the gate

How did Christianity spread so rapidly in the first couple of centuries A.D.? Michael Green gives this answer.

[Ordinary Christians, not primarily the apostles,] went everywhere spreading the good news which had brought joy, release and a new life to themselves. This must often have not been formal preaching, but the informal chattering to friends and chance acquaintances, in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls. They went everywhere gossiping the gospel; they did it naturally, enthusiastically, and with the conviction of those who are not paid to say that sort of thing. Consequently, they were taken seriously, and the movement spread.
Evangelism in the Early Church, p. 173

So go ahead, gossip the gospel like they did!

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I don’t know all that Jesus would say (or is saying, or will say) to Tiger. But C.J. Mahaney gives us some powerful and helpful thoughts about what we should and should not be saying, thinking, and doing regarding Tiger.

For example, he says we should not hunt Tiger (to shoot him) like the media is. We should not find entertainment value in his sin and pain. We should not seek out all the sordid details of his sin. We should pray for him and his family.

Sin lied to Tiger, and it lies to us every day. Sin is always out to hurt us and our loved ones, and destroy us. Our biggest concern should be OUR OWN BATTLE against the lies of sin, not the sin of Tiger Woods. I need Jesus at least as much as Tiger, and so do you.

Go read all that C.J. says about this ordeal, and pray that not only will we all remember and do what he says, but that God would make us more Christ-like in regard to other people’s sins.

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I know, I know . . . Jesus builds his Church. But he works through people. Sunday, I said church is not a spectator sport. We have to work at building relationships. We have to make time for each other. We must care for and about each other. No spectators allowed! (At least, that’s how I understand the Bible.)

I just read a good article by Jonathan Dodson (what is it with this guy? he keeps popping up on my radar screen in different places, and i keep quoting him. i assure you, i don’t have a mancrush on him. it must be providence.) In it, he makes one of the points I was trying to make on Sunday.

We say we want community, but are unwilling to make the sacrifices for it to happen. It’s too inconvenient and messy. We want the benefit of church without her demands. Something has to change.

Why not start with you? What if you started having people join you for meals, Christians and non-Christians. What if you started having family meals together? What if you began to serve your neighborhood in some way and invited some church friends to join you? What if you began to put others’ needs before your own? I wonder what would happen. Fewer acrobats and more brothers? Church would slowly become more of a family than an event.

It’s a good article. He’s honest about Bono (Bono has legitimate criticisms of the Church, but maybe he needs to realize God inhabits and uses communities of flawed people). He points out that building a dynamic church — not entertaining, but radically missional and communal — takes commitment and sacrifice from everyone. He has some great analogies for how churches miss the mark (fortresses, shopping malls, cemeteries). He makes the case that God did not create the Church to be an event. What he says, in other words, is that church is not a spectator sport.

At Gateway, we’re not trying to be “an event” church; we’re trying to build a family. Want to help?

Don’t just go to church; be the church! [click here to read Jonathan’s article]

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The Church seems to suffer from multiple-personality disorder when it comes to Halloween . . . it’s evil / it’s not evil / turn off your lights and hide / have a fall festival / hallelujah, free candy! / etc. Who’s right, and what’s it really all about?

Justin Holcomb has a good post (and this gory picture) on the Resurgence blog. He writes, “Why did Martin Luther nail his famous 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517? He was confronting two religious observances that promoted false saintliness and exploited people’s fear of judgment and purgatory. There’s a curious connection between Halloween and Reformation Day, and it’s more than just proximity on the calendar.” (click here to read the rest)

Then, at the Life2gether blog, Doug Wolter quotes Michael Patton:

I can’t believe I am going to say this but, WWJD? Really, what would Jesus do? Can you see it? Jesus with his lights turned off on Halloween? That would be the Jesus history never knew. That would be the Jesus of western fundamentalism. The one who is not a friend of sinners and tax gatherers. The Jesus that was never accused of being a drunkard. The Jesus who looked from a distance at the wedding of Cana waiting for the sinners to wipe the dust off their feet before he talked to them. The Jesus who saw a child dressed up as a Ghost and said, “I can’t take this anymore. It is not worth it. Give me that stone so that I can turn it into bread.”

Mark Young, my friend and former missions prof at DTS (now the president of Denver Seminary), used to talk about this in his missions 101 class. Oh the shame of all of us students who turned off the light. We left the class crying looking for little witches and ghosts to hug. His thesis: Christians are not Christians on Halloween. Not because they have compromised and participated, but precisely because they don’t participate. The one day of the year where children (”Permit them to come to me…” Mark 10:14) were attempting to come to us and we shut the door and turn off the lights.
(click here to read it all)

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1 thessalonians 4:30-33:  what shall we say then? that Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. why? because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. they stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “BEHOLD , I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

it’s a little difficult for me to think of Jesus as a stumbling block.  but here it is, plain as day.  it goes hand in hand with Jesus’ teachings on how He would turn son against father in matthew chapter 10.  it’s almost counter-intuitive given what we know about God.

but i think this particular teaching is a lot like peter walking on water.  peter was fine as long as he was focused on Jesus.  as soon as he took his eyes off of Him and placed them on the water, physics took over.

jesus is only a stumbling block if our focus is in the wrong place.

is the Law bad?  did God get it wrong when he penned the Law through his prophets?  did He regret His teachings and admit that somehow the wisest being ever to have existed, the alpha and omega and creator of our universe, made a mistake?

nope.  the Law is and always will be God’s words, and furthermore, His truth and wisdom.  the reason that Jesus is ever a stumbling block is that we have our eyes fixed in the wrong place.  we can look at the Law without any understanding of faith, and suddenly we trip over Jesus.  but when we look at the Law through the eyes of faith, suddenly we walk on water like Peter did.

why did Israel fail?  was it that they had bad information?  no.  it was because they did not pursue the Law through faith.

we should all be striving to live lives worthy of our calling as adopted sons and daughters, but it must be through faith and not law.  otherwise, we’ll fall flat on our face having tripped over Jesus Himself.

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This is a summary of Sunday’s sermon from Philippians 2:1-16.

Paul begins by talking about the Church — those of us who are resting in the sacrificial work of Christ. Because the Church is all about Jesus, Paul gets us to focus on Jesus, reminding us of who Jesus really is and all that he has done for us. And then he says, now that I have you focused on Jesus, think about what the Church should look like. We should be people who live our lives in pursuit of the humility Jesus demonstrated, and we should be growing in our obedience to Jesus. How can we live such lives? Because, as people who have experienced the new birth, God is at work in us giving us both the desire and the ability to live transformed lives.

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There is an oft-neglected principle taught in the New Testament. I call it the principle of “graduated responsibility.” This principle is taught by Jesus in Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (NIV).

This saying is part of the parable of the faithful steward. It underscores the terms of the judgment the lord in the parable renders to his servants. The punishment meted out is given in direct proportion to the prior knowledge each servant had:

“That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.” (vv. 47-48, NIV)

Here we see that judgment and punishment are rendered according to knowledge as well as action. The greater the knowledge, the greater the accountability.

Are you a faithful steward over all that God has entrusted to you?

For Further Study

Luke 12:47-48: “And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”

1 Corinthians 4:2: “Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” 

– R.C. Sproul - Accepting Graduated Responsibility

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I was reading an LA Times article on personhood and abortion. (It’s a good article.)

In the middle of the article is this statement:

“I don’t believe that just because we will not get enough votes in an election that we should not do this. I don’t recall Martin Luther King checking the polls to see if he was right on civil rights.”
- Keith Mason

Yup. Majority opinion (on anything) is not God — nor is my opinion, or yours. Knowing who is Lord sure alleviates a lot of confusion.

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As a follow up to Pablo’s post, Sunday night I heard Mark Driscoll say,

“Either you worship your money or you worship God with your money.”

There is no other option.

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i’ve always thought that is we took the Law and Grace side by side and voted to see which life is harder, i would vote for grace.  i’m not referring to salvation necessarily, because fulfilling the Law to “earn” salvation is not just hard but impossible.  but in the sense of “lifestyle” for lack of better terms, i think grace is much harder.

see, with the Law, we had clearly drawn out rules and expectations that we could enumerate and follow.  for example:

• do not murder - pretty easy (for me at least)
• observe the sabbath - pull up your bark-o-lounger (sp?) and a coke and watch football all day.  what a sacrifice…
• give a tithe of your money to the Lord - grab your calculator and checkbook, not too hard

however, with grace, we have to listen to the Holy Spirit.  we have to consider our character and our values and what is truly important to us.  consider the opposite of the above passages:

• do not be angry at your brother - not so easy is it?
• live in community and fellowship with your brothers and sisters - that can get messy and difficult, right?
• give generously - i don’t necessarily consider 10% generous, it’s more like a calculated expenditure

in 2 corinthians chapter 8 paul teaches the Church about giving generously.  he uses the example of the macedonian churches that “in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality”.  they gave “according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord”.  and trip on this:  “…begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints”.

i’m pretty sure that the macedonian churches had moved on from the tithe at this point.  they were looking for ways to use their earthly resources to support the work of the Gospel and to support the saints.

paul uses a reference to the days in the wilderness where He fed His people with manna in v15 as if to remind them that the Lord will provide for them.

we shouldn’t be storing up our treasures here on this earth.  that stuff rots by morning.  but we should be living in a way that allows God to give us our daily bread, figuratively and literally.

i’m not speaking against all posessions necessarily, i own a house myself.  but our value to support the Gospel work and the saints is evident in how we choose to spend our money.

in v8 paul says “i am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also”.  how we use our money says alot about what is truly important to us.

giving according to the Law = not so hard.  giving generously according to grace = not so easy.

where are your treasures stored?

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