Slice of Bread

The Loving Tree

2006-03-27T20:18:00.000-05:00

The Loving Tree
A tree does love with no demand
A tender perch and bountiful place
While roots run deep and squirrels do chace
To gird a limb for him to stand

O prosaic a tree does someone see?
Who breaks the rut of ominous ray
To make in summer euphoric a day
Still her love is always free

There each day and stout at night
Through drought and storm and dreadful wind,
In winter’s breath and her ornery friend,
And axes deep; she will not fight

So prosaic a tree you might be right
Not steady love or fortuitous care
Without a heart or eyes to stare
Yet is her love our ruthless plight

But that’s not the tree I want to point
Not oleander or azalea, neither fir nor pine
Not palm or barberry is in my mind
Save one Tree He did anoint

Her lifeless life remained the same
Nothing save an opened seed
Yet from this tree all life decreed
She held in place so glorious a Name

Perplexed you seem and hungry still
To know how such can be so real
A love that bleeds this tree did feel
While hate and greed this tree did kill

The Cross of Jesus is what I speak
And shall be forever my highest boast
It shows to all a love that’s most
Free for even the utterly weak

The saints and angels will ever sing
A worthy Lamb who bore this tree
Opened the scroll made shackles free
Awarding death its deleted sting

To this love we mercifully see
A luminous light and marvelous grace
The Glory of God in Jesus’ face
Hung on this tree now forever free

Jesus Christ: The Light of the Gospel

2006-03-08T14:48:00.000-05:00

I want to echo the Bible, St. Augustine, Owen, Edwards, C.S. Lewis, Piper, Packer, and many others and claim that Jesus Christ is the most incredible being in the entire universe! I want to remind you that this is not my idea.

Colossians 1:15-20 says, “15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Ephesians 3:16-19 “That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”

Exodus 15:11-12 "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.

Revelation 4:2-11 “At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
"Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."

And I could go to countless other places and talk for years about the endlessness of God’s glory in Christ. It is essential to always point to Jesus in everything. He needs to be the center of our conversations and decisions and our lives. This banner of “Christ Supreme” is the only banner that will carry us to victory and to true satisfaction and to true life.

I work at a restaurant and I am often left dreaming and thinking upon God and his faithfulness in my life. Sometimes when I am really quiet someone will ask me if I am okay and I say, “I am great because I am thinking about the greatness of Christ” and they will walk away weirded out. But it’s true. I like to think about it because it makes everything seem so small and so trivial compared to Jesus. And there are so many times that I struggle with meager things and there are few times that I am consumed with God's glory.

But what is so striking at the restaurant I work at is the eating habits of the people. I work at a steakhouse and we serve fairly decent steaks. We should if we are going to be a steakhouse. Sometimes people will come in, sit down, and before I can get my pen out say, "We are starving we have been waiting for an hour. We are ready to order." Sometimes I wish I could bring real starving people in just to show them what starving looks like. Sometimes I mock them in my mind, "hurry up, we are starving, we haven't eaten since our last feast two hours ago, quick, you are wasting time. I saw on the news how 1/3 of the world is starving, but they don't know what I am going through. I had to pick up my jaguar from the dealer and I am starving. Bring me a steak." That makes me laugh. But, they usually ask for bread and a salad first. A great majority of my customers actually ask for seconds and thirds and even sevenths on the bread (we do have good bread). But I can't tell you how many times those same people who ordered thirty loaves of bread could not eat their steaks; not even half. Almost 80% of the people, so it seems, ask for a wheel barrel to wheel them and their half-eaten steak out the door.

I feel that many Christians are bread and lettuce eaters, filling themselves with fluff and equations and self-help methods and the world. When you haven’t tasted the meat, the bread seems so appetizing. When you are really hungry anything seems appetizing. Have you ever seen a homeless man rummaging through a garbage can? Pulling out rotten and moldy and half eaten 3-day old hotdogs and maggoty meats and treating them as if they were a king’s feast. Have you ever been so full that what is usually appetizing almost makes you throw up? Have you ever had the flu on Thanksgiving? Everyone feasting and going for seconds and one look at the Turkey and your stomach gurgles and you run to the bathroom. When you approach worldly things with all the hunger and zeal and passion and energy, your soul will be filled and the true feast of God will be left uneaten.

When my tables ask for bread and salads what I really want to say is, “No, you will fill yourselves with cheap and counterfeit satisfaction. Wait for the meat or the chicken or the fish. Wait for the main course.”

I would say a hundred percent of the problems that most Christians struggle with are a result of this problem. God is boring! He is nothing but words on a page. He is not real. All this talk about God’s glory and grace and these people yawn and call it outdated. When you live your life and your prayers are small and your times in the Bible are minimal and your fellowship is non-existent and when all conversation is about college basketball or the next movie or the coolest song, your soul will crave something bigger. This is why we sin. Your soul craves grandeur. When Christ is not that grandeur that you are craving, you will crave other exhilarating things. The reason why lust is such a problem is because the glory of Christ is not cherished. I want the next best buzz: SEX! And we have a culture bored with God and infatuated with sex. The application here is unlimited. God is boring and small and indifferent, I need the next best buzz: RICHES, MONEY, HOUSES, CRUISES, POSSESSIONS, SPORTS CARS, ect… give me something, fill my soul, with Sports.

When we get to heaven and Christ is shining before us and his sapphire throne is glimmering and all the hosts and angels and saints will be shouting the glories of God, there will not be a soul singing, “Yes Lord, thank you for Sports! Thank you for my surround sound system! Thank you for my vacation mountain home and beach house! Thank you for my comfortable bank account and my safe life.” All of those things will seem like little micro machines compared to Jesus! No, the mercies of God will stun us and his massive shadow will surround us and we will weap and our souls will wail and the sight of Jesus will take us away and sweep us off our feet. Heaven will be about an ever increasing understanding and infatuation with the goodness and mercies of God. Hell will be just the opposite.

Listen to these incredible texts of Scripture:

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!" Psalm 34:8"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot." Psalm 16:5"Oh God you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water...My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips." Psalm 63:1,5"How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights." Psalm 36:7-8"On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined." Isaiah 25:6"They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord." Jeremiah 31:12-14"And the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' And he said to me, 'These are the true words of God.'" Revelation 19:9"So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live forever.'" John 6:53-58

I want to proclaim that Jesus Christ is so satisfying. Don’t give yourself to the world. Don’t sell yourself to smaller things. Feast on Jesus Christ. He is the bread of life! The water for the soul that springs up into eternal life! This is a matter of life or death, being ultimately satisfied in Jesus, or dying with all the lettuce of the world.

Now, we can talk about the greatness of Jesus Christ and oh do I love to talk about the greatness of Jesus Christ, but none of it will do anything unless we see something very important, so I want you to turn to one of my favorite texts in all the Bible, 2 Corinthians 4:6, I will read starting in verse 1.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This text is communicating something drastic. The Lord enlightened me to this text last summer in Jordan one morning when I was struggling with some of the views some fellow Christians had about sharing the Gospel.

The Glories of God are being shone in the face of Christ. What in the world does this mean? think of Jesus' agonized face on the cross. If you saw The Passion, think of Mel Gibson’s interpretation of what his face looked like on the cross, the agony, the pain, the turmoil, the screaming, the torn flesh. The cross was the most gruesome and grotesque and agonizing death anyone could ever have endured. You all would have lost consciousness. You would have screamed and yelled and wailed and screamed “No! Stop! Help Him!” You would stumbled away to hide until it was all over. Blood everywhere, people laughing, soldiers casting lots for his clothing, the mockery “Jesus King of the Jews!”, the injustice. An innocent man dying for what? Suffering for nothing. All so that the Jews could save face and remain in power. It was political as much as it was spiritual.

So, how could Paul ever write verse 6? Here we see that God makes light shine. God makes things visible and clear. God does away with darkness. It is God who gives the light of the knowledge of his glory, and he did this through Christ and the cross. The Gospel is the consummation of all this! Everything glorious about Jesus, his eternal nature, his sovereign might, his endless wisdom and knowledge, his enduring and steadfast mercy and love, is seen clearly in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You cannot treasure Jesus the way the Bible treasures Jesus unless God has given you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That we were all worthless, squirming in our blood, Ezekiel 16 says. We were all running around like prostitutes and whores, Hosea says. We were all like sheep going to the slaughter house, Isaiah 53 says. Then, because of God’s unmerited mercy, his unbelievable love, sent his own son, made in his likeness, fully divine and fully man, an unfathomable mystery. He endured temptation and healed the sick and calmed storms and never sinned and was accused of blasphemy and betrayed by his disciples and was violently persecuted and suffered immensely and never said a word. He never defended himself or cursed his enemies. His words when he chose to speak were, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” He died and was put in a tomb and covered to be forgotten and done away with. Three days passed, there was a trembling of the earth, there was an unsettledness, people gazed around to see a weirdness in the air. Jesus resurrects appears to his disciples, conquers death, swallows up sin and shame, and ascends to reign over the world with his father. This Gospel is the epitome of the glories of God and it is shone in the face of Jesus.

This Gospel, this glory will be forever recounted in heaven for all eternity, as it says in Revelation 5: 1-15,

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, "Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Live for this Gospel. Die for this Gospel. Never quit speaking about it and encouraging one another with it. It is life. It is everything. There is nothing outside of it. In it and through it and because of it the glories of God are fully seen and fully known and fully adored!

Killer Diet

2006-03-03T13:17:00.000-05:00

Most people who are affluent with the culture would recognize we are consumed with dieting. South Beach, Makers, low-carb, no-carb, only-carb, non-dairy, no meat, or simply walking to Subway for a sandwich, are all a part of our common vernacular now. Certain people have come up with these certain disciplines to help fix our eating habits in order to enhance and preserve better and healthier living. And, dieting is indeed necessary. If we all ate what we wanted to all the time, we would all die, or blow up first.

Well, there is one diet that will kill you. Lay off the donuts and the honey buns and the fried foods and the fast-food industry, and you might live longer and healthier, but there is one perilous diet that fools us all. It is interesting, the foods that help us the most usually taste the worst, but the foods that cause the most harm are the ones we most crave.

If you want the most pleasurable life and the most delactable feast and the most satisfying tastes, then feast on Christ. Don't hold back. Tie a napkin around your neck. Roll up your sleeves. loosen your belt. Smell the aroma and see the glory. Let the sight inflict your taste buds. There are no boundaries, no health concerns. Don't fear going for seconds or thirds or fourths, fifths, or sixths. There is more than enough, more than you need, and all that you need. Christ turns the addage on its head, that what is most healthy tastes the worst, and what is most harmful tastes delicious. Well, I want to say that Christ, the originator of all things, the sustainer of the galaxies and the heavens and the earth and all that it contains, the King of Glory, the great 'I AM', the Wonderful Counselor, the Word of Life, the Resplendent Light of Righteousness is the most pleasing, satisfying, delactable, pleasurable, tasty, redeeming thing you can and will ever consume in your lifetime. And, it is Christ who is most glorious and who is the most healthy and necessary for your joy and gladness and pleasure and life.

Don't ever lay off feasting on him! Be bad! Indulge! Go overboard! Seek the stomach ache! The worst thing you can ever do is to take a break, or lay off the worship, or shorten your prayers, or nibble on glory. There is no time for nibbling. There is no time for dieting.

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!" Psalm 34:8

"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot." Psalm 16:5

"Oh God you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water...My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips." Psalm 63:1,5

"How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights." Psalm 36:7-8

"On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined." Isaiah 25:6

"They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord." Jeremiah 31:12-14

"And the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' And he said to me, 'These are the true words of God.'" Revelation 19:9

"So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live forever.'" John 6:53-58

Let us press on to feast on the Lord. Our lives depend on his ultimate table of salvation. The wedding feast is being prepared and the Lion and the Lamb is the most honored guest who will bring us his body and blood and life to be our eternal diet. Let us know that he is good.

Islam and the Bible

2006-03-02T12:18:00.000-05:00

The Muslim world has revealed itself rather transparently over the past few centuries, claiming its own authority over the kingdoms and religions of the world. Islam claims to possess within its sacred book the revelation of Allah, the final revelation, and a revelation wherein all other revelations find there completion and interpretation. After spending two months this past summer in Jordan and dialoguing with Muslims concerning chief doctrines of the Christian faith (e.g. the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture), and after research related to the Muslim perception of the Bible, it is now necessary to focus on the origin of their doctrines of revelation in comparison to the Christian idea of revelation. Along with holding to a strict view of dictation, where God’s direct word to man has been preserved within the Quran, comes a common disdain for all other “words” of God. This paper will seek, with God’s help, to examine the Muslim perception of revelation and also to answer certain objections they hold against the Bible with the hopes of creating an understanding of the revelation of Scripture suitable for a Muslim.

The Quran: The Words of Allah?

According to Islamic tradition, Mohammad, the conduit between Allah and his message to his people, never actually wrote down the words which he heard from the angel Gabriel over a period of twenty-three years. The Quran, which means reading or reciting, is a product of oral tradition by which people remembered and recorded Mohammad’s prophecies on paper, stones, palm-leaves, or anything appropriate for transcription. Shortly after Mohammad’s death sometime around A.D. 633, a large number of those who knew of Mohammad’s prophecies died in the battle of Yamamah, prompting a desperate attempt to gather all that were recoverable of Mohammad’s prophecies and to assemble them together in some sort of collection.(1)

Muslims hold to the teaching that this revealed word of Allah came through a miracle since Mohammad could neither read nor write, which is taught in the Quran, “Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel,”(2) and “Though [Mohammad] wast not a reader of any scripture before it, nor didst thou write it with thy right hand, for then might those have doubted, who follow falsehood.”(3) However, there is debate concerning the word ummi, which has been taken to mean “illiterate” in the sense of the above passages. Other renderings of the word could be “unlettered one,” or “the prophet to be without a book,” which could mean something completely different than being unable to read or write. It could be, as Colin Chapman notes, that if this was an original meaning of the word, then it would mean that “He saw himself as the prophet called by God to give the Arabs their own scriptures in their own language”(4) and that he was not illiterate at all. Though, it does not do well in conversation with a Muslim to argue solely on the grounds of tradition. Even so, it is quite possible that Mohammad was illiterate, but that he was familiar with Jewish and Christian stories due to his many travels and his father’s prestigious position in Mecca. An interesting note is that the Quran contains a story about Abraham that is not found in the Torah but in Jewish Midrash, which is Jewish commentary and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Either Mohammad could read and was familiar with extra-biblical material or he was hearing alternative stories that served to distort and confuse his understanding of Judaism and Christianity. Also, Mohammad recounts a story explaining how King Solomon met the Queen of Sheba in Sura 27:22-44. This story is based on the Aramaic Targum, a paraphrase of the Old Testament based on oral translations.(5)

The Quran, according to Islamic teaching, is the most sacred of the revelations of God, coming after the Torah revealed to Moses, the Psalms revealed to David, and the Gospel revealed to Jesus. Orthodox Islam has generally agreed that the Quran is an uncreated document, original only to Allah, and has been since the beginning. The Quran serves to correct the words in other sacred books (Torah, Gospels, etc…) and reform the actual words of God into a single incorruptible Word, as it says in the Quran, “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption).”(6,7) According to Mohammad Abu-Hamdiyyah, “It is obvious that in the Quran, God reveals himself universally in the creation at all times and all places. The revelations tend to tell us that the natural course of evolution of religion progresses with human empirical knowledge.”(8) Put another way, all the knowledge common to man originates from a generalized revelation known as the Quran. The consummation of religious progress, human knowledge, and natural functions (such as weather, plant growth, and animal activity) can be traced through experience and is derived solely in the revelation of the Quran. This is due to the fact that the Quran, along with other sacred texts, calls its words “God inspired,” and proves, for example, that nature is proof of the viability of the revelation of the Quran, as in Sura 16:68, “And your Lord revealed unto the bees, saying, take unto yourselves dwellings in mountains and in trees, and in what [men] may build [for you as way of hives].” The inspiration of God covers and affects all of creation, every aspect of nature, and proves it to be genuine. This argument for the revelation of the Quran starts from the basis of human knowledge and then goes to confirm the authenticity of the revelation.

It is clear that the Quran has as much, if not more, significance to the Muslim tradition as Jesus Christ has to Christians. Whereas in Christianity in the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh, in Islam in the beginning was the Word and the Word became a Book.(9) Throughout the Quran it is said over and over that it is not of human descent, but comes only from Allah. It is not a product of transient influence or knowledge, but derives from the One True Knowledge and Creator. Several Quranic passages convey this teaching, “We have made it A Quran in Arabic, that ye ay be able to understand (and learn wisdom). And verily, it is in the Mother of the Book, in our Presence, high (in dignity), full of wisdom”(10) and “Nay, this is a glorious Quran, (inscribed) in a tablet preserved!”(11) From the very beginning, the Quran has been considered to be the exact words of Allah, without flaw, par excellence, and useful for the acquisition of knowledge for all of life. Norman Geisler points out in his discussion of the ontological aspect of revelation that “speech is an eternal attribute of God, which is without beginning or intermission, exactly like his knowledge, might, and other characteristics of his infinite being. Consequently, revelation, which is the acknowledged manifestation of God’s speaking, did not originate in time by a specific act of God’s creative will, but has existed from all eternity.”(12) In other words, the Quran is not just another sacred book among other sacred books belonging to other coequal religious traditions. The eternal nature of the Quran has been designated as the final and brightest light to guide Muslims, and the world, to their Creator. Phil Parshall notes that the Hadith, or Islamic tradition, serves to elucidate the Quranic text. He adds that, “Orthodox Islam generally affirms the uncreated Quran. Allah was and is preexistent to everything known and unknown. His Word is an integral part of his being. It could no more be created than Allah himself could be created.”(13) He goes on to notice a problem with this affirmation, “Yet this affirmation presents an empirical problem. At a precise point in time and space the Quran was revealed, recited, recorded, and spread to multitudes.”(14) Muslims have a difficult time understanding how Jesus Christ could be eternal, how the incarnation was not a time when he was created. They have a difficult time understanding how there was never a time when he was not. However, as discovered here by Phil Parshall, they teach the incarnation of Allah’s word in the form of a book. Christians hold to the same idea and teaching, only it is an incarnation of the Word in the form of man. However, there are several arguments Muslims use in order to communicate a divine origin for the Quran, namely its unique literary style, Mohammad’s illiteracy which makes the reception and deliverance of the Quran a miracle, and its perfect preservation over the years. Also, there are prophecies in the Quran that have come true. There is a prophecy that is most often cited in Sura 30:2-4, “The Roman Empire…Will soon be victorious—Within a few years.” Norman Geisler notes that “the period of time between when the Romans lost Jerusalem (A.D. 614-15) and their victory over the Persians at Issus (A.D. 622) was seven years. This, many Muslims claim, is proof of the supernatural nature of the Quran.”(15) There is also scientific accuracy in the Quran.(16) This is primarily used to validify the miraculous nature of the Quran as well as combat the Bible claiming that it is full of scientific inaccuracies, unlike the Quran.(17)

Much more could be said about the nature and compilation of the Quran, nevertheless the Quran is elevated significantly within Islamic tradition as the revealed and inspired Word of Allah which did not originate with man. Man was just a conduit; a deliverer of Allah’s dictated word. With this view of the Quran, it proves to be a complex task to speak of the Bible with any authority. In the next section the Islamic view of the Bible will be examined through some objections they hold concerning its authority, authenticity, and consistency.

Two Islamic Objections Against the Bible

The Bible has been Changed (Tahrif)

This objection to the Bible has been articulated in many different ways. For example, since man is corrupt and Christians claim that man had a significant role in writing the Bible, would that not mean the Bible is also corrupt. Or, since there are seemingly incongruent witnesses within the New and the Old Testament, contradictions that are blatantly apparent, would that not also lead one to think that the Bible is corrupt. Also, the fact that there are irrational stories in the Bible like Jonah being swallowed by a whale or Jacob wrestling with God, just to name a few, makes the Bible untrustworthy and a victim of corruption. Many Islamic scholars explain these questions using a doctrine called tahrif, meaning changed. Still others claim that the Bible has not been changed, but rather misinterpreted. However, the Quran seems to view the Bible, or as the Quran puts it, the Taurat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injil (Gospel), favorably. Take for example, “To you We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety.”(18) Here there is obviously a sent Word from Allah that has confirmed the scripture that came before it. It was not only delivered, but also guarded. Mohammad also points to the scriptures that came before as a source for the unbelievers of Islam, “If you were in doubt as to what We have revealed unto you, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before you: the Truth has indeed come to you from your Lord: so be in no wise of those who doubt.”(19) The doubters, the confused, and those who question the very bedrock of the Islamic faith are not to shun the scriptures from of old, rather they are to abide in them and take heart in the confirmation they provide. Mohammad stridently points to the previous scriptures as a means for faith and practice, “O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His messenger and the Scripture which he has revealed unto His messenger, and the Scripture which He revealed aforetime. Whoever disbelieves in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers and the Last Day, he verily has wandered far astray.”(20) And undoubtedly the most convincing Quranic argument against the idea that the Bible has been changed refers to the strength and power of Allah as guarder and protector of his Word, “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption).”(21)

So what is the problem? It seems clear, from the Quran of all places, that the reputation of the Bible is protected and should be a clean and powerful source in the life of a Muslim. But this is not the case because the Quran has more to say. In fact there are four problem texts that are in the Quran that say something different than the above affirming texts. Every one of these problematic texts speaks of a falsification or corruption that is true of the scriptures:

A party of them used to listen to the Word of Allah, then used to change it, after they had understood it, knowingly.(22)

Some of those who are Jews change the words from their context distorting with their tongues and slandering religion.(23)

They change words from their context and forget a part of that whereof they were admonished.(24)

The Jews: listeners for the sake of falsehood, listeners on behalf of other folk who come not unto thee, changing words from their context.(25)

Several things can be said about these texts and their relationship with the former texts. Colin Chapman, indeed, suggests that none of these verses imply that the Bible’s wording has been changed, “ One of the accusations seems to be that certain Jews deliberately mispronounced words spoken by Muhammad, probably playing on the resemblance between certain Arabic and Hebrew words. They are also accused of taking words in their Scriptures out of context and changing the meaning of words.”(26) Chapman refers to Sura 2:146, “A party of them knowingly conceal the truth.” Chapman also notes that the accusations about the corruption of the text itself came from later Islamic apologists.(27) In fact, Muslims from the time of Muhammad to the eleventh century consistently understood the Quranic verses teaching “corruption” to mean that Jews and Christians had misinterpreted their Scriptures.(28) Another logical thing to ask a Muslim who accuses the Bible of being corrupted is simply to ask, “when was the Bible corrupted and by whom?” This question was asked several times during a recent mission to Jordan with no clear answer. The popular answer was, “that does not matter, it just was.” There is indeed, as one might expect, no historical record of there being any party who sought to change or abrogate or amend the texts of Scripture, neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament. It is clear, therefore, that the above texts do not mean that the Bible has been changed textually, but that there has been a change in gnosis, or the knowledge of the texts themselves. This is also true with Jews misinterpreting a text such as Isaiah 53 and failing to see the plain implications that this text is a prophecy of the coming Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. Jews fail to interpret this text in this way. Muslims, on the same hand, accused Jews (and Christians for that matter) of the same type of misinterpretation as they failed to see the confirmation of Islamic theology within the pages of the Bible.

Another crucial misunderstanding of Muslims is their belief that the Gospel of Barnabas was the original Gospel revealed to Jesus in the first century. But, as Chapman points out, this is an easy argument to disprove, for the Gospel of Barnabas contains historical anachronisms, geographical errors, claims that are false (Jesus is not the Messiah), and a parallel to the “circles of hell” which is an image from Dante, a fourth century writer.(29) Also, the Gospel was not even written by Barnabas, but by a person who used the name of a famous saint in order to draw attention to the book.

Norman Geisler points out several weak arguments that have been raised concerning the corruption of the Bible. Commenting on a work by Ahmed Deedat, Geisler notes that “Deedat attempts to show the textual corruption of the Bible by the fact that there are many English versions that have tried to improve on the King James Version!”(30) There are over fifty thousand errors, according to Deedat, including, for example, the RSV’s translation changes the KJV word “virgin” to “young woman.”(31) Yet, the original Hebrew and Greek texts have remained the same in all of the manuscripts and only the variances of English differ due to the translator’s judgments. In addition, “virgin” and “young woman” are virtually synonymous. Contradictions also fall under this category of supposed biblical corruption. But, it is amazing that these contradictions would go unnoticed by biblical scholars. No, these apparent contradictions have ways of being explained. Since the Bible was written by many people through the Holy Spirit, the Bible is not free from personal influence. Paul spoke to a different people than did James, and Isaiah spoke in a different cultural setting than did John during his revelation from God on the island of Patmos. However, though there a variances and theological teachings from different points of view, there are not any blatant contradictions, but only enhancements of the doctrine or teaching. With a little time and explanation, Muslims can see deeper into the teaching of the Bible and notice more fully that the Bible does not in fact contradict itself.

Another ludicrous accusation made against the Bible, some Islamic scholars would pose, is the idea that the Church fathers selected only four gospels from an approximate four thousand other choices. That could only mean that the early Church fathers implemented their own theological biases and chose only that which benefited their own personal theological agendas. But, these thousands of manuscripts are not merely thousands of different books, but copies, or manuscripts, of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.(32)

There are pages and pages more of accusations Muslims make concerning the idea that the Bible has been changed. But, with some clarification of their confusion and misrepresentation of basic history and textual criticism, their arguments dissolve swiftly and they have only the fabrication of tradition and faith to back their irrational allegations. It is crucial to shower Muslims with patience and grace when discussing these issues, faithfully pleading with them to reconsider what they have been told, and to rely wholeheartedly upon the Holy Spirit to break through the veil of their hearts and to supplant unbelief with the truth of the Word of life.

The Bible is Historically Inaccurate.

Along with challenging biblical credibility and reliability through the doctrine tahrif, the historical claims of the Bible have also been challenged by Islamic apologists and scholars. Norman Geisler quotes Ata ur-Rahim’s Jesus, A Prophet of Islam for clarity on the Islamic perspective of the historical reliability of the Bible:

More and more people are now aware that the Christianity they know has little to do with the original teaching of Jesus. During the last two centuries the research of the historians has left little room for faith in the Christian “mysteries”, but the proven fact that the Christ of the established Church has almost nothing t do with the Jesus of history does not in itself help Christians toward the truth.(33)

With this common, yet weakly argued, position denying the historicity of the Bible comes the denial of several essential and central Christian doctrines. The person of Christ, for instance, is challenged. Islam holds stringently to the idea that Christ was merely a prophet, a messenger from Allah, paving the way for the fulfillment of revelation in the ministry of Muhammad. Islam denies that he is God or holds any such deity in his nature.(34) In addition, Islamic thinkers casually discard biblical claims of the events of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. According to the Quran, the Jews neither killed nor crucified Jesus, but Judas instead, for Allah would never let his own Word fall to death. Though, the Quran does label Christ as a miracle worker(35) and the Messiah, God’s word given to Mary, and a Spirit from God.(36) Yet, he is merely a man, a powerful and favored man at that, who is positioned in history for a particular purpose as was Abraham, Moses, and David before him. Put this idea of Christ and the Gospel up against Luke 4:18-21:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Trinity, the single most imperative doctrine of Christianity, is also discounted in the Quran. Though the Bible never actually mentions the word “Trinity”, the Bible clearly teaches a Trinitarian God who has revealed himself in Trinitarian terms. It is amazing to note that the Trinity that the Quran discounts is not nearly the Trinity that the Bible elucidates. The Quran says, “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. SO have faith in god and His messengers, and do not say, ‘Three.’ Refrain; better it is for you. God is only One God.”(37) But, the Bible does not even come close to teaching the same Trinity that the Quran rejects. Heresies existing during the time of Muhammad said that Mary, Jesus, and God were three Gods. Even today in the Catholic Church, one can confuse the status of Mary. Tritheism was the threat. Christians would agree with the Quranic idea that God is one. But, the Bible unpacks his oneness and explains how God can be love, relational, and benevolent in all he does due to the fellowship of the Trinity. Without this understanding of the Trinity, The Islamic God is impersonal, only interested in flicking out commands to his followers instead of fostering intimacy and love. With the denial of biblical historicity, these chief doctrines are challenged and explained away by later emendation due to theological motives.

A rather embarrassing text in the Quran, which was quoted above, has been a difficult text to get around for Muslims, though they have tried. It says, “If you were in doubt as to what We have revealed unto you, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before you: the Truth has indeed come to you from your Lord: so be in no wise of those who doubt.”(38) This book that was written before Muhammad is a reference to the Bible in Muhammad’s day. Norman Geisler, in responding to the difficulty of interpreting this verse notes,

“First, Muhammad would not have asked them to accept a corrupted version of the New Testament. Second, the New Testament today is substantially identical to the New Testament of Muhammad’s day, since today’s New Testament is based on existing manuscripts that go back even centuries before Muhammad’s day. Hence, but the logic of this verse, Muslims should accept the authenticity of today’s Bible.”(39)

This text can be used to identify illogic within the Islamic tradition. If the historical credibility is questionable, then why would Muhammad insist that his followers refer to the Bible? Though, if Muslims adhere to the above text, then they would logically have to accept Christian doctrines like the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the death of Christ. Yet, they do not, hence the struggle and tension within the Islamic faith.

Christian Responses to Islamic Skepticism and Unbelief
The Bible is not without clear teaching concerning the depth and measure of responsibility Christians have with regards to reasoning with unbelievers concerning the truth of God’s covenant message of love. The Muslim tradition is a powerful and influential system that is by no means a challenge to the Christian faith, only a barricade to the light of the glory in the face of Christ, and should be feared only in that way. This paper is only long enough to introduce the challenges Muslims hold toward the Bible and the Christian faith, and is by no means able to contain all that Muslims have historically believed and disbelieved. Muslim understanding of salvation through works, merited grace and forgiveness, a sexual paradise for the faithful (70 virgins), are all worth deep prayers and much brokenness concerning the lostness and confusion of Muslims. People who were created in God’s image, who claim a certain divine understanding and craving, yet deny truth for man-made religion, are worth the suffering, sweating, and bleeding in order to communicate the truth. Christians should educate themselves concerning the Islamic system and be prepared to be all things to all men. Let us hold firmly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Though it seems like an abyss of darkness, that is the salvation of many Muslims, we should acknowledge the strength of the resurrected Lord, and the potent capabilities of the Spirit, and pursue the harvest with a ruthless abandon, armed with the weapons of truth and salvation.
The Islamic denial of the reliability of the Bible is not as difficult as one would think to clarify. Experiences in Jordan would only prove that through much reasoning and patience, Muslims will begin to doubt the logic and foundation of their on belief system. The only realm of failure to avoid is silence, the endless pit of ultimate faithlessness.

End Notes

1. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross, (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1993, 2002) 91-92.
2. Sura 7:157
3. Sura 29:48
4. Colin Chapman, Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995, 2003) 86.
5. Emir Fethi Caner and Ergun Mehmet Caner, More Than a Prophet: An Insider’s Response to Muslim Beliefs About Jesus & Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2003) 73.
6. Sura 15:9
7. George W. Braswell Jr., Islam: Its Prophet, Peoples, Politics and Power, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996) 50.
8. Mohammad Abu-Hamdiyyah, The Qur’an: An Introduction, (London: Routledge, 2000) 37.
9. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross, (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1993, 2002) 100.
10. Sura 43:3-4
11. Sura 85:21-22
12. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross, 102-03.
13. Phil Parshall, Understanding Muslim Teachings and Traditions: A Guide for Christians, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994) 18.
14. Ibid.
15. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, 188.
16. I experienced this argument significantly while I was in Jordan and in Jerusalem. Their claims were convincing to them and served as an incredible barrier for the gospel.
17. Phil Parshall recognizes inconsistency in the Quran through scriptural abrogation. Sura 2:106 says, “Such of our revelations as we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is able to do all things?” Abrogation is the Islamic teaching that one particular verse has been modified by a later one. Parshall notes that at this point the Quran comes in strict contradiction with the Hadith. See: Phil Parshall, Understanding Muslim Teachings and Traditions, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994) 24-26; Peter G. Riddell & Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Future, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003) 60-61.
18. Sura 5:48
19. Sura 10:94
20. Sura 4:136; cf. 5:66, 68
21. Sura 15:9
22. Sura 2:75
23. Sura 4:46
24. Sura 5:13
25. Sura 5:41
26. Chapman, Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam, 194.
27. “Umar, for example, the second caliph, believed that Christian monks and teachers had distorted the teaching of the Bible by giving false interpretations or simply by covering up clear teaching, for instance, about the coming of Muhammad” (Quoted from Chapman, Cross and Crescent, 195). This seems to be the logical explanation due to the protection of the Scriptures by the Jews and the fear that Islamic bias might misinterpret the Scriptures to their own liking. In fact, the first appearance of the teaching that Jews actually changed the words of the Scriptures first appeared in the eleventh century.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 197.
30. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross, 309.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Geisler, 312; quoting from Ata ur-Rahim, Muhammad, Jesus, A Prophet of Islam, (New York: Diwan Press, no date) 13.
34. See Sura 5:17
35. See Sura 5:110; 19:30-33
36. See Sura 4:171
37. Sura 4:171
38. Sura 10:94
39. Geisler, 218.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abu-Hamdiyyah, Muhammad. The Quran: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2000.

Braswell, George W. Jr. Islam: Its Prophet, Peoples, Politics and Power. Nashville:
Bradman & Holman Publishers, 1996.

Caner, Emir Fethi & Ergun Mehmet Caner. More than a Prophet: An Insider’s
Response to Muslim Beliefs About Jesus & Christianity. Grand Rapids: Kregel
Publications, 2003.

Chapman, Colin. Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam. Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995, 2003.

Geisler, Norman L. & Abdul Saleeb. Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the
Cross. Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1993, 2002.

Parshall, Phil. Bridges to Islam: A Christian Perspective on Folk Islam. Grand Rapids:
BakerBooks, 1983

__________. Understanding Muslim Teachings and Traditions: A Guide for
Christians. Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1994.

Reeves, John C. Ed. Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality. Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

Riddell, Peter G. & Peter Cotterell. Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Future. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

Trivial Glory

2006-02-22T15:51:00.000-05:00

John the Baptist spoke in the shadow of the promised Messiah something vital for our world, "He must increase, I must decrease." We are surrounded by small things. Our conversations seem more like playing in a sand box than digging for oil. Radio, television, newspapers, magazines are all trivial. Our souls are surrounded on all sides with things that strain the grandeur our soul was meant to embrace. The only cure for our society is a grand and glorious Christ. This glory is not trivial. This Christ is not in the least bit small or out-dated or diffused of noteriety. John recognized the consequences of people looking to himself for life; they were so monumental. So it is true today. The less and less we gaze at Christ, the more our world will seem rudimentary, and the more we will die a trivial death, worried more about the next movie coming out than the glory of Jesus Christ, and we won't even question ourselves.

Each passing day brings the return of Jesus Christ closer. We are on call. Our watch is to be ever more intentful and objectively consistent, looking high and gazing far, for he is storming ahead. Trivial glory is our temptation, the candy in the window of sorts, the generic brand that seems more beneficial and a more convenient sacrifice. As we rub ourselves raw with a pacifist Christian culture, we scrape away the layer of desperation, urgency, and passion. But these are undignified, out-dated, and not for everyone, right? Meanwhile, Jesus is sitting at the Father's right hand, ruling and reigning with him, watching his people, examining life and thought and intention and action. While we bleed and sweat over trivial things, the Kingdom of God blazes. Two passages worth noting here are 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4 and Hebrews 2:8-9. The former: "Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, youu have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to suprise you like a thief."

And:

"Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outsid his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

By the grace of God are we aloud the eternal privilege of knowing and benefiting from Christ's reign. This Kingdom is no trivial thing. Let us relinquish what we consider to be worthy of life and hold on to the cross in everything in order to glorify and honor Jesus Christ!

I wrote this song in Jordan...

2005-11-07T13:35:00.000-05:00

His Grace Tis There

I fell unto the blood-stained land wearing nakedness and shame

I cast Thy beauty from my sight through lust and broken fame

Thy voice became a silent air, Thy brow I could not kiss

The wedding room he broke into to pierce Thy loving bliss

The shadow of affections past dost bring Thy light to thee

Thy streams of love and grace will flow, Oh lead thee to Thy sea

Where mercy sings Thy bride to sleep, and brings her to Thy stare

And love restores her shattered frame, and all Thy grace tis there.

He came unto this weary land to crush the serpant's sting

In humbleness he sought the dead as prophet, priest, and king

The mocker's jeers and satan's cheers did scorn this tender lamb

His Father's will broke through the screams, in sorrow He did stand

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, to bleed is why He came

A sacrifice did substitute, righteousness for shame

The cross soaked in the flesh of Christ, all sinners He did bear

Now from the grave His beauty rise, for all His grace tis there.

Now His love has justified, our romance now restored

Thy Holy Name prepares the way for a grace we can afford

The prodigal now has a robe, the whore is welcome home

Tarry not the world again, He is the cornerstone

The heavens sing to Jesus Christ, all nations will declare

The Lord of all in garments bright, a glory not to share

For all the hope of His reward, His Kingdom dost prepare

The song of Christ comes to His Bride, "All Thy grace to share!"

Pride Talk

2005-08-21T19:23:00.000-04:00

I am fearful of even the slightest manifestation of haughtiness appearing in my soul (and, Lord forbid it, within your Body) from the den of darkness in which the pompous parasite makes its stay, overlaying a mirage of goodwill, and revealing itself from the shadows within. It spreads like fire across a field of brush. Instead of vomiting at its scent, the aroma becomes an intoxicating air, an entrapment of sorts, a fallacious liberty. It cries to be reckoned and heard with a voice ever so shrewd and bureaucratic. Instantaneously, the sweet melody of forbearance and meekness gives way to a deceptive bellowing and a lethal bite of malicious candy. It is taking the hand of an ax-murderer while mistaking him for a king. It is swimming in a septic tank on the shore of the sea, drowning in the waste of self-interest and individual prejudice. Worse still, it can be covered with a mock righteousness, an anecdotal confession, a self-inflated prayer, or a moldy deed. Can we worship, or pray, or weep for spiritual callousness, or share in longsuffering, or proclaim truth from the mountain peeks, or enter his gates with thanksgiving, or come to his table and eat, or sing praises to his holy name, all while embracing and treasuring self-aggrandizement as if it were invisible to God and his people?

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished- Prov 16.5; Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly- Rom 12.16; Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful- 1Cor 13.4-6; I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace- Eph 4.1-3; But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”- Jam 4.6.

To bear the cross is to forsake our throne. To see Jesus is to esteem him while becoming lesser than him in all submission. Let us run with an uncanny vigor toward the humility of Jesus. Let us embrace this absurdity, this friction, this ‘blackboard screech’ of sorts brought about by the fingers of godlessness within our decrepit souls. Let the songs of gladness and cheer, solicitude and love, fidelity and justice, mercy and forbearance, lowliness and meekness once again resound over the clanging resonance of self-saturation, superciliousness, and egotism. Let us look at Jesus forever, his cross, his splendor, and his beauty:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. – Phil 2.1-8.

Let it be in your Church, for your glory, for our joy, and for the salvation of the world. Amen!

Concerning Poor Theology and Love Unto Death, Part III: Suffering and Kingdom

2005-03-16T11:02:00.000-05:00

“But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he arose and entered the city. And the next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. And after they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.’” Acts 14:19-22

When I read the writings of Paul (or, in the case of Acts, the writings of Luke) it is usually strenuous for me to envision what his life was actually like. Paul was hardcore. He was probably uncomfortable to be around. He was one of those guys that always had something “spiritual” to say. I think that when you get to the point where someone seems too spiritual, it is true that they could be faking it or dressing the part or simply good at memorizing cliché, or you could be backsliding by downsizing their appeal to an authentic awe of God’s Word, prayer, evangelism, etc., a false accusation of course, into a fictitious act of spiritual nothingness, which, in the end, for you, psychologically elevates your own clever spirituality, actually illuminating its moldiness. I see these sorts of social configurations all the time, where someone will suggest prayer, or use a passage of Scripture in a conversation, and someone else will respond with, “Do you always have to be so spiritual?” Or, sometimes “over-spiritualization” is avoided altogether simply by never bringing up spiritual matters. We know how to play these games. No one wants to be labeled “extremist” or “fanatic” because there are certain expectations that come with such a rank, right? Today, it is easier to merely blend in. Commonality produces strength, the Christian culture tells us, and it is better to keep all acts of extremity within the community of believers. And, in the process, the Christian culture straightjackets those who feel the burning and hear the calling to jump off of the ship into the ferocious sea.

With Paul it was pretty black and white. There is a task, it is centered on the work of Jesus Christ, he suffered for it, because of his suffering salvation was made possible; therefore he must do the same. He must live to die, not because it was fun to be a rebel or start a fight, but because the closer he came to death for the glory of Christ (key motivation), the closer he came to Christ himself and His death and resurrection. My aim here will be to understand Paul’s heart, how he trumps common sense, safety, precaution, preservation, limitation, and small love by pointing to the cross. My feeling is that Paul would weep if he were allowed to know about the Church’s ministry habits, including my own. May the sheer incomparability of God’s Word steer us, shape us, break us, and compel us in the next moments, by the grace of Christ and through the Holy Spirit, to a further abandonment.

Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
We find Paul in Acts 14 right in the middle of his first missionary expedition following his awesome conversion experience that interrupted his journey to persecute Christians in Damascus (Acts 9). Paul had just preached in Iconium to a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles acquiring many believers (14:1). However, many of the embittered Jews “stirred up the minds of the Gentiles” (14:2), yet still, the disciples “Spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands” (14:3). However, the Jewish conspirators instigated a divide that threatened to explicate the disciples’ work, so they fled to Lystra, Lycaonia, and Derbe. Paul and Barnabus were mistaken for deities when Paul healed a lame boy; Paul was called “Hermes”, Barnabas “Zeus”. They petitioned vehemently to the people to stop this obscene and ludicrous worship of them, “Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them” (14:15). Meanwhile, those “rock-in-your-shoe” Jews continued to cause uproar among the Gentiles and they stoned Paul leaving him battered, apparently, to death. What happens next is unthinkable. Paul gets up after being dropped off outside the city (the people thought he was dead) and returns to the same city to preach some more, and the Scriptures say, “After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch” (14:21).

I would love to review Paul’s insurance policy. How many preachers do you know who endure physical beatings before their evening message? The passage leaves this out, but I often wonder what the disciples were telling Paul when he considered re-entering the city that almost killed him. “Hey Paul, bro, we don’t think you should go back there. They almost killed you! No, you don’t understand, it’s too dangerous, you are injured, and you need to heal before going back there, which is a stupid idea anyway. Paul, you have already made your point, they don’t want you back, let’s go somewhere a little easier, possibly a little friendlier.” But, Paul goes back, preaches a message of grace and love, and acquires many disciples. He then comforts the disciples in their faith and says, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (14:22b). Gee, some comforting words, huh.

Is this not a message that juxtaposes modern thought? For many, Christianity has become a medicine, or quick fix; a remedy of sorts from the sufferings of the world. It is membership without involvement, or association without commitment. It has become a secret instead of a proclamation. It has sought to keep up with culture, run the same race, and adopt the same ideology. Our churches look like miniature (or in some cases major) businesses. The American dream has had a global “el Nino-like” effect, disturbing the climate of worship, home-life, and ministerial commitment. Christians have learned to categorize “ministry” into a higher calling only for the elite Christians, in a sense, freeing themselves from front-line fighting. Christianity has turned political tagging the Republican Party, for some reason, as the truly “Christian” party giving Christians something smaller to fight over. Philosophically, many Christians have been infected with the postmodern virus producing a lazy Christianity that is more like a preference than a worldview. Faith has become personalized, birthed within the individual, instead of a gift from God. It seems that the more we travel away from the biblical witness within the cultural tide, the more it feels like the lost city of Atlantis, or something like that. I hope you understand that I have made several generalizations here. I do believe there is a movement of God taking place and that we are going to see amazing things in our day. He is in control, He is doing it, He is moving, He is working salvation for Him, He is instructing, He is inventing, He is maintaining, He is intervening; He has a strategy, He has an idea, He has a vision, He has the resources. He knows what he is doing. He is not affected by cultural trends.

Paul says something similar to Acts 14:22 to his son-in-the-faith Timothy, “And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). He says to the Thessalonians concerning the mistreatment and opposition he had received in Philippi with the hopes of strengthening the church of Thessalonica’s faith, “So that no man may be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this” (1 Thess 3:3). Peter understands the manner of his calling in Christ, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps” (1 Pet 2:21). John gets in on the suffering brigade in Revelation, “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus…” (Rev 1:9). There is an understanding that unites the biblical authors concerning the manner in which they were called. Sufferings, tribulation, enmity, strife, pain, antagonism, are all a part of the Kingdom of God. In fact, it seems that we can conclude from these passages that they are, in essence, the Kingdom of God. We need pages and pages to fully handle this idea, but a few more paragraphs will have to suffice for our sake, mainly for your sake.

Paul makes an interesting statement in Colossians 1:24. Paul has just beautifully portrayed the centrality of Christ in cataclysmic fashion teaching his deity, his work in creation, his divine authority, and his specific works in salvation. He then says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” What is he saying? Is he undermining, or belittling the atoning work of Christ? It sounds like he is. But, in actuality, he is making a profound connection between his own sufferings and the Kingdom of Christ. At the cross there is definitely completion. Our salvation was finalized, our redemption was purchased, and we became the righteousness of Christ, and Paul would wholeheartedly agree with these claims. But, concerning his ministry, which he defines in 1:25ff, there is a deficit, a hole of sorts, that can only be filled with suffering, in order to communicate to the Gentiles the specific, unordinary, world-changing love of Christ, which was accomplished and fully revealed through Jesus’ own suffering at Calvary.

We must quickly apply this to our modern setting. It’s not that Paul and the other biblical authors are teaching us to seek persecution. In fact, to say, “I want to be a martyr,” can be a dangerous motivation. Paul is hoping, rather, to expand the capacity of our hearts and minds to contain in them the love of Christ and the model he left us to follow. We are to love in such a way that would not see persecution as a barrier, but as a blessing. For through our sufferings we partake in the sufferings of Christ, and in so doing, enter into the Kingdom of Christ.

Let me apply this with a personal story, and with this I will close. I recently had an opportunity to minister to a homeless person that had made his way onto our campus here at Southern. After talking with him I offered my room for him to stay in and he actually complied. However, a security guard came and told him he had to leave campus. After a few conversations with some brothers and sisters in Christ and the security guard, all agreeing with the decision of the security guard, I felt perplexed, confused, and hurt in my heart over such a swift resistance to this man who obviously needed something, maybe even beyond physical accommodations. He didn’t look like everyone else, yes, but since when did that matter? He could have been a murderer, or rapist, or psychedelic freak, but that never stopped Jesus. Possessions could have been stolen, lives could have been lost, the parents of students could have sued, and the seminary could have been shut down, all at the expense of extending love and hospitality to this man. But, isn’t this exactly what Paul is teaching? I walked with Adam off campus and told him along the way that even if he wanted to kill me, it wouldn’t change my pursuit of him, or what I was offering to him. I came to find out later that he was a brother in Christ and shared the same heart. I feel that if death was our only limitation to outreach and ministry, then we would see many believe in Christ and His work of salvation on the cross. Let us love the world around us with relentless love, fearing nothing, and let us follow Christ with our crosses on our backs, for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Concerning Poor Theology and Love Unto Death, Part II: Commendable Hands, Eternal Heart

2005-03-09T08:58:00.001-05:00

“And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain—for He says ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you’; behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation’—giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in affliction, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:1-10

Eternal Backdrop
The first matter that Paul warns against is not an easy one to examine, for my sake, because I see the implications, the heaviness, the driving nature of Paul’s plea and where he will eventually end up, and in all honest confession, it is a little foreboding. My aim over the next several weeks will be to fully understand our mission as “ambassadors of Christ” so as to see more of us willing to reach farther in our worship and in our duty to pursue and love the unbelieving world around us. I have sort of an egotistic motivation at work here attributable to my own desire for more compassion and to increase the power of my heart to love those Christ would undoubtedly love at any expense. We need to see the full abandonment of Christians; we need to see the bearing of crosses for the glory of Christ. We need to see the witness of Christ exceed the limits of man.

This passage comes at the end of a word from Paul to the Corinthians concerning the vast expanse between one’s understanding of a worldview and one’s action based on a worldview, for the eternal perspective Paul defends here should shape us differently than our empirical data tells us. In summary, we are to be eternally minded people. We have a building from God that is eternal in the heavens (5:1). We will be clothed in heaven though we fear nakedness (culturally, socially, etc…). We are actually members of another existence that is not of this world, we are heirs of an eternal Kingdom, we are inheritors of something beyond scope and vision and comprehension, and we have an eternal backdrop that is indispensable for the application thereof. We are tent dwellers awaiting the heavenly abode built by the hands of God (5:3-4). We are to fear nothing on the earthly level. Put another way, there is an eternal counter for every transient obstacle that we seemingly come to, for when the light of Christ shines upon the apparent barricade, we find it not to be a barricade at all, but a vast entryway leading to the eternal Kingdom.

God is the center of Paul’s confession here. God gave us the Spirit as a pledge so that we would always be of good courage (5:5-6). In light of this, we have a charge to be pleasing to God, to realize our standing before him, and to prepare for our appearance before the judgment seat of Christ when we carry our deeds, whether good or bad, with us to his throne of holiness (5:9-10).

I fear that far too many of us have grown up in a Christian dream world, a spiritual playpen of sorts, filled with furry and cozy doctrines, infantile faiths, and a fenced in application of the revelation of God. We have a mean, or average, haven that is safe, familiar, and acceptable by many Christ-confessors. We are far from the eternal perspective Paul advocates and nearer to the folly of holding to a ‘here and now’ ideology. But Paul is clearing the air here, breaking down the religious crib, and gracefully raising the awareness and commitment level of the Corinthians, and us. I want to hear a different kind of encouragement come from God’s people. Instead of “Be careful,” or “Be wise,” or “Be safe,” can the encouragement be “Be bold,” “Be courageous,” “Don’t fear death,” “Let the far reaches of the love of Christ be your model”? We must not fall into the trickery of cultural philosophy that values preservation, treasure, and is blinded by their contemporary retina. We cannot fear anything in our attempts to love, impart compassion, institute divine mercy, and convey the mysterious, illogical, astounding gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a divine home, an eternal promise, a sovereign leader; no lawsuit, stolen possession, bullet wound, emotional pain, persecution, stereotype, hardship, or anything that yells for our spiritual resignation should prevent us from ‘foolish’ service or scare us into a lesser ruthlessness. We need to know our faith and own our faith, and reknow and reown everyday. The more we come to grips with an eternal perspective, the more we apply our faith to our reach, the more we consider our heavenly home and realize our alien status, the more we long for the heart of God, the more we desire to see ourselves clothed with the righteousness of God, heavenly garb, glorious apparel, then the more we will see happen in our day that is explainable only with an eternal interpretation. We exist because of God, for God, and in order to see others worship God. Let us bring the cross to the lost, model the cross for the sufferer, and let us not empty the cross of its power by retreating into vanity, but let us hope, persevere, and courageously approach the mission of God.

Commendable Workman
Let us fear what Paul warns against in the above passage, that our view and application of grace might be in vain. For since God “helped us” and brought salvation to us at an “acceptable time”, we should now live by the truth that, “now is the time, now is the day of salvation.” This is not the time to recoil into a timid ball, or fear the paganistic agenda, or run from adversity. This is the time for the salvation of God to come upon the business person, the college student, the Muslim, the poor, the rich, the faithless, the skeptic, the atheist, the widow, the lonely, the homeless, the naked, the enemy, the hedonist, the naturalist, the postmodernist, the antagonist, the agnostic, the weak, the timid, the strong; the trumpet is blowing, God is moving, what are we going to do?

We need to commend ourselves in everything. In other words, our lives need to resemble the reality of our faith. We do not hold to something that is in anyway small. We need to “Give no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God.” Paul seems to list three all-conclusive ways we commend ourselves listing them in what seems to be three categories:

1. Circumstances: in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger (4-5). By glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report (8).
2. Spiritual fruits: in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love (6).
3. Divine truths: in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left (7-8).

These are not, by any means, essential or permanent categories, but it helps us to understand that we need to be found commendable in our circumstances, no matter how severe, through the fruits that come from the Holy Spirit, and because of the divine reality. Paul says that in everything we must present ourselves commendable. This is not my idea. This is not the churches idea. This is God’s idea. He has commanded that we show ourselves before Him to be commendable, appropriately administering the love that comes from the gospel, faithfully representing God as his image, and wholeheartedly living out the divine reality.

We now return to our eternal vs. temporary discussion. Paul concludes our passage with a comparison between what seems to be true (the temporary perspective) and what is actually true (the eternal perspective). This is some powerful information for us as we consider how far, how passionate, how reckless, how foolish we should be. Paul says, “Regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything.” Let me continue; regarded as foolish, yet wise, as illogical, yet truthful, as lost, yet found, as culturally-unaware, yet fully aware, as weak, yet we are strong. Our eternal perspective will change everything about us, the way we think, the way we minister, the way we love, the way we treat our wives/husbands, the way we worship, the way we treat our brothers and sisters. Let us consider how to heed this vociferous command!

jme

Concerning Poor Theology and Love Unto Death, Part I

2005-03-02T13:14:00.000-05:00

Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. Isaiah 58:6-9

How often I come to the Word of God only to find how distant my heart is from God’s. So we are faced with the plea, as hearers of a divine concept and as inheritors of a transcendent idea, to sing God’s song, espouse His vision, His love, absorb His heart, His affections, or as Abraham Heschel, a Jewish scholar who wrote during WWII, so poignantly and emotionally imparts, “To feel the pathos of God.” Is this not the great sin of our day? Is this not the heinous crime of the church? Should not, by the mercy of God, our first utterance to the King each new day be a request for a new heart, a heart that beats with heavenly blood, one that surges like a rushing river into souls, one that dances to the music of God’s promises, one that fights against the comforts and dreams of man, one that sees Christ as the center and death as gain? Should we not fear the clotting of our hearts, as it were, and the cardiac arrest that stems from indifference, religious masquerading, and the protection of personal agenda and program?

I have recently collided with a rather untidy and burdensome view of the love of God, but to save the importance of brevity, I will not go into detail. I do not mean to be so rash, but this is the doctrine that ends up on trial considering the logical trend. It is easy to sugarcoat the love of God and mutate it into something everyone can enjoy and grasp. It is even easier to deposit the love of God into a safe in order to keep it until access is needed or warranted. It is easy to dumb down the ramifications that are gathered from the cross and from the teachings of Christ, such as, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39). The faint-hearted and the seeming religious man knows how to memorize passages such as this one, exegete them, exposit them, maybe even teach them and turn them into clever rhetoric and phraseology, but the godly man applies them. He moves away from the self-fabricated playground of theory and into the realm of achievement. What if Christ’s idea of suffering, salvation, substitution, atonement, imputation, love, etc… remained a theory? Theory only goes as far as a newborn would in a race. Christ did not die so that we could have nice theories about his love; he died in order to show us how to love, even unto death. God’s love is not a theory. Thus, I wish to examine this idea briefly in Scripture, hopefully to put us on our faces before God, illuminate our frail hearts, increase our awe of the love of God, and turn our hearts to the world in need of this mysterious, God-sized love, the kind death cannot vanquish. I will indeed, take the next several weeks to cover this topic.

A Different Fast
In the prophets we often see a foreign brand of transparency, one that would not be allowed in a good number of contemporary pulpits. Can you imagine the church of your liking asking Isaiah to come as the keynote speaker for a conference concerning the love of God? He would probably already be aware of the heart of the people, how their hearts are habitually inclined to messages of this sort, but of a certain kind, a one-sided kind of love, where God is the Bestower, and we are the sponge soaking up all the water of God’s outpouring love. Now, I am in no way, and I think Isaiah would agree here, deflating this astonishing truth, that God does lavish his eternal love on those worthy of rejection, judgment, and death by means of eternal fire and endless conscious suffering. He extends His right arm to His enemies granting them access to His table, to an endless feast, to a dance, to an incomprehensible paradise centered on the One inflaming with love. Isaiah would no doubt beam to utter such a claim, but often, the Church halts here and fails to exhort the Church on how to dispense the same love to others. The Churches that do often force out, or embellish this message with religious zeal, yet fail to make a connection or provide accountability or even a venerable model.

We see an ardent resilience within the people of God in Isaiah 58:2:

For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.

I hope we would all admit that these are good qualities for the people of God to possess. We see here a people concerned about the justice of God, the closeness of God, and the commands of God. The people grow frustrated regarding the apparent snubbing of God and His failure to recognize their supplication (3). What are they lacking? Why the silence? Enter Isaiah 58:6-9. God divulges through Isaiah what it is that identifies a true fast, a true worshipper, a true inheritor of the Kingdom of God, a true member of God’s house.

1. Loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke (6a).
2. Set the oppressed free and break every yoke (6b).
3. To share food with the hungry (7a).
4. To provide the wanderer with shelter (7a).
5. To clothe the naked (7b).

For through this fast,

1. Your light will break forth like the dawn (8a).
2. Healing will quickly appear (8a).
3. Your righteousness will go before you (8b).
4. The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard (8c).
5. The Lord will answer your call (9a).
6. He will say ‘Here am I’ (9b).

Here we meet with the heart of God, the purpose of His love, the reason for His mission, that His people would join with Him, become His advocate, risk all, participate in this divine fast and help untie the social knot of injustice, hate, and negligence. We can no longer call ourselves heirs of the Kingdom of God while we ignore the strident cry of the oppressed, the desperate tears of the lonely, the shame of the naked, the aching of the hungry. Who are we to approach God with our makeshift praise when at the same time we fail as His image. I pray we turn loose our grip of safety and precaution and comfort and embrace the dangerous love of God that tugs on the veil of death.

This is an introductory of sorts with the hopes of examining more on this subject of loving and serving the poor and loving without the constraint of man-made fluff, but usurping our flesh with abandonment. Let us overflow with mercy and compassion, justice and social concern, and let us abandon the rules of men for the heart of God. TBC…

Brothers and Sisters, we are of the Day!

2005-02-16T00:16:00.000-05:00

It is true indeed that there is a shrieking alarm making its way across the world, and if you cannot hear it, then you are not listening. Hearing it only takes a vision of God, a heart for His cause, and a desperate pursuit of both. I believe this alarm is one of austerity, coming forth to encourage the people of God, to warn the enemies of God, and to foreshadow the destruction that is to come upon the wicked, unrighteous, and the indifferent.

We need people, warriors, cross-bearers, to heed the warning, pursue Christ, and battle unswervingly, fearlessly, relentlessly, and shamelessly for the sake of Jesus and his glory and worship, which is already coming to him and will come to him forever. Do you want in? Will you chain yourself to the movement of God? Will you jump in His river that is flowing fast cutting through the strongholds of Satan and his wretched program? I do.

What is the purpose of Slice of Bread? Because of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11:

"Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know ful well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, 'Peace and safety!' then destruction will come upon them

suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you are doing."

1. Because the day of the Lord is "coming like a thief"

We are "of the day." This is no mystery or obscure intention of Scripture. There is no ambiguity here. Paul is disclosing this information for all to hear, for all to adhere with fear and hope all in the same breath. But, "the day" is not coming like a shrewd thief to all. Only the children of the Beloved understand Paul's monitorial plea. Verse 4 tells us, "But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief." We have light, we have an in, we have a divine point of view through grace and by faith and because of Jesus.

2. For the alertness of the Church

"So then let us not sleep as other do, but let us be alert and sober." Oh that Christ would awaken us from our deep slumbers and cause us to tremble with alertness as "the day" approaches. There is much at stake. That we would put on the "breast plate of faith and love" to secure our footing and guide us to those desperate for love and affection. That the gospel would be centralized in our hearts. That we would wear the "hope of salvation" as a helmet protecting us from the spirit of the age, from a religion of rhetoric and phrasiology, from theoretical theology, from small worship, from professionalism, from cheap grace, from injustice, from hatred, from befriending the world.

3. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ (really #1)

This is the heart and soul of everything. The Word that became flesh. The Logos of all logos. Who was from all eternity, who is one with the Father and Holy Spirit, who is glorious, central, perfect, powerful, wise, and who is sustaining all things with the power of his right arm. Through whom we live and breath and have our being. Because of Jesus we have fellowship. Because of his Word we have purpose. He calls, ordains, purifies, establishes, cleanses, enriches, and keeps all for His glory and fame and universal recognition. Brothers and Sisters, those who proclaim faith in Christ proclaim their death. Those who carry a cross carry a means to an end. Those who confess the lordship of Christ enter into slavery. We are of His Kingdom (Colossians 1).

Before Christ we had no words. We had no song to sing. We had no ability to meet with God on our own. We were not allowed, as enemies, to see God, or know God, or walk with God. But friends, the veil is on the ground, the serpent is a pancake, and we have salvation through Christ! "For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with Him" (vv 9-10).

4. "Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing" (v 11)

This is the command that is driving Slice of Bread. I figured that there were not enough writers in the world today and that I needed to become one of the few...Kidding! I am only writing to proclaim a message, to communicate to my friends and family, by brothers and sisters, a heavy thing. I want to create a burden within the body of Christ. Here in verse 11 we receive a command from Paul that we all to often passover. How quickly our conversations fall off the cliff of meaninglessness. Could we perhaps love Christ and love each other more than sports, gain, fashion, riches, intellect, hey, maybe even our selves (I know this is asking way to much)? Could we care enough about the gospel to share it with our families, neighbors, colleagues, and nations?

My hope is to find encouragement through the Word, that is Christ, for us, the bride of Christ. The Greek word here for encouragement is Parakaleo, meaning "by the side, to call to one's side. To comfort, exhort, desire, call for, beseech with a strong force." This my aim, this is Paul's hope for us, this is what it means to know Christ and share in his sufferings, this is what it means to run with perseverance and zeal. Seize the day, for we are of the day!

My goal will be to post every Tuesday, sometime in the evening. There is a place on the website for comments. Please respond, give encouragement, offer other passages of Scripture that drive home the same point. I am not saying every entry will be this heavy, but every entry will have a purpose to encourage us and point us to Christ. I love you all and need you all and hope the Word of Christ fills you with the hope of salvation and the joy of knowing Christ!

Joey