Leave Your Bible at the House

As a follow-up to my previous post, I suggest that on Sundays when you head to your church building, that you leave your Bible at your house. There are multiple reasons for this. One is that, it seems to me, the Bible might be better heard than read. For most of church history folks knew their Bibles by listening to and concentrating on and giving attention to what they were hearing. They were not following along in their own Bible copy while their pastors and teachers read the text. I think there's something to this.

Second, we need to practice the art of listening and then thinking about what we hear. This is a form of biblical meditation. Personally, I find that an effort to hear well helps with this. I learn more by listening thoughtfully than by perusing the text while my pastor preaches.

Third, perhaps looking at and listening to our pastors and teachers is better for our learning than having our noses in our Bibles laying in our laps. It's good for us to be read to by another, to have the very words of God wash over us audibly.

And fourth, "Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ" (Ro 10). This is not only true for the lost who hear the gospel and believe. It is true for God's children whose faith is fed by their Father's words (Jesus says we should abide in them). As I remember hearing John Piper say, "Faith comes by hearing until you're dead."

Down with the Quiet Time; Up with the Church

Talk about the devotional life, or one's "quiet time" (sometimes my times with God are loud), is all the rage. This is partly because so many Christians have their own copy of the Bible. So they are expected to read them, which is certainly a wonderful way to spend time. My concern is that we believers not judge one another's Christian fidelity by each one's practice of a "quiet time" (I cannot get myself to like that term; something about it. . .).

Here's the deal - The folks of the Church have had access to God's printed Word, that they could read for themselves, for a tiny percentage of the Church's history (I believe the Church began in Eden). But even if we trace the first days of the Church back to the first century AD (Pentecost), the percentage is still small. For most of the Christians who have ever lived in this world, the devotional life, as is commonly defined as including Scripture reading and/or study, was not an option. So how has God measured their faithfulness? I suggest two ways; the same two ways he measures mine, and yours.

The first is one's commitment to prayer. Christians have not always had personal copies of Scripture, but they have always prayed. I am not going to attempt to talk about prayer as a subject. I simply mention it as a mark of Christian fidelity throughout history.

The second mark is one's commitment to the Church - God's other people with whom we are one body, one flock, one bride, one building, etc. Christians have not always had personal copies of Scripture, but they have always had each other. And so I mention this as well.

The access believers have historically had to Scripture has been the preaching and teaching of believing pastors, prophets, and priests. For most of the Church's existence, it has pleased God to have His people ultra-dependent on the Bible teachers of their local congregations. I suggest that the pattern continues and the fact that we have access to our own copies of Scripture has not left us any less dependent on others for a right understanding of God's written revelation. Again, I think it's generally good that so many can so easily have access to God's Word. But an unhealthy side-effect of this has been to devalue the word ministries of God's particularly gifted and otherwise qualified spokespeople. The way saints of old showed devotion to Scripture was by listening to it preached and taught in their congregations and then praying to love and believe and do what they had heard. I believe this remains God's way for us today.

The Church matters. Churches matter. Jesus gave Himself for the Church and is returning for the Church. He is sanctifying the Church and preparing rooms in the Father's house for those who form the Church. The weekly gatherings of the Church congregations (which I would argue should normally occur on Sundays) are not optional events. They are actually mandatory, because they are needed. If only we could see how fragile we are as individuals, and how God has designed His Church to accommodate such weaklings, and to strengthen them.

So if you or I have a thriving devotional life, but are not committed to prayer and God's people, we are selfish, unbiblical, and less than fruitful. And I don't believe we will long stand the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The Most Interesting Carrier

The Weed of God

Someone offered me weed. I'm a curious soul. So I did some research on how weed works on the brain. In other words, I wanted to know why the product is so effective. I learned that it has to do with neurons, neurotransmitters, synapses, protein receptors, cannabinoid receptors, etc. I am not impressed with folks who smoke marijuana. I am thoroughly impressed with the brain so affected by it. It might be the most complex of creations. So I thought of the Creator.

Then I was flipping channels late one night and came across Bill Maher, the fool. He was in a discussion about God with some other foolish folks. And Maher said that faith was "a belief in nothing." He elaborated. He spouted with conviction that God cannot be proven. So faith in God is confidence in nothing. "Faith is nothing," he said. So Bill believes that the believers are the fools.

But faith is not nothing. Faith is something. It's the one and only something that will tie a person to their Creator redemptively. And, faith is rooted in visible evidence. Faith is reasonable. For example, it deduces that the complexity of the human brain did not evolve over hundreds of millions of years by chance. Faith has the sense to look around, consider the delicate functioning creation (including the brain), and reason back to the existence of a Life-Giver with a mind of His own (Ps 119; Ro 1; He 12).

Faith also looks inward, at conscience, and the innate moral code that exists across a world of various cultures. This is mostly what holds societies together. It's not the fear of governmental punishment, for example. It's the inward witness forbidding destructive behavior (Ro 2).

For the record, the Christian Scriptures, called the Bible, do not present faith as a leap into the darkness, but as the most sensible of conclusions, and a coming out into the light. A person cannot reason him or herself into trusting Christ alone as God the Son to cover all of his or her sins. That's saving faith, and it requires an act of God in which He opens the unbelieving heart and scatters the absurdity of self-reliance. But simple faith in one's Creator, that's just rational. It begins with what one can see and understands the visible as pointers to the Invisible. God has revealed Himself, generally in creation and conscience, but also savingly in Scripture and Jesus Christ.

Our Children Should Be Safe With Us.

It is Walt Disney movies, after school specials, and oh yes, us parents, who lie to our children, telling them that they can be anything in this world they desire. We feed them with deceptions when we say to them that if they work hard, get educated, and just believe, they will rise. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are telling them none of this. Actually, the Scriptures are saying something quite different - that God is sovereign and runs the world, including every detail of the lives of each of our children. He measures out abilities, gifts, grace, failure, opportunities, and even faith (Ro 12:3). He is determinative, not them, and not us.

When I hear Romans 12 taught, the emphasis is almost always on the first two verses which contain instruction and activity for us. Then verse 3 informs us that God actually doles out the various degrees of faith to His various children. And the human author, the Apostle Paul, credits "the grace given to him" for his ability to offer Romans 12 information. A part of that information concerns our deep and abiding weaknesses and our need for God and others. And perhaps the most overlooked counsel in the text tells us that we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgement. . . What parent does this in regard to his/her children? It is true that in Romans 12 Paul has in mind a proper thinking of ourselves in relation to the quality of our faith and spiritual gifts. But spiritual gifts include natural abilities that God supernaturally employs. So perhaps this text has some further application to we parents as we consider the abilities of our little people (Cf Pr 22:6).

To think soberly doesn't mean to think badly of, unless of course our children are all bad. In a way, we're all all bad, in that we are sinners who, in our best moments, do not meet God's standard of a perfectly righteous performance. My point here, as I sit for a few moments and think about the reality of God and my desires for my children, is that the Bible calls us to sobriety, integrity, honesty, and accuracy when we are considering our little ones (or now young adult ones). It calls us to raise them in the fear of God, to train them in His righteousness, and to give them godly counsel for a lifetime. It does not call us to give ourselves idolatrously to their worldly success. It does not call us to live vicariously through the achievements we want for them. It does not call us to finance their foolish dreams of glory. It does not call us to be proud of their accomplishments in the flesh.

Romans 12:2 commands that we grow less like the world by acquiring a changed way of thinking and understanding. Yet we Christian parents are so often not only like the world but worse than the world  because we tie God to our sinful aspirations, as though they were birthed in Him. How difficult it is to be Christian in America, where worldly success and entitlement is the air we breath. Our children should be safe with us. And they won't be if we are deceiving them. They cannot be and do anything they desire, no matter how they may apply themselves. And you and I are to be happy about this, because it is God's design. The best and lasting success is faithfulness to Jesus Christ. Let's strive to model and teach that.

My Heart Is Like A Highway

John Newton (1725-1807)

"This evil is present with me: my heart is like a highway, 

like a city without walls or gates. 

Nothing so false, so frivolous, so absurd, so impossible, so horrid, 

but it can obtain access, 

and that at any time, or in any place: 

neither the study, the pulpit, or even the Lord's Table, 

exempt me from their intrusion."

John Newton (Author of the hymn Amazing Grace, and pastor),

from Evil Present with the Believer, page 147

God's Merciful Inclinations

"No human creature can rightly know how 

mercifully God is inclined toward those 

that steadfastly believe in Christ." 

Martin Luther, from Tabletalk #110