Merged into the Mob

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No Standing

The argument may be made that John Glover Roberts Jr. is the most powerful man in America.

As the 17th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, when Roberts says no, even the current president reluctantly backs down. For that matter, lower court judges have blocked, delayed or nullified Mr. Trump’s initiatives over the last four years on any number of fronts.

Surprising, no?

Fake Piety

Fake piety is usually fairly transparent. Sadly, the fakely pious are the only ones who do not know it.

Christians sometimes caution one another to be careful what we confess, and this is not always a bad thing. A personal testimony full of interesting and semi-scandalous details can serve as a source of enticement to those who have little life experience, whose parents have sheltered them from the evils in the world.

Anonymous Asks (107)

“What does the Bible say about capital punishment?”

The law of God received by Moses at Sinai gave instructions to the leaders of Israel concerning the conduct of Israelites and the foreigners who chose to travel and live alongside them. The penalties for religious and criminal violations of the Law were identical for both nationals and foreigners.

Your Church Building is NOT the House of God

I’m hearing it all the time now in public prayer: “We thank you, Father that we are able to freely gather in the house of God” and other similar thoughts, where the words “house of God” are unquestionably being used to describe the building in which we are sitting.

A similar misconception is given voice by people who insist upon referring to the auditorium in which a church meets as a “sanctuary”, as in (from mother to child), “Don’t run in the sanctuary! Don’t make noise in the sanctuary!”

These are not new Christians. It makes me wonder if they really know what the house of God is or what the term sanctuary means. I think in many cases they do, but have through inattention lapsed into language that is potentially misleading.

Time and Chance (50)

Almost a year ago we started this weekly study in Ecclesiastes, and here we are in the penultimate chapter. I have been poking along a verse or two at a time, because it seems to me that this 3,000 year old treatise on the meaning of life deserves our concentrated attention and rarely gets it.

Hey, Christians and unbelievers alike quote from Ecclesiastes all the time. There’s some great stuff in there for funerals. But when was the last time you heard even a single sermon on the book, let alone a series? I can remember maybe two in my entire life.

Too Hot to Handle: Which Beer Do Christians Drink?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Everybody’s favorite political football Bristol Palin has written a column on the subject of the Guinness Beer Company and its Christian origins.

Tom: This is not the first time I’ve come across this story, Immanuel Can. In another generation, a Christian brewer turns out to have been the voice of moderation and societal self control. But in some evangelical circles today, Arthur Guinness would be taken to task for corrupting the faithful. I mean, he sold alcohol for a living!

Is there a less cartoonish and more biblical position to be taken on the subject of alcohol consumption, IC?

Who’s Holding the Scales?

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Resetting our Defaults

If only it were as simple as pushing three keys ...

What does your church do on Sunday mornings?

I’ve been thinking about platform ministry. Each church has its own default set of practices observed week after week (with the exception of churches that meet in living rooms and basements and don’t have platforms) and, other than in the case of brand new churches, the choices that go into how teaching and preaching get presented are rarely conscious ones. They are more often the result of time, tradition and imitation of formats perceived to be successful in other churches.

So I’ve been questioning a few of our defaults.

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Alan Shlemon at Stand to Reason has written a thought-provoking piece called “How 2020 Is Taking a Toll on Your Soul” about the effects of the internet in the last five months on society in general and Christians in particular. To nobody’s surprise, in COVID lockdown we have been spending record amounts of time online. In the UK, the highest percentage increase in time spent online is among those over the age of 54.

As a result, I’ve felt it and I’m sure you have too: that indefinable malaise and “inordinate pressure to say the right thing”. Shlemon argues it’s partly a consequence of the false sense of omnipresence and omniscience social media inspires.

Anonymous Asks (106)

“How can Christians say their religion is the only true one?”

Over fifty years ago, a Muslim who happened to hear my father preaching asked him a question very much like this one. After listening to Dad for a time, he inquired, “Are you actually telling us that Jesus is the only way to God?”

Ouch.

In a Bit of a Bind

My father was in a bit of a bind in that he was at the time a guest in a foreign country. His ability to continue freely preaching and teaching there depended to a certain extent on not rocking the boat unnecessarily. However, this was one of those questions that cannot be evaded, ignored or put off to a more convenient time when there might be fewer witnesses or a less potentially hostile environment. Faithfulness to his Master demanded a straightforward answer, and Dad gave one.

Acknowledging the Obvious

Why do we give God glory?

It’s a good question. I was introduced to the Christian faith as a small child, so the notion of people gathering together to sing praises to God, to raise their hands in the air, to pray fervently to someone they could not see, and say complimentary things about him to one another did not seem weird to me at all. It was what I was used to, and when I was old enough to know how to imitate what these folks were doing, I joined in too, even though at that point I had no personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It was expected, so we did it.

Time and Chance (49)

Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon

It is said that every virtue carried to extremes becomes a vice, which is probably true. Every good thing indulged in to excess does much the same.

The previous few verses of Ecclesiastes 10 contrast a kingdom run by self-indulgent drunks and gluttons with a kingdom administered by wise, self-controlled princes and officials who know the proper place for leisure and pleasure in their own lives. Obviously the citizens of the second kingdom will have a better time of it than those of the first. The Preacher then comments that attending to only your own desires rather than the objective needs around you will end in disaster.

Too Hot to Handle: Religious Scrupulosity

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Fake News

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Two Psalms

The Psalms are not only richly poetic but deeply personal. That may be one reason so many Christians relate to them on an emotional level. When saying goodbye even temporarily to someone we love, the natural instinct is to reach for a psalm. Psalms touch our hearts in ways much of the rest of God’s word may not.

Let me be very honest about that: I suspect much of the time the Psalms touch us so powerfully because we don’t really understand what they are about to any great extent. Figures of speech will do that; they universalize thoughts that may actually be quite specific. So we feel free to grab bits and pieces of the Psalms here and there to apply to our own experience without worrying too much whether we are violating some principle of exegesis.

They just feel right, and so we are at home with them. Even if at one level they are not really ours.

Knowing Our Limitations

A few days ago we ran a post about the will of God and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process of researching what God’s will meant to the Lord Jesus and his apostles, I came across a verse that initially perplexed me, then later seemed to provide some interesting insights into the subject. I did not bother to mention it in the COVID post because it was one of those theological rabbit trails, heading off through the forest from where we were at the time to somewhere entirely different. But the questions raised by the verse certainly merit a full post’s worth of consideration, and then some.

I’ve been mulling it over ever since, so let’s lay out the problem that occurred to me and see where it takes us ... carefully, of course.

Anonymous Asks (105)

“What are the differences between a pastor, a priest and a preacher?”

If I were to discuss all the different ways some of these words have been used throughout history and all the ways they each are misused throughout Christendom, this might turn into a five-parter. So let’s keep it simple and just try to highlight what the Bible teaches about each as they exist in the church today.

Now It’s Personal

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Time and Chance (48)

Many years ago I had an older Scottish boss. Unstereotypically for a Scot with an accent so thick you could make peaks in it with a spatula, he had no problem with his staff reading a book, chatting, or idling away our shifts — but only under one condition: all the work in the shop must be finished and out the door first. If our salespeople failed to keep us busy, that was their problem. If we failed to deliver their work on time, it was ours.

So play by all means, but play after you work.