3 Year Olds and Mogadishu: How Smashed Graham Crackers Compel Me to Love

Last Sunday, I began my descent into a world heretofore largely unknown. A world of smashed graham crackers, Brio trains being fought over like a seat on the last chopper out of Vietnam, and detailed conversations about superhero comic picture books that I’m apparently supposed to be intimately familiar with. Welcome to the 3 year old’s Sunday School. I’ve been around 3 year olds before, plenty of them. But it’s always been in numbers of 1 or 2, not a whole herd.

During our singing time, our fearless leader Joe led the kids in a song that I haven’t heard for 15 years but found still imprinted deep within the recesses of my mind.

I may never…
March in the infantry
Ride in the cavalry
Shoot the artillery
I may never fly o’er the enemy
But I’m in the Lord’s Army.

Looking back, I had three distinct thoughts about this song, written here in order:

1) How do I still know this?

2) This is a rather curious song. Following Christ is equated with being a member of an army that is not exactly an army. The etymology of this song would be an interesting study. It bears a marked resemblance to the “muscular Christianity” societies of the early 1890s – 1920s, connected with the Salvation Army and other movements that used militant metaphors to describe spiritual pursuits. Songs such as the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Soldiers of Christ in Truth Arrayed, and Onward Christian Soldiers grew out of this culture milleu, which was also rather postmillennial. What was this song’s sitz-im-leben? (A German higher critical technical term meaning setting-in-life.)

3) What the heck is seminary doing to me, that I’m analyzing a six-line children’s jingle for it’s socio-religious heritage?

As I’ve grown in knowledge of the content of the Scriptures and the various moods of interpretation that have swept Christianity throughout the ages, I’ve discovered just how dangerous knowledge is. Seminary is full of deconstruction. We tear apart a passage, learning the possible translations and the various interpretations of the passage held by those men that we would consider theological mentors. We take history classes and learn how cultural pressures oftentimes drive hermeneutics, giving rise to both good and bad perspectives on the Scriptures. We counsel people from the Scriptures, helping them connect dots within their own lives that they’re not able to connect themselves.We have no reason to wonder that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 8:1? “[K]nowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Last summer I read Black Hawk Down, the account of a failed military expedition deep within the heart of Mogadishu by a large contingent of Army Rangers. Embedded with the Rangers, who are the Army’s elite and specially trained soldiers, were a company from Delta Force, the “D-Boys.” The D-Boys are America’s most highly trained soldiers, the kind who are given a blank check by the government and told “buy whatever you want to carry into combat.” The arrogance of the D-Boys did little to diffuse any sense of competition between the two units. One sentence in particular crystallized the attitude of the camp: In the minds of the highly-trained D-Boys, the Rangers seemed like little more than an untrained rabble fresh from boot camp, a liability in the field who were certain to get themselves killed.

Do we do this as we complain about how many seminary students are at a church, then proudly proclaim we go to a “real” church, intimating that the reality of a church is defined by the lack of formal theological education in the pew rather than the one being worshipped? Do we do this as we contemplate how much more deserving we are of accolades than the man or woman who is recognized for their service to the Lord, cynically attributing their success to inside-track relationships? Do we do this as we write people off mentally for their weaknesses, believing them to be little more than barely-cognizant rabble fit for only the thirty-five person church that is simply delighted anyone would want to come and minister amidst the cornfields?

Love builds up, says Paul. Sometimes it’s harder to rejoice with the rejoicing than weep with the weeping, especially when their rejoicing for something you want but was given to them instead. A great test to see how much we truly love our brothers and sisters is to see how easily our heart bursts forth into praise when the Lord uses them in some great opportunity that we were not given. A competitive heart will seethe with envy, though the lips may be smiling. A Christlike heart actually feels those statements of congratulation that are necessarily being offered.

I looked it up, and I’m in the Lord’s Army was written anonymously and has no known copyright. I can’t prove it’s origins. And a wonderful thing of working with the 3 year olds is that they don’t care. They want me to untangle their hair from their nametag, give them their graham crackers, and help them memorize their verse. They want me to read them a story about Jesus, play with the Hot Wheels with them, and demonstrate that I care. There is no theological arms race in the 3 year old classroom. It’s kind of nice. And it calls me to be better than I usually am.

What to do Amidst the Fray?

Right now there are…

• Abortions being performed in Louisville
• Tomato pickers being oppressed in California
• Brick masons being enslaved in India
• Girls being raped for profit in the Philippines
• Husbands who are forced to work on fishing boats in the Atlantic and Pacific who will then be shot and thrown overboard after the fishing season closes
• Coffee growers being exploited in Bolivia
• Families being killed in Sudan because of the tribe they’re from
• Orphans being made in South Africa by AIDS
• Retiring missionaries not being replaced because there is not enough financial support for replacements.
• Believers being martyred in Saudi Arabia
• Political prisoners being used as lab rats for poison gas testing in North Korea
• Scientists refining nuclear fuel in Iran to be used for evil
• Homeless wandering the streets of Atlanta
• Teenagers driven into drug trafficking by poverty and peer pressure in Detroit
• Children being taught in schools in Berkley that homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality
• Power players swinging dirty deals for political gain in Washington
• Murders happening in Tulsa
• Children sorting through heaps of garbage in Phnom Penh to keep from starving
• Kind hearted husbands and wives who want to adopt but cannot because of a lack of money

As much as they all break my heart, and the heart of every Christ-follower with me, the sad truth of the matter is that I am utterly powerless to influence almost every single one of these evils. I can tear up at the videos of starving children and be outraged at abuse and horrified at corruption, and yet none of those actually work towards any kind of solution. None work toward alleviating the suffering experienced by those who share God’s marred creation with me.

So what do we do when we stare across the landscape of our 21st century world and realize the shockwaves of the curse have crumbled to pieces far more than we could ever piece back together? Withdrawal is always an option, an option embraced at different times by different Christian groups. “If the world,” they say, “is going to hell in a handbasket, then let them go.” But this does not seem to capture the spirit of Christ declaring that what is done to the least of these is done to him. It does not seem to explain his meals with prostitutes and tax collectors and consistent seeking out of those marginalized by society.

It is here in acts of Christ we see how we might seek to both roll back the curse and not lose our sanity as we stare down the enormity of evil clutching our world. Wherever Christ went, he did good. He did not journey to Rome and topple the pagan Roman government. But he did cast out demons from Roman soldier’s sons. He did not topple the corrupted Sadducee’s stranglehold on the temple economy. But he did clear them out twice with a whip when he was in Jerusalem.

We cannot each individually address all of the evils in our world. But we are placed in unique situations with unique interests, meant to channel our God-given abilities, gifts, and resources toward the redemption of that sphere of life. I live in a dorm of college men who aspire to be preachers. And so talk  of fellowship and purity and community and doctrine and love of the brethren will dominate my time and energy. Evangelism will not. But you are in a different place. Be faithful there, and I will seek to be faithful here. And as we go and you meet the Indian refugee whose family escaped from the brick masonry slave pits, you will throw yourself into that cause. And I will meet someone else with a different past, and we will concentrate on that evil to be unwound.

We’re not individually called to address every single issue that we might within the world. Rather we’re called to do good, preach the gospel, and live out gospel implications in a contagious manner to whomever the Lord would have us meet. And I will delight in your ministry and pray for you, as you delight in mine and pray for me. Let us all seek to be faithful in our tempestuous world. We’ll see you in the fray.

Jesus Died to Save Us From Our Theology

Does theology ever make you miserable? Torn between the poles of opposing positions where biblical and historical evidence seems to lie on both sides. Should I believe that the miraculous gifts have ceased, dying out as the apostle John yielded up his last faithful breaths? Or should I believe that those gifts have continued and the ghost-town nature of modern faith in such has stymied the miraculous? Should I believe that the spikes and the nails and the full cup of the Father’s wrath was poured out upon the Son for the elect only? Or did Christ offer himself as a sacrifice for the entire expanse of the human race, but applied only to those who turn in humble belief in their own ability to save themselves? And what do we make of the wonderful and labyrinthine words of the Apocalypse of John, scene upon scene that bedazzles and befuddles? Is Jesus coming back to rule for a thousand years? Or is the millennial kingdom marching forward towards completion as you read this?

These are hard questions, questions that I myself often struggle to answer. The texts and philosophies and hermeneutical models stack up in convincing piles, only to be countered by the next view in rational and compelling ways. In an environment where theology is valued, where careful analysis of the text is prized, it is easy to begin the ever-so-subtle drift of heart from worshiping Christ for who he is to worshiping Christ for the theological system his death and resurrection created. If we’re miserable when we wrestle through theological questions, it’s because we’re worshipping systems instead of a Savior.

Christ died to save us from our theology. And the misery we often feel as we pressure ourselves to “get it right” is a product of us finding our identity in theological perfectionism rather than the perfection of a Person who is our intercessor. I believe in believer’s baptism. I could be wrong. I believe that miraculous gifts have ceased. I could be wrong. I believe that believers will go through the tribulation, after which the millennial kingdom will begin. I’m praying that I’m wrong. But my identity before the men and before the Lord is none of these things. My identity is Jesus Christ crucified. Not my theological system.

Who do we run to when the well is dry and the heavens are as brass? The Valley of Vision, or Psalm 42 and Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones?

When the money flow ebbs and the pressure mounts what path do we trod? Psalm 23 or the Gospel According to Dave Ramsey?

When someone dares reproach our treasured doctrine of election who is our chief advocate? John Piper or Ephesians 1?

Too often we trade the gasoline for exhaust and then grow angry when the car of our delight in God won’t start. All of these men have wise words, words that comfort and teach and correct. But all their words are exhaust, by-products of a heart consumed with the God revealed in Scripture. Why are we content to trade the white-hot flame of a heart fed by Scripture for the wheezing engine trying to run off the passion and joy of another man? Enough of the pre-processed. Give us the raw meat of the Word of God, and let us prove our doctrine by our Scriptures.

If we ignore our Bibles for the sake of words about the Bible, we will grow miserable. The heart will be consumed by what its time is spent imbibing. A boat always takes on the water it’s floating in. I pray for you and I pray for myself that as our time is spent reading wonderful things about the Bible – history, languages, nuances, hermeneutics – they wouldn’t become our pagan gods. No matter how pure my theology is, it will never reconcile us to God. Only one man was perfect. And our identity rests in him and him alone.

I’m in Seminary; Help Me

I’m in seminary; help me. The ability to determine that a verb is a Pi”el Active Participle in no way guarantees that I am able to parse my own discouragements. That I’ve read 2,500 pages of Jonathan Edwards in 3 months doesn’t mean that I’m actively, intentionally, and currently delighting in the God who is much more than the sum total of all my theology. The fact that I have a pair of letters after my name that designate me the leader of a dorm full of 118 good men doesn’t mean that I don’t fight many of the same battles they do daily.

Being in seminary in no way decreases my need to be reminded of the gospel daily. There is no pedestal that elevates any man above the unsheathed claws of the roaring lion, the seductive calls of the alluring world, or the foul beast of his own resurgent former nature. The second a pedestal is considered to be a shield is the second a pedestal proves itself to be rather opposite in function.

As I look at myself and my own hesitations to extend the kindness of counsel, I realize that the greatest fear is being perceived as patronizing. I don’t want to be like the driver’s ed teacher who insistently told me that maintaining a four second gap between myself and the car ahead is critical to my survival as a driver and entirely possible reality. I don’t want to be advocating something that we all know and believe, but obviously doesn’t have any power in your life because you’re in seminary and therefore know the gospel and gospel implications.

If we believed the gospel perfectly, we wouldn’t ever be miserable. We wouldn’t get stuck in ruts where we grow discouraged, grow imbalanced in our theology, grow harsh or timid or selfish or insensitive or gluttonous or myopic or proud or lustful or gossipy or demanding. We wouldn’t spiral from the lush gardens of self-sacrificial servanthood to the desert of entitlement where any sense of joy has evaporated into the ever-thirsty air. The fact that we don’t live as Jesus shows our blindness, our inability to take information and process it to lifestyle perfection, our desperate need for other pairs of eyes to scout our lives and the humility to actively invite and embrace correction.

So I am in seminary; please help me. Help me remember the gospel, help me remember the faith given once for all the saints, help me remember that the truest thing about me is Christ standing in heaven as an intercessor whose intercession has absorbed all wrath and guaranteed all favor. Help me remember that the Lord is my shepherd, that I shall not want, that his rod and staff correct and comfort. Help me remember that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Remind me that young men are to set example in faith, hope, purity, and love, and that God will be faithful to complete what he has begun.

My sanctification is a community project. So is yours. God give us boldness and humility.

Pretense

As the twisted and broken body of good king Josiah entered back through the gates of Jerusalem, slain upon the swords of Pharaoh Neco’s mighty army, Jeremiah knew what was about to befall his nation. Good king Josiah spent his few years of kingship restoring the nation of Israel to its worship of Yahweh. Over and against the traditions of his elders, the falsely assumed religion of his people, good king Josiah hacked to pieces the Asherah poles and the statues of the Baals. He carried them out of the the temple of Yahweh, deposed the pagan priests who were not priests, destroyed the houses of fertility-cult prostitution. He had the people read the Law and taught the Law. And he died defending his covenant land from an invading army, playing the man to the last.

But Jeremiah knew what course the nation would take after the mourning horns finally fell silent and the steady creep of decay consumed the body of their godly king. “Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 3:10)

Pretense. That’s was the nation’s religion.

Pretense.

When the leaders fell and the people in the pews were reliant to draw up the waters of worship from their own hearts all they found was pretense. The words were right. The forms were right. But the heart was distant and cold. What happens when the iPod falls silent and all you have is the quiet ticking of the clock and your Bible? What happens when there is no Piper or Washer or Chandler to enliven your emotions? What happens in the quiet hours when you must pray? Can you do it without the Valley of Vision in your hands? Can you sing without the band? Can you witness without the assignment?

Who lives your worship of God? Is it you, or are you a vicarious host for the Christianity of someone else that’s never sunk into your heart?

Use Your Cell Phone To Kill Your Sin

The second she walked through the door I knew that we might a problem. I was working as a math tutor, she was a high school junior who had been assigned to me weeks before. Except that particular day she must have dug through the closet and assembled her outfit from the clothes haunting the dark recesses of the closet – clothes that somehow didn’t get donated with the rest of the shirts and shorts she had grown out of a few grades ago.

Five minutes into the tutoring session I did what any red-blooded human male should do. I excused myself to the restroom, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and lit up my friends’ phones with emergency “here’s the unescapable situation, pray for me” texts.

They did. And the strength given to my heart for the next hour was noticeable.

For some reason this episode from almost a year ago has been in my mind today. I share it as an idea in the war on sin. Joseph’s exit strategy isn’t always possible. But there’s always the text. What better ally than fellow brothers in the battle standing beside you as you seek to murder your sin? Depression and  sins of the tongue and bitterness and anger and jealousy and lust and sluggardry and lasciviousness and self-promotion and paralyzing fear haunt us as believers.  Pull out your cell phone and enlist the body of Christ for immediate aid. God’s mercies are found in strange places sometimes. Even in technology.

Do You Keep Your Pastor From Evangelizing?

Many Christians, especially those who serve in some from of full-time vocational service, experience a unique bias toward those who do not know Christ. Christian people who are trying to grow in their faith surround themselves with other Christian people. They read Christian books, listen to Christian radio, and have Christian symbols displayed on their person and workspace, if possible. For those in Christian service, their primary responsibility lies in taking care of the flock of God. They work with Christians, have a Christian coffee mug from which to drink, have Christian paraphernalia decorating their offices, and fellowship primarily with other Christians. As a result, most Christians have very little contact with those who do not know Christ.

Truthfully, most Christians probably do not like being around non-Christians. Once Christ has transformed an individual, that person will often become very aware of the behavior of others. People outside of Christ become offensive in the language they use, in the attitudes they demonstrate, and in the behaviors they accentuate. As a result, many Christians isolate themselves from non-Christians.

If one truth can be communicated at this point, it is this: the reason that lost people act the way they do is because they are lost. That statement is not meant to be pejorative. It is meant, however, to arouse Chrsitains to examine their lifestyles and to discover why they are not more engaged with people outside of Christ. Evangelism must become a priority for believers if a Great Commussion Resurgence is to take place. For pastors, that level of primacy must begin with them. . . .

One of the reasons pastors are not witnessing is because they are responsible for a plethora of activities. They have administrative duties to handle including budgeting, staffing, planning, and programming. They have ministry to be done, from visiting Aunt Susie because her bunions are hurting to ministering to a family who has suffered an untimely death. They have visits to make, from hostpitals, to nursing homes, to the homebound, and to new members. They have discipleship to accomplish, from prayer groups, to personal mentoring, and to preparation for weekly Bible study. And they have sermons to prepare…lots of sermons. . . .

In the end, little time is left for evangelism. The most unfortunate issue in this entire scenario comes form the fact that the pastor will be criticized if he does not visit Aunt Susie, or if he misses seeing a church member who just needed a visit, or if his sermons are not as exciting or uplifting as that guy on television who smiles a lot. Rarely do people become upset if he has not done any evangelism….If we really beleive in evangelism, then churches must release their pastors from activities that members of the church can accomplish…

from The Great Commission Leader: The Pastor as Personal Evangelist by William D. Henard
in Great Commission Resurgence (ed. Chuck Lawless and Adam Greenaway)
pg. 273, 274, 278

Joseph and the IRS

Yesterday I sat down to finish up my taxes. That’s a rather remarkable sentence because I usually wait until April 14th to begin frantically digging through the box where I keep all my important mail in a wild hunt for W-2s. But this year I started over a month in advance, only to discover that I owed over $700. Discovering that you owe $700 does not naturally compel immediate and decisive action, so there my completed forms sat, taking up space in the top left corner of my laptop between “Paper on Deuteronomy 6:1-9″ and “Book Thesis.”

I don’t have a printer in my room, so yesterday I scooped the files up into gmail and sent them on down to the library computer for printing. Grumbling as I laid down homework time upon the alter of civic duty, I opened my file only to have an ominous box with the works “Does not support” flash across the screen. Cursing the computer for its incompatibility with my Mac, I printed the form and began the process of hand-filling it out.

That’s when I discovered a little box known as “Exemptions.” Somehow I’d overlooked that box which reduces your gross income when I filled out the form originally. Instead of owing $700, I now owed $200. Rather relieved, I signed my name to the bottom of it and set it to the side. Next came state taxes.

California was a piece of cake once I figured out my address from last year. Then came Kentucky. Kentucky isn’t so friendly. Directing me to a third-party website, the grumbling arose yet again as I transferred all the information off of the W-2s in my hands to the good people at TaxSlayer.com. As I finally cleared the last hurdle (no, I ‘m not blind, NO I wasn’t born before 1946) another friendly box met me with a little note that read: You’re not a resident, so you can’t eFile. Cursing the backwardness of the state whose capital I can’t even find on a map, I scrolled through all of the forms and finally located the one entitled “NP-760″ to print and mail.

And that’s when I saw that my federal taxes had a rebate of $200 on them. That didn’t make any sense. I’m supposed to owe $200, which was $700 an hour before. Unbeknownst to me, part of the Obama stimulus package was a $400 tax credit for low-income workers, which is currently my status in the eyes of Uncle Sam. This information appeared on no tax forms, but was installed in the system for the electronic tax preparation software. Which I never would have used for my federal taxes if Kentucky had its own eFile system like California. And I never would have found my error of overlooking my Exemption status if the computer in the library had been compatible with the form I filled out on my MacBook.

The very things that I cursed for making my life more difficult were ten minutes later saving me $1000, which I’d much rather apply towards tuition than funding some pork bill which allocates tax dollars for experimental surgery on some Senator’s favorite Siamese cat.

It’s humbling to see that even in the smallest aspects of life I don’t know what’s best for me. There I sat, bitterly grumbling about wasting an hour of homework time to fill out forms again. But it was the filling out of those forms yet again that will allow me to continue to pay for the school where a week ago I took an exam on trusting in the sovereignty, providence and kindness of God in every situation. Even tax forms.

I don’t know what’s best for me. So I complain about allergies and the fact that I’m stuck indoors while everyone else is on a 13 mile hike. So I grow discouraged about the fact that I have to work 32 hours a week which reduces my social life to practically zero. So I sigh about the fact that all of my friends are getting engaged (just saw another one today on facebook) and each year just keeps extending my valentineless Valentines Day streak.

It’s not often that we see the blessing and the trial collapsed together so closely as I did yesterday. It was years before Joseph realized why the Lord had allowed him to be tossed in a pit, sold to a tyrant, and locked in a hole in the ground with a bunch of others who actually deserved to be there. And it was millennia before the human race understood why it was important to keep a bunch of squabbling, rapacious brothers alive during a famine that struck the ancient world. If Judah dies, there’s no Jesus. And if there’s no Jesus, there’s no righteousness to give to us. And if there’s no righteousness to give to us, there’s no reconciliation with God.

Maybe things like yesterday happen to compel us to faith when the blessings and the struggle aren’t collapsed so close together. Our understanding is shadowy at best. As William Cowper says so beautifully in God Moves in a Mysterious Way, the song he wrote the very night before the mental illness with which he had battled throughout his life finally overcame him,

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

MacArthur, Patrick and the Tribal Identity

In case you missed it, the sun arose today on yet another controversy in the conservative Christianity blogosphere. I usually don’t even bother to read these, as they come and go and are almost entirely based on soundbytes that are irresponsibly pulled from a larger context. You know what I mean: YouTube videos with names like “PIPER PREACHES THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL” or “DRISCOLL DENIES THAT GOD IS MERCIFUL.” But this controversy struck me in a way others haven’t. Namely, the responses of the men in question have widely differed from those who follow these men and count them as heroes.

The kindling for this brush fire arose from an interview between Phil Johnson and Dr. MacArthur. In responding to a question, Dr. MacArthur chastized Darrin Patrick’s book Church Planter for encouraging pastors who are undertaking church planting to design their own doctrine and theological beliefs.  Here’s the passage MacArthur was referencing:

One of the common errors of young men who surrender to ministry is to simply adopt the model of a church they have experienced or idolized. A similar mistake is to blindly accept the ministry philosophy and practice of a ministry hero. The man who is experiencing head confirmation is thoughtful about his own philosophy of ministry, his own ministry style, his own theological beliefs, his own unique gifts, abilities, and desires. In short, there is a uniqueness to the way  he wants to do ministry (page 37, italics in original).

I watched the movie Luther the other night, the third time in five years. You know what? Tetzel plied his damnable trade again. Luther discovered justification by faith again. Katie showed up and they got married again. And the conversation between the followers of John MacArthur and the followers of the Acts 29 movement have been just as predictable as the movie Luther was the third time through. A quick survey of the comments left on Tim Challies’ blog runs the average to about 3-1 against MacArthur. The comments are exactly what you’d expect:

“I love MacArthur’s teaching, but he’s so ungracious towards his brothers in Christ. I wish he wasn’t so divisive.”

“Such a blatant violation of the biblical principles found in Matthew 18. Someone needs to call MacArthur out on this for not speaking to Patrick privately first.” (Which is a really ironic comment when you think about it…)

“MacArthur probably hasn’t even bothered to read Patrick’s whole book.”

“I haven’t read Patrick’s book, but I really trust and respect Dr. MacArthur. And I don’t know about those Acts 29 guys.”

Have we as the church become the same as our nation? Have we become an assortment of pundits each with an opinion based  upon nothing more weighty than which tribe we most readily identify ourselves with? We recognize these evils in politics and the incessant squaking of Fox News and the New York Times. But do we recognize it in ourselves?

Who in this conversation are you most likely do give the benefit of the doubt to – Patrick or MacArthur? There’s nothing wrong with that per se, as we all have to constantly weigh small snippets of words against the greater whole of an individual’s work and ethos. It becomes wrong when we make a particular style or ministry our own personal identity.  When our appreciation for and natural identification with one minister’s or ministry’s particular style eclipses our identification with the gospel and truth, we have ceased to think as the redeemed choosing rather to content ourselves with petty partisanism. When we hear of our heroes squaring off with another minister are we willing to seriously consider and ponder the critiques, or do we blindly grab our banner and lance and ride forth to do battle with the dark knights of the enemy’s blogging horde?

Shortly after the critique of Patrick’s book, Johnson asked MacArthur if any of his doctrine had changed in the middle of writing his commentary series. MacArthur responded by reminiscing about Michael Horton “catching [him] and taking [him] behind the woodshed” about an improper distinction between imputed and imparted righteousness in his volume on Romans. And MacArthur was thankful for it, for it improved his understanding of God and corrected an underdeveloped aspect of his theology. When a man writes a book and publishes his thoughts, he is inviting his peers to critique him. Matthew 18 is about personal sin, not a discussion about proper ways of addressing theological concerns in the Christian publication world. If it was, I’m not sure the blogging world could exist.

We have much to learn from the humility of these two men. As their followers have been sharpening their knives and preparing for blood, they’ve been planning to sharpen each other. MacArthur published a follow up article, clarifying that he wasn’t attacking Patrick or accusing him of being unorthodox. And Patrick tweeted “Dr. MacArthur you are a hero to me. Period.” And “Dr. MacArthur, many young pastors like me didn’t have dads. We need godly, established men like you to father us.” And “I would be happy to fly to SoCal on my own dime to be mentored and coached and get to know you.” To which the men agreed to do so.

I haven’t said anything about the actual content of the disagreement. In short, MacArthur’s probably right in identifying something that should not have been said in Patrick’s book. From knowing and participating in both ministries, I can say that Patrick isn’t talking about designing your own doctrine. But that’s how the book reads and that point needs to be modified and communicated better. And Patrick’s probably right in saying that it’s disaster for one pastor to try and duplicate the ministry of someone he idolizes, for God has made us all unique. Each tribe needs the others, for they challenge each other to clarify and purify both the content and the communication of our doctrine and ministry philosophies.

God make us all men like MacArthur and Patrick.

Little & Much

The church sanctuary needed painting today. I hate painting. I’ve painted so many houses some various shade of tan that I could probably cut in the White House blindfolded. But it needed to be done, so I spent four hours doing the detailed lines on our two-toned greyscale sanctuary paint scheme.

Honestly, I really really wanted to dodge it. I almost did. And I could have done so while covering myself with spiritual-sounding mitigating circumstances that would have made me appear holy. I have to read for my Hermeneutics class. (Would you really want me to misinterpret the Scriptures and lead people astray in my future pastoral ministry?!?) I have to work on summarizing the books I’m researching for the Acts 29 church replanting curriculum that my church is developing. (Would you have me shirk my responsibilities, which undoubtedly would destroy hundreds of church plants around the world?!?) I just really need to spend some time in the Word, coming back from vacation with my family. (Would you value a building’s aesthetics over my personal spiritual health?!?)

And then there’s even Scripture. Acts 6:2&4 “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables…But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Right? I mean, let the others paint the sanctuary. I’m in seminary; I have to study.

The simple truth is this: If you’re excusing yourself from service by claiming what the apostles claimed, you had better be doing what the apostles did. Apostle-in-training doesn’t cut it. Because if you aren’t among the elders, your job in the church is not the ministry of the word and prayer. Your job is serving in whatever way you have to so your pastor doesn’t have to be standing on the scaffolding with a paint brush in one hand and a commentary in the other. And if we’re being realistic, dodging the dirtywork probably isn’t leading you to spend that time on your knees begging God to weave His grace within the people you share community with.

I don’t have the spiritual gift of painting. But I’ll paint. A half dozen on Sunday morning don’t have the spiritual gift of changing diapers. But they’ll be right there serving in the nursery. I wonder if sometimes we mistreat the idea of “spiritual gifting” to excuse ourselves from doing things we are simply too lazy or too terrified to do.

Following Christ means death to self. I think that’s easy to get on the macro level. If some crazed shooter picks Crossing Church to show up to some Sunday morning and my choice becomes deny or die, I’m pretty sure I know which one I’m choosing. That’s not a heroic thing to say; it’s the gut-level response of every Christian. When death equals heaven, your priorities about survival get a little redefined.

And yet, when death to self does not actually mean a real, call-the-mortician kind of death but rather “inconvenience” or “discomfort,” that’s when the choice becomes hard. When the stakes are not so high, my defenses are lowered and the idol of self-protection and self-worship seizes my soul. Eve wouldn’t have worshipped Satan, but when the stakes were lowered and she was blind to the reality of what was going on in her heart she was entirely willing to eat a piece of fruit.

I’m not entirely sure how to wrap this up. Somehow I got from painting to martyrdom to the fall of mankind. I guess my point is this. To my friends who are studying to be pastors, we’ve got to earn our stripes. If we are to be given much, we must first be faithful with little.