Randy preached on Romans 14 on Sunday. Edifying and challenging, as the Word should always be to us. The passage challenges those who differ on secondary matters (specifically dietary concerns and when to have church) to come together in love. They must not abandon fellowship and need to learn to respect each others’ convictions. Provided people are eating or not eating “by faith,” in Christ, they’re cool. That’s the bottom line. Both can be serving Christ if they do what they do in faith.

Well the question now is, “What is a secondary matter?'” Certainly there have been those who have divided over Jesus’ resurrection and a belief that God’s Word is in fact, God’s Word. But there also have been denominations formed because of an anti-alcohol stance (can you just see John Knox rolling over in his grave!) and pre-millenial end times views. Not good. So how do we figure out what is worth fighting over and what is worth putting up with?

I’ll be doing a series now on how to know what’s really important (contending for the faith-Jude 1:3) and what we should be able to disagree on but do so in love (Romans 14).

There are three main areas to look at. We’ll visit the first one now. Our standard: the Bible.
There are some things in the bible which are very clear. Jesus is fully God (not just a dude). In order to deny that, one would need to add words to the bible (as Jehovah’s Witnesses do) or ignore certain parts of it. Other things include His bodily resurrection from the dead, our sinful humanity, our need to gather and worship Him, etc..

Now there are some things which are not as clear. Are there a number of clear passages which tell us exactly how to vote, that tattoos are evil, head scarves are needed for women, exactly how to school your child, how Sunday worship should look, etc…? No.

Those things which find greater clarity and space in scripture we should contend for. We should hold them with higher levels of certainty. Those things which find less clarity should move us toward more charity. St. Augustine (not the city) once said something similar. Of course, not in English.

This is the first step. Some things may be clear to me and not to you, and vice versa. So there is a second step we need to take. In time. Probably a day.

I’ve been a little bit farther into The Shack lately. I’ll be posting a review myself when I finish reading it. For the time being, if you’re interested, here are few reviews to get you thinking: Christianity Today, ByFaith online.

I just want to take a minute to address some (at least it would seem to me are) underlying presuppositions held by the author.

1.) Apparent Presupposition 1: Either God has stopped communicating to His people or He is still speaking outside and without connection to His Word . But God has given us everything we need to know about Him and how to live through His Word. This is what some have called the “sufficiency of scripture.” God’s Word is so full of great stuff that it is plenty enough to sustain us, teach us about Him, and direct us with general principles for how to live in our particular cultural setting.

Does God speak with us today like He did with Moses on Mt. Sinai? No. But we don’t need Him to. We’re actually in a better spot now, since we have all of His Word before us. We have the Holy Spirit who speaks to and directs our hearts through His Word. As we read the Word or hear it preached, the Spirit challenges and encourages us.

We may then feel the Spirit challenging us to quit engaging in a sinful practice. We may feel the Spirit reminding us to be faithful in giving, or encouraging us to stop trying to please God and instead rest in Him. We might be moved to full time ministry, away from it, to a relationship or away from a detrimental one, to forgive, to go to college, etc…God’s Spirit enables and empowers us to apply general principles to our specific situations.

Now on to how He does it….

2.) “God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.” Apparent Presupposition 2: you can interpret God’s word alone. You don’t need help.

We need help in interpreting this Word. Watch out for someone who interprets something a certain way that no one has before him for 2000 years. He or she is certainly wrong! We need to interact with the larger Christian community, Church History, and our present church/denomination to understand how to apply it today. This will reduce our subjectivity and biases, which we all have.

Just because we need brothers and sisters in the faith to help us, does not mean that God doesn’t use them to speak to us today. In other words, you shouldn’t go away to a shack as your EXCLUSIVE means of figuring things out. You should go away to a shack to spend time with God and His word and in prayer. However this can’t be the ONLY means, or else you will go awry.

It’s like a tripod. You may have personal experience as a “pod,” interaction with the church at large and in history as a “pod,” and your home church/denomination as a “pod.” If you take one of the “pods” away, you’re left with a “di-pod.” And who’s every heard of a “di-pod?” It certainly wouldn’t stand if there were such a thing.

I went out fishing with a few buddies today in the kayaks. Fishing was slow, while the wind was anything but. I had just caught two fish in two casts (combined total 9 inches) and then saw my least favorite person on the water (besides jet ski-ers, who are in their own terrible category): the marine patrol.

I said to one of my buddies, “He’s going to ruin my day.” And I was right. He asked to see our lifejackets, fishing license, and whistle or other “personal noise making device.”

I repeated back to him, “I have no personal noise making device, and one of the two kayaks has a life jacket in them.” My other kayak, in use by a friend from church, was the winner. Not having a life jacket is now a 90 dollar fine. Just went up last weekend. Lovely.

He also issued us warnings for not having a whistle/personal noise making device. To make matters worse, I actually didn’t have my fishing license with me either. It was in the car, in my wallet. So I got a 70 dollar fine, which will be taken away when I go to the clerk of the court and show him I do in fact have a license. Crazy. I felt a pang of conscience and checked just to make sure I wasn’t assuming my lifejacket was there. Fortunately it was in the front compartment. Now I won’t have that on my conscience!

The morals of the day:

1.) Get a stinkin whistle, another life jacket and put your fishing license with your fishing lures. What good does it do you in your wallet if you leave that in the car?

2.) People in positions of authority like to be respected. Marine patrols have a clause that allows them to give a “non-refundable” 70 dollar ticket for folks who don’t have their licenses with them. Apparently it is up the marine patrol’s discretion. Glad I was decently respectful. Now I’m only out a trip to courthouse and 5 bucks or so. And half the other fine.

Someone made my day a few days ago when he said, “Geoff, I’ve been bringing the bible to work and trying to read some on my breaks. How do you do choose what to read?”

Hearing that was better than catching 10 oversize snook in a day on lures. It really was. By the way, don’t comment that I look like a dork in the picture with my top button buttoned. I already know I do. But safety first.

But this phone call was especially welcome on a week which I started reading a book called The Shack. This is a book I don’t recommend, but am reading it because so many people are. As far as a story goes, I’ve enjoyed it like the Da Vinci code. But here’s an excerpt that exposes an underlying presupposition which I can’t support:

“In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book…..”

Ultimately, the point is that God’s Word is not sufficient for us today. We need some sort of direct personal encounter that is not limited to God’s Word. What those look like I don’t know (can they go against His written Word, should they even be tested against the written word?); I just started reading. Does God still speak through his written Word today? If so, how? How intelligent do I have to be read and understand the bible? Is it bad to have people help me interpret the bible? I’ll be visiting these questions in future posts.

We had Connar baptized two weeks ago and it was quite a blessing. Its good to take time to reflect, which I’ve done little of. Most people don’t contemplate or reflect; we just do. Anyhow, here are a few brief reflections I had “time for!”

1.) God the Great Hound dog
A number of family members came to Hope that Sunday. I was blown away by the mere fact that some of these folks weren’t in a church at all only a few years ago. And now some of them not only go, but are getting connected. God had been faithful to His covenant promises to be a God to believers and their children. They were all baptized. We actually had 4 generations of Hendersons there that day. Pretty cool. One by one, He chased after such folks like the Hound of Heaven. And Henderson, by one translation book, means “Lover of Hounds.” Seriously, that’s what I heard.

2.) A Sinner’s Prayer?
I’m praying for Connar to never know a day where he doesn’t know Jesus as His Lord and Savior. If he does have some sort of time or day experience, that’s fine. But since there is actually no official “sinner’s prayer” in the bible, I’m not going to tell Him he needs to pray one. Instead I’m always going to point Him to repent and trust and follow Jesus from day one.

Sadly the Olympics are over. Yes, for me it was kind of a sad time. Although I didn’t the enjoy diving, equestrian events, or trampoline (yes that is an event), I’ll miss the excitement of Phelp’s gold medal achievement, the character Usain Bolt, and the U.S. 4 X 400 relay. But like every Olympics before them, they came to an end. And I can guarantee you I won’t be watching (or at least enjoying) gymnastics or swimming for another 4 years.

I do have a few thoughts on the Olympics as a whole. First of all, I think what we see with all of these nations competing, with all of the diversity, with all of the different colors and get-ups (including the full body spandex and head covering from the woman from Bahrain) is a common desire to win gold for their country. We see a common humanity, a common theme, a common desire, a common vision. I believe that comes from a common creator. There is a common human condition and drive: to live for and bring glory to something bigger than ourselves. There is something that even the strangest, farthest away, goofiest person has in common with myself (and I realize that person would say the same thing about me). Unfortunately people usually try to meet this need through work, hobbies, sports instead of Christ, His Church, and His Kingdom.

Next, I do see the Olympics as a picture of the New Heaven and New Earth. If you watch track on TV, especially in America, it is pretty much vanilla, or chocolate. For the most part, distance has white dudes, and the sprints have black dudes. But in the Olympics for instance, I noticed the sprints comprised pasty white Irishmen, darker skinned white folks, middle easterners, Hispanics, Slavic folks, Asians, African-Americans, Africans, Aussies, etc….It was a beautiful colleidoscope and a picture of heaven where there will be all tribes and tongues represented.

The athletes walking around the track with their flags draped around them reminds me of the picture of the New Heaven and Earth in Revelation 21:24 when “the nations will walk by its (New Heaven and Earth) light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Only this time, its the kings and queens of the track, bringing their flags (the best of their culture) to display before the world.

I had the chance to preach at Seminole Presbyterian Church in Tampa yesterday. After the sermon there was a song of response, and I headed for the front door. This way one can “intercept” most folks as they try to get out the door. In addition, going forward immediately gives others in the congregation a chance to speak briefly with the pastor.

One man, approaching slowly with a cane, matter-of-factly spoke, “My toes are all bloody.” To which I obviously responded something like, “Excuse me..did you have surgery recently…?”

He said, “No, they’re bloody because you’ve been stepping all over them.” Then I realized his metaphor.

That’s really the kind of reaction I hope for when I preach: conviction. Most of the time people just say “Good sermon.” Translation=”I agreed with what you said.” But preaching so that people agree with you is pretty much worthless. And expecting such preaching is equally as worthless.

Preaching should drive the hearer to repentance and faith. The final goal is not stepping on toes. The final goal is to have people see Christ, run to Him, rest in Him and respond to Him by offering Him their daily lives (Rom 12). But we don’t do that when we simply “agree” with what was preached. We need to be challenged to repent, and that means hearing hard things. Not the things we do right, but those we do wrong. Not the things we agree with, but sometimes the things we don’t.

One of my favorite Byrd’s songs is called “My Back Pages.” Like many of the The Byrd’s songs, this one was written by Bob Dylan. The chorus really catches my attention. “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” I think this accurately expresses the Christian frustration over a desire for growth in Christ-likeness while experiencing the same old struggles (Romans 7).

Perhaps even at times seeming to “lose ground.” Both lead singer Roger McGwin and Dylan profess the Christian faith so perhaps that’s what this song is really about.

If I were singing this about myself, (and believe me, it would be “to” myself and not to you, for your sake of course) I would change the word to “bolder” from “older.” At least as far as evangelism goes, I was so much “bolder” then, I’m far less bold now.

What is the answer? Face paint to make me more intimidating? Working out more to put the fear of God in their eyes? A stroll down memory lane to dwell on my former “glory days” in college? Nope, just a deeper look at my sin and need for the gospel. I just have to be more diligent in this discipline. I think we all do.

Someone sent me this helpful blog post on evangelism. I found this a good resource for how to steer conversations toward the gospel. There are plenty of ways to be intentional in our conversations without opening the conversation with “Do you know where you would go when you died?” Click here to see a number of gospel transitions worth thinking about.

If we look at our prayers we find them fairly heavy on the supplication (requests) side. We tend to jump to our requests without thanksgiving or praise ever entering into the picture. Yet we are supposed to make requests known to God while giving thanks to Him (Phil 4:6-7). That we do sometimes. But rarely do we stop to give the Trinitarian God praise for who He is in Himself. The way Jesus taught us. Mostly it’s tied to how he has provided. Not bad, but that’s not praise. That’s thanksgiving.

When I was reading through John 14 today, I saw something that I rarely if ever praise Jesus for. He says, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father….” (John 14:30-31)

Sometimes I praise God the Father for His love for us. Sometimes I praise Jesus (God the Son) for his love for us. I don’t think that I praise Jesus for His love for His Father. Yet his dying on the cross did not simply show the world he loved those whom he died for, the cross manifests His obedient love for His Father. That often gets overlooked. Jesus’ love for His Father is revealed throughout the book of John and ought to move me to greater praise for Him.

Caveat: Now when I pray for the congregation, I simply make requests known. That’s because in our liturgy (order of worship) we’ve already praised God, already confessed sin, already been assured of our forgiveness, already thanked God. Just wanted to make that clear.