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On April 18, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Me-Time & Maturity

Children are born believing that everyone around them is there to serve them. I suppose that this would have been true even before the fall. They are entirely dependent upon everyone else, and when they make a need known, someone is there to serve them. That would have happened in a world without sin. But when you add sin to this creation reality, selfishness is the result. This sinfulness is the foolishness bound up in a child’s heart from birth (Pr 22:15).

One aspect of maturing is gaining a sense of otherness; the whole world is not all about me, but I am to be serving others. Serving others involves putting others’ genuine needs above my personal comforts. The greatest example of this is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ. When instructing the Philippians to look not only to one’s own interests but also for the interests of others, Paul turns immediately to Christ’s self-emptying at the cross that secured our salvation (Phil 2:1-8). He follows this up later with examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus. Each gave himself in particular ways for the needs of others, following Christ’s example.

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On April 11, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Adulting

“Adulting is hard. I just can’t today.” “Adulting. Horrible. Would not recommend.” These and other similar sentiments have been popular over the past ten to fifteen years. People don’t want to grow up. Growing up means more responsibility, and responsibility means work, and work means that I don’t get to have “me-time” and do all the fun things I want to do. Refusal to mature or mature with joy and dignity is evident throughout Western culture. Young men don’t want to take on the responsibility of a wife and children. They will use every excuse in the book not to try to find a wife. The red-pill masculinity gurus recite the numbers concerning the bias against men in family court, so men retreat to staying children the rest of their lives, afraid to take risks. Young women with the fantasy of having innumerable choices of men because of all the connections they have on social media refuse to “settle” for anything less than the top one percent of men and neglect to take on the responsibility of being a wife and mother. Men and women get on social media and give their sob stories about how having a job and paying bills is hard. They don’t know if they can take it. Adulting is hard.

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On April 4, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

War & Peace

When President Biden declared Easter Sunday “Transgender Visibility Day,” American Christians took to social media platforms to express their outrage at a blatant finger in the eye to Christ and his church. It is not enough that the White House pushes this LGBTQ+ agenda throughout the year, giving an entire month to celebrate these sins that disorder and destroy. Now, they are trying to re-order the Christian calendar, which has set the rhythms of American life from its earliest days. The agenda is clear: we are at war with the Christian faith and want to see its vestiges wiped out of our society. People hate God. They don’t hate the concept of “god.” They don’t hate certain gods. They hate the God who has revealed himself in the Person of Jesus. The one true and living God.

Hatred of God runs deeper than you might think. What the Biden administration did is obvious hostility, but the truth is that hatred of God is endemic to all humans, including you.

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On March 30, 2024 By In Theology, Wisdom, Worship

How God Became King: Where Is God?

Holy Saturday seems to be that day that is lost within all the Holy Week observances. We go through the feast of Maundy Thursday, the solemn vigil of Good Friday, and then we simply wait around for Resurrection Sunday morning. But what happened Saturday? Well, not much. But that is actually the point, and it deserves some attention.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear about events that happen in between Friday and Sunday, what, on the church calendar, is called Holy Saturday. We know the end of the story. We anticipate the end of the story. And well we should because Matthew has given us explicit statements of Jesus as well as hints of anticipation throughout his record of Jesus’ life. But all of this occurs in history, which means that it takes time. Sometimes we want to jump over this part and immediately start reading the final chapter. If we do, we miss an important part of the gospel story and the opportunity to understand just a little better how God works.

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On March 29, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

How God Became King: The Death of the Son of Man

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem deliberately announcing his kingship. He tells his disciples to go find a certain donkey with her colt and untie them. Garments and palm branches line his way while children cry out to him in prayer and praise for salvation all with Jesus’ approval. Jesus’ statement was bold, to say the least. Through his conscientious actions, he announced his kingship. He knew the crowds gathering for Passover would make these connections as well. Worshipers certainly did. They were calling him the Son of David, God’s Messiah, the one whom Psalm 2 declares will rule the nations with a rod of iron and Psalm 110 says sits at Yahweh’s right hand. The Jewish leaders made the connections as well, especially when he took up his kingly calling to cleanse the Temple.

Jesus is King, and he has come to take back what Adam so willingly handed over to the serpent. The serpent will not give up what was given to him without a fight. That’s alright. Jesus came to fight and win. His war strategy still befuddles the minds of many, but it was and remains effective.

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On March 28, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

How God Became King: Ritualized Love

Jesus commanded his disciples on this night to “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus gave this command in the context, not only of washing the disciples’ feet, but also in the establishment of the Lord’s Supper (something that John only alludes to).

The Lord’s Supper, anticipating the cross and resurrection, is ritualized love. To say that it is “ritual” doesn’t mean that it is empty, a mere rote repetition of what Jesus commands us to do. God’s rituals, formed by his word, are creative; God’s rituals form us into people he wants us to be through the words and actions that he prescribes. Responding in faith means submitting to the ritual in totality. This includes meditating on what you are doing and seeking to conform your life to the meaning.

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On March 21, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

Palm Sunday: The King. The Healer.

“Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known” (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 8, emphasis original). After the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Faramir, the new steward of Gondor, lay at the point of death and was being grieved by an old wife, Ioreth, the eldest woman in the houses of healing. She longed for a king because kings had the ability to heal. To her surprise, the king arrived. He didn’t have the appearance of a king, but his kingship was revealed in his healing powers.

Some believe Tolkien references Medieval lore that English and French kings had healing powers. Others posit that he is making an apparent reference to the kingship of Jesus. Even if Jesus’ kingship wasn’t at the forefront of Tolkien’s mind, Aragorn’s healing powers as king are an echo of the Great King.

When the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, cries out for healing, he calls out to the Son of David, the king of Israel, to heal him (Mk 10:47). Why would he call for the king of Israel to heal him? Because he knew that the hands of the king were the hands of a healer. Isaiah prophesies that the servant of Yahweh, the king, will heal the land, open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf (Isa 35:1, 4, 5; see also 42:7). The king is revealed by his healing powers.

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On March 7, 2024 By In History, Politics, Theology

As Far As The Curse Is Found

“… and through him to reconcile all things to him, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him whether things upon earth or things in the heavens.”

~Colossians 1:20

The question of the extent of the effects of the atonement has been a point of debate in the church for quite some time. Did Jesus die to make salvation possible for everyone (general or universal atonement), or did Jesus die to secure salvation for God’s elect alone (particular or limited atonement)? This debate got hot and heavy in the seventeenth century when a group called the Remonstrants developed five articles concerning salvation that included universal atonement. The Synod of Dordt responded with what has come to be known as the five points of Calvinism, which includes limited, definite, or particular atonement. (Somewhere between these two were the Amyraldians, who were “four-point Calvinists” because they couldn’t buy into the limited atonement.)

Whenever the extent of the atonement is debated, the focus is usually on individuals’ salvation. But if we only think of the atonement and its effects in terms of individual salvation, what Paul says in Colossians 1:20 is quite confusing. Within Paul’s hymnic poem of Christ, “all things” consistently refers to the cosmic order, things upon earth and things in the heavens, visible and invisible, thrones, lordships, rulers, or authorities (see 1:16). Christ makes peace with the entire created order through the blood of his cross.

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On February 29, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Cosmic Church

What is the church? Is it really all that important? If you ask evangelical Christians in America, you will get a variety of responses. In one survey, when evangelicals were asked whether or not every Christian has an obligation to join a local church, thirty-six percent of the respondents said, “Yes,” and fifty-six percent said, “No.” In another survey, a similar fifty-six percent agreed that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid substitute for regularly attending the worship of the church. Many professing Christians see the church as a good but non-essential part of the Christian life. The church is an aid to my personal relationship with Jesus, but my participation in the church has little to no bearing on my relationship with God and eternal destiny.

Paul disagrees.

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On February 15, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Powerlessness of Fasting

Fasting is on the minds of many Christians around the world at this time because we have entered the season of Lent, a time in the Church Year that, among other things, focuses on Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness. Fasting is encouraged as the church disciples her members to take up their crosses and follow Christ.

Fasting has a long and sometimes muddled history. God has always approved of fasting if it is done within the boundaries and for particular purposes. It can be argued that a form of fasting existed before the fall as God forbade the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for a time. This pre-fall fast was a practice in patience, praying and waiting for the time God would allow them to eat and move into another stage of glory.

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