Sermon Video: Paul's defense before the mob - Acts 21:37-22:16

What would it take to change a person whose heart is full of pride and hatred?  As part of his defense before the mob in Jerusalem that was trying to kill him, the Apostle Paul explains that he was once just like them: zealous for the traditions of Judaism and full of hatred for the followers of the Way (Christians).  What had changed the direction of the life of Saul of Tarsus so dramatically?  He met Jesus.  On the road to Damascus, while on his way to further persecute the disciples of Jesus, Paul experienced the grace of God when Jesus himself spoke to him from heaven.  Learning that God had vindicated Jesus, raising him to life after his crucifixion and elevating him in heaven, changed everything for Saul (soon to be called Paul), opening his eyes to the truth of God's grace which had eluded him despite his previous misguided zeal for God.

What does it take to change the direction of a life from pride and hatred to humility and love?  An encounter with Jesus.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

The moral question of Avengers: Infinity War (Spoiler Free)

There is a central moral question at work in Avengers: Infinity War between the protagonist, the villain Thanos, and the multitude of antagonists, the Avengers, Guardians, and various other Marvel heroes.  The goal of Thanos (no spoiler here as the trailers explained it months ago) is to wipe out half of the life in the universe in order to "balance" life and usher in an age of abundance and peace.  At the root of the motivation of Thanos is the fear of overpopulation (and with it environmental degradation) leading to suffering and strife over limited resources.  In other words, in order to significantly decrease suffering and increase happiness, countless sentient lives have to be snuffed out.  Thanos believes that the ends justify the means (his goal is worth killing over), conversely the various heroes reject this moral equivalence, maintaining the sanctity of all life.

Fear of overpopulation is nothing new for humanity, in 1798 the British economist Thomas Robert Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population which predicted that population would double every 25 years but agricultural increases could only be incremental, thus resulting in widespread famine and war unless significant birth control measures were to be taken.  Malthus' warnings influenced many, among them the German imperialists who contended that Germany needed Lebensraum ("living space") to accommodate its growing population, inevitably at the expense of Germany's Slavic neighbors to the east who would need to be eliminated or turned into serfs.  The unforeseen agricultural revolution that followed after Malthus' dire predictions made the billions of human beings living in the 20th century possible, although fear of overpopulation remained, typified by the sci-fi movie in 1973, Soylent Green.  With the population of the world in 2018 at 7.6 billion and rising, that fear isn't likely to go away anytime soon, thus the question remains: How much of a problem is rising population, and what is the moral response to it?

 As stated earlier, the response of Thanos to the fear of overpopulation is genocide, a willingness to kill in war, planet by planet, half of the population, and the hope that he can obtain all six of the infinity stones for his gauntlet and then finish his task across the universe with a "snap of his fingers".  The heroes in Infinity War are faced with the question of the value of life on a much smaller scale as they must contemplate self-sacrifice in order to attempt to stop Thanos.  While Thanos was willing to kill on an epic scale to achieve his goal, the heroes must be willing to risk their own lives, a question whose consequences they face multiple times in the movie.

The self-sacrifice of an individual to save many is certainly a theme embraced by Christianity, it is after all what Jesus Christ did when he accepted the task of dying upon the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.  In order to save billions, Jesus willingly carried the cross upon which he died.  Thankfully, that sacrifice was not in vain, for with his resurrection he obtained victory over both sin and death for all those who would believe in him.

It will not be known until after Avengers 4 (set to release in 2019) what the final cost of confronting and possibly defeating Thanos will be for the Marvel heroes, but the principle established by their decision to oppose him is one in which life is considered a precious thing, and while self-sacrifice may prove necessary to stop great evil, it is not a decision to be made casually precisely because life is precious.  

Sermon Video - The Danger of a Mob Mentality, Acts 21:27-36

Fueled by racial hatred and an over-inflated sense of their own importance to God, a dangerous combination, a crowd among the worshipers gathered for Pentecost in Jerusalem seize the Apostle Paul and accuse him of violating the prohibition against bringing a gentile within the inner sanctum of the temple.  That this is a false accusation does not stop the mob that quickly forms from trying to kill Paul, nor does the fact that Judaism requires multiple witness and a trial before any capital punishment (nor the fact that the "crime" in question is not one based upon Scripture).  In the end, Paul is saved, not by any follower of God, but by a gentile Roman soldier who rescues Paul from the clutches of those who claim to be doing the work of God.  Aside from the obvious warning about racism and self-assurance for us today as Christians, this passage also strongly warns us about the danger of losing self-control, of giving in to emotional outbursts, whether part of a crowd or on our own, and of being a blind follower who does not verify the truth of the matter on one's own.  As Christians, we cannot allow ourselves to fall prey to either a mob mentality nor a herd mentality.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: Debatable Matters Part 3 - 1 Corinthians 8:9-13

There is a tension that exists between the assertion of individual rights and the obligations those same individuals have to other people.  That tension exists regularly within modern society, especially in the United States, but it is far more acute within the Church.  As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have been called to a life of service and self-sacrifice on behalf of both our brothers and sisters in Christ and the Lost to whom we are obligated to share the Gospel in love.
Paul understood this tension as he wrote to the Christians at the church in Corinth that although they were free to eat meat that had been offered to idols, for in reality idols are nothing for there is only one God, yet those same Christians needed to "be careful" lest the exercising of their freedom might inadvertently lead to the temptation to sin on the part of fellow Christians who did not posses the same level of knowledge.  It is Paul's contention, and thus our command from Holy Scripture, that as Christians we must be willing to sacrifice our individual rights, even if the action is in no way a sin for us, if it will be an example that leads others into sin, it will then become a sin for us.  The action itself doesn't go from being a matter of freedom to being a sinful choice, it is the action toward our fellow Christians, influencing them toward temptation (for them) that makes it a sinful choice for us.  I know that's somewhat complicated, here's it in a nutshell: If an action is ok for me, but not ok for a fellow Christian, and my doing that action might lead him/her into temptation, I am obligated to abstain for their sake.  Our obligations outweigh our rights, love must triumph over freedom.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

The downside of being a part of an "independently minded" church/denomination

If you haven't noticed already, I consider myself to be a student of history.  I would like to think that through incessant reading, on often esoteric subjects, I have a decent understanding of not only where I am in the world today (and along with me, my church, and our denomination), as well as where I/we stand in the flow of history.  That being said, I could write at length about the positive aspects of being a part of a congregation-governed local church and of a loosely affiliated denomination that is not run from the top-down.  However, few things in life come without a cost or trade-off.  The local nature of our church, and the looseness of our affiliation as American Baptists does come with a negative aspect as well.  One of the primary negatives is that a local church can sink on its own without the denomination noticing right away, or if they do, without them having the resources/directive to step in and save it.  {Note: The American Baptist Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware, ABCOPAD, our region within the American Baptist Churches of the United States, has only 5 full time staff covering that large geographic region and 301 churches; a very small number compared to other denominations}  In addition to a lower level of direction/support from above, which is not an indictment of our regional staff, they're amazing, local American Baptist (and various other independent churches, baptist or otherwise) also have difficulty when it comes to supporting future ministers and missionaries in regards to their education, training, and placement.

I won't bother to go through the details of my own decade-long journey from college graduate to part-time youth pastor, to part-time teacher, to part-time pastor and part-time teacher, to full-time pastor; that sentence alone should convey that it wasn't a smooth journey.  As a baptist pastor raised in an independent church (Galilee Baptist in Saranac, MI does not belong to a denomination), I was entirely on my own regarding my call to the ministry, and having received a top-notch education at Cornerstone University, I was on my own trying to find work as a minister.  My experience may be worse than most, but only I would imagine in a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.  Being independent meant that I could take any job that appealed to me, which is great, but it also meant that I had to find and land that job on my own (not so great).  The path I've walked, and my wife Nicole along with me, has taught us powerful lessons in patience and humility, but it has not been an easy one, and hardly seems like the ideal scenario for someone called by God to minister to his people.

Going through a similar experience to my own, in some ways, are the newest missionaries supported by First Baptist of Franklin, Brian and Lynette Smith, of International Ministries (aka American Baptist Foreign Missions Society), who are currently crisscrossing the country raising support by visiting dozens of churches for their upcoming work in Haiti partnering with Haitian Baptist Convention.  In a less independent denomination, the Smiths would not be nearly as "on their own" regarding finding the financial support they need to go to Haiti as missionaries, nor would they be trying in the future to communicate with supporters from dozens of churches spread across the country in order to maintain that support.

Are there blessings associated with a great amount of freedom/independence as a minister/missionary/local church?  There are, but they like so much else in life, come at a cost.  I don't know who I would be as a man, a husband, and a minister had I not spent so much time "in the wilderness" awaiting the chance to put my call to the ministry more fully into action.  I know that part of my usefulness now stems from my experiences then, but I also know that it isn't wise for the Church to make things harder on those who are willing to serve, a difficult road to serving God full-time is a pressure that may usefully mold some, but crack others.

So, what is my response to all this?  I have no intention of leading my church away from ABCUSA, it is our heritage and our home, and our personality as a church has been shaped by our place within ABCOPAD.  Overall, I do believe that the positives of being a locally governed church outweigh the negatives, but it is necessary that we recognize the negatives (for all church/denominational structures have them) and do what we can to minimize their impact.  That being said, when someone from my congregation expresses an interest in the ministry, as a pastor or a missionary, you can be sure that I will be taking an active role in helping him/her find the path that the Lord is calling them to follow, they will have, at the least, my help in finding the way forward.

If you just finished reading this post, and are now thinking to yourself, "I'm glad my church/denomination doesn't have any negative trade-offs from its leadership structure", you missed the boat; time to step back and look objectively.