I was chatting with my daughter about Bible translations, and in the course of the conversation she mentioned something that I hadn’t been aware of (she took an OT Hebrew class in college). There’s a phrase that opens many of the OT prophets: “The word of the Lord came to…” Pretty much all of the common English translations use some variation of these words. But the thing is, that’s not what the Hebrew words really say. The literal translation is something more like this: “The word of the Lord was, (or happened) to…” To my mind, that has a very different meaning — it carries the sense of the prophet not just hearing or seeing but actually experiencing with his entire being the words that God has given him to say. No wonder Jeremiah said:

But if I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.

In fact, it’s pretty clear that many (most?) of the OT prophets didn’t really have much choice in the matter — a number of them didn’t want to be prophets. Moses and Jeremiah come immediately to mind, and Amos refused to let people identify him as a prophet. But God placed His word in or on them, and that was the end of the discussion. Now, I’m pretty sure that our experience of prophesying or otherwise sharing God’s word during our gatherings is not necessarily going to mirror the experience of Jeremiah or any other OT prophet. I know that this isn’t my experience on the occasions when I share or (rarely) prophesy. Maybe this kind of stuff happens only to people who wrote the books of the Bible…

Today’s NY Times (3 Feb 08) has an outstanding op-ed piece by Nicholas Kristof (go here to look at it) entitled “Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love”.  While making it clear that he’s no friend of orthodox Christian theology, nor does he hold with the political conservatism of the typical American evangelical, he at the same time speaks of the great things we have accomplished for the poor, especially abroad.  By way of background, Kristof is the “international” columnist for the NY Times — he often visits and writes from the world’s hot spots, such as Darfur, North Korea, Afganistan, etc.  In any case, read the column — it’s one of a very few positive evaluations of evangelical Christianity by a liberal columnist.

One of the things that’s been on my mind a lot over the past month or so is the Incarnation and what it means for us. Some of this is not new — Scott has preached numerous sermons over the years addressing these matters — but I recently re-read a few discussions of the Incarnation (or Incarnation-related topics) that I found very insightful and helpful.

The first text that I came across is from Calvin, writing about the Lord’s Table. I’ve heard a lot of teaching on Communion, I’ve studied it pretty intensively, and I’ve read this text many times, but this time around Calvin’s comments really struck me as expressing a deep truth about living the Incarnational. He states:

Rather, it [the Table] was ordained to be frequently used among all Christians in order that they might frequently return in memory to Christ’s Passion, by such remembrance to sustain and strengthen their faith, and urge themselves to sing thanksgiving to God and to proclaim his goodness; finally, by it to nourish mutual love, and among themselves give witness to this love, and discern its bond in the unity of Christ’s body. For as often as we partake of the symbol of the Lord’s body, as a token given and received, we reciprocally bind ourselves to all the duties of love in order that none of us may permit anything that can harm our brother, or overlook anything that can help him, where necessity demands and ability suffices.

What I think Calvin is getting at is that when we partake of the Table, we commit ourselves to personify Christ to one another. To fail in being attentive to one another’s physical and spiritual needs is to strip the Table of a large part of its meaning; it’s to fail to discern the Lord’s Body and Blood.

The other text that I read was the first few pages of Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in which he contrasts cheap and costly grace. He closes his discussion of each with a statement about the Incarnation:

“Cheap grace is a denial of the Incarnation of God”

“Costly grace is the Incarnation of God”

Bonhoeffer basically describes how Christians behave when their lives are characterized by cheap grace (uncommitted, unchanged, and weak) and by costly grace (sold out and strong). When he says that cheap grace is a denial of the Incarnation, I think that he’s telling us that lives lived under cheap grace make Christ invisible, while lives lived under costly grace clearly portray Christ both to the world at large and to other believers.

Brothers and sisters, I want to see the face of Jesus when I come to church on Sundays, but I also want to see Him when I hear about and participate in service opportunities. I want to hear about how a bunch of folks had a great time helping someone move. I want to be with a group of guys remodeling the church office space to make it usable for ministry, counseling, and other activities. These are the things that enflesh Jesus in our midst.

DISCLAIMER: Pastor Scott DID NOT ask me to write this — I got the idea for it before I read his blog entry, and I wrote most of it before hearing his sermon on 12/16.

I just read a fascinating article about what happens when relatively like-minded people get together (go here if you’d like to read it). Someone took a bunch of people who didn’t know one another and grouped them together according to whether they identified themselves as conservative or liberal. Before they were put into their groups, the participants each completed a short anomymous survey identifying their positions on a number of issues, like taxes, civil unions, climate change, and the like. The folks were then placed in their groups and encouraged to discuss the issues. After fifteen minutes, everyone repeated the anonymous survey. The result of the fifteen minutes of hanging out with like-minded folks was that nearly everyone became more extreme in their views. Those who opposed civil unions opposed them all the more, those who support action to reduce climate change became more strident in their support, and the like.

The point of the article was to indicate that in the early 21st century, it’s very easy to find your own niche group and to find folks who will draw you to the extremes. It’s almost impossible to find support for the middle position. This got me thinking about how this phenomenon ought to work in Lamb of God. I’m not really talking about political or social views, extreme and otherwise, although it seems to me that the input of our brothers and sisters ought to have a significant impact on how we form our own opinions.

But there’s one thing about which we should be extremists, and that’s the area in which we should be encouraging extremism in one another: we should be extremely, insanely, incredibly in love with Jesus and His people, and we should be extremists about furthering the Kingdom of God, whether we do so though evangelism, or prayer, or good works, or whatever the Lord has given us to do.

I’d like to say that I found this site while researching some profound theological or scientific truths, but I can’t — a friend sent it to me. In keeping with the season, it’s THE CAVALCADE OF BAD NATIVITIES!!

http://www.goingjesus.com/cavalcade1.shtml

And check out this YouTube video of Straight No Chaser singing(?) The Twelve Days of Christmas:

What is Pascal’s Wager? It’s an argument for belief in God based on the possible benefits of such belief rather than trying to prove whether or not God exists. Here is Pascal’s simplest statement of the argument:

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up… Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose… But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

So to give a quick summary: 1. You bet that God exists. If you’re wrong, you’ve lost nothing. If you’re right, you’ve gained eternal joy. 2. You bet that God doesn’t exist. If you’re wrong, you’ve gained eternal misery. If you’re right, you’ve neither gained nor lost. So the better choice is to bet that God exists. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry Mattingly is a religion columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service — his column “On Religion” appears in about 350 American newpapers. He has also taught journalism at several major Christian colleges and universities. I find that he always has something interesting to say. This week’s column, which is concerned with charitable giving seems particularly appropriate in light of one the Black Dwarf’s recent posts:

http://www.lambofgodnj.org/blogs/black-dwarf/grieving-the-spirit-of-revival-by-gd-watson-1845-1924/

It seems to me that failure to provide adequate financial support falls under at least three of the eight “things that grieve the Holy Spirit and hinder Him in revivals”. Also, it’s clear from our brother Vinny’s recent report on the state of our building that availability of financial resources — ours or those of the Diocese — will play a major role in maintaining St. Marks in a usable state. Thus, I commend to your prayerful consideration this week’s On Relighion column: http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/column/2007/11/21/.

Please understand that I’m not accusing Lamb of God of failure in this area — we probably do better than most congregations. It’s just that we occasionally need a nudge in the right direction…

It’s comparatively easy to take shots at public figures or famous folks from the past. But if we’re going to talk about our day-to-day life, I think we can all agree that the sin that we experience the most in our own. 2 Samuel 11 and 12 is instructive here. Like David, we are seldom aware of our sin until someone else points it out to us, and usually we’re not very interested in hearing the news that there is a lot of darkness yet in our hearts, even though we know that it’s true.

Consider this: the primary means through which God speaks to us are the Bible, the preaching and teaching of the word, and the wise, biblically-informed counsel of our brothers and sisters. Most of us understand how the first two work, but the last of these may be a challenge to us. We have to learn how to give and receive correction from one another. The scriptures are explicit: we are repeatedly instructed to give correction, particularly in cases when we are the offended party. And Proverbs is loaded with stuff on the importance of receiving correction. So if your brother or sister comes up to you and points out to you an area of your life that needs attention and reformation, you are obligated to carefully consider what he or she says, whether or not you think that they’re right, and especially if the person correcting you is an Elder or similarly mature person in the congregation. In closing, remember Proverbs 12:1: Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. stupid! STUPID!!

I’ve been encouraged by a couple of folks to write on some topics. One wants me to talk about witnessing to Jewish friends, and another has encouraged me to say something really noisy and radical — to stir things up a bit, so to speak. So here’s my effort to satisfy both requests.

Jewish folks will often respond to witnessing attempts by saying that Christians have persecuted their people practically forever, and asking why they would want to join the ranks of their oppressors. It’s a valid question, and shouldn’t be blown off. Sometimes the conversation will go something like this:

Jew: Christians killed six million of us in the Holocaust [Jewish folks often don't distinguish between Christian and non-Christian Gentiles].

Christian: Those were Nazis, not Christians. Real Christians wouldn’t do something like that.

Jew: Oh yeah? What about the Catholic kids in my neighborhood who used to beat me up, calling me “Christ Killer”?

Christian: They were ignorant kids — you can’t generalize to all Christians based on the behavior of kids!

Jew: And their parents egged them on!

Christian: OK, so their parents were ignorant idiots too.

Jew: And what about the Inquisition? When we wouldn’t convert, we were murdered in the name of Christ. When we tried to escape, we were chased and persecuted everywhere we went, even to the New World!

Christian: But they were Catholics! They weren’t even necessarily Christians!

Jew: Luther wasn’t Catholic. He hated us too. In fact, the Nazis used his anti-semitic comments to justify what they did.

…and the conversation just keeps on deteriorating.

Here’s the thing, and this applies to pretty much any witnessing experience: Our brothers and sisters sin and act like jerks. Sometimes it’s just the ordinary folks who get caught while doing wrong — your neighbors or coworkers, for example. And sometimes it’s the big names, like major church or political leaders. Regardless, these sinners are still our brothers and sisters and we have to relate to them as such. In the context of witnessing to those whom our brothers and sisters have offended, we need to admit their sin and own them as family members — otherwise we end up constantly setting the bar higher and higher as to who is really a Christian. And the reality is this: How do you, or I, or anyone other than God know who is or isn’t a believer?

I could easily list a number of fairly well known folks whose historical or recent actions have made Christians look pretty bad, but what the heck — let’s go for the big names. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been thinking for quite some time about how we as Christians should relate to political issues. One thing that I’d like to see discussed has to do with the diversity of our politics: If we’re all starting from the same Bible, why do we have such different political views? It seems to me that we often let our background rather than the scriptures govern our views about such matters. With few exceptions, we seem to be as likely to seek scriptural backing for our political views as we are to allow those views to be formed by scripture. Liberals stay liberal, and conservatives stay conservative.

Recently, I’ve been considering some verses in Jeremiah 29, a passage familiar to most of us, I would think:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Jeremiah’s words to the exiles of Jerusalem apply to us as well: we are strangers and sojourners in this land, with our true citizenship in God’s heavenly Kingdom. Nevertheless, we are to live our lives as usual and do the normal things that people do: live, marry, have children, and participate in the life of the land. But God gives us a set of additional responsibilities: “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” I did a bit of checking, and found that the word translated as “welfare” is the Hebrew word “shalom”, usually translated as “peace”. Thus, our engagement in the political process has a goal: the shalom of the town, state, and nation in which we find ourselves. And while this doesn’t necessarily resolve the conservative/liberal/democrat/republican baggage that we bring with us when we come to the Lord, it at least tells us what ought to be seeking. It seems to me that we should at least have a common definition of the welfare or shalom that we seek on behalf of where we live, even though the means through which we seek it may differ according to our respective politics.