The danger of folk theology – Ezekiel 13, Part 1

In a Peanuts comic strip, Linus is standing next to his bed, wearing his pajamas, hands with palms together like they would be for some about to say their bedtime prayers.  But instead of kneeling at his bed and praying, Linus is standing there, looking curiously at his hands.  As his sister Lucy walks into the room, Linus kneels down at his bedside, and with his hands still palm to palm, he says to her, “I think I’ve made a theological discovery.” 

She asks, “What it is it?” as Linus continues looking down at his hands.  He turns to her, palms still together, and now he points his hands to the floor, saying, “If you hold your hands upside-down, you get the opposite of what you pray for!”  Lucy rolls her eyes.[1]

Do you know what just happened there?  Linus did theology.  He reflected on life and God and prayer, and he attempted to answer the question: what is God like?  The answer he came up with was, “God is the kind of God that has given us a method for prayer.”  Hold your hands up when you pray, and you get what you ask for.  Hold your hands down, and you get the opposite!   But is Linus right? 

Yes, he did theology, but we would call it Folk Theology, and that’s not the same as biblical theology.  Does the Bible say anything about how you hold your hands during prayer will affect the outcome of your prayer?  No.  It says nothing like what Linus said.  Instead, what Linus is doing is practicing folk theology.  Folk Theology is when we come up with ideas to help us understand God and faith and the world, but we don’t submit those ideas to biblical examination.  Often Folk Theology sounds kind of like biblical theology, but it veers away from the truth.  Linus has some ideas, and yet he is not evaluating his ideas according to the Bible.  The result is that he is in danger of believing something false.  Depending on his personality, he could try to convince other people to also believe in his false idea.

As we continue to study Ezekiel, we meet some people who are doing Folk Theology, and they, too, are trying to impact people, deceiving them. As you might imagine, God has a pretty strong reaction against them.  Why? Because it matters what we believe!  Turn to Ezekiel 13, and read verses 1-7.

The normal pattern appears here, as Ezekiel says that the word of the Lord came to him. That means God is speaking to him, giving him a prophetic message.  In verse 2, the message from God is against the prophets of Israel who were prophesying.  So Ezekiel wasn’t the only prophet in the land.  There were other good prophets, like Jeremiah and Isaiah.  But the Lord tells Ezekiel that there are other kinds of prophets, who, he says, “prophesy out of their own imagination.” 

In other words, they’re making stuff up and calling it the word of God.  They aren’t hearing from God like Ezekiel does.  It’s all in their head.  It’s folk theology because it is from the “folks” and not from God.

God says Ezekiel is to prophesy against these so-called prophets, and Ezekiel is to say to them, “Hear the word of the Lord!”  That is the central concern for a prophet.  Do they hear the word of the Lord, or do they hear something else that is not the word of the Lord?  Is their theology, their ideas about God and his interaction in the world, based on the truth, which is from God, or are they just making it up?

Do you remember the very first skit that God told Ezekiel to perform?  It was in chapter 3, and God told Ezekiel that his first prophetic act was to go back to his house, where he would be tied up in ropes, and God would make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.  In other words, Ezekiel was unable to say anything.  The prophet was being forced by God to be trapped in his house, totally silent.  At first, that seems to make no sense.  A prophet who can’t speak?  But God explains, “I will allow you to speak only the words I give you.”  God wanted Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry to be totally in line with God’s word.  In other words, God wanted Ezekiel to be a successful true prophet. 

These other prophets in Ezekiel 13, however, were apparently not concerned about God’s word. Instead they said whatever they wanted to say.  What about you? Are you concerned about knowing and doing and proclaiming God’s word? Or have you ever been known to come up with the your own ideas? We want to be thought of as people who are smart and wise, and thus we often boldly proclaim our own ideas. Is it wrong to have your own ideas? Doesn’t someone at some point need to come up with new ideas? What is the balance between being inquisitive, exploratory, and experimental, while still maintaining God as our authority? In the next four posts in this five-part series, we’ll look at what happened in Israel when prophets said they were speaking for the Lord, but they had become their own authority and were leading people astray. We’ll discover how we can be people focused on God’s truth and avoid folk theology.

[1] Schulz, Charles. 1968. Peanuts. April 3, 1968.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

When Christians have false ideas about God – Ezekiel 13, Preview

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and thought to yourself, “Woah…they have some strange ideas!”???  Do you confront them?  Do you ask for more details?  Do you just let it go?  Maybe it’s not worth the trouble.  Or maybe, we need to be more like children.  Children?  Yes.

Think about the classic situation where one child is telling another child about how excited they are for Christmas, because Santa Claus is coming soon, and he will bring loads of gifts for them!

The child listening quickly responds, “Wait…you know that Santa Claus isn’t real, don’t you?”

Both kids’ parents overhear this, and rush in to the rescue.  The first child starts saying, “What do you mean Santa isn’t real? Of course he is real!  He brings me presents every year!”  That child’s parents start comforting the child, assuring them that the other child doesn’t know they’re talking about.  Then the other child’s parents pull them aside with a stern look on their face, saying, “Stop this conversation right now.  Just let it go.  His parents will decide when they want to tell him the truth.”

Children are quick to confront false belief, aren’t they?

My guess is that you’ve encountered that Santa Claus situation many times.  Perhaps it makes your heart ache, as you long for the first child to continue to enjoy the mysterious wonder of Christmas.  Perhaps you agree with the second child, that a false belief needs to be revealed as false!

Which is it?  Is it okay for a child to be led to believe in something false?  I suspect most people would say, “Yes, it’s fine.”  Whether it is the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny or Santa, they aren’t doing any children harm.  But if those beliefs would persist into adulthood, I think just about everyone would have serious concerns.  Most of us would say they would be justified in those concerns.  Truth is foundationally important.  Especially as we consider this from a Christian viewpoint, we should be people committed to the truth.  False ideas about life can deceive, leading people astray.

As we continue our study in Ezekiel, this coming week we look at what God has to say in Ezekiel 13 about false and true beliefs.  I’m not concerned about anyone believing in Santa Claus, but I am concerned that many adult evangelical Christians believe in other false ideas.  I’m concerned that those other ideas can lead us astray.  In fact, if we are believing false ideas about God, it can result in us not knowing who God is.  That is quite serious.  A. W. Tozer once wrote that what comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.  He’s right.  We need to think about God as correctly as possible, if we want to know God as he truly is.  I’m looking forward to our study of Ezekiel chapter 13 next week, as God, through Ezekiel, will help us think about who he truly is.

Photo by Per Lööv on Unsplash

How to be ready for Jesus’ return – Ezekiel 12, Part 5

November 20, 1973: “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” Premiered - Lifetime

Football season is upon us, and the idea of being ready at all times, got me thinking of Charlie Brown, the Peanuts cartoon character.   

Charlie Brown’s friend, Lucy, kneels down and sets up the football for Charlie Brown, saying, “I promise you I will let you kick it this time…”

But we know Lucy.

She will pull that football away at the last moment every single time.  

Why does Charlie Brown keep trying?  Why doesn’t he get mad at Lucy and tackle her and get someone else to hold the football for him? 

There is something inside Charlie Brown that keeps him going. What do we do as we wait for Jesus to return? What do we do, as we have seen in our study this week of Ezekiel 12, when it seems like God is too long in keeping his promises? What does it mean to be ready?

Be like Charlie Brown. 

Charlie Brown is the picture of hope.  He is the picture of hopeful trust.  

Now please hear me…I’m not saying that God is like Lucy, playing a trick on us every day! If people say God is like that, they are echoing the thoughts of the people in Ezekiel’s day.  Remember them? Doubting God. You can read about them here. Interestingly, hundreds of years later, people would have those same doubts about Jesus’ return as well, insinuating that God is like Lucy playing a trick on us little Charlie Browns.  One of Jesus’ first followers, Peter, wrote about it. In 2 Peter 3:3-4 we read:

“In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 

Sounds similar to the people in Ezekiel’s day saying that God’s prophesies aren’t happening. 

So why is God waiting?  Peter goes us on to tell us in verses 8-9,

“Dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

God is waiting because he doesn’t want any to perish!  There’s his heart again.  He wants to be in relationship with people.  He wants all to come to repentance.  Do you see his heart?  Do you hear his longing? 

But I wonder, how long will he wait?  Obviously, he won’t wait forever.  But we don’t know how long, we can’t know how long, and therefore we should focus on what Ezekiel and Peter say we should focus on.  What should we focus on? As we wait, be like Charlie Brown.

In Ezekiel 12, in a previous post in this series, we learned that we should open our eyes, uncover our ears, and see God’s heart of longing for us to return to him.  Then look at 2 Peter 3, verse 11.  Peter says we followers of Jesus should be the kind of people that live holy and godly lives. 

What is a holy and godly life?  It was the way Jesus lived.  Live like he lived.  Learn how to live from him.  Let Jesus be your teacher.  That’s how we get to know God’s heart and learn to reciprocate the relationship that God offers us.  It means opening your eyes, uncovering your ears and seeing and listening to God. That’s how to have the proper attitude as we wait.  Focus on how you live now. 

Who is teaching you how to live?  Consider how you spend your time and money, and you can start to answer that question.  We can easily spend hours and hours being entertained by the news, by sports, TV movies, games, and social media. Those sources are teaching us how to live.  It’s no wonder our lives look so different from Jesus when we learn from other sources how to live.  What will it look like to allow Jesus to be our teacher? 

Spend time with him.  Sit with him.  Learn from him.  Do the things he did.  Give your life to his Kingdom.  How will you make a start?  Many of us can make a start simply by decreasing the amount of entertainment we consume and increasing the time we spend with Jesus and the Spirit. I would be glad to talk with you about what that might look like for you. Comment below.

Let us be a people that uncover our ears, open our eyes, and pursue a more vibrant relationship with God.

When it seems like God isn’t keeping his promises – Ezekiel 12, Part 4

In the previous post, we talked about how frustrating it can feel waiting on God. Maybe you know the feeling. You want to be faithful to God, but you are waiting and waiting, and it doesn’t seem like God is keeping his promises.

God has been telling the people in Ezekiel’s day that destruction is coming to their precious city of Jerusalem if the people don’t change their ways and return to him. But after numerous such prophecies, and after the people did not change their ways, nothing happened. Were the prophecies false? Were the prophets fake? Maybe they didn’t hear God right. Maybe they didn’t hear God at all. The result was that the people just kept living unfaithfully, turning away from God, and following false gods. And why not? Nothing happened.

God doesn’t give up on them, though. He keeps reaching out to them through his prophets. Finally, in Ezekiel chapter 12, the people who have been giving God the cold shoulder and the silent treatment respond to him. Read Ezekiel 12, verses 21-28, to hear what they say.

Woah. The people are bold. They look at God in face and say they don’t believe in the prophecies and visions!  They had been hearing these prophecies and visions for a really long time, not just from Ezekiel but also from other prophets, even when they still lived in Israel, and they say that the prophecies don’t matter.  They even made up a little saying about it, “The days go by and every vision comes to nothing.”  Imagine that!  They have not only covered their ears and closed their eyes to God (as we studied here), but also they so deeply disbelieved God that they created a proverb about it!  They lack faith in God, and they are talking back to God!  They are basically saying, “Yeah, right, God, these visions of death and destruction are empty threats.”  They are not hearing it anymore.  They have created a belief about God that is not like God.

So how does God respond?  God says, “I’m about to crush that proverb.  The visions are about to come to pass.” No more empty threats.  No more false pretenses.  Just as he attempted to pry open their eyes so they could see, he now says, I so badly want you to hear that I am going to pull your hands from your ears so you will hear and know the truth.

But in verse 27 the people of Israel respond again, “The visions are for many years from now, the distant future.”  That sounds familiar!  Have you ever wondered about Jesus’ promise to come again?  That’s a major belief for Christians, that Jesus will return.  He talked about it a lot, perhaps most famously in John 14:3, where he said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me.” 

Then in Acts 1:11, after Jesus ascended back to his father in heaven, angels appeared and said to the disciples, “This same Jesus will come back.”  That promise stuck in the forefront of the disciples’ hearts and minds.  They wrote about it.  Paul often wrote about it.  Jesus is coming back.  When you read their writings in the New Testament, it seems they believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime.  Then he didn’t come back in their lifetime. 

Now 2000 years have gone by.  Have you ever wondered if Jesus is really coming back?  If so, then you know the feeling of the Israelites in Ezekiel’s era who said, “Days go by and every vision comes to nothing,” or “the vision is for many years from now and prophesies about the distant future.” 

How does God respond to the people and their lack of faith?  God says in verse 28, “Tell them Ezekiel.  Tell them there is no more delay.  My word will be fulfilled.”  And it will.  Jerusalem’s days are numbered.  As we continue studying Ezekiel, we’ll learn about how and when it happens, and it will happen in Ezekiel’s lifetime.  But until it happens, the people of Israel could always wonder.  They could always think, “Nah…that won’t happen.  God wouldn’t let that happen.”

Have you ever thought like the Israelites thought, that this future that God has promised is too long in coming?  If I’m honest, I kinda get it.  It can seem like it is taking too long for Jesus to return!  What’s he waiting for?  Is he really returning?

I’m thankful he waited at least until I was born. I’m also glad he waited until my wife was born.  The more I think about it, the more I’m glad he waited. I could keep thinking about loved one, as could many of you.  In 1997, our first son was born. The next in 1998, the third in 2003, and finally our daughter in 2005.  I’m really glad that Jesus waited to return, so my family could be born.  Am I ready for him to return today?  Yes…and no, if I’m honest.  I want to meet and get to know my grandchild due later this year.  And I hope there are many other grandbabies!  

So am I saying I don’t want Jesus to return?  No, I’m not saying that.  I do want Jesus to return.  I just want him to return on my timetable!  But Jesus clearly said that we should not focus on a timetable.  He said that no one knows the day, time or hour, and because there is no timetable, we should be ready at all times.  I get that, but if I’m honest again, it can be difficult to be ready at all times.

Maybe you know the feeling. Check back to the next post as we talk about what it could mean to be ready for Jesus to return.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Are you feeling frustrated waiting on God? – Ezekiel 12, Part 3

Does it seem like God is not keeping his promises? Maybe you wonder, for example, if Jesus is going to return, like he said he would. Or maybe you wonder when Jesus is going to return. Why is he taking so long? There are many teachings or promises in the Bible that we can wonder about. In Ezekiel 12, it seems to me that the people in Ezekiel’s village could be thinking similar thoughts.

As we continue studying Ezekiel 12, God asks Ezekiel to add more to the skit, which we looked at in the previous post. What started as Ezekiel acting out being exiled, this skit now has a twist. Please pause reading this post, open your Bible and read Ezekiel 12, verses 17-20.

In front of the people Ezekiel is to shake and tremble as he eats and drinks.  Why does God ask Ezekiel to act like that?  God is saying that the people still living in Jerusalem and Israel will be so afraid for their lives, because the enemy will be devastating their city and land, they will not be able to control their fine motor skills.  As they eat, their soup will be spilling from the spoon, and their water will splash over their face as they drink because they will be shaking from fear and anxiety.  What does God say in conclusion?  Then they will know that he is the Lord.  There’s that statement again. God wants to be known!

We’ve heard that statement time and time again from God. But are the people getting it? What do the people think as they watch Ezekiel perform his skits and preach his prophecies? Let’s try to enter the story and see if we can imagine what Ezekiel’s neighbors might be thinking.

If I were dramatizing this, I would set the scene in front of Ezekiel’s house in Babylon.  The camera first shows us Ezekiel just inside an open door, packed and ready for exile.  Maybe he has some kind of bundle attached to a pole, and we watch as he hoists it on his shoulders.  The camera follows him as he walks out of his house carrying his bundle. All day he walks around, people watching him, pointing and whispering, “What is Ezekiel doing now?” In the evening, he goes home, and then he digs a hole in the side of his house, climbing through it. Again he walks around outside, but this time, covering his face with a cloth, probably bumping into people and plants. People are watching him even more now.  Then he stops, opens up his bundle and begins to prepare a meal. As he eats and drinks, he shakes violently, the food and drink spilling and spraying all over him.  I wonder if his neighbors thought he was having a seizure. 

He has been acting out the skit in silence, and finally he speaks. He prophesies, speaking a word from the Lord, explaining the symbolism of the skit.  He says that because of their rebellion to the Lord, Jerusalem will be attacked and destroyed, the king will be sent into exile and die, along with many others.  Ezekiel concludes his prophecy, saying that the invasion and destruction of Jerusalem, Judea and all Israel will be terrible. 

If you are one of the people in Ezekiel’s neighborhood watching him, and listening to this prophecy, would you believe him?  The reality is that you’ve been hearing this stuff for quite some time from Ezekiel.  About a year and a half.  In that year and a half, what seen and heard?  Lots of weird skits.  Lots of dark sermons about the destruction of Jerusalem.  Stories of visions about how awful Jerusalem is.  But nothing has actually happened, right?  

Now in Ezekiel 12, we have a prophecy about Zedekiah being exiled to Babylon where he would be killed. Did that happen to King Zedekiah? Is he in Babylon? If so, it seems likely the Jews would have seen him or they would have at least heard about it.  Nope, Zedekiah is still in Jerusalem.  What about all the death and destruction the prophecies said would be occurring in Jerusalem?  There was not a peep of anything like that happening.  News didn’t travel fast in ancient times, but for something that big, you’d think the Babylonians, the people whose country you live in, would be telling you about it.  But we’ve heard no news about that.  I wonder if the people in Ezekiel’s neighborhood would start to doubt him? 

Do you know the feeling? Doubting God’s promises? Wondering if God is really who he says he is? If you wonder, if you doubt, you’re not alone. It is quite common among Christians and people of many faiths.

Check back to tomorrow’s post as we seek some answers about what we can do when we wait to hear from God.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Is God trying to pry your eyes open? – Ezekiel 12, Part 2

In the previous post, we learned that God’s people had covered their ears and closed their eyes, so that they could not see or hear him. They were giving God the cold shoulder. How does God respond? God does not close his eyes and cover his ears.  He continues to call out for the people, and he does so by asking Ezekiel to perform another strange skit.  Let’s read about it.  Pause reading this post, open your Bible to Ezekiel 12 and read verses 3-7.

What is this skit about?  Notice the word “exile” is repeated. 

About six and a half years before this skit, Ezekiel and his neighbors living in Babylon had actually experience something like this skit depicts.  They had been exiled for real.  Babylon had attacked and defeated their home city, Jerusalem, forcing Ezekiel and 10,000 others to quickly pack some belongings and leave on a 900 mile journey, walking to Babylon. 

When we humans go through deeply difficult times, we remember them, right?  For Ezekiel and those Jews, their exile from Jerusalem to Babylon was a massive life change, one that was indelibly inscribed into their memories.  They would remember the emotion of being forced to leave everything that was familiar, everything they held dear, likely saying rushed goodbyes to family and friends in Jerusalem, as Babylonian soldiers forced them to walk away.  They had no idea what they were heading to. Think about the questions running wild through their minds: “Are these soldiers going to kill us?  Where are they taking us?  How long will it take to get there?  Will they provide us food and water?  Are they going to enslave us, forcing us to endure back-breaking labor every day? What is going to happen to us???”

Remember that people in the ancient near east were not globally-minded like we are today.  They heard of Babylon, of course, but they didn’t have any images of maps in their minds.  Travel was rare and difficult.  The only exposure the average person would have of the outside world would be tales from rare travelers, or stories passed along the generations.  For Ezekiel and the 10,000 Jerusalemites, then, their exile was momentous and unforgettable. 

Now, through the skit, Ezekiel pretends to start off on exile again!  Imagine the emotion it would bring up in their hearts and minds. It seems to me that this skit would get people’s attention.  In fact, there is a repeated phrase in this section that my wife, Michelle, noticed when we were talking about the passage.  Six times it’s in there: “while they watch.”  Or, as in some translations: “in their sight.”  God wants the people to see, people who have chosen to close their eyes to him.  In this we see God’s heart.  It’s like he is getting right in front of their faces, prying open their eyes and saying, “See me!”  God wants to be known. 

There was more to Ezekiel’s skit.  He is to dig through the wall of his house, and he is to cover his face.  What was that all about?  It was theatrical, meant to get the people’s attention, God says, as a sign. A sign of what?  Was God saying that they were going to be exiled again?  Or was he saying they should pack up because they were headed home?  What could Ezekiel’s skit mean? 

Ezekiel obeys God, performs the skit, and the people watched him. Then the word of the Lord comes to him again, the next morning.  Now read Ezekiel 12, verses 8-16.

God explains the symbolism of Ezekiel’s skit.  We learn in verse 10 that the skit is an oracle, a prophecy from God, that concerns the prince of Jerusalem.  As has been the case with most of Ezekiel’s prophetic dramas, we have God giving Ezekiel, who lives in Babylon, a message about people back in Jerusalem which is 900 miles away.  This is a message the people in Jerusalem will almost certainly not receive in time to make a difference in their lives.  In fact, they might never hear about this prophecy.  So we could think it is a pointless prophecy.  It is not pointless.

As with all the previous skits and messages, they are about Jerusalem, but for the benefit of the Jews in Babylon.  Basically God is saying through the prophet, “Don’t be like your brothers and sisters in Jerusalem who are rebellious.”  God is reaching out to the Jews in Babylon, pleading with them to return to him.  Though they were covering their ears and eyes and turning their backs in rebellion to him, God is still reaching out to them.  When he reaches out to them in the form of another skit, he says to Ezekiel that the skit is about the prince of Jerusalem.  How could a skit about the prince in Jerusalem matter to the Jews in Babylon? Let’s talk about that.

First of all, who is the prince in Jerusalem?  His name was Zedekiah, and in 2 Kings chapters 24 and 25 you can read his story.  When Babylon defeated Jerusalem, and exiled the 10,000 Jews, including Ezekiel, back to Babylon, that exile included the current King Jehoiachin.  Then Babylon installed Zedekiah, also a Jew, as the new puppet king, meaning he was supposed to do whatever Babylon told him to do.  But he was an evil king, and he did not follow God’s ways. He also rebelled against Babylon, which would lead to Babylon attacking Jerusalem again and the fulfillment of the prophecies of Jerusalem’s destruction.

In other words, God is saying that what Ezekiel acted out in the skit will come to pass in real life for Zedekiah.  Babylon’s attack will result in the exile of the king in Jerusalem.  He might try to escape through a hole in the wall, he might try to hide his face, but he will be caught. He will eventually be brought to Babylon, just like the 10,000 Jews six and a half years prior.  In Babylon King Zedekiah will die, his staff and troops along with him. 

In verses 15-16, God repeats a familiar phrase we’ve heard him say many times in Ezekiel:  “They will know that I am the Lord.”  God really wants to be known by his people.  Sadly, the people have chosen to neither see nor hear him, but when this prophecy of Zedekiah’s exile and death comes to pass, then they will know.  

God wants to be known.  That is a principle we can apply to our lives.  This is God’s heart, to be in relationship with his people.  He loves us, even when we are rebellious. 

Hold that thought, as there is more to the skit in Ezekiel 12, and we’ll learn about that in the next post.

Photo by Andrea Bertozzini on Unsplash

When it feels like you cannot see or hear God – Ezekiel 12, Part 1

I love learning about humanity’s attempts to travel into space, and one of the common elements of space travel is…delays.  The astronauts go through all kinds of training, and then NASA sets the launch day.  They say goodbye to their family, get suited up, excitedly enter the spacecraft, and then NASA scrubs the launch.  The weather isn’t right, a part of the rocket tests faulty…there are a million reasons for a delay.  But one by one the problems are solved, the weather clears up, and even if they wait a few weeks, they do eventually launch.

Imagine what it would feel like, though, if NASA astronauts got ready every day, but every day NASA delayed the launch saying, “Just one more day, then we’ll be ready”?  Think about how those astronauts would feel.  After a couple weeks, they would surely be getting antsy and frustrated.  What if it went on for months?  Would they quit?  Would they start thinking, “NASA is lying to us.  NASA is screwing up something.”?  I wouldn’t fault them if they said, “I’m done. This is never going to happen.” Maybe you know the feeling of waiting and longing, but the thing you’re hoping for never happens.

Please open your Bible to Ezekiel 12.  There we’ll meet people who thought Ezekiel’s prophesies were never going to happen.  Ezekiel once said the end is near.  Remember that in Ezekiel chapter 7?  He made a big bold prediction of disaster.  But nothing happened.  Was Ezekiel’s prophecy false?  Read Ezekiel 12, verses 1-2.

In verse 1 we see what has become a familiar phrase in our study of Ezekiel, “The word of the Lord came to me.”  That phrase indicates God is now speaking, and we read in verse 1 a message from the Lord that is also familiar: the people are rebellious.  From Ezekiel’s initial encounter with God at the beginning of the book, these were nearly the first words out of God’s mouth: Israel was rebellious, clearly demonstrated by their practice of idolatry, selfish greed, and injustice.  Notice, though, how God describes this in verse 2: They have eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear.

This is quite a vivid image.  Think about people who are blind and deaf.  For people who have one impairment or the other, life is difficult.  They must learn how to live without one of those senses, and it is amazing how they adapt.  It is also wonderful how people over the years have developed systems, technology, and medical answers to assist those who are hearing impaired or blind. But consider what it would be like to be both deaf and blind.  Imagine how difficult it would be to communicate.  Still a deaf and blind person can learn to communicate.  They must overcome a significant challenge, but they can be in relationship with people and experience a full life.  Physical deafness and blindness are not what God is talking about, though. 

In verse 2, God is talking about people who chose to be blind and deaf.  God says that the Jews are in that situation because they chose to be rebellious.  Those Jews are not physically impaired.  They are spiritually impaired, and worse, they embraced it.  From God’s perspective, his people cannot see him or hear him, because they have chosen to abandon him. They have turned their backs on him.  They are giving God the silent treatment, the cold shoulder.

God is saying that his beloved, his chosen people, the Jews, were closing their eyes and covering the ears and saying, “I can’t hear you! I can’t see you!” whenever he spoke.  And yet at the same time, they are uncovering their ears and opening their eyes in pursuit of pagan gods.  You can see why God feels like you might feel when your friend or spouse is icy cold, not communicating, but running with joy to another person.  Do you feel God’s pain?

Years ago I to an event with a close friend, and at the event we bumped into a person my friend knew.  In what felt like a sudden shift, my friend focused his attention on the other person, for hours, and I felt excluded.  God is telling Ezekiel that he feels excluded.  But notice the surprising way God responds to the cold shoulder.  When people give us the cold shoulder, we feel hurt, upset, and we can get angry or bitter.  How does God respond? God does not close his eyes and cover his ears.  He continues to call out for the people, and he does so through Ezekiel, and through another strange skit.  In the next post, we’ll learn how God responds through the skit.

For now, consider this: if you cannot see or hear God, is it possible that he is still reaching out to you? Is it possible that you cannot see or hear him because you have closed yourself off to him? It seems to me that when we feel like we cannot hear or see God, we assume that he has left us. But what if it the truth is the opposite? What if it is we who have covered our ears and closed our eyes, running towards other things?

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Do you get tired of hearing about the end of the world? – Ezekiel 12, Preview

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

Did you watch the scenes from Afghanistan this past week?  Awful, right?  People hanging on US Air Force jets as the jets took flight, and the people fell to the ground.  How about the destruction in Haiti because of the earthquake?  More than 2000 dead.  How is it that Haiti has one horrible disaster after another?  Then there are the devastating wildfires in the Western USA and Siberia.  Do you ever watch the news and think that the end of world must be near?

Maybe an asteroid will hit the earth.  A big one made the news recently, passing by on July 25th.  The scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab watch asteroids, and they log them on their website.  Look it up, it’s called Asteroid Watch.  There are big ones flying by every day.  A 2,000 footer passes by tomorrow.  While these huge asteroids are classified as near-earth objects, their trajectory only puts them a million miles from us at the closest.  The 2,000 footer tomorrow, for example, will pass by 2,130,000 miles away, which is nearly ten times farther away than the moon.  So maybe global warming will get us first.

Is all this stuff just hype?  Have you ever thought that it’s just hype?  Or have you wondered if the end is near?  People talk like that.  They say the end is near.  But people have claimed we’re in the end times for decades.  Year after year goes by, and the world doesn’t end.

Ezekiel once said the end is near.  Remember that in Ezekiel chapter 7?  It was a big bold prediction of disaster.  But nothing happened.  Was Ezekiel’s prophecy false?  When a prophet’s words don’t come true, they are considered to be false prophets.

This week we continue our study in Ezekiel, having arrived at chapter 12, and there we’ll meet people who thought Ezekiel’s prophesy was hogwash.  The way God describes those people is really interesting, and he gives Ezekiel another strange skit to try to reach them.  What we will learn has very important implications for us in 2021.  Looking forward to discussing it with you this next week.

When you disagree with your church, you should stay? – Current Events Q3 2021, Part 5

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

What should you do when you disagree with your church, or with the people in your church?

In the previous post, I referred to a podcast that lists three options. 1. Stay, but don’t speak up. 2. Stay and work for change. 3. Leave. If you haven’t read it already, check out the previous post, because there I try to evaluate options 1 and 3. Simply put, I think both 1 and 3 are mostly poor choices. Now in this post I want to attempt an evaluation of option 2, and then propose a new option.

So what about option 2? Stay and work for change. That option I mostly like, and I think it is far better than 1 or 3.  But I don’t believe it fully encompasses what Paul is teaching in Galatians 3, which we studied earlier in this five-part blog starting here.  Why? Because option number 2 presumes that something is broken and the person who disagrees has the right answer to fix what is broken, and they must tirelessly work to change it, because everyone else is wrong and they are right.

First of all, there is a potential arrogance in that kind of thinking. Note that I say, “potential.” It could be that the disagreeing person is right, and those they disagree with are wrong. Even if so, the disagreeing person should take great pains to avoid arrogance and pride in how they interact. Even when we are convinced we are right, we should still hold out the possibility that we could be wrong, that we could still learn from the situation, that maybe we don’t have it all figured out.

Additionally, have you ever tried to change a church?  If the change you are looking for doesn’t come quickly, or you don’t feel you are being taken seriously, it gets old fast.  How long to you keep up the fight, and do so with grace and love and peace and joy and all the other fruits of the Spirit?  It can get old, and what often happens is that people jump ship anyway.  My conclusion is that option #2, to stay and work for change, is mostly right, but it is often difficult.

I would propose an option #4, an option that the people in the podcast didn’t talk about, an option that I think is more faithful to what Paul talks about here in Galatians 3.  Paul’s vision is for a church family of many different kinds of people that can be together, not having to agree about everything, even disagreeing about seemingly important things, all the while remaining in loving relationship with one another.  How is my option #4 different from #2? Maybe it could be said that my option #4 is a variation of #2, in that it puts love, agreement and unity at the focus, rather than working for change.

Church, we are one in Christ.  When it comes to red and blue, be a church family that focuses on being Kingdom-minded.  The Kingdom does not fit into an American political party.  So, we Christians are purple.  We can be red-leaning people who love blue-leaning people.  We can be blue-leaning people who love red-leaning people.  We can talk about why we are red-leaning or blue-leaning, and we can disagree with one another, but we do so in a gracious, loving way that keeps Christ as our center.  Red and blue will pass away.  Purple will pass away, because God’s Kingdom is not based on or fits within any American political party.  But the Kingdom of Jesus will remain. 

My message to my own congregation, Faith Church, is that while we do not do this perfectly, I think we do it well.  Over the years, in many conversations with the church family, I’ve discovered that there is a wide range of views on all sorts of topics.  I suspect that your church family is very similar. Though that could be the perfect storm for divisiveness, I urge you keep working at a loving willingness to agree to disagree.  Grow even deeper at letting Christ be your common focus.  We are all clothed with Christ, as Paul wrote in Galatians 2:26-28, and that clothing is what we should see.  We should not be make red or blue clothing our banner.  The idea that a church isn’t conservative enough or progressive enough, so a person has to leave it, is opposed to the unity that God desires for his people.  Let the peace of Christ rule.  Be Kingdom-minded.  Sort all ideas and values through the values of the Kingdom, not through any one political party.  Continue to love each other.  Continue to worship together.  Keep working towards bringing more of heaven here to earth side by side with those who may see things from a different perspective.  Let’s keep being purple!

When to leave a church – Current Events Q3 2021, Part 4

Things I've Failed to Do When People Were Leaving Church

This week I have been attempting to make the case that a church should be purple. What is a purple church? In a purple church family, we believe and live the principle that all people are equally loved in Christ, and thus we are one in Christ. As we saw in the previous posts (here and here), a purple church does not have ethnic, social or gender divisions. All are one in Christ.

How, then, do we apply this principle to our contemporary situation?  What is dividing the church across America?  Many things, of course, but the one that seems most divisive, at least in the USA, is political ideology.  There is red and there is blue.  We often allow that political ideology to guide how view a great many things: racial justice, sexual ethics, economics, foreign policy, and on and on. 

The church, then, to express oneness in Christ, that all are equally loved by God, should be neither red nor blue.  It should be community, a family, where we can say, “There is neither red nor blue, but all are one in Christ.  There is neither Republican nor Democrat, but all are one in Christ.  There is neither conservative nor progressive, but all are one in Christ.”  And what do you get when you mix red and blue?  Purple.  We are to be a purple church.  

We are to be a church family where our focus, our passion, is the Kingdom of God. What that means is that you will find teaching in the Bible that will line up on different sides of the current American political aisle.  No one side can claim they are the right one on all things.  Instead, our focus remains squarely the Kingdom of God, as Jesus once taught, “Seek first his Kingdom.” (Matthew 6:33)  Let us not focus on being “red” or being “blue”.  Let our focus be one other phrase that Jesus taught his disciples: “By this all may know that you are my disciples: that you love one another” (John 13:34-35), even when we see things differently. 

So what should we do when we see things differently? 

I recently heard a podcast about sexual ethics.  The speaker is a Christian, and they said that that if your church doesn’t agree with your view of sexual ethics, then you have three options: 1. Stay at the church, say nothing about your disagreement, just be quiet, don’t rock the boat, and if you choose that option then you are a coward and wrong. 2. Stay at the church, but express your disagreement and work to change the church.  3. Leave the church to find a church that agrees with you. 

I find difficulties in each of those options. Let’s examine each one. In today’s post, we’ll look at the first and third options, and then in the next post, we talk about option #2, and I will propose an option of my own. Here goes:

Option #1 – Just stay quiet.  I think it’s good and consistent with biblical teaching to learn to lovingly express ourselves, to share differing ideas and opinions. There are times, however, when it is good to be quiet and listen.  Some people are simply too quick to speak.  James 1:19 says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”  But even if we are slow to speak, there is still a time to speak. So I mostly agree with the podcaster that option #1 doesn’t fit with biblical teaching. 

Option #3 – Leave. My wife and I are about to start our 20th year in pastoral ministry at Faith Church, and option 3, in our experience, is what most people do when they are struggling in their relationship with a church family.  They just leave.  They disagree with something, and rather than choose to stay and speak and work through a situation, they leave.  This is in large part what is occurring in the sorting between red and blue in our culture. Red or conservative-leaning people are leaving churches they feel are blue or purple, and Blue or progressive-leaning people are leaving churches they feel are red or purple.  I almost always disagree with this option.  You might ask, “But doesn’t there come a time when a person should leave a church?”  Yes. If heresy is being preached.  If sin is not being dealt with.  But, in my view, that is exceedingly rare. 

What I have seen over the years, more often than not, is people leaving for petty reasons when their personal preferences aren’t being met.  In leaving for personal preferences, like red or blue political ideology, they are practicing a consumer Christianity which is something that very few Christians in different countries even have the ability to do.  It is a uniquely western Christian problem. Many Christians around the world do not have the option of that type of consumerism within their community.  There is one church to go to and that’s it.  They have to make it work.

Across most of the USA, however, in communities such as Lancaster County, PA, where I live, with our 800 churches, people can choose to equate their political ideology with biblical teaching, so that if a church doesn’t agree with their political views, they accuse that church of practicing heresy, and they leave.  The red leaning people look for a red leaning church and blue leaning people look for a blue leaning church.  It is astounding to me how quick people are to leave a church, and how often they leave without saying much about it. 

What does Jesus say?  Christ bids us come and die to ourselves, to give sacrificially of ourselves for his Kingdom.  Does that mean you sacrifice your personal values?  No, but that also does not mean that you only work for the Kingdom and worship alongside those who value the same things in the same exact way that you do.  We are called to unity, not uniformity. In Christ, there is neither red nor blue.