BRING ON JANUARY

Melissa and I walked through the local Sam's Club yesterday and we couldn't help but laugh. 

When you first walk through the doors, to the left is a wall of merchandise, curving in and guiding you toward the heart of the store. 

A week ago that wall was all sugar cookies, Christmas candies, and stocking stuffers. 

But now that all the Christmas treats had been clearanced, the wall was all protein shakes, dumbbells, and exercise equipment. 

I love the changing of the seasons! 

Time for healthier eating, writing resolutions, and renewed discipline. 

January rocks.

THE IMAGE

I used to understand humanity being created in "the image of God" in the traditional sense, usually articulated something like this:

"To be created [in the image of God] means being endowed with an immortal spirit, a capacity to know and be known by God, a measure of autonomy and free will in the areas of thought and action, each of which separate us from the rest of creation." - Daniel Becker

There are problems with this sort of definition, though. 

And the main one is this: it is not grounded in careful word study and context of Genesis 1, where this concept first appears. 

In fact, the key words here - spirit, know, autonomy, thought - seem pulled out of thin air. 

[Side note: where does Scripture say humans are endowed with an immortal spirit?]

So these days I understand "image of God" quite differently.

Now I see something more in line with this author, Zachary Garris:

"It is often suggested that the “image” is tied with humans being personal, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and relational beings like God. Others suggest that the “image” is tied with humans being creative like God.

"While we are like God in these ways, they do not get to the central point of the “image” in Genesis 1. That central point is not hard to figure out. We just have to look at the immediate context. And what is mentioned in the context along with the “image” of God? Dominion. Sandwiched in between the two uses of “image” in Genesis 1:26-27 is the sentence: “And let them have dominion over . . . ” (1:26). This very concept is seen again in 1:28, in what is known as the Cultural Mandate. In the midst of God’s blessing, He commanded humans to do two things: (1) reproduce (“be fruitful and multiply”); and (2) rule (“fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion”). The word “dominion” is mentioned here in 1:28 for the second time, but now it is paired with having children and subduing the land.

"In other words, “the image of God” means that humans are like God and represent Him as rulers over creation."

It would be hard to overstate how profound this shift has been in my thinking and how this insight now shapes my understanding of what Christ came to accomplish. 

ANEMIC THEOLOGY

I received a Christmas email from an innovative ministry providing rugged, affordable transportation to impoverished people in the boonies of Africa and elsewhere. 

I fully support the organization, but I cringed at their Christmas theology:

Merry Christmas!  Do you know the completion of the Christmas Story? It involves transportation. 

Jesus is coming back. He will come on the clouds, a unique form of transport. 

When I’m asked “What is the most affordable transportation in the universe?” I say it's the supernatural trip to heaven. If you believe Jesus died for your sins and that he is your Lord and Savior, you receive a spot on that heaven-bound, soul train. 

This is an anemic understanding of the gospel. 

Dictionary.com defines "anemic" as "lacking power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness; listless; weak". 

In other words, it's not as healthy as it needs to be.

Here are the main problems:

1) It implies that faith is primarily a matter of giving mental assent to propositional truths. 

2) It's very transactional: believe this and receive that.

3) It makes Christianity out to be an escape from this world. (The book of Revelation makes it clear that we don't get whisked off to heaven in the end. Heaven is brought down to a renewed earth. We stay put.)

In other words, it is a pretty good summary of most Americans' understanding of the gospel. 

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2024

                    December 2024

Dear Friends and Family,

Melissa and I wish you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas! We trust 2025 will find you and yours securely in the palm of God’s hand. 

2024 has been a rollercoaster. On the upside, our family saw two college graduations (Hannah from Olivet and Samuel from Ball State), another trip to Ghana for Steve, a couple of trips to Myrtle Beach and one to New Jersey, some fun house and yard projects, our nephew’s wedding in Milwaukee, and numerous show choir performances with Sarah. On the downside, though, Melissa’s mother has spent the year fighting advanced colon cancer. At this point, Trudy has exhausted all chemo options. All our focus now is on spending as much quality time together as possible. 

Melissa and I find ourselves entering a new stage of life. The three oldest kids live and work out of state and the youngest is ready to start her final semester of high school. Getting all six of us together is becoming more difficult, but we were blessed to do it on Easter and Thanksgiving and we will have everyone together for a few days over Christmas, too. 

Here are the updates:

Caleb, 23 – Finished his time at Fort Moore in Georgia and moved to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. He earned his Expert Soldier pin in September and was recently promoted to First Lieutenant. Outside of military life, he is sharing a rental house with a friend, attending a local church small group, and will soon start serving as a “Big Brother” to a local kid. 

Hannah, 22 – Graduated from Olivet in May and moved to Myrtle Beach in August to start her career in interior design with a small firm called iQ Designs. It is her dream job and she is loving her new life and feeling quite blessed. Best of all, she took Ginger with her. 😉 

Samuel, 21 – Graduated from Ball State University in May and took a third summer to sell books door to door for Southwestern Advantage. In October Samuel moved to Holly Springs, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, where he is sharing a house with some friends from the book field. He has started working with a company that markets, designs, and maintains websites for businesses. 

Sarah, 17 (18 in January!) – Is dancing her way through her senior year. She is in two separate show choirs at Columbus North High School while also performing with a dance troupe in nearby Franklin. She plans to apply to Indiana University to study interior design and ceramics. We know her next semester will fly by with show choir competitions, the school musical, and a spring break youth mission trip to El Salvador. 

In May, Melissa successfully wrapped up her first year back in first grade only to be granted a new and “challenging” class this fall. It has taken some time, but she is seeing positive advances in behavior and learning. Much of Melissa’s “spare time”, of course, has been spent tending to her mother’s needs. Having a student teacher in class this semester made it a little easier to get away from school when needed. 

I have been with Mission Resource for three years now and Sardinia Baptist for nearly two – and I still find both incredibly fulfilling. I was baptized in March, so I am officially an American Baptist now (as well as a child of God!). In August I started a side job teaching English to local adult immigrants two nights a week. A third of my class is Haitian, so that’s fun. Meanwhile, I am making slow but steady progress on my dissertation project - though I don’t foresee finishing the degree before May of 2026 now.

Time is flying more quickly with each passing year - while our valuation of good friends and family increases at the same pace. Hopefully, 2025 will bring us opportunities to reconnect face to face with some distant loved ones. And we pray that the New Year brings blessings and life abundant your way!

God Bless,

Steve, Melissa & the (grown up) Kids

P.S. Next summer brings our 25th wedding anniversary! 

SAYING IT AGAIN

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” ― André Gide

It took me years as a teacher to recognize the crucial role of repetition in learning.

Of course, lack of attention isn't the only culprit - and perhaps not even the worst offender. Prejudice and assumptions stand in the way of new insights and they are not toppled quickly. 

And it seems to me that repetition also has a way of establishing credibility: if the teacher is saying this yet again, it really must be important. I knew a woman who - whenever her boss asked her to do something - always threw away the first two memos on the subject. If he sent a third, she knew he really meant it. 

Although as an introvert I have always hated repeating myself, I consciously force myself to do it often these days for the sake of communication, both in promoting Mission Resource and in preaching at Sardinia. 

A competent teacher does not assume anyone was listening the first time. 

WRONG QUESTION

Believers have these crazy debates about whether or not you "have to" do good works in order to get to heaven. 

One side says good works are unnecessary. All you need is belief in Jesus.

The other says you have to obey Jesus as your Lord or you get locked out.

Back and forth and round and round it goes. 

There are big problems with the entire discussion, beginning with the fact that none of us are even going to heaven. 

According to Scripture, in the end heaven and earth are renewed and heaven comes down to earth. We stay put. 

Salvation isn't about escaping earth. (This thought alone would make many Christian heads explode.) 

But back to the core argument - do we have to do good works or not?

To me that's like asking, "To consider myself married, do I have to have daily conversations with my wife, spend time with her, willingly do what she asks of me, and kiss her or was saying 'I do' once at the church altar enough?" 

THE CHURCH IS A ...

If you were to Google "The Church is a ...", what would you expect the top autofill suggestions to be?

Some would come straight from Scripture: 

"The Church is a body."

"The Church is a bride." 

Others, though not specifically Scriptural images, are part of the public imagination and seem true enough:

"The Church is a family."

"The Church is a hospital for sinners."

But here's an obvious one that I have never heard ... and I wonder why:

"The Church is a school."

Why isn't the Church known as a place where people learn? 

About God? About life? About purpose? About all the things that really matter.

I have a growing conviction that we in Church leadership are slacking in our teaching responsibility. 

THERE *IS* MAGIC IN CHRISTMAS

I have the (earned) reputation for being a bit of a Grinch about Christmas, so I want to record here something that I thoroughly enjoy about the season.

And it's something which spans across Christmas, includes New Year's Day and at least the first week of January:

This is the season of belief in the 180 degree turn. The belief in the possibility of transformation.

That the evil old miser, Scrooge, can become loving - and loveable.

That the Grinch's heart can grow three sizes.

That a New Year can bring a "new you".

And that openness to the reality of a transformed life is a wonder to behold. 

It seems to me that the so-called "magic of Christmas" is right in line with the "new creation" which Jesus' birth inaugurates. 

Now, if only we could "keep Christmas in our hearts all year long" like the transformed Scrooge ...

THINKING YOU'RE THINKING

I've gotten a little slack lately - my "daily" writing habit is often reduced to 4 or 5 times a week. 

It's not that I have run out of topics. I have unlimited things to write about.

But limited energy and time. 

Three years in, I believe the habit is solid enough not that occasional lapses will not lead to outright disappearance. I find writing much too valuable to ever give it up completely.

This is because I feel the constant need to straighten out my thinking, especially as a pastor. And that takes writing.

This is my experience: "If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking." (Leslie Lamport)

[Hat tip to Writes and Write-Nots at https://paulgraham.com/writes.html for the quote.]

LOVE AND HATE

With our annual Christmas program this morning, I didn't have to preach today, so I decided this afternoon to get a jumpstart on next week's sermon. Next Sunday will be the 4th Sunday of Advent and the traditional focus is on Love.

Out of curiosity, I got onto the STEP Bible website and did some searches: "love" and "hate" in both the Old and New Testaments. 

Any guess as to how many times words denoting "hate" show up in the Old Testament?

159. 

And most of those are humans hating each other or hating God.

In the New Testament?

38. 

Most often the world hating the disciples. 

And what of words denoting "love"?

In the Old Testament, some form of "love" shows up 1,183 times. (That's over 7X the "hate".)

In the New Testament, 585. (Over 15X the "hate".) 

I plan to look more closely at the nature of the way the two words are used and what sort of things are loved or hated and by whom, but at first look, this seems to confirm my impression that the Bible is far more interested in the positive side of existence rather than the negative. 

TENACITY

I came across a deep thought from John Collison, Co-founder of Stripe:

“As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity everything requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.” (Hat tip to Shane Parrish)

It reminded me of a curious truth I heard on a YouTube video that went something like this: Everything you see around you started in somebody's imagination - some, like trees and mountains and oceans, began in God's imagination while others, like movies and books and buildings, began in a human's.

I have some things in my imagination that I hope to get out before my life wraps up. 

Sometimes I tell myself they are impossible.

But other times I wonder if I just might be one of those people who manages to make real what's currently only imaginary.  

I think the Believer has more reason for greater hope than most when it comes to seeing dreams realized. 

QUESTIONS OF FAITH

James Fowler, in the opening chapter of his book Stages of Faith, lists a set of questions he developed for a workshop he was leading on the topic of faith:

• What are you spending and being spent for? What commands and receives your best time, your best energy?
• What causes, dreams, goals or institutions are you pouring out your life for?
• As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
• To what or whom are you committed in life? In death?
• With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
• What are those sacred hopes, those most compelling goals and purposes in your life? (p.3)

Wow.

It seems to me that our present day understanding of "faith" has become so anemic that it looks puny in comparison to the weight of these questions.

What Fowler has in mind when speaking of "faith" is, in his words, "a much more powerful matter than claimed belief in a creed or a set of doctrinal propositions". (p.4)

Ditto for what the Bible has in mind.

MILK OVER GUILT

A pastor friend told me that he was often frustrated in the churches where he had served when the congregations would assume that evangelization was the pastor's job rather than their own.

I am sure this is common in American churches, but what is the solution?

He had attempted to light a fire under church members to get out there and do the evangelizing themselves. Scripture makes it clear that the Great Commission is every believer's duty. 

But this had never produced any fruit. I'm guessing because the root of the problem was not laziness or passivity or busyness. The root goes deeper.

This is a good opportunity to employ the "Five Whys". This is a problem solving strategy where you keep asking "Why?" until you get to the root causes.

Why do the church members think it's the pastor's job alone to evangelize? Because they don't want to do it themselves.

Why don't they want to do it themselves? Because they don't know how to approach these sorts of conversations.

Why don't they feel comfortable having these conversations? Because they don't know what to say.

Why don't they know what to say? 

Uh-oh! Because they themselves don't know ... the gospel?

Trying to guilt believers into sharing their faith is a losing proposition IF they don't know - with confidence - what the good news is. 

But don't despair, Pastor! Even the Apostle Paul had this problem. 

The solution is to put the solid food on the shelf for the time being and go back to milk. 

WHAT IS REQUIRED

To me, these verses from Micah 6 are a snapshot of the difference between the sort of true righteousness that God is actually after as opposed to the "works of the Law" that are so often performed in an effort to win God's approval and cover over sin.

 

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

 Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

Notice that doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God would all still be expressed as deeds. And these things are "required" of humanity.

It's not about God condemning ALL righteous deeds or deeming them all to be filthy rags. 

It's about the motivation and the relationship - or lack thereof -behind the deeds.

It's the difference between a man who buys flowers for a woman as an expression of his deep love for her and the man who buys her flowers hoping to get her into bed. 

FILTHY RAGS?

There is this idea in pop-Christianity that any good deed done which is not directly motivated by a conscious desire to serve Jesus is actually sinful. Even detestable in God's sight.

(I think maybe this is yet another Calvinist concept that has slipped into the broader Christian tradition. It has "Total Depravity" written all over it.)

One of the proof texts for this idea is Isaiah 64:6:

6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

You might have heard "polluted garment" translated as "filthy rags". The Hebrew words here famously denote soiled menstrual cloths. 

Sounds bad for human righteous deeds, right? They are disgusting in God's sight, right?

But there are two problems here. 

The first is the oft-made mistake of assuming a verse applies to all people at all times. When Isaiah says "we", is he speaking of "we humans" of all times and places or is he speaking of "we Israelites and Judeans" of his own day?

Since he's prophesying to a wayward people at a crucial time in their history, I would lean toward understanding the "we" and "our" as applying to his immediate audience. Maybe the idea of "filthy rags" can be universalized, but we need to understand that this would require an extra step and then build a case for why it should be done. 

The second problem is pulling a verse out of context. 

Notice that Isaiah says "we" have all BECOME unclean, implying that it was not always this way. If the people were not always unclean, perhaps their righteous deeds were not always like filthy rags in God's eyes.

Look, too, at verse 5!

5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.

Seems to me Isaiah is not saying God has a problem with righteous deeds in general - after all, He's willing to "meet" with those who act righteously with joy. 

The problem seems to be when the Israelites think they can balance out their rebellion and sin with a few righteous acts done to placate God. 

That's the old "get drunk on Friday night and go to church on Sunday morning" approach. 

And that approach to "righteous deeds" is rightly repugnant in God's sight. 

KNOWING

In Several short sentences about writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg (What a name!) outlines "the ways we know nearly everything about the world around us" in these terms:

1. What you've been taught.

2. What you assume is true because you've heard it repeated by others.

3. What you feel, no matter how subtle.

4. What you don't know.

5. What you learn from your own experience. (p.7)

Although Klinkenborg's main concern is how this applied to the craft of writing, I think this does apply to "knowing" in general. 

It seems to me that when it comes to theology, #1 and #2 - what someone's been taught and what they assume - somehow carry so much weight that they squeeze out #5 entirely. 

Is it because God is THE most intimidating topic of study in all existence? (After all, your own eternity may hang in the balance!)

Perhaps. 

If so, the starting point in forming "your own experience" is crucial. And it needs to be this: There is a God and He is GOOD.

SATAN ISN'T A CALVINIST

I caught a YouTuber called MethodMinistries interviewing Seth Dillon (of Babylon Bee fame) about his views on Calvinism.

Long story short, Seth isn't a fan. 

One of his best lines was "Satan isn't a Calvinist".

Why not? 

To paraphrase Seth, if Satan understood that certain people were saved no matter what they did or didn't do while all others were doomed no matter what they did or didn't do - and it was all predetermined to play out according to God's eternal decree ... why work so hard to draw anyone into hell?

Might as well kick back and watch it all play out according to plan.

There's no indication in Scripture, however, that Satan ever kicks back and relaxes. 

QUIET DESPERATION

Melissa and I had the opportunity to have dinner alone with Caleb last night before he headed back to El Paso today. 

I asked him how his acquaintances in the military compare to those he knew in college. 

As I suspected, a great many seem to be living rather shallow lives - their time spent on chasing sexual conquests, drinking alcohol, and playing video games. 

Reminds me of the famous Henry David Thoreau line: "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." 

Hedonism often does a good job of masking the desperation underneath, but it can never erase it. 

One can only hope that as the younger generation matures at least some will seek out the deeper things of life - and perhaps even find God. 

God intended that [humanity] would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. Acts 17:27 (Paul flatly contradicts the tenets of Calvinism here, by the way.)

Jesus warned, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy" and then added this profound contrast: "I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness."

It's a night and day difference.