Thank God for Humor

Sometimes it’s just nice to break up an otherwise busy day with a couple of laughs.  This Y_U_NO_BIBLE twitter account is hillarious.

http://twitter.com/#!/Y_U_NO_BIBLE/status/196992676166516736

http://twitter.com/#!/Y_U_NO_BIBLE/status/199315468312526849

3 Quick Thoughts from 2 Corinthians

In reading the last half of 2 Corinthians today, a few things stood out for a little further consideration.

1. Paul speaking of his relational position as spiritual father to the Corinthian church in 2 Cor. 12:14-15, ”…For I do not seek what is yours, but you; for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.  I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls.”
   In my role as youth/music minister at my church, I need words like this to keep my proper task in focus.  Ultimately, I do not work at the church because the money is so good and I like to eat food and live in a house.  What I do, I must do with a heart for the people. ”I do not seek what is yours, but you…I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls.”  Ministry done right is, in sum, a net loss–pouring oneself out for the good of others.  Remember that Jesus, the even greater Servant-Minister, “emptied Himself,” exchanging the form of God for a servant’s guise.  He told us that the one who loses his life for His sake will ultimately find life.   True life is found in loss; true ministry is done at a loss.  Job expectations should include heartache, disappointment, conflict, trial, and affliction.  And even as I write these, I’m mindful of the way Paul described his own troubles in ministry, “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17)….” For Paul, such “light affliction” included hard labor, imprisonment, beatings, near-death experiences, lashings of the whip, beatings of the rod, a stoning, three shipwrecks, encounters with robbers, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, frostbite, sunburn, and ceaselessly aching of the heart and head for numerous churches (2 Cor. 11:23-28), etc.  And yet for this eternal (>momentary) weight (>light) of glory (>affliction), he pressed on.  And so will I.  When Christ takes hold, what was once regarded as gain becomes loss; what was once regarded as foolish waste becomes the greatest gain (Philippians 3:7-8).
   
2. “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!  Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test (2 Cor. 13:5).”
   What is interesting to me is that Paul does not explicitly spell out how we are supposed to test ourselves.  What he points us to is this: If a man is in the faith, then Christ is in him.  And I think this is the entirety of the test.  How can I know that I am saved?  If I am saved, then Christ lives in me.  If Christ lives in me, then Christ lives through me and I through Him (Gal. 2:20).  So the self-examination of the faith is an elementary, one-question exam: Is there evidence of Christ’s life in me?  And so I pose the question to you.  Does your life bear the marks of Christ’s living through you?
   
3. Real Biblical Authority. ”For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity, in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down (2 Cor. 13:10).”
   For me the point is crystal-clear.  Biblical authority in the church is for a very specific purpose: Edification (building up), not Destruction (tearing down).  Once again, Biblical authority is for building others up, not tearing them down.  And one more time, Biblical authority is for edifying the brotherhood to their good, not lording it over them to their detriment.  Biblical authority does not jive with power-hunger.  When we become power-hungry, we have lost sight of what Biblical authority is and what it is for.  Sometimes first we must be broken in order to be refashioned.  Sometimes we need to be corrected in our understanding so that our lives may then follow suit.  But ultimately, authority is for building, not for destroying.

Simple Truth – Knowledge vs. Love

1 Corinthians 8:1b
Knowledge puffs up.  Love builds up. (NIV/ESV)
Knowledge breeds arrogrance.  Love edifies. (NASB)

Simple Prayer – Teachable

Lord, help me to be teachable.

Pastor-Centric Christianity?

It’s something that has rubbed me the wrong way for a long time.  I have categorized this under “Just a Thought,” so I allow myself the freedom to be wrong in what follows.  But it seems to me that unhealthy lines between “pastor” and “laymen” have been drawn in my particular flavor of churches.  One of the primary historical criticisms of the Catholic Church is the way that the Church Universal ultimately revolves around the pope and the individual parishes ultimately belong to individual priests, the responsibility of humble parishioners being to show up, pay their dues, and shut their mouths.  How different is this really from the SBC church you belong to?  A pastor leaves or a pastor falls, and a church falls apart altogether, as though the one man were the glue that bound the church together rather than love (Colossians 3:14), the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3), Christ (John 17:3; Ephesians 2:20-22), or one another (Ephesians 4:16).  Too often we settle into a mindset that the pastor will hold the church together as God in turn holds him together.  My brothers, these things should not be so.

In theory and in orthodox theology, obviously this is light years apart Evangelical ecclesiology.  But in practice?  I think far too often we have constructed 16-inch-thick steel barriers between clergy and laity.  Or maybe the church has elevated the pastor to a 10-foot pedestal.  Or maybe the pastor has elevated the pulpit to a 10-foot pedestal towering over the rest of the congregation…

I write this myself as an associate pastor.  I do not write this with only senior pastors in view and certainly not with just my own senior pastor in view, but generally with all “full-time ministers” (because apparently not all Christians are supposed to be about full-time ministry in their lives…?) in view.  The criticism of the medieval Catholic Church was that it took the Bible out of the hands of the laity.  Obviously, all members of Evangelical churches today are both allowedand even encouraged to own their own Bibles (and in some cases, even pick their own translations).  But I think that just as the old Catholic Church took the Bibles out of the hands of their people, we have taken the ministry of our churches out of the hands of our own people.

Again, this is an issue that has bugged me for years, but yesterday as I was looking through the monthly newspaper of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, it hit me strongly (as it has before) that virtually every article in the paper was about “Pastor _____” and what he was doing at his church.  There was an article on which churches had baptized the most people in the SBTC (a misleading stat in itself, of course) and gave the name of the pastor of each church.  In some way, there seems to be an underlying assumption among us that the ministry of any given church belongs to its pastor.  If it is externally successful, it is because it is led by a good pastor.  If it struggles, it is because its pastor is lousy.  Do yourself a favor and search for this: “As goes the pulpit.” You’ll get such various answers as, “So goes the pew,” or “So goes the church,” or “So goes the nation.” Where is this in the Bible?  I heard it said in seminary, “The highest calling is the call to pastor a local church.” Again, where is this in the Bible?  To me, it would seem that the highest calling is, “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”

When we so elevate the God-ordained task of pastoring churches to the point that we degrade what it is to be a simple child of God, we are doing the church no favors.  Sermons are important.  Sunday school and small group lessons are important as well.  But they are no replacement for where I think the true vitality of churches lies: in the prayer closet.  I’ve never heard and sermon in church, lesson in Bible study, or lecture in seminary that has shaped me as much as times of personal Bible study, prayer, and communion time with God.  This is where pastors should be pointing their people–not to themselves and their sermons but to God.  In good sermons and lessons, people get to know theology and Biblical content.  In personal devotional life, people get to know God.  He is the Treasure hidden in a field.  He is the Pearl of great price.  He is the Living Water that satisfies undying thirst.  He is the Bread of Life.  He is the reason for living single-minded, whole-hearted lives.

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
- John 17:3

Let me briefly list off a few of the ramifications of operating under the pastor-laity divide that we have created:

• Pastors are not allowed to stumble, fail, or fall.  I have known some of those who have fallen, and believe me, they are not allowed to get back up.  They are done, and God is (apparently) done with them.  Bible, anyone?
• Run-of-the-mill church members are not allowed to help the pastor up.  Because of the rigid divide, lay men of the church cannot be privy to the private struggles, temptations, and sins of their pastors; therefore, they cannot strengthen him in weakness, they cannot encourage him in discouragement, and they cannot even intercede for him in his sin–for to know that the pastor sins would be mandate that he be removed from his position.  Is this the Biblical model of church edification?
• Run-of-the-mill church members do not feel empowered (or responsible) to help one another up.  Ever seen this one in your church? ”Oh, that’s the pastor’s job,” or ”That’s what we pay the pastor for.”

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.  For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
- Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Yes, this passage is from the Old Testament, but I know of no other place in Scripture that better speaks of what the relationship between brothers in Christ should be.  Two men looking out for the good of one another in all areas of life: faith, marriage, witness, and character.  The pastor cannot fill this role for every man in his church, and he obviously cannot fill this role for the women of his church (being a “one-woman man” and all).  Instead, the church is to be a more communal, organic, living, and breathing organism–a body whose members operate for the good of one another, bound together under one Head, who is not the pastor of that church but Christ Himself.

Come As a Child

To paraphrase Jesus (if I may), “Come as a child, or do not come at all.”
-Luke 18:15-17

Pour Me Out

“But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.” (Philippians 2:17)

God, let this be me.