Some Random Thoughts as I Sermonize

I'm writing a sermon on Revelation 3:16 (where Jesus says to the church of Laodicea, "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.").  This is a challenging verse for many reasons, and I want to list out some random thoughts about it, why it's challenging, and some implications for us today.

• Why is it better to be cold than lukewarm? (see verse 15, where Jesus wishes they were either hot or cold, but not lukewarm).
• Their lukewarm status derived in part from their sense of self-sufficiency; "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing" (v. 17).
• It is apparent that the city's water supply itself was neither hot nor cold.  Nearby Hierabpolis was known for their hot springs, and Colossae for their cold water, each of which serves a purpose (hot for washing and healing/bathing, cold for drinking and gardening).  Laodicea brought their water in through aqueducts from several miles away, and the water lost much of its heat in the process.  And it is possible that the mineral content of the city's water made it barely drinkable.
• Laodiceans were wealthy, which is attested through several facts: the city was famous for producing black wool; in AD 60 there was an earthquake which leveled the city.  Rather than accept imperial aid for rebuilding, the citizens rebuilt out of their own means; the city minted its own coins, the wealthy erected statues all over the city, and Laodicea was home to a well-known medical school.
• What was the church there doing before it went lukewarm?  What does a "hot" church look like?  (Please read that question in the right context!)
• Some great thoughts by Spurgeon on this text:
• "[God] judges a church not merely by her external activities, but by her internal pieties; he searches the heart, and tries the reins of the children of men.  He is not deceived by glitter; he tests all things, and values only that gold which will endure the fire."
• "To be slandered is a dire affliction, but it is, upon the whole, a less evil than to be thought better than we are; in the one case we have a promise to comfort us, in the second we are in danger of self-conceit."
• On what the lukewarm Christian says: "We are not to be so greedy as to be called miserly, but we will give as little as we can to the cause.  We will not be altogether absent from the house of God, but we will go as seldom as we can.  We will not altogether forsake the poor people to whom we belong, but we will also go to the world's church, so as to get admission into better society, and find fashionable friends for our children!"

Hey Jude, don't make it bad

For an upcoming sermon, I am preaching out of the books of 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.  That sounds like a lot, but all three of those books put together are only 52 verses.  I am preaching about the truth of the Christian faith, or as Jude calls it, "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 3).  I didn't realize how troubling of a book Jude is.  Most of the book describes the attributes and demise of false teachers who had slipped in among the Christians to whom Jude is writing.  These "godless men" were changing "the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord" (v. 4).  They pollute their own bodies, reject authority, slander celestial beings, speak abusively about that which they don't understand, have no qualms about eating with other believers (in the "love feast," an early Christian practice), grumble and find fault, follow their own evil desires, and speak about themselves and others only in such a way as to advance themselves (see v. 8-16).  Bad guys, for sure.  It should be easy to spot them, right?

Not so fast.  Look around, closely, at any church, and you will find these types of sin still happening.  People twist Scripture all the time to justify their immorality (the word in Jude 4 for "immorality" usually refers to some kind of sexual sins or immoral sensuality).  People pollute their own bodies, and we Americans are experts at it, as we are at rejecting authority and promoting self at the expense of others.  Who doesn't occasionally grumble and find fault ('cause "it's not my fault").  So, are we the bad guys, too? Is our condemnation also written about long ago (v. 4)?

A few brief facts will help.  First, the verbs used to describe these people are overwhelmingly present tense verbs, denoting an ongoing, continuous action.  To twist Scripture once is bad, but to make a habit of it is worse.  Second, while these men are "godless" (asebeis in Greek), "at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly" (asebon, a different form of asebeis; see Romans 5:6).  No one is outside the reach of Christ's love and offer of salvation.  Third, we can have assurance of our salvation because "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).  Many, many times in the NT letters, the writers tell Christians to stop doing sinful things.  They don't condemn them to hell for sinning; they primarily rebuke sinful behavior because it hurts one's relationship with the body of Christ and because it hurts our relationship with God.

That said, I can't ignore the kind of people Jude (and 2 Peter 2, for that matter, which sounds a lot like Jude 5-16) writes about.  The examples he gives in v. 5-7 are examples of willful apostasy, people who knew the truth but abandoned it anyway.  Verse 5 refers to the ten spies who gave a pessimistic report about the promised land, convinced others to join in their fear and lack of faith, and ultimately were killed (see Numbers 13:1-14:38).  Verse 6 refers to angels who rebelled against God and now are doomed to destruction.  These are beings who were sinless and in the very presence of God, about as safe as you can be, one would think.  Yet, somehow, they rebelled ("abandoned their own home").  Verse 7 is about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who "gave themselves up" to sexual immorality and perversion, another way of saying that they knew the truth but kept on refusing to obey.  In at least two out of the three examples (spies and angels), they were saved and then fell away and were destroyed.  Verse 13 says these Scripture-twisting, egocentric Christians are "wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."

The promise of no condemnation in Romans 8:1 is for those "who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit," because "if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom. 8:4, 13-14).  We can't deny that there is a connection between obedience and final salvation, a difference between a faith that produces works and a faith that is dead (see James 2).  If there was absolutely no possibility of forfeiting one's salvation, then why would these (and many other) dire warnings be in Scripture?

So this is a tough sermon to write.  I can't resolve the tension in 30 minutes, as if the sermon were some sort of sitcom where everybody's relationships are restored and all problems solved by the end of the episode.  I don't know what I am going to say, how it will be received, or what results will come.  But I have to preach the Word as I understand it, unless and until someone more fully explains this.

The Gimmicking of Christianity

Why is it that we always seem to need a "thing," a shtick of some sort to keep us talking about the Christian faith?  Here are a few recent gimmicks Christians have used to talk about their faith: Tim Tebow (and especially the superstition around his performance against Pittsburgh in the playoffs), the spoken word poem "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus" (see it here), Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life (a few years ago), fish car magnets, and many others.

Many of these things are good and helpful, but what bothers me is when these things become the Christian faith of many people.  Jesus has been replaced by the latest Jesus-related fad, and Bell, Warren, Osteen, and Chan have become "the author[s] and perfecter[s] of our faith." 

It's not just an average Joe problem, either.  I saw this in seminary all the time.  Love of the Bible was set aside for love of books about the Bible.  When asked, "who are you reading these days?", I wish my answer would have been, "God" rather than Alvin Plantinga or some Continental theologian.  I love my seminary education, but it took me about 18 months to "thaw out" spiritually from the whole experience.  My professors are not at fault in this; I chose not to stay plugged into my church enough, I chose not to pursue a ministry while in seminary, I chose to let my devotional life slide. 

My seminary classmates, I imagine, understand.  Some of them might scoff, thinking that I just couldn't handle it or something, or perhaps that I chose to take the easy road of not pursuing a PhD and leaning more on practical ministry than systematic theology and philosophy of religion to help the church.  There's probably truth to all of those ideas.  But for me it just boils down to Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

We are not called to study about him, as if he were just another quirky historical figure.  We are called to know Christ, to learn Christ, to remain in Christ.  Many people can destroy me in a debate about biblical scholarship, textual criticism, harmonizing the gospels, reformed theology vs. open theism, and lots of other fascinating discussions.  I don't really care.  What I want to know is this: are you fixing your eyes on Jesus?

Jesus Christ, not anyone or anything else, is the goal and substance of our faith, and if we get anything right in this life, let it be this: that we lived and died devoted to Jesus and His word, because nothing else really matters.

Not Tim Tebow and his magical 316 coincidences.

Not spoken word poems that are biblically and theologically off-base.

Just Jesus.  Philippians 3:8-11

Quote for Today

"Now faith will totter if the authority of Scripture begins to shake. And then, if faith totter, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also fall from love; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist."

- Augustine, On Christian Instruction, book 1, ch. 35

Quote for Today

"It makes no sense to pray about God's will for our future if we are ignoring God's will for our present."
- Thomas Hale, On Being a Missionary, 21

That statement has always resonated with me, has always convicted me. Too often I worry about the future without worrying about the present.* Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which I take to mean seek to recognize and really live like God is your king; seek the kingship of God before you even seek out clothes and food and shelter.

Paul says it this way: "offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will" (Rom. 12:1-2). Knowing God's will comes through us letting go of ourselves as the ones in charge, seeking to remember and live like God is our king, and getting our minds right with the help of the Holy Spirit, moving toward him and away from the way the world does things.

We Christians ought to be subverting American culture: seeking to serve instead of to have authority over; finding peace through contentment, discipline, and devotion, instead of through power, money, and looking out for Number One; loving instead of ignoring or abusing; forgiving instead of "if you get hit, hit back harder," sharing our burdens instead of unionizing our social life ("that's HIS problem; I don't have to do that"), and many other things you can find in that wonderful collection of books called the New Testament.

As for me, I know that seeking God's will for my present isn't always easy. I don't see the point in me working where I work, but I have to trust that, somehow, this will make sense when I finally am working where I want to work. This is preparing me for something later on in life. Following what you believe God wants for you (whether that's some specific, detailed plan for your life or, as I believe, a desire for you to be virtuous and wise as you choose from several good options) does not necessarily mean that you will know what is going to happen. If you did, what room is there for faith, for trust, for appreciation of God's goodness and wisdom?

Moving toward Him in our daily lives is how we learn the will of God for the future.




*"Worry" in the sense of "put emphasis on," not in the sense of "stress about."

Open Theism and 1 Peter 1:20

I am intrigued by the arguments of Open Theism. This doesn't make me an Open Theist; I am Arminian in my theology, but not Open Theist. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the gist of Open Theism: God created everything, he gave people free will, he desires genuine relationships with his creatures (code for "we think that God predestining his relationships is not genuine"), so he has chosen to limit himself with regard to certain things, included in which is a comprehensive knowledge of the future choices of free-will creatures. In other words, even God does not know exactly what you or I will choose with regard to many of the choices we make in life. Because he knows the past and present perfectly, though, he can anticipate with a great deal of accuracy, but he cannot know that future perfectly until it happens.

One of Open Theism's most interesting proponents is Gregory Boyd. Known for writing provocative books about a variety of Christian issues (The Myth of a Christian Nation, God of the Possible, Satan and the Problem of Evil to name a few), Boyd's website is the most thorough I've seen when it comes to teaching Open Theism and answering objections. Some of Boyd's explanations are pretty good (because they reveal the close similarity between Open Theism and Arminianism, from which OT came).

Some of his explanations, however, I find unconvincing. Take, for example, his explanation of 1 Peter 1:20:

“[Christ] was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for our sake. Through him you have come to trust in God…” This passage reveals that God created the world with Jesus Christ in mind (cf. Col. 1:15–17). The divine goal was (and is) to acquire a people who freely participate in and reflect the love of the triune God, and the plan to attain this goal was by having people trust in God through Christ. Though it is sometimes cited as evidence in support of the classical view of foreknowledge, this verse actually has nothing to say on the subject.

What I find unconvincing is Boyd's lack of attention to Greek grammar. For those of you who care, here is the transliterated Greek of 1 Peter 1:19-20 (it's important to include v. 19, as we will see):1 Peter 1:19-20: alla timio haimati hos amnou amomou kai aspilou Christou, proegnosmenou men apo kataboles kosmou phanerothentos de ep' eschatou ton chronon di' humas

The key phrase here is hos amnou amomou kai aspilou Christou, proegnosmenou, which I translate as "as of the spotless lamb without blemish, Christ, having been foreknown. . . ." This phrase describes the blood with which we have been redeemed. I believe that the verb proegnosmenou ("having been foreknown," a perfect passive participle, genitive masculine singular) modifies the entire genitive phrase amnou amomou kai aspilou Christou ("of the spotless lamb without blemish, Christ." What God foreknew ("destined" is a poor translation) was not only Christ, but Christ the spotless lamb without blemish, an identity that requires a significant amount of foreknowledge (that there would be an incarnation among the Jews, that the blood of lambs would be used under the law to atone for sins, that Christ would be killed, that he would be killed in such a way as to make the metaphor of lamb meaningful, that he would die in a period of history in which terms like lamb, redeem, and blood made sense in the same sentence).

Remember, all of this was foreknown "before the foundation of the world," which means before Genesis 1:1, before God said, let there be light, before there was anything else in existence apart from God. How did God know Jesus would die? How did God know how Jesus would die? These are questions for which Open Theism has no sufficient answers.

Matthias: Wrong Man for the Job?

A hermeneutically funny thing happened lately. Twice in the past couple of months, I have heard an argument that has struck a small nerve with me. What makes this all more interesting to me is that I am taking a class this semester called Issues in Acts, a class in which we have looked at various themes in Acts, including the theme of the apostles and the people of God. First, the argument, then what I don't like about it.

The first time I heard the argument, it came from Andy, our very capable preacher. He began a sermon on who knows what with the scene in Acts 1 of the apostles replacing Judas Iscariot with Matthias. He used this event to bring up the question: is it possible that the 11 apostles acted rashly when they replaced Judas? We see later in Acts how Saul is chosen by the risen Christ to be his messenger to the Gentiles. Andy suggested that the 11 just could not wait on God's will to be fully realized and also suggested that Paul was supposed to be the 12th apostle, if only they would have waited on God. I then heard this argument again in another class in Johannine literature after a discussion on John's understanding of Judas. So the argument is that Paul, not Matthias, should have been the 12th apostle. I assume this means that the 11 just should have waited until Saul was converted before they added the 12th apostle.

Here's the text of Acts 1:21-22 "Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us-- 22 beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us-- one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection."

Here's what I don't like about this interpretation:

• The single Greek word (dei), translated "it is necessary" or "must," a word that occurs more in Luke-Acts than in the rest of the New Testament, almost always occurs in the context of the will of God or the work of God, indicating that whatever "it" is that is necessary is necessary by divine will. To see this word in action, see Luke 2:49; 4:43; Acts 4:12; 9:6, 16 and several other places.
  
• This word occurs in 1:21, indicating that the replacement of Judas is the will of God.
• The conditions laid out in v. 21-22 would preclude Paul from consideration: he must be one who "accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us - beginning with the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us." Paul had not done that.
• The disciples prayed, asking God to intervene in the process: "show which of these two you have chosen" (1:24). They then cast lots, not an equivalent of rolling dice, but a means of revealing God's will.

This may not be a big deal to anyone out there; there is certainly no important bit of Christian theology at stake here. It is, however, a matter of paying attention to the text and doing a little concordance work, which ought not to be too much to ask of anyone preaching or teaching this passage.

"The Lima Bean Gospel"

In the most recent issue of Christianity Today, Mark Labberton wonders whether our gospel is too small and bland, like a lima bean. The church is often bland, he argues, and "the fruit of this vine appears to be lima beans." Here are two paragraphs for you to chew on:

"Rather than seek the God who spoke from the burning bush, we have decided the real drama is found in debating whether to podcast our services. Rather than encounter the God who sees idolatry as a pervasive, life-threatening temptation, we decorate Pottery Barn lives with our tasteful collections of favored godlings. Rather than follow the God who burns for justice for the needy, we are more likely to ask the Lord to give us our own fair share. A bland God for a bland church, with a mission that is at best innocuous and quaint - in a tumultuous world."

And,

"The apparent smallness of our gospel is directly related to the smallness of the church's love. When prominent Christian voices call for protests and boycotts over things like our freedom to say 'Merry Christmas,' the gospel seems very small indeed. If, by contrast, such voices called the church in America to give away its Christmas billions to the poor and needy around the world - as an act of incarnational love - that would leave a very different impression of the faith we profess, and offer a far greater hope for a love-hungry world."

I'll leave it at that, without further comment other than to say that this guy needs to get out more and see what the church is doing in the world. Chew on it and let me know what you think.