Idolatry

I've been reading Hosea closely lately, and its reaffirmed my conviction that Israel's predominant sin in the Biblical times is that of having other gods--the breaking of the 1st commandment. In Hosea, all the other injustices and perversions that are mentioned seem to be fallout from this cardinal vice. Many of the sins themselves are associated with Baal worship. But besides pagan worship practices, it also seems that the worship of other gods leads to other sins. Hosea 4:13 "They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar and terebinth, where the shade is pleasant. Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery." So, here, the worship of foreign gods leads to prostitution and adultery.

A key hermeneutical step is needed in order to apply these passages to our time. But is the breaking of the first commandment the primary sin of our time? Do we have other gods? Are we like Israel of old, or do we have other problems? What, if any, gods do we have besides God? I'm going to dig up some old seminary notes and get back to this. I think it's important to answer this question. Preaching the latter prophets makes no sense unless we can understand how the law continues to have applicability in our time.

Friendship Evangelism Part 2

I wonder if my initial comments about friendship evangelism were a bit naive. Maybe professional "befriending" is actually a commonly accepted phenomenon. People talk about developing networks. This happens on different levels, from the exchange of business cards, to schmoozing at corporate events, etc. It happens in sales. It happens in college. If a student is wise, he/she'll not burn any bridges in classes through obnoxious rhetoric, will keep in touch with his/her favorite professors, and will use those connections for a variety of purposes--getting good recommendations, finding jobs, soliciting advice, etc.

Here's what I'm realizing. Being intentional about developing "networks" or "friends" doesn't necessarily make it insincere. The fact of the matter is that we constantly depend on other people in order to function in our lives. What has happened, I believe, is that the relationship aspect of these dependencies has, in the world of groceries, malls, and Internet shopping, etc., been eliminated. I don't need to know my bank teller in order to trust that when I deposit 1,000 into checking that it goes into the right account. All this stuff is controlled by mechanisms. As a result, a dichotomy has emerged between relationships which are "strictly for meeting needs," and relationships which are strictly social/friendly. Having gotten used to that, I think that when the separation begins to blur again, I feel uncomfortable and dishonest.

This is especially true as an evangelist. For example, I want to grow the church and evangelize by adding new members to the congregation. You, a stranger, and definitely in need of conversion (sorry for the crass terms), walk into our ALPHA program. You better believe that I'm going to go out of my way to be friendly and welcoming to you. Question: am I being civil and hospitable because it's my job to grow the church, or because I care about your salvation, or because I genuinely love strangers and want to be friends with people I've met only once?

It's a tricky business. And the evangelist better care about more than simply whether or not the stranger gets into Heaven. Even though the question of a person's eternal salvation is of grave importance to me, I recognize that it is inhuman to develop a relationship with someone strictly on the grounds that you desire for this relationship to result in their conversion. But maybe this the point: that developing a relationship in order to do your job doesn't have to be dishonest and fake, but that the friendship desire cannot be limited to any one gain or motive. The challenge as an evangelist arises soon, however. You can't be best friends with everybody. You can care about the "hungry masses" as Jesus did, but you can't cannot invest a true friendship in every one of them, right? I mean Jesus had 12 disciples. He taught and fed the masses. He befriended 12.

a pound of flesh? try nine

SHYLOCK: "The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is deerely bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it." Merchant of Venice

Since I started dieting with a professional nutritionist, I've lost 9 pounds. Do you know how much flesh nine pounds is? That's almost the weight of an adult's head. Imagine chopping off my head.

The more I think about it, the nutritionist does exactly what I do.

1. Helps you come to an awareness of how fat you are: like coming to an awareness of your sin.
2. Helps you to assess just how badly you're eating: like helping someone to see how their entire life has revolved around them
3. Gives you hope that you can lose weight through eating right and dieting, but tells you that its going to be really hard at first: like pointing out that Jesus' death and resurrection offers us new hope, but that dying to the self is a painful process
4. Tells me what to eat and not to eat in order to achieve my desired weight: like teaching someone how to read the scripture and how to pray
5. Checks my weight every week to make sure I'm on track: like holding a new believer accountable and making sure he/she is following through on his/her commitment

It's the same. Obviously, the glaring difference--one is entirely based on what I am able to accomplish through my works, while the other is entirely reliant upon God's grace.

Still, a whole head's worth of fat is a good start, eh?

Dave and Me

Dave and Me.

Dave is so smart, he makes my head spin.
Practically, he's my next of kin

"Friendship Evangelism"

Who wants a friend with a hidden agenda? The ironic thing is that "friendship evangelism" is a welcome alternative to "flasher evangelism," a term coined to describe the unwanted exposure at a premature moment, as if to say, our courtship is over--let me show you why we're having coffee here--you need to be saved! Yikes.

But is "friendship evangelism" any better? I guess the idea is that evangelism has to happen lovingly and in the context of a relationship. But who in their right mind ever sets out to make friends? What an unnatural thing to do. Isn't friendship something that just happens? Sure, you can nurture relationships, but you can't really choose who your friends are, can you? Would you even want to be friends with someone who intentionally tries to make friends so as to change the other's world and life view or religion or beliefs?

Are evangelists called to be friends? I don't know. One thing is for sure. We're called to care, and we're called to love people. But at least right now, making friends for the express purpose of creating a context in which evangelism can happen seems dishonest and artificial. I know that in many situations, it works. But I have a hard time comprehending who would want to be friends with someone who went through life acting in this way.

Virginia Tech shooting

Interestingly enough, two days later and my youth group kids hadn't even heard the news. Some thoughts and questions:

1. I suppose its only natural that something like this makes the headlines because it's on home soil, but this is a daily occurence in other parts of the world (like Iraq), and it doesn't raise much interest. Is that ok?

2. Did you see the "convocation?" They had Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Jews represented among the speakers. It was interesting to hear them back to back--all offering words of hope and encouragement, all lamenting the tragedy. If I were a normal person and could be objective, I would love to rank the speakers to see which was the most encouraging.

3. A South Korean killer? I don't know if I've ever heard of a non-American comitting this type of a personally motivated crime in the US. All the others are disgruntled and angry, maybe psycotic American fringe types. But then again, how foreign was he? He'd lived in the US for 14 years, and he was only 23.

4. How do you think the media coverage has been? It seemed, at least from internet news sources, that the media was determined to doubt the administration's wisdom in the handling of the situation from the getgo. Why?

5. And my final comment. Why do these tragedy's always raise the "how could it have been prevented" question? That question is dangerous precisely because you cannot prevent individuals from harming others in such a fashion. I mean, come on, if someone is determined to kill himself and wants to take 30 others along with him, is there really anything anybody can do about it? The amount of freedoms you'd have to eliminate in order to create a perfectly safe society would be colossal. Not the society I want to live in.

Learning to be more Christian from the nutritionist

Don't know whether I should be blabbing about this, but, ok, I'll admit: I'm on a diet.

In fact, I'm paying good money to meet with someone who's whipping my *ss into shape.

Why? Because although I might not be "fat" in the conventional sense of the word, I'm overweight, and because I've been agonizing about the scale reading for years. It was time to do something.

This is what she figured. To maintain 230 lbs, you have to eat more than 3,000 calories of food per day. In fact, my "maintain calorie intake" was 3160. Actually, I've been gaining weight ever since I came to America 7 years ago, about 10 - 15 pounds per year. That means I was eating over 3160 calories per day. Calorie-wise, that would mean, and I'm horrified to admit this, that I was eating the equivalent to about 56 ounces of chicken per day (or 30 bananas).

So, the diet, at least for the first two weeks is simple: reduce calorie intake by 1/3. My dietitian stressed: this is the hardest part, changing your eating patterns.

So, I've gone about two weeks now eating only 2,000 calories per day. I'm usually hungry. It's especially hard at night when my wife and I are just sitting around. But after a very simple dinner of brown rice, two cups of fresh vegetables, and 6 ounces of lean meat, I am satisfied. The dietitian has taught me that I can survive on much much less food than I previously realized. If I wanted, I could save a fortune eating only what's on my diet. In fact, eating out and staying under my calorie cap is virtually impossible.

And I believe this has helped me to be a better Christian in this sense. By eating only what I need, I feel that I am being a better steward of the world's resources. The body doesn't need 3000 calories. Why hog all that food? And get fat? Especially while people are hungry in other places of my town.

On Preaching

Preaching is a truly difficult endeavor. Every sermon I write feels like a hike on a brand new trail that I'm navigating alone with an inadequate topographical map. I have a hard time staying focused. The Grey Wizard's ten steps are helpful as a method, but accomplishing a sermon is much more than simply following ten steps. A good sermon ought to: convict, educate, encourage, bring about life change, entertain (like a good lecture can be entertaining if the professor is diggin' his material), jolt, challenge, renew. It out to be enjoyable, it ought to be slightly uncomfortable, it ought to be interesting. Then on top of all that, it ought to be focused on God, not on you. The people should heard the Word of God, not the Word of Ben. Nonchristians should be able to understand what you're saying, but believers ought not to be bored. Worst of all, your sermon has to "connect." Connection is notoriously hard to engineer. That's why some dates end the relationship while others end in marriage.

God help us all.

Easter Reflections

I had to preach this past Sunday. As usual, getting a sermon together by Sunday usually involves much floundering, theological digging, excruiciating textual study, and then my favorite part, the part where you talk through the passage over and over in your mind until a language emerges to express what you want to say.

But Easter was difficult, and I found myself hung up on the resurrection part. What exactly is the point of the resurrection? Why couldn't Jesus simply have ascended into Heaven. Why did Jesus have to come back in the flesh on earth? Why was this event the pinnacle of the Christian calendar? Hadn't the work of salvation been accomplished on the cross?

Apparently not. I found this strange verse in Romans 4: "he was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." I thought that forgiveness of sins was justification. I did some digging and found out that justification is actually a two part process. To have one's sins forgiven is only half of being justified. Just because one is not found guilty is not the same as being found righteousness. In order for us to be truly justified, we must recieve both the forgiveness of sins and have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us so that we can be fully recieved into God's presence as his beloved children. Thus, death and resurrection are necessary for our salvation. Death pays for sins. Christ's resurrection makes it possible for us to be resurrected with him, to defy death, and to be joined with him in the inheritance of new life.

Solving this problem made preaching a little easier, but I faced another problem. It felt backwards. I was preaching (hypothetically) about the significance of the resurrection by showing why the resurrection was necessary for our justification. Rather than showing why it was necessary for Jesus to rise from the dead, wouldn't I be better off showing how wonderful it was that God had the power to accomplish such a feat and how thankful we should be for having gone through with it? But that seems like a nobrainer. Of course Jesus had to rise from the dead. What choice did he have? Being the Son of God, he couldn't just stay dead, right? He came to save his people, he died on the cross, he's going to finish the job, right? Wasn't the hard part over with?

I preached on the resurrection, but I think I might have failed out on this one. Any ideas? What is the meaning of the resurrection.