my surprising ancestreal roots

For the longest time, I thought (because I had been told so) that my last name was German. However, after taking German for several years, I found out there is no 'gh' combination in the German language. Then I discovered that actually, the name is Scottish. (Doug, maybe my great, great, great, great grandfather went to school with yours!). Anyway, I also have a fair amount of Native American blood from both my Grandmothers and Dutch from my mom's dad.

Recently, however, I found another ancestreal root - troll. Sometimes genetic traits lay dormant for a few generations, the resurface (I actually am just making this up. I have no idea, but I have to explain the resemblance some how). Check it out:

an apology, sort of...

I listened to the message from Saturday's Connexion, and feel like I should probably apologize (though not for what many of you might be thinking). During the message, I said that the church must show the world what it looks like to live in the kingdom. I could've focused on a lot of kingdom living things, but I focused for a couple of minutes on love. The church is to show the world kingdom life, and more than anything else, kingdom life is love.

So far so good...

Then, in the next breath, I was talking about how the purpose of the church isn't to build the church, but to point to and witness to the King and the kingdom. Again, so far so good. I talked about how it's possible to build a huge local church and do nothing for the kingdom. Ok. Then, I did something I shouldn't have done - I specifically mentioned Joel Olsteen and his Lakewood Church as an example of someone who's built a huge church by telling people what they want to hear without necessarily witnessing to the King or the kingdom.

Do you see it...

I think I'm right in my assessment (in fact, I watched an Olsteen sermon on Sunday night just to confirm it. He said, and I quote, "just because you have weaknesses doesn't mean you're a bad person". That would be ok if by weakness he meant a bum knee or an weak constitution. However, earlier in the message he used some examples of weaknesses to clarify what he meant. For example, someone might have a weakness towards food and overeating; some might be prone to jealously or anger; others might be impatient; still other may be big spenders; other might have a "weakness towards the opposite sex"... Most of us would call these "weaknesses", sin: gluttony, jealousy, anger, materialism, fornication/lust, etc. Not Joel - the word 'sin' wouldn't make people feel good).

Rant over. I think I'm right in my assessment, but it probably wasn't a display of love to call him out by name in a message. So, I apologize, kinda...

owning up to being an evangelical

Last night I was reading an a letter written from a Christian man in the early to mid 1800's. The letter was a defense of slavery. The author, Mr. Furman (Furman University ring a bell), was the President of the Baptist Convention in South Carolina, and used his Bible to defend the institution of slavery. The letter written to the governor not only defends slavery as permissible, but also as an act of benevolence to the Africans who were slaved from death and brought to America. Here, he argues, they were given access to spiritual truths they were ignorant of before - spiritual truths that are to the benefit of their souls. (Thankfully, there were other evangelicals who were standing against slavery, both here in the US and abroad. Read sometime about Wilberforce in England. In fact, the letter is written in large part to counter the arguments being made by Christians who were in favor of 'general emancipation'. There's always some who can see through the fog.)

Honestly, it was a painful letter to read. It reminds me that as a Christian and as an evangelical, there is a lot of baggage that comes with those labels - most of it self inflicted. But the point of this post isn't to point the finger at Christians of the past and curse them, or even to groan under the weight of the baggage they left us. Instead, I want to ask, where is our blind spot? Three generations from now, what baggage will we have left to those who will follow us?

Jonathan Edwards is my spiritual hero. I don't always agree with him, but his devotion and piety and intellect are astounding. Yet, he owned slaves. I would say this was clearly sin, yet Edwards was blind to it. It was so ingrained in his world and culture, that he didn't see it for what it was. And he wasn't alone. Others failed to see their sins because they were a part of their world and were just accepted. For example, Calvin (another hero of mine) had Servetus burned at the stake (although, to set the record straight, while he did favor execution, he pleaded for mercy and a quick death. The Council decided Servetus' fate). Servetus would've suffered the same end had he been arrested and convicted by the Catholic Church for his heresies, but this cannot be used to excuse Calvin for his sin. Or again, consider Luther (maybe the person I quote the most). There is pretty good, ok incontrovertible evidence, that he was anti-Semitic. Again, this is in large part to the times in which Luther lived, but cannot excuse his sin.

Oddly though, the people who I can't find these kind of examples in are my contemporary heroes. Does that mean that they aren't blinded by their culture to sin in their lives? No, I think it means I'm probably blinded by the same culture to the same sin in my like. So continues the quest to find sin, name it, then kill it.

the Lord's Supper, A Prayer

I read this tonight in my office. I meant to read it at Connexion, but time got away from me. It's a beautiful prayer from a little collection of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision:

God of all good, I bless Thee for the means of grace;
teach me to see in them Thy loving purposes
and the joy and strength of my soul.
Thou hast prepared for me a feast;
and though I am unworthy to sit down as a guest,
I wholly rest on the merits of Jesus,
and hide myself beneath His righteousness.
When I hear His tender invitation
and see His wondrous grace,
I cannot hesitate, but must come to Thee in love.
By Thy Spirit enliven my faith rightly to discern
and spiritually to apprehend the Savior.
While I gaze upon the emblems of my Savior’s death,
may I ponder why He died, and hear Him say,
“I gave My life to purchase yours,
presented Myself an offering to expiate your sin,
shed My blood to blot out your guilt,
opened My side to make you clean,
endured your curses to set you free,
bore your condemnation to satisfy divine justice.”
O may I rightly grasp the breadth and length of this design,
draw near, obey, extend the hand,
take the bread, receive the cup,
eat and drink, testify, before all men
that I do for myself, gladly,
in faith, reverence and love, receive my Lord,
to be my life, strength, nourishment, joy, delight!
In the supper I remember His eternal love, boundless grace,
infinite compassion, agony, cross, redemption,
and receive assurance of pardon, adoption, life, glory.
As the outward elements nourish my body,
so may Thy indwelling Spirit invigorate my soul,
until that day when I hunger and thirst no more,
and sit with Jesus at His heavenly feet. Amen.

God is not impotent

Bob's comment last night that God will bring the kingdom whenever he "damn well feels like it" brought to mind another "damn quote" - one I particularly like by Virginia Owens:

Let us get this one thing straight. God can do anything he damn well pleases, including damn well. And if it pleases him to damn, then it is done, ipso facto, well.

I'm not just trying to be cute or edgy with the quote. I feel like I needed to circle back and clarify something I brought up in my message on Jan 7th. I talked about the establishment of the Kingdom of God in Genesis 1&2 - God created and ruled. It was an absolute, but benevolent monarchy. What God said went, no discussion, no debate...

Then you get to chapter 3 and man rebels against the King and a new kingdom is established on earth - the kingdom of evil or of Satan. The Bible is quite clear on this - Satan is the ruler of this world (John 12:31), the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4), and we are told in 1 John that the whole world lies under his control (1 John 5:9). All this is true, HOWEVER, we must not believe that Satan is in control in the same way that God is in control!

Satan has authority, but it is derivative. He only has authority because he has been granted authority. A few examples come to mind. Take Job for instance. Satan had authority to take all his property, his family, and even eventually his health. Stunningly though, this was an authority he had to ask for, and was given by God.

Satan roams around seeking to steal, destroy, kill and maim; however, his purposes are always subservient to God's. Again, for example look at Joseph's life. He was sold into slavery by his brothers and suffered severely as a result. His brothers clearly sinned, yet, at the end of the book of Genesis we are told that God meant it for good. What Satan does, he does with evil intent, but in the end it serves God's good purposes (which has to be real frustrating to Satan). A more profound example is the crucifixion of Jesus. Satan sought to kill Jesus, and did. On the other hand, in so doing, he was serving God's purposes and ultimately sealed his defeat and destruction.

The need to clarify this came to mind last night when Bob was preaching and asked "why hasn't the kingdom come?" It would be a wrong answer, and you would fail my class, if you said that Jesus was still struggling to overcome Satan and his kingdom. Not the right answer at all. Jesus could, and will, bring Satan's kingdom to an abrupt end with a word. God can still do anything he wants - Satan's power (and he is powerful) couldn't stand against God's. Satan's kingdom and all his devices can't thwart even one detail of God's plan. God could overthrow Satan and his kingdom at any moment. It would only take a thought and the endgeschichte (the end of history) would come. He's not impotent to bring his kingdom and defeat all his enemies now.

The answer to "why not yet" isn't to be found in any lack within God (a lack of power, a lack of resolve, or a lack of anything else), but instead in God's overflow of mercy and patience. He is delaying his coming so that as many as possible will respond to the offer of pardon and enter his kingdom. He is delaying his coming to damn because he isn't wanting that any should perish but that all might repent and be granted life (2 Peter 3:9).

Thank you Jesus for having delayed until 1986, when I responded in faith and was born into your Kingdom!