Sermon Video: Sing to the LORD - Psalm 98

Why do we sing in Church?  What is it about singing that connects so well to worship?  If you've not thought about these questions, perhaps you should, because as the writer of Psalm 98 makes clear, the people of God need to sing to the LORD.  Why?  Because God has done marvelous things.  In particular, God has made his salvation, his willingness to rescue humanity, known to us.  That effort began with Israel, but it spread to all nations.  The end result?  The people of God can sing (!) while standing before the judge of all the earth.  Amazingly, we will not stand before our righteous and holy judge with fear, but with gratitude and joy.  Why do we sing in Church?  Because our hearts are full of joy, for God has done wondrous things among us.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Where Mayor Pete Buttigieg's interpretation of Scripture goes awry.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine's Alex Morris, presidential candidate, and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg made a variety of comments from his own viewpoint regarding Christianity, faith, and morality.  (The Generous Gospel of Mayor Pete)  Whether one likes Mayor Buttigieg as a candidate or not, there is great import in understanding the way in which he views Scripture as it impacts his interpretation of the Word of God throughout.  From this point forward, I'll interact with the quotations from the article, the portions in italics are from Mayor Pete.

"Well, I think for a lot of us — certainly for me — any encounter with Scripture includes some process of sorting out what connects you with the God versus what simply tells you about the morals of the times when it was written, right? For example, the proposition that you should execute your sister by stoning if she commits adultery. I don’t believe that that was right once upon a time, and then the New Testament came and it was gone. I believe it was always wrong, but it was considered right once, and that found its way into Scripture."

Before delving into the nature of Scripture itself, this first quote contains a dangerous false dichotomy.  What connects us with God is NOT an either/or with the morality contained in Scripture.  What connects us with God is precisely the moral code contained within Scripture.  For it is by measuring our own lives against this standard that we see how woefully short we are apart from God's grace.  The moral code of the Mosaic Law, for example, is not what saves us, for we all would fail to uphold it (Paul's argument in Romans 3), but that code sets a foundation for our encounter with God.  When we, as finite flawed human beings, compare ourselves to the holiness and righteousness of our Creator, we will invariably fall short.  These are not just history lessons about ancient morality, for our amusement if nothing more, they are an indictment again human rebellion, a charge against human self-reliance that will draw those who take it seriously to repentance by assuring even the best among us that we cannot possibly stand before a Holy God without fear and trembling because of our failures to, "be Holy as I am Holy."  

Colossians 2:12-14 English Standard Version (ESV)

12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

The Law is not useless, to be set aside as a quaint reminder of our ancestors viewpoints, it is the legal charge against us that Christ has answered on our behalf.  Let us not dismiss as unnecessary the moral code which propelled Jesus to the Cross on our behalf.

What is Scripture?  How did it come to be, and what does it reflect, God, man, or both?  I myself have recently completed a discourse on the topic that you can watch here: What Every Christian Should Know About: The Bible  The viewpoint that is being put forward by Mayor Buttigieg is a common one, the idea that Scripture is a human creation that perhaps can lead us toward God, but certainly not a divine creation, as evidenced by the term Word of God.  The theological question in focus here is inspiration.  Did the authors of Scripture, nearly all Middle-Eastern Jewish men over a span of about 1,500 years, impart to us their cultural viewpoint or that of God? {Another false dichotomy, it assumes God cannot impart his Holy Word through a time-bound cultural viewpoint without it losing its timeless authority}  If inspiration is viewed simply akin to the talent of an exceptional artist, something rare but purely human, we would expect the Scriptures to be nothing more than a reflection of the culture in which they were written, including its flaws (from our point of view).  If, on the other hand, inspiration entails a communication from God, it will transcend the morality of the men who wrote it and instead reflect the character and nature of God.  That is not to say that God didn't utilize the cultural framework of the authors, including, for example, their cosmology (geocentric with the heavens beyond the firmament), or their understanding of human biology, for how else would a message from the divine be comprehensible to its original audience if it wasn't communicated to them within their own cultural framework?  In the same fashion, God worked with the limitations of his people, offering further fullness of his revelation as time went on (for example: stating clearly the marriage ideal in the beginning of Genesis but not rejecting the Patriarchs despite their tendency toward polygamy, and proclaiming monotheism despite Ancient Israel's ongoing flirtation with polytheism and idolatry).  These efforts of cultural condescension are evidence of the grace of God, not a comprise with the unchanging nature of God's righteousness and holiness.  Thus, while cultural factors are certainly readily apparent throughout the Scriptures, they do not equate with God saying, "Let us do evil that good may result"? (Romans 3:8).  The Scriptures do NOT advocate immorality.  Which brings me to Mayor Buttigieg's apparent understanding of the Mosaic Law.  Unless I'm misunderstanding his point, he believes that the Mosaic Law contains within it a number of evil commands and requirements that the people of the time (Ancient Israel) believed, erroneously, to be moral, when in fact they were always immoral, and thus did NOT reflect the nature/purpose of God.  Are there examples of God's people behaving immorally in Scripture?  Absolutely, the previously mentioned polygamy of the patriarchs is one example, the adultery of David is another, but in such cases the Scriptures are not commending the behavior (and in David's case he is explicitly condemned by God's prophet) only dealing with the flaws of God's messangers.  However, when Scripture declares, "thus says the LORD", and is clear that the viewpoint being represented is that of God, we cannot allow ourselves as a Church to open the Pandora's Box of saying, 'Well, that was just the Israelites (or Early Church), it wasn't God.'  If that door is opened, any and all things which an individual or a culture objects to can be tossed aside, even when Scripture is quoting God (including quoting Jesus in the Gospels) it can be easily dismissed as a human invention not a divine command.  We certainly do need to acknowledge the cultural element of Scripture, we certainly do need to view it as an ancient document written by people with that frame of mind, because if we don't we risk forcing modern interpretations onto the text (Eisegesis instead of proper Exegesis), but we cannot let a proper understanding of the divine/human nature of the text itself convince us to take the step advocated by Mayor Pete of treating the text as a primarily human product that we can sit in judgment over.

And to me that’s not so much cherry-picking as just being serious, because of course there’s so many things in Scripture that are inconsistent internally, and you’ve got to decide what sense to make of it. Jesus speaks so often in hyperbole and parable, in mysterious code, that in my experience, there’s simply no way that a literal understanding of Scripture can fit into the Bible that I find in my hands.

I think this helps explains where Mayor Pete's thinking went astray.  The issues of inspiration addressed above should not be intermixed with the issues of interpretation given here.  The Bible isn't to be taken "literally", no large body of speech or writing can possibly be taken "literally".  The reason is very simple, speech (and hence writing) is full of things like metaphors and hyperbole.  Our tendency to use such figurative language is one of the things that makes translation work difficult, because our idioms and figures of speech are culturally learned and often don't translate well, or at all, into a different language.  However, and this is very important, just because I agree (as do all Christians, even those who insist that they take the Bible 'literally' are not doing so in the poetic/figurative/metaphorical sections) that the Bible cannot be taken 'literally' does NOT mean that I am willing to jettison the need to take the teaching of the Bible authoritatively and seriously.  

I would be interested in learning what Mayor Pete's is talking about when he says, "there's so many things in Scripture that are inconsistent internally".  An inconsistent interpretive framework, especially one built upon faulty premises and techniques, will certainly yield a view of Scripture that is internally inconsistent.  The very existence of interpretive inconsistencies is a strong indication of a poor hermeneutic.  If you believe that the Scriptures are not the Word of God, but rather something much less, a collection of the words of men, one would expect to find inconsistencies, one would expect contradictions and incompatibilities.  The Scriptures themselves, though, are not to blame if people interpret them wrongly, to put the blame on the source material for failures of proper interpretation is egregious.  Because the interpretation that Mayor Peter, and many like-minded people, have arrived at does contain inconsistencies, the solution they have chosen is to arbitrarily declare the portions they agree with to be more important than the portions with which they disagree.  He doesn't think this is 'cherry-picking', but the end result is the same.

Now, I actually think that if you look at an issue like choice, there’s so many parts of the Bible that associate the beginning of life with breath that there’s plenty of scriptural basis to reach different conclusions about that. But only if you believe that the government must legislate these metaphysical questions does the debate about choice have to be about the government deciding where life begins.

Is is possible for Christians to be so skeptical of their own government that they fear the power of the government to be an arbiter or a question as important as when life begins.  That is not what is happening here.  Only a selective reading of Scripture could lend one to conclude that the Bible's stance on the beginning of life is a person's first breath.  We must contend with the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that conform with our desired result.   Below are just two examples that the Bible's viewpoint of life begins far earlier than birth.

Psalm 139:13-14 New International Version (NIV)

13 For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

Jeremiah 1:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Sermon Video: The LORD dwells in Zion - Joel 3

The finale of the message of the prophet Joel is upon God's ongoing concern for the people and land of Israel.  "In those days", in other words, during the End Times, God will administer his justice upon those who have chosen to mistreat the descendants of Abraham, a strong warning against the evil of Anti-Semitism.  At that time, Jesus will also reign from Jerusalem, as God once more dwells within the Holy City.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

The challenge of being salt and light - Matthew 5:13-16

Matthew 5:13-16 New International Version (NIV)
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

The Church is made up of people attempting to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  It is made up of people who have been called from a state of living in darkness, who have been introduced to the light of the Gospel (the Good News of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on their behalf), and who by the power of the Gospel (through the Holy Spirit) have been transformed in their hearts and minds.  It is the will of God that those people, set free from bondage to sin, but not yet fully transformed to Christ-likeness, should remain living upon the earth to act as the "salt and light" that Jesus commanded them to be.  This is where it gets difficult.  Exactly how these redeemed, but not yet fully sanctified, disciples of Jesus can remain pure (salt) and at the same time live and minister in a world that remains dark (where they are to be a light) does not have a one-size-fits-all answer.
One option that has been tried from time to time in Church history has been that of withdrawal from society.  Beginning in the Early Church with hermits who literally withdrew to lonely places to avoid much of human contact, or even the Stylites ("pillar-dwellers" primarily in Syria) who lived at the top of stone pillars, to the later development of Monasticism where those living withdrawn from society did so in a community of like-minded people.  Without downplaying the importance of the monastic system for preserving knowledge from the Fall of Rome until the Renaissance, none of these attempted solutions were full answers to the command of Jesus, for while they may have been helpful in preserving purity (saltiness) they were at best only partly effective in sharing the Gospel with the Lost (being light).  If you withdraw from society, you may cut down on its ability to influence you toward immorality, but how can you influence it toward righteousness.  The same holds true for interactions with individual people, much of our potential sin involves interacting with other people, and so avoiding people might lead to less sin, but at the same time, most of our potential for righteous deeds involves interactions with other people, and curtailing those interactions will decrease righteousness as well.
Because withdrawal can, at best, only be a half or partial measure, the heart of the matter is how Christians can remain on the path of increasing Christ-likeness, thus preserving their saltiness, while at the same time engaging with the culture and people among whom they live so that their light will shine in the darkness.  The first step for any individual Christian in his/her need to be both "salt" and "light" is for that individual to not attempt the task as merely an individual Christian.  Like the Apostles that Jesus called to be in a community with him, and the other men and women who followed his ministry, Christians of every era, no matter how hostile or cooperative the culture they live in, need to be a part of something more substantial and more stable than anything they can do on their own.  The community created by Jesus, specifically for that purpose, is the Church.
How then does the Church help individual Christians retain their "saltiness" and enable their "light" to shine?  The purity (moral character) of individual Christians is enhanced and strengthened when they interact regularly with each other in community worship, prayer, service, and mentoring relationships.  It is easier to accomplish a difficult task, and rejecting sinful impulses to embrace a servant's heart of righteous self-sacrifice certainly qualifies as a difficult task, when attempting that task as part of a team.  Having other Christians by your side, to serve as both examples of how victory is possible, and to correct us when we go astray, is a boon whose worth cannot be calculated.  In addition, our ability to be a light in our community, to witness to the truth of the Gospel, is also enhanced by our connection to the community of believers.  One candle shining in the darkness will draw attention, yet it is difficult for that one light to sufficiently illuminate the way for others, but dozens of people holding lit candles will function more as a lighthouse or beacon.  For example: When a Christian participates in a ministry of the local church to which he/she belongs, like volunteering at a food pantry that the church runs, he/she not only gains valuable character shaping experience, but also is participating in an outreach effort that demonstrates to the Lost the love of God for them reflected in the love of God's people for them.
We don't expect all of our interactions as a Christian to be connected to our Church, at work and with our family and friends we will often be apart from the support and group effort of that community, but having the local church as one of the most significant aspects of our lives will absolutely make it easier for us to continue to be "salt" and "light" in those instances as well.

How important is your church community in your life?

How important is it to you to be in church on Sunday, to worship, pray, learn, and serve with God's people?

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are commanded to be "salt" and "light", it is not optional, to accomplish that task you need to be a part of the community that Jesus created.

Sermon Video: "Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved" Joel 2:12-32

In the midst of a message of woe, the prophet Joel shares the desire of the LORD to relent and heal his people.  "Even now," the message begins, for it is not too late because God is "gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love," if the people will repent, God will forgive and save them.  This is the heart of the Gospel.  God is indeed a holy and righteous judge, and the great day of his wrath will one day come, but he also abounds in love and mercy and desires that all men would repent and be saved.  Why speak of judgment when offering a message of hope?  Because humanity's rebellion is a deep-seated condition, and most will not repent until they realize the extent of their danger and have given up trying to save themselves.  Hope remains, all those who call upon the name of the LORD, who hope in him, will be saved.

To watch the video, click on the link below: