Engaging Scripture

How avoiding the “shoulds,” tapping in to the Spirit, and listening help us become the kind of people who…speak life to one another, Part 5

This week I welcome guest blogger, Kirk Marks. Kirk is a retired pastor, having served 30+ years in both local churches with his wife, Debbie, and in denominational administration. He has also taught theology and led a pastoral assessment center for many years. He and Debbie, along with their two daughters and son-in-law are members of Faith Church. Kirk preached at Faith Church this past week, continuing our series on Relationships in the Church. I think you’ll find his thoughts as compelling and helpful as I did.

My mother always warned my sister and I to be very cautious of the “shoulds” out there. If anyone’s telling you what you should do, be very cautious of them, even if it’s coming from the BibleEven saying something as seemingly obvious as “Christ-likeness is what we should pursue” can lead to trouble and here’s why.

Suppose that I’ve really spoken to your hearts this week through my previous posts on speaking life to one another. Suppose you are thinking, “I should work harder at speaking life to others. I’m not speaking life to my husband or to my kids or to my coworkers. I should to do a better job of speaking life, saying encouraging and positive words and stopping my negativity.”

Maybe you read this post or the previous posts this week, and you think, “I’m going to do better. I’m going to try really hard to do this.” And maybe you’ll do that for a day or two or a week, but then this message will fade into your memory and you notice yourself falling back into old habits. Or worse, perhaps it’s not a slow process of days or weeks. Perhaps you read this post and think, “Today I’m going to talk to my coworkers better. Today I am going to speak like.” But within an hour or two, one of your coworkers has really ticked you off and you’ve gone off and said something negative to them.

Then at lunchtime you think, “Oh my gosh, Kirk blogged about speaking life to each other and I didn’t do it. I just talked really ugly to that person and then, well, maybe if I feel really guilty about that and really beat myself up about it, then I won’t do it again the next time.”

But we do it again the next time. The “shoulds” never work. There are whole religious systems that are built on using guilt to motivate, and it doesn’t work. It’s not going to work. If you read this post and commit to yourself, “I’m going to try really hard to do this,” I have another passage of scripture I would like to read to you that helps us understand how we change. How do we live as the people that God wants us to be? Trying hard and really understanding what God is saying to us has a piece to play in it, but there is something else that can help us make lasting change.

Paul gives numerous directions to the church in Ephesians chapter 5. In verse 18, we catch him in the middle of his teaching. This might initially seem to be a strange passage of Scripture to talk about as we’re thinking about how we actually become people who speak life to one another, but I think you’ll see how Paul makes a really important point.

Paul writes, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.” Okay, good advice. We don’t want our lives to be filled with debauchery that comes from getting drunk. But then Paul says, “Instead be filled with the Spirit as you speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that come from the Spirit.”

Paul is using drunkenness as an illustration. Unfortunately, in several of my careers, as a police officer long, long ago, as a pastor for 30 years, and most recently as a fair trade agent, I’ve had to deal with drunken people. Not a pleasant experience. If you’ve ever had any experience with inebriated people, you know the beer is talking. The booze is talking. They’re not talking like they would normally talk because they’re full of liquor. They’re speaking is sometimes crazy, sometimes miserable.

Paul’s point is that rather than being filled with alcohol, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Flowing with the Holy Spirit, we can speak life. The Spirit is who can make positive, transformation in our lives. Ask the Holy Spirit to be at work in your life as you speak to other people, especially when it’s hard, especially when you really wanna say the negative thing, especially when it’s hard to bear with other people in all of these things. Ask the Holy Spirit to do that transforming work in you so you will speaking encouraging life to one another.

For speaking life to happen, it’s only going to happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why we talk about the fruit of the Spirit as the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives. Speaking life to one another is going to come out of our lives as the Spirit produces his fruit in lives.

Also, because speaking life to one another is something we don’t do well in our culture, we need to practice listening to each other. Speaking is only going to be effective if somebody is listening. Just as important to speaking life to one another is hearing the life being spoken to one to one another.

In yesterday’s post, I described a situation when I had what I thought was a great approach to dealing with a difficult person. My church board chair listened to my idea, then said, “Pastor, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” What would have happened if I would not have listened to the church leaders who were telling me not to do this crazy thing I’d come up with. It likely would have resulted in increasing the negativity in the church and in my life.

We need to stop, slow down, and listen to and hear people speaking life to us. Take the time to honor one another by listening to what they’re saying even if, even if they’re not saying it very well. I’ve had many conversations in my life, maybe you have too, where you’ve had to look beyond the words of what people are saying to the heart that it’s coming from.

My wife and I do a lot of grief work with people resulting from personal experiences we’ve had. Many times people say the wrong things to grieving people. We might not know what to say to people who are grieving and having a hard time. We encourage people to look beyond the wrong words those people are saying and see that in their hearts they care about you. They’re trying to comfort you. They’re trying to express love to you even if it’s coming out really badly.

We need to listen to one another. Listening to one another as we seek to follow Jesus together. Through the Holy Spirit’s power we can speak life to one another, listen to one another, and help each other follow Jesus together by speaking words of life.

Photo by Jarritos Mexican Soda on Unsplash

Pastor, that’s the dumbest thing you ever said – Speaking life to each other, Part 4

About 20 years ago, I was pastor of a church, when a woman was being very disruptive in our congregation. She had a harsh way of speaking to people. She just let things fly, and it would cause all kinds of trouble. In one particular instance, she had really upset some of the sweetest elderly women in our church who were so Christ-like and so wonderful. If they were upset, it meant the situation was serious.

In a meeting with some key church leaders, I said, “What are we gonna do about this?” The board chairman responded, “I don’t know. She’s so difficult. We’ve sat down, we’ve talked with her, we’ve tried to deal with this, and she just keeps doing the same thing.”

Well, I had an idea, a different way to approach the disruptive woman. I felt my idea would really get her attention and show her the wrongness of her ways. I touted the idea to the leaders. The board chair was and is still a really good friend of mine. At the time, he was in his 50s, and I was in my 30s. He looked at me, took off his glasses, and said, “Pastor, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say.”

Would you believe my friend was speaking life to me? In this post, as we continue learning what it means to speak life to one another, we’re going to look at number of biblical passages that describe speaking life, and I think you’ll see how my friend spoke life to me that day.

In the Gospels, Jesus is described over and over again as life. Consider these passages, all from the Gospel of John

John 1:4, “In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind.

John 14:6, “Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life.”

John 3:17, Jesus did not come “into the world to condemn the world but to save the world.”

John 10:10, Jesus said that “the thief comes to break in and steal,” but he has “come to give life and to give life more abundantly.”

Jesus is life and true life. Following him is living the flourishing and full life that he wants us to live. People who speak in negative ugly ways are caught in a way of life that isn’t life at all. They’re living death when they could be living a life in Jesus that is so different.

Our speaking, if it’s speaking life, therefore, will be Christ-like. Speaking to each other in the way that Jesus spoke, in ways that come from our following of Christ, is speaking life to one another.

Think about the way Jesus spoke. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ encounters a variety of people: the woman at the well, his disciples, Nicodemus, and numerous other friends and foes. Consider how graciously he spoke, how forgivingly he spoke, how kindly he spoke, even to people who hated him, to people who disagreed with him, and to people whom society rejected. Jesus still found ways to speak kindly and gently with compassion and care and life.

Another passage of scripture that talks about speaking life is 1st Thessalonians 5, verses 12-15. In verse 12, Paul writes, “Now we ask you brothers and sisters to acknowledge those who work hard among you and who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.” Paul is talking about caring for our church leaders, our pastors, and those people whose job it is to help us in this business of following Jesus. He also notes in verse 13, “Hold them in high regard and love because of their work and live in peace with one another.”

Then in verse 14 Paul writes about how we talk to each other, “We urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive. Encourage the disheartened.” Speaking life includes warning and encouraging. Let’s first think about encouraging those around us, then a bit later below, I’ll talk about how warning people can also be speaking life.

I do not have the gift of encouragement, but I am trying to grow in that area. All people need lots of words of encouragement. Paul tells us to encourage the disheartened. Encourage one another. That’s speaking life to each other.

He also writes, “Help the weak.” Sometimes helping the weak is physical help. If a person can’t lift their air conditioners into their windows, for example, help them. I’m gonna need help with that at my house in a month or two. My daughters and son-in-law are gonna help me with that. But sometimes helping the weak is speaking kindly to one another, words of encouragement, of guidance, of help.

Paul also writes in verses 14-15, “Be patient with everyone make sure that no one pays back wrong for wrong.” Sounds like Paul has traveled into the future and overheard so much of our speaking in American society today, right? “So and so said such and such about me. You know what I have to say about him? He’s a ____ and he does and they do when they have and they are.” Oh my goodness, when we speak “paybacks,” we are not speaking life.

Paul concludes this section in verse 15 when he writes, “Always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.” We can do good in our words, in how we speak to each other.

Now let me go back to verse 14 when Paul says speaking life is to warn others. This does get a little tricky because sometimes our speaking life to each other might not sound nice. Sometimes speaking life involves warning people. Sometimes it involves accountability.

Earlier in this series on relationships in the church, we had a week on accountability. Sometimes accountability and confrontation are hard conversations in which the speaking of life can be tough.

I started this post with a story about my friend who confronted me. It was one of those speaking words of warning moments that was very powerful in my life.

My friend the board chair said, “We are not doing your idea for confronting the disruptive woman. Do you know what will happen to you if you behave the way you’re proposing?” He was warning me about what was going to happen. I have come to see that the reason he reacted so negatively was what I was proposing was very unChrist-like.

Sometimes you get an idea, and inside your head it seems like a really good idea, and it gets better the more you think about it. Then you share it with some people, and they say, “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” and you realize they’re right.

We need that. That’s speaking life by warning each other. Sometimes it might not seem like the nicest way to talk to each other, but it’s what we need.

Speaking life is accountability and warning. Speaking life is encouraging, helping and kindness. We need to work on speaking life to one another because in our culture there’s so much negativity, criticism and ugliness being spoken around us. We can fall into it before we know it.

When we speak life to one another, we help each other follow Jesus.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

What speaking life to one another is not, and what it is – Part 3

What is speaking life to one another?

There are some very important things in our world and life that we understand better in the negative than we do in the positive.

There are some things that are hard to define or describe as what they are, but we know very well what they are not. Take justice, for example. I have a degree in criminal justice. I have spent a lot of time thinking, talking and hearing about justice, and it is very hard to define. But we know when an injustice happens, don’t we?

The books The Innocent Man by John Grisham and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson tell stories of people in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, people on death row for things they had nothing to do with. That’s an injustice. We may not be able to define justice, but we know what an injustice is, and that gives us a better sense of what justice is.

Freedom is similarly very hard to define. It’s so important to all of us, but it’s so hard to define. I play this game sometimes with theology students. I ask them to define freedom, just trying to trick them into saying, “Freedom is being able to do whatever you want to do.” Then I point out to them how doing whatever you want to do is chaos. That’s not freedom.

What is freedom? We understand freedom better in the negative than we do in the positive. In Russia, in the past two weeks over 400 people have been imprisoned for speaking out against Vladimir Putin as they peacefully demonstrated after the death of Alexei Navalny. Those people are not free. That is not freedom.

Here in the United States, we have the freedom of speech. You can say as much against the government as you want, and nobody can put you in jail for it. We have the freedom of assembly. We can get together whenever we want to for whatever reason.

Friday night our small group met, and we didn’t need a permit from the government to do that. In many countries in this world, people can’t do that. They need to have the government’s permission before you get people together. Those people aren’t free, but we Americans are free to gather. In our country we can demonstrate for any purpose that we want. As long as you’re not breaking things or trespassing or blocking traffic or hurting people, you can demonstrate for anything you want. You can demonstrate for peanut butter sandwiches if you want to. It doesn’t matter what it is. But in Russia people are locked up for doing that because they were protesting the death of someone who shouldn’t have died. Those people aren’t free.

Do you see how we understand justice and freedom in the negative better than we do in the positive? When we think about heaven, this positive v. negative principle is true as well. How do we describe heaven? What do we know about heaven? In heaven there’s no crying, there’s no pain, there’s no suffering, there’s no sin, there’s no evil. That’s all what’s not there. That’s all negative. What is heaven really like? Well we’re not so sure we can put good words to that, but we know what it’s not.

So as we think about speaking life, what is it not? The reason I bring up what speaking life is not is because our culture, our fallen world, is awash in the speaking of non-life. We speak death to each other so often we’ve gotten so used to it we might not even realize it.

I’ve made a list of what’s not speaking life to one another. How about complaint? How about condescension? How about negativity? Unfair judgment, misinformation, disinformation, ugliness, mean speech, hate speech, insult, etc. We hear non-life all the time, don’t we? It’s everywhere. Some people get paid to do it, make careers out of it, get elected to public office because of it, but it’s death. It’s awful.

Have you experienced people speaking non-life or death to you? If you have experienced people speaking death to you, when it happens you almost feel the life draining out of you.

There’s got to be another way. There’s got to be another way to speak to each other that is not death. We can speak differently. We can speak life to one another.

In Colossians chapter 3, verses 12-15, Paul teaches us how to relate to one another. Look at how each phrase of this teaching can affect our speech.

“As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves.” Here Paul is not talking about what we’re wearing; he’s talking about what’s in our character, what’s in our way of being, what’s in our speaking. “Clothe yourself,” when applied to our speech, means “let your speech be characterized by.”

What should we clothe our speech with? Paul says, “compassion.” When we talk, we use words of compassion, such as “I understand what you’re going through.” Or “I’m trying to understand what you’re going through.” Or “I may not understand what you’re going through, but I’m here with you while you’re going through it.” These are words of compassion.

Next Paul says we clothe our speech with kindness. Kind speech to one another is the opposite of insult and belittling.

Paul goes on to mention humility. What are words of humility? “I’m not any better than any one of you. We’re trying together to follow Jesus.” Do you hear the humility in those phrases?

After humility, Paul adds gentleness, patience and bearing with one another. I’m so glad for the people who have borne with me over the years as I’ve gone through some difficult experiences, terrible griefs and losses. I’ve had people who’ve been with me, and stuck with me, through the ugly feelings, and in so doing they were speaking life to me.

In addition to bearing with each other, Paul teach us to forgive grievances. Think about how speaking life relates to forgiveness. Speaking life includes words of forgiveness. When people have said to me, “I forgive you,” for things I did to them, there were life-giving to me.

In Colossians 3, Paul goes on to say, “Forgive each other as God forgave us, and over all these virtues put on love.” Similarly, Jesus once said to the Pharisees, “You’re so concerned about what you put into the body, what you eat, what you touch, and that what you put into your body will make you unclean. But it’s not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, it’s what comes out of them. Because what comes out of them comes from the heart, and your hearts are wicked and evil, and that wickedness and evil is coming out in your speech.”

What if we have hearts of love toward one another? Out of that heart of love comes life-giving speech. So Paul says in Colossians 3:15, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” and that includes the things that you say, because what we say comes out of our hearts.

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The power of words to heal or harm – Speaking life to one another, Part 2

Think about some time in your life that was powerful, a time that had a real impact on you. Maybe this event changed the direction of your life, maybe teaching you an important lesson about life. Have a pivotal moment in mind? I’ll bet you are thinking about a time when someone said something to you. Our speaking to each other is powerful, isn’t it? Speaking can change the direction of our lives.

Think about it from the negative side, too. Think about some time in your life when you were really hurt, something that really emotionally traumatized you. I suspect those hurts are also from what was spoken to you. During my years as a pastor, I counseled many people in troubled and broken relationships because of things that were or were not said. My counsel to them would be, “You just have to talk to each other more.” Or “You have to stop talking like that to one another.”

As we think about the impact of words, let’s examine the title of this week’s series of blog posts: “Speaking life to one another.” The phrase “one another” comes from our understanding that we are disciples, following Jesus, together. Discipleship is not only individual, but it is an expression of community, together.

In previous weeks in this series on relationships in the church, we’ve talked about being a community together. We know that God has made us as human beings to do exactly that, to live in and be in community. We know that God himself exists in a self-giving, loving community of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together.

Just as God exists in community, he’s created us in his image to also exist in community. That’s how we live. That’s how we thrive. That’s how we flourish. Together we help each other be disciples, following Jesus effectively. As the writer of Hebrews suggests, “encourage and spur one another on” (Hebrews 3:13, 10:25). We spur one another on to follow Jesus in community together. We need each other as we’re practicing discipleship together.

In addition to “one another,” look at the “speaking” part of the title “speaking life to one another.” When we use the word “speaking,” many automatically think of public speaking, speaking in front of people like teaching and preaching. Those kinds of “speakings” are certainly part of the speaking that we do in the church.

But there are many other ways we talk to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ within the church family. We have private conversation during fellowship time and when we encounter each other through the week, or in a small group setting.

No matter the setting, speaking is powerful and important. The scripture clearly tells us this. Right at the beginning, Genesis chapter one explains, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and what do we find there? “And he said, let there be light.” God somehow created by the power of speaking. I can’t pretend to understand or explain to you exactly how that worked, but there’s no question that what we find in Genesis is God speaking creation into order. Speaking is powerful.

In the beginning of the book of Hebrews, we’re told that God has been speaking to his people throughout history. He’s done it through the law. He’s done it through the kings. He’s done it through the prophets. He’s spoken to his people. And now in these latter days, he’s done it even more powerfully by sending his own son into the world, spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2).

So God is speaking, and his speaking is powerful; powerful through the prophets, powerful through his word, powerful through his son who has come. He’s still speaking to us today by the Holy Spirit. God’s act of speaking is powerful, and our speaking to one another is also powerful.

Speaking powerfully influences how we look at things. Speaking impacts our emotions. Speaking impacts the direction of our lives. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, our speaking to one another can be powerfully helpful or harmful. Think about your practice of speaking. Evaluate your words, your tone, your body language. All of it is powerful in the lives of those around you. How are you speaking to one another?

Because speaking is so important, what is speaking life to one another? Check back to the next post!

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What the Bible says we’re supposed to talk about in the church (and what we actually talk about) – Speaking life to one another, Part 1

During my years of pastoral ministry serving several different churches, I participated in countless board meetings and committee meetings, in which we’d talk about all sorts of things that happen in the church. I also had numerous people approach me, saying, “Pastor I’d like to talk to you about our church.”

The topics we talked about in those meetings and the things that people wanted to talk with me about often revolved around a number of general subjects that we spent an awful lot of time on. Things like our church building and our church equipment. Being a pastor in an evangelical church, I have become an expert on roofs, parking lots, and photocopiers.

We also talked a lot about our church money, what we are going do with our money, how we are going raise money, how we’re going get enough money to meet the budget.

We talked a lot about church attendances. Who’s coming to church? How many people do we have? How can we get more people to come to our church? How can we get more people to give more money so we can fund the budget?

Of course, we would talk about conversion growth too. How can we get people saved, get people to hear the message of Jesus and accept it and have decisions for Christ in our church?

If you’ve been in church leadership, you’ve likely participated in those kinds of conversations.

That’s not what the Bible talks a whole lot about. The New Testament begins with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those gospels tell us about Jesus’ life. Then the book of Acts tells us about what the disciples did after Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven. We hear about the beginning of the church with the coming of the Holy Spirit. We hear about churches planted and Paul’s missionary journeys.

After that in the New Testament, we have nine books: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 & 2 Thessalonians. These are Paul’s letters to churches. He’s writing to churches or churches he knows, some of which he’s planted. He knows the people there, and he’s writing to them about what’s going on in their churches. He’s reminding them of what’s important to them, to spur them on to do what they should be doing as a church of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he speaks encouragingly, sometimes he speaks rebukingly, sometimes he speaks familiarly.

In those letters to churches about what they should be doing, he doesn’t say anything about buildings or equipment. There were no church buildings or equipment in those days. He doesn’t say anything about churches getting more people to come to their church. You won’t find that in Paul’s letters anywhere. Paul even extremely rarely talks about getting people saved. He talks about proclaiming the good news of Jesus. He talks about being ambassadors for Christ. But he does not talk about getting people saved into our church, like we talk about within our churches. Paul talks very little about those things.

Now, we could discuss that observation for a long time. But the reason I bring that observation up is because the thing that Paul does spend a significant amount of time on, 70-80% of the teaching in his letters, is relationships in the church and how we can relate to one another better.

Paul’s emphasis on relationships makes perfect sense because what Paul is doing is carrying out what Jesus said to do. Jesus said his disciples were to be teaching one another how to obey what he, Jesus, had taught them (Matthew 28:16-20). Jesus’ teaching is indeed about “loving one another as I have loved you.” Paul is spurring the church on to do that.

I believe that observation makes it clear that we need to think about our relationships in the church. We need to focus on that. It is a good focus to have and a good thing to think about, to pursue and to seek.

This week, then, we return to our series on relationships in the church, how to foster a flourishing church. I believe with all my heart, and based on good scriptural reasons, that relationships in the church, and how we relate to folks outside the church as well, is very key to being disciples, is key to following Christ, is key to what God asks us to do and doesn’t get enough attention in the church and it should.

With that in mind, check back for the next post as we learn what Scripture has to say about speaking life to one another, which is all about what we disciples of Jesus should be talking about.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

What brings you life? – Speaking life to one other, Preview

What brings you life?

I enjoy coffee. A good workout or run. Most any book. A great TV show or film, especially if it’s sci-fi. I could list many more activities that bring me life.

What do you notice about the direction of what I’ve listed above? The activities I’ve listed all move in the same direction, from outside me toward me. In other words, they are self-focused. That’s because the question “what brings you life?” is quite self-focused, isn’t it?

I could have listed other activities that are not so self-focused. I enjoy time with my family and friends. I enjoy many aspects of pastoral ministry, and especially time with people and sermon discussion. I enjoy blogging. These all bring me life.

My point is that we humans tend to have a mixture of focus on self and others, all of which can bring us life.

So let’s reflect a bit more on self-focus that is inherent in the question “What brings you life?” In pointing out that self-focus, I am not suggesting that self-focus is always wrong. There is a proper, healthy, biblical self-focus. However, observers have pointed out, rightly I think, that American culture, including our understanding of Christian discipleship, can be overly self-focused, individualistic, personal.

That’s why I am looking forward to the blog post this coming week. Kirk Marks will be continuing the blog series, Relationships in the Church, this coming week taking a look at what the Bible says about “Speaking Life to One Another.” Notice the direction of that title. It’s the opposite direction of the question, “What brings you life?” When we think about the act of speaking life to another, we are moving in the direction from ourselves to the other. So how do we speak life to one another? We’ll get started this coming Monday.

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What do you think about End Times Prophecy? – Q & A, Part 5

This week we take a break from our Relationships in the Church series. At Faith Church this past week I gave a Q & A sermon. I asked the congregation for questions ahead of time, and then I attempted to bring biblical theology to bear on their questions. Here’s the next question:

What is Faith Church’s position on “End Times Prophecy” in relation to where we are today, and can we expect a sermon series on it?

Our position on End Times Prophecy is that of our denomination, the Evangelical Congregational Church. The EC Church has 25 Articles of Faith, and while those articles don’t have a singular statement on End Times Prophecy, they do suggest the following:

In Article 2 “Of Jesus Christ,”: “He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, wherein He abideth, our great High-Priest and King, and must reign until all things are put in subjection under Him.“

In Article 15 “Of the Resurrection,”: “Christ did truly rise from the dead and took again his own body and ascended into heaven. Likewise, all the dead shall be raised up by the power of God through Christ, both the just and the unjust; but those who have done good shall come forth unto an eternal life of glory, and those who have wrought wickedness shall be adjudged to everlasting punishment.”

In Article 16 “Of the Final Judgment,”: “God has appointed a day in which He will judge all men by Jesus Christ, to whom is committed the judgment of this world. We must all, accordingly, appear before the judgment seat of Christ who will judge in righteousness in accordance with the gospel and our response thereto.“

In Article 17 “Of Heaven,”: “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has provided for those who are redeemed by His grace a heavenly and eternal rest, into which He purposes ultimately to gather them and dwell with them in unspeakable glory. There shall be no more sorrow, pain, or death, and the glorified saints shall see God and walk in His light forever.”

As you can imagine, if there is a statement about heaven, there is also Article 18 “Of Hell,” but in my opinion it doesn’t add anything to the statements above. I find those statements above to be rather vague when it comes to the end times, and I am glad for that. Why? Because biblical teaching about End Times Prophecy is notoriously difficult to interpret and conflicted. I appreciate my denomination’s approach.

When it comes to interpreting biblical End Time Prophecy, I believe it is best to summarize that all we can be sure of is that Jesus is coming again. We don’t know when. We won’t know when. We should stop trying to figure it out. Preachers and prophets who focus on the end times are often misguided, deceiving themselves into believing they can figure out the future, thus deceiving others. It seems to me that Christians can become addicted, getting something of an emotional high off end times prophecy. As with any addiction, I believe we need to break free from an addiction to end times prophecy. Instead, we would do well to base our lives on what Jesus taught, “No one knows the day, time or hour,” (Matthew 24:36), and that’s why he taught numerous parables guiding his disciples to be ready for his return at all times.

But some may respond, “What about the Book of Revelation and all it’s amazing imagery about the future? The end times is biblical. We should study it.” Personally, I believe the best way to read the book of Revelation is the preterist interpretational method. The preterist approach asks, “What did Revelation mean to the people who first read it?” Revelation was written by John the apostle, likely in the late first century, 90-100 CE. The church in many places around the Roman Empire at the time was facing persecution, and John was the last remaining disciple. He’s thinking about passing on the faith the next generation. Without anyone left alive who actually knew Jesus, how would the next generation of Christians remain faithful, especially considering that they were facing persecuted? Try to read the book of Revelation from that perspective. Avoid trying to read the book of Revelation as some kind of script for the end times.

I know there is a war in Israel, a war in Ukraine, and numerous other conflicts across the globe, as I write this in early 2024. That doesn’t mean we’re in the end times. World War 2 was a million times worse than what we’re going through. That wasn’t the end times either. We need to stop speculating about whether we are in the end times. Instead, I encourage you to focus your energy on Jesus’ mission in the here and now, to make disciples, to know and love our neighbors. To love God and love people. To bring God’s heart for justice to the world around us. To introduce people to new life in Jesus, who offers them the hope of eternal life and the experience of abundant life.

And no, I have no plans on doing a series on end times prophecy. 🙂

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Is revival a biblical concept? – Q & A, Part 4

Is revival a biblical concept? What is it and how does it manifest itself? Does the church in America, do we as individuals, need revival? If so, what, exactly, do we pray for and look for?

I remember a conversation I had with my brother when I was in college. I had taken a class on discipleship, and so the importance of being a disciple who makes disciples was on my mind. For Christmas my brother gave me a CD of Christian rock artist, Steve Taylor. As we listened to the album, which we both liked, something about the songs led to a discussion about revival. My brother made the very sincere comment that the American church needs revival. Because I had just been taking the discipleship class, I said, “We don’t need revival, we need discipleship.” I wouldn’t make that same claim today. It’s not either/or. I think we need both revival and discipleship.

Yes, revival is biblical! Revival is period of intense spiritual renewal, and we see revival unleashed numerous times in Scripture. Before we look at some descriptions of revival in the New Testament, I think it is important to note that revival is not the same as prolonged worship services. Revival leads to transformation both personally and societally. People who experience intense spiritual renewal choose to live differently. Revival, then, will affect social change. The Great Awakenings in the USA, for example, involved religious gatherings in which people experienced inward spiritual renewal. Then many of those people applied their new inner reality to the social situations of their day, seeking to bring mercy and justice to the injustices of the culture.

Where, then, do we see revival in Scripture. In the ministry of John the Baptist, huge crowds of people came to see this prophet who seemed like a reincarnation of the famous prophet Elijah. But John called people to repent and be baptized in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah. The Spirit was at work in John’s ministry. It was a revival. John didn’t simply call people to change their inner beliefs, though. He called them to social change, to break the chains of injustice.

Then the Messiah arrived, and huge crowds followed him. The Messiah, Jesus, also preached repentance, and he led another revival. We notice very clearly in Jesus as well, as combination of inner belief and social change. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount describes a righteousness that surpasses the so-called righteous spiritual elite of his day, urging people to live in such a way that they would transform their society. His parable of the Sheep and the Goats is a clear example of his evidence of reaching those on the margins, and in so doing they would ministering to him.

Finally in Acts 2:41, on the first day of the church, right after the Holy Spirit filled the 120 followers of Jesus, both men and women, they boldly declared the story of Jesus, and we read that 3000 people were added to their number. Immediately, the account in Acts describes not only their spiritual beliefs, which were passionate, but also the church has a deeply selfless approach toward loving one another, especially those in deep social need. In Acts 6 we read about their system for caring for widows, for example.

In Scripture, then, when revival occurs, it leads to be spiritual and social transformation. But Jesus shows us that while revival can and does occur, revival is not the normal pattern of God’s work in humanity. I believe we can and should pray for revival, but we do not sit on our hands waiting for it. God does not promise revival as his normative means of working in the world. Instead, Jesus calls us to make disciples and bring justice to our cultures.

The ministry of disciple-making should be our normative passion and focus. We disciples make disciples as our daily observance of the mission of Jesus. We make disciples by investing in other people’s lives, living them, training them, mentoring them, coaching them, teaching them to follow the way of Jesus in their real day-to-day lives. Walking in community with people, having conversation with them about what Jesus is doing in their day to day lives. That’s all part of being disciples who make disciples.

So while we are right to pray “Spirit, bring revival to our land,” what we actually do while we wait for revival is make disciples.

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Does evil and suffering in the world negate a loving, all-powerful God? – Q & A, Part 3

As Christians, how do we effectively respond to the very valid question by those who say that a good and loving God would never allow all the terrible things that happen in this world?

First of all, I agree that this is a very valid question. It’s a serious question, and an important question. We Christians should treat those asking the question with great respect. We need to be careful that we don’t become jaded about people who ask this question. Frankly, in our quiet moments I think nearly all Christians wonder about this too.

Second of all, it is a very difficult question. While I believe there are some good answers, I do not believe there are any deeply satisfying answers. In other words, I think the best approach to this question is honest humility that says, “I don’t know that I will be able to give you a satisfying answer.” I don’t believe there is an answer that is so good, so helpful, so truthful that when people asking this question hear the answer they will say, “Amazing! I never thought about that! God is awesome. Jesus is the way the truth and the life, and I am a Christian now. Thank you for sharing that with me. You’ve changed my life.” If there was an answer that good, we would have heard about it already.

There is no home run answer like that. There are, however, options. After saying to the questioner, “I don’t know,” I think we can say, “I believe it is possible to believe in both a loving, all-powerful God and the presence of evil in the world.” How so? Here’s where my answer is going to become very dissatisfying.

Let me bring up a theological word: Theodicy. Theodicy is a word that refers to an attempt to defend the concept of a loving, all-powerful God at the same time as there is evil and suffering in the world. Some people say you cannot have both. If God is loving and all-powerful, by definition, they say there cannot be evil or suffering. Because there is obviously evil and suffering in the world, by definition God cannot be loving and all-powerful. Something has to give, they say. Maybe God is loving, but not all-powerful. Or maybe God is all-powerful, but not loving. Or maybe there is no God.

Theodicy is an attempt to solve this very thorny problem. We Christians declare that it is entirely logically consistent to believe in an all-powerful, loving God while there is evil and suffering in the world, and many people in the world hear that and think we are out of our minds. Theodicy says “No, we’re not out of our minds, and here’s why.”

There are numerous theodicies, but the one I find most plausible is based on Free Will. Free will theodicy says that God, in his desire to have real loving relationships with humans, created us in his image to have some level of agency, choice, free will. Remove free will and humans are basically like robots following their programming or like animals following instinct. No real choice, no real love. But God wanted real loving relationships with us, so he created humanity with free will. Hear the beauty in that: God wants a real relationship with us, real relationship that involves conversation, choice, interaction, us choosing him.

This was risky, however, on God’s part. The risk was that his created humans could use their free will to choose to do what he did not want them to do. We could choose to do very bad things to each other and to our world. But unless God wanted to make robots, then God would have to open the door to the possibility of evil and suffering. Free will suggests that it was God’s love that opened the door to real relationships and at the same time it opened the door to suffering. Free will says there is no other way.

You might think, that makes sense. God in his love wanted loving relationships. That desire for loving relationships is so good, so valuable, that it is worth the possibility of evil and suffering in the world. Problem solved.

Problem not solved. Why? Because there is so, so much evil and suffering in the world, and it is awful. It is horribly, horribly, horrible. The free will problem can make God, then, seem like he unleashed a nuclear chain reaction of radioactive waves that would ravage the world, just so he could have a loving relationship with people. That sounds monstrous. I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do about it. I think free will theodicy is one of the best answers we’ve got, and I also think it is brutal.

And I haven’t even mentioned the related issues. Stories like the Flood where God destroys nearly the whole world. Stories like the Israelite conquest passages where God commands his people to destroy not just enemy soldiers, but every man, woman, child, and even animals. Stories like the interpretation of hell as a place where God sends people to experience conscious torment for eternity. You can see how people can have a major problem with God. That’s why I started by suggesting that this is an important question we need to think about.

What then do we do with all the evil, pain, hurt and suffering in the world? Let’s pause and stare at Jesus. I simply have to say that I don’t know how to give a good, deeply satisfying answer to the problem of evil. But I can point people to Jesus. Loving, merciful, gracious, selfless Jesus. Jesus is God who enters into our pain, lives in the pain and experiences evil and wickedness on his body, to the point of death. Why? Just to say “I now know what you are going through?” No, to defeat sin, death and the devil through his resurrection. To give us new life hope of both eternal life with him in heaven where there will be no more pain, sorrow or tears, and also to give us his Spirit to live with us, so that we can experience and promote abundant flourishing life in the here and now.

Let’s look to the promise that within the evil and pain of this world, God promises to never leave us alone. He is with us. My own family has experienced God’s peace that passes understanding in the midst of pain and hardship. I suspect you could say the same. God created us to live in community, with one another, and when we are living like that, we embody him and his love and his heart to one another.

I think a loving, all-powerful God is real. I think free will is real. That means there will be sin and suffering. But praise God that Jesus is real, his birth, life, death and resurrection are real, and there is hope of new life for all.

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Should women be pastors? – Q & A, Part 2

What do you think about the role of women in ministry?

The debate about the role of women in ministry has come up numerous times on the blog when I’ve written about passages such as 1st Corinthians 11, Titus 1, and others. Because of that, I’m hoping my response below isn’t a surprise to long-time readers. In fact, some of what I write below is just a copy and paste from those other posts. I also include some new thoughts and resources.

There are two major perspectives on the role of women in ministry. The complementarian view and the egalitarian view.

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 ways 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.

Many denominations are complementarian in the sense that they will only license and ordain men to pastoral ministry. Why? In 1^st Corinthians 11, Paul writes in verse 3: “I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

Even more clearly, in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul writes, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

Seems like an open and shut case. Except there’s numerous New Testament teaching from the other perspective. Jesus had numerous women disciples, including Mary and her sister Martha. When Martha scolded her sister Mary for not doing the women’s work, but instead sitting at Jesus’ feet to receive teaching, which was men’s work, Jesus stopped Martha and said, “Mary has chosen rightly.” In the Gospel accounts it is the women disciples who are there with Jesus at the cross, with one exception, John. All the other men ran away. It is the women who discover Jesus arisen, and it is the women who first proclaim the good news that “He’s alive.”

The Old Testament prophet Joel prophesied that when the Holy Spirit arrived, men and women would prophesy. The Holy Spirit arrived in Acts chapter 2, and Peter quoted that very passage from the prophet Joel, and Peter said that passage was fulfilled right before their eyes. Both men and women ministering. In Romans 16:3 Paul greets Priscilla, a woman whom he calls his co-worker. In Romans 16:7 he greets Junia, a woman who was in prison with Paul, who he says is outstanding among the apostles. I could list more.

So then, why did Paul tell the women to be quiet, submissive, such as in 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2? There is much scholarly debate about exactly what was going on in the Christian communities of Corinth and Ephesus (Timothy was in Ephesus). Women might have been taking their freedom in Christ too far. Women might have been influenced by pagan worship. It seems that Paul is suggesting that the churches in those towns pursue something that I call missional expediency. Missional expediency is the principle of submitting one’s freedoms to the mission of the Kingdom. What is best for the mission? Do that.

Paul uses the principle of missional expediency, for example, when he writes that the Christians should not be circumcised (see Galatians and Romans), but then he requires Timothy to be circumcised (see Acts 16:3). Is Paul a hypocrite, self-contradictory? No. He is using the principle of missional expediency. The mission of the Kingdom is the goal, and to preserve the mission, he does one thing in one cultural setting, and he does the opposite in another cultural setting. This is not inconsistent in Paul’s thinking because he is consistently applying the principle of missional expediency in both situations.

When applied to women in ministry, it seems Paul is saying that in Corinth and Ephesus, it was most missionally expedient for the women to abide by the patriarchal culture. Paul didn’t want the mission, the church to be compromised. So the women in those towns should practice a complementarian approach. Paul clearly does not use that approach in Rome or in the churches in Galatia. Furthermore, there are legitimate ways to interpret even the seemingly guaranteed complementarian passages as not so guaranteed. See, for example, the work of Nijay Gupta in his book Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught and Ministered in the Early Church.

Perhaps complementarians will not agree with Gupta’s interpretation. Granted. The principle of missional expediency remains. Notice also that when writing to the Christian community in Corinth, Paul embeds egalitarian teaching in his statements. He says in 1^st Corinthians 11:11-12, “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”

That’s egalitarian teaching right in the middle of complementarian teaching. Right in the center of the passage, verses 11-12, he clearly explains that men and women are equal in God’s eyes, which would have been a radical notion for the men of that culture. What is Paul doing? 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.

Once again, notice how Paul is using the principle of missional expediency. Though asking the women to maintain a complementarian approach to the role of women in ministry in their immediate cultural situation, Paul includes 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 a future egalitarian society. In Galatians 3:26, he does the same when he says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, but all are one.

Imagine with me, therefore, a different culture, one that doesn’t have patriarchal approach, a culture where men and women are equal? Can you think of any cultures trying to be like that? Any cultures where men and women have equal access and opportunity?

I think I know a place like that. American Christians, we live in a culture like that. As do many other Christians around the world. I’m not saying that contemporary egalitarian cultures are perfectly egalitarian. I suspect that all cultures need to work on becoming more equal. But if he had lived and ministered in an egalitarian culture, I believe that Paul would have taught equality in gender roles in the church. Because we live in one of those cultures where men and women are equal, I believe it is most faithful have gender equality in the American church.

As a result, I believe we should be concerned about marginalizing women from full participation in mission while we live in a culture that is egalitarian. While I respect the complementarian position as having biblical grounding, I believe the complementarian position is counter-missional in an egalitarian culture. In other words, I believe the complementarian position is detrimental to the mission of the Kingdom in an egalitarian culture. We American Christians, as with any Christians who live in egalitarian cultures, should utilize the principle of missional expediency and promote egalitarianism in our churches. I believe egalitarianism not only has a strong biblical foundation, but is also missionally expedient in our culture. We should ordain and license women to pastoral ministry, to full access in our churches.

The debate about the role of women in ministry made a big splash in recent years in the Southern Baptist Church, when the SBC removed famous megachurch Saddleback from its membership after Saddleback hired a female pastor. Check out this interview with Saddleback pastor Rick Warren in which he explains how he changed from his long-held complementarian view to become egalitarian.

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