Scripture Says...

I don't typically like engaging directly with celebrity pastors. This morning though I saw a number of people in my Facebook sharing a post by Joel Osteen. The post was typically shared with comments like, "Amen" and "Yes". Take a look,

Post by Joel Osteen Ministries.

It makes me really sad to see things like this written by "pastors". Especially pastors that have the following of Osteen. They tag "Scripture says..." to stuff and unfortunately people take it as true because, "he's a pastor."


Osteen is part of a wing of Christianity called, "Word of Faith". In a nutshell, they believe that if you speak words with enough faith that God will give you what you want. God, in essence, is a genie. The bummer is that he's not even a very good genie because you have to really believe and if you don't get what you want then you didn't really believe.

When we say, "Scripture says..." we are standing before the world and saying something akin to "Thus says the Lord..." If we do that, we better be darn sure that it's the truth. Most of the word of faith folks take nice axioms and add "scripture says..." to try and give them authority and make it sound as though they are speaking for God. The sad thing is that this simply leads folks astray.

What might be a better choice for Osteen would have been,

Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success! - Psalm 118:25

You see, the Scriptures do speak of success and asking God for it. However, it is typically connected with repentance. Repentance does not play well with our audience because it requires an admission of sin and brokenness.

We want an easy faith and cheap success. Jesus put it this way,

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he [Jesus] said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

The one who is following Jesus is not promised the easy life or the successful life. She is promised to experience cross carrying. Following Jesus is not easy. He calls us to places of discomfort. He calls us to deny ourselves. Self-denial is painful.

The life of the follower of Jesus is that of faith. Hebrews 11 is so very challenging because after the author lists all the great heroes of faith he writes this,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Now we come back to what Osteen says that Scripture supposedly states, "Scripture says, “Blessed are those who look for, who long for, and who expect His victory." Believe that today is your day." While those who live by faith are blessed, they are blessed by entering the heavenly country. But beyond that, Scripture simply does not say this.

After doing a little searching the best I can come up with as to where this could be in Scripture is Isaiah 30:18,

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

When you look that passage up in the amplified text you can piece together Osteen's quote. However, the context of this passage is repentance from exile. It is about waiting on God for justice against the enemies of God's people. The people of God were looking to enter into a treaty with Egypt but God didn't want them to. He is telling them if they will trust him, he will bring justice.

I would encourage you to spend some time reading in Deuteronomy (13 and 18) and thinking about how it informs us in regards to people over stating what "the Scripture says...". It's a little intense.

Read More

50 Years From Now...

It happens with everything. The cadence of time and progress keep moving forward. The things we experience today will look nothing like they did in the past. Some things though take a turn and we begin to realize that maybe the old ways were not as bad as we thought and we return to our roots.
I was asked by a friend what I thought the church would look like in 50 years. To warn you, this is pure opinion, speculation, and verbal processing.

I think in some ways it will look very similar to what it does now. There will be large mega-churches, the Catholic and Orthodox churches will continue on as they have for two millennium, and there will be heated discussions about the form and function of the worship gathering.

I think the Megas will largely be legacy churches. That is, they will survive as generation after generation of family stays connected there. They are already beginning to lose influence with people who are far from God. Their pragmatic methodology is slowly beginning wear thin and the lack of discipleship is starting to show.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches will keep on keeping on. The beauty of the tradition will keep many close. The stability and structure will draw in those from emerging generations that feel like their lives are out of control and they need a touchstone of stability.

The center of the Christian world is already shifting or has shifted to the Southern hemisphere. It is growing fast. The Northern hemisphere is becoming a receiving place and this trend will continue. It will be interesting to see the rise of the Southern academy and the questions they ask and answer.

Ultimately though, I think the Church is going to have to move away from the institution on a large scale and recapture its movement principles. Global Christianity will need to look more like the Chinese church and less like the American seeker church. The Church I think will need to be smaller, more nimble, and more focused on discipleship.

I think that Protestants are going to need to learn from their Catholic and Orthodox brethren about the importance of the "parish" structure. I don't think that you will see a reunification of the three major branches of the faith.

I do not see a major persecution arising in the West. At least not the kind that we see in Sharia countries in the Middle East. Christians in the West are going to have to become more thoughtful, pursue higher education, and engage more deeply in the culture as change agents.

The church is going to have to wrestle with two very important questions: sustainability and replication. How can it sustain itself and how can it replicate?

I think at the end of the day we can sum it up like this...

Read More

Saturday is for Baseball

So far in the 28 days of blogging I have been hitting on some heavy stuff. But, today is Saturday. Saturdays are supposed to be fun! They were the days of sugar cereal (I preferred Cap'n Crunch Berries) and cartoons.

The best part of Saturday was, This Week In Baseball...

I loved TWiB! This was before Sportscenter and cable. TWiB and Mel Allen were the best way for a kid like me to learn about all the teams in MLB. I would have my baseball card collection out and watch the show. Then NBC's game of the week would come on and it seemed like it was always Ozzie Smith and the St. Louis Cardinals. 

I loved those Saturdays because I could see National League teams. The sadness that is "inter-league" play wasn't conjured up yet. 

The NL teams were small and fast. They stole bases and bunted. It was different than watching my Tigers play. We were big and strong with guys like Larry Herndon and Kirk Gibson. There was something romantic about the NL. 

When I moved to Normal, IL I found myself in Cardinal country. Amy and I loved watching the Cardinals play. This was about the time the Albert Pujols burst onto the scene and began dominating the league. What struck me as I watched the games was how much strategy was involved in the NL as opposed to the AL. 

I was used to seeing big boys fill a lineup and mash. It seemed like every team in the DH ridden AL was playing for the 3R Home Run. The NL teams didn't have that luxury. With pitchers hitting the managers had to make hard decisions about how to use their bench. 

Living in a NL town made it clear that the DH is an abomination. It takes much of the fun and strategy out of the game. Besides, how much more intense is it when a pitcher brushes a guy off high and tight and then the next inning has to stand in the box himself? 

I say get rid of the DH and let's get back to playing ball.

Ahh...baseball. 

Read More

Sheeps and Wolves

The story of man goes like this, God made humankind in his own image and it was very good. Humankind broke relationship with God by trying to be God and it got bad, really bad, really quick.


Have you ever thought much about the spiral of sin in the world? It's really quite heartbreaking to consider the great brokenness that exists in humanity. The first known sin was Adam's passivity, a sin of omission.  Then Eve takes the fruit of the tree, a sin of commission. Then, together they experience guilt and shame. They shift blame. God gives mercy and clothes them and sends them out of his presence. The next recorded sin: fratricide. That's, quite literally, one hell of a leap.

The killing of Abel sets the scene for the downward spiral and brokenness of humanity. It points to the thirst of violence in our hearts. We see this played out over and over again. Man killing man. We live in the most violent time in human history. Wars are constant. Violent crime is everywhere. Murder is so common in our cities that it largely goes unreported.

It seems as though the wolves are winning. The sheep are running for their lives.

So, what do we do about this?

The debate rages about whether or not people should have guns. The general public needs to arm itself, the argument goes, to be protected from the wolves that are on our doorstep. We need to allow the sheep to protect themselves from the wolves.

The other side of the argument is that violence begets violence. More guns means more violence which means more pain and suffering. Get rid of the guns and you get rid of the violence.

The problem is that both sides of the argument are broken. Neither side begins with the reality that we are a sinful, broken, people. We have violence as part of who we are. An armed public does not necessarily protect the sheep, it typically creates more wolves. A disarmed public does not necessarily decrease the violence, it just makes it easier for the wolves to eat.

When we understand and take seriously the brokenness of humanity, then it appears to me, that we find a third way.

There is great fear in some of those in authority. This fear, I think, comes from a lack of faith and trust in the sovereignty of God. Paul writes in Romans 13,

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

We see in this little passage some important principles based on God's kingdom rule. First, the governing authorities have been placed there by God. Second, those in authority are there to protect the good and bring wrath to the wrongdoer. Now, there are all kinds of questions that this passage raises due to the context historically. However, the more I have studied it, I am convinced that Paul was not speaking sarcastically here. We are to rest under the authorities over us as protectors of good.

I am grateful to know two men who are police officers. These men represent the sword. The fact of the matter is that I do not fear for my safety because I trust that these two men are representative of their profession. They are out there fighting the wolves and protecting the sheep. God has placed them in this role for the express purpose of carrying out justice.

If one experiences terror over those in authority we must ask "why?". It's not easy, especially in places like China and India where there is rampant persecution of the Church by those in power. How do we reconcile this reality with Romans 13? I don't know.

What I do know, is that in our context in the United States we do not fear the sword of the authorities.

Now, pastors, we have a role in this too. We are to preach the gospel in season and out. As we do, lives change. More people begin to have the image of God renewed in them and under the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit violence is dialed back. More people trust God and trust his providential reign to protect them.

So what does this have to do with gun control? Not much. What it has to do with is more about protecting the sheep from the wolves. If we will encourage the sheep dogs (our police) and if the shepherds would faithfully preach the gospel, we will begin to see fewer wolves because they will cease to be wolves but become sheep, following the Good Shepherd.

Read More

I Didn't Watch It...

In case you didn't hear, there was a debate this week. Bill Nye The Science Guy debated Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis. They were to have a debate on origins. Nye, a television personality, and Ham, a Christian celebrity, apparently went on for over two hours. My Facebook stream was filled with commentary from my friends who follow Jesus and my friends who don't. But, I didn't watch it, and won't.


Based on Facebook here is what I know about the debate:

• Ken Ham won. 
• Bill Nye won.
• Ken Ham preached the gospel.
• Bill Nye argued that religion hurts children.
• Ken Ham didn't really stay on topic.
• Bill Nye mostly stayed on topic.
• Ken Ham mocked Bill Nye a little bit.
• Bill Nye mocked Ken Ham a little bit.

This is exactly what I thought would happen. The convinced on both sides thought "their guy" won and was better than the "other guy". I assumed it would devolve into a bit of name calling and apparently it did. Thankfully, not very much though.  

The secularists in my newsfeed found Ham to be ignorant, backwards, and yet a polished speaker. The Christians found Nye to be intelligent but close minded and twisted the facts to suit his hypothesis.

Here's the thing, neither man was really up to the task of what they were expected to do. This was to be a scholarly debate on issues surrounding the origins of the universe. The debaters were not scholars and for all intents and purposes are entertainers. 

During the campaign season the news feels that it is important to tell us who celebrities and athletes are voting for. Why? Who cares? Celebrities and athletes are no different than anyone else. If there was a presidential debate where the debaters were two movie stars instead of the presidential nominees, I would not watch either. Why? Because they're not qualified to really deal with the issue at hand. 

This "debate" on origins was no different. 

These were not the best that either side had to offer. They were celebrities on a stage, entertaining the masses. They succeeded. 

My friend Dennis nailed it:

Post by Dennis Leskowski.

Sadly though, they did not further the conversation. They just created more noise. The "debate" simply furthered the ridiculous science vs religion dichotomy. These are two things not at odds with one another.

Read More

Stop It! Just Stop It!

I love this piece by Bob Newhart where he plays a counselor,

"Stop it! Just stop it!"

I wrote yesterday about how hypocrisy is a sore subject for those of who seek to follow Jesus. It's brutally tough because we are compared by the whole world to Jesus. That is our name after all isn't it? "Christian" or "little Christ". Jesus is the plumb line and we fall short.

Our lives don't reflect well the life of Jesus. But, our words, oh our words, they are demand it and we preach and we preach and we preach. We tell others and one another how we are to live and then our lives fall dramatically short of our words.

HYPOCRITES!

The charge is accurate.

Many of us respond by trying really hard to be better. We try to be good people. We apply a lot of effort into being like Jesus. Our lives get disciplined, we create rules for ourselves to keep us on the straight and narrow. We give it everything we have and we experience failure. That failure creates in us shame and guilt or it hardens us and makes us even more ardent to work harder.

One of my favorite passages in all Scripture is found in Ephesians 2, it reads:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Every time, every, single, time, I read those words I am left in awe of God. His grace abounds to us. He saved his followers not because of their works, but in spite of them.

Did you catch that? He saved us not because of what we did but in spite of what we did. This is what grace is all about. I don't deserve to be in a relationship with God and be forgiven of my sin. Yet, he did all that anyway.

Beautiful.

The thing is we get so caught up in the "saving" bit that we stop reading and start celebrating. The last sentence is just as important as the first. We are God's workmanship created for good works, which he prepared for us. This should overwhelm us! The good lives and works that we are supposed to do God has ready for us, by his grace!

If we could understand this truth about how we are to grow and live and love in faith by grace it would change everything.

When someone becomes a follower of Jesus they do so because they understand that they can't get right with God on their own. They are in a position of brokenness. Then a funny thing happens they start trying to live for God on their own apart from grace. When we do this, we have moved ourselves away from the beauty of the gospel. We set ourselves up to be hypocrites because our words and our actions will inevitably not match up.

But, if we're living in faith, trusting in God's overwhelming grace for how we live then something happens to our words. Instead of "you should's" and "I ought to's" they become penitent and humble. Our preaching becomes an admission of our own weakness and desire to be more like Jesus and how through his grace we are starting to see his character and competency developed in our lives.

You see the follower of Jesus who is well aware of his sin and brokenness is also acutely focused on the grace and mercy of Jesus. She must live there and as a result her life reflects the gospel story. A story of how broken people separated from God are reunited with him through his self-sacrifice and grace.

How do we get lose of the charge of hypocrite? We live into grace (tweet this). We look at our efforts to measure up to Jesus and we just, "Stop it!"

Read More

You're A Hypocrite!

E. Stanley Jones, the missionary to India, asked Ghandi: “Mr Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is it that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower (Christian)”? Ghandi famously replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ”.

This quote by Ghandi has struck deep into the hearts of many Christians. It has been a guilt trip pastors in sermons (heck, I'm pretty sure I've done it). It's also been wielded by those who don't like "organized religion" as a weapon to keep the religious at a distance. 

So, what's the issue? Hypocrisy. 

Webster's dictionary defines hypocrisy this, "a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not;especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion." 

What troubled Ghandi was this is issue of "feigning to be". What he saw in the Christians around him were people who were utterly falling short of Jesus. If you take a moment and read some of what Ghandi had to say about Jesus it is clear that he had, at the very least, a deep appreciation for him. Christians on the other hand were not living up to the standard of Jesus. This is made all the more evident due to the fact that Ghandi was pushing against a "Christian" imperial force for freedom and self-governance in India. 

Whenever I am sharing the message of Jesus with people the typical response is this, "I like Jesus, he's pretty cool, but Christians are such hypocrites." 

Why is that people that have that response? I think it's the result of a couple of key things. First, in America many people grew up going to church (although this is becoming less and less true). As they went to church they saw people who were "members" of the church or even "leaders" in the church act in ways that they considered to be immoral. They heard so many words and experienced little congruity with the actions. They left for college never to return to the church because there was a significant gap between people's performances on Sunday from 10 am - Noon and the rest of the week. 

Second, the scandals and cover-ups within large wings of Christianity as it relates to the sexual abuse of children and other areas of sexual brokenness. Everyone is familiar with the scandal of the Catholic Church. In recent years similar scandals have been uncovered in the Protestant church as well. In the not too distant past we have found that those who been the loudest to speak against sexual sin, have themselves been engaged in that particular sin. 

The public words and the public works of the Church at large continues to point toward hypocrisy and because the message of Jesus includes the call to repentance for one's own sin, the charge will not go away. 

I will let you in on a little secret: the charge is often legitimate. 

Here's one more secret: the charge of hypocrisy points to something greater still...

Read More