Shalom

From the Israeli tourism homepage to casual conversations with strangers, “Shalom” is the most common greeting used in Israel. It can mean a number of things from hello to goodbye to peace be with you. In Hebrew, Shalom means peace. I once heard in a seminary class that “Shalom” is not just any peace. It is peace in the midst of conflict not in the absence of it.

Yet, it is interesting that many Israelis don’t believe that peace will ever come to their country. From Christian Arabs to IDF solidiers to secular Jews, if they are honest, most don’t believe the age ole differences in the country will ever be solved. Every political “solution” seems to make it worse. I haven’t met any Hamas fighters. But I guess they probably feel the same way as the Israelis. There is too much at stake for either side to ever allow the struggle to die down. Neither side would be willing to give what would be necessary for “peace.” And I strongly doubt that any “peace” would be lasting.

I find it ironic that the word used as a generic greeting in Israel describes a condition that many residents don’t believe will ever take place. I wonder if hidden beneath every “Shalom” is a cry for a solution. Is this really a call for the Prince of Peace?

Shalom from Israel.

Disciple Makers WANTED

Pastor Carter Goolsby, lead pastor at MCC, preached last week on making disciples of Christ. He said that many Christians believe that you have to be seminary trained or a seasoned Christian to disciple others. But he insisted that almost anyone can get in on the act. Making disciples is something we are called to do. Even the novice Christian can find someone else that they can encourage or at the very least hold accountable as peers.

Pastor Carter said that too many Christians hide behind the claim that they don’t know enough to disciple others. They are afraid of making a mistake. But this mindset fails to recognize that the original apostles were far from perfect. The whole concept is not to clone ourselves but to encourage others to be like Jesus. We are called to make disciples of Jesus not ourselves.

One of the biggest reasons that Christians shy away from disciple making is the fear of rejection. We should not be surprised when others reject us. Jesus said that this would happen.

Have you answered the call? See what Matthew  28:19 has to say about the original mission of the early disciples.

Common Sense Comedy Tour

Wow! I saw Glenn Beck’s live stage show in Richmond tonight. Beck was awesome. He was funny, profound, entertaining and inspiring. He just made sense.

Beck called his audience to join the revolution of common sense ideas with their passion and voice not guns. I loved it when he said that people need to find their voice and not depend on his. He preached personal responsibility mixed with perfectly timed jokes.

Beck said, “Big government can only be dismantled by individuals.” He said that we can’t depend on either major party to fix our problems. It takes people doing the right things and calling for “REAL” change.

His common sense message called for his audience to demand more from their elected representatives. The problem is that we elect people and forget to hold them to their promises. We don’t do our part to ensure that our political leaders really reflect our ideals.

Beck said, “When the government isn’t afraid of nothing, there is tyranny. When the government is afraid of you, there is freedom.”

Enough is enough. Somebody has to tell our political leaders in Washington to STOP!

My favorite joke of the night had to deal with the current clean energy legislation in Congress. Beck said that the current bill is more than 900 pages making it larger than the New Testament. He joked, “The government’s effort to regulate the weather is longer than the story of Jesus, the guy in the New Testament who actually controlled the weather.”

That about  sums up my attitude toward government fixes. Appeal to Heaven!

How Patriotic Is Your Bible?

Thomas Nelson Publishers has released a New Bible called the The American Patriot’s Bible. It combines the New King James with patriotic commentary that attempts to imply associations between the American story with the Biblical narrative.

Any special interest Bible risks misapplying the Scriptures. Critics contend that this Bible takes that concern to a whole new level. I have not read it and will withhold judgment until I do. One thing I will say is that readers tend to look at commentary notes as if they are part of Scripture or at least authoritative. But that is not the case. Even translations are in an essence commentary because you can’t make a translation without adding some commentary in the process. In translating, you have to make word choices and reconcile differences between major manuscripts. Very few people read the original languages and judge the meaning of the text itself. Plus, we may know the words and not understand the nuance of the ancient context in which it was originally written.

This new patriotic Bible points to a major concern for those focused on Scriptural purity. The more stuff we add to the Bible, the more cloudy the core of the text may become for the average reader. We have all these “helps” and special resources today. Yet, society is less aware of what the Bible actually says than ever before. If we are supposed to be a Christian nation, why do so few know much about the Bible?  Sixty percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments. That’s a failing grade in my book. See this article from 2007 to understand just how little we know.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm

Here is what the Out of Ur blog had to say including a critique of the new patriotic Bible. I am all for being a patriot, and I am a very proud American. However, I think that all these special interest Bibles may lead to confusion and get in the way of a clear understanding of Scripture.

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/05/ur_video_the_am.html

Fine One, Make One

How should a church go about discipling the flock? Are programs and workshops enough? How do you really change the culture of a people? Ho do people really become fully devoted to Jesus? These are tough questions with very demanding answers.

I believe you can’t rush perfection. And the process of becoming the Church takes time and intentional movement to strip away what is not necessary to reveal the masterpiece underneath. I am reminded of the process of sculpting a giant statute.

I recently visited the Next Wave E-zine, an online magazine dedicated to the Emerging Church and its leadership. It carried a flashback article by Stephen Shields on  developing church leaders. The article is titled, “When the Church Is Its Own Worst Enemy.”

Stephen made some great points. He basically said that a church can’t just setup a Christian education program and expect it to work without first modeling out the behavior we want to see replicated. It’s not a matter of teaching as much as showing. That is how Jesus made disciples. And it takes a long time. The key is replication.

Read Stephen’s article to see how churches can get in the way if they do the wrong thing and ignore the core problem.

http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue124/index.cfm?id=47&ref=ARTICLES%5FFROM%20THE%20ARCHIVES%5F640

Rebooting the Gospel

Here are a few videos that make you think about how we spread the Gospel today. Should we reboot our systems?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0R6oAJCVvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc_FoELt8s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcWu5IMjxAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvYFvhx1dcY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgxGK2GOcQQ

Are You Going to Wear that Shirt?

Terry Bowman recently shared the following at our men’s small group gathering. We do what is called a truth search. Our focus Scripture was Galatians 3. You generally start out with a question based on the passage. Then connect it with the passage and other verses in Scripture. The goal is to get to questions that you can ask yourself based on the truth revealed in the passage.

Terry’s truth was a question. He asked, ”Are you going to wear that shirt???” The implied answer is always “No.” Terry said that he heard the voice of his wife as she frequently asked Terry about his clothing choices. He then connected this concept to  Gal 3.27, which reads “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

All Christians are to take on the appearance/character of Jesus. Terry pointed to  Rom 13.13-14, which says, “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

We are to clothe ourselves with armor of light not darkness. Ephesians 4:22-24 adds to this concept. It says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

 Looking to the Old Testament, Terry found a similar link to idolatry, holiness and clothing as a way of putting off the old self.  Gen 35.2 records that Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.”

Terry then concluded with these probing questions. He asked, “What am I ‘wearing’ that I need to take off? – time devoted to television;  time spent surfing for hacks and gadgets. What does God have for me to put on? – acts of service; time spent investing in other people.” 

So do you need to change your shirt? When people see you do they say, “Hey, that looks kind of like Jesus?”

Two Masters

Luke 16:13
“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

There are a lot of words that people call Jesus, but “Master” is not one of them. Jesus may be Savior, Redeemer, Healer, even King. But I don’t think that we in modern society like to think of anyone as our master. That denotes a slave/master relationship.

This hits on a point mentioned by Michael Card in his recent concert at St. Giles Presbyterian. Card said, “You aren’t truly free until you are Christ’s slave.” He went on to talk about how the servant language in Scripture helps us understand the upside down freedom of the Christian Gospel. People who live for themselves think that they are free. But they are actually bound by their own appetites. We all serve something.

I have always thought that the real evil in this passage was money. But money is just the vehicle for the real idol to fulfill its desires. In this passage, Jesus is clearly pointing to a greater evil. It lurks within us all. It is the god of self. The worship of our own desires.

I believe Jesus was saying that we can’t serve God and ourselves. Sometimes we think we can be in two camps at once. But Christ is clear. There is no middle ground. In any given moment of our lives, we are either living for God or living for ourselves.

Chasing after money is a clear sign of what is going on in our heart. There can be no two masters because we will chose to love one and despise the other. The biggest danger is when we think we can equally serve both sides at once.

Twitter Me This

Okay, I have joined the world of Twitter. I started this past weekend. To be honest, the entire blog, Facebook, Twitter phenomenon seems a big Narcissistic to me. Why do so many people care what others are doing?

Facebook is not a great way to really stay connected with close friends. It is a way to stay loosely connected with people that you care about but are not an active part of your regular life.  I would rather talk on the phone or meet face-to-face than connect online. Maybe I am old school.

I was not going to open a Twitter account until a friend explained why he used it. He basically said that Twitter is like Facebook without all the extra stuff that gets in the way like contests, polls, being poked or bitten by others, etc. All the little add-ons are killing Facebook. I don’t think that I have ever responded to one of those things.

Facebook has been kind of neat to re-connect with old friends from school or college. But it shouldn’t take up most of your life. Some people spend way too much time on this stuff.

My blog is nothing more than free therapy. I write so that my head doesn’t explode. If it benefits other people, that’s just the cherry on top.

Twitter does make sense from the perspective that it keeps comments short. My main problem is that brevity has never been a strong suit of mine.

I will be posting some random status updates as well as a daily Scripture verse and related questions on Twitter. These are questions that I am asking myself. My goal is to do this every day for 365 days. There may be some days where I don’t have a decent Internet connection or fail to post for some reason. But my plan is to be as faithful as possible.

What you won’t get from me is Twitter updates on everything in my life. I won’t be telling you what I had for breakfast unless it was something really unusual like fire ants and goat cheese. I won’t be making stupid comments about TV shows.

My desire is to post Twitter messages that add something to the lives of those who read it: either a quick update, a profound thought, question or Scripture verse.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/organicfaith1

Beyond the Margins

Have you ever had one of those nights when you don’t even know where to begin? Your head is swimming with thoughts inspired by the wisdom of someone you feel fortunate to have encountered. That’s how I feel right now after a 2-hour concert/walk through the Bible with Michael Card.

Where do I begin? Michael Card stated his secret purpose was to entice, manipulate…  do what it takes to inspire his audience to read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. He weaved songs together to provide a musical narrative of Scripture. By the end, I was in tears as the reality hit me. God’s greatest desire is to be with His people. I know this. But some how tonight, I got a deeper glimpse of God’s heart. And I am undone.

While I don’t know that I would pay to hear most Christian musicians preach, I could sit and listen to Card for hours. He plumps the depth of Scripture like few Christian artists could. Here are some of the things that stood out to me.

• Card is working on a book about slavery and freedom called A Better Freedom. Card said, “The only way you will ever be free is to become a slave of Christ.”
• Leviticus is full of details about things like warts and mold. But those details point to spiritual realities. We see Jesus in the models and stories of the Old Testament. Card said, “God is in the details.”
• The story of Hosea and Gomer shows us our wayward hearts. Card sang a song as Gomer talking about the faithfulness of her husband despite her unfaithfulness.
• God gave Israel a great gift called the Year of Jubilee – a time when all debts would be canceled. It was to be a year-long party every 50 years where families and individuals were restored. But there is no record of Israel every observing the Year of Jubilee. This utopia idea has its completion in Jesus.
• In Psalm 51 after David has committed a horrible sin, all he had to give to God was his brokenness. And that was what God really wanted in the first place. David said that what God wants is broken and contrite heart.
• Card said, “The things that have hurt you in life, aren’t wasted. They are redeemed -  God uses them  to save the world.” He pointed to the cross as a perfect example of how God turns tragedy into victory.
• Throughout the concert, Card kept on referring to friends and mentors who influenced each song. It was clear that his music comes out of community.
• Card said about the book of Revelation, “In the end, God gets what He wants. Do you know what God really wants? He wants to be with you – His people.” Card said that the reward of  following the Law in Leviticus 16:12 is that God will walk with His people. From the tabernacle to the Temple, the dwelling place of God was to be with His people. Jesus is called Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus’ last words to His disciples were, “Behold, I am with you always.” He then promised the Holy Spirit, which lives in the heart of God’s people. Card said, “What God wants the most is what we need the most.” The story ends in Revelation with complete restoration as sin, death and separation from God are forever dealt with. God is fully with His people.