Within You

Written by Drew on October 16th, 2008

Three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate have concluded, and the pundits are in unanimous agreement over the results. For the most part, if you were in support of Obama before the debates, you are supporting Obama now.  And if you were a McCain supporter prior to the debates, you are probably still supporting McCain.

What is true of the presidential debates applies to any question, whether it involves movies, music, philosophy, or fashion.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  People read the world around them through the lens of the attitudes and convictions that lie deep within them.

Knowing the importance of inward factors, Paul reminded the Ephesians of the lessons they had been taught when they became Christians:

But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:20-24).

Something radical had occurred in their conversion—something as deliberate and noticeable as changing clothes.  They had put off the “old self,” those worldly passions that kept them enslaved to sin, and had put on the “new self,” which was molded after God himself in “true righteousness and holiness.”

Paul knew that in addition to the conversion experience Christians must continue to grow.  That is why he encouraged his readers to “be renewed in the spirit of your minds.”  This “spirit” is the “spirit that directs the mind,” the inner man who exercises control over his entire being.  This is to be renewed continuously.  It is significant that the action related to the conversion experience—“put on” and “put off”—are in the aorist tense, which denotes activity occurring at a specific time in the past.  Over against this is the verb “be renewed,” which is in the present tense, denoting continuous action.  The believer must devote himself to the study of God’s word, meditation, prayer, and an appreciation of righteous role models so that his inward man stays fresh and new.  As Paul said in another place, “Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).

Why is it that every church contains two basic types of members?  There are the enthusiastic contributors, who are present at every service and serve as the backbone of the congregation.  And then there are the members who struggle to make one service a week.  These are not very involved; many of them are unhappy and critical of the work.  These two types exist in every church, whether it is large and thriving, moderately growing, or small and struggling.  How can two radically different perspectives coexist in the same congregation?  The difference lies within.

I believe that a person could wither away spiritually in the most enthusiastic church in the brotherhood.  The reason is, as Solomon said, “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7, NKJV).  Likewise, it is possible for a Christian to grow and remain enthusiastic for the Lord in a small church with few opportunities.

Most of the time, spiritual failure occurs under the hood.  Many spiritual problems could be resolved by learning what Paul taught the Ephesians: that there is no life in Christ without inner renewal.

 

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Suing the Wrong Defendant

Written by Drew on September 4th, 2008

Earlier this summer a man from Knoxville, Tennessee, filed a claim with his church’s insurance company, saying he was so consumed by the Holy Spirit during a worship service that he fell and hit his head. The insurance company denied his claim, so now he is suing the church for $2.5 million to cover his medical bills, lost income, and the pain and suffering he has had to endure.

Maybe the church should argue that he’s suing the wrong defendant. This is obviously a charismatic group where manic behavior is interpreted as the Spirit’s presence. How could the church be held responsible for something that God did? And who is this man to judge God for making him fall down and bump his head?

This fundamental problem has always haunted charismatic groups. They specialize in highly subjective experiences interpreted as miracles endowed by the Spirit. These experiences cannot be scientifically documented or authenticated. Their proof is their sincerity: “I know what happened. Are you calling me a liar?” But these so-called miracles often clash with other “holy occurrences” and inspired truth. Somebody’s not being honest.

In Lakeland, Florida, this summer Todd Bentley of Fresh Fire Ministries held a four month long revival meeting. People came from all over the southeast, hoping that Bentley had a connection with God and that he could heal their diseases. He ran from one person to the next, yelling, “Bam! Bam! Bam!” Covered in tattoos and facial piercings he looked more like a circus sideshow act than a preacher. Several charismatic leaders were disconcerted by his rough manner. On one occasion he dropkicked a cancer patient in the stomach, bringing him to his knees.

Bentley is taking some time off now after it was revealed that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his staff. Most of his charismatic counterparts are calling him a charlatan. But if his miracles were not real, who is to say that any of them are?

God put his revealed will in written form 2,000 years ago so that we would not have to rely upon spiritual gifts for direction in life. There are no modern-day miracles. The Bible teaches that these gifts were meant to be temporary from the beginning (cf. 1 Cor. 13:10-13), but believers don’t have to go to the Bible to see that today’s charismatic movement is false. All they have to do is open the newspapers and read about them.

 

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The One Thing We Can Agree On

Written by Drew on August 27th, 2008

There have been a number of statements made by liberal politicians lately that suggest that the religious world is still struggling with the issue of abortion. Barack Obama’s projected confusion was reported on Truth and Repose last week. And now Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a devout Catholic, states that after 2,000 years her church has not been able to come up with a definition of when life begins.

Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl strongly disagreed:

Wuerl pointed out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear, and has been clear for 2,000 years. He cited Catechism language that reads, “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception … Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”

Pelosi’s not backing down. She can’t, really, without creating a major disturbance in her political party. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s wrong.

The consensus reaches into Protestant churches as well. In his commentary on Exodus 21:22, John Calvin wrote,

…the unborn, though enclosed in the womb of his mother, is already a human being, and it is an almost monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his most secure place of refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy the unborn in the womb before it has come to light.

Martin Luther spoke out against abortion on numerous occasions. For example, he said, “Surely at such a time [conception], the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed.”

Even the existentialist Christian philosopher Karl Barth condemned the practice, saying, “The unborn child is from the very first a child. It is still developing and has no independent life. But it is a man and not a thing, nor a mere part of the mother’s body…. He who destroys germinating life kills a man….”

Speaking of the millions of abortions that had been carried out in the U.S. since 1973, John Stott, the most prominent spokesman of the Anglican Church, said,

Any society which can tolerate these things, let alone legislate for them, has ceased to be civilised. One of the major signs of decadence in the Roman Empire was that its unwanted babies were ‘exposed’, that is abandoned and left to die. Can we claim that contemporary Western society is any less decadent because it consigns its unwanted babies to the hospital incinerator instead of the local rubbish dump? Indeed modern abortion is even worse than ancient exposure because it has been commercialised, and has become, at least for some doctors and clinics, an extremely lucrative practice. But reverence for human life is an indisputable characteristic of a humane and civilised society.

James Dobson, a leader of the evangelical movement in America and founder of Focus on the Family, called the millions of abortions since Roe v. Wade “the biggest holocaust in world history.”

Most importantly, the Bible condemns the practice, arguing that God creates life in the womb, not outside of the womb (Ps. 139:13-14). This is so clear that theologians and church leaders who can agree on little else join hand in hand against those who promote this grievous assault on the unborn.

If politicians like Pelosi want to promote abortion in this country, let them. We have the First Amendment. But it is absurd for them to think that believers will sit silently as they are forcibly rallied to their bloody cause.

 

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Lonnie Jones on Selfishness

Written by Drew on August 26th, 2008

This week we’re having a gospel meeting with Lonnie Jones. Below there is an excerpt from one of his lessons where he is addressing the problem of selfishness. It will give you a taste of the good preaching we’re hearing this week.

The common denominator behind all sin is selfishness. Regardless of what your sin is—and we talk about big sins and little sins and we talk about public sins and private sins—but the bottom line is your sin, whatever it is that you do, whatever it is that I do, is the manifestation of selfishness in my life. John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”—that’s the ultimate selfless verse. James 3:16 says, “For where you have selfish ambition, you have every evil thing”—the ultimate verse on selfishness.

If you want a formula for creating any kind of evil, all you got to do is come up with a good dose of selfishness, because selfishness is the opposite of Christianity. You can’t be a Christian until you do what? “If anyone will come after me let him deny self, take up his cross, and follow me.” You can’t pick up a cross until you get rid of self. The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is selfishness. Xavier Anton LaVey, who was the minister for the Church of Satan, said the ultimate practice of Satanism is the worship of self.

 

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Specificity

Written by Drew on August 22nd, 2008

Last Saturday, Rick Warren invited the presidential candidates to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, for a “Civil Forum on the Presidency.” When the subject turned to abortion, the candidates’ answers were revealing. Warren asked, “Forty million abortions. At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

Obama’s answer: “Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

When Warren asked McCain the same question, McCain went on to prove that he was above Obama’s pay grade when he answered, “At the moment of conception.”

Abortion is a pretty important issue that has been around for a long time. Since the president appoints judges to the Supreme Court, which has been the battleground of abortion legislation for over 35 years, wouldn’t it be nice if he could answer the question with some “specificity?”

 

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Society’s Pillars

Written by Drew on August 21st, 2008

This year’s presidential campaign has opened a window to America’s soul, giving us a look at what is important to the citizens of our nation. As people talk about what they want in a president, they reveal what they believe to be the pillars of our society. The polls say we are looking for the candidate who will be strong on defense and an expert in diplomacy, skilled in economics and merciful to the poor, able to make snap judgments in the moment of crisis but thoughtful and open to opposing views at the same time. Character is important to us, but so are policy, energy, the environment, taxes, the war, and foreign relations.

The current dialogue does touch on some very important issues, but few polls include what is perhaps the most important pillar of our society: the family. Without families our nation could not survive.

A number of interesting articles have come across my desk over the last few months that prove family’s value to society. The London Times, for example, printed an article on the current population crisis in Russia. Russian church leaders and politicians are doing everything they can to promote traditional family life. Russia’s population has been steadily sinking since the fall of the Soviet Union, shrinking by 7 million since 1992 to 142 million. Sociologists predict that the country could lose another 30 percent of its population by the middle of this century. Much of this has to do with the breakdown of families in Russia, where 80 percent of marriages end in divorce. In 2006 President Putin described the situation as “the gravest problem facing modern Russia.

Things are a little better for Americans, but no much. Over the last 35 years marriages have suffered a tremendous decline. For example, in 1970, almost 72 percent of all adults in the U.S. were married; that number has fallen to less than 60 percent today. Thirty-five years ago over 85 percent of children in the U.S. lived with their married parents; today that figure has come down to 59.7 percent. The number of children born out of wedlock is on the rise. The Institute for American Values co-authored a major study with two other organizations that reports the damage broken homes inflict on society. One of the findings reported in the study is that the impact of divorce and unwed child-bearing costs taxpayers a minimum of $112 billion annually.

Louis H. Evans draws a helpful analogy that illustrates just how much depends on the home:

When a pier juts out into the ocean, it is utterly at the mercy of the individual pilings on which it stands. Strike out a piling from beneath it and the whole structure suffers a shock and the pier is weakened. Every nation juts out into the social sea, resting upon the pilings of its individual homes. Every time a home is destroyed, the whole nation suffers a severe thundershock. No nation can stand for long with one-quarter of its pilings gone or damaged (The Marriage Affair, p. 9).

God created family and based it upon the foundational truth first revealed to Adam and Eve and recorded by the prophet Moses: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Threats to this plan like adultery, homosexuality, cohabitation, and divorce don’t just damage one home. They affect the entire society. Knock out enough of its pillars, and any nation will fall. Even our own.

 

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Requiem for a Word

Written by Drew on August 18th, 2008

Yesterday, in an interview broadcast on one of the Sunday talk shows, Tom Ridge said he thought he would make a good running mate for John McCain, despite their differences on the issue of abortion.

Speaking of this fundamental and important difference, Ridge commented on Senator McCain, saying, “He’s not judgmental about me or my belief. He just disagrees with me.”

What does judgmental mean anyway? There was a time when judgments conjured up images of courtrooms and lawyers cross-examining witnesses to get to the truth. Being judgmental meant studying the evidence to arrive at a sound decision. Before political correctness was in vogue, you couldn’t disagree with someone properly without being judgmental, because you had to make a judgment about something before you could enter into a discussion.

Times have changed. Ridge’s comment reflects a common attitude that judging someone–whatever that means–is the cardinal sin.

The most popular verse among the unchurched is Matthew 7:1: “Judge not that you be not judged.” It sounds good when your feet are being put to the fire. It’s a Scriptural way to say, “Hey, get off my back!” Of course, in context Jesus’ words were a judgment in themselves about hypocrisy. But few people take the time to look past Matthew 7:1 to the next few verses.

So I’m declaring the death of the word judgmental. Over the last few years it has gotten heavy and old, unable to stay crisp and useful. Not able to keep up with today’s “disagreements” and “spirited debates,” it collapsed on the speedway of American language, and every attempt to resuscitate it has been unsuccessful.

Alas! poor judgmental. I knew him well.

 

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Eighteenth Century Global Warming

Written by Drew on August 5th, 2008

A new source for climate studies has yielded an interesting find: global warming in the eighteenth century. The Register reports on the results of combing through thousands of British Navy ship logs from 1670 to 1850:

A climate prof noted for data mining of archived ships’ logs has produced further insights into global warming. Dr Dennis Wheeler of Sunderland Uni says his latest analysis shows sudden warming of the North Atlantic and Europe – much like that seen in recent times – during the 1730s.

This, Wheeler believes, shows that widespread rises in temperature of the kind recorded lately can be caused naturally.

I’ve said so much about this in the past, that I don’t care to elaborate any more on this now. Suffice it to say that there are usually three sides to every story: one extreme, the other extreme, and the truth in between.

 

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Vacationing and Church

Written by Drew on July 30th, 2008

Fresh from a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, I’m back at the grindstone and going through the usual post-vacation routine of throwing away mail, returning email and phone calls, and finding out what I missed while I was away. I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s vacation and hope I get the chance to go back to the Blue Ridge Mountains soon. It’s a part of the world where real people lead ordinary lives in beautiful country. I like places like that.

My family and I encountered lots of people on our trip. The Southern charm is alive and well in North Carolina, so it was easy to encounter the locals. There was the security guard at the gate of the community where we stayed, a man whose occupation boxed him into a little world that measured six-by-six and who welcomed any chance for conversation. There were the country girls where we went horseback riding, and the hippies in downtown Asheville. But the friendliest people we met were found in the little church that met in a nearby town.

Sunday morning, my family showed up for services at the small congregation and doubled the attendance (there were 12 of us). We received a grand reception–it was the only church I have ever attended in which every member made an effort to greet me. Granted, there were only 12 people there, but some of them could have hid from us if they wanted to.

I learned that the preacher had been there for 28 years. He was not supported by the congregation, as far as I could tell. In fact, he told me that he started preaching there when his predecessor left on an interim basis, and the church never got around to hiring a full-time minister.

The atmosphere was respectful but laid back. During the Bible class hour the preacher’s PowerPoint slide showed that his sermon would be about “Jesus in the Psalms.” But when he took the pulpit, he quickly shut down the presentation and announced that his sermon on Jesus and the Psalms needed a little more work and he would talk about something else.

After the morning services, somebody remarked about all the extra singers and said, “We should move our singing night to tonight.” Without a moment’s hesitation, the preacher said that would be great, and that night we had a singing. The first five song leaders were, you guessed it, my father, my three brothers, and me. Evidentally, they normally didn’t have a bass, because after one particular hymn with a prominent bass lead, a man who had been sitting in front of my brother Barton turned around after the song was ended and shook his hand saying, “That was wonderful!”

Afterwards we enjoyed a fellowship meal that had been prepared, it seemed, in honor of our arrival. We had never felt so honored while visiting a congregation before.

I’ve heard of families conducting their own worship services while on vacation, and certainly my family could have done that. All the men in my family are able to teach, lead songs, and lead prayers. But we preferred to pay the local brethren a visit instead, and I am glad we did. Not only were we an encouragement to them, but they encouraged us. Also, if we had kept to ourselves that week we would not have met those wonderful brethren in the mountains of North Carolina. I may never see them again, but they have left me with memories that I will cherish forever.

 

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Nondenominational Christianity

Written by Drew on July 10th, 2008

Studies have shown that Americans are losing interest in denominational affiliations. Forty-four percent of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another. The demographic benefiting the most is the one that carries people who claim no religious affiliation. People moving into that categroy outnumber those moving out of it by a three-to-one margin. These changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses.

One of the greatest needs, then, of the church of Christ in the 21st century is a strong sense of her nondenominational character. Here are some practical ways to promote this attitude:

1. Understand the Restoration Plea. Over the years man has adapted the church to every conceivable notion under the sun. There are now hundreds of different kinds of churches in the world. These religious groups are called “denominations” because they wear names that distinguish them from the whole.

This divisive attitude is displeasing to the Lord. Jesus prayed “that they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that thye also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn. 17:21).

The Restoration Plea is a call to follow the New Testament and nothing more. By applying the unadulterated word of God to our hearts, we believe we can be the church Jesus built in the first century.

2. Discard sectarian language. I’m dismayed when I hear brethren say things like, “He’s a Church of Christ preacher,” or, “This is Church of Christ doctrine,” or, “I’m a Church of Christer.” This kind of sectarian language reduces the church of Christ to just another denomination. It isn’t enough to merely declare that we are not a denomination. When we make statements using sectarian language we betray the denominational mentality in our heart (cf. Mt. 12:34). Let our speech communicate that we just want to be Christians in the body of Christ, nothing more, nothing less.

In the first century, members of the Lord’s church were content to be called “Christians” (Acts 11:26). They didn’t have “Church of Christ preachers,” only gospel preachers (1 Cor. 9:16). And the only doctrine they knew was the doctrine of Christ (2 Jn. 9).

3. Communicate our unique approach to Christianity. We have an approach to Christianity that is not only biblical but also unique among all the religious groups in the world. This approach combines doctrinal purity with a nondenominational appeal.

Some groups can claim doctrinal purity, but since their allegiance is to doctrines advanced by manmade creeds and not the Bible, they become a denomination.

Some groups make a claim to be nondenominational and as a result are growing in America’s current cultural climate, but they have sacrificed doctrinal purity so they can remain tolerant of diverse views.

Only the churches of Christ combine these two attractive ambitions. The problem is that we’re not talking about it much.

America’s sick of division and sectarianism. It’s time the churches of Christ adapted to this new climate. We should still warn against denominationalism; Christianity remains greviously subdivided. But there’s a new spirit in America–one of tolerance and unity. I believe it to be severely misguided, but I also think it we have an advantage over many religious groups in this new climate because for the last 250 years we have stood against denominational division and have argued for simple New Testament Christianity. The world is ripe. Will we rise to the occasion?

 

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