Coexist?

9 out of 10 days I find myself behind the same vehicle trying to leave base. Apparently we get out of work at roughly the same time most days, but they get away form the parking lot moments before I do. I have no idea what the make and model or license plate number is because my attention always goes to this bumper sticker: http://www.amazon.com/Peacemonger-Coexist-Bumper-Sticker/dp/B002MAJ5GG

I get lost in thought every time I see this piece of graphic design. Where are they coming from? Are they simply suggesting that all different religions, races and beliefs should learn to live in peace? Does the star of David really work as an "X"? Are they saying that people should stop waging so called “holy wars” when peace and love are central tenants of most belief systems? If that is the case then I can get behind it.

But what I fear is that this will be interpreted down the line and across the board as a call for tolerance and universalism. It is advisable as a Christian to say, “I’m going to treat everyone well regardless of who they are and what they believe.” But it is something entirely different to say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe, let’s just get along!”

All paths do not lead to the same place. It may show compassion and tolerance to be kind to non-believers, but if you are a Christian it shows hatred toward that person if you are willing to stand aside and let them go on without hearing the Gospel. Failing to evangelize is in essence allowing them to walk the path to Hell.

Unconditional love reflects the cross, unconditional tolerance reflects apathy.

I am no proponent for aggressive “soul winning” tactics or attempts to cram the Gospel down someone’s throat. This accomplishes nothing but to raise discord and give people a story of how those “intolerant Christians” attacked me.

2 Timothy 2:24-26 says:

²⁴And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, ²⁵correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, ²⁶and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Note the way we are called to teach and instruct. With gentleness, kindness, patiently. We are supposed to be the bigger man. At the end of the conversation, we have to be the one who takes the high road. Verse 26 says that if you lead them to a knowledge of the truth they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil. It says that they have been captured by the devil to do his will.

So you can figure that anyone outside the faith is not in their right mind. They may not be clinically insane, but spiritually they are not right in the head or the heart. How expedient is it to yell at a crazy person?

If they are in fact in the snare of the devil and doing his will, they need to woken up to the fact, because I think if most atheists saw the truth that by not being in the service of God they were in the service of the evil one, and not neutral as they claim to be, that truth would shake them.

It doesn’t feel right to make a statement that suggests a non-Christian is so far outside the will of God that they are serving Satan, but consider this from the mouth of Jesus:

Matthew 12:30
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

No, we should not act as judges against those with different belief systems, but we should seek ways to help them wake up to the truth. We must do so in a loving way, yes, but not in a weak way. For our God is certainly not weak, and His children need not be afraid to confess Him to the world.

 2 Timothy 1:7

⁷ For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

Luke 12:8
“And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God;”

Hard to swallow

The “Spoonful of Sugar” principle works for some things. You have some bad news to give; you have a hard or tedious task to do. Yeah, why not throw in something fun to take out the sting? Sadly in an attempt to make the harder parts of the bible go down easy, we dilute the Word with a sugary sweetness that confuses both believers and non believers alike.

I mean it is not so surprising to hear a non-Christian misunderstand a verse or a principle. But when a Christian doesn’t understand the why Jesus died (they are simply outraged at the injustice) or tells you something superstitious like, “Always pray at 3 O’clock because this was the hour Jesus was crucified.” Well, then you know there was a miscommunication out there somewhere.

I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out. But I believe I have a least a fair ability to discern truth from lies when the need arises.  Everything should check out with scripture. Before I share with anyone on biblical matters I pray that I will not be the one confusing others, but that God will speak clearly through me.

Someone tried to casually approach me once and explain where I was failing in his eyes. “All that really matters is if a person lives a good life you know? They can believe in God or not, but God can be anything and they just need to be a good person.”

I politely disagreed. He wasn’t trying to fight me so why fight him? But the conversation bothered me. We want the world to run by a human standard instead of God’s. We make faith about what we choose to accept when in reality it is about what God expects. “Good” is subjective. It is possible to be a good person outside of Christ when you make up your own rules and standards (and isn’t that what we do as humans?). But it is not possible to be truly good in the eyes of The Creator without surrendering your life to Christ.

John 11:25 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

John 14:5-7 (ESV)

⁵ Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" ⁶Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

When people tell me they believe in God, but aren’t living a life that reflects Christ, my next question is to specify whether or not they believe in the God of the Bible.  If they say yes (and so far most of them do) I have to point out verses like the ones above. If this is the God you believe in, you might want to pay attention to what He says about Jesus.

Preaching Gold Candlesticks

September means the end of my Naval contract and the beginning of life as a pastor. This time last year I was excitedly awaiting my R&R leave to begin so I could meet my newborn daughter. Now I am anxiously awaiting the beginning of a vocation that will allow me to spread God’s word throughout a community and minister to the needs of my church and the lost in our area. I’m not going to claim a lot of prophetic stuff and say that God sent down a word to me and I have had visions…none of that, but in my prayer and quiet time with the Lord I have come to believe that God is ready to do big things in Miller, SD. Our church just needs to be open and willing to be His vessels. And I believe that willingness is there.

I pray for a lack of distraction to what isn’t important. Questions have come up among people I know who are saved most of them are about peripheral issues that ultimately won’t matter to anyone’s salvation. One today that stood out, “What translation will you preach from?”

I skirted around the issue because I really didn’t want to get into a KJV only argument first thing in the morning after a three day weekend. I really like the KJV, but to say that a translation is inerrant is to miss the point entirely. I was raised reading the NIV and while it is not currently my translation of choice I would have to say it was sufficient to teach me about Jesus.

There are KJV-only advocates running around asking us to bow to a translation. They want us to translate the KJV into other languages rather than translating from Greek and Hebrew into those languages. This rides the fence of idolatry to put a translation of the Word above the Word itself.

I do think we need to be careful not to take certain translations as authoritative. As nice and popular as some paraphrases are, they are really more like commentaries than objective translations. A paraphrase will undoubtedly reveal the opinion of the person paraphrasing. A translation should utilize formal and dynamic equivalence in a way that ensures clarity of the gospel and optimal accuracy. Perfection is impossible in translation, but if we properly pray and discern as we study God’s word, He won’t fail us.

For myself? I probably find myself in the NASB and ESV more than anything else as of late. But if something in one of those translations doesn’t make sense or isn’t clear, I am happy to jump over to the KJV, NIV or HCSB to gain some clarity or a different perspective. I suppose I will settle into preaching from one specific translation eventually, but I will always compare translations, and once I have a little bit of Greek and Hebrew know-how I will undoubtedly take it deeper.

Most of all though, we can’t let an issue like this divide the church. We can’t sit around and make arguments about whether or not a painting of Adam and Eve should have belly buttons or what color the carpet should be in the sanctuary.

Mar 3:24-26 (KJV) "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. [25] And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. [26] And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end."

In “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, John Proctor is asked why he has not been attending church. Proctor says that Reverend Parris preached nothing but “Gold candlesticks” until the pewter ones on the altar were replaced. I pray that as followers of Christ we can move past things like this and remain faithful to the body of believers and support our leadership. But more than that I pray that I never “preach gold candlesticks” when the Gospel will suffice for eternity.

My Dad was right...How Aggravating.

Proverbs 1:7 ^--The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction

I am just old enough now to know that when someone with more years and experience in their field speaks to me, that I should listen. I can still accept or reject the advice based on how sound it is or how I see it playing out in their lives, but it is still important for me to stop and listen.

When I have five different conversations with five different pastors and they all tell me similar stories of the mistakes they made in their early years of ministry, it would be wise for me to take that into account and learn from their mistakes. I really feel like I have a leg up in some ways because of the input of men with 20+ years in the ministry.

I wish I had believed in the value of this practice as a teenager.  I know now that my Dad was right about EVERYTHING we disagreed on. Had I listened then perhaps it wouldn’t have taken me 7 years of military service and a host of hard knocks to understand how God intended to use us.

That is not to say that I regret where my life has gone. Change one detail of the last six years and I would potentially have a completely different life. And I like this life. With all of the “I should haves” over the years the only answer I have is “but I didn’t”. And looking at where we are now and where God is taking us, I wouldn’t change a thing except perhaps send an extra apology out to those I was a jerk to at some point.

There is something to be gained from the advice of those older and younger than you. If all you gain is the ability to discern between good and bad advice, between sound and unsound doctrine, you are going to be in a good place.

The Boat is a Lie

Matthew 14:23-33 tells us the familiar story of Jesus walking on the water. When I was in Sunday school this story had a very simple moral. "Jesus walked on the water." Which really didn't teach me anything to live my life by, but served as an example of Jesus's diety...but then I didn't know what diety meant at that age either. In an adult Sunday school class the lesson probably shifts focus a bit to Peter and says "If I keep my eyes on Jesus I can walk on Water" (cue Audio Adrenaline...GO!)

But other than these two true yet basic answers I think we gloss over this passage to a great extent.

Consider that this is the second time recorded in the Gospel that the disciples are in a boat with a raging storm all around them. Only this time around the one person they know who can calm the storm is back on the land praying. I think we ignore the storm in this story to focus on the miracle itself. If this was only about Jesus proving His power, He could have the made the same point on a clear day.

The disciples have put their faith in two things. The wind and the boat. The wind is described as "contrary" so they have already lost on that front. All they have left is the boat and they can't even control the direction that it will move becaues of the wind. We often put our faith and trust into material things that cannot truly provide support when the going gets tough.

Jesus appears on the water and Peter seems to determine that no matter how windy it is and no matter how choppy the water is, it surely must be safer out there with Jesus than it is in the boat. It is then while Jesus is accomplishing the impossible through Peter, that he begins to doubt and starts to wonder how he could possible control the elements to keep himself from slipping. And as Peter thinks hard about how not to sink, he finds himself doing just that.

It is notable that no one jumps in after Peter, and Peter doesn't try to swim for it either. The conditions on this water are such that an experienced swimmer like Peter realizes that he cannot rescue himself but must call out to Jesus. When he does, Jesus wastes not a moment. Jesus doesn't scold Peter and THEN save him. He saves him and then convicts him for his lack of faith. Jesus then returns a much humbled Peter to the boat and the storm ends.

This is not the last storm that Peter will experience either literally or figuratively. But he will make it safely to shore due to Jesus.

So often we try to control our surroundings and situations when all we need is Jesus. People go to God in prayer under two conditions--1. Things are going great, 2. Things are going poorly. I tend to err on the things are going great side of it. When things are going poorly I often take it upon myself to fix it and all I do is make a mess. When I call out to Jesus is when I find peace.

Peter recognizes his condition as being unstable, so he leaves the boat. He falls to his own control issues and has to cry out to Jesus to save him. Jesus does so and changes Peter's life. This does not mean that Peter's life on earth was perfect, but it was changed.

We must also recognize that a life apart from Christ is unstable. Jesus has come out onto the water in the midst of our life's storm and he is saying, "Come". I challenge you, step out of the psychological safety of the boat, set your eyes on Jesus, let Him carry you across the stormy waters, cry out to Him when you sink, be saved and let Him change your life.