Category Archives: Faith

Misreading the New Testament

Posted on May 23, 2013 | 14 Comments

There are many Christians among the Churches of Christ who continue to read the New Testament as though it is a law from God.  Perhaps the best example of this reading is found when dealing with the issue of a cappella vs. instrumental worship and passages such as Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16, and other passages deemed relevant to the subject.  The argument goes that God’s word instructs to “sing” and that this excludes any mention of instruments.  This argument is accompanied with other ad hoc proof-texts from scripture, both Old and New Testaments, to warn Christians about the dangers of adding to God’s word and offering unauthorized worship to God (e.g., Lev 10:1-2; 1 Cor 4:6).

There are various assumptions at work that lie behind this legal reading of the New Testament.  One of those readings is the binding nature of silence among scripture which I have already written about in a post called The Silence of Scripture or Freedom in Christ?.  But another assumption, perhaps the biggest, is that the New Testament is to be read as though it is a law from God, one that replaces the Torah or Mosaic Law of the Old Testament.  Under such assumption, the New Testament is treated as though it is a constitution or instruction manual for following the assumed (yes, another assumption) one single pattern of Christianity called the New Testament Church.

This legal reading of the New Testament is wrong and it needs to be explained why because in the end it only produces legalism (see the video below).  Think with me for a moment.  The apostle Paul said this to say about the Law in Romans 7:12-13:

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  Did that which is good, then, become death to me?  By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Do you see what Paul is saying about the Law and humanity?  The problem of sin is not and has never been the Law.  Rather the problem with sin is and has always been humanity, you and I.  By the grace of God, that problem is rectified in Christ.  But here is the big question that must be asked which pertains to the issue of reading the New Testament as a new Law: If God’s aim or purpose in the gospel is to keep humanity living under a written law, why would God just not have us following the written Law of the Old Testament since it is already “holy, righteous, and good” law?  A secondary question: Assuming the New Testament is a new written Law, what makes us think we can faithfully keep that Law if we could not faithfully keep the written Law of the Old Testament?

The fact of the matter is that if God’s intention for redeeming humanity in Christ was to bind them to a covenant that requires following any written law, then God already had a perfect—a holy and righteous—Law established for this purpose.  Yet any cursory reading of the New Testament and the apostle Paul’s instruction to Gentile Christians is suffice to show that this was not God’s intent.  This is not to say that there are no commands for Christians to obey or that Christians can live a “lawless” lifestyle.  Loving God and neighbor (cf. Mk 12:29-31) are still the greatest commands that Christians are to obey; living by the Spirit (cf. Gal 6:13ff) is still a non-negotiable practice for all who profess the name of Christ.  But obeying the two great commands and living by the Spirit is one thing, it is quite another matter to turn the New Testament into a legal code that prescribes how every local church must worship, organize itself, and regulate its practice of ministry.

In Christ, we have been set free.  May we use that freedom responsibly and with integrity but may we also enjoy that freedom rather than being shackled by our own misunderstanding of the gospel and New Testament.

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I have posted this video before of Rick Atchley, Preaching Minister of The Hills Church of Christ in Fort Worth, TX but I am posting it again because illustrates well the legalism that is produced by reading the New Testament as a law.

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Posted in Churches of Christ, Faith, Restoration Movement, Scripture, Theology

A Story of Love

Posted on May 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

Since last Sunday was Mother’s Day, I told a story about my own Mother, Mary Butts.  Here’s the story:

I wasn’t the studious sort of student growing up in school.  I didn’t do well academically at all.  My parents made me repeat the sixth grade to see if that would help.  It didn’t.  In the seventh grade I had to do a bunch of testing and get a lot of tutoring to help with my math and reading comprehension.  It didn’t help either.  By the eighth grade I was placed into remedial reading and math classes in the special education department.

So I was in a remedial reading class on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s and in my regular reading class on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  Back then being a part of a special education class came with an unwanted stigma of be retarded.  I know that word is not very PC but that was how we thought of special education classes when I was growing up in school.  Consequently, I didn’t want my peers to know I was in one of those classes.  My eighth grade teacher, who was just a mean teacher, had other plans.

It was a Thursday and my teacher was passing back the tests that were taken on the Tuesday before.  She handed back all the tests to every student, every student except me.  Instead of handing me my test, my teacher called me to the front of the room.  Once I was standing in the front of the room, my teacher told the class that I was the only person to get an “F” on the test.  But it’s what she said next that…  Well, she said to the class, “Rex can’t help it.  He’s retarded and that’s why he’s been placed in the retarded class on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s.”

Needless to say, that was a humiliating experience.  The other students laughed while I ran out of class.  I never wanted to go back.  I hated school.  I hated every bit of it and told my parents that I wouldn’t ever go back.  Obviously I did but something else happened that turned this terrible story something beautiful.

I went to bed that night pretty angry but that next morning when I woke up there was a letter on my bed from my mom.  I don’t have the letter any more but I really wish I did.  I remember the gist of what it said.  In it my mother told me how proud she was to call me her son and then she listed off a hundred reasons why she was proud of me.*

I’ve often wondered how long it would take to write out a hundred reasons why I’m proud of my own children.  What I can tell you is that growing up, there were a lot of questions I had but one question I never had was the question of whether my mom loved me.  I knew my mom loved me not just because she told me so but because of what she did, such as what she did in the story told above.

The is what the scripture says in 1 John 4:9, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”  The scripture doesn’t just tell us that God loves us, it tells us what God did. God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to give us life and that is why we can know that God loves us.

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I shared this story with the Columbia Church of Christ this past Sunday as part of my message “Christianity 101″ from 1 John 4:7-18.  I’ve uploaded that message here, if you are interested in listening to it.

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Posted in Columbia Church of Christ, Faith, Family, Scripture

Prayer, A Dangerous Thing (Revised)

Posted on May 13, 2013 | 3 Comments

As I read through Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan, I was struck by the reflection on prayer as being a moment when we open ourselves up to the creative and redemptive presence of God.  The author believes many Western Christians do not pray with this openness because they, just like in pagan thought, have trouble believing that God can suspend or interfere in the so-called laws or nature (p. 100).  However, prayer grounded in biblical faith is open to the creative and redemptive presence of God who can and does accomplish his will even when such will seems impossible.

But what happens when, in prayer, we open ourselves to the creative and redemptive presence of God…to surrender with a “your will be done” posture?  Since biblical faith knows that God’s end/goal (telos) is victory for both himself and his people (cf. 1 Cor 15), we need not to fear being open to the creative and redemptive presence of God…right?

That’s a big question that I don’t want to answer in haste.  For I know the struggle I went through with trusting God in this way after the death of my son and younger brother and sometimes still encounter.  Donavan tells the story of Jesus’ own struggle and openness in prayer, relating why prayer is a dangerous thing:

Jesus not only taught us how to say that prayer [The Lord’s Prayer].  He said it himself on the darkest night of his life.  At that terrible moment, when he fully realized just what it was he was being called to, he once again prayed to that “Abba” of his.  He asked for his daily bread, which in this case was to have that cup, that cup of poison, taken away from him.  And then instead of asking a remote God to work his miracle “over there somewhere’ far away from him, he spoke that word which cost him dearly – “fiat.”  Thy will be done.  And by that word he opened himself up to the creating, redeeming power of God within him, and God’s powerful work would be done, not outside him but in him, and he himself would be part of and involved in that deadly answer to his prayer.

Perhaps Americans and other Christians do not pray anymore because they are afraid to pray.  It is a dangerous undertaking (p. 102).*

In this respect, prayer is not only risky but it’s an essential step in spiritual transformation where we open ourselves to God unto the point of saying “your will be done.”  Thus Donovan goes on to say that the crucial question of prayer is “…whether we really open ourselves to him, open ourselves to his creating, saving presence” (p. 102).

Yes, this sort of prayer takes faith.  It takes faith, knowing that hope is preceded by suffering, perseverance, and character (cf. Rom 5.3-5).  It takes faith to continue on once we realize the great cost – the great grief and pain – that may be involved in allowing God to work creatively and redemptively within us rather than outside of us.  Some days I think I have this faith, other days I don’t’.  Some days I want this faith, other days I don’t…because I am afraid of what might happen.  As much as I preach to myself and others that fear has nothing to do with faith, fear is a reality that must be conquered daily within me.

The challenge of spiritual transformation is not just to pray but to have faith and to pray with faith…to pray with the faith that sees the victory God has sealed in the resurrected Jesus Christ.  “But thanks be for God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15.57, NRSV).

May we learn to pray in faith unto God… fiat!

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* The word fiat is Latin which means “let it be done.”

This post is a slightly revised version of a post of the same title published on March 10, 2013.  You can read the original post here.

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Posted in Columbia Church of Christ, Faith, Missions and Ministry, Scripture

2013 Pepperdine Bible Lectures: Are We Listening?

Posted on May 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

The 2013 Pepperdine Bible Lectures have come and gone.  Or have they?  Yeah, that’s the question.  Is the question of whether or not we are listening.  So are we listening?

The theme this year was the book of Revelation.  The book was read as a message originally written to churches in the late first century facing the challenges of living faithfully amidst the threat of persecution and the temptation to assimilate into the Roman culture.  Everyone of the keynotes delivered as a message that both encouraged and challenged us and just so that we would have the right interpretation but so that we might have the right response to it’s prophetic word.  Thanks to Mike Cope and staff as well as to all the participants from around the world for making it a a great time or renewal and vision.  If you are interested, you can access many of the keynotes and classes for free on here.

The best keynote came from David Clayton and it’s not because he is any better of a preacher than the other keynote speakers and class teachers but because of the unique challenge he brings.  I don’t know David and only met him for the first time this year but I know that he is a church planter of the Ethos Church in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.  The Ethos Church, as I understand it, began as a small church meeting in a bar and now has grown to over 2,000 members.

Any ways, I think this gives David a stronger platform to speak from that many of us ministers have (including myself).  What I love is that the mission of Ethos Church is to “love God, love people, and awaken a movement” and it is that awakening a movement which gives David the strong platform to speak form because of the mission he is pursuing with the rest of the Ethos Church.  So here is the four prayers he challenged the Churches of Christ to begin praying which I plan to blog on but I wanted to share them with you right now.  So here they are:

  1. Pray that God will help us become a movement desperate for Jesus again.
  2. Prayer that God will help us trust his plans even when our circumstances don’t make sense.
  3. Pray that God will give us the courage to sacrifice our lives for the sake of his mission.
  4. Pray that God will make us true worshipers who worship him in spirit and truth.

So I say, let’s listen to this challenge and begin praying that this for our churches.

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Posted in Churches of Christ, Faith, Missions and Ministry

The Golden Rule and Our Muslim Neighbors

Posted on April 26, 2013 | 7 Comments

Toward the end of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, he says, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12).  After all of the moral/ethical teaching Jesus has put forth about what we do and how we treat others, Jesus tells us that it all comes down to whether or not we treat others as we wish to be treated.

Of course!  And why not?  Who wants to be spoken of as a fool?  Who wants to be lusted after as an object rather than be regarded as a person?  Who wants to be deceived and lied to?  Who wants to be hated?  Who wants to be unfairly judged by double standards?  Not me!  And probably not anyone of us!  For that reason, we should treat others as we ourselves want to be treated.

Now I just want to remind Christians that this also applies to the way we treat our Muslim neighbors, including how we speak of them and speak to them.  In the wake of the latest act of terrorism in the Boston Marathon Bombings, perpetrated by a pair of self-professed Islamic Jihadist, questions about the beliefs of Islam are once again under the microscope.  That’s unfortunate because like us who are Christians, Muslims do not want the actions of one individual or small group to become the definition for what all Christians and Muslims believe.

So if we, who profess the Christian faith, are to take Jesus seriously, as we should, the “Golden rule” means…

  • That we speak kindly and generously about Muslims rather than passing on half truths couched within condescending remarks and demeaning images, since we want them to do with regards to us.
  • That we assume the best about every individual Muslim, especially those we do not know personally just as we want hope they will do with us.
  • That we avoid making claims about what the Qur’an does and does not teach based on hearsay and decontextualized proof-texting since we would rather Muslims not do with the Bible.
  • That we stop making judgments about Islam and all Muslims based on the evil actions of some professed Muslims since we don’t like to be judged and have Christianity judged based on the evil actions of some professed Christians (i.e., the Westboro Baptist Church).
  • That whenever possible, we talk with our Muslim neighbors rather than just talk about them.

And remember that regardless of what any Muslim says or does, as Christians, we are to do what Jesus says and does!

May God bless us to be the ministers of reconciliation we have been called to be in Jesus Christ!

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Posted in Contemporary Culture, Faith, Scripture

Practicing the Promise of Easter

Posted on April 8, 2013 | 3 Comments

Major League Baseball officially began a week ago.*  Fans are full of optimism.  Even though my team, the Cubs, ended the first week with a 2-4 record, I still am optimistic that they can at least play competitive .500 baseball this season.  Of course, a month or two from now much of the optimism will be gone for some.  By then fans will know which teams have a realistic chance of playing meaningful baseball in October during the playoffs and which do not.  After all the expectations and work which the players have put in during the off season, hat’s somewhat disappointing.

The Game that Matters

Then again, baseball is only a game.  When it comes to our own lives…  Well, that’s a different matter.  Failure and defeat are not viable options.  In a Nietzschean worldview where God is dead and life depends on the will to power, the fear of loss and defeat means we must act for our own interests.  That might seem ok if we happen to be the strong who sit atop of the food chain, so to speak.  But most of us are not!  And even the alpha-male dog eventually weakens.

According to a Nietzschean worldview, success depends on independent strength and a willingness to overcome whatever threatens our survival.  Taken to the extreme, we must kill or be killed.  It’s a philosophy ignorant of the sovereign yet benevolent God who stamps his image upon us as his creation.  Consequently, it views human life as animal life where one is either predator or prey.

Yet this way of life is not as foreign to as we might wish to believe.  Turn on the news, the television, etc…  Our world is a place of power where people make decisions every day that serve their own interests, placing their own needs above others, and with enough strength, ascend to the top.

The Game Changer

Fortunately, we know better.  We know because Jesus Christ was crucified and has resurrected, that he has destroyed every kingdom, authority, and power.  We know because of his death and resurrection, that we can never achieve the victorious immortality we crave through our own strength and initiative but in Christ alone.  We know that through his death and resurrection, Jesus frees us from all selfish needs and gives us the power to live as servants of each other.  We know…

Or do we know?

After spelling out the cosmic implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Paul had one practical admonition for the Corinthian Christians.  “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58, NIV).  I guess Paul understood how easy it is to spiritualize the gospel, separating it from the way Christians are called to live.

So if I may be so presumptuous, I’ll tell you what I think we know.  I think we encounter the Nietzschean worldview every day in our world making it very difficult to believe that God is bringing about his kingdom here on earth, restoring life as God created and redeemed life to be lived.  That’s why we must hear the gospel of Jesus Christ again and again so that we will stand firm in our faith, knowing that living in the way of Jesus is not in vain.  Unless we do that, the gospel is nothing but one of many religious stories to tell ourselves.  If God is making all things new in Christ, through his death and resurrection, as we confess then we must live accordingly! 

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* This post is a slightly modified version originally published as an article of the same title in Connecting 28 (April 3, 2013), a biweekly publication of the Columbia Church of Christ.

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Posted in Columbia Church of Christ, Contemporary Culture, Faith, Redemption, Scripture, Theology

The Sanitized Faith

Posted on April 4, 2013 | 13 Comments

I’ve been watching The Bible miniseries with my 8 year old daughter and have enjoyed it much.  I won’t quibble with what the producers have done with it.  It’s a dramatic adaptation of the biblical narrative, which requires both selectivity and imagine in order to play out the storyline.  But as we were watching the last installment of the series, I wondered how this series might affect my daughter who is watching the series with great interest and reverence for God but has never read through the entire Bible.  After all, it is always better to have read the primary literature (in this case, the Bible) before turning to the secondary literature.

As I thought about it, I realized that what was concerning me was the violence.  It’s impossible to tell the story that runs through the Bible without telling of the violence.  In this particular case, I was concerned with the affect that the dramatic retelling of what happened to Jesus’ apostles was having on her.

As I continued thinking about this, it dawned on my like an epiphany how Christianity used to be this…

But now is this…

I mean, I have visited churches before where I can stop at their cozy book store, trendy coffee shop, and savvy internet cafe, all before checking my children into a state-of-the-art “kid’s zone” Sunday school class and then head off to an awesome worship gathering led by a rockin’ praise band before hearing a message from a hip pastor.

Ok.  I’ll admit it.  I wouldn’t mind having a coffee shop where my church meets and I’m obviously the most hip pastor you will ever meet :-) .  But in a culture of American Christianity where discipleship appears to be lacking, I wonder if churches have tried to make Christianity so palpable to the American culture that we have lost something vital to our witness.

I don’t want to face persecution and I do enjoy praise songs as well as a good cafe mocha on my way to worship.  However, as I wondered what affect scenes of persecution would have on my daughter, I wondered whether or not she would want to be a Christian if she knew that she might get killed for it.  But I’m not sure she would ever know that she might have to suffer persecution for believing in Jesus from just being a part of some American churches…perhaps even my own.  And that says as much about me as it does other Christians.

Christianity then was a persecuted faith and Christianity now appears as a sanitized faith.  Lord, have mercy on me…on us!

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Posted in Christian History, Contemporary Culture, Faith

Believing In Jesus

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 4 Comments

This past Sunday was Easter Sunday and so as one would expect, I preached on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The message I preached before the Columbia Church of Christ was based on the text from Matthew 28:1-10 (here’s the link to the message: What About Us?).

One of the questions about the death and, more importantly, resurrection of Jesus is the question of belief.  Can we reasonably believe in this good news?  That is, though we can believe in whatever we want to believe in, is there any credible reason(s) for believing in the good news of Jesus Christ?  I believe there are and while I don’t want to go into a full scale discussion of Christian apologetics, I do want to share two interesting notes that support the credibility of Jesus’ resurrection.

This passage from Matthew 28:1-10 ends with the resurrected Jesus Christ appearing to the two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.  Verses 9-10 read:

Suddenly Jesus met them.  “Greetings,” he said.  They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.  Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.  Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Implicit in those two verse are two points of interest to the credibility of Jesus’ resurrection.

First, the two people Jesus appears to first are women.  These two women become the first missionaries, preachers, evangelists, or what ever we want to call it.  They were sent to the other disciples about the news of Jesus’ resurrection.  That’s significant.  In the Mediterranean world of the first century, women were regarded with a much lower esteem than men and their word was not regarded as trustworthy (Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 698-699).  So if Matthew was simply trying to fabricate a story it would be rather self-defeating to include women in the details of the resurrection.

Second, one Jesus appears to the two women, they worshiped Jesus and they then became witnesses of Jesus.  This is significant because as far as a movement is concerned, this is where Christianity begins.  The legacy of these women has been repeated over and over as people have become believers in Jesus, they have also worshiped Jesus and become witnesses of Jesus — and sometimes while facing great persecution and opposition.  But one of the most remarkable facts for believing that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is true is the fact that within one hundred years of time, this Jesus movement became so large that Christians were beginning to be regarded as a fourth human race (N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 359).

Neither reason proves or substantiates with absolute certainty that Jesus was in fact crucified and resurrected as the scriptures claim but I believe they do offer credible reasons.  I don’t actually believe that absolute proof or certainty can be offered for believing in the good news of Jesus Christ and if it could, there wouldn’t be any need for faith.  Sometimes though, we need to remember that faith in Jesus Christ does not require a suspension of reasonability.

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I also will mention two other article I have recently written.  The first is an article for Peter Horne’s blog titled Easter’s Promise for the Broken Heart.  Sometimes the struggle with faith stems from the grief and disappointments we suffer, which I understand.  So I’ve written in this article about the struggle with doubt and why I have chosen faith (without downplaying doubt).  The second article has been published by New Wineskins, an online Christian magazine and it is titled Living the Way of Jesus.  Those who believe in Jesus are called to follow him, to become his disciple.  In this article I explain what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ and why it is essential that Christians learn to live as disciples.

So if these two articles interest you then you have the links.  Thanks for reading!

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Posted in Churches of Christ, Columbia Church of Christ, Faith, Redemption, Scripture

His Passion, Our Salvation!

Posted on March 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” — Isaiah 53:5

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” — Revelation 5:12

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Posted in Faith, Hope, Redemption, Scripture

An Easter Question

Posted on March 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

Alexmenos GraffitoThe picture to the left, Alexamenos Graffito, is an enhanced image of an image that most likely dates to the early third century of Christianity.  The inscription says “Alexmenos worships his God.”  The picture was intended to mock Christian worship.

The image is of an ass hanging on the cross.  That’s right, an ass!  Ordinarily I would just say this is a donkey but I am intentionally using the more offensive language to help illustrate how utterly absurd believing in Jesus was back then seemed to non-believers.  Jesus wasn’t hip and the cross a beautiful piece of jewelry to wear as a necklace.  To believe in Jesus and confess him as Lord meant following someone that was regarded as foolish in the eyes of the Gentiles (cf. 1 Cor 1:23).

The story of Jesus is not something that people would make up if they wanted to create another religion.  Not only was following considered stupid but it also meant facing persecution at times.  Yet people believed came to believe in Jesus and followed him, confessing him as the Lord.  These believers, the church, convinced others by their witness to also believe in Jesus and join them in their witness.  They did that by becoming fools for Christ (cf. 1 Cor 4:10), living with an unyielding allegiance to Jesus Christ.

So here we are, five days from Easter.  The year is 2013 and America is a post-Christian culture.  How do we convince our neighbors that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true?  In a culture where there are many religious options for consumers of spirituality, I am guessing that we too must become fools for Christ, living with an unyielding allegiance to Jesus Christ.

Can we do that?  Perhaps that’s the most important question to ask as we approach Easter.  And it matters.  It’s the difference between whether Jesus is our Lord or Christianity is just merely a religious good we consume on Easter and a few other Sunday’s throughout the year.

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Posted in Christian History, Contemporary Culture, Faith, Missions and Ministry