What Does It Mean To Lay Down Your Life for Your Brother? 1 John 3:16-18

“¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” – 1 John 3:16-18

When we hear Jesus laid down his life for us, usually the first thing that comes to mind is his crucifixion. Jesus died for us on the cross…that is what laying down his life looks like. I think John is letting us in on a little more to the story than just the crucifixion. Notice what he says next, “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

John tells us that, like Jesus, we ought to lay down our lives for others. No surprise there, but notice the example he gives of what this looks like. He doesn’t tell of a Christian dying for another Christian. John’s illustration of how to lay down your life for others is to help someone in need. The truth of the matter is, few of us will ever die for another person, while all of us have the opportunity to put others first on a daily basis.

That brings us back to Jesus. When did Jesus lay down his life? It started well before the cross. It started when he invited a tax collector to follow him, even though he knew people wouldn’t like it. It started when he got an adulterous woman out of being stoned, even though he knew it would cost him. It started when he raised Lazarus from the dead and the plots to kill him started to swirl. It started back when he told them he would tear down the temple and raise it up again in three days but they didn’t understand him and were angry with him for saying such things.

The point is, Jesus laid down his life all along the way. The ultimate demonstration was in the cross but the reality is, it started way before that. The cross was the natural progression of a life that was already given up for others. So when we are called to lay down our lives for others, don’t get all focused on dying for someone else and never put this into practice for lack of opportunity. Realize that laying down yourself for others is about how you value people and how you see yourself.

Church Growth is Like Planting Flowers

We spent a lot of time in the flowerbed in front of our house over the weekend. We transplanted a few hedges into a new location and added a few hibiscus. My routine usually goes like this: I hit the plastic temporary pot a few times, slide the bush out, and the claw at the roots to break them up a bit and put it in the ground and water it.

After about the fourth hibiscus, something hit me. I was reminded of the church. Some churches are like the hibiscus in the temporary plastic pot, content with staying small, content with its roots being bound up in that little cheap pot. Not having a vision for anything greater. Plants aren’t meant to stay in those little pots…they are meant to be transplanted into bigger pots or even into your yard where the roots can spread and grow.

Transplanting a plant can be traumatic but it is necessary because in the little pot, a plant will only grow so large, but in the ground plants can grow much larger. Healthy growth requires tearing. It requires breaking. It requires disturbing the soil a bit. Instead of capturing a view of the church that is broad and big and expansive, I am afraid much kingdom growth is missed out of an avoidance of the pain that comes from being removed from the pot and placed in the ground, the very place God has called us to be. So let us trust in God. Let us take chances. Let us not be afraid of failure but be filled with the assurance that comes out of a life that is partnering with God to bring growth to the kingdom.

“³¹ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.
³² Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree,
so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” – Matt 13:31-32

Logos Bible Software Launches 1500 Quotations for Preachers (with Slides)

A few months ago I reviewed a Logos product called 300 Quotations for Preachers by Elliot Ritzema. In that review I gave some really good feedback about Elliot’s work. One of my biggest compliments was how thorough he was in pulling some of the best quotes from all over Christianity over the last 2000 years. Well, Elliot and Logos have just stepped it up from there with 1500 Quotations for Preachers.

Unbelievably thorough:
This new product splits the 1500 quotations up into five groups:
300 Quotations from the Early Church is from the years 100–600
300 Quotations from the Medieval Church is from the years 600–1500
300 Quotations from the Reformation is from the years 1500–1650
300 Quotations from the Modern Church is from 1650 forward

They also include an additional 300 quotes from the Puritans.

Highly functional:
What is more, like the original 300 quotations package, this one is full searchable, searchable by theme and comes with its own professional developed powerpoint slide for each quotation so you can plug it right into your presentation. Here is what it looks like:

Here is the layout of each quote:

If you click the writer’s name you get where the citation for the quote. If you click the picture, you get the slide they have produced for that quote. If you click it, it does this…

You can right-click the larger image, save it or copy it and put it right into powerpoint. It is very fast and the images look good. The big advantage here is having such a large collection of quotes in a database that you can search (even search by the scriptures they tag each quote with!) and nearly instantly put them into a presentation. That saves you from having to scour the internet trying to find the right quote and having to find an image to pair it with and format it all in powerpoint. Kudos to Elliot, Elizabeth Vince and Rebecca Brant for all that they put into this package. Also, each slide’s background image is tied to the era from which it came.

Unaware of any bias that influenced selection
In looking through the quotations I don’t really notice much selection bias. We all have our biases but I can’t really see any glaring through based on what was selected. It would be easy to cherrypick quotations that fit with our own conclusions and that is just about inevitable to some degree but if it is present in this software I haven’t noticed it yet. It is hard to keep to your biases when you include 1500 quotations from various people over 2000 years of history!

Three suggested changes
There are two things I think this are missing. It would be nice to have a brief bio on each person they quote. It would also be helpful to have a link that could be clicked to get you to the full context of the quotation. Stripped from its context, quotes can mean many different things. That doesn’t diminish the usefulness of this software. Logos has informed me that if the work it is quoted from is in your Logos library, that it will take you to the quote in context. Seems like they thought of just about everything. The last change I would make is to change the ordering of these in the Logos library software so they are in chronological, rather than alphabetical order.

If you are interested in purchasing it, you can find it here – 1500 Quotations for Preachers (With Slides)

I appreciate Logos for asking me to review this material. I did receive a copy of this for reviewing it but that doesn’t affect my ability to review it objectively. In other words, I would try to talk you into spending your money is it wasn’t quality enough to warrant it.

The Book of Acts And the Shaping of the Church

Ever since I can remember growing up I have heard that the book of Acts is the model for the church. A lot of people say (correctly) that we are a 21st century church in a 21st century world and that means there are going to be some differences between the church we read about in Acts and the church of today. That is fair. I do think, though, that there is so much in Acts that we really do need to take notice of and emulate.

When I read Acts I read about the church away from the assembly. They are out there on a mission. They are seeking lost people and intentionally reaching them with the Gospel. They are prayerful about their direction and focus. They are relying on God in so many ways and for so many reasons. It is really pretty humbling. When I have heard people express the sentiment about us being like that church it worries me just a little bit because it is often implied that we are already there when the reality is we still have much to learn from their example.

Here are a few areas that I think they had right that are still helpful today

Mission
How much has the book of Acts shaped the one thing that stands out the most in the book of Acts? Our mission. If we are that church we read about in Acts, are we sending people out to reach lost people? I don’t mean sending checks (that is important and essential to many good works continuing). I means people…do the people who attend know they are a part of a mission, what that mission is and how they contribute to it?

Boldness/Zeal
Do we share their boldness and zeal? They took on the world. They spoke with kings. They upset the status quo and had meetings with rulers and authorities and found themselves in conversations with prominent people because what they were up to was significant enough to get them in trouble with certain groups.

Dependence on God
Do we mirror their full out dependence on God for direction? These guys trusted God. They didn’t always get it right but it always came back to what God wanted and trying to be pleasing to God through fulfilling the work He gave them to do. I am afraid there are some Christians who have learned to depend on doctrine rather than God. Again, doctrine is important, even essential but we must always remember who the doctrine points us to.

Imitation & Maturity
The point here is that being a church like that is more than form. It is about our heart. It is about our view of God. It is about our mission and our attitude. It is more than imitation. We can imitate someone else all day but it doesn’t mean a whole lot until we make it our own and grow to maturity. Strict imitation can be a real sign of immaturity and can reflect a real lack of dependence on God in favor of a dependence on form.

Eight Rules for Beginners Reading the Bible

Rule #1: Start with something that is easy to understand/easily applicable and work toward the books that are harder.
- NT: James, Gospel of Mark
- OT: Psalms, Proverbs & Genesis

Rule #2: Be regular/consistent.

Rule #3: Don’t read for quantity, read for quality. Reading the Bible through in a year is great but does little if you don’t learn anything, change anything, or draw closer to God based on what you read.

Rule #4: Read to understand, understand to apply. Learning information by itself isn’t the point. Application is the point. But you first have to understand what it says before you know what to do with it.

Rule #5: Prayer – Ask God for wisdom, insight and understand.

Rule #6: Realize up front that not all your conclusions will be valid – talk with someone you trust, ask questions and compare your findings with other scriptures to try to determine what is right.

Rule #7: When you run into difficulty, don’t go straight to a commentary for help. Wrestle with it on your own for a while first. Commentators are people too and they can make mistakes.

Rule #8: Not everything in the Bible is written for the same reason. Some writings are poetic and some are laws. Some are for instruction and others are general good advice. Not everything in the Bible is a command from God.

What advice would you add?

New Lesson Series Uploaded – What is Church?

We just wrapped up a five week LIFE group series called “What is Church?”. The point of the series was to get people familiar with the basics of our identity as the church/God’s people and our purposes. We used to teach the basics a lot. Sometimes we probably stayed on the basiscs for too long. As a result in many instances the basics have been neglected in recent years so that many new people aren’t really sure about some of the most basic principles of our faith, why we do the things we do, or who we are. This study address what church is all about. Here is the link,

What Is Church?

Focus on Discipleship Has Created a Resurgence in Baptism

It used to be pretty unusual to hear people teach the importance of baptism. In Churches of Christ it wasn’t unusual. We talked about it all the time but outside our fellowship it was pretty infrequent. If you did hear it, it was one of those things done to infants or done to join a specific congregation. All of a sudden I am hearing more and more people teach the importance of baptism. Where is this renewed interest coming from? It is coming from all the interest in discipleship. Once you emphasize following Jesus and obeying His teaching, even if doing so goes against tradition…baptism jumps right out for two reasons: 1) Jesus commanded us to do it, so if you are going to follow Jesus and take his words seriously you will take baptism seriously and 2) in the BIG discipleship verse of Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 he even tells us how to go about making new disciples and it involves baptizing people.

I am so happy to see people re-emphasizing and teaching the importance of baptism. I believe it is important because Jesus could have brought up all sorts of things just before he ascended to heaven but this is one of the most important things he said – go and make disciples and do it like this…teaching them, baptizing them, etc.

CENI – The Good Side

After that last post about the limitations of CENI (Command, Example, and Necessary Inference) I want to point out some of the things I think are good about those three things.

First, I appreciate people who have a zeal for scripture. Some of the people who hold most tightly to CENI know the Bible backwards and forwards. It is impressive. I wish we all had that kind of knowledge, especially if that knowledge comes from such a love of God that we are immersed in His Word to the point that it is written all over our hearts and minds from study…to the point that it bears fruit in our lives that is undeniable. I love it when I meet someone who has a tremendous knowledge and grasp of the Scriptures AND whose life has been transformed by the Bible to be more like Jesus. It is a beautiful thing.

Second, I agree that commands are important. When God commands something, we best pay notice and do it. Faith requires it. To have a command of God and ignore it not faith at all. That is faithlessness. So I want you all to hear me say that God’s commands are very important to me. I think David Platt said it well in his book Follow Me,

“We can all profess publicly belief that we don’t possess personally, even (or should I say especially) in the church. Hear the shouts of the damned in Matthew 7 as they cry, “Lord, Lord!” Jesus replies to them, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” 29

Clearly, people who claim to believe in Jesus are not assured eternity in heaven. On the contrary, only those who obey Jesus will enter his Kingdom. As soon as I write that, you may perk up and ask, “David, did you just say that works are involved in our salvation?” In response to that question, I want to be clear: that is not what I am saying. Instead, it’s what Jesus is saying. Now I want to be very careful here, because we could begin to twist the gospel into something it’s not. Jesus is not saying that our works are the basis for our salvation. The grace of God is the only basis of our salvation— a truth we will explore further in the next chapter. But in our rush to defend grace, we cannot overlook the obvious in what Jesus is saying here (and in many other places as well): only those who are obedient to the words of Christ will enter the Kingdom of Christ. If our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place. – David Platt, Follow Me p.16

There is an important distinction made here about obedience and works. Those things work alongside our salvation. They are associated with our salvation. As David said, they are “involved” in our salvation but are not the “basis” for our salvation. Jesus thought obedience was vitally important. So do I. To think any less of obedience would be to make Christ out to be a liar.

Third, I am not a patternist (someone who believes we must use the New Testament as a pattern for EVERY practice…in essence, no one is a full fledged, 100% patternist) but I do value biblical example. I worship with a church that takes the Lord’s supper every Sunday. We worship without instruments, as the early church did. We sing. We pray. We read scripture out loud together. Fasting is important to me and so is giving, teaching, evangelism…these are all a part of my life and ministry. Why? They are because they were either taught in the New Testament or given to us by example. While I don’t believe every detail of their assembly was to serve as an example for us today, I do believe that having continuity with those who have gone before us is important, while still recognizing that even in the 21st century we are still the Lord’s people.

Fourth, inferences are more common than is often pointed out. When we read, we constantly make inferences. It is just part of reading comprehension to fill in the gaps with assumptions and to create meaning where none has been communicated. That is part of the beauty of reading the written word, entering into it’s space and taking something of value from it. I don’t appreciate necessary inference being used as a battering ram in the past, to push through various doctrines that aren’t explicitly laid out in scripture, I still think there is value in inference if done lovingly, with care and in line with a heart that is set on loving God and neighbor. Inference reminds us that there actually is interpretation going on here and if there is interpretation going on then someone is reading scripture and that is a good thing.

CENI – Having a Humble Hermeneutic

A hermeneutic is the way we go about making interpretations. In the case of biblical hermeneutics, it is the method we use to make sense of what we read in scripture. I grew up in some pretty conservative circles. In those circles, the goal of interpretation was a desire to know what God wanted us to do and believe and what God wanted us to believe (identifying true doctrine and false doctrine). Bible study’s purpose seemed to be primarily about behavior and belief.

The reason you go to scripture often has an effect on how you read scripture. In my experience growing up, the goal of turning to scripture was often times about refuting what other people had to say about various points of doctrine. You turned to scripture in order to make a legal-type case for one doctrine, against other doctrines. The hermeneutic I grew up with that was most often deployed to ascertain that information from scripture is often called CENI, which stands for Command, Example and Necessary Inference. Here is how it works.

• We know we are supposed to do or believe something if it is directly commanded in scripture (mostly just the New Testament + 9 of the 10 commandments).
• We know we are to do or believe something if there is an example of it in Scripture (particularly, the New Testament).
• What do you do if there is no command or example? In those cases you take what you do have in scripture (sometimes mixed with tradition) and try to conclude what might be inferred/assumed God would have to say on that issue.

My goal in this post is to unpack CENI in a way that shows CENI can be helfpul but does have enough limitations to remind us that we must be humble in how we interpret scripture and what we bind or don’t bind on other people. Often CENI is held up as THE WAY to interpret the Bible and that nothing else will result in biblically accurate conclusions. That is a false dichotomy that, if followed back to its logical conclusion would lead us to believe the NT writers didn’t interpret scripture correctly since they didn’t employ this approach. None of us would agree with that, and so, the weaknesses of CENI begin to emerge. The New Testament writers didn’t systematically use this hermeneutic. They used allegory, typology, midrash, etc and had the guidance of the Holy Spirit in doing so.

Command

The thought is, if God commanded it (Greek/Hebrew imperative) then we do it. First of all, I like that line of reasoning. I think we should take God’s commands very seriously. I think that because Jesus basically said as much at the end of Matthew 7. Commands are important, but a simple reading of the Bible very quickly reveals that not all commands in scripture are to be followed by us today. The first command in the Bible is one we cannot follow today (don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). So commands are important. Commands are to be obeyed…but not all commands. How about these, now from the New Testament:

• Romans 16:16 commands, “Greet one another with a holy kiss”.
• Acts 15:20 commands we not eat meat with blood in it.
• Matthew 5:29 tells us that if we lust we should gouge out our eye. I have yet to meet a single Christian with an eye patch on because they obeyed that command.

So some commands are binding and, for various reasons, others are not. Command in CENI has its limitations. It doesn’t work out 100% of the time. It is not always as easy as God said do this and so we do. How do we determine which commands are binding and which one are not? Why are some commands followed and which ones don’t apply? My point here is not so much to poke at CENI for saying commands are important (I think they are). My point is that those who go by CENI must be intellectually honest enough to be upfront about its limitations, exceptions, etc.

There is a false assumption that legalists take all the commands seriously and progressives are flippant about God’s commands. It just isn’t the case. Both are aware that there are non-binding commands. How do we determine what makes a command non-binding? For some tradition makes the call (“We haven’t ever done the Holy kiss thing and aren’t going to start it now”). For others it is about context and culture (“A handshake or hug communicates the same thing today”). Some on both ends of the spectrum use culture as an excuse to ignore a biblical commands in favor of their preconceived, culturally biased conclusions.

Example
CENI says examples (particularly apostolic examples) are binding . If they did it, we MUST do it just as they did it. From a CENI perspective, the presence or absence of examples carry the same weight as a command. But again, there are exceptions to that. Where are we to meet? There is no command in scripture that we have to meet in an official church building but we do have some examples of where they met. We learn in the New Testament that the first century church met in homes. Example? Yes. Binding? No. Many legalists decry small groups because they meet in homes (which is our scriptural example…now that is confusing.) and have decided meeting in a church buildings is more biblical even though there is no scriptural precedent for that . This is an example where CENI is hijacked by tradition. By the strict CENI standard, we shouldn’t even have a church building and only meet in homes, yet somehow (tradition), it gets spun around backwards and the biblical example is actually called SIN.

Or how about the Lord’s Supper? The early church took the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week (and possibly other times as well). Now, if CENI had been their hermeneutic, they would have had to take it on Thursday since Jesus didn’t command the day to take it on and all they were left with was his example of taking it on Thursday at sunset (which actually then counted as Friday, more on that in a minute). But the early Christians (and us today) took it on Sunday, the Lord’s resurrection day. They didn’t have a command. They did have an example and they picked a different day (by guidance of the Holy Spirit?). Sunday communion would have been condemned by the CENI hermeneutic and yet that is what they did. Were they sinning? Of course not. Did they have direct Holy Spirit inspiration to tell them to change the date of the Supper? Maybe. We aren’t told. The point is, CENI is not an ancient interpretive framework. It is an Enlightenment/modern method of interpreting scripture (that doesn’t make it all bad, we just have to recognize where it comes from and be aware of our own blindspots).

Now, about our following the example of the early church taking the Supper on the first day of the week, we do have examples in Acts of the early Christians taking communion that day. But what even constitutes the “first day of the week”? In Jesus’ day it was sunset on what we call Saturday evening to sunset Sunday evening because days began at sunset, not midnight. So if we are to understand early church practice, in their cultural context and the way in which they understood what a day actually is, then communion would have to be taken between Saturday sundown and Sunday sundown. Have you ever heard that taught? I don’t know any on the conservative side who teach that even though that would be accurate from a scriptural standpoint (doesn’t mean they aren’t out there…I just don’t know of any). I do know some who would tell you that you are sinning if you took the Lord’s Supper on Saturday night. I don’t want to broadly generalize here and say all of them would say that but I have heard it said. The question is not whether or not it fits our comfort zones and traditions but what Scripture actually teaches.

Here is the big question, that CENI doesn’t get to the heart of. What is the authorial intent in scripture when studying any particular topic, command, doctrine, etc.? CENI is more set up for debate and point proving and providing supporting evidence (often via prooftexting) for a particular view than it is at getting at the actual intent and meaning of the text in its original context. I am not saying proving points is bad. I am saying we should be proving points as they were intended to be made in Scripture rather than having a point to be proven and then wrapping scripture around it.

Just like the more conservative brethren, progressives also don’t believe ALL examples are binding. Instead, examples are just that…examples. They are not always binding on their own. Again, it depends on the context. Progressives don’t usually see examples as binding in all instances (neither does anyone else). From a progressive view point, examples are descriptive and can be but are not always prescriptive. In effect, both sides take exception with examples as not being always binding in every situation. We just may differ on which examples are binding and which ones are not. It is important both “sides” recognize that.

Necessary inference
Now we get even further out on the hermeneutical limb. Necessary inference is what is used to find out what we think God wants (and what is binding) on issues of silence. When there is no command and there is no example, necessary inference fills the gaps. It is like God just has to have something to say on every single issue and we are going to make him communicate it whether he wants to or not (Paul tells us some things in the Gospel are a mystery…but that doesn’t jive well with Enlightenment influence, modern thinkers), whether God cares about it it not. Can we have a song book even though there is no example in scripture (scripture is silent)? Sure…Why? Because we can necessarily infer that God wants us to sing and so we can use whatever tools we need to assist us in that singing (unless it is a praise team, multiple song leaders, etc). A pitch pipe is okay before a song but not during a song. Why is a pitch pipe ok? Because it assists us in our singing and God likes singing. This gets shaky.

So how do we know how to make a necessary inference in the best possible way? What factors influence what we believe can be inferred and what cannot? That is where things get tricky because there are many things like personal preference and tradition that often heavily weigh on what inferences people believe are necessary. We all make inferences but we have to realize they are just that. They are not commands and they are not based on example. We have some say in how and what we infer and that makes for a lot of wiggle room in areas of silence.

What must be avoided is putting the conclusions based on NI on level with direct commands or even examples. That is where things get really rocky…condemning others for drawing different inference-based conclusions than you do lacks humility and makes us the ultimate arbiter of all truth (even when not expressly stated by God). Honestly, the way NI is used and abused sometimes borders on outright arrogance. We all have to make inferences but we have to be very careful with how we view the inferences of others on matters that scripture is silent on.

From a progressive point of view, necessary inferences are not seen as inherently binding because God didn’t see fit to give us any direction on those matters. From their perspective, God has left us the freedom and ability to choose various options when it comes to the inferences we make. But that comes with a caveat. Necessary inference does have a place in biblical interpretation…for example, scripture never condemns speeding on the highway but it does say we need to obey and respect those in authority. We can infer that that includes speeding or running red lights or shooting guns into the air on New Years day…none of those things are explicitly condemned in scripture (for obvious reasons) and yet we would conclude/infer from other scriptures what we are to do or not do in those situations.

Conclusion – I hope that at this point in the conversation we all have the realization that humility is essential and that all things are not as simple as “the bible says so and we don’t need to do any sort of interpreting.” I also hope this has been fair, accurately representing what is being said out there and as even-handed as possible. I know that is basically impossible to do but I want to make a stab at being fair here and helping us all see our own blind spots, limitations and areas for growth. It is hard to see any of those things if we believe either of two extremes: we already have all truth and right answers on all issues or there is no truth to be had and that none of these issues are important anyway.

Balance in Jesus’ Preaching & Teaching

I was reading some selections of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels and it struck me as to how much variety of purpose and content Jesus had in his preaching. Sometimes he encouraged. Other times his purpose was to challenge. Still other times he was out rebuking people. He also motivated, praised God, informed, corrected, and instructed. Jesus didn’t do things just one for one purpose. Jesus knew that different situations called for different approaches, different purposes and different topics and techniques. If you just do one of these the others will be lacking. If you challenge people every single week in every single way people will feel beat up. If you never challenge people their faith can become stagnant. Biblical preaching requires balance.

There was an old saying in preaching that you “preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other”. The idea behind that statement is that preaching and teaching need to be in tune with what is going on in the real world. I am afraid, though, that approach still lacks balance. There is a third piece, one that Jesus constantly recognized. This piece will bring even more balance to preaching. That piece is context. You have to know who it is you are preaching to. You have to know what they are going through, what questions they have and where they are trying to get to in their spiritual growth and development. Sometimes you are preaching the basics to those who don’t know. Other times there is a need to teach more meat for those who have grown beyond the basics. Balance is key. Extremes are to be avoided. Know your people and preach/teach accordingly.