospel to the world, meanwhile enduring great hardship for such obedience.  Why?  Because they were easy to pick on?  Not really.  Their message bothered people.  It went against the cultural perceptions and values of the day.  It confronted sinfulness and idolatry and worship of self.  At times it even disrupted the economic stability of particular cities or regions (there’s a lot of money made selling idols!).  The message of the entire book of Revelation, in my opinion, can be summed up in one word:  suffer.  We must first come to terms with the reality of Christian suffering for the gospel.  We are deceived and need to get out more if we think everyone is going to be excited about what we have to tell them.

Second, however, we must make sure that the gospel is the only thing that offends.  In 1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul says, “To the weak I become weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”  This verse (and this passage) is often misinterpreted.  Many read Paul’s words as saying that Paul will do whatever it takes for people to be saved.  This is unlikely.  Paul would not do anything to see people converted.  What Paul is saying is that Paul wants to make sure that the only thing that might offend anyone is the gospel.  If cultural norms discouraged a particular behavior, then Paul would conform to those norms for the sake of the gospel’s hearing.  Hence, to the Jew he would become like a Jew and to the one under the law he would become like one under the law (1 Cor. 9:19-20).  Paul wanted to ensure that the gospel was the only thing that offended someone.  It was unacceptable to Paul for people’s offense to relate to his behavior or preferences.  I don’t think anyone would try and argue that Paul was afraid of making someone mad or offending someone.  I think Paul probably looked for the prison first when he entered a new city to see how comfortable it might or might not be.  He knew it was probably the place he would call home more often than not (man, there aren’t many like him in our culture!).  So Paul was clearly not fearful of offending.  His hope was that people would only be offended by the gospel.

This is a helpful reminder.  We must acknowledge that the truth of the gospel, the message of repentance and surrender, will offend.  There is no question of this.  We cannot expect it to be otherwise (nor fear it).  And yet, we must ensure that it is only the gospel that offends.  Our lifestyle, our preferences, our choices, are all sacrificial, selfless, and thoughtful.  We must watch our words.  We must watch our actions.  We must watch our lives to ensure that there is no other charge to be brought against us.  Much like Daniel, let them find fault only in the word of our God (Dan. 6:5).  If it is our speech toward one another, our selfishness, our pride that offends, then the fault is ours.  Though we accept the reality of gospel’s offensiveness, this by no means gives us the right to be abrasive, hateful, or rude.  We must be sure our offense is a righteous offense.   In a culture that finds itself so easily offended, there is a great responsibility upon us to ensure that nothing offends but the gospel.  However, we must be up to the task.  Let us seek to offend rightly.

A few months ago I wrote the first of what I intended to be a series of blogs on some of the things that legitimate the Christian claim to the truth.  I believe there are many things that Christianity answers more clearly and consistently than other worldviews, i.e. creation, evil and suffering, etc…  Nevertheless, there are some reasonable arguments against these things.  I have thus  tried (and will continue to try) to stick to arguments that are extremely difficult to refute.  The arguments against the resurrection (the first blog) are quite poor, comparatively speaking.  So it is with this particular point, I believe, as well.  This second entry will argue that Christianity is uniquely honest, a trait that no other religion can claim as strongly.

Let me offer one more point of clarification before we begin.  I do not associate Roman Catholicism with evangelical Christianity.  One could probably make an argument against what I will claim by contending that this is not true when one looks at Roman Catholic history.  But I do not believe that Roman Catholicism teaches the gospel recorded in the Bible.  As to whether any Roman Catholics are Christians, that is another blog for another time.  Simply let it be noted that I distinguish between the two churches.

As I have examined the faiths that one will find all over our world, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that Christianity has no secrets.  There is no secret hidden knowledge.  There are no riddles that one must figure out (despite how some have abused prophecy and apocalyptic literature), there is no dirt that is swept under the carpet for no one to ever find.  Christianity has no secrets.  And that kind of honesty is important in my opinion.

Let me speak primarily, and most importantly, about the Bible.  I believe the Bible is an incredibly honest book.  First, by revealing Himself in a text, and a text grounded in historical event, God provides us with a source of revelation that allows itself to be critiqued.  Let me explain.  Religions or belief systems that ground the validity of their faith on experience or mythology essentially require you to take their word for it.  The validation for these systems is primarily experiential.    One of the things this does is it makes them hard to critique.  How is one to question someone’s experience?  How is one to critique the usefulness of a story grounded in myth?  James Herrick, author of the exceptional book, “The Making of the New Spirituality,” says this, “MacLaine (that being Shirley Maclaine, the famous actress and New Age guru) writes within the context of the New Synthesis, a spiritual movement that has taken leave of history, that has severed the spiritual from the physical, the subjective from the objective and has thus rendered irrelevant any effort to prove or disprove experiential claims as ‘historically accurate.’  By the same token, spiritual claims no longer stand or fall on the merits of their historical claims.  Such a division between claims about events in space and time, on the one hand, and claims about spiritual truths, on the other, is unknown to the Revealed Word (Christianity).  Attending the risk of the Revealed Word’s commitment to history is a refreshing honesty before a public being asked to embrace its worldview.” 

Herrick is asserting that a worldview, or a truth claim, that grounds itself in history is capable of being critiqued and evaluated, while one disconnected from space and time, from history, simply cannot be critiqued.  By allowing for examination and critique, one is showing that they have nothing to hide.  Let it be known that the Bible is extraordinarily unique in this way.  Few sacred texts are actually grounded in historical event.  Hinduism and its texts, along with Buddhism and what might be considered its authoritative writings, place absolutely no value on this.  The Quran is a work of poetry that has very little value historically.  Most pagan religions recount stories that show little historical foundation, and are primarily mythological in nature.  The most historical text I am aware of other than the Bible is the Book of Mormon, and it can be shown that it has extensive inaccuracies that render it completely unreliable historically.  On top of this, the Bible not only opens itself up to critique, it stands up to it impressively as well.  Well over 200,000 pieces of historical and archaeological evidence validate dates, times, places, and people in the Bible.  To be sure, there are areas of inconsistency between the Bible and history, but this is not the norm.  Over and over, former points of disagreement continue to be reconciled as newer discoveries are made.

Second, one must note the value of manuscripts in relation to the Bible.  Over 5,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts are contained for the New Testament.  This does not count the thousands more in varying languages.  And while no originals are possessed (not that we would be able to identify the originals anyways), manuscripts are rather numerous and rather near the writing of the originals, particularly when compared to other literary works of antiquity.  The information contained in these manuscripts is readily available in any Greek New Testament.  At the bottom of each page each and every variant that has been found in any manuscript is listed and catalogued for research purposes.  Many try and argue for the unreliability of the New Testament based on the sheer volume of variants contained in the various manuscripts.  I’ve often asked those who make this point if they’ve ever actually looked at any of those variations.  No one has ever told me that they have.  One will ultimately find that the variants that are present, despite being numerous, alter the text in a minimal way.  The variations are minor and have little bearing on the meaning of the texts.  Granted, one would have to be able to handle the Greek to some degree to really work with the material, but the point is that all of it is readily available in any Greek New Testament that anyone can purchase.  None of the variants are hidden away.  None of the manuscripts are kept secret.  We don’t guard the list of our translators like the Watch Tower society.  Those responsible for a Bible’s translation are listed in the front.  If Joseph Smith wants to hide away the gold plates he translated the Book of Mormon from, that’s fine.  But it doesn’t look very honest or trustworthy when he does.  Again, this has left the Bible open to controversy because of this.  But at least it’s not afraid to be examined.

Thirdly, history accounts for the fact that the Bible is not the work of one single individual.  Some would claim that the Bible has been continually revised and changed, which, in actuality, is difficult to prove, but the wealth of historical evidence validates much of it as historical and thus not all written and composed at the same time.  By the same token it was not written simply by one man.  The length of time and quantity of contributors offer dimension to the Bible that no other sacred text can claim.  The Quran was written by one man during his lifetime.  The Book of Mormon, the same (well, translated supposedly, not written).  And yet, the Bible was written in three languages, on three continents, by over 40  individuals from all walks of life, over the course of 1500 years.  This to me is more trustworthy than if it had been assembled by one man.  The Bible doesn’t make anyone take one man’s word for it.  By the same token, those who would ask for an original copy of the Bible so as to prove its truthfulness open themselves up to the same dilemma.  If there is only one copy, it would be much easier to alter it and deceive people.  But because there is diversity and quantity involved, a bad manuscript or witness can be rooted out.

Fourthly, the Bible is not a code book that was written only for those intelligent enough to decipher it.  It was written to be understood, and by everyday people.  Just read it and see what it says.  It means what it says.  There’s nothing to decipher.  Sure, one may not understand exactly what it might be saying somewhere, but the way you find the answer is studying it.  Keep reading the text in its context and try to discern what the author’s intended meaning was.  It’s really not that hard.  While God appoints teachers and preachers to help explain the Bible to their community of Christians, they are working with the same text everyone else has.  And you don’t have to take the preacher’s word for it.  You can look at it for yourself.  You can study it for yourself.  No one has to buy into anything that they can’t see right there in the actual words of the Bible itself, as available to them as it is to any preacher or teacher.  Christianity trusts you to think for yourself and decide for yourself, with any and all information you need to make a decision readily available to you.     

I believe these features make the Bible the most honest, trustworthy, verifiable, and evaluable sacred text that has ever been written.  There is nothing to hide when it comes to the Bible.  It stands apart impressively when seen in this light.  Christianity has no secret rituals.  It has no hidden knowledge.  There is no mysterious interpretation or greater insight.  There are no hidden secrets.  What you see is what you get.  And it is the most evaluable religion in my opinion, on the planet.   There is no hierarchy of power that has to be protected and thus information and such that has to be protected and concealed for the preservation of that hierarchy.  Christianity simply lays itself out there and invites the world to test it.

Let me conclude, however, by addressing the fact that many evil things have been done in the name of Christianity, and some may have tried to cover it up for lack of being able to respond appropriately to it.  First, not everything done in the name of Christianity reflects what God commands in the Bible.  Many through church history have used the Bible and Christianity to further their own ends.  If someone does such a thing, the conclusion must be that they simply are not Christians, for they act against its teachings.  I do not claim many of those who have done horrific things as my brothers in Christ.  We must also acknowledge that this is a bad way to evaluate the truthfulness of a faith system.  Augustine said that one cannot evaluate the truthfulness of any claim based upon its abuse.  You have to let it speak on its own merit.  The church, however, must also be honest about its errors.  Whether they are true believers who are misguided, or false Christians masquerading as Christians, their actions are wrong and they must be affirmed as such.  They damage the church’s witness no doubt.  But they do not affect the objective truthfulness of a Christian proposition.  Trying to hide or ignore something does absolutely no good.

Honesty breeds integrity and truthfulness.  Secrets imply deceit and lies.  One is certainly welcome to challenge any claim here proposed regarding Christianity.  That’s kind of the whole point to the whole argument!  However, Christianity appears to me to be a religion that values honesty more than any other in the world.  I believe this is well attested to.  And I believe this deserves our consideration.

 With the advent of the internet over the last fifteen years, a host of new possibilities have emerged.  One of these new possibilities, in relation to the church, has been the availability of online church-based resources.  Pastors can record their sermons and post them on the internet for anyone anywhere in the world to access.  The same is true regarding print resources.  This, in my opinion, is no small development.  Now, the work of world-class pastors and leaders has become instantly available for anyone to access.  Audio resources can not only be listened to online, but downloaded and put on an ipod for further use. 

Let me begin by saying that I think this is a wonderful development and a gift to God’s people.  Great teaching is accessible to exponentially large numbers of people, people that probably would have never had access to such teaching and instruction.  There are many important voices in the church today that have the opportunity to be heard by far more people than might be otherwise.  I think this has the potential to yield a healthier church.  I access many of these resources from other pastors and scholars myself, for my own edification and my own training.

And yet, I am somewhat concerned about this development as well.  While great sermons and great teaching from top pastors and scholars can be valuable, I believe it can also create a few detrimental effects for some.  I offer a couple of these concerns.

First, and most concerning to me, is the potential lack of confidence that this can create in local church pastors and teachers.  Ipods full of John Piper, Matt Chandler, Francis Chan, John MacArthur, Andy Stanley, Mark Driscoll, and David Platt is hard to beat by most pastors.  One cannot ignore that these preachers and teachers are excellent at what they do.  They stand apart from the rest in their depth of study and training as well as in their ability to communicate.  I am concerned that a young generation that rightly desires to sit under the quality teaching of such individuals, with unlimited access to their teaching, will become critical and uninterested in what the pastor of their local church has to teach.  God did not give the teaching and preaching ministry of the local church to one individual or one small group of individuals.  He calls many to serve as pastors and teachers.  God also anoints leaders over their particular congregation.  He puts certain men in places for His purposes and for that flock.  Each flock is unique.  Each flock is at a particular place corporately.  Each flock might have different needs at a given period of time.  We must understand that while not every pastor and teacher may set the world on fire, God anoints each leader over their flock and His Spirit speaks to him through God’s Word for the edification of that body.  We must see the value of this if we are to have a healthy appreciation and respect for the leaders and teachers God has specifically appointed over us where we are.

Second, I believe some can become content to allow this to suffice for their church.  Who needs to go to church on Sunday if I can have the kind of teaching I need anytime during the week.  And it’s really good too.  And it’s better than the preacher at church anyways.  I think many will still long for the community that cannot be found in front of a computer screen, and so they will still value some connection to a local church body.  However, I think some have to be cautious in this regard.

I applaud those who take advantage of the resources that are uniquely available in our age.  I applaud those who seek to learn and grow in knowledge and truth, and who seek good teachers.  But I offer a word of caution:  John Piper and Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler are not YOUR pastor.  Learn to value those who may not be so equally gifted, but who labor faithfully with the gifts and talents that they have been given, understanding that God, as they are faithful to His Word, anoints their instruction and gives revelation into the concerns and issues that need to be addressed for YOUR church.  Be thankful for their faithfulness.  Honor them by valuing their commitment to you and your congregation.