Engaging Scripture

That time the Apostle Paul talked about unpresentable parts

I really think there was a twinkle in his eye. He wasn’t there when they read the letter, so I have to imagine that twinkle, and the corners of his mouth turning up as he grinned to himself thinking about when they would read this. They would get the letter, gather the group of followers of Jesus together in the house where they would meet and some would read it out loud.

Were there snickers among the group when the reader got to this part?

“[T]hose parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.”

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But with all the possible analogies in this life Paul could have used, he chose that one, and I for one find it humorous. More importantly, Paul’s image of the church as the body of Christ is filled with images of unity in diversity.

As we think about that group of people we call our local church or our home church, would you say that yours is filled with diversity? Faith Church has loads of it. Not just the obvious differences like gender and generations, but also personality types, stations in life, experiences, and perspectives. We are human. So alike, and yet so unique. In the church we also see diversity in the varied spiritual gifts.

Because ours is a culture of celebrity, we love to put people with certain looks and talents in the place of honor. Even though those celebrities are human just like the rest of us, we can start to believe that they are better. They’re really not, but we treat them that way. This is a widespread tendency in our world, and it goes on in the church. We talked about a version of this in the beginning of the 1st Corinthians series when people were taking sides by aligning themselves with BNPs…Big Name Preachers. Now Paul is talking about how people in the church of Corinth are elevating people with certain gifts.

Some of the spiritual gifts are very visible. The pastor is front and center, especially by preaching the sermon every week. This is similar to the worship leader or the teacher. Then there are the gifts of tongues and prophecy which are very attention-getting. In Corinth it seems the tongues-speakers and prophesiers were placing themselves in the limelight during worship gatherings.

Are people with certain gifts better? Are certain gifts better? And how does talking about unpresentable parts help us answer these questions?

Join us Sunday at Faith Church as we discuss this further! In the meantime read 1 Cor. 12:12-31, the passage we’ll be studying, to get further acquainted with what Paul was thinking.

744 Greeting Cards, Large Camp Sign, Cat Picture – The Monday (or Tuesday) Messy Office Report – August 11, 2014

My Friday tidy office is mysteriously messy on Monday. Here’s what I found:

1. 744 Greeting cards: To be fair, these have been here at the church just over a week, but I didn’t bring them to my office until recently. Yup, 744 greeting cards. Brand new, with envelopes, and even organized according to occasion! At an average of $2.99 each, this is quite a stash. In fact, one of our Lancaster County family-owned supermarket chains, Stauffers of Kissel Hill, donated them. My long-time friend, Josh’s wife, Missy, works there and was able to get them as a donation. Now I’ll be contacting local community organizations to see who these cards can bless! If you’re a card-giver, you know how meaningful this gift is! Thank you Josh and Missy!!!

2. Camp Sign: A rather big camp sign, to boot. Last week our church was the location for a CEF Day Camp, and they left their main lobby sign here. But since it was the last week, they didn’t need it anymore. While I will be discarding the sign, I will keep a hold onto the good memories of the camp, as the staff and kids were incredible. Because they participated in our summer lunch program three days, I got to spend a bit of time with them throughout the week. I even convinced a couple of the kids to try tapioca, and when the got the courage to sample it, they found the liked it! I’m thankful to Chris, Lisa, Adrienne and the other CEF staff who ran the camp, and I’m thankful that Faith Church is so gracious with the use of our building!

3. Cat Picture: Apparently a neighbor is missing his cat! He stopped by on Sunday with color printouts of the cat and his contact info. I hope you find your cat!

Now it’s time to clean up this mess!

The Spiritual Gift Game Show! – 1st Corinthians 12:1-11

Phil Bartelt started things out this past Sunday with “Kingdom Life,” a Spiritual Gifts Game Show!

Do you know your spiritual gift(s)? Are you using your gift(s)?

When we had sermon discussion group after the worship service, we had a great time talking about what it means to have spiritual gifts, and yet there were a lot of questions that we weren’t able to answer satisfactorily:

Have certain gifts ceased? Paul will talk about this concept coming up soon in 1st Corinthians 13:8 when he says “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” And yet in chapter 14:39 he tells the church “be eager to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues.” We know that Paul wasn’t the kind of guy who would contradict himself, but these verses leave us questioning what he meant. This is another big debate in Christian theology around the world. (How many of such debates have we encountered during this 1st Corinthians series???) At sermon discussion, I asked if we could pause this particular line of discussion until we get further along. In our sermons on chapter 14 we’ll talk about it more specifically.

When do we receive spiritual gifts? Growing up, I was always taught that we receive gifts from the Spirit at the moment we become followers of Jesus. But many times we see people who have natural abilities that they can use for Christ. Are those natural abilities the same thing as spiritual gifts? If so, do all people receive spiritual gifts at birth? And maybe those gifts are only energized by the Spirit at the moment a person begins to follow Christ? But hold on, what if a person doesn’t remember the specific moment they started following Christ? While some people have a distinct moment of decision when they chose to start following Christ, for many other people it has been a lifelong process.

As you can see, we didn’t come to a conclusion about that second question because there isn’t a clear answer in Scripture. What we do know is what Paul says in this chapter, that “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” That’s pretty amazing to think about. Each follower of Jesus has the manifestation of the Spirit in their life!

And that leads to another question we discussed: what if we don’t feel like we have spiritual gifts? Paul says that all have gifts, but maybe you don’t feel like you have any? Maybe you watch people serving the Lord, teaching a class, playing an instrument on the worship team, praying in front of people, or sharing their faith in many ways in their community, and you think “I don’t do those things; I wonder if God skipped over me?”

That led us to look at the various lists outside of 1st Corinthians where Paul mentions other gifts. Romans 12:3-8 has a bunch, as does Ephesians 4:11. Some have wondered if these lists are meant to be comprehensive, meaning that if you don’t find a gift in these lists, then it must not be a spiritual gift. Playing music for example. It’s never mentioned as a spiritual gift, so it must just be an ability? I don’t feel it is best to look at the gifts lists in Scripture that strictly. Paul was likely being illustrative rather than exhaustive, meaning that he listed out a bunch of gifts, not intending to speak about every single possible gift the Spirit might give. As I say that, I admit that I don’t know for sure. I am also hesitant to call every ability a gift of the Spirit. Christians through the ages have done a great job categorizing gifts. At Faith Church we have used the PLACE materials to help people begin to think about recognizing and using their gifts. PLACE incorporates personal abilities, passions, experiences and personality types into a much fuller assessment of how God uniquely made each one of us. I encourage people to work through the PLACE materials rather than just take a spiritual gifts inventory.

And no matter how you begin thinking about your giftedness, it is best to bring other people into the process. Ask people who love you how they see your giftedness. Then seek out ways to use your gifts in the context of the church. Some of the best advice I received as a young man headed off to my first year of college was from my mom. She encouraged me to try a lot of things. Don’t get stuck in a rut. I gave it a shot, and I’m glad I did. It gave me a chance to learn a lot about myself and how God uniquely shaped me. People can do the same in the life of the church. Be willing to serve, even if you are very unsure that you are gifted in a particular area. Try new things. Put yourself out there!

Do you know your spiritual gifts?

Spiritual Gifts…do you know what your spiritual gift is?

Have you ever taken one of those spiritual gifts tests where you answer a whole bunch of questions, and then you tally up the results, and voila, you find out which spiritual gift you have?

Tests like that could be helpful as a starting place, or at least that’s how we have looked at them at Faith Church.

As we continue working through Paul’s long teaching on worship (chapters 11-14), which is based in his concern that the church at Corinth’s worship gatherings were out of control, he wants them to learn that unity is vital to worship. One area they were showing their disunity is spiritual gifts.

We talk a lot about identifying our gifts, but maybe the better question is “What are they for?”

Would you read 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 before worship tomorrow? Prepare to hear about the purpose of the gifts. Ask yourself if you are using your gifts for the purpose God intended.

How and Why we surprised our congregation on Sunday – 1st Corinthians 11:17-34

We surprised our congregation during worship on Sunday! It was great! At the beginning, I set up the congregation for coffee break. Once or twice each month, after worshiping God through singing, instead of having our open mic sharing time and prayer, we open the folding divider between our sanctuary and fellowship hall and ask people to grab some refreshments and share a bit of life with one another. Then they return to the sanctuary for the remainder of the service. This past Sunday, we had a surprise in store during coffee break!

Instead of returning to the sanctuary for the rest of the worship service, we invited everyone to stay in the Fellowship Hall. There we had a brief sermon, we had communion around the tables. We had never done this before, and it was so good to experiment, so get even a sliver of a feel for the kind of worship going on in Corinth.

In some ways, what Paul gives us in 1st Corinthians 11:17-34, is pretty cool to get a glimpse into the life, admittedly the messed up life, of the early church at worship. But what does that matter for us? We don’t ever have out of control celebrations of communion. It is always very orderly and respectful.

True. But there is much that we can apply to our lives: the principle of self-examination, of self-judgment is vital. Anytime we come to worship, especially including the Lord’s Supper, but anytime we worship, we can and should have a spirit of self-evaluation.

This is an important spiritual discipline Paul is teaching the people. It is a discipline in which we say to the Lord “I need you.” Much like Jesus taught us to pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It is an essential attitude to the disciple of Jesus. An attitude of humility, an attitude that embraces self-examination, an attitude that invites the Spirit to do the work of examination.

David would pray in the Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Disciples of Jesus have hearts that beat for that kind of holiness. Disciples of Jesus have hearts that beat for restored relationships. Disciples of Jesus are quick to admit their faults.

They want others to go first. They want to cross over the cultural boundaries that divide us. They want church to be the most inclusive place in the world. They want Sunday to be the most integrated day of the week. In Christ there is no man or woman, no slave or free, no rich or poor, no black or white, unlike the Corinthian church whose messed-up communions seem to have been motivated by Greco-Roman socioeconomic traditions that had infected the church. When the Corinthian Christians met they most likely had a full meal, only one part of which included The Lord’s Supper. What happened, though, was that the haves got all the good food and wine in the special room, while the have-nots got the leftovers or none at all out in the foyer.

And so disciples of Jesus search their hearts for prejudice and ask God to help them eradicate it.

Disciples remember what Jesus did, how he crossed over the boundaries of eternity into mortality, how he did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on servitude, and was even willing to lower himself to death. Disciples remember how he gave his body and his blood. Disciples remember how he gave of himself so sacrificially, and they want to give of themselves the same way.

As Paul would say in Romans 12 “Therefore, in view of God’s mercy, offer you bodies as living sacrifices, this is your spiritual act of worship.”

By doing that, this little symbol, this bit of bread and small cup remind us that we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes. This little, but incredibly powerful, symbolic ritual launches us forward into the mission of God. It refocuses us to think about our true calling. That we carry in our actions and in our words the good news that the one who gave his body and blood in death for our sins did not stay dead, but he rose again victoriously! And he wants everyone to experience the power of resurrection new life in their lives as well. What a message!

If you’d like to discuss further, please comment below.

Garlic, $10 bill, Baha’i info – The Monday Messy Office Report – July 28, 2014

My Friday tidy office is mysterious messy on Monday. Here’s what I found today:

1. Garlic – I found a plastic grocery store bag with a garlic in my office. My wife mentioned that this was from friends at church. They had a garden and were sharing! Pretty awesome. This time of year a lot of that goes on in the church. Our family garden is about ready to yield an abundance of tomatoes, and many of them will be making their way to the Share Table at our ministerium summer lunch program, one location of which is Faith Church. The sharing combined with the emotional peace of working and tending our garden has become very meaningful to me. Maybe you know the feeling. I strongly encourage people to grow their own food as much as possible. Doing so brings amazing benefits on many levels.

2. $10 bill – An anonymous donor left this in my office with a note saying that it should be used to help our Faith Church campers going to Twin Pines this summer. Each year Faith Church budgets funds to help send campers from our church to our denomination’s summer camp, Twin Pines. This year we had more campers go to Twin Pines that what we planned on! That is a great problem to have. So we’ve been asking our congregation to give a bit extra to help those campers. It is wonderful when people respond. For many, it is a request they love giving to, because Twin Pines has a special place in their hearts. For 50 years Twin Pines has faithfully served the Lord as place where kids head to the Pocono mountains, have a blast, and learn about faith in Jesus. My kids LOVE Twin Pines. The staff does an amazing job caring for and reaching out to the kids. My oldest son has spent the last two summers serving on that staff, he loves it so much. And my wife and I are deeply grateful for how the full-time staff invests in the lives of the summer staff. Since coming to Faith Church in October 2012, I don’t know how many times I’ve been to Twin Pines, mostly for retreats. I love it there too. And I pray that God continues to bless Twin Pines, to use it, and to send a lot more $10 bills it’s way so that Twin Pines can continue to make a great impact of many people.

3. Baha’i brochure – A friend from church attended a local Baha’i gathering in recent weeks, and he brought back information. I am very thankful that he did so, because he knew I would be interested in learning more. I very briefly studied Baha’i doctrine and practice in a college class 20 years ago, and I had forgotten much. I was glad to hear that my friend was warmly welcomed at the Baha’i gathering. Interestingly I came across an article in the last month or so that also mentioned Baha’i. You can read it here. Believe it or not, Baha’i is the second-most numerous faith in South Carolina! While Christianity is the #1 faith in all 50 States, have you ever thought about what faith is number 2? In every State the #2 faith is a tiny percentage compared to Christianity, and as the article mentions, it doesn’t take much to be the #2 faith in South Carolina, which is massively Christian. But it is compelling nonetheless to think that Baha’i is second. The essence of Baha’i teaching is that all faiths lead to the same destination, and thus we should love all people. I respectfully disagree with the first part of that sentence, and I wholeheartedly agree with the second part. In the pamphlet they say that, of the great religions, none of the Divine Teachers claim to be first or last, as evidence that all faiths lead to the same place. Then they quote Jesus saying “if you had believed in Moses, you would have believed in me, for he wrote of me.” I take issue with this because Jesus’ intent was not to place himself equally in a line-up of famous teachers, and thus that all faiths are equal. In this quote he is actually doing the opposite, saying that Moses was pointing to someone greater. Moses was writing about the Messiah, the Savior, of whom no one is comparable. The Jews to whom Jesus was speaking knew what Moses meant, they knew what Jesus was insinuating, and they didn’t like it. What I am referring to is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, that he was the promised Messiah. He said without hesitation that he and God the Father are one. Again the people in the crowd that day knew what he was saying because they picked up stones to kill him, as stoning wsa the punishment for equating yourself with God. He lived to teach another day, but not for long. Just hours before his crucifixion, he would tell his disciples “I am the way, the truth and the life…no one comes to the Father except through me.” That kind of exclusivity is hard for some to swallow. I admit that it can come across as harsh or unrealistic, but Jesus was trying to be hopeful and helpful. When you take into account that the very next day he gave his life for us because he loves us, his sacrifice puts the statement into a different color. And then when you think about his resurrection, his victory over sin, death and the Devil…and how he wants to see his new life work its healing in all of our lives…Wow. What is available in Christ is amazing. I am not here to knock on Baha’i. I’m here to say that new life in Jesus is the only faith that truly makes sense to me.

Well…now it’s time to clean up this mess!

Have you ever thought communion is a bit strange?

A little tiny piece of bread.

An equally small cup of juice.

Most often, that is how we take communion at Faith Church. We also practice intinction, where people rip off a piece of bread and dip it in a cup. Since I am usually holding one of the cups, I have to admit that it is humorous when people, trying to make sure there is enough bread left for others, rip off the smallest flakes of break you ever saw. When they attempt to dip their crumb into the cup, the realize it is too small, and they accidentally dunk the tips of their fingers. Then the juice starts dripping on the hands, shirt, floor, and they get quite embarrassed. To avoid this, I have taken to whispering “it’s okay…take a big chunk!”

Have you ever thought that communion is strange?

Is this what Jesus really intended that ominous Passover night when he at the Jewish Seder with his disciples, and he said “Do this in remembrance of me”?

Christians through the ages have debated what is the appropriate meaning and practice of communion. Confusing words like transubstantiation and consubstantiation get flown around, along with memorial, spiritual presence, mass, Eucharist, and a curious one…viaticum. (That is actually one of my favorite!)

As we continue our series in Corinth, we’ll see that the Christians in Corinth were quite confused about the meaning and practice of the supper, and they had allowed themselves to make a mockery of it. I very much wish I could have witnessed that scene with my own eyes! It was wild.

Want to get a sneak peak? Check our 1st Corinthians 11:17-34

I personally have thought that communion is strange, but the more I look at it, the more compelling it becomes!

Join us tomorrow at Faith Church to learn more!

Jesus & Paul were feminists? – 1st Corinthians 11:2-16

This past Sunday my sermon was about 1st Corinthians 11:2-16, where Paul talks about women in worship. After giving the sermon, we had an excellent time at sermon discussion group. I want to review some of the questions we talked about.

As I mentioned in the intro post last week, I’m concerned that bringing up the topic of women in worship could lead to divisiveness, but that is not my intent. The moment I decided to preach through 1st Corinthians, I knew that the study would take us into some difficult territory. But since Paul knew he needed to address it, we should too. I’ve been regularly astounded at how often Paul’s words from nearly 2000 years ago speak so powerfully to us today. This section about women in worship is no different. Hear my heart: I want to raise some questions, and perhaps even challenge your thinking, but in so doing, my intent is to promote love and unity, even with those of you who disagree. So here goes:

If I could summarize what Paul says about the role of women in the church it seems that he is teaching egalitarianism in complementarian clothing.

What do I mean that I think Paul is teaching egalitarianism in complementarian clothes? Because the culture in Corinth, and really in the whole Roman Empire, was extremely patriarchal, women were most often viewed far below men, sometimes as possessions, sometimes lower than animals. So when the women in the church at Corinth started behaving in an extremely counter-cultural way, perhaps removing their veils, perhaps cutting their hair to look like men’s hair, Paul knows that this behavior could marginalize the church and it’s influence for the mission of Christ. Basically, if the church gets the reputation for having out-of-control women, likely very few people would want to be a part of the church. Therefore Paul tells the women to act in a way that is in keeping with cultural norms. But he doesn’t stop there. Right in the center of the passage, verses 11-12, he clearly explains that men and women are equal in God’s eyes, a radical notion for the men of that culture!

Do you see what Paul does there? By asking the women to maintain a complementarian approach to worship, Paul preserves the deeper teaching of egalitarianism for the future! It is a move of genius that lays a foundation for a very different approach to the role of women in the future. We see Paul’s teaching bearing fruit in our country today. In the USA we believe that men and women are equal, though we still have work to do! One issue, for example, is women not receiving equal pay for equal work.

Going back to what Paul was teaching, I think Paul was a radical feminist. Look at the place he gives to women in Romans 16. I think Jesus was a radical feminist. Look at the all the ways he dignifies women and includes them in his ministry. One person calls Christianity the best thing that ever happened to women. When we look at Jesus and Paul from the vantage point of our culture, it can be very easy to think that they could have done a lot more to enhance women’s rights. Why didn’t they teach more clearly that women should rise up and take their freedom?, we wonder. But seen from the viewpoint of the Ancient Near East in the first century AD, Jesus and Paul were egalitarians, pro-equality for women, in their teaching and ministry practice!

What this says is that Paul’s teaching to the women to cover their heads, to have long hair, and to learn in quietness in the church, was intended as temporary, for that church in that culture to maintain its viability and thus to advance the Gospel. Clearly in Romans 16, Paul refers with gratefulness to the women who were serving well in various roles in the church. This is evidence that perhaps even Paul didn’t feel his teaching to the Corinthians (and similar things he would say to the church in Ephesus in the letters to the Ephesians and to Timothy who pastored there) was universally applicable. Therefore, if a church is located in a cultural situation such that men and women are considered equal, for example a cultural situation like ours in the USA, we can, and I would say should, practice egalitarianism in the church.

The battleground is whether or not Paul’s teaching here in 1st Corinthians is for all time, all churches everywhere, or just for the Corinthians in their time. I believe Paul’s was complementarian teaching for the specific situation of that time, while laying an egalitarian foundation for very different cultural situations then and in the future. If that is true, is it possible that complementarian teaching and expression might actually be a hindrance in our egalitarian culture? Given the godly, deeply scholarly evidence for egalitarian approaches to ministry and the church, why do some people hold on to complementarian approaches, approaches which by their nature lower women? I have read numerous complementarian approaches by men who love their wives and want to promote equality for women. I give them credit. Deep down they are trying to be faithful to how they read the Scripture. I’m not trying to tear them down. I know women who hold to a complementarian approach as well. They love the Lord and are deeply passionate about serving him. So please know that when I ask the questions above, I ask them in a spirit of love.

What hits me in the gut about Paul’s teaching is the motivation behind it. I see Paul as lovingly, passionately concerned that this church, this group of people he has great affection for, was jeopardizing the mission of God’s Kingdom. That means we disciples of Jesus need to ask ourselves, is there any way that we are being a hindrance to the Gospel? How might our church be a hindrance to the Gospel? At this point the sermon discussion group had some great ideas! Here are some examples of how we can potentially be an hindrance to people becoming disciples of Jesus:

Our desire to get people to come to us, rather than us going to them.
Being so busy about our lives that we have little or no time for neighbors and friends.
An expression of church that is legalistic, rule-based.
Asking people to conform to our rules before being a part of our fellowship.

What other ideas can you think of?

The Monday Clean Office Report – July 21, 2014

My Friday tidy office has been miraculously clean on Monday! For two weeks in a row. While I enjoy writing these posts as I enjoy being surprised with what I’ll find in here on Monday mornings, the last two Mondays have been slim pickings. Nothing to write about. So there you have it. Just thought I’d let you know in case you were wondering!

The role of women in church

I was very nervous a couple months ago when our sermon series in 1st Corinthians took us to the topic of homosexuality. I’m nervous again.

In our passage for this coming Sunday, Paul brings up a situation in the church at Corinth about women and their role in worship. It seems to me that the role of women has been one of the most discussed and most debated issues in recent years.

I’m not interested in taking sides or being negative about one side or the other. The way I see it, both of the primary two points of view are motivated by a heart to honor the Lord. Or at least I think their foundational motivation could, and perhaps should, be understood that way. Of course, plenty of people carry their point of view like a weapon, and use it as such. I don’t want to perpetuate that kind of damage in the least.

Here’s a brief description of those two points of view:

Complementarianism – Women are to complement men. God ordained this. Both are equally loved in his eyes. In marriage and in the church, though, men are to lead. We might not understand why God would want one gender to complement another, but we can trust that God’s way are best. This view stems from reading certain New Testament passages as universally binding. Thus, if this view is held, it should be held humbly and lovingly by the men and women who hold to it.
Egalitarianism – Men and women are equal in every way. God created both equally in his image, and he loves both equally. In heaven this expression will be the norm, and so now on earth we can and should work toward gender equality, in society, marriage and in the church. This view stems from seeing certain New Testament teachings as only pertaining to certain first-century churches. This view should also be held humbly and lovingly.

As you can see, proponents of either side can have a heart of love for God in their view. I think that is very important to see.

Paul was writing to a society steeped in patriarchy. Women were seen as possessions. What would he say, when he heard reports of women exercising a freedom that was counter-cultural? Would he cheer them or chastise them? What is the main concern Paul has for the Christians in Corinth? Might there be a principle that could carry over to our church, our era?

So, trepidatiously, I invite you to hear a sermon about 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 this coming Sunday at Faith Church.