Looking Back

I recently had reason to dig out the original contract that I signed with the Denbigh church in 1980 when I first started my work here. I was shocked that I could find it; I was also a little surprised by what was in it. My starting salary in 1980 was $200 a week and the contract stipulated that it was to be given to me "on each Lord’s Day." What was not stipulated in the contract was how often Jack Dulaney, our treasurer, would give me the check on Sunday and then ask me not to cash it for 2-3 days until he made sure that there was any money in the account! Additionally, they gave me $350 a month housing allowance (which was enough to pay rent and utilities for our apartment… our Section 8 government housing apartment!). They also kicked in $140 a month for insurance, but for some reason the $5 a week book allowance that was typed in the original contract was struck through (in pencil) as if disallowed at the time the contract was signed. (Boy, if I had that $5 a week now, I could buy a new book every other month or so!).

The contract gave me one day a week off, two weeks of vacation per year (not to include more than two Sundays), and one week per year to work at Idlewild Christian Camp (not sure whether that was a benefit or a hazardous duty assignment). With those exceptions, the contract stipulated that “the preacher shall be available in his work with this congregation twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.” The only other contract I remember signing with the church was when Roger was hired (he had one, so I had one). The new one gave me all national holidays off, which I had never had before. (Lynn and I couldn’t decide whether to go to Colonial Williamsburg or to the pool yesterday for Memorial Day, so we stayed home and rearranged furniture). Our elders at that time of this second contract (which I can’t find) worked for the government, so it made sense that they would give me national holidays. (Of course, they frowned on me taking the whole long weekend off like everybody else!)

Section 5 of my contract stipulates my work responsibilities—all pulpit duties, teaching two classes, conducting Ladies Bible class (which was every awkward back when I was 23 and the class was made up of mostly older church ladies), edit the bulletin (which meant type it on a stencil and run it off on a mimeograph machine). Curiously, no mention was made of PowerPoint slides, maintaining the church website, or writing a blog… but then again, they are now paying more than $200 a week!

What is the point of all this? I’m not sure there is one. Well, except maybe this—I have no clue how I got from May 1980 to May of 2011.  How can 31 years seem to be such a short period of time? What a blessing these years have been for Lynn and me. I hope there are a few people who have been blessed in return.

What Your Car Might Tell Others About Jesus

We’re just finishing up a Wednesday night study of Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love. I’ve done several past posts (here and here) on Chan’s book, so I won’t spend time here giving background on the book. If you haven’t read Crazy Love, it would be worth your time to do so. Chan has also posted several videos that go along with chapters in the book on YouTube. Here is the short clip I showed last night--



Chan’s take here really stands out in contrast to what some of the popular TV preachers say and do about concerning money. Can you imagine Creflo Dollar driving a 15 year old Subaru clunker (he drives a Rolls Royce) and sending the excess to support an African orphanage? Joel Osteen owns a 17,000 square foot, $10.5 million dollar estate. Kenneth Copeland flies his own $20 million Cessna Citation jet, the fastest private jet that money can buy. There was a Senate investigation launched into these excesses, but the millions of people who routinely donate to these ministries have not been discouraged. Contrast the video above with this one from Inside Edition--



The contrast between these two different views of money raises two questions, one of them easy and one of them much harder. First, which of these two videos looks more like Jesus? Or maybe even more to the point, which of these two projections of the use of money by Christians looks more like Jesus to our non-Christian world. To tell you the truth, the church looks pretty much like a joke to many non-Christians precisely because of those television preachers and their lifestyles.  If we are going to get the world to take a serious look at Jesus, then we'd better take a serious look at ourselves.

Second, and this is a much tougher question, what does the way that you and I spend our money say to the non-Christian world about Jesus? OK, so I don’t drive a Rolls Royce, but I do drive a five year old Honda CR-V which I do like quite a bit and still owe some money on,  And that means that I DO NOT  drive a 15 year old Subaru and send the difference to support African orphans. Does my CR-V say anything to others about Jesus?  I wonder.  Is it possible that our lifestyle says more than we realize about how seriously we take Christ… and how seriously we can expect the world to take our message? We suggested last night that the reason that many Christians can’t even consider supporting one orphan (let alone an entire orphanage) is because we are so heavily in debt paying for things we really done need that we don’t have the money to give away for more important… and eternal… things. Paul told Timothy to teach the rich folks in Ephesus (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

How are we to not be arrogant or put our trust in wealth (v. 17) and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven (v. 19)? By doing good, being generous and sharing with others in need (v. 18). If we aren't doing that, then maybe were looking more like those rich televangelists than we'd ever like to think!

The Great Disapointment

In the same year that Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone merged their restoration movements, another preacher was making a name for himself on the American religious scene. His name was William Miller, and his followers were called (oddly enough) “Millerites.” Miller came to believe that Bible prophecy held the key to understanding God’s timetable for the end of the world (sound familiar at all?). Based upon the so-called “day-year principle” (“with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” see 2 Peter 3:8), Miller set the date for doomsday as October 22, 1844. He attracted quite a following—somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 (you know how those preacher counts go). There are reports of Millerites

As you may have noticed, the world did not end, and to his credit, Miller responded publically, saying, "I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door."  The time following October 22, 1844 was known among Millerites as “The Great Disappointment.” Most of them simply disappeared, and Miller himself faded from the scene and died a few years later. Some of his followers, however, were a bit too invested in Miller’s doomsday scenario, and they modified his predictions came to form two different groups, the Seventh Day Adventists (who believe Jesus began an “investigative judgment” on October 22, 1844 when he entered the heavenly Temple to open the books) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (who kept right on predicting the end of the world every four or so years or so right up through the 1970’s).

This week, the followers of Harold Camping are experiencing their own “Great Disappointment.” Camping first tried the “investigative judgment” route and said the date was right, but the judgment was spiritual and “invisible” and that the actual end of the world is now October 21. Later he admitted that maybe he just figured it up wrong. What he should have said was what one journalist said for him, “Ok, so I got the Apocalypse date wrong; it's not the end of the world.”

There is a lesson in here somewhere. To humbly seek the mind of God with a determination to follow what you believe to be His will is called "faith." To proclaim that you have the fully understood the mind of God and that you can speak authoritatively for Him is called "arrogance."  There really is a huge difference the two, but it is amazing how often we get faith and arrogance mixed up. We must seek the mind of God (faith) but we cannot calim limit Him or obligate Him by our understandings (arrogance).  Paul ends a pretty difficult section of Romans (which commentataries either see as a parenthetical interruption of Paul’s main point or the actual main point of the book, take your pick) with a with a doxology we really need to keep in mind—

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Anytime we think we have the mind of God figured out (as to the end of the world, how God works in baptism, what kind of church music He prefers or any other topic), we are setting ourselves up for a Great Disappointment. In the words of the great theologian "Dirty" Harry Callahan, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

What If Rover Is Left Behind?

This post will make better sense of you've read the one from Monday. What if Saturday, May 21 really is Judgment Day? After all, it could be, right? What if LaHaye and Jenkins are right and the church gets raptured and all the non-believers get “Left Behind?” Some prophetic (or maybe profit-ic?) genius has come up with the perfect solution to those who worry about their left-behind friends and family. For the bargain price of $14.95, you can pay a website to send emails to your non-believing loved ones after you have been raptured. According to some prophecy experts (see the definition of expert in the earlier post), the post-rapture world will be a time of both great evangelism and great tribulation. So if you are gone and you want your friends and family clued-in to what is going on, then what better way than to send them a post-apocalypric post? How does it work? According to the website

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the "Rapture" of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.

Clever, huh?  Set up your account (250 MB of documents and 62 different email addresses) and you can evangelize after you've vaporized.  (OK, I'm being a wee-bit sarcastic, but I'm having trouble believing this is for real.)

But what about your pets? If you are suddenly raptured, who is going to be there to take care of your pet?  Well, you can contact a company called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets which was founded several years ago to care for pets left behind by the Rapture. For $135, this company promises to come and pick up your pets and take them to their 20-acre compound in New Hampshire and care for them. How are they going to do that for $135? The trip from New Hampshire to Virgina get our little Maltese Bella (Maggie is too old; and Marley, well buddy, you’re on your own) and transport her back to New Hampshire would cost more than $135. So why are these people willing to be left behind and care for pets so cheaply? Because owner and operator Bart Centre (why didn't he call his business “The Centre Center”) doesn’t believe in the rapture. But he is willing to honor his contracts for the 10-year period that they are valid. And he is also willing to take free money from the over-gullible.

Hey, the world could end Saturday. The world will end Saturday for about 153,000 people (that’s how many people in the world die each day according to the Population Reference Bureau's "2010 World Population Data Sheet"). After Jesus assures us that even he doesn’t know when the end will come (Matt 24:26), He tells us, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”(Matt 24:42). The point for Christians is that we are supposed to live each day ready for Jesus to come. Each day we pray, “Maranatha,” “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20). Yes, one day Jesus is going to come, blow His whistle and say, “Everybody out of the pool.” But people have been predicting when that day would be from earliest of Christian times. And the one thing that these end-time dates have in common is that they always had a tomorrow… and they always gave unbelievers one more reason not to take Christians seriously. If we really want to be ready for Jesus when he comes, setting up emails and taking care of pets isn’t the way to do it. Jesus says this is the way—

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:34-40)

Suing the Devil

Last year at Pepperdine, we had pie and coffee one evening with a Hollywood producer and movie actor.  Really.  We were in the cafeteria when two guys asked if they could join us, and they introduced themselves and said. "We just made a movie."  I thought they were kidding, and no one at the table said anything.  So one of the guys said, "No really, we just finished making a movie and we are looking for about $7 million for distribution and advertising.  We heard about this place and thought we'd come."  The movie they had just made was "Suing the Devil" staring veteran actors Malcom McDowell, Corbin Bernsen and Tom Seizemore. The actor we met (sorry, I have forgotten his name) is the last in a series of lawyers who represent the devil (played by McDowell) that are introduced in a segment of the trailer below.



The producers evidently had a little trouble finding the money for distribution and advertising. Many of the people who come to the lectures are either preachers or retirees, so they weren't going to get $7 million in the cafeteria that night! The film has missed several release dates earlier this year and it is currently set for release on August 26. I'm planning on going to see it... IF it ever comes out.

On Mowing the Lawn and the End of the Word

I’m thinking about waiting until next week to mow my lawn. After all, according to some pretty widely reported predictions, the end of the world is coming on May 21, 2011. And who wants to waste time mowing the lawn when the end of the world is right around the corner? So why is the world going to end on May 21? Well, it’s right there in the Bible, plain as the nose on my face (which is pretty plain).

Genesis 7:4 says, "Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." When God says 7 days, he obviously meant both 7 days and 7000 years. I mean EVERYBODY knows that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."  The flood occurred in 4990 B.C. (go with me here).  So 7000 thousand years since God God destroyed the world the first time is 2011. So that’s gotta be the year. Also, the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, which shows that they were in the right ball park, but that is another conspiracy theory altogether.

So if the year is plainly 2011, then why do we know its going to be May 21? Well, there are 722,500 days between the date of the crucifixion and May 21, 2011. 722,500 is a highly significant number because it is composed of the significant numbers 5x10x17x5x10x17. Five signifies redemption; ten signifies completion; and 17 signifies heaven. The numbers represent the day of redemption (5) and the end of the Christian era (10) and the ascent to heaven (17) -- and these factors are doubled for added significance. So that proves that the world is going to end on May 21.

Well… of course, unless it doesn't. I have my own theory about the exact date for the end of the world.  I predict that Jesus will come on any day EXCEPT one that has been predicted as the end-time date by self-appointed end-time sooth-sayers who torture the text to come up with a date even though Jesus Himself warned us not to listen to people making such claims (Matt 24:23) and no one knows when the date will be (Matt 24:36). There have always been “experts” (my Dad says that the definition of “expert” is that an “ex” is a has-been and a “spurt” is a “small stream under pressure”) who knew when Jesus was coming and the only thing they have in common is that they were wrong. (See a previous blog for some examples).

Here are some more of my predictions.  I predict that I WILL cut my grass today (unless it rains or the Lord comes TODAY). I’ll predict that I will run this blog in our bulletin Sunday, the day AFTER kingdom-come (because I’m a bit of a smart aleck). And I also predict that the young lady in the picture above WILL be getting her car painted very soon.

More Mixing Ice Cream and Manure

I read an interview with Donald Trump and concerning his political aspirations… and how he combs his hair. I would like to say that this article showed great insight into the mind of a great political thinker… but I can’t. The fact that a reality-TV star can be taken seriously as a candidate for the highest office of the world’s last remaining super-power is a sad commentary on what our political process has become. In order to be elected president, one must court the cult of celebrity, so if one begins the process as celebrity (especially as the boss on Celebrity Apprentice), then so much the better. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to wonder if the quote attributed Eisenhower might be right on target, “Any man [or woman] who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”

Eugene Peterson suggests that the world “politics” has come to mean “what politicians do” and thus the word “often carries with it undertones of displeasure and disapproval because the field offers wide scope for the use of power over others, which power is often abused.” This past week, Lynn and I were talking about one of her co-workers who goes to a church where the “pastor” is paid an insane amount of money and can do whatever he wants and never has to answer to anyone. Lynn said, “Power does often corrupt people… it’s just a good thing you don’t have any.” (I just haven’t let her in on my plan for world domination!) The word “politics” actually comes from the Greek word “polis” or “city” and represents what people do as they live together in community and work together for some common purpose. And that, Peterson suggests, is a very Biblical concept. God is working in “politics” to accomplish His will in ways that we don’t and can’t understand. We join with God in His work in the “political” process in prayer. Peterson writes,

For Christians, "political" acquires extensive biblical associations and dimensions. So rather than look for another word untainted by corruption and evil, it is important to use it just as it is so that by it we are trained to see God in the places that seem intransigent to grace. The people who warn that "religion and politics don't mix" certainly know what they are talking about. The mix has resulted in no end of ills— crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, exploitation. All the same, God says, "Mix them." But be very careful how you mix them. The only safe way is in prayer. It is both unbiblical and unreal to divide life into the activities of religion and politics, or into the realms of sacred and profane. But how do we get them together without putting one into the unscrupulous hands of the other, politics using religion or religion using politics, when what we want is a true mixture, politics becoming religious and religion becoming political? Prayer is the only means that is adequate for the great end of getting these polarities in dynamic relation. (Where Your Treasure Is, p. 9)

We need to lose the hand-wringing and worry over what is going to become of our country and our world. If God really is God, we need to know that he has our back. God is God if President Obama is re-elected and if he is not, God is God even if the Donald becomes president. God is in control, and He listens to our prayers. It's good to remind ourselves of that occasionally. Psalm 2 begins--

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”
The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

If we believe that God is on his throne, that God CAN change things and that prayer CAN change God, then the most political thing we can do is pray. (See Ezra 6:10, Jer 29:17, 1 Tim 2:2). I am reminded of the Tony Campolo quote, “Mixing politics and religion is like mixing ice cream and manure; it really doesn't affect the manure much, but it really messes up the ice cream." One great way to mix the two and improve both is through prayer!

Back From the Left Coast

Well, it is back to the old grind after our trip to the left coast.  Our  sojourn to the Pepperdine Lectures has been a highlight for the last 21 years, and we are already looking forward to next year.  But then, we really enjoy our “old grind” as well.  It's a good thing.  This past Sunday marked 31 years at Denbigh!  It was hard getting back in the swing of things, especially since I woke up this morning with a migraine.  The drugs knocked it down enough for me to come into work only 4 hours late, but they also made it a little hard to concentrate.  So if this blog is a little more goofy than usual, it’s the drugs.  I don’t know what it means if the blog is a lot better than usual!

So what happened while I was gone?  Well, Osama bin Laden is no longer on the most wanted list!  Getting bin Laden does not end the war on terror.  In fact, most people seem to think that (in the short term anyway), bin Laden’s death makes another major terrorist act more likely.  But it is hard to imagine any resolution in any form to the war on terror without bin Laden being brought to justice.

So what immediately went through your head when you heard that he had been killed?  To be honest, the first thought that I had was surprise.  I didn’t think he’d ever surface; in fact, I thought it was likely that he was already dead (there had been reports that he had cancer).  So what SHOULD Christians think or feel at the death of an “evil mastermind” like Osama bin Laden?  Well, one indication of what many of us DID think is the Bible verses that were tweeted following the announcement of his death.  According to an article on Christianity Today, the top ten Bible verses tweeted over Twitter were…

• Proverbs 24:17 "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice."
• Psalm 138:8 "The LORD will make PERFECT the things that concern me"(KJV). (NIV: "The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.") 
• Proverbs 21:15 "When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers." (Rick Warren started this one):
• Ezekiel 33:11 "Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?"
• Ezekiel 18:23 "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
• Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
• Proverbs 11:10 "When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy."
• Proverbs 24:18 " … or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them." (The popularity of this verse is due to it finishing the sentence begun by the #1 most popular verse.)
• Proverbs 24:1 "Do not envy the wicked, do not desire their company;" (probably an effort to quote Proverbs 24:17)
• Proverbs 28:5 "Evildoers do not understand what is right, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully."

So should we remind ourselves not to gloat over the death of the wicked or should we rejoice that justice has been served?  The answer is “Yes.”  All those verses are in the Bible, and they all do bear some application here.  God is a God of justice; God calls us to be people of grace.  There should be no joy when hell gains another victim.  But there is joy that “the judge of all the earth does right.”  I don’t do Twitter—too much pressure to have thoughts and remember to tweet them (I’m doing well to update my Facebook status once a week).   But if I tweeted a verse related to bin Laden, it might be Romans 13:4, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he [the king] does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”  We should have faith in God’s justice, but that means that we will “leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. (Rom 12:19).

Justice will be served.  In fact, it is already being served, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom 1:18).  We don’t gloat in it.  For one thing, we never know what it is that God is going nor how he is using the events around us to do His will.  For another thing, do we REALLY want God to bring His full justice to bear in the world… or do we want GRACE as well?  If we want grace for ourselves, then we need to leave God enough space to do His work.