Adventures in Missing the Point

After hitting myself on the head twice in two weeks, the first time walking into the edge of a metal sign, I ran across this picture and thought it was pretty fitting. Don’t miss the subtitle. It is priceless.

I think two questions are important to answer when it comes to faith and religion:

1 – What themes, doctrines, and traditions do you focus on, putting it in big letters in the middle of the sign, and which would you relegate to the subtitles?
2 – What themes, doctrines, and traditions does the average person in the pew hear the most and which are kept to the periphery?

These answers need to line up. If Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2) is the central message of our faith, any given person who comes through the doors on any given Sunday should leave that morning getting it. That doesn’t mean every week we preach on the crucifixion and resurrection but it does mean that the message is still present in as many ways as we can come up with. I wonder how many times I have put the headline in the subtitle or off the sign completely and spent too long focusing on minutia. Just because something is interesting to me doesn’t mean it is a rabbit trail to take a whole congregation down in a sermon, Bible class or small group lesson. That is a difficult one for me because I love the details.

If we are going to succeed in making the main thing the main thing we need to analyze the sign posts we have erected and make sure that the signs we raise before people match what this is all about in the first place. If we notice the main point can only be found in the small print then it is time for an overhaul.

What is more, this type of thinking is one thing that can bring unity to various groups of Christians. When we look at our signs we will often notice that many have the same thing in the big letters with all sorts of different things in the subtitles. Unity comes when we notice the core aspects of our faith are the same, while many of our disagreements are over some very small and negotiable aspects of our faith (this is not always true, some disagreements can certainly still be major!).

What is sad and frustrating is that many splits and divisions have occurred over people who transposed their faith headlines with the negotiables and then got mad at other people who were not willing to also flip their signs around. The results are just as deadly as the sign pictured above. How many people would read that sign and thing they were safe as long as they don’t get cut on that sign, only to drive past it and fall to their death over a collapsed bridge? If people read your sign, will the road ahead be any safer for them?

What does your sign say vs. what should your sign say? Do they match?

John 9 – Mud in the Eyes Christians

After reading and re-reading the story of the man born blind in John 9 today I am struck by the power and authority of Jesus combined with the blind man’s willing obedience. Our faith is a partnership of unequals. We can’t even take credit for listening and doing because without his command we wouldn’t have a clue what to do. He alone heals and restores. And yet he expects us to listen and to do. Otherwise we just stand there blind with mud in our eyes wondering why we still can’t see.

I wonder how many “mud in the eyes Christians” there are in the world. They believe they have heard the Word of God and are saved but their unwillingness to wash the mud from their eyes so they might really begin to see has kept them in spiritual darkness. It is an incredibly tragedy when God has done 100% of what needs to be done to help us see and yet we are unwilling to trust him enough to follow through and do what he has asked. I know this gets into the murky waters of the sufficiency of grace and all the rest (not really if you are tracking with me here and are familiar with past posts like this one). But my point is, without action on our part, we stand there blind with mud in our eyes. God certainly has more in mind for us than that. You notice Jesus didn’t say, “Sit here while I run to Siloam, get some water and pour it on your eyes for you…don’t lift a finger! BRB!” and off he goes. I think there is a reason for that. While we don’t merit our salvation God certainly wants us to be invested in the process!

Two Free E-Books for Men Struggling With Pornography and Sexual Addiction

Pornography and sexual addiction is the elephant in the room in many congregations around the country. I heard one statistic that as many as 50% of Christian men in America struggle with some form of sexual addiction. How many men is that in your congregation if that statistic is true? That adds up pretty quickly. What is more, many ministers are also wrestling with this issue. We will be reaping the destructive results of these addictions in the church for many, many years.

It is important that Christianity puts its collective foot down on this issue and begins to educate local Christian communities with a biblical view of sex and sexuality.

I am going to talk about that more in some future posts but for now I want to make any of you men out there who struggle with this two free e-book resources that you might find helpful.

Mark Driscoll’s Porn Again Christian – This book is pretty hard hitting, straight forward and doesn’t hold back on much. It answers many questions that people might be afraid to ask and deals with the issue of how destructive pornography is and how it fights against God’s ideal of sex within the context of marriage.

Tim Challies’ Sexual Detox – This is the compilation of the posts I mentioned earlier in one pdf. While the first book I would only recommend to those who struggle with pornography, this one is something I think would be beneficial for all Christian men to read.

I have no way to know who is downloading these, it is completely anonymous. So if you need to read either one of these please do so. Don’t be so proud as to think you can deal with these things on your own and walk away with a healthy view of sex or a healthy marriage if you are currently wrestling with pornography or other sexual addictions.

What is Christianity – A Great Resource Free to Download

Here is a link to Steve Williams book What is Christianity. Steve used to preach at University City Church of Christ in Gainesville, FL and teaches at Amridge University (formerly Southern Christian). It is currently out of print but has been provided to download/print. It is an excellent resources that highlights our core beliefs in 30 pages. I would encourage you to pass this on to people of all maturity levels as well as people who are asking questions about Christianity. Here is the link. Never hurts to be free!

The Ex-Church of Christ Support Group

Did you know there is an ex-church of Christ support group online? I think this is pretty interesting because there is much we can learn from mistakes, misunderstandings, and our differences. You can find anything there from ICOC horror stories to all sorts of discussions on doctrine. Another interesting section is the “New Paths of Faith” section to find out how people are answering the question, “Now what?” or “Where do we go from here?” It is very important we understand people, why they come, why they stay and why some leave.

On the other hand there is a lot of sad information on this website. Lots of horror stories, splits, disunity, anger, and the like. It is an important reminder and wake up call that we are dealing with the most sensitive areas of people’s lives and that we must move forward in a way that is honoring to God but also sensitive to others. I am proud to be associated with the Churches of Christ but like any other religious group there will be mistakes made or things that could have gone better. Hopefully through all that we learn lessons rather than ignore them and learn how to be healthier as individual Christians and as congregations.

More and more I am seeing the trend of bash the one you’re with. I think it is important to realize two things in all of this:

1 – The church is beautiful, fulfills an important purpose in the world, and is bought with the blood of Christ.

2 – The church is composed of people who aren’t perfect yet and because it involves flesh and blood there will be problems from time to time. It is important we learn to walk through those problems in ways that are healthy and build up the body rather than tear it down.

The temptation is to think some other group does it better or that if we just leave this church or that church that things will get better. Bottom line, the church is the church and God doesn’t intend for us to reach perfection this side of heaven. That is no excuse to do things as we please and injure as many people as possible along the way. But it does mean that we live in tension. So in the mean time we rejoice and we groan all at the same time. But in all things we seek reconciliation with God and others in order to be who God wants us to be and to bring life and godliness to as many people as possible along the way.

On This Rock I Will Build My Church – Matthew 16:18

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the issue of which “rock” Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16:18. Why not spill some more? First let’s have a look at the text. [To the left a picture of the Gates of the underworld in Caesarea Philippi.]

“¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

Possibilities:

1. Our view in Churches of Christ and protestantism in general has traditionally been that the rock Jesus was talking about was Peter’s confession.
2. The Roman Catholic view is that Peter himself is the rock (their basis for him being the first Pope). The second view does have its merit, although quite a weak one, that it makes sense of the word play between Peter and rock.
3. Ray Vander Laan offers up a third possibility that I had never considered. He mentions that in Caesarea Philippi there was a rock that had a cleft in it that people believed was the gates to the underworld. They believed evil spirits associated with the Greek god Pan would travel through those gates back and forth to Hades. Vander Laan believes that Jesus was referring to that rock that his church would be built upon. I believe his point is that the church is going to take supremacy over the gates of Hades and not so much that evil is going to be the basis for his church.

This is a little puzzling because the traditional filter we have used to evaluate this verse is that Jesus is talking about using a rock as a foundation and that only makes sense if the foundation is worthy to serve that which is built upon it. So the foundation and what is built upon it work in unison to accomplish a unified purpose. Vander Laan’s view doesn’t pass through this filter very well as a demonic gate into Hades where evil spirits live just doesn’t seem a very likely foundation for the church. It does challenge us to not read this story flat. It challenges us to stand in Caesarea Philippi, view what they viewed, and recognize some of the obvious parallels Jesus is making with the culture of the area. But we have to be careful and not stretch what Jesus intended to say into something catchy or nuanced in order to make it come to life more in a video.

I am still of the opinion that it only makes sense for the foundation and the building built upon it needs to fit together. It still doesn’t make sense to me to build the church on the rock of a pagan cult, even if the intended message was God wants to bring redemption to Caesarea Philippi and the pagan practices there. The bedrock of our Christian faith and the church is not some rock in Israel or the person of Peter. The foundation of our faith is the true message of Jesus Christ as messiah and Son of God. In my mind, that is the only conclusion we can come to that really makes sense in this passage. Peter’s confession still stands as the foundation for our faith. I think that is something Peter would agree with and I believe he would cringe at attempts to make himself or the stones of Caesarea Philippi the object of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:18 of what the church would be built upon. If Jesus really meant C.P. as the foundation of the church, wouldn’t you think the early Christians would have understood that and used it as home base more so than Jerusalem?

What do you think Jesus means when he speaks of the rock he will build his church upon? Do you think Vander Laan is off base based on the above summary of his view?

Gospel of John 8:12-59 – Jesus Gets Testy

John 8:12-59 contains some of the best known lines in John but they aren’t said to a loving, accepting mob of fervent believers. They are spoken to a mostly obnoxious and rebellious group in Jerusalem. In 8:12 Jesus says he is the light of the world. One of the great “I am” statements and one of the better known verses in John. The response? The Pharisees challenge his words and question his acting as his own witness to the truth of his comments. In 8:31-32 we have the famous line, “then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The response? We have never been slaves to anyone! Most of them just aren’t getting it and Jesus is about to lay into them for it.

In John 8 Jesus is finally getting testy. For instance, in John 5:31-47 Jesus answers their apparent questions regarding his authority by appealing to multiple witnesses. According to the Law there had to be 2-3 witnesses for testimony to be considered valid (See Deut 19:15). If Jesus is the only one speaking for himself it doesn’t hold up in court. In John 5 Jesus freely admits that his testimony concerning himself cannot be considered valid (5:31) but that he has more witnesses who have testified concerning who he is: John the Baptist (5:33), Jesus’ miracles (5:36), God (5:37), the scriptures (5:39), and Moses (5:36). But now in John 8 Jesus says that he has two witnesses that make his case valid: himself and God. That seems to contradict his point in John 5. It seems to me that the first time around Jesus was willing to work with them to prove his point. He was patient and willing to lay out his case. But by John 8 he is ready for them to get it. By this point his testimony and words should speak for themselves and be heard as valid. If God himself spoke to them would God need 2-3 witnesses to confirm it as true? No. And neither does Jesus (the point he is making in John 8 – sent by God, obedient to God, etc). No more time to go back to the basics and lay out his case again. They should get it by now! His message should be producing its intended effect – faith.

Jesus doesn’t hold back in John 8. He says they are “from below” and “of this world” in 8:23, that they would die in their sins if they don’t believe in Jesus (8:24), that they are children of the devil for not loving and believing in him (8:44), and that they do not belong to God (8:47). None of these were popular expressions in their day! The crowd started eyeing the stones around them to see who would get dibs on the big pointy ones. Don’t you wonder why the Romans didn’t try to do a better job of keeping the temple area free from stoning usable stones?

What is crazy to me in the whole matter is by their actions they confirm exactly what Jesus said was in their heart. Jesus said they follow their father the devil who was a murderer and deceiver. They reject the claim and then try to stone Jesus for exposing the deceit that was in their hearts! In 8:12 Jesus told us he was the light of the world and starting with the woman caught in adultery, then her accusers, and last this crowd by the temple Jesus thoroughly exposes either life and light or death and darkness in the lives of those around him.

How do we respond when the truth about our lives is fully revealed? Do we embrace it or do we kick, scream and fight against it? Most of the crowd in John 8 were determined to hold Jesus at arms length and to reject him no matter how futile their efforts to prove him wrong were. You see it in the way they jumped from one thing to another. We are children of Abraham, no…children of God. Under Rome but not slaves to anyone…yadda, yadda, yadda. They tried to discredit him rather than listen to him – Aren’t you are a Samaritan and demon possessed (8:48)? As if they expected him to say, “Why yes I am.”?

The ultimate exposure of their hearts was seen in what their hearts told their hands to do – pick up rocks to keep from having to undergo the paradigm shift of Jesus as Lord. Do you ever guard your heart so tightly that you keep God out and make it impossible for him to effect any possible change to your thinking, actions, and attitudes? Or are you willing to embrace the truth even if it dings our pride, forces us to admit we were wrong, and humbles us to the point of total surrender? Hopefully it doesn’t take Jesus getting testy with us before we finally put our faith in him but if that’s what it takes he is certainly willing to bring it.

Top Church of Christ Blogs – November 2009 Edition

Time for the latest round up of blogs by members of the Church of Christ. If there are any you think should be on here run an alexa search to confirm, comment on the omission and I will update the list. The change column represents the change in rank since the last time this was updated in July (see this post).

There are several things that are surprising to me on this list:

1. The first is that it shows alexa is not as accurate as it is cracked up to be. For instance, Bill Williams (#57) gets about 100 views a day, which is more than a couple of the ones ranked in the 30s that get roughly 20 views a day. Another one in this boat is Terry Rush who I am certain gets close to 100 views a day or more and is ranked #48.
2. Another surprising thing is the ascendency of Mitchell Skelton (6), Tim Archer (7), and Matthew Morine (8). John Dobbs’ numbers are also coming back as he had recently changed URL’s when the last list was composed.
3. Also there are several newcomers to the list who did quite well including Craig Ford (10) who has an excellent Christian personal finance blog and who is a friend of mine from Harding Grad.
4. Last, it is impressive that the last list in July had 47 blogs ranking up to 20 million in Alexa. This list shows our blogs are starting to stack up better over all with 56 blogs ranked better than 8 million. For those who don’t know what Alexa is, it is a ranking system that tries to order blogs based on traffic. An alexa rank of 1 means that website is the site with the most traffic on the web. So the lower the better.

Check out a few of these links, you may find some excellent blogs you didn’t know were out there.

Untitled Document

Rank	Blog	Alexa	Change
1	Edward Fudge	70k	0
2	Al Maxey	102k	0
3	Matt Dabbs	229k	+2
4	Laura Coppinger	261k	NA
5	Jay Guin	324k	-2
6	Jim Martin	493k	+3
7	Peter Horne	538k	NA
8	Mitchell Skelton	656k	+39
9	Tim Archer	680k	+31
10	Matthew Morine	820k	+36
11	Grace Conversation	864k	-7
12	Craig Ford	926k	NA
13	Mike Cope	983k	-6
14	Cecil Hook	1.3m	-8
15	John Mark Hicks	1.3m	-7
16	Trey Morgan	1.7m	-5
17	Patrick Mead	1.9m	-3
18	Darin Hamm	1.9m	NA
19	Keith Lancaster	2.0m	NA
20	Wes Woodell	2.0m	+22
21	Wade Hodges	2.1m	-4
22	John Dobbs	2.4m	+23
23	Toddblog	2.5m	NA
24	Brian Nicklaus	2.6m	NA
25	Tim Spivey	2.7m	+16
26	Gil Yoder	2.8m	+6
27	Larry James	2.9m	-17
28	Bobby Valentine	3.0m	-13
29	Alan Rouse	3.2m	-12
30	Roger Butner	3.2m	NA
31	Adam Faughn	3.3m	NA
32	Philip Cunningham	3.5m	NA
33	Jim McGuiggan	3.6m	-4
34	Joshua Graves	3.6m	NA
35	Phil Ware	3.7m	-23
36	Milton Stanley	3.9m	-20
37	Dallas Burdette	3.9m	-19
38	Keith Brenton	4.1m	-11
39	Ocular Fusion	4.3m	-14
40	Royce Ogle	4.4m	-7
41	Terry Laudette	4.4m	-3
42	Nick Gill	4.5m	-18
43	Jonathan Storment	4.5m	0
44	Frank Bellizzi	4.6m	NA
45	Political Cartel	4.7m	-14
46	Chris Gallagher	4.7m	NA
47	Shane Coffman	4.8m	NA
48	Kinney Mabry (preacherman)	5.0m	-14
49	Wade Tannehill	5.0m	NA
50	Terry Rush	5.2m	-13
51	Jerry Starling	5.6m	NA
52	Greg England	5.6m	NA
53	Greg Kendall-Ball	6.0m	NA
54	Danny Dodd	6.4m	NA
55	Phil Sanders	6.6m	-36
56	Todd Deaver	6.7m	-26
57	Rex Butts	7.0m	NA
58	Bill Williams	7.4m	-30

Perry Noble Has Some Posts to Check Out

A few posts from Perry Noble over the last few weeks that I thought were exceptional. Another blog to check out regularly, especially for ministers and church leaders.

1. 10 Ways to Kill Vision in Your Church
2. 5 Reasons We Are Doing a Singles Series
3. Staffing, Ministry and Vision
4. Dangers of Leadership Series: 1 – Jealousy, 2 – Ignorance, 3 – Pride, 4 – Misc

Tim Challies on Sexual Detox

Tim Challies has an excellent blog and is one you should subscribe to if you aren’t already. Tim offers up an excellent series of blog posts on sex, pornography, addiction, etc. These are excellent and should be read by all the guys/anyone in ministry. Nice work Tim! We need to encourage our young people before they get themselves in trouble rather than after. Too many people go into adolescents and adulthood uninformed from a Christian point of view and cling to the only information available to them – the destructive and deadly message of the world in regard to sex and sexuality. Here are the posts. Have a look:

Sexual Detox: Recommended Resources

Sexual Detox 1: Pornifying the Marriage Bed

Sexual Detox 2: Breaking Free

Sexual Detox 3: A Theology of Sex

Sexual Detox 4: Detoxification

Sexual Detox 5: Freedom