Culture & Bible Institute - Skyline Church

Outline from The U.S. Constitution - Week 2 of 2

2011-09-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

7) SEVERAL PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION THAT HAVE SEEN DRAMATIC CHANGE.

a) Free speech

i) the primary concern was protecting political speech – the ability to speak out against or for government policies

ii) Clearly their concern since gaining independence from King George’s oppressive policies. This includes certain types of “expressive” actions to communicate political speech.

b) Fee exercise of religion

i) From early American legal documents, the political practices of the Framers, and the authoritative statements of leading Founders, Justice O’Connor drew three general conclusions. First, “these early leaders accorded religious exercise a special constitutional status.”59 Second, “all agreed that government interference in religious practice was not to be lightly countenanced.”60 Third, “all shared the conviction that ‘true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.’”61 These significant historical sources, Justice O’Connor concluded, led to the finding that:[T]he Free Exercise Clause is properly understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious activities without impermissible governmental interference, even where a believer’s conduct is in tension with a law of general application.

c) Establishment of religion

i) The concern was the establishment of a national religion – The "wall" was a jurisdictional limitation against the federal government's interference with an individual's natural right to the free exercise of religion. The federal government, reasoned Jefferson, has jurisdiction over "actions only and not opinions"; it had no jurisdiction over religion, which was a matter "solely between man and his God."

ii) did not even apply to the States until 1947 Everson v. Board of Education

iii) This was not understood as a prohibition government aiding religion – in fact, the founders, as we’ve seen, thought religion indispensible to the operation of their new government

d) Due process

i) 14th Amendment Clause 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

ii) Process means notice of a hearing and opportunity to be heard. Today we call this procedural due process – what procedures are required to meet the constitutional requirements for taking life, liberty, or property? Next week we’ll talk about something new known as “substantive due process.”

e) Commerce clause - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

i) With foreign Nations and the Indian Tribes is pretty clear

ii) The understanding of “Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate Commerce . . . among the several states”

iii) Justice Thomas has maintained that the original meaning of "commerce" was limited to the "trade and exchange" of goods and transportation for this purpose

(1) Among the several States" meant between persons of one state and another;

(2) "To regulate" generally meant "to make regular"-that is, to specify how an activity may be transacted-when applied to domestic commerce, but when applied to foreign trade also included the power to make "prohibitory regulations."

iv) In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another, to remove obstructions to domestic trade erected by states, and to both regulate and restrict the flow of goods to and from other nations (and the Indian tribes) for the purpose of promoting the domestic economy and foreign trade.

8) CHANGES IN CONSTITUTIONAL MEANINGS SINCE DRAFTING

9) Constitutional Interpretation

a) What’s the method? In other words, what principles do we look to in order to apply the Constitution to unforeseen circumstances not expressly addressed and how do we understand what is express in the text?

i) Strict construction – not in the text, it doesn’t exist – for example, speech and press mean just that – no other means of publication are included

ii) original intent – what did the founders intend

(1) At first blush, this sounds reasonable – but what do you do when the records indicated that different founders had different intents?

(2) Example: federalist vs. anti-federalist and the compromises each made – Adams intended the portions of the constitution touching on federalism to give more power to the federal government and Jefferson meant for those same provisions to limit the power of the feds and preserve the power of the states.

iii) Textualism - The interpretation cannot go beyond the boundaries of the text – the interpretation cannot change until the text, that is the law, changes

iv) Originalism – original understanding of the text at the time it was drafted

(1) Textualism informed by originalism – discovering what the plain meaning of the text was at the time it was drafted (looks at many of the same resources as original intent)

b) Judicial Review

i) Marburry v. Maddison

(1) First case – 1803 – to talk about judicial review – we need to clarify what that means:

(2) Basically to review acts of the other branches of government in light of their powers under the constitution – if it’s within their powers, it’s ok. If not, they can’t do it

(3) So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

ii) Federalist #78 described judicial review: The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

c) Judicial activism is another term we need to define. It is not the same as judicial review. When the court determines that a law conflicts with the constitution on a legitimate constitutional basis, it is doing its job. However, when it goes outside the text and meaning of constitution to create something that is not there or distort something that is already there – that is judicial activism.

i) I would argue that it is not judicial activism to ignore the principal of stare decisis when the precedents have departed from proper action by the court.

ii) Marshall’s understanding of the limits of the judiciary is expressed in the closing lines of the Marbury case: Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreeably to the constitution of the United States, if that constitution forms no rule for his government? If it is closed upon him, and cannot be inspected by him? If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe, or to take this oath, becomes equally a crime. Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and those courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

d) The Dredd Scott case – the Missouri Compromise adopted in 1820 prohibited slavery in the upper half of the western territories. Dredd Scott sued for his freedom

i) First time in 50 years (since Marbury) that the court struck down a federal law

ii) The court took this action by determining that if a slave owner in the south has a property right recognized by the constitution and then moves to a northern state, the Missouri Compromise would deprive him of his property and was thus outside the boundaries of proper legislative action (taking away what the constitution says cannot be taken away without due process)

e) Oliver Wendell Holmes – championed sociological jurisprudence at the beginning of the 20th century (1902-1932) – the law is means of progressing – social Darwinism applied to the law. The role of the judge is to figure out what is socially expedient and what the views of the dominant social group are and make decisions on those basis.

i) By combining judicial review with sociological jurisprudence, he created a theory known as judicial deference – since the judge is supposed to rely on the views of the dominant social group, and since the legislature ought to accurately reflect those views, the judiciary should defer to the legislature, even if the legislature is in violation of the constitution –

ii) Roscoe Pound, dean of Harvard Law school during the same period took the same approach

f) The Warren Court – judicial activism matured - Important decisions during the Warren Court years included decisions holding segregation policies in public schools (Brown v. Board of Education) and anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia); ruling that the Constitution protects a general right to privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut); that public schools cannot have official prayer (Engel v. Vitale) or mandatory Bible readings (Abington School District v. Schempp);

i) Griswold v. Connecticut - Though the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, create a new constitutional right, the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicts with the exercise of this right and is therefore null and void.

ii) Maybe we should have a right to privacy, but that’s not the point – the point is that when we go beyond the constitution’s text and plain meaning when adopted, the courts rather than the citizens get to choose – we can always amend the constitution to add a right of privacy

10) Fee exercise of religion

a) From early American legal documents, the political practices of the Framers, and the authoritative statements of leading Founders, Justice O’Connor drew three general conclusions. First, “these early leaders accorded religious exercise a special constitutional status.” Second, “all agreed that government interference in religious practice was not to be lightly countenanced.”60 Third, “all shared the conviction that ‘true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.’”61 These significant historical sources, Justice O’Connor concluded, led to the finding that:[T]he Free Exercise Clause is properly understood as an affirmative guarantee of the right to participate in religious activities without impermissible governmental interference, even where a believer’s conduct is in tension with a law of general application.

b) Sherbert -7th day Adventist was fired because she would not work on Saturdays and then was denied unemployment benefits. Court ruled strict scrutiny applies:

i) State action must be justified by a compelling governmental interest, and be narrowly tailored to advance that interest.

c) Smith – American Indian fired for using peyote in his religious practices and unable to obtain unemployment benefits – established a new standard (said Sherbert was limited to unemployment cases that require individualized consideration of religious activity – Smith dealt with a generally applicable rule)

i) Laws of general applicability are only subject to rational basis test: state action must only be justified by a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest

ii) Strict scrutiny will apply when religion is targeted or free exercise is combined with another constitutional right

iii) Whether or not the decisions are that limited, they at least have nothing to do with an across-the-board criminal prohibition on a particular form of conduct. Although, as noted earlier, we have sometimes used the Sherbert test to analyze free exercise challenges to such laws, see United States v. [p885] Lee, supra, 455 U.S. at 257-260; Gillette v. United States, supra, 401 U.S. at 462, we have never applied the test to invalidate one. We conclude today that the sounder approach, and the approach in accord with the vast majority of our precedents, is to hold the test inapplicable to such challenges. The government's ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, "cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector's spiritual development." Lyng, supra, 485 U.S. at 451. To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is "compelling" -- permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, "to become a law unto himself," Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. at 167 -- contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.

d) Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah

i) Establishment of religion

ii) The concern was the establishment of a national religion – The "wall" was a jurisdictional limitation against the federal government's interference with an individual's natural right to the free exercise of religion. The federal government, reasoned Jefferson, has jurisdiction over "actions only and not opinions"; it had no jurisdiction over religion, which was a matter "solely between man and his God."

iii) Here we’ve been getting consistently bad rulings that continue to separate religion from the public square – relegating religion to the realm of the private.

e) SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT v. JANE DOE The Court distorts existing precedent to conclude that the school district's student-message program is invalid on its face under the Establishment Clause. But even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Court's opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life. Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, when it is recalled that George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God...."

11) Due process

a) 14th Amendment Clause 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

b) Process means notice of a hearing and opportunity to be heard. Today we call this procedural due process – what procedures are required to meet the constitutional requirements for taking life, liberty, or property?

c) Substantive Due Process

i) Dredd Scott – here we have the court specifically stated that the due process clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments dealt with more than process – they didn’t mention process, only the property rights of slave owners

ii) Substantive Due Process holds is that the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee not only that appropriate and just procedures (or "processes") be used whenever the government is punishing a person or otherwise taking away a person’s life, freedom or property, but that these clauses also guarantee that a person’s life, freedom and property cannot be taken without appropriate governmental justification, regardless of the procedures used to do the taking. In a sense, it makes the "Due Process" clause a "Due Substance" clause as well.

(1) First, it gives the federal courts unqualified discretion to decide what substantive rights are protected under Due Process and how extensive that protection is. There are two ways the Supreme Court does this:

(a) Under the substantive wing of the "Incorporation" doctrine, where the Court adopt selected provisions of the Bill of Rights and apply them to the states under Due Process. This can be called "Substantive Incorporation."

(b) Under the "Fundamental Rights" theory, where the Court adopts whatever substantive rights it thinks are so basic, natural and fundamental that they must be protected even without reliance on any particular provision of the Constitution. Instead the Court is said to root these guarantees directly in the word "Liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

(2) Second, once the federal courts decide what substantive rights are protected buy Substantive Due Process, it can use Judicial Review to enforce these rights by reviewing all state legislation for compliance with these rights. (provided a case is properly before it)

12) The redefining of liberty

a) By trying to “expand” the rights protected by the constitution, the court has taken control of drawing the lines between what we can and cannot do

b) For every new right it finds, there is a corresponding restriction on the ability of the people to govern themselves

c) By granting a right to abortion, we have lost the right to protect the unborn

13) Commerce clause - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

a) With foreign Nations and the Indian Tribes is pretty clear

b) The understanding of “Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate Commerce . . . among the several states”

c) In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another.

d) This was the case until the New Deal and FDR.

i) In response to the court striking down a series of his new deal laws, FDR proposed a court packing scheme which ultimately lead to a swing vote on the court moving from the previous 5-4 majority to join the four who supported the new deal legislation

ii) Now, rather than following the natural rights basis for the right to contract expressed in the Constitution and the limited view of the commerce clause, the court began to uphold laws that limited contractual rights and gave a broad interpretation of the commerce clause

e) Previously, the feds were limited by the commerce clause to regulating the actual trading of goods and service across state lines. This did not cover manufacturing or any other element related to them

i) States were allowed to do whatever they wanted with all the other aspects of business and also control trade within their borders as long as it did to obstruct commerce between the states

f) Now, the courts backed off and allowed congress to begin to regulate all aspects of trade, even trade within state borders

g) This opened the gate to federal regulation of almost every area of life via the commerce clause

14) SO WHAT DO WE DO?

a) Chuck Colson is fond of saying that politics follow the culture, not the other way around.

b) Greg Cunningham from the Center for Bioethical Reform talks about how to end abortion this way:

i) A constitution amendment is the only solution

ii) We’ll only have that when the state legislatures feel the pressure to do so

iii) They’ll only feel the pressure if public opinion changes – so Greg is working to change public opinion about abortion

iv) I would add the following – public opinion will not change until we have revival

c) We are the agents of the needed change

d) We need to engage spiritually

e) We need to become outposts of biblical thinking,

i) Our concept of what is real must match what scripture tells us

ii) We then need to develop Godly beliefs and values which result in righteous livings

f) The recent debates in congress demonstrate that if we are willing to stand for the principle without compromise, we can begin to effect change

g) Nullification actions by the states

i) The states preceded the union and were sovereign

(1) Read a biography of George Washington and listen to one of his biggest complaints as commander of the revolutionary forces – getting money and men from the various states – it was like herding cats

ii) The Constitution is a pact agreed to by the individual states

(1) ratified by the states

(2) Only amended by the states

iii) The federal government only has the power delegated to it by the states – regardless of what it wants to declare that it has

(1) If the Supreme Court – a branch of the federal government - has the power to declare what the law is without question or recourse, the government has become a tyrant

Outline from The U.S. Constitution - Week 1 of 2

2011-09-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

1) THE BIG CONCEPTS BEHIND OUR CONSTITUTION AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT

a) Declaration of Independence

i) Stated reason for the declaration

(1) When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

ii) Stated purpose of government

(1) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness

iii) The purposes one-by-one

(1) Self-evident – the statement itself provides the evidence of its truthfulness

(a) Romans 1:19-20 - For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

(2) Created equal

(a) Galatians 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[a] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(b) Endowed by their Creator – There is system of universal moral laws woven into the universe just as there are physical laws

(i) the basis of natural law – Romans 1 again

(3) Life – the right to exist

(a) Fundamental rights are those rights that all people can simultaneously claim without forcing someone to serve their needs.

(4) Liberty – the right to choose virtuous actions without the interference of others

(a) Different from freedom, the right to choose any action

(b) Not a license for any choice

(c) Choosing liberty results in the ultimate level of freedom – free from the dictates of base desires

(5) Pursuit of happiness – pursuit of a virtuous life – one that produces benefit to ourselves and others

(a) Euphoria vs. enjoyment

b) The Declaration of Independence is like a “policy” – a guiding principal

i) The Declaration presents the founders’ ideas of what government should be and what it should not be (or on what grounds a people can declare independence)

ii) The Constitution is like a set of “procedures” – the specific steps to implement a policy

(1) Procedures divorced from their policies have no reason to exist – stated positively, implementing their policies is the only reason for procedures to exist

(a) We cannot read the Constitution apart from the Declaration of Independence – it has no purpose apart from the Declaration.

iii) For example, the first seven charges against the King in the Declaration that argue against the manner in which the king governed legislative matters, as he

(1) “refused his Assent to Laws,” “

(2) forbidden his Governors to pass Laws,”

(3) “refused to pass other Laws” for the accommodation people, called the legislature at “places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant” from their homes,

(4) “dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly,”

(5) refused to allow the people to petition their representatives, and “obstructed the Laws.”

(6) Article I addresses how the legislature ought to be strong and operate for the common good.

(a) This deliberative process is expressly stated in Article I of the U.S. Constitution relating to the Legislative Powers of Congress, whereby the founders establish frequent elections, define the electorate, as well as, define the deliberative process of the legislative branch, which incorporates a bicameral legislative balance between the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to promote deliberation and delay for the common good of the American people.

iv) A long list of “the King does whatever he wants” grievances is addressed in

(1) Article II – the executive branch

v) He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

(1) He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

(2) Article III directly addresses the judiciary.

c) What were the Founders willing to give to make this happen?

i) And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

2) DELEGATED AUTHORITY

a) Creation works on the principle of delegated authority

i) In all of creation, who possesses ultimate authority? God.

ii) Who did he delegate some of it it to? Man – see Gen. 2:15-24

iii) On the shores of the new world, who did the people delegate some of authority to? Colonies, and then States.

iv) Who did the states delegate some of their authority to? The Union.

b) The federal government is not omnipotent – only God is

i) The federal government only has a part of a part of the authority delegated to mankind

3) WORLDVIEW PRINCIPALS

a) Explanation

i) The assumptions we make about life in order to understand it – the answers we have to the big questions of life:

(1) Where did we come from?

(2) What’s wrong with the world?

(3) How do we fix it?

(4) How do we live out our lives?

(5) These assumptions have a ripple effect on what we believe is true, hold as good, and how we act

ii) Circle Diagram – our worldview assumptions can be restated as what we believe is real

(1) What is real – Worldview

(2) What is true – beliefs

(3) What is good – values

(4) What we do – behavior

b) We can approach this from the inside out – what is real ultimately determines how we act

c) We can approach this from the outside in – how we act should shed light on what is real

i) As an aside, Del Tackett in The Truth Project video series says that the big question for Christians is whether we really believe that what we believe is really real. In other words, we have the tenants of our faith which we say we believe are really real, but when we examine our lives, our behavior may suggest that we really hold something else as really real.

d) To understand what the founders had in mind when they drafted the constitution, we need to understand their worldview – what they thought was really real.

e) Their concept of reality was grounded in Christianity

i) Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual influence shaping the nation from its outset. The Christian influence pervaded all aspects of life, from education to politics.

ii) Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil religion and civil government.

(1) George Washington's admonitions in his Farewell Speech: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

iii) Numeration of beliefs

(1) There is a transcendent yet personal God (Deists would leave out the personal adjective)

(2) God has authored absolute norms of higher law which nations are obliged to seek and obey, with punishment for disobedience assured.

(3) These norms are expressed in both revealed law and natural law, but most perfectly in the revealed law – Deists would eliminate the supernatural portions of the revelation.

(4) No human official has the authority or ability to alter God’s higher law

f) Applying their worldview to beliefs, values, and actions – an example

i) What is REAL: A personal yet transcendent God exists, revelation presents the truest picture of this God, revelation says this God created all that exists, and that He created man in his own image (where did we come from?)

ii) What is TRUE: people have inherent value and set of rights that are given by God, not other people

iii) What is GOOD: protecting and proclaiming the dignity of each person

iv) How they ACTED: drafting a Declaration of Independence that stated the dignity of each person and a Constitution that protected the dignity of each person

(1) Declaration: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”

(2) Constitution: See the Bill of Rights – freedom of religion, press, expression, bear arms, quartering of soldiers, search and seizure, trial and punishment, compensation for takings, right to a speedy trial, confrontation of witnesses, trial by jury in civil cases, cruel and unusual punishment, etc.

4) THE CONSTITUTION IN LIGHT OF THE DECLARATION (6/21/1788) TOTAL WORDS = 4418

a) Article 1 - The Legislative Branch total words = 2264 or 51%

i) Section 1 - The Legislature

(1) Establishes the name of the Legislature to be The Congress, a bicameral, or two-part, body.

ii) Section 2 - The House

(1) Defines the House of Representatives, known as the lower house of Congress. It establishes a few minimum requirements, like a 25-year-old age limit, and establishes that the people themselves will elect the members for two years each. The members of the House are divided among the states proportionally, or according to size, giving more populous states more representatives in the House. The leader of the House is the Speaker of the House, chosen by the members.

iii) Section 3 - The Senate

(1) Defines the upper house of Congress, the Senate. Again, it establishes some minimum requirements, such as a 30-year-old age limit. Senators were originally appointed by the legislatures of the individual states, though this later changed. They serve for six years each. Each state has equal suffrage in the Senate, meaning that each state has the exact same number of Senators, two each, regardless of the population. This Section introduces the Vice-President, who is the leader of the Senate (called the President of the Senate); the Vice-President does not vote unless there is a tie.

iv) Section 4 - Elections, Meetings

(1) Says that each state may establish its own methods for electing members of the Congress, and mandates, or requires that Congress must meet at least once per year.

(2) Section 5 - Membership, Rules, Journals, Adjournment

(3) Says that Congress must have a minimum number of members present in order to meet, and that it may set fines for members who do not show up. It says that members may be expelled, that each house must keep a journal to record proceedings and votes, and that neither house can adjourn without the permission of the other.

v) Section 6 - Compensation

(1) Establishes that members of Congress will be paid, that they cannot be detained while traveling to and from Congress, that they cannot hold any other office in the government while in the Congress.

vi) Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto

(1) Details how bills become law. First, any bill for raising money (such as by taxes or fees) must start out in the House. All bills must pass both houses of Congress in the exact same form. Bills that pass both houses are sent to the President. He can either sign the bill, in which case it becomes law, or he can veto it. In the case of a veto, the bill is sent back to Congress, and if both houses pass it by a two-thirds majority, the bill becomes law over the President's veto. This is known as overriding a veto. There are a couple more options for the President. First, if he neither vetoes a bill nor signs it, it becomes a law without his signature after 10 days. The second option is called a pocket veto. It occurs if Congress sends the bill to the President and they then adjourn. If the President does not sign the bill within 10 days, it does not become law.

(2) Section 8 – the enumerated powers of Congress – 18 things it can lawfully do

(a) The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

(b) To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

(c) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

(d) To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

(e) To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

(f) To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

(g) To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

(h) To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

(i) To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

(j) To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

(k) To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

(l) To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

(m) To provide and maintain a Navy;

(n) To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

(o) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(p) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

(q) To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

(r) To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

vii) Section 9 – enumerated prohibitions on Congress

viii) Section 10 – Powers given up by the states

(1) They cannot make their own money, or declare war, or do most of the other things prohibited Congress in Section 9. They cannot tax goods from other states, nor can they have navies.

b) Article 2 - The Executive Branch total words = 1023 or 23%

i) Section 1 - The President

(1) Establishes the office of the President and the Vice-President, and sets their terms to be four years. Presidents are elected by the Electoral College, whereby each state has one vote for each member of Congress. Originally, the President was the person with the most votes and the Vice-President was the person with the second most, though this is later changed. Certain minimum requirements are established again, such as a 35-year minimum age. Presidents must also be a natural-born citizen of the United States. The President is to be paid a salary, which cannot change, up or down, as long as he in his office.

ii) Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments

(1) Gives the President some important powers. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and of the militia (National Guard) of all the states; he has a Cabinet to aid him, and can pardon criminals. He makes treaties with other nations, and picks many of the judges and other members of the government (all with the approval of the Senate).

iii) Section 3 - State of the Union, Convening Congress

(1) establishes the duties of the President: to give a state of the union address, to make suggestions to Congress, to act as head of state by receiving ambassadors and other heads of state, and to be sure the laws of the United States are carried out.

iv) Section 4 - Disqualification

(1) briefly discusses the removal of the President, called impeachment

c) Article 3 - The Judicial Branch total words = 293 or 7%

i) Section 1 - Judicial Powers

(1) Establishes the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. It also sets the terms of judges, of both the Supreme Court and lower courts: that they serve as long as they are on "good behavior," which usually means for life (no Justice and only a few judges have ever been impeached). It also requires that judges shall be paid.

ii) Section 2 - Trial by Jury, Original Jurisdiction, Jury Trials

(1) Sets the kinds of cases that may be heard by the federal judiciary, which cases the Supreme Court may hear first (called original jurisdiction), and that all other cases heard by the Supreme Court are by appeal. It also guarantees trial by jury in criminal court

iii) Section 3 - Treason

(1) Defines, without any question, what the crime of treason is.

d) The relationship of the three branches of government

i) Legislature was intended to be the strongest branch of government because it was the closest to the will of the people 51:263

(1) The restraint on the legislature is the veto power of the president and the ability of the courts to arbitrate when a legislative act conflicts with the limits of power on government in the Constitution 78:93-94

ii) The executive was viewed as the next most powerful with the

iii) The judiciary was viewed as the weakest and in need of protection from the other two branches

(1) The other two branches were naturally restrained by their own “ambition” – protecting their own turf against each other and keeping in office

(2) However, since the judiciary must be independent so as not to be influenced and thus fairly protect the constitution, it was considered immune from the protective effects of the ambition of congress or the executive – it was to be curbed by a higher principal – self restraint.

iv) What happens when we lose the concept of strict separation of powers?

(1) The original idea is any power given to one branch cannot be exercised by another – each one only has the powers inside its boundaries. The founders wanted a firm separation of powers to prevent one or another branch from gaining too much power.

(2) Recently, the courts have taken another approach – known as functional separation. Instead of telling a branch of government they can’t engage in a particular activity because it is reserved to another branch, the analysis looks at whether or not the other branch will be prevented from performing its functions. If the activity of another branch doesn’t prevent a branch from doing its jobS, then the activity of the other branch is permitted. Now, they’re beginning to fill in the gaps between the powers. Think of the chaos that can create – 6 possible encroachments with 3 branches – add extra powers for each – 4 for one, 4 for another, and 5 for the third and it jumps to 210 -

e) Article 4 - The States

i) Section 1 - Each State to Honor All Others

(1) mandates that all states will honor the laws of all other states; this ensures, for example, that a couple married in Florida is also considered married by Arizona, or that someone convicted of a crime in Virginia is considered guilty by Wyoming

ii) Section 2 - State Citizens, Extradition

(1) Guarantees that citizens of one state be treated equally and fairly like all citizens of another. It also says that if a person accused of a crime in one state flees to another, they will be returned to the state they fled from. This section also has a clause dealing with fugitive slaves that no longer applies

iii) Section 3 - New States

(1) concerns the admittance of new states and the control of federal land

iv) Section 4 - Republican Government

v) ensures a republican form of government (which, in this case, is synonymous with "representative democracy," and both of which are opposed to a monarchical or aristocratic scheme - the state derives its power from the people, not from a king or gentry) and guarantees that the federal government will protect the states against invasion and insurrection

f) Article 5 - Amendment

i) details the method of amending, or changing, the Constitution

g) Article 6 - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

i) Concerns the United States itself. First, it guarantees that the United States under the Constitution would assume all debts and contracts entered into by the United States under the Articles of Confederation. It sets the Constitution and all laws and treaties of the United States to be the supreme law of the country. Finally, it requires all officers of the United States and of the states to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States and the Constitution when taking office

h) Article 7 - Ratification

i) Details the method for ratification, or acceptance, of the Constitution: of the original 13 states in the United States, nine had to accept the Constitution before it would officially go into effect.

5) THE BILL OF RIGHTS (AND WHY IT WASN’T IN THE ADOPTED CONSTITUTION)

a) Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression 12/15/1791

i) Protects the people's right to practice religion, to speak freely, to assemble (meet), to address (petition) the government, and of the press to publish.

b) Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms 12/15/1791

i) Protects the right to own guns. There is debate whether this is a right that protects the state, or a right that protects individuals

c) Amendment 3 - Quartering of Soldiers 12/15/1791

i) guarantees that the army cannot force homeowners to give them room and board

d) Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure 12/15/1791

i) Protects the people from the government improperly taking property, papers, or people, without a valid warrant based on probable cause (good reason).

e) Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings 12/15/1791

i) Protects people from being held for committing a crime unless they are properly indicted, that they may not be tried twice for the same crime, that you need not be forced to testify against yourself, and from property being taken without just compensation. It also contains due process guarantees

f) Amendment 6 - Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees a speedy trial, an impartial jury, that the accused can confront witnesses against them, and that the accused must be allowed to have a lawyer.

g) Amendment 7 - Trial by Jury in Civil Cases 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees a jury trial in federal civil court cases.

h) Amendment 8 - Cruel and Unusual Punishment 12/15/1791

i) Guarantees that punishments will be fair, and not cruel, and those extraordinarily large fines will not be set.

i) Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution 12/15/1791

i) is simply a statement that other rights aside from those listed may exist, and just because they are not listed doesn't mean they can be violated

j) Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People 12/15/1791

i) Is the subject of some debate, but essentially it states that any power not granted to the federal government belongs to the states or to the people. See the Federalism Topic Page for more information

6) THE LATER AMENDMENTS

a) Amendment 11 - Judicial Limits 2/7/1795

b) Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice President 6/15/1804

c) Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished 12/6/1865

d) Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights 12/6/1865

e) Amendment 15 - Race No Bar to Vote 2/3/1870

f) Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified 2/3/1913

g) Amendment 17 - Senators Elected by Popular Vote 4/8/1913

h) Amendment 18 - Liquor Abolished 1/16/1919

i) Amendment 19 - Women's Suffrage 8/18/1920

j) Amendment 20 - Presidential, Congressional Terms 1/23/1933

k) Amendment 21 - Amendment 18 Repealed 12/5/1933

l) Amendment 22 - Presidential Term Limits 2/27/1951

m) Amendment 23 - Presidential Vote for District of Columbia 3/29/1961

n) Amendment 24 - Poll Taxes Barred 1/23/1964

o) Amendment 25 - Presidential Disability and Succession 2/10/1967

p) Amendment 26 - Voting Age Set to 18 Years 7/1/1971

q) Amendment 27 - Limiting Changes to Congressional Pay 5/7/1992

An Anchor for the Soul

2010-06-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on July 24, 2002, miners working in the Quecreek Mine just south of Pittsburgh broke through the mine wall into Saxman Mine which operators abandoned in 1950 and had since filled with water. Though they made it to higher ground, nine miners remain trapped and standing in four feet of 50-degree water. The men huddled together to keep warm. Later, they wrote last words to family members on scraps of paper and placed them in a pail. Then, the men tethered themselves together so all would be found if they drowned.

This account paints a pretty bleak picture and left alone the miners would have had no hope. However, working tirelessly for over three days, rescuers using water pumps, air pumps, and mining equipment retrieved each of the nine miners.

You can bet that the view from the stretcher as rescuers carried each miner to a waiting ambulance differed radically from the view they shared of a flooded mine shaft 240 feet below the surface. From one vantage point they rested in the knowledge of rescue and from the other they were surrounded by dark, dirt, water, and the inevitable.

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that our family recently lost our youngest daughter to an auto accident that tragically took the lives of three people. The place where I now live is just about as cold and dark and potentially as hopeless as the flooded Quecreek Mine.

Left to my own devices, my loss, my emotions, my inability to see beyond my catastrophic grief, I see no way out, no future. There is a pain in my soul that makes the rest of my life seem like the watery liquid at the bottom of a glass of soda after the ice has melted. Everything that gave me pleasure has lost its appeal. On some days, the best I can hope for is getting to evening and a couple of Tylenol PM tabs and closing my eyes. But, even then, my sleep is distorted with uneasy dreams. My grief is impossible to adequately describe and equally impossible for someone who has not experienced it to imagine. None of this is unusual, but shouldn’t my faith in Jesus somehow mitigate the pain?

The short answer is “no.” Nothing in Scripture suggests that my faith will make the experience of my loss any easier. Believers and those outside the faith alike are created as emotional beings and equally lack the ability to make sense of some emotions. The depth of the pain does not differentiate my experience from outsiders, but my knowledge of rescue does – the difference is hope.

In this mortal existence, I will never be the same. My daughter is gone and while I breathe with this body, I’ll never see her. Nothing can fix that injury and I will always bear that scar. Even as time wears away on my grief, things will never be the same.

But I know the rest of the story. Even though my grief at this point does not allow me to feel the love that Jesus has for me, I know that nothing can separate me from His love. I cannot fathom the reason for my loss, but I know that God is sovereign and this train-wreck somehow works towards His glory and my good. Despite the fact that these eyes will never again set their gaze on my daughter’s face, I will see her again. I have hope.

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.

[Hebrews 6:17-20a]

This is not just any kind of hope, rather it is hope in the Living God – the God who infinite and unfettered by any limitation of His creation, the God who is personal and desires to have a relationship with me, the God who is unchangeable, the God who is eternal, the God who is present everywhere. He is all knowing, wise, truthful, good, loving, merciful, holy, orderly, righteous, just, beautiful, and much more.

While this hope does not alleviate the intensity of my grief and even though I’m still free-falling through the dark, I know my circumstance is not bottomless. How one could face my grief without a firm and secure anchor for their soul, without the hope of my God, eludes me.

Don't Waste Your Pearls

2010-06-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

The following is Part 2 of my comments at Leah's Memorial Service at Skyline Wesleyan Church on May 29, 2010.

But, that’s not the end of the story. Speaking to His followers in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we should not cast our pearls before swine. A curious statement, but with some thought, it makes sense. What would a pig do with pearls? A pig would be happy with some food, but pearls don’t make a good pig meal. Pearls are no help to a pig. Likewise, the person who owns the pearls and uses them on pigs misuses them – they could be sold, or made into jewelry or wonderful gifts, but when thrown to the pigs, they are lost.

I imagine that between here and the presence of Jesus, Leah let go of handfuls of pearls. Take your right hand and close it in a fist. Imagine with me that in your hand, you hold one of Leah’s pearls. Here is my challenge to you – don’t waste Leah’s pearl.

The composition of that pearl is different for each of us, but I suppose we fall into some general groups. For all of us, that pearl is the memory of Leah and how she touched our lives. Our responsibility is to take the memories of Leah and let them point us towards whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—things that are excellent and praiseworthy.

For some of us, Leah’s pearl encompasses the whole spectrum of events with her death and is preparation for things you will encounter in your own lives. Our family is buoyed by the prayers of the saints. Many of you know that I’m at the end of a campaign to be elected as a Superior Court Judge in San Diego County. This is a challenge that can only be carried by the power of God. I and the other candidates endorsed by Better Courts Now do not have the resources to prevail over the incumbents. That will happen only if God acts. Many people have been praying through all hours of the day and night for this campaign and the candidates. I tried to describe to Vicky the sense I had of the effect of those prayers but could never put it into words. I know that I have been kept from temptation and evil wished upon me by the enemy, that our cause has been supernaturally advanced, and that I have been preserved by these prayers during times of tremendous pressure. The same is true for Vicky, Hannah, Simon, Cindy, and me and the rest of the family now. This ministry of the Lord to us is a faith building block for you who will soon encounter hard times of your own. You can see that God loves and that God acts and that He will love and act for you, too. Hang onto that pearl.

For others, Leah’s pearl represents your faith in Christ – faith that may have faltered over time, or maybe never got a healthy start. Now is the time to cash in her pearl and turn your heart fully to Jesus. I’m not talking about the lip service on Sunday or even at other gatherings during the week that our faith can degenerate into. I’m talking about the vibrant, “follow Jesus wherever He leads because it will always be better than the place I’ll pick” kind of faith. The kind of faith that no longer needs control of our lives, but is willing to give control to the Lord. This is the kind where supernatural power is free to act, where miracles happen and the boundaries of the kingdom of God among us are pushed outward. I urge those of you in this group, now is the time to use Leah’s pearl.

Finally, for some of you, Leah’s pearl represents the biggest opportunity you will ever have – the opportunity to meet Jesus. The shock of this event has forced you to consider not only your own mortality, but the ultimate questions of life – where did we come from, what’s wrong with the world, how do we fix it, and what is life intended to be? For you, Leah’s pearl may have the greatest value. Don’t waste what she left you.

God as presented in the Bible gives us the only fully rational, fully defensible explanation for who we are and where we came from. We are His creations which bear His image. All that we are: persons capable of relationships, able to understand and communicate truth, moral beings, self-aware and able to choose - are each reflections of who God is. He made us like Him to be in relationship with Him.

But something is wrong – we all know it. That’s why the question “what’s wrong with the world” sounds so reasonable – everyone agrees something is wrong. But what is it? In biblical terms we call it sin – the effects of living out of relationship with God. It’s a life that falls short of what it could be, that strays from the best path, that misses the mark that it is intended to hit. We all start in that place apart from God. What’s the solution? Restoring a relationship with God. Whether you understand the theological implications of this point right now is not as important as understanding it is the fix. A holy God could not enter a relationship with sinful men and women. The sin needed a cure – someone had to pay the price. Each of us could pay our own price but that would cost us eternity separated from God. Instead, God’s own Son, Jesus, with an infinite capacity to bear the punishment for our sin took it on Himself – that’s why He had to die, that’s what the cross is all about. Since the price is paid, if you so choose, you can claim your redemption. By acknowledging your sin, that your life by itself strays from the path, falls short of righteousness, misses the bulls eye, and acknowledging the cure, the price that Jesus paid in your place, and telling God that you indeed rely upon Him to save you from your current condition and having to pay the price yourself, God can remove the barrier of sin and you enter into the relationship with God that He intended from the beginning.

This is how God intends life to be – life with Him from this point forward.

Whatever you circumstances, you have a pearl from Leah in your hand. Don’t let the gift from my precious daughter get misused on pigs, she left it for you.

Leah [To Kansas and Back]

2010-06-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

The following is Part 1 of my comments at Leah's Memorial Service at Skyline Wesleyan Church on May 29, 2010.

Leah had a good childhood. She had a mom and a dad, a brother and a sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, and lots of the things that families do together. But, the best story of Leah’s life is more recent. It’s about a trip to Kansas and back.

Volleyball is a Trask family sport. Vicky played in college, I played sand, Simon, Hannah and Leah played in high school, Hannah and Leah played club ball and went on to play in college – Leah played one season at Grossmont College with her sister-in-law. Somehow, Bethany College in Lindsborg Kansas recruited Leah to finish out her college eligibility with their team. So, after a visit to the school, a liking to their art department, and a scholarship offer, Leah was Kansas bound.

If you know my wife Vicky, you know she’s quite expressive. If you know me, you know I’m, well, not. One of us was going to drive out to Kansas with Leah and she expressed the choice this way – “I can go with Mom who won’t stop talking or I can go with dad and ride in silence” – she chose Mom.

Vicky and Leah had a playful relationship. It was filled with all the tender and explosive moments characteristic of mother-daughter relationships, but it had a unique quality. When Leah would visit home, she and Vicky would engage in taunting that you’d expect from a couple of 10 year old boys and it would invariably escalate to full scale chases through the house with locked bathroom doors and in one case, a broken door. I’ll spare you the details, but the stories from the drive to Kansas are on the same “maturity” level as the antics at the house.

Leah started her art studies with an artistic sense, but like any budding artist had coarse skills. In time her skills began to develop, but her art had a dark or heavy feel to it. Through her body of work, you can see a struggle to find her way of viewing the world and then expressing it. Through a series of events, she was to find that narrow path that would uniquely define her art.

Leah had friends everywhere she went. Lindsborg is a very small college town with a very small college and there is a natural divide between the Bethany kids and the “townies,” the kids who lived in the town of Lindsborg. Leah was one of those unique people who could cross that divide and started strong friendships with members of her student body and folks from her town alike. When we were cleaning out Leah’s apartment, four different girls stopped by, each to tell us that Leah was her best friend.

Last fall, Leah’s connection with Kansas began to deepen. One of her good friends set her up on a blind date with his roommate, John Blasenhauer. Vicky was visiting Leah at the time and Leah wouldn’t let her meet John because she was afraid Vicky would do something nutty to embarrass her. Apparently that date went pretty well because they went out again the next night (Vicky still was not allowed to meet him).

The relationship between Leah and John blossomed into a full-fledged romance. Blossom is a good word for what happened. John’s parents Virginia and Tom describe the 180 degree change in John’s perspective on life and general attitude – from pretty subdued to the happiest they’d ever seen him. Vicky and I saw the same change in Leah – she was truly the happiest we’d ever known.

Just as important, Leah’s art blossomed. Her connection to the community and the region through John and his family had a profound effect on how she viewed the world around her and how she expressed it. Gone were the darker images of her earlier work. They were replaced with more thoughtful and expressive images that reflected the look and feel of Kansas landscape. We’ve brought back a small collection of Leah’s work including prints of rose flowers that are a far cry from her early pieces. Not only in her art, but in her life, Leah had found her place. She was a Kansas girl born in San Diego and planned to stay in Kansas.

Leah and John had planned a trip to San Diego this July and Vicky and I would meet John for the first time. We’d heard from friends and later from John’s parents that there were marriage suspicions, but neither Leah nor John would give any indication. Vicky and I spoke with John’s roommate Garrett and he put those suspicions to rest – John had asked him several times if Garrett thought it was foolish for him to go all the way to San Diego to ask Leah’s dad if he could marry her. That’s the way it’s done in Kansas, but he wondered if it would be OK in California. Let me be very clear: I would be proud to have my daughter marry a man who had enough respect for her to ask before he took.

Leah’s death was sudden, tragic, and heart-wrenching, but our God is merciful. Vicky and I talked with proprietors of the “The Seasons of the Fox” bed and breakfast where Leah worked, the last people we know to see Leah and John before the accident. John picked her up at work and they were headed out to a farm in John’s family where he and Leah kept dogs. They loved to go out to the farm to see their dogs and the animals and were excited when they left. On the way, Leah called Vicky and they talked for some time about how well life was going. Leah had just sent off Vicky’s mother’s day present and was so excited about it she just had to tell her what it was – a “Forever Rose,” a real rose treated in some way to always to appear fresh and alive. Twenty minutes after that conversation ended Leah was standing in front of Jesus, probably wondering how she got there. The next morning a handwritten letter and a Forever Rose arrived on our doorstep.

You might know that Pastor Jim is from the part of Kansas where Leah lived. You also might know of the tragic death of his college age nephew last August. While in Kansas, Pastor Jim’s sister-in-law spent some time with us. Laurie Garlow gave Vicky a necklace that she had worn since her son died and said that it had helped her through the past ten months – a beautiful rose cast in silver. Laurie proclaimed through our collective grief that “our kids made it home.”

The last memory I have of Leah is when I dropped her at the San Diego airport in January. I hugged her, kissed her, prayed over her, and told her that I loved her.

And now, Leah our blossoming rose dances with Jesus.

Mercy, Grace, Sorrow, and Grief

2010-05-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

Then Job replied to the LORD : "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
After the horrific sorrow and grief visited upon Job, after Job's questionion of God's wisdom and plan, after getting "schooled" by the Master, Job comes to this conclusion. Our God can do all things and no plan of His can be thwarted. Job realized his knowledge is limited and in relying upon his own knowledge, he obscured the counsel of God. Job confessed that in reality (life from God's point of view) he did not understand God's plan which is so wonderful, he cannot even comprehend it. Before the tragedies that befell Job, his ears had heard of God, but now, after walkin in sorrow and grief, Job declares my eyes have seen God.

Do not miss this truth. Until we are in a position to need God's mercy and grace in supernatrual proportions, our knowledge of God is less than what it will be, akin to hearing rather than seeing. It could be like listening to a person speak from another room. We hear the words, but how different that a conversation face-to-face, looking straight into another's eyes. As the recipients of of the kind of mercy and grace that occurs only at the end of our rope grasped in sweatty hands can we say that God is no longer someone we've heard, but is now someone we see.

In the past 48 hours I have dangled helplessly at the end of my rope. At times, it seemed as though the rope had slipped from my grasp and I was falling without hope into the abyss of my grief. These were the times when I could only cry out the word "no!" or the phrase "Jesus help me!" My ears had heard of God and I knew He was there. I knew He would eventually comformt me. But, when the Mercy and Grace of God began to flow and rescue me from each successive cycle of abysmal grief, I saw God. My eyes looked directly into those of my Savior.

Pray for my family - continue to pray. The road ahead has many, many valleys, ruts, detours, and crossroads. But at the same time, it has turnabouts where we gaze out over the vista of grace and mercy and see God. It has hilltops from which we can see far ahead.

Grieve with us at the present loss of our daughter, Leah, but rejoice with us because we see God.

Competing Worldviews: Biblical Theism , Part 1

2010-03-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

Theism in the broadest sense refers to the idea that at least one god exists. Biblical theism refers to idea of one God who created all that exists, is personal in nature, and who involves Himself in His creation - in short, the God of the Bible. Of course, biblical theism contains much more than this, but we have a limited purpose here. We want to introduce various worldviews with enough detail to distinguish them from each other. We’ll expand the idea of biblical theism when we discuss the components of the Christian faith.

We’re starting with biblical theism because, well, it’s proven itself true. All other worldviews unsuccessfully compete with biblical theism. We’ll see later how competing worldviews in the west grew from a response to biblical theism and how they reach back to it for support, for ideas that make life livable, because on their own, carried out to their logical conclusions, these competing worldviews make life an impossible task.

We commonly define different worldviews by answering a standard set of questions. Various thinkers have used similar questions, some with shorter, some with longer lists. Chuck Colson in his watershed book How Now Shall We Live, posed three questions which form the classical reference points of a Christian worldview. The title to his book and the applications he works through each chapter form and important fourth question.

Where did we come from and who are we?
What has gone wrong with the world?
What can we do to fix it?
How should we live?

I’ve found it helpful to break these apart in to six questions, limiting the first to “where did we come from” and adding two more just after it:

Why are we here? (which will also answer “who are we?”); and
Where are we going?

These questions from a grid to analyze each worldviews approach. Generally all of the big or ultimate issues of life can found in or between these questions.

The first question, “Where did we come from?” starts at the beginning and by answering it we determine the scope of possible answers for the remaining questions. The answer to the first question requires a look at the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible. We can all quote at least a few words, “in the beginning God . . .” But, who is God? “God is infinite and personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good.” Each of these broad descriptors captures an array of characteristics of God.

The infinite God is boundless, governed only by His own character. Neither man nor creation restricts Him. No other being in all creation equals Him or can challenge Him. Yet, this God who is so “other” than us is also personal. He possesses the attributes of personhood. He is a self-conscious, thinking, and acting being. He interacts personally with us. We can pray to Him, worship Him, obey Him, He answers our prayers, reveals Himself in to us in Scripture and nature, He loves us and we love Him back. An infinite but personal God is unique to biblical theism.

Theologians will say that God transcends His creation, but is also imminent. God transcends because He is something other and above His creation. Just as time cannot constrain Him, neither can space. Yet, while, transcendent, He remains in that place we call “here,” wherever that place may exist for us at any given time, and not only for me, but for all mankind. For each person in every place and every age, whether separated by time or at the same moment, “God is here.”

In His omniscience, God possesses all knowledge and nothing escapes Him. He governs all that exists according to His ultimate desires in His sovereignty. And, God is good. From His goodness flow all of His other characteristics. Good exists because God is good.

Back to the question of from whence we and the world come. This God created all that exists from nothing. Without any prior pattern or form, He imagined all that is. He imagined lizards and spiders and tropical fish and birds. He imagined earth and sky. He imagined sub-atomic forces and particles, the basic elements, gravity, acceleration. And then, He spoke it into existence. He didn’t go to the stockpile of pre-existing creation building materials. He just spoke and out of nothing, His ideas became real. Because an orderly God created, the universe itself is orderly. It is also open. In other words, God constantly involves Himself in the unfolding of events within His creation.

Why are we here? God made man as the pinnacle of His creative activity, the only creation made in God’s own image. All the rest of creation bears the stamp of God’s character, but only man bears His image. To be sure, God’s image is not God nor is it equal to God, but it is like God. We are not infinite, but we are personal, capable of creating and sustaining relationships with one another and with God. We are not omniscient, but we know and can understand from the propositional revelation of God in Scripture and the demonstrative revelation of creation who God is and what the world is like. We are not sovereign, but we do have a kingdom of sorts where we exercise our will. We are not perfectly good, but we can express goodness in acts of love, mercy, patience, and grace. We cannot create out of nothing, but we possess impressive creative abilities and continue to work with God’s creation to further His initial work.

That’s a glimpse at who we are, but does not fully answer why we’re here. The Westminster Shorter Catechism provides a succinct answer in its first question: “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” It follows with an explanation of what will guide us in our quest to glorify and enjoy God: the Scriptures. If we unpack that just a little more, we’ll find that we were created for relationship with God, to walk side by side with Him in the garden of Eden, to continue His creative works. In this we would bring rightful glory to God and enjoy Him. We were created to love God and be loved by Him and carry out His purposes.

In Part 2, we'll tackle the remaining worldview questions.

A Matter of the Heart

2010-01-25T20:29:00.000-08:00

I've previously posted comments on the Sermon on the Mount which shows us with an inside-out look at life and worldview thinking mirrors that perspective. Diagram 1 below depicts what Jesus taught and how it relates to the idea of worldview. Paraphrasing from Matthew 6, “you have heard it said, don’t murder. But I say don’t be angry with your brother because in the heart, murder and anger come from the same place. I say experience my transformational power in your inner man and you will become the kind of person who will treat his brother in the way I would.” This doesn’t happen by accident. A series of cause and effect relationships move what is on the inside of a person into outward action.

Look at the center circle of diagram 1. In blue I’ve labeled it “what is real.” The group of assumptions that I hold about what is real fits into this circle, for example that the Creator God of the Bible is the source of all that exists. My concept of reality will determine what I know to be true (the next layer), like people have inherent dignity because they are created in God’s image. What I know to be true will determine my idea of what is good (the next layer), such as helping others in need. And, my idea of what is good will ultimately determine what I do (the last layer), including working in my community to alleviate homelessness. Now, look at the green labels for the same circles. My assumptions about what is real make up my worldview. My worldview will determine my beliefs. My beliefs will determine my values and my values will determine my actions.

These relationships tell us two things. First, if my behavior does not match up to what I say my assumptions about reality are – how I characterize my worldview – then my worldview is really something different. Second, worldview matters. If we intend to live our lives differently, in conformity with God’s expectations, then we must make sure our worldviews agree with His revelation. If my worldview contains the wrong story about how things really are, may attempts to live differently will have short term or spotty results because they will lack the necessary foundation of supporting values and beliefs. I’ll be constantly swimming against the tide of my worldview much like the man Paul describes in Romans chapter 7 who wants to do what God expects, but finds himself doing the very thing he doesn’t want to do. If he remains in that state, the Romans 7 man has nothing to say but “what a wretched man I am!”

You might be thinking, “I don’t have concentric circles painted on my chest, so, where does a worldview reside in a person?” The concept of a worldview originated outside of biblical theism or Christianity, but as Saint Augustine points out, that does not make it off limits to us. “Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said what is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.” He surmised that this practice mirrors how the Israelites plundered the gold of the Egyptians during the Exodus, taking what had previously been put to ungodly use to a godly purpose. So, as David Naugle points out, we ought to drop the secular baggage that comes with this immigrant idea and replace it with a biblical perspective. Worldview is a valuable piece of Egyptian gold that we ought to bring captive to Christ. Doing so will help us track down the biblical location of one’s worldview.

The “heart,” used over 1,000 times in the Old and New testaments reflects the totality of personhood. It operates as the seat of our intellect, emotions, will, and spiritual pursuits. Jesus’ comments on “treasure” in the Sermon on the Mount underline the central place of the heart. In the heart we hold our treasure, from it we produce fruit, and out if it flow our deeds and thoughts. If we hope to have an accurate view of the worldview concept, we must strive to understand it terms of the biblical doctrine of the heart. “In other words, the heart of the matter of worldview is that worldview is a matter of the heart.”

“Believing, thinking, feeling, and doing and transpire within it. It is concerned with a particular treasure as an ultimate good. It is the source of how one speaks and lives. It is a reflection of the entire man or woman. It constitutes the springs of life . . . on the basis of a vision of the heart, for according to its specific disposition, it grinds its own lenses through which it see the world. According to the Bible, therefore . . . the heart and its content as the center of human consciousness creates and constitutes what we commonly refer to as [worldview]." (David K. Naugle, Worldview, The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, 2002) 270.)

The experiences of life and our thoughts about those experiences flow into a person’s heart and in the process begin to develop the assumptions we use to make up our worldview. In turn, those assumptions influence our beliefs and values and determine how we live.

They are the work of the heart which establishes the foundation for all human expression and experience. Though mostly hidden, and often ignored, these most basic intuitions [assumptions] guide and direct most, if not all, of life. They are compass-like in effect, a Polaris in the night sky. They are gyroscopic amid many imbalances, a thread in the labyrinth of life. These baseline beliefs are so humanly significant; they are like a nest to a bird or a web to a spider.

Given this central and controlling position of the heart, we must carefully follow the father’s instruction in Proverbs 4: 23 “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.” But how? Two passages from Paul’s epistles provide guidance. First, Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." This passage points out three reference points in the workings of a worldview. The mind forms the gateway to our heart. Through our mind assumptions enter our hearts and life-determining thoughts emerge. Renewing our minds will unlock the transformation of our hearts. No longer will we conform to this world. Instead, we will live out abundant lives, demonstrating God’s good and acceptable and perfect will in every inch of our existence.

Ephesians 4:23-24 amplifies this thought. “And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the transformed new self. The next eight verses detail what kind of living this will produce – just what one expects from a new self created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Renew your minds so that your hearts will be transformed so that you live righteous and holy lives.
Worldviews matter; worldviews are a matter of the heart; Christianity is a worldview.

Who Cares What I Think?

2010-01-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

What determines how I live my life? Do I have a master plan that I’ve created to govern how I’ll think and feel and act? Could I even construct such plan? If not, is my life just an unplanned series of events without direction or purpose?

When you stop to think about it, these are really big questions. Unfortunately, many of us miss the opportunity to stop and think or when we do, we can’t figure out how to get to the answers. The next few minutes could begin a thoughtful journey, one that over time develops clarity regarding what you regard as really real and its affect on how you live.

Each of us has tucked away the building blocks that make up our understanding of how the world works. Some of these blocks form a foundation and others the walls and various rooms of our house of reality. The ideas that we use in the process of thinking itself form the foundation. Characteristics like self, things that are not a part of self, relationship between things and between ideas, the ability to place things and ideas into groups or categories, the relationship of cause and effect, the dimensions of space, time, and the like. We use these thoughts as tools to explore and determine what we hold to be real.

On that foundation of thinking tools, we have assembled a series of other ideas that we may have consciously examined or which we simply take for granted. Either way, we cannot imagine the world without these characteristics or ideas. They comprise the things we hold to be really real, the answers to the big questions in life that help us make sense of it all. These ideas form our worldview and consist of the principles by which we understand what our experience in life really means. Maybe this sounds a little too theoretical to have any practical use. Some have described a worldview as:

• A basic model of reality

• A Set of presuppositions which we hold about the makeup of the world

• A set of assumptions that explain reality

• The interpretive framework we use to make sense of the totality of our reality

One thing lies at the core of each of these definitions. A worldview consists of assumptions or presuppositions that we apply to the world to make sense of it all, to figure out what is real. Over time, people have assembled sets of questions to identify what assumptions or presuppositions form the walls of a particular worldview structure. These are the big or ultimate questions of life I referred to earlier. Questions like where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? What’s wrong with the world? How do we fix it? How should we live our lives?

My hope is that this series of discussions leaves you with at least on foundational idea: Christianity is a worldview. Yet, even within Christianity, we have our family differences about the details of how the world works. For example, has God chosen me out of the population of rebellious humans, dead in their sin and unable to respond to Him without His choice? Or, did the death of Christ bestow on all mankind the ability to decide to allow Him to save us from our sin? Worldviews which compete with Christianity experience these same internal tensions. To characterize a person as a naturalist does not put that person in perfect lock-step with every other person identified as a naturalist. Because we're people, this business can be a little messy.

So, to some degree, our worldviews are personal (shared in the fine detail only by ourselves) as well as public (shared in general form by our group, for example evangelical Christians). This spectrum of worldview variations sometimes provides the wiggle room to talk one way and live another. What we state as our assumptions about life and how we actually live out our lives doesn't always match up. Now we’ve gotten to the place where personal examination will yield sometimes difficult, but very fruitful results. In great DVD series The Truth Project, instructor Del Tackett often says that in the church today, Christians don’t always believe that what they believe is really real. This observation deserves some unpacking. As we’ll see in the next chapter, a Christian worldview gathers it’s assumptions about what is real from God’s revelation of Himself, both in creation and in Scripture. Tackett says, in other words, that even though we profess to believe God’s revelation as our assumptions about life, we may not - and if not, it shows up in how we live our lives. The proof really is in the pudding.

A Question for the New Year

2010-01-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: Three weeks of illness and the Christmas holiday left the blog dark during December, but it now returns to its weekly schedule.)

J.P. Moreland in his book Kingdom Triangle recommends the following: "Each year, I ask myself this question: How much of my life and ministry last year required the existence of the Christian God to explain it? How much would have happened if God did not exist? Here's the point: Life in the Kingdom - corporately in our churches and individually - is a supernatural colaboring with God in which we both matter." That's a tough question and one that simultaneously caused me to reflect on my participation in expanding the boundaries of the Kingdom by God's power and repent over living a naturally unsupernatural life.

Moreland's book (as the title suggests) presents a three-part strategy for advancing the Kingdom. First, developing the life of the mind, learning what and why we believe and acquiring a thoughtful Christian worldview. Worldview as an important concept for the church is gaining momentum. Chuck Colson says that Christianity itself is a worldview - a set of beliefs by which we make sense of the world, define reality, answer life's ultimate questions. Moreland's challenge here is to make sure our beliefs are biblically accurate, to make sure that we actually believe they are true, and to put these beliefs on center stage in what we hold to be real - our worldviews.

Second, cultivating our inner lives by developing emotional intimacy with God through spiritual disciplines and literature of the formation of the church. Jonathan Edwards would call this the development of religious affections where our desires and our wills are aligned with the desires of God. No small task and disciplines like silence, solitude, meditation, contemplative prayer, memorization, and fasting when understood and applied can provide the nutrients necessary for flourishing spiritual growth.

Third, Moreland urges us to learn to live in and use the Spirit's power and authority of the Kingdom of God, developing a supernatural lifestyle, receiving answers to prayers, learning to effectively pray for healing and demonic deliverance, and sharpening our ability to hear God's voice. This, of course, is the point of the quoted question. Have we lived lives of self-powered moral uprightness where the shining best is really just mediocre, or have we hurried on the path to walk shoulder to shoulder with Jesus encountering whatever comes our way in the power of the Spirit and the authority of Jesus?

These three ideas, recovering the Christian mind, renovating the soul, and restoring the power of the Spirit form what intelligent design theorists call an irreducible complexity. Michael Behe describes an irreducibly complex system as "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." If we fail to develop any one of the three legs of the Kingdom Triangle, Kingdom life will break down. If our Christian beliefs are not what we hold to be really real, if our desires are not joined at the hip with God's desires, if we fail to rely on the power of the Spirit or exercise the authority of Jesus, our lives and the lives of those we touch will remain locked in the realm of what we can see, taste, hear, smell, and touch. Our deepest longings will remain unsatisfied, and God's redemptive work will continue on without us and without the joy and fulfillment of participating.

Something to be Thankful for

2009-11-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

I pray that this day of thanks is filled with reminders of blessings and renewal of relationships. Today I was blessed far beyond our celebratory meal and outstanding fellowship. Today I read a document entitled the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." I've written much in the past about the meaning and effect of a Christian worldview. The Manhattan Declaration demonstrates what can happen when your mind, your heart, is gripped by Christianity as the explanation of reality, as a worldview. It will burst out of our personal sanctuaries and blow the doors of our corporate sanctuaries. It will cause the Kingdom of God ooze, flow, splatter, and spray over our world - reclaiming territory for King Jesus, putting things back to the way their supposed to be. Below you'll find the preamble to the Manhattan Declaration which briefly documents the profound preserving and advancing influence of Christianity on western culture. This is much more than a profession of Christian ideas. In this act of declaration Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians have joined together out of a common understanding of what is really real and how that understanding ought to be lived out by real believers. I urge you to read the complete document and if it agrees with your convictions about the way things ought to be, to sign it and pass it on.

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.

The End of the Sermon

2009-11-22T21:39:00.000-08:00

Jesus' model prayer next moves from our immediate physical needs to the sustenance of the inner man. Forgive us as we have forgiven others. Though each member of the Father’s family has received forgiveness in the fullest sense so that none will answer in final judgment for his or her sin, the matter does not end there. We have begun a relationship with the Father but we have not fully rid ourselves of the old man, the rebellious man, the self-directed man. We each know that more regularly than we would like, we turn our backs on the Father and go our own ways. It may only happen for a moment, but in that moment relationship becomes broken. Forgiveness paves the way to restoration. But Jesus describes this forgiveness in a particular way – not just any forgiveness, but forgiveness that mirrors that which we extend to others. You can hear the echo of another portion of the Sermon. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Jesus does not suggest that we can earn our forgiveness by forgiving others. No, the New Testament clearly states over and over that we, in fact, cannot earn forgiveness. Instead, Jesus points to the primacy of relationships in God’s kingdom. Remember back to when Jesus redefined murder to include something deeper than the physical act. At the end of the discussion, He emphasized the restoration of relationships – if I’m engaged in what a first century Jew considered his highest duty, ritual worship, and discovered that a brother had something against me, I ought to set aside my worship, go to my brother and restore our relationship. “God does not work by halves. He will not allow us to come to Him confessing half a sin while hanging on to the other half. It must be all or nothing. Thus if we confess our sin, our confession must of necessity involve a forgiving attitude towards others.” By asking God to forgive us as we have forgiven others, we impliedly ask God to assist us in forgiving others. For, without that the restorative act of forgiveness towards others, we cannot effectively seek the forgiveness of God we so desperately need.

Finally, we hear the call of our daily battle: lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. The term “temptation” is a neutral word, sometimes meaning to lure one into sin and other times to test or try a person. James makes it clear that God does not lure anyone into sin. “When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. “ That leaves only one option to clarify this phrase in the prayer: do not lead us into trials. If possible, keep me away from the places where I might be tested. But if tested, deliver me from the evil one, keep me from sin. I do not want to experience testing, but I might need it.

Several biblical principles help us navigate the shoals here. First, though unpleasant, testing has its place. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” And, finally, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Testing will help form us into the people God intends by forcing us to face the weak points where we have yet to surrender to Christ’s authority. It will provide us a history of God’s work in our lives which builds our faith into an absolute expectation. God will use even those events intended by others for the worst outcomes toward us to our good, bringing towards our inheritance one step at a time. And Finally, God will never allow the testing to go beyond the resource He provides and our ability to grasp it. He will always, always provide a way of escape.

Just after the prayer Jesus talks about our treasure, a fitting commentary on the jump from petition for bread to meet our temporal needs and the request to receive forgiveness and avoid temptations to satisfy our souls. He’s already told us not to worry about our material needs, but here He goes beyond our needs to those things we hold dear, to our treasure. What kinds of treasure do we have – horded earthy things, wealth, power, and status, or the eternal treasure of refined character, wisdom, powerful faith, and God-like love? Jesus makes it clear, we can’t have both – we’ll either “hate the one and love the other,” or “be devoted to the one and despise the other.” In the end, like metal detector beeps in the ear of a beach sand jewelry hound, our treasure will shout out the home of our hearts. They either rest in the hands of Jesus, a fitting gift for the One who turned them from stone to flesh, or we’ll have clutched them to ourselves where they slavishly serve our desires alone.

This brings us to the end of the Sermon and the final exam. We only have two options after hearing Jesus’ words: put them into practice, or not. The one who puts them into practice builds for herself a foundation that will not fail. Rain, rising water, nor beating wind can move the house built on the rock. Even if we must encounter temptation or trials, we can endure. We will have the strength to restore relationships and actively seek the good of others. Our kingdom lives will flavor the lives of those whom we touch and provide a Jesus beacon to a groping world. We will rid ourselves of contempt and lust and garnish our conversations with truth.

The other side of this canvas bears the portrait of a house built on sand. Rain, rising water, and beating wind will have their way with this house and will reduce it to a pile of rubble and bits of flotsam that disappear with the tide. This might occur through neglect or outright refusal, but the result remains the same. Can we witness any greater disaster than one who recognizes and responds to the salvation call of Jesus, yet fails to put His words into practice – one who has entered the kingdom gates but fails to put all into kingdom life?

Staying in the Kingdom

2009-11-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

After instructing His disciples not to pray as the pagans do, mindlessly repeating the same words or phrases, hoping that repetition will have some effect, Jesus says, when you pray, pray like this:

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Though he had an existential slant to his theology, Karl Barth was a deep theological thinker, prolific writer, and an ardent follower of Jesus. When this one who could fill a wheelbarrow with the books he’d written on theology was asked, how do sum up your theology, your view of God, responded “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I’ve heard this described as simplicity on the other side of complexity. For Karl Barth to quote the words to a child’s tune means much more than when sung by a first grade Sunday School class. For Barth, these simple words were jammed with a depth of meaning that many adults may never comprehend.

I think of Jesus’ words in the Lord’s Prayer in a way. Even a cursory glance at the Gospel of John leaves one with the conclusion that Jesus and the Father are one – knowing each other so intimately that to know one is to know the other. So when Jesus speaks these simple words, only 53 in total, they carry an exponential depth of meaning. They touch the tips of icebergs that we will rightfully spend a lifetime exploring.

Though we cannot treat them exhaustion here, a helicopter view of the portions that breach the surface will do us well. First, note that Jesus introduced the “Lord’s Prayer” with a warning – don’t pray like the heathens – which indicate He intended this as a pattern for prayer rather than a literal string of words for us to repeat. Even so, we often find it useful when praying corporately or individually to use these actual words, particularly when we begin to understand their full meaning. In that way, they become for us simplicity beyond complexity – common words with deep meaning.

The prayer begins first with God and then moves to us, setting the proper relationship and attitude for our own prayer. All but once (while hanging on the cross – “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – Jesus addresses God as Father. The Jews would have heard this as something unique and new in matters spiritual. We commonly hear how the Jews would not even speak the name of God and as a result, we do not have an accurate pronunciation of His name YHWHW. In contrast, and in keeping with the announcement that the Kingdom of God is near, that new access to God has arrived, Jesus calls God “Father.” Even with such an intimate address, we must still hallow, or hold sacred, or sanctify, or set apart, the name of God. We must use it in consideration of who He is (He’s God and we’re not).
In the second of three phrases focusing on God, Jesus addresses the Kingdom – requesting that it come. Let’s think about that for a moment. What is a kingdom? In common terms a kingdom consists of all that comes under the power and authority of its king. A kingdom exists in the place where activity bends to the will of the king. Sitting in our world with His dicisples, Jesus says we ought to pray that here, were we live out our present lives, God’s kingdom might come. He instructs us to petition the Father to make His presence as King, the one to whom the subjects defer, known.

In the third God-focused phrase, Jesus enforces the idea of God’s kingdom coming now by instructing us to pray for His will to be done just as it is in heaven. In heaven He rules unopposed, without the rebellion of sin. Later on, we’ll discuss how this Kingdom or rule of God ought to extend to every arena of life and how Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God in His place as our King lays claim to every inch of human existence.

After setting the priorities – recognizing who is King, Jesus moves to four petitions that cover the entirety of human existence. First, our sustenance. This directive thrusts at the idea of complete reliance upon the Father for sustenance. It also indicates we ought to pray this way regularly and repeatedly, today for our daily bread. Two other sections of the Sermon flesh out the short phrase, “give us today our daily bread.”

Matthew 6:25-34 begins “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” And it continues “your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” Rather than worry about our daily bread, we ought to come regularly to our Father, who knows that we need them, acknowledge our dependence upon Him and simply, reverently, and faithfully ask. If we ask, “it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.“ (Matthew 7:7-11). Still, what assurance do I have that God will really do what He says? "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?”

Warnings

2009-10-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

Jesus’ warnings continue in Matthew chapter 7 – don’t judge, don’t throw valuable things to the pigs, avoid the wide road, and watch out for false prophets. Taken by itself, Matthew 7:1 appears to present a prohibition against judging. However, when we couple it with the illustration that follows something different emerges. The example ends with “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye,” not “don’t look at the speck in your brother’s eye.” Jesus did not prohibit judging, but contemptible judging, the kind that disregards the common fallen condition of all mankind with its propensity for sin, including in us. This kind makes a determination on the value of the person judged and elevates the person judging in the process. Contemptible judging does not direct itself in any way toward the benefit of the one judged. Jesus says this kind of judging doesn’t belong in the kingdom.

What kind of judging does belong? Jesus’ example gives us a good start. First, it recognizes that the one passing judgment must guard against the infirmaries of his own flesh. He must begin with self-examination, removing the vision blocking element from his own eye before he attempts to assist his brother. Galatians 6:1-4 comes to mind. “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else.” This passage makes it clear that we judge for the purpose of restoration and we do it in a spirit of humility, understanding the well worn saying “there but for the grace of God go I.”

Within the body of Christ, we do not posses the made-up rights assumed in today’s world. However, outside the body, proper judging becomes impossible because we have lost a common standard. Each person retains the right to make their own rules, to live life the way they see fit. Imagine what that would look like in a criminal proceeding. The defendant (named Joe) enters the court and the judge reads the charges against him. When finished, Joe’s lawyer stands up with a fat book in hand and says “your honor, I have here the law according to Joe and the violations of law alleged by the state appear nowhere in Joe’s law. Therefore, you must release Joe immediately.” If Joe really does get to make up his own law, what choice would the court have? The judge must release Joe. In fact, we should call the court official something other than a judge for no judging could possible take place. Sadly, Joe becomes the loser in this story. He misses the opportunity to have his life formed closer to what God intended. Even if Joe does not respond to the prospect of an eternal relationship with Jesus, he would benefit from proper judging because it would encourage him to live his life based on the truth.

Commentators most commonly treat Jesus’ next warning as an instruction not to spend the gospel on those who have rejected it – not throwing the “pearls” of the gospel before the swine. If we view this verse from a few steps back, a fuller meaning emerges. We should not throw our pearls to swine not because they don’t deserver them, but because they have no use for them. Pigs primarily have a single goal: food. Pearls are no good for food. Let’s not force the pearls of the gospel on folks while they remain in a pigly state, one in which they have yet to understand the value of gospel pearls. Once they recognize the value, a transformation will occur. They become like the man who discovered a pearl of great price in a field and in his excitement, ran and purchased the field so he could possess the pearl.

I recently attended a graduation party for the daughter of some old friends. They live on a small road that connects to a much busier one and if I’ve missed the turn once, I’ve missed it twenty times. If I want to actually end up at my friends’ home, I have to work at it, paying attention to the where the turnoff is and make the turn. Jesus reminds us that like visiting my friends, we do not come to the kingdom by accident. Not at all. We must choose the path that leads to the kingdom and apply some effort. The path that misses the kingdom requires little effort. It has wide margins and will take any who come. The kingdom road, on the other hand, requires that we choose and act.

Finally, Jesus warns “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Alright, I’m watching. What should I look for? “By their fruit you will recognize them.” Grapes don’t come from thorn bushes and we don’t get figs from thistles. Only true prophets will bear kingdom fruit. And, what does kingdom fruit look like? It looks like what Jesus has described so far in the sermon. It runs deeper than the actions of a man. It comes from a heart which Jesus has transformed and it works itself out in action reflective of that transformation. Who should I listen to and who should I follow? Jesus has carefully laid out the pattern of a true prophet so we can discern his fruit. The rest is up to us.

Outside the Kingdom

2009-10-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

In the next section of the sermon (Matthew chapter 6), Jesus dishes out some stern warnings. “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.” Jesus gives three examples of how the religious folk of the day missed the point of their practices. Rather than honoring God, they did little more than honor themselves. When they gave money to the poor, they sounded a trumpet. They wanted everyone to look up like we do today when we here a fire truck’s siren. They did their praying on street corners (and probably out loud). Finally, when fasting, they would put on a “gloomy face” and ignore their personal grooming. They were the first century equivalent of that co-worker who mopes around the office does everything in his power to entice you to ask “are you O.K.” so he can cut fifteen minutes off of your lifespan by telling you how horrible his life is. In each of these instances, giving, praying, and fasting, Jesus repeats a single conclusion. “Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”

The ability to ignore God and go our own way gives significance to our choices. If I were not morally responsible for rejecting God, my choices would mean nothing. However, since I can reject God, choosing God becomes highly significant. God respects our choices whether for Him or against Him. To do otherwise would rob us of our freedom and ultimately destroy our personhood. Without the ability to choose in this manner, we could not claim to be the image a personal God.[1]

So, if I choose to use spiritual disciplines to gain the admiration of men, God will let me do so. However, that does not mean that He’ll agree to participate in my sham. Human admiration will become my prize, all I get, my “reward in full.” Giving away my money will just make me have less money. Praying will only exercise my vocal chords, and fasting will just make me hungry.

In true Jesus form, He doesn’t stop with highlighting the old way, life outside the kingdom. Jesus points it out and then goes on to explain what life in the kingdom will look like. First, we’ll practice spiritual disciplines for their intended purpose. They’ll become part of our partnership with God in working out our salvation. We’ll give to others because they have a need that pulls at our hearts. We’ll pray to build our relationship with God, to seek His involvement in our lives, and to exercise the authority He has given us. We’ll fast to remind ourselves of how the flesh constantly chatters about our physical needs and to attune ourselves to the voice of God. And, we’ll guard the sanctity of these practices by engaging them in secret, avoiding the possibility of abusing them.

[1] The point here is not to debate the meaning of the sovereignty of God. Whether we approach our decision for or against God from a perspective of (a) human will that though corrupt still retains the ability to choose God, or (b) a perspective of compete depravity that requires action from God before we can turn to him, or (c) something between these two views, Scripture is clear that we are morally responsible for a choice against God and He will judge us so.

You Have Heard it Said

2009-09-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Jesus continues his list of examples of kingdom life in Matthew chapter 5. Several things become very clear from this section. First, the Kingdom of God is more than skin deep. It’s a heart change starting on the inside and flowing out into how we live our lives in every arena. Second, relationships, not rules, make up the central concern of the Law. Jesus has not brought a new law, a new set of rules for us to follow. No, He has brought examples for us so that we understand what this new way of living looks like.

It was said, 'WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE'; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

In Marks’ Gospel, Jesus explains that Moses allowed the Israelites to issues certificates of divorce only because of the hardness of their hearts. Kingdom law presumes a heart of flesh over a heart of stone, a heart receptive to God’s call and His desires. The divorce practices of Jesus day had degenerated into the no fault divorce we find today, but with more devastating results. Today, divorced mothers often find themselves a part of an underclass of citizens. Unshared family responsibility coupled with, for a number of reasons, lower earning capacity makes single parenting for mothers a daunting task.

What if we added the exclusion and social stigma of first century Judaism to the mix? What if a woman had no property rights and a certificate of divorce might mean living on the street corner? Jesus theme continues by suggesting change that values wives as more than cooks and cleaning women. Such change requires men to break out of their hard heart prisons and decide to make decisions for the benefit of their wives, to love them as their selves.

Beyond the devastating effects of divorce in His day, I believe Jesus had another reason for characterizing the distinctives of Kingdom marriage. When asked by the Pharisees why His disciples did not fast they did, Jesus responded that the groom’s friends don’t fast while he remains with them, only after he leaves. He may not have pointed directly at His role as the groom of the church, but later portions of the New Testament make it clear that the Church is the bride of Christ and that marriage is more than convenient social arrangement. It presents a picture of the union of Jesus and the Church. In addition to providing the foundation of society throughout the ages, it provides us with a constant reminder of where history is going.

Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.' "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. "Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.

It always annoys me when someone says “I’m going to be completely honest with you.” What? You haven’t been honest with up to this point? In order to rely on what you say, I need to wait for you to announce that the following words are the truth? That kind of approach to relationships makes growing them a little tough and it's similar to the place of oaths in Jesus’ time. They had become a means to emphasize that what one said equaled the truth. As noted above, that begs the question of when a person operates in truth mode and when not.

Most of us will probably read this passage and think to ourselves, “I’m truthful,” but let’s dig a little deeper. What do we mean by “truthful?” For example, if I want someone to do something for me, can I exclude facts in my request that I believe may cause them to refuse? Can I express my request with words that will technically communicate what I want, but could also communicate something much more favorable? Can I tell them everything, but emphasize the good parts and downplay the hard parts? Should my truth telling change depending upon my audience – say, my best friend versus the other party in a business negotiation?

Jesus presents a simple solution: integrity. Let you yes mean yes and your no mean no. Nothing added, nothing taken away. Only with integrity can we expect to build meaningful relationships with others and with Jesus. But, integrity will not happen by itself. We must have good soil to grow it in and we must cultivate it. Good soil is free of debris, and so we must clear out the relationship debris in our lives. If I engage in relationships to get something from someone else, that motive will challenge my ability to grow integrity. Rather than concerning myself with the needs of others, I will focus on what they have that will meet my needs and how I can get my hands on it. Integrity may or may not help me in that quest and thus I may or may not employ it. Even when sincere caring for others motivates my relationships, integrity will not automatically grow. I need to work at it, remind myself of its importance and consciously employ it.

Integrity does not demand that I tell everyone everything. Jesus Himself had degrees in His relationships which impacted what He shared. He shared with the disciples things He did not share with the crowds and Peter, James, and John experienced things with Jesus that the other disciples did not. However, Jesus did not withhold information that a person needed to in order to make a decision to follow Him. In legal terms, He did not withhold “material” information – the kind of information that if withheld, could change a person’s decision.

Integrity does not demand that I only express the truth in naked form. For example, I have a friend who faces very real integrity challenge. He knows the importance truthfulness in relationships, but always wants to spin his message to others. If that friend came to me an asked my help with his integrity issues, I would not lead with “wow, you’ve finally gotten to the point where you realize everyone thinks your working an angel every time you talk with them.” It’s true, and I might think it, but to say it would only harm my friend and his desire to deal with a significant personal problem. My love for him and my desire to make decisions for his benefit will temper my how I communicate the truth.

You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

Jesus continues in this passage to say that if someone wants my shirt, I should give him my coat also, if someone asks me to walk one mile with him, walk two, and if someone wants to borrow from me, give freely. These few verses in particular seem to draw believers in the trap of new laws from Jesus. Some say we should never defend ourselves because Jesus requires us to turn the other cheek. Or, we ought to give our possessions, time, and money away regardless of our other obligations because Jesus taught so in this sermon. Remember, Jesus said the Law will remain intact. He came to fulfill the Law, not bring new ones.

Instead, these represent examples of life in the Kingdom of God. One who has kingdom life, whose heart Jesus has transformed will act differently. He will not demand his right to return a slap to a neighbor who has slapped him, or his right to his possessions in the face of one who needs help, or his right to use his time as he pleases when another intrudes, or his right to spend his money on whatever he chooses. God does not demand these things of us, but our changed hearts will compel us to act this way.

You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . .

You probably have the idea by now that the Law in the kingdom means much, much more than previously thought. This short statement and the verses following which explain further capture the flavor of this entire section of the sermon. "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” If we live the same as everyone else, what does following Jesus matter? God intends something much different. He intends a transformation of our hearts that results in kingdom living, a lifestyle that stands out. It shines like a light on hill and people can’t miss it. It seasons an otherwise meaningless existence and draws in crowds for another taste.

The murmuring around the water cooler that comes to a halt when I walk up won’t consist of complaints about my overbearing religiousness. No, it will be stuffed with whispers about how I’ve changed. And, behind each of those comments by the folks I interact with will squirm a quiet nagging question, “how can I change like that?”

The Law and the Prophets

2009-09-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Through the end of chapter 5, Matthew addresses the Law of God as practiced with a guarantee and a new perspective. He’s going to reveal to His disciples that Kingdom life means a change in the heart that causes us to behave differently rather than external constraints on our actions to prevent us from committing sins we otherwise would. But first, He needs to address His relationship to the Law. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.[1] The Law and Prophets were major sections of the Scriptures given to mankind up to that point in history. Jesus was not bringing a new law, a new set of rules. He was not bringing new prophecy about God’s plan for His people. No, Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.

Remember, the Kingdom of God is near in the person of Jesus. He will move Kingdom history forward in two ways. His life will fulfill the prophecies made of the Messiah throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The Old Testament authors made nearly 300 statements about the Messiah in their writings over a span of 1,000 years. Jesus fulfilled each of these statements. Consider Psalm 22 penned by David which describes the crucifixion of Jesus, a method of execution not yet devised by men. The Psalm begins with the desperate cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Jesus’ very words as He hung on the cross. It continues to describe the onlookers at the crucifixion, “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads.” A few verses later “a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced [c] my hands and my feet.” And then “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” This particular prophecy stands out because it contains facts that many of us can recite from memory. A careful review the other hundreds of references to the Messiah in the Old Testament will reveal that Jesus satisfied each to the fullest.

Jesus also came to fulfill the Law which dealt in a multitude of ways with man’s relationship to God and how man ought to live life in that relationship. Jesus confirmed that the Law would not go away until each until everything was accomplished and that not following the law would have consequences in the Kingdom just as not following the law. Then He says something interesting. “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The law wasn’t going anywhere, but the keeping of the law had to be different than the present practice. What a teaser for the next section of the Sermon.

Jesus now makes six bold statements about the law and how living the law in the Kingdom is different than what the disciples were used to. In most cases, He follows the same pattern – “you have heard,” and the replies with “but I say.” He then goes on to describe in more detail what kingdom obedience to the law looks like in each example. Several things become very clear from this section. First, the Kingdom of God is more than skin deep. It’s a heart change starting on the inside and flowing out into how we live our lives in every arena. Second, relationships, not rules, make up the central concern of the Law. At other times, Jesus said this more plainly, summing the law up in two commands: love God with everything we have and love our neighbors, anyone whose life we touch, as ourselves. Finally, Jesus has not brought a new law, a new set of rules for us to follow. No, He has brought examples for us so that we understand what this new way of living looks like. Some examples have more universal application than others. Anger coupled with contempt has no place in the community of believers. However, we might not always walk the extra mile or give away our coats because there may be competing demands on us of equal moral strength. Let's examine the first two examples.

"You have heard that the ancients were told, YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”

Jesus expands the prohibition on murder far beyond the outline of a corpse on the pavement. Harboring anger and contempt, allowing them to color our thoughts and relationship actions as long as we avoid the act of murder will have a similar impact our hearts and our relationships with others as if we actually carried through with the act. In Jesus’ words, the one who is angry with his brother stands in the same place as one who has murdered, he is guilty before the court. The one who says to his brother you good-for-nothing or you fool has taken the offense even further, beyond the courts to condemnation. Why? Anger responds to encroachments on our self-determination, when someone or something prevents us from doing what we want or believe we have the right to do. It’s not a plan, but a response.

Contempt, on the other hand, takes some time, some careful thought. It strikes at the heart of its object’s personhood, considering them unworthy of any good thing. Personhood is the prime evidence of the image of God in humans. So by aiming at personhood, contempt casts aside the image of God that He carefully placed during the act of creating. The God-image of someone in the sights of a contemptuous person becomes no better than a scrap of trash, something to disregard or even discard. That is the real evil of contempt. It not only comes after God’s image in a person, but in doing so, it acts doubly to devalue God, whose image is at stake.

In both cases, anger or contempt, relationships become disrupted and sometimes destroyed. Out of concern for avoiding that result, Jesus provides another example. If my brother has something against me, I need to put my duties aside and make it right. He might have something against me because of anger or contempt in me or in himself. Either way, life in the new kingdom comes from the inside out and will express itself in restored relationships. On the other hand, when we respond in anger and fail to let go of it and instead embrace it, care for it, feed it, it will eventually grow up into contempt.

"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY'; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

In the same way merely avoiding murder does not guaranty healthy relationships with others, avoiding the act of adultery does not guarantee that my relationship with another in the realm of sexuality is as it should be. Here, we can trace the lines of anger and contempt to see why looking at another for the purpose of lust can harm us in ways similar to adultery. While the anger-contempt combo treat a person as good for nothing, lust treats a person as good for a single, limited purpose. Lust also attacks personhood because its interest stops with the physical form and the watcher’s fantasy. For the married, the lustful thoughts breach the marriage covenant and for the single, crosses over in fornication. For both, these thoughts objectify and separate. They make good relationship with the object impossible. All but the hardest or bound hearts cannot at the same contemplate God’s image planted in another and lust at the same time. Since these two thoughts mutually exclude one another, lust will always drive out our ability to perceive personhood, value, and God’s image in another.

[1] Matthew 5:17a.

A Kingdom for the Haves

2009-09-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

The kingdom is near for all, both the "have nots" and the "haves." It's not only for poor in spirit, mourning, meek, or hungering, but for those who show mercy, the pure in heart, and peacemakers. None will argue that a follower of Jesus should not pursue each of these qualities. Indeed, Jesus promises them wonderful kingdom treasures. They will receive mercy, they will see God, and they will be called sons of God. Entry into the kingdom does not require some certain level of loss or reprobation. John the Baptist’s call to repent because the kingdom is near reaches to both banks of the Jordan River and none are excluded. Jesus welcomes those who have successfully pursued God and those who have miserably failed. Likewise, entry into the kingdom also does not require that reach a certain level of righteousness. The point is more that neither my failures nor my successes make me eligible to enter the kingdom and for that reason, the kingdom opens itself to all. Only work of Jesus in life and death can unlock the kingdom gates.

Finally, those who take up kingdom citizenship, align themselves with Jesus and begin to do true righteousness run the risk of persecution. In fact, Jesus seems to assume that the following Him will induce harsh reactions in others who would pursue His followers in order to oppress them, insult them, and falsely says all kinds of evil against them. These Jesus exhorts to rejoice and be glad. Do the persecution and insults make them glad? Of course not. Possession of the Kingdom of heaven and its rewards are their reason for joy. The Epistle of James puts flesh on these bones. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”[1] Even before we followers of Jesus see His kingdom in final form after His return, good things await us in the face of persecution. We will develop a persevering faith, the kind of faith that can withstand whatever Satan chooses to forge his fiery darts from (he’s good at it – remember the low blow to Jesus after forty days of fasting). The exercise of that kind of faith, faith that stands as a shield in battle,[2] will cause a completeness in our relationship with Jesus and cause us to mature so that we lack nothing. Now, that’s something to rejoice over.

Once in the kingdom and connected to Jesus, we have something valuable to offer the rest of humanity. As Jesus sat with His disciples around Him, He declares “you are the salt of the earth,” and “you are the light of the world.” Interesting statements for someone who has just introduced the kingdom of God. As we saw in our discussion of the gospel of Mark, the disciples didn’t have a real clear picture of who Jesus was, let alone what His kingdom was like. This was a work in progress and the disciples would become salt and light to the world which should offer encouragement to the rest of us. Even if our self evaluations result in low grades, not only does Jesus still offer us the kingdom, but He also will make us its effective agents.

Salt had two common uses in Jesus day. First it could preserve food when properly applied. Second, it brought out the flavor in food, enhancing its natural taste. Jesus’ disciples would have understood that to preserve food with salt, they must rub the salt into the food. Likewise, salt need to get mixed in with food during preparation if it would have any affect on the flavor. Rebecca Manly titled one of her books “Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World.” She hit the nail on the head. If we’re not injecting ourselves into the world with Jesus thinking and Jesus habits, then we’ve become “no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”[3]

Similar to salt, Jesus says we can’t hide our light. Not only can we not hide it, but to make it truly useful, we need to show it, put it in the place where it will provide the most benefit to everyone in the house. Jesus calls us to let our light “shine before men.”[4] If our light, will have any value to men, we need to place it before them. We need to at least be rubbing elbows with them in the same room. Then, when our light shines before them, they have the opportunity to see our good works. Not just see them, but because of this Jesus light, see them for what they really are, kingdom works of obedience, service, gratitude, and worship. When they see that, something changes. The insults and lies stop and a marvelous change occurs. They begin to “praise our Father who is in heaven.”[5]
[1] James 1:2-4.
[2] Ephesians 6:16.
[3] Matthew 5:13.
[4] Matthew 5:16.
[5] Matthew 5:16.

A Kingdom for the Have-Nots

2009-08-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” So ends Matthew chapter 7, what we commonly refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.[1] Let’s read the sermon with this fact in mind. We ought to approach it as much more than ethical teaching or a collection of sayings from one of history’s great teachers. Instead, we ought to take it in as the authoritative words of God in the flesh.

Just before this, Jesus was baptized by John and God the Father confirmed that Jesus was indeed His Son. Immediately, the Holy Spirit compelled Jesus to enter the wilderness where Satan made his frontal attack. Jesus had fasted for forty days and was hungry (um, I would think so). Being not stupid, Satan leads his temptation attempts with food. Standing firm against each successive temptation, Jesus emerges from the wilderness to begin His public ministry. He begins to preach, call His disciples, and then heal the sick and rescue the demon possessed.

Have you ever wondered at the purpose of Jesus’ miracles? If it were to actually help stem disease, deformity, and sickness, why didn’t He heal thousands at a time? If it were to demonstrate His authority, why not exercise His power in some stupendous way so that no one could deny who He was? He had to work miracles for some other reason. Just before Jesus came along to be baptized, John the Baptist was proclaiming “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”[2] And that seems to be the message of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew – the kingdom is near in a way never seen before. His miracles proclaim the invasion of God-power like never seen before. In a world twisted by the effects of sin, a world where things are not as first intended, not they way they’re supposed to be, miracles peppered the crowds with restoration to the way things are supposed to be. Yes, they saw with their own eyes that the Kingdom of God was near. Jesus’ message came in show and tell form. After showing the nearness of the Kingdom, he began to tell them what the Kingdom was like. And so, “he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach . . .”[3]

First, Jesus begins to talk about people who are blessed and will possess the kingdom of heaven. Interestingly, Jesus initially characterizes these blessed ones as poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. In my study of the sermon, I’ve read the works of a number of commentators and many approach this passage assuming that if people with these qualities experience blessing, we ought to pursue those qualities. Since becoming poor in spirit and a mourner do not strike us as particularly “blessed” qualities, we need an explanation that makes them more desirable. So, the poor in spirit become those who acknowledge their spiritual need and the mourners those who experience sorrow over sin in their own lives and in the world. We see meekness in a positive light and hungering and thirsting for righteousness a condition to long for. I have a nagging sense of pounding a square peg into a round hole when I think too long about this handling of these verses. Certainly, the balance of Scripture bears out that recognizing our spiritual need and responding to sin with mourning will position us for deeper fellowship with Jesus. If we have the ability to apply a spirit of meekness to certain situations good things can result and of course we ought to desire righteousness. But these facts do not require us to read the same conclusion here.

The impression that seems to rest more comfortably in the text is that poorness, mourning, meekness, and hungering and thirsting may not describe something good or beneficial. Here’s why. Jesus says “blessed are [the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek] because they will possess the kingdom of heaven, will be comforted, and will inherit the earth – not because they are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, or hungering. In fact, it could just as well be that they are blessed in spite of these characteristics. In spite of such conditions, the kingdom of God is near, newly available to even these. The kingdom invites the one who suffers from spiritual neediness. The kingdom calls to the one experiencing the short end of life’s stick and who rightfully mourns over tragic loss. The gates of the kingdom swing wide for that one oppressed by others. And, Jesus reaches out His hand to the one whom so lacks the righteousness he desperately desires.

[1] Matthew 5:1 – 7:29.
[2] Matthew 3:2.
[3] Matthew 5:1-2a.

Alone on a Hill

2009-08-09T23:29:00.000-07:00

They scourge Him, ripping flesh from bone. They mock Him, place a crown of thorns on His head. They spit on Him and they beat him. Then they crucified Him. The mocking continues and Jesus not only suffers physical pain beyond the body’s ability to comprehend, but He watches as those He loves suffer His loss. For six hours this agony continues, working His arms and legs to grab another breath. He would first feel the panic of asphyxiation and the desperate need for air. Then, He would simultaneously pull down with his arms against the spikes in his wrists while pushing up with his legs against the spikes in His ankles. Moments later the panic would return accompanied by the anticipation of the painful price of He would pay for the next breath. Then in a loud voice Jesus yells out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” A moment later He uses His remaining strength to breath out a last time in a loud cry and then it is done.

We don’t know what that momemnt looked like, sounded like, or felt like, but we have an eyewitness. “When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God! Jesus once asked His disciples “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" The gospel writer Mark follows that up with “For even the Son of Man [came] to give His life a ransom for many." That’s the story Mark wanted to tell.

But, what does it mean that Jesus was our ransom? A ransom is the price paid to redeem someone from captivity into freedom. It refers to our redemption from sin. In theological terms, redemption is one part of a bigger idea: atonement. By His work in life and death, Jesus earned our salvation. He atoned for us, wiping away our sin and replacing it with His righteousness.

In life, Jesus lived perfectly, satisfying every requirement of God’s law. What Adam, and all of us coming after could not do, Jesus did, able to place his perfect righteousness for the benefit of those who respond to His call. We receive more than a neutral position from Jesus. Through death he paid the penalty of sin, but in life, He made possible our eternal acceptance by God.

The New Testament uses several perspectives to gain a full view of the atoning work of Christ in His death. Because we deserve on our own to die for the penalty of our sins, Jesus became our sacrifice.[1] Because we deserve to bear God’s wrath against sin, Jesus died to satisfy God’s wrath.[2] Because our sins have separated us from God, Jesus’ death reconciles us to God.[3] Because sin and Satan hold us in bondage, Jesus redeems us.[4]

We described earlier how the sufferings of Jesus intensified as He approached the cross until that point where He finally bore the penalty for our sin and died in our place. Jesus suffered a gruesome death, but so did the thousands that were crucified during His time. Beyond the physical pain, he bore the pain of enduring to satisfaction the penalty of our sin. Consider for a moment, the guilt that accompanies sin for each of us now. Certainly, we want to quickly recognize that in our saved state, our guilt is a holdover from before our own atonement, but our first reaction to sin is often the shadow of guilt. Now imagine that you cannot rely on the atonement of Jesus for to wipe away your guilt. What would the anguish of that guilty knowledge of one sin feel like? What if you found yourself at the end of days standing before God bearing the guilt for the sin of your entire life? What if you were Jesus who took on the guilt of every sin of every person of faith for all of time?

Jesus did not just “bear” or hold onto our sin.[5] No, His pain resulted from choosing to become sin for us,[6] to become a curse in our stead.[7]

On top of the physical pain and the agony of becoming sin, Jesus experienced the abandonment and wrath of God. Only on His own, alone, could He complete His mission. Surely He experienced pain at the abandonment of His disciples, but what must the abandonment the Father have been like, to hang alone having become sin and no longer experiencing oneness with the Father?[8] Finally, Jesus received in Himself the torturous wrath of God, wrath stored up for all the sins of the past and those yet to come.

Remember as Children when we sat in the bright summer sun with a magnifying glass and a piece of paper (or an anthill for those of us who quickly tire of inanimate objects)? Remember how we could start a fire or annihilate a column of ants in just moments under the intensified heat of the sun? Now imagine that instead of the power of the sun, we observe the Creator of the sun and His necessary anger at the rebellious attack on His righteousness. That alone should strike terror in the heart of any person. Now, instead of a magnifying glass we see the Creator focus that wrath on the person of Jesus nailed to a cross on the top of hill. Jesus endured for hours until He had taken the full measure of God’s wrath.

In this state, Jesus cries out the words of Psalm 22:1-2: My God, My God, why have You forsaken me. Mirroring the sentiment of David who wondered why God had delayed so in rescuing Him. Then finally the torrent of God’s wrath subsided, His righteous demand for payment satisfied. Mission accomplished, the price paid, and Jesus, whose life was His alone to give, let it go.
[1] Hebrews 9:26.
[2] I John 4:10.
[3] II Corinthians 5:18-19.
[4] Mark 10:45
[5] I Peter 2:24.
[6] I Corinthians 5:21.
[7] Galatians 3:13.
[8] John 10:30.

Mark: A Long Introduction to Golgotha

2009-08-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Some commentators describe Mark’s gospel as a passion account with a long introduction. Mark begins the account of Jesus in Chapter 1 with John the Baptist and never stops running. In the first 7 chapters, Jesus demonstrates who is He is and even offers His disciples explanations in private. Even with constant attention from Jesus, it took a considerable time for His disciples to catch on (but I suspect in their sandals, we would have reacted much the same). In Mark chapter 8 the disciples finally start to get an idea of who they’re dealing with. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks. The disciples offer up a couple of answers and then it gets more personal. “Who do you say that I am?” Immediately after Peter jumps in and declares “you are the Christ,” the journey to the cross escalates. Jesus begins to tell the disciples that He would die and be raised from the dead, something they've not heard before.

All along the way in those first 8 chapters, Jesus continued to prod the disciples and check their progress. A number of times He challenged their lack of understanding, yet waits until they begin to understand the magnitude of His presence before revealing the reason for His presence. To Mark, everything so far was preparation. Now that his disciples were catching on, Jesus would put the plan into full action. “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly.” A chapter later three of the disciples witness the transfiguration of Jesus, see Moses and Elijah, and hear the voice of God speaking from the heavens. Not exactly the confusing parables they were used to. After that, Jesus explains that He must die and rise from the dead twice more and enters Jerusalem behind people calling out “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.”

Confrontations with the religious leaders also escalate – they no longer have to travel to Galilee to challenge Jesus because He had planted Himself in the temple grounds – teaching, driving out the money changers, telling parables against religious leaders, and silencing them with His authority. Jesus even explains to His disciples events that will transpire after He has died, risen, and ascended like the destruction of the temple and His triumphal return. At the last Passover meal, Jesus makes an astonishing statement, “Take [this bread]; this is My body” and “This [cup] is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” And then, He is betrayed.

Before His entry into Jerusalem, Jesus shushed anyone who publicly announced His identity. Demons were tormented by His very presence. When they identified Him as the Son of God He rebuked them. Jesus insisted upon silence from those he healed. Even when His disciples began to understand why Jesus had come, “He warned them to tell no one about Him.” But, warnings stopped when Jesus entered Jerusalem. And now, in the hands of the high priest, the chief priests, the elders, the scribes, and the Roman government Jesus makes His identity crystal clear. "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus said, I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN." “Pilate questioned Him, Are You the King of the Jews? And He answered him, It is as you say."

And there He stands, at the brink leaning too far forward, past the point of no return. No more need to postpone the inevitable, His calling was clear. It was time. There were promises His Father made that must be kept and all creation was waiting.

The Gospel of Mark: Jesus and the Outsiders - Part 2

2009-07-26T20:18:00.001-07:00

Though not Jesus’ audience, demons represent another group of outsiders He deals with. By verse 23 of Mark Chapter 1, Jesus has already encountered a demon possessed man. The parasitic spirit responds to Jesus’ presence by declaring “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” Unlike the crowds, this unclean spirit knew exactly who Jesus was. In fact, in every instance where they speak, the demons encountering Jesus recognize Him. They call him “Son of the most high God and force their host to fall down and declare “You are the Son of God!" The Epistle of James echoes these demonic reactions to Jesus, “You believe that God is one, you do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.”

Think about the things that make you “shudder.” Is it a scene from the television show “Fear Factor” where a hairy spider the size of your hand walks across a contestant's face? Maybe peering over the edge atop a 20 story building or standing in front of a large crowd with speech notes in your hand. Our worst fears cannot approach what a demonic spirit sensed when faced with Son of the most high God who had the power to torment them, silence them, or send them into exile. Their master had taken his best shot with Jesus and failed. They knew the truth. Before them stood One with God’s authority, One whom they must obey and whose power overwhelmed them.

The religious leaders round out the groups of “outsiders” Jesus interacts with. Though they hear the parables and references to the Kingdom of God and are educated in the Hebrew Scriptures, they don't get it, or don’t want to. Jesus challenges their sense of propriety and ritual practices over and over. He eats with sinners because those are whom He came to call. His disciples did not fast because Jesus the bridegroom was still with them. They “harvested” on the Sabbath by picking heads of grain to eat because the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He healed on the Sabbath as a demonstration of the a new access to God's kingdom.

After all this, these men still fail to respond. Jesus continues to pursue them by pointing out their destructive habits of form over function and worshipping the rule rather than the rule Maker. He notes with authority that even some of the law given by Moses does not express God’s highest expectations for His people, but necessarily accommodates the hardness of their hearts. Jesus chides their common misinterpretations of the law and explains that they, the leaders and teachers of the people, are “greatly mistaken” about God's law because they don't understand the Scriptures or the power of God.

The religious leaders repeatedly encountered Jesus' teaching. Its seems unlikely they lacked the capacity to understand. They had received good educations and spent their days working through intellectual pursuits. When Jesus used a parable to speak directly to them and communicate that He was indeed God’s Son whom they unjustly sought to kill, Mark tells us the religious leaders understood. Even if Jesus' rebuke pressed against their consciences, almost to a man they chose not to acknowledge it. Instead, they opted to continue in their imaginary righteousness.

What do the outsiders tell us about Jesus? His teaching amazed even the uninitiated and possessed an unfamiliar quality of authority. He possessed at least the character of a prophet, healing the sick , raising the dead, casting out demons. To those who saw into the spirit realm, Jesus was the Holy One of God and Son of the most High God. He wielded a spiritual authority that could only come from God and struck terror in His opponents. Jesus could see past the cheap exterior of the religious leaders and had the will to expose them. In doing so, He demonstrated the inadequacy of the old ways and announced new Kingdom ways that would restore the inside of men. Finally, the outsiders make clear with whom the decision to follow Jesus rests.

The Gospel of Mark: Jesus and the Outsiders, Part 1

2009-07-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

I don’t need a theology degree to figure out what the New Testament is all about. In fact, I only need a little 4th grade math to do the job. The New Testament mentions Jesus’ name 990 times (that’s just “Jesus,” not including the other names used for our Lord). On average, from Matthew chapter 1 to Revelation chapter 21 every 8th verse contains the name of Jesus. Funny, I didn’t find my name once. So often we come to the New Testament for answers, comfort, direction, confirmation, what to believe, how to act, and on and on. Don’t get me wrong – we’ll find all those things there, but that’s not what it’s about. We easily slip into what comedian Brian Reagan describes as the “me monster,” a state of self-absorption in which I attribute to my self sun-like gravity that everyone else succumbs to. But, it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus. If it's all about Jesus, we ought to read it with any towards the question "who is Jesus?" The gospels are a great place to start.

I typical fashion, Mark (considered the first of the four evangalists) doesn’t hold back and starts with “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Quick answer to our question – Jesus is the Son of God. However, the answer is much bigger than we think and we need to look at how Jesus interacted with those around Him to begin putting it together. In Mark 4:11 Jesus tells His disciples “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables.” The outsiders saw Jesus, listened to Jesus, became the benefactors of His miracles, but had a relationship to Jesus separate from what He shared with His disciples.

Commentators often note the active nature of Mark’s gospel: everything happens immediately (39 times) and people are constantly amazed (11 times) or astonished (5 times). By the 14th verse in chapter 1, Jesus had alredady begun “preaching the gospel of God.” But often, those who heard had a fuzzy understanding of what Jesus talked of. They knew they had encountered something important, but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. To some, Jesus was Lord (a respectful address like “sir”), Son of David (in hope of a messiah-king who might free them from the oppression of Rome), or Teacher. The combination of His public ministry of healing and miracles with His astonishing teaching caused many others to cast Him as a prophet. Most of the general audiences probably saw Jesus this way – a man with the special ability to apply the power of God to certain situations, but only a man.

To these Jesus spoke in parables, declaring the gospel of the God, but without the private explanation reserved for the disciples. He almost appears to be searching for people like those who came to John the Baptist with repentant hearts, expecting something more from God. People who could see more than a big event or a free meal or an opportunity to have themselves or relatives or friends healed. Jesus found such a man on one occasion, a Scribe who hearing Jesus answer the Sadducees and their disingenuous question about marriage in the afterlife (they did not even believe in the afterlife, but sought to trick Jesus). When this scribe acknowledged that the double law of love – loving God and loving neighbor – exceeded the importance of burnt offerings and sacrifices, Jesus responded that “you are not far off from the kingdom of God.”

But even to those who were still left scratching their heads, Jesus spoke in a context they could, if they would, understand. Though the Hebrew Scriptures do not use the phrase “Kingdom of God,” they clearly communicate ideas about God’s rule. Spend but a few moments in the Psalms and you know that God is King. “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom.” Yet, first century Jews would have interpreted God’s Kingdom as a literal rule of His people Israel, mirroring their history. Though He veiled His teaching in parable, Jesus and those who heard Him had a common understanding to work with. However, just as the Passover lamb provided only a historical representation of the timeless and boundless work of Jesus , so too, the historical idea of the Kingdom of God familiar to Jesus hearers only provided a glimpse of His announcement of the Kingdom of God.

Next, Jesus will address two other groups of outsiders and His combined treatment of these three groups will begin to give us part of the answer to our question, "who is Jesus?"

Working From the Outside In

2009-07-12T12:37:00.001-07:00

I last wrote of the inward-out transformation that Jesus wants to work in our lives. Like everything else in the partnership that God has established with man, we also have our part. We never have the ability to achieve God's desire, but He expects us to walk side-by-side with Him in the process. In a moment, we’ll discus activities like solitude, silence, prayer, journaling, study, meditation, memorization, fasting, chastity, secrecy, confession, fellowship, submission, simplicity, stewardship, sacrifice, worship, celebration, service, and witness, all of which we commonly refer to as spiritual disciplines. But first we must understand how our part, the outside in approach works.

God has put us together as unifed persons – inner man and body – in His image[1] and intends that we exist now and for eternity in physical form. Francis Schaeffer notes in True Spirituality that a wholly biblical view of spirituality involves a connection between the inward and outward aspects of humanness: “sweeping out of the inward positive reality, there is to be a positive manifestation externally.”

From a more direct point of view, Dallas Willard says it in The Spirit of the Disciplines “Human personality is not separable in our consciousness from the human body. And that fact is expressed by asserting the IDENTITY of the person as his or her body.” This fact is what makes it necessary for us to make our bodies, through the disciplines for spiritual life, the primary focus of our effort in our part in the process of redemption. Philippians 2:12-13 confirms the sentiments of both Shaeffer and Willard. “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” I’m wholly dependant upon God to work in me towards sanctification, but connected all the way back to continuing God’s creative activity after He rested, I have my part to do.

Spiritual disciplines like those I rattled off earlier generally fall into two groups. The disciplines of abstinence include the likes of solitude, silence, and fasting and disciplines of engagement include reading, meditation, and journaling – we’ll begin with those three here.

If you’ve taken the time to read this post, you can probably also list several good reasons why reading God’s revelation of Himself to man sits atop the charts of spiritual disciplines. We’re here to become disciples or apprentices of Jesus. We set out to become like Him in every way. The only full picture of who Jesus is lies between the “in the beginning” of Genesis 1:1 and “the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people” of Revelation 22:21.

The multi-faceted nature of Scripture, along with the ever expanding illumination of the Holy Spirit make discovering Jesus a life long journey. If I live to 110 years old and spend each day basking in God’s story of His Son, I will not have gotten to the bottom of it. The issue is not whether God’s Word is enough, but whether I engage it enough. First, you must have a plan and that plan must include the entire Bible cover to cover. Reading the Bible straight through in a year might be your plan but cover to cover isn’t the only way to read. Some find it helpful to alternate between sections of the New and Old Testaments. Others augment they’re regular reading of other passages with a chapter of Psalms or Proverbs each day. You might find it helpful to park in one book for while, reading slowly or rereading certain passages. I know of only two necessities – read it all and read it daily.

Reading alone won’t accelerate knowing Jesus to extent we want. The depth of Scripture requires us to chew on it, mull it over, look at it from different angles, and wring it to extract every last bit the Holy Spirit has for us this day. We must read and meditate on what we read. As you read, pick out a verse or short passage that catches the attention of your heart, begin to ponder each word and phrase. Use your imagination to visualize the ideas expressed. Consider how these ideas fit into the bigger picture of the story of Jesus. Ask how they agree or disagree with your current condition. You might write down a verse that catches your attention and carry it with you for the day, taking time to reread it and ponder a little more. At times, you’ll have important “ah-ha” moments where the Holy Spirit takes what He has for you and holds it in front of your face. Other times, you might feel like you’ve accomplished nothing at all. This might require times of prayer, inviting the Holy Spirit to reveal specific aspects of the passage or to assist your understanding. It might also require plain old perseverance.

The object of meditation is to make Scripture a part of you – to hide it in your heart, to let it richly dwell within you. During times of meditations the Holy Spirit will bring ideas, connect concepts, apply portions of Scripture to specific circumstances, use it to uncover hidden problems, and give us a broader idea of who Jesus is. Some of these events will develop over time and others will occur quite suddenly.

Spiritual disciplines are much like training in any other area of life. A hockey player who only works on a slap shot will never develop a sniper-like wrist shot. A golfer who spends all day in practicing with her driver will suffer when it’s time to put. We need to have a full quiver of discipline arrows. Since humans seem to have a knack for forgetting even the biggest insights the Holy Spirit reveals during meditation, Journaling provides a ready compliment to reading and meditation. Your journal becomes a safe place to store the daily treasures the Holy Spirit shares with you. I’m not talking about writing a treatise on some deep theological topic. A couple of short notes will do. Just enough to refresh your memory when you look back to your journal. Of course, nothing stands in the way of writing as much as you want. Much of what I post on this blog site began in my journal. However, mainly we want to create a record, a history of our spiritual development that will help us remember not only what we learn through reading and meditating, but how far down the pilgrim’s path we’ve come.

[1] This does not suggest that God has a body. God gives us bodies in order that we, like He, have a means of expressing the thoughts of our minds and emotions and carrying out the desires of our wills. Where God creates by imagining and speaking it into existence, we imagine and use our eyes, ears, mouths, hands, and feet to create.

Inner Person & Outer Person

2009-07-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

Watchman Nee comments on the connection between spirit, soul, and body in his classic book The Release of the Spirit. No matter how one classifies the inner fperson (soul, or soul and spirit as Nee does), Nee’s observations are enlightening. He pictures God's Spirit residing in the inner person, specifically in one's spirit, a separate part of the inner person where one connects with God. God intends His Spirit, joined with a person's spirit to govern the soul – the seat of our thoughts, emotions, and will. The soul then uses the body as its form of expression. For this to happen, God must break a soul still tuned to the call of sin so that the spirit, along with God's Spirit, might rule.

Similarly, in the soul-body make up of humans, the Holy Spirit makes its home in the inner part of a person, the soul, which God regenerates at conversion to Christ. A fundamental change takes place in our souls and we experience a break from the absolute controlling force of sin at regeneration. We become dead to sin, but sin does not completely die. Paul acknowledges that even though we become alive to Christ and dead to sin, we must not let sin reign in our mortal bodies so that we obey its evil desires.[1] Like the soul to Nee that must be broken, we must be made dead to sin that still rests in us.

Though the exact makeup of the inner person remains the subject of some debate, the Bible makes clear: (1) the Holy Spirit takes up residency in the inner man at conversion to Christ; (2) we become new creatures in Christ; (3) we gain not only this newness, but justification for the legal penalty for our sins and adoption into the family of God. However, complete redemption remains a future event. At present, we still battle with sin and must devote ourselves in concert with God in the process of sanctification. We must act to treat sin as it now deserves - dead and without power. Likewise, we must treat the Holy Spirit as He deserves - the power of God in us to live holy, obedient lives in worship to the Lord.

Romans 7:21-23 paints a dismal picture of one on the loosing side of sin’s attempt to reign: “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.” The inner person has broken away from the grips of sin and desires to conform to God’s law, but doesn’t have the developed machinery to put it to work. This person cries in despair “what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

In contrast Romans 8 tells the story on one dead to sin. The righteous requirements of the Lord are fully met in those who do not live according the sinful nature, but who live according to the Spirit (vs. 4). In verses 5 and 6 Paul continues with a contrast of the person who agrees with the law of God in the inner person and the one not only agrees, but walks by the Spirit. “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”

Nee describes the breaking of the outer person as the discipline of the Spirit. Through life we will inevitably experience events that wound us. The Spirit knows the strongholds of sin that He must destroy. He knows how to use the circumstances of life that exhaust our cleverness. With a love that we might not immediately comprehend, He wields the events in life intended for our harm and that cause us to inwardly groan and we realize our desperate need for God’s redemptive work, that we can no longer live by ourselves or for ourselves, and uses them bring us to a Jesus commitment of previously unknown severity.

For our part, we must recognize the discipline of the Spirit, yield to it, and begin to live in Romans chapter 8 - setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, living by Him, in His strength which will make sin dead to us.[2]

[1] Romans 6:12-13
[2] Romans 8:4.

Becoming Disciples

2009-06-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Associating with Jesus, consecrating ourselves to relationship with Him, and receiving Him as He imparts Himself to us make it possible for Jesus to demonstrate what He can really do. It’s here that the rubber meets the road and we put our faith to action, a kind of on the job training that prepares us to take over His kingdom work. Our faith will grow step by step with each interaction with the power of Jesus building on those before it. Without even knowing it we’ll be on to doing kingdom work, almost like that first bike ride without training wheels. I remember feeling pretty safe knowing that my Dad had his hands firmly on the back of my bike seat. I wondered if he was getting tired running behind me and when I looked, I saw him stand one hundred or so feet behind me, smiling and waiving as I, me, all by myself rode my bike - without training wheels.

Don’t confuse this process with a destination. Disciples of Jesus will constantly and repeatedly work through the elements of association, consecration, impartation, demonstration, delegation, supervision, and reproduction. These elements will ebb and flow with the direction of the Holy Spirit and sometimes with our own drifting away from the safe mooring of Jesus. Through this process, apprenticing with Jesus and learning to be like Him.

How do we become disciples? In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard says it requires a certain condition of the soul illustrated by two of Jesus’ parables. First, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”[1] Second, “the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”[2] In both instances, the actors recognize an opportunity that they must not miss – treasure and pearls, theirs for the taking. Love of the value of the find compelled them to action, selling all they had to secure the prize. Exuberance and joy covered the process of discovery, actions, and possession from start to finish. When we open our eyes and see the opportunity, what Jesus can do with us in apprenticeship under His lead, when love for Him begins to impel us forward, then we have positioned ourselves to become disciples. We might not start with “sell all I have” intensity, but we need a least a glimmer, a slight flutter of excitement at the prospect of becoming like Jesus. Now, we’re ready.

How do I get from ready to running the race? I must decide to do so. All the preparation and training that best coaches and facilities can offer will mean nothing if when the starting gun sounds I do not choose to run. In preparing to become Jesus’ apprentice, I recommend several steps. First pray. Ask Him to open your eyes so that you might gaze on the treasure. Ask Him to reveal the treasure’s glory, to allow it to steal your breath in amazement. Ask Him to stir love and joy as the response of your heart. Then, ask Him for the will to decide, to choose the path of the apprentice. At the end of the day, Jesus leaves that choice to you and only you can decide.
[1] Matthew 13:44
[2] Matthew 13:45-46

What does it mean to be a Disciple of Jesus?

2009-06-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

First off, what's a “disciple”? Do we use the dictionary definition: “a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another?”[1] I think looking to Jesus’ expectations provides more distinction. In his classic The Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert Coleman lays out Jesus’ plan for implementing the Great Commission, making disciples as we go, teaching them all that Jesus taught.[2] Though he approaches the subject from the perspective of one planning to mentor others, his thoughts will help we who intend to be Jesus’ disciples.

After selecting His disciples, Jesus used a combination of association, consecration, impartation, and demonstration to prepare them for delegation, supervision, and reproduction. In this picture, delegation, supervision, and reproduction comprise the goal – we ultimately do the kingdom work of Jesus and help others do the same – and the balance consists of preparation.

In order to prepare ourselves for the Jesus’ work, we need to associate with Him, be with Him. Being with Him will give us something much bigger than knowledge about God. “With Him” will impart experience that begins to mold our hearts. “With Him” will allow us to understand how He thinks about every facet of life we encounter. “With Him” will help us understand where we’ve come from, what ails the world, and how to apply Jesus’ healing touch.

Next, we must consecrate ourselves to Jesus. At the start, Jesus seemed to have only one rule for His disciples – follow, obey. The church had not come and no creed had been penned. They had only the obligation of loyalty. Parables, sermons, journeys, and encounters became the places of Jesus’ yoke from whence they learned. Nine times in the gospels, Jesus uttered a rather emphatic “follow me.” On one occasion, He says “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”[3] Crosses had one and only one purpose at the time, to make someone dead. And, we can count on it. If a cross comes into play, the executioner will extract a cost and someone will die. I may pay with my fear, my pride, my self-directed decisions, my comfort, or my time, but if I want to follow Jesus, I will pay. I must, as Paul says, be willing to put to death the deeds of the body.[4] We must clearly understand the details of our agreement with Jesus if we expect to become His disciples.

For Jesus to impart Himself to us, we must want to receive Him. He wants to give Himself to us, but never barges in. He waits for the invitation, something I find a mystery. The Creator God who imagined the cosmos and spoke it into existence waits for our nod. Preparing ourselves by being with Him and setting ourselves aside for Him will indicate our willingness to receive Him. Then, Jesus will proceed to interact with our spirits through His Spirit – confirming our relationship,[5] interceding to the Father,[6] and loving us,[7] actually giving Himself to us.

[1] disciple. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.classic.reference.com/browse/disciple (accessed: June 07, 2009).
[2] Matthew 28:19-20a.
[3] Mark 9:23
[4] Romans 8:13
[5] 2 Corinthians 1:22; Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15
[6] Romans 8:26
[7] Romans 5:5

Transforming Discipleship

2009-06-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, we discussed the process of transforming discipleship based on the five pillars of ministry in Ephesian 4:11. What does life look like if I engage this process? Well, Paul continues in Ephesians chapter 4 to paint the picture. Not just any picture, but one of those masterpieces that you’ll come back to over and over because the depth, nuance, and detail of the artist continue to communicate enlarged meaning. Listen to how Paul describes the results of the five pillars of ministry in our lives. The transformed disciple will:

Stand prepared for the great privilege and work of service (Eph. 4:12)
Contribute to the potential of the body of Christ to build itself up (Eph. 4:12)
Press forward toward unity of faith with other believers (Eph. 4:13)
Reach maturity in the knowledge of the Son of God (Eph. 4:13)
Attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13)
Grow up intellectually, refusing to remain undeveloped in thought (Eph. 4:14)
Gain confidence in Christianity as a worldview and withstand the strong wind and heavy waves of false worldviews (Eph. 4:14)
Speak the truth in love (and as a prerequisite, know the truth) (Eph. 4:15)
Grow up into Jesus in every aspect of life (Eph. 4:15)
Find her place in the body of Christ and participate in its growth, in building it up (Eph. 4:16)
Engage a mode of thinking that banishes futility and results in prosperous living (Eph. 4:17)
Acquire an enlightened understanding of how the world works (Eph. 4:18)
Become literate in the ways of Jesus (Eph. 4:18)
Obtain a softened heart that is attuned to the word and touch of God (Eph. 4:18)
Put off the old self, the former way of life (Eph. 4:22)
Experience newness in the attitudes of his mind, in his heart (Eph. 4:23)
Put on the new self that God created to be like Himself, full of true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24)
Become an imitator of God in the way a small child puts on his father’s hat and shoes (Eph. 5:1)
Live a life of love, an imitation of Jesus, becoming a fragrant sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:2)

Does this sound enticing? Did you feel a flutter of excitement as you read it?
If you desire such a transformed life, I urge you to participate with two or three others in a long-term covenant discipleship group. Certainly, you can work growth in your relationship with Jesus on your own. But, if you intend walk away from the frustration of Romans chapter 7 (“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”) to the full life of Romans chapter 8 (“through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”), you need to engage engage Jesus in the context of several transparent relationships. Only then will the deep transformation we long for become ours.

True Righteousness and Holiness

2009-06-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

“He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.”
Ephesians 4:11-12 (The Message)

Over a decade ago, I listened to a series of sermons on Ephesians 4:11-12 which characterized the “gifts” described as the five pillars of ministry in the church: apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and teaching. Jesus certainly gives these discrete gifts to specific individuals, but they also describe a full pallet of activity Jesus intends for each of us.

We should share in the creative activity of establishing beachheads for kingdom work (apostles). We must tirelessly speak the Truth into our spheres of influence (prophets). Our lives ought to be characterized by relationships which provide natural opportunities for gospel conversation (evangelists). Loving others as ourselves requires that we care for each other and tend to our collective needs (pastors). We can’t know Jesus the living Word without encountering the written Word (teachers).

I have gifts that differ from yours and God calls each of us to various ministry activities. However, not having the gift of evangelism does not allow me to ignore developing relationships with those in my sphere of influence, praying for those folks, and having gospel colored conversations. In this sense, Jesus calls each of us to apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and teaching work.

Discipleship efforts that combine these five pillars of ministry will create a solid, stable, secure foundation on which the ministry of the entire Body can rest. Doing so will renew our minds, transform our hearts, and result in sincere lives. We’ll “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). When the fruit of this type of transforming discipleship fills the Body, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers will abound. The ministry of the Body will explode beyond the church walls and begin taking new ground, expanding the boundaries of the Kingdom of God among us. Discipling as we go in this manner fulfills Jesus’ commission to the church.

Transforming discipleship requires that we know about God, but knowledge about Him differs from knowing Him. Knowing more about who God is will expose our hearts to that knowledge through the gate of the mind. However, only renewing our minds will result in transformation. We must do more than know Truth. We must use it to renew our thinking, to begin thinking Christianly. This will allow us the shift gears and begin experiencing heart transformation. That change will drive a new way of living, in “true righteousness and holiness.”

Can we find a fast lane to transformation? Not really, change takes time. But, God has made us a certain way and only methods that recognize how He put us together will flourish. Created in His image, He created us for relationship – relationship with Him and with the people around us. Embarking on the journey towards transformation with two or three others in a covenantal and transparent relationship agrees with the DNA of our souls. Engaging Truth in the right context will have lasting, transformational effects.

Gospel Agreement

2009-04-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. Matthew 28:1. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb. Mark 16:2. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. Luke 24:1. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. John 20:1.

Critics of the New Testament often talk about the dissimilarities or presumed conflicts between the gospels. That red herring holds no water with the resurrection. If you fail to notice that the Mary and Mary went to the tomb early on the first day of the week, the fact that haven’t cracked open even one of the gospels becomes obvious.

Jesus has inspired more books in the last 2,000 years than any other historical figure. I would guess the resurrection takes first place in the number of discussions contained in this massive body of writing. For the believer, the resurrection marks the contextual middle of temporal history.

Everything before the resurrection prepares for it and it colors everything after. For thousands of years, a small middle-eastern people group foreshadowed the resurrection through rituals, prophecy, and writings. For thousands of years after the resurrection, the Christian faith, fueled by the power of the resurrection spread to the corners of the world and became the bedrock of western civilization.

The volume of specific historical and logical proofs for the actual, physical, time-space event of Jesus’ resurrection bury competing explanations six feet under. Though these proofs provide us with intellectual comfort by confirming that our faith sees through the lens of fact, our changed lives provide the most significant personal proof.

On the eternal scale, Jesus’ resurrection marks the beginning of all the rest. If Jesus had died and not risen, the promise of new life would have been born still. Because Jesus lives, union with Him – moving beyond the restoration of the first man-God relationship to a more glorious destiny - becomes possible.

The fellowship enjoyed by the apostles who walked with Him continues with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit (John 14:18-21). We speak to Him in prayer (e.g., 2 Cor. 12:8) and He speaks to us through the Spirit (John 16:13-15; 2 Cor. 12:9). We dwell in Him and He dwells in us (John 14:20). I now live by Christ living in me (Gal. 2:20) and I put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). Because the resurrection vindicates Jesus, we receive justification (Rom. 4:25; 5:18-9). His identity is exchanged with ours and in Him we were crucified and died (Gal. 2:20), raised (Col. 3:1), seated in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), and are made sons (Gal. 4:4-5). We become heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29), a spiritual house and holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5). We not only have union with Jesus, but with Father and the Spirit (John14:16; Eph 2:18).

Strong and Courageous

2009-04-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

When Joshua took the reigns of the people from Moses, the Lord prepared him with specific instructions and the admonition “be strong and courageous.” A few verses later the He tells Joshua to “be strong and very courageous.” Then the Lord finishes off these first nine verses of Joshua chapter one with a third “be strong and courageous.”

When my wife says something to me once, I sometimes don’t “hear” it. That rarely happens when she repeats it three times. It seems we might want to give the Creator of everything a little more attention (this is not to suggest my wife does not have god-like qualities…is that clear Dear?). So, what’s up with being strong and courageous?

We call a person courageous when he follows his will even though the rest of his person tells him to turn and run screaming like a little girl. A courageous person exercises control over how he will or will not act. Real courage and real strength display themselves in self-control.

If I control something, it means that I choose what it will do. If I choose what that thing controlled will do, then things exist that it could do, but I have chosen it will not do. Rational people make such decisions – what to do or not do – based on the fabric of their values. Values precede actions and courageous action requires courageous values.

In my past criminal defense practice, I once represented a young man with paranoid schizophrenia. Not only did Alex live in an unreal world, all his imaginary friends were out to get him. I recall clearly visiting him for the first time in lock-up – he babbled on about how his case was based on the “water law” and that he should be free. Actually, Alex had stolen a car and led the police on a high speed chase up and down Highway 5 – no water there. After that first meeting Alex and I attended a hearing in which Alex repeatedly interrupted the judge with comments that culminated the announcement that he was going to marry the young and pretty public defender who had represented Alex before me. The judge ended the hearing with a wry smile and a quick “good luck Mr. Trask.” Alex had no basis whatsoever for his decisions. Alex was not a rational person and his values were imaginary.

Where should we rational folk get our values, our standards for self-control - the drivers of courage? For the serious believer, that question borders on the rhetorical. God’s Word provides the ultimate standard for man’s values, thoughts, and actions. After “be strong and courageous,” God spoke his final preparatory command to Joshua, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.”

In order to have the Word available at the point of courage begging decisions, I must give it the necessary time to soak in and “richly dwell” my heart. I must meditate on, savor, ponder, and wonder over the Word if I plan to act courageously. Do you have the right stuff to initiate courageous action? If not, what will you commit to becoming strong and courageous?

What makes you laugh?

2009-03-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Think about it – getting hit by a baseball is probably not funny. But, if it happens to an unsuspecting dad tossing a pitch to his four-year old son who’s swinging a plastic bat of cartoon proportions and the video camera is taping…I dare you not to laugh. A baby in a high chair isn’t hilarious by himself. Neither is buying and selling securities. But when the baby can talk and his pitch about a securities brokerage is interrupted by call on his cell phone to which he replies “hey girl, can I hit you back?” Well, that’s just plain funny.

Why are these funny? In one instance, you have a real life event that is unexpected, unlikely, and out of place. In the other, you have two things put together than are, well unexpected, unlikely, and out of place. In both instances, absurdity makes us laugh.

I watched an original performance this evening that was packed with humor. From video shorts titled Awkward Moments with Roger in which insensitivity was taken to the absurd, to a rewrite of Shakespeare complete audience asides which paired modern marriage themes with the King’s English and men in tights (an absurd combination).

Much more important than the reason I laughed was what laughing did for me. For 90 minutes, I hadn’t a care in the world. I was transported from everything that pushes in and threatens to squelch a sense of joy to a place of emotional pleasure, freedom, and relief.

Behind that performance is some good theology. In fact behind every facet of life there is some good theology – there is not one shred of our existence that God has not thought about or that does not relate directly back to him. I mentioned this was an original performance. That means it was conceived in someone’s imagination and pushed into the world through their effort.

There was a first time in the universe when creative activity took place. God imagined the universe from the tiniest subatomic particle to the largest galaxy and everything in between. Then with no pattern or raw material, He spoke it into existence. Included in this miracle was man, created in the very image of God.

So, like God Himself, a creative mind began to think of humorous absurdities and how they might be played out in performance. Then creative performers came together under creative direction and performed a kind of incarnation where ideas took on form.

I was blessed tonight, not just because I laughed and experienced protection from some of the harshness of life, but because I saw the face of God in the work of His co-creative image bearers. I learned just a little more about how big, diverse, and marvelous God is. The memory of that experience is like a vacation photo that I can tuck away and pull out from time to time and enjoy. Those co-creative image bearers will continue to bless me for days to come. Every time I tell a story about Awkward Roger or Nick in tights, behind them I’ll see Jesus smiling.

Yes Means Yes (well, it ought to)

2009-02-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

In Jesus day, oaths were a common thing. Let’s imagine that I want my neighbor who lives just outside of Jerusalem to bring his family over tomorrow (he’s got way more kids than I do) to help me finish up harvesting my fields. If I can get it done now and to market early, I'll earn top dollar for the portion I trade with. To get his interest, I tell him that for each person he brings to help he can use one of my donkeys for a week. Fortunately, I have more donkeys than he has kids.

Over the years, my neighbor and I have made a few deals with each other and I haven’t always been real good about fulfilling my end of the bargain. So, my neighbor is naturally suspicious and initially declines my generous offer (come on, one donkey week for one kid day is a pretty good). I’m starting to worry (thinking about the extra profit I'm going to lose), so I pull out my ace in the hole – I swear by everything holy in the temple that I will fulfill my end of the bargain.

I could still be a creep and not do what I say, but in our culture, an oath really means something. As long as I intend to keep my oath and actually keep it, I have fulfilled the law. This causes my neighbor to think twice. His experience tells him to thumb his nose at me and walk away, but once I throw my oath out there, he’s really starting to think about it.

These are the circumstances Jesus addresses in Matthew 5 when he says “you have heard it said . . . do not break your oath . . . but I tell you, do not swear at all.” Why did I make an oath to my neighbor? To get him to do something he probably would not have done otherwise. It was an effort to bypass his understanding and judgment and trigger his will – in my favor. The evil that Jesus is addressing is not broken oaths, but an inherently wrong approach to other human beings. If I act this way, throwing out oaths to get what I want, I’m no longer dealing with a person, but a thing to be moved about to achieve certain results. It becomes impossible for me to recognize the image of God woven into that person. It’s more akin to luring my pet dog with a treat.

In our day and age, oaths are relegated to courtrooms and inaugurations. At best, they are declarations that hold us accountable to perjury laws. On the other hand, we’ve worked manipulation into a fine art form of sublime variations making it difficult to identify the boundaries of truth. This truth fog requires our attention if we want to live out the Kingdom perspective Jesus bring us.

Presentations, pitches, advertising, spin, and the like present ripe opportunities for varying degrees of manipulation and it’s often hard to spot. If I want my yes to be yes, I need to determine (whether a little or a lot) if I'm to circumvent the hearer’s understanding and judgment and get to their will. To what degree am I willing to reduce my message to technical correctness which leans on the hearer to look below the surface and dig for truth? Do I eliminate any information that might be peripheral, but necessary for the hearer to make a fully informed decision? Am I more concerned about persuading than the content of my message or the well being of the hearer?

I’m not pretending this is an easy task. It would be much easier with the old righteousness – as long as I didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain and I did what my oath promised, I fulfilled my duty. But Jesus calls us to a new righteousness – the kind that flows from a transformed heart. It’s messier to be sure, but it sets relationships right in a way the old righteousness never could.

Who Cares About History?

2008-12-27T17:23:00.000-08:00

Why should I care about history? History only tells me about people and events that happened years ago - sometimes hundreds, even thousands of years ago. History fails to help me today because what I face looks nothing like the world even 30 years ago. Even if history could help me, how do I know I can trust what some other person wrote down? That person had their own bias, wore their own colored glasses. Nothing more than his point of view ever made it to the pages of history. I’ve got my own point of view and no one tell me to give more weight to the historian’s view, or even your view. So, who cares about history?

Every time you read one of these articles, you hear about the biblical worldview. Every time I say that the Bible has something to say about all of life, not only our spiritual lives. And yes, the Bible has something to say about history. Everyone has a worldview, a way of looking at the world. We look at the world via the revelation of its Creator, a Creator who placed in us a yearning for Truth, meaning, and purpose. We’ve found it, but the rest of world still searches and they pick at the scraps they find outside of God’s revelation. After all, when you’re hungry, bad food is better than no food, right? However, the non-biblical worldview simply does not fit into what God has made, including what man is. No matter how tantalizing the scraps or how many a person can gather up, what we suppose about the nature of life outside of God’s revelation remains false and will never satisfy.

The opening paragraph describes the substitute view of history held by many today. (1) History is only a series of disconnected events that happened to occur one after the other. (2) History started by chance and it could end in an infinite number of terminals. (3) The record of the past only presents a dead person’s point of view. (4) Since we cannot know truth, we make our own and no truth is any better than any other. (5) The purpose of history (since it cannot truly be known) is to support and bear witness to my truth. That’s the alternative – what’ the biblical view of history?

You might first respond that the Bible says nothing about history, but let’s take a closer look. First, the Bible says “in the beginning” God created all that exists – the beginning of history. The Bible continues, written by the glove of human intellect filled with the hand of God, to count off the history of God’s chosen people towards an event no one fully understood before it happened – God entering the human race through Jesus, the God-man. The Bible even tells us about history that hasn’t happened yet through prophecy. From the Bible, we know that history began with a purpose and that every event through history marks progress towards an established end of pre-eternity where the Christ will meet his bride, the church.

Understandably, Jesus took history seriously. In his early ministry, he made a trip to his own hometown, went to the synagogue and read form the prophet Isaiah about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, sat down, and said “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21). Isaiah wrote in time past about a future event, Jesus claimed to be the one of whom Isaiah prophesied, and Jesus’ own words describing Elijah and Elisha immediately following the reading gave credence to biblical history.

Stephen’s defense of his faith in Acts chapter 7 recounts the history of God’s redemptive acts. The book of Acts itself chronicles the history of the early church. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 that “I don’t want you to be ignorant of [history].” (1 Cor. 10:1a) Hebrews chapter 11 recounts the giants of faith. The entire New Testament company took history seriously.

It might have occurred to you that because the Bible presents the coming of Christ in the context of history, history forms the basis for our very beliefs. In history, God created. In history, Jesus came, died, and was resurrected. In history, the apostles drafted the gospels and epistles. In history, Christ will return. And, in history eternity will begin. Without events in history, we would not have the perfect sacrifice of Christ, we would not have atonement for our sins, we would not have been redeemed.

So, what am I to think about history? History consists of human events with a purpose, God’s purpose. What use is it? First, history helps me understand who I am, where I came from and where I’m going. Second, History provides me with a wealth of examples of good, bad, ugly and lovely human acts and a method of examining myself. Scripture provides me with the standard for evaluating the actions of humankind past. I can certainly look to biblical history to see how the nation of Israel alternately followed God and followed empty idols. I can see the ebb and flow of rebellion and repentance, the constant grace and mercy of God and the undying love of the Creator for his people. From that I evaluate who I am – the rebel or the penitent.

I can also inquire into the worldviews of other historical figures and determine what they presupposed about life, what they based their lives on. Likewise, I can examine the results of their worldview lived out. How did a person with a consistent biblical world view affect the events of history?

For example, during the civil war period in America, there were three main rationales for the anti-slavery movement. David Wilmot, a Democratic congressman represented the first view. Wilmot opposed slavery because of his own separatist views, wanting to limit slavery in order to limit contact with slaves. Abraham Lincoln represented the second view. Lincoln recognized the unalienable rights of slaves, but did not think it necessary to give them equal social or political status. Men like William Lloyd Garrison and Orange Scott represented the third view. “O, how accursed is that system," Garrison observed, "which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image, reduces those who by creation were crowned with glory and honor to a level with four-footed beasts.... Why should its existence be prolonged one hour? Is it not evil, only evil, and that continually?” They held a biblical view of man and slavery, that God created each in His image without distinction, and that when man enslaves his fellow man he calls God a liar and does his evil to Christ himself. (See Matt. 25:41-45)

These men possessed varying worldview, with differing presuppositions about the nature of man, and each resulted in a distinct perspective on slavery. Certainly, Lincoln’s view put America on a path of recognizing the equal stamp of God on each man’s soul. But, what would have happened if the position of William Lloyd Garrison and Orange Scott, the biblical view of man, had ruled the day? Would our country have waited 100 years until the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education to prohibit school segregation or until 1964 when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to legislate nondiscrimination?

Who cares about history? If we claim to hold a view of the world shaped by the Bible, we should. A bibilical vies of history presents the plan of God unfolding before us; it uses past people and events to draw us into conformity with God’s truth.

The Birth of Jesus: A Short History (over a long time)

2008-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

So, here we are ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Don't let our contracting economy, sagging Christmas retail sales, general uncertainty, personal hardship, and those people with holiday greetings that refuse to include the word "Christmas" distract us from pausing and recognizing the place in time where God invaded humanity - "being found in appearance as man," "being made in human likeness."

The historical and prophetic evidence for the birth and life of Jesus provides a convincing factual foundation for biblical faith. It spans thousands of years and comes from ancients hoping for Messiah, contemporaries who walked in Jesus footsteps, followers carrying on after His death, and unbelieving chroniclers wrestling with the facts.

Ancients:
Isaiah proclaims His miraculous birth: "therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." The Psalmist identifies His nature: "I proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my Son; today I have become you Father." Jeremiah tells of His lineage: "The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land." Micah points out the place of this miracle (and again, His nature): But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

Contemporaries:
The Gospel of Luke puts it plain and simple: "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

Followers:
The New Testament epistles contain a number of texts that scholars have identified as pre-New Testament songs and creeds. With Paul's epistles starting as early as 15 years after Jesus death, these texts belong to His immediate followers. "... His Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 1:3-4. "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:6-8. "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. " I Timothy 3:16.

Chroniclers:
Writing in the later half of the first Century of Nero's persecution of Roman Christians, Cornelius Tacitus observes "Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the person commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontious Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius" but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also." At the same time, Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata scorned Christians in his writings. "The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day - the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites and was crucified on their account. . . . You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them."

We could explore the evidence for hours and still have stacks left - it's strong. The prosecutors on Law and Order wish they had it this easy, all of Manhattan would be safe. Believers have filled the 1900 years after the Chroniclers with continuing evidence of the reality of Jesus. The overwhelming experience of God's love has motivated multitudes to proclaim Jesus to their own deaths. Renewed minds and transformed lives have pushed forward the best social reforms in history.

Our faith is founded on fact. So, pause, gather yourself, and stop to think about that point in time when Jesus was born. That moment which God had prepared for His Son to take human form in preparation for the redemption of mankind and the future redemption of all creation - the unsearchable riches of Christ, the mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God.

Merry Christmas!

Tony Cervantes / Jan 1, 1988 - Nov 19, 2008

2008-11-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, like most of us, I celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends. In addition to great food and company, we had ample time to reflect on all the good God has placed in our lives. On Friday I attended the funeral of Tony Cervantes, my brother's 20 year old nephew. Tony was a gracious, generous, smiling young man with his whole life in front of him, or so we thought. A few days before his death, Tony suffered an asthma attack which prevented oxygen from reaching his brain for 6 minutes. Though the medical reports were initially positive, things turned for the worse and Tony died on November 19th.

On Thanksgiving night, I called my Dad and with Tony's funeral planned for the next morning, our conversation naturally turned there. My Dad wanted to know why Tony died at the beginning of a promising life. That just wasn't the way things were supposed to be. How can we make sense of senseless tragedy?

Fair questions - questions that bumper sticker slogans like "everything happens for a purpose" or "God is in control" fail to answer. It's not that God cannot act within the seeming chaos of our world to achieve His purposes, but simple statements fail to answer why the chaos exists and why it is allowed to force itself upon the people we love.

In every instance, when God created He paused and said "it is good," and when it came to man, He said "it is very good." If creation is so good, why do we daily see the effects of natural evil in disasters, disease, and death? Why do we witness constant moral evil inflicted upon innocents? Why did Tony die?

Creation was good – God created man with an intellect, emotions, and a will. In other words, God created us as persons in His own image capable of and craving relationship with each other and God Himself. Man’s will is necessary to his capacity for relationship, for choosing to live in union with others. For a time, man chose to live in face-to-face relationship with God, but then something happened.

By rebelling against God’s simple law, the first man and woman broke their relationship with God and plunged themselves, the whole human race, and all of creation into a state of separation from God. The effects of this rebellion distorted the good God had made. That’s what evil is, a distortion of good. It’s not a thing, but a condition. Not all the good is gone. We still live, love, laugh, and play. But it’s not with the same complete goodness it once had. Our lives are interrupted by disease, accidents, injury, and death, even death of those we deem good, those which had a promising life ahead of them.

Why did Tony die? Because things are not the way they’re supposed to be. Tony was ravaged by the effects of sin, of a world distorted by evil, of a body that retains only a part of the goodness God originally made. If that was the end of the story, our lives would be ground into the dust of despair. But, it’s not the end. God tells us that evil will be destroyed and goodness will be restored. Those who have embraced the Way that He has made for us will rise to an eternal new life when not only they, but all of creation will be put back to the way it is supposed to be.

21st Century Stories

2008-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

$26 billion is spent world-wide on movies
24,000 movie rental stores operate in America
Less than 46% of Americans read a book last year
95% of all Americans saw a movie
Average American sees 46 movies a year
Pollster George Barna in his book Revolution says that 20% of all adults use culture, media, and the arts as their primary spiritual resource. Than number is projected to increase to 35% by the year 2025 and will then equal the number who will look to the Church as their primary spiritual resource.

Film has become the storytelling medium of the 21st century. Gone are the days of widespread familiarity with literature. Consider for a moment how many of the following movies you and everyone reading this piece have seen: Schindler's List, Finding Nemo, Titanic, Beauty and the Beast, and Toy Story. Now, try to imagine five books that each of us would have commonly read. You see my point.

The church has dealt with film primarily through avoidance (the whole thing is corrupt and will corrupt us if we touch it) or caution (only films that directly promote biblical values or the gospel message are worth of our attention). If we limit ourselves to only those two, we miss the opportunity for potent third option: dialogue. Film provides a cultural touch-point with virtually every person we meet and it does Christians well to familiarize themselves with warp and woof of the film in our cultural tapestry. I'm not saying that every film is good or that there are not those we should avoid. There are bad films just as there is bad music, or art, or literature and there are some stories and images that have no redeeming value whatsoever. But, film is so pervasive that if we hope to engage the current culture and participate in forging a new one that can accommodate renewal and revival, we must learn to dialogue with film.

Every story, including film, presents a worldview - or at minimum, a critique of a worldview. Remember that a worldview consists of our view of what is really real and determines our beliefs about life, our values, and ultimately, how we live our lives. It might be explicit in the story, or it might be expressed by one or more characters. There may be multiple or even competing worldviews in a single film.

Francis Schaeffer referred to discussion on the worldview level as pre-evangelism - a true prerequisite to discussions about the gospel. He believed that if my biblical worldview - what I hold to be really real - is different than my neighbor's, until we come to terms on each other's position, the gospel will be unintelligible to to my neighbor. Film provides readily available and fertile ground for worldview dialogue and scattering of the gospel seed.

A cup of coffee or bite to eat after a film with friend provides a great opportunity for worldview dialogue that can start in few other ways. Think about it - over the fence with your neighbor are you more likely to strike up a profitable conversation about why he needs Jesus, or why the main character in the movie The Shawshank Redemption would display such hope (if all that exists is the material world)? Film presents us with door to the 21st century mind and heart. We ought to open it.

How Big?

2008-11-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

I remember a family trip to Disneyland on a day the park had over-booked the number of groups attending. Along with then normal crowd, we were continually surrounded by Girl Scouts and knee-high soccer players. At one point, while walking through the New Orleans Square area on our way to the Pirates of Caribbean, we entered a normally crowded but quick moving very wide and very long plaza. On this over-booked day, there were enough people to bring foot traffic to a full stop. A sea of heads stretched for hundreds of feet in front, back, and both sides of us and we were going nowhere. It took 15 minutes to get the crowd moving again. Great fun on a hot Southern California day.

The other I slowed down and marveled at the non-stop activity of my thoughts. One must actually work hard to stop the flow of thoughts - sometimes several at time - from rushing through the mind (don't worry, this will connect up and make sense when I'm done). We dream, analyze, plan, and talk to ourselves every waking moment. If I have ten different thoughts in the course of a minute, I have around 10,000 thoughts a day - makes me kind of tired thinking about it.

Now, remember the last really crowded place you were in - crowded like my day at Disneyland. Imagine for a moment how many thoughts went through your head while a part of that crowd. At the same time you had one thought, everyone else in the crowd had one thought. In fact, any one time, the two-thirds of the awake people in the world are simultaneously having thoughts at every moment.

Have you ever wondered what that sounds like to God? Happy thoughts, sad thoughts, hopeful thoughts, despair, evil, ingenuity and genius all at the same time. Despite our inability to imagine that experience, God hears them all, knows what prompted each, and for those who love Him can intervene in those thoughts to accomplish His desires in our lives - simultaneously.

How would your life change if your belief about what is real included a God of this magnitude? I don't mean relegating this fact about God to the category of spiritual or religious beliefs. I mean holding onto it as the truth about the way things really are - in the same way you believe 2 + 2 = 4. Can I include a God this big in my concept of reality and continue really feel bored, or helpless, or alone in the presence of that God?

How in the World did We Get Here?

2008-11-03T21:22:00.000-08:00

You might have seen the A-B-C reasons for supporting Proposition 8 which restores natural marriage. "A" stands for activist judges. Even though over 61% of the voters supported natural marriage by passing Proposition 22 eight years ago, four California Supreme Court Justices decided the voters were wrong. How did we get to a place where four judges can turn the decision of over four million voters on its head?

Coming at the end of a historical period referred to as the Enlightenment - where human reason was considered the source of truth - Darwin published his book Origin of the Species in 1859. Primed by the current reliance on reason, many thinkers of the day latched onto Darwin's theory of evolution as the final step away from God as the transcendent source of truth. No longer did they need to rely on God to explain the existence of mankind. The doors were now open to the primacy of man - not as the pinnacle of creation - but as the species fortunate enough to evolve beyond the others.

This break did not stop with biology, but bled over into other disciplines, including law. Prior to this time, William Blackstone's commentaries on the law served as one of the primaries sources for educating lawyers. In his introduction to the nature of law, Blackstone writes "[u]pon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these." This was the common view of the time, that human laws must submit themselves the laws of nature and nature's God.

However the introduction of an explanation for our existence apart from God spawed an explanation for the nature of law apart from God. The newly devised case study method for training lawyers that came in the wake of Darwin's theory - where the study of law focused on the decisions of judges - promoted the idea that the law must also evolve over time. The purpose of the courts was not to determine what was in the Constitution and other laws, but what those laws should mean. And, that meaning was determined by what these judges detemined fit the needs current society. The law had lost it moorings and was now afloat in the haphazard currents of personal preference.

Fast forward to today and we find ourselves experiencing the results of 150 years of this new way of looking at the law. What we find should not surprise us. This process has led to judges acting as the final arbitors of our law. They alone decied what laws are good for us and what laws are not. They alone decide right and wrong.

While we can turn the tide and begin to retake lost ground, it will take time. That makes this coming presidential election critical. When the next president takes office, six of the current United States Supreme Court Justices will be over 70 years of age. The next prsident will likely appoint two Justices, maybe more. As important, the President nominates appellate court justices. Most appeals stop at the appellate courts and most of our law is "made" there. The next president has the power to affect the condition of our country for decades and maybe longer, appointing justices that will continue to take the law into their own hands, or appointing justices who will respect the power of the legislature and executive and who will look to what our Constitution and laws say, not what they'd like them to say.

Separation of Church and State

2008-10-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

A lot of folks can't even say the phrase "separation of church and state" without looking like the chocolate candy they just chewed was actually a clump of dirt. It's not without good reason we often observe that response. The phrase has been torn from its original meaning and a has become the anthem of all who wish to ban religious expression from any public and many private places.

Many of us know the phrase originated as description of where government should not tread rather than where religious beliefs should not be expressed. True separation of church and state is a good thing. The government is not the church and the church is not the government. Each has its place and purpose, ordained by our Creator to provide benefits to His image bearers. And, neither should encroach upon the boundaries of the other.

Does this mean the Christian conscience should not operate in political activity? Certainly not. Just as in other arenas of life, the Christian must carry his conscience informed by the Word of God into his political activity. This is true for the voter and the elected official. Chuck Colson, in his book God & Government states three good reasons for Christians to engage political activity. "First, as citizens of the nation-state, Christians have the same civic duties all citizens have . . . Second, as citizens of the Kingdom of God Christians are to bring God's standards of righteousness and justice to bear on the kingdom of this world. . . . Third, Christians have an obligation to bring transcendent moral values into public debate." We've seen examples of these principles throughout history - William Wilberforce and his successful fight to end slavery and rebuild the moral fabric of British society comes to mind.

Does this mean that political office becomes a pulpit for the elected? No. The church often finds itself marginalized in public debate, suffering prior decades of hiding from political activity. To swing to the other extreme and use government to accomplish the goals of the church would miss the mark by an equal margin. The elected official's duty is to facilitate government's delegated duty of preserving order and justice. According to Colson, "there is an alternative to the imposition of religious values or the passive acceptance of majority opinion, a principle that pays both pluralism and conscience their due. Christian politicians must do all in their power to make clear, public arguments on issue of moral and political importance, to persuade rather than coerce.

Separation of church and state - each operating in its own sovereign sphere without encroaching on the other - can restore much needed biblical balance to life in the public square.

How to Measure a Proposition

2008-10-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

California has a dozen propositions on the November 2008 ballot. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that a biblical worldview soundly supports the preservation of natural marriage and notifying parents before their minor daughter has an abortion. But, what about all those other measures? Take Proposition 7 for example. It has to define ESP, IOU, PUC, and RPS before the 3,864 word (I counted) analysis even begins. I thought I knew what ESP and IOU meant, but apparently, I need more schoolin' to get it. How in the world does one use a biblical worldview to arrive and thumbs up or down for gibberish like that? Let me try to make some sense of it.

Let's take the example of the three propositions, 5, 6, and 9, which address issues in our criminal justice system. First, let's take a look at what we've got now:

1 out of every 142 Americans is behind bars
1 out of every 44 is on probation or parole
Government at all levels spends $147 billion on crime related expenses
Each prison cell costs $100,000 to build
Each prisoner costs $20,000 per year to house
Prisoners are exposed to years of separation from family, violence, homosexual rape
For the last 30 years the rate of rearrest has stayed at 67% - that’s through Democrat and Republican administrations and legislative control

Conservatives tout a tough on crime agenda and liberals hope to rehabilitate offenders through the system. Both have failed - but why? Because they fail to acknowledge the truth of the matter - what the real problems are and what will really solve them.

God is the beginning and end of true justice and because God is a personal being, justice itself is personal. From God's point of view, it's more about restoring relationships that it is about getting what you deserve. In the cross, justice and love are united. It is there that God demonstrates his overwhelming love for us, those who were dead in our trespasses and sin and united in rebellion against him. And, it is there that justice is perfectly satisfied. The result is the restoration of our relationship with God.

When offenders commit crimes, they are not against the State of California as the District Attorney's complain reads. They are against victims and communities and they breach shalom (wholeness - the way things are supposed to be). Looking through the lenses of a biblical worldview, our response to this disruption ought to include an opportunity for the victims and communities to participate in restoring shalom. Our efforts should focus on restitution which recognizes the victim and the harm done and creates an opportunity to mend the breach in the relationship between the offender and victim and community. If we move in that direction, we can hope that the offender can engage in confession, repentance, making amends, and later transformation. The victim gains an opportunity to forgive and let go of a hurt will only grow into hate if left untouched.

This gives us a yardstick to measure these three propositions. Let's use Proposition 9 as an example. According to the official summary, Prop. 9 "requires notification to victim and opportunity for input during phases of criminal justice process, including bail, pleas, sentencing and parole." Based on our discussion above, this sounds pretty good. The current system relegates victims to prosecutor props with very few rights. Even though I like it, this proposition possesses a tone that misses the mark by focusing on individual rights. Rather than pointing us towards true justice - the restoration of relationships - victims need to be involved in the system because they have rights that the system ignores.

Does that cause Proposition 9 to fail the biblical worldview measuring test? I don't think so. The proposition promotes a sound policy even if a bit off base. It does not reflect perfect justice, but it moves us that much closer to it.

Measuring propositions takes some work, but if we want expand the borders of the Kingdom of God among us - the place where what God prefers actually happens - we need to keep at it.

We the People...

2008-10-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

In California, representative government extends a step further - citizens directly access lawmaking through ballot initiatives or propositions. This makes the application of Romans chapter 13 a little more personal: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God . . .For he is God's servant to do you good." Romans 13:1, 4 In the Romans 13 sense, God delegates to each of us the authority to do good in the political process. If we fail to faithfully participate, we fail as stewards of our delegated authority - we fall short or miss the mark of God's intentions for us - we sin.

To hit the God's mark, we must first participate - go to the polls and vote. Second we must apply faithfulness to our participation. This means spending a little time figuring out how we can vote to do good by God standards. Voting alone will not cut it.

To keep pounding a point, that's worldview in action. Each of us possesses a worldview - a core set a beliefs about God, man, and the world which determine how we live our lives. As Christians, God's revelation of Himself in Scripture ought to significantly form our worldview. If my worldview is Theo-centric or biblical or Christian, when I vote for propositions, I will determine my yeses and nos by the standards God reveals in Scripture.

Sounds simple enough, but the application can get a bit messy. Stay tuned for more info on how to put a biblical worldview into action at the voting booth.

Creational Theology: God in the Stars

2008-10-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

God reveals Himself to us in a variety of ways.

First, He spoke directly in Scripture - through history, poetry, prophecy, songs, proverbs, letters, and sermons He tells us in no uncertain terms about His attributes, character, and purposes.

Second, God reveals Himself in the person of Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:15-20.

Third, God reveals Himself in creation, our consciences, and culture. “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20.

Most of us get the first two – we read and meditate upon Scripture and understand and are moved by the revelation of God in Christ. But how often do we see God in the stars? When you see a sunset so beautiful it causes you to gasp, do you wonder of the untold beauty of God? When look up on a moonless night and see so many stars that you imagine the sky has been stroked with a brush filled with glitter, do you think of how big God really is? When you see a bird in flight or a lizard sunning itself, do you marvel at the creativity of our God who’s only pattern for work is His own imagination?

According the Romans 1, this should be our first encounter with God – gazing upon creation ought to prompt the original thought that a being of diving nature, eternal power, and invisible qualities exists somewhere behind the curtain. For those of us who “know the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations” (Colossians 1:26) - that Christ dwells in us - gazing on creation ought to bring us eye-to-eye with the face of God.

A Pseudo-Gospel: Everything Must Change

2008-10-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

Article by Peter Jones

This is the first version of a NewsCWiPP under the new title InsideOut. Our ministry has changed its name to truthxchange. Our website, truthxchange.com, has a new look, new content, including audio and a blog. Now you can all react and interact. InsideOut seeks to examine what is happening on the inside (or underside) of events, just below the surface of the culture, and bring out their real religious and cultural significance.

Emergent leader Brian McClaren says "everything must change," not only websites and titles. Our political candidates seem to agree. I too am witness to enormous changes over my adult life.
I was raised in the heyday of European rationalistic secular humanism, and came as a student to America in 1964 to discover a culture so impregnated with Christianity that I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Well, not quite, but the "sacred canopy" over the culture was basically a biblical, Judeo-Christian worldview.

From the Sixties on, two major religious trends began to define society.

1. Simplistic Christianity

After the solid theological days of early 20th century Evangelicalism, which defined itself according to the great fundamentals of the faith, much of Christianity turned to a more sensational, experience-oriented "fundamentalism" that got caught up in the power of television (with its inevitable scandals), mega-church commercialism and cheap shot religion evidenced in such expressions as "God-hates-fags." The culture began to see Evangelicalism as a mindless, even dangerous religion. Was D. James Kennedy overly optimistic when he said in 2004 that "if the trend [the growth in the number of Evangelicals] continues, and I believe it will, American Christians will be in the majority sometime in the next decade"? Perhaps he did not count on "Evangelicalism" changing.

2. The Cultural Revolution

Appearing at first to be another generational round of student dissent, the Sixties movement actually redefined the nature of the world.

Authority: The social rebellion against university senates, the police and the Vietnam War stemmed from a principial rejection of all authority and hierarchy. In the place of authority, egalitarianism reigned, aided by postmodern deconstruction. Now, all truth is relative.

Sexuality: "Free sex" became resistance to normative heterosexual gender roles, and has morphed into a utopian vision for a pan-sexual/omni-gendered society.

Spirituality: The culture of love-not-war, of LSD trips and Eastern meditation, of diversity and tolerance has become the gateway for "can't-we-all-get-along" interfaith neo-paganism, with its techniques of yoga, mysticism and meditation.

The marginal Sixties revolution has become the dominant worldview of contemporary culture, appealing to the social and intellectual elite, in whose hands are the levers of social control (media, politics, business). These opinion-shapers, with little opposition, are now articulating a religiously pagan worldview for the life of the planetary community. These cultural progressives see no problem with mixing "church" (pagan religion) and "state" (electoral politics).
Two other important events have subsequently taken place following the social decline of Christianity, and the social rise of neo-paganism.

Good-bye Secular Humanism

Secular humanism is no longer the dominant non-Christian worldview. Philosophically, it has been radically undermined by the postmodern rejection of the objectivity of human reason. In addition, according to neo-pagans, Secular "inhumanism" has "disenchanted" the world, leaving us spiritually bankrupt.

Good-bye Simplistic Fundamentalism

Young evangelicals are rightfully in reaction against the over-simplified Christian Fundamentalism. Some have discovered a more biblically-based traditional theology and practice. Others, calling themselves Emergent or "Progressive" have refused the route of past historic Christian wisdom, and have gone in the only other possible intellectual direction, "Christian" liberalism, With Liberal apostasy, they change everything about orthodoxy, denying the the atoning death of Christ for sinners and the great solas of the Reformation, and adopting elements of pagan spirituality-global interfaith and subjective mysticism.

While having precious little to do with the Gospel, this so-called "Great Emergence" fits with looming Globalism and the re-emergence of ALL IS ONE pagan monism.

Things are indeed changing. While Christians were in the majority, all kinds of "fundie" weaknesses and superficialities could be tolerated. With Christianity now seriously marginalized, many younger Christians are seeking social acceptance and popularity with the dominant post Christian culture via an atonement-less, syncretistic social gospel. The world's rejection of Christianity is cleverly blamed on narrow old-fashioned traditions, not the scandal of the Cross.

The seduction of this pseudo-gospel, promoted by major Christian leaders and Christian publishing houses, is powerful. The sleeping Church needs to wake up-for at least two reasons: to be wise citizens and to be discerning, genuinely "missional" believers.

But one thing will never change: JESUS REIGNS. His death for sinners remains forever efficacious. He is building his truly global church, and, as Martin Luther knew, "he will win the battle." The serious question now is, as another hymn asks: "Who is on the Lord's side?"

Christos Kurios: Christ is Lord
Peter Jones
truthxchange

Who Cares About a Worldview?

2008-10-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

Really, what difference does a worldview make? Once you understand how a worldview works, you'll realize it makes all the difference in the world. Your worldview is at the core of who you are - it affects every dimension of your life. Your worldview, the set of beliefs you hold about what is really real, answers the question of whether God exists and if he exists, if he has spoken. It determines the nature and origin of man. It identifies what is wrong with the world and what we can do to fix it.

Your beliefs about these "ultimate" issues determines what you hold to be true in life. That in turn determines what you value as good. Finally, your values translate into behavior - how you live your life, and it all starts with your worldview. If we get the worldview story wrong our beliefs, values, and behavior will be off-kilter.

Comedian Bill Engval performed in a comedy special entitled "15 Degrees Off Cool." In the course of the performance, he shares a story about one of his birthdays. Bill had always wanted a motorcycle and his wife said she would buy him one for his birthday. Expecting the best, he purchased all the appropriate gear - a leather jacket, leather pants, a new helmet, gloves - he got it all. When the big day arrived Bill went to the garage to collect his prize and there he found a Vespa motor scooter with a big bow on it. Almost, but not quite - 15 degrees off cool.

Check out your own worldview. Have you got it right? Or are you trying to impress your friends with a motorscooter. More on how to answer that question later.

The Kingdom of God Among Us

2008-10-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

Citing the findings from a just-completed national survey of 2033 adults that showed only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making, researcher George Barna described the outcome. "If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think - our attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions. Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We're often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance."

The research indicated that everyone has a worldview, but relatively few people have a biblical worldview - even among devoutly religious people. The survey discovered that only 9% of born again Christians have such a perspective on life. In his words, “Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate the core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We’re often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than experiencing truth and significance.”

By understanding that Christianity is a worldview – that it proclaims what is really real and reveals to us the truth about God, man, and the world we live in – our beliefs and values will begin to form the “unified and meaningful response” to life that our hearts long for and God intends for us. Transformed beliefs and values will naturally produce transformed living. this transformation will in turn make us agents of God’s continuing redemption in the world around us. We have the opportunity to bring the Kingdom of God among us everywhere we go. If we choose, we can stretch its borders to include our neighborhood, school, workplace, and beyond. In this way we expand the borders of God’s Kingdom – the domain where what God prefers is actually what happens – on earth.

Welcome to the Culture & Bible Institute of Skyline Church, La Mesa, CA

2008-10-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Culture & Bible Institute (CBI) has been a ministry of Skyline for a decade and is the launch point for most of our social action teaching and alerts. Bill Trask, a church Connect teacher, will post information and commentary on this site. Please post your comments, feedback and additional information that will illuminate Skyline members about current cultural situations that inform our worldview.

The mission of CBI is to “raise up a generation of Bible thinker-appliers who will engage our culture and expand the boundaries of the Kingdom of God among us.”