Discipleship (Part I)

What is discipleship? Discipleship was the focus of both my master’s thesis and my doctoral dissertation. One of the things I have learned is that the church is desperately lacking clarity on the meaning of discipleship. Despite having read many dozens of books on the topic, I cannot remember a single example of an author defining discipleship the way Jesus did. From Matthew 28:19-20a, we can determine that a disciple is someone who does the things Jesus commanded us to do, which includes teaching others to do the same. We see this depicted in the Gospels, with Jesus sending out the Twelve disciples (Luke 9:1-6) and then seventy-two others (Luke 10:1-23), to preach the Kingdom, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. Jesus called disciples to Himself, taught them, modeled life and ministry for them, and then sent them out to do as they had seen Him do.

Jesus said things like, ‘The student, when fully grown, will be like the teacher’ (Luke 6:40). He said that those who believe in Him will do the same works as Him, and even greater works (John 14:12). I often use this illustration: Let’s say you’re a licensed electrician, and I become your apprentice because I want to learn the trade. If, after a number of years as your apprentice, I am unable to launch out on my own and become an electrician, then either: 1) you are a terrible teacher, 2) I am a terrible student, or 3) we both share a faulty understanding of apprenticeship. I think it’s fair to argue that we can substitute the word ‘discipleship’ for the word ‘apprenticeship’ in this illustration, and transfer the focus from competencies related to electrical work to those related to the Kingdom. Why do so few people in church end up with a life and ministry like Jesus?

I would suggest that it’s because we have a different goal. Without going into the story of how we got here, I think we can safely say that most churches are focused on turning people into good church members as opposed to equipping them to have a life and ministry like Jesus. If on Sunday, the pastor at the average church in America got up and said, ‘Everyone who can tell me something Jesus commanded us, as His disciples, to do, raise your hand,’ I think things would get extremely awkward after six or seven people answered. As a point of reference, Jesus gave His disciples about eighty commands—commands that are general enough that we can apply them to our lives today (with appropriate modifications for the differences in our context compared to that of His first-century disciples). I know this because I spent two full years preaching through them at our church.‡

The single biggest issue, in my estimation, is the idol of growth. Not spiritual growth, but numerical growth. We have this idea that the size of our churches is the measure of our ministerial success. Don’t get me wrong, healthy things grow. I’m not suggesting that small is an indicator of faithfulness. But I do think we have traded faithfulness in making disciples for success in accumulating church members. If I, as a pastor, grow a church to 800 or 1,000, or 5,000 people, filled with people who continue to ‘sit under’ my ministry and faithfully attend service each week, and they end up being mere spectators, spiritual dependents, more or less ignorant of the things Jesus commanded His disciples to do, and not in any way moving toward the goal of having a life and ministry like Jesus, whose model of ministry am I following? And by whose definition have I succeeded in ministry?

It’s time for us to reclaim Jesus’ definition of discipleship. I regularly tell my church that I have no desire for all of them to be sitting before me, listening to me preach and teach, five years from now. I hope that as many of them as possible will launch out into a ministry of their own—or will at least be as activated in ministry as possible, at a level appropriate to their preparedness and maturity. Keep in mind, though, that Jesus sent the Twelve and the Seventy-Two out with less than three years’ worth of discipleship. Reclaiming Jesus’ definition of discipleship may require us to revisit our standards of preparedness in light of Jesus’ practice.

One of my former leaders (District Superintendent, Dr. Bret Allen) told me this once (I’m paraphrasing): Whatever the ministry task, you’re always going to be able to do it better than the people in your church. You’ve been to school. You’ve been doing it full-time for years. But it’s not about how well you can do it. It’s about how many other people you can get doing it. This quote has dramatically changed the way I view and do ministry. Especially in an era where pastors curate a celebrity image of themselves via social media, one of my chief goals is to de-platform myself and empower others to do what I do.

If you’re a pastor, I would challenge you to rethink discipleship. You may have to soul-search and discern whether your heart has been captivated by the idol of size (or any of a number of other characteristics of ‘the successful church’). You may find (as I did) that you have to reorder your organizational priorities and restructure your church. But isn’t it worth some temporary discomfort to exchange the pressure of success for a measure of your ministry that is based on faithfulness?

It’s not just pastors who have contributed to church-member culture (as opposed to discipleship culture). For the role of the pastor to have developed into what it is today—in which she/he is the only one who people see as capable of leading and facilitating, teaching and preaching, marrying and burying, providing counsel, comfort, and prayer—there have to be churches full of individuals who don’t want anyone else but the pastor to play those roles in their lives. The flip side of this, by the way, is an unspoken belief that no one else (including you) is capable of doing much that we consider meaningful in the Christian life for anyone else in the church.

Perhaps you’ve seen or heard a statistic like this before. Still, it bears repeating: if just 1,000 Christians made one disciple each year, and each additional disciple made one disciple per year, in 23 years, everyone on the planet would be a follower of Jesus. Let that sink in. Now think about all of the things that churches spend time and energy on, and what busy places churches can be. How many disciples—not church members—result from all of that time, money, and busyness? By any reasonable measure, what we’ve been doing has not been that effective. Why do we keep doing it?

Whether or not you’re a pastor, you can be part of the solution to the crisis in discipleship… today. Pick up the New Testament and start reading the Gospels. Ask yourself: how can I obey the teaching of Jesus—and imitate the life and ministry of Jesus—today? Who else can I involve, so that she or he might be encouraged to practice the way of Jesus as well? How different could things be—how significant and far-reaching could the ripple effects be—if this were the default mode of each person who self-identifies as a Christian? Regardless of whether anyone else does, why don’t you?

‡ I typically preach three Sundays per month. I am not including implicit commands that could be distilled from parables, and this doesn’t take into consideration the many commands found in either the epistles or those in the Hebrew Scriptures, of which Jesus would have no doubt affirmed the continuing appropriateness for His followers.

The Presence of the Future (The Church Part II)

In an earlier post (Back to Life), I mentioned that the Jesus-event, the church, the Holy Spirit, mission, and the end times (Christology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, missiology, and eschatology) are deeply interrelated. In short: Jesus’ life and mission—culminating in His resurrection, ascension to heaven, and in the revelation of Him as divine Lord—fulfilled the part of the Jewish people’s redemptive-historical vocation that required their separation from the nations, and inaugurated the future promised to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. The new, multi-ethnic gatherings of believers that formed around the Mediterranean world became known as churches. God’s mission for the church was to announce the good news of Jesus’ lordship—His triumph over sin and sin’s chief consequences, death and alienation from God—to the ends of the earth, a process that would leave a trail of new churches in its wake. The church exists for mission. The purpose of mission is to establish churches. As Emil Brunner said, ‘The church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.’ This, in extremely abbreviated form, is the link between Christology, ecclesiology, and missiology.

But we need to look again at this connection through the lenses of pneumatology and eschatology—the Holy Spirit and the last days. As mentioned in The Church Part I, biblically speaking, the resurrection of the Messiah and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit were definitive signs that ‘the last days’ had arrived. As God threw open the doors to membership in His people beyond the borders of ethnic Israel (another biblical promise associated with the arrival of ‘the last days’), the Jerusalem Temple no longer fit with the global orientation of God’s mission. Instead of God’s Spirit dwelling in a single location, God’s Spirit would now indwell both individual believers and also the corporate gatherings of believers. This is one of the significances of the tongues of fire resting on the heads of the 120 gathered in the upper room on Pentecost. Throughout the history of Israel, fire had been one of the authenticating signs of the presence of the One True God. As God was now sending His people to the ends of the earth, He again used fire—this time to indicate that His presence was going with each one of them. This presence meant that all the functions of the Temple—the facilitation of an encounter with God (including instruction, calling, worship, and reconciliation)—had been transferred to the followers of Jesus. The intersection between heaven and earth was no longer the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but every individual disciple of Jesus, and, especially, every community of disciples.†

One of the most dramatic results of the Holy Spirit’s accompanying and indwelling His people is the occurrence of manifestations of God’s power. In the life of the church, the Spirit gives empowerment in the form of miracles and other spiritual gifts in order to validate the message of Jesus’ followers. If you think about it, nothing could be more practical or sensible. One way to paraphrase the Gospel is: ‘You’re wrong about everything you believe. As a result, you’re living the wrong way. You need to believe in Jesus—which translates to following Him as Lord—so that you can be adopted into God’s family and saved from condemnation on the day that God judges the world.’ Why would anyone—in the ancient world or the modern one—believe this, without the working of the Holy Spirit’s power to assist in confirming the truth of the message?°

So the arrival of the last days (eschatology) means that God will gather in people from all nations (missiology) to form worshiping communities (ecclesiology). The Holy Spirit indwells these corporate gatherings to make the community the foretaste of heaven, and empowers individual believers with supernatural power (pneumatology) to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth (missiology). It takes a little effort to hold them all together in your mind, but, in essence: if the Messiah has not come, it is not the last days and there is no need for the church, because the people of God do not have a mission to announce the Gospel to all nations, and therefore they do not need the power of the Holy Spirit to accompany them, confirm their message, or to make their gatherings the foretaste of heaven. Christology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, missiology, and eschatology are, essentially, a seamless whole.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? It matters because the answer to the question ‘What time is it?’ and the answer, ‘It’s the last days: The Messiah has been raised from the dead and the Spirit has been poured out,’ means that every follower of Jesus should expect both to be empowered with the Spirit for mission, and to experience the foretaste of heaven in each gathering of the worshiping community. It means that your primary purpose in this life is to image the Kingdom—both as an individual being conformed to the character of Christ and as part of a church that models the reconciling, healing, and peaceful Kingdom whose corporate life and mission mirror that of the trinitarian God. It means you should expect the power of the age to come—or, in G. E. Ladd’s memorable phrase, the presence of the future—as you tell people about Jesus, pray for people in the name of Jesus, and gather with God’s people to worship and get instruction in the way of Jesus.

Another reason this matters is that it forms part of the answer to the question: Why don’t we see miracles today? (…at least in the United States—Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America see them much more regularly than we do.) I think there are two primary answers. First: we don’t expect to see them. We don’t believe it is the last days, so we don’t expect to see all of the signs that the biblical prophets said would accompany them. As a result, we don’t ask God, and God doesn’t answer. (This isn’t the place to detail it in depth, but you can make a strong case from the Bible that there is a connection between expectation and miracles.) Second, and this might be at least partly a result of the first reason: (because we don’t believe it is the last days), we aren’t engaged in the mission of announcing God’s Kingdom. We’re not attempting anything for God that will be impossible to do without power from God. When was the last time you prayed for a miracle? For incurable cancer to be healed? For a blind eye or a deaf ear to open? For restoration in a relationship seemingly broken beyond all hope of repair? For a major hurricane to lose power or a destructive wildfire to die out? When did you last expect God’s power to manifest so powerfully in the gathering of your church that people who didn’t believe in God would drop to their knees and confess, ‘Surely God is in this place’ (1 Cor. 14:25)? When did you last pray and expect God to answer at all?

However you answer these questions, I want to ask you one more: are you satisfied with the level of the Holy Spirit’s activity in your life and in your church? If not, I encourage you to ask God for an increase in expectation. He is described in the New Testament as the God who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all we can ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20). Is the extent of your thoughts and imagination inviting Him to do something truly and astonishingly wonderful—in your own life or in the life of your church? If not, you are settling for less than your inheritance in the Spirit as a follower of Jesus and a child of God. How different could this world be if God’s people stopped settling…?

° I have heard it said that miracles don’t produce faith. Miracles do not produce mature faith. But anyone claiming that miracles don’t produce faith is ignoring not only the emphasis that the New Testament puts on the miracles in general (Matt. 12:28, Luke 5:17, Acts 2:4, 43, 3:12-16, 5:12, 6:8, 8:6-7, 39, 9:17-18, 10:38, 13:9-11, 14:8-10, 19:6, 11-12, 28:8, Rom. 15:18-19, 1 Cor. 2:4-5, 12:4-11, 2 Cor. 12:12, Gal. 3:5, 1 Thess. 1:5, Heb. 2:4), but also, in particular, the incidences where miracles are said to result in belief (John 2:11, 2:23, 4:46-54, 6:14, 11:45; Acts 8:5-8, 12, 8:9-13, 13:6-12, 14:8-18, 16:25-34).

† This is not replacement theology. The Bible is clear that Israel still has a place in redemptive history. I’m referring here to only one aspect of Israel’s vocation being fulfilled.

The Church (Part I)

Gordon Fee, one of pentecostalism’s most widely-respected scholars, tells a story in the opening of his book, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. He relates his answer to a seminary student who asked him what his focus would be were he to enter the pastoral ministry at that point in his lifelong career in academia/higher education. He writes that, without hesitating, he replied to the student that he would try to help the church understand what it means that they are the eschatological people of God. He further shares that he told his students that he had no idea how he would go about doing that. I have often thought of my work as a pastor—in combination with my theological reflection—as an attempt to faithfully complete that task.

So, what does it mean that the church is the eschatological people of God? For starters, some clarification of the term eschatological. Eschatology is often used as a term for ‘the end times’ (used interchangeably with ‘the last days’), which in popular Christian imagination often signifies cataclysmic judgments of the type found (or imagined to be found) in the book of Revelation. What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that the Bible itself tells us that ‘the last days’ began at about the time of Jesus’ resurrection.° In Peter’s Pentecost sermon, he substitutes the words ‘in the last days’ (Acts 2:17) for the prophet Joel’s ‘after these things’ (Joel 2:28), explicitly calling out the arrival of the final era of redemptive history. Other New Testament references to the arrival of the last days abound, but I will not detail them here. My more limited purpose is to frame the conversation about the church with the idea that it is (already) the last days.◊

To establish a baseline, here are some of the things I believe about the church. The New Testament tells us that the church is the place on the earth where the Holy Spirit uniquely dwells. I would argue that the church is God’s most precious possession on the earth, as it is made up of the people who have acknowledged, with appropriate gratitude and worship, the love that God has shown in offering on the cross God’s own life for us in Jesus. By virtue of its being inhabited by the Creator of all, I would suggest that the church is the highest authority on earth. Its authority is exercised in a different way than that of prime ministers, presidents, and kings, but it is superior nonetheless. The church should be a foretaste of heaven. So much so, in fact, that I believe conversations about what the church could be/do should always include someone objecting that ‘It’s not going to be that way this side of the return of Jesus.’ If we’re not at least flirting with that line, then (in my opinion) we vastly underestimate the life, the power, and the creative intent of the Spirit of God in, for, and through the church.

A definition I use (not in any way assumed to be exhaustive or comprehensive—that would take a book-length work), building on some language adopted from Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, is this: the church is a prophetic reality, called into existence by God, to serve as an alternative society, contrast culture, a counter-Kingdom to the kingdoms of this world. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin also supplied some of my favorite language about the church: it is the sign, instrument, and foretaste of the Kingdom. Oliver O’Donovan’s words resonate with me as well: “it is called into existence in order to witness… through its own life and word… the final manifestation of God’s rule on earth.”†

All this needs elaborating, and I will attempt to unpack as much of this as possible in future posts. What I want to emphasize immediately, however, in the context of this discussion of the astonishing promise and potential that surround the church, is the requirement that the church be characterized by humility, apart from which it cannot hope to be named after the One it claims as its Lord. No matter how faithfully or powerfully the church instantiates, manifests, or images the Kingdom, there is always a more dramatic distance between what it is and what the Kingdom will be than there is between a specific church and its surrounding culture. No church, however holy it may seek or strive (or imagine itself) to be, will ever be entirely free of those elements of the culture that are out of alignment with the character of the Kingdom and its King. If a church did manage to become perfectly unlike the world, it will have at precisely that point failed at its mission, because it would necessarily lack that which would give it the closest connection with and likeness to the world: those who have only recently come out of the world. (Another, complementary, angle to approach the church with humility is to realize that even when the church falls short of our highest aspirations for it, Jesus is faithful: it will most assuredly be revealed in eternity that the Spirit accomplished far more through our efforts at faithfulness than we had the capacity to perceive.)

Rather than coming to a conclusion, my desire is to stir your imagination… maybe even to inspire some holy dissatisfaction in your acceptance of the church as it is compared to what it could be. What do you think it might look like if your local church started to dream of being and working toward goals that aren’t likely to be possible on this side of the return of Jesus? What could the relationships be like? What could the redemptive influence on the immediate community, the wider soceity, and even the world, be?

One of the marks of the early church was that there were no needy people, because the believers contributed to take care of whatever needs might arise. I often imagine our church eliminating every need in the congregation, such that we needed to look the neighborhood around the church, with an ever-expanding sphere of needs getting met even beyond the limits of the city of San Francisco. (If you examine the logic of Malachi 3:10-12, I think you’ll find that this scenario is closer to what is being promised than the prosperity of the individual giver.) I don’t at all limit the redemptive sphere of influence to monetary needs. What about people whose humanity is being robbed by drug addiction, neighborhoods where fear of violence pervades, the epidemic of loneliness, families ravaged by domestic violence? Just much how good do you think could result from a church understanding itself as the eschatological/end-times people of God?

° Scholars differ as to whether the preaching of John the Baptist, the resurrection of Jesus, or the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost marks the beginning of these last days/end times.

◊ What is interesting is that the Jewish expectation fulfilled in Jesus was the arrival not of an extended period of ‘last days’, but of the definitive onset of ‘the age to come’ (or the New Creation, the New Heavens and the New Earth, or what Christians might call ‘heaven.’) I’ll get into this in an upcoming post.

† Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 189.

Back to Life

After nearly 8 years on hiatus, I’m returning to writing. I now have 25 years of experience pastoring at the most historic Pentecostal church in San Francisco (CA), and—pending the successful defense of my dissertation—am finally finished with my formal education.º Over the years, many have suggested to me that I write a book or books. I would rather offer my contributions to the church free of charge. For me, the Kingdom is not ‘a spade’ª with which to pad my standard of living, but a calling and a passion.

A couple of presuppositions for the forthcoming posts: First, in my estimation, christology, pneumatology, discipleship, ecclesiology, missiology, and eschatology are so closely connected that I find it impossible to address one topic apart from all the others.◊ The posts on this site will often center on these topics, their interrelatedness, and their implications for various areas of life and spirituality. Second, I write from a pentecostal‡ perspective. I have been immersed in a pentecostal community of practice for 27 years, and have read 106 volumes† (and counting) of academic pentecostal theology. I have read extensively outside of my faith community as well (Anabaptist, Anglican, Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical, Exvangelical, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox, Quaker, Reformed, etc.), but my worldview is decidedly influenced by an ongoing encounter with Jesus via the Holy Spirit that characterizes pentecostal spirituality.

Third, even though I am writing from within the church and for the church, I embrace pluralism in the sense that I accept the fact that public space is a contested space. By claiming to be somehow neutral, disinterested, and objective, the scientific worldview presumes to be the authoritative voice in this space. Some Christians (especially in the United States) likewise treat the public forum as though Christianity should be the only voice permitted to speak. I fully subscribe to historic Christianity, and am convinced that its narrative of the trinitarian God is the true story of the world, its purpose, and its future: creating the world, calling Abraham (and, by extension, Israel), appearing, living, teaching, dying, rising, ascending, and pouring out the Holy Spirit in and through the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, and the promise of Jesus’ return to perfect the work of New Creation begun in His incarnation. When I say I am a pluralist, what I mean is that I acknowledge the many belief systems (including none at all) that people adhere to, and that I affirm their right to hold those beliefs, and to seek to convince others of their accuracy. I am doing theology in public. As such, I accept the responsibility of having to ‘out-narrate’∆ other truth-claims rather than speaking as though the Christian story is to be taken for granted, and I invite those who disagree with me to voice those disagreements. Far from being threatening to me, I have found that the critique of others helps refine, clarify, and strengthen my faith and its quality.

If you are a pastor or someone who cares deeply about the church, my sincere hope is that you find these posts generative for your imagining and participating in the wonder that is God’s church. I also hope that these posts find their way to a scholarly readership, triggering some dialogue between the church and the thinking and output of the academy, thereby contributing in however small a way to the shrinking of the chasm between the local church and Christian scholarship. These are the two primary groups of people I am addressing in these posts. Whether or not you fall into one of these two audiences, I pray that you recognize the signature of Truth in what you read. I hope that it resonates deeply within you, and gives you a taste of what Jesus referred to as Living Water—eventually producing a desire in you to permanently camp at the Well from which it springs. Above all, I pray that it inspires as great a shift as possible in the way that you think about and participate in the church.

º For those to whom this is of interest: I hold a Master’s in Ministry from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, and will soon hold, God willing, a Doctor of Ministry (Emphasis in Spiritual Formation) from Berkeley School of Theology.

ª The Avot tractate of the Mishnah refers to a Rabbi Zadok’s prohibition on using the Jewish Law as a means to make a livelihood.

◊ The ‘ologies’ here, in the order listed, refer to: the studies of Jesus’ Messiahship and divinity, the Holy Spirit, the church, the church’s mission, and the so-called ‘end times’ (which are frequently misunderstood as occurring at a point in time in the future, as opposed to having already begun, a topic that I will address in future posts.)

‡ I will use the capitalized Pentecostal to refer exclusively to those movements that trace their origins to the Los Angeles Azusa Street Revival of 1906. Though I am an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God (a Pentecostal fellowship), when speaking in my own voice I will use pentecostal, as I cannot claim to represent either the official perspective or that of the entire fellowship.

† At some point I will create a list of these books, and update it as I read additional ones. I’ll also highlight some recommendations from the list, as well as those from outside the pentecostal tradition.

∆ This concept originates with John Milbank in his Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).

Truth at the Crossroads (Truth Part VII)

"If you are uncertain of which of two paths to take, choose the one on which the shadow of the cross falls"  - Norman Shawchuck 

This series of posts started with an exploration of the concept of truth, in the general sense.  I have attempted to make the basecamp of 'objectivity' my starting point, and circle back to it at regular intervals (putting objectivity in parentheses because it is a non-existent perspective – one from which, for the most part, people no longer claim to be able to see.  Even God doesn't have an 'objective' perspective.  He is passionately committed to and involved with the the world He created.)  Coming as I do from a thoroughly Christian perspective, I made the choice to launch this discussion from what amounts to an illusory foothold in order to build a bridge–even if it's a floating one–to people who do not share my commitments.  It's not that the Christian faith is illogical or irrational.  Like any of the world's faiths (or science), it is a claim about reality itself.  If the Christian worldview is accurate, then irrespective of how incompatible with the logic of our world Christianity may seem, it is, in fact, the most rational belief system in the world – the only rational belief system, for that matter.

However, a few centuries of of the Western world being held captive to the false, either/or choice between Bible or science, faith or reason, belief or facts, have left Christians in a place of having to build these bridges in order to have any meaningful communication with people who choose not to believe. Non-belief, by the way, is, in general, another mythical position – everyone believes something.  Some people just don't recognize that their unacknowledged assumptions about where the world came from, why we might be here, and where everything is headed are religious assumptions.  This is a serious lapse of reason.  Thoughts about our origin, purpose, and final destination are three categories that form some of the foundation stones of a religion.  

Oddly enough, we now live in a time when it is not only non-Christians, but also vast numbers of people who consider themselves believers who need to have Christianity explained to them, as if for the first time.  For many, faithful church attendance passes for authentic Christianity.  Others take it a step further and serve in one of the church's ministries, or participate in a small group.  Commitment to Christ has been reduced to a confession of faith, a one-time acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior, or little less than a kinder, gentler version of the old you (i.e., you don't smoke or drink, swear, or watch pornography.)  This Americanized version of Christianity is far more American that it is Christian (which goes a long way in explaining why so many people operate as though being a Christian also means belonging to one political party or the other.)  Bottom line: what you will find in the average church on Sunday is an emaciated caricature of the Church of Jesus Christ.

In case you think I'm gearing up for some kind of triumphalist rant, au contraire.  According to Martin Luther, the four marks of the creedal confession's authentic church (one, holy, catholic, and apostolic) leave out the ultimate criterion: the marks of the crucifixion.  Paul warned Timothy, "Anyone who wants to live a godly life can expect to suffer persecution" (2 Tim 3:12).  "Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you," Peter wrote to the Jewish believers scattered throughout the Eastern Roman provinces (1 Pet 4:12).  Paul reminded the Thessalonians: "You know that we are destined for such troubles. Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come—and they did, as you well know (1 Thess 3:b-4). These examples represent only a few of the echoes of many similar guarantees from Jesus Himself; "You will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed. And all nations will hate you because you are my followers (Matt 10:17-18; 21-22).  (Just read over the first half of 2 Corinthians in the event that you're interested in finding out what persecution looked like in the life of Paul.)

I didn't set out to present following Jesus as the gloomiest of all possible destines.  But the difference between the church in America and what the Scriptures clearly forecast should raise the question: Is there a disconnect here?  As I said to my church yesterday: When you are so on the side of God that the world is threatened by you, when people can't handle your selflessness, and they feel the need to get rid of you because of how uncomfortable you make them, THEN you have found a person who is a Christ-ian – someone who is like their Messiah.  

This is perhaps one of the most neglected aspects of the Christian faith.  The Bible doesn't say "If you pass through floodwaters," or "if you walk through the fire," but "when" (Isa 43:2).  In the passage known as the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-10), Jesus names the people in this world who are truly blessed: those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness/justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers – and those who are persecuted for doing right.  In other words, people who are and who live like Jesus.  When He died on a Roman cross, He gave us a graphic illustration of what this teaching looks like when it's lived, incarnated.  

For the most part Christians prefer to focus on the one-time, unrepeatable aspect of the crucifixion – the part that involves God, in Jesus, "reconciling all things to Himself, making peace with them through Christ's blood, shed on the cross" (Col 1:19).  The aspect of the cross that we'd prefer to forget, is the part where Jesus makes it a mandatory requirement for anyone who would be His disciple (Matt 16:24).  This is so central to the continued success of Jesus' mission as He hands if off to His disciples, that the four Gospels include 5 references to it.  This is not an add-on to following Jesus that is reserved for 'radical' Christians.  This is simply what it means to be Christian.

There is a passage in the letter to the Philippians that spells this out more clearly, perhaps, than anywhere else in the Bible.  Paul writes, "I want to know Him (Christ)."  His next words make plain to us exactly how Paul thinks one gets to know Jesus: by "sharing with Him in His suffering, becoming like Him in His death" (Phil 3:10).  On a practical level, this should come as no surprise.  The foundation of every relationship is shared experience.  The more deeply you have shared in the experiences of someone else, the more you know them – the more likely you are to be able to know what they would do in any given situation, the more often you will be able to finish their sentences.  People who have suffered from the same kind of pain, shared in the same types of losses are uniquely capable of forming intimate bonds with each other.  How else would #metoo have become a culture-impacting phenomenon virtually overnight?  But we American Christians seem to have gone to the greatest possible lengths to insulate ourselves from suffering (and, tragically, from those who suffer*).  And to that end, we have created a Gospel that promises an end to it – not a future end to suffering (what Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 4:17 as a glory that our light and momentary troubles are in no way worthy of being compared to), but an end to suffering in this life.  The American Gospel, in essence, is the promise that Jesus will make everything better.

Jesus does make everything better.  Better yet – He makes all things new (Rev 21:5).  But the path to the newness that Jesus offers is none other than the path that He Himself walked.  The power of the resurrection that Paul wants to experience can only be accessed by means of sharing in Jesus' suffering and death.  In 2 Corinthians he writes that he and his traveling companions "live in a state of a continuous death like Jesus' in order that the life of Jesus might be put on display through their lives" (4:10).  Again, this is no optional feature for an otherwise costless, crossless Christianity.   This is the standard package.  Try to leave the cross behind and you're about as likely to have a successful walk with Jesus as your ride would be if you tried to leave the tires behind as you drove your new car off the lot.

There is a lot more going on here than a quibble over some peripheral details about a religion.   The difference between between holding to orthodox Christian beliefs and following the Jesus who calls "Follow me" to us from the pages of the New Testament is as wide as the sea.  If we believe the Scriptures are the Word of God, His inspired Words to us, then the fact that suffering appears to be intrinsic to the vocation of the Church is something we cannot choose to ignore.  “Unless the... church makes a determined effort to recapture the man Jesus through a total identification with the suffering…, that Church will become exactly what Christ is not" (James Cone).  If knowing Him who is the Way means obeying Him, if knowing Him who is the Truth means becoming like Him (in his suffering and death), if knowing Him who is the Life is eternal life, then what is at stake here is nothing short of salvation – nothing short of the Truth.

As Jesus replied to the man who shouted out, "Blessed are those who get to eat at the banquet in heaven, when God's Kingdom arrives;"  No, actually.  "Blessed are those who hear My commands and keep them" (Luke 11:28).  If you meditate for a few moments on the man's misperception and Jesus' correction, the message is clear. Jesus is saying: Blessed are those who become like Me, who imitate My life (and suffering and death); they shall be comforted; they shall be shown mercy; they shall inherit the New Heavens and the New Earth; they shall be called sons and daughters of God; they shall see God; theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

*This was first pointed out to me by my friend Matt Hyatt, for whom the intensity of his family’s suffering was magnified by his sense of feeling like the church was nowhere to be found in the midst of their struggle with his wife’s horrifically painful and long-term illness. 

Truth and Power: In Hoc Signo Vinces (Truth Part VI)

According to legend, the Roman Emperor Constantine, on the eve of a great battle in 312 AD, had a dream in which he received an interpretation of a vision he had seen that day of a cross which appeared just above the mid-day sun along with the words "Εν τουτω νικα" ("In this sign you will conquer"; or, in the more well known Latin version, "In hoc signo vinces").  In preparation for the battle that would solidify his uncontested rule over Rome, he had crosses painted on his army's shields.  Thus Constantine's conversion to Christianity began – and the whole of the empire along with him.  The young Church went–virtually overnight–from being a persecuted and often martyred minority to a political tool for bringing unity to a disintegrating empire.  And the Lord Jesus, the crucified Messiah, became the new warrior-god of the world's first Western military superpower.

And so a paradigm for Western government was laid down that would remain largely unchanged until the 20th Century.  The vast majority of the empire became Christian.  Despite the consolidation of power that the Christianization of the empire brought, it eventually broke up into nation-states who soon developed a tendency to wage war against one another.  Armies of confessing Christians fought against other armies of Christians, slaughtering one another on behalf of Christian kings, each one convinced that God was on his side.  These kings and nations ultimately gave allegiance to the Pope, whose sphere of spiritual authority still encompassed much of the former empire.  If ever there was a period in the Church age with striking parallels to Israel in the time of the judges, this was it.  Only each person doing what was right in his own sight in those days was a king, each with his own personal Israel to function as the extension of his will.

The irony of all of this is that nothing could be more true than the raw interpretation of Constantine's vision: the cross is indeed the signpost pointing to, the blueprint laying out the means of achieving anything and everything that can and will ever be called victory.  But the key to releasing the conquering power of the cross is accessed only by conquering in the same way that Jesus won on the cross.  Wherever it is possible for a nation's flag to stand near a cross in a church sanctuary without the average church-goer cringing at the thought of the danger each poses to what the other represents, there you will find–gathered for worship–the political and religious descendants of Constantine. 

Most people older than twelve have experienced the sting of being taken out of context.  You said something, and someone quoted part of what you said to give your words a very different meaning.  Or they quoted you verbatim, but still managed to use your exact words to say something altogether different than what you intended to communicate.  When someone attempts to represent you with your words, you evaluate the truthfulness of that representation based not only on the accuracy of their reproduction of your vocabulary, but more so upon the overall way that your intent, your heart, your character is conveyed in the communication.  In other words, we all know–at some level–that the process of conveying truth is vastly more complicated than merely echoing speech.  Even true information about God can lose its character as Truth when it is communicated in the wrong way or at the wrong time.  If this last statement raises your eyebrows, just take a look at how God responds to Job's friends after their attempts to 'comfort' the most famous sufferer in history with their true statements about God  (Job 42:7).

We can take this principle and apply it on a level deeper than words.  Take, for example, the cross.  Jesus' death on a Roman cross was a kind of statement.  It was infinitely more than this.  But in the sense that it had the meaning that it did because of the context it was made in, it can be compared to a statement that you or I might say – and which, when taken out of context, might make us passionately object, "But that's not what I meant!", or "You're totally twisting my words!"  The fact that in polite Roman society, to even speak the word 'crucifixion' was considered offensive should give us, who are accustomed to seeing crosses worn as necklaces and earrings, a bit of a sense of how much the offense–the scandal–of the cross has been lost to us.

An unoffensive cross is a cross that has been taken out of context to the extent that the truth it communicates has also been lost.  An unoffensive cross is a comfortable cross.  (Will the thousands of Jews crucified by the Romans rise up on judgment day and condemn us because they shared more in the experience than we have of the Messiah we claim to follow?)  The cross was an emblem of shame, as the hymn says.  Yet, for many of us it is a badge reassuring us of our 'in' status.  But beyond all this, the cross was the definitive revelation of the heart and mission of Jesus – the dramatic enactment of the whole of Jesus' life and teaching, the character of God put on display.  I often say that the right way to draw the symbol for love is not to make a 'v' with a double-rainbow across the top, but rather to make a cross.  In the same way, if there was a symbol for 'truth', it too, would have to be a cross.

But like everything else, the truth of the cross is only preserved when the whole context is also preserved.  It only communicates truthfully insofar as it calls to mind the One who dwells in high and lofty places also coming to dwell with the lowly.  It is only true to the extent that it reminds us that the Power that created the universe with a single word subjected Himself to weakness, humiliation, torture, alienation, and dehumanizing abuse.  And our identification with the cross (whether we make that identification with a physical gesture, a verbal confession, or by means of a piece of jewelry) is only as meaningful as our identification with–our participation in–the entire pattern of life that resulted in Jesus' having to die on a cross in the first place.  

The cross is only the truth that saves us when the truth of the cross is replicated, reproduced, reincarnated in our lives.  Because the truth about the cross is that it wasn't merely a one-time event that saves all who believe.  It is by no means less than that.  But it is also a pattern to be followed by all who believe.  Belief that Jesus is the Way to life ought to produce believers who live the way that Jesus did – on a path of love that, in its world-defying self-giving, cuts so against the grain of the world that the its systems of power conspired to kill him because of His power's threat to theirs.  Our power turned Him into an unforgettable visual aid that reminds us of what we've become as a result of living according to our definitions of power: disfigured by violence, scarcely recognizable as human, pitiable, helpless, powerless.  He allowed all that to happen to Him, to Power itself, because it was the only way to restore us to what we were meant to be.  

Similarly, the resurrection wasn't just proof that Jesus was divine.  To those who believe, it most certainly does prove that.  But the resurrection was to provide us the hope that we need as we love and give ourselves away in the same way that Jesus did, and in so doing, quite possibly bring the hatred of the world upon ourselves in the same way that Jesus did.  The resurrection is the spark of hope that our souls need in order to continue living in what is still the only way to restore us to what we were meant to be–a way that we seem hell-bent (pun intended) on trying to avoid: the way of the cross.

Like Caiphas the high priest, not having the slightest idea of how truthfully he was speaking when he said that it would be better that one man die for the whole nation than for the whole nation to die (John 11:50), Constantine was speaking absolute truth when he told his soldiers, 'Thus saith the Lord: In hoc signo vinces!'  Whether we will perpetuate his lifting of that truth so out of its context that it became the very opposite of truth, that it created a church whose character and priorities stand in complete opposition to God's own character and priorities, depends on how diligent we will be about keeping the whole context in mind of Jesus' words to his disciples: "None of you can be my disciple unless you first deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me."

The Book of Revelation makes this power paradox abundantly clear: The Lion who conquers does so by means of first having given himself up to be sacrificed as the lamb (5:5-6).  Peter, who tried harder than anyone to evade the implications of being a disciple of a crucified Messiah (and ended up being called Satan as a result – let the reader understand), makes sure we have no room to assume that Jesus' sacrifice means we Christians get to ride off with into the sunset with the resurrected Lord; on the contrary, "He left you an example, that you might follow in His steps" (1 Pet 2:21).

Truth or Consequences (Truth Part V)

History is full of irony (a word that Alanis Morisette helped millions of fans to misuse...)

Just over 500 years ago, a monk by the name of Martin Luther attempted to call the Church to a life and practice that was more faithful to, and more in alignment with, the Bible.  In a move that anticipated (and perhaps catalyzed) the Western world's shift from monarchy to democracy, he translated the Bible into the language of his people and of his day–so they could read it for themselves, learn it independently of the authorized channels and sole official interpreters of the Scriptures: a highly educated and powerful elite within the Church who handed down teaching which all were to accept without question.  

Meanwhile, in Luther's home country, Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was just beginning to revolutionize society with the new reality of mass-production books. And at approximately the same time Luther was translating the Latin Bible into his native German (a rough 16th Century equivalent of Julian Assange publishing U.S. state secrets), another towering figure, the Swiss theologian John Calvin, wrote the following: "All right knowledge of God is born of obedience."  If the irony isn't already apparent, stay with me for just a little longer.  

The uneasy relationship between technology and faith is not new.  It stretches all the way from the brick-making technique introduced on the plain of Babel to the so-called worship wars that still plague some sectors of evangelicalism.  The significance of this is debated, but it is at least worth noting that, as far as anyone knows, Jesus never set foot in the Roman city of Sepphoris, a modern urban center replete with all the latest 1st Century Greco-Roman technology, located a mere 3.7 miles from Nazareth.

Technology has the potential to be harnessed for great good–including the kind of good that can both benefit Christians and be brought about by them for the benefit of the rest of the world.  That being said, researchers have convincingly demonstrated that technology changes the people who use it.  In popular Christian thinking, there is a formula that 'the message doesn't change, only the methods' (or media).  The Mennonite advertising executive-turned-pastor, Shane Hipps, says: think again.  In his view, the medium influences the reception of the message on such a profound level, that it ultimately becomes inseparable from it.  He goes so far as to say, "The medium is the message." *

A message delivered around a village campfire by one of the community's most respected elders (respected, not only because of his age, but because his whole life has been lived out in the public view; his status is derived not only from his age or position, but by his character), will be received very differently than the way you are receiving the message being communicated to you by the glowing pixels on your screen as you read this blog post.  I am writing on the shore of Lake Michigan.  You could be anywhere–and you may or may not know me.  The people sitting around the campfire, along with whatever news, lesson, or counsel is being given them, are also learning that truth is something that you obtain in community.  It has significance to you because of your belonging to a group with a specific history and with specific concerns.  There will be questions, probably starting with other respected leaders among the group: What does this mean for us?  Is there anything we need to do in response?  Can you explain what you meant by _______?  After the family units disperse to their homes, there will be further discussion and explanation in the home: This is great news!  There's no need to worry.  Something similar happened 15 years ago, so we know what to do to get through it this time...

The message you're getting right now could not be more different.  I learn truth in isolation.  If I have questions, I will come up with answers on my own–or open up google in a new tab.  There is no equivalent of the respected village elder in my world; instead, I go to teachers I respect and information sources that I trust.  Above all, I go to my friends.  I AM THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN DETERMINING THE RELIABILITY AND TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THESE SOURCES.  Your age and your cultural and ethnic background will go a long way in influencing how terrifying you find these words.  They represent a worldview shift of inestimable proportions; the scope and impact of their consequences for our world are as yet unknown.  Yes, the world has changed.  Going back is not an option.  And pining for the good-old days (ask around: there has never been such a time) and being critical of everything contemporary will do nothing except erode your credibility among those for whom this normal is not new.  It's just normal.

Right now, no small number of church-types are freaking out about the rise of what I call 'anti-social media' (I'm definitely giving my age away here), of VR, of the corrupting of a generation via violent and sexually explicit video games (they said the same thing about my generation, but the righteous indignation was mostly directed toward music).  Only two weeks ago, I was speaking to a group of junior-high and high-school students, telling them that they are going to have to be intentional about how they use technology so that it will be a force for good in their world–and that no one in my generation is going to be able to instruct them on how to do that because the way they use technology has changed them to an extent that we are unable to relate to the way that it mediates reality to them.  I am absolutely and completely ignorant of the 'mark' that it puts upon the message in the way that makes the medium and the message inseparable.

Here's the irony: just as Calvin was saying you have to obey God in order to know anything valid, Luther was saying that you can't trust the established authorities, and Gutenberg was paving the way that would eventually lead to you having all of the information in the world at your fingertips, as you do right now on your wi-fi enabled device (that you tend to use to stream cat videos and hip-hop rather than learning about the culture-creators who can help us understand how the world we inherited came to be.)  

What I can't help but wonder is: how did the spirit of Luther come to dominate that of Calvin?  (I also can't help but wonder if Luther would have done anything differently had he known there would be 30,000 Christian denominations in 2018).  I'm neither endorsing nor criticizing either of these theologians or their denominational descendants.  Nor am I eagerly awaiting the day when someone invents a time machine so I can go back and ensure that we end up with a world without books (Alanis: this is irony.)  But why do you suppose that "obey in order to learn" has taken such a distant second to "I am dependent upon no one; I am capable of comparing all claims about truth and reality and coming to the right conclusion about what is the accurate, reliable, and superior account of what's true"?

If you know the Bible at all, your head should be exploding with thoughts that link up with the story in Genesis 3.  There we find our story (whether you believe it is 'literally' true or not is of no consequence for this discussion) – the original crossroads where a choice we made irreversibly calibrated us toward a certain way of being in our world.  "Obey, and know God and everything else?  Nah – I think I'd rather find out for myself.  I don't want anyone telling me what I can and can't do."  There's a solid reason that the phrase 'learn it the hard way' refers to the same idea as 'ignore good advice.'  The Good News is: ever since that day, all throughout the process of us becoming a people who insist on learning without having to listen to a teacher, on knowing without having to obey an authority, God has been repeating the same message to us: walk in My paths, they will lead you to life.  The choice, now as always (and this should have major appeal for us), is ours – completely ours.  "For if, by the power of God's Spirit, you choose to obey God rather than continue to follow your deeply-ingrained tendency to do whatever you want to do, you will live.  To keep your mind focused on the things of the Spirit, and live with a determination to live in alignment with that Spirit: this–this is life and peace" (my paraphrase of Romans 8:13, 8:6).  What will it be for you?  Ultimate Truth?  Or the ultimate consequences...?

*The following two paragraphs build on ideas presented by Hipps in his book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture.  It's prophetic character grows with each passing year as technology develops in ways that Hipps couldn't have possibly anticipated. 

Faith and Science (Truth Part IV)

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For the last several posts, I have been investigating the relationship between experience and knowledge, facts and truth.  To my embarrassment, my M.O. has been similar to an approach referred to as apologetics.  Simply put, apologetics seeks to articulate Christian views in such a way as to make them palatable, acceptable, to the non-Christian world.

My problem with apologetics (to be discussed in much more detail in a series of later posts) is twofold: First, the Christian faith claims that becoming a follower of Christ involves a rebirth of the soul, the reception of a new heart, and a conversion of the mind.  As Paul says, "The things of the Spirit are discernible only by people of the Spirit."  It is only people who belong to Christ who have this Spirit.  Thus, the attempt to guide someone across the threshold of belief by means of explanation is destined to fail.  I can't just translate "Christianese" to you by outfitting my deepest beliefs in the latest logical and rational fashions.  The mind of faith is inaccessible to the mind that has not yet been invaded by, transformed by the Spirit.  Only after you believe what I believe can you see what I see.  If you do not believe, you could be more fluent in English that any human being on the planet, but you will still not be able to understand what I say.  In summary, apologetics offends me because it denies one of the core elements of Biblical Christianity–that Jesus opens the eyes of our hearts and enables us to see what was imperceptible to us before.

My second problem with apologetics is a logical consequence of the first.  If Christians claim to have the Truth, it should be so expansively and comprehensively true that it fits all other truths into it.  It should be the cipher that enables you to decrypt the secret code at the heart of everything, a pair of glasses that you put on that allows you to see how all things interrelate, interlock, and interpenetrate.  An example of this would be my reference In Part III to the way Jesus' proclamation that obedience to His commands results in a knowledge of the Truth prefigures the scientific method.  The meaningful content of both His statement and of the scientific method are essentially the same.  The fact that some of the earliest modern scientists were Christians demonstrates that the situation we now have–where a 'scientific' worldview stands in diametric opposition to a 'spiritual' one–was not always the case.  Science only becomes incompatible with the truth claims of the Bible when people who insist that both can't be True conspire unwittingly together to produce two worldviews: one in which there is only matter, and one in which matter is (to borrow a phrase from the physicist Brian Greene in a way that he would not likely endorse) "like the foam on an invisible ocean" of a vast spiritual reality.  

The situation becomes further complicated when some scientists (not all) refuse to be honest and acknowledge that the scientific worldview cannot and should not be used even in an attempt to make statements about anything non-material.  To put it another way, even the most advanced and specialized scientific training does not qualify the practitioner to offer any opinion about whether there is or is not a spiritual reality.  On the same token, Biblicists do not help the situation when they engage in explanatory contortions of Scripture at the first cry of 'aha!' from an atheistic scientist who says she has found proof that there is inaccuracy in the Bible.  For the person who believes, the Bible is never wrong.  There is only insufficient perspective from which to comprehend the Truth that the Bible holds.  

Scientists should be the first to admit to the problem of limited perspective.  To cite Brian Greene again: it would take a particle accelerator the size of the Milky Way Galaxy to test the latest theories about how subatomic particles behave.  "Ah yes! But at least science is always journeying toward a more and more coherent explanation of reality," you might say; "it doesn't have contradictions like the Bible does."  If and when you hear yourself saying something like that, interrupt yourself – you're just showing how little you know about science. (Don't interrupt someone else, that's rude.  Just smile and nod.)  Ask around: there are people alive today who remember when smoking was harmless, when asbestos wouldn't cause cancer, when Pluto was still a planet, and when Vitamin C helped your immune system fight off a cold (wait, what?)  Did you know that science cannot determine the velocity of a particle and its location at the same time?  At this very moment, scientists are wrestling with the problem of why the branches of science that deal with the largest bodies in the universe (astrophysics) and the smallest particles in the universe (quantum mechanics) seem to operate by two sets of rules that are mutually incompatible.  Please read between the lines: the word you're looking for is 'contradictory.'  Scientists just believe (have faith) that once the technology is available to provide the right perspective on the problem, we'll be able to see that everything fits together perfectly after all.  Right.  That's exactly what I believe about apparent contradictions in the Bible.

So in the end, the search for scientific truth mirrors the search for spiritual truth: You have to try to find out.  The big picture is so complex that you might not be able to reconcile the parts with the whole.  You might have to learn a lot before you realize that the more expertise you have, the more clearly you will see how little you know compared to what you have not yet understood.  But in faith as well as in science, believers are never frustrated by the ever-increasing gap between limited knowledge and complete understanding–each new question leads to wonder and excitement.  Each new mystery is an invitation to walk in accordance with given principles with the confident assurance that it will lead to answers.  ...or maybe, rather than answers, better questions.

So I guess I'll just 'leave this right here', as they say: science will never and cannot ever possibly contradict Jesus.  Science is simply the process of uncovering the principles by which Jesus created the universe and sustains it by His thought.  Maybe science will appear to contradict the Bible at times.  But that will only happen if and when the Truth that the Bible is trying to communicate cannot be articulated in the grammar of our current conception of 'facts' (or when the original author was using words to do something much more akin to a painting by Monet, or Picasso, or even Dali, than to a sculpture by Michelangelo or Rodin.)  As a Christian, it is my job to hear what the Bible is saying rather than attempt to reconcile it with people who believe in science.  I have to admit that I do not know what people mean when they say that, because usually they come across as though they think that statement should put me in my place at the bottom of the intellectual ladder that they are on the top rung of.  Actually, I believe in science too.  But no science can provide me with the type of answer I am looking for when I ask the question 'why?'  Following Jesus, on the other hand, always results in my 'why?' being swallowed up in Truth and replaced with a deeper and wider 'why?'  My questions get bigger, but my soul does too.

Faith, seeking understanding, finds.  Science, criticizing faith, declares, "Blind."  Faith, sympathetically, sighs, "It's you that can't see, but there's no fault with your eyes: I've been under your feet the whole time." 

Knowledge and Faith (Truth Part III)

The 12th Century theologian Anslem, borrowing from Augustine of Hippo, famously said, "Credo ut intellegam": I believe in order to understand.  That this statement would arise from within the Christian tradition makes all the sense in the world when you consider the claim of Jesus that we reflected on in Part II; "If you hold to my teaching, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."  Holding to the teaching of Jesus suggests at least some level of belief in Him.  The end result of this belief, Jesus says, is knowledge of the truth.

What is more surprising about Anslem's assertion is how prophetic (or prescient, if you prefer) it was with respect to the scientific revolution–the paradigm shift that, some 600 years later, would radically reshape the West's worldview lenses.  As you may or may not have blocked out from freshman year physical science class, the scientific method goes a bit like this:

• Step 1: form a hypothesis.                                                                                                              
• Step 2: develop an experiment to test the hypothesis.                                                                    
• Step 3: check your test results against the initial hypothesis.
• Step 4: modify the experiment until the predicted results are proven (or disproven).

Loosely speaking, at the 'proven' stage, you have what is referred to as a theory.  When your theory has been sufficiently scrutinized by the scientific community, tested and retested and found to yield consistent results, you may end up with a law named after you.

Remarkably, Jesus' challenge to believe in Him, to follow Him, to obey Him, and His accompanying claim that doing so will result in a knowledge of the truth, is nearly equivalent, structurally speaking, to this scientific method.  A hypothesis, in plain English, is a hunch–it's a guess... a belief that the elements of the material world will behave in a certain way when they interact, or are introduced into specific environments.  This hunch has to be followed by means of designing a process (an experiment) capable of putting your belief to the test.  A successful test yields knowledge–knowledge about the way things work, about the way things are.  In a nutshell, the actions produced by belief lead to a knowledge of the truth.  Change the phrase 'the actions' to the word 'obedience' in the previous sentence, and suddenly we're echoing Jesus rather than getting a refresher in high school science.

But is it any wonder that truth always validates truth?  Paul the Apostle, on trial for... well, for being too popular with the wrong kind of people, asked with exasperation, "Why does it seem incredible to any of you that God can raise the dead?"  How much more surprising should it be to us, then, that we are surprised when Jesus makes a statement about ultimate truth which then turns out to be true not merely in so 'subjective' a corner of life as religion, but also in the empirically verifiable world of 'objective' so-called facts?   

Copernicus made some observations about the stars, and believed that their motion suggested it was the earth that was circling the sun rather than vice versa.  At the time, what he believed was so contrary to established 'facts', that even when Galileo offered evidence that Copernicus was correct, he was required to publicly renounce the truth he had discovered.  When Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo set out to discover the movements of the heavens, it was impossible to prove their beliefs.  They had to proceed on faith, and in the process they were led to the truth–a truth that eventually set humanity free from the mistaken (and somewhat embarrassing, in retrospect) belief that the earth was the still center of the universe around which everything else orbited.  

Why is it so incredible to any of us today that Jesus' words might be just as provable, might just as certainly lead to knowledge by acting upon them in faith as any hunch followed up on by means of scientific inquiry?  Why is one of these forms of faith considered respectable, and the other pitiable?  (We'll have to put aside for the moment the question of why it is not typically acknowledged that both forms of experimentation are, in actuality, faith-based movements.)  I will put forth only a few out of the dozens of possible explanations:

1)  The lives of the Christians most people encounter offer very little in the way of compelling evidence that following Jesus results in people whose lives are significantly different than those who don't.  

2)  The shared life of believers in community (aka., the Church), offers little to no proof that what they proclaim about Jesus is true.

3)  People who identify themselves with Jesus do not resemble Him in any meaningful way.  A handful of quotes come to mind:  "I like your Christ; it's your Christians I do not like.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ" ~ Gandhi.  Or how about this one that I saw on a bumper sticker here in San Francisco: "Dear Jesus, please save us from your followers."  Finally, the one I've heard a hundred times, and even said myself (before I tried Jesus for myself): "If that's what a Christian is like, why in the world would I ever want to be one?"  To be brutally honest, at least one person has said that in reference to the quality of my representation of Jesus.

But it was G.K. Chesterton who managed to identify the problem and not just complain about the symptoms.  He boldly professed, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."  It's not that people have put the 'Jesus hypothesis' to the test and discovered that it does not lead to a knowledge of the truth that brings freedom.  They have either decided in advance that the Christian faith is just another fable designed to comfort the feeble-minded as they make their way through a life that is difficult, a life beyond which there is no other existence and in which there is no real meaning; or they have encountered people who call themselves Christians, who have tried just enough to inoculate themselves to the truth.  They have participated just enough in dead religion that they have been effectively vaccinated against eternal life, and are therefore incapable of exposing anyone else to what would otherwise be the most powerful of all contagions.  

The Book of Hebrews refers to the experience of the Spirit as a taste of the power of the age to come.  Peter writes about inexpressible joy and a hope that will require an explanation from people you encounter.  Paul speaks of peace that surpasses understanding, of knowing a love that is beyond comprehension, of a richness of life in God that is beyond anything you could think of, ask for, dream up, or dare to imagine, of a future so astonishingly good that no mind could conceive of it.  Life with Jesus is everything you want and aren't smart enough to ask for.  It's everything you need and don't love yourself enough to pursue.  

If this doesn't resonate with your experience with Jesus–or your impression of Christians–I would simply ask you to consider the possibility that the problem isn't Jesus.  Don't take my word for it. Take the 'Jesus test' for yourself.  He did not say, "Seek and you might find," but "Seek and you will find."  

What do you have to lose?  If the resurrection and divinity of Jesus is a tale His disciples made up to save face after their 'messiah' was crucified in shame and humiliation, you still have nothing to lose by holding to His teachings.  If nothing else, loving your enemies will probably result in you having fewer of them.  But if Jesus is the one by Whom, through Whom, and for Whom all things were created, if He is the One who fills everything in every way, if He is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, if He is the one in whom the fullness of God dwelled in bodily form, and in Him reconciled all things to Himself, then all you risk losing by not holding to His teaching is EVERYTHING.

As for me and my house, we will hold to His teachings, testing them through our obedience with the confident expectation that we will continue to discover the truth that brings freedom and eternal life.  What will it be for you?

Truth (Part II)

The concept of truth is closely related to knowledge.  Most of us wouldn't want to go around confidently claiming to 'know' something, only to find out that we are wrong.  Knowledge and truth, then, both relate to what we commonly call facts.  Knowledge is only valid – and truth only true – insofar as each corresponds to facts.

But have you ever wondered how we can be sure we know what we know?  As a child, I remember delighting in getting my mind all tied up in knots wondering if the maple tree leaves that I called 'green' looked the same to other people who looked at the same trees and also called them 'green.'  We can't get outside of ourselves to verify that what we see or experience is the same for anyone else as it is for us.  Besides, if I succeeded in becoming someone else, would I still be able to remember what green was like when I was me?  (Welcome to the mind of me as a 10-year-old.)

As it turns out, there is an entire sub-discipline of philosophy that deals with the question of how we know what we know – and whether we can even know that we know anything.  This branch of philosophy is called epistemology.  The root of that long word is 'pist', (from the Greek epistasthai), the same root as in the words dealing with faith/faithful/faithfulness, belief/disbelief/believe and trust/trustworthy.  This is much more interesting than it might appear at first glance.*

For centuries now, the dominant view (in Western culture, anyway) has been that valid knowledge comes from observable facts (meaning: measurable and provable by scientific instruments and processes–processes that can repeated with the same results).  We peer into space with telescopes, into atoms with microscopes, into cats with, well... scalpels.  When different people using the same tools and processes agree that the same things are there–or that the same reactions happen–we call the results facts, knowledge.

It wasn't until the last century or so that people really began to realize that we weren't taking into account the primary tool involved in all scientific observation–the most basic instrument of contact with reality: us.  The microscope doesn't tell anyone anything if there is nobody looking through it.  And as much as a telescope has a lens, you are a lens.  

This focus on detached observation and the corresponding blindness to participatory experience relate to each other in a mutually reinforcing way.  The resulting blindness is so profound, in fact, that we end up living at a level of ignorance that would be humorous if it wasn't so embarrassing–perhaps tragic, even.  Follow along with me here...

Our obsession with observable and provable facts has been adopted by leading Christian thinkers, translating into a skepticism toward 'religious' experience (disapprovingly referred to as 'enthusiasm', in response to which I offer the observation that many people find Christianity unappealing precisely because believers don't seem to be very enthusiastic about their faith).  Experience, so the experts say, is not to be considered a reliable source of knowledge of or about God.  Imagine that you're interviewing for a position as a software programmer, and the interviewer asks you, "So... what kind of experience do you have?"  You answer, "Well, honestly I don't believe that experience is a reliable source of knowledge."  Interview over.  Or you climb onboard the Airbus A330 flying from San Francisco to Honolulu operated by Hawaiian Airlines.  As you walk through the cabin door, the pilot happens to be standing there.  It's your first time on a plane, and you're a little bit nervous about flying over 2,400 miles of open, shark-infested ocean, so you ask her, "How many hours of flying experience do you have?"  How reassured are you going to be when she tells you that she's never flown before, but there's no need to worry! – she has the flight manual and plane schematics memorized?

I would like to suggest that if we accept, and even insist, that experience is a reliable source of knowledge in some areas (that it is a valid epistemic faculty, to put it in philosophical terms) then it is glaringly inconsistent to exclude it as a reliable source of knowledge when it comes to God.  As it would happen, Jesus agrees.  He said, "If you hold to my teaching, then you will know the truth" (italics mine).  'Doing' is by nature an experience.  Just like practice time in the cockpit of an airplane, you know about flying in a way that was impossible for you to know beforehand, without ever having had the experience of controlling an aircraft.  Jesus draws this exact same type of parallel between obeying His teaching, and knowing the truth.  Correct me if I'm guilty of faulty logic (logic being another major sub-discipline of philosophy), but I'm pretty sure that Jesus said that it is only by the experience you build up when you obey Him, that you arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Just one more example from the Bible, and then I'll get back to why the fact that we have to remind ourselves of this is humorous/tragic.  God, speaking about Josiah (one of Judah's kings in the 8th Century B.C.), says, "He did what was right and just... he took up the cause of the poor and needy... is that not what it means to know me?" (Jeremiah 22:15-16).  Doing what is right and just, and defending the cause of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the foreigners just happen to be behaviors that God repeatedly commands in the Hebrew Scriptures.  In other words, Josiah knew God–knew the Truth–by means of his experience of obeying.

Back to my childhood: my neighbor, Dan Michowski, used to say to me, "Don't knock it 'til you try it."  The slightly less obnoxious version of this that is still no less understandable to a child is: you'll never know until you try.  As a third-grade Spanish student, presented for the first time with guacamole made by Señora Cangelosi, I understood that I would never know what it tasted like until I had the experience of putting it in my mouth.  (It's probably no coincidence that the Bible says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" Psalm 34:8.)  Yet somehow, the journey from Grade 3 to Ph.D. has earned some of our most brilliant thinkers a degree in forgetfulness.  With all of their applied disciplines of academic rigor and analytical precision, they have arrived at the authoritative evaluation: 'invalid' with respect to a principle so basic that we have to be reminded that we knew it before we knew what guacamole tasted like.  Again, Jesus' words come to mind: "I thank You Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, for hiding these things from the 'wise' and revealing them to little children" (Matthew 11:25).

What is Truth?  According to Jesus, it is Him (see Part I below).  How can I know the Truth?  Through the lived experience of following His instructions.  "If you keep my teaching, then you will know the truth...

...and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32).

*It will take another post to explore the connections between faith and knowledge.

Truth (Part I)

"Veritas.  Quid est veritas?"  In Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, this is how the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, sarcastically replies to Jesus in response to His claim that His reason for coming into the world was to testify to the truth.  More than likely, Pilate spoke to Jesus in Greek: "Ti estin aletheia?"  But that is beside the point.  Or is it...?

If, as one friend of mine puts it, 'The truth is what happens', then it is not true that Pilate asked Jesus, "Quid est veritas?", or "What is truth?", but rather, "Τι εστιν αληθεια?"  If this all seems very technical and irrelevant, bear with me.  (As they say in law shows on TV: I'm going somewhere.)

If the truth is 'what happens', then truth is one of Earth's billions of women giving birth to her baby girl somewhere in a slum in São Paulo, Brazil; truth is one of the universe's billions of stars going supernova somewhere beyond the focal distance of our most powerful telescopes - and absolutely everything else in between.

With a definition of truth as basic, as simple even as this, is it any wonder that Pilate would cynically dismiss the possibility of ever grasping such a vast reality?

But it is not this simple.  One of the main ways truth comes to us is as information, and all information is filtered through a specific perspective.  All it takes to illustrate this is to compare the national news on a conservative media outlet and then a liberal one.  There is only one set of facts that faithfully represent what has actually happened on any given day, but by focusing on some facts at the exclusion of others, it is possible to create any number of significantly different versions of what took place.   If you were to try this right now, it would be understandable if you found yourself wondering whether the two news segments were even talking about the same country.  To paraphrase a quote one of my friends picked up from a college professor: "All truth is just a matter of emphasis."†

I could provide dozens of example, but let's just look at one more.  On any given Sunday, I (or whoever is speaking at the church) will preach a sermon at a high volume and with a considerable level of emotional intensity.  A church member might leave feeling exhilarated, challenged, and inspired to face another week of life in San Francisco.  A visitor might leave feeling beat up, beat down, and so discouraged that he will think long and hard before ever venturing back into Glad Tidings.  The same event.  Two truths.  What could possibly account for two people having such different experiences of the exact same sermon?  Well, the member might be brand new to faith, and may have had nothing but positive experiences with church and Christians.  And the visitor might have grown up the child of a pastor who delivered loud and impassioned sermons on Sunday morning – and beat his wife and children on Sunday night.°

This experiential aspect of truth is why the last couple of generations have started using the expression, 'As long as it's true for you', as a way of acknowledging that our insistence upon any one version of the facts doesn't do any justice - it is insensitive, in fact - to the unique impact that events have on us as individuals.  Further, 'what happens' in Mogadishu, Somalia is radically different than what happens in San Francisco, California.  Even within San Francisco, what happens in the Tenderloin (homelessness, addiction, muggings, murder) couldn't be further from what happens in Sea Cliffs, less than two miles away ($32 million homes, views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean, Maseratis, celebrity sightings).  

If we accept this definition of truth, it puts us in a similar position as someone trying put together a puzzle.  The picture our finished puzzle portrays can only be as full, as representative of 'what happens', as the pieces we are provided by way our experiences, via the information that we have access to, and according to the perspective that information is given to us.  With this in mind, it should only take a moment to realize that in order for the image our puzzle creates to come anywhere near the truth, we would need to have billions and billions - nearly an infinite number, even - of puzzle pieces.  The vast majority of these pieces containing experiences, information, and perspectives that will never be available to us.

But even if we could somehow arrive at a place of perspective from which we could see everything that will ever happen, and understand it through the specific filters of the individuals living through their circumstances, do we really accept that there is no deeper significance to existence than everything that ever has happened or will happen?  Are we satisfied with truth being nothing more than a matter of emphasis?  Doesn't the expression, 'It just rings true to me' reveal that, at our core, we have an persistent conviction that there is something so real that it can only be described as The Truth?  Might it make more sense to suggest that the truth is what really IS?  ...which makes it all the more interesting that one of the ways that God (and Jesus) refers to Himself in the Bible is "I AM."

Quid est veritas?  The irony of Pilate asking Jesus this question will never be surpassed until the end of time.  Because earlier in the Gospel, Jesus says, "I AM the Truth."  This is an astonishing claim.  Try to imagine saying that about yourself.  Once Jesus said those words, everyone who hears them has a decision to make.  If Jesus is not the Truth, then nothing else He said or did matters.  He is either delusional or the worst kind of con-artist.  But if Jesus really IS the Truth, then He is the only thing that really matters at all.*

Can we know the Truth?  According to Jesus, yes.  He said that if you follow His instructions, you will know the Truth.  Not only that, but knowing this Truth will set you free.  The Bible says that He is the exact representation of God, that everything that is was created by Him, for Him, and through Him.  It also says that He is before and above all things (which I suppose He would have to be in order to create them in the first place.)  In Him all things hold together and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found.   That means that the Truth is not so much a WHAT but a WHO.

How can I know this Truth?  Try Jesus.  Try trusting Him.  Try following His instructions.  How can we do this?  We can do this because Jesus lived His own teaching.  His entire life was one long demonstration of how to live.  That's why it makes sense that Jesus not only said that He was the Truth, but also that He was the Way.  When you live the way that Jesus lived, you get to know Him.  

Jesus said that to know Him is eternal life.  So when you follow Jesus, you will not only find yourself on a path that gives you such an entirely new perspective that you will only be able to refer to it as THE Way, you will have a life so rich and fulfilling and free, that it will only make sense to describe it as THE Life, a life that exploding with such a power that it is impossible to imagine anything in all eternity ever being able to extinguish it.

Do you want to know The Truth?

"If you seek Me, you will find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." - The I AM; He who was, and who is, and who is to come.

† Shout out to Phil Aud – philaud.com

° Thank you to Santiago Duran for planting the seed of this idea.

* This is a condensed and modified line of reasoning that was made famous by C.S. Lewis in the book Mere Christianity.

Bible Devo July 3

Josiah's response to God's word in today's reading* should get our attention. This is what the fear of the Lord looks like. It's a posture of the heart that cannot help but lead to repentance and obedience. 

Further, even though God says clearly through the prophet Huldah that, though His judgment is certain, it will only come after Josiah's death, Josiah still pursues righteousness with zeal and abandon. 

Compare that to Hezekiah's apathetic reaction to that same promise the other day. 'At least it won't happen in my lifetime,' he says to himself. And then he proceeds to flaunt all of his nation's wealth to the envoy from Babylon. 

We don't see this until 2 Chronicles, but ultimately pride led to the downfall of these men who were in all other respects men like David, men who served the Lord with all their heart and soul. 

So, first: let's ask for genuine fear of the Lord. The kind that leads to repentance and all-out obedience to God's will. 

Second: let's remember that there's a generation coming after us - and we should live our lives with an intent to set them up for success in their life with God. 

Third: let us remember and never forget to stay humble, teachable, correctable - so that our pride doesn't spoil the end of a life story that otherwise reflects a total commitment to God, so that our security doesn't lead us to complacency about the legacy we leave for those coming after us, and so our stubbornness doesn't lead us down a path that, like Josiah, literally cuts our lives short.

*from July 3 One Year Bible reading, NLT 

Bible Devo June 22

In today’s reading*, God miraculously provides for His people over and over, in a different way each time. 

Abundant water for the desperately thirsty, victory over attacking enemies, provision for the impoverished widow and her sons, a child for the barren woman, healing for the crippled man.  What an amazing reminder to us of the power and love of God!

I encourage you to remind yourself today that this is the very same God you and I serve and worship. This is the same God who has called us (yes, us!) and chosen us to put His Kingdom on display in this City.  

If there is need or scarcity in your life, if you are feeling crushed by hopes that never materialized or a situation that just isn’t showing any signs of improving – 

I pray that faith would arise in your heart this morning.  That you would fix your eyes on the One who knows exactly where you stand, exactly what you’re going through, and exactly what you need.  He has the supply – and He loves you perfectly.  So you can rest in Him, in the confidence that He will bring the answer at just the right time – and that He will sustain you while you wait on Him for it.

And as you wait, He will use you: in the middle of your brokenness, your thirst, your scarcity, your apparent barrenness and defeat  - as a portal between heaven and earth, to pour out His supply through your surrendered heart to meet the needs of the people around you whom He so passionately desires to know His love. 

Shake yourself from the dust, child of the King - He is shining in you. Let that light S H I N E.

*from June 22 One Year Bible reading, NLT

Leadership Devo May 15

Three Scriptures which you know well come to mind this morning:

1.) Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. When we fall into giving the best of our energies trying to take care of the 'everything else' part first - to take care of it ourselves, and seek God with what's left over, we will be running on empty. We may have gained the illusion of life, but we will have lost the true life that only comes from being exclusively and securely rooted in God. 

2.) Do not be anxious about anything, rather, in everything, by prayer and petition, make your requests known to God. When we take responsibility upon ourselves without surrendering control to God and acknowledging His sovereignty over our situation, we forfeit not only the peace that surpasses understanding, but also 'God's incredible power that works in those who believe in Him.'  This is really just a secondary application of Matthew 6:33. 

3.) I am involved in a great work. Why should I stop what I  doing to come and speak with you? (Nehemiah). I hope you're picking up the theme here. This is Matthew 6:33 again. The enemy wants to distract you from the work you're doing building God's house. He'll stir up opposition from among your own people and from among those who are your 'enemies'.  The minute we turn our gaze to the opposition we stop working on building. We put down not only our tools, but also our swords. So now our forward progress has stopped - and we're defenseless against the enemy. 

1 (seek first) is the principle. 

2 (take your requests to God) is the application for success in your interior life. 

3 (stay focused on the goal) is the application for success in the world of relationships and conflict in ministry. 

I pray that you'll take this to heart today, this week, this month - and establish it as part of your everyday walk with God