Hope you are enjoying some time with friends and family today as here in the United States we celebrate Independence Day! Rather than post something about Scripture or theology, I decided to give you a few laughs to help you enjoy your day.
Happy Independence Day!
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Church is Badly Broken
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This is a guest post from Glenn Hager.
Glenn writes at GlennHager.com and sees himself as an advocate for those who on the fringes of society and those challenge the way things are done. You may also connect with Glenn on Facebook or Twitter.
If you would like to write a Guest Post for the Till He Comes Blog, begin by reading the Guest Blogger Guidelines.
I have tried to distill my observations about the church over the last few years into a few bullet points, both to help myself understand what I have been through and to see if any of these conclusions resonate with anyone else.
Church is badly broken
Following Christ has wrongly become equated with supporting an organization that has to be feed with increased attendance, volunteers, and funding.
We have misrepresented Christ with our eagerness to call out sin in society while ignoring the sin of our unloving ways.
We are an insider organization that focuses on ourselves, except (or especially) when we try to get outsiders to come to our building and become like us.
We have been talkers and not doers who have had minimal impact on the lives and communities around us.
The Church is bleeding people like crazy.
Because they have been disappointed so many times, people distrust organizations and leaders.
When honest questions are unwelcomed or glibly rebutted, people become dissatisfied.
When so-called ministry is reduced to a performance and packaged programs, people feel like a consumer or cog in a machine.
Religious service attendance has slipped from 32% (1975) to 24% (2008). America’s third largest group now is “none,” somewhere between 16 and 20 percent of our population. In 1960, this group didn’t even register on the polls. It is projected that “nones” and adherents of other religions will outnumber Christians in the United States by 2042.
A lot of people who embrace Jesus are trying to “be the church” without any affiliation with an actual organization.
Why Am I Not Soaring?
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This is a guest post from Jake Ainsworth.
Jake is a worship leader and speaker in his church and writes at Christ is my Author.
If you would like to write a Guest Post for the Till He Comes Blog, begin by reading the Guest Blogger Guidelines.
Recently, I experienced a job loss. The resulting loss of income forced me to move my family from our home. As a man, I was devastated and demoralized.
My life verse has always been Isaiah 40:31, “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (ESV)
When I had to sit down with my landlords and tell them that I couldn’t pay them, I didn’t feel very lifted up. My strength certainly did not feel renewed. I felt weary, like I was fainting on the path that life was leading me. And I couldn’t understand why. Why wasn’t God fulfilling the promise that I had called on so many times in my life? Why did I feel abandoned and alone?
By God’s grace, I started to study my life verse. I needed to know that answer to my question: Why? One of the most useful things I have ever learned about studying the Bible is that I need to go back to the root of the text, find out what it meant in the original language. So I grabbed my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and began to dig in.
What I found floored me. The Hebrew word for ‘wait’ is qavah, which literally means to bind together as in a rope. This does not mean to tie something to a tree. It means to take smaller strands and weave them together to make one solid rope.
The revelation hit me like a freight train. The reason I wasn’t feeling lifted up or renewed is because I had an obligation in that verse as well. Isaiah says that the ones who receive the renewing of strength and the lifting up on wings like eagles are those who wait on the Lord.
I had been looking at this all wrong. How could I expect God to bless me and help me through tough times when I don’t even acknowledge Him unless I’m in trouble? So I began to apply what I had learned from my studying. I started weaving God into every aspect of my life: the good, bad, ugly, and everything in between.
Giving our Children to the Lord
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This is a guest post from Ken Myers. Ken is the founder of Longhorn Leads & has learned over the years the importance of focusing on what the customer is looking for and literally serving it to them. He doesn’t try to create a need, instead he tries to satisfy the existing demand for information on products and services.
If you would like to write a Guest Post for the Till He Comes Blog, begin by reading the Guest Blogger Guidelines.
As a Christian parent especially with older children it is often a dilemma knowing how much to say or do when it comes to correcting or giving advice. I have heard on many occasions from different pastors or teachers that you should not correct your children after the age of eighteen, that if they ask you for advice this is the only time you should say anything. I do not know about the rest of the parents out there but I have a very difficult time doing this, especially if the child is still living with me.
I have been talking a lot to the Lord lately about what He wants me to do in regards to my son. He is a young man of twenty who still lives with me while attending a local college. He has gotten into some trouble in the past few years but by God’s great grace he is being drawn by the Holy Spirit into a more intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a work in progress however and it is very difficult for me to keep my opinions to myself.
The Lord has been revealing to me as of late that it is “…not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord” (Zech 4:6). There is nothing I can say or do except live a godly life before my son. Oh, there are rules that need to be followed in my home but as for any advice or correction I can give him for things he does outside of the home I have to leave those things for the Lord to handle. All my anxiety and fear building up and spilling out all over my son does nothing to please the Lord or help my son.
Goodbye to Google Reader
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For the last eight years, I have done most of my blog reading on Google Reader.
But now Google is pulling the plug on Google Reader!
Today is the last day of its existence.
Tomorrow will be the end of Google Reader.
In the words of my favorite Monty Python sketch,
Google Reader has passed on! Google Reader is no more! It has ceased to be! It is expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It’s pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now history! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleeding choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-FEED-READER!
If you use Google Reader, I hope you have found an alternative by now! If not, I have a few suggestions at the bottom of this post….
When I first found out Google was shuttering Google Reader, I was shocked, disappointed, and even a little upset. Of all the things for Google to shut down, why Google Reader? It couldn’t have been that expensive or difficult to maintain…
The reason I used Google Reader is because I read a lot blogs. I mean A LOT. Hundreds. This would be impossible to do without some sort of service like Google Reader which pulls all the blog posts together into one place and lets me know on one simple screen when new posts have been published from the various blogs I am interested in reading.
Of course, I don’t literally read every post from every blog I have subscribed to…. I treated my Google Reader page like my own personal newspaper. I decided which writers I wanted to write for my newspaper, and then subscribed to their blogs. When they wrote new articles, Google Reader would give me the title of their post (like a newspaper headline) and the opening line or two. I could quickly and easily scan through hundreds of articles and pick the 5-10 that sounded interested for me to read that day over a cup of coffee.
I not only read blogs about Scripture, church, and theology this way, but also obtained my world and local news, learned tips and tricks about blogging, gained insights into writing and publishing, and even subscribed to a few blogs which were purely for humor (you know, like the comic section of your newspaper).
So when Google announced they were closing Google Reader, it was like your favorite newspaper (if you still get one) announcing that they were going to stop publishing. How was I going to stay updated on all the blogs I read? How was I going to keep up with current events? How was I going to remember which blogs I was reading?
Anyway, I found two alternatives…. both of which you can use if you are a regular reader of this blog.
Get Email Updates
First, there are a few blogs which I read almost every time they post. For these, I went and subscribed to their blogs so that I would get regular daily email updates in my email inbox. The nice thing about doing this is that bloggers who offer email subscriptions often give “insider news” and special updates or offers to their newsletter subscribers. I often get free books this way and advance notices about special trainings or webinars that are helpful as an author and blogger.
If you would like to subscribe to my blog through email, I offer similar things to my newsletter subscribers. You can choose to get daily updates or a weekly summary of my blog posts. And just for signing up you get a FREE digital copy of Skeleton Church, and then every time I put out a new eBook, you get a free digital copy of that book as well.
In fact, I am only a couple of weeks away from putting out my next free eBook, so if you subscribe now, you will get two free eBooks in the span of a month or so.
A Guide for Reading and Understanding Paul
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Whenever I teach classes on theology or Bible study methods, I always remind my students that there are 5 rules to understanding Scripture:
- Context.
- Context
- Context
- Context
- Context
This list could easily be expanded to 10 rules or more.
When studying the Bible, it is impossible to spend too much time learning the context, not just the context of the verses within the paragraph and book of the Bible, but also the historical and cultural contexts of the passage within history, the grammatical context of the meaning of the words and the way words are used, and even the theological and traditional contexts of how the passage has been read, understood, and interpreted throughout the centuries.
So I am always looking for books and resources which will help me understand the context of Scripture. Kregel Academic recently sent me a book by John D. Harvey entitled, Interpreting the Pauline Letters. It is an introduction to some of the contextual issues and interpretive principles that are necessary for reading, understanding, and teaching the letters of Paul in the New Testament.
Overall I found the book helpful, though it primarily touched on academic interests of the Pauline letters, and not the contextual studies which might help people today understand the significance of Paul’s letters for our own lives.
For example, the chapter on “The Historical Background of Paul’s Letters” would have been a great chapter to provide details about the historical events, cultural issues, and sociological concerns of Paul’s day which led to him writing what he did in his letters. These issues would have helped the average Christian connect with Paul and his message on a personal level. But the chapter included very little of these details, and instead focused on issues of whether or not the books were really written by Paul, and if so, which order he wrote them in. You see? Those are questions that academics concern themselves with, but which have little interest or bearing in the lives of the average person.
Bloody Jesus
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A few nights ago I was talking with my incredibly smart and beautiful wife about the violence of God in Scripture and how we can interpret both in light of Jesus Christ, and we realized that in some ways, Christianity has fallen into the same trap that Judaism fell into so many years ago.
Before Jesus came (and in fact, even today) when Jewish people read their Hebrew Scriptures and saw a violent God doing violent things, they projected this onto their expectations for what the Messiah would be and do when He finally came. They saw a violent God, and so were looking for a violent Messiah. They wanted a Messiah who would throw off Roman rule, would slay the enemies, kill the wicked, and banish all the unrighteous into eternal pits of darkness and gloom.
This was partly why the Jewish religious leaders rejected Jesus as the Messiah. He did not fit the bill! He did not live up to their expectations. He did not match what they read in the Bible. He did not fulfill the expectations, promises, and prophecies of what the Messiah would do when He came. And in fact, on numerous occasions, Jesus flat-out told them that the reason He was not doing these things is because they had misread and misinterpreted their Scriptures.
Hmmm…. now take those two paragraphs and substitute in what Christians think about the second coming of Jesus….
By an amazing twist of hermeneutical skill, we Christians have learned to nod our heads at both Jewish and Christian interpretations of Scripture.
We say, “The Jewish interpretation and understanding of God was correct. They just got the timing all wrong. God is violent and bloody, and so is the Messiah. But Jesus didn’t come the first time to kill all the sinners; He will do that when He comes again. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! Let the bloodbath begin!”
God Sometimes Withdraws Protection
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Frequently, due to sin, rebellion, and the other factors, God simply withdraws His protective hand and allows sin, Satan, and chaos to have their way.
Everything we have seen in the Chaos Theory leads up to this final point. God has incarnated Himself into the world in such a way that He gives away aspects of true freedom and power to His creatures to do with it what they will. But when we misuse this freedom and power, God does not (indeed cannot) simply stop the ways we abuse our freedom and power, for then it would no longer be genuine freedom or power.
As a result of our rebellious decisions and misuse of power, nature flies out of control and creates chaos all around us. Satan, who is at war with God and His creation, seeks to destroy anything that comes from God or aligns itself with God. And wherever sin is found, it eats away at everything it touches. Through His incarnation and by His infinite wisdom and foreknowledge, God slows the death and decay down, and rescues those who are perishing in sin and destruction, but frequently, due the nature of sin, the consequences of abused freedom, and the misuse of power, God cannot stop the natural results of rebellion. When this happens, nature falls into chaos, the destroyer destroys, and sin brings death.
When humans persist in sin despite God’s frequent attempts to call them toward obedience and to warn them of what will happen if they continue down the path they are on, there comes a point where sometimes, God simply withdraws His hand of protection and allows people to suffer the consequences for their sin, for chaos to reign, and for Satan to bring death and destruction. I have put this principle last because I think that this element of the Chaos Theory is the last resort for God.
When bad things happen to us in life, we should not be too quick to believe that God has withdrawn His hand of protection, but instead, should go first consider some of the other elements of the Chaos Theory as possible explanations for what has happened to us. So also with some of the terrible events in Scripture. We must not be too quick to say that God has withdrawn His protection from a certain person or place so that sin, death, and the devil can have their way.
Then I Will Know Fully, As I Am Fully Known
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In my recent series on trying to understand the violent passages of Scripture in the Old Testament in light of the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, I have the nagging sense in the back of my brain that all our theories and ideas on this subject (and in many other areas of theology as well) are about on par with a dog trying to figure out what humans are doing when they sit around talking, playing a card game, or just watching TV.
A dog can understand bits and pieces, I suppose, but they have very little idea about speech, electricity, rules of games, logical thought, or many of the other things that make us human.
I suppose that in some ways, all our speculative theology is little more than comic relief for God. You know… when we have a hard day, it is enjoyable to sit down a read a funny book or watch a humorous sitcom. I wonder if, when God has a hard century of running the universe, He gathers the angels together and says, “Let’s see what crazy idea Jeremy Myers wrote about on his blog today! Ha ha ha! That’s rich! Hilarous! So funny!”
God is not mocking, of course. But I imagine He sometimes laughs at our feeble attempts to understand Him and His ways.
But I don’t think it was supposed to be this way. I think that as a result of the fall, we lost much of our ability to understand and interact with Him, this world, and one another. I think that as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, and as a natural consequences of living spiritually separated from God for so long, we have lost much of our capacity to know God.
But when Jesus Christ returns, Paul says that we will know Him, just as we are fully known (1 Cor 13:12). I wonder what that will be like? We will be given back some “senses” that we didn’t know even existed?
Satan seeks only to Destroy
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Another explanation for why bad things happen in this world is that Satan is seeking to destroy the things of God.
Satan is Legalistic
Satan knows that it is we whom God loves, that it is we whom God created this world for, and it is we with whom God seeks to have fellowship and relationship. So as an attack on God, Satan seeks to attack and destroy us. He does this through a variety of means. Sometimes Satan accuses us, condemns us, and brings charges against us before God, demanding that justice be served (Rev 12:10). Satan is the ultimate legalist and seeks to destroy our lives by demanding that the punishment required by the law be brought down upon our heads.
Satan Encourages Harm to Nature
Aside from seeking our destruction through a legalistic application of the law of God, Satan also uses his power and influence in this world to create chaos and conflict, inspire hatred and hostility, and instigate violence and bloodshed. All the wars, murders, rapes, and abuse in the world have been influenced by Satanic forces in some way or another. Certainly, much of the blame for these things lie at the feet of mankind, but Satan encourages these destructive behaviors and fans the flames of proud and arrogant men arguing over land, possessions, privilege, and power. Satan seeks only to destroy . War, bloodshed, and fighting are among his favorite methods.
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