Mystery quote time. Who said this?

“Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other. One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.”

Guesses?

In his book “Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit” (book/DVD) Francis Chan says there are two big things that tend to inhibit our relationship with God and our reliance on the Holy Spirit:

1. Comfort (maybe our lives are too safe)

In his experience, as in mine, we feel closest to God when nearness to him is a necessity rather than an option. The Holy Spirit is described in the Bible as the “Helper” and the “Comforter”. But what reason could we have to rely on a helper or a comforter if our lives are carefree and comfortable? Sometimes cares and discomfort are what’s needed to push us into a space we should be but refuse or delay going to.

This disruption of our quest for permanent but artificial comfort is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is calling us to a life of reliance and, often, insecurity – and it is an exciting life! Many people resist this because they’ve adopted safety and security as an idol. This needs to change.

A.W. Tozer:
“To expose our hearts to truth and consistently refuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of life within us and, if persisted in, to grieve the HS into silence”

2. Volume (maybe our lives are too loud)

Multitasking anyone? When was the last time you experienced one uninterrupted hour? In our distraction culture we are training ourselves to accept as normal the opposite of what God requires for relationship – long, sustained, uninterrupted periods of time.

When we are accustomed to constant brain activity via email, text messages, Facebook, Twitter etc. we find it difficult to spend quiet, uninterrupted time with God and others with whom we are supposed to be in a relationship.

Our lack of intimacy with God is often due to our refusal to unplug. Jesus didn’t have electronic media distractions to deal with but he regularly had mobs of people following him, and yet he was disciplined about taking time to be alone with God. As with everything else, we need to follow his example in this.

The Bible tells us to make good use of our time. We are to work hard, and to be about our Father’s business. It is not evil to be busy, but it is evil to be too busy.

I’ll never forget the day I read this paragraph from Eugene Peterson’s book “The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction” for the first time:

The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.

I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands on my time are proof to myself — and to all who will notice — that I am important.

BUT, he goes on

How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?

I as a Pastor am not immune to this curse of busy-ness.

How can the “still small voice” of the Spirit compete with all of the distractions in our lives? He doesn’t try to. He just keeps speaking, waiting for you to turn down the volume of everything else and listen. When everything else is turned down and you can hear him he’ll tell you “This is the volume at which you were meant to live.” Keep turning down the volume on your life until you hear him. The problem is likely NOT that he’s not speaking, but that the volume of the rest of your life is so loud that you can’t hear.

The Holy Spirit filled those first disciples and equipped them in every way to be fruitful participants in the mission of God. If we will open our hearts and lay down our lives they way they did, he will do the same for us.

N.T. Wright:
“The point of the HS is to enable those who follow Jesus to take into all the world the news that he is Lord, that he has won a victory over the forces of evil, that a new world has opened up, and that we are to help make it happen.”

According to the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church (chapter 15):

If the resurrection is a fairy tale…

-       Then not even Christ was raised
-       Then my preaching is hopeless
-       Then your faith is foolishness
-       Then we are all still in our sins
-       The those who believe in Christ who have died are gone forever
-       And finally, if the resurrection is a myth and we believe it anyway, then we Christians are of all people most to be pitied.

But since the resurrection is not a fairly tale…

-       Then Christ was raised
-       And my preaching is NOT hopeless
-       Then your faith is NOT foolishness
-       And we are NOT still in our sins
-       And we will meet again with those who have died believing in Christ because death will ultimately be destroyed
-       And finally, since the resurrection is NOT a myth then we are NOT of all people most to be pity. We are of all people the most privileged and because of that we should be the most caring, compassionate, loving, Christ-focused, resurrection celebrating people on the earth!

Believe in Jesus. Believe in his life, his death and his resurrection and in so doing receive eternal life.

Amen.

Jonathan Smith is the Dean of Distance Education at Knox Theological Seminary.

This session was the highlight of the conference for me. Why? Well, because finally someone was getting into Marshall McLuhan and I could tell he had a good understanding of McLuhan’s thinking (link).

He also understood the digital native/digital immigrant paradigm. The next generation of students will be full digital natives and will have an even greater expectation of connectivity as part of their education. They will expect access to classes from phones and other devices. Discussions, lectures, and study notes will all be online.

Smith also spent time on McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects (link) and then applied this process of evaluation to the technologies he was endorsing. This involves asking the following questions of any new medium or technology we are considering:

1. What does the medium enhance?
2. What does the medium make obsolete?
3. What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
4. What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

This was an excellent session that laid out the fundamentals of media and technology study and then applied them to many of the ideas that were presented at BibleTech.

Neil Rees of the British & Foreign Bible Society delivered and interesting session about deafness, sign language and Bible translation.

Anyone who has a level of hearing loss is considered deaf and this represents about 2% of any population. This 2% is further categorized into those who are “post-lingually deaf” (those who become deaf after having learned to speak) and “pre-lingually deaf” (those who were already deaf before they learned to speak).

Because our writing system is largely based on speaking and since our alphabet is primarily phonetic, people who are pre-lingually deaf have difficulty learning to read as well. Books, subtitles and lip-reading are really only good for the post-lingually deaf.

There are two types of languages in the world: spoken languages and sign languages (SLs). Sign languages too have their own lexicon, grammar and dialects. Just as there is no universal spoken language, there is no universal sign language. So, for example, there are differences between American and British sign language and in Ireland it is divided into male and female forms.

Ethnologue.com estimates that there are about 400-500 different forms of sign language in the world yet there is only one complete sign language Bible.

Modern technologies are expanding the possibilities for more sign language Bible translations. These include video streaming, avatar systems, cartoons, and animation systems.

Mr. Rees implored the room of developers and other technologists to consider the deaf when developing new Bible translation and study tools.

I’m in Seattle at a conference called BibleTech. The next several posts will be summaries of some of the sessions I attended

Matthew Clarke is an Australian with a passion for both technology and scripture. His session gave us an overview of references to technology in scripture.

He began by defining technology as tools and techniques and extensions of human abilities. Working with that definition we can find many references in scripture to weapons and wheels and parchment, and of course the many forms of technology that would have been necessary to build the tower of Babel.

We are probably more dependent on technology than at any other point in history, and this can cause us to rely more on technology than on God. Clarke reminded us that God’s purposes can be achieved without the use of technology. God can simply speak things into being. Technology can lead us to assume that we have no need for God and then it becomes idolatry.

Clarke reminded us that “Being a technologist is a holy calling… Modern technologists need to recognize that the abilities we use to serve God were given by God in the first place.”

This was a helpful to have early in the schedule of a Bible and technology conference and gave us a good theological base for the later sessions.

Apparently he’s not one. Have a listen:

Download audio file (N.T.%20Wright%20-%20Universalism.mp3)

Favorite quote from the above audio: “Heaven is important but it’s not the end of the world.”

(audio excerpted from Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Podcast)

New post over at my writing blog:

Freedom is Found in Submission, Authority is Found in Sacrifice

Every time the word “authority” is mentioned some people shudder at the implications. Some know authority as an abusive father, overly controlling church members or a teacher that used to pick on them. Authority is often seen as a tool to be used for the betterment of one’s own life. In contrast to this, godly authority is something you are given as a responsibility to make the life of another better… (keep reading)

So this guy named Paul gets arrested in a holy place. He gets arrested, ironically enough, because people who should be his allies are trying to kill him.

Why? Well, they had seen him with a second-class civilian earlier in the day, walking through the city. Now that same guy was in the holy place – not with Paul but… Unlawfully! – and they saw an opportunity to make an accusation.

Some dramatically inclined fellow puts on his acting hat and proclaims: “Help! You Israelites, help! This is the man who is going all over the world telling lies against us and our religion and this place. He’s even brought Greeks in here and defiled this holy place.” (Acts 21:28 MSG) A mob beating ensues…

A more likely scenario is that they dragged the Greek against his will into the temple just to frame Paul. As one commentator put it: “The possibility that Trophimus [the Greek] might have wandered of his own free will into the forbidden area is about as likely as that somebody should wander into the private rooms in the Kremlin for the purpose of sightseeing.”

Besides, they could have asked Paul directly if he’d brought him in but, shucks, he might say no, and then what? Paul was guilty of associating, no doubt, just like Jesus often was, but no proof existed that he had actually transgressed the law. But why let that spoil the fun?

“Never mind the facts – we say Paul brought him here! Let’s get him, boys!”

Part of their message to Paul was, “Be careful whom you are seen with in any place. It could come back to haunt you…” and you can imagine that being followed with an “if-you-know-what-I-mean” wink. In other words, they were seeking to control his actions with fear of repercussions – in this case, direct physical violence.

Like this was news to Paul. He already knew, since the Holy Spirit had notified him, that in every city he went to there would imprisonment, beatings, and persecution. (see Acts 20:23-18-23)

And So…
When people don’t like what you’re doing, they’ll use anything as a stone to throw. Good intentions? – We don’t care. Actual facts? – Maybe later.

When people don’t like what you’re doing, they watch you with an eye for any small mistake that can be leveraged into a full-scale assault.

When people don’t like what you’re doing, they’re willing to believe anything negative about you because they’ve already decided what they think about you.

When people like this don’t like what you’re doing, be blessed, because Jesus says you ARE blessed. Matthew 5:11-16 (ESV):

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (or, as Peterson puts it: “My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.”)

Be blessed.

Jesus himself is our peace. He is the “Prince of Peace” but there is a paradox we need to deal with here found in Matthew 10:34-39 where Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace…”

Of this paradox Russell Moore says:

There are two very different kinds of peace pictured in Scripture, and in order to get to the one you’ve got to disturb the other. Jesus speaks of himself as one who brings peace (Jn. 14:27), just as the old prophecies and the announcing angels promised of him. But then he turns around and says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

In the gospel, that peace comes only through war. This isn’t violence, the way we think of it, flesh and blood against flesh and blood. It is the Spirit of Jesus marching as to war against the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

So the peace that he brings is:

1. Peace with God
2. Peace with other people are at peace with God
3. Not always peace with others who are not at peace with God. As much as it is in our power to have peace with others there will be, but this will not always be the case.

It would be nice to have all three but we cannot always have it. When it comes to taking up our crosses and following Christ there will be many with whom we will not have peace, and Jesus tells us here that this will cut deeply, even into family bonds.

Charles Spurgeon said of this peace:

“Peace will be the ultimate issue of the Lord’s coming; but, at first, the Lord sends a sword among men. He wars against war, and contends against contention. In the act of producing the peace of heaven he arouses the rage of hell. Truth provokes opposition, purity excites enmity, and righteousness arouses all the forces of wrong”

Nonetheless it says here that Jesus, as the Prince of Peace, IS our peace (v14), makes peace (v15), and that he came to preach/proclaim this peace (v17). So first he achieved it and then he proclaimed it. Since it still his achievement, we should continue to proclaim it!

As John Stott says:

“Jesus Christ is still preaching peace in the world today, through the lips of his followers. For it is a truly wonderful fact that whenever we proclaim peace, it is Christ who proclaims it through us.”

Herod's Temple Complex (click to see a larger version)

This is a continuation of a previous post called “Fighting Feelings of Inferiority“. You might want to read that post first.

There was a wall that surrounded the inner courtyards of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. This separated them from the outermost courtyard, called the Court of the Gentiles.

The innermost court was called the Court of the Priests, where only those males from the priestly tribe of Israel could enter. Next was the Court of Israel, which could be entered by any male Jew. Then there was the Court of Women, which any Jew could enter but it was far as a women were allowed to go.

These were separated but they were all on the same level. So there was separation implied but not as drastic as what we find as the next division.

Exiting the Court of Women you could go down five steps, where you would find a level space where there was a five-foot high stone barricade. Then, after another level space there were fourteen more steps down to the Court of the Gentiles. Add to that the fact that there were notices posted that if a Gentile entered any Jewish area they could be shot on site. (Something to the effect of “If you pass this line and get killed, don’t blame anyone but yourself”)

There is an obvious explicit statement of hierarchy – of who is of more value than whom? Innermost and uppermost (Jewish priests) vs. outermost and lowest (all Gentiles). Can you understand how you might feel inferior as a gentile?

Into this context, Paul drops this – THE BIG IDEA of Ephesians 2:11-22…

We were separated from God – by both sin and being non-Jew – but have been brought near by the blood of Christ who reconciled us and is our peace. We now have access to God and are part of His kingdom, His family, His holy temple.

Now, like Rosa Parks’ act of defiance, you can imagine how offensive Paul’s teaching is to the ruling class and frighteningly liberating it is to those who have been told for centuries that they are inferior. Paul is telling them that Christ effectively destroyed the barriers that were used as tools of oppression in the hands of the ruling class – barriers like race, religion, and gender.

You can imagine the reactions of the Jewish elites – “Now they’re on the same level as us?! Blasphemy! How can you teach against laws that are centuries old?!?”

But this what the new Kingdom looks like and we are to begin living it now. Paul wants to reassure the people that they are full members of the family of God, not second-class citizens. This was a difficult point for them to believe because they had been told the opposite for so long.

On December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks sat with three other black passengers on a bus. When it became clear that all of the seats on the bus were taken – whites in their section and blacks in theirs – and there were some white people without seats, the bus driver claimed an extra row for the white section and commanded the black people to move.

Three of the four of them did, but not Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks decided that it was time for one of the many dividing walls between black people and white people in America to come down. Her single act of defiance was this: she refused the order of a bus driver to give up her seat for a white passenger.

This seems a ludicrous scenario in our time, but then it was just the way things were. Fifty-five years earlier the city had passed an ordinance that allowed the segregation of passengers by race. So when commanded to do so, the three other black people that Rosa Parks sat with stood up and moved, giving up their seats for the white passengers. Many such orders had been given in the past and usually the result was exactly what the bus driver commanded.

This was the law after all, and to refuse was to break the law. The question is this: why did three people move and one remain?

Believing Lies About Ourselves
One reason is probably this: the three that moved had been told something so often and for so long that had come to believe it. They believed that they were inferior to the other passengers on the bus. In short, they had come to possess an inferiority complex and they acted accordingly.

As I’ve been studying Ephesians I’ve been struck by Paul’s continued affirmations to the church at Ephesus that they were fully three things: (1) Citizens of the kingdom of God, (2) Members of a new spiritual family and (3) Living stones in the house of God. Numerous times throughout his letter, Paul speaks in a reassuring tone and uses strong language to make it clear to them what their present standing is before God.

We don’t know how he sensed this feeling of inferiority in them, but he gives us a clue. Using a well-known fact about the structure of the temple in Jerusalem he says in verse 14: For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility

Tomorrow: About That Dividing Wall

On March 25-26 2011 I’ll be in Seattle at BibleTech 2011, a conference about – you guessed it – “Bible” and “Technology” (You are so s-m-r-t). I’ll be live-blogging for the 8Bit Network.

From the BibleTech website:

This two-day conference is designed for publishers, programmers, webmasters, educators, bloggers and anyone interested in using technology to improve Bible study.

BibleTech 2011 is an opportunity to meet others who share your interests and hear from industry leaders. If your passion is the Bible and technology, this conference is for you!

I’ll also be writing a special feature for Christian Week after the event and  (of course) I’m hoping to check out Mars Hill Church while I’m there.

A few months ago Tim Challies wrote about the accidental and very public release of search data by AOL. By looking at the chronologically organized search terms of a given user, it was easy to see what was going on in their lives. One user’s search began with “shipping pets” and progressed to “broken bones in cat” and then finally “mucous blood diarreah in cat”.

Well, now you know that kitty’s story…

Other user searches revealed sadder stories. Among the many searches of one user, a timeline revealed the following terms (among many):

body fat calliper 2006-03-01 18:54:10
curb morning sickness 2006-03-05 08:53:23
he doesn’t want the baby 2006-03-11 03:52:01
online degrees theology 2006-03-11 04:05:24
online christian colleges 2006-03-11 04:13:33
physician search 2006-03-23 10:20:04
what is yoga 2006-03-29 12:17:31
hindu religion 2006-03-29 12:18:56
yoga and hindu 2006-03-29 12:32:05
is yoga alligned with christianity 2006-03-29 12:33:18
yoga and christianity 2006-03-29 12:33:42
abortion clinics charlotte nc 2006-04-17 11:00:02
can christians be forgiven for abortion 2006-04-17 21:14:19
abortion clinic charlotte 2006-04-18 15:14:03
symptoms of miscarriage 2006-04-18 16:14:07
abortion clinic chsrlotte nc 2006-04-18 21:45:39
engagement gifts 2006-04-20 16:57:04
engagement rings 2006-04-20 16:58:37
high risk abortions 2006-04-20 17:53:49
wedding gown styles 2006-04-26 19:37:34
recover after miscarriage 2006-05-22 18:17:53
marry your live-in 2006-05-27 07:25:45

Challies concludes with these insightful paragraphs:

“This AOL data raised an endless number of questions and concerns. Primarily, it brought awareness to the fact that search engines know you better than you might like.

We may like to think that our searches are just searches, harmless and pointless inquiries known only to us. But the fact is that search engines keep all of that data and they keep it forever.

This all raises two great questions in my mind. First, would I be prepared to have my searches revealed to the public? There are searches that may be private but not immoral—I may be looking for information on a medical condition, for example. That information might be embarrassing but I could remain unashamed before God.

But there may also be searches that are private precisely because they are immoral. In such case shame would be the proper reaction. The second question is whether I would be prepared to address my search history with God. What would I say to him if he were to ask me about the things I have gone looking for online. Could I tell him with confidence that what I have sought is an indication of a heart that is aligned with his purposes? Or would I have to confess that my searches point to a heart that is drawn to what is evil and perverse?”

How are you doing with those two questions?

1. Would I be prepared to have my searches revealed to the public?

2. Would I be prepared to address my search history with God?

An excellent piece here by Brandon O’Brien from CT Online. First, his premise:

Many ministers have surrendered their judgment about what constitutes “the authentic church experience” to expectations shaped by experts. These experts write books, speak at conferences, and typically lead large and influential congregations.

Because of their success, we imagine them to be great pioneers who are part of something we have never seen—the “real” church experience. Over time, the experts have done for church what postcards and PBS specials have done for the Grand Canyon: they’ve made it difficult for us to appreciate our own experience apart from theirs. We have lost the ability to see and experience and appreciate ministry for ourselves. All we can see is the disparity between what our churches are and what they are “supposed” to be.

Next, some thoughts I’ve been grappling with these last few months (see “Some Thoughts on Prospects and Pastoral Ambition” and “Seasons of Attack the Lure of Adultery“):

When I accepted my first post as pastor, I was entirely seduced by the experts’ description of ministry success. The arc goes something like this: at some point in your life you sense a clear call from God to enter the ministry. It makes a better story if this happens after years of success in a lucrative secular career [MK: ouch - guilty as charged] or a period of profound and sinful rebellion.

After some sort of preparation—whether in seminary or careful perusal of church planting materials—you take a position in a small church. Over the next several years, your ministry grows. You see people reconcile with God; lives are changed. You feel confident you are squarely within God’s will. You’ve found your calling. You may move from church to church—usually to increasingly larger, more vibrant congregations—or your church plant grows rapidly.

Soon your peers recognize your success and a publisher asks you to write a book about your story. You share it at conferences. You have arrived.

O’Brien also draws attention to the following, which we all seem to conveniently ignore when we’re in the throes of adoration while attending one of the many “come listen to large church pastor tell you how it’s done” conferences out there:

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 94 percent of churches in America have 500 attendees or fewer each week. Only 6 percent—19,000 churches—have more than 500 attendees. Megachurches (regular attendance over 2,000) make up less than one half of one percent of churches in America.

The narrative of success may be the one people write books about, but it is not the typical one. We have allowed the ministry experience of 6 percent of pastors to become the standard by which the remaining 94 percent of us judge ourselves.

Excellent closer here:

An important part of following Jesus is learning to see the truth of things behind appearances. In Christ, the foolish things of the world confound the wise; in Christ the powerless supplant the powerful; in Christ, the eternal purposes of God were fulfilled in the death of the Messiah. If our ministries are to reflect the values of Jesus, we should be skeptical when we are more “successful” than Jesus was.

Read the rest of the article here. Brandon O’Brien is associate editor of Leadership and author of The Strategically Small Church(Bethany House, 2010)

Part of Paul’s expression of thanksgiving and prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23 is his desire to see the Ephesian church grow in its understanding of God call, inheritance, and power. How will they grow in this understanding?

“Some will reply that knowledge depends on the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. And they are right, at least in part. For Paul prays that ‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation’ may increase their knowledge of God and enlighten the eyes of their hearts.

We have no liberty to infer from this, however, that our responsibility is solely to pray and to wait for illumination, and not at all to think. Others make the opposite mistake: they use their minds and think, but leave little room for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul brings the two together. First he prays that the eyes of his readers’ hearts may be enlightened to know God’s power. Then he teaches that God has already supplied historical evidence of his power by raising and exalting Jesus.

Thus, God has revealed his power objectively in Jesus Christ, and now illumines our minds by his Spirit to grasp this revelation. Divine illumination and human thought belong together. All our thinking is unproductive without the Spirit of truth; yet his enlightenment is not intended to save us the trouble of using our minds. It is precisely as we ponder what God has done in Christ that the Spirit will open our eyes to grasp its implications.”

- John Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians, P66-67

Yes, what you’ve heard is true: Philip Yancey will, later this year, be speaking to a group called the GCN (Gay Christan Network).

Yancey notes (here) that various people have been hammering him for agreeing to speak to such a group. And so it’s important that we understand the nature of this engagement.

To that end GCN’s Executive Director, Justin Lee wrote an open letter about Yancey, the entirety of which you should read here.

Here are some highlights:

When I was a teenager, I discovered to my horror that I was attracted to guys instead of girls. I was a deeply committed Christian growing up Southern Baptist, and I was firmly opposed to homosexuality in any form. Nevertheless, when I turned to my pastor, church, and Christian friends for prayer and support, they all turned their backs on me, condemning me for my temptations even though I hadn’t acted on them.

GCN began when I met other Christians who were in the same boat. All of us were struggling to figure out how to live holy lives with our same-sex attractions, and all of us had felt the church’s rejection. Some of us ultimately decided to commit ourselves to lifelong celibacy, while others of us decided to pursue monogamous relationships. In spite of our theological disagreements with one another, we all wanted to serve Christ, and we all longed for a Christian community that would hear our stories.

***

I invited Philip Yancey because I respect him as a Christian. I’ve always been impressed at how well he balances our need to live moral, holy lives as Christians with our need to have grace toward those who do things we disapprove of. I did not invite him because of any views he might or might not hold on gays; I invited him because this is a group of people who desperately need to hear not only that God loves them, but that other Christians do, too.

***

Last year, we had a keynote delivered by Baptist minister and author Tony Campolo. Dr. Campolo believes that gay relationships are sinful, and he said so during his keynote address. He also received a standing ovation at the end—from an audience including some people in the very relationships he had just condemned. Why? Did they think he was supporting their decisions? Not at all. They applauded him because he was one of the very few Christians who would dare to reach out to them in love and say, “Even though I don’t agree with you, I love you. I hear your stories of pain, and I want to count you as my friends.” That message was powerful. It changed lives.

Read the rest here.

Russell Moore is an enigma to me.  How this suit-and-tie southern Baptist pastor gets away with writing the way he does is a mystery to me, but I like it and I wish he wrote more often. Here are some highlights from a post called “Christlessness Is Peace“:

There are two very different kinds of peace pictured in Scripture, and in order to get to the one you’ve got to disturb the other. Jesus speaks of himself as one who brings peace (Jn. 14:27), just as the old prophecies and the announcing angels promised of him. But then he turns around and says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

***

As a matter of fact, the Christmas narrative just keeps disturbing everybody’s peace. Joseph gives up his reputation and his economic security to marry a pregnant girl and adopt her child. This birth signals the beginning of a sword that will cut through Israel, starting with the heart of Mary herself (Lk. 2:34-35).

The sound of Christmas, in the biblical text, isn’t the sound of sleigh-bells jingling, but the clanging swords and strangled babies and demon screams. It’s awful.

But in the midst of all that horror, there’s peace. This peace isn’t tranquility and stillness, but the dynamism of the shalom of God’s new creation. It is not merely the perfunctory “good will to men” but peace between the ruler of the universe and those “with whom he is pleased” (Lk. 2:14).

In the gospel, that peaces comes only through war. This isn’t violence, the way we think of it, flesh and blood against flesh and blood. It is the Spirit of Jesus marching as to war against the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). It is the blood of Christ silencing the accusations of the ancient dragon (Rev. 12:10-11).

Read the whole thing here.

Stott:

“The persecution of the true church, of Christian believers who trace their spiritual descent from Abraham, is not always by the world, who are strangers unrelated to us, but by our half-brothers, religious people, the nominal church.

It has always been so. The Lord Jesus was bitterly opposed, rejected, mocked and condemned by His own nation. The fiercest opponents of the apostle Paul, who dogged his footsteps and stirred up strife against him, were the official church, the Jews. The monolithic structure of the medieval papacy persecuted all Protestant minorities with ruthless, unremitting ferocity.

And the greatest enemies of the evangelical faith today are not unbelievers, who when they hear the gospel often embrace it, but the church, the establishment, the hierarchy.”

- John R. W. Stott – “Only One Way: The Message of Galatians”

More Stott here and here.

Highlights from an interview with Kevin DeYoung, the full text of which can be found here:

What is justice and what does it mean to do justice?

Doing justice means giving people their due. On the one hand that means restraining and punishing wrongdoers. On the other hand it means giving people what we owe them as beings in the image of God… Doing justice, then, includes everything from law enforcement to being generous to the poor.

Any cautions you would give to Christians who are eager to transform the world or make the shalom of the city their church’s mission?

I believe that making disciples and doing justice relate (not exactly) but somewhat in the same way that faith and works relate to one another.

We would say that faith alone is the basis for salvation, and yet true faith will always result in good works. We must not “load in” works as if they are an equal with faith as a salvation-base, but neither can we “detach” works and say that they are optional for a believer.

Similarly, I would say that the first thing I need to tell people when they come to church is “believe in Jesus,” not “do justice.” Why? Because first, believing in Jesus meets a more radical need and second, because if they don’t believe in Jesus they won’t have that gospel-motivation to do justice that I talk about in the book.

So there’s a priority there. On the other hand, for a church to not constantly disciple its people to “do justice” would be utterly wrong, because it is an important part of God’s will. I’m calling for an ‘asymmetrical balance’ here.

It seems to me that some churches try to “load in” doing justice as if it is equally important as believing in Jesus, but others, in fear of falling into the social gospel, do not preach or disciple their people to do justice at all. Both are wrong. A Biblical church should be highly evangelistic yet known for its commitment to the poor of the city.