Category: General Christian Teachings

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we dive into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been walking down the path of bad argumentation and seeing how Christians use sound bites to argue. These are short little sayings that sound good enough that they get repeated often, but they’re just harmful to the Christian message.

Some of you might be surprised by tonight’s title. Aren’t we to love Jesus? Of course, and it should be our desire to love him more every day. However, what I am talking about is what I have heard often from young men seeking to date Christian girls. They will turn down a date saying something like “I’m in love with Jesus” or “I’m dating Jesus” or “Jesus is my husband.”

If you stopped to think for a moment about those sayings, just realize the conclusion. If you meet three different people who all say they’re in love with the same man, are dating the same man, or are married to the same man, what’s the view given of that man? He must be a two-timer or a polygamist or some other terms that would be even less charitable.

But aren’t we the bride of Christ? Collectively, we are. Jesus is not a polygamist. He has one bride. If you are a young girl, you are not married to Jesus. You are not in a relationship with Jesus in the hopes that that relationship will develop into the eros kind of love. You are sure not going to be having sex with Jesus, but your future husband will be hoping you’re having it with him.

Treating Jesus like this is treating him flippantly. It’s making the great Lord of the universe on the same level as the kind of person you’d date. I am reminded of how Christian comedian Brad Stine has said that if he gets behind a car with the bumper sticker that says “God is my co-pilot,” that he speeds up because he wants to see who’s driving. You have to be good if God is riding shotgun!

Another great danger is saying you’re in love with him. Why? I think it’s a great danger that too many relationships are built on a romantic feeling instead of a romantic devotion. Now you can have both, but let us not mistake the feeling for the devotion. The truly devoted person is the one who serves regardless of how he feels. If you feel great, great! If not, oh well. You have a commitment.

The Christian life is not always a feel good happy time. In fact, we’re promised the opposite. We are promised suffering. Didn’t Jesus say he came that we might have life abundantly? Oh yes he did, but don’t think he’s necessarily meaning what a 21st century American counts as abundant life. Too many kids seem to think love of Christ is all about getting a really good feeling. These kids think they’re being nourished by pizza parties at youth groups and going on these weekend big youth gatherings. They’ll come back really excited, and then a week or two later, it’s back to normal. Then they go off to college and it seems that feel-good has a hard time holding up against a professor with 25 years of atheism.

Finally, you’re also doing a disservice to the guy who’s asking you out. For all you know, this could be a man who will draw you closer to Christ. That’s something we marrieds need to be looking at more often. It shouldn’t just be “Am I having a good time?” It should be more importantly “Am I becoming more like Christ?” Marriage is great, but it’s also work.

By all means, love Jesus. Love him more every day. However, do realize he’s not like any love you will have down here. He is Lord. Treat him with the reverence he is owed.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the topic of Christian sound bites. Unfortunately, we Christians can toss out platitudes as well that show a lack of serious thinking on our part.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a Christian be hesitant to say something critical because you’re not supposed to judge. I also don’t know how many times they’ve told me that I don’t need to say something critical for the same reason.

Why? Jesus said “Judge not.” Unfortunately, this has fed into our victim mentality culture where people are seen as incredibly fragile. Someone’s feelings are more important than the truth of a matter. You can say what you want, but just be sure you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, unless they’re orthodox evangelical Christians. They’re open game.

When Jesus gave that command, he was referring to hypocritical judging. If you have a plank in your eye, then you are not authorized to remove that speck from your brother’s eye.

Consider when you say you’re not supposed to judge. In doing so, some judgments have already been made. For instance, you have made a judgment that Jesus is a reliable authority figure and someone whose advice you should trust. (Heck. Just by becoming a Christian, you have made a judgment)

Second, you have made a judgment that the person you are telling to not judge has in fact judged. You cannot tell them that they are not to judge then without having done so yourself.

Third, you are also making a moral judgment. You are judging that the act of judging is something that is immoral. Once again, the problem with this is the same as above. As soon as you say something about it, you’re guilty.

I recall one Christian asking me about the Westboro movement and saying “Well I don’t want to judge.” We were in my former roommate’s apartment at the time and so I said to her “Is your car downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Are the doors locked?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She realized then that she’d been caught in a trap. She locked the doors because she judged that there were some people out there who might want to steal her car and the best way to prevent that was by locking the door.

We make judgments like this all the time. We judge when we marry. We judge when we choose a school for kids. We judge when we choose a babysitter. We judge the best way to get to the store when we drive. We judge what we will spend our money on.

If we say we have no right to make moral judgments, then we can no longer call evil evil and condemn it. We cannot say that there is a difference between someone like Mother Teresa and someone like Adolf Hitler.

We also cannot make the judgment that Jesus is the only way to salvation and Islam is not a way to salvation. We cannot judge that Christianity is a true worldview and that atheism is a false worldview.

All of this in the name of so-called tolerance, but rest assured that those who want us to be tolerant are not as tolerant of us as they want us to be of them. Unfortunately, Christians are buying into the victim mentality cop-out.

Does this mean all judging is good. No. John 7:24 tells us to make a righteous judgment and not judge by mere appearances. We should also avoid an attitude of judgmentalism. Some of us, self included, have a tendency to see the worst always and go straight there. We need to get past that.

Let us be sure however, the idea of “You’re not supposed to judge” is not what Jesus had in mind and to teach it does a disservice to him.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, I’ve been looking at Christian sound bites. Bad argumentation is a problem wherever we see it and sadly, Christians can be quite guilty of it. I’m going to look at one tonight that does parallel what we covered last night.

Suppose you’re debating with a fellow Christian on a topic not explicitly discussed in the Bible. An example could be something political. Of course, what I’m about to say could apply to something in the Bible as well unfortunately. You have made your point and your opponent has no argument so they just say “Well you need to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you.”

Pride once again, and one of the worst kinds, a spiritual pride. This person wants you to pray because they’re sure God will back them if you ask.

For the sake of argument, it could be that this person is entirely right in their position, but they’re just too lazy to develop a good argument. Let it never be thought that because someone uses one of these sound bites as a cop-out in a debate, that they are wrong in their point. It just means they’re being intellectually lazy.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit helping us understand Scripture has not meant the Holy Spirit will tell us what a text means. It means the Holy Spirit will convict us on the meaning of the text. Otherwise, the job of commentators would be much easier and we’d never need to really wrestle with the text. God actually wants us to work to understand Him and His Word.

I also think that with decision making, the Holy Spirit is never to just decide for us. That can happen, but it is extremely rare. On the other hand, I think it’s entirely appropriate to pray that the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom in decision making so we can make a pleasing decision.

The kind of thinking we see today actually can lead to troubles for many Christians. Some people leave the faith because they don’t have the experiences they think they’re supposed to be having. I have wondered in churches when a vote comes up before a board and we’re asked to vote the way the Holy Spirit is supposedly leading, why it seems the Holy Spirit can’t make up His mind. Why is it we are to give the way we feel the Spirit leading? Why can’t we instead hear a sermon on 2 Cor. 8-9? Rather than wisely decide how we should vote or give, we just say “Hey God. Can you just tell me?”

Like last time, the person making this claim is being prideful. They have been lazy and instead of admitting they don’t know, this time, they’re actually punting to God and saying God will justify their laziness. It’s also dangerously assuming a hotline to God that many cult leaders have claimed to have.

This objection reminds me of what Francis Beckwith once said. “”If they can’t win with logic, they’ll trump you with spirituality.” As I said yesterday, holiness should not be used as a weapon. If you can’t win the argument, then say you’ll be glad to go back and study. Laziness is not an excuse and we should not use God to excuse our laziness.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’re spending our time looking at Christian Sound Bites now. Tonight, I’m going to take a look at the line given by many a Christian who says “I just believe what the Bible says!”

We’ve all seen this happen before. Suppose you and a fellow Christian are debating eschatology. You make an argument and your opponent responds by saying “I just believe what the Bible says”

That can sound good. That can sound holy. It gives the impression that nothing more can be said. The exact opposite is true.

To begin with, if you are a Christian, the Bible should matter to you. If you are told that your opinion goes against the Bible and you can be shown that, then that should be enough for you to change it. However, in a debate like this, it is not a question of “Should we believe what the Bible says?” That’s agreed on. The question is “What does it say?”

The position is also not holy. It’s prideful. When you use this, you are automatically telling your opponent without reason that they do not believe what the Bible says as opposed to you who does. Upon what grounds do you get to make a charge that you are the holy one and your brother or sister the one living in rebellion?

This is just a cop-out and it’s one of the worst kinds too. It’s a cop-out to holiness. Holiness is important, but it is not meant to be used as a weapon. In fact, if you truly have holiness, you would not want to use it that way. You would want to, if you believe you’re right, rationally convince your fellow Christian to see the error of their ways.

In reality also, something can be said to this. When you are told this, you can say “Yes. That is a fine and noble thing to do. Would you care to go to the text with me and demonstrate that that is what the text says?” After all, the person is begging the main question assuming that that is what the text says. You could even grant that if you are shown that that is what the text says that you will freely change your mind.

None of us like to be shown up. This is a reply intended to make it seem as if you haven’t been shown up and are acting “spiritual” instead. Why not admit you are wrong? To paraphrase one of my friends, maybe we should all be more open to what the Bible could say and rather than have to commit ritual suicide, be willing to admit the other side could have a point.

We wouldn’t accept it if an atheist gave a cop-out of a similar nature in a debate. Why would we want to pull one on a fellow Christian? It would be better to study and learn more about the opponent’s view, rather than to build up the sin of pride in your life.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! I really don’t like that what I’m including tonight is under the topic of Christian sound bites. However, I decided to put it here because Christians are the ones who usually take the Scripture text more seriously, as they should. However, there are proper ways to settle disputes on how a text should be interpreted.

This is not one of them.

Many of us have done it. Imagine laying out a case for how you interpret a text of Scripture only to hear “Well that’s just your interpretation!” Never mind the work you might have put into coming to an understanding of the text. Your opponent is using this as if it addresses you.

The first thing I want to say in response to this every time is “Yes. That is my interpretation. Thank you for pointing that out.” Of course, you can also, if you are aware of it, point to other exegetes who hold to the same interpretation. The point of saying “That’s just your interpretation!” is just that that doesn’t tell if the interpretation is right or wrong.

Now we should all know that the text of Scripture does not error. However, as has been said and demonstrated numerous times, our interpretations can error. You can read a commentary by a Calvinist or Arminian, a futurist or a preterist, a young-earther or an old-earther. We all know we have our share of in-house debates and we all seek to point to the text.

Who’s right? Of course, we all believe we are. The only reason you hold to an interpretation of a text is because you believe that is what the text says. When interpreting a text, that does not mean you agree with the text, though we should agree with Scripture. It just means you’re saying “This is what the text means.” Whether it’s true or not comes afterwards.

What I am stating here applies not just to Scriptural text, but all texts, even oral or body language. My wife can act in certain ways that let me know she wants to spend some time with me without ever saying a word. My offline friends also know my penchant for sarcasm and when I say something with a certain tone in my voice, they know that I should not be taken in a literal sense.

What do we do? The first thing to realize is the meaning of the text lies in the text itself. You do not find meaning and put that into a text. You draw the meaning out of the text that the author meant to put into the text. You can try to think about what the author had in mind, but all you have direct access to is the text.

As I said earlier, other factors can play a part. Is the text originally in another language? Go back and look up and see what the word meant in that language. Many ideas can often be lost in translation. One of my favorite examples is the 1 John 4 passage of “Perfect love casts out all fear.” It sounds nice to us, but the Greek use of the word “ballo” for “casts out” indicates more like a barroom bouncer throwing out hard an unwanted guest. It definitely enriches my understanding of the passage!

What is the social context? For instance, when you read about marriage in the Bible, you are reading about a male-female unit establishing a family, but you are also reading about an institution that was often arranged by parents and meant to link up two families more than two individuals.

The world of the Bible was very different from the world as it is today. We can easily place our own time and mindset onto the text. Ancient societies did not live as we do today however. They were not individualistic but relied on the group for identity instead. Can that affect how you read the text? Absolutely!

Why would someone go to all this work? Simple. They want to know what the text means. Does that mean that all texts are cut and dry? No. Some passages are very hard to understand. (Usually, these are the ones commentators skip over.) The way to reply to “That’s Just Your Interpretation!” is to ask where it’s wrong. You want to know if you’re wrong don’t you? I hope so.

Make sure you know your opponents’ side. Why do they believe what they believe? Knowing your opponent’s interpretation is as important as knowing your own. It should be the case that if you need to, you could stand before an audience and give a presentation on the other side and why it should be believed.

The sound bite as given however gets to a more postmodern view as if each interpretation is as valid as another. That doesn’t mean that you can’t see the merits a contrary interpretation has. What we need to realize is that the text really does mean something. To argue this way is to just be lazy and say someone’s opinion is just that only instead of addressing if it’s right or wrong.

And as Christians, we need not be lazy concerning Scripture.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve spent a lot of time lately looking at atheist sound bites and now, I’d like to turn my attention to Christian sound bites. Why? Because I’m against bad argumentation no matter where it comes from and that includes Christians giving bad arguments. God is not glorified by bad actions. Neither is he glorified by bad arguments.

I know this one will be highly controversial, but I’d like to write about the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. To begin with, let us consider the position from the point of God. I will begin by asking this question.

Is God Lord of all creation by nature?

If you answered “No”, move to the head of the class.

“That’s ridiculous!” some of you say. “Isn’t it true that he is Lord of all?!”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Then isn’t He that by nature?”

No. The reason is that what God is, He has to be naturally, but He did not necessarily have to create. God could have willed to not create ever. It could have just been for all eternity the fellowship of the Trinity. No angels. No men. No animals. Nothing else. God would still be all that He is by nature.

Now once He does however create, he establishes a relation by creation to his creatures. Because of His position to them, He is their Lord. This position however does not change anything in the nature of God. God does not gain anything by being your Lord and if you never existed God would not be at a loss. However, by being the servant of God, you gain greatly and by not being the servant of God, you lose greatly.

Our relation to God does not change Him in the least. It changes us. We need to restore a divine holiness to the relationship and realize that no relationship we have on Earth can truly compare to it. Consider the four loves. Your relationship with your marriage partner cannot compare to it. Your relationship with your family cannot compare to it. Your relationship with your friends cannot compare to it.

Instead, we’ve treated the position we have with God practically casually. Hebrews tells us that we can boldly approach the throne of grace to be sure, but that does not mean that we necessarily march in like we own the place. We are still coming to one far greater than us by nature and we come with reverent submission.

The danger is that our relationship with Jesus is so different and we treat it as if it was similar. Just today, I read of an ex-Christian who left the fold saying he didn’t feel that personal relationship that everyone else in the church claimed to feel. Don’t tell me then that this kind of thinking focusing on our subjective experiences does not have an effect. It does!

Jesus never promised us a feeling. In fact, he promised us suffering more than anything else. How often do you hear that spoken of? Jesus did not command us to feel love or joy. In fact, that would be difficult. Suppose you were sad and I came up to you and said “I order you to feel happy!” I could even stick a gun to your head and say “If you don’t feel happy, I will blow your brains out!”

You couldn’t do it. Now I could do some things for you that might be able to bring about a feeling related to the state of happiness in you, but I could not make you feel happy. I am of course not against feeling happy. I also do not believe we can perpetually feel happy. There are times we should feel negative emotions and allow them to speak.

Jesus did command us to be holy however. We don’t hear that worked on. Holiness is something very much objective. You have a clear goal. Christlikeness. You are either getting closer to it or moving away from it. What about how you feel? Act first and let the feelings come later.

You wouldn’t want to base your relationship with other people on how you felt would you? As one who recently had surgery, I am sure there were times people did not really feel eager to help me in my time of need, but did so anyway. I do think my wife could be a great exception. Somehow, it wouldn’t surprise me that when I had to wake her up in the night to help me walk to the bathroom or to give me medication that she felt a joy in helping her husband.

Let’s suppose for the sake of argument however that she didn’t one time. What does she do? She does the right thing anyway. She gets up and helps her husband out. If the feeling comes, great! If not, oh well. Doing the right thing is more important than getting the feeling of doing the right thing.

Another way this relationship is different is communication. If I don’t understand something about my wife or she doesn’t about me, then we can openly ask each other. It could be we don’t even know the reasons for why the other is asking, but we can still ask.

Many Christians treat prayer as a two-way street. The Bible never does. Am I saying God can’t talk to us? No. However, I’m also not saying it’d be normative. God could raise your loved one from the dead, but somehow, I don’t suspect many of you are going to the burial site with that news and just waiting.

If you believe God has spoken to you and you have not fallen down proclaiming your unworthiness, I doubt it was God. I plan to write more on this in the future with the use of punting to God in another blog.

The Bible defines our relationship as being at peace with God now. He’s not turned against us. We have united ourselves to Him. We have become a part of the covenant with YHWH and this is a sacred position to hold. We are not to treat it casually. We ought to be able to spend all of our days in wonder and amazement that we are pronounced forgiven, and I am just as guilty of not doing this.

It’s my hope that we will drop this term as it tends to lower God down to our level instead of realizing He is the high and mighty Lord. I am not saying Christians who use this term don’t believe that. I’m saying the terminology however can easily lend itself to that thinking.

We shall look at another sound bite tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! I’m going to take a brief respite from atheist sound bites to give a brief case for Christian environmentalism. Why? Readers of last night’s blog will know I presented a link to my wife’s blog that she has started. It is called Evergreen Glades and it is the blog for Christian nature lovers, which should be all of us.

My wife is quite saddened that it seems like the new age movement is doing more to take care of the Earth than Christians do. Now I’m not one who believes in global warming and neither one of us are supporters of PETA. My wife loves animals, but she also knows that if it comes between an animal or a human, the human has to come first. We are different by kind and not just degree.

However, the Bible tells us we were put on the Earth to be in charge of it. We are also told in Proverbs 12:10 that a good man cares for his beast. When Noah entered the ark, he had a number of animals with him. When the Israelites were to lay siege to an enemy town, they were given specific instructions on how to tend to the trees in the area.

All of creation is good and we should celebrate that. The Bible uses animals as examples to us as well. We are told if we are sluggards to go to the ant and watch. Jesus tells us that we need not worry if we observe the birds in the sky and the flowers in the field. God takes care of both of them. Numerous Psalms look to the creation and view it as a cause to praise God.

My wife is the strong one in this area. I’m not. I don’t like being away from the wonders of modern technology. She wants to see each of the dogs that our neighbors have. (That is also another difference. She’s a dog-lover primarily. I’m a cat-lover.) I realize when this happens that this is a deficiency in me however rather than a deficiency in nature.

Taking care of the world around us doesn’t mean being a tree-hugger or buying into environmental disaster scenarios. God is in charge of this Earth. However, knowing he’s in charge doesn’t mean we don’t fulfill the Great Commission in evangelism. It also shouldn’t meant that we just ignore the planet and say “God will clean it all up.”

I don’t consider myself an environmentalist, but I am willing to recycle and we take our bottles every Sunday to a place near our church to recycle them. I am quite cautious to make sure I don’t litter. Is there really any excuse for throwing trash out the window as you drive rather than just waiting until you get to a trash can?

None of us also want to be caught in the New Age and worshiping nature. The secret to escape this however is not to love nature less. It’s to love God more. The problem with the New Agers is that they don’t look beyond nature. They take nature to be God. They should celebrate the wonder of nature and realize the awesomeness of the God that it points to.

We Christians on any ethical duty should be putting to shame the rest of the world. We should have the new agers wanting to do as good a job preserving nature as we do. Those of you who are scientists and such should celebrate every day that you get to explore the wonders of creation somehow and get to know the God behind it, who He is, and why He did it this way.

If you’re a fan of my blog, and I hope you are, then I ask you to become a fan of my wife’s as well. She will not be blogging every day, but your support of her in what she’s doing will be a great encouragement to her. Keep praying for us as well. We’re still in a tight situation as neither of us have a job due to no one hiring me yet. God has provided thus far, but we would like to see a job come up. I would love to work for my money.

Thank you for your support thus far of Deeper Waters and again, please be a fan of Evergreen Glades.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Last night as I was checking up on some things online for the last time, I saw a comment on TheologyWeb where I debate that burned me in a thread on Halloween telling someone to go ahead and celebrate the night of Samhain. God had made his opinion clear on the matter however.

Now to me, Halloween is nothing wicked to celebrate, though some people can celebrate it in wicked means. This is the case for any holiday. On Thanksgiving, we can be tempted to gluttony. On Christmas, we can be tempted with materialism. On New Year’s Day, we can be tempted to get drunk. In any holiday, we need to watch why we are observing it.

That’s not what got me on this here however. To me, Halloween is a secondary matter. There’s nothing in Scripture that’s yea or nay, particularly since Halloween hadn’t been invented yet, but I believe we have some guidelines in 1 Cor. 8-10 and Romans 14 indicating that this is a secondary matter.

However, it is easy to say that God has spoken on something and leave it at that and then think the rest of us are living in sin if we acknowledge the day. This gives us a chance to look at ourselves with pride and look down on our neighbor and think that we are doing better than they are or are more holy than they are. Now it could be we’re leading a better Christian life, but it is not our place to say that.

If we want to go with matters that the Lord has clearly stated his view on, let’s go with those.

We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. How are we doing?

In Romans 12, Paul tells us to be devoted to prayer. I know this is something that I wrestle with. How about the rest of you? Are you doing much better?

We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves. Are we doing that, or are we treating our neighbor totally different from ourselves and looking for any excuse to not love him?

We are commanded if we are married men to love our wives as Christ loved the church and women are called to submit to their husbands as the church to Christ. Fellow marrieds? How are you doing? Husbands? Do you love your wives that way? Wives? Are you respecting your husbands?

Jesus told us to not worry about tomorrow for today has enough difficulties of its own. How’s that going? Are you getting good at not staying up at night and wondering about the future?

We are told to not look at women with lust and not hate our brother in our hearts. How’s that going?

Forgive one another as I have forgiven you. That’s an easy one surely isn’t it? Are you doing the work that needs to be done in forgiving your neighbor and actually letting it go? Surely no one ever carries around a grudge.

How about money? How are we doing? Are we giving to the poor and helping them or are we more greedy?

But in each of these, God has made his view clear.

We can argue about secondary issues and we should respect one another’s opinions on secondary issues even when we disagree, but before we start playing the pride card, let’s look and see how we’re doing on these other issues.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we seek to dive into the ocean of truth! I’m back from my trip with my wife and would like to write about an experience that has been particularly troubling for us. I will not be mentioning names in this, for I fear the problem I am seeing is a problem with many churches.

While we were in my town with my parents, we decided to go to my old church to see if we could drum up financial support. As readers could know, as of this writing, I have been nearly unemployed for five months and unable to find work despite sending out numerous resumes. I lost my job just a few months before my scheduled wedding and donations from my church in my town here as well as numerous friends, some on the internet, helped keep us going.

Our goal is to start our own ministry and we need good finances to do that. We would like it to where enough could come in someday that we can devote ourselves full-time to writing, speaking, teaching, and debating. Right now, tax-deductible donations can be made for us through www.Tektonics.org. (And if you wish to do so, make sure it is stated that this donation is for us. That’s the only way it will reach us)

We talked to my old associate pastor and he said he just didn’t think they could find the time. There was too much going on. Now I have talked to him before and asked for help numerous times, but there hasn’t been any. It has been as if we were wasting our breath. We were told we would be acknowledged during the service.

So we figure we’ll go to the service and see what happens.

What happened was the whole service was celebrating how the church had raised so much money to build up a “ministry center” and how that included raising up $2.1 million that did not even include the offerings every Sunday. Now there is no debt and the church can go out and celebrate what has been done!

Getting out of debt? Good thing I’ll grant, but my wife and I were wondering where the support was for one of their own, particularly one of their own who went off to ministry (Even though another Seminary student was mentioned and how a band was going to where he was to support him).

Also, there was special music with someone singing “Everything’s fine! I just talked to Jesus! Help is on its way!” While some might find some statements to be biblical, there is a time that people need to see love demonstrated instead of merely just spoken. My marriage would not be good if I just told my wife “I love you” and never did anything to show it.

Did we get acknowledged? Yes we did. At one point, it was announced that we were visiting and it was the first time we had been there since the wedding. Absent however was any mention of our financial situation and how we would appreciate the people to be praying for us at least.

Instead, every aspect of the service, including the sermon, was about how great it was that this building was finally here. Then the minister ended the sermon with a prayer and gave thanks to God that the building was finally there so that they could continue the ministry of basketball.

Yes. The ministry of basketball.

That was not a slip-up. It was said twice.

Meanwhile, here’s a hurting member of the church in a tough bind and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

So we went later to speak to the associate pastor. He asked my wife how she liked living in a new city to which she said she liked it but wasn’t sure how much longer we’d be living there since we could be homeless soon. No response given. It was more of an “Oh.” No empathy was shown at all. Instead a question was asked to me.

“Do you have your semester paid off yet?”

“Not even close.”

I got a similar response.

The associate pastor said we could talk to him in about fifteen minutes after we said we wanted to talk. My wife went outside and I went with her and she told me it would probably be best for us to just leave. I agreed. If this situation involved just me, I’d be concerned, but since it involved my wife as well and my desire to provide for her, I was fuming. Lunch with my family consisted of us discussing the event.

The contrast was incredible. Their pastor has a son who had a birthday that day. It was ironic that my birthday was that same day (A fact the church I attended also failed to acknowledge). My Dad raised his hand as the pastor was gathering prayer requests to which he was told “I believe your son also has a birthday today doesn’t he?” The pastor then asked us to please keep praying for my wife and I in our job situation. Some members of this church attended our wedding even and brought gifts.

And this is a church I hadn’t attended in over a decade.

Lest you wonder, it’s because I’m a different denomination from my folks and I wanted to join a church that matched my doctrinal beliefs more. I have nothing against this church on essential matters. They are a fine group and I would gladly worship with them despite minor differences, but I wanted to find a home in the faith tradition I chose to align myself with.

My wife and I discussed the event which led to a number of thoughts on my part.

First, churches are talking about growing in ministry and basing that on conversions. Jesus did not once tell us to go out and make converts. He told us to go and make disciples. Church is not meant to be a numbers game. My current church is a small church with no more than thirty people usually on a Sunday, but this church has surrounded my wife and I with their love and support. We have serious discipling going on with an educational hour instead of Sunday School where we play videos of speakers like Ravi Zacharias and speak on apologetics-related topics.

Instead, the church often believes that if you get someone in the door and get them to walk down the aisle, say a prayer, and then be baptized, that you have them for life. There is no growth that is going on. Instead, messages are often given with the goal of making people feel good about themselves. Frankly, we need some messages that will show us how bad we really are and get our lives right.

While the church I attended this Sunday said they were growing in ministry, a number of questions came to my mind.

“Are your members more aware of the importance of holiness in their lives?”

“Do they understand better the doctrine of the Trinity?”

“Can they make a defense for the physical resurrection of Jesus?”

“Can they answer a cultist?”

“Are they prepared for when the new atheists come who want to destroy religion?”

“Do they know the problem with homosexual marriage and why traditional marriage is so important?”

“Do they know how to demonstrate the Bible is the Word of God and to rightly interpret it?”

If they don’t, then they may be growing in something, but it is not ministry.

Sermons today in churches tend to skip past the doctrine and go straight to application. The sermon we heard was from Joshua 3-4 and about the children of Israel leaving stones as milestones and how this building was to be the church’s milestone. Gone was any mention of why the Israelites were passing over. Absent was the historical context of Joshua. Without mention were who people like the Jebusites were. Absent was any mention of the role family tradition played in a society like that of the ancient Israelites.

Instead, there was just application. The text in this case becomes not “What does it mean?” but “What does it mean for me?” I’m not against application of all. We should eventually get to “What does it mean for me?” However, the first place to start is with “What does it mean?”

Also, churches are going into building plans for buildings that frankly, I think are a waste. I have yet to see real ministry going on in these buildings. Instead, these are places for social gatherings that are simply creating a feel-good mentality. It is the idea that we are all right and we just need to huddle up together. You want to talk about doing ministry? Go toe to toe with an atheist or go into prisons or actually dialogue with those Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses that come to your door. Go out on the streets and work with the homeless. Go to a foreign country sometime. Do something that will get you out of your comfort zone.

In the past, buildings were made that were expensive, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the buildings were made in the context of worship. When you entered a medieval cathedral, you were to know you were entering into the presence of the holy. Today, churches are designed often to look like hotel lobbies where you can go and have social gatherings. Any appearance of the holy is absent. Now some churches I know are like this through no fault of their own. That would include my own. We are a small body and had to rent out the only building we could, a building that used to be a bank. If this is your church, that’s understandable.

However, we cannot go on building projects that aren’t worth what’s put in them while there’s ministry to do. Instead of building a family life center, which will be nothing but a gym usually, go out and start talking about donating that money to a Seminary or Bible College that upholds the Bible as the Word of God. Better yet, start your own Bible College or Seminary. For too many Christians, Seminary is a dirty word and their idea of Bible Study is reading a Beth Moore book.

As I think about the basketball situation, I do admit that I have no problem with pleasure to an extent. Pleasure is God’s gift. However, I recall in the past that all I needed for a good game of basketball was a parking lot and a basketball net and just a bunch of guys together. Now if you want to play more, you need to build more. That’s fine, but is $2.1 million really needed for that? You can imply set up an asphalt area and have two basketball hoops.

The idea is that family life centers will draw people to the church and when they come in eventually, they will get hooked and then they will be Christians for life and that will be a victory. This despite the fact that most kids leaving the church leave and never come back as a professor in the college is happy to kill their faith, as a Sunday school faith is not enough to deal with a professor who has twenty-five years of atheism.

Could we try another technique to get people into the church? I don’t know. Maybe we could try something truly innovative like talking to them. When we talk, we need more than just tracts also. Personally, I have never cared much for the medium of tracts. I prefer real dialogue and I suspect I’m not alone.

While there’s nothing wrong with creating gateways that are entertaining, we have this idea that we must make the gospel entertaining. We must make our presentation entertaining to an extent I believe, but we must not make the gospel that way. The gospel should be joy enough as it is. It should provide its own listeners if we present it rightly.

I do believe Jesus used humor when he spoke, but he did not make that the focus. The gospel is interesting enough as it is and we do not need to make it interesting. We do not need to make God exciting for people. God is already exciting. The reason we do not often see God that way is not because of a problem with God but a problem with ourselves in a culture that thrives on the notion that we have to be constantly entertained, a problem even I still contend with in my own life to this day.

The end result will be a generation that only responds to something if they find it amusing to them, instead of realizing that they need to change their way of thinking for God. God does not need to make Himself interesting for our culture. We need to find out why he’s not interesting to our culture. The problem is certainly not with Him but with us and whatever it is, we need to change it.

Hearing about the ministry of basketball was particularly insulting as one who is on the front lines of the battle and taking the bullets from the opposition so that most Christians can go to bed at night and rest with ease. I realize not everyone is to be an intellectual, and that’s fine. My wife is an artist for instance. She does know the importance of ministry however and supports me in it. Those who aren’t in this field can support those who are. These ministries are the ones keeping the new atheists and other idealogical forces at bay.

Instead, apologetics is being made more and more irrelevant as well as those who do apologetics.

Not only that, there are people like myself who are hurting, and the church is too busy celebrating themselves often instead of getting out in the trenches and helping those who are hurting. I am sure I was not the only one that day hurting and for a hurting person who is wondering how the next bill will be paid, it is no help to see others celebrating like that, especially when you’ve asked for help numerous times.

There is a reason people don’t often go to the church for help and this Sunday was a prime example.

I am one who believes that if the American church does not renew its intellectual battleground soon, it will die. Playing basketball will not compete with the new atheists. Now I do not believe for a second that the church will die. The church will live. It will just live and thrive somewhere else, maybe even China. The gospel does not need America to survive, but America needs the gospel.

I pray that we will be what we were meant to be again soon. We cannot be playing games while the world dies.

As I was leaving Sunday School at my old church back in my hometown, the teacher made a remark that sometimes we treat Christianity like it’s a game. It’s one of those statements that I’d heard before but there’s a part of me that when I hear such a statement, I want to say “If only we did so.”

Ironically as I was looking last night through C.S. Lewis’s “The Four Loves.” Not for anything for the blog, but just because I wanted to glance through. I had a number of parts highlighted and maybe you’re like me that when you go through a book and see highlighted parts, you want to find out why they were highlighted. (It’s also interesting when you get a used book from somewhere else and you see what the reader highlighted and wonder why he highlighted that.)

On page 90, this is what I found:

It is one of the most difficult and delightful subtleties of life that we must deeply acknowledge certain things to be serious and yet retain the power and will to treat them often as lightly as a game.

I believe Lewis is on to something. I do see Christianity as serious of course, but I often think it would be good if we treated it as a game. I know many people who love to play a game and when they play that game, they take it very seriously, and this includes myself. They want to do the best that they can and they practice. Most people don’t have the same sort of enthusiasm for their jobs.

Would it do us good if we saw Christianity as a game? We often speak of Lewis and Tolkien and how they wrote stories that were meant to point to the greatest story of all. It’s a shame that we love those stories so much, yet so often we fail to enjoy the story that we’re in.

Go out and find the average person on the street. Make a movie out of their life story. If you make it true to their life and know how to write, direct, produce, etc. you will have a blockbuster film no matter who it is. Real life is interesting.

Do we play our lives as if we want to win the game? Do we even see it that way? If you’re playing a game, you do the best you can do at what you do. You don’t want to lose. You don’t want to be defeated. If there comes a challenge in the game, well that makes the game all the more enjoyable. In fact, you go out there and you expect that there will be challenges.

Peter Kreeft once said that apologetics is as close as you get to saving the world. Of course, someone already did that 2,000 years ago, but imagine seeing yourself in your Christian life as playing some role in the plan of God. Now I’m not talking about finding God’s will for your life. I believe there are many possible roles you could play. You have great freedom to ad-lib. However, you are to play a role. 

If only we could really grasp that and I would love to see the church do that. To realize that we are on a mission and maybe we’d fulfill the role of the church better. Now not everyone is in the apologetics field extensively. I realize that. I think everyone should have some skill, but not everyone is going to make this study the basis of their lives. That’s fine. It doesn’t mean my work is completely independent of yours.

I am thankful for the counselors and encouragers of the church and the role they play. I once had someone who regularly told me at my church when he saw me “Be encouraged!” He stopped doing it and that’s too bad because it was always good to hear. There’s something nice about getting a message out of the blue and knowing that someone appreciates you. We’ve all got that (I hope!) at some time in our lives.

What would that mean if we played the game right? If we realized we’re all in this together? There really are things out there that are evil and we really are called to stop them. We are told to be salt and light. We are serving the most awesome and glorious being that there is and he has sent us out there to redeem this world for good.

Stop and think about that. If you’re a gamer like me, consider your favorite RPG for instance. (As I type this, I just finished up awhile ago Final Fantasy IV, The After Years.) You do enjoy playing it and the focus of good conquering evil and maybe you’d like to be the hero of the story. (If you can rename the hero in the story and put in your own, this works even better.) In some ways, you are. This story has multiple heroes however all playing different parts and when we get to eternity, we’ll find out what we did and what rewards we had and they will be based on how well we played the game.

Prayer is not something just nebulous then. It’s talking to the one who is in charge and the one who has the power to help you complete your task. The Bible is not just a lifeless book. It’s a book that can essentially unlock the secrets of ultimate reality to you and by studying it and learning, you can be better equipped. Gaining knowledge is the quest to uncover more of the divine truths the creator has placed in the universe be it in the area of science, philosophy, history, literature, mathematics, etc.

Christianity is not a game. No. It’s serious. Yet maybe we should follow the advice of Lewis and treat this serious object lightly. Maybe we should actually enjoy what we do and realize that serving God is not meant to be a misery as we can often paint it out to be, but a great joy.

Go play!