Thinking About Jesus

I took a half-day away this morning, hoping to read through the four gospels.  I was able to read three — Matthew, Mark, and John.

For the past several years, Jesus has fascinated me.  This fascination is increasing exponentially as I get older.  His absolute boldness is awe-inspiring, and His undefeatable wisdom is mind-blowing.  Time and again He was challenged by groups of elite, scheming, highly-motivated religious leaders, and time and again He sent them away with their tails between their legs.  And He did it by speaking truth, every time.

But perhaps more striking is His comprehensive ministry.  He was simultaneously a world-class thinker, impenetrable debater, and masterful teacher as well as a helper of the poor, healer of the sick, companion of the lowly, and personal discipler of twelve intimate companions.

I told Cindi a few days ago that reading the gospels always creates an intense tension for me, especially as I think about our future.  On the one hand, I admire and desire a biblically-saturated life of the mind — spiritual scholarship.  On the other hand, I cannot escape the longing and responsibility to associate with the lowly, to help the outcasts and the needy, and to relieve the burden of those most desperate.  I do neither well, but want to do both like Jesus.

And Jesus never alleviates this tension for me.  I don’t walk away from the gospels thinking, “Jesus sure was one-dimensional; He was just a real scholar,” or “Jesus was all about one thing: meeting immediate physical needs.”  Instead He pulls on both ends of the tension, calling (by His example) for rigorous thinking about the truth and relentless ministry to the needy.

This doesn’t mean that I have to spend the exact same amount of time studying as helping homeless people (or vice versa).  “Balance” doesn’t mean doing both things with a tangible, strict proportionality.  But it does mean having a heart for both and a practical expression of both in my life.  It also means seeing how they complement and reinforce each other instead of viewing them as competitors.  And it certainly means never using my responsibility to one as an excuse to avoid the other.

Jesus engaged in high-level theological debates and spoke simple words of healing.  He gave lashing rebukes to religious hypocrites and comforting words to mourning parents.  He spent entire nights in solitary prayer and entire days with a tag-along Galilean hospital (including psych ward).  He flipped tables in the temple courtyard and played with random Hebrew kids.  He taught truth and He washed feet.  He thundered with the very words of God and died silently on a cross.

After I got home today, I tried to be like Him.  And it was very hard.  I didn’t do too well.  But tonight I’m thinking that I can’t give up trying.  What I saw today in the gospels is too beautiful to go unreflected.  Perhaps it’s a bit like traveling to an incredible national park and trying to take pictures that will show your friends back home what it was really like.  You know that the pictures won’t do it justice because they’re limited and incomplete and blurry and tainted.  But you have to try.  It’s too beautiful not to try.

Wit and Wisdom from John Hannah (14)

Here are more loose, assorted quotes from John Hannah and his Winterim class that I took in January on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Edwards.  These are from his lectures on three separate topics: (1) Edwards’ History of the Work of Redemption; (2) the “Communion Controversy” (which ended in Edwards’ dismissal from his pastorate); and (3) Edwards’ 1749 work The Account of the Life of David Brainerd.

Before the quotes, a brief summary of the Communion Controversy will help give some background for several of Hannah’s statements.  Edwards inherited his pastoral ministry from his grandfather Solomon Stoddard.  Stoddard was an immensely popular pastor for fifty-seven years in the Connecticut River Valley, and he had allowed “half-members” to participate in the Lord’s Table (a half-member was a baptized but unconverted church member; you have to remember that in Edwards’ day, virtually everyone was a part of the church in one way or another).  Over time Edwards made his disagreement known, because he believed that only true, fruit-bearing believers should share in communion (it was much more complicated than this, but this is the gist of the situation).  Along with other smaller issues and undercurrents from the past, Edwards’ stance soon got him fired.

I realize that we’re on Part 14 of the Hannah quotes and that some no longer read them.  That’s OK with me.  As the series winds down, I’m trying to share theologically rich, personally meaningful, and verbally powerful quotes while holding back some of the theological formulations and expressions that are more difficult to conceptualize for those who didn’t take the class.  So hopefully the quotes below will be understandable, helpful, relevant, and therefore worth your time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bible, in a word:  If I could sum up the Bible in one word, it’s comfort.  If I had to choose a second word, it would be condescension.  God has condescended to bring us comfort.

Eschatology:  Eschatology is rear-view-mirror stuff.  We know that prophecy will be fulfilled, but we don’t necessarily know how.  We can’t know that this is that until this passes that.

Scripture and experience:  Solomon Stoddard was converted at the Lord’s Table.  He came thinking he was a believer when he wasn’t, and through the sign of the Lord’s Table, he came to know the Savior.  He appears to have hoped that others would have the same experience by partaking of communion.  It seems that he read his experience into Scripture.

Hermeneutical question:  How much can you follow an example in Scripture when it’s not accompanied by imperatives?

Controversy and shallow justifications:  When issues make people uneasy, they find superficial issues to justify them.

Edwards’ firing from Northampton:  If you live long enough, you’ll collect enough people to fire you.

Edwards’ post-firing ministry at Northampton:  Edwards remained on and continued to preach week by week at the church until he left.  Part of his problem was that he had no income and eleven children.  His children made things to sell to bring in some extra money.  Also, no money meant no paper, so Edwards found himself writing on old receipts and sewing together scraps and using onion skins made by his children.  Here was a godly man who loved to write, and God took away his paper.  Sometimes God will do this.

David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards:  In 1748, Brainerd came back from missions in Pennsylvania suffering from tuberculosis (they didn’t know it was TB at the time).  Edwards was interested in him, and Brainerd was taken into the Edwards’ home.  Jerusha Edwards (one of Edwards’ daughters) took him to Boston to seek medical help, but nothing solved the problem.  He died in the Edwards’ home.

Self-conscious inferiority and workaholism:  People with an inferiority complex work hard because they don’t want to be quiet — it scares them.

Sacrifice and godliness:  I used to be under the impression that the more you sacrifice for the Lord, the more godly you are.  That’s a lie.

Missionary team conflict:  87% of missionaries leave the field because of interpersonal conflict.  How can you be godly and yet demand your rights?

Brainerd’s weaknesses:  In Edwards’ preface to his account of Brainerd’s diary, he identifies two of Brainerd’s “imperfections.”  It was clear to Edwards that the saint is not without his or her problems.  If you wait ’til you’re perfect to serve the Lord, you’ll never do anything.  The question is this:  Does legitimate weakness in character lead to self-centered introspectiveness that makes you self-preoccupied, or does the vision of God’s glory become all-consuming?  Weakness is not the problem; it’s focus!  Are you going to look at your weaknesses and dwell on them, or suck it up and do something better?

Remaining corruption:  How can I be sincere and yet corrupt?  In other words, how can I express my complete commitment to God at one moment and then yell at a driver who cuts me off five minutes later?  What changed?  Was I insincere when I told God that I was completely His?  No.  I was sincere.  But the subject changed.  People tell God they’re completely committed to Him when they’re in the context of missions, for example.  But when the subject changes and there’s a different sacrifice to be made, often things change.  That’s the dark side of all of us.  We’re both saints and sinners.  You don’t have to be a saint to be a saint.  That’s the gospel.

Part 1 – Monday’s quotes
Part 2 – Tuesday’s quotes
Part 3 – Wednesday’s quotes
Part 4 – Thursday’s quotes
Part 5 – Friday’s quotes
Part 6 – Saturday’s quotes
Part 7 – Quotes from biographical lectures (1)
Part 8 – Quotes from biographical lectures (2)
Part 9 – Quotes from lectures on Edwards’ early writings
Part 10 – Quotes from lecture on Religious Affections
Part 11 – Quotes from lecture on Edwards’ Trinitarianism
Part 12 – Quotes from lectures on Edwards’ preaching and Grace
Part 13 – Quotes from lecture on Charity and Its Fruits

Should Everyone Be Passionate About Missions?

(Before you read too far, it might be good to answer the question for yourself.  It’s worth thinking about.)

This was the question I asked at a recent student leadership meeting.  There were various answers given, and all had fair (yet different) reasons for their answers.  I don’t think the answer is simple, though I do think it’s clear.  Here are a few points of our discussion along with some of my own additional points and intermingled thoughts.  I’m not going to footnote everything even though five people participated in the conversation and contributed good thoughts.  I take full responsibility but not full credit for everything I mention below.  I share this because both the question and the answer are important and because all five of us profited (I think) from the discussion.

1. It’s not difficult to identify the glamourization of missions that can seep into the minds of young Christians.  I’ve been there, to a significant degree.  We’ve celebritized the Christian missionary in ways that are unprofitable while often failing to honor them in ways that are biblically appropriate and practically helpful.  For instance, missions is often thought of as more spiritual than staying and serving at home.  This mindset is less true than we think and more damaging than we think.
    
2. At the same time, deemphasizing missions as a reaction against this naive glamourization is just as faulty.  The solution to mis-emphasis is not de-emphasis but proper emphasis.  You don’t correct caricatures by completely deflating them but by carefully nuancing the shapes and sizes of the parts involved.  Over-correcting is not praiseworthy even though it often seems to be in the moment.
    
3. There is deep and far-reaching spiritual need in America, and many Christians have a passion to be used by God to spur the church to action and to stir the sensibilities of our lost countrymen to see the splendor of God in the gospel of Christ.  I can say this because it is a personal passion and because I’ve talked to a number of people who share it.  But the need in America doesn’t change the need overseas, as if the two places (here and abroad) were being weighed in the scales to determine which is heavier.  In other words, it’s unwise to say that because there’s also great need in America, missions must be less important.  I think what we should say is that because there’s great need in America, people who are staying have a great work to do.  But it doesn’t change whether or not Christians should be passionate about the advancement of God’s salvific plan among the nations.
    
4. Unreached people groups are desperate for the gospel.  And if unreached people groups don’t light your fire, I’m not sure that sitting on a bonfire could get you motivated.
     
5. If we have a precious treasure, we should be excited about its spread.  Unless we don’t love people, in which case we’ve probably only found fools’ gold.
    
6. I shouldn’t just be passionate about what I do or what I’m gifted in or what naturally excites me most.  What the church needs to see is foreign missionaries who are passionate about their lost countrymen back home and American businessmen who are passionate about the global plan of God.  I don’t need a missions pastor who only talks about missions, a preaching pastor who only thinks about preaching, and a secretary who only thinks about administration.  The missions pastor needs to care about biblical community, the preaching pastor needs to talk about missions, and the secretary needs to love hospitality.  Only when this happens will we comprehend the holistic Christian life.  When mothers talk about missionaries and evangelists appreciate the benefit of academics and professors lift high the service of motherhood, false dichotomies are erased and categories are blended.  What does this mean for the question at hand?  At least this:  Missions shouldn’t be thought of as a separate category that only a handful of adventuresome, culturally-flexible, eat-anything Christians should be interested in.  Rather, it’s the logical extension of the mission of every local church.  And if you care about the church’s mission (which is simply Jesus’ mission), you must care about missions.
    
7. A much better way to talk about missions is to emphasize mission, because the redemptive, gospel-spreading, kingdom-bringing mission of Jesus is the priority of the church on earth.  Even if people can (short-sightedly) say, “Missions isn’t my thing,” no one can say, “God’s mission isn’t my thing.”  This is because saying “I don’t think I’m called to care about the mission of Christ” is the same as saying “I’m not a Christian.”  In other words, everyone should live missionally and should be passionate about what God’s passionate about (reaching and restoring sinners for the sake of His own name) even though this doesn’t mean that everyone has to be a technically-defined missionary.
    
8. Being a missionary is an extension of living missionally.  I never want to hop over my own local community on the way to the mission field.  I want to go through my local community on the way to the mission field.  I want to run hard toward my town with the gospel in hand and wait for God to tell me to run farther.  I believe that the extent to which I serve the church and live missionally in my own backyard is one of the main qualifications (or disqualifications) of my potential calling to the foreign field.  I simply don’t believe that God wants people on the mission field who aren’t willing to bless the church and spread the gospel in their current location.
    
9. “Everybody’s a missionary” is an unhelpful phrase (I don’t remember anyone saying it during the discussion, but it came to mind so I’ll mention it).  I appreciate its intent, and I understand why people say it — they’re trying to erase the false distinction between going overseas and living missionally at home.  But saying that “everybody’s a missionary” conflates the ambassadorial, evangelistic, missional role of every believer with the culture-crossing, language-learning, homeland-leaving life of a missionary.  The two are not the same.  Certainly there’s a sense in which every believer is a missionary from the kingdom of light to the strongholds of darkness, but I think it’s vital to maintain a meaningful term for those who actually leave behind their physical homes and cultural comforts in order to cross a societal boundary with the gospel.  This is a special thing (though not necessarily superior), and we should have a particular name for it.  Not everyone is a missionary.

So should everyone be passionate about missions?  My answer is a resounding but qualified “Yes!”  A primary mark of a believer is a burgeoning passion for everything that is precious to the heart of God.  And God is most passionate about glorifying Himself through the Christ-centered redemption and Spirit-fueled transformation of a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).  This is exactly what missions seeks to accomplish.  If we are to be people after God’s own heart, we must share this heartbeat.

This doesn’t mean that everyone should be a missionary.  It doesn’t mean that overseas ministry is spiritually superior to ministry in your hometown.  It doesn’t mean that America is saturated with Christ and needs no more gospel witness (the opposite is actually true).  And it certainly doesn’t mean that missions is a glitzy enterprise with guaranteed biographies and public accolades following on the heels of every sacrifice.

But it does mean that everyone should be passionate about the global, border-crossing, boundary-shattering, trans-generational, soul-awakening mission of God in the world.  As good as they are, mild appreciation, occasional support, and periodic prayer are not enough in and of themselves.  God wants passion.  Everyone should be passionate about missions.

Misconceptions About Holiness (1)

I was planning to preach on holiness at a summer retreat a few months ago but decided to change my topic a few weeks before the retreat.  I had scribbled down some thoughts on a torn-out journal page, and that page has been sitting on my desk since mid-summer, waiting to be typed or discarded.  I think I’ll do both.  The page contained a number of misconceptions about holiness.  I’ll try to expand on them, as well as identify the biblical reality.  These are the first three.

1. Holiness is boring.  In the same way that many today automatically associate the word “obedience” with “heartless duty,” the word “holiness” is often allowed to connote boring, stuffy, disconnected spirituality.  If you’re holy, you must be an overly spiritual stick-in-the-mud who’s fairly irrelevant and unavoidably bland.  Certainly there are forms of false holiness that are somber, dreary, and rigid, and there’s no getting around the fact that Jesus didn’t just denounce people like this but actually made fun of them.  But they aren’t accurate representatives of true holiness.  The biblical reality is that holiness is beautiful.  The beauty of God’s manifold perfections is meant to be reflected in the holiness of His people, and this kind of radiant holiness (the true kind) is only boring to the blind.  Christian character carries the power of allurement when lived out consistently in the midst of a dark and dying world.  I don’t mean this in a triumphalistic way, as if to say that a holy heart and life will automatically win over everyone at your workplace.  But I mean that God has called us out of the world not just to be different but to be delightful, not just to be strange but to be striking, not just to be marked out but to be remarkable.  Not only can holiness be attractive; it should be.
    
2. Holiness is passive.  In other words, holiness is about what you avoid.  It’s mainly about dodging wrong, not doing right.  If you’re a 22-year-old who doesn’t use profanity, lose his temper, or look at pornography, you’re in the clear.  I think this misconception is part of the reason why we often don’t pay much attention to sins of omission.  We assume that if you’re not committing sin, you must be holy.  But the reality is that holiness is active.  Holiness is aggressive.  For instance, we don’t normally consider evangelistic zeal and activity an issue of holiness or morality.  But it is.  If holiness is about imitating the character of God, missional living is not outside its scope.  It’s not as though the concept of holiness includes your entertainment choices but doesn’t include your ministry choices.  ”Pure and undefiled religion” means “keeping onself unstained by the world,” but it also means “visiting widows and orphans in their distress” (James 1:27).  The startling implication is this:  You can do your devotions every day, attend Sunday church and weekly Bible study, and be “different” than your unbelieving co-workers, but if you don’t actively share the gospel, encourage the church, and care for the broken, you have no claim to biblical holiness.  Holiness is active.
    
3. Holiness is structured.  This may be more of an American misconception, but I think it’s a subtle misconception nonetheless.  We love programs, formulas, systems, and strategies, and often we think that external discipline or programmed spirituality equals holiness.  It’s typical to think that the person who reads the same amount of chapters in his Bible at the same time each morning must be more mature than the person whose devotions are unscheduled yet consistent.  Or that signing up to serve in a ministry program equals church involvement.  Or that participation in the perennial church outreach event is enough even if there’s no evangelistic lifestyle during the other 364 days of the year.  Scheduled devotions, church programs, and one-time evangelistic gatherings are all profitable if done wisely, and I don’t mean to denigrate organization.  But generally we greatly value structure over spontaneity even though Spirit-led spontaneity is exemplified and encouraged in Scripture.  By “spontaneity” I don’t mean being purposefully anti-institutional or making off-the-wall choices or sliding into an undisciplined lifestyle.  I mean a genuine nearness to the heart of God that encourages you to engage in unscheduled ministry, that compels you to respond immediately (and sometimes unpredictably) to the conviction and guidance of the Spirit, that frees you to embrace providential interruptions, and that eagerly jumps into unscripted gospel opportunities instead of putting all your stock into what’s programmed and predictable.  I am all for wise planning, comprehensive preparation, thoughtful foresight, spiritual discipline, and thorough self-control.  But these things aren’t antithetical to spontaneity, and their external exercise doesn’t guarantee holiness.  Holiness is meant to overflow from the deepest desires of our hearts.  It is good and wise to channel that overflow, but sometimes we mistake the banks of the river for the river itself.  Just because you have banks doesn’t mean you have a river.  And just because you have a smoothly-flowing river doesn’t mean you shouldn’t long for a flood.