The Primacy of Love

Love is ill-defined.  It's not easy to pin down.  But something inside most people tells them that love has something very central to do with the meaning of life.  People near death regret their self-centered pursuits in life and wish they had spent more time with family.  Even violent criminals who reject all decent human relationship are grasping at a feeling of power to fill the void left by the power of love in their hearts.  Having power over people can feel deceptively similar to being loved by them.  Little kids are the most telling, however.  Just watch one of those little rug rats for 10 minutes... yep, we were made for love.


Does the Bible agree with this gut feeling or not?  According to the Bible, the answer to the questions of what is most important, what you were created for, and what God wants is the same - love.  There's a hitch, though.  This can mean completely different things depending on one's definition of love.  To one, it removes all sexual boundaries.  To another, it means spending the rest of her chaste life in Calcutta relieving the suffering of the lowest outcasts. What exactly is love?


The Bible doesn't give a hard and fast definition of love.  Instead, it points to the cross of Jesus Christ and says, "Look at that - that's what love is." (my paraphrase)  In another passage, it lists the behaviors and attributes of love so we know how to recognize it in ourselves and others.  That makes it pretty easy to pick out the fakes and enemies, but it doesn't proscribe a formula.  


The Scriptures also assert love's unique place among personal traits by saying that it's possible to have every single other positive trait and still not have love (1 Corinthians 13.) That's unsettling - because of both the ambiguity and the purity. So, I ask again, what is love?  (Cue Haddaway... sorry, I couldn't resist! Ok, enough jokes.)  


To make an analogy: love is less like Maxwell's equations than it is like a juicy apple.  You can't know it until you taste it! And, it necessarily involved pleasure. Here's another key from our passage in 1 Corinthians 13, which contrasts love with knowledge.  "Love never ends... as for knowledge, it will pass away... So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."  When you pass into the next the life, it won't matter how much you know.


One final distinction remains to be made. Whom should be loved first? Pay close attention to Jesus' prioritization in the following passage.  Everything depends on it.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”                                      -Matthew 22:34-40

If you don't know God, this is your confirmation that the meaning of your life does indeed center on love - your love being given to God first!  The Bible says He is jealous, and His eyes are like a flame of fire.  Run to Him and get consumed by love and truth.  Follow Jesus.

Do you want to know God?

Do you really want to know the answers to the big questions? If you're like most people, the answer is "No way!"  The unifying ethic of your life is to follow what makes you feel good.  As a successful person, you value delayed gratification, but it's really only on a scale of days, months, or even years for the most disciplined.  The practical agnosticism of popular American culture has permeated your thinking.  To say you're not sure about God is an understatement; you're not sure you even care.

The problem with your ability to ascertain the truth about God is not in your intellect, but in your heart.  Those temporary comforts like food, cars, trips, jobs, and even family are enough to distract you from thoroughly questioning their eternal value.  You easily allow your curiosity to be quelled. For some, your depression is rooted in that nagging, honest feeling that you're missing something central, but you've allowed someone to "help" you feel better about it.  Pain should drive us to cure its cause, not just mitigate its symptoms.  

Don't fight the initial discomfort caused by probing questions such as, "Who made me?" and "Why?" Everything is at stake.  Use your reason and study the evidence, but realize that you are not alone is this endeavor to find the truth.  Someone is actively hindering your investigation. You obeyed him instead of God (you thought you were just doing what you wanted,) and now he doesn't want you to let you go free.  Your oppressor is the Father of Lies, God's enemy.  Not only are you a resident of his kingdom/concentration camp, but because your rebellion against God involved your mind and heart, he has influence over that, too.  After years of sinister brainwashing at the hands of his prison guards, you've barely got your wits about you, spiritually speaking.  If there was an escape plan afoot, how would you know about it?  Do you even want to? What now? Enter the Jesus the Liberator.

So [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 

          "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
          Because He has anointed Me
          To preach the gospel to the poor;
          He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
          To proclaim liberty to the captives
          And recovery of sight to the blind,
          To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
          To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
                                                                                           - Luke 4:16-21

Start the prison break.  The only thing you have to do is come to the end of yourself and ask Jesus for help.  There is no prerequisite for doctrinal agreement before you do this; in fact, if you wait to sort out all the facts you may never come to Jesus.  Don't worry; He will help you with that later.  Get yourself into the Kingdom of God as quickly as you can.  Ask God to free your mind so that you can know Him and obey his commandments. This is the only alternative to death in the devil's concentration camp.

Have you ever really tried to seek God?  To understand Him? To know what your Creator wants so that you can prioritize that above your own desires?  If they're honest, most people will answer "No." There may have been a time in your life where you felt very awful, maybe because you were a victim or maybe because you were guilty, and you felt humble and temporarily emotional enough to ask God for some relief.  But in your mind, you were committing an irrational act of desperation with no real expectation of a reply.

Here is a guarantee: if you seek God, you will find Him.  In the Sermon on the Mount (of "...turn the other cheek..." fame,) Jesus said, "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Matthew 7:8)  Are you really seeking God or just satisfying intellectual curiosity? Are you truly humble, or do you think you can fix yourself through your own efforts? Do you expect Him to answer you?

Test post

I just downloaded an app for my iPod touch that will let me post on the blog, so here goes.

Luke 6:3 - Situational Ethics?

I got home from flying around midnight tonight, a little earlier than expected due to some Automatic Flight Control System problems. Still energetic from my pre-measured caffeine dose, I decided to take the quiet time at hand to read the Bible and pray a bit. I started with a little Bible roulette and opened right up to the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6. I only got as far as the first few verses, however, before I ran off on a trail that ran deep into the Old Testament.

I'm talking about Luke 6:3 (there are parallel passages in the other gospels) where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for rebuking His disciples for plucking grains of wheat to eat on the Sabbath. Since Jesus so piercingly said "Have you not even read this, what David did...?" I kept my thumb on the page of Luke 6 while turning the pages back to 1 Samuel 21 so as not to commit the same error. Then I was perplexed a little more. What point was Jesus trying to make?

Google is a great Bible study tool. I found a commentary that listed the reference for the law Jesus was talking about when he said what David had done was "unlawful." It's in Leviticus 24. I need to type, so I give up keeping thumbs in all the pages I'm referencing and hope I remember the chapter numbers. Basically, this particular law dictates that 12 loaves of bread (called "showbread") will be set before the LORD in a holy place and replaced once a week on the Sabbath. After the old loaves get replaced by new ones, the the priests get to eat the old ones.

A little familiarity with the Mosaic Law is needed at this point. In general, the Law called for various sacrifices of animals and food and resources to be brought to the LORD. What actually happened to someone's little lamb after they had walked it over to the temple mount, slaughtered it, and given it to the LORD? Barbecue!!! ...for the priests, that is. The Law, while high and lofty, was also extremely practical. The priests ate the sacrifices. That was how they got fed, supporting them for the work they did in the service of the LORD and of their country. To understand this, read 1 Timothy 5:18, which quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 and the words of Jesus in Luke 10:7, saying, "For the Scripture says, 'Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,' and 'The laborer is worthy of his wages.' "

With that in mind, let's examine the scenario of 1 Samuel 21. David was fleeing from Saul for his life, and in need of food. He goes to the temple, where he knows the priests, to ask for some food. But Ahimelech the priest hasn't got anything on hand except for the showbread thathad just been replaced by newer loaves that day. It was his dinner (or lunch, or something, but you get the idea.) And apparently, rations were a little tight around the temple at the time.

The gears are turning in Ahimelech's head as he considers how to respond to David's request. He mulls over Leviticus 24:9, which says this of the bread that's finished with it's week-long shift on the gold table before the LORD: "And it shall be for Aaron and his sons [the priests were the descendants of Aaron, in accordance with the Law], and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the LORD made by fire, by a perpetual statute." Ahimelech knows God has provided this food to him and the rest of the priests as his wages for their temple work, so in a sense it belongs to them. Can't they then give it away to someone desperately more in need than themselves? He also knows that God wants this bread to be eaten "in a holy place" in keeping with His own holiness. So he probes David, looking for a reason to justify the manner in which he and his men will eat it as "holy" so as to fulfill the intent of Lev. 24:9, if not the letter. He asks "...if the young men have at least kept themselves from women." David, in a round of negotiation that is intriguing to say the least, responds that, yes, it's been a whole 3 days since the guys had any whoopee, something about their vessels being holy, and lastly that bread was "in effect common" anyway. "Works for me," Ahimelech must have thought to himself as he fetched the bread. He was looking for an excuse to have compassion on David and provide for his need. By making the holy manner of consumption a non-issue, he was narrowing the legality down to the single issue of who had the right to the bread. The LORD, being gracious and compassionate, had given it to feed the priests. Now the priests were sacrificing their personal, God-given right (does this sound familiar?) in order to give it to someone else who was more in need than they. Yes, in the technical sense, that was not precisely what the Law had prescribed. But it was in keeping with the Law's intent, which was basically an expression of the supreme law of love on God's part. They were imitating God.

Too many commentators are concerned that such an interpretation of these passages is an open door to "situational ethics" (google it.) They fear that if the above is true, there is no longer any rational, academic argument that can be made to prove in black and white what exactly is 'right' and what exactly is 'wrong.' And if we can't pin it down in a way that can't be misinterpreted, we might all be susceptible to walking around committing sins against God unknowingly, all the while duping ourselves into thinking that we're following God's supreme, yet regrettably wishy-washy, law of love. They think we have to break God's demands down into specifics for all the laymen so they don't inadvertently lose their way. Does that sound familiar?

If the devil invents a lie which at first glance looks similar to the truth, is that truth now too dangerous to understand, because the distinctions between it and the devil's lie are too subtle? May it never be. Counterfeiting is one of the devil's most prolific and effective strategies, the primary effect of which is too deceive unbelievers and the secondary to frighten the saints away from the truth that was so closely counterfeited. Knowing the truth requires a careful and detailed examination of God's Word.

Their argument is that David was in fact sinning in this story and that Jesus' point was to expose the Pharisees' hypocrisy of condemning Jesus' disciples while justifying David. I argue otherwise. By asking if they had even read 1 Samuel 21, Jesus seemed to be accusing the Pharisees of failing to understand its point, not merely introducing the passage as background for His argument. The anti-situational-ethics argument says Jesus was calling hypocritical the Pharisees' stance that while David's actions were justified, the disciples' actions were not. This basis is conjecture, however, since the Bible doesn't record the Pharisees ever making such an argument. The key to understanding what Jesus meant, then, is to first understand the point of 1 Samuel 21 which he reproached the Pharisees for failing to understand.

I think Jesus was arguing that the priests had authority over the bread and decided to use it in keeping with the very reason God had given them the bread in the first place: kindness and compassion. Jesus then really offends the Pharisees by saying He has authority over the Sabbath and is going to administer it in accordance with it's original intent, which was for man's restoration and well-being. The key in both cases is the authority of the priests in the first case, and Jesus in the second, to administer the trust which God had given them in accordance with God's intent.

It's been a while

Hey there, friends.  Probably no one checks this blog anymore, because it's been a year and a half since I've blogged.  Where have I been? At work and at sea.  I'd like to make a comeback, not that there was any fanfare before or that I desire any now, but rather I'd like to start thinking again. Again, not that I stopped thinking, but... it's been a while.

How about we start with some questions.  Blogging should be interactive and provocative, in my opinion, because technology allows us to post comments at the end.  This is key.  

What is God's love like? This is a topic on which I'm sure it's worthwhile to meditate.  Discussion is warranted.  Please share your experiences.  I don't mean to open up the floor for an emotional gushfest but rather to elicit descriptions of experiences and insights that will build us all up.  Is it possible to love without reference to God's love?  If not, then what is it that so many people feel?  And what is love?  I'm not trying to draw out people's vain, independent thought, but rather what comes from an extended dwelling on the Word of God.

Help me out here.

Christmas for the Poor

The lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation is the greatest health problem in the world today. According to the second UN World Water Development Report, “… 1.1 billion people still do not have access to an adequate supply of drinking water and some 2.6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation. These people are among the world’s poorest.” Without clean water, water-borne diseases needlessly kill many children, and the daily difficulty of obtaining even contaminated water consumes enough of the productivity of the world’s poorest to present a formidable barrier to climbing out of poverty. The Report states:

Poor water quality is a key cause of poor livelihood and health. Globally, diarrheal diseases and malaria killed about 3.1 million people in 2002. Ninety percent of these deaths were children under the age of five. An estimated 1.6 million lives could be saved annually by providing access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.

The good news is that although the political causes of this crisis are complex, there are some amazingly simple solutions at our disposal. Ministries, charities and other non-governmental organizations are already at work delivering the equipment and knowledge needed by poor communities in developing countries to establish clean water supplies along with proper sanitation. Low-tech, low-cost solutions such as well drilling, protecting water sources from contamination, and constructing filters out of common materials like gravel, sand, and concrete are the answer in the vast majority of cases. This type of simple construction combined with basic education on sanitation and hygiene can transform communities and save many lives.

Providing clean water to the world’s poor requires money on the order of tens of billions of dollars, which is well within the ability of the Christians in the United States to give with little sacrifice. What an opportunity! We can save millions of lives by sacrificing a small portion of our wealth in the name of Jesus. The question for the Church in the United States is how can we withhold the resources desperately needed by the world’s poorest, which we possess in abundance? How can we expect the world to receive the Gospel if we neglect to implement such an achievable solution? This leads to the following proposition: raise $10 billion for water projects on Christmas Day 2009.

Here is how it will work.

Plan of Action

For Individuals and Families:

Instead of purchasing gifts for your family and friends, donate toward water projects on behalf of each of those people. In addition, ask those who might normally give you a Christmas present to donate toward water projects instead.

For Pastors and Christian Leaders:

Lead the people in your church or group to participate in Christmas for the Poor. Share the vision for the effort and explain its biblical motivation. Lead from the front by openly sharing about your own participation.

For Organizations Working on Water Projects:

Prepare to receive and utilize the new funds donated for water projects. Post a link on the main page of your organization’s website that will allow people to easily donate toward water projects under the banner of Christmas for the Poor. Communicate the unique opportunity that Christmas for the Poor represents to previous donors, partner organizations, and churches with whom you have an established relationship. After Christmas Day 2009, report the contributions you received for Christmas for the Poor to be tallied with the totals from all other participating organizations.

A Few Important Details

• Christmas for the Poor is a plan of action, not an organization. Funds will be donated directly from individuals to the participating organization of their choice with no middleman.

• By the numbers: 20 million people giving $500 each makes $10 billion. According to Forbes magazine, Americans spent $580.56 each on Christmas gifts in 2005. According to the Barna Group, there are 101 million people in the United States who describe themselves as born again Christians.

• The current central reference is the blog http://christmasforthepoor.blogspot.com and the point of contact is Sam Peterson at christmasforthepoor [at] gmail.com


Conclusion

The Christmas for the Poor plan is not the only way for the American church to address poverty in the world, but it is a definitive plan of action that can efficiently get everyone on board and working together. Safe water and sanitation is certainly not the only grave yet treatable threat to human health worldwide, but it is the biggest, so why not start there? And what better time to unite the efforts of Christians across the nation to provide for the basic needs of the poor than when we celebrate the incarnation of our Lord and Savior, who, “…though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor…” (2 Cor. 8:9)? If our desire is that Jesus be revealed to the world, then to that end let us imitate Him, caring for the poor in His name to the glory of God.

Spread the word; tell every Christian you know about Christmas for the Poor.

Saving premature babies

This morning, there was an article in the news about the earliest premature baby ever to survive; she was born at 21 weeks. There was a link to a related article about how some doctors appose the effort to save such premature babies. Ther was also a discussion board. This was my response:

When I first saw the link to this discussion and the one below it about doctors who say these babies shouldn't be saved, I was sickened. I have a 3-month-old daughter, and I can't imagine neglecting to do anything that could save her if she were in such a predicament. To neglect trying to save the baby because the odds of survival are low is inexcusable, unless it is because the resources dedicated to the task would be diverted from others who have a better chance at survival. I'm pretty sure that's not the case, however. As for sparing the child from a life that includes suffering (or so you predict), that justification is based on hypotheses, not fact. We do not know the future! And even if the child will experience suffering, does that give anyone the right to take its life through neglect? To answer "yes" would be to reveal a complete lack of a viable and coherent system of morals; in this state of mind, you could be convinced to do anything as long as it maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain, because feelings are your god. This makes perfect sense, though; without God, there is no moral framework that is consistently logical from beginning to end without recursive suppositions (that is, circular logic.)

If you feel convicted as you read this, my aim is not to beat you down and condemn you for your evil thoughts, rather, Jesus wants to save you. When you repent and believe that He is God and that his sacrifice on the cross atones for all of your sins, your mind and conscience will be wiped clean of not only your guilt before God, but also any shame you have ever felt in your life, because God removes your shame. He doesn't hold your sins against you, he forgets them and welcomes you! If you want to be reconciled to God today, then repent of your sinful way of life and believe that Jesus is God and that He rose from the dead. Then tell somebody about it and start reading the Bible for yourself. You can't even imagine the freedom and newness of life that awaits you in Jesus Christ.

Repsonse to an atheist's essay

Washingtonpost.com had this feature where a bunch of prominent people shared an essay about their religious experience and then people were allowed to comment. I wrote this in response to Susan Jacoby.

Unfortunately, some of these comments convey an attitude of mockery and hatred toward atheists from supposed Christians. This is lamentable. As a Christian, Jesus has saved me from my wretched state as a sinner, and I am no better than anyone else.

The type of questions that have been called unanswerable in numerous posts are not too difficult to answer, however the answer goes to the heart of a person's pride. The existence of God is a logical conclusion. Something has always existed from eternity past, either dead matter or a living being. If you don't concede to this, then your assertion is subject to the question "Where did that come from?" over and over again, every answer you give begging the question even further. This very attribute that logically *must* be possessed by something is itself boggling to our minds. Of something in the universe we must conclude: "This had no beginning and therefore has no end as well. It is eternal." If the physical world is itself eternal, and there is no spiritual reality, then why is everything that is most important to every person in the world unseen? We want to be loved, and to love others, to be known, to enjoy intimacy, to be respected, to leave a legacy, to be feared, to have power over other human beings, and the list goes on of both good and bad desires. Why are we afraid of death? From a purely physical standpoint, it seems pretty peaceful and serene, with an absence of suffering. If you simply observe yourself and catalog your own thoughts, you'll realize when you get down to the heart of what you care about and think about and strive for, it is almost all immaterial. Even when you work hard for money to live the good life it's ultimately to have a feeling of security and experience pleasure inside that you hope will be induced by your physical possessions. Finally, most people, whether they believe in God or not, would say at the end of their lives that they gained the most satisfation from their relationships with family and friends and everything else matters little. This is no accident: it tells us in very simple terms both our purpose for existence and the nature of the One who created us.

God wants to be your father and mother, you sister and brother, your spouse, and your best friend. The reason he created human society with these relationships is so that we would understand the different facets of His own relationship to us! The natural and the supernatural are congruent, as Paul writes in Romans chapter one.

One of the major objections mentioned in multiple posts is the way God deals with human life and rights in the Bible. This is going to be tough for you to swallow, because it offends your pride, but here it is: something is right, because God says it is and something is wrong because God says it is, and for no other reason. Legitimate moral reasoning begins with that. Please bear with me, this is not illogical, although it is simple. Since God exists and is the Creator of everything, then He owns everything and is completely within His right to do whatever He wants with it. Since He Himself has authority of life and death, He can also can explicitly delegate that authority to human beings. Who can tell God that He's wrong? Seriously. How can the creature tell the creator what to do? That would be ridiculous. With a few notable exceptions, God has decided that everyone will physically die; we know this already. It's just a matter of when. Do I have a right to get mad at God when He gives someone only 25 years on earth instead of 80? It was all a gift from Him in the first place! As the Creator and Owner of everything, He has the right (and He is truly just) to do whatever He wants. This is not illogical in the slightest; it just offends our pride.

If you can humble yourself and admit that God is always just and right to do whatever He pleases, included taking anyone's life at any time, then you've started toward Him. If, however, you reject His very nature of omnipotence and righteousness, then you are choosing to remain separated from Him. I assure you that He wants you. This is where the sacrifice of Jesus comes in. People get offended when Christians say that God will punish all sin. How can God be so cruel? For your sake, he poured out His terrible wrath that each one of us deserved for our negligence to glorify Him properly and draw close to Him in relationship - He poured out this just wrath on His own Son, because His heart is so unimaginably filled with fiery, passionate desire to be reconciled to each one of us as a Husband. (As a side note, this identification of God as a husband to his people is first found in the Old Testament...see Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Psalms.)

There are so many people who call themselves Christians who really are not. They don't understand this framework of God's love and redemptive free grace to save us from His terrible yet just wrath, which is clearly revealed in the Bible. My heart breaks for people like Ms. Jacoby who were introduced as children to a loveless, intellectually flimsy, perversion of true faith in Christ that pushed them away from the man Jesus Christ. He is alive, and He's waiting for you to come to Him. Like the parable of the prodigal son, all you have to do is come to the end of yourself and ask for His help and His heart will leap for joy to see you coming, and He'll start running when He sees you in the distance and He'll embrace you and wrap His arms around you and kiss you, and then all the angels of heaven will rejoice with a party like you've never seen before, because the heart of God is overflowing with joy at your return. You may think this is flowery language and wishful thinking, but it's *literally true.* Not only have I reasoned through the logical challenges to faith in Jesus, but I've tasted His presence, and He changed my life. Repent of your sins and come to Jesus today.

Sam Storms' book, Convergence: Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist

I just finished the book Convergence: Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist by Sam Storms today.

I've read through most of the comments on Tim Challies blog and the tilt therein seems to be toward the cessationist viewpoint. I am amazed at how brothers and sisters who claim to so adamently cling to the Scriptures so easily disregard what it says on the subject of spiritual gifts and just formulate some rules based on anectdotal evidence. If you despise and reject spiritual gifts based on your observation of their misuse, are you not formulating doctrine from your experience and not from Scripture? Like J. Edwards' argument that Sam picked apart in the book (Edwards is usually really awesome), almost all of the scoffing at the spiritual gifts I hear is based on some observations of abuse, not on Scripture. It seems that somehow some have come to think the appropriate response to abuse is disuse, when in fact the appropriate response is to follow God's command in the Scripture:

Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy...But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. (I Cor. 14:1,3)

Just think; many non-Christians take an analagous approach in their decision to reject Christ. Since there has been so much abuse in the name of Jesus Christ (i.e. the Crusades, etc.), they choose to set it aside altogether. What a tragedy! They will by no means be cleared of their obligation to obey the Scriptures simply because others abused and mishandled the Word of God. "Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar." (Romans 3:4) That so many have abused them is a pitiful excuse indeed for rejecting the spiritual gifts.

Most of what purports to be a biblical argument against the gifts consists of the explaining away of the texts that seem to clearly indicate their existence as well as a baffling twisting of I Cor. 13 that can at best be called prooftexting.

A lot of the cessationist arguments seem to be based on extrabiblical logic. Here's a good metric for any of the logical processes you may go through to figure out if the gifts are still in place: imagine an unbeliever using analagous logic to figure out whether or not he should become a Christian.

Here are some of the other Scriptures Sam used in the part of the book that argues against cessationism:

I John 4:1-3 (John seemed confident that the saints of his day could avoid being led astray by the evil one as they listened for God's voice; why can't we?)

I Thess. 5:19-21 (Storms says, "non-canonical revelation [to a non-apostle] was not inconsistent with the authority of Scripture then, so why should it be now?" p.178)

Brothers and sisters, take to heart what Sam covered in the book as well as in the Epilogue about fear being the biggest motivating factor in the rejection of the gifts. If you think something is too wierd to be from God, show that Scriptures concur with you. In fact, stories of the saints of old encountering the supernatural in the Bible tend to be slightly bizarre, so biblical precedent is decidedly on the side of the wierd. I think that subconsciously, a lot of cessationists think, "Well, I certainly can get by just fine without the spiritual gifts, and to try to pursue them would only open the possibility to make mistakes, so I'd better just play it safe. There's just nothing to be gained by messing around with this stuff. The risks far outweigh the rewards." Again, this is human reasoning which happens to be contrary to Scripture. Just obey! It's very simple. You will probably make mistakes along the way, but obedience is worth the price. As always, God has something great in store for you as you obey the Scriptures in faith.

Free and Fair Trade

This blog is about evangelism, taking the gospel of the Kingdom of God to everyone in the world. In order to effectively preach the good news of Jesus, we as Christians must model Jesus' life and obey His commandments; otherwise, the world will see us as hypocrites and want nothing to do with the Savior. We are His ambassadors.

Last night, I thought of two passages in Scripture that talk about people who hold to correct fundamental doctrine, having proper intellectual faith, but failed to care for the poor and needy and did not have saving faith. The first is the parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew 25:31-46.

"Then He will say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not
do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (v. 41-46)

The second is the passage from James about faith and works.

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (v.14-17)

I brought these two passages up in order to establish that caring for the poor and needy is fundamental to faith in Christ. According to the Scriptures, it is central, not peripheral; it's non-negotiable.


I plan to post more at later times about the issue of poverty and evangelism both as connected and individual issues, but in this post, I want to solicit comments about the debate over fair trade vs. free trade. Today, President Bush signed into law the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which removes certain barriers to trade among the U.S. and a number of Central American nations. Many proponents of fair trade, such as Oxfam, are against CAFTA. Here is an editorial in the Washington Times by a U.S. Congressman in support of CAFTA.

After reading these articles, I'm not sure what to think. Both sides claim that passing or stopping CAFTA, respectively, will help the poor in Central America. I would appreciate comments from people that can help us all figure out what the best position on this issue really is. Thanks!

Jesus and the Old Testament

I decided to go through the Gospel of Matthew and record all the references to the Old Testament. This might seem odd, but the reason I thought about doing this is that I was thinking about the debate over the interpretation of the creation account in Genesis. A while ago, I attended a panel at a church about creationism and evolution, and the basic view presented there was one of agnosticism toward the subject and an openness to theistic evolution. I realized that Jesus and Paul (original sin from Adam in Romans 5) both use the literal details of the Genesis account of creation to establish doctrine.

Realizing how Jesus and the gospel writers viewed the Old Testament tells us how we should view and interpret Scripture. So, without further ado, here is my list from Matthew. It's probably not perfect, and you can probably find this in a book somewhere.



1:23 Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, prophecy that the Messiah would be born to a virgin

2:6 Scribes and priests quote Micah 5:2, prophecy about Messiah

2:15 Matthew calls Hosea a prophet and quotes Hosea 11:1

2:17, 18 Matthew calls Jeremiah a prophet and quotes Jeremiah 31:15

3:3 Matthew says John the Baptist is he who was spoken of by Isaiah 40:3

4:4 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 in response to Satan's temptation

4:6 Satan quotes Psalm 91:11,12 to tempt Jesus

4:7 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16

4:10 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13

4:14-16 Matthew attributes current events to the prophecy of Isaiah 9:1, 2

5:17-19 Jesus says He did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill. He confirms their inerrancy by saying that not "one jot or one tittle" would pass away till all was fulfilled.

5:21 Jesus quotes Exodus 20:13 or Deuteronomy 5:17

5:27 Jesus quotes Exodus 20:14 or Deuteronomy 5:18

5:38 Jesus quotes Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, or Deuteronomy 19:21

5:43 Jesus refers to Leviticus 19:18

6:29 Jesus refers to 'Solomon in all his glory,' a historical reference to I Kings

7:12 Jesus sums up the Law and the Prophets with the golden rule

8:11 Jesus makes historical reference to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (told of in Genesis), referring to future events in which they will be involved.

8:17 Matthew says Isaiah 53:4 is fulfilled in Jesus

8:20 Jesus refers to Himself as the 'Son of Man,' a clear Messianic reference to Daniel 7:13. By calling Himself by this title, Jesus was claiming to be the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, the Messiah and the King of 'all peoples, nations, and languages.'

9:13 Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6

10:15 Jesus speaks of literal, future events involving Sodom and Gomorrah (specifically, the day of judgment). The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is from Genesis, and this saying of Jesus is proof that the Genesis account is literally and historically true.

10:35, 36 Jesus quotes Micah 7:6

11:10 Jesus quotes Malachi 3:1

11:21 Jesus makes reference to past and future events involving Tyre and Sidon (references to which are found in multiple books in the Old Testament)

11:23, 24 Jesus refers again to Sodom

12:3-5 Jesus refers tot he story of David eating the showbread found in I Samuel 21

12:7 Jesus again quotes Hosea 6:6

12:18-21 Matthew quotes prophecy that is fulfilled in Jesus, Isaiah 42:1-4

12:23 Multitudes refer to Messianic prophecy asking if Jesus is the 'Son of David'

12:29 Jesus refers to the prophet Jonah and the historical city of Nineveh

12:42 Jesus refers to the Queen of the South visiting Solomon, an event recorded in I Kings 10

13:14 Jesus calls Isaiah 6:9, 10 'prophecy' and quotes it.

13:35 Matthew refers to Messianic prophecy fulfilled by Jesus, Psalm 78:2

15:3-6 Jesus quotes Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, or Exodus 21:17 to rebuke the Pharisees, and He saya that those passages are the 'commandment of God.'

15:7-9 Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13

16:4 Jesus again refers to the sign of the prophet Jonah

17:3, 4 The transfiguration: Moses and Elijah appear, corroborating the life of Moses as written of in the Torah and the life of Elijah as written of in I and II Kings

17:10-12 Jesus and his disciples refer to the prophecy of the coming of Elijah before the Messiah, found in Malachi 4:5

18:16 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 19:15 to establish doctrine of church behavior

19:4-6 Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27, 5:2, and 2:24. He refers to the literal details of the creation account of Adam and Eve to establish the doctrine of marriage.

19:18 Jesus explains why Moses allowed divorce, a historical reference to the Torah

19:18, 19 Jesus quotes parts of Exodus 20:12-16, Deuteronomy 5:16-20, and Leviticus 19:18

21:5 Matthew attribute Jesus' actions to the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9

21:9 The people quote Psalm 118:26 to praise Jesus

21:13 Jesus quote Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 in one sentence

21:16 Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2

21:42 Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22, 23

22:23-28 The Sadducees refer to the Torah and the law of a brother raising up children with his dead brother's wife if she has not yet had a children.

22:29 Jesus rebukes the Sadducees rebukes the Sadducees for not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.

22:31, 32 Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6, 15 and says that these passages were 'spoken to you by God.' This is a direct and unequivocal statement by the Lord Jesus Himself that the words of Scripture, penned by a human being, are in fact the words of God.

22:37 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, the first and great commandment

22:39 Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18, the second great commandment

22:40 Jesus says that on these two commandments hang the Law and the Prophets

22:43-45 Jesus quotes and refers to Psalm 110:1

23:2 Jesus confirms Moses' authority

23:23 Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for neglecting matters of the Law more weighty than tithing

23:25 Jesus makes historical, literal reference to the murder of Abel (written of in Genesis 4) and the murder of Zechariah (written of in II Chronicles 24)

23:39 Jesus quotes Psalm 118:26

24:15 Jesus quotes Daniel 11:31 and 12:11, speaking of 'Daniel the prophet'

24:36 Jesus refers to the events of the days of Noah (written of in Genesis 6-10) to explain the end times

26:24 In reference to His impending death, Jesus says that he goes 'just as it is written of Him'

26:31 Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7, a Messianic prophecy

26:54 During His arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says that the things that were happening to Him at that time were a fulfillment of the Scriptures.

26:56 Speaking of His arrest, Jesus says, "all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled."

27:9 Matthew says that Judas' betrayal and surrounding events were the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 32:6-9

27:35 Matthew tells of the dividing of Jesus' garments and says that was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy of Psalm 22:18

27:46 While hanging on the cross, Jesus cries out with a loud voice quoting Psalm 22:1, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

27:47, 49 Some references to Elijah by onlookers to the crucifixion

28:1 Matthew refers to the Sabbath, an article from the Law of Moses



Some interesting facts about the Old Testament from the Gospel of Matthew:

Jesus quotes Scripture from twelve (12) Old Testament books: Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus, Daniel, Hosea, Micah, Malachi, Isaiah, Genesis, Jeremiah, Psalms, and Zechariah.

There are seventy (70) references to the Old Testament, including quotes, historical references, and corroborating evidence, almost all of which are made by Jesus or Matthew, to a total of sixteen (16) books: I and II Kings, I Samuel, Jonah, and the books listed above which Jesus quoted.

Jesus makes eight (8) literal refences to people or events written of in Genesis, including the existence, past and present, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the existence and future judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah; the creation of Adam and Eve 'at the beginning' as male and female and that as a basis for the doctrine of marriage; the murder of Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, and the guilt for that murder being placed on the certain people; the events of the days of Noah and that as a picture of the events of the end times.

Blogdom of God

Adrian Warnock, in his UK Evangelical Blog, is compiling a big list of Christian blogs called the blogdom of God, so if you are a Christian blogger, check this out.

I'm Pretty Busy

This is not a normal post, but since I haven't posted in over a week, I wanted to come on and let people know that I am pretty busy right now, since the quarter is winding down, and I have some research work to be finished before I move on. Also, we just finished a big event here at Stanford that I helped organize, a gathering sponored by most of the Christian groups on campus aimed at building unity and spurring on the spreading of the gospel on campus. A lot of my time in the past month went toward that. Anyway, if you find any great posts that deal with evangelism in some way or another that you think I ought to link to, or if you have something else in some other form that I ought to post, send me an email (there's an email link on the right hand side bar.)

Cross Cultural Evangelism

This blog is about evangelism, and Adrian Warnock over at his UK Evangelical Blog has a post entitled "How to share the gospel across cultures" that is worth reading. I want to particularly highlight that cross cultural communication is one idea that is attacked by postmodernmism, so it is important to understand what the Word says about the subject, so check out Adrian's post.

Demolishing Darwinism

In the last post, I reported on Dr. Michael Behe's talk at Stanford and the angry response it invoked. Here is a link to an article written by Behe that briefly outlines one of the arguments against evolution. Here is an article in the Boston Review that blasts Behe's claims. Compare for yourself. The blindness and bias of the Darwinist camp is painfully evident. One of the arguments the author of this article makes is that of a programmer writing code for software. You add some feature to your code to make an improvement and then later on down the line, that feature becomes indispensible to the overall operation of the software. This is how a system that appears to be irreducably complex could develop in a Darwinian fashion. This argument illustrates the disconnection from reality that plagues Darwinist theory: the analogy relies upon the intelligent agent (you, the programmer) who is designing the system. In order to have effectively made his point, the author would need to describe a self-organizing system that makes improvements on itself - because these small improvements are the supposedly simple and believeable steps that could have turned into complex, essential parts down the road. Darwinist theories always beg the question: where did this apparent design come from? When you ask that question, they'll tell you about the parts and process from which a particular biological system was formed and somehow downplay or fail to mention the unimaginable complexity of those building blocks, hoping you will not keep inquiring where those came from, and so on until it is apparent that life did not spring from non-life, one of the most important scientific discoveries ever (made by Louis Pasteur, for whom the process "pasteurization" is named.) History has shown many times that an overwhelming majority can be wrong. Near unanimity is not proof.

Veritas Forum/ Intelligent Design

I am a graduate student finishing my MS in electrical engineering at Stanford University this Spring quarter. The Christian groups at Stanford are sponsoring a series of talks and discussions this week called the Veritas Forum; the Veritas Forum happens at colleges and universities across the country. Last night, I attended a talk by Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. His talk was excellent and simple, based on absolutely solid science and logic. I intend to get my hands on his book as soon as possible.

At the end of the talk, there was 20 minutes for Q&A from the audience. I have never seen so many people jump so quickly out of their seats to question a speaker. Five questions were asked. Four of them were hostile to Behe's thesis, and of the four hostile questions, three of the people asking the questions were visibly and audibly upset. I mean they were angry. It was actually slightly uncomfortable when one gentleman was so angry that the hypothetical scenario he was proposing to Behe in order to make his point wasn't even making sense (to me or to Behe) yet he kept saying the same thing into the microphone.

Imagine one of those suspense movie scenarios where one person is pointing a gun at another person in order to make them do what they want (drive them somewhere, give them information, whatever) and they have the gun in their jacket pocket so that other people may be around but will not realize that this coercion is occuring. If the situation gets out of hand, and the gunman decides the hostage is going to get away, he might have to actually pull the gun out of his pocket and brandish it openly. At that point, the gunman has lost the strategic advantage, because now all the previously ignorant bystanders realize that a crime is in progress and will flee and the police will be arriving shortly. This isn't a perfect analogy, but follow me here. Satan has blinded the minds of the lost into believing delusions, however, they don't even realize that they are being attacked in such a manner, and neither do others around them, for the most part. But when the evidence against the delusion (in this case, the delusion of Darwinism) is convincing far beyond a reasonable doubt, the blinding influence of Satan becomes apparent. I'm telling you, last night it was like the light switch was turned on in the room and it was readily apparent that the Darwinists were wearing blindfolds. You could wave your hand in front of their face and they wouldn't be able to see it at all. The blinding work of the devil was evident (refer to my first post).

I talked to my dad about it after I got home. He reminded me that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and can crack the hardest heart. At least, some seeds were planted last night. I pray that they grow and flourish and that those who are clinging dogmatically and unreasonably to the Darwinist fantasy will be able to see the plain truth.

Drawn to Pleasure

John Piper's book, Desiring God, is great, and you should read it. It seems that Piper's favorite saying is, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." This is very true.

The Lord has drawn me into the pleasure of knowing Him, and I want to help others know that same pleasure. It is what they are already seeking without knowing it. The other night as I sat down to pray, a bunch of theological issues that I had been thinking and praying about over the week prior were filling my head. I like to think about questions until I have answers; if there is an controversial issue, I feel the need to sort it out in my head so that I can both know what to think and do and help others with the same issue. But the Lord reminded me that my interaction with Him is not solely intellectual. I do not only learn knowledge from Him; I develop intimate, personal knowledge of Him through supernatural experience that surpasses understanding.

He reminded me that He wants me to take pleasure in Him. Not only that, but He wants to be my greatest pleasure of all, the object of my heart's desire. If that is not the case, the Scriptures indicate there is an extremely serious problem with me. This idea of enjoying God and being a "Christian hedonist" (a phrase coined by Piper) is not an optional rung in the ladder of Christianity, one of those steps of maturity that you might attempt someday after you've taken enough sermon notes. It's absolutely indisposable and foundational. It's equally for the newest Christians and the oldest. Don't go another step until you have hot, passionate desire.

One of the passages that God brought to my mind was I Corinthians 13:1-3. It precedes verses 4-8 which tell us that love is not just words and feelings, but action. Verses 1-3, however, contain a list of really commendable works that one could do and a declaration that those works are absolutely worthless if they are done without love. So then, what is love? This text shows us that love goes beyond feelings of fondness, and it also goes beyond our actions. It is even possible to give all your possessions to the poor and sacrifice your life for a great cause (even the cause of Christ, I speculate) and still not have love. So what does it really mean to love God if you can be a bona fide martyr who ministered to people with powerful spiritual gifts, had perfect doctrine, and led an impeccable life of service to the poor, and still not necessarily have loved God?

It seems that one attribute of real love that cannot be counterfeited is that a lover takes pleasure in that which he loves. People tend to spend their time doing what brings them the most pleasure (or what avoids the most pain, e.g. if we didn't work 40 hours a week, some painful financial consequences would follow.) This is why people don't pray much and don't read the Bible much: it gives them less pleasure than the other activities which compete for their time. Most Christians I know desire to desire Him, but they don't find it happening. They want to enjoy Him, but they just don't, and they can't figure it out. Sadly, some have resigned themselves to believing that fellowship with God was never meant to be pleasurable in the first place and so when they speak of prayer, they speak of it as a duty, an obligation that the Christian should fulfill in hope of some sort of unknown payoff in the future. And so they complete just the minimum amount of prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with the saints that it takes to avoid feeling guilty.

The built-in human desire for pleasure has, in the name of holiness, been denounced too often as a function of the base, sin nature of man. Just like the other atributes God has made us with, the desire for pleasure can produce heinous results when it is perverted, but that does not mean the original, God-given form is evil.

In fact, desire and pleasure are the two of the biggest features in the human relationship created by God to most prominently display what the relationship between Jesus and human beings ought to be: marriage. Sex is the thing that distinguishes the marriage relationship from every other type, such as father-child, mother-child, friend-friend, and brother-sister relationships. And where in nature did God choose to give human beings the most poignant experience of both the longing of desire and the mountain tops of pleasure, but in sex? Since sex is central to marriage, what does this picture in the created order tell us about God? Remember that, "...what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse..." (Romans 1:19-20) The created order testifies loudly that loving God means desiring Him passionately and finding your highest pleasure in him.

So, where are you? What are you supposed to do if you realize that you don't currently find your greatest pleasure in God? You want to want Him, and you wish you could enjoy Him. You may have found a replacement for the ecstasy of God's presence such as the pleasure of learning intellectual truths about God or service or ministry. These pursuits are good, but do not use them as a substitute for the incomparable rapture of the fire of God's presence. Realize that the situation in which you find yourself is not off the beaten path; it is not uncommon to human beings. In fact, I think it is, in a way, the central struggle for every person - the struggle to walk in faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I don't think I would be taking too great a liberty with the text to replace the word 'seen' with either the word 'felt' or the word 'experienced.' Just like Abraham waiting for his ninety-year-old wife to bear him son, you have been promised that in God are greater pleasures than you can imagine (I Peter 1:8, Psalm 16:11, and 37:4), but at this point, you haven't experienced it. In fact, your experience so far tells you that the opposite is true. Like Abraham, you may have begun to doubt that such an incredible, impossible thing could actually be true and so you have launched your own effort to satisfy your craving for pleasure in God with the pleasure of ministry or service or learning or other good pursuits.

If you can just get the smallest spark of faith in your heart that your greatest joy in this life can be dwelling in God's presence, a mustard seed of faith that God will answer you in such a manner when you seek His face (read Psalm 27), then go someplace alone and ask God for it! Pray and meditate on His Word in faith that He will change your heart and supernaturally reveal Himself to you as you seek Him. "But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6) Do it today, and keep doing it; He will meet you there.

Another McLaren Post

I know this blog is supposed to be about evangelism - this is related. There's just so much wrong with Brian McLaren's teaching, and he's such a central figure in the emergent church movement that it merits refutation. I posted the following as a comment to an entry on 'one mo blog.'...


In my finding out about the emergent church, it seems that it is necessarily postmodern in philosophy and that Brian McLaren is the main spokesperson. Just want to state my assumptions here. There is something very wrong with blurring the lines of truth and deciding to take your cues from something other than the Lord Himself, chiefly and authoritatively through Scripture. Postmoderism is in direct conflict with the Word of God. The postmodernism I am attacking here is the one that it seems (from reading A.G.O. and his open letter to Chuck Colson) McLaren has been carried away with. It affirms that there is absolute truth but is extremely skeptical of anyone's claim to know that truth. But the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to us in spite of any linguistic, cultural, demonic, perspectivistic, or emotional barriers in our lives. This is absolutely clear from reading, in context, 1 John 2:20-21, Heb. 8:8-11, Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 8:32, Matthew 15:1-9, and the fact that God has commanded us to teach His commandments across cultures using human language.

McLaren's humility is false. A lot of his charm comes from his constant statements of self-skepticism, which are only evidence that his teaching is not anointed by God but rather by academia. Did Jesus, or any of the prophets, or any of the apostles, or the early church leaders demonstrate their humility by prefacing their declarations of truth (which in some cases subsequently sealed their fate as martyrs) with comments like "some of what I'm saying is wrong, I just don't know which part it is."? That is not humility at all, because humility means having an accurate (not deprecated) view of oneself and of God. An accurate view will cause one to fall on His face in speechless awe at the wonder of God and yet have the boldness to enter His presence through confidence in the work of the cross and inequivocally declare the truth to the lost of the world who so desparately need it instead of this double-speak. Why is McLaren publishing books if by his own confession he is writing partly in error? Because he thinks that good ideas are the best you can get, that you can't really, finally understand the truth and then subsequently communicate it without introducing error. This is why he refuses to acknowledge the authority of the Bible:

"That oft quoted passage in second Timothy doesn't say, All Scripture is inspired by God and is authoritative, it says that Scripture is inspired and useful - useful to teach, rebuke, correct, instruct us to live justly, and equip us for our mission as the people of God. That's a very different job description than we moderns want to give it. We want it to be God's encyclopedia, God's rule book, God's scientific text, God's easy-steps instruction book, God's little book of morals for all occasions. The only people in Jesus' day who would have had anything close to these expectations of the Bible would have been the Scribes and Pharisees. Right?"(p.52, The Story We Find Ourselves In)

McLaren voices many insightful criticisms of the church, but don't let agreement with his criticisms draw you into agreement with his propositions. The thing that really makes me angry is that He doesn't point to Jesus Himself as the solution to the church's problems, but rather to the worldly shift from modernity to postmodernity. I want to shout when I read McLaren's stuff, "Look at Jesus! Gaze on His beauty and let Him supernaturally touch you! Seek His face until He fills your heart with fiery passionate love for Him!" My heart is groaning with love for our Lord Jesus and absolute hatred for the lies of postmodernity concerning the truth.

Expose Brian McLaren

Ok, everybody, I've got to warn you in the strongest terms: do not heed the teaching of Brian McLaren. Here is a good review of McLaren's book, The Story We Find Ourselves In, written by Barney Coombs at Salt and Light Ministries. There are plenty of dangerous teachings out there, but this one needs more attention, because so many Christians are being carried away with his teaching. Here are a few quotes from that book which Coombs compiled; If you don't understand why these statements are grossly in error, then post a comment, and I will answer your question:

“Well, I’m wondering whether you have an infallible text…” (p.50)

“The Bible contains history….but lacks the modern concern for factual accuracy, corroborating evidence, and absolute certainty.” (p.56)

“That oft quoted passage in second Timothy doesn’t say, ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and is authoritative,’ it says that Scripture is inspired and useful—useful to teach, rebuke, correct, instruct us to live justly, and equip us for our mission as the people of God. That’s a very different job description than we moderns want to give it. We want it to be God’s encyclopedia, God’s rule book, God’s scientific text, God’s easy-steps instruction book, God’s little book of morals for all occasions. The only people in Jesus’ day who would have had anything close to these expectations of the Bible would have been the Scribes and Pharisees. Right?” (p.52)

“Old notions of truth and knowledge are being deconstructed. But we don’t need to get into all that vocabulary. The old notions are being questioned”…and “new understandings of truth and knowledge that might improve on them haven’t been fully developed yet.” (p.61)

“Truth means more than factual accuracy.” “My goal in life is to help people love God and to know Jesus, not to hate the Buddha or disrespect Muhammad.” (p.60) “I’d have to say the world is better off having these religions than having no religions at all, or just one, even if it were ours.” (p.63)

“I’m not against systematic theologies. I’m beginning to see them as an artifact of worship from the modern era, no less sincere or magnificent than medieval cathedrals – in fact you could call them modern conceptual cathedrals” (p.24). Neo goes on to say, “I believe that the modern version of Christianity that you have learned from your parents, your Sunday school teachers, and even your campus ministries is destined to be a medieval cathedral. It’s over, or almost over.”

“In a post modern world we disabuse ourselves of the myth that theory precedes practice” (p.162).

Servant Evangelism

Kande Wilson from the Cincinnati Vineyard has a good blog called the Outreach Chick Blog. This post from it is about some of the experiences of her church doing servant evangelism in Cincinnati.