Book Plunge: The King Jesus Gospel

Are we doing something wrong in Evangelicalism? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently, I finished reading Scot McKnight’s book “The King Jesus Gospel.” (By the way, if anyone wants to know about what I’m reading, just head over to GoodReads and feel free to add me. I regularly update it.) I had heard much good about the book and with N.T. Wright pointing out what a good book it was, I knew I was in for a treat.

The book is telling us that we are doing something wrong in evangelicalism. McKnight starts by sharing how he went door to door with someone from his church shortly after his “conversion” (I say it that way because I hate the term) and they spent an hour with the guy who had visited their church and really wasn’t interested, but eventually he did accept Christ as Lord, though most likely from McKnight’s perspective, it was an outward show. They went back to church and there was much celebration. The man was never seen at the church at all.

McKnight wants us to think about what has happened.

We have got to a point in our society where we have the message of salvation, which is really part of the gospel, and made it the whole gospel. This fits in well with our individualistic culture where the question then becomes “What is God going to do to take care of my problems?”

In this kind of society, people can make decisions quickly, but McKnight wants us to konw that the apostles were not sent out to get people to make decisions, but were sent out to make disciples. If we can get someone to “convert” and then not have anything required of them or any incentive for them, then we’re pretty much getting them to just say “Yes. You’re right.” We are not instilling in them a desire for Christlikeness.

When it becomes about our problems, then McKnight takes the saying from Dallas Willard that the gospel becomes simply “sin-management.” Of course, no one would say we need to downplay the importance of dealing with our sins. We certainly must deal with them. We just must make sure they are not the only aspect of reality that we deal with.

McKnight proposes we do that by broadening our picture. The coming of Jesus is not about getting someone to come and deal with our problems. It’s about God dealing with the problem. Interestingly, I just today started reading “Bart Ehrman’s book ‘God’s Problem.’ ” It is Ehrman’s work on the problem of evil and why he thinks the Bible doesn’t address it.

Ehrman is partially right. Evil is the problem. It is what the cross and the empty tomb are there to deal with, but part of the reason that problem is not taken care of is that we’re so fixated on our problems. Now of course we all have problems to deal with, but even our own problems can be seen in a different light when we place them under the kingship of Christ.

Could it be that when we start dealing with God’s problem, that we’ll find out not only do our problems get taken care of, but so does God’s problem? Could it be that if the church were to start acting the way that Christ had meant for us to act that maybe the problem of evil would not have been as severe? There are aspects we cannot change. There would still be hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis, but there would be more Christians to help those in need and more resources to help them.

McKnight wants us to see that the gospel is about the story of Israel reaching a fruition. It is about the Messiah, the rightful king, coming and taking the throne and when He takes the throne, He begins working out the problem to the proper solution. We are so busy looking at ourselves that we are not aware that God is at work in the universe and bringing about His mission.

We send people out to make decisions, but we don’t instruct them in what it means to be a disciple of Christ. It is as if we seek to get someone to an emotional high and then assume that our work is done. You might as well say that when a woman goes through the labor of childbirth and gives birth to a child, that she can then leave and go her own way. Her work is done. That does not work in parenting. It will not work in discipling.

McKnight urges us to return to the Old Testament also and see about the life of Israel. Don’t just look to see how it relates to Israel for the time-being. Look and see about the story itself. What is Israel dealing with? Why is God using these people? What is His overall purpose? Is it just a random thing, or is there some purpose to Israel?

Lately as I go to sleep, I’ve been trying to think through the OT and get the story of Israel in my mind. My mind has to have something to think on serious usually to get any peace and this is a great aid to me. It’s fascinating to see how the story of Israel could play itself out. I’ve been doing this for a few days and I’m not even through Genesis yet!

Upon reading this book, I have realized that this is the kind of book that every pastor needs to read. We are giving our people only part of the story. We are giving them forgiveness, but giving them the impression that God is there to deal with their problems instead of this idea that God wants something from His people. He wants them to be seeking Him continually and acknowledging His Son as the king of their lives.

The only downside I can think of is that with a place like Amazon, I cannot give this book six stars. Five is just not enough.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 4/6/2013

What are we going to the talking about on the podcast on 4/6/2013? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Some of you might have noticed that the time of posting for the blog has changed recently. I find it’s much easier to do the blog in the morning so that I have the rest of the day to myself and spend less time online that way. I have also since doing the Deeper Waters podcast every Saturday, decided to do the blog just Monday-Friday. Sunday, I just decide to take a rest to recharge.

I figured today that since I want people to know what’s going on on the podcast and have a reminder that they ought to listen in, then I’d start posting some on Fridays about what we’re going to be talking about on the podcast on the following day, especially since I’m booking a lot of great guests to come on and talk about relevant issues.

For those who don’t know, April is Autism Awareness Month, a topic I blogged on profusely last April. Most people who read this blog know that my wife and I both have Asperger’s and so this is a time of the year that we take extremely seriously and we want to show that on the podcast.

Recently, I was made aware of a book by Jacob Alexander about his son Joseph called “In The Belly of the Whale.” Joseph has Asperger’s and Jacob wrote it about the challenges that his son faced as he was growing up and why the condition of Asperger’s has not been something that Joseph has used as an excuse to give up, instead quite the opposite.

As you can imagine, that’s the kind of story that I like to hear seeing as I have the same mindset. I view my condition as a unique way I have of looking at the world and getting to relate to people. In fact, I agree with the opinion I’ve heard Temple Grandin has given before. If there was given to me an opportunity to have a cure for this, I would not want it. It’s become part of who I am and affects my mind in such a way that gives me a good edge on my thinking.

On tomorrow’s program, we’ll spend two hours with Jacob talking about his son. I had hoped to get Joseph himself on the program, but he’s busy preparing for something in his schooling and now is not a good time. Still, I have read Jacob’s book and I have a lot of questions I want to ask about his son growing up. I also plan on sharing experiences of Allie and I with Asperger’s that I think relate to what Joseph has gone through.

I hope you all tune in and listen tomorrow. While the Alexander family is a Christian family so this is a Christian story, I think learning about Asperger’s would be beneficial for everyone and not just the Christian community, although we are certainly a community that needs to learn how to love those who are different from us. Please tune in tomorrow then to the Deeper Waters podcast to hear about a success story of someone with Asperger’s.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Jacob Alexander’s book can be bought here

The link to the show can be found here.

Things Ancient People Did

Were the ancient people stupid and superstitious? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently, I’ve been debating on an article that Dr. Gary Habermas wrote for the Washington Post for Easter on reasons Jesus rose from the dead. Consistently, an argument that I have seen is one that says that the ancient people believed in a lot of this superstitious nonsense and that this didn’t happen in an age of science where people know better.

Oh really?

For the sake of those with that mindset, I’d like to point out to you some activities that the ancient people did.

#1-Ancient people had sex.

Yeah. This might seem like a shocker, but ancient people were really interested in having kids. After all, that was how you had a productive home life and made sure your family name was passed on. Their preferred method of getting to have kids was through having sex. They didn’t sit around and wait for virgins to get pregnant and then be overjoyed at the thought that they were now parents. Even back in Abraham’s day when he was told he should have a kid through Hagar by Sarah, he decided to sleep with her. When Lot’s daughters wanted to have kids without another man around, they got their Dad drunk and slept with him. They seemed to realize that there was this connection intrinsically between sex and babies.

#2-Ancient people built boats.

Sometimes, ancient people wanted to travel on the water. There was a whole industry for this and the ships would be used for battle as well as transport. In order to be able to move on the water, the ancient people built boats. They realized quite easily that when men start to walk on the water, they don’t last too long. They could not explain why this was, but they figured if they want to move on the water, they’d better build something that can.

#3-Ancient people grew food.

Believe it or not, ancient people worked long hours just to make one loaf of bread for their families. They planted seeds and cared for them in the hopes that they would have a good harvest. Why did they do these things? They did them because they did not expect food to just instantly pop up on their doorstep. They had this strange idea that they would actually have to work to produce food.

#4-Ancient people made wine.

Ancient people loved to drink wine, and they did not expect that if they just left water in a jar in the house, that it would suddenly turn into wine. Instead, they went through a long process in order to get the wine that they wanted. Once again, it’s a strange idea to some today I’m sure, but the ancients did it.

#5-Ancient people had doctors.

Of course, their doctors weren’t as good as ours today, but they had doctors who sought to have natural theories. Galen, for instance, believed that there had be a balance between the four humours of the body. He was wrong, but this theory was one that was perfectly natural. Like in any age, there were some quacks, but there were some who did seek those natural treatments.

#6-Ancient people buried their dead.

When someone died, the ancient people would bury them. Why? They didn’t need much experience to know that dead people stay dead. No one expected that when uncle Jacob died, that he would by some chance suddenly wind up on their doorstep within a week. They were dead and that was it. They had abundant evidence for this. People staying dead seemed to be a consistent pattern.

Why do we say all of this? Because ancient people would know what a miracle was. They had a basic idea of the natural order even if they couldn’t explain how it all worked. We can say they were wrong about miracles taking place, but we cannot say they were wrong in being able to tell what would qualify as a miracle. Suppose they were wrong about Jesus coming back from the dead. That would not mean that they would not know that had He come back, it would have been a miracle.

Were some people superstitious? Sure. So are some people today who read their horoscopes and such. Were they superstitious because they believed in miracles and deities? No. To have such an approach is to beg the question in favor of an atheistic worldview as being the only rational worldview through a circular argument.

By all means, say the ancients could have been wrong, but let’s not establish idiocy to them where it is not due.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Are Christians Supposed To Be Good?

Do we have the concept of a good person wrong? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

There’s a story about a professional basketball player who would often distance himself from his female fans, particularly since some female fans will have a tendency to really throw themselves at an athlete they admire. When asked why he would do this since so many other women were offended he replied, “If any woman is going to be offended, it’s not going to be my wife!” His first duty was to honor her and to do that, he would not even risk an event like that.

Yesterday, I started writing about Moral Therapeutic Theism. (MTT) One of the views of God in this is that Jesus came to make us be good people. We are often told that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Indeed, this is true. Yet this is a horizontal command. That is, it is a command about how man is to relate to man. It is often forgotten that this is the SECOND greatest command. The greatest is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

#2 will make no sense without #1. If you do not love God, your love of man will be useless. If you put man before God, you are guilty of idolatry. The love of God must be foremost in your mind. Remember we love because He first loved us. The only way we can love our fellow man is because we have received the love of God. Even if we don’t acknowledge it, there are traces of God’s love all around us.

Yet our reasoning has by and large been horizontal. We do not speak out on sin in the world because we want to be good people. We don’t want to judge anyone. We don’t want to be critical. That’s not what Jesus would do to anyone after all is it?

Go read the NT, come back, and tell otherwise.

Of course, Jesus had love and grace and still does. Who was it towards? It was towards the people who knew about their sin and acknowledged it. Jesus never once made light of sin. He knew it was a serious consequence. Even in the case of the adulterous woman, He never denied the sin. He told her to go and sin no more. He dealt more seriously with the sin of hypocrisy he saw around Him and people who were wanting to use this woman for their own evil intentions.

Go read a chapter like Matthew 23. Go read most any conversation Jesus had with the Pharisees and Sadducees. Go read a passage like Luke 11. Jesus did not have any patience for people who were thinking they were righteous and not in any need of a savior.

If you do not have a problem with sin in your fellow man, then you are not loving God. Now you can be wrong in how you deal with it, but you have to realize that God does not coddle the sin of people He sees around Him. Christ sought to remove people from that bondage. He never sought to enable them in it.

If you make the love of man paramount and not offending your fellow man, meaning not dealing with evil when you see it, then you are not loving God. Keep in mind John in his gospel told us about people who did not come forward in support of Jesus because they wanted the honor of man more than the honor of God.

Now this doesn’t mean you’re to go out there as if you have no sin and go after everyone for every sin they commit. Yet you are not to turn a blind eye either. How you speak will be important and that will be learned only through the study of wisdom.

Our modern world has got us thinking the opposite. We are of the opinion that we are not to rock the boat at all. If the apostles had not rocked the boat, there would be no Christianity. Go read the epistles and see how seriously Paul took sin in the midst of the church. Go read Acts and see the forthrightness of the apostles. Go read Revelation and see how God judges sin. (Regardless of your views on eschatology, you can’t read Revelation and walk away thinking God takes sin lightly.)

A good person is not someone who just gets along with everyone. A good person is one who values what God values and opposes what God opposes. To be a truly good person today, one will have to know God. Note also that a good person is not the same necessarily as a nice person. A good person will do what he or she ought to do and not simply what will make people around them happy. In fact, if you’re a good person, you will quite often make people unhappy, much like Christ did.

Once again, there is no condemnation about being good. What is asked is that we be good the way God desires us to be. The world is not to set the bar for what is good. Goodness is found in God fundamentally and essentially and we must meet His criteria.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Is God There To Make You Feel Good?

Is God concerned about more than your feelings? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

A friend of Deeper Waters called me recently to talk about the post on applications in sermons. She had stated that she found that some researchers had asked about why people walk away and they found another answer. They referred to it as moral therapeutic theism. (MTT) The idea is that God is someone there who tells you how to be a good person and get along with everyone and to help you feel good about yourself, part of the whole self-esteem movement.

Now of course, there is nothing wrong with being a good person, properly understood. (Good person does not mean you never rock the boat. Jesus and the apostles certainly did.) There is also nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself, although if you are doing something wrong, you should not feel good about that. Yet is there a problem if you think that is the purpose of the Christian life?

To begin with, if you have this kind of approach, which I would agree is rampant in the church today, then it turns out that God is the servant of you and you are not the servant of God. An example of this is found in “The Shack” where at the end the main character at one time laughs at the thought of “God, my servant.”

So what happens when God lets you down on His end of the bargain supposedly? Then it becomes, who needs Him? It is not the biblical notion that every breath you take depends on Him. It is not the notion that you owe Him everything and He owes you nothing. It is not the notion that every single gift He gives you is grace and not a debt to be repaid.

When you realize God owes you nothing, you can better be appreciative for what He does give you.

Now to be sure, God does give us several things for us to enjoy, but we dare not mistake these for Him. The problem is that if God is just there to make us feel good, what happens when other things seem to make us feel so much better? What if God is really not supposed to give us warm fuzzies? What if that was never really promised in the Bible? What if God was never promised to be our personal therapist?

To begin with, if you find other sources of pleasure, then you will quickly forget about God. Why not? These are better. You can find more joy from sports, video games, television, food, drugs, sex, etc. Now aside from illegal drugs, I’m not condemning any of these totally. I don’t care for sports, but I know several who do. I happen to be an avid gamer. My wife and I have several television shows we like to watch together. My wife has enabled me to expand my diet and so I enjoy many more things in food today. Of course, as a married man, I enjoy sex. You think I’m going to say otherwise?

But let’s suppose that you don’t have that. You will see these as greater goods more likely than God instead of realizing that every good gift you have here comes from God. Do you give thanks for those good things? We often say our worldviews need a place to explain pain. They do! Yet our worldviews also need to be able to explain pleasure. Pleasure is not anti-Christian, but the sole goal of Christian life is not personal pleasure. (Excepting the John Piper version of Christian hedonism.)

What happens when a young man leaves home and later finds the joy of sex and then realizes that he’s not really feeling guilty and he’s having a darn good time. God will be pushed away from his mind. Of course, the exception might be for when he needs Him. God is there to pull him out of emergencies. The young man could find his desire for God suddenly restored when his girlfriend announce she’s pregnant.

Some of you might be thinking he might not enjoy a little fornication. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion though, and it is a suspicion seeing as I remained a virgin until I married, that one’s body doesn’t really know when one is doing something wrong sexually or not. The pleasure sensors act the exact same way. If doing something wrong made us feel miserable every time after all, we’d all live much better lives.

Does that mean these people will openly apostasize and become rabid internet atheists? No. Chances are they’ll just become apathetic. They won’t care. God will be nice when He shows up, but they have no concept that they are to be His slaves. They have no concept that He’s the sovereign Lord of the universe they owe everything to.

Tomorrow, I plan to write more on this topic as I have found it rather fascinating. For now, I just wish to state that we need to do all we can to avoid simply having MTT. We need a real view of the God who is there and to realize that He is on the throne, and not ourselves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Return of the King

What does Easter tell us about Jesus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Yesterday, Christians all over the world celebrated Easter, the event that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For this post, I am going to be assuming that the resurrection is true, though I will also be putting up a link to an interview I did with Gary Habermas on the topic on the Deeper Waters podcast.

The resurrection’s ultimate message is “Jesus was right.”

When you look at what he was on trial for, we find the charge of blasphemy. We find the charge of planning to destroy the temple, which would be saying God was no longer working there, we find the charge that He was the King of the Jews. The last one was in mockery, but notice that Jesus never before Pilate denied having a Kingdom and being a king. He just denied it the way Pilate understood it.

Note that these charges are either true or false. Jesus had indeed stated that the temple system was corrupt. He had pointed to His unique identity a number of times. He had made messages indicating that He was a king, although certainly not a king the way the Jewish people thought He would be.

Jesus’s desires were far grander. They wanted liberation from Rome for themselves. Jesus wanted liberation for the world from sin. They wanted to have a foreign army kicked out of their land. Jesus wanted the devil to be kicked out of the world of His Father. As C.S. Lewis said, our desires are far too small. Whatever we desire for ourselves, we should realize God desires greater, namely union with Him.

In crucifying Jesus, the rulers of the day all said Jesus’s claims were wrong. This was a serious move for them to make. If Jesus’s claims were right, there would be serious repercussions. It would mean they had crucified the Messiah of God, the king of Israel, and the Son of God. They were ready for God to come as they thought He would. They were not ready for God to come as He had planned to come.

What was their greatest proof that He was not the Messiah? He did not act the way they thought He would. Fortunately, we are past this today. We never expect God to act the way we want Him to. We never have talks about the problem of evil. We never say that a good God would do this if He existed. We never say God must act on our terms instead of us acting on His.

Could it be that in many ways, we today are still crucifying the Son of God? We can speak about the evils that the people of the time did to Jesus, but we have to stop and ask ourselves if we’re any better.

Chances are, we’re not. It’s easy to speak from hindsight, but many of us could be just as guilty of the crime if we had been there and we would have called it righteous zeal. After all, many of us know the way God will perform and the way He will act.

It is more often the case that the real truth surprises us. Hence, we should always be open to the possibility that we could be wrong about something.

The people of the time did kill the Son of God, but the resurrection is God’s vote on the matter, and that one alone counts as a majority. It is saying “Jesus was right.” Jesus is the king. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Son of God. The temple system is corrupt.

It’s like the shot heard round the world.

This was the greatest shot of all. This was the beginning of the revolution. If the creation was a symphony, this is where the crescendo to the finale begins. If it was a movie, this was where the major plot twist took place. If it was a video game you were playing, this is where you would want to save. It would be like the second quest taking place.

The resurrection changes everything.

By the resurrection, we know that Jesus is the king of this world. By the resurrection, we know that all will bow down before Him. By the resurrection, we know that He will judge us all. By the resurrection, we know that a new covenant has been declared. By the resurrection, we know evil will be dealt with. By the resurrection, we know that we will live again after we die and live forevermore.

By the resurrection, we know God is in charge of the story, and as earlier, God has greater desires for us than we can realize. If what has happened so far has been the incarnation of the Son of God in our midsts, we can only wonder at what lies around the corner and being Easter people, eagerly anticipate it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

My interview with Gary Habermas on the resurrection can be found here.

Was Good Friday Good?

Why do we call the day of crucifixion Good Friday? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Today, we Christians celebrate what we call Good Friday. Looking over at my calendar (Might I add, my Smallville 2013 calendar) I see that it is indeed called Good Friday on there. Yet we acknowledge today in history as the day in which Jesus Christ, the most holy of all, was crucified.

Let us consider first off what happens this day. YHWH is essentially put on trial. Jesus, the one who is God in human flesh, stands before the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin wishes to use the Law that YHWH gave them not realizing who the one standing before them is. Will YHWH meet their standards of the Law of YHWH? Could it be possible this is what Dostoyevsky had in mind with his Grand Inquisitor who had Jesus brought forward for charges of heresy?

Jesus is sentenced for blasphemy. Yet beyond blasphemy, He is said to be claiming to be a king, and indeed this is right. In fact, if Jesus’s being YHWH was not right, the blasphemy charge would have also been right. The Jews were not mistaken on what Jesus said. They were mistaken in their not believing it.

So in doing so, the people have rejected Jesus as their king and have sentenced Him to be crucified. Of course, this was all part of God’s great plan for the world. To go back to Dostoyevsky, Ivan in the book asks his brother if he would be willing to create a world if he had to build it on the suffering of one innocent person. Apparently, God’s answer is “Yes.” That one suffering person is the Son.

Keep in mind what it means about Jesus in the crucifixion. With Jesus making the claims that He was making, the crucifixion was one of two things. It was either the most wicked act of all that put to death the most righteous man who ever lived, or it was the most righteous act of all that put to death the most wicked man who ever lived. Jesus, once again, reminds us that there is no neutrality with Him.

So why do we call it good?

Is it that Jesus was crucified and the action then is good? No. The Jews and Romans did a wicked thing. It is called good because this evil act became the means of salvation for the world. This is something found throughout the Bible. Joseph’s brothers intended something for evil and God meant it for good. Romans 8 is the key text on this. God is in charge of this world and if He allows something to happen, even the crucifixion of His own Son, then we can be assured that He will use it for good.

This gets us to the importance also of personal application. Whatever is going on in the world today and in our own personal worlds, we can know that if the crucifixion of the Son of God can be used in such a way that we call it “Good Friday” today, why do we doubt about everything else? Do we honestly think the God who can use the crucifixion of the Son for good cannot use what is going on for our own good as well? In fact, if we realize this point, we will be unstoppable.

Years ago, I got a Game Genie, which essentially allowed for cheating on games. You play a game very differently when you can’t die ultimately. Now at times you could play flippantly to be sure, but you could also play with great confidence. You knew in the end you were going to win.

We can also play the game with great confidence. In the end, we will win.

Never lose sight of that. Good Friday was just one day, but the promise of it is eternal.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Does Christianity Make Claims?

Are we really thinking Christian? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

In light of the equal sign being in several places by Christians for the redefining of marriage, I just wonder what on Earth it is that we are teaching not just our youth, but even leaders in the church. Yes. There are some church leaders who are looking at this and not seeing the problem with it.

It is my contention that what has happened is that when we have gone to church services, we have made it all about us. Churches by and large just have application going on. Christianity is all about how you relate to your fellow man. Jesus came so we could know we ought to love one another and get along.

I kind of think the Son of God didn’t need to die just to give us that message.

Absent beyond that is any idea that the Christian faith makes claims about the world. We regularly speak in our church services about how Jesus is Lord and then don’t think about what that means. We go off and live our lives without considering “If Jesus is Lord, what does that say not just about how I live my life but the world around me?”

For instance, in May for our podcast, I’m hoping to have E. Calvin Beisner come on and talk about environmentalism. What does the Lordship of Christ have to do with the environment? He’ll give a much fuller look of course, but for now, we could say it means we are the stewards. It means we realize that ultimately, it all belongs to Him. It means that we can use it for our good, but we are not to abuse it. It means we are to respect it as His creation.

What does the Lordship of Christ say about politics? It says that man has been put in charge in various ways to govern the world, but that He should seek to have it be a good society driven by the holiness of God. This does not mean a theocratic state per se as no man can rule as God, but every man should have the idea of right and wrong informed by God and seek to instill the right. He should be willing to recognize the sinfulness of man and grant certain liberties knowing he is not the judge, jury, and executioner.

So, when a Christian goes to the voting booth, they should see what their Christianity says about all the issues and act accordingly. We cannot put a disjunction between Jesus and any other thing. As soon as we do that, we are saying there is something that Jesus is not the Lord of, and in that case He is not the Lord of all.

What does it say about marriage? Even without the homosexual debate, we Christians need to learn a lot in this. By the way, if you want to know why the world reached this state church, look in the mirror. It’s our fault. We were not honoring marriage as we should have been and allowed ideas like no-fault divorce to come in.

If you are a Christian who is married, you will look and see how Christianity affects your marriage. What does Christianity say about sex? What does it say about how you are to love one another? (Of course, the concept of loving one another should not be abandoned from Christianity, but it is not the total of Christianity.) What does it say about a husband leading his family? What does it say is the role of submission? What does it say about the raising of children?

If you are single, you too have the questions. Why should I consider marriage? Do I have to? Do I want to? (It can be perfectly valid to be a Christian and choose to remain single) If I marry, what kind of person will I marry? If I don’t marry, why is it that I am having to make a choice to abstain from having sex? How am I to live on my own and serve the Kingdom?

What does Christianity say about pleasure? Am I allowed to enjoy anything? If so, what? If a certain pleasure is forbidden for a Christian, why is it forbidden? Could it be a pleasure is not forbidden but is forbidden if done to excess? Is it possible to do it in the wrong way or in the wrong place?

Yet the most important questions we can ask about thinking Christian are to ask what are the claims about God, Christ, the Spirit, Scripture, and creation? These are questions not asked. Very few Christians have any kind of doctrine of God and then we sit back and wonder “Why is it that we lose Christians to the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses?” Both of those groups have a doctrine of God. It is a false one, but it is a doctrine.

Who is God? What is He like? How do I know He exists? What about evil in the world? Who is Jesus? Did He exist? Did He do miracles? What were the claims He made? Did He rise from the dead? Who is the Spirit? Is He deity? Is He a person? What is the Bible? How did we get it? How was it written? When was it written? What is the purpose of creation? How does it exist? How did it begin to exist? (Those last two ARE different questions)

Of course, this list is not exhaustive by any means, but it is a start.

How do we get here?

First, our leadership needs to know better. If you are considering hiring a pastor, and his eyes glaze over when you ask “What is apologetics?” I recommend you move on. Your pastor needs to be able to defend the flock. I am not saying the pastor should be an apologist. That is not excluded however. Some apologists are not meant to be pastors. Every pastor does not have to focus on apologetics, but he should have a basic knowledge. If he cannot focus, he needs someone in his church who can.

Second, after the pastor, the rest of the staff needs to be questioned on essential Christian doctrine. Everyone who has some position of authority in a church needs to know a basic idea of what they believe and why. If not, it will only lead to the shame of the church when they make egregious mistakes and it will lead to the confusion of those in the church, especially the youth, who take these people as such authorities.

Third, every sermon should have more than just application. It should have a basis in order to know how to act out that application. Back in 2010, I had to speak at my grandmother’s funeral. Being one of three speakers and the last one, I had ten minutes to speak before I would then be an M.C. and help everyone talk about how they remembered my grandmother.

Only ten minutes. What did I do? I went straight to 1 Cor. 15, gave a brief apologetic for the creed in that passage and showed why it is we can argue Jesus rose from the dead, and then spent the rest of that time talking about what a difference it makes and why it would mean we’d see my grandmother again if we were in Christ, with a final call to urge people to be in Christ.

That talk was very well received!

In fact, I have generally found when I speak this way at churches with giving a basis and then an application, people really like what they hear. Believe it or not pastors, you can do the same thing! I did the one I talked about above remember in less than ten minutes. This will not be a huge distraction from your sermon, and if you think giving evidence for the truth of Christianity is a distraction, you have a problem.

Fourth, there need to be classes at the church on how to think Christian. We have classes on most everything else, and there is nothing wrong with that. I am not saying to cut out other classes. I am saying to add one. How can your church not benefit if people are learning to think Christian? Let it be a study of a book like “Cold-Case Christianity” or a class on how to answer a Mormon. Either way, get your church thinking.

Fifth, the laity need the freedom to challenge the pastor. If the pastor knows that after the sermon, some members of the laity will ask him hard questions if they don’t think they’ve been addressed, that will make a pastor study more. I have heard too many sermons that are done with no preparation and no exegesis of the text. They have a lot of passion, but they end there. Passion is not wrong, but passion is not going to help that mother in the congregation where her son dies in a car accident this week.

The crisis the church is in now is because we have not thought Christian. We have instead ran and hid and isolated ourselves in our little Christian bubbles and said we will have no contact with the rest of the world. We dare not do this any more. If we do not engage the world, we cannot be ready to take it for Christ, and according to the Great Commission, our marching orders are to take it for Christ. Ultimately, we isolate ourselves from Christ when we isolate ourselves from the world, for we are no longer serving Him, but rather just protecting ourselves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Danger of Tolerance

Is it ever wrong to be tolerant? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

A lot of Christians yesterday, including some in leadership, had the equals sign as an avatar of Facebook saying they wanted equality in marriage. I would like to have seen how they would have been responded to being told the standards of who one can marry is already the same for everyone, but I fear there is more heat than light on this issue and more are thinking with emotions than reasoning. This is especially so since politicians like Portman and McCaskill have given reasons that are largely emotional for a change of mind.

One aspect of this is the idea of tolerance. Christians want to be good people. I get that. We think it is good to be tolerant. Therefore, we decide we should be tolerant. We get the command that Jesus told us that we are not to judge and therefore it comes to “Who am I to judge someone else? Let God do that. I will be tolerant. That’s what Jesus would have me do.”

Keep in mind, Jesus made several judgments and he was hardly tolerant of the false teachings of those around Him. When we look at the epistles, it’s the same way. They hardly would have been written if the apostles had been practicing tolerance.

Of course, this is with the modern view of tolerance. The modern view is more along the lines of having to accept everything. One cannot say that another person is wrong in their position. All views are to be seen as equal and no view is any better than another.

Such a position will lead to numerous contradictions. For instance, if no view is better than another and all views are equal, what about the view that all views are not equal and some views are better than others? Is that to be treated the same way? If an exception is not made, then the principle is violating itself.

So am I saying Christians should be intolerant? No. I’m saying we should practice classical tolerance. In classical tolerance, you allow some wrong views to be held on matters of serious discussion. You still say the view is wrong, but you allow the person the freedom to hold that view.

This shows up in the NT. What about meat offered to idols? What about whether one should have wine? What about if any days are sacred? 1 Cor. 8-10 and Romans 14 are classic texts about this. If someone wants to do something like this, then let them, but the only problem Paul had was when one person started assuming they were more spiritual or better than another.

Note also that Paul also said some behaviors were clearly wrong. You do not tolerate lying or adultery or stealing. Interestingly, in 1 Cor. 6, homosexual behavior is included in this. Note especially that this is talking about the household of God. What about those outside? They are not held to Christian standards, though their behavior is still wrong.

In our country, we are allowed basic freedoms. For instance, the freedom of religion. The government is not to favor one religion over another. Hence, I will oppose Islam, but I defend their right to build mosques here and worship as they see fit, provided they obey the laws of the land in doing so.

Why oppose the change in marriage? Because this does affect everyone, particularly the least of these, the children. If you think that children have a right to have a relationship with their natural mother and father, then you have all the reason you need to keep marriage as it is.

Note also the other great danger of tolerance. It’s a one-way street. You can be sure that when the other side is in power and you want to practice your Christianity that says homosexual behavior is a sin, they won’t be so tolerant. You will be called to task. How do I know this? Because it’s happening already. Tolerance is not being practiced for those who disagree. Those who seek to celebrate diversity don’t seek to celebrate those who disagree with them.

Christians. Practice true tolerance, but don’t practice the modern notion. The church never prospers when it backs down on its Christian principles.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

McCaskill’s Stance On Marriage

Does 1 Corinthians 13 mean what McCaskill thinks it means? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently, Senator McCaskill of Missouri came out in support of redefining marriage. Her entry on the topic on Tumblr can be found here. I’d like to look at her entry today and ask the question of it if it works or not.

At the start, the passage is about 1 Cor. 13. I have an interest in this having done a sermon on it that can be found here. In looking at this entry of McCaskill, I find no attempt whatsoever to engage with the text and see what Paul meant. The impression I am getting is as if a bone has been tossed out to those who are religious with an implication that our own Scriptures teach this, but there is no argument for it.

“The question of marriage equality is a great American debate. ”

But what is the question? Is the question “Do we want to treat people unequally?” I do not think people are advocating that. If two things are equal, we should treat them equally. We support equality, but not all claimants are equal. We don’t allow children to marry, for instance. We don’t allow polygamists to marry. This is not a slippery slope argument. What we are saying is that if you want marriage to be redefined, it needs to be done in such a way to allow the group you want and exclude the ones you don’t. I have not seen this done yet.

“Many people, some with strong religious faith, believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman. Other people, many of whom also have strong religious faith, believe that our country should not limit the commitment of marriage to some, but rather all Americans, gay and straight should be allowed to fully participate in the most basic of family values. ”

The loaded language is great at this point. The religious people who believe in traditional marriage are the ones who just want to exclude. Fortunately, there are some who are also of strong religious faith who are “open” and think that we “should not limit” but favor “all Americans” and want them to “fully participate in the most basic of family values.”

It never seems to occur to McCaskill that family values are a reason for opposing redefining marriage. To redefine marriage is to redefine the family. It is also not the value of honoring marriage for the sake of marriage. It is about the purpose of marriage. Can the ultimate purpose of marriage be achieved in the new union even if not everyone participates in it?

“I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to marry based on who you love.”

The problem here is that we in America do marry based on who we love, but all over the world, this is not why people marry. Arranged marriages are still quite common. It is just that it happens that the person we love often fits into the overall scheme of what marriage is. Being in love with someone is not a reason why the government should allow you to marry. If I love a small child, I cannot marry them. If I love my sister, I cannot marry them. If I love two women, I cannot marry them. The government looks at those and says “We don’t care if you love them. It’s not marriage.”

“While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry. ”

With the first part, we may not have to conduct marriages, but will we have to recognize them? For instance, even if you disagree, my Scriptures teach me that participating in homosexual behavior is sin and to have that as a lifestyle is to be “living in sin.” Of course, we all have sins we struggle with, but in those cases, we are to be seeking to free ourselves from them.

So when a homosexual couple comes to the church, do I have to grant them church membership? Do I have to accept them for baptism? Do I have to grant them Communion? When we have photos of church members, do I have to treat them as a couple? These are hard questions.

Of course, they are welcome to attend, but the church by and large is to expect holiness from its members and living a lifestyle that goes against what we believe in is not holy. Could I have a case brought against me then for discrimination just because I am living my religion?

The second part of McCaskill’s saying leads to the suicide approach. If the government should not tell who we have a right to marry, then I suspect McCaskill should be against this going to the Supreme Court. Why should the government recognize a marriage if it can’t have any standards on marriage? Why should it be something we vote on if government is not to tell who we can marry? McCaskill can’t have it both ways.

“My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my gay and lesbian friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality. Supporting marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.”

This sounds persuasive to several people, but to see if the argument works, you just have to put in another group instead.

“My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my incestuous friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality. Supporting marriage equality for incestuous couples is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.”

or

“My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my polygamous friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality. Supporting marriage equality for polygamous families is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.”

The bottom line in this is it looks like McCaskill has emotional issues when confronting others so to avoid her discomfort, the law of the land needs to be changed. The law of the land frankly should not care about her discomfort or mine. It should care about what is good and right and true.

McCaskill does not give a rational argument here. She gives an emotional one. An appeal to emotions is not always wrong, but it is when it is done without an argument to back it. McCaskill does not give any new evidences to support her position. She does not interact with those who disagree with her. She does not state anything about the purpose of marriage, or the raising of children.

That last point is important. We are making marriage about the people getting married. The people getting married have reason to celebrate, but the institution does not exist just to make people happy and feel good about themselves. Several other things can do that. Marriage does often and should do those things, but that is not why it exists.

“Good people disagree with me. On the other hand, my children have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children.”

Frankly Senator, I don’t know why your children should be seen as the authorities on public policy. I am sure some children didn’t have a problem with slavery. I am sure some children have a problem with abortion. In fact, we educate people so they will not have the understanding of children.

You can say history will agree, but so what? Future people will side with you does not mean that future people are right. If the position is an unchangeable moral truth, then it will be true or false in the future just as much as it is today. Also, history has made wrong decisions. All over the world today, world leaders are making wrong decisions that will impact their people for years. Some decisions seem good at the time and have disastrous effects. We cannot appeal to unknown future without warrant. We can make warnings however if we have parallels.

In this case, we do. When no-fault divorce was a debate, we were told it would not harm children in any way. Children would adapt. This was expert testimony. Now we know that we were wrong. What if we make that same mistake again? The question to ask is “Is it worth the risk?” If so, why?

I hope the Senator will give us an argument next time. We have much here in the way of rhetoric, but naught in the way of argumentation. I would hope someone in charge of the laws of the land would base their arguments on more than emotion.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Another excellent response on an excellent blog can be found here.