Harbingers of the End-Time or Opportunities to Help?

A recent poll (done by Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service) found that nearly six in ten evangelicals (a term always open interpretation) believe that recent natural disasters are signs from God that point to the coming end-time. By comparison, only about one-third of Catholics and mainline Protestants see natural disasters are signs from God. About half believe that natural disasters are the result of God’s judgment and punishment. You may recall that last year, Pat Robertson suggested that the horrific earthquake in Haiti was God’s curse on the country for its history of voodoo. (Robertson made similar remarks about Katrina and God’s punishment for abortion). I haven’t heard of any church leaders baling the Japan disaster as punishment from God.

Can God use natural disasters to punish his people and give them opportunity to repent? The message of the prophet Joes was an impending horde of locusts that would punish Israel for her corporate sons. The plagues on Egypt were a series of natural disasters that were God’s judgment on the various deities of Egypt. The difference in these Biblical examples of natural and the modern disasters in Japan, Haiti and the Gulf Coast is that in the former case, we have the commentary of inspired Bible writers telling us what it is that God is doing. Mr. Robertson, I’ve read Moses and Amos’ I’ve studies Moses and Amos. And Mr. Robertson, you neither Moses nor Amos! To presume to speak for God in what God is doing in the world today is the height of arrogance.

The message for the church in earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan is precisely the message that millions of God’s people are getting. Here is an opportunity for the people for God to heal hurting people , to model the love of Jesus Christ and in the process to share the good news and the world sees that we are Christians through our love for others.

You can be a part of the ongoing relief efforts in Japan being done by our fellowship by giving to Healing Hands International.

Some Heavy Thoughts

And article on CNN Health yesterday entitled Frequent Churchgoers Frequently Fatter reports on  research that suggests that religiously active people (those who attended church once or more each week) are more likely than their non-religious counterparts to be obese. In fact, regular religious involvement almost doubles the risk of obesity compared with those who don’t go to church at all. That linkseems clear; what isn’t so clear is WHY church folks are so much more likely to more hefty than non-church folks.

My response was, “Sure... it’s all those potlucks!” And that really is a big part of the problem— church potlucks, small group dinners, prayer breakfasts, and the variety of setting for table fellowship. An old joke has as its punchline that our best know religious symbol is the casserole dish.  Erik Christensen of St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Chicago is quoted in the article as saying, “There's certainly a church culture around eating. What I see among congregants in their 20s and 30s is they are very fit and what I see among congregants in their 50s and 60s is disproportionate obesity." So the longer you stay in church, the more pounds you pack on. Christensen goes on to say that the virtual disappearance of church sponsored softball, basketball and volleyball leagues adds to the fact that active church members are no longer so physically active.

Another possible explanation is marriage. I gained 15 pounds the first 6 weeks I was married after I moving from Gano Cafeteria at FHC to Lynn's home-cooking (she was already an accomplished cook when we married). Kenneth F. Ferraro of the Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University suggests that “weight gain is common after marriage and that marriage is highly valued in most religious groups. Thus, one wonders if the results could be partially due to religious people being more likely to get married earlier and then gaining weight." I like that explanation better than blaming the whole thing on church potlucks.

It is a bit surprising that the church has not been more active in addressing the issue of obesity. For years we preached against things like cigarette smoking and social drinking from the perspective that these are harmful to the body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is becoming undeniably clear that obesity is one of the major health concerns in our society, the cause of all kinds of deadly things from heart disease to diabetes. And yet not only does the church say nothing about this danger, but we allow church to add to the problem.

An illustration from the article. One church wanted to get involved in helping to deal with the growing problem of childhood obesity. They called a meeting to discuss ways to help with this issue… with a potluck supper to start things off!  Maybe we should have fewer church feasts and more church fasts?

Lame Opinions

I remember Bruce Jackson telling the story of a man who came to be a leader in a church largely because everyone always thought that he agreed with them. He was actually an accomplished politician much like the one my Dad likes to tell about who says, “I have friends on one side of this issue and friends on the other side… and I always stand by my friends!” This guy lived by that credo. But there came an issue that needed resolution, and an emergency meeting convened. After arguments pro and con, a vote was called, “All in favor stand up!” This brother squatted uncomfortably in a half-crouch! He wanted it both ways.

The whole nation of Israel was that guy during “the days of Elijah.” Israel wanted to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Queen Jezebel made the worship of God a little problematic by killing all the prophets of God she could get her hands upon, but Israel still had warm feelings for the God of their ancestors. But then there was this Phoenician fertility god named Baal who promised to make their land, their flocks and herds, and their wives, and they wanted to worship him as well. They were in a half-crouch between God and Baal; if they were uncomfortable in that awkward position, you would never know it by looking.

Well, these were the days of Elijah, and he came along to stir things up in 1 Kings 18 (our Bible reading for today). Elijah confronted Ahab with a little proposition, “Let’s have a little contest to see just who really is the true God.” So they gathered the entire nation together on Mount Carmel for the ultimate game of survivor. Elijah throws down the gauntlet in verse 21--

Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.

The NCV  frames the question as, “How long will you not decide between two choices?” The NRSV puts it “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?” That image is helpful, I think.  Israel had been crippled by their indecision; having two opinions was really lame. Elijah wants to force their hand and demand that they choose which god is truly God.

But no one said anything. No one would commit themselves one way or the other. No loudmouth in the crowd screamed, “Baal, Baal, he’s our god; if he can’t do then put us in the sod!” And no one was willing incur the wrath of Jezebel by saying, “The LORD is God; besides him there is no other” (Dt 4:35). They just stood there in a half-crouch saying nothing! A blurb in Reader’s Digest once said, “Pity the person with no opinion for they will go through life with no bumper sticker.” Well, Israel had no bumper sticker for their chariots. No one had an opinion. Or they shared both opinions. No one was saying anything. It was better to have it both ways that to make a choice either way.

Does that sound familiar at all? We live in a culture with competing and contradictory truth systems, each claiming to be valid. We live in an age when many believe at the same time that nothing is ultimately true and that everything is equally true. For many the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth. Christianity once enjoyed a favored status in our culture. The Bible was seen as “The Good Book” even if everyone didn’t try to live by it. Today, Christianity is seen as just one among many truth systems in a crowded marketplace of ideas. And frankly, it is easier to get along in our world if you just accept that some of your friends believe in God and other friends don’t believe in God… and then always stand by your friends. It is easier to just waver between two opinions.

In 2002, I took a graduate seminar class under John Warwick Montgomery, the noted theologian and apologist. He suggested in that class that liberal and fundamentalist churches have responded to the post-Christian, postmodern world that sees everything as equally true and nothing as objectively true in radically and entirely different ways.

• Liberal churches say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em.” They accept the philosophic presuppositions of the culture and dismiss the contrary parts of the Bible as myth and legend. They dress up social change and politics in religious ritual, and they differ from the secular world only in their religious vocabulary. This version of faith is so very thin that there is little to pass on the next generation.
  
• Fundamentalist churches tended to say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, then withdraw from them.” The secular world is such a threat to their faith that they insulate themselves from that world. Their kids go to Christian schools or are home-schooled in a “safe” environment. They socialize only with members of their church. They listen to Christian music, read Christian books and go to Christian movies. Their points of contact with the world “out there” are as limited as they can make it. They have circled the wagons to protect the faith that they live largely in a vacuum. But, Montgomery suggests, that kind of faith is usually pretty fragile and soon crumbles if it is exposed to the outside world.

Montgomery suggests that the right response (in other words, his response) is not either “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” or “If you can’t beat ‘em, withdraw” but rather to just “Beat ‘em!” We are to live the truth of the gospel without compromise or apology. We are to preach the gospel as true. We are to be ready to give reasons why we believe it to be true (see 1 Peter 3:15). And we are to point to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life… and the only way, truth and life!

We can’t have it both ways. If Jesus is Lord, then he is the only Lord. If He isn’t, then we’re just wasting our time with all this church stuff. To live between these two opinions is just lame.

Live Like You Were Dying

The song running through my head right now is Please Mr. Postman... except in my head, it's "Please Mr. FedEx-Man (or "FedEx-Person"). According to Mr. Jobs and the FedEx tracking site, my new iPad is on the truck out to be delivered. Well, it's not a new iPad-- it's actually a refurbished old iPad that was marked down $150 to get rid of it to make room for the iPad2. I could have gotten one of those, but it would be worldly and ridiculous to spend that much money on a new something I really don't need. It just seems somehow more holy to spend $150 less on an old something that I really don't need. At any rate, here's the song that should be playing in my head--



The song is Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." That is the point of the Bible class I'm teaching tonight (based on chapter 2 of Francis Chan's book Crazy Love). You see, once we understand who God really is (our last lesson), then we need to understand that today may be the day that we meet Him. In other words, we need to live like we were dying. In McGraw's song, he is talking to a man that found out in his forties that he just might be dying. So McGraw asks, "How’s it hit you when you get that kind of news? Man whatcha do?" The chorus is the dying man's answer and the point of the song--

An' he said: "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'."

The man sees it as a blessing to know that he's dying, because that allows him to live more like
he was meant to live. Well, not that he was necessarily meant to go mountain climbing, ride a bull named Fu Man Chu, or jump out of a perfectly good airplane. It changed him in more important ways as well.

He said "I was finally the husband That most the time I wasn’t.
An' I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And all of a sudden goin' fishin’ wasn’t such an imposition,
And I went three times that year I lost my Dad.
Well, I finally read the Good Book and I took a good long hard look,
At what I'd do if I could do it all again."

So the secret to living is really living like we know we are dying. There's something that rings true there. David says this in Psalm 39:4-5

4 “Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,even those who seem secure.

If we really see that we are dying, that should change how we live. If we know that our days are numbered, then maybe we'd use the time we have left doing things more even important than rising bulls or jumping out of airplanes... or sitting around waiting for the FedEx-Person. My Dad used to quote Eccl. 9:10 ("Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might") as if to say "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well." That text has a much finer edge on it if you complete the author's thought, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." In order words, whatever you do, do it now because now may be all the time you have left. Live like you were dying.

To quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that." Excuse me while I go look outside one more time... I think I just heard a truck!"

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

“God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” I remember that being pounded into me when I was a college student being taught to take the words of scripture both literally and seriously. The Bible and the Bible alone was the rule of faith and practice for Christians. To be faithful to God, one had to “read and study and then obey the B-I-B-L-E.” as the old children’s song declares. And, by the way, I still believe that.

The problem is that we tend to be pretty selective of the part of the Bible where “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Jesus said a lot of things that makes us pretty nervous, and we tend to come up with explanations as to why what He said really wasn't what He said. Surely he doesn't expect us to sell all that we have and give it to the poor… like he said to the Rich Young Ruler. Surely he doesn't want us to give away our jacket when someone tries to take away our shirt… like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. And when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, surely He doesn't expect us to take that literally.

So maybe when God says it, that doesn't always settle it? I was reading an article by Catholic priest James Martin who suggests that Christians today really need to take Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:22 much more seriously. To refresh your memory, this verse reads--

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

When I was a kid calling a playmate “Dummy!” was OK; I got into only slight trouble if I called them an “Idiot!” But if I called them a “Fool,” then all the vengeance of heaven would come down upon me (in the person of my parents) because “Fool” was the very thing that Jesus said not to say. Personally, I was never tempted to say “Raca” to someone, but sometimes “Fool” seemed particularly like a relevant commentary on someone’s comments or behavior.  What is Jesus saying here?

The word “Raca” is generally explained in the footnotes of our Bibles as “an Aramiac expression of contempt.” The word literally meant “empty headed” or “fool.” Well of “Raca” meant “fool” when why did Jesus use the Greek word for "fool" in his very next line? Maybe it's not the particular words we choose that Jesus is trying to get us to change; maybe Jesus just doesn't want us using words of contempt in our speech at all. In fact that is EXACTLY what Jesus is saying. The question is, “Do we believe it and does that settle it?”

Communication in what is supposedly the “communication age” has gotten progressively less and less polite and more and more disrespectful. I don’t listen to cable news or talk radio anymore because I've grown so tired of supposed “pundits” shouting at each other and calling each other names. (OK, I also don’t watch cable news anymore because we don’t have cable, but that is beside the point). Is it possible to disagree with someone and be respectful at the same time? What is more, isn’t that exactly what Jesus tells us to do? Let me just end my tirade against tirades by quoting a section from Martin’s piece--

It's especially important to hear Jesus's words in our digital age, when snarky blogs, terrible texting, snotty Facebook posts and mean-spirited Tweets zip around the Web and cause serious harm. And it's essential to hear in our 24/7-radio-shockjock-TV-talkshow-endless-gabfest age, when the easiest way to get people to tune into your show is to call someone else a jerk, or worse. "Fool," raca, is probably the mildest of imprecations that you've heard lately.

That goes for Christians speaking about other Christians, believers speaking about other believers, and anyone else with whom we disagree on religious matters. Take a look at any opinionated religious blog, on the right and the left, and you'll see all manner of terrible name-calling -- again, much worse than raca.

We ignore the invitation to practice personal charity, to treat one another with respect, to give people the benefit of the doubt, to avoid name-calling, to curb our tongues and to simply be kind, at our peril. And this is not simply feel-good religion. It's not simply wishy-washy niceness. It's not an excuse to avoid tough conversations. It is at the heart of the Christian life.

Speaking charitably about others is a simple thing, but hard to do. Trust me, I've engaged in this kind of trash talk myself from time to time. I gossip. I may even call people names, like "fool," behind their backs. It's a terrible thing to do.

How do we know this? Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms. So don't overlook this overlooked passage, which contains a word that we can be certain comes to us directly from the lips of Jesus. Listen to his words and allow them to change yours.

My New Bible

For the first time since 1982, I am switching Bibles. Actually, I staying with the Holy Bible; I am just changing English translations.  Two years into my preaching career I noticed that I spent a lot of my sermon time explaining the various nuances and personality quirks of the KJV, so I started preaching and teaching from the NIV.  I still used the KJV (actually I still thought in KJV) and the NASB in my study, but the Bible I read from in class and the pulpit was the NIV. I took some flack from my KJV-only preaching buddies, and one area preacher wrote us off as an unfaithful church when we bought a case of NIV pew Bibles. (This was the same guy that kept a tally of every time the speaker at our men’s retreat “perverted the word of God” by reading from a non-KJV Bible. When I told him that the speaker was teaching from a Greek text and translating on the fly, he said, “Well if he’s smart enough to do that, he should be smart enough to use the KJV.” You think I’m making that up, but I'm not!)

The NIV was updated and revised in 1984, which meant the little pocket NT I used in preaching was slightly different in places from the whole Bible I used in study and class. (Fortunately, our pew Bibles were bought after the revision and that saved some trouble). Today I use multiple translations in my computer study Bible— the NIV, NASB, ESV, NET, NLT, and KJV all open automatically and I have 15 or so more I can open if I need them. But the NIV has been my main teaching and preaching text for almost 30 years.

But this Sunday all that will change. My new main English version is (cue the trumpet blast)… the NIV!!! (cue the applause). OK, perhaps some explanation is needed here. A new revision of the NIV was released online at Biblegateway.com last October and is now available in print form.  I received my pre-ordered $14 thinline bonded-leather NIV (2011) from Amazon yesterday... too bad the print is so small that I can’t actually read it. Logos Bible Research (my computer Bible folks) sent me a free update to my computer Bible this morning, so my total expense for the upgrade to the new NIV is $14! Not bad. (Of course, to get the  links to all the Greek and Hebrew tools in the new version, I have to pay $289.75… which is 3/4 of the iPad. I still haven’t bought. Those links work just fine in the ESV.)

So what do I get for $14? I don’t want to do a full review of the NIV(2011) because it’s Wednesday, and I really need to be working on my class for tonight. Patrick Mead did a good job introducing the NIV(2011) in his Tentpegs blog last week, (To steal a line from Jim McQuiggen, “Everyone should be forced to read Patrick’s blog… if they want to.”) Also, here are the translator’s notes on the NIV revision.

In my computer Bible anyway, new version of the NIV is known as “NIV” and the old NIV is now NIV1984. So when I quote from the NIV and it sounds different from your NIV, that’s because you are hopeless out of date and I am way cool.

Just Fine

“Just fine.” How many times do you hear that on Sunday mornings? You ask, “So, how you doing?” And (almost) everyone answers, “Just fine.” OK, there is the occasional person who looks at you, raises an eyebrow and asks, “You really want to know?” (And do we?).  But most people are “Just fine.” You may personally greet 50 different people (you can’t really talk to everyone) and everyone is “Just fine.” What are the chances of that? Just about zero!  No one is doing “just fine” all the time, and that means that no one is always “just fine” every Sunday morning. Now we might answer the question “How you doing?” with “Compared to what?” Compared to the homeless person with no teeth that I met begging in the Wal-Mart parking lot yesterday, I really am doing "Just fine."  But we all struggle with things, right? Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble…” And we do.  And sometimes, we're not doing "Just fine: at all!

Barbara Crafton tells of meeting a Christian young man at a restaurant who was very obliviously not doing just fine. He was struggling with some deep emotional and psychological issues, but when she suggested he see a therapist, he said, “I could never witness to anybody again if I were in therapy. I'd feel like a fraud.” Faith should make all of our problems go away, right? The joy of the Lord should overwhelm all depression and emotional issues right? Crafton suggests that many think that the gospel is “supposed to be a happy tale.”

Although you're allowed many trials along the way, it must end up with your accepting Christ, and then things are supposed to be all right with you. You're not supposed to be hopeless and want to die. There's not a lot of room in this narrative for despair, so people committed to it who find themselves staring despair in the face tend to keep that fact to themselves.

Is there any room in the life of a Christian for depression? Isn’t the struggle with depression sign that one’s faith is defective, ineffective or at the very least weak? Is the believer who prays to and worships God but who also struggles with depression or emotional issues really, like this young man assumed, a fraud and hypocrite?

No! Most of us will go through difficult situations and struggles that will lead to “situational depression.” Others will suffer through chemical imbalances that (unless God chooses to work a healing miracle) that will not be praised or prayed away, no matter how genuine a person’s faith may be. Pick up the Bible and read the laments in Psalms and the words of Jeremiah (one of his books is entitled “Lamentations?”). Read the story of Elijah and his dark cave of despair (1 Kings 19). Read the book of Revelation and ask yourself how “happy-clappy” the first readers of this book must have been. Faith helps us “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,” NIV2011). But there will be dark valleys. And we should not suppose that faith has failed because I don’t feel just fine at the moment!

Church should be a safe place for those struggling with feelings of loneliness, depression and despair. But sometimes we make such people feel worse because of the implication that if people had the right faith, they wouldn’t feel that way—they would be “Just fine” like the rest of us! Well, Isaiah said that the Messiah would be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” It just seems to me that it should be OK for His followers to feel the same way at times as well.