Drunken Mystic

I realize it makes people awkward when I am as adamant as I am about righeousness as a standard for those who truly believe.  But really, this is what our world is waiting for, whether we believe it or not.  All of creation groans and waits for the sons of God to be revealed.

I could go into more scriptures to talk about this, but the problem is that there are line by line doctrines out there to help you support whatever you want to believe.  So if you’re still reading what I say, then you’re either a glutton for punishment (like a die-hard Nancy Pelosi fan who listens to Sean Hannity) or you have enough of a heart for truth that you’ll endure my rambling to get something of value. 

What I call our “anemic” Christianity can be traced back, in many cases, to conversion.  I’m going to give a more natural example today to make my point … which I could support scripturally … I’m just going a different route.

Did you know that in much of the world, they potty train their children by the time they are a year old?  Well, it is true.  They begin training them at 6 months, usually as soon as they can sit, and most, if not all, are trained by the end of their first year.

Did you also know that a bulk of your foundational personality is formed during the same time frame?  These children are taught, early, that this is what it means to be a person: you poop and pee in the potty.  They don’t really know a different definition or expectation.

And this isn’t the “rage” or “new” in these places.  These are age old cultures.  It takes our extreme progress to retard children at least an extra year or two (or three) before they can learn to put their waste in a toilet.

Let’s look at what we, as Americans do.  We wait until the basic aspects of their personality are set, until they have a firm grasp of themself as a person, and they are also in the most stubborn stage of their life so far.  NOW we try to teach them how to put that junk in the toilet.

Do you realize what we do?  Their waste management identity is in putting poop in a diaper.  And they are naturally beginning to assert their independence (walking, running, jumping, talking, exploring, etc.).  At this stage, we attempt to retrain their whole minds, against their will many times, to do something totally different.

But why would they want to?  We have to manipulate them with rewards, or “wait ’till they’re ready” to be a big boy or girl.  They were actually ready more than a year before, when they were completely caught up in mommy and daddy and not stubbornly trying to assert their independence.

Not to mention that we’ve made it comfortable to crap in a diaper.  Our plastic technology has allowed these children to exercise no self control, no inconvenience to them, all in complete comfort.  Ah, America.

So how do these other countries do it?  First of all, they believe that they can.  It is amazing what you can do with faith.  Second, it is out of necessity.  It takes time, deep relationship with the child (you have to know their “poop face”), and it is very inconvenient.  You must be intentional.  You use cloth diapers so it becomes immediately uncomfortable.  Which means you, the parent, has to wash poopy diapers instead of just throwing them away to take up space in our nice landfills.  And laundering diapers is motivation for the parents, too, to get this potty training on the road.

And we’re not even talking about the places where diapers aren’t much of an option, so potty training is even more of a natural necessity.

I don’t ultimately care when you potty train your kid, but this is an analogy for what we do with baby Christians.

Upon conversion, in usually the most formative time when Christians will believe ANYTHING because they are so wrapped up in the God that takes away the sin of the world (a sobering time when many things can go very right or very wrong), they aren’t taught to rely upon the Holy Spirit for everything and that living a righteous life will be the result.  Many aren’t given any real teaching at all, except come to a service and tithe ten percent (in other words, be a Christian consumer, not a participant).  And some of the teaching that is given actually tells them they will sin all the time and not to ever expect to live up to a righteous standard.

We, in effect, place spiritual pampers on these people and convince them this is what it means to be a Christian.  And while my son had the example of his father using a toilet, most of our professional ministers walk around wearing the same spiritual diaper, so the anemia is reinforced.

God forbid we tell them, at the very outset when their identity in Christ is being formed, that they have the power of creation within them now, the Christ that was there at the creation and died and rose again, and that with God “all things are possible.”  They might actually go out and turn the world upside down instead of attend our nicely organized programs.

Instead we wonder why we have a whole generation of immature Christians without any spiritual self control.  And since our experience in such matters (i.e., our common Christianity) doesn’t match up with the testimony of the New Testament, we have to re-interpret scripture to feel like we’re okay, coming up with doctrines like a “second work of grace” or “carnal Christians.”

Why would “carnal Christians” ever change?  We’ve made it completely comfortable and convenient for them to be so.  Just sit back and be entertained and moved.  It’s even online now.  You don’t have to leave your house to feel like you’re participating.  And leaders are not inconvenienced when maturity doesn’t materialize … unless people stop attending and giving.  Then they pay attention.

And the few Christians in the pew who try to live and spread the Kingdom of God either become dangerously frustrated or we make them missionaries or give them positions in our organizations.  God forbid such passion becomes “normal Christianity.”

The “paradigm shift” needed is so fundamental that it goes beyond models of organic church or megachurch.  It goes way deeper than that.

And lucky me, I get to be one of the men that people whine and pout about because I tell them it’s time to take off the diaper and wear Big Jesus pants.

Peace.

This time on the whole health care debate.  I’m not saying that I agree with everything this man is saying, but I like the different ideas of de-regulation that could have a positive effect on the health care system.  And it is sad that these options are not only completely off limits to the discussion, but that they are demonized as hateful or something.  This is from the CEO of Whole Foods.

Anyway, here is the article if you’re interested.

Peace.

Sorry to those who saw a half version of this yesterday, I went to save and accidentally published … oh, well … here it is in the entirety.

I read a book recently.  It was recommended to me and my dad had a copy of it.  Won’t mention the name of the book or the author here, but the book was okay.  I appreciated the heart of the author, and I confirm that God used him.  But there were large parts of the book that were guilty of just bad Bible teaching.

I hope to use this as an example of how one can, unwittingly even, be drawn into bad teaching.

The author’s view of the Great Commission is such that Jesus’ words in Matthew were meant to be interpreted as an immediate call to go as far and as quickly as they could to preach the gospel.  And that same call was to be imprinted upon every believer to go as far and as quickly as they could to preach the gospel … and they told two friends, and they told two friends … you get the picture.

Therefore, he interprets the persecution on the Church in Jerusalem as a punishment from God, that God sent persecution on them because they were not “fulfilling the Great Commission”, since they all just stayed in Jerusalem for as long as they did.  And so God had to send persecution to force them to do what He wanted.

This is not a new idea.  I’ve heard it before from others.  But let’s look at a couple things.

First of all, the Bible never calls it the “Great Commission.”  It is a term we have come up with, and especially under a fundamentalist Christian culture, these terms take on a theological life of their own, many times beyond what the writers of the scripture intended (like predestination or free will).  Kind of a little thing, but worth noting and keeping in mind.

Second of all, there is never a recorded rebuke to anyone, especially the Church in Jerusalem, for not “fulfilling the Great Commission”, or even not evanglizing in such a way as consistent with the author’s idea of the Great Commission.

And this is big for me.  Peter sees visions challenging his Jewish notions of the gospel, and is constantly being led by the Spirit, doing miracles by the power of the Spirit, preaching the name of Jesus constantly, yet there is not one record of God or Jesus rebuking Peter (or the other apostles) for staying in Jerusalem too long and refusing to obey His call in the Great Commission.

In other words, never once in Acts is anything of the like even implied.  It must be completely inferred by our own interpretation of Jesus’ words at the end of Matthew and Mark and placed upon the scripture as our own commentary.  I’m not comfortable judging the early Church so harshly when there is no explicit scriptual evidence to do so.

For that matter, nowhere in the rest of the New Testament is any church or individual rebuked for their lack of evangelism.  They are rebuked for gross sexual sin, for division, for legalism (well, maybe you read my last series …), but they are never rebuked for not getting out and evangelizing.

The furthest you can go with that is in Romans, where Paul gives a doctrine on evangelism that is pretty amazing, but he is only making the point for the necessity of evangelism, not rebuking them for not doing so (he is addressing a fellowship he doesn’t personally know very well but wants to encourage with sound doctrine).  The only other scripture is where Paul tells Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist.”  Just as the rest of the letters to Timothy are personal and instructive to Timothy’s role as a fellow apostle (not a pastor … Timothy was going to leave after he appointed elders and join Paul again), this is not a rebuke, but a personal encouragement, and a stretch to project unto the whole Body or especially back on the Church in Jerusalem.

Third, and even more important, Jesus never taught that persecution would be the result of disobedience.  Rather, He taught that persecution would happen to those who were truly following God and hearing from His Father, “as they persecuted the prophets before you.”  And in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes (another one of our terms), Jesus specifically states that persecution is a blessing, not an avenue of correction or rebuke or punishment.

And this is consistent with the testimony in Acts.  What brought about the persecution of the Church in Jerusalem?  They continued to preach the gospel, despite continued threats.  They even prayed at one point for boldness to continue preaching the name of Jesus and God shook the room.  Stephen and James were martyred and killed because they were preaching the name of Jesus.

In other words, the Church in Jerusalem was persecuted because they were being obedient to Christ and preaching the gospel.  It was a blessing, a commendation to them, and evidence of their obedience and inclusion in the persecuted prophets throughout Israel’s history.  To speak of them as disobedient people is to add things to the Bible that isn’t there and to go against the very teachings of Jesus.

Did the Church grow because of the persecution?  It absolutely did!  The persecuted Church went out “preaching the gospel” as they went.  Persecution and martyrdon has always caused a growth of the Church and the Kingdom of God, beginning with Christ Himself and on down to saints over the last two thousand years.  However, that is not proof of their disobedience.

And just so you don’t misunderstand, I fully believe that “making disciples” is a call to the Church, and that there is a great need for people to be sent to preach the gospel, which is a gospel of disciple making, as Romans states.

But when you’re really passionate about your doctrine, you begin to interpet all of scripture based on that doctrine.  Instead of allowing scripture itself to shape and balance your doctrine, you begin to twist and read into things, suppositions that aren’t there so that your doctrine isn’t challenged.  And even though your heart is to teach truth, you’ve fabricated a false sense of what the Bible says.

I don’t say this is conscious.  I don’t think anyone wants to get into bad teaching.  But when we are so wrapped up in the one aspect of the Kingdom God is teaching us about right now, we can quickly lose sight of maturity and balance and then generalize across the whole Church things might just be teaching and calling us to do.

I’m not nit-picking with this particular author.  It is systemic throughout the book.  He quotes scriptures like this (John 3:16) that are in no way evidence of his point.  Some people don’t look up the scriptures.   I happen to know the Bible well enough to seriously question not only his basic foundational assumption, but the scriptures he uses to back up his points, so I did look them up and check them out.

(As a side note to encourage the author, who doesn’t know me and probably won’t ever read this and doesn’t care what I think, he did have a pretty good teaching on the different soils, which I appreciated.)

My encouragement is to be mindful of such things, in our own hearts and in the hearts of others.  And I do not mean to rebuke anything God is teaching and revealing to an individual, but we must filter through, by the Spirit and the testimony of the scripture, like the noble Bereans, to see what is to be taught to the whole Body and not place on them things not meant for them to bear.

Peace.