Clearing Up Misconceptions Part II

Every year around this time we all look forward to ruining our diets by eating hamburgers, hot dogs, soda, coleslaw, and other assorted foods to celebrate Memorial Day. And with July 4th coming quickly, patriotism pours out of every home and American (esp the more south you go). Now some will read this and get all holy on me and start to bash this, but let me give you some background.

My grandfather served as a Master Sargent in the Army. He fought in WWII, later to fight in Korea and then fought in Vietnam where he was awarded the bronze star medal (which when awarded for bravery is the 4th highest award you can receive in the Armed Forces). My dad was a Sargent in the U.S. Army working on helicopters (mainly Chinooks) for 19 years and did a tour trying to capture Manuel Noriega in Panama (if you even remember that). Finally my uncle fought in the first Desert Storm as a U.S. Marine. Numerous close friends have been and are in the military today. So the military runs through my blood, and I grew up as a military brat for what is now the larger part of my life. I am not writing about whether I love or do not love this country (cause I do love it), nor am I arguing about whether we should or should not celebrate nor recognize those who fought to give us our freedom. (we should!). What I am concerned about is how much involvement the church has in enabling an idolotry of patriotism and tying it to the kingdom, Jesus, and Christianity. As put in this article by Greg Boyd last year during July 4th--There is a real danger for the church in the idol of patriotism.

Here's where I feel we go astray:
First Websters defines patriotism as love, loyal and zealous support of one's country.

1. First, "we find Christians buying the age-old pagan lie that God uniquely favors their country, and their national enemies are God’s enemies." (taken from the article)

Now I am taking into account that God HAS blessed America greatly. We are one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. We have an abundance of food, we have a great military, we have running, CLEAN water, electricity, the internet. Believe it or not if you live in the United States and make $15,000 a year, you are richer than 80.1% of the rest of the world. (They live on average $2 a day).

So the question that begs to be asked is does God only bless us simply so that we can gloat, or consume all we want? Is that a biblical attitude? Are we not blessed so that we make God's glory known? So that we can share the blessing (whether it is monetary, materialistic, or simply our knowledge) with every tribe, tongue and nation? Are we not called to go and make disciples of all nations with every bit of resources we have? Are we not called to serve the least of these and not ourselves? Or as I heard at a concert did God place America at the front of the line to help itself or to help those in the back of the line? Just something to think about and please this has NOTHING to do with politics. This line of thinking just simply is not biblical and I have heard and seen people take passages WAY out of context to make this line of reasoning fit. It is wrong.

This sentiment I think does great damage to the church and its vision, which is not to be American, but to display the Kingdom within America.

2. We frequently and quickly forget that we are first citizens of the kingdom.

Phil. 3:20-"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..."

So as not to do utter damage to the context of this passage, Paul has been describing two kinds of people:
You (the Philippians church) should consider all things a loss except for simply knowing Christ
You should consider everything now a loss compared to knowing Christ
You should gain Christ, by knowing him deeper, and living for him.
Things that are in your way of this leave them behind and strive toward what is ahead.

"There are those who live as enemies of the cross...they will be destroyed...their mind is set on the earthly kingdom. BUT our citizenship is in heaven..."

That's a big butt (I had to say it, makes me laugh every time I hear it). Paul states there are two people: those who are enemies, those whose kingdom is the earth, but YOUR primary citizenship, the one you should be concerned first and foremost about is NOT the kingdom of earth but the kingdom of heaven which will be made manifested when Christ returns! In no way am I saying to disregard anything here on earth (that would be far from my point and this isn't Fox News), but rather that we have duel citizenship first to the kingdom then as an outflow of our allegiance and dedication to the kingdom by our King Jesus, and in some ways making it manifested by submitting to our governing authorities (Romans 13:1-6; 1 Peter 2:13). It is easy to get wrapped up in our citizenship here and forget our kingdom citizenship.

3. Becoming too much like Israel (nationalistic rather than evangelistic).

Jesus told us to Go and make disciples of all nations....not just our nation or select nations. It is easy to fall so in love with this country that we become nationalistic. As stated earlier I love this country, and believe that God put me here to do his Kingdom work, and hopefully go beyond to reach more for the gospel of Christ. One of the main issues with Israel is that they were too nationalistic that in order to become part of the club you must perform certain things: by attaching extra works to salvation like circumcision, diet, and keeping the Sabbath. This kept their attention rather than being evangelistic. We seem to replace the joy and excitement of being American and associate it with the kingdom. Hence why churches (and I have seen this firsthand) sing God Bless America, America the Beautiful and other patriotic songs within a church service and can confuse a person emotionally and even spiritually. Its like an confusing interchange of nation and church. Pastor and Professor Russell Moore wrote in regards to this said,

“Scripture calls us into what the Bible tells us is a colony of heaven of the kingdom in the church, we ought to beware of any kind of nationalism, any kind of equating of the church with the nation, or the nation with the church. This is why American civil religion is so dangerous because it does that. It takes the experience, that transcendent experience of being a part of those from every tribe, tongue and nation around the throne and equates it with our experience as Americans. It takes the Deuteronomy blessings, goes right around Jesus and applies it to the United States of America.” “We have to give thanks, while not equating the country with the kingdom of God.”

I agree on his point. My prayer is that the church will keep its focus and praise God for those who have given their lives for us to be free, and be proud to be an American while keeping their feet grounded in that they are: citizens of the Kingdom.

I pray that similar to the end of the article mentioned earlier by Greg Boyd, that we, "make sure your patriotism pales in comparison to your sacrifice, commitment and allegiance to the Kingdom of God."

Be Blessed

Does Love Really Win?

If you have been holed up in a cave somewhere then you may not have heard that there is a book out called “Love Wins” by Rob Bell. It has had a lot of media attention, controversy and debate on the subject of hell. At first I really did not care, but as the volume of debate and discussion grew louder, I felt as a pastor and a believer I needed to read this for myself. If you are looking for a deep theological discussion or debate then check out Mark Driscoll’s resurgence page to what so many theologians and pastors are saying about the book. (For the more theological heart read Robert Gundry take on it). My aim is merely to give you a summary and clarity of the book, areas that of great encouragement, along with areas of great concern and positions Bell takes.

Bell begins his book with a WWII Blitzkrieg of questions about God, hell, love, etc… I mean really there are a lot of questions, it was like an ADD festival of questions. I understand that one of his purposes was to get us to question, to think about the things that we are “told” to believe. I totally agree with Bell, Scripture indicates that we should, “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1) Why should we question and test the things people spout out? Because there are false teachers and false teaching in our midst and we must be careful (Just turn the TV on and listen to some of these televangelist!). Bell asks the question: Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal tormet for things they did in their few finite years of life? (pg 2) In Bell’s words, “Are millions of people going to Hell over tens of thousands of years the best that God can do? Within this framework he not only addresses the issues with an eternal punishment type of hell but the issues he has with the biblical doctrines of predestination and election. (He present an Arminian position----also you can watch his trailer here) For the sake of keeping this condensed I will not cover those doctrines in this summary.

So let’s jump into the two main subjects:

Heaven:

Bell describes heaven as: “Here is the New there” arguing that the gospel was never about just “getting to heaven”. The misconception of leaving earth and getting out of here was the goal for so many Christians. He asks the question, "why would God create us simply to GO somewhere else?" I ask myself the same question when people are eager to get out of here like a That heaven is full of floating babies in diapers, and harps strumming with giant Donald Trump like mansions on every corner is really absurd. He cites OT passages to indicate that they were awaiting a kingdom or age to come, to arrive HERE! Thy kingdom come, not thy kingdom leave! He says, “When the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will “get to heaven” that reduces the gospel to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.” (pg 178) Keeping us grounded on the fact that so many people focus on leaving rather than cultivating and sowing the Kingdom here and now. I really enjoyed this as I feel many believers (esp. in the traditional church) are still stuck on this type of thought process. If you want an read on heaven and the kingdom read N.T. Wrights “Surprised by Hope”.

Hell:

This is my greatest area of concern in the whole book. This is obviously where all the controversy and debate is focused on. Let me stop and say that there are many areas in the book that I agreed with and enjoyed. Many visions that Bell has that had me thinking: yes this is a problem and yes this needs to change in the hearts of God’s people (i.e. the arrogance of the “inness” of churches, the gospel being reduced to just going to heaven, or Jesus merely saves sinners). When it came to his view on hell, I completely disagree with him. He sums his point up by stating, “At the heart of this perspective [God reaches all people] is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.”

Bell uses passages that to him indicate his overall point that everyone will be saved or reconciled:

1. 1 Timothy 2:3-4-“ This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ⁴ who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

2. Acts 3:21-“…God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

3. Colossians 1:19-“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven…”

He also cites OT verses that indicate that God is more interested in restoration not destruction. (Ezekiel 16; Jeremiah 32; Jeremiah 5)

With these passages in place, he asks then "Does God get what He wants?"

Greek and Context:

Bell also has a problem identifying his Greek verbs and using passages within context. I cannot tell you how important it is to know the context of a passage. This seems to be the most common mistake believers do when pulling verses from all over the place to make their point (Unbelievers also when they want to throw the Bible back in the faces of believers). Most are more worried about making their point (or interpretation)that they want to make will fit the verse they are using. We call that (for you seminary peeps) eisegesis. Bell does this with the above passages and several others which is very disappointing but not new.

In regards to Greek, Bell uses Matthew 25:31-46 as an example to illustrate his point that hell is NOT a forever ,eternal type of torment or punishment. He says that the Greek word for eternal is “aion”. Aion has many meanings but he states that it can mean a period of time, with a beginning and end. It is commonly translated “age” in NIV, ESV and pretty much any English bible. So when you read in Matthew 25:41 where Jesus says the goats, “Depart from me…into the eternal fire prepared for you…” he means that it will only be for a period of time, NOT forever. The fire will not last forever; it will only be a period of time. He states that to the biblical writers, the notion of forever would be foreign to them. He writes more than what I am giving you about and sounds much more convincing but I do not want this to be a research paper. Again in Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” So that I do not write an entire thesis, here is an excellent link that describes the fallacy in Bell’s treatment of the Greek word aion.

He finally argues towards the back of the book that to teach that God would send someone to an eternal torment indicates that God "in essence becomes fundamentally a different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them...in the blink of an eye become a cruel, mean viscous tormentor..."(pg 173). Do we really want a God like that?

To give some clarity on what Bell advocates I am including the position taken by Evangelical Arminian (based on his book, which in my opinion is what Bell seems to be) Clark Pinnock who said:

1. that God's attributes are subservient to his love and that his purpose is to save everyone. (Love does win)

2. Salvation is dependent on the free will of individuals and is grounded in a notion that God's making grace universally accessible to those who respond to the offer of it even apart from explicit faith in Christ (Read Bell's pg. 157-159)

Bell is crafty, and he is smart. He knows how to write, to get you to think. The book has some areas that I am passionate to see the church be a part of. He tugs on the emotional heart strings and at times I can openly admit that I felt my heart break thinking about people I know being punished forever. But I was not called to submit to mere emotions, my guide, my instruction, my correction and my standard comes from God's word.

I know that I was not able to cover everything and that's okay. You may disagree with my analysis which is also okay. We forget that as believers we can still love each other even in the midst of not agreeing with one another. I did not write up a defense for everything because it is a summary and again I feel like there are plenty of better resources that deal with this. If you really want to know how I feel read this excellent article by Carl Trueman about theological controversies (I know there is a lot of reading!). I hope this helps.

Be Blessed

Our Obesessed Traditions

Recently I have been thinking about the things that we do during Sunday morning worship. Most of us have been to different churches and have seen different types of practices performed. So I sat one day and wondered what worship looked like or sounded like in the early church and OT. Did they have altar calls? A program for Sunday (or Saturday) morning? Did they have a worship band? Stain glass? Carpet? Pews or chairs? What traditions are a part of a worship service are rooted in history or rooted in Scripture?

Let's knock out some of these easy things first:

For one thing we know that they didn't have bulletins giving you a play by play of everything that was happening in the service: (That would have wasted way too much papyrus and scroll space.) Nor were stain glass windows and depictions of Christ as these were not prevalent till around the 9th century and then flourished greatly in the French, German and English churches of the 12th century. And finally church pews were not a product of the church for the first 1,000 years of its existence, and did not become a real staple of church until the 13th-15th centuries. Now we know projectors, cameras, carpet, and all the other fancy stuff wouldn't have been there either. Another aspect closer to the heart of most churches is the altar call. This is yet another aspect of church tradition that just simply is no where to be found in Scripture. The way some churches treat them you would think Jesus himself had them, but it simply was not part of the church until the 1700 and 1800's. My point is we hold to some traditions that are not biblical, but just have been such a huge part of the Christian culture (primarily the traditional), so we continue to do it. In no way am I bashing any church that has these traditions (as my church has them), but I want you begin thinking about what we do in regards to corporate worship and even question some of the things we hold to.

Scripture:
So I could spend about 30 pages describing this (now I seem to come up with a fun topic for what I could have written about in my religion thesis--too little too late). But I want to examine 3 passages that gives us a tiny glimpse of what a worship had and looked like:

Nehemiah 8 gives us a small window into an assembling of believers in a worship ceremonial service. This part of Scripture has been described as a ceremony or revival of the people to renewal and reformation. The Israelite have now settled in the land, and are going to have a worship service dedicated to God. Let's see what it entailed:

-All the people assembled in one place (8:1)
-Ezra (the senior pastor) comes out (8:1)
-He has the Law of the Lord (what we would equivocate to God's Word) (8:1)
-He reads God's word aloud for about 6 hours! (Read this when you complain your pastor went too long!) (8:3)
-The people listened attentively. (They didn't just sit there, they were engaged in this preaching) (8:3)
-He preached from a stage or platform, as he was elevated above everyone else so they could see. (8:4-5)
-The people responded by throwing their hands in the air and saying "Amen" and bowing low to the ground in worship. (8:6)
-Then the Levites (other priests or leaders) read it to the people instructed them and gave it meaning so that they could understand it. (8:7-8)

That is a lot of stuff. Reminds me of a story told to me about a man in our church (who has passed away) who, when the preacher or service went too long, would throw his arm straight in the air and stare at his watch. (For this service he would be waiting a looong time)

Nehemiah 8 gives us immense clarity on what some of their services looked like and how they are found in what we do today. Churches today do many of these things, and they add to this as well: with prayer, silence, reflection, Lord's Supper and other sacraments performed within Scripture. BUt there are other traditions that have left churches divided, angry, and elevating certain aspects that really are no where to be found in Scripture.

Worship no matter what kind, is a state of the heart and body (Romans 12:1-2). Bob Deffenbach has a great link to an article describing different variations of worship and what should be in a worship service. My aim was to take a look at some of the church traditions we hold, and how some of them are only recent inventions of man not God. Next week we will examine some passages from the NT, that give us more perspective on what worship looked like then and how we can learn to not get obsessed or caught up in some of our "tradition".

Be Blessed.