I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week. I remember this time last year we were so thankful to have a new baby. Now we are thankful to have a happy 1 year old. Amazing how quickly time passes. I will probably not be posting much this week and will give that time to family and friends. God bless

Did anyone else watch some of the AMA’s last night? I was encouraged by the popularity of Taylor Swift. She seems pretty wholesome. Then there was Lady Gaga. She seems like a living piece of artwork. As you watch her, as strange as it is, there is something intriguing about it all. You wonder what is going to happen next or just how much more strange it can get. But there is no denying the artistry of it all. Whitney Houston made recompense at the awards with a good performance. But the saddest part of the whole thing was the popularity of Eminem. Much of his song was bleeped out but did any of you catch the opening of his song “Crack a Bottle”? If you didn’t, here it is. Said proudly, braggingly like these were his credentials:

Ladies and gentlemen!
The moment you have all been waiting for.
In this corner, weighing 175 pounds
with a record of 17 rapes, 400 assaults and 4 murders
the undisputed, most diabolical villain in the world
Slim Shady!

And we wonder why our women are being abused, children left fatherless, and our society so calloused and violent. Try playing these words in your ear over and over and over and see if it doesn’t change the way you think…then put yourself in the mindset of a 12, 15, 18 year old boy trying to figure out who he is and see what effect it has in how he views women and how he values or devalues the worth of others. What on earth is being promoted as enviable? What is being called good, desirable, worthwhile? What is being promoted as the standard of entertainment and quality in the music industry. This is not some behind the scenes, rogue group putting out this hateful music. This is by one of the most recognized “artists” in the industry. It is sad that anyone has to be exposed to this. The rest of the song was filled with the most vulgar profanity and sexual exploitation. All that and there were children in the audience, not to mention those watching at home. Unbelievable.

More Taylor, less Slim Shady. More lyrics, only this time from Isaiah 5:

“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.

²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,

²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.

²⁴ Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

- Isaiah 5:20-30

One thing I never realized about this story was that Bethany literally means, “House of the poor”. That possibly makes the events of this story so much more meaningful. If Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are not very well to do, this magnifies the sacrifice of an already costly gift. This makes even more sense of Judas’ rationalization that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor…not just on some mission street but right here in “Poor man city”, Israel. I have often wondered if she really knew what she was doing or if, like Caiaphas in the previous chapter was doing something that had far more meaning than was realized (John 11:49).

Another thing that is often missed in this story is that her gift is not just valuable because it was worth a year’s wages. It is very possible that her most valuable possession would be her dowry to be used as leverage in a potential marriage. A dowry would be something of value given as sort of a nestegg to help a new couple but it could also be taken away in the event of divorce. This was basically a woman’s insurance toward keeping the marriage and family in tact. Her giving this up was in effect giving up part of her future marital security. This was more than about wages. This had social implications as well.

This story ends with one of the most heinous and sad verses in the entire Gospel of John, “Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.” – 12:9-11

Over and over again we see the willingness of the Jewish authorities (this time the chief priests) to do whatever it takes, no matter what the collateral damage, to cling to their broken thinking, broken living, and bankrupt morality.

Thanks to Philip for sending this link. Bell talks about everything from the end of the Nooma series, new projects, how he looks at content and saying more with less, the challenges of church leadership, Christians in society and assembly, etc, etc. Whatever you think of Bell, there are some interesting insights in the interview worth reading. Also, if you are unfamiliar with Philip’s blog, have a look there too. He does some really good work there.

Looks like Oprah is closing shop in 2011. I wonder what she will do next…spearhead an Olympics campaign, take it easy, who knows? But whatever she does, I am sure she will have a following. Oprah really does have an appeal to so many people. She knows how to pick relavant topics, has the pull to get interesting guests, and has a stance on things that is broadly appealing. Even though I disagree with Oprah on many, many issues I do wish her the best and hope her influence will be used for good, worthwhile things.

There is little more mystifying and moving to me as the tears Jesus shed with Mary just before he raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Wouldn’t you think Jesus would have had more of a chuckle rather than tears? The kind of wink, wink…you are crying now but wait and see what I have up my sleeve in just a minute, kind of moment with Mary? None of that. He shed tears. Even though he had the power. Even though he had the authority. Even though he was going to take care of it all. He still sobbed. You might think the Messiah would have pushed Mary and the mourners aside, marched up to the tomb of Lazarus and ordered him to come out and put a stop to all those tears. But first he experienced and expressed emotion at its rawest. The NIV doesn’t help us very much here, which tells us Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit” (John 11:33). In Greek this has more a sense of anger than it does sentimentality. Angry at death. Angry at what his beautiful creation had become. Angry at sin. Angry at sickness. Angry at decay. Angry at all those things that mar the image of God within us. Even though he had the answer to sin, sickness and death and had the power to redeem and restore God’s image even amongst the dead, it is mind boggling and so meaningful that he wept, broken, right there with Mary and the others.

In John 10 Jesus has some tough words for the Pharisees in response to their poor reception of the man he healed from blindness in John 9. I wrote up quite a lengthy post detailing what was going on in John 10, Jesus as the good shepherd and the gate and all the rest…context, historical background, etc. But then I realized I wanted to say something that is really needs to be said. Instead of speaking to the Pharisees, I think there is a message for us as sheep today.

I am sure I am not the only who has noticed the trendiness of moving away from the terms Christian and Christianity. It is everywhere from youtube Mac vs. PC parodies like this one where Christians are made to look stuffy and “Christ-followers” as cool.

But it isn’t just on youtube in some clever spoof. It has been addressed in mainstream Christian websites like Out of Ur’s article by Jason Byassee, “Not a Christian, But a Christ Follower?” where Jason writes,

“Anyone can understand the desire for an alternative to the word “Christian.” There are plenty of “Christians” I’d rather not be associated with. I’d much prefer to maintain my relationship with Jesus while making clear to others I am not in relationship to Pat Robertson or Jack Spong.” This took me back a bit until I read the rest of his piece where he makes some excellent points about the absurdity of changing the labels as if it changes the contents in the container. He writes,

“More power to the people looking for alternative biblical descriptions of Christians. We can all use those—they awaken our imagination to fresh evocations of our faith. But the choice of one such term need not—can not—excise another.

Those who disagree are still members of this family. They can’t disown me anymore than I can them. Weekly we have family reunions in buildings, big and small, all over the world. And I sure hope they’ll join the rest of us at one of them from time to time. The rest of us aren’t complete without them.”

This brings us back to John 10 and what we find inside the sheep pen. What bothers me today is that it is somehow trendy to claim Christ but not the church or Christianity. This is the shortcut method for evangelizing and feeling relevant. Dan Kimball points out in his video and book They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations that many in mainstream culture connect with Jesus as a man and great moral teacher but think his followers are angry and abusive hypocrites. So why not just toss out the church and Christianity and just connect them with Jesus without all the baggage, right?

It is like saying we want to hang out with the shepherd but not be bothered by all these smelly sheep. Sorry but you can’t have both. What makes this more palatable is when we recognize that we, ourselves, are just as bad as those we are trying to distance ourselves from AND that they are just as redeemed and holy as we are! People point to all kinds of Christian evils from the crusades, the silence of Christians over slavery, and the lack of concern for global environmental matters today. But in the middle of it they fail to realize they are also a smelly, stinky, redeemed sheep as well!

The Great Sheep Meeting of 2009:
One day some of the sheep got together and had a meeting. They were worried about the lack of new sheep in the pen and figured out the primary reason for lack of the flock growing was all the old stuffy, stinky sheep they didn’t get along with. So they came to consensus. They deciding their terminology was out of date and needed an update. The first thing they decided was that the term “pen” sounded to much like a facility. So they decided to give their quarters a face lift by calling their assembly of sheep, “The Flock”. Next they agreed the term “sheep” was derogatory with all kinds of bad connotations. So their next resolution was to call themselves “shepherd-followers” because they all agreed the shepherd was way more hip than all the smelly sheep on the other side of the pen that they didn’t agree with. The sheep pen had never been so divided and yet still so very much the same. New labels, same sheep, same pen, same shepherd. The sheep across the pen kept using the words pen and sheep and the in-crowd sheep, I mean shepherd followers, thought they had found better alternatives. But in the end they were all still just sheep in a pen trying to follow the same shepherd.

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?

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!

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.