Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by! Read, enjoy clicking around and leave a comment to let me know you were here. A little background on yours truly: I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband and father and an evangelical pastor. This blog is a place which will reflect that I am truly learning day by day in pursuit of God and His truth. In the process, I welcome your insights as well. Enjoy your visit…

God, Your Father, Loves You.

       This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day. For some this day brings lots of joy and happy memories of dad. But for others this day may bring some heartache. For the latter, God is deeply concerned about the fatherless. He promises to be their father. (Ps 27:10) In fact, there is no image used more often of God than Him as Father. In one of the first glimpses we have of God, he is seeking a relationship with His child. “Adam . . . Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). But you cannot know the heart of God if you read this question as though God were a policeman. Read it as though God were a brokenhearted Father looking for His lost child…because God, your father, deeply loves you.

FYI – Harold Camping doesn’t speak for us.

   May 21st came and went last weekend and in my opinion, it was a bit embarrassing for the great majority of Christianity. The ridicule against us, to some extent, is deserved. The old saying about “one bad apple…” is true. And this guy will not stop talking…he has postponed the date again until October 21st. You can listen to it here, its really unbelievable. Sadly, the church today is not unified enough to have a good system in place to responsibly shut down false teaching on a wide scale like it used to (Deut 18:21-22). (Sidenote – What should we do about that problem?) As a result…this kind of garbage actually gets out there and receives the kind of press it did. So. So. Sad. And Messy. Now for the cleanup…

The time for debate is over. It ended on May 22nd. (Although Camping is saying that his calculations were correct and Christ returned “spiritually”???) Unreal. So stiff-necked. He reminds me of myself  and my own justifications to prolong my misery in my own sins. But that’s besides the point. God help us all.

Anyhoo, for now, there is only one thing left for Mr. Harold to do…turn from the error of his ways. I agree with Dr. James White who has debated (and defeated) Harold Camping on many of his (quite numerous) hybrid teachings and is openly calling for Camping’s public repentance. Thank you Dr. White, you are a gift to the church. (You can read Dr. White’s eloquent letter here.)

So, as for those on the outside looking in through the window at this circus with your eye brow raised, what are you going to do? I guess many skeptics will laugh. Others may dig deeper into unbelief. Scoffers will turn away and some on the fence may be wondering, “Is any of that Bible credible?” as they walk away shaking their heads. And I understand why you might think along those lines, but before you go, can I have a word with you?

To debunk all of the teachings of Jesus Christ on the basis of his weakest (and nuttiest) representatives is just not rational. Its like refusing to watch the Tonight Show ever again because you didn’t like one obscure guest. Camping doesn’t speak for us. In fact, saying Camping represents Christianity is a bit like saying Osama Bin Laden represents you as a human simply because he is a human too. Does he represent you? No. That doesn’t logically follow. 

Instead, why not actually read some real scholarship? Why not wrestle with the text of the Bible yourself and dig deeper into Jesus’ actual words? (Matthew 24:36 might be a good place to start.) If you genuinely have questions, then you owe it to yourself to devote real time and energy to getting answers. Regardless of the madness last weekend…you still must make a decision about the one who claimed to be God, died on that cross, was raised from the dead and said He would return again (at the time of God’s choosing) to rule. You cannot be neutral about him, will you accept him or reject him?

As for me, I reserve the right to differentiate myself from loonies (even if they are so-called “bible-believers”). Every family has that crazy uncle, right? I guess Harold Camping is mine…whether I like it or not. Does your crazy uncle speak for you? No. As for me, I am still hanging with the other 99.999999999% of the rest of the family who actually have brains and are busy running the cleanup. They are normal folks really…well, most of them. So until the mess is straightened up around here, I’ll be at work. And if the Lord tarries…I’ll see most of you at the next family reunion.

Some thoughts on the Rob Bell thing…

I am a young evangelical pastor. I really liked Rob Bell. I am jealous because I cannot pull off glasses that cool. Back in the day, I enjoyed the Nooma videos when they first came out and I really liked to listen to his podcasts. Rob is a gifted speaker and I believe God used Bell to reveal Himself to me in a few ways. Like a lot of people my age, I enjoyed most of Velvet Elvis, but somewhere in the middle of the book, I remember being concerned that he was questioning the importance of the Virgin Birth…so I wrote a question mark in the margin but I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. The rest of the book was pretty darn good. Then I bought Sex God. Another good book with some very intriguing thoughts about the Bible’s “salvation as marriage” metaphor. It opened my eyes on several issues. In Velvet Elvis it seemed to me that Bell was de-emphasizing the importance of the historicity of Adam and Eve (he was saying that the fact that this story ”happens” in our lives, is much more significant than whether or not it “happened” in history) Really? Is that okay to downplay that story like that? I mean, there’s a lot at stake if you get rid of a historical “Adam” and the story of the fall of mankind. Not to mention its implications on Romans 5 or 1 Corinthians 15 where the first Adam plays a pretty important role in New Testament theology. I guess my point is that I have noticed Bell pushing the envelope further and further as the years passed. 

After watching his book release interview for Love Wins in New York City last night, I shook my head. (Here is a transcript).  When asked point blank questions about fundamental Christian doctrines, he left them hanging in the air instead of giving clear answers. He told lots of stories (really good stories, mind you, he is a great speaker), but he was evasive and ambiguous at best and deceptive at worst. Bell is a great communicator. Intriguing. Thought-provoking. But he left ambiguity when clarity was called for. When people were asking for propositions, he told stories that didn’t answer their questions. He could have easily laid to rest the accusations made about him, but he chose not to. At the end, I shook my head as he was avoiding the very weighty issues at stake and that is just irresponsible. I think he knows it too, which is why he tries to relieve his responsibility by claiming  at the end of the interview that “he’s not very smart, not a theologian and not a scholar.” Not so fast, Bell, if that is the case, then why are you shepherding people as a pastor and writing theological books? You’re on the hook for the impact of your teaching, Bell, sorry, as James says, for this reason, not many of you should be teachers. A terrible responsibility comes with the territory. If you can’t take that heat, get out of the kitchen.  (Here is a critical review of the book.)

In the promo video for the book (here), Bell claimed that he was getting at the issue behind the issue, the question behind the question about hell.

For Bell, the “question behind the question” is…the very character of God. How can you believe in a God who would send people to hell? How can God be good if He does that? How is God just? Surely God could not have meant what he said about “forever and ever,” and Bell just can’t believe in that kind of God.  For Bell, it is just downright un-American that everybody doesn’t have the right to go to heaven. Therefore, for God to be “good,” in his definition of the word “good,” he thinks that God must give everyone heaven, or at least a chance at heaven, and maybe even a second chance after they have already rejected God and died. And all of this he gives scriptural support for. Really? 

But here is the issue behind the issue that is behind that issue. Pride. In a spirit of independence from God’s revelation about hell in the Bible, Bell is refusing to submit to God’s word. In other words, Rob Bell, the clay, is talking back to the potter. He sets himself up as the authority and boastfully believes his idea of fairness and his heterodox understanding of hell is more accurate than the plain biblical text. Listen to this verse, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). As Sinclair Ferguson once noted, these words were not spoken by Augustine, or Luther or some firey baptist preacher, they were spoken by Jesus Christ. Submit to Him and tremble in your seat at His terrible words of justice. When He returns, who can stand the wrath of the lamb?

And here is the issue that is behind that issue which was behind the other issue: Bell has a misunderstanding about grace. The real problem here is that his mindset shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what grace is. God is not obligated to give anyone grace. God is under no obligation to save everyone or anyone for that matter. Man has rejected God and God is at odds with man. By definition, grace cannot be demanded or else it is not grace. The only thing anyone is entitled to is justice, which is what we all deserve for committing high treason against the Righteous Judge of all the Earth. R.C. Sproul says it this way, “We are no longer amazed by grace, and we are shocked – in consternation – by justice.” Grace is an absolutely amazing gift of God which teaches us both to fear God again and simultaneously to be relieved of our fear from God’s wrath. As the hymn goes…”‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and Grace my fears relieved.” At the cross, grace came and taught me to fear God. When I look at the cross, grace shows me that there is an infinitely terrible punishment for my sin that I deserved. “But grace my fears relieved,” the cross also reassures me that my punishment has already been paid by the infinitely valuable sacrifice of the God-man in my place. That kind of grace is simply amazing, amazing that He saved a wretch like me. But no one can ever claim that God is not fair for not giving it to someone, no one is ”entitled” to grace because they are all guilty as charged of their sin and their punishment is just.

Our post-modern, entitlement laden culture is not tender toward the exclusive message about Jesus Christ, nor are they tolerant of the terrible doctrine of hell. But this is nothing new…This is not the first time Christians have been in a hostile environment. We must be careful here, there is a temptation to think that the only way to get people to accept Christianity is to change it. But that is not an option. Our faith is to proclaim, not to edit or reinterpret. Our faith was “passed down” (Jude 1:1-5) to us by the apostles and prophets and we are under divine obligation to keep it in tact.

A New Year in the ancient Word.

This New Year’s message by John Piper just blew me away. It gave me a fresh sense of the power of the Scriptures, and reminded me of their vital role in the process of renewing my mind. I sat simply stunned in my chair for the first 10 minutes. Wow. Check it out…

“Christ is in our Midst.” Advent 2009

You’ve heard the name, “Immanuel,” right? It is a Hebrew word meaning, “God with us” (Is 7:14, 8:8, 10). Immanuel is a good summary of what we Christians celebrate during the Advent season. The term Advent is Latin for “Coming,” or “Arrival.” This is the season wherein we wait for the coming of the Messiah, “God with us.”

He came once and He is coming again. We celebrate this with the advent wreath of progressively lit candles.

The outer four represent the four Sundays of the Advent season, representing Hope (1), Peace (2), Joy (3), and Love (4). The center candle is the Christ candle, the light of the world. As they are lit week by week, our hearts burn in waiting for our coming Messiah. They are lit progressively to symbolize accumulating light, as the day of His coming draws nearer and nearer.

Advent is also about the beginning of hope which he brought near to us in His first coming. It is a celebration that “Christ is in our midst.” This became an ancient early church greeting to which another Christian would respond in kind, “He was, He is, and He always will be.”