from John White

"Whatever way we may conceive or fail to conceive in the nature of the Trinity, of one thing we may be sure. Human beings did not invent it out of their neurotic need for security. People who say that man created God as a father forget this. God, as he is revealed to us, comes not just as a Father, but as a Three-in-One, an entity which we cannot understand let alone invent." 

The Truth About the Illuminati

In the Batman movie triology that recently completed this past year, the overarching story line is the work of The League of Shadows, an underground organization that spends years solidifying control over society's powerful elite in order to carry out its own nefarious mission. 

Sound familiar? 

It should. Throughout human history, rumors have come always existed about secret societies and international conspiracies. Nero blamed a group of people who called themselves Christians when a great fire burned down the majority of Rome (which, coincidentally, the League of Shadows takes the credit for in Batman Begins). Both Hitler and the Russian Tsars believed that the Jews had a secret plan to take over the world. And people have always suspected the Freemasons of being up to something. 

The latest group to start trending on Google is the Illuminati. Here's the basic breakdown: in the 1700s a Bavarian Catholic priest named Adam Weishaupt began an organization called the Illuminati. This organization has allegedly been behind a secret movement to enslave the whole world in a satanic plot for a one world government. Specifically, the plan has is to divide all of human civilization into 

"opposing camps in ever increasing numbers on political, social, economic, and other issues...The opposing sides were then to be armed, and incidents were to be provided which would cause them to fight and weaken themselves, gradually destroying national governments and religious institutions." 

The method would include obtaining control over men in high places of authority, faculty at colleges and universities, and media executives and producers. Controlling the people in power would allow the Illuminati to drive human civilization into more and more disunity while controlling the media would allow them to hide what they were doing from the masses. 

Source: http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/illumin.htm 

What Would Jesus Say About the Illuminati? 

By their very nature, conspiracy theories cannot be proven or disproven, so I'm not going to try. But one thing you cannot deny is that conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. Soon we start seeing evidence for them everywhere. Mark Dice, who regularly publishes YouTube videos aiming to expose the Illuminati, has over 50,000 subscribers and 9 million views on his YouTube channel. Thousands if not millions believe that recent Super Bowl halftime shows were actually Illuminati rituals meant to brainwash unwitting viewers. Type in "illuminati" on youtube and most of the videos have hundreds of thousands if not millions of views. 

Conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. 

But what does scripture say? 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. 

Let's take a moment and imagine ourselves at the End of Time, the Last Day. As believers who have put our faith in Christ, we will be standing before God as his children, seen as perfect and without sin, completely justified by his son Jesus Christ. There will be great joy, all of creation will be made whole once again, and I'm sure there will be much time to share in perfect fellowship with one another and with God. 

Now, in that moment, how high would your thoughts and/or suspicions about the Illuminati be on Jesus' list of things to talk about? Likely not very: hasn't Jesus already made clear what his priorities are? Are they not spreading the good news of God's grace and the breaking in of God's Kingdom into our world?

The truth is, Jesus just isn't all that concerned with secret societies or conspiracies, so why should his followers be? Even in Revelation, where John is given a clear look into past, present, and future supernatural reality, there is no mention of secret societies or underworld rulers controlling our destinies without our knowledge. Even the rise of the dragon, beasts, and false prophet in John's Revelation are seen not as secret events or conspiracies, but direct attacks that happen out in the open.

But conspiracy theories abound and each tend to take our thoughts captive, when we are called to instead take every captive to Christ. Yes, followers of Christ need to be wise and should test everything. But being wise is different from being paranoid. Followers of Christ, be warned: do not be drawn in by these theories.

A few links that provide some interesting (and sometimes humorous) views on conspiracy theories, from both Christian and non-Christian sources: 

http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html 

http://deliveredfromdarkness.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/christians-and-conspiracy-theories/
http://gawker.com/5981088/this-years-illuminati+super-bowl-connection-is-more-sinister-than-ever

A Series of Questions: How Does One Know What God's Will Is?

In my last post we looked at the question of whether there would be food in heaven, and how asking such a question can really be a powerful thing for a follower of Christ to do. 

Today we're moving on to another question that was posed during our new membership class, and that is: "How does one know what God's will is?" 

Again, a fantastic question. 

First of all, let me say that if this question is on your heart, you're pretty much halfway to where you need to be. One of the greatest battles we have as followers of Christ is to...wait for it...keep following. We're often distracted or downright discouraged from following Christ, and therefore seeking God's will can often be the last thing on our mind. So if you are seeking it, AWESOME! 

Now, how do we move from simply seeking to actually knowing what His will is for us? 

The answer is fairly straightforward, thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit. I'll break it down into three questions. 

1. Has the Spirit been moving you? Not every follower of Christ has a clear sense of when the Spirit is speaking to them. Perhaps you've never experienced this (at least consciously). Each church teaches about our relationship to the Holy Spirit differently, so it's not always a given that a follower of Christ knows how to listen to the Spirit.

Here's the thing: the one given in Scripture is that those who put their faith in God can receive the Holy Spirit, and thereby receive the counsel and guidance of God. In Acts 13 we see the Spirit tell those gathered to set apart Paul and Barnabas for a special ministry. In Acts 7 Stephen is moved by the Spirit to preach a powerful word before the high priest, even though it led to his execution. 1 Thessalonians 4 indicates that by the Holy Spirit we can live godly lives and make decisions in line with God's will. 

In short, if God is leading you in a certain direction, the Spirit that he has given you will be moving you in that direction as well. Sometimes He will speak through just a strong internal pull towards something. Sometimes it will be even clearer than that.  

2. Has the Spirit been moving others? In what I might call the definitive chapter on the Holy Spirit, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 this about the Spirit: "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...and all were made to drink of the one Spirit." Later on he goes on to teach how therefore we are to see the church as one body, united in God's Holy Spirit. 

To make a long story short, if God is telling you something, you better believe he'll also begin putting it on others' hearts as well. The Spirit will speak not only to you, but to the rest of the church. If you feel yourself or the ministry called to something but no one else is showing any indication that God is putting it on their hearts, then it's time to slow down and really bear down in prayer. Time and time again when the Spirit moves, it'll move through the whole body, not just one person. 

Again, in Acts 13 it's the entire group that's gathered that knows it's time for Paul and Barnabas to leave Antioch. Dissension and disunity are sure signs that we need to slow down and listen more carefully to the Spirit.  

3. Is what you're thinking Scriptural? If what you think God is calling you to do strictly prohibited by Scripture, then it's definitely not God's will. Again, going back to this idea that the Spirit is one, if God is telling us something then it'll line up with what God gave us in his word through the Holy Spirit. What we see in Scripture isn't just a collection of stories written by people now long gone. Scripture is "breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Thessalonians 3:16). 

In short, if you're hearing God tell you to go get wasted or go steal something, you're not actually hearing from God. 

So that's it in a nutshell. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on this! 

A Series of Questions: Is There Going to Be Food in Heaven? [Part 2 of 2]

So we started looking at this question, “Will there be food in heaven”, by first exploring why this is a great question to chew on (no pun intended…seriously!).

Today let’s take a look at the question itself and see whether the answer is yes or no.

So, I’ll show my cards right off the bat: I believe the answer is YES, there most definitely will be food in heaven. And not just the kind of food that keeps our bodies going (I’m not even sure if we’ll need to eat!), but something far more…essential. Food that is food in its purest form, beyond simple sustenance, beyond calories and keeping our bodies going. I believe that in heaven when God’s adopted children sit down to eat the experience will be something akin to history’s most epic and greatest meals/feasts/whathaveyou multiplied by…infinity. It’ll be the taste, certainly. But it’ll also be about the fellowship, the laughter, the pure joy that we sometimes get a glimpse of at wedding banquets and other memorable meals.

Yes, there will be food in heaven.

Now why do I believe this?

Let me give you two reasons:

What We See in Scripture

First, in scripture, heaven is described as having fruit of the tree of life (Revelation 22), and the fulfillment of salvation as a wedding banquet (Revelation 19).

Second, Jesus in Mark 14:25 says that he will drink of the fruit of the vine in the Kingdom of God. This may simply be a figure of speech, but why not say something else at that point? Why even bring up drinking or eating in the first place unless you literally mean that’s one of the things that you’re waiting for?

Also, this is far from solid proof one way or the other, but after Jesus is resurrected he sits down to eat fish with the disciples (Luke 24:41). He likely didn’t need to…and yet he did. That at least means that it’s not ludicrous to think that the adopted sons and daughters of God will be eating in heaven.

Finally, God often uses meals and food to teach. Jesus talked of the kingdom of heaven as being “like a wedding banquet”. In the Old Testament the Passover meal was perhaps the most important event for the people of God, and followers of Christ today celebrate communion as Jesus taught his disciples to do at his final Passover meal.

The Character of God

A lot of what you think about heaven probably is tied to your opinion of God. As I was researching this question I saw one online comment that said something along the lines of, “Heaven just looks like a place where people will be singing and worshipping God all the time…pretty boring.” If your picture of God in heaven is some kind of pompous king who just sits on his throne satisfied to spend eternity listening to people tell him how great he is, then I’d agree with that comment.

But this is not the God of Scripture. This is not Jesus’ God. The God of Scripture is a creator God (Genesis 1-2). He’s a healer (just look at everything Jesus does). He’s a righteous king, an everlasting father (Isaiah 9), he’s a savior (John 1 and 3). Simply (and un-poetically) put, he’s some kind of combination of superhero, compassionate and wise father, and just and loving ruler.

So to what kind of an eternity would he call those who put their faith in him?

Actually, I don’t doubt that we’ll be worshiping him there. But I think heavenly worship will be a far cry from the dull Sunday experiences the commenter I mentioned may be familiar with. I think there will be singing, yes, but it will be the kind of singing that you feel when you take the stage for the first time and you feel thousands singing with you. It’ll be the kind of music you create when you start jamming with your friends for the first time, and you find out you actually sound pretty good.

And it’ll be more than singing: worship in heaven will be creating, adventuring, loving, and…I would venture to guess…feasting, banqueting, and eating! 

A Series of Questions: Is There Going to be Food in Heaven? (Part 1)

Will there be food in heaven?

Short answer: YES

Long answer: I think we can break this down into two parts

 

 1.Why this a great question to chew on

 2.Why I think the answer is YES

 

We'll tackle the first one in this post, then the second in the one following.

 

1. Why this is a GREAT question to chew on

 

So I don't know who submitted any of these questions, so I can't follow up with them and ask specifically why they were wondering about this. But I can say that wondering about heaven is great for someone who follows Christ, since Christ often talked about heaven. Here are a few examples:

 

• "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:20
 
• "I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 8:11
 
• “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 18:10

 

If you're following someone, if you're their disciple, then your mind and heart should be on the same things that their mind and heart are. If Jesus talked about heaven, then his disciples shouldn't shy away from thinking or talking about heaven.

 

A warning: with all this said, we should be careful not to take things too far either. Scripture talks about heaven, but by no means does it tell us to go get PhD's in "Heavenomics/ology". See here for reference of when this can go too far.

 

In fact, one of the ways in which we should be growing is replacing our worldly hopes (and the fears that so often go along with them) with the same kind of hope our Master has. I can't tell you how often I catch myself so consumed with thoughts of achieving financial security, or fears of falling behind according to the world's standards. Make no mistake, we are called to live wisely, to care for ourselves and those who are under our care, but the truth is our hopes and fears actually determine the direction of our lives, and you can't move in two directions at once no matter how hard you try.

 

If you are consumed with worldly hopes and fears, then you cannot follow Jesus.

Instead we need to hope in the same things that Jesus hoped in.

 

But what did that hope look like? As I mentioned earlier, Jesus often talked about heaven. But here's one really important thing to note about this: Jesus wasn't talking about heaven in the sense of someone who couldn't wait to get out of earth (which unfortunately many Christians do). For Jesus, the hope of heaven was something different. In the next post we'll look at what Jesus' hope in heaven looked like, and what food might have to do with that :)

A Series of Questions: A New Blog Series

Candid taken during a UL hiking trip to Little Si

Okay, so sometimes plans don't come out the way you think they will. 

Such is the case with the aforementioned posts about what was happening with this blog. Originally I had planned to transition over to our ministry's website, but due to various factors that ended up not being the best place to blog, at least in my opinion. 

So...

Here we are! 

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my non-ministry related posts. Maybe they'll still end up here, maybe somewhere else, but it's getting to be that time to stop planning and just start executing. And part of what's driving this is the fact that I promised our membership class that I would answer some of their theological questions via a blog since we didn't have time to tackle them all during our class. 

Here's what we already covered during class: 

• How come people still avoid certain foods? (i.e. pork, etc) 
• Where did Cain's wife come from/Where did the generation after Cain and Abel come from? 

Here's what I'm planning to cover (in no particular order):

• What Does it Mean to be a Theologian in the 21st Century
• Is the Exodus Story True?
• Is There Going to Be Food in Heaven?
• If I Was Falling From the Sky Would God Catch Me? 
• Is There a Definition of Good that God Acts on or Is God the Arbitrary Definition of Good? 
• Why Is There Sickness in the World? 
• How Does One Know What God's Will Is? 

daily devotional reflections over here...

nodayliketoday.blogspot.com

publishing it with brothers from my Tuesday night men's discipleship group. We're all trying to keep our blogs updated daily! 

what I do for a vocation

just about to move...

...this blog from here to our ministry's new website. 

but for now let me give a shout out to a colleague in ministry who's also put together a blog.

I highly recommend giving him a read. You can find his latest post in my blog-roll, as well as here: http://keewonhuh.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/sister-hears-gods-voice/#comment-72

I'm back!

man, it's been awhile. 

to be honest, we're about to transition this blog over to our ministry website, so it's days as a ministry blog are...almost over. 

but fear not, it will simply come back better than ever, and at a different address. 

for now, here's some idea of what i've been up to: 

brothers from United Life gathering outside the Sorrento Hotel in Seattle, WA as they begin final preparations for our ministry's "Ladies Appreciation Night"

Say What? Part 3: The Meaning of the Spoken Word

This is the third in a three part series of posts that I'm writing in response to a question a member of United Life asked me several weeks ago. That question was, "...It started out with...saying that it would be bad (Blasphemous) to repeat certain chants and things...But I...said that it didn't really matter if the person saying such things had no knowledge of their meaning, or didn't assosiate [sic] those words with their meaning...So, what do you think?" 

The second part in this series tackled the first part of this question, "what determines the goodness/badness of a spoken word or phrase?" This post will tackle the second: What significance, if any, do spoken words/phrases have? 

***

There's a lot of logic in assuming that words spoken without understanding have no significance. After all, would a word or phrase have any sort of meaning except through a speaker's understanding? For example: "замечательная женщина твоя матушка". To a speaker who doesn't know what those words mean, what significance could they possibly have? 

The answer, of course, is that we're forgetting the listener. When I was visiting Korea as a teenager many summers ago, my cousin taught me all kinds of bad words. It was fun saying them and seeing the reaction I got. So I started spewing them out around my cousin's mom. She kept telling me to stop, but she also kept laughing so I kept doing it. Then one day she sat me down and started cussing me out in English. Keep in mind that my aunt may have never missed a day of church in her life. Those words coming out of her mouth just made a terrible picture. 

There's a good chunk of our answer right there: there are more people involved in a conversation than just the speaker. Even if a speaker has no clue what they're saying, the listener might, and that makes even what seems to be gibberish potentially significant. (To an Albanian it really doesn't matter what I wrote up above, but to a Russian it could be the difference between friendship and enmity) Just because you don't know what you're saying, you are still responsible for what comes out of your mouth: 

"From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." James 3:10

"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." Ephesians 4:29 

"But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander; and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." Colossians 3:9-10

"The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips. Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." Proverbs 16:23-24

"Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." Matthew 15:10-11 

So what if we're in Albania and I'm speaking gibberish to all parties? This brings us to one more, really important part to all of this. 

Although the scripture passages referenced above don't necessarily refer to times when the speaker doesn't understand what she's saying, they point at an understanding of words and speech that takes us beyond asking, "is it okay if I say this/that?" As Jesus says in Matthew 15, what comes out of your mouth represents what's in your heart. If it's filth coming out, then there's a source for that. If it's gibberish, is that any better? What should be coming out of the mouths of followers of Christ is speech that builds up, that glorifies God and shows love to one another. 

Taking the stance that language is only as good/significant as the meaning we give it may seem progressive at first, but let's see if it passes the "reality test." When would there be a time to randomly utter a cultic chant that you didn't know the meaning of? Or what if I've decided that f*ck is just another four letter word and decided to add it into my preaching to "add some flavor"? 

You see what I'm getting at? Will God still love you if you cuss like a sailor? Of course he will, because his love isn't based on our actions in the first place. But would it be glorifying to him and uplifting to those around you? Probably just as uplifting as it would be for me to utter random cultic chants or drop more f-bombs in my sermons. 

Every word we speak is significant because it is a chance to build up or tear down. 


Image taken from: http://againstthewholegrain.blogspot.com/2011/04/lee-siegel-sartre-semantics-and-hope.html

say what? Part 2!

Diving right in...

1. What determines the badness/goodness/significance of the spoken word? 

I'm going to divide this one up into two questions: 

• What determines the goodness/badness of a spoken word or phrase? 
• What significance, if any, do spoken words/phrases have? 

We'll tackle the first one today: 

For one following Jesus Christ, goodness/badness of anything is in reference to what either helps us to follow, or hinders us and other followers from following him (or flat out is running in the opposite direction). Specifically this takes shape in the rule of love: loving another as him/herself.  

It's important to realize that this points us away from asking "is it okay if I do _________?". When you're in a relationship to God you're not seeking to do the least amount of good and greatest amount of selfish behavior God will let you get away with. Relationships don't work like that. Friendships and love don't work like that. When you're in a real relationship, you go all out seeking the best for the other. 

When it comes to language then, the question is: how can I follow Christ with every word that I speak? 

Sound extreme? Well let's put it this way: would it be extreme for a husband to ask, "How can I show love to my wife in everything that I do and say?" No, we'd just call that love. Real relationships don't look for a line of acceptable behavior. They seek the greatest good that they can do, love that they can show and run in that direction. 

So let's go back to a person hypothetically repeating some kind of cultic chant or cussing up a storm without any knowledge of the meaning of those words...I think my question would be how they ever got into that situation if they were pursuing Christ with every word that they spoke. I mean...how would saying a bunch of gibberish that you don't understand ever make sense as a thing to do if you were trying to follow Christ with every word? 

So, in short: Does it matter if someone is saying a chant or using foul language, even if they have no idea what they're saying? Yes, because there's no way (at least as far as I can see) that doing so would be part of them either a) following Christ and/or b) loving others as themselves. 

image from: http://djames.ca/preacher-mix

say what?

So this post's title has to do with a question that was posed to me on facebook today. I'll get to that in a second. 

First, let me just say....

KASE WAS AWESOME. 

thank you God. 

Not only were many students and leaders re-energized and, yes, empowered to lead in their different ministry settings, but I was personally reminded this year of why I signed up to be a part of KASE in the first place. Once again, the simple recipe of bringing students together from various contexts and investing in them as bearers and receivers of the good news of Jesus Christ brought about some amazing results! 

Looking forward to 2012 (especially now that we've got a nice little "commando squad" of pastors and leaders here that now know and want to be a part of the vision of this conference)

Now to think of a new name for it...

***

Okay, back to the title. Here's the question: 

I'd like to submit a question. Me and...we're debating the significance of words and their meaning. It started out with...saying that it would be bad (Blasphemous) to repeat certain chants and things which are promoted in yoga. But I asked about it and said that it didn't really matter if the person saying such things had no knowledge of their meaning, or didn't assosiate those words with their meaning. The argument extended into if this applied to swears as well. So, what do you think?

Great question! 

One deserving of more than a few minutes of thought and writing. So I'll save my full answer for tomorrow. 

For now let me boil down the question's key components: 

• What determines the significance/badness/goodness of the spoken word? 
• Are certain words/sounds still significant/bad/good if the listener/speaker does not understand their meaning? 
• What do we mean by "significant"? Good/bad by what standard? 

In "say what?" part 2, we'll dig into these topics and more!

keeping it real...

pretty busy with summer ministry at our church...summer program for children, plus VBS, plus KASE...not to mention the weddings (that's where the pic above is from) and retreats and such.

I say all this to say that this blog is not dead, it's just in hibernation for the summer

hopefully I'll be able to come up for air again in a couple of weeks!

advice for pastors that's not just for pastors...

Was emailed this by a friend. It comes from toddrhoades.com. 

A lot of stuff in here that applies to every Christ follower, but a few things that specifically pastors have a hard time putting into practice (i.e. wise delegation of ministry responsibilities). 

I wonder...for you non-pastors out there that read these kinds of lists...does it sound like pastors are always telling each other to quit working so hard? If so, how do you feel about that? 

***

1. Let God restore your soul daily.

• Psalm 23.  Matthew 11:28.

• Worship.  Prayer.  Solitude.  Listening.  Bible reading.

Averill quote: I pray for you to know the REST of Jesus in all things.  The enemy will deceitfully persuade you that you have many things to accomplish in order to keep things running.  I am all too aware of this temptation.  Simplicity in Christ leads us to only one thing to do- let Christ do it.

2.  Give your marriage priority attention.

• A bad marriage ruins the rest of life.  (Remember the Proverbs.)

• A good marriage fortifies you for the rest of life.

• Is your home a tunnel of chaos or an oasis of rest?

3.  Work with your personal rhythms.

• For me:  start early, try and leave early.

• Creative work in the mornings.

• Between 4-7 p.m.:  not my best time for mental focus.

4.  Keep your Sabbath rest.

• A principle of creation:  rest one day in seven.

• Sabbath is a day to pray and play.

• Eugene Peterson:  hike all day.

5.  Do the things only you can do – and delegate the rest.

• Be ruthless in simplifying your work.

• Empower others!

• Take some time now to save much time later.

6.  Focus on results not time at work.

• 40-50 hours a week, total for me.

• However, the point is not to clock your time but to get things done.

• Focus on your highest impact activities.

• Managers do things right.  Leaders do the right things.

7.  Get regular exercise.

• For me:  weight lift and cardio 4-5 times per week

• If you are healthier and fit, you can work harder and you will last longer.

• Exercise is a huge stress reliever.

8. Ask for help.

• Secrets are dangerous.
• Need help? In the last 18 months, has a trusted person told you, “I think you need to talk to somebody about that.”  If the answer is yes, get help.
• Every prominent Christian leader and pastor I know, regularly visits a counselor.  It is okay to ask for help.

9.  Let God heal your anger.

• Ask God to show you … heal you.

• Ask a close friend if you seem angry.

• Consider:  Elder prayer, counseling, talking with an insightful friend.

• This is enormously important!

10. Don’t be crushed by criticism.

• Consider the source.

• Be willing to receive criticism from trustworthy people – people who are for you, who are insightful, who are not negative.

• Consider if you are a pleaser.  Galatians 1:10

what what? a couple of brothers to check out (at least in the sense of reading their stuff...their online stuff...in a blog...)

hey all, I wanted to highlight a couple of previously unlinked sites that I think are worth checking out. 

Michael Oh

One is from a brother that's known nationally and even internationally. His name is Michael Oh, and I had the privilege of grabbing some lunch at Chilis with him a few years back. He shared about his vision for a starting an English immersion school in Japan, and about his ministry of reconciliation and spreading the Good News there. He's a man of passion, of love for his family, and of seeking after those that God seeks after. 

I recommend his blog to you: 

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-danger-of-fruitfulness-without-purity

His profile is here: http://www.cbijapan.org/fonts/aboutsem/leadership.htm

UPDATE: Must read the following post from Oh. It is incredible: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/despite-us-god-works

David Ro

The other is from a local brother of mine, David Ro. He's serving at Zion Presbyterian, a church that neighbors ours, and my wife and I have really been enjoying getting to know him and his wife! They're a great couple that is intent on serving God and loving his people, and they came all the way to Seattle from Chicago (and, before that, California and Virginia) to do that. 

You can find his writings here: 

http://livingdavidaroca.blogspot.com/

The pic of David (he's the Asian in the middle), by the way, comes from an article about a program that he was in called "Mission Year". You can find the article here: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12751. Honestly, I had no idea he did Mission Year...I just googled his name and it's what came up! But now that I found that he did it, I'm impressed both by his service, as well as by the program itself. I encourage you to check out the article as well. 

Enjoy!

Fresh and New! Seattle's First Ever Asian American Ministry Conference

Alright, so I can't say for sure that SPU's Inaugural Asian American Ministry Conference is Seattle's first, but I couldn't find anything on Google that proved otherwise. 

With that disclaimer aside, what a blessing this conference was! 

First of all, it was right here in Seattle, so I didn't have to buy a plane ticket and find a cat sitter to attend. 

Second, it was right here in Seattle, so I got to interact with and meet a lot of fellow servants of God's kingdom who are serving locally. 

Third, it was right here in Seattle, so the fruit that is coming out of this conference means a world of good for what God is doing in these parts. 

A couple of other reflections...

• There was a great panel about Asian American women in ministry led by Seattle's very own Rev. Nancy Sugikawa (Lighthouse Church), featuring Elaine Cho, Ken Fong, Christine Nakano, and Wayne Ogimachi. I learned a ton, but I was also struck by a little nugget that Ogimachi had to share regarding leadership in the church. He stated that the job of the pastor isn't to delegate, but to find and raise up people to lead. So the task of pastoral leadership is not to simply tell other people what to do, but to identify, train, and encourage members who have the gift of managing and leading others. 
• This is kind of a biggie...Aside from having a few more "academically oriented" talks than I was expecting, the conference also ended up being a bit more focused on issues of race than I was expecting, and it got me thinking: How big of a deal is racism when it comes to discipleship? Sounds like a question with an obvious answer, I mean, isn't racism always a bad thing? But let's go deeper. The fact is, as the song says, everyone's a little bit racist sometimes. So why then do we need to talk about it? Why then do we as followers of Jesus Christ need to speak up when things like this or this happen? 

What say you? 

The thing is, when the church brings up "the R word", a lot of people get defensive (and sometimes offensive). Everyone knows racism is a bad thing, and so we can't get anywhere by naming something as racist, even if it is. It's like admitting it automatically puts you into social jail. 

But racism still exists. Race still matters. (And let's be clear: you and I are just as much a part of this as anyone) 

But does it matter to discipleship? Does it matter to a pastor who/ministry that is trying to call and equip followers to Christ? 

Personally, I think it does, but I think that connection needs to be made in a much more compelling way than it currently is. The research and scholarship has been done regarding racism, ethnic studies, and identity, but the connection between discipleship and race issues has not been made in a convincing manner (especially for the general lay public...but I'd say not really even for pastors and other leaders in ministry).  

I'm going to argue for this: fewer talks and sermons about why "Deadly Vipers" is something that Zondervan should never have published, and more about why every follower of Christ needs to care about these issues. And perhaps even more importantly: Why ethnic minority groups need to step to the plate on one another's behalf. This was said quite well by Seattle Pacific Seminary professor Brian Bantum on the opening night of the conference. I agree, especially because it makes the message so much more powerful. If an Asian tries to fight for the rights of Asians, it often just sounds like we're being too sensitive. But if all ethnic groups rise up on behalf of one that gets oppressed, then the message takes on power. 

where did the Bible come from?

So the past few weeks we've been talking about scripture and its place in the life of a follower of Christ. You can hear Part 2 (Part 1 wasn't recorded) here.

We covered a lot over the last three weeks, but one of the things that we didn't have as much time to talk about are some of the common, Da Vinci Code-esque myths that people hold regarding the origin of the Bible. Now it's easy to come by these myths: the time when most people hear them is in college, and the fact is that most youth group students aren't taught an equally compelling story before they get to college. Most youth group students just aren't at a place where they can really deal with the idea of a "perfect word" coming from imperfect people, inspired by a perfect God. There's just a lot of thoughts there that are hard for any teenager to hold in tension together, and so usually they're fed a much more basic, "this is God's Word, end of story" explanation, which doesn't hold up once you get to college and take a course on the New Testament as literature. 

So, drawing upon a great conversation some friends and I had on this blog two and a half years ago, let me fill in the blanks and correct or at least counterbalance some of the myths out there. 

• The Bible was written by a bunch of old white men in a room

• I must categorically disagree with this statement. While it is true that the canon we have today was fixed by various leaders of the church, this was done internationally, over the course of centuries, and was really not that hotly debated. As early as the second century, the “memoirs of the apostles” were mentioned by Justin Martyr. By 160 Irenaeus cited almost the entire New Testament in his writings, leaving out only a few letters. The Muratorian Fragment, of which we have the 7th century Latin copy, is generally argued to be a 2nd century document (though this is still debated), and it contains a list of nearly all of the books of the New Testament. By the fourth century ecumenical councils, the canon was not even in debate: what people differed on during those councils wasn’t the books themselves, but the conclusions that they were making from those books. 
• By the way, this might be a good place to mention that most argue that by the time the aforementioned lists were coming out the Gnostic gospels were only just being written. In other words, regardless of what one may believe about Gnosticism as a belief, its central writings were “second-generation” in the sense that they were responses to the Christian gospels written half a century or more earlier, and the accounts of witnesses who lived more than a hundred years before the Gnostics. 
• In fact, this relates to a central fact about Christian scripture that is greatly misunderstood by both Christians and non-Christians alike: that the New Testament came together out of necessity, not fiat. The canonical gospels state of themselves that they are simply an “orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…handed on…by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses…” (opening of Luke). In other words, they were not first written, then believed, but the opposite. They were written down some years after a core group of thousands either witnessed the events for themselves, or heard about them first hand, and this was done for the same reason any accounting of events is written: in order to keep exaggeration and human error in check (note that by the time Luke’s book came out, the Gnostic gospels were still fifty to a hundred years away). Any such accounts that came out were passed around from community to community, and their survival depended upon the agreement of these thousands of first-generation Christians (people who either knew Jesus for themselves or who heard about him through the Apostles). Only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John survived that rigorous test. 
• By the time of the first ecumenical council in Nicaea, the canon was not a debate topic. In fact, it is important to note that Nicaea was the first ecumenical council called by the church since the council of Jerusalem recounted in the Book of Acts. This means that for three-hundred plus years the church did fine determining on its own, in a manner that balanced grassroots belief with the leadership of democratically appointed church leaders, what writings were true to the original teachings and events of the life of Jesus. Nicaea was called because one such leader, Arius, differed with another such leader, Alexander, and the difference threatened to split the church. This difference was not over which books should be in the bible, but over the conclusions each made from it. We can argue about whether politics played a significant role in the decision of the Council of Nicaea, but we cannot argue that it played a role in determining which books we now consider the Christian New Testament. That had been decided long ago by a consensus of thousands, and had been reaffirmed by subsequent generations of Christians in what I think is best described as a democratic and personal process. 

• How can we trust the Bible when it's changed so much over time? 
• Actually, the Bible is remarkable for how little it has changed over time. Again, as with all of the dates I'm mentioning here, we could debate about specific years and whatnot, but the truth is that since the Council of Nicaea there really has not been that much variation or error. In fact, those who copied the manuscripts were so meticulous that we have evidence of almost every variation that does exist in Scripture, and in many if not most Bibles there's a little footnote every time you run across one of those variations. And it's important to note here that not one of these variations puts into question the ultimate testimony of Jesus: that He is the Son of God who came to demonstrate God's love for us and take away the sins of the world. 
• This means that for 1700 or so years no one has been able to alter the text of the Bible. Not Napoleon. Not Hitler. Not a single Pope or Roman Emperor. If history's most powerful people weren't able to change one letter of the Bible they did not like, why do we have this impression in our minds that Scripture is constantly shifting and bending according to the whimsies of those in power? The truth: Scripture just hasn't changed, nor will it. No one has the power to change it. 

• How can we trust the Bible when it has so many errors and inconsistencies? 
• To this question I'd ask, "Which errors are you talking about, and do they affect your ability to trust what the Bible is telling you about Jesus Christ?" 
• The fact of the matter is that much of the Old Testament wouldn't hold up at an American Historical Association conference...if it were being read as a history text book. But that's not its purpose. Yes, I believe that everything written in Scripture is the Word of God, but I don't believe its authority is in question if Joshebbasshebeth the Tahchemonite killed 800 men at one time or 801 (or 8 for that matter!). That's the classic "slippery-slope" error. The records concerning Joshebbasshebeth do not confirm nor deny the validity of the account of the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament regarding Jesus Christ, nor were they ever meant to. 
• Hopefully this will also help you see why the Old Testament is not in conflict with modern day science: God never intended us to see science and Scripture as an either/or thing. Take the argument between Seven-Day Creationists and Evolutionists. How much of this is truly based on Scripture? If it were really about Scripture, then wouldn't those pro-Scripture notice that nowhere in the account of Genesis 1 does it say that the first three days were Earth days (the sun and the moon aren't created until the fourth day)? There is nothing in Genesis 1 that requires the Earth to have been created in seven Earth days. Yes the first day is recounted in verse 5 as "And there was evening and there was morning, the first day", but nowhere within those verses does it specify that we're talking about the sun rising and setting, since it hadn't even been created yet. What's more, the fourth, fifth, and sixth day are not described as beginning when the sun rises and ending when it sets either, leaving the time that creation took wide open, even under the strictest Scriptural lens. 

• How can we trust just one "holy text" when there are so many competing ones out there? Doesn't it make more sense to take the best that all the holy writings have to offer? 

• I agree with part of this statement. In fact, I think that the Bible itself never declares itself to be the only source of wisdom in creation. It is clear that truth can be found in many places, and I think it is every pastor’s duty to learn from these other sources as well. 
• Yet it is also clear that at times one writing directly opposes another writing. Take the Koran for example. It describes Jesus as a divinely appointed messenger and prophet, but definitely not God incarnate. It also rejects the idea that Jesus was crucified. Where then should we go regarding our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth? How do we determine whether to believe one, the other, or neither?

Alright, that's probably enough for now! Thanks for reading all of this, and I hope it was helpful to you!

image: http://www.islandcrisis.net/2010/08/dinosaurs-extinction-multiple-meteor-showers/

got sick

felt pretty out of commission for a good part of the week. I'll be back in the blogging saddle next week! 

two people that have rocked me in the past month, part 2

"Binna Kim remembers waking up in a pool of blood. She was on the floor of her bedroom, it was dark--perhaps the middle of the night--and her head was throbbing...Her head was feeling it was about to split open, she had an idea: She would crawl to the bathroom tub. It was low and sturdy enough to support her. She would use it to stand up, then she could figure out the next step. 

She reached the bathroom and passed out.  

On April 6, 2006, Binna's father, Sang In Kim, wrote a suicide letter to his church pastor, explaining he was killing himself because he owed people tens of thousands of dollars he could not repay. The 55-year-old asked the pastor to take care of his family. But that night, he changed his mind; he would take his entire family with him..."

This is how the KoreAm article about Binna Kim begins. You can find the entire story here. Yet although the story begins tragically with her father killing her mother and brother and attempting to murder her, it ends with an immense ray of hope.

You see, not only does Binna miraculously survive that horrific night, she, through the help of close family friends, amazing doctors, and, ultimately, God, ends up being able to reconstruct her life, move forward, and find hope.

You can find this on her facebook page: "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (Romans 5:3-4)".

If anyone can talk about hope after suffering, Binna Kim can.

There's a lot in Binna's story that rocked me, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. I think I'll just mention a couple of things here though:

1. Later in the article the writer shares that Binna is eventually able to forgive her father. In fact, it sounds from the article as if this is a pretty big part of why she is able to have hope and look forward to the future. This is amazing. 
2. Murder suicides among the Korean adult community are sadly far more common than we think. That spring in 2006, there were 14 lives claimed in Korean murder-suicides, all in Southern California, all perpetrated by the fathers of the families. 

This Friday night at United Life we're inviting Dr. Doni Kwak, a local Edmonds-based Korean American psychologist to share with us about the relationship between mental health and following Jesus Christ. If anyone needs to hear this, it's the Korean American community. I think we tend to believe that if we're going to church, praying, and doing the whole American Dream thing, we're doing fine. But the truth is that often masks deeper issues and keeps us from addressing them. 

I encourage you to join us this Friday night. You can find the event information here.