Who do you relate to in the Easter story?

Each person in the story reacts to the story in a different way and we often relate to one or more of these people and the way they respond to the circumstances they faced 2000 years ago. The cast is large and the responses are varied.

The disciples as usual don’t represent a single unified front to the situation. Nine of them when push came to shove simply melted away in fear and concern for themselves rather for their teacher and his teachings.

The youngest disciple had connections and was able to get into the court to follow the events as they unfolded. Ultimately he was there at the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ; the only one of his 12 apostles who remained true to the end of his master’s earthly life.

The leader of the disciples tried to defend Jesus but had poor defensive skills and ended up denying out of fear for his own life, not just once but three times before he realized what he had done and fled in disgrace

One chose to betray his leader. Perhaps he became disillusioned by the Jesus because he expected a different kind of leader then Jesus ended up being. Many people were looking for someone who would answer all of their political problems and Jesus didn’t fit into any know political party of his time. Some looked of a military leader who would solve their problems by force but Jesus spoke and taught spiritual peace. Perhaps Judas was just an opportunist and got a better offer from the priests.

The priests were enemies of Jesus for he threatened not only their political power but just as important they spiritual authority. While these alone were reason enough to cause their hatred of Jesus it was the fact that he challenged their very core religious beliefs and understanding of who they were (the chosen people of God) pushed them over the edge.

Mayhap it is the crowd who you relate to. Crowds are unique and can take on characteristics all their own. People in a crowd will do and say things that they will never dream of doing individually. It has been pointed out that the crowd in Jerusalem was rather fickle; first by trying to declare him King and a week later being swayed to demand his death by crucifixion. They accept the guilt of innocent blood not only on themselves but also their descendants.

For political expediency Pilate tries to placate the popular political agenda. And he believes that he can wash his hands of innocent blood, as though by wishing it so he can free himself of his responsibility and guilt.

Now the Roman soldiers were considered the best soldiers in the world. They also were skilled practitioners of torture. For them crucifixion was a normal punishment for anyone who rebelled against Rome. As for the beating of Jesus, well first century punishments were brutal. After all these men were “just obeying orders” even if it was an unfair verdict and false justice.

The Centurion was a man who followed his orders and yet in the end recognized who Jesus was and proclaimed him the Son of God.

The thieves on the cross also reacted to Jesus that day. One thief rejected him and cursed him while on the cross. The other recognized who Jesus was and chose to believe in him and his kingdom. That very day the repentant thief experienced the Kingdom in the presence of the King.

The women at the cross followed their King all the way to his death. Faithful from the start until the end these women not only believed in Jesus and his message they supported this itinerant teacher regardless of his popularity and poverty.

A final person in this drama is that of Jesus, himself. He experienced betrayal at the hand of a close friend, forsaken by his closest friends. He didn’t like his immediate future but chose to be obedient even though it meant separation from His Father, death. He chose to die for your sins, failures and mistakes as well as mine even when we were enemies in rebellion to him and His Father. He chose to express His love in the most incredible way by dying in our stead.

So who are you like? What person best portrays your personal response to Jesus this Easter? Unfortunately I find that at times I find a mixture of all of these characters in my response to Jesus and his death.

But thank God, He raised Jesus on the third day! And by trusting in him and his finished work we are raised with him!

He is risen – He is risen indeed!

Happy Easter!

Pastor Val

Correctly Handling the Word of Truth

I was disappointed today by a favorite author. I have enjoyed this man’s writing and teaching for years. Perhaps I identified with him because he has challenged the old guard in some of their outdated ideas of what constitutes appropriate Christian behavior. Perhaps because he brought a fresh understanding to Scripture passages.

But to day I found a glaring flaw in his writing and I have to say that it pointed out several important truths that I have learned over the years. The most important is that all leaders are flawed and are sinners. As such they all have weaknesses and sins that they struggle with. Being tempted to ignore these flaws has been the ruin of many leaders and their flocks.

As a leader of God’s flock we are commanded to correctly explain God’s word to those who have been entrusted in our care. Woe to the pastor who wrongly teaches their flock incorrectly.

It is tempting to interpret passages through the lenses of our own pet system or our hobby horse. But our job is to correctly handle the Word of Truth.

¹⁵ Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV)

This means that we can’t take verses out of context, neither can we chose to misrepresent the original language words to suit to “prove” a point. We need to carefully look at the text and correctly exegete the passage. At times this will mean that we will have to change our views on a particular subject rather then do harm to the text or the context.

I’ve had to do that over the years – change my views on a particular subject (or even two). You see that is correctly handling the Bible. It’s called being conformed to His image and transformed by the renewing of our minds. To put it more simply it is living in obedience.

I’m sure that you are wondering what I was reading and what did I find wrong with it. Well let’s just say that isn’t the issue of this blog. There have been plenty of people banging on this guy over his book, some for good reasons and some for wrong reasons.

The more important issue is that we need to be careful with choosing teachers who are honest with the Word of God and for those of us who teach we must be honest with our flock, with ourselves, our study and our God.

With fear and trembling

Pastor Val

Who’s Your Donkey?

We have all heard of how easy misunderstanding can happen in cross cultural events. Sometimes gestures can mean one thing in one country and entirely different in another (sometimes very embarrassing differences!)

This past fall I got to experience a new culture as I traveled to India to teach in a pastor’s training school. I got to experience what I can best be describe as the “Indian head wobble.” Now in America a head wobble means either uncertainty or a response of “so-so” but in India it means OK, yes or I understand.

While I had heard of it prior to the trip I experienced it first hand while going through a variety of security check points. Imagine my uncertainty as an Indian solider looked over my visa and passport and gave me a non verbal response of a “wobble.” I stood petrified like a Medusian statue uncertain if I should move to the next line or not.

During the class session imagine my concerns when asking if they understood a concept and received dozens of “wobbles!”

Now imagine my further chagrin when following a Q&A session I learned that I had blown off a question because I misunderstood the significance of the implications in the Indian culture!

I was asked the meaning of the donkey in the triumphal entry story in Luke and had answered that sometimes a donkey was just a donkey. (How Freudian of me!) You see in India animals are held in different esteem then in the United States. During a break my translator explained some of the significance to me and I insisted that at the beginning of the next session I apology to the class and ask my translator & good friend Naveem (pictured with me) to address the question.

You see even thought the caste situation in India is changing many people groups still feel the effects of being considered inferior. The donkey was a beast of burden that needed to be released and brought to Jesus. In India there are many people who are considered little more than beasts of burden that need to be released by someone and brought to Jesus. These believers were being challenged to seek out those who were still in bondage to the old ways and release them from their burdens and bring them to Jesus.

That day in class Naveem asked them “who is your donkey?” Who is it that Jesus needs you to go and in Jesus’ name release from their bondage and bring them to Jesus?

This Palm Sunday that’s my question to each of us – “Who’s your donkey?”

Have a great and awesome Triumphal Sunday!

Pastor Val

Love Wins: But Does The Book?

There has been a hue and cry over a new book by Rob Bell – Love Wins. In the book it appears that Rob takes an almost universalistic approach to the issues of evil, punishment and Hell (a theological position that holds that ultimately everyone goes to heaven and that hell is empty). The book has climbed to third on the Amazon best selling list this week largely due to the uproar among evangelicals.

I have stayed away from the controversy until now because I have not read the book and unlike a number of leading theologically reformed pastors I don’t think I should address a book that I haven’t read. BTW it appears that at least part of the problem is that Rob is perhaps more of an Arminian then a Calvinist in his views.

What I can address is the swirl of issues that are related to the book that includes marketing, pastoring, the emerging church and theology.

First regarding marketing I can’t think of a better way to generate sales then to create controversy. Regardless of claims of innocence to this charge Rob Bell is a very smart guy. There is no way that he couldn’t know that the press releases; excerpts of the book and video clips to say nothing of the subject would cause controversy. My hat is off to his publisher for a great marketing campaign! Rob will be making a lot of money from the book sales!

But this brings me to my second concern, pastoring. As a pastor we are supposed to keep an eye on the unity of the body and care for the body. I don’t see a lot of that (from either side) in this fiasco. Part of this is due to the third issue I have the emerging church and their use of deconstructionism in Bible study. I have no problem with this as a way of getting to the truth but I think we need to arrive at the truth from time to time. And not just ask questions or create controversy a la Brian McLaren.

I sat in unbelief watching a youtube video of Rob Bell being interviewed on MSNBC and had to shake my head over Rob’s lack of concrete answers, but not surprised at his approach. A number of years ago I had the opportunity of being at a symposium where McLaren was speaking and where a Q&A session was set up after his talk. The discussion was lively and the natives were riled up but McLaren never actually engaged them or answered any of their questions. After the meeting I commented to people around me that getting Brian to take a position was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall! It appears that Rob Bell is cut from the same cloth, as are many emerging church leaders.

I applaud the questions; in fact I have had many of the same ones myself. But sometimes that answers are available. It’s just that we often don’t like the answers! Yes, some questions are unknowable or are paradoxes or even conundrums. We shouldn’t ignore these subjects. God wants us to wrestle with them and from time to time we even find answers or at least partial answers.

And this brings me to my final issue, theology. A scholar once defined theology as establishing the extremes and searching for the middle. What constitutes orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy over the centuries has caused great debate. Defining who Jesus is and what he is made up of (two distinct natures both God and human) took centuries and several ecclesiastical councils to come to a majority decision on.

Reformed theology or Calvinism did not evolve until the 16^th Century and Arminianism was a response to the excesses of Calvinism (although many of the theological thoughts had been a part of orthodox Christianity from the 1^st Century).

Even the idea of Universalism has roots in the church back to the Middle Ages. The idea of the ability to escape hell was known as purgatory in the Roman Catholic Church. As an evangelical I reject this teaching but I still believe that many Roman Catholics will be in Heaven with me if their faith is in the finished work of Christ (I just believe that they will go directly to heaven).

Is theology important? Absolutely! And with this controversy we are witnessing some of the reasons why! Your theology gives you a grid work for answering life’s questions and for understanding how to approach God. Does God allow us to question him? You bet ya! Just read the book of Psalms or even the book of Job. God is fine with our questions but just remember that He might have some questions for you, too!

Is this an issue that needs to be debated and discussed? I think it is appropriate, but to carry on a “discussion” via social media or even traditional media is childish. Further the topic is too large and too important to be chopped up into sound bites.

I look forward to reading Rob Bell’s book but I’m not sure that I will discover any answers in it. He seems to be long on questions but woefully short on answers. Answers are to be found in Christ and in His Word. Allowing the Bible to interpret the Bible is always a great place to start!

Pastor Val

Catch and Release

If reality TV had been around back in the first century they would have filmed The Most Dangerous Catch on location at Lake Galilee. Fishermen went out in very small boats on one of the most dangerous lakes of the world. The Sea of Galilee was infamous for fast and furious storms that would whip down from and through the surrounding mountains onto the sea and create incredibly dangerous storms with little warning. This is the location of much of Jesus teaching and where he found a number of his early disciples. When Jesus trained his disciples he chose men from a variety of occupations. Perhaps one of the best-known occupations was a fisherman.

It was by the lakeside that Jesus called at least four of his twelve Disciples. Andrew and his brother Peter as well as James and his brother John were successful fishing captains who upon the invitation of Jesus became close followers of Jesus. It was here that Jesus told them that he would not change their occupation as much as he would redirect their choice of catch from fish to men.

Matthew 4:18-21 (NIV)
¹⁸ As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
¹⁹ "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."
²⁰ At once they left their nets and followed him.
²¹ Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them,

I got to thinking about what usually happens after a catch is landed. Usually it is taken to a market place where it is sold and eventually eaten. But not so when the catch is men, especially when we are dealing with Jesus fishing fleet.

You see Jesus could be considered the very first conservationist because he taught and practiced a “catch and release” program. The goal of Jesus fishermen was to catch men train them to be fishers of men and then release them back into the sea so that they in turn can catch others and continue the process of bringing people into the Kingdom.

It’s kind of a shame that so many of us are so poor at fishing today. Our catch at times is very thin. Perhaps we consider the catch and release process to more of a recreational activity that we can choose whether to participate in or not rather then a responsibility. Maybe we don’t understand the tools necessary to fish although there are any number of actable ways of fishing. But I think the main problem is that we are failing to even fish at all.

So let’s get busy fishing, after all the rewards are eternal!

Pastor Val

Thinking Inside the Box

Like me, many of you have been challenged to think outside the box and there are good reasons to consider things that are not the norm. Someone once said that a rut is a grave with the ends removed. Being in a box can make us feel trapped or imprisoned. But we all have been exposed to new thinking and new ways of doing things that have proved disconcerting at the time and yet have become a part of our daily lives.

Rotary phones gave way to push button phones to cordless and finally wireless phones. Wireless phones are becoming smart phones and smart phones that connect to the web and can do as much as a personal computers. But with each change has come a learning curve. (Think programming VCRs to record or the complexity of home entertainment centers where you have multiple sources of input for your TV etc.) So there are good things that come with being outside of the box. Technology can be one of the things where by we gain positive things and unfortunately negative things as well. Think of how the Internet can be an awesome tool for learning or a scourge for people fighting the addiction of pornography.

In my teaching I encourage people to be willing to step out of their box (think comfort zone) and be willing to accept the fact that God’s box is much bigger then the box conservative worshipers usually confine themselves to. This is still true but is it also possible that there are times when he wants us to stay in our box or more specifically in the box of God’s choosing (think will)? Is it possible that there is a possibility where sticking with the status quo is not only appropriate but also right? For both conservative and progressive followers of Christ I believe the answer is YES!

When we decide that God’s boundaries are too confining and we feel smothered by his rules we often long for freedom. We forget or perhaps have never learned that with love comes restraints and true freedom is confining (in a good way!). Think of a train. A train is designed to run on a track as long as it stays within its purpose it is free to travel as far and as fast as it can. It can travel to many different destinations. But take the same train and allow it to have a mind of its own and further let it decide to take a different path then the tracks laid down for it and we call the results a train wreck. The train can’t travel too far without tracks underneath it. A train that has jumped the tracks is considered to have been derailed and unable to reach its planned destination.

³² I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

Psalms 119:32 (NIV)

We are never more free than when we are doing exactly what we were designed to do!

If we were to take a look at the history of the nation of Israel we would see that again and again they rebelled against the track, the path that God had laid out for them and the result was never a happy experience. Read through the Old Testament book of Judges and you will read of a cycle of rebellion and derailment of a people followed by redemption and a time of peace and prosperity.

They would forget their God. As a result of their living outside of God’s box (think will) God allowed their enemies to rise up and subjugate the nation until they returned to the paths of God and than he would bring a champion to lead them to victory and peace for a generation or so until they one again chose to again think outside of the box. Check out Psalm 78 or Psalm 106 for recount of a nation of people who thought outside of the box only to eventually scamper back into the safety and comfort of the box.

Are we commanded to consider new approaches to proclaim an unchanging message by expanding our box to God’s box? YES!

Are we commanded to obey God’s commands and live within God’s box? YES!

So here’s to the tension of living both in and out of the box!

Pastor Val

Happily Ever After

Most of us here in America grew up with fairy tales that started with “Once upon a time” and end with “and they lived happily ever after!” As kids we were sold on idolizing this concept of finding the perfect person, falling in love with them, they would complete our lives and we would be happy forever.

Hollywood has made a fortune developing this model. This time of year there are always lots of new movies that portray life as a fairy tail. You know girl meets guy who is discovered to be the perfect match and after a tortuous journey end up with each other and they live … (You know the rest) BTW You can substitute the girl with a guy who meets a girl, etc. And while it makes for great entertainment (especially for many gals) in the end it’s still just a fairy tale. The problem is that we have begun to believe the dream is reality.

Most couples who have been together for any length of time know that reality rarely lives up to the fantasy. In fact many people go through life constantly being disappointed with the relationships that they develop. None of these relationships live up to the Hollywood myth. In fact the last step in the “ever after” scenario is that if first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

If reality doesn’t live up to the hype, what should relationship reality really look like? Well God’s plan for relationships is exactly the same as fantasy only different! God’s plan begins with becoming the person God wants you to be. Too often we want the other person to complete us when in reality it’s God who changes us into the person that we should be. We begin this process by walking in His love. This love is unselfish and seeks to put others first, starting with God.

The next step is to fix all of our hope on God. Too often we expect someone to fix all of our problems when in reality no one other then God and ever fix us. God wants us to allow Him to change us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. The final step in this relationship prescription is that if and when failure occurs, repeat the process again!

So for those of you who are single and looking for a relationship – please realize that God loves you and wants to be the one that loves you and the one who can be everything you will ever need. And for those of you who are in a relationship, only God will never fail you. No one else is perfect. He is the only one who will truly complete you. Only He can fill the vacuum in your soul.

So this Valentine’s Day remember that the only way you can live happily ever after is to live it God’s way!

Love

Pastor Val