Turn. Turn. Turn. No, not that song.

In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

The word for turn is straphēte.  The idea here is "to experience an inward change, turn, change (BDAG)". Jesus is not calling them to "repent", in Matthew that idea is expressed by the word, metanoeō.  However, he is calling them to change.  They must "turn". The disciples must experience an inward change.  From the inside out they must become something different.

Consider where we are in the life and ministry and Jesus.  We are near the end.  Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem, he is going to be sacrificed.  These disciples were a group of men who were about have their lives changed dramatically.  They are concerned who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom and Jesus calls them to change.

They are still proud, arrogant, and haughty.  They refuse to ask for help.  The disciples believe that they know it all.  There is not an answer they don't know other than "who is the greatest".  They sounds like typical adolescents.  These teenagers had become so caught up in themselves that Jesus called them to change.

I think that the issue becomes more clear when we look at verse 4, "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." There is a juxtaposition between the disciples question of "greatness" over and against the "humility" of the child.  To get there one has to have an inward change.

Turn.

Jesus simply calls them to turn. Turn to away from themselves to humility.

This is the beauty of Jesus' call turn.  It is never empty.  It is always to something.  To act in humility, to be humble is a state of heart and soul. Most children I know are humble.  They ask for help.  They ask "why".  They know that they don't know.  They are interested but rarely self-interested.

I think we must all face this call to "turn".  I know I do. How about you?  In what ways do you need to turn?

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Kids are annoying, sniveling, little...or Theology of Youth Pt. 1

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
(Matthew 18:1–6 ESV)

In our churches today children and youth are the silent ones.  They are dropped off in their wings of a church for two hours so Mom and Dad can "worship in peace".  The harried teachers are expected to form these young spiritually to make them into mature Christians.  Why? I think it is because we do not have a comprehensive understanding of youth and children from a scriptural stand point.

Let's consider this statement by Jesus (the "founder and perfecter of our faith") from Matthew 18.  This is one of those passages that should cause to stop and think about things for a moment.  In the first century children were treated similarly to ours only without the cool cartoon characters and ping pong tables.  They were largely considered an inconvenience until they could be productive adults in the synagogue and society.

Jesus says that one who has become like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  What does this mean? I think that we have a hard time understanding this because we push our kids to the fringes of our communities of worship. I love the fact that the Presbyterian tradition includes infant baptism because it drives home the reality that children are participatory members of the community of faith. While this is what we ought to be embracing, we do not. We are going to have a hard time knowing and understanding what it means to be a child in the kingdom when we do not worship with them.

A child asks questions, incessantly.  A child laughs when things are funny.  A child laughs when things are inappropriate.  A child can not sit still.  A child finds mystery, wonder, and awe in the smallest of things (just watch one looking at the dust particles in a ray of sunlight sometime). A child believes their dad when he tells them something. A child loves the outsider. A child trusts. A child has fun.  A child dances to the beat.  A child loves to read.  A child loves.

Unfortunately these things about children annoy us.  We find them disruptive.  "A child is to be seen not heard."

It gets worse, they get pimples and hormones.  They get attitudes and they question everything.  They seek for identity and authenticity.  They no longer take simple answers to complex questions.  They grow and change and develop.  They look weird. They have awkward stages.

Unfortunately these things about growing children annoy us.  We find them disruptive.

Jesus is the great subversive.  He graciously embraces the fringes and broken.  Those without identity he shows them who they are.  So, the question is will you embrace the child?

Our next post will focus on one word: "turn".

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Theology of Youth

Whitney said, "I believe the children our future..." I think that song begins to run through the minds and hearts of people when they begin to hear people talk about children or youth in the church.  They immediately think "future".  Oddly enough many of us ignore the second line, "Teach them well and let them lead the way."  What would happen if the children led the way?

I think that we might play more.  I think that we might laugh more.  I think that we might collapse at the end of each day in joyful exhaustion more often.  I think that we might smile more.

It is interesting is it not that we as the Christian church have largely removed leadership from the hands of the young.  Is it not also interesting that the great revivals in the history of the church have often been led by the young?  Do we wonder why we have not seen a great revival in this generation? Could it be that our understanding of the role of children and youth has become anemic?

I am going to take a couple of posts to walk through the references in Matthew 18, 19 (and parallels) and Proverbs 22 to children with the goal of developing some type of "Theology of Youth".  What role do they play in the community of faith? What kind of leadership should we give to them? What does is it look like to embrace children and youth in the context of the church community?

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Review: Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=danielmroseco-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=0849946018 Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, published by Thomas Nelson.  Jesus Manifesto brings Jesus to the front and center.  Sweet and Viola seek to highlight Jesus' sovereignty and supremacy. This is a great little text that is worth the read.  I found it to be very devotional and it met its goal of bringing Jesus front and center.  It is always good to be reminded of the centrality of Jesus to the life of the believer.

This not a book that wows you.  There is nothing controversial or new.  It is a book that you read and then you find yourself thinking about an illustration from it. It is a book you read and then find yourself mulling over some description of Jesus.  It is a book you read and then find yourself quoting it to someone else in conversation.

The only thing that twinged me as a downside was from the introduction. The comment made there is, "So what is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. (xxii)"  I agree that Jesus is central to the Christian. However, to say that Jesus is the full sum of the Christian faith is not exactly accurate. I would suggest that this be edited to highlighting his centrality. This statement by Sweet and Viola I think pushes down toward the problematic view of "me and Jesus" that is predominant in our post-modern world.

Overall: grab the book.  It's always worth the time remind ourselves how incredibly great Jesus is.

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Dude, that ain't cool. Objections answered.

It has been difficult to post recently as life and ministry have been very busy and margin continues to get swallowed up.  However, writing is a necessary output for my own spiritual formation, so I am taking some steps to build this into my schedule.  Thanks to all of you who have inquired as to the missing blog posts in your RSS feeds.  It does my heart good to know that both of you are reading this blog.

Infant baptism has fallen by the wayside in much of evangelical Christianity.  So, when you post about this topic you get some good conversation via tweets and different formats where some great questions are asked. I wanted to answer these objections and questions in a post.

1. What about those kids who get baptized and don't walk with God?  That's a very good question. I think that the first thing is to realize that God is on a different time frame than we are.  Just because someone has not yet responded to the gospel does not mean they won't.  The sacrament is not a guarantee to faith.  Infant baptism provides an opportunity for the people of God to walk along and trust him to save this child. This is about God not about us. Finally, the sacrament is also to show that the child of believing parents is a member of the covenantal community and that we can look forward in hope that they will publicly profess their faith. (This is edited, thanks to Laura who helped clarify some poor logic in the comments below.)


2. I heard that infant baptism is believed to actually give salvation to the infant, is that true? This is true or false depending on your tradition.  The two major divisions are catholic and protestant.  The catholic understanding of the sacraments is very different than that of the protestant tradition. The catholic understanding of the sacraments is that they procure grace for you.  The protestant understanding is that the sacraments are a means to experiencing grace. This means that in the protestant tradition salvation is not procured by infant baptism.  It is an external promise that  will some day become an internal reality. It is a marking that the children of believing parents are members of the covenant community of faith. In baptist traditions children are not part of the community of the church but are viewed as outsiders until they "make profession of faith".  This is in stark contrast to what we see in the Scriptures where children have always been included in the community of faith. So, infant baptism does not secure salvation but inclusion in the community of faith with the promise of future salvation.


3. Should I get re-baptized now that I have trusted Christ and am no longer a part of a tradition that does infant baptism? I would say, "By no means!" Why?  This is because the day you were baptized there was a promise made over you by God.  He has made good on this promise.  If you choose to re-baptize then you are saying that you do not care about the fact that God has made good on his promise.  I would argue that you should praise God for his faithfulness and rejoice with those around you about how God saved you and did so in covenantal faithfulness to you.

I am sure there are more objections.  These are the one that seemed to come up the most.  Please post others in the comments so that we can dialogue about them.

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