Archives - Redeeming God

I met with my friend and fellow blogger Tim Nichols last night. He writes over at Full Contact Christianity, and is a professor at Rocky Mountain Bible College & Seminary.

We talked about a variety of topics, but mostly about the process of redeeming culture in a missions environment. When a missionary takes the gospel into a foreign culture, it is not just a matter of transplanting American Christianity into this foreign setting, although this is the way it has most often been done. Most often, American missionaries take our hymns, buildings, clothing, and leadership structures and tried to get foreign believers in the new culture to adopt these customs.

This results in foreign churches that are dependent upon American churches and missionaries for most of the things related to Christian life and practice. This is extremely destructive and debilitating for these new Christians and new churches.

So Tim Nichols is working to develop a way of teaching foreign churches how to “find their own way,” and even, in a sense, develop their own theology. It is exciting what he is doing, and I cannot wait to hear more.

One of the things he said near the end of our conversation was something he finds himself praying as he gets involved in church practices that he doesn’t quite agree with. This is what he prays: “Lord, I believe this is wrong. Bless it anyway.”

I like that. I think I’m going to incorporate it into my philosophy of ministry. It may even be the key idea which eventually allows me to pursue ministry within a traditional church setting.

Defiant Joy

By Jeremy Myers

Disclosure: I reviewed this book as part of the BookSneeze program.

31 Million Sex Slaves

By Jeremy Myers

12 Comments

Today is Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Below, I suggest one simple step for you to get involved in stopping human trafficking. Please read on to find out what it is.

Worldwide, there are an estimated 31 million people trafficked as sex slaves every single year. Of that number, at least 3 million are children. Many of these children will be raped 30, 40, even 50 times per day. And yes, this happens right here in the United States. It happens in big cities and small towns. It probably happens within a few blocks of where you live.

How can we sit back and not be concerned?

Oh, I know. I’ve heard the excuses. I used them myself. The most common excuse is this: “The problem is so big, and it’s been going on forever. We can’t do anything to stop it.”

So does this mean we just let it happen? No! We must do something, however small. But what?

As I wrote this post, I looked down at a cardboard Starbucks coffee cup on my desk. On the side, in bold, green letters, it said, “Every cup can make a difference.” Starbucks is challenging us to recycle. But really, does recycling one cardboard cup make any difference in all the trash and lack of recycling worldwide? Of course not.

But over a lifetime, one person recycling does make a difference. And if a thousand people do it, even better. If a million…well, you get the picture.

The same goes for stopping human sex slavery. Maybe it’s true that we will never eradicate human trafficking. But with a few steps, you can help rescue one or two girls, and I guarantee that your efforts will matter to her.

But few of us are ready to actually go rescue a girl, and even if we wanted to, we don’t know how. So if you want to do something, you can start with something real simple: raise your awareness of the issue. That’s how my wife and I started. And here is what you can do: buy and read one or two of the following books.

Priceless by Tom Davis
Scared by Tom Davis
Renting Lacy by Linda Smith
More than Rice by Pamala Kennedy Chestnut

I have already posted a review of Priceless, and will posting reviews of Renting Lacy, and More than Rice in the near future. Reading a book is not much–about on the scale of recycling one cardboard cup–but it’s a start.

To learn more about Human Trafficking and sex slavery, check out some of these posts:

Human Trafficking Posts

Manifestation of God

By Jeremy Myers

Pagan Prophecies of Christ

By Jeremy Myers

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Various accounts of the Egyptian Book of the Dead state that Horus was a god before he became a man, and that when he was born of the virgin Isis on December 25 in a cave, his birth was announced by a star in the East to three wise men, after which he was carried to Egypt to escape the wrath of the local king.

When he was thirty, Horus was baptized by Anup the Baptizer before gathering twelve disciples and traveling around the countryside teaching and performing miracles like feeding bread to a multitude and walking on water. Finally, he was crucified, buried in a tomb, and later resurrected from the dead.

All of this was written many thousands of years before Jesus ever lived and died. I’ve written about all of this previously, showing that even if these parallels are true, they do not disprove the historical reliability of the Gospels.

But there is more.

Parallel stories in ancient myths do not mean that the Gospel accounts of Jesus are false. It may be just the contrary, that God purposefully chose some of the greatest dreams and desires of all mankind, and in Jesus, made them reality.

This may be one of the greatest truths of the incarnation. It is not just that God became flesh, but that God put into Jesus all of mankind’s greatest dreams and desires. To keep it “orthodox” we might say that even those dreams and desires came from God.

But is such an idea so strange? Can we not imaging that God, both in looking over history through foreknowledge and in creating humankind, put into Jesus the same sort of hopes, dreams, tales and ideas that would fascinate and hold captive the thoughts and hearts of men? Why could it not be so?

When people look for the manifestation of God, they need look no further than their own heart and mind. This is not to say that we are all god. But it would not be wrong to argue that in many ways, we are all God’s. Movies, music, and art all point to the grandeur and majesty of God, even if they first point to the creativity of men. Fiction becomes reality and dreams come to life when the invisible God makes Himself known.

It is as G. K. Chesterton wrote in The Everlasting Man:

The populace have been wrong in many things; but they have not been wrong in believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits of time and space.

Note: This post was submitted as part of a synchroblog at synchroblog.wordpress.com

Hug a Leper

By Jeremy Myers

1 Comment

When I was in India several years ago, many lepers walked the streets and begged. Some were missing ears and legs. Some missed fingers and toes. Unlike what we read in the Gospels, however, they did not stand off at a distance, crying out “Unclean! Unclean!” No, they came right up and touched us. And they kept touching until we either shooed them away or gave them some money.

At first, remembering what the Bible says about leprosy, we were scared to be touched by the lepers, but our trip leader told us not to worry about it. First of all, 95% of the world’s population is naturally immune to leprosy. And most of the 5% who can get it live in tropical, overpopulated, underdeveloped areas like Brazil, China, and India. Aside from this, even if you are susceptible to leprosy, nobody really knows how it is spread, but one common factor is prolonged close contact with someone who has it. You most likely won’t get it if you hug a leper or share a meal with one. But even if by some chance you do contract leprosy, we now have medical treatments available in developed countries like America that can pretty much cure it.

Yet even though we knew we could not get leprosy, it was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. One old lady with leprosy attended a church service I spoke at, and came up to me afterward. With the aid of a translator, she asked me to pray for her — not that she would be healed, but that she would die. That’s not a prayer request you get every day.

But that is how horrible leprosy is. And because it is so horrible, and so little is known about it, lepers are often cast out from society. They are rejected. They are treated like refuse. They are feared. They are despised. They are neglected and scorned.

It is true now, and was especially true in the time of Jesus because of the Jewish purity laws and lack of medicine to do anything about it. And yet, in Luke 5:12-16, we read that Jesus went up to a leper and touched him. This was more than a touch, but was close to a full-body embrace. Such an action showed the leper that he was no longer an outcast. He was accepted. He was loved. Can you imagine the shock that the disciples felt when Jesus did this? Can you imagine the amazement and awe that the leper felt?

Who is like this around you? Who is rejected? Who is despised? Who is overlooked?

What can you do to show them love and acceptance?

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 5:12-16.

Wanted: Link Exchange and Guest Bloggers

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

I’m looking for other bloggers who want to exchange links with me on our blogrolls and guest blog for each other. So if you want to do either (or both), let me know by posting a comment below.

State your name, your blog, and some of the key ideas and themes you blog about. Thanks!

Introduce Yourself

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

Every once in a while, I invite the readers of this blog to introduce themselves. It is how I get to know who you are, and also find other bloggers to read and interact with.

So who are you? What are your interests? Are you a pastor, missionary, seminarian, professor? Are you a parent? Grandparent? College kid? What country do you live in? Do you have a blog? If so, what sorts of things do you blog about?

Also, just so you know, I have turned off the “nofollow” code in this blog so that all blog comments get indexed by search engines and web crawlers. So feel free any time you make a comment to include your blog or web address. It may lead to more traffic for your site.

The Great Derangement

By Jeremy Myers

2 Comments

A liberal friend of mine gave me The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi the other day. Being a conservative Christian, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Yes, that’s right. Matt attacks both conservatives and Christians throughout the book, and I laughed all the way through it. Not because of how wrong he is, but because of how right. I figure that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you shouldn’t believe what you believe. And if you want to laugh, there is almost nothing funnier than his chapter “The Three Longest Days of My Life.” It was so funny I read it three times, once out loud to my wife.

The book is an odd mix of two riot-inciting topics: religion and politics. He takes us inside the inner working of Washington DC, and goes undercover into the Hallelujah-filled halls of John Hagee’s megachurch. And Matt, though he comes from a different perspective than I do, confirmed what I have always suspected: people who are not conservative or Christian think we’re crazy. And I’ll admit it; we are crazy. In fact, for several years now, I cringe at the idea of being called a conservative or a Christian. I suppose in some circles that means I’m neither.

Which brings me to my only criticism of Matt’s book. He seems to imply that all who believe in God and follow Jesus are like the tongue-speaking, demon-vomiting, gay-hating, environment-polluting Christians he encountered at Cornerstone Church. There are some of us who are more like Matt than he realizes. He can argue with me any time he wants. And I promise, I won’t try to cast demons out of him.

Pusher Pastors

By Jeremy Myers

8 Comments

Have you ever noticed how it seems pastors are always trying to get you to attend church more? If you don’t come at all, then you should start coming. One you start coming, you need to be there every Sunday. Once you attend regularly, then you should also attend Sunday night. And on and on it goes, until the “most faithful” members are there Sunday morning for three hours, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Saturday morning, and teach a Tuesday night Bible study in their home.

And at first, they tell you just to attend and “enjoy” the service. But later, they want you to “get involved” and start serving. It’s like the first one is free, but after that, you better start paying for what you’re using.

Is it just me, or do pastors have a lot in common with drug pushers?

Many pastors are only too happy to allow their congregations to depend on church attendance, for attendance addictions fill the pews and the offering plates on Sunday morning. In fact, many pastors reinforce such behavior. In the minds of most church leaders, the “truly committed and faithful followers” of Jesus Christ are those who are at the church whenever the doors are open. I know that I felt this way as a pastor. I expected it of my elders.

Yet such beliefs are not only contrary to reality, they are also contrary to Scripture. There is not a single verse anywhere which says attending church is an indication of spiritual health or that God is using you in mighty ways. It’s just not there. In fact, such a mentality reveals a deep misunderstanding of the purpose and function of the church. Pastors who teach and encourage such behavior not only enable this dependence, but have even become pushers, trying to get more and more people hooked on the drug of church.

To break free, to destroy the dependence, to stop the enablement, pastors may have to do something drastic. Telling people that there is more to following church than showing up at a building for another program or Bible study is simply not enough—especially when the church offers so many programs and Bible studies. It may be that the church needs to follow the example of drug and alcohol rehab centers, and require that people go “cold turkey.” Cancel everything—Sunday services, Bible studies, programs, everything—and see what happens.

If your church cancelled all services and programs for one week, or a month, what do you think would happen?

Full Contact Christianity

Defiant Joy

Disclosure: I reviewed this book as part of the BookSneeze program.

31 Million Sex Slaves

Human Trafficking Posts

Manifestation of God

Pagan Prophecies of Christ

Note: This post was submitted as part of a synchroblog at synchroblog.wordpress.com

Hug a Leper

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 5:12-16.

Wanted: Link Exchange and Guest Bloggers

Introduce Yourself

The Great Derangement

Pusher Pastors

Note: this post is based on a section from the book I am writing, Close Your Church for Good.

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