Baptism: God’s Tender Violence towards Us

There are just a few more biblical images I want to highlight about baptism. The first I have discussed already. It is found in Romans 6:

We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?…For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (Romans 6:2b-3, 6-7)

The image Paul associates with baptism is dying. More than that, it is being crucified. These are such common terms in religious circles that sometimes we fail to see the violent force of these images. Baptism is a crucifixion of our old selves. It is a lynching, a bloody, brutal murder of our old selves. When we are baptized, our old self is killed. In the violence done to Jesus on the cross, we also are killed, that is, our old lives. Baptism enacts this death on us. Down into the water we go. We are buried. We die.

We see the image again in Colossians:

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12)

This time the image of death and burial is connected with another bloody image, that of circumcision. The significance of this image, primarily, is in how circumcision functioned in the Old Testament. The ritual of circumcision is the way someone entered into the covenant with God in the Old Testament. It was the ceremony that made you a part of the Jewish community. So now, baptism does the same thing. In baptism, not circumcision, we are brought into covenant with God and union with God’s people. The image of circumcision is a violent, painful one. In circumcision, one is marked by the cutting of flesh.

Together, the images of crucifixion, burial, and circumcision show the harshness of baptism. The break between our old life and our new life is so sharp that it can be compared to death. Our old selves must be murdered. They must be cut off. We must make a very painful break with our old ways of thinking, living, and relating to God and the world. In baptism, God kills us. This is the only way that we can live a new life. It is a violent image.

But there is another image used for baptism. It is found in Paul’s instructions to husbands about how to treat their wives. Paul says that a marriage is to reflect the relationship that Christ has with his Church. Husbands are to love their wives self-sacrificially in the way that Jesus loved his people. In describing this, Paul elaborates on the way Jesus loves the Church:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

That image of washing with water is an allusion to baptism. First of all, note that it is connected to the word, that is the message of the Gospel. Baptism cannot be an empty ritual, it must be connected with the proclamation and belief in the Gospel. Otherwise, it is just a bath, not a baptism. Secondly and primarily, I want to highlight that the image of baptism is of Jesus washing his wife. Think about that. It is an incredibly intimate picture. It is a groom on his wedding night, gently and tenderly bathing his bride. Pay attention to the care, love and closeness in that. It is an act of supreme intimacy. In baptism, Jesus tenderly and lovingly washes us. He prepares us for himself, so that we can be presented in splendor, without blemish, holy and beautiful.

This is the love of Jesus! His touch murders me and cleanses me. I drown. I bathe. A burial and a wedding happen all at once. Oh, how he loves us. So tenderly, so violently.

Obedience, Heroes, and Doing What You Love

When we go on our mission trip this summer, we are doing a vacation Bible school for elementary kids in Alabama. Last night, we trained our students in how to do the VBS. Part of it was learning songs. One song we sang was about obedience. I hated it. And not just because it was a cheesy kids song with the word “obey-o!” in it.

The song went something like this, “I can choose to listen to and obey God. I can choose to follow all his rules. I can choose to do what’s right even when its hard. O-B-E-Y. We will obey!” Now, I know the writers of the song had good intentions: to help children learn the importance of doing what God wants them to do. I’m all for that. Following God is good. The problem is how we go about doing that.

First of all, we should notice that the song is singing completely about us. “I can choose…I can choose..I can choose…” It is not always a sign of problems when the subject of a song consistently is “I,” but it should make us perk up and pay attention as to the underlying messages of the song.

More than that, the song has kids affirming something that sounds good, but in experience, will not turn out to be true. I can’t just choose to obey God. It isn’t that simple. Literally thousands of times I have been in a church service, reading my Bible, or having a good conversation when I realize that I need to be faithful to something God has commanded. I feel convicted. I have a desire to live differently. I intend to change my ways. But, the vast majority of the time, it is not as simple as just choosing to do something differently. I struggle. I have divided desires. I still want things I shouldn’t. I have ingrained habits that I can’t seem to break. I have addictions. I want to choose to do what is right, but the truth is, most of the time, I can’t. It take more than a simple choice. This shouldn’t surprise us. The Bible is pretty clear about the fact that we are infested to the core with sin, and that even when we know and want to do what is right, it is still a struggle.

(Note: I am not even getting into the issue of free will. I have thoughts on that too, but Arminians and Calvinists alike should be able to relate to the experience of our inability to simply choose to change.)

The problem runs deeper than simple choices. It requires us to have our desires changed. We must learn to love something else. We must find joy in something other than sin. We must get a taste for something more satisfying than what we currently have…and frankly, acquiring a taste God’s glory, for holiness, for servanthood, takes a while. But look what happens we when our longings and loves do change. Making good choices becomes easy.

I noticed this on Tuesday morning. Now, I normally am a slow riser in the morning. My wife gets up before 6am to go and teach high school, and I usually stay in bed for about an hour after she leaves. This is in spite of my repeated resolutions to get up early and work out and pray. It doesn’t matter what I choose the night before, most of the time, I can’t get myself out of bed that fast. But, as some of you know, I love the TV show Heroes. As others of you know, I don’t own a TV. So, even though Heroes airs on Monday nights, I have to wait for NBC to post the show on their website the next morning before I can watch it. So, on Tuesdays, I watch Heroes before I go to work. What is interesting is that when my wife wakes up on Tuesday morning, I usually get out of bed just minutes after her. I get ready and sit down to watch Heroes. It isn’t hard. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. Frankly, I don’t have think about it much. I just do it, because I am excited to see what will happen with Hiro, Claire, Parkman, and the rest of those crazy mutants. You see, if you enjoy something, it is easy to do. Choice just happens when you love something. You don’t even really experience your moment of choice. In some ways, you don’t choose anymore, you just do.

So, I wonder if we should not teach our little kids that they can “choose” to obey, because when they get older and more reflective, that might be a misleading idea. The truth is, if those children learn to love God, we won’t have to make a big deal out of rules and choosing obedience. It will just happen out of delight. At least, that’s my theory.

I am thinking of having my site change the words to the VBS song about obedience. If you have any suggestions of how to do this, let me know.

Church as Bootcamp for the Heart

Churches should be training grounds to teach people how to love rightly.

Augustine talked about rightly ordered loves. We are to love God, other people, and the things around us in proportion to their worth. The problem with people is that our loves are out of whack, warped and twisted. We love things more than people. We love people more than God. We love God without the fervency that is proportional to his worth. Most of the things we love, ought to be valued, but we value them more or less than we should. Some things we love too much, and as C. S. Lewis says, “When a love becomes a god, it becomes a demon.” Other things we love too little, and it leaves us shriveled an hollowed out, looking to fill a need with something that doesn’t fit, all the while neglecting the proper object of our love.

That is our problem. We love wrongly.

We think our problem is obedience. We think our problem is falling into line with God’s law. And by God’s law, we mean a list of behavior. (Of course, according to Jesus and to Paul, the Law of God is summed up in love. Rightly ordered love fulfills the law.) So, we establish a standard. We develop rules. In order to solve our problem, we try and help people keep their behavior in check. Conforming our behavior to standards becomes the end goal. Churches teach people what to do an not do. We provide strategies and pressure to keep the standards.

But, what if we thought about the church as the place where instead of training in behavior, we trained people to love rightly. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want love worked out in action, but let’s not jump the gun. What if, instead of prescribing rules, we taught who and how to love. What if we established programs and activities that helped people’s hearts become more in line with what they ought enjoy. What if we trained people in delighting in God.

I’m not talking about simply telling people to love God and others. I am talking about thinking about what activities help our hearts experience and practice loving God and others rightly. In other words, what spiritual disciplines do we need to engage in to form our loves? What if the church was a boot camp for the heart?

Surely, this would involve teaching and preaching, meditation on the Scriptures, and prayer. It would probably also involve fasting (abstaining from good things that we love too much in order to practice going without so that we do not love them more than we ought). Who knows what other actions might help train the heart, not just the habits, to love rightly.

Rules aren’t enough. In fact, they reinforce false and misaligned loves more than they encourage proper loves.

This is what the church must learn and focus on, training hearts to love rightly in response to the Gospel. This is how people will become like Jesus. This is how people will become free. The law is fulfilled by love.

Churches in Our Own Image

Many have accused Christians of believing in a God of their own design. It is a human habit to fashion our ideas of God around what we want and desire. Instead of expecting God to be radically different from us, we expect him to just be a big version of our own ideals. We impose on God our ideal of what love should be (which usually leaves no room for judgement), rather than conforming to his idea of love. We imagine God’s justice in terms of our justice (which is usually more like revenge), instead of conforming our lives to his justice. For us, we must constantly have our vision of God reformed, because if we do not, we will believe in a self-made god, an idol. Rather than being made in God’s image, we make God in our own.

This is a problem with our image of God. Could it also be a problem for our churches?

It is often said that the Church ought to be the image of Christ in the world, his hands and feet. The way people encounter Jesus is through his Church. Some theologians have said that the Church is an icon of the Trinity. We ought to see God’s life lived out in our churches.

So what do we see lived out in our churches?

Our churches are busy, fragmented, distracted by the pragmatic, obsessed with novelty, looking for a quick fix, and never satisfied…just like the people that make them up. Churches are full of programs and events and activities, most of them well-intentioned with very little lasting impact. We see people who live just like the world. Only worse. They can have their self-serving lifestyles wrapped in a coating of legalism via activity. How many programs you are involved in is an indication of your spirituality. Busyness hides spiritual bankruptcy, and narcissism is fertilized by structures that serve the community within the church, not the world outside the church. The church is often, without intending it, so full of activity, that it can distract from the need for real transformation. For most, it facilitates a version of the modern life that is not fundamentally different from life outside the church, but makes it harder to see the need for change because the church keeps us full of good activity. The sad truth is, that in the end, we have come to expect that even after 20 years in the church, people will not be significantly different than the day they walked in.

Why is this?

I contend that it is because we have made the church in our own image. Instead of reflecting the image of Christ, it reflects our own image. Instead of being an icon of God, it is an icon of us.

We are busy. The church is busy.

We want quick fixes. The church looks for quick fixes.

We want things that work for me now. The church tends toward the pragmatic.

We are hardhearted and want to avoid obeying God’s Word. The church is set structured in a way that I can look godly for a long time without ever having to really be confronted with the unsettling truths of the Bible.

We want others to teach our kids, take care of our kids health, teach our kids values. The church takes our children out of our hands and puts them into the care of youth pastors and children’s workers.

We want to be impressed and entertained. The church gets lights and cool audio and video loops and rock music and a coffee shop and the band makes a CD and…

The church is made in our own image, not Jesus’ image.

People become like the churches that they are a part of.

For me, the really challenging question is, “What do you expect someone to look like after spending years in your church?” How are people being formed by their activity in the church? The sad answer for most “successful” churches today, is probably a busy person with few friends outside the church who still have the same stubborn sinful habits that they did when they started coming to church. We have a system that leaves people the same was when they came in.

The life of Jesus was simple. It was focused. It didn’t require a big budget. It didn’t require a lot of staff. All Jesus needed was God’s Word, the Spirit, and people. The life of the Trinity is simple. It is one of perfect love and adoration, perfect openness and sharing. It is one of truth and faithfulness. The most unfathomable of mysteries is the most simple of structures.

Churches should be simple. You know what you need for a church? The Bible, bread and wine, and people. Not much. A place to meet helps, too, but even that can be arranged without much cost or trouble most of the time.

I wonder if we might have more people looking like Jesus after time in the church if our churches were simpler.

Practical Ways to Fight the Love of Money

Last week and this week, I am talking about money in the youth group. Last week we talked about how the Bible views wealth and money. On Sunday, we’ll be talking about caring for the poor. I put together this list of activities to help students know how to fight the love of money:

The love of money is very difficult to fight. The lure of wealth and possessions is subtle, and it is everywhere in our culture. As Christians, we need to free our hearts from the love of money, but how do we do that? Here are some activities and actions that you can do to help free your heart from the love of money.

Thanksgiving: Take time every day to remember that God is the one who provides everything that you have. Remember that you do not deserve all of the good things God has provided, and that they are a gift. Thank God for what he has given. Maybe you even want to share what you are thankful for each day with your family. Going around the dinner table and saying what you are thankful for regularly can help you keep in mind that God is the provider.

Meditation on Jesus and the Shortness of Life: When the Bible talks about money, it always puts it into perspective. It always reminds us that Jesus and the Kingdom of God are always more valuable than stuff. The more we understand how great and beautiful and glorious Jesus is, the more we start to realize how insignificant money really is. The Bible also reminds us that life is short, and when it is done, all our money is gone. We ought to live for things that last beyond life. When we meditate (that is, think repeatedly about) the glory of Jesus and the shortness of life, we stop being so concerned with wealth.

Give Up Buying New Things: One habit that keeps us always wanting more things is regularly buying new stuff. When we get in the habit of always having new clothes, new music, new movies, new games, new cars, etc…we start to expect those things. A good way to break that is to simply choose not to buy new things. Maybe you will choose not to buy new clothes more than once or twice a year, and only when you really need them. Maybe you will choose not to buy new music for six months. Maybe you will only buy used things from resale shops or online. Maybe you choose to not buy anything other than the food you need for a year. When we do this, we become more content with the stuff we already have.

Giving Money and Stuff Away: This is one of the best ways to free yourself from the love of money. When you use your resources to provide for others, your heart will start to change and become less selfish. Regular giving is a good idea, and most Christians agree that 10% of what you make is a good number to start with. It also is good to give away your stuff. Giving away things you don’t use is a good place to start, but you will be more effective when you start giving away things you really like. Give away your favorite CD. Give away a nice pair of jeans. I know someone who gives away anything that someone admires. When he hears someone say, “I would love to have something like this,” he gives it to them. He has given away some valuable stuff that way, but it helps him remember that his stuff is not the most important thing.

Borrowing and Lending: Instead of accumulating more things, why not borrow from friends and family? I’m not talking about copying mp3s or burning DVDs, but actually borrowing and lending things. Why not lend your clothing? You could borrow CDs or video games. You could carpool rather than getting another car. You might even be able to share textbooks rather than buying two sets. There is a lot that you could avoid buying extras of if your friend has it.

Regular Purging: Most of us have lots of stuff that we don’t use anymore, but it is still sitting in our closets, in the garage, or under the bed. We may keep it just because we think, “Maybe one day I’ll want or need this.” But why do we really need to accumulate this much stuff? To fight this, you could go through all your stuff three times a year (Winter, Spring, and Summer break), and get rid of a lot of it. Anything that you haven’t used in a year, you should get rid of. Anything you have more than one of, give away. The more often you see everything that you own, the more you will realize how much you have. When you get rid of some of it, you will find that you are more free from the need to have it.

Simplifying Your Life Permanently: What if you lived in a way that you didn’t need as many things that cost money? What if you thought about what you really needed, and started getting rid of things that you don’t actually need? Start making choices like:

• Giving up TV or cable
• Not having internet
• Not getting an extra car for your family. Ride a bike, walk, or carpool instead.
• Not having video games
• Limiting your wardrobe to what fits in three or four drawers
• Asking for less (or no) birthday or Christmas gifts each year
• Never go to a new movie, only rent or borrow.
• Stop paying for lunches or eating out. Make a lunch or cook at home instead.

John Wesley, a great preacher from the 18th century figured out how much money he needed to live on, and then he stopped spending more. No matter how much more money he made, he always spent the same amount of money, and gave the rest away. What if you did that?

Vow of Poverty: When we take the idea of simplifying our life to the extreme, we have the vow of poverty. Some people choose to only spend the money it takes to have the basic necessities (food, housing, water, basic clothing). They do not accumulate any other possessions beyond what is needed. They do this to give the rest away. While most people do not even consider this an option, as Christians, it is one we ought to think about. This is what Jesus called some of the people who followed him in the Bible to do, and he may call of some of us to do it too. It is not for everyone, but even today, there are missionaries, pastors, and even ordinary people who choose to live the most basic of lives so that they can provide for others and be free from the love of money.

The Awkward Cross

A couple of years ago, our church built a huge cross to use in our Good Friday and Easter celebrations. It was probably 30 to 40 feet tall, and it dominated the sanctuary. At the time, Chris and I had just started Ecclesia, and we were experimenting with all sorts of different props and decorations for our services. On Easter, after the services, one of the maintenance guys from the church was supposed to get rid of the giant cross, but he saw us and thought that we might have some further use for it in Ecclesia. He asked Chris if we wanted it. Chris said that we might, but that he should ask us later that week, because we weren’t really thinking about that sort of stuff on Easter. We would have to talk about what we could use it for, if anything, and we’d let them know if we wanted it.

When we came back to church on Tuesday, the giant cross was in our room, awkwardly sitting on the stage, leaning on the back wall. In our little room, the cross looked even bigger than it did in the main sanctuary. Frankly, it took me a while to figure out how they actually got it into the room, because it was too large to fit through the doors. I think they took it apart and reassembled it in the room. I don’t think that would have been fun because it is fairly heavy. It was too heavy, in fact, for us to move it from where it was. So, we just left it there.

It was cool at first, even if a little odd. It was different to have such a large cross, and it sort of said something. After a while, though, the coolness sort of wore off. A few different things happened. First, we started to forget that it was there. Even with a cross that large and obtrusive, we sort of got used to it. We didn’t notice it as much as before, and it became just background. We’d do our other decorations around it, and just sort of use the part of the stage that it wasn’t on for everything we wanted to do.

Then, after we had forgotten about it, we started to notice that it really stood out to visitors. When new people would come, they would comment about the giant cross. To some it was shocking. To others, it was strange. To some, it was a powerful message. To others, it was offensive. At Easter time the next year, we had a Messianic Jew come in to do a Passover dinner for us. It was mostly for people in our church to understand the background of the Last Supper, but the presenter told us that if we wanted to use the Passover dinner as an outreach to Jews, we might want to remove any crosses from the room. We were told that they wouldn’t understand the symbol, and to many Jews the cross is just another symbol of another Jewish person that the world killed. When Chris and I heard this, we just looked at each other and laughed, because the presenter hadn’t seen the size of our cross.

After a while, the cross became a nuisance. It was in our way a lot, and it limited what we could do with the stage. It was sort of ugly, and it was getting old. It became just like the room’s bad paint job and the dirty carpet, something we wanted to get rid of when we got the chance. It was just making us look bad and cramping our style.

Even after I was done working with Ecclesia, I still had the cross to deal with. You see, the high school youth group uses the same room that Ecclesia did at that time, so the youth group also had to deal with the awkward cross. When I became the youth pastor, the cross was still in my way.

And then, I started to think about it. Isn’t that a powerful symbol of how we actually feel about the real cross of Christ. The death of Jesus, the cross, the suffering of the Messiah on our behalf, our King beaten and bloodied, the atonement…when it first enters your life it is powerful and fascinating, and you love it. Eventually, though it becomes normal. The death of Jesus is so commonplace. We mention it so often and so casually at times, that it doesn’t shock or excite you that often anymore.

Of course, there are those who enter our community as newcomers or observers that notice the cross right away, and it offends or bewilders them. They hear the words of our songs and the rhetoric of blood and dying and suffering, and it is bizarre to them. I have a student who has turned away from his faith recently. He is always asking questions about Christianity to try and rattle the cages of other students from our youth group, and the other day he asked, “Why is God so obsessed with blood?” He pointed to the sacrificial system and the wars of the Old Testament, and, of course, the ultimate example, Jesus’ death itself. It had become an offense to him.

And for some of us, the death of Jesus, the bloody, messy, disgusting atonement becomes something we wish we could get rid of. Some of us do it by simply dropping it quietly from our message. We mention it less and less. We turn our attention elsewhere. We focus on morality and practical application and spiritual comfort. Some of us do it by outright attacking the cross, trying to remove it forcibly from our doctrine and preaching.

For others, it isn’t an issue of being embarrassed by the cross; it is more an issue of being restricted by it. We can’t do what we wish we could do when the death of Jesus is before us. It shows us the depths of our sin, which is frustrating. It calls us to repentance, and we don’t want to do that. It calls us to humility. It calls us to self-denial, and we aren’t ready to go that far. It says we can’t be all about success and professionalism in our churches. It says we need to be about a bloody King. It says that at the heart of who the God we worship is a self-giving love that we are called to embody, and we want a God that promotes our dreams of success and fulfillment. We don’t want to follow a Lord who commands us to die. We don’t want to learn the way of a Master who will teach us to suffer. We aren’t ready to say, I am weak, and I need a sacrifice for my salvation. We want to say that I can manage and plan and engineer my salvation, and I don’t need anyone’s charity. I don’t need anyone to suffer for me. I’ll make it myself.

And this, more than anything, seems to me to be our problem with the cross. It gets in our way. It interrupts our plans. It embarrasses us and prevents us from being what we dreamed. It demands that we submit to an awkward and backwards ideal of self-denial, and not to the dream of success. We can’t get rid of the cross. It is ours, no matter if we asked for it or not. We have to deal with it, it is in our way. There is no other way to be the church or a Christian.

And so, like it or not, I am keeping the cross in the youth room.

The Virtuous Theologian (Part 2): Humility

A few weeks ago, I asked the question, “What virtues are necessary for someone to be a good theologian?” Over the next few days, I will be commenting on virtues I think are necessary for someone to produce good theology.

It probably does not need to be said, but one of the most important virtues for a theologian to cultivate is humility. The scary thing is that most theologians need to be reminded of this often. There is a tendency for theology to breed an attitude of arrogance. This may be because of the importance of the subject, as it can give people a skewed sense of their own knowledge when they begin to find words to articulate divine realities. There is also great power in theology, because if people take our words seriously, it shapes their view of God. In turn, their view of God impacts what they think about the world, who they are, and how they should act. The importance of our subject can breed a sense of self-importance. Although it should make us tremble and fear to speak of the holy and ineffable, our twisted pride brings about the opposite effect and puffs up our sense of importance. It doesn’t help that many laypeople lack significant theological knowledge and tend to see theologians as bearing a special understanding that they have not been initiated into. When people see you as an expert, it is an ego boost. The problem is multiplied by being an “expert” in God.

In this area, we need to take a lesson from Karl Barth. We need Barth as our teacher, because, for one, he is way smarter than all of us, and it simply getting your head around him will take some serious work. We all are a little more humble in the face of genius…but more than that…We need to learn from him the impossibility of the theological task. Something that he often (over?) emphasized was the infinite gulf between human reality and God. God is wholly other and cannot be simply apprehended by human reason or articulated by human expression. In a sense, we cannot speak of God. Our words don’t cover his reality. Our minds can’t grasp it. As a result, if we are to engage at all in the task of theology, God will have to act and give meaning to our words. In the analogy adapted from Calvin, God will have to express himself in the babble of our baby-talk if we are to speak of him at all. It is upon God to reveal himself. We cannot pry into his reality. And even when he does reveal himself (in Christ and the Bible), our interpretations and words based on that revelation are another step removed from the reality of God.

What is more, we are responsible for what we say about God. The Bible takes seriously the things we speak about the divine reality. We will be judged for how we speak of God. Without humility, therefore, the theological task becomes, not just impossible, but deadly. We must not take the Lord’s name in vain. God is holy. God is other. God is a mystery. And all our words must be tempered with the caution and reverence he deserves.

The impossibility and seriousness of speaking about God ought to make us humble. It must make us look to the grace of God. Without grace, we will never make in theology. Without God freely choosing to bless us in our task, we dare not attempt it. Then, when we do receive God’s grace, it is the grace to tread softly and listen. And when we speak too quickly and arrogantly (and we will), it is the grace to repent and be forgiven.

Monastary as Model for Spiritual Formation

I thought this post on Out of Ur was very interesting: Spiritual Formation: we’ve already got a proven model, but do we want it?

It is a good expression of what I am looking for in spiritual formation. I think this is a great quesiton posed by the author:

What would happen to your life if you lived in close geographical community and relationship with other people; if you lived in submission to authority; if you practiced silence and simplicity and discipline; if you regularly read the Bible and prayed and meditated on what you read; if you made study part of your life; and if you worked hard in some daily occupation, seeing your labor as full of dignity and offering it to God?

I am certainly interested in pursing this ideal. What do you think?

Ecclesia on I Corinthians 14

Starting this week, I am going to start blogging the sermons in Ecclesia each week. I may only post a few sentences or a random thought or two about the service. Even so, even a small post will force me to reflect on the service and get more out of it. I also hope that other Ecclesia folks will start interacting through the week about the passages we cover in Ecclesia. This is my contribution to those conversations.

We are getting close to the end of a sermon series on I Corinthians, and this week we talked about the contraversial, I Corinthians 14. It is about speaking in tongues and prophecy. We focused on the first few verses primarily:

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.

There was great potential for conflict over this topic, especially in an old church like ours with roots in good old dispensationalism. Historically, we have been practicing cessationists, although we have never written or agreed on a stance in regard to spritual gifts. In recent decades, we have moved to an attitude that is summed up as "noncharismatic, but not anti-charismatic." Basically, this means that people don't speak in tongues here, and we don't have healings or prophecy in our services, but we aren't officially against those sorts of things happening. There are both cessationists and non-cessationists on our staff. Included in the non-cessastionist group is Ted, one of the pastors in Ecclesia, the Marriage and Family pastor, and myself. At the services, Ted spoke, and the Marriage and Family Pastor joined him for a Q and A time after the message. The service was very pro-gifts.

One thing that was wisely included in the services was a time of testimony from three people who had had different experiences with charismatic gifts, including a man who doubted his faith because a grade school teacher told him he didn't have God's Spirit if he did not speak in tongues, a woman who was in a very charismatic church until high school and had some bad experiences because of it, and a man who grew up as a Christian but did not encounter spiritual gifts until he started dating the woman who was at the very charismatic church. It was an interesting conversation between them, and it showed the problems of both overkill on the gifts and complete absense of them.

On the whole, I thought the service was well done, and it lead to some great conversations at the tavern afterwards.

My background in the issue is a bit torn. My Mom speaks in tongues in private. She was healed from a lifelong thyroid illness when she prayed in faith while watching a healer on a charismatic TV show. My Dad, in contrast, believes that the charismatic gifts have ceased. He used to speak in tongues when he was a young Christian, but later became convinced that this was not truly from God's Spirit. He doubts healers on TV, but does not doubt that God could heal if he wanted. I believe he has recieved prophetic words from God, although he might not call them that. So, growing up, my Dad taught me one thing, and my Mom respectfully disagreed, while quietly continuing her own practices in private. Because of this, my theology has gone back and forth over the years. Personally, I have never spoken in tongues, and in spite of the sense of God speaking to me, I don't know if I have had a genuine prophecy.

With that in mind, here are my basic thoughts and questions on the issue:

There is no Biblical reason for the gifts to be gone. The Bible simply doesn't hint at them ending or anticipate a time when the church would not need God's supernatural empowering in fantastic ways. Anyone who tries to argue this from the Bible, in my opinion, is doing violence to the text. On the other hand, charismatic churches, although they answer the question "Have the gifts ceased?" correctly, have gotten a whole lot wrong beyond that.

On the issue of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I believe that this happens at conversion, when a person first believes in Jesus. There is no second experience after conversion in which a person recieves the Holy Spirit.

On the issue of speaking in tongues, I think that it can and does happen. I do not think that all Christians should or will, and that anyone who claims that all Christians should speak in tongues is both violating the teaching of Paul I Corinthians 12, and potentially doing great damage to the faith of those who have not spoken in tongues but genuinely believe Jesus. How should tongues function? Well, there are three ways that were proposed in the service on Sunday:

1) As a supernatual ability to speak in earthly languages that are not known naturally to the speaker, particullary in an evangelistic context (ala Acts 2). I think this is possible, and I tend to believe the stories I have heard about frontiers missionaries who have spoken in tongues to communicate with groups they were trying to reach.

2) As a prophetic word in a worship gathering of Christians (ala I Corinthians 14). A word in tongues is acceptable if it is interpreted by another person in the congregation, and the prophecy that is expresses is weighed and confirmed by the elders of the congregation. I think this is legitimate. The problem is execution of this practice. In most churches like ours, we do not leave room for this kind of activity. We would not know how to handle it if it did happen. I don't have many good suggestions about this, but maybe someone else does? I want to avoid the choas that many charismatic churches fall into in regards to this. I would also want to see that it is strictly enforced that the elders weigh all utterences against Scripture.

3) Private prayer languages, which are used to express the emotions and deep cares of a believer who is unable to articulate their heart to God. The passage usually cited in this instance is Romans 8:26. Personally, I am not convinced that this is a solid Biblical basis for this practice. I don't think that is what Romans 8 is referring to. The babbling of most charismatic churches, in my opinion, does not correspond to a Biblical precedent. That being said, I don't really mind if someone speaks in tongues in private. If it is edifying to them, enhancing their connection, love, and worship of Christ, I am not going to fobid it. I am also not going to promote it or make a norm for people. I compare it to times when I have prayed through screaming. There have been times that I have had such deep stuff going on in my heart, that all I could do was groan, scream, or yell to God. It was prayerful, expressive, but not necessarily rational. I think God recieved that as a prayer of faith, from a desperate heart. I don't think everyone should pray that way. It is not a norm. It doesn't have a direct Biblical precedent, but it is not inconsistant with Scripture either. I wouldn't necessarily do it in public, though, because it would not edify the Body or bring people to Christ. I also would not lable this kind of tongues a spiritual gift.

(SIDE NOTE ON TONGUES: I heard two of the most interesting stories about tongues after the service this week. Two people told me how they knew people who spoke in tongues as a personal prayer language. In both these cases, they people had been using their prayer language for years, in private, thinking they were speaking a non-earthly language. In one case, a man had been speaking in his prayer language for years. Naturally, he only spoke English, and knew no other languages. One day his granddaughter passed by his room as he was praying in tongues. His granddaughter was a Spanish major in college, and when she passed, the man was speaking Spanish. She stopped and asked him how he learned Spanish, and he told her he didn't know Spanish. As it turns out, his private prayer language, after all his life, turned out to be Spanish. In another story, a woman who had prayed in tongues in private, was riding in a cab in the city. While in the cab, she sensed that she should speaking in her prayer language. When she did, the cabbie understood what she was saying, and she shared the Gospel with him…Very strange. It makes you think…those of you who passed on these stories to me, feel free to correct my errors if I got the details wrong.)

On the issue of prophecy, the Bible is clear, we should eagerly desire this gift. I don't see this as a future-predictive gift most of the time, but more basically, a word from God. Sometimes it can be a future prediction, but more often it can simply be a challenge, encouragement, or a message of direction. All prophecies should be weighed by Scripture and under the wisdom of leaders in the community. I think this can be a great source of encouragement and power for Christians, and it must be used wisely. If prophecy is not joined with discernment, great harm can come to people because of it. I know a couple who went to a small charismatic church. At the time, they were childless and did not think they could have children. In that church, someone prophecied that the woman would have a baby. When she did not get pregnant, it was confusing and painful for the couple who had taken the prophecy to heart. Could God have sent that sort of message? Yes. Could that sort of practice be fake, and therefore easily abused? Yes. We must be wise about this gift, altough we must take seriously the command to eagerly desire it.

On the issue of healing, I believe that healing still happens. God still hears and responds to the prayers of his people. The problem comes when people use healing as a way to put God on display, as a performer, or crossing the line in commanding God to do what we want, as if the Holy Spirit were a trick dog on a leash. This is the error that many TV healers fall into. God's healing power is mysterious and it is completely up to God's will when he will use it. (Reading the book of Mark could help cure us of the tendecy to expect God to answer to our whims and perform for us. So will John 6 and other passages about Jesus miraculous ministry.) Another error could easily fall into is believing that healing comes to those who have more faith, are more holy, or more in touch with God. The book of Job should have killed that idea for us long ago, and John 9 should have nailed the coffin shut. But, alas, it does not, leading to great doubt on behalf of those who have cronic illnesses and permenant disabilities. I know people whose faith has been destroyed because of lies about healing.

Those are my answers to the standard questions about theology of spiritual gifts. But, beyond where I stand on tongues, healing, and prophecy, I think there is a deeper and more important set of issues to address in how we approach the gifts. Here they are:

Mission: In I Corinthians 14, it is clear that the gifts exist as part of the church's mission. How we are percieved by outsiders is related to how we use the gifts. So often, our obsession with or avoiding of the charismatic gifts have alienated those who look on Christian practice from afar. This may be harsh, but I think that TBN and TV faith healers have probably done more harm to the witness of Christ than good. They make Christians look like fools, and not for the reasons the Bible says we should look like fools. The sensationalism and prosperity messages that have been tied to Chrisitanity because of these people has caused many people to never enter a Christian church for fear of finding people like they see on TV. At the same time, because we have avoided the gifts in many churches, we also lack the true sense of the supernatural in our ministries. This is also a turn-off to people who are looking for something more than religious advice, words, and rules. As I Corinthians 14 points out, the gifts, used right, are often the sign to outsiders that God is present among Christians. The gifts are meant to empower our mission, not hurt it. When they go against that purpose, something is wrong in how we are using them.

Community: The resounding chorus of Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts is that they are to be used for the edification of the body. That is part of why I think the use of tongues as a private prayer language does not jive with what Scripture says. The gifts are not for private use, but for the good of others. The gifts, like the Spirit who empowers them, is focused outwardly on the formation of a community of grace and love who are active in the mission of God to restore recreate the world. Anytime the gifts are used to play people against each other as more spiritual, more godly, or more blessed, they are being misused. Anytime they are the cause of divison, something is wrong. Any time they are just for the user, something is wrong. Anytime they do not aim at the greater health of the community, they are wrong. That is why the gifts exist, for the strengthing of the Church, God's people.

Grace: The spiritual gifts are just that, gifts. If they are not seen as gracious, unearned, and undeserved, something is missing from our perspective. When they become signs of spiritual atainment, we have violated the Spirit of the gifts. When we make them signs of closeness to God or earned approval by God, we have misunderstood them completely. When we make the mistake of creating a heirarchy based on experiences with the gifts, we are in great danger of deeply wounding the community. Many people have been deeply scared by feeling that their lack of experience with the gifts is a sign of their lack of spirituality or connection to God. Deeply faithful people are caused to doubt because they have been placed on an ungracious latter of spiritual experience that ranks and evaluates people. This changes the gifts into payment. They are earned results of spiritual atainment, rather than gracious empowering for us to become what we are not and can only be by the power of God.

Word: As with all issues, the key to success in the area of spiritual gifts is tied to how well we align our practice with God's word. Do we take seriously God's portrait of how healing works? Do we hold all potential prophecies up to the standard of Biblical revelation? Do we seak the order and clarity that the Bible commends when we practice tongues? The Word is our norm and standard, and in the area of spiritual gifts, most major errors can be avoided by simply attending to the instructions it gives. Of all areas where Christians err, I think that this issue is one of the most clearly and directly addressed issues in Scripture.

A few more miscellaneous issues from Ecclesia:

Ted asked a great question worth pondering: "How much of what we do is a reaction to ugliness rather than an attraction to beauty?" He applied this to the issue of the gifts, in that we often reject the gifts because we've seen them done poorly or we go full-bore into the gifts because we've seen the problems their absense brings. I think it can be applied to other issues as well. Of course it is not an issue of wether or not we oppose error and ugliness, but if what we are opposed to defines our stances and the issues we address, we will become unhealthy very quickly. When we are more defined by what we are against, rather than what we are for, there is a problem.

I am very happy that Ecclesia is developing into a community that can discuss issues like this without fights and division. We had a lot of great conversations after the service, and they were all edifying, even when people disagreed or were confused. I think that is a sign that a healthy culture developing. I hope it continues.

Lent, Ash Wednesday, and my Fast

While I have never been Catholic, Anglican, or attended any church that was even vaguely liturgical, I have celebrated Lent since I was a high school student. I’m not really sure what attracted me to this tradition even when I was young (and much more opposed to Catholicism than I am now), but it has always been deeply meaningful to me. I think I am attracted to the church calendar because of its ability to do two things: 1) Interpret my experience of time. 2) Allow me to enter into the story of Jesus.Perhaps you will disagree with me, the way we experience time and give meaning to our location in history is impacted by the calendar we follow. On a big scale, the fact that we count years from when Jesus was born until the present day impacts how we picture ourselves in the course of history. On a smaller scale we arbitrarily assign signficance to centuries and decades, simply because of our system of numbering years. We label people based on decades (child of the 80’s, 70’s, etc.). On an even smaller scale, the passing of monthes (some faster than others) allows us to order our lives. The school calendar determines when and how we do lots of things in our country and especially family-oriented places. The fiscal calendar impacts our spending and our mood. Holidays mark time for us and create signficiance for certain days. Because the calendars we follow impact how we experience and interpret our life, as Christians, we ought to think about what calendar we follow and how it shapes us. I am drawn to a distinctively Christian ordering of time around the seasons of Advent, Lent, and the rest. I think that helps me give a more Jesus-centered meaning to the seasons of my year.

When we follow the church calendar, it helps us enter into the story of Jesus and redemption by helping us remember over the course of time, the story that God unfolded over time in Christ. Anticipating his birth, celebrating the incarnation, remembering his life, feeling his sufferings, commemorating his death, and partying at the Resurrection all help us experience the signficance of these events. As I am part of a Church that hardly follows these traditions, I have never experienced Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Epiphany or other holidays, but I can say from my celebration of Advent and Lent that this can be a very powerful way to experience the story of redemption.

During Lent, I choose to fast something to allow myself to experience and feel the sacrifice of Christ. I remember the cost of my sin and the fact that I am dust, helpless unless God is merciful and sends a savior. I remember the depths of his sacrifice in taking on our sin and mortality, compared to the glories and joy of his life in heaven with the Father. I remember the fact that to follow Jesus means taking up my cross and laying down my life to be with him. My fast is usually something that is a simple reminder throughout my day of the suffering of Jesus. My fast hardly hurts me at all, most of the time. Often, it turns out to be a source of joy, even if it takes getting used to. This year, I am fasting from taking my computer home from work. Instead of surfing the web, blogging, or working at home, I will spend time studying, reading, and praying. I hope that this will lead to clearer focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus as Holy Week approaches.

• Here is a good post about the Lent and the need for corporate fasts in Protestant churches: Joe Thorn - Ashes.
• Here is my own essay on Lent for my high schoolers on our youth group site: StudentBodyWorld.com - Lent

What do you think of all this? Are you fasting? Do you celebrate the church calendar? Let me hear your comments.

The World Question and Solitude

Every year the Edge Foundation asks intellectual leaders one provactive question to be answered in a short essay: The World Question. Most of the thinkers are very secular, non-religious, atheistic, or materialistic. Their answers reflect this. Many contain scathing attacks on religion and blatant militant opposition to God (for example). Never-the-less, reading their responses causes me to ponder, process and wonder. Last year’s question was phenomenal, when they asked, “What do you believe that you cannot prove?” This year, the question is not quite as stimulating, but I found most of the answers fun to think about. They asked, “What is your dangerous idea?” As they describe it:

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

Most of the answers involved the nature of human beings in light of discoveries in genetics, brain research, and evolutionary biology. There was one answer that I thought was insightful, though. Leo Chalupa’s answer was interesting. (His last name made me chuckle a little, too.) I wonder what it would be like if the Christian community tried this more often. I have found in my own life the power of silence and solitude. Other than the study of scripture and participating in the Lord’s Supper, solitude impacted me more than any other spiritual practice I’ve ever tried. I think that this spiritual discipline is one of the most indispensible practices for me personally, and I have a feeling more people would benefit from trying it.

Peter Adam on the Mind-Heart Polarity

I am currently reading, Hearing God’s Words by Peter Adam. I am kind of bored with this book, but every once in a while, I find an amazing section that keeps me reading. I thought Adam’s section on the power of words (p. 162ff) contained some great comments that fit with my reaction to Don Miller’s book. What is great about this section from Adam is that he attacks the head-heart, mind-emotion dichotomy. Allow me to quote him at length:

One of the most powerful assumptions in our world is the polarity of mind and heart…The issue is an important one for spirituality. If we ask the question ‘Is spirituality fundamentally of the heart or the mind?’, then the answer will have profound effect on our spirituality. If we answer that spirituality is fundamentally of the heart, we will then assume that intellect and rationality are deeply unspiritual, and damaging to spirituality. If we answer that spirituality is fundamentally of the mind, then we will avoid emotion, and regard the safest spirituality as the most rational and controlled.

This polarity in approaching spirituality has deeply affected us: the almost universal assumption has been that spirituality is one of the heart, not the mind. Here are some of the results:

• Spirituality has tended to be consciously untheological.
• Spirituality has valued the intuitive, and avoided the rational.
• Christian traditions which have valued theology (e.g. the Reformed tradition) have been assumed to have no spirituality.
• Spirituality has been associated with less rational sources, such as objects, places, buildings and music.
• Spirituality has been dissociated from words, for fear that they will import unhelpful rationality.

It is unnecessary to perpetuate the heart-mind polarity, because there is no reason why the truth should not be passionate, and no reason why emotion should not be intellectual…

Because spirituality has been associated with the heart rather than the mind, it has tended to neglect the value of theological insight and rational debate. If it has not been wary of words, then it has been drawn to a particular use of words, evocative, creative and poetic, rather than content-full, cognitive and clarifying. So there is a recognizable trend in spirituality to favor a particular kind of verbal communication, and to avoid language that includes clear content, informaiton, evaluation or arguement. (Adam 2004, p.162-163)

Adam then goes on to trace the history of the trend to favor the heart over the mind. The Romantics are put to blame for the spirituality that pits the heart over the mind. He continues with an argument for the power of words to impact not just the intellectual, but also the emotional side of people. The two spheres, it turns out are deeply fused and inseperable. He hits on two points that I think are worth noting. They seem to be common assumptions in my own church environment. First, Adam rejects the idea that God is so mysterious that words cannot describe him accurately. Words do have the power to convey truth about God, and to claim that they don’t misunderstands the nature of God’s transcendence, and eliminates (curiously) the immanence of God that is conveyed in our limited words. I think it is a mistake all to often indulged in when challenging/contraversial ideas come up to say, “Well, we can’t really ever get to the bottom of this. God is a mystery after all.” Frankly, I think that is usually a cop out or an attempt to avoid conflict. Secondly, Adam points out that “spontenaity is no guarantee of godliness.” (p.165) This he pins on the Romantic ideals of inspiration and intuition, which make us think that prayers arising from the mind immediately are the most authentic, and that all written prayers are somehow ingenuine.

The unity of heart and mind is a simple concept that we seem to never get. It is the problem that leads to reactions like Donald Miller or John Eldridge. Even when I liked Eldridge, I always sent people to Piper first, because he expressed a deep, passionate faith, but never sacrificed his mind.

I would say this, though, to those who read this and heartily “amen” their own defence of an intellectual faith: Beware of the opposite error. Don’t avoid situations that seem emotional, just because they seem to neglect the mind. Don’t assume that expressions of spontenaity, emotion, and fervor are signs that people have checked their minds at the door. Edwards warns well of that in his investigations of the Great Awakening. Just because someone is over the top in their emotional expression does make them ingenuine. Neither correct theology and strong emotional reactions are sure signs of true change. What is a sure sign, according to Edwards (and I think the Scriptures), how you demonstrate your love towards others. I personally think that all three are needed for a hearty spirituality. Head. Heart. Hands…ugh…that was so bad…how about the rational, affectual, and volitional…mabye what you think, what you feel, and what you do…oh you get the point…