The Rest of the Old Old Story

Now that I’m doing the "Through the Bible in a Year" plan, I decided it was important to make the blog a little less crowded and easier to read.

This is the best I could come up with the currently available themes (and the currently available time for testing the themes).

What’s bizarre, it seems to me, is that the link to comment is at the top of the post. That is a TERRIBLE feature, but not enough to make me try to change back.

I’ll try to remind people regularly about the bizarre comment link placement.

I got a very nice email today ending with " … many blessings to you." I nicely sent back, "Blessings to you, too."

What blessings?

Sadly, we no longer know how to bless.

We say things like, "Bless you." Bless me? Who bless me? Bless me with what?

Those are not questions that used to be left open.

You’ve probably heard the Irish blessing that begins with, "May the road rise to meet you and the wind be always at your back." The whole thing goes like this:

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields, and
Until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand

Much better! Now that’s a blessing!

The Scriptures teach us, "Bless, and do not curse." We incorrectly think that has something to do with cussing. It doesn’t. It has to do with literal cursing.

In fact, that’s where cussing comes from.

You probably think that "God damn you" is a bad thing to say because "damn" is a naughty word. Not originally. "Damn" used to be a curse word, not a cuss word. "God damn you" means "May God send you to hell after you die."

It’s the exact same curse as "Go to hell," except that "Go to hell" wishes you the punishment a little quicker, as in immediately.

The Scriptures consider blessing and cursing real things. You ought to read through some of the Scriptures on the subject, but here’s just one for you to consider:

Like a wandering bird or a flitting sparrow, so the curse without cause shall not alight. (Prov. 26:2)

It surely follows that if a curse without cause shall not alight, the writer of that Proverb believed that a curse with cause would alight. Proverbs further tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. That does not only refer to insults that bring depression or encouragement that can bring healing to a sick person. It also refers to the real power of blessing and cursing.

We are men and women of God. Our blessings matter. So do our curses, which is why we don’t curse.

Before we quit, let’s discuss one more common blessing: gesundheit.

Gesundheit is the German word for health. When someone sneezes, saying "gesundheit" is a blessing, wishing them health. After a sneeze is a pretty good time to bless someone with a health blessing.

I believe blessings carry power, especially for a man or woman of God, but for the most part only if we mean them. The next time you hear someone sneeze, don’t say, "Bless you." How vague is that? Go ahead and say, "Gesundheit," which you can say with meaning without embarrassing yourself. Better yet, go ahead and embarrass yourself, stretch out your hand and say, "Health to you" or something similar.

Well, I probably won’t do that, so it’s embarrassing even to suggest you do, but some of you are braver than me.

What I do, however, is bless people specifically and on purpose. Even a "grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" at the end of one of my emails is put in there on purpose. What better blessing than grace? And peace is the very guide of our hearts (Col. 3:15).

Before a job interview, you can say, "May you find favor in the eyes of all you see, and may God turn all your plans and steps for good."

And it is not just people who are to be blessed. The followers of God should bless God as well. "Bless you, Father" is no better when directed at God than it is when directed at men. Read the Psalms and learn how men of God ought to bless God. But you can begin with Jesus’ teaching on how to bless God:

Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be considered holy. May your kingdom come, and may your will be done on earth just like it is done in heaven.

That’s a real blessing!

"May your name be praised in all the earth!" "May your goodness be acknowledged by the sons of men." "May your enemies be scattered and disoriented."

I hope that helps. Go, bless and do not curse, for life and death are in the power of the tongue.

For those of you that don’t already know from my Early Church History Newsletter, I have been updating Christian History for Everyman.

What’s pertinent for this blog is the teaching and book pages.

I’ve made a page for my books, though only one book and one booklet have been completed. There are, however, five chapters of a book titled The Second Hundred Years that has a lot of information in it. There are also chapters from other books I’ve started and never finished.

I’ve also made a page for teachings (written ones) and podcasts.

If you subscribe to this blog, they’re the sort of pages you would want to know about.

I’m revamping the Christian History for Everyman in order to focus on the second and early third centuries (to give a picture of the beliefs and practices of the apostles’ churches) and on Nicea and the Reformation (to address the periods of major transformation in church history).

Those are the areas I know most about, and so I am going to focus on those rather than trying to cover all of church history, a task that is proving too large for a father of six, four of whom are still at home and home schooling, who was working full-time, but now is a part-time leukemia patient.

That’s not a complaint! The leukemia has let me meet and influence a lot of people. I got a letter from Namibia yesterday saying my leukemia blog "opened my eyes and heart." I don’t even know where Namibia is! (I’ll go look it up in a minute.) On top of that, the love and care of others for me has brought tears to my eyes more than once. I’ve also met some of the most incredible and inspiring people you can imagine. I get to help more with my children’s home schooling. I have no regrets.

On the other hand, there’s not much energy or desire to study new periods of church history when you’re going through chemotherapy. I’m going to stick to the periods I know and that I think are most important, anyway.

Today my kids and I used YouTube as a worship leader for devotions. We looked up Amazing Grace, and then we went from one music video to the next, picking songs we knew and singing along.

One of the songs we listened to was "Who Am I" by Casting Crowns. I’m embedding it so you can listen to it while you read if you want. Great song.

For some reason, the middle verse made me think of baptism, and I want to pass on the picture I saw and what I explained to my children.

Who am I
That the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again?

What is baptism but a burial, dying to ourselves and our old life of sin, and rising again to a new life in Christ? (Col. 2:12).

This passage is a perfect picture of baptism. Baptism is tied to the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16), and when else does God look on us with love and watch us rise again except at our baptism, where we were buried with Christ, then raised to a new life? I don’t know whether Casting Crowns had baptism in mind when they wrote that line, but it’s a great picture.

The next set of lines is just as good …

Who am I
That the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me?

I told my children that the burial and resurrection that happens in baptism is a matter of faith. We don’t necessarily feel anything, but in baptism we act out our faith in Christ, giving up our old life and rising to live by the Spirit of Christ. That’s probably exciting, and we feel the excitement, but we can’t feel the burial and resurrection.

What we can feel, however, is the peace that comes when the voice that calmed the sea calls out to calm the storm in us.

Many of us are caught in the storm of our own past. It is a storm that pours darkness on our hearts and into our lives. When the voice of Christ comes, that darkness disappears, and we know that everything is under his control. Peace reigns, and the light of God shines into our hearts.

This song was such a great picture of baptism for us today that I had to share it.

Today I was reading a book to my children, and as I neared the end of the section we were reading I burst into tears. With many stops and starts, I managed to squeeze out the end of the chapter between the suppressed sobs.

I believe that God sometimes lets us feel his emotions. I was reading End of the Spear, the part about the five missionaries being martyred on a sandbar in a river in the Amazon jungle in 1956. I am convinced that to God, the spearing of those missionaries by the "Aucas" is one of the most significant events in history. I don’t believe God weeps about it; we’re all individuals, and we all express God’s Word in different ways when it comes. The weeping was my expression, but I believe the emotion is God’s. Not sadness, just the incredible awe of one of the most central events of modern history. Untold thousands, perhaps millions, of lives have been changed because those five men gave up their lives to reach the Waodani.

The author of End of the Spear is the son of one of those missionaries. His name is Steve Saint, and he was five years old when the Waodani speared his father. Since then, the families of the five missionaries have turned the Waodani to Christ, and Steve has lived with them and taken Mincaye, the man who speared his father, as a replacement father.

All that is introduction to Steve Saint’s spiritual and insightful assessment of what happened on January 8, 1956. Here’s his conclusions in his own words:

All of us have run across people who say they are saved but are not. In fact, for most "Christians," the teachings of Christ and the apostles play little to no role in their lives. Polls by George Barna confirm this regularly, from the mouths of church attenders themselves.

So those of us who are serious about the Gospel have looked for ways to see people really saved. We’ve told those who pray the sinner’s prayer to really mean it. We’ve emphasized follow-up. We’ve made our doctrines better. We’ve increased church activities, and we’ve even tried getting a little more worldly ourselves so that these Christians in name only might get a little more committed.

All to no avail.

I was reading a Christian drug rehab site today, and I realized that one problem is that nominal Christians don’t see that there is anything they need to be really saved from.

At a drug rehab center, there’s something to be saved from. You’ve either stopped brewing meth, or you’re still using it. You’ve either stopped smoking crack, or you’re still smoking crack.

If the drug rehab’s "Gospel" isn’t working, there’s no denying it isn’t working. We don’t usually use the word "saved" in reference to their work, but at a Christian rehab center, that’s exactly what’s going on. Either they’re being saved, or they’re not.

Since I don’t know all the details of what a drug rehab center does, nor how successful they are, nor how much follow-up they do, let’s switch to something I know more about.

U.S. prisons have very high "recidivism" rates. A recidivism rate is the percentage of criminals released from prison who wind up behind bars again. Standard statistics vary depending on how they’re calculated, but a 45% recidivism rate after three years is acknowledged by all. A Free Republic article says that if you track all prisoners for 20 years, then it’s 82% of inmates who return to prison.

The article describes a program that successfully reduced that recidivism rate to 61%, a minor but significant success. It involved counseling.

I have now met two men involved in major prisoner reform programs. Both programs take a prisoner from the prison to a counseling program, help them find a job, and follow up with them for at least two years. Both programs successfully cut the recidivism rate in half.

Now that’s salvation! It is at least for the men who never return to prison.

We have no such standard of measure for Christianity today. Anyone who can attend a meeting can be a Christian.

It was not that way in the beginning. To join the Christians was to join a new family. They shared their meals and even their possessions. They met every day in the temple, and they ate together in their homes. Their leaders taught them "night and day, both publicly and from house to house."

The "every day in the temple" part happened only in Jerusalem, but the rest happened everywhere for around 200 years.

An early Christian tract is still extant that made it into two early Christian writings, one the earliest church manual ever written. That tract urges Christians to "seek out the faces of the saints ever day." It tells them that if they share in eternal things, how much more should they share the things that are merely temporary.

As late as A.D. 200, we read about the Christians that "the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you [Romans], create brotherly bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us except our wives" (Tertullian, Apology 39).

A counselor who takes an inmate fresh from prison and guides him to a new life can tell you whether that inmate was successfully "saved." If the inmate went back to prison, the counselor knows that, at least for now, he’s failed. If the inmate is surrounded by wholesome friends, employed, and has a new life in front of him, then he’s succeeded.

When Christianity is again a family, rather than a set of weekly meetings; when we are again seeking out the faces of the saints every day; when our teachers are again teaching day and night and from house to house as well as publicly; when each saint is expected to stretch out his hand to give as well as stretching it out to take … when these things are happening, we may again be able to tell the difference between the saved and those who merely attend our meetings.

That would require a pretty radical overhaul, but don’t you agree we need it?

One happy note: I have run across a number of churches attempting to make exactly those kind of changes. Some are failing, but some appear to be succeeding.

If you’re in Sacramento or Atlanta, I can already put you in contact with people. Unfortunately, I didn’t get contact information from the elder of one church like this I met, but there are a couple others in the middle of these changes that I know about, too.

David Platt has a rather famous church doing these sorts of things in Birmingham, and if you’re in San Francisco, you ought to look up what Francis Chan is doing. Simple and brilliant.

What about conspiracy theories and the new world order?

I’ve heard many conspiracy theories about a new world order. There is no doubt that we are locked in a battle with satan and his agents, but it doesn’t appear to me that we are to fight him by trying to figure out how governments and rulers will arrange themselves. We fight him by staying close to God, living in righteousness, and praying. In due time, God will order things according to his will. Until then, he has given us much instruction on what we should do, which includes obeying governments, paying taxes, and praying for our leaders so that we may live godly and holy lives in peace and quietness.

To me, the easiest way to sort through difficult teachings is to jump to the end and find out what those teachings ask us to do. If they ask us to do what the Gospel and our Master ask us to do, then let us look deeper. If they ask us to do other things that are mere distractions, like researching government activities, then we must reject them and be about our Master’s business.

This is another post that I need to hear.

With gentleness [correct] those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been help captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:25-26, NASB)

Repentance, according to this passage, requires revelation. God has to grant our opponents repentance that will lead to the knowledge of the truth.

This should be liberating for us. We do not have to make our arguments strong enough to convince the hard-hearted and foolish. We only have to make our arguments well enough, and with gentleness, to please God. God will take it from there.

Any of you who have ever had a word from God lodge in your heart knows how unshakeable the conviction of the Lord is. That word will pierce like a thorn until you either give in or make a conscious choice to turn your back on God and choose evil.

One final note. This is not the only place that says repentance must be given by God:

They quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well, then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that that leads to life." (Acts 11:18b, NASB)

I don’t normally write about politics, but this post is going to sound like I’m a sap for conspiracy theories. The fact is, I write off most things that even sound like a conspiracy theory, because conspiracy theorists have proven to be universally untrustworthy in my experience.

I’m just going to tell you what I know; do with it what you want. I’m not even a Republican; I voted for Obama, though I’m not a Democrat, either.

Today a friend sent me a video that sounds like a bunch of malarkey. It’s a state congressman who says that he attended a communist meeting in 1992 which outlined goals like promoting women’s lib and homosexuality in order to destroy families. He also said that they talked about promoting environmentalism to destroy businesses, and in this way they hoped to bring America down.

What he says is adjusted somewhat from what I heard in an Air Force briefing during basic training in 1982. My briefing didn’t mention environmentalism, and the emphasis I remember was the promotion of pornography and a general openness to sexual immorality.

I was told that this goal, of eroding America’s morals to destroy her, was written in a communist book. Then the goals were read to us. The video by this state congressman lists some of those very goals at the end.

Pretty much every one of those goals has been successfully met.

I will add one thing. When I was in public school it was taught as obviously true and common knowledge that Rome fell because its citizens became selfish and immoral, and laziness and self-indulgence went with the selfishness and immorality.

I don’t believe that’s taught anymore.

I remember moving to California in 1990 and being shocked by the open scoffing at a selfless life. It was considered naive to share and to help others. "Look out for number one" was the motto.

I had heard "look out for number one" growing up, but it was considered foolish advice, and it was usually said as a joke or a poor attempt to justify behavior that was socially unacceptable.

Not in California. Self-promotion, self-protection, self-indulgence, and turning your head to the needs of the person next to you were considered the appropriate way to live.

I was shocked.

Today, however, no one is shocked at such awful advice. It’s now the American way to live, not just the Californian way to live.

I don’t know if communists have enough power to capitalize on their erosion of America’s values, but they carefully outlined a plan over 50 years ago, and they have completely succeeded. It’s sad that the victims are children. The statistics on the difference between children raised in a home with two parents and children raised with a divorce in their lives are dramatic.

Enough said. Here’s the video:

A friend posted this quote on Facebook. It’s too good to pass up. I have nothing to add to it. I just want to tell you it’s from Larry Crabb. I haven’t read any of his booksin over 20 years, but this quote got me thinking that maybe I ought to go read him again!

Churches are rarely communities. More often they are social machines that run smoothly for a while, break down, then are fixed so they run smoothly again or noisily chug along as best they can. The invitation to greet pew mates during the early part of the worship service typically leads nowhere. It’s often nothing more than a squirt of oil on the gears. You could state your name was Bob or Howard or Rita or Sue and it would make no difference. Those kinds of interactions rarely create community – they more often substitute for it. The path of the Spirit is so very different. It’s narrower, steeper, and straighter than any other. It’s a path traveled only by worshipers who celebrate their dependence on God and each other by turning their chairs toward a small community of friends and sticking with them, and who find the power of God’s Spirit to make community work. They know that God gives them his Spirit and works miracles both in them and among them, not because they cleverly make it happen, but because they revel in their dependence and learn to hear the Spirit’s voice.