God the Prophet (Genesis 3)

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Genesis 3.  In middle school I was taught that 3:15 provides us with the first promise of a savior in Scripture.  As such, followers of Jesus can accurately see Genesis 3 as perhaps the first piece of the gospel message: God promises to redeem fallen humanity via the offspring of the woman.

As great as that fact is, to focus solely on Genesis 3:15 as though that were the entirety of the point of the entire passage is to miss the complete picture.  The evangelical in me wants to keep coming back to that verse, but the follower who desires to understand Scripture to the best of my ability has t look beyond a single verse.

The prevailing view in evangelical Christianity is that prophecy is about foretelling what God will do in the future.  It’s fairly easy to see how this view was developed; when we read the prophets, the pattern is that they say something will happen, and then it happens.  And so we tend to automatically conclude that the purpose of Biblical prophecy is to foretell future events.

However, a closer study of prophecy and the role of a prophet reveals something slightly different.  Deuteronomy 18:14-22 lays out the purpose of prophecy and criteria for determining whether a prophet is a true prophet or not.  Especially Deuteronomy 18:18-19 are helpful:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their people, and I will put my words in his mouth.  He will tell them everything I command him.  I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christianity, Original Languages, Theology

Should Churches Really Try to Create Community?

Yes, I’m being antagonistic.  And yes, I want lots of people to read this post and think hard about this question.

As a church planter, I’m constantly thinking about and mulling ways to apply God’s Word.  Specifically, with LifeSTREAM Church we adopted an three-fold desire to “Love God, love others, follow Jesus.”  And even though we haven’t gotten ourselves to the point of actually holding a church service, I have been especially pre-occupied with the question of what will our church look like.

At this point, the identity statement of LifeSTREAM Church states that we are “a gathering of messy people who strive to creatively love God, love others, and follow Jesus every day in every way possible.”  There are a few words that were intentionally selected that most people would probably skim right over the top of.  Perhaps the most important of these words is “gathering.”

We’re using “gathering” over “community” for the simple reason that we’re not sure churches really should be in the business of creating community.  I will admit that in certain areas the church may be in the best position to create a sense of community within a particular context, but at least in the neighborhood where we work, play and live community is hardly lacking.

Community has become a bit of a catch-phrase within the North American church.  By my estimate, it came into common parlance first within the emergent church and their emphasis on “authentic community.”  Non-emergents rightly challenged what was meant by “authentic” and “community.”  But over time, even the more general evangelical congregations began to adopt community as a primary value.  Again, in certain places community may be a legitimate need, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s not nearly as immediate a need as many congregations believe it is.

Filed under: Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Planting, Culture, Discipleship, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry

Baptism & Egypt (Matthew 3)

On my last post I raised a few questions and voiced a little confusion about what Matthew was getting at with his comparisons between Jesus’ time in Egypt and Israel’s slavery there.  But as I continued on in Matthew and began reading/studying Matthew 3, some of these things began to make more sense.  This is a classic case of not seeing the forest through the trees.  I think with Matthew 2 & 3, we need to really step back and try to take in a larger picture of what’s going on.  Remember, Matthew has a point; he wrote his gospel because he had a message to communicate and because he wanted to answer some questions that were fairly unique to him.

Chapters 2-4 make seem to make up a bit of a sub-plot within Matthew.  That doesn’t mean that Matthew went off on a tangent or that what he’s saying here will prove to be irrelevant to his message.  Quite the opposite actually.  One of the defining characteristics of Matthew is that he spends a lot of time doing apologetics – hence the reason for all the OT quotations and references.  Matthew 2-4 almost seems to be an extended apologetic defending Jesus’ messiahship.

We can’t forget who Matthew is writing to: Jews.  And even the most average Jew knew the Scriptures (OT) inside and out.  And so especially in Matthew, when we come across a passage that carries a lot of correlations to the OT, we need to pay attention, because his readers would have picked this stuff out immediately.  In chapter 2, Matthew is connecting Jesus’ exile to Egypt and eventual return to Israel’s own plight to and from Egypt.  Perhaps this answers one of my questions from the previous post, but taken in a broader context, this seems to be Matthew’s way of bringing his readers back to the beginning of God’s fulfillment of his covenant promises.  

Filed under: Bible Study, Christianity, Discipleship, Theology

Out of Egypt (Mt. 2:13-18)

Honestly, this is one of the most difficult passage in the Gospels for me to make sense of.  I know that sounds strange; it’s pretty straightforward after all.  At some point after the Magi leave, Joseph has a dream in which an angel tells him to take the family to Egypt and escape persecution.  But when you get down to the point of asking what this story means for Matthew’s overall narrative, things start to get pretty muddled.  My suspicion at this point is that this story will make more sense once we get through the entire book and are able to look at things in a bigger picture (I’ll have to try and remember to come back to it after all’s said and done and see if I can make better sense out it).

A few not-so-obvious observations:

1. By this point I’m starting to notice a trend: Matthew seldom addresses Mary by name.  In many cases, she’s referred to more benignly within the phrase, “the child and his mother.”  This seems a bit unexpected to me in light of the unconventional step of mentioning four women within Jesus family tree, Mary being one of them.  Perhaps Matthew has suddenly had a change of heart?  Or perhaps a reference to Mary no matter how “hidden” is still a compliment given the time period.  In other words, Matthew is showing that God was not just concerned for the infant Jesus, but also for his mother.
2. Matthew continues his generous use of the OT here, but this time in a way that most scholars today would string him up for.  In other words, Matthew is applying various prophetic texts in a way that doesn’t seem to be completely in line with their original context.  The first quotes Hosea 11:1, a text that is speaking of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.  The second OT quotation is form Jeremiah 31:15, and is a clear reference to the Babylonian captivity.  While Matthew’s choice of words may be comforting to his readers, they seem an odd choice to us today.
3. Furthermore, with these choices in “proof-text,” Matthew is drawing an unmistakeable connection between Jesus’ time in Egypt and Israel’s, as if to cast a typological glow on the Egyptian captivity (that is, it was a fore-telling of sorts and further evidence of Jesus’ identity).

I really struggle with making sense of the proof-texting.  What exactly does it mean?  What is its significance?  What are we to glean through this?

I can safely say that the entire example of the exodus was a symbol of salvation.  Israel was under the oppressive thumb of Pharaoh much as we are with sin.  God sent a deliverer in Moses (like Jesus) and delivered his people (salvation) fulfilling his promise to give them a land of “milk and honey” (heaven in the form of Cana).  But none of this applies to Jesus given that he was the one doing the delivering.  The connection between Jesus being brought up out of Egypt and Israel brought out of Egypt is still weak to me.

Please don’t take this as a suggestion that there isn’t a good reason for these passages or that Matthew messed up, I’m just not sure what it is.  There’s something there – I know there is.  I just don’t know what.  Any thoughts are much appreciated…

Filed under: Random

Most Important Post I’ve Ever Written

Long-time readers of this blog should be familiar with the events of my life over the past several months.  I graduated from Calvin Seminary this past May with a Master of Divinity in pursuit of a call to plant a church in Portland, OR.  Portland is a city in desperate need of healthy, thriving faith communities and gatherings.  This call that Mishaela and I each sense, has been affirmed/confirmed by a variety of sources ranging from personal experiences to trusted advisors to denominational officials.

This past Feburary I attended a church planting Assessment Center for the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRC).  Mishaela and I were challenged and encouraged as we were confronted with the realities of church planting.  But in the end, we were affirmed and recommended for starting a new faith gathering in Portland.  For that we praise God!

Around that same time, the CRC asked me to complete a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program as further preparation for ordained ministry.  In the CRC, I cannot be recognized nor receive official denominational support until I have been ordained.  Because of the timing of this request, I found myself in a difficult position: all Portland-area CPE programs are filled for the next year to year and a half, I’m either over- or under-qualified for anything outside of ministry and the job market is extremely grim in Portland, and I cannot be paid through official means until ordination.  The result is that I find myself in an odd limbo in which all I can do is sit and wait.

However, despite my lack of official status, regional representatives for the CRC have encouraged me to begin “laying the groundwork” for this new church plant.  As it stands, the amount of time I can devote to this calling is extremely limited since my attention is having to be split between “church planting,” job search/work, and CPE.  Therefore, I have decided to begin some minor fundraising as a means of supplementing the work I am doing and allowing me to focus more intently on my call.

Today I have launched a new blog.  PJ’s Story is an online autobiography of the life of a Portland church planter.  The purpose of PJ’s Story is to give people an inside look into the struggles and successes of church planting, a world that most people know very little about.  However, PJ’s Story is not your typical newsletter-type blog; PJ’s Story reads much like a book.  To read it’s posts gives you a sense of picking up a good book written from first person perspective.

When you visit PJ’s Story, you’ll have the opportunity to make a donation.  You can donate as much or as little as you like.  I ask that you consider donating just $1 per month as a show of support for the ministry taking place in Portland.  Of course you’re welcome to donate more if you feel led.

I also ask that show your support by subscribing either to PJ’s Story, The Follower, or both, and to pass the word on to all your friends.  In the world of church planting, the more support, encouragement, and “buzz” the better.  But most importantly, I encourage you to add Mishaela and I to your prayer list as we strive to further God’s Kingdom in Portland.

For more specifics regarding the vision God has placed on our hearts, take a look at the [missio] page on either The Follower, or at PJ’s Story.  If you have any questions or would like more information, feel free to contact me at (503) 781-7347 or email at jason.devries@att.net.

Thank-you, and God bless!

Jason & Mishaela De Vries

Filed under: Church Planting, Ministry