deep thoughts

I Pledge Allegiance

I Pledge Allegiance

Frank

Yesterday in the United States we celebrated our nation’s independence.  My Facebook feed was mixed between friends sharing pictures of barbecues, parades, and fireworks and pastors/authors writing about the co-mingling of patriotism and faith (pro and con).  All day I was wrestling with the feeling that I had to write something, but what more is there to be said?  Then I saw this article on the Babylon Bee: ‘Dozens Accept America as Lord and Savior at First Baptist Dallas Service’ (which is satire, in case you weren’t sure).

For a little background, the pastor at First Baptist Dallas is Robert Jeffress, a very outspoken Trump supporter.  Last week he held a church service with his church adorned with the American Flag and worship songs centered on patriotic themes (including, without any hint of irony, Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”).  Then on Saturday, a choir from the same church sang a hymn based on President Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” at a “Celebrate Freedom Rally” in Washington, DC.

photo credit: KNEB-TV via The Blaze

I’ve always been uneasy with the assumption by many that faith and patriotism (both likely to be blind) can coexist in the heart of a sincere disciple of Jesus.  That’s not to say that we shouldn’t make political decisions based on our religious convictions, or that it is impossible to love both Jesus and America.  But idolatry is probably mankind’s greatest temptation, and we frequently elevate our politics, our patriotism, even our religious convictions (for just one example, see all the debate over Biblical inerrancy) to a degree of allegiance higher than our confession of Jesus as Lord.  So I struggle even with placing my hand over my heart to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because it calls into question where my allegiance truly lies.

Like I said, this debate is nothing new for those who follow these sorts of things.  But my intention behind this blog is to call these things out and to call us higher- that our allegiance isn’t to red or blue, right or left, rather it is to a Savior-King and his kingdom.  And I want to do that not by cutting down those with whom I disagree with politically, or mock the sincerely faithful that unfortunately are a product of a corrupt religious system, but by encouraging us to focus our attention higher and develop a deep conviction regarding the Kingdom of God.

So I think the recent book by Matthew Bates titled Salvation by Allegiance Alone is so critical and timely.  His thesis is simple- what if the Greek work often translated as “faith”, pistis, could better be translated as “allegiance”.  This opens up a host of implications, not the least of which is the notion of what we consider to be patriotism.

While this may seem like a politically-motivated reach, there’s a lot of quality scholarship behind his assertion.  But I want to point out two specific examples while thinking about what it means to “pledge allegiance”.  The first is from 1 Maccabees, where rival King Demetrius asks the Jews to “keep faith” (Greek pistis) with him over Alexander the Great.  He is not asking for a confession that leads to salvation, rather for a pledge of allegiance.  The second is from Jewish general/historian Josephus who writes about how he urged a rebel leader to “repent and believe in me” using the adjective pistos.  Again, this can be interpreted as to “repent and pledge allegiance” because Josephus wasn’t offering any type of spiritual salvation.  So if you think about it, isn’t that what Jesus is calling each of us to do in Mark 1:15 when he proclaims, “The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news!”

Another clue for interpreting “faith” or “believe” in this way is Jesus’ own words above linking belief to the “good news” (AKA the gospel) and the kingdom.  The word we often translate as gospel or good news, historically gives the connotation of declaring a military victory or the coronation of a king.  So the “good news” Jesus is referring to here isn’t personal salvation but the inauguration of his kingdom and the defeat of sin, which becomes accessible to us through faith in Jesus.

If you’re in a war (spiritual in this case) and a king is offering you salvation (or more accurately deliverance) in exchange for a confession of faith, what then does this “faith” mean if not allegiance?

So that brings us back to debate over faith and patriotism that arises this time every year.  What does it mean to pledge allegiance?  What does it mean to salute the flag?  What does it mean to be patriotic while at the same time being a believer who has made a confession of faith, or rather allegiance?

Jesus challenges us in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “no one can serve two masters.” (Matthew 6:24)  In context he is talking about money, but his words are true whatever the other master may be (Abraham Lincoln applied this idea to politics when he quoted Jesus from Mark 3 that, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”).  Jesus furthers this point with the parable of kings at war in Luke 14:31-33 where if you know you can’t win with the army you have you go to the opposing king to ask for terms of peace.  What do you think the other king will request if not undivided allegiance.

It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a church to teach that we need to have undivided faith in our savior Jesus Christ.  But if we change the word’s intent to ask for undivided allegiance, a church suddenly becomes a cult, or overly-political, or unaccommodating.

So I’ll just leave this here for you to chew on.  You may have lit off all your fireworks and already packed away the red, white, and blue decor, but the next time you hear the National Anthem, or God Bless America, or stand to recite the Pledge consider what it means to declare to have faith in Jesus.  Is it just a intellectual ascent, a cultural acceptance, a routine religious ritual, or does it mean something more?

To Sell Your Soul

To Sell Your Soul

Frank

What does it look like to sell your soul?  Maybe you can picture it from movies or cartoons.  Maybe you imagine the musical Damn Yankees, or recall the story of bluesman Robert Johnson at the Crossroads, or when the devil annulled Spider-Man’s marriage to MJ.  But what would it look like today, in real life?  What would it take for a stranger, or a friend, or a cause to convince you to give up everything you believe?

Last month, on the eve of the National Day of Prayer, President Donald Trump hosted his evangelical advisors for a dinner to celebrate his election victory and to discuss the religious freedom Executive Order he would issue the following day.  A blogger I follow posted a picture from that dinner and speculated that was what selling your soul looked like.  I replied that I found it ironic their dinner was lobster (eating shellfish being an “abomination” according to Leviticus 11, just a few pages before the popularly quoted Leviticus 18).  But in the picture I didn’t see money changing hands, or souls being wisped away.

During my Sunday school class this week, I reminded everyone that the “antichrist” according to John wasn’t a specific person, rather anyone who denied that Jesus was the Christ.  More specifically it was directed towards the Gnostics, who believed that since the flesh was inherently sinful Jesus could not be both human and divine.  Yet we like to throw that word around to describe anyone we think opposes our particular worldview (Christian, or not).  George W Bush, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump… you get the idea.

We do this because we are convinced the antichrist is a specific character in the end-times.  He or she is the ruler of the “one world government” that comes before the rapture, Jesus’ return, or whatever other eschatological interpretation you may have.  But Revelation never mentions the antichrist.  Rather there are two beasts in Revelation 13- one, a political leader and the second, a religious leader -who work together in service of the dragon.

Nearly everyone agrees the dragon is Satan.  But there is more debate about identifying the beasts.  The first is often described by terms like “new world order” and can be interpreted as the United Nations, NATO, the global economy, the G8, et cetera.  The second is popularly the Catholic Church or the Pope.  It is sometimes interpreted to be Constantine giving rise to Christendom.

Regardless, the narrative of Revelation describes the beasts as religious authority ceding to political favor.  In other words, selling your soul for the sake of politics.

Later on Sunday, President Trump’s new lawyer, Jay Sekulow, made the rounds on cable news to defend that the president was not under any investigation.  Jay Sekulow, in case you didn’t know, used to be lead counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a counter-organization to the ACLU specializing in religious freedom cases.  But over the years the ACLJ has become more and more political.  And now Sekulow finds himself on the president’s retainer.

In one of the many articles describing his news-tour, someone commented that it was clear President Trump had God’s favor because Sekulow was representing him and therefore no powers of evil can defeat him.

That, right there, is what selling your soul looks like.

It’s not the dinner evangelical leaders have with presidents.  It’s not paychecks received to appear on the news and advance a political narrative.  It’s not even the political maneuvering that is done by religious leaders every time there is an election.

No, it is the common person, the sincere believer, who is deceived because someone they considered a spiritual authority takes a political stance signifying such politics as godly.

After the beasts are introduced in Revelation 13, their followers are then described.  These deceived can be recognized by a physical sign- the mark of the beast.  It’s not the politician or the religious leader we have to worry about selling their soul, rather it is you and me being deceived, being marked.

And He Loved Them Too

Frank

“I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”  What a ridiculous statement from Jonah (Jonah 4:9) after not getting his way while God got his.  The temper tantrum of a toddler because God did what Jonah knew he was going to do.

As ridiculous as it sounds, this is my favorite part of Jonah’s story.  Maybe because I relate so well.  You see, I have a self-righteousness problem.  I think I know it all.  I think my interpretation of the Bible, my doctrine, my church is better than yours.  So I always have to check myself when I’m tempted to be critical.

Jonah thought his interpretation of God’s will was better than the the God who gave it, that his faith was better than the Ninevites.  So he ignored God’s instructions.  Actually, he did more than ignore it, he ran as far away from it as he could.

But God’s will couldn’t be ignored for long; a great fish had other ideas.

The stories seemed to come on top of each other- the trial of a church trying to beat the homosexuality out of a man and a congressman declaring holy war on Muslims.  My instinct was to ask, “do these people actually read their Bibles?”  Even today I saw an article at Christianity Today on how we can pray for Muslims during Ramadan.  Yes, the headline was click-bait, but the comments are appalling.  So when I heard the news about a man arrested on his way to shoot doctors, my first thought was “abortion”.

Turns out that wasn’t the case.  But what does it say when that’s what we expect?

You’ve probably heard the saying, Christians are known more for what they are against than what they are for.  While that usually invokes images of protesters in front of abortion clinics or at a funeral holding signs saying, “God hates fags”, we usually don’t think of such exercises of ‘free speech’ as violent.

Until an abortion clinic is bombed.

Or until the son of a famous evangelist and president of a prominent Christian college encourages Christians to carry guns so that they can “end” Muslims.

Or until a gay youth is driven to suicide by family, friends, and a church who reject her.

These types of Christians are so angry they wish others were dead.

And darn right I’m critical.

You see, what made Jonah so angry (besides the heat, because c’mon who isn’t short-tempered in scorching heat) was that God had the nerve to forgive.  It wasn’t up to Jonah to decide who was worthy.  Jonah admitted, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (4:2)  And that graciousness, that compassion, that love extended even to Jonah’s enemies.

I wonder if the folks at Word of Life Church, or Congressman Higgins, or Jerry Falwell Jr have ever read this story and asked,who the Ninevites are in their lives, because God loves them too.  The homosexual.  The Muslim.  The liberal.  The woman.  The sinner.  God loves them too.

So these headlines make me angry.  Angry because the hatred and the violence is what some people think Christianity is all about.  It makes me so angry at times I was I was dead and didn’t have to deal with it.

Because God loves them too.

The Christians who don’t look like Jesus.  The pastor who confuses nationalism with faith.  The angry crusader.  The homophobe.  The self-righteous.  The face in the mirror.

God loves them too.

This Song is About Me!

Frank

I read this a week or so ago in my Facebook feed from the click-baity site Hello Christian: “Is the Song ‘What a Beautiful Name It Is’ Heretical?”  As expected, commenters were quick to defend the ear-worm song specifically and Hillsong’s ministry in general while criticizing the author for picking at nits (or staining gnats, if you prefer).

The author, Sam Storms, a pastor in Oklahoma who was just recently elected vice president of the Evangelical Theological Society, tried to make the point that the line, “you didn’t want heaven without us” paints God/Jesus as being needy, as if his worth relies on our “acceptance”.  Responses to the effect of, “it’s a song, get over it!’ miss his point entirely and ignore stories like Esther, to whom Mordecai pointed out that God’s deliverance of Israel didn’t depend on her, or Paul’s words on Mars Hill in Athens that God “is not served… as if he needed anything.”

As authors N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and others have (I believe) rightfully pointed out, the terms “gospel” and “salvation” have been diluted in Western Christianity to satisfy our personal tastes, making God no different than Santa Claus.  We “accept” Christ in “our hearts”.  We lament how politicians “keep God out of our schools” as if that’s even possible.  We church shop based on worship, children’t ministry, or we don’t even front and base it on how much time it takes out of our Sundays.  I’ve often heard the phrase, “if you were the only person on earth, Jesus still would’ve died for you.”  So in other words, the gospel is all about me.

And we hear it in the songs we sing.

‘What a Beautiful Name It Is’ isn’t the only one.  Another that always makes my skin crawl every time I hear it is ‘This is Amazing Grace’ by Phil Wickham.  I pointed this out to my pastor the other day and now he says he can’t not hear it.  The chorus goes like this:

This is Amazing Grace
This is unfailing love
That you would take my place,
That you would bear my cross

You laid down your life
So I might be set free
Oh, Jesus, I sing for
All that you’ve done for me

Do you see it?  No, I’m not talking about “all that you’ve done for me”.  Rather that Jesus took my place to “bear my cross”.  This runs counter to Jesus’ very words that following him is conditional upon us taking up our own cross.  It’s not like he said it just once either.  You can find the message to “take up your cross and follow me” in Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, and 14:27.  Yes, I know, synoptics.  But my point is, this isn’t some obscure teaching that you only find in the fine print.

Jesus puts this condition as a “must” in Matthew 16, Mark 8, and Luke 9.  You’re not “worthy” of following Jesus if you don’t in Matthew 10.  And perhaps most hard-hitting, you “cannot” even be his disciple unless you do so in Luke 14.

So it’s a pretty big deal.

Yet we sing the opposite because it makes us feel better.

I don’t think Phil Wickham or Brooke Ligertwood include such lyrics intentionally.  (Another example that I think makes it obvious this isn’t intentional is TobyMac’s ‘Until the Day I Day’ where he repeats that he’ll follow God until things stop going well (“til the spotlight fades”))  The phrases fit the rhythm of the song and rhyme just right.

But I think this individualized gospel is so ingrained that we don’t even realize it when lyrics like this slip into the songs we regularly listen to or when it permeates the language we use.  And that individualism drives our religious decisions, our convictions, and our evangelism.  So we perpetuate it and it gets worse.

Songs are meant to impact us emotionally, so obviously we like songs that make us feel good.  But our theology shouldn’t be the same way.

See Yourself on the Silver Screen

See Yourself on the Silver Screen

Frank

My daughter has been looking forward to seeing Beauty and the Beast since the first trailer aired.  Unfortunately, she has to wait just a little longer since she’s going with her Girl Scout troop as a celebration of their cookie sales.  Many friends saw it last weekend however, and I’m told they completely loved it.  There was no mention of any “gay agenda” being forced upon them, nor was there any disgust at any explicitly homosexual scenes.  I know my daughter couldn’t care less about such controversies, and I’m willing to bet that when she does see the movie she won’t even notice the subplot and scene in question.  Despite calls for a boycott, the movie opened last weekend to a March-record $170 million box office and an over $350 million worldwide take.

But this isn’t about the boycott.  There has been plenty written about that already, most recently at Unfundamentalist Christian.  No, this is about the silver screen itself and our desire to see ourselves reflected, or rather projected, as the heroine, the princess, or at times even the villain.

My daughter wants to see the movie because she wants to see Belle dance and sing (along with candelabras, teacups, and clocks).  She likes to watch Mulan to see the girl become the hero.  She loves Lilo and Stitch because of the rambunctious girl who always seems to get into trouble, yet always finds a way to work everything out in the end.

But not everyone can enjoy movies that same way.  As a middle-class white male, I don’t have to think twice about whether or not I’m represented on screen.  And if I can’t relate to a character, it is usually because of the choices he makes or the dialogue he fails to deliver convincingly.  I don’t think twice about whether that character looks just like me or represents my demographic.

Having LeFou’s latent homosexuality slightly more explicit than was depicted in the animated movie means a lot to homosexuals who long to see themselves depicted on the screen.  For this to be the first explicitly gay character in a Disney movie is taken by some to be groundbreaking.

But this post isn’t about homosexuality either.  Because they are not the only minority group struggling to be represented in Hollywood.

I’m a comic book nerd, so I haven’t been able to avoid hearing about the “whitewashing” of characters from The Ancient One in Dr Strange, to The Major in The Ghost in the Shell; or the missed opportunity to cast a minority in The Iron Fist; or split opinions over Idris Elba being cast as Roland, the Gunslinger, in The Dark Tower; or the celebration over the casting choices for The Black Panther.

These things aren’t new.  It was a big deal to have a single mother portrayed in a leading role on Murphy Brown just as it was groundbreaking (much more so than any character in Beauty and the Beast) for there to be a gay lead on Will & Grace.  What is new to me is that now I notice.

I have a lot more to write about “white privilege” that will have to wait for another time.  But in this case, I wanted to call our attention to the fact that white straight Americans take for granted our position in society, as evidenced by the roles we see in movies and on television.  Black-ish has become my favorite TV show because it challenges my perceptions and assumptions.  I wouldn’t call myself “woke”, but I’m getting there.

As Christians, we need to have more empathy.  Period.  I’m not saying minimizing sin (if that’s your conviction) for the sake of tolerance, because that just goes in line with being politically correct.  No, empathy is a heart-condition.  It is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and to see the world the way they do.

In the case of Beauty and the Beast, there are closeted gays who might for the first time feel accepted simply by a couple lines in a movie, who might no longer be suicidal, who might for a change have hope.  And that should be celebrated, not boycotted.

For God So Loved the Exoplanets

Frank

I’ve always been a bit of a space nerd, moved by awe-inspiring images from the Hubble Telescope, imagining what it would be like to explore the beautiful depths of the cosmos.  Less abstract, the ever-growing list of planets discovered by the Kepler Observatory have captured my curiosity and its latest discovery, announced last week, reminded me of unanswered questions.

These questions are a staple of science fiction, exploring answers from the varied perspectives of linguists, politicians, the military, and families.  We imagine ourselves in the role of discoverer, peacemaker, victor, and victim.  But no one really knows what it would be like if we ever discovered alien life.  The biggest question, that I wish I had a good answer for, is what would such a discover mean for our theology?

Ever since Galileo got into trouble with the Catholic Church over the observation that the earth revolved around the sun, science and the church have been at odds (and probably longer, despite the many significant contributions believing scientists and mathematicians have made throughout history).  Evolutionary biology challenges the six-day creation account.  Geology challenges the age of the Earth.  Astronomy challenges the ‘firmament’ described in Genesis 1 and the notion of God spreading out the heavens like a tent.  And cosmology questions the need for an active creator.  Well-meaning and well-informed Christians can debate the theological significance of each but an undisputed discovery of alien life would turn all these debates on their head.

Most challenging, besides trying reconcile what this would mean for the existence of God, not to mention destroying the tightly-held doctrine of biblical inerrancy, would be the question of what would this mean for salvation and atonement?  Do other worlds have their own gardens of Eden?  Would sin be defined the same way for creatures that wouldn’t communicate or interact the same as we do?  What form would divine revelation take?  And most importantly, are there several alien Jesuses saving the universe one planet at a time? (After all Jesus did say there are sheep other than these, meaning us, that he needed to save.)

I expect Christians would display a range of reactions to the discovery of alien life.  I think some would be inclined to respond with skepticism in the same way they react to global warming.  Others would react with hostility to anything that would cast doubt on the inerrant, authoritative, word of God.  But I think the most common reaction would be fear as if such news was a threat- not the threat of an alien invasion, but rather the threat of their long-held worldview being wrong.

You’ve probably done this exercise at VBS youth camp, or maybe even in a personal Bible study- look up John 3:16 and make it personal: “For God so loved (your name here) that he gave his only son, that if you believe in him you shall not perish but have eternal life.”  You’ve probably heard this as well, ‘if you were the only person on the planet, Jesus would still have gone to the cross for you.’  This is a nice sentiment, but I don’t entirely agree and it is this emphasis on a personal savior and individual salvation that is at the heart of much of American Christianity theology.

But I don’t think the Bible supports that.  Throughout Romans, Paul’s most theological letter, Paul always defines salvation in context of God’s Covenant faithfulness.  Even when he quotes Joel to say, “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13), it is in reference to the Day of the Lord that is a fulfillment of God’s covenant.  Jesus, while certainly emphasizing God’s love for each of us individually as well as emphasizing our own personal responsibility in following him, framed his ministry in the context of the Covenant- “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets… but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)  I have to admit that I am influenced by scholars and theologians who have emphasized ‘Israel’s story’ to define the Gospel (most notably Scot McKnight and N.T. Wright) but I also think such a view would help us reconcile the notion of alien life and whether they would be in need of a savior.

Ask yourself this question, is your favorite pet saved?  When you were a child you might have been told that the pet that died went to heaven, but do you believe that now?  Did God make a covenant promise to dogs and cats, complete with a list of conditional curses and blessings that include the end-state of either damnation or salvation?  In the same way, we have no evidence (obviously) of God making a covenant promise to any alien civilization.  Therefore they wouldn’t need their own alien Jesus.  In fact, if God did make such a promise it would most likely be very different than we could even imagine and Jesus might not even be involved at all!

But would that mean we have to redefine the Great Commission in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of every… planet?  Or what if that alien invasion we fear is really them coming to evangelize us?  Maybe their advanced technology has shown them how much we need saving.

And maybe they’re only 39 light years away, wandering in space, waiting to enter into their promised planet.

What Will People Remember?

Frank

I remember as a kid debating his “worth” with a friend. We were trading baseball cards and I needed his to complete my All Stars. But he wouldn’t give it up. “He’s the best hitter in the game, and one of the best all-time.” I didn’t believe it. I’m a National League guy myself, so the best hitter in the game was obviously Tony Gwynn. And as far as all-time? At that age, my knowledge began and ended with Ted Williams. So of course I figured fair value was one of my “doubles” like Jerry Hairston Sr. (respect the specs!)

But the numbers don’t lie. One of only four players to have hit 300 home runs, 3000 hits and hit for .300 average (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial being the others). He’s a Hall-of-Famer. He is the only player to have won batting titles (for best average) in three decades, and his best season is the closest anyone has come to .400 since Williams did it in 1941.

With that last one, if you’re a baseball fan you’ve figured out who I’m talking about- George Brett.

For the die-hard baseball fan, stats mean everything. They offer comparisons across generations and eras (no, I won’t get into steroids here) which means you can say George Brett and Ted Williams in the same sentence. (Or even George Brett and Hank Aaron, but that feels weird)

But ask a casual baseball fan about the legacy of George Brett and they are likely to remember this:

This happened 30 years ago; an outburst memorialized with an anniversary. I don’t even have to play the video. I’ve seen it so many times I know exactly how Brett looks as he storms out of the dugout. I know, because I see that face in the mirror sometimes. And sometimes I see it in my son.

I showed this video to my son not long ago after one of his epic temper tantrums. I told him, “here is one of the best players to ever play baseball, but all most people remember is this.” I continued with the fatherly pep-talk of he can be anything he wants to be in life, do anything he wants to do, but if he can’t control himself none of that will matter. All anyone will remember about him are his outbursts.

I think he took the lesson well. Of course, I don’t set a good example. My temper is probably my greatest vice.

There’s a story about a boy who struggles with his temper. His dad tells him to go pound a nail in the fence every time he gets angry, to take out his frustrations there. Over time the son grew tired of pounding nails into the stubborn old wood so one day he approached his father and handed him the hammer. “I’m done,” he told him. “Good, now go out and take out all the nails,” the father replied. “But dad, the fence will be filled with holes!” His father then explained how that’s what anger does. And no matter how much you try to fix it, it does damage that can not be so easily repaired. Anger leaves holes.

Yes, this lesson was for my son. But it was just as much for me.

“In your anger do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26)

Daily Worship

Frank

As some of you know, I’ve been busily writing small group curriculum for my church with a group of very talented people. Besides the usual lesson + discussion material, we are also adding daily devotional and weekly accountability topics. During our last meeting this raised an intriguing question- what is the difference between a devotional, “quiet time”, and personal study. The worry was people committing to the daily material if they are already dedicated to a personal study.

So what do you think, what is the difference between these three acts of personal worship?

We concluded that you can tell a lot by the name. A quiet time is just that- a time to withdraw to a quiet place (Luke 5:16) dedicating that time to God. There is no script, no manual for what this looks like. I know some people who write poems during this time. Some will hide away in a prayer closet to be free from distractions. Others will sing praises to God. The goal here is a quiet, secluded recharge of your soul. In physical terms, think of rest. (My newest blogger-buddy, Rick Dawson has a great series on this very thing that is worth checking out)

A devotional likewise is self-explanatory. This is not necessarily a time, but rather a topic this is “devoted” to the Lord. Devotionals are short and simple by nature. You can buy daily or weekly devotionals at any Christian bookstore. You can even get daily Bible verse/deep thought calendars. The goal of the devotional to feed your soul; water the soil, if you will.

Which brings us to personal study. There is not a one-size-fits-all description. Some prefer depth, others breadth. Some people will do a word-study on a particular issue of need (purity, boldness, the promises of God). Still others will dig into the original Greek or Hebrew of a specific passage. This is not necessarily daily, but it can be. But it requires more significant time and focus than the other two. This is like eating a full meal, versus drinking milk. Or rather than just watering the soil, this is applying fertilizer.

It is important to note these distinctions. When I was a “baby Christian” I was taught how to have a catch-all quiet time: spend x number of minutes in Bible study (a chapter a day in the Gospels was always recommended as a good place to start) plus y number of minutes in prayer, usually following the “ACTS” outline.

And that was it.

More depth of study (referencing the nobility of the Bereans) and instructions on prayer (considering Jesus’ own personal instruction to his disciples) were talked about and implicitly encouraged, but we were expected to figure these things out and mature on our own.

This hurt me spiritually. I soon outgrew the basics of the quiet time and started delving more into personal study. But in doing so, I lost out in my devotional and prayer life. While I’ve recovered to some degree the discipline of devotion (thank you daily devotionals from YouVersion!) I still struggle with growing in my prayer life as I mentioned in my sermon last week.

But I now see that just like I can’t eat the same thing every day for lunch (even though I do), I cannot feed myself spiritually the same way all the time and still walk away satisfied. My meal plan needs diversification and it needs a balanced diet.

What about you? What method of personal worship do you prefer or trend to most? Is there one area you particularly struggle in?

Fools, Baseball, and an Empty Tomb

Frank
Today is April Fools’ Day. It is also baseball’s opening day. (No, I don’t count the Astros debut in the American League last night. In fact, I don’t count the Astros much at all… Just kidding!) And in an odd twist of the calendar (and the cycle of the moon) it is also the day after Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.
So today is a day of new beginnings, tricks and treats.

I haven’t done the research but I wonder if Easter has ever fallen on April 1st. It would be easy fodder for the skeptics who doubt the existence of God, no less the resurrection of his Son.
The empty tomb is one of the most controversial events in all religion. Besides rationalizing how a God can die, one also has to accept that a person rose from the dead. Obviously miracles defy scientific or even logical explanation, but this miracle is particularly challenging.
Yet it is fundamental.
Paul argues that if there is no life after death [as evidenced by Christ’s resurrection] then our faith is “useless“. For this reason skeptics and those who oppose Christianity have tried for centuries to explain away the empty tomb.
One of the best ways to attack this foundation of the Christian faith is to question the reliability of the Gospel accounts and the objectivity of the writers.

Before I head down the rabbit hole of apologetics you’re probably wondering, I thought this post was going to be about baseball? Ok, let me relate this to one of baseball’s more infamous legends.

Grover Cleveland Alexander was one of the best pitchers in his era, if not all time. But he was also an alcoholic, suffering from PTSD from his service in World War I. Legend has it that he came in relief to pitch in the 7th inning of the 1926 World Series. He struck out Tony Lazzeri of the fabled Yankees with the bases loaded and two outs; and he did so drunk.

Great story, but is it true? Check out this article from a couple of years ago (halfway down). Notice how the commonly accepted legend is attributed to a single witness, catcher Bob O’Farrell. Meanwhile, two other witnesses gave nearly identical accounts contrary to the myth. Now notice the dates- the accounts from player/manager Rogers Hornsby and third baseman Les Bell came 27 and 52 years after this event is said to have taken place respectively. The source of the legend, O’Farrell, gave his testimony in the 1966 book The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence Ritter. Yet whose is the more reliable account? (If you have the chance, read the entire linked article- there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that works in favor of both sides of the story)

Now relating this back to the empty tomb- the Gospel accounts were written 30-60 years after the life of Jesus. Although there are only these four (technically two- Mark was a contemporary of Peter and Luke interviewed witnesses) eye-witness written accounts, in the letters written to the early church as well as other apostolic writings there are also several witnesses described. At any point, someone could have come forward to say it was all a hoax- that Jesus “swooned” or that the event didn’t happen at all.
But there isn’t.
So what does that tell us? I’ll leave it for you to come to your own conclusions, but I implore you not to be an April Fool.

(I also recommend this blog post from Think Christian relating baseball to faith, also in the context of Easter and also appropriate for April Fools’)

Triumphal Entry

Frank

They huddle around one another, listening to some final words of wisdom and last-minute instructions. They may take a knee in prayer. Then together, unified, they make their triumphal entry.

It is a sports tradition as players leave the locker room to slap a sticker, logo, or saying above the door. “Pride” “Bear Down” “War Eagle” The Clemson Tigers rub “Howard’s Rock” before taking the field. A simple reminder before game time.

For those in Jerusalem, they laid down palm branches for their coming King.

Epic Choke

We are in the midst of March Madness with its Cinderella stories and upsets galore. But fans’ expectations are sometimes too high. Although the unpredictability is what makes the NCAA basketball tournament so exciting, we are quick to judge the losers- the team was over-rated, the coach wasn’t prepared (both Minnesota and UCLA fired their coaches in the last couple of days despite having relatively successful seasons), the players were soft; or sometimes the worst insult in all of sports- they simply choked on the big stage.

Can you imagine the crowd’s surprise as they heard that the Messiah was coming? People rushed out into the streets thinking, “here he comes! He’s going to restore God’s Kingdom! Time to show those Romans who’s boss!” And as they peered over one anothers’ shoulders, they saw a humble man riding a donkey.

Sure, for the educated they recalled the prophesy in Zechariah, but he still didn’t look like a king ready for battle. I’m sure many doubted upon seeing him. Of course the Bible records that others responded with cheers of Hosanna in the Highest.

Can you imagine their surprise when only a few days later this king-to-be would be killed in a public spectacle?

If Facebook was around at the time I’m sure someone would have posted a picture of the crucifixion with the caption “Epic Fail” Epic would definitely be the right word to describe it; fail, not so much. What the people did not understand was that God’s Kingdom involved more than Jerusalem. In fact, it involved more than the living. The Christ died only to overcome death three days later, establishing His Reign over both life and death.

We call Palm Sunday Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” but the real triumph came when Jesus died and entered the grave.

But that wasn’t good enough for many fans at the time. And it’s not good enough for many still today.