The Young Adults Blog

This is a super helpful and encouraging post from a blogger named Tim Challies. For those of you at the beginning of your life’s history (early twenties, etc…), what a great lesson to learn early–how will you accomplish most of what your life produces? Will it be by short, great moments made up of huge advances or by long, repetitive faithfulness made up of short steps? Read on for solid food…

I have been thinking about this one a lot, lately. I was thinking about it long before I read Manage Your Day-to-Day, but that book helpfully distilled it to a single sentence: “We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently.”

This is our temptation in all areas of life: to look for the quick fix, to look for the one or the few great moments that will accomplish more than the hundreds or thousands of smaller moments. “Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, ‘A small daily task, if it be daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules’. Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.”

The spasmodic Hercules: this is how many of us behave. We behave as if one moment of great activity can overcome a thousand moments of inactivity, as if one moment of taking hold of opportunity will overcome all those moments wasted. The unglamorous habit of frequency is what makes up so much of life’s progress. Yet we are constantly tempted to put our hope in the brief and the glamorous.

I see this in work. We are prone to believe that unless we can block off a significant piece of time to work on that book or project or task, we may as well not even bother. So instead of doing a little work, and advancing a step or two, we let it lie dormant and perhaps waste that time instead. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently.

I see this in parenting. We invest great hope in the big moments, the weekend away with the child or the special night out. But we may neglect those hundreds of evenings where we could simply talk while doing the dishes or where we could pray for just a few moments before bed. We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in their lives in a short period, and underestimate what we can accomplish over a long period, provided we are willing to advance slowly and with consistency.

But most of all, I see this in spiritual growth. We are often tempted to believe that one moment of great spiritual intensity will bring about greater and more lasting change than the oh-so-ordinary means of grace. We can have more confidence in the single three-day conference than in the day-by-day discipline of Scripture reading and prayer, the week-by-week commitment to the preaching of the Word and public worship. We tend to overestimate how much we can grow in a short period, and underestimate how much we will grow over a long period, provided we simply take hold of God’s ordinary means.

This is where so many Christians lose their confidence—they want quick growth and measurable results, and give up far too soon. Their confidence is not in God working through his Word as they open it each morning and hear it preached each Sunday, but in the big conference later in the year, or in that new devotional, or in that new study method. They are distracted and spasmodic rather than consistent and disciplined. They look this way and that, instead of than simply persisting in the means God prescribes.

The fact is, most growth in life—and spiritual growth is no exception—is measured in inches, not miles. The ground an army gains by a slow march is often safer than the ground it gains by charging over it. Spiritual growth is no less real simply because it comes slowly and is difficult to measure. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

Christian, persist. Persist in the ordinary means of grace. Persist even, and especially, when the growth seems to slow. Persist in your confidence that these are the means God gives for your good, for your growth, for his glory.

I thought I had posted this once…But can’t find it on the blog now.

This is seriously such an interesting and exciting meditation–you have to just let it roll around in your mind for a while.

What really is the nature of our world? And what does it tell us about what the One who made it is really like? And how far have we fallen, we humans, that we forget things…assume things…misinterpret things…fail to appreciate things…

…I hope this blesses you:

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.

Because children have abounding vitality,
because they are in spirit fierce and free,
therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.

They always say, “Do it again!”
And the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead,
for grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again!” to the sun,
and every evening, “Do it again!” to the moon.

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike;
it may be that God makes every daisy separately,
but has never got tired of making them.

It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy;
for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence.

It may be a theatrical encore.

— G.K. Chesterton:

Last week we studied what scripture says about God’s truthfulness and it’s own errorless nature. Today I wanted to share an interesting quote in the same thought-neighborhood as that study.

It’s from Irenaeus,a Christian and church leader who lived in the 2nd century AD (that is, the 100s), and has some important writings that have survived the centuries.  Here he gives us insight into what Christians who lived mere decades after the time of the Apostles believed about how God inspired the New Testament to be written.

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed “perfect knowledge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles.

For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews  in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

If you want to read the work this was taken from, you can find it here.

 

“Nothing we can do in life is outside the reach of God’s sovereign hand, even in the often secularized realm of art. In life, we can choose either to serve order or disorder, God or the Adversary. Who will you serve with your creativity?” So writes Dave Marcucci, who’s part of our Arts Fellowship community group. A few weeks ago Dave gave me a written meditation on the nature of beauty and art from a biblical perspective called “Art, Beauty, and Holiness.” I thought it was a great thing to share here. It includes this look at every day beauty:

There are many examples of beauty foreordained by God in his sovereignty.

The following works of art are faithful to God’s design for them:

TED.com recently published a video introducing a formula for intelligence. One simple formula can make a computer identify a task and purpose on its own and then go about satisfying it. That’s beauty.

In heredity, many traits can be passed on to offspring, but all of them are translated through strands of DNA that are made up of combinations of only four different bases. That’s beauty.

Millions of songs have been made throughout history, but only eight notes are in a scale. That’s beauty.

Many colors exist of many shades and hues, but all of them stem from just three base colors: red, blue, and yellow. That’s beauty.

All of us are sinners, but God loved us anyway and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins on the cross. One day all whom the LORD has saved will stand before him and worship him face to face, of their own will, in full appreciation of the things he has done for them. That’s our ultimate purpose, and it was God’s objective from the beginning.

That’s beauty.

You can read the whole thing here.

Is it too much to say that our generation suffers from and undefined and inaccurate view of freedom? Here’s an interested meditation on the nature of true freedom as described in the bible, and especially how it meshes with our work:

To see work in our “DNA”, our design, is part of what it means to grasp the distinct Christian understanding of freedom.

Modern people like to see freedom as the complete absence of any constraints.

But think of a fish. Because a fish absorbs oxygen from water, not air, it is free only if it is restricted to water. If a fish is “freed” from the river and put out on the grass to explore, its freedom to move and soon even live is destroyed. The fish is not more free, but less free, if it cannot honor the reality its nature. The same is true with airplanes and birds. If they violate the laws of aerodynamics, they will crash into the ground. But if they follow them, they will ascend and soar. The same is true in many areas of life: Freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, those that fit with the realities of our own nature and those of the world.

So the commands of God in the Bible are a means of liberation, because through them God calls us to be what he built us to be.

Cars work well when you follow the owner’s manual and honor the design of the car. If you fail to change the oil, no one will fine you or take you to jail; your car will simply break down because you violate its nature. You suffer a natural consequence.

In the same way, human life works properly only when it is conducted in line with the owner’s manual, ” the commandments of God. If you dishonor God, you are actually acting against your own nature as God designed you. When God speaks to disobedient Israel in Isaiah chapter 48, he says, “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:17-18)

–Tim Keller

Can I share personally for a second? More and more, I am seeing the simplicity of God’s commands and the clear reality of relating to God by trust and obedience–it’s the only way to truly live. It’s at once the most simple and the most profound way to exist. It’s simple because it’s not hard to figure out, or esoteric, or hidden. It’s profound because it’s truly in touch with what is Real (what Is), and therefore it offers all the depth, complexity, and opportunity for exploration that true reality offers. You can explore a 3-D game world with a controller and screen, or you can step out your front door and explore the planet. Which offers more depth, variety, and experience? It’s the same way with knowing God and following Christ. We live when we obey in simple trust. We shrink and die when we seek for other ways.

Here’s the notes from last night, finishing up our studies about the nature of scripture and how God speaks to us in it.

Set Up:

Week 1: We saw that When God speaks, it can be written down.

• Sometimes he literally audibly spoke
• Sometimes he worked within authors so that what they wrote was what he wanted write

This is what the authors of the bible claim is the case for what they wrote.

In other words: there is nothing about the bible that prevents it from being the actual word of God from him to us. Humanity did not mess up the divinity.

Claim: The Bible is God’s word. When we read it, it is his speech to us.

Week 2: When God speaks, he can be understood.

Though there are some difficult parts of the Bible, and though there are some disagreements about what some things mean, nevertheless, the bible is clear about what we must believe and how we must obey. There is nothing that prohibits God form communicating clearly and effectively to us, and the bible indicates this is exactly what he did.

This week: When God speaks, he can be trusted.

Assertion: The bible reveals a God who…

1. Is able to communicate to us.
2. Has shown a desire and a decision to communicate with us
3. Actually has communicated with us, throughout history
4. Has shown that he communicates clearly and effectively
5. Has shown himself to be perfectly, faithful and trustworthy, at all times.

…Therefore, since the bible is communication from this God, and since nothing about the medium or the authors presents any barrier to this God communicating, this bible must be totally trustworthy, faithful, and true at all times.

Definitions of Inerrancy:

“Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.” (CSBI)

“Inerrancy means that when all facts are know, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.” (Feinberg)

“Scripture is inerrant because the personal word of God cannot be anything other than true. When he gives us propositional information—and he certainly does—that information is reliable, though expressed in ordinary, not technical, language. The written Word, further, is just as inerrant as the oral message of the prophets and apostles. And their word is just as inerrant as the divine voice itself.” (Frame)

Scriptures:

Ps 12:6, Ps 19:7-11, Ps 119:142, 151, 119:160, Pr 30:5, Mt 5:17-18, Mt 12:38-42, Mt 19:4-5, John 17:17

Responses to some common objections:

1. Scripture never claims to be “inerrant.” True: in the sense that there is no Greek or Hebrew sentence that could be translated “The scripture is without any error.” But then, the bible also never anywhere says, “The Bible has mistakes.” It never says, “You will one day find that some of the things which are reported as true in here didn’t actually happen, or they’re actually are not from God, but just people doing their best, so you’ll have to use your knowledge you’ve gained from other places in order to discern what is really true and what’s not.” And, the bible never says, “Once Jesus came, he showed us that a lot of the things that we thought were from God were actually not. So use what you think he meant to see what is really from God and what is just human.” In other words, you can’t use the “the bible never says” argument here. Instead, you have to just see what the bible actually says, and see what the authors of scripture (and the Holy Spirit through them) actually said about what they were writing. And what they say is that a God who is totally faithful, all, knowing, unlimited in ability, and completely without sin or mistake, communicated to or through them. In other words, what they wrote is the words of God, and those words have the same qualities God has.
2. To say the bible has no errors is to ignore the actual issues scripture has. In other words, the bible has issues—errors, contradictions, inconsistencies, issues with science, and moral problems. The only way to reply to this in short is to say that any and all of these issues that are brought up have been thought through and answered by Christians over the last 2000 years. And they have all been answered again at a modern academic level in the last few generations. There is nothing new that catches Christians off guard. In other words, the only issues people ever bring up are issues which have great explanations.
3. But what about all the copying and mistakes over the years? Christians only ever claim that the text of the original manuscripts are without error. But any faithful copy which reproduced the text of the original would also be without error. So there’s no problem with copies just because they’re copies. And now, 2000 years later, even though we do have different manuscripts which differ in some things, we have a situation where we have thousands of those documents, and are able to tell where the mistakes are. And none of the major or minor teachings of scripture are affected by any of the differences. In other words, we might not know what the exact word order of a verse was, but we do know exactly what happened and exactly what message the writers were trying to convey.
4. We don’t need the bible to be without error. We can know God anyway. Maybe, but do we have any indication in scripture that God would have done things this way? Do we have any reason to believe he left errors for us to discover, and left it to us to figure out what they were? This objection ignores the fact that without a totally reliable witness to the things God has said and done, we have to either give up the ability to really have confidence in what we can know about God, or we have to give something other than the bible the status of inerrant. We have to say that our minds have the power to know what is true, and that we can trust our own thoughts. We have to pick some final authority. The scripture claims to be that final authority.
5. It’s not about the bible, it’s about Jesus. We all understand the sentiment. Jesus saves us, not the bible. But this also assumes that there is some kind of conflict between Jesus and the bible. It assumes that Jesus saves us apart from the bible. And it assumes that Jesus would agree with that statement. But in fact, the only record of Jesus thought we have, the New Testament, shows us that Jesus did not have this attitude towards the bible. He saw himself as fulfilling it, obedient to it, and totally in line with it. In other words, what the Bible says, Jesus says. Jesus and the bible are an inseparable team. 

Application: Not discouraging thought or questioning, but encouraging confidence, boldness, and action.

Mt 7:24-27, Rev 22:7-20.

The aim: Confidence in God’s character as totally trustworthy, coupled with confidence in the word of God as totally reliable, leading to confidence that obeying his commands leads to experiencing his promises, leading to an excitement and ability to resist temptation, risk persecution, make sacrifices, and step out in bold faith and do things for God.

So I never got to post the notes from last weeks study on the idea that because God inspired the bible, we’re able to know what it means. Here they are:

Intro: Last week we saw that when God speaks, it can be written down. This goes for times when God literally audibly spoke and told people to write down what he said, and for the times when God indwelt people and worked in such a way that they wrote their own words, but those words were exactly what God was saying in that situation.

This week: When we say that the bible is God’s word, we also say that we can read it, know what God has to say to us, and report what he says to others. In other words, we claim to be able to understand what God says to us, and that we can help others understand too. But in our day this immediately raises some objections:

The Objections:

1. Isn’t God too big to be put in a box?

2. Aren’t there some things that are hard to understand?

3. So many different interpretations: how can we really know what the bible says?

Important to understand: this is not just a problem with the bible, but with all writing, and all communication. If you don’t think the bible can be understood, do you think written communication is possible at all?

Answers to objections:

1. Isn’t God too big to be put in a box?

Of course. But if we say we can’t understand the things he’s said, we’ve actually just put him in a box: the box that keeps him from communicating to us. (We’ve also claimed that we clearly understand something about God—that he’s not able to be understood.) Saying that we can understand the bible doesn’t put God in a box, it admits that he’s frees to communicate.

Everywhere in the bible it is assumed that God is an effective communicator. It is assumed that God speaks, and that when he wants to communicate, he is able to. What he communicates are things that we can understand, and therefore things that create obligations for us—they are things we must either believe, or things we must do—mostly, they are always both. What we say about how possible it is to understand scripture is what we say about God’s own ability to communicate.

• God expects us to obey what he tells us. In other words, his word clearly commands things that obligate us to obey. See Deuteronomy 6:1-7
• Jesus assumed the scriptures could be understood, and that they settled matters. Mark 10:4-9
• God is always able to accomplish his purpose by what he speaks: Isaiah 55:10-11

 “The clarity of scripture is that quality of the biblical text that, as God’s communicative act, ensures its meaning is accessible to all who come to it in faith.” (Mark Thompson)

2. Aren’t there some things that are hard to understand?

Yes, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t understand anything. Just that not all things are as easy to understand as others. “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” (Westminster Confession of Faith)

• Peter admitted that some things were hard to understand: 2 Peter 3:15-16
• Even children can understand scripture: Deut 6:7
• God tells us that the way he speaks is something we can grasp: Deut 30:11-14
• By reading and explanation, we can understand the meaning: “So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.” – Nehemiah 8:8, see also 2 Tim 2:7: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”

3. So many different interpretations: how can we really know what the bible says?

This disagreement is exaggerated. There are a set of teachings in the bible that are not in dispute by anyone in the broad stream of Christianity:

1. There is one God
2. He made everything
3. Humans are made in his image
4. Humans fell through sin
5. God sent Jesus who lived a perfect life and died in our place.
6. Jesus rose from the dead.
7. We must believe in Jesus for forgiveness of sin.
8. Jesus is returning to rule.

These are the plainest things, the most clearly communicated things in scripture, and they are the things which must be believed in order to be saved.

“Scripture is always clear enough for us to carry out our present responsibilities before God. It is clear enough for a six-year-old to understand what God expects of him. It is also clear enough for a mature theologian to understand what God expects of him. But the clarity of Scripture, is person-relative, person-specific. Scripture is not exhaustively clear to anyone. It is not clear enough to satisfy anyone who merely wants to gain a speculative knowledge of divine things. It is, rather, morally sufficient, practically sufficient, sufficient for each person to know what God desires of him.” (John Frame)

“In one part there are whirlpools; and not in another, why then are you bent on drowning yourself in the depths?” (Chrysostom)

So, why are there any disagreements at all?

1. Human deficiencies: Lack of understanding, over emphasizing one part at the expense of another, limited/different perspectives, sin. This is probably the most common reason why there are different views of scripture.
2. God may have left some things in scripture less clear than others. Why would he do that? So that we’d have to focus on, and unite around, the most important things. Also, he wants us to have to help each other, and to exercise love, even in our reading of scripture. He wants us to be humble about things that are less clear, and bold about things that are most clear.

The things that God wanted us to know and believe to be saved are the clearest, most easily understood truths: see Romans 10:5-13

Conclusion: Do you want to know? John 7:17

When we’re about to embark on a journey, or even when we’re in the middle of it, it’s often helpful hear from someone who has gone through it already. That’s the heart behind our series of short videos, Being Christian in College. It’s also right at the heart of this installment of the series, What should Christians Avoid While at College?

 

Enjoy…

 

Videos in this Series:

Series introduction:

Recently we had several friends from CC Philly who are finishing up their fourth year of school stop by to discuss college life with us. They brought a few more friends with them, people they had met and bonded with at school.

They agreed to let us film them discussing their experiences, so that we could share them with all of you who are currently in, or about to enter, a college or university.

Two of them were unsaved when they began school, and they talk about their experience meeting Christians and beginning to walk with Christ. The others entered school as Christians, and they share thoughts on going through school and actually making a difference for Christ on campus.

Being Christian in College

1. What Surprised You Most about College?

2. What Should Christians Do Together on Campus?

3. What Should Christian Do Before They Go To College?

4. How Did Christians Help You Come to Know Christ at College?

5. What should Christians Avoid While at College?

What do you do when you encounter things in the bible that seem to be problems? Worse, what should we think when people with degrees or books to their name tell us about all kinds of issues the bible has (which we never heard before!) that show it shouldn’t really be taken seriously?

The answers to those questions have to do with a whole lifetime of reading, praying, obeying, trusting–basically, living out the life of faith–as well as serious studying, if we care to verify our claims to know truth. But there are many, many people who have given their lives to do exactly that, and devote some or all of their time to showing how these problems tend to disappear when we examine them with open minds and trusting hearts. For instance, the other day I ran across this passage from John Frame’s book The Doctrine of the Word of God which addresses these things in very clear and encouraging way:

Once we come to faith, problems look different.

Problems test our faith, but they do not carry anywhere near the weight of God’s self-witness. That was true for Abraham, even though he had only a few individual encounters with God.

We have had far more than that: three thousand years of history in which God has spoken to his people and attested his word (by Divine voice, prophetic-apostolic proclamation, and written Word, and of course through his Son Jesus Christ) as true. Those revelations have led to the formation of a Christian way of thinking, a Christian mind. To that mind, attacks on Scripture are never credible because they must overcome a vast weight of God’s own testimony.

This is a great line of thinking. Isn’t the bible the record of God revealing himself and demonstrating his desire to communicate to us? Hasn’t he showed himself to be faithful and trustworthy? And, even more than that, haven’t we personally met him, and hasn’t he shown us individually that he is to be trusted?

Despite all this, Frame says,

sometimes believers think like unbelievers. Often believers will ascribe authority to liberal scholarship–scholarship committed, as have seen, to read the Bible like any human book. Such scholarship regularly assumed that the biblical worldview cannot be true: that miracles cannot occur, that predictive prophecy is impossible, that God cannot speak words and sentences to human beings.

The would-be autonomous kind of scholarship is often arrogant in its claims. In the past, such scholars have often spoken of the “assured results of modern scholarship.” One does not hear that phrase so much these days; most all these “assured results” have been questioned. But on stands amazed at how easily modern scholars can claim that this portion of a verse in Genesis must have been written by a different author from that one, or that this sentence ascribed to Jesus in one of the Gospels must have originated in a setting different from that set forth in the Gospel itself. In reply to Rudolf Bultmann’s claim that the personality of Jesus was unimportant to Paul and John, C.S. Lewis, himself a scholar of ancient literature replies:

“Through what strange process has this learned German gone in order to make himself blind to what all men except him see?”

And then:

“These men ask me to believe that they can read between the lines of the old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern-seed and can’t see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight.”

The difference between liberal Bible critics and believing Christians is not merely academic, a difference in point of view; nor is it merely a difference in presupposition (though it is certainly that). It is a moral difference. The liberal reads the text  with an incredible exalted view of his own competence to understand ancient cultures and writers in finest detail. Christians should remember that our faith divides us from the liberal tradition in the most profound way. We are often tempted to reply to their arrogance with more arrogance. We should avoid that temptation, by God’s grace. Often, as we will see, this means that [initially] we respond to Bible problems with an honest “I don’t know.”

Here is a repost of an excellent book and lecture series giving an in depth look at the topic we’ll address: Can we really understand scripture when we read it? Enjoy…

I’m almost finished an excellent little book (153 pages of reading) on another essential issue for Christians in today’s world. The book is A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture and it addresses this question: Is the Bible a book that can be read and understood by most people, or is it instead an obscure ancient text which only formally trained scholars can understand? Or do we need to admit that no one, really, can claim to have an understanding of it?

For many of us, our common sense may seem to tell us that we can read the Bible and know what God says, but then we may face a couple things that start to erode our confidence in our ability to understand the Bible. First, we all have the experience of reading and not immediately understanding what the Bible is talking about. In fact, that may be what we experience most of the time, except for a few of our favorite “go-to” verses. Second, we may start hearing people who claim a higher knowledge of the Bible tell us that it’s uninformed to think you can simply read and understand any text, much less one that’s old and obscure, like the Bible.

What do we say to these things? Is our failure to understand scripture an indication that the Bible is, in fact, unintelligible? Are modern scholars right when they say we only think we can understand it because we just don’t know any better? And what about all the different interpretations of the Bible that float around out there? If it’s so easy to understand, why doesn’t everyone just read it and agree?

A Clear and Present Word is a patient, thorough examination of these challenges. Here is a sample from the book, which gives the heart of his argument:

Christian doctrine is not essentially rational, mechanistic or impersonal, but is relational at its very core because God in his eternal being is relational and determines all reality. A Christian doctrine of Scripture must speak of Scripture as it is related to God, and this will of necessity draw attention to the person, work and words of Jesus Christ, the one who is genuinely and without reduction both God and human. Scripture exists by and within the purpose of God to be known by men and women, those he is determined to rescue for himself. It is properly understood as an integral part of the purposeful communicative activity of God.

Here are the beginnings of an answer to the suggestion that God as transcendent mystery challenges any notion of Scripture’s clarity, for the transcendent God who cannot be contained by our thoughts and words lovingly chooses to be known. He has spoken in many and various ways through the prophets and in the last days through his Son. The transcendence of God should not be played off against this determination on God’s part to be known and to use the capacity for language that he has given us as a vehicle for a true knowledge of him. If God chooses to speak to us personally, in his Son and through those he has commissioned and enabled to write his words for us, then it is no transgression of his majesty to take him at his word.

Here too, as we have seen, is an answer to the charge that human language, spoken or written, is inadequate to express in a direct way the truth about God, since language, like humanity itself, is a fragile creature of the dust. God is the primeval speaker, the originator not just of language in some vague or celestial sense, but of language addressed to and understood by human beings. It is his gift to us, a means of relationship that he is the first to use, not something alien that he commandeers or appropriates for this purpose. Furthermore, the transition from oral to written word is not something done in his absence but at his direction, and, like Joshua, faithful men and women today are called to read and meditate on the written word in the presence of God.

Yet to say all this is to raise the stakes enormously when it comes to the issue of Scripture’s clarity, for the lines of connection run both ways. If Scripture is not clear, not generally accessible to faithful men and women who prayerfully read, seeking to know the mind of God, what are we then saying about God? As one contemporary writer asks, “What kind of God would reveal his love and redemption in terms so technical and concepts so profound that only an elite corps of professional scholars could understand them?” If communication is generally possible between human beings, as common experience confirms, then what kind of arrogance (Luther would say blasphemy) will suggest that this is beyond God? Of course there is more to be said. We need to examine Scripture’s own testimony about its clarity and indeed those instances where clarity is hard won. We need to respond to the challenges thrown up by contemporary hermeneutics.

But let this truth stand over all those attempts: the living God is an effective communicator.

If you’d like to read more for free, you can download the first 45 pages of the book for free here.

If you’d like to listen to the book, these lectures are essentially the author reading the book before it was published. Here are the links for the mp3s:

A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture
by Mark Thompson

1. Oh sweet obscurity: the absurdity of claiming clarity today
2. The effective communicator: God as the guarantor of scriptural clarity
3. It is not beyond you: The accessible word of the living God
4. Engaging the hermeneutical challenge
5. The sharp double-edged sword: Restating the clarity of Scripture today

On Monday night we began a few weeks of looking at now we can know that the Bible is truly God’s word (his speech) to us. Here are the notes:

1. God speaks, and it can be written down. (Verbal inspiration)

Exodus 23:3-4        Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 30:10     The voice of the lord is written in the book See also: Isa 8:1; Jer 30:2; Jer 36:6; Hosea 1:1, 4:1, 8:12; Hab 2:2; John 20:30-31
Daniel 9:11     These words are considered the voice of the Lord.
Revelation 1:19         Jesus told John to write (Rev 21:5, 22:6-7,18-19)

2. God also speaks through human words: (Indwelling Inspiration):

How it works:
Not by God speaking audibly, but by the Holy Spirit revealing truth to a person in their heart and mind. And then by the Holy Spirit ensuring that what the person writes down is exactly what he wants written down. He doesn’t do it by taking a person over, but by working in and with the person so that what they write is what God writes. There is a match between their words and God’s words. It is their words, and it is God’s words too.

2 Peter 1:19-21 & 3:15-16 – The holy men of God wrote what they spoke as they were borne along and Paul is part of the same process

1 Corinthians 2:6-13 & 14:37 – The Spirit reveals the truth. The words Paul writes are then God’s command.

Ephesians 3:2-5 – God revealed certain truths to Paul. When we read the letter he wrote, we can understand his knowledge

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Rejecting Paul’s letter is rejecting God.

Implications:
We never have to regard the bible with mistrust, as if it somehow stands between us and God. We never have to let its human authors, its human language, or the fact that it’s in a book lead us to think it can’t be God’s word. We never have to worry that we have something less than if God himself stood and spoke to us audibly. In fact, the people who God did speak to audibly also received instructions or the inner prompting to write—which means that God himself chose writing and collecting writings in a book as the best way to preserve what he said for future generations. (See also 2 Peter 1:12)

The simple logic is this:

If the God of the Bible exists at all, he can talk.

If he can talk, he knows how to communicate in ways we can understand, and he can direct those words to be written down.

If he made us in his image, he is fully capable of working in us so that our writing matches what he wants to say.

3. Application: 2 Timothy 3:14-16 — Because it’s inspired, it’s what you need.

“profitable” = “yields a practical benefit”

• Doctrine – what should I believe? What should I think? What is true?
• Reproof – where am I going wrong? Where am I messing up?
• Correction – How can I fix things?
• Instruction in righteousness – How should I live my life in a way that pleases God?

Though people sometimes disagree with the idea, the fact is that the Bible teaches that the eternal state of someone’s soul is determined in this life, before a person dies physically. The question that is often posed in these discussions is, “Why?”  Why would God only give us a chance in this life? Isn’t he the God of second chances? Doesn’t he want as many people as possible to be saved?

I found some great thoughts on this in an unexpected place the other day–in a commentary on the Book of Proverbs by Bruce Waltke. He’s writing about Proverbs 1:24-29, which read like this:

²⁴ Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
²⁵ Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke,
²⁶ I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes,
²⁷ When your terror comes like a storm, And your destruction comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.
²⁸ “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
²⁹ Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD,
³⁰ They would have none of my counsel And despised my every rebuke.
³¹ Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
³² For the turning away of the simple will slay them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them…

Waltke applies the “calamity” and “destruction” spoken about in verses 26 and 27 to eternal things–he sees them as representing, not just consequences of poor choices in this life, but the final consequences someone faces after this life is over. Here are his observations about why Wisdom, personified as a great woman here in Proverbs, refuses to come to the aid of the person who, having spent their life rejecting Wisdom (the “fool” which Proverbs speaks about), has now died and faces eternity:

Fools, seeing no need for “the fear of the Lord,” do not carefully select it as their way of life. In fact, they decide against it and sanction other lifestyles. Theological reflection suggests several reasons why wisdom disengages herself at the time of final judgment, offering fools no second chance after this life.

First, human choices before judgment would amount to no more than preliminary decisions before a real choice was made beyond death.

Second, this life would be preempted of its true dignity if choices made now had no eternal consequence.

Third, fools would be confirmed in treating this life with careless complacency.

Fourth, the disciples of wisdom would be made to look foolish if sensual pleasure could be had without responsibility and accountability.

People deny the doctrine of final judgment because they do not want to give this life such dignity that decisions now affect an eternal future in a decisive and definite way.

What a great, biblical point! The people who say God should give a second chance after death are really asking for a life that’s not real, a life that doesn’t count, like a sports team that only ever plays pre-season games. But God has given us a real life to live, where we do real things, and can make real impact on the world, even for eternity, for good or evil.

It all counts, and it all matters.

A writer named Trevin Wax, who is 33, gives these pieces of advice for those of you in your twenties:

• Read beyond the requirements of college, church, or work. That’s right. Read. Feel free to enjoy video games, movie-watching, or other fun activities, but make sure you are intentional about deepening the well of your spiritual and educational life. You’ll soon discover how much need to draw from that well.
• Build relationships and connections with people who care about similar things. Find people you respect. Learn from them. Walk with people in ministry and learn from their successes and failures. Seek out mentors and listen to them.
• Embrace the big markers of life. If you believe God is calling you to marriage and childbearing, don’t postpone those two things indefinitely. Truth is, no one is ever really “ready” to have a kid. Ever. You’re never “mature” enough or “financially stable” enough to get married or have kids. I actually think, most of the time, the reverse is true. Marriage and kids are often what God uses to grow us up.
• For those who are single by circumstances or by calling, please do not misinterpret the previous word as suggesting that you can’t be mature without marriage or kids. History is filled with examples of Christians whose singleness (whether permanent or temporary) provided the opportunity to channel passion and wisdom into fruitful ministry. Take John Stott’s advice: “Go wherever your gifts will be exploited the most.”
• Future pastors, sermon preparation doesn’t start when you get a ministry position. It’s the result of whole-life preparation. Remember that. And start preparing now. Immerse yourself in the Word and in the lives of people.
• Future missionaries and church leaders, you are on mission now. You don’t need a title, a ministry position, or a seminary degree before you’re on mission. Jesus’ commissioning is all you need to love God, love people, and witness to the truth of the gospel. John Mayer sings ”Waiting On the World To Change.” It did. 2000 years ago when a dead Man walked out of His tomb. So let’s get going.
• When the day arrives and a leadership role is thrust upon you, you’d better be the person you need to be. You can and will do some training, of course, but so much of your role requires you to be a certain kind of person, not just do a certain kind of thing. 
• Be willing to serve in the trenches of ministry without praise or acclamation. Serve your church. Work hard at whatever job you’re at. Encourage the people around you. If God chooses to expand your sphere of influence, wonderful. If not, then be the best you can be right where you are.

He ends with this encouragement:

Friends, if you are entering or still in your twenties, let me exhort you: do not sit these years out. Do not wait on the big job or the amazing ministry you think you deserve. Love God and love people now.

Become the person you want to be in your thirties; prepare for the role you’d like to have, even if, like me, you’re busing tables at Cracker Barrel. You’re not waiting on anyone, and time won’t wait for you either.

If you’d like to keep thinking about your twenties, last year I wrote a booklet specifically for you called Surviving Your Twenties and you can download it here.

Last night we finished few weeks of looking at what the Christian message is with a practical look at how Jesus himself reached out to different kinds of people, and what that means for us. Here are the notes:

Here are the scripture we read to start off: Luke 7:31–50, Luke 19:1-10; Luke 14:34-15:2; Mark 2:13–17; Matthew 11:19; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13; 1 Corinthians 10:27; Ephesians 5:1-11; 1 Peter 4:1-

Observations:

We know that in pursuing these relationships, Jesus could not have been sinning. So he wasn’t “partaking” of the “unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph 5:1) or “running with them in the flood dissipation” (1 Peter 4:4)—he was not participating in the sin. But he was “keeping company” with these non-believers (1 Cor  5:10), eating with them (1 Cor 10:27), and thus he was called their “friend” (Mt 11:19, Luke 7:34). He ate meals with them (Mk 2:13-17, Lk 5:29-30), stayed at their houses (Lk 19:5), let them touch him and show affection to him publicly (Lk 7:38-39), asked them to follow him (Mk 2:14), and spent time teaching them (Luke 15:1). So he was not worried about being “defiled” by the people themselves. (This would have been the concern of the religious leaders who were criticizing him.) Instead, his holiness was contagious (this ideas was from Craig Blomberg). So we see that it is sin that defiles, not people. (Here the teaching on food from Mark 7 can be key—it’s what comes out of our hearts in the form of sin that defiles, not what we eat.) Sin can’t be transmitted through contact, hanging out, or friendship. It only spreads as an individual himself or herself gives in to temptation and commits sin.

Applications:

1. We must not participate in the life-style around us so characterized by the things Peter and Paul write about: greed, mistreatment of others, sinful partying, and unrestrained sexuality. In that sense, we need to be careful about what situations we allow ourselves to participate in. If we can’t be somewhere without basically doing what they’re doing, or if we’ll be tempted to do the same things, we should stay away from the situation.
2. However, it’s important that we do not think that the sin of those around us can make us sinful by association. Sin can’t spread like a virus. So we have no reason to stay away from people in general, in fact, like Jesus and Paul, we have a mandate to befriend them and to be with them.
3. Practically, what that means is that we must invite them into our lives and houses, and we must pursue meeting with them on both neutral ground (starbucks, etc.) and in their places. We could easily hang out in their house without attending one of their parties. But we don’t hang in the bar with them when everyone’s drinking up and partying. Do we attend a blatantly sinful bachelor party or go with a group to a place where sin is the main attraction? No. But do we hang at their house, do sports games together, join biking clubs, work out together, and a hundred other activities like that? Do we go to weddings and other social get-togethers, even parties, that don’t require us to do what Peter or Paul say to avoid? Absolutely.
4. We must learn how to love people enough that we know when and how to tell them that what they’re doing is wrong. There is a time and a way where it is loving to help someone see that they’re dishonoring God and hurting themselves.
5. If we’re going to do this, we must learn not to be put off by the symptoms of people’s sin, or even by speech and behavior which seems “course” or sinful to us. This is sometimes difficult but it requires that we live in the moment by the leading of the Spirit and a deep heart which is being changed by God’s love for us and everyone.
6. In all of this, we don’t have to worry that our friendship with these people is “condoning their lifestyle.” Associating with people is our way of showing God’s love and we can only show them God’s love by being with people and among them. We need a relationship with someone to really show them God’s love. (See John 17:15-19, John 16:7-11)

See how typical this sounds for you:

“I saw an intriguing exchange on Twitter the other day. My friend Mike Betts had written something very innocuous – the Bible says we should trust God, or something like that – and someone responded, in a series of tweets that quickly degenerated into expletives and accusations of idiocy, that it is ridiculous to base our lives on an Iron Age text. What evidence is there, they demanded, that the Bible is true? After a few helpful questions, Mike wisely suggested that 140 characters might not be the best medium with which to argue for biblical authority, and said he could point them to some useful resources if they wanted. His interlocutor, apparently satisfied that “I can’t explain all that in a tweet” meant “I have no reason to believe it whatsoever”, immediately left the discussion, no doubt even more entrenched in their view that all Christians are idiots who are simply too stupid to have thought about whether the Bible can be trusted. Sigh.”

That’s a guy named Andrew Wilson setting up what I found to be a helpful article on ways to respond to such conversations. He wonders: “How would I explain the argument for biblical authority, to a secular person, as quickly and logically as possible?”  Then he gives a succinct bit of logic to try to do exactly that. Here are the twelve steps to his thinking:

1. There are multiple, literarily independent, first century historical sources that attest to the empty tomb and/or the resurrection appearances of Jesus of Nazareth. (For the very skeptical, this can be established by learning Koine Greek and visiting the Chester Beatty Library, the British Museum, and so on).
2. Historical scholars generally agree that this is because the tomb of Jesus was empty, and his followers had experiences which they understood to be resurrection appearances.
3. If miracles are possible, the most likely explanation of this evidence is that Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead. If miracles are impossible, an alternative explanation – hallucination, conspiracy, swoon, other – is required.
4. If the existence of a creator God is possible, then miracles – understood as suspensions of natural laws as a result of divine action – are possible, since a creator God could act in any way they chose.
5. The existence of God is possible. (Philosophically, this may be the most contentious premise so far – but since anyone denying it has to show the impossibility of God, and that has proved beyond the reach of most, I consider it fair game).
6. Therefore miracles are possible (from #4, #5).
7. Therefore the most likely explanation for the historical evidence we have is that Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead (from #3, #6).
8. If Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead, the most likely meaning of this event is that Israel’s God has vindicated and exalted him as Lord.
9. If Israel’s God has vindicated and exalted Jesus as Lord, then we should accept and embrace his view of the way God’s authority functions in the world. (Again, almost everyone in history who believe Jesus was resurrected has believed something like this).
10. The historical evidence we have indicates that Jesus of Nazareth believed divine authority was expressed through (a) the Hebrew scriptures, (b) his own prophetic teaching and actions, and (c) the teaching and actions of those whom he delegated as apostles.
11. The Bible is the collection of (a) the Hebrew scriptures (Genesis to Malachi), (b) Jesus’ own prophetic teaching and actions (Matthew to John), and (c) the teaching and actions of those whom he delegated as apostles (Acts to Revelation). (It is of course open to anyone to object that, properly speaking, several of these books were not written by apostles. Rather than entering into a protracted defense of the Protestant canon here, I will simply direct the reader to Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited, and point out that even if someone disagrees with him, they would still need to concede the authority of the vast majority of the Bible).
12. Therefore we should accept and embrace the authority of the Bible (from #8, #9, #10, #11).

Did you find that helpful? Wilson concedes:

Obviously I wouldn’t assume someone could be persuaded by a few hundred words–and in my experience, people who fire expletives around on Twitter are not usually looking to be persuaded of anything anyway–but I thought it might be helpful to lay out the argument, at least as I see it, both to give an example of how a Christian might respond, and to help a skeptic identify the point in the argument at which they differ. (Usually, it comes down to the resurrection. If I believe Jesus is alive, I probably accept biblical authority, even if I nuance it differently from other Christians; if I don’t, then I don’t. On the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, I think Paul would be with me on that).

That last point is key. I’ve found it helpful to remember that my message to the world isn’t first, “I have the perfect book!” but (first) “Jesus is alive!” The fact that Jesus is raised from the dead is our central, most important message. The fact that the Bible gives perfect, trustworthy witness to that fact is essential, but as part of the support to our main gospel.

A couple weeks ago Time Magazine arrived in my mailbox declaring that our nation was at a tipping point–we were about to become acclimated to and supportive of people pursuing any and all forms of transgendered lifestyles.

Here’s another conversation we need to prepare to have (especially every Christian under forty). Have you thought about what you will say when someone challenges your idea that there are two separate genders which are tied to congenital, biological differences between men and women?

Here’s some helpful thoughts to start the process from Russell Moore (he’s president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention–This was published back in August):

The Internet is abuzz with conversation about the “T” in “LGBT” this week, after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law legislation supporting “equal access” for students who believe themselves to be the opposite gender from their biological sex. As a conservative evangelical Christian, I believe the so-called transgender question will require a church with a strong theological grounding, and a winsome pastoral footing.

Here’s why.

Ultimately, the transgender question is about more than just sex. It’s about what it means to be human.

Poet Wendell Berry responded to techno-utopian scientism with the observation that civilization must decide whether we see persons as creatures or as machines. If we are creatures, he argued, then we have purpose and meaning, but also limits. If we see ourselves, and the world around us, as a machine, then we believe the Faustian myth of our own limitless power to recreate ourselves.

This is, it seems to me, the question at the heart of the transgender controversy. Are we created, as both the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus put it, “male and female,” from the beginning or are these categories arbitrary and self-willed? Do our bodies, and our sexes, represent something of who we were designed to be, and thus impose limits on our ability to recreate ourselves?

Laws such as those in California will quickly test the boundaries of society’s tolerance for a psychological and individualistic definition of gender. There are reasons, after all, why societies put boys and girls in different bathrooms, men and women on different sports teams. When gender identity is severed from biological sex, where does one’s self-designation end, and who will be harmed in the process?

As conservative Christians, we do not see transgendered persons as “freaks” to be despised or ridiculed.

We acknowledge that there are some persons who feel alienated from their identities as men or as women.

Of course that would be the case in a fallen universe in which all of us are alienated, in some way, from how God created us to be.

But we don’t believe this alienation can be solved by pretending as though we have Pharaoh-like dominion over our maleness or femaleness. These categories, we believe (along with every civilization before us), are about more than just self-construction, and they can’t be eradicated by a change of clothes or chemical tinkering or a surgeon’s knife, much less by an arbitrary announcement in the high school gym.

The transgender question means that conservative Christian congregations such as mine must teach what’s been handed down to us, that our maleness and femaleness points us to an even deeper reality, to the unity and complementarity of Christ and the church. A rejection of the goodness of those creational realities then is a revolt against God’s lordship, and against the picture of the gospel that God had embedded in the creation.

But this also means that we will love and be patient with those who feel alienated from their created identities.

We must recognize that some in our churches will face a long road of learning what it means to live as God created them to be, as male or female. That sort of long, slow, plodding and sometimes painful obedience is part of what Jesus said would be true of every believer: the bearing of a cross. That cross-bearing reminds us that God doesn’t receive us because of our own effort but because God reconciled us to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Our transgendered neighbors will disagree with us, of course, that discipleship means an acceptance of who we are as men and women, and that our selves are not separate from our bodies. We should expect such disagreements. But we believe we can no more surgically alter our gospel than we can surgically alter our gender.

All we can do is say what we believe as Christians: that all of us are sinners, and that none of us are freaks.

We must conclude that all of us are called to repentance, and part of what repentance means is to receive the gender with which God created us, even when that’s difficult. We must affirm that God loves all persons, and that the gospel is good news for repentant prodigal sons and daughters, even for those who have trouble figuring out which is which.

If you’d like to continue delving into the biblical foundation for believing in the connection between biology and gender identification, check out this blog post.

Last night we continued our look through scriptures to grow in our understanding and ability to communicate the message of Jesus. Here are the notes:

What’s the issue with Sin? First, the bible states clearly that Sin separates from God. Read Isaiah 59:1-15. Why does sin separate us from God? The first reason is what Isaiah saw in Chapter 6. God is holy. Simply, here in this passage, that would mean that he simply won’t be connected to the kind of things we see happening in chapter 59.  (Notice also Psalm 51:4–all sin is against God.)

This is all easier to start to understand more of this when we break it down and look at the different ways the bible describes our relationship to God.

1. God is the Creator (Genesis 1:27-31)

Sin ruins what God made. God made everything good. Sin “vandalizes” the good thing God made, and ruins the good purposes God made it for. (One author says sin vandalizes God’s “Shalom.”) We are meant to be stewards and cultivators of God’s creation. In sin we leave that role and instead become vandalizers of God’s creation, ruining it by twisting it to our purposes which are opposite of God’s purposes. In doing so we cause pain, loss, and death. (See Genesis 9:6 where murder is seen as ruining the image of God, and James 3:9 where cursing each other is seen as cursing the image of God.)

2. God is the Judge  (Rev 20:11-13)          

Sin is breaking a law by wronging God or someone else, and incurring real moral guilt. Humans are made to be upright, free and spreaders of justice. Sin degrades us and causes us to be in bondage to the effects of our sin, including the incarceration of guilt.  (See also 2 Timothy 4:1 and Acts 17:30-31.) 

3. God is the King? (Psalm 42:7)

Sin is rebellion against the rightful ruler, Sin is bringing division and war into the kingdom. Humans are made to be citizens of the perfect, eternal kingdom. We are called to share God’s rule with him over the earth, under his authority. In sin we forfeit that place and try to establish our own rule. (See also 1 Timothy 1:17  and Matthew 28:18-20)

4. God is the most important person for us to relate to. (Mark 8:38)

Sin is adultery. Sin breaks the covenant with God and harms a relationship. Sin hurts God. We are called to be I the closets possible relationship to God. Sin ruins that relationship and wounds us by cutting us off from our connection to God. Sin also grieves God. It negatively affects him emotionally; see Ephesians 4:30.

Sin dishonors God as Father. Sin dishonors the head of the family. Sin denies the family connection and tries to break down the family. We are children of God. Sin denies that relationship and the authority of the Father over us. Sin expresses disdain for God’s house. (See Luke 3:38 and Malachi 1:6.)

Sometimes sin is seen as against God in the role of groom or spouse. SeeHosea 1:2.

God is the most important person in the universe. He is the one we most have to relate to. Everything is relational. It’s what the universe is. To ignore it would be like getting married, moving into a house together, and then thinking the relationship is all about the house. You take care of the house, enjoy the house, and live in the house together. But then, when you ignore her and bring home other women, you get confused when she gets mad. It’s not enough to live in the house and take care of it. The meaning of the house is the relationship. To mess up the relationship is to ignore and mess up the whole thing—and when you get a divorce, you’ll lose the house with the relationship. To act like we can ignore, belittle, or pervert our relationship to God, and it shouldn’t matter, is to misunderstand the whole universe.

Summing it up: In each of these cases, we see that sin is an offense against our relationship to God, and his creation, in each of the different aspects of that relationship.

But how, then, does God relate to us in our sin?  God loves us, even thought there’s been all this damage we’ve done to the relationship.He is looking for you, and rejoices when you repent: See Luke 15:4-7.

One of the ideas settling into our culture as an accepted, unchallenged truth is the idea that people never change. They just believe what they believe, and stay the way they are, forever. And so, the idea goes, to try to spread your beliefs or persuade people of the truth of the gospel is really a waste of time.

Today we offer a response to that idea, in the form of the fourth installment in our video series entitled “Being Christian in College.” This one features two people recently wrapping up college, who both entered school unsaved, with no background in Christianity at all. While at school, they met some believers, were intrigued by what they discovered as they began to hang around Christians, and ended up meeting Jesus. Everything changed.

This is really one of the most important videos in this series. Whether you’ve got a semester of college coming up in the fall or not, this will be well worth your three minutes of viewing time, and can stir your heart to keep being a living witness to the non-believers in your life. If you can’t see the embedded version, you can see it on Vimeo at this link: How Did Christians Help You Come to Know Christ at College?

 

Enjoy…

 

Videos in this Series:

Series introduction:

Recently we had several friends from CC Philly who are finishing up their fourth year of school stop by to discuss college life with us. They brought a few more friends with them, people they had met and bonded with at school.

They agreed to let us film them discussing their experiences, so that we could share them with all of you who are currently in, or about to enter, a college or university.

Two of them were unsaved when they began school, and they talk about their experience meeting Christians and beginning to walk with Christ. The others entered school as Christians, and they share thoughts on going through school and actually making a difference for Christ on campus.

Being Christian in College

1. What Surprised you Most about College?

2. What Should Christians Do Together on Campus?

3. What Should Christian Do Before They Go To College?

4. How Did Christians Help You Come to Know Christ at College?

 

During one of our Monday night studies a few weeks ago, we looked at the report of the beginning of Jesus’ preaching ministry recorded in Matthew 4:17. It reads like this:

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

We also noted that this verse probably gives us, not something Jesus said only once, but the summary and encapsulation, as well as the very beginning, of his entire life of teaching. In other words, what was Jesus saying as he walked around teaching all the time? Well, basically, he was saying that the kingdom of God was coming, and that as a result everyone needed to repent–to reorient themselves in light of his message. In passing during the study, I noted that if we didn’t have any more recorded about Jesus’ teaching, we might not be very clear on what exactly that meant. Like, so…what needs to change, exactly? Doesn’t God love us all? (Just the way we are?)

In the study I noted that I thought we had an answer right in Matthew, beginning right in the next chapter, in fact.

If you put the question to Jesus, “So what do you mean, practically, by saying ‘repent’? What do you want us to change?” I think he would have responded with Matthew chapters five through seven. In other words, what we commonly call “The Sermon on the Mount” is the “repent” side of Jesus’ teaching. (The “kingdom” side comes later in Matthew, like in chapters 13, 24, and 25). While it is certainly other things for us as well, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ manual on repentance.  It is a catalogue of the kinds of things that need to change when someone realizes how near the kingdom of God is.

(Note: I am not saying that this is a list of things that we must do to be saved and enter the kingdom; I’m saying this is Jesus’ way of explaining the kinds of changes we need to make when we encounter him. It is his way of showing us that we really aren’t fit to be citizens of the kingdom with out his forgiveness and instruction.)

So what exactly does Jesus mean when he says, “Repent”?

1. Renounce self-glorifying, self-promoting, self-seeking ways of advancing your own agenda. (5:3-9)
2. Be willing to endure criticism and oppression from people who disagree with Jesus. (5:10-12)
3. Have a life wholly flavored by the things Jesus promotes, and not any other flavor. (5:13)
4. Begin living a life of such obvious good that people think about God when they see you, and not you. (5:14-16)
5. Don’t misunderstand Jesus by separating him from the previous things revealed (that is, don’t think of him as unrelated to the Old Testament). In other words, stop thinking wrongly about Jesus–Let the Bible tell you who he is. (5:17-18)
6. Learn the correct way of weighing and obeying the commands of God. (5:19-20)
7. Stop thinking so little of people that you get angry and wish them harm. (5:21-22)
8. Stop fighting each other in court. (5:23-26)
9. Stop looking at each other out of (and in order to stir up) sexual desire. (5:27-28)
10. Stop acting like things God calls sin don’t have eternal consequences. (5:29-30)
11. Stop divorcing each other. (5:31-32)
12. Speak simple truth, and nothing else. (5:33-37)
13. Instead of self-protection, practice generosity. (5:38-42)
14. Stop hating your enemies and retaliating. Love people across any divide. (5:43-48)
15. Don’t do things for people to see you, especially spiritual things or charitable things. Care more about what God sees than what people see. (6:1-18)
16. Rather than self-dependence, practice dependence on your heavenly Father by praying to him constantly. (6:9-13)
17. Stop holding grudges and thinking it’s ok with God. (6:14-15)
18. Don’t amass wealth and want what others have as if there’s no life beyond the grave. (6:19-24)
19. Stop worrying and acting like there’s no loving God in the world. (6:25-30)
20. Care more about this coming Kingdom of God than your own daily needs. (6:31-34)
21. Don’t always assume you know enough to fully evaluate or pass sentence on others. (7:1-5)
22. Instead of relying on people, ask God for what you need. (7:6-12)
23. Stop assuming that traveling the same way as the majority will lead you to heaven. Don’t trust what most people think about how to get there. (7:13-14)
24. Be careful about who you let tell you what to think and how to live. (7:15-20)
25. Don’t be duped by people with a show of power, even spiritual power–and don’t think these things will earn you any merit with God. (7:21-23)
26. Stop listening to what Jesus says, and then not doing it. Base your whole life only on his teachings. (7:24-27)

Ok, so that was a long list. But it seems worthwhile to go through in our day, not only for those of us who believe and want to live by Jesus, but even more so for our wider culture.

Basically everyone today thinks that Jesus accepts them just the way they are. If you asked the average person if they thought Jesus would be cool with them, you can pretty much bet they’d tell you that he is! In fact our whole national conscience is skewed that way–just watch the acceptance speeches at any award show and see who they thank. We really feel like God is happy with us all.

But honestly, who could look at that list and not find, like, ten or fifteen things in their life Jesus clearly isn’t cool with? A little bible reading will tell us where the real Jesus stands with who we are. If we want to know, it’s all there in black and white.

All we need is ears to hear.

The next installment in our video series entitled “Being Christian in College” just finished production. This part of the discussion with a few friends finishing their fourth year of college looks at the question What Should Christian Do Before They Go To College? They share thoughts about what kinds of preparations Christians should make before they begin school in order to set themselves up for a strong and fruit-filled time at school. While directed at students about to enter school as freshmen, their thoughts are applicable to anyone about to start a new semester. And since they offer some practical advice, the beginning of the Summer is the best time to hear what they have to say, because you actually have time to carry out their advice.

Enjoy…

 

Videos in this Series:

Series introduction:

Recently we had several friends from CC Philly who are finishing up their fourth year of school stop by to discuss college life with us. They brought a few more friends with them, people they had met and bonded with at school.

They agreed to let us film them discussing their experiences, so that we could share them with all of you who are currently in, or about to enter, a college or university.

Two of them were unsaved when they began school, and they talk about their experience meeting Christians and beginning to walk with Christ. The others entered school as Christians, and they share thoughts on going through school and actually making a difference for Christ on campus.

Being Christian in College

1. What Surprised you Most about College?

2. What Should Christians Do Together on Campus?

3. What Should Christian Do Before They Go To College?