Meditation on 2 Thessalonians 1

This passage is the answer to all the pleas in the Psalms for rescue from the hands of evil men. There is a fervent purpose in all of the sufferings of the people of God. The suffering faced by the Thessalonian believers drew them closer to one another as they were able to witness and participate in the grace of God as it shone forth in the midst of their afflictions. Their faith was enlarged because of their trials. And how else can faith be enlarged other than for it to be taken beyond its previously supposed limits and proven to be made of much more steel than thought? Trials prove that the limits of faith are not limits bounded by the person of God, but rather bounded by the smallness of my picture of God.

The champions of the faith are men who suffered much. Christian history does not celebrate those who lived in comfort and ease. Spurgeon and the Down-Grace controversy, Athanasius and Arianism, Luther and the Roman Catholic Church, Eliot and the Aucas. Edwards and the communion compromises. No, the men to whom Christians look for encouragement and wisdom are men who suffered much. Suffering proves that everything other than God is a poor choice of foothold. When the cost overwhelms the comfort, when there’s no reason to fight against discouragement and pain apart from the all-pervading, all-persuasive biblical confidence that God is on the throne and will be glorified, that is when God is displayed to be stunningly above what I thought Him to be. And the Bible is so clear to teach that every thorn in life is intentional, storing up for me the greatest amount of eternal joy possible. God is not only working everything for His glory, but also that I might have the greatest joy. These two are never in conflict.

Release from affliction only comes once the end arrives, no sooner. David Crowder’s Church Music has been in my CD player for the last couple of weeks. The last song on the disc announces: “To the end there is hurting/To the end there is yearning/To the end there is suffering.” Paul doesn’t comfort the Thessalonians–who understood cost far better than I do–with promises that their sufferings would soon be over. Rather he reminds them of their hope in the second coming of Christ. There will be suffering until the end. Indeed, the greatest suffering that will befall believers is still yet to come. Paul didn’t see it. The Thessalonians didn’t see it. The tribulation still awaits. But after suffering comes a joy and a justice so great that it makes all the suffering of no consequence. Paul took no prisoners in his quest to crucify the world to himself because the great weight of eternal joy demanded it.

Eternal quality and quantity of joy is not the only comfort Paul gives the Thessalonians. He also reminds them of the eternal punishment of their oppressors. God says that vengeance is His. The Lord is in the business of revenge. God is angry over the way wicked men have treated His children. His wrath burns against those who persecute the righteous because they are righteous. The time is coming when mercy will be over and wrath and sinners will collide.

In the meantime, we pray and hope and take refuge in the knowledge that God is all about our glory and our joy. Bunyan wrote well when he said,

[B]e not offended at God or man: not at God for thou art his servant, thy life and thy all are his; not at man, for he is but God’s rod, and is ordained in this to do thee good. Hast thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which way soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God’s hand.

I don’t know much about suffering. I don’t know much about tribulation or pain or grief. But I do know that suffering in the Bible is not seen as possible, but probable. If so, then it is my aim to prepare myself by seeking to learn much of who God is, for that is how the firm steel of sustaining faith is enlarged.

Safety?

There’s nothing safe in doing right
Or being used by God to fight
For His renown while in the midst
Of those who love ignorant bliss
Of things eternal, piercing, true
And their own lack of real virtue.

Losing an Arm is Better than Hell

It’s hard not to want to soften the edges of the Sermon on the Mount becuase I really don’t think sin is so much more terrible than losing a limb. If I’m going to misread the text, it won’t be by cuting off my hand. It’ll be by blunting the message to salve my conscience.

Matthew 5:28-30 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”

 

Songs to Torture Me By

While browsing the news on cnn.com a couple days ago, I came across this article about how detainees at Gitmo were forced to listen to music at loud volumes in an attempt to get them to talk. So I began wondering what my torture playlist would be. Here’s what would make me tell all faster than a mockingbird:

1. The Meow-Mix Jingle (Perhaps the most loathsome jingle created in the history of mankind. Worse, the entire thing is meowed by a cat, which means that it transcends any language barrier. I’m in the middle of watching season 5 of 24, and I’m just waiting for the time when Jack Bauer yells “We don’t have time to break him through interrogation! Bring out the Meow-Mix Jingle.” Because it would work.)

2. Sandstorm by Darude (I’ve had some experience with this, as about a 15 second clip from it is looped in the line for Scream at Six Flags.)

3. I’m Blue by Eiffel 65 (The world motto my eighth grade year was  ”If it ain’t Eiffel 65, it ain’t music.)

4. All These Things That I Have Done by The Killers (Thanks Andrew M.)

5. Paper Planes by MIA (Made popular by Slumdog Millionaire, the cash register and gunshots are a little bit over the top.)

6. Dueling Banjos (Hey…let’s play the same six notes over and over and over again for 4 minutes and call it a song!)

7. Lost in the 50s Tonight by Ronnie Milsap (Had to sing this as a solo in choir one year. Unfortunately I still remember the song 6 years later.)

8. The entire Nu Thang album by dc Talk.

9. All Creatures of Our God and King by St. Francis of Assisi (I feel bad for including a hymn with some great truth in it, but I really cannot see why this song has survived for 4 centuries.)

10. Honkey Tonk USA (I don’t know the artist, but the genre was country. This is what they play at gas stations in western Nebraska. That should tell you enough.)

Five Thoughts, And One More That Wouldn’t Have Made It If I Had An Editor

1. It has become incredibly trendy to portray Jesus primarily as a Jewish rabbi. It seems to be assumed that we can only truly understand Jesus if we dive into His culture and cultural conditioning, as His true and pure message is obscured by our Western way of thinking. While Jesus certainly did minister within a particular cultural context, He did not teach His message in such a way that only that particular culture could understand it. The gospel is transcultural. And Jesus Christ preached it that way. He, the One who has declared the end from the beginning, intentionally spoke with you and me in mind, 200+ years after He physically walked the earth. While the average man off the streets of Nazareth would be practically unable to function in our world today (without a lot of tutoring), the gospel itself is just as clear, relevant, and effective for changing lives as it ever has been. Over-Judaizing Jesus does nothing but obscure the life-giving message that the world desperately needs to hear.

2. We are meant to intensely long for heaven. There’s a young man in the youth group who has a front-row ticket to a concert by his favorite band. I know this because he mentions it almost every time I see him. He lives with great expectation that very soon he will participate in something he’s waited a long time for. Longing for heaven in like that. It’s understanding that even the greatest joy I’ve ever had on this earth is but there merest shadow of what awaits. Heaven is my home. It is my hope. And this allows me to bear much more than I could otherwise. Sickness isn’t so defeating when I see that one day, very soon I will be free of it. I can bear the constant frustrations of wrestling with entangling sin because I know that one day soon there will be no more roller coaster victory-defeat-victory-defeat pattern, the joy of triumph. Persecution, betrayal, loneliness, pain, suffering, grief–it’s not all that bad because one day, very soon it will all end. And not just be taken away. But rather replaced by joy that is so great I could never describe it.

3. It is hard to be biblical while teaching topically. It is so easy to bend texts to make them say what I want them to say; to search for translations that give the nuances I’ve already determined I want to draw out before considering what the text really has to say. It’s incredibly easy to teach an entirely biblical message and do the Bible a great injustice. To do so is to preach my own insight and wisdom, not the Word. And my insight and wisdom has no staying power, no ability to change lives. It is only the Word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. If I do anything other than bring the Word and nothing but the Word to bear on people’s lives, then I’m failing as a teacher. Illustrations, examples, humor–all is good, but only if it is used to drive home the message.

4. The Lord has been teaching me much about contentment. It is not easy to graduate from Master’s. It’s hard to leave behind the conversations in the dorms and the small groups and the close-knit friendships established by walking with one another in every aspect of life through thick and thin. It is so easy to find joy and happiness in that rather than in the Lord Himself. The church is a very different community than the college. There’s more space in between peoples’ lives. It’s harder to get to know somebody on an intimate level. And that’s hard to get used to. In some ways I don’t want to get used to it. Having seen the transforming power of God displayed through friendships I see the potential in the church for a wise, self-sacrificing, other-sanctifying culture. Because there is a lot of wisdom that exists in the church that does not exist in a college culture where everyone is between the ages of 17 and 23. The difficulty in college is finding wisdom. The difficulty in the church is tapping into that wisdom. My church has just started a men’s discipleship program, and I’m excited to see us taking the step of being intentional in our relationships. The people of God have so much to offer one another.

5. A man I really respect said this about personal devotions: “It’s one thing to give the church’s time to your walk with the Lord. It’s another to give your time to your walk with the Lord.” It is hard to come home after studying at the church and jump into the Word again, this time for myself. While I think there certainly is an overlap between personal devotions and preparation for a sermon or message, it just isn’t the same thing. In order for me to preach passionately, I must have had my heart pierced by the Word, my complacent sinfulness rubbed against the ragged-edged purity of God’s truth. And yet, it is so, so easy to professionalize brokenness and contriteness of spirit. To be in the Word only in the office is to functionally compartmentalize my life. And the heart always follows what you functionally do. If my life outside the pulpit is to be vibrant with the truth of God’s Word, I must be immersing myself within the truth of God’s Word outside the pulpit.

6. I’m outside on my back porch and coyotes just began howling. I hate being alone outside in the dark. And I hate coyotes. I’m now inside where it’s nice and bright and they can’t get me, unless these particular coyotes descended from those half-crazed The Day After Tomorrow wolves.

Three Cups of Tea

A couple days ago I finished reading Three Cups of Tea, a book about a mountain-climber turned philanthropic school builder in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. It’s been on the New York Times #1 Bestseller list for a while (as evidenced by the fact that my library chain has an 

unheard of 23 copies of the book!)

After giving up his hope of making it to the summit of K2 in order to save the life of an altitude-sick fellow climber, Greg Mortensen gets lost during the descent. He winds up in a remote village of Korphe, where he is cared for by the chief’s family. After learning that the children of the village have no school, Mortensen promises to raise money in order to build them a schoolhouse and hire a teacher. 

So begins a twisting journey through Islamic customs, Taliban threats, corruption, and the transition from the pre- to post-9/11 Islamic world. By the end of the book, Mortensen not only has built the Korphe village school, but also oversees nearly 100 other schools and institutions that his organization has built.

Three Cups of Tea is a challenging book to read. Not in a literary sense, but rather in a philosophic sense. What Mortensen has done is simply incredible. His passion and devotion to seeing children forgotten by the world receive an education produces a dogged determination that shames my own work ethic.

Twice Mortensen had a fatwah (labeling him to be an outlaw who could be killed on sight) issued against him by jealous or corrupt clerics. Despite the danger to his own personal safety, he continued to labor to build schools, and eventually the fatwahs were dismissed by Islamic religious panels.

Though he is considered an infidel by the Muslims in the book, repeatedly they allow him to continue his work because his schools because they push no religious instruction, but rather remain faithful to Islam. Mortensen argues that education will ultimately defeat Islamic extremism. Oftentimes the only education provided in the rural regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan is steeped in religious extremism. By building schools that are focused on true education–reading, writing, mathematics, science, etc.–religious extremist schools will be forced “out of business” so to speak.

This book has challenged my thinking about overseas missions and evangelism. A Christian simply could not have accomplished what Mortensen has been able to do. Though not Muslim himself, Mortensen has no trouble practicing the prayer rituals of Islam alongside his friends and contacts in Pakistan. As Christians, we simply can’t do that! And for good reason! And yet the results–education that will raise the living standards of thousands of children–make tolerance attractive as a way of life. 

And yet, we can’t live that way. The gospel is a way of life. It is what motivates us to care for the poor and the suffering and to seek to help those in physical distress. But the same thing that compels us to live that lifestyle also compels us to open our mouths and share the even better news of Jesus Christ. If we minister to the physical side only, we are not serving the Lord Jesus Christ for we are called to be watchmen warning of the impending fires of Hell (Ezekiel 33-34). 

Christ-centered missions will always be balanced between relieving both the physical suffering and the spiritual suffering of people. There are equal dangers on both sides of the highway. To seek to minister only to the physical is to ignore the oncoming reality of eternal judgment. To minister only to the spiritual is to ignore the fact that authentic faith always motivates to action on behalf of the suffering, not just a “be warmed and filled and go in peace” shout as they head back out into the cold.

If you get the chance, read this book. It will challenge you. Most of us won’t agree with a number of conclusions Mortensen draws. But better than simply reinforcing everything you already believe, it will force you to think about how we ought to evangelize a window that is vehemently opposed to the gospel. I hope that Christians will read this best-seller and think about the call to evangelize every tribe, tongue, and nation. 

The question is, are we willing to go where the conclusion leads us?

When I Forget…

When I forget that I am a soldier…

• I weary over hardship, forgetting that the call to the cause is more important than my comfort.
• I grow complacent, forgetting that I fight an enemy that never rests.
• I am surprised at wounds, forgetting that combat is never safe and never easy.
• I look with condescension upon those who fall, forgetting that no soldier is invincible to the enemy when he lets his guard down. 

When I forget that I am an athlete…

• I tire of hour upon hour of training, forgetting that ease and improvement are contrary to each other.
• I lose sight of the prize, forgetting that the treasure of Christ is abundantly worth running hard after. 

When I forget that I am a pilgrim…

• I let my gaze wander from the path to the fair things around me, forgetting that all they can do is weigh me down.
• I sigh in discontent when fellow travelers are few, forgetting that narrow is the gate and narrow is the way. 

When I forget that I am a farmer…

• I chafe over the lack of immediate results in ministry, forgetting that seeds take time to sprout and grow.
• I sow sparingly, forgetting that the bounty of harvest depends upon diligence in sowing.
• I curse the rain and the heat, forgetting that what causes my discomfort is necessary for the strength of the crop.

Would You Rather Die Than Be Not Loved By God?

…Your lovingkindness is better than life…

Psalm 63:3

If You Will Fear One Thing, You Will Fear Nothing

“No Fear” was as cool as it got for much of my early teenage years. No Fear decals and bumper stickers emblazoned the rear windows of large, manly trucks. Scores of people would wear “No Fear” t-shirts. I thought cool people wore No Fear gear. In retrospect, “No Fear” has got to be one of the dumbest pop slogans in recent memory. People without fear get eaten by tigers after hopping over fences in zoos.

Fear is something that can be good or bad. It is good to fear things that can harm you. There is something wrong with a pedestrian who does not have the healthy fear of getting run over that motivates him to look both ways before crossing the street. It is bad to fear things that we ought not fear–things like the dark, small insects that cannot harm you, or mayonnaise. (I asked the youth group what are bad things to fear and that was their first response: mayonnaise. I’m tempted to say it is something that should be feared, but that’s another topic.)

Because fear can be either good or bad, it’s really important to define what we mean by “The fear of the Lord.” The Fear of the Lord is reverence and awe of God fueled by the reality that God is both a righteously angry judge and a tenderly loving Savior. The fear of the Lord is not only negative (fear of wrath), but also wonder at His incredible mercy and grace.

Proverbs is a book based around cause and effect. “If you do (x), you will get (y). Consequently, we need to look elsewhere in Scripture in order to see our motivations for fearing the Lord. First, we’ll look at 3 motivations to fear God, and then we’ll look at 5 results of fearing God.

3 Motivations for Fearing God

1. Fear God because He can destroy both body and soul in Hell (Matt 10:28)

Have you ever wondered why God tells us about heaven and hell? There are many reasons, but a large one is so that we can live with the judgment seat in mind. There exists, right now as you read this, a king on a throne. And every second people like you and me die and appear before Him. And he’s exceedingly angry at most of them. We cannot see this scene, so it’s very easy to forget. But it is absolutely real, and soon it will be you and me before that throne. In Matthew 10:28 God says, ‘Man can do you a lot of harm. They can hurt you and kill you in very painful ways. But I can do worse than that. So fear me.’

2. Fear God Because He is an All-Seeing Judge. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

Every once in a while, a story will flash across CNN about another convicted murderer being proved innocent by new evidence. Why do juries sentence innocent men to death? They do so because they lack perfect information. God is a judge and jury that infallibly remembers every single thing you have ever done. He can recite for you every word you have spoken, every thought you have conceived, every action you have ever done. He can tell you what you had for breakfast on January 19,2002, which grocery store you purchased it from, who the truck driver was that delivered it to the store, the name of the farmer who raised the crops to receive the money to buy his breakfast the same morning. And God can tell you where that farmer bought His breakfast, and which truck driver delivered that food…

God’s omniscience should be a cause of great fear and great hope. God certainly remembers the evil that you do. But He also remembers the good you do in His name. And that comes attached with a promised reward. So fear God that you might not sin, but fear God that you might also be rewarded.

3. Fear God because Christ shed His blood for you.(1 Peter 1:7-19)

The Cross is personal. The blood of Christ is not a mist which sprinkles all of humanity, but rather a fountain directed specifically by the Father to drench only those whom He has specifically called into a relationship with Him. Be amazed that God Himself died for you. And that kind of love and dive to save you should make you a little bit nervous about the Lord. That kind of love is crazy; it’s not something you can control or manipulate. Rather that kind of love is to be obeyed in fear and trembling.

5 Results of Fearing God

1. Fearing God makes you happy! (Proverbs 28:14)

“Blessed” and “happy” are synonyms in Hebrew. To be blessed means to be happy, and to be happy means to be blessed. Now go back and read that sentence and think about Stephen who was stoned to death by a zealous mob of Pharisees. Or maybe the believers in Hebrews 11 who were torn apart by wild beasts.

Happiness and circumstances are not connected in the Scriptures. Paul learned to be content in all circumstances–which means that the circumstances were immaterial to his happiness and contentment. Jeremiah Burroughs wrote in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment,

A gracious heart…is contented not by having his on desires satisfied, but by melting his will and desires into God’s will. So that, in one sense, he cones to have his desires satisfied though he does not obtain the thing that he desired before; still he cones to be satisfied with this, because he makes his will to be at one with God’s will.

2. Fearing God means you’ll understand. (Proverbs 9:10)

This is a repeat from last week. The Bible simply is not generous in its estimation of your ability to figure life out. Since you a broken blend of righteousness and sinfulness, you need something else to measure everything else by. Without the ear f the Lord, you can never be truly wise or understanding because you’ve missed the point of your existence: glorifying God. Wisdom ultimately is a relationship not facts to memorize off a page.

3. Fearing God means you’ll live righteously. (Proverbs 8:13, 14:2)

If you are a Christian, you will turn away from evil. A Christian who lives in an unrepentant pattern of sin is not a Christian. Your hands prove what occupies your heart and mind.

4. Fearing God gives you a refuge. (Proverbs 14:26)

Fearing God and trusting God are inseparable. We do not fear and trust a vengeful God, but rather a God who loves His people. He is a trustworthy God, for He loves us as a father loves his children. Romans 8:28 has sadly been hijacked into becoming some kind of cliche. But this verse isn’t meant to be paired with a low-budget picture of a field of tulips on the front of some greeting card. It’s a tough-as-nails verse to hang onto when nothing else is going to cut it. At the end of the day when nothing else makes sense, we must trust and rest in God’s promises of His sovereignty and His goodness.

5. Fearing God means you won’t fear anything else. (Psalm 56:11, 118:6)

With a sovereign God who has promised that everything is in His control and for your good, what is there to fear? John Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides. The first two missionaries to land on this island chain were clubbed to death and eaten on the beach within 15 minutes of landing. Paton sailed about twenty years after these two men to evangelize a still-unreached cannibalistic tribe in the chain. He was threatened with death almost every day, spent a night in the top of a tree while every islander combed the earth for him with their machetes, and had dozens of partners killed while he survived. Paton lived his motto: “I am invincible until Christ calls me home.”

If you fear God, not even death can touch you without His permission. And then it is not a messenger of darkness but rather a call from a Father to come home. It’s hard to be afraid when the worst man can do turns out to be the best possible thing for you.

This is the second post in a series on the book of Proverbs based on a message series entitled “Gracious Wreaths of Godly Wisdom.” Here are the links to previous posts:

How to Be a Fool (Part 1) – Proverbs 2:3-19                                                                      

How to Be a Fool (Part 2) – Proverbs 2:3-19 (cont.)

Does God Exist: A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens

Last Friday I was invited over for dinner by a family I knew from high school. After the meal we sat down and watched a DVD of the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens held this year at Biola University. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these two men, let me give them a little introduction.

William Lane Craig is a noted Christian apologist and research professor at Talbot Seminary. He has written numerous books and contributed to a five views book I read last semester on apologetic method. He is an evidentalist, believing that the most effective way to argue for the truth of Christianity is from evidence outside of Scripture. Theologically, he identifies himself as not believing in Calvinism, but rather falls into the “Wesleyan camp.” When it comes to origins, Craig is an old-earth creationist, who is not uncomfortable with the idea of theistic evolution.

Christopher Hitchens is a noted “neo-atheist.” According to him, there really isn’t any difference between a “neo-atheist” and your traditional “atheist” other than neo-atheists are quite vocal about their disbelief in God. Hitchens is frequently mentioned in the same breath as Richard Dawkins (author: The God Delusions) and is the noted author of the book God is Not Good.

I, probably like most people who have seen this debate, went into it trying to be objective, analyzing the arguments based on merit not my agreement with them. I know also that I, along with everyone else who has seen this debate, am not unbiased and therefore shouldn’t pretend to be so. In my opinion, Craig won the debate hands-down. He certainly wasn’t perfect and had many arguments that fell flat. But he was able to offer a cohesive world-view that made sense, while Hitchens offered nothing but chaos.

Here’s my specific impressions about the debate:

1) Hitchens thesis mirrors the title of his book: God is not good. Foundational to his argument was evil and suffering in the world and the eventual demise of the universe. Rape, murder, genocide, a sun that will burn out, constellations that are on a collision course with Earth–these are the arguments Hitchens brings against the existence of God. He claims such chaos speaks to random chance or an absolutely incompetent designer. He prefers the first of the two options. Frankly, if the picture Hitchens paints of God is right, than atheism is the better course of belief…because such a God could never pull his act together enough to offer any kind of salvation. 

There is one glaring hole in Hitchens argument. And it’s completely understandable why he cannot see it. Sin. Hitchens has no category for the cataclysmic event which was the Fall. He cannot understand how heinous and loathsome sin against a holy God is. The creation which he sees as being violent and cruel is indeed violent and cruel. And it is so because of rebellion against God. Paul speaks of creation as groaning, waiting for release from the curse. Adam’s choice to bite the fruit and disbelieve God shattered the tranquility of God’s entire physical creation. While Hitchens sees the evil which exists, he cannot understand that he is part of the reason for the disaster of our universe.

2) I completely disagree with Craig about old-earth creationism and theistic evolution. The Bible makes no allowances for anything other than literal seven-day creationism. However, even given Craig’s unnecessary concession about evolution, he still was able to pose a question about origins that Hitchens was unable to answer: Where did it all come from? Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing literally means nothing. I found it interesting how Craig made evolution a major part of his argument and still was able to squash the traditional evolutionary stronghold.

3) Douglas Wilson became a punching bag for both sides. Presuppositional apologetics was smirked at by both Hitchens and Craig. Wilson became the embodiment of this form of apologetics in both of their minds. Craig afforded much more respect to his opponent than to his collegue and ally.

4) The patience of God is great. Hitchens spent much of the debate impugning the character of God, calling Him to task for allowing suffering. And yet Hitchens is but an insignificant grasshopper before the Lord, entirely lacking in wisdom and righteousness. It’s hard not to get angry at Hitchens for lashing out at God. At times the neo-atheist movement seems to be little more than a bunch of five year olds throwing a tantrum because they couldn’t have their candy before dinner instead of after for the sake of ruining their appetites. It really is shocking to see someone use their God-given breath to openly curse Him and challenge Him for running the universe poorly.

5) Not even a convinced atheist like Hitchens is beyond the grace of God. The Word penetrates hearts. And no heart can ever be too hard for the Lord to crack. Pray for Hitchens, that God might mercifully call him to Himself. The patience and mercy of God is amazing, and any one of us would be up on that stage name-calling our creator as well if it weren’t for the incomprehensible kindness and mercy of the Father.