Think Different--pt. 2

            Last week, we began by talking about marriage, community, the mission of Israel and of the Church. We also noted that God spoke to the Apostle Peter in a vision, telling him, in essence, to think differently about those God desires to invite into His community of faith.

            Bringing Gentiles into the Kingdom had "blown the fuses" of the Jews. The question in the New Testament would prove to be: would it blow the fuses of the New Testament Church? Could the Jewish Christians welcome the Gentile Christians? Could the Jewish Christians place God's agenda over their own preferences? It would mean fellowshipping those who prove to be extremely different.

            Recently, our family attended a wedding. The groom was the son of parents with we served as missionaries to Argentina. The groom’s dad officiated the ceremony.

One of the things he emphasized was a bride and groom cannot focus on individual happiness in marriage. They cannot obsess with individual wants. Each must focus on Jesus. Jesus’ Kingdom must transcend all things—even the marriage. (“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God…”)

The starting step to making a marriage work is to have the Kingdom of God as the goal transcending a couple’s marriage. Man and wife are looking UP to Jesus and His Kingdom. Everything is about “how do we help the Kingdom in this marriage?” It is a lot easier to find unity in marriage when SERVING the Kingdom is the primary goal.

            The problem for Israel was that seeking the Kingdom first was not the goal that transcended their lives; their own personal agendas had superseded God’s Kingdom. That led to division and their own destruction.

            And so, in Acts chapter ten, God was handing over to a new community of people this mission yet to be fulfilled. The new community was called the Church. To fulfill this mission in love and unity, they would have to elevate the Kingdom of Jesus and His will as the primary goal above all else.

            Jesus wanted more people to come into his kingdom. He wanted them to grow in his kingdom. And so much of what you read about in the New Testament having to do with unity and love, division and discord, is this struggle between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians.

            Sometimes these concerned non-negotiables. I Cor. 6:9-11 offers an example of attitudes and morals that could not be compromised. But passages such as Romans 14 and 15 call upon these churches to make decisions that will help build young Christians in the Kingdom. These were negotiables.

Paul typically does not give them the answers. He gives them a framework for negotiating the negotiables.  Hence, these Christians were to make decisions that were to help these who were new to the faith, be able to stay in the faith, so that they could be formed by the faith.

            This meant that for some of the questions addressed, Christians had to put aside their personal agendas, their personal preferences, their personal comfort zones, even their personal understandings of God's teaching in Scripture (unless it was clearly connected to salvation) for the sake of Jesus and His kingdom.

You know, the biggest disagreement I've ever seen in a church might have been the one I saw Argentina years ago. We were planting congregations in different parts of the city, and for a while one met in our home.

We met on Sunday afternoons at three o'clock. One Sunday, we had our assembly, followed by a Bible study, which was followed by our monthly family meeting.

Somebody suggested that we change the assembly time to Sunday mornings. That started a huge fight.

            It was so bad that one of my teammates finally said, “Stop! Let's table this and talk about it next week after the assembly and Bible study.”

            Well, it just so happens that this brother was the one who was supposed to bring the sermon the next week. He preached out of Philippians chapter two, 1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others….

            When it was time for the family meeting, everyone had a suggestion about when to meet, and no one suggested the time that he or she had originally proposed. Everyone suggested a time that was beneficial for someone else.

            I will never forget my teammate taking us to Philippians to help us understand how you place the mind of Christ–the mind of the Kingdom–above all else. In the end, isn't it the Kingdom that matters the most? In that case, we had to learn to think different when it came to starting times for assemblies.

            If I can paraphrase an acquaintance paraphrasing Martin Luther King, I have a dream that someday, on the same pew, will be sitting a woman wearing a burqa, alongside an elderly woman wearing a hat and earrings, alongside a young man wearing a nose ring, alongside a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit, alongside a person who likes to sing new songs, alongside a person who likes to sing old songs, alongside a person who is emotionally expressive, alongside a person who is emotionally reserved… and all of these people bringing into the assembly different cultures and different ways of viewing things.

All of that would be okay–because the glue that holds everybody together in love and unity is the Kingdom of God, which is above all.

           

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. Curse you John Feinstein! You came out with another book I cannot put down—One on One. In it, you describe in exquisite detail your behind-the-scenes activities writing about sports these past thirty years. Especially fascinating is your account of your time with Bob Knight writing A Season on the Brink. I hate it when a book absorbs my attention—please stop writing them.

2. A lot of people got the Super Bowl they wanted. I cannot help but pick the Giants.

3. Texas Rangers—I believe in Yu Darvish because I believe in the judgment of Nolan Ryan.

4. Yesterday, I preached on Hebrews 2:1, which talks about drifting away from Jesus. I promised my church yesterday I would place a link to the Casting Crowns’ video SLOW FADE—a cool video and a great song. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QASREBVDsLk

5. Saturday marked 39 years of Roe v. Wade; yet, I still believe in the future. Most stats I see show younger people growing increasingly more pro-life. Someday, I predict, culture will place the stigma on the pro-choice position that it has placed on the old Jim Crow laws.

He Began to Have Nightmares

            I spent last week on vacation. Before I left, however, I came across an article in a magazine dated 2008. It was about a Serbian abortion doctor named Stojan Adasevic.

            During Adasevic’s life, he performed over 48,000 abortions. Then one day, he renounced this practice. Why?

            Stojan had begun experiencing chronic nightmares where he saw children between the ages of four and twenty four years of age standing in a field. In every dream, he was advised that the children were “the ones you [Adasevic] killed with your abortions."

            Adasevic became a pro-life activist. He returned to his religious roots in the Orthodox branch of Christianity. He also became an outcast in his nation’s medical community.

            I think I understand why Adasevic experienced a change of heart. Sometimes, maybe most times, dreams need to be discounted. In this case, however, I think Stojan’s dreams permitted him to imaginatively see the consequences of his practice.

            I wish him many blessings in his activism—and his renewed faith.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I think the most under-appreciated variable in the challenge of public education is the self-motivation of the student.

            I read yet another lament today about the state of education in the U. S. I propose a moratorium on such talk until we address allowing children to face the consequences of their disinterest in learning.

            In Christian ministry, we say each child must cultivate a faith of his own. The same is true in public education.

            The pendulum has now swung past the line of good communal health. Until we address this reality, our society will wring its hands in angst.

2. Rest in peace, Nick Charles. You brought a little bit of home to me on CNN in Argentina.

3. News to me from the world of the weird: I came across another old article in a Christian magazine a couple of weeks ago. In it, the editor was interviewing Joe Eszterhas, Hollywood screenwriter and author. Having recently written his memoir, Eszterhas was asked about the strangest thing he experienced in Hollywood. He replied it was Marlon Brando asking every visitor at his home to provide a stool sample for his private collection. Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to weirdness, we have a winner!

4. Is it my imagination, or is this the worst June the Rangers have experienced in a long time?

5. For anyone who refuses to believe I surrender my desires for the good of my family, consider this. Tomorrow, I am accompanying my family and my sister’s family to spend the day at Six Flags. It’s not the heat I hate, and I love the rides. It’s the lines I despise.

TEXAS MONTHLY Reports!

TEXAS MONTHLY is not a pro-life magazine. However, to their credit, they offered a very detailed account of the experience Abby Johnson claimed pricked her conscious and motivated her to resign from her position as director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas. In covering Johnson’s decision to walk away from her job, TEXAS MONTHLY questioned Johnson's integrity.

Johnson's account states that on September 26, 2010, she assisted a doctor, in her Planned Parenthood clinic, who performed an abortion on a woman who was thirteen weeks pregnant. The following is quoted directly from the TEXAS MONTHLY text:

The doctor asked Johnson to hold an ultrasound transducer to the woman's stomach as he performed the operation. Johnson [said] she had never seen this done before, since ultrasound machines are not commonly used for first-trimester abortions, which make up the vast majority of abortions done in most clinics. What she witnessed on the ultrasound monitor, she said, horrified her. The fetus seemed to be moving away from the doctor’s probe, which was clearly visible on the screen as it entered the patient's uterus. Johnson thought of all the patients, whom she had told that their fetuses wouldn't feel anything during the procedure. Then, as Johnson watched, the doctor turned on the suction....

For about the past decade, the only thing I have asked of the media is to be as descriptive reporting the facts of abortion, particularly in regard to the procedures of abortion, as it is with reporting events of war. In this instance, I believe TEXAS MONTHLY has done so. I applaud the editors for this.

FOX Proves Yet Again To Be Fair and Balanced

Unrelated to the previous story (although somewhat ironic), I saw where an episode of the FOX NETWORK’S program, THE FAMILY GUY, took a cruel shot at Sarah Palin’s son, Trig. Trig, in case you do not remember, has Down’s syndrome.

In the episode, a character in high school develops a crush on a girl, who has Down’s syndrome. While on a date, he asks the girl what her parents do for a living. The girl answers, “My dad’s an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.”

This is the most egregious slam on a public figure’s child that I can remember since Saturday Night Live lampooned Chelsea Clinton in a skit when she was in Junior High. It proves FOX has the ability to insult people on both sides of the political spectrum.

I don’t want to tell anyone how to vote, but I do believe that networks should show at least a shred of decency toward politicians, even one who is an atheist, Muslim, and communist. To start, they should leave the children alone.

And here is free advice to politicians. As NBC and FOX have demonstrated, never suffer under the illusion that the media wants to be your friend. No matter how much they share your views, they will gladly “throw your children under the bus” for a good rating. Ultimately, a network’s first priority is not sharing truth or presenting art to the general public. These may be desires; but the ultimate priority of a network is to make money.

David, How Could You?

Last Sunday morning, I preached on David’s sin with Bathsheba. While I only looked at II Samuel 11, our adult classes included chapter 12, as well. The thing that struck me about David’s sin was the Bible’s emphasis on David’s abuse of power. That seems to provide the basis for the parable Nathan offered David when he confronted David with David’s sin.

Connected to this thought, one of our elders, J. B. Berry, told me Monday morning that his class discussed how murder and adultery were symptoms of a deeper issue—David’s had violated his relationship with God. In light of David’s beautiful prayer to God in II Samuel 7 ("Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?”), who is this man who so callously disregard’s his benefactor?

I think J. B. and his class were spot-on. As bad as sexual sins and sins of murder are—and they are bad—the story of David and Bathsheba is not a story emphasizing the importance of sexual purity or violence-free lives. It is the story of man who utterly disregarded the grace God had extended to him—a sin we are daily susceptible to as well.

It’s Monday, but Sunday’s Coming!

“The decision of the judges is final.”

After much consideration and study, I have decided change move my weekly blog to Mondays. [I also prayed about this, but I am not sure I have enough readers for the Lord to care. :) ]

To those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, or who drop in from time-to-time, thanks, and I hope you will continue to read on Mondays. And for those of you who read my daily blog, TELL ME A STORY, I will continue to post the stories on a daily basis—Monday through Friday.

My next posting of this weekly blog will be Monday, March 1, after I return from Washington D. C. Who knows, maybe I will have some wonderful adventures to report such as the President’s request to consult with me privately in the oval office, Congress’s petition that I open a session in prayer, and the Chief Justice’s appealing to me to meet with him off-the-record.

Nah.


Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I have managed to catch some of the Olympic Games and have enjoyed them.

2. Best wishes to Tiger Woods. I don’t know how to improve his apology. I hope he is able to continue his process of repentance. As he himself stated, what matters now are his actions.

3. Congratulations to the ETCA Girls’ Basketball Team. They lost last Saturday in their playoff game with Dallas Covenant. (That WAS the team that defeated another school last year 100-0.) ETCA played well. Wait until next year!

4. So long, Jeff Christian. We’ll miss you here in Tyler, but I know you will do a great work in Houston.

5. Tomorrow, Lord willing, I leave with my daughter, Abby, for an ETCA class trip to Washington D. C. I am thrilled to be going. In honor of my trip, each story in my daily blog TELL ME A STORY will be about a U. S. president.


Have a great weekend!