Jesus Was a Liberal (And Other Irreverent Thoughts About Discipleship)

Emphasis on the past tense verb…Jesus was a liberal.  But that doesn’t mean he’s now a conservative either.  This is a post that’s been building for a few weeks.  Several weeks ago I had an interview at a church for a youth pastor position.  One of the questions I was asked is “Are you liberal or conservative?”  I responded buy saying that I don’t like those terms because their too subjective and divisive.  ”I just try to be as faithful and consistent with Scripture as I can?”  The committee apparently didn’t like that answer because they followed it up with “Would you consider yourself open-minded or closed-minded?”  Honestly, I really didn’t know how to respond to such a question.

In a recent tweet, I stated “becoming more & more confused about what it means to be conservative or liberal & why it matters…”

And then in the article I re-posted entitled “God Hates You,” the author makes this statement:

I have always found it supremely odd that most Christians, when pressed, will admit that they don’t care very much how Jesus lived his life, or the theology he lived out or spoke of, but they claim “salvation through his ’substitutionary’” death.

Filed under: Christian Living, Christianity, Culture, Discipleship

John is the New Elijah (Matthew 3)

I was often told growing up that John the Baptist was the last OT prophet, which I always thought was kinda weird since he’s talked about in the NT.  Designating John as a prophet is a bit simplistic.  Matthew goes to great lengths to depict John as the Elijah from Malachi 4:5.  While John’s confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees is often taking apart from Jesus’ baptism (when preached or studied in a small group), understanding the relationship between Matthew 3 and Malachi 4:5 almost demands that the story of John and Jesus’ baptism be considered together.

Malachi 4:5…

See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.

Matthew introduces John with a quote from Isaiah 40:3.  Isaiah is speaking of the coming of the messiah and one sign that the messiah has either arrived is well on his way.  As proof that John is this voice, Matthew states in verse 1 that “John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness…”

But it’s in 3:4 that Matthew really solidifies his belief that John the Baptist was the Elijah spoken of in Malachi.  I preached this text once in a preaching class, but completely missed the point of Matthew describing John’s clothing.  Matthew describes John this way:

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

Filed under: Bible Study

God Hates You (Reposted from Burnside Writers Collective)

The Burnside Writers Collective is an online magazine co-founded by Donald Miller.  The purpose of the magazine is to spur conversation and engage culture from a semi-emergent, semi-evangelical perspective.  I recently added their link in my sidebar and you can RSS them if you want – which I’ve done.  Below is the text of an article that makes a very strong, personal, and hard point.  While not stated explicitly, it’s getting at the heart of disicpleship – i.e. living like Jesus.  Just read it…it’s well worth it…

GOD HATES YOU

FEATURED, SOCIAL JUSTICE — BY M. MORFORD ON OCTOBER 28, 2009 AT 12:00 AM

 

When I was a kid, we used to play the “opposite game”. A typical conversation would go like this;

Me: “I’m not hungry.”

My brother: “I’m really not hungry.”

Me: “I’m really, really, not hungry.  I’m so not hungry that I couldn’t take a single bite”.

My brother: “Oh, yeah, I’m so not hungry I couldn’t even LOOK at a picture of food right now.”

Obviously this is game no one wins and it veers into absurdity almost immediately.

Sometimes I think churches and religious organizations are playing this game as I read articles and emails that tell me in breathless urgency what God hates.

Filed under: Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Culture, Discipleship

I Predict the Future (Or At Least Offer Some Encouragement About Where To Go)

The other day I was talking with another church planter here in Portland and the topic came up in which we both see a fairly major shift in church philosophy looming on the horizon.  For the past 20 years the goal of most evangelical congregations has been to get as big as they possibly can.  Many in my generation have this pervasive feeling that that mindset is evidence of the church buying in to the “bigger-is-better” attitudes of most of America.

The trend among 20-somethings in most places in America is a desire to be a part of smaller, more organic/natural, communities that emphasize simplicity over big production worship services.  When I was in Grand Rapids, I attend Mars Hill Bible Church several times.  Each time, attendance was drastically lower, resulting in an announcement the last time I was there that they would be ending 1 of their 3 services.  I suspect a number of mega-churches around the nation are experiencing similar struggles in keeping the current college and young-adult group around.  Much has been said about this.  Conversely, the house-church movement is growing and more small church plants are thriving and doing a better job of producing disciples than the big churches with their big budgets.

I have to admit that I frequently find myself wishing for a large congregation; day-dreaming about what it would be like to start a church and become the next Rob Bell or Francis Chan.  We have to admire these men who are able to pull together just the right mix of people who go out and take their communities by storm.  I have no doubts that God has worked through these men and that lives have been transformed by their preaching of the Gospel.

Filed under: Church, Church Planting, Discipleship, Leadership, Ministry

Let’s Try This Out (more on Matthew 2:13-23)

After publishing my previous post and asking for input from people over Twitter & Facebook, I think I may have gotten somewhere.  One friend suggested I listen to a sermon.  In itself, I didn’t find the sermon to be all that helpful, but what it did do for me is get me thinking about sermons.  I seldom listen to sermons online, simply because I want to avoid the risk of being tempted to re-preach something.  What I study the Bible and write sermons, I do my best to come to the text trying to understand what it’s saying and what value does it have for the congregation I’m preaching to, apart from any theological bias (although it’s impossible for anyone to do that perfectly).

But I started searching the internet for sermons on Matthew 2:13-23.  I’ve been searching for commentary, but never sermons.  I came across a sermon that actually did a pretty good job speaking to the questions that have been holding me up with this text (but he misses the application, giving in to the simplistic providence theme I’m trying to avoid…see yesterday’s post for my reasons why).  But what this sermon did do is help me see a rather important connection that I had been overlooking…

The tendency that we often have when looking at this text is to focus on one of two things; we either focus on Jesus’ flight and return, or we focus on Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents.”  Much has been made of the lack of historical evidence supporting the “slaughter,” so we tend to be more incline to spend our time and energy focusing there.  But the text doesn’t give an extraordinary amount of attention to either point.  Matthew is focusing primarily on Jesus, trying to say something about him.  Based on the book as a whole, I’m coming to the text assuming that Matthew is still working to show his readers that Jesus is the messiah.  That is exactly what Matthew is doing, but not in the way we may expect him to – which is one of the reasons I’ve missed a very important “background text/figure.”  But the typical Jewish reader would have picked up on it immediately.

Filed under: Bible Study, Culture, Ministry, Theology