Everybody Gets to Play

I preached this morning on this basic Vineyard concept, both what it means and what it should mean. You can listen to it here.

Ephesians 4.1-16    

 [4:1] I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, [2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [3] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. [4] There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—[5] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. [7] But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. [8] Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”

[9] (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? [10] He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) [11] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, [13] until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, [14] so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. [15] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Think about what happened in the Gospels when Jesus encountered a person. Peter. Matthew. Mary Magdalene. The naked, homeless man living out in the graveyard with a legion of demons in him. Jesus encounters them and what happens? They are never the same again. They go from quietly going about their own business to going about the business of building Jesus’ kingdom. They engage in the work of ministry. To enter into relationship with Jesus is to enter into ministry. I want to talk to you this morning about what it has meant in the Vineyard when we use this phrase, “everybody gets to play.” I also want to talk to you about what it has not meant, but needs to, if we are really going to consistently live this way and not live out a self-contradiction.

Like we talked about and practiced a bit last week, Vineyard churches focus on hearing God speak specific things to us relating to needs people have in their lives. These words of knowledge or prophetic words direct our prayers and afford us opportunities to see God come in power and do stuff in people’s lives. Those answers to prayer do immediate and long range work in the lives of those God touches, meeting the need they have at the moment and also deepening their relationship with God. Those moments, those power points, become pivot points, launching points, moments that propel people into living closer with God. There is no substitute for when God shows up in power and does real work in someone’s life. We want to be continually creating space and opportunity for God to work in these ways. We believe God speaks to us through each other, that God chooses to do His work through us. We also recognize that we can and often do get in God’s way, preventing and hindering what God wants to do. We want to get out of the way and let the Spirit do what the Spirit wants to do. And we want to be part of what the Spirit is doing.

So everybody gets to play. That leads to the first thing I want us to note about this passage, this phrase “grace was given… according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” By talking about ascension after this, Paul lets us know that what he has in mind here is the Holy Spirit, the gift Jesus promised to leave with us when he ascended. We can also see this because Paul uses the word “grace” here. There was a problem in the early church with spiritual gifts - note that term “spiritual” – which in the Greek, just as in English has “spirit” in its root. In his first letter to Corinth, Paul quotes a number of erroneous things they were teaching (a report had gotten back to him) and then builds his letter around refuting those teachings. In one of them, some of the Corinthians were regarding themselves as more “spiritual” because they demonstrated certain expressions, like tongues. In explaining to them that no expressions are greater than others, Paul replaced “spiritual” with the word “charisma” which means grace. He did this to emphasize that these expressions are not the result of any natural ability, they are not a cause for any pride or preferential treatment. They don’t make one more spiritual, they’re gifts not achievements. “Gift” became Paul’s terminology for all the various ways the Spirit enables us for ministry, as we see here in Eph. These days we call them “spiritual gifts” which sort of keeps Paul’s correction in our minds, but also sort of opens us up to Corinth’s error.

We began talking about this last week, how you don’t need any special personal traits or skills for God to use you, for the Spirit to minister through you to others. Everything you need is given to you when Jesus equips you for ministry. That’s right – for ministry. I want each of you to begin thinking and talking in terms of your ministry and in terms of our ministry. You have been called to a personal ministry. Let me repeat that. You have been called to a personal ministry. We have also been called to do ministry together. This involves both an intersection of our personal ministries and a corporate ministry that is not identical with any one of us. This is not the way it has been for most of the history of the church, but it is not supposed to be the case that I am the minister and you are laity, or whatever. The NT makes a couple things clear on this. One is that Jesus was the last priest, the last one to make atonement for sins, the last one to stand between God and man representing each for the other. At the same time, we – all of us who follow Jesus – are priests. The priesthood of all believers means, not that we take Jesus’ place in this role (which He alone can fill!), but that we lift Jesus up and glorify Him in his role as The Last Priest. But as I said, the church throughout history has done its dead level best to ignore this essential teaching. Clergy have too often seen it as a threat to their own power. But this can only be an issue when a priest/pastor/minister is interested in building his own little kingdom, instead of the kingdom of God. Everybody gets to play means that all of us engage in the work of ministry. That all we do should be and should be regarded as ministry. This includes how we pray for people, which is what it has meant to be Vineyard. It also extends beyond our prayer model to everything else we do, which is what it should also mean to be Vineyard. 

Everybody gets to play. Let’s talk about what we want to mean by play. I think this word was chosen to acknowledge that getting to be part of what God is doing is pretty cool. Like we talked about last week, who wouldn’t want the chance to walk on water? (Other than the 11 who passed it up.) It is some kind of awesome when the Spirit touches someone’s life through the words you speak, through the prayer you pray. When you feel heat pulsing through your hand like energy going through you to someone else, that’s pretty neat. It’s okay to say that. It’s okay to enjoy it. And I like the word play here – but I want us to be clear on this, this is play that is serious business. Don’t think of play like playing in a sandbox. Thinking of it like playing pro sports. It is play, but there is also something at stake.

Note the word “measure” here and specifically what/who the basis for measure is: Christ’s gift and the stature of Christ. In the first sentence, this means a portioned amount. Like all of us walking through the buffet line and getting the same scoop of mashed potatoes. The measure is not conditioned by us, but by Christ’s gift. And how does Christ give? He gives freely, completely, sufficiently, lavishly. He pours out His Spirit on all of us without prejudice or limitation. This goes back to what I was talking about before. Each of us has been given the ability to play. We have been given the Spirit and all the gifts that go with that and thus are able to ‘play’ this ‘game’ at the highest level.

The second measure is also significant. We are not measured against each other or even against our own potential. Again, the measure is not conditioned by us, but here by Christ’s stature. He determines both the abundance of the grace we receive and the standard by which we are measured. This is what I meant by pro sports. We aren’t just invited to play, we’re invited to play at the highest level and are measured by the highest standard. Like playing basketball and always being compared to Michael Jordan. Remember, Jesus said we would do the same things He did and even greater things. Professional athletes are naturally physically gifted. And they also train relentlessly. There are some who scoot by mostly on talent and others who make up for a lack of talent with extra hard work. But the best players are the ones who combine superior gifting and rigorous training, practicing their game all the time. We already have the superior gifting - all of us have the full measure of the Spirit’s empowerment. What remains is to train, to get equipped, to practice, practice, practice. So while the Spirit gives us the gifts we need to do the work of the kingdom, there is still equipping to be done. We still have to learn to grow into these gifts, to hone what the Spirit has given us, become skilled in the ministries we have been called and gifted for.

 

We can think of all this more easily as it relates to how we pray for people in the Vineyard, how we participate in those moments when God draws close to touch someone. That is certainly part of what I want you to take away this morning, a deeper sense of the value and importance of your ministry as it relates to the life of our community. That has been a main part of what it has meant to be a Vineyard church from the movement’s inception. But that is not all I mean. This also needs to inform how we grow together as one body. Notice that in our passage. “we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Everybody gets to play needs to mean more than what happens during prayer time on Sunday morning. It also needs to be central to how we are put together as a body. I was talking to an author this past week, a man I respect, but also a man who has been highly critical of the Vineyard. We were talking about this very concept, everybody gets to play, and he said, in his experience with the Vineyard, it seemed that “pastor is king.” Now please understand. I know very little about how things were before I came. I’m not talking about that at all. But there is a tendency in the church, from the second century on, for leadership to be hierarchical and to become more so over time. [For more on this, read this excellent article.] I think my friend had a point. The Vineyard has not been immune to that trend. I want us to be very intentional about not doing that – but more than that - I want us to be intentional about building a church where Christ is the head and we are all various body parts doing the ministry we are called, gifted, and equipped to do, so that our body is knit together and grows in a loving, self-sustaining way.

 

I should also tell you that I don’t know exactly what that looks like. Aside from some small Quaker groups who pretty much just sit around and stare at each other, no one does it this way. The thinking is that growth follows strong, centralized leadership, that one person (in this case me) sets the vision and agenda and by the power of his or her charisma grows the group. But that is a totally different kind of charisma than what Paul was talking about. The Spirit had already begun to give our elders a vision before I came, one that not just so happened to have a deep affinity with these values that I’m so keen on. As I understand it, my role is sow these values into you until they become thoroughly embedded in our DNA, to equip you to do your ministry/our ministry.

 

So what does this mean in practical terms? The first thing it means is that as soon as we can find a new space to rent, we are going to start meeting on Sunday morning and on Wednesday night. The Wednesday night time especially is going to focus on equipping. My hope is that in a few months two or three home groups will emerge out of that with leaders who feel called, equipped, and ready to go and the Wednesday night service will have a group of new people who want/need equipping.

People who are looking to grow in Christ, not just go to church, this might be a good fit for them.

People who feel stifled in their ministry, who feel like someone over them says “no” an awful lot, this might be a good fit for them.

People who feel called to leadership in the church, but don’t know what to do with that, this might be a good fit for them.

People who have been hurt in typical hierarchical church systems, this might be a good fit for them. This is one I feel strongly about. We’ll talk about this more in a couple of weeks, but just know that there are a lot of people who keep their distance from Jesus because of bad church stuff. And I don’t primarily mean the headline grabbing stuff. Most of it is much more mundane, but still very painful. One advantage of this approach (besides being biblical) is that it creates a safe space to grow. Another for us, is that it really is the only way to live in alignment with our Vineyard values. 

Three assignments this week:

1. Begin a conversation with God about your ministry

2. Look for people like that and invite them

3. “Can I pray for you right now?” – practice, practice, practice

Get out of the boat

This is the text of a sermon I preached today. You can listen to audio of it here.

We started two weeks ago by talking about what makes up the foundation of the church that Jesus builds, this ongoing revelation and obedience where the Spirit speaks to us and we obey and Jesus is glorified as the Christ – the savior of the world. Then last week we talked about how those directions the Spirit gives us lead us into community, into fellowship, into praying together, and learning together. For those of you who have been in the Vineyard for a long time, you may think that so far this all sounds very Vineyard, but I want to reiterate that up to this point what I have shared with you I take to be true of any church that is the body of Christ. No one lays perfect foundations or comes together as well as we should, but you can find elements of each of these in all Christian churches. Part of what made the Vineyard movement successful was that it tapped into these foundational characteristics and refocused on them, at a time when many churches had lost their focus.

Because there is also an ever present tendency to drift away from these core characteristics, to replace the leading of the Spirit and the building Jesus does with human-made facsimiles. As important as Peter’s confession was, it was the second part of the foundation event, and was completely dependent on the Spirit initiating the action. It is entirely possible to build a church that looks a lot like the sort of church we want to be, but is in fact hollow inside. What makes us distinctively Vineyard, is that we cannot be satisfied with that, with hollow church forms – even if the music is cool, the dress is casual, and everyone’s sipping coffee – these cultural things are not what makes us Vineyard. They are nice and they are part of our more down-to-earth nature, but that itself is a byproduct. You can be more relaxed about the cultural stuff when your focus is on the power and presence of God. That other stuff looks as unimportant as it is in comparison, which is why those things came to be more relaxed in the first place. But if we turn around and focus on those things like they were what was important, we miss what made Vineyard what it was, what must make us what we are going to be, if what we are going to be is the Vineyard Church in Wake Forest.

And what it means to be the Vineyard Church in Wake Forest is this: we come together and invite the Holy Spirit to come. We worship and exalt the Lord as a way of inviting His presence and focusing our attention on His presence and then we fully expect – we anticipate and make room for – the power of His presence to come. We expect prophetic words to be shared. We expect tongues and interpretations. We expect healings, deliverances, and miraculous life transformations. We don’t hype it up or make stuff up - but we also don’t cower away from stuff when it happens. We come to live with the idea that God showing up in power is a normal (if unpredictable) part of our life together. We try to orient what we do toward that normal and learn to roll with it when it comes.

We do things this way because this is the way Jesus operated. Look at John 14.8-14:

 

     [8] Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [9] Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. [11] Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

     [12] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. [13] Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Jesus says all he spoke and did came from the Father and points to the Father, and His unity with the Father. He also specifically appeals to the works He had been doing as evidence that His claim was true. The very next sentence is Jesus saying that whoever trusts Him will do the same works and even greater works. For the same purpose of glorifying the Father through Jesus. The founder of the Vineyard, John Wimber, read these words and all the healing and miracle accounts in the Gospels and he asked when the church was going to get back to “doin’ the stuff” - doing the works Jesus did. The Vineyard movement developed around doing these works. And I want to be clear on this. It’s not like this was a side thing, like they had ‘normal’ church and then had prayer time at the end, or relegated this stuff to home groups, or to healing conferences. Doing these works was central to their life together and to their communal identity. It marked who they were. I want this to mark who we are as well. I want us to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit and invite Him to do His works in and through us so that the Father may be glorified in them in Wake Forest. That’s why we’re here.

There are some principles that we follow in the Vineyard that help us stay focused on why we’re here and help us learn to do the stuff, make it normal, and roll with it. We’re going to talk about these over the next three weeks (right now and the next two Sundays) and focus them around three catch phrases you might be familiar with. Can anyone finish these?

1. How do you spell faith? R-I-S-K

2. Everybody gets to play

3. No guilt, no glory

For today, faith is spelled R-I-S-K. Let’s look at what that means, by visiting with our old friend Peter again at another watershed moment in his life. Matthew 14:22-33:

     [22] Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. [23] And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, [24] but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. [25] And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. [26] But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. [27] But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”

     [28] And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” [29] He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. [30] But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” [31] Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” [32] And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. [33] And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

There are a few things to note in this story about faith and risk. 

FAITH:

1. Peter was afraid and doubtful but he also saw something. We are not talking about faith healing. This is not something we drum up, this is not something we can will to happen, this is not the power of positive thinking or positive confession. NO SPECIAL FAITH REQUIRED. Just enough to take a chance. This is the Holy Spirit coming and doing the Father’s will, revealing the Father’s love both for Jesus His Son and for us His children. Like Jesus told Phillip, we want to be about what God is doing, not assume God will be about what we are doing. Peter didn’t come up with the idea to walk on water, he saw what Jesus was doing and wanted to be part of it. Same thing with us. Remember, listening to the Spirit is foundational. That is how we know what the Father’s will is, how we know what Jesus is up to.

2. Peter asked Jesus to tell him to come. Even after seeing what Jesus was doing, Peter took this important step. He didn’t just jump out of the boat and he didn’t exactly ask to come. Even in his asking, Peter pointed it back to Jesus. It’s okay to want to do the stuff. Peter really wanted the experience of walking on water. Who wouldn’t? But the focus was Jesus. IF it’s really you Jesus is key here. And this goes back to the previous point. Not only do we not have to have perfect or special faith to see healings and miracles occur, the fact is, Jesus showed a strong desire to prove Himself in the Gospels. He was not exactly shy about doing miracles. It’s true that he wouldn’t give signs on command, but in those cases the ones asking for signs had already seen miracles and had not believed. They weren’t asking for a sign. They were asking for another, having already dismissed the ones Jesus had done. As we press into this as a mode of outreach – what the Vineyard calls ‘power evangelism’ – you are going to find that God likes proving Himself. He relishes the chance. The problem is that most of the time we don’t give God that chance. All faith means is giving God a chance. 

RISK:

3. Peter gets out of the boat. Peter climbed out of the boat in his own power. Power comes through exercising the power you already have. Peter couldn’t walk on water until he walked on water, until that moment, crossing the deck, climbing out, all that he did himself. The power to do amazing things will come, but it will not come before the moment you need it, not until you have moved out in the power you already have. This is where the risk part really comes in because what this means is that there isn’t a guarantee that anything is going to happen. Peter did not have the ability to walk on water either before or after. His feet didn’t morph into floatation devices - there was no outward sign ahead of time that this was going to work. And here’s the thing: it didn’t make sense for Peter to get out of the boat - the whole thing is crazy. That’s why it needs to be what God is doing, because if we’re going to do crazy, we need to do God-crazy. We can all come up with our own brands of crazy, but those will definitely sink. But make no mistake, risking means feeling as crazy as a guy who’s about to walk on water. 

4. Peter did a very natural thing: walking. He didn’t levitate or float or anything. The Lord empowered Peter to do something supernatural within his natural range of motion. This is the same with us. We can and should act normally, talk normally, engage in our natural range of motion. As crazy as it was to be walking on water, he was still just putting one foot in front of the other. You don’t have to become someone else in order for the power of God to work through you. Peter did not have some innate proclivity to walking on water. He was not especially buoyant or light on his feet or anything like that. He didn’t need special training either. There is nothing wrong with either our talents or giftings – God gives us those – but we must not think that they are what makes the difference here. They don’t. Just like Peter’s confession, our part is secondary and dependent. Important. Essential. But secondary and dependent. The Spirit prophesied through Balaam’s donkey. The Spirit can definitely work through us and through who we are.

5. One last thing. There were twelve in the boat. Only one got out. Only one walked on water. There should have been a party of thirteen taking a stroll, but it was just Jesus and Peter. Why? Because the number one challenge we face here is in getting out of the boat. All of them were Jesus’ core followers. Eleven out of twelve declined to even try. They wouldn’t take the risk. And they never walked on water. As we move into this, you are going to find resistance at every turn. Some of this cultural. Our modern, Western society has no conceptual way to process any of this. Don’t underestimate how much that affects us. Because it does at every turn. But these eleven weren’t stuck in the boat by their culture. The resistance runs much deeper than culture. It has to do with how uncomfortable we get with things we can’t control, things that make us dependent. Same reason Adam and Eve ate the fruit. We’d rather be gods than serve One. Between our sin nature and our culture, we face a pretty steep uphill battle. I’d like to tell you there was some easy way around it, some mental trick to get you over, but the fact is, climbing over the hull of a boat in water is uncomfortable, and awkward and a little strange. But it’s time to get out of the boat. 

Here’s what getting out of the boat means right now. This is your assignment this week. I want you to memorize seven words. Seven words that will change your life, will change this church. You ready? Here they are:

“Can I pray for you right now?”

I didn’t invent those, this is another Vineyard thing. If you don’t remember anything else this morning, remember this question and remember “get out of the boat.” Your assignment is to ask this question of at least one person this week and then to pray for them. Natural range of motion. Be yourself. Ask God to do specific, tangible, measurable things. Ask God to show up and show it’s really Him. And don’t just ask a random person. Watch. Look for what God is doing. Someone is going to walk across your week like Jesus was walking across this lake. When you see them, ask the Lord, ‘if this is you, tell me to get out of the boat.’ When he tells you, then get out of the boat. Don’t make stuff up, don’t try to pray super-holy. Just ask for what they need. See what happens.

The God We Worship Is the Lamb Who Was Slain

“The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come.” – John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, p. 51.

There is a scene described in Revelation 5 (see below), where Jesus appears before some sort of heavenly assembly, as the only one worthy to open scrolls that mark the culmination of history. It is quite easy to get caught up in the strangeness of Revelation (even to the point of creating elaborate fictions), but the point I would like to draw your attention to is that Jesus appears in that scene as, “a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered,” and this form is directly linked to the worship that is then given to him, as the assembly declares: “worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered.”

This does not fit well with many of the popular explanations we give regarding how we are saved; instead the cross is regarded as more of a functional (if inconvenient) necessity. Based on how many Christians go about their business, it is not congruent with how we think the kingdom is to come, since our kingdom-building rarely emulates this form. We are generally at a loss to explain the intentionality with which Jesus pursued the cross, much less why He stands in Revelation worshipped as a slaughtered Lamb. I think all of these warrant discussion, but for this Good Friday, I just want to draw your attention, perhaps your adoration, hopefully your worship, to this slaughtered Lamb. He is indeed worthy.

Revelation 5

Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a strong angel, who shouted with a loud voice: “Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it?” 3 But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it.

4 Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it. 5 But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, “Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

6 Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the sevenfold Spirit of God that is sent out into every part of the earth. 7 He stepped forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. 8 And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. 9 And they sang a new song with these words:

“You are worthy to take the scroll

and break its seals and open it.

For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation.

10 And you have caused them to become

a Kingdom of priests for our God.

And they will reign on the earth.”

11 Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. 12 And they sang in a mighty chorus:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—

to receive power and riches

and wisdom and strength

and honor and glory and blessing.”

13 And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power

    belong to the one sitting on the throne

    and to the Lamb forever and ever.”

14 And the four living beings said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb.

the Father loves his children: a way to read the Bible

Jesus calls God “Father,” and teaches us to do the same (see: the Lord’s prayer). This means that the basic defining relationship between us and God is that of a Father and his children. Which is the same relationship God had with the children of Israel. This means that what was relationally true of the people in the OT is also true of us. How God interacts with them is how God interacts with us. How God feels about them is how God feel about us.

It is also true that we often respond just as they did. We read the NT and wonder how the disciples could be so thick-headed, how the Pharisees could be so blinded by their religion. We read the OT and we wonder how the Israelities could so easily run back to idolatry, how even someone like David could turn and do something so evil as to steal a man’s wife and then have him murdered. But we are just like all of them. We are the thick-headed disciples. We are the blinded-by-religion Pharisees. We are the faithless Israelites worshipping a golden cow, with the memory of the parted sea still fresh in our minds. We are David, whose lust can overwhelm us, even if we are a man after God’s own heart.

The Bible is full of human weakness and failings. The more we can identify with that and see it in ourselves, the more we will have an accurate picture of ourselves and our sinfulness. The Bible is also full of the love, mercy, and grace of a Father God who knows all this and loves His children anyway. If we can learn to see ourselves in all those relationships between God and humans in the Bible, we will get, not only a more accurate picture of ourselves, but a more accurate picture of oursevles as God sees us, as a Father who loves His children.

why Pentecostal theology is necessary

First of all, I would like to apologize to my subscribers. I made a concerted effort in 2011 to post regularly and heard from several of you that the Monday Meditations were appreciated. I hope to resume them this summer (once my dissertation is complete and I have recovered from the process).

I am breaking my blog silence today because I wanted to draw your attention to a post I enjoyed reading yesterday by Pastor Jonathan Martin, a pentecostal theology rant, as he called it. There is so much there that I identify and agree with and I wanted to chime in a bit, as this is the driving impetus behind the dissertation I am writing.

With regard to whether Pentecostal theology is icing or cake (or Terry Cross’ older metaphor relish or main dish), it is not just that Pentecostals can do our own theological reflection, that we ought to because we are able and capable of doing so – though this in itself is valid as a claim and reason. It is more importantly the case that we must construct our own theology – from the ground up – because adding on a wing to an existing theological structure makes the whole unstable, unsound, leading us into self-contradiction and to a loss of what makes us who we are as Pentecostals.

For example, our doctrine of initial evidence goes wrong from the start because it builds on too narrow an understanding of atonement. Our failed experience with initial evidence teaching shows us that we need a more robust account, a soteriology dynamic and versatile enough to accommodate the varieties of experience we have witnessed (both in the Acts accounts and in our own lives) when a person comes to trust in Jesus and is baptized in his fire. What we need is an account that acknowledges we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. And yet what we have are cards with checkboxes. We cannot build on the very limited understanding of atonement our evangelical friends work with and possibly hope to create useful explanations of sanctification and the complex relationship of water and Spirit baptism. Our communities have suffered because of our lack of theological imagination and resourcefulness. It is not just that we can make the cake. It is that our people will remain malnourished until we do.

Christian worldview vs. the Gospel of Jesus Christ

One of my main concerns with the whole concept of “Christian worldview” (which has become quite a trendy thing in the past few years) is that it seems to imply that Christians by default have a different (i.e., better) understanding of the world and reality and that out of that understanding flows a superior ethical framework by which we can make ethical decisions, knowing what is right and wrong, doing the right and declaring to others when they are, and when they are not.

This troubles me because there is an underlying self-assuredness (one might well call it arrogance) that I find at odds with the sort of life I see Jesus calling his followers to in the Gospels, the sort of life lived out in Acts and the rest of the NT. What I see there is always more of a limited understanding and a dependence on obedience to the command of God, the leading of the Holy Spirit, to know what is right to do. More than once in Acts, Paul tries to go in one direction, but the Lord sends him in a different direction. The sermons in Acts focus almost exclusively on the basic story of Jesus. The epistles give us more teaching content, but most of them deal with specific issues relating to their initial audiences. We can glean truths from them, but we have to be careful doing that outside their context. For example, Paul sends Onesimus back to be a slave under Philemon. Paul tells Philemon to receive him back in love, but he still sends him back. We could easily read this as Paul approving slavery (this IS how this was read in the antebellum South), but that is not how Paul intended it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am firmly committed to the foundational teachings of the Christian faith (e.g., those laid out in the Apostles’ Creed). But we affirm belief in those long before we understand what they mean. Believing itself is an act of obedience, a trust in the Lord and in the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. But how can the Spirit lead us into truth if our worldview already has it all figured out? How can we walk as disciples in obedience if our worldview enables us to make ethical decisions on our own? Do you notice how close this puts us to the original sin of Adam and Eve? To the extent that a “Christian worldview” lessens our dependence on the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth and teach us to walk in obedience, we should reject it as just another attempt to make ourselves gods, which is what all religion is. Which is sin. Which is why God hates religion.

The (in)famous rebuttal to this is that Christians are always supposed to be ready to give an account for the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3.15). Many Christians immediately take this to mean we need to have everything figured out, be able to explain it all, which is where the whole Christian worldview concept came from, just a nicer, more philosophically tame version of apologetics. But this gets it all wrong. Giving an account for our hope doesn’t mean explaining the whole story of the world. It means one thing. Telling them about Jesus. He is the reason we have hope. This brings us right back to Acts, where all they talk about the whole time is Jesus. What Jesus did while he was on earth. What Jesus did when we met Paul on the Damascus Road. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Our hope is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The opposite of all religions. Especially the Christian one.

the importance of the body

The other day I tweeted that I have noticed a troubling trend among my theology students: too few understand or even speak of the resurrection of the body. Most will acknowledge it after I point it out, but by default they tend to discuss the afterlife in terms of a body-less existence. Here are a few more thoughts on that.

In neglecting the teaching of the resurrection of the body, I think we show how little we appreciate the importance of the body – the human body – in the Christian faith. Christianity (especially in its north American Protestant-evangelical form) has become too much of a cognitive religion, more about thinking (we call it believing) the right things, less about doing things that demonstrate trust (what the Bible means by believing) in the Lord. This brings us much too close to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. In this form of Christianity, we are less able to account for the fact that most acts of sin are bodily acts (e.g., adultery, lust) or involve physical objects (e.g., stealing, coveting).

We are also unable to account for the fact the Jesus required his followers to engage in acts that were primarily physical in orientation, e.g., feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick or imprisoned, laying hands on the sick and healing them of physical ailments. These are things Jesus did and set his followers to doing. Some of them we still do, but we often fail to understand the spiritual import of such acts precisely because we have severed the connection between the physical and spiritual in our thinking. They were not separate in Jesus’ thinking. Feeding the hungry was not some side project for Jesus, he set it as one of the fundmental criteria on which we will be judged – as in eternally judged.

Visiting those who are sick or in prison is not just a nice thing to do, it is a fundamentally spiritual act. Laying hands on someone who is sick and praying for them is a physical act that invokes real spiritual power to gain a phyiscal result. Does that even make sense to us? Or has the physical been so divorced from the spiritual that we cannot even imagine such a thing happening? Is this perhaps why we don’t see it happening?

Monday meditations John 20.27: he kept the scars

Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” (John 20.27)

Sometimes wounds leave permanent marks, don’t they? Battle scars. Jesus kept his. Often, we keep ours too.

Jesus didn’t have to, but he kept the scars. A deliberate choice. Have you ever pondered why? You could google it and find some interesting answers (Aquinas listed most of the ones you’ll find), but before you do that, take some time to pray and meditate on it yourself. What does his choice to keep the scars tell you about Jesus? About following him?

I think that’s enough to reflect on for a week. Or a lifetime.

Preserving the margins – leaving space for God and others

Mark Van Valin, pastor of Spring Arbor Free Methodist Church, recently preached a sermon about preserving the margins (as in not harvesting crops all the way to edge in Leviticus) – leaving space in your life so you can keep the two commands Jesus left for all of his followers: love the Lord with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Keeping these commands is only possible when we leave space to do so, as Pastor Mark explains so well. I highly recommend listening to his sermon. It will do you good.

Are we trying to win converts or arguments?

Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately. Up to my neck in dissertation. Wanted to share this though because it’s very good and very important. Take 10 minutes and read this sermon by Dr. Rodney Kennedy, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dayton, OH. If enough of us got this, we could change the world (again).