What’s the key to evangelism?

Here are some interesting quotations from a Christianity Today article:

To a culture of people that believes they "go to heaven" based on whether or not they're morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At best, He is an afterthought, a technicality by which we become morally pure, or a subject we know about, or a founding father of our woo-woo spirituality.

Maybe the Gospel of Jesus, in other words, is all about our relationship with Jesus rather than about ideas. And perhaps our lists and formulas and bullet points are nice in the sense they help us memorize different truths, but harmful in the sense they delude, or perhaps ignore, the necessary relationship that must begin between God and us for us to become His followers. And worse, perhaps our formulas and bullet points and steps steal the sincerity we might engage God with.

Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies.

(This article is an excerpt from Donald Miller’s book, Searching for God Knows What.)

So what do you think? Do we have problems with evangelism because we’re going about it all wrong? Is it possible that our own faith is mechanical because we think of it more like a recipe than a relationship? Is it possible that we’ve made it about going to heaven when it’s really about something completely different?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Some deep thinking on evangelism

There is an excellent post over at The Christian Mind about adjusting the presentation of the gospel for particular cultures. (This post is essentially a summary of a lengthy post by Tim Keller, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church: Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs.)

WARNING: This involves some serious thinking.

Dr. Keller defines defeater beliefs as a culture’s “common sense consensus beliefs that automatically make Christianity seem implausible to people.” Because these deeply-entrenched beliefs are assumed to be true, people hastily dismiss the Christian faith since it contradicts them.

I recommend that you read the summary and then, if your brain is not hurting too much, read the full article.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Friendship Evangelism?

Here are excerpts from two blogs. Both of these people reject Friendship Evangelism, but for very different reasons.

Passive Friendship Evangelism Committee: "Words from Dr. William Willimon: ‘We, as the church, need to mock the world, instead of being so accepting and encouraging of it. We celebrate sin, by honoring sinners.’"

The Martin-Weber Chronicles: What Would You Say? Part 2: "I reject the idea of ‘friendship evangelism’ even after all my years of being indoctrinated with this method of evangelism. If I began a relationship with this person there would be something other than me wanting to convince them of anything, we would have to share life on some level. My faith would never be a secret, but I wouldn’t be trying to manipulate conversations to not-so-subtly point out how they need God. I would seek to be in genuine relationship with this person, no hidden agenda. I do however believe in 'worship evangelism' and always be striving to live a life of worship- no apologies."

So do you agree with the first guy that “Friendship Evangelism” is too passive and too accommodating? Or do you agree with the second guy that “Friendship Evangelism” is too manipulative?

I don’t want this just to be a poll. I’d like it to be a discussion. Tell me why you feel the way you do.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Preaching to Ourselves

Maybe the best approach to evangelism is to start with ourselves. Instead of fighting the culture wars and telling people they are sinners, maybe we should be “converting” our own souls.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent sermon by John Piper. It was given after his cancer surgery and before his five-month sabbatical:

When we are apart now for these next five months, would you do this, dear Bethlehem? Just as the elders will see to it that the gospel is preached in this pulpit, would you see to it that you preach the gospel to yourself? Pray to God for the light you need in your heart, and preach to yourself the truth that you need in your soul.

Sounds like good advice to me. What do you think?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Judgment Evangelism

I read this statement by Brian McLaren over at postmodern breakfast food: "We’ve created an environment where the only way Christians can relate to others is to tell them 'You’re going to burn in hell.' Think about that."

Ouch!

Selling Amway

Why does evangelism feel like trying to sell Amway?

You’ve had the experience. One of your friends invites you over for “dinner.” Then he wants to tell you about a “wonderful business opportunity.” You can tell that he is enthusiastic about it. But it sounds like a hassle. You’d have to change your whole life and build it around this “business opportunity.” The whole situation makes you uncomfortable. And you wonder how this is going to change your relationship.

All you have to do is exchange “wonderful plan for your life” for “wonderful business opportunity” and you have most people’s experience of being “evangelized."

Why do you think this is? What can we do to make it different?

(Here’s one guy’s idea. Here’s another twist on the “dinner” approach.)

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Back to Basics

It may seem odd to talk of returning to the “old way” when this blog is only a few weeks old. But I have taken us off our original path with the discussion of a lot of theory.

In the future, if there is a need for a theoretical discussion, I will post it at the companion site. I will try to keep these posts concise and challenging.

This is one of the problems we have in the church. We spend so much time arguing over theory and positions that we have little time to focus on putting into practice what Jesus taught. And that is what this blog is about. How do we put into practice what Jesus taught?

We’ve reduced Christianity to tips and techniques. We turned God’s grand story into a collection of propositions. We’ve limited “the Kingdom of God” to something that we participate in after we die.

Jesus called us to be salt, but we’ve tried to be pepper instead. We’ve irritated the world over the wrong issues.

So from now on I’ll try to stay focused. A (sacred) ox may get gored from time to time.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Last Word

Here’s the last post on this issue.

When the Bible says that God does not change, it usually means that God can be trusted to keep his word or that his character is unchanging. The idea that God cannot change in any way does not come from the Bible but from Greek philosophy.

But here’s the important point we’ve been building to throughout this too-long discussion: Even though God is the same today as he was in the time of Abraham (for example) our understanding of him continues to improve and develop.

Do we think that the universe is different today than it was in the time of Newton? Or course not. But our understanding is very different.

It is foolish (and somewhat arrogant) to think that any generation has discovered everything there is no know about God. Just because we have not received any new scriptures does not mean that our understanding of God cannot be refined.

Certainly any “new understanding” must be judged against the Bible. And many “new understandings” have been little more than repackaged heresy. But we shouldn’t be afraid to take a fresh look at the scriptures.

While God has not inspired any new scripture, we do have a more accurate Bible than our great-grandparents had. We also have much more information (from archaeology and other sources) about the language and culture of the time of the Bible.

While this is the last post on this topic, I will be happy to respond to questions or comments here.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

“God is perfect so he cannot change in any way”

This has been so widely accepted by Christians that it must be true. But we saw earlier that the Bible depicts God as “changing his mind.”

Some might argue that God is “pretending” to change his mind to shape people’s behavior. But in 2 Samuel 24:16 and Psalm 106:45 this explanation doesn’t seem to apply.

If the Bible shows a God who interacts with his people and adapts his behavior in response to their behavior, where did we get this idea that God is unable to change in any way?

It comes from Greek philosophy.

According to Greek philosophy, anything that is perfect cannot change. If it changes, it either becomes more perfect or less perfect. If it becomes more perfect, it wasn’t perfect to begin with. If it was perfect, then any change is change away from perfection.

On the surface this seems to make sense. But it is based on an assumption that all change is either change toward or away from perfection.

Plato believed that the real world was the world of “ideals.” These were perfect “forms” that were reflected in the imperfect objects of the visible world. Because these “forms” were perfect they did not change. And the highest “form” was the form of “goodness.”

When this philosophy was adopted by the later Christian theologians, God became the highest “form.”

But this reduces God to an unchanging, impersonal force (Star Wars?). However, the Bible reveals God as living and personal. What is unchangeable is his character: his faithfulness and love.

The Greek thinkers saw the world as shaped by an immaterial, timeless, unmoving, impassive and changeless principle. This principle was in some sense “divine.” When Christian theologians in the early centuries started to explain God to the world, they used this language to describe God’s greatness and his superiority to humanity.

But this is not the biblical language, as we have seen.

When the Bible talks of God’s unchangeableness, it is either talking about the reliability of his word or the unchangeableness of his character.

One of the most powerful expressions of this is found in 2 Timothy 2:11-13:

If we died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.

This is not the unchanging, impersonal force of Greek philosophy. This is the living, personal God of the Bible.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Hebrews 13

In order to understand what the author means by “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” we should look at the immediate context.

He tells his readers that they should be content with what they have and not get caught up in striving for money and possessions. They can do this because they have the promise of God: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

He tells them that they can live with confidence. Because God is on their side, they do not have to be afraid of what people might do to them.

Then he reminds them of the example of their leaders, many who remained faithful even to the point of martyrdom. While leaders might come and go, Jesus Christ remains in power and authority forever.

So the meaning of “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” is that he is King and Lord and that he will rule into the new age. His power and authority will never diminish. His love will remain constant for all eternity.

To attempt to make this statement say more than this is to miss the point the writer is trying to make. We cannot extrapolate from Jesus’ life on earth to how he functions now as the ruler of the Kingdom of God. We cannot say that because he did (or did not do) certain things in his earthly ministry that he will operate in exactly the same way today.

These issues must be settled using different information.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever

Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Actually, a strictly literal translation would be, “Jesus Christ, yesterday and today himself, and into the age.” (The word “himself” is often translated “the same.”)

So does this meant that Jesus Christ never changes in any way and that he has always been the same?

Let’s plug in a couple of verses from Luke’s Gospel:

And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him (Luke 2:40).
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52).

Luke makes it clear that Jesus grew physically, socially and intellectually. He implies that he also grew spiritually. The passage between these verses tells about Jesus' first visit to the Temple. It is often misunderstood by assuming that Jesus was teaching the teachers and embarrassing them with his tough questions.

But here’s what Luke writes:

They found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers (Luke 2:46-47).

The picture Luke gives us is one of a precocious student who has an unusual grasp of the subject and who is voraciously taking in everything the teachers give him. It would not be hard to image him also challenging the standard interpretations, “What if this passage is talking about this?” But it is primarily a story about Jesus’ development. If there was any doubt, the two framing verses (40 & 52) should settle the issue.

Paul also talks about a rather significant change that took place:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Philippians 2:5-7).

So whatever the writer of Hebrews means, he cannot mean that there has never been any kind of change in the Son (the second person of the Trinity). He set aside his divine nature and took on “humanness.” As a child, he grew and developed, refining his understanding of his mission in the process.

Yet John starts his Gospel with these words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning (John 1:1-2).

The Word has always existed and was actively involved in creation. So that there is no doubt about who John is talking about, he writes in verse 14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So in some important way, Jesus Christ is unchanging, even though in other ways he does (or at least did) change.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the passage in Hebrews to see if we can tell what the writer is trying to say in the context of his letter.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

God’s “word” is reliable

Let’s look at the first of these verses:

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19).

The majority of the verses that refer to God’s “unchangeableness” refer to the reliability of his word. When God promises something, we can count on it. This is what is in view in the passage in Malachi.

“I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and
have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 3:6-7).

Also in Psalm 110:4:

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

(The identity of Melchizedek is not important for our discussion, but you may want to want read the Wikipedia article for more information about him.)

Samuel told King Saul:

“He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change
his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (1 Samuel 15:29).

But we run into a problem here. The context of Samuel’s statement is that God has changed his mind. God made Saul king of Israel. Then he decided that this was a “mistake” and chose David as king instead. A few verses later Samuel says, “The Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel” (v. 35).

Now here’s the interesting thing. The Hebrew word translated “grieved” in the New International Version is translated “repented” in the King James Version. This is the same word translated “change his mind” in verse 29.

Samuel is telling Saul that God changed his mind about making Saul king but that he will not change his mind about changing his mind.

It gets even more interesting in Jeremiah 18:7-10:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

God is putting everyone on notice that he reserves the right to change his mind. And this is the same word again (nacham) which means “to repent.”

But this is not a capricious change of mind. And that is the point. We can trust God to keep his word. But that doesn’t mean that he can never “change his mind” or announce that the conditions of a promise have not been met.

So let’s recap what we’ve discovered so far.

• When the Bible says that God does not change it usually means that his “word” is reliable, that he can be trusted.
• But he still reserves the right to “change his mind” when circumstances warrant it.
• So the phrase “God does not change” even when applied to God keeping his word has exceptions and “small print.”
• At least when it means “God does not change his mind,” we cannot treat the statement, “God does not change,” in a rigid, “legalistic” manner.

So what do you think? How does this change your view of who God is and how he interacts with humans?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

What does the Bible say?

Let’s start by looking at what Bible has to say about God and change. Here are few verses that talk about God’s “unchangeableness.”

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19).

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17).

“I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6).

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

So what do you think these verses mean?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

“God does not change.”

This is a statement often made but rarely understood. Just what does it mean that God never changes?

There are actually several possible meanings of this simple phrase:

• God’s basic nature and character are fixed and will never change.
• God is perfect and complete as he is so he cannot change in any way.
• God’s ways of interacting with humans will remain the same because God never changes.
• What it means to be a Christian never changes because God never changes.
• What it means to be the Church never changes because God never changes.
• God’s “rules” will never change because God never changes.
• Our worship of God should not change “with the times” because God never changes.
• Christians should not accommodate to the changing culture around them because God never changes.
• What was true in the days of Noah, Abraham, Moses or Paul remains true today because God never changes.
• We already know everything there is to know about God (this side of heaven) because God never changes.
• What the Bible means never changes because it is God’s Word and God never changes.
• Any new way of understanding the Bible is misguided because God never changes.
• God cannot change his mind because he never changes.
• God will never go back on his word because he never changes.
• Any “innovation” in theology is a departure from the truth because God never changes.

You may be able to come up with even more possible meanings for this statement. If you do, please add them as a comment.

So what do you think? Do you agree with all these statements? Over the next several days we will examine this in detail. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

What’s with the “word verification”?

When you post a comment, you are asked to type in the letters which are displayed as a graphic. Why is this necessary?

This is to prevent the people who fill your e-mail inbox with spam from doing the same thing here with comments. Many people set up their computers to troll the Web looking for blogs and discussion boards where they can post spam. They have their computers programmed to automatically make the necessary keystrokes to post the comment. The one thing they cannot do is interpret the graphic and type in the correct letters.

I know this makes it a little more complicated for you to post your comments. But I think you would agree that it is worth the extra trouble to keep the spammers from bombarding us with ads about erectile dysfunction and porn sites.

Thanks for making the extra effort to submit your comments and questions.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Two Questions

When I was a freshman at college, I took a course called Inductive Bible Study. In this course I learned something that has been of enormous value to me in understanding and applying the Bible to my life and my ministry.

As I have tried to show in some of the previous posts, it is not always a simple thing to determine what the Bible means. Sometimes the “obvious meaning” is not correct. Sometimes we have to do a considerable amount of research before we can determine what a passage means.

But in the midst of this complexity, there is an approach to understanding the Bible that keeps the purpose clearly in mind.

This approach consists of two questions:

• What did the writer intend his original readers to
  understand?
• What, if anything, does this have to do with me?

Too often, students of the Bible try to answer both questions at the same time. This leads to much confusion and misunderstanding. Answering the first question requires more time than most people realize. Notice that it refers to the author and the original readers. This requires us to do some work in understanding who the author was. Then we must determine who the original audience was. Finally, we must try to understand what this passage would have meant to them.

All these things must be answered to a reasonable extent before we can focus on the second question.

And notice the phrase “if anything.” Just because something is in the Bible doesn’t mean it automatically applies to your life. I know you’ve heard pastors and teachers say the opposite, but a little common sense will tell you that this can’t be.

There is no direct application to your life of Numbers 26:20-22.

Now I’m not saying that it is not true or that it is not an important part of the Bible. All I am saying is that it has no direct application to your life. Any attempt to force one would do violence to the text.

Armed with these two questions, you can start to improve your ability to understand and apply God’s Word to your life.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

The Bible as story

The best way to understand the Bible is to read it as a grand narrative. Sure it has parts that that are written in other forms than narrative. But even those parts serve the big story. (Moby Dick and many Tom Clancy books are examples of narratives that have large sections of non-narrative material as a part of the narrative.)

We have tended to turn the Bible into a collection propositions or a resource for tips and techniques.

But the Bible is essentially a story, from beginning to end. It begins with the story of God’s creation of the universe and human beings. It tells the story of how things went terribly wrong in the Garden. It tells of how God selected key individuals to prepare the way for his plan of the redemption of his good creation: Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Jesus.

This story reached its decisive moment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

But that was not the end of the story. The story continued with the establishment of the Church on the day of Pentecost. And we’ve been given a glimpse of how the story ends with the new creation in the New Jerusalem.

Understand what I’m saying here. I’m not suggesting that this is an alternative way to read the Bible or an interesting way to get a new perspective on God’s Word. I’m suggesting that this is the proper way to read Scripture.

When we reduce the Bible to something less than narrative, we’re missing the point.

So what do you think?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Why I hate Mardi Gras

You would expect a pastor to say that he doesn’t like Mardi Gras. But you might be surprised why I don’t like it.

Is it because of the excessive drinking? Not really. There are many other situations when people drink too much and hurt themselves and others because they are intoxicated. I’m not in favor of excessive drinking. But that’s not the reason I hate Mardi Gras.

Is it because of the nudity? Nope. There’s just as much nudity at Spring Break. (And I have to admit that it does appeal to my hormones.) Sure, women flashing their breasts in public is not a healthy expression of sexuality. God has a much better, and more fulfilling, way to express and satisfy sexual desires. But the nudity is not the reason I hate Mardi Gras.

Is it because of the debauchery? This is nothing unique to Mardi Gras. People engage in all sorts of self-destructive behavior every weekend. They have been duped into abusing God’s gift of sex for a few moments of titillation, when God wants us to enjoy a lifetime of intimacy and fulfillment (with a fair amount of pleasure in the bargain). No, sexual decadence is not why I hate Mardi Gras.

I hate Mardi Gras because it reinforces several lies of the Evil One.

The lie that “holiness” is about deprivation (Click links for details.)
The lie that “holiness” is dull and boring
The lie that we have to give in to temptation so that we can resist temptation in the future
The lie that forgiveness is cheap

That’s why I hate Mardi Gras. It’s not just “a little harmless fun.” It’s propaganda by the Enemy to keep people from finding the life that God wants them to enjoy.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Should we take the Bible literally?

The truth is that there is no one who takes the Bible literally. Some cults do teach that God has hands (Ex. 24:11) and feet (Lev. 26:12). But I know of no group that teaches that God has wings (Ruth 2:12, Psalm 17:8).

Any honest person must admit that he takes parts of the Bible figuratively.

The important question is when do we take things literally and when do we take them figuratively. Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes we have to look at the context and historical background to decide. And sometimes we really can’t tell for sure.

What we should seek to do is take the Bible “at face value.” When it claims to be speaking literally, we should take it literally. When it indicates that it is speaking figuratively, we should take it figuratively. When we are not sure, we should carefully consider all the possibilities and make a humble choice realizing that others might come to a different conclusion.

Some believe that it is more pious to take any particular passage literally unless it is impossible to do so. This is the philosophy of the authors of the Left Behind series. But this results in strained interpretations. For instance when Revelation says that the moon will turn to blood, is that to be taken literally? When God turned the Nile to blood, does that mean that it turned red and became undrinkable? Or does it mean that leukocytes, erythrocytes and platelets were flowing in its banks in a medium of serum?

In the last example, it is easy to say, “The Nile turned to blood,” and to think of it as actual blood—if you are reading this account in the way one would read a fairy tale. Anything can happen in a fairy tale. And sometimes Christians will say with an air of piety, “God can do anything.”

But if one reads this account as a news report of an event that happened today, it seems more “real” that God caused the Nile to be contaminated (possibly with a microorganism) and that is what resulted in the red color and what rendered the water undrinkable.

This does not mean that the second interpretation is less faithful to the inspiration of Exodus. It may mean that it is more faithful to the inspiration of Exodus and to the idea of God working in the real world.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Not all Scripture is created equal

John states his purpose for writing his gospel in John 20:31. It written so that those who read will have sufficient evidence to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing this they will have life in him.

The purpose for writing the book of Job is very different. It is written to address the problem of evil, not necessarily to give a pat answer. We would be foolish to expect the words of Job to carry the same weight as the words of John. In fact, God repudiates the words of Job’s friends and to some degree the words of Job himself.

The book of Proverbs has still a different purpose. It is a collection of wisdom. It is not a book of promises. It is not book of formulas that can be applied in a mechanical fashion to one’s life. One must have the wisdom to know when and how to apply these wise sayings.

For example Proverbs 26:4 says not to answer a fool. The very next proverb (26:5) says one should answer a fool. This is not a contradiction. Sometimes the wise thing to do is to remain silent. Sometimes the wise thing to do is to speak up. One must exercise wisdom to know when to do what.

There is a similar contrast between Proverbs 10:15 and Proverbs 18:11.

These are not mistakes. These are not inconsistencies. These are true statements that require wisdom to know when they apply to different situations.

Does this mean that we are free to dismiss portions of the Bible we find inconvenient? Of course not. Neither does it mean that we apply all parts of it in the same way disregarding its original context and purpose.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”