Archive for the 'faith' Category

Baptism: Through the Water Into New Life

Published
by
Mike
on August 12, 2006
in Books and faith
. 15 Comments

From N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense:

That is why, from very early on, Christian baptism was seen as the mode of entry into the Christian family, and why it was associated with the idea of being “born again.” Of course, not everyone who has been through water-baptism has actually known and experienced for themselves the saving love of God in Christ sweeping through and transforming their lives. At various points Paul has to remind his readers that they have a responsibility to make real in their own lives the truth of what happened to them in baptism. But he doesn’t say that baptism doesn’t matter, or that it isn’t real. People who have been baptized can choose to reject the faith, just as the children of Israel could rebel against YHWH after having come through the Red Sea. Paul makes that point in 1 Corinthians 10 and elsewhere. But they can’t get unbaptized: God will regard them as disobedient family members rather than outsiders.
. . . The point is that the story which baptism tells is God’s own story, from creation and covenant to new covenant and new creation, with Jesus in the middle of it and the Spirit brooding over it. In baptism, you are brought into that story, to be an actor in the play which God is writing and producing. And once you’re onstage, you’re part of the action. You can get the lines wrong. You can do your best to spoil the play. But the story is moving forward, and it would be far better to understand where it’s going and how to learn your lines and join in the drama. Through the water to become part of God’s purpose for the the world.

The Cross and the Sword

Published
by
Mike
on August 3, 2006
in Books, Salt and Light, faith and politics
. 67 Comments

Even though my beliefs are orthodox (and somewhat conservative, if defined properly), I find myself less and less comfortable with the Evangelical world. In America this has come to mean one way to vote, one nation to defend. It tends to see all truth as CLEAR and OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain. It shuns doubt, mystery, and nuance.

Maybe others will find this article from the NY Times stimulating.

It begins:

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

For more, follow the link.

- - - -

Who is Agnieszka Tennant — and will we get to read more from her? Her article entitled “What (Not All) Women Want” in the current issue of Christianity Today is phenomenal. (I can’t find it online to provide a link.)

She responds to the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Here are a few of her words:

The gist of Captivating is this: “Every woman longs for three things: to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to be the Beauty of the story.” I used to want such things — when I was a girl who didn’t understand how her womanizing father messed up her heart and when I fed my imagination with soft heart-porn like Pretty Woman. But doesn’t there come a time when we must grow out of the kind of self-regard that was cute when we were girls?

What do I long for? To trust God always, no matter what happens. That’s my trembling prayer.

And this: To figure out why, in a country as filled with devout churchgoers as my motherland, Poland, corruption is much more prominent and insidious than in the reputed atheistic countries of Europe. That’s why I’m going to grad school this fall. I want to do my little part to fight a battle against corruption. It will be an adventure. (But wait: Does this kind of talk make me sound like a man, since “in the heart of every man is a deserate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue” — and since intellectual curiosity doesn’t seem to mark a truly Captivating woman?)

I may not be an Eldredge kind of lady, but I know beauty when I see it. And the most regrettable failure of Captivating is its tame idea of beauty. “Beauty is core to a woman — who she is and what she longs to be,” Stasi Eldredge writes. “Beauty is what the world longs to experience from a woman.” She gives examples: “Pioneer women brought china teacups into the wilderness, and I bring a pretty tablecloth to eat on when my family camps. We wear perfume, paint our toenails, color our hair, and pierce our ears, all in an effort to be ever more beautiful.” Sure. But there’s so much more.

Beauty draws blood to the heart and speeds up the pulse; sometimes it evokes repentance. I wish more Christians were comfortable with its pull. Too often, beauty raptures us so forcibly that we fear it will lead to temptation. So we avert our eyes. What if we turned our ecstasy into worship? . . .

True beauty is precarious, unbound.

It cannot be confined to pre-approved tastes or to one gender. It is wild at heart. Like Christ. And like the complicated men and women who follow him . . . .

Last Day in My Forties

Published
by
Mike
on July 24, 2006
in Baseball and faith
. 20 Comments

I remember my 30th so well — friends in Searcy gathered at our house in Searcy. And I have great memories of my 40th — family and friends who snuck into Abilene for a special evening at Highland.

So today is my last day of my forties.

Will I be wiser tomorrow? I always figured that I’d be a wiser person by now than I am.

Here are some things that I look for in my fifties:

I want to be a person who learns more the meaning of resting in God’s presence — especially in prayer.

I want to continue exploring scripture’s witness to the gospel — and the gospel’s claims on the people of God and on our world.

I want to keep loving one woman really well.

I want to nurture my children (two sons and a daughter-in-law).

I want to write.

I want to keep my body in shape, even as gravity and time battle against me.

I want to remain connected with friends.

I want to enjoy something in almost every day so that when my fifties end I won’t wonder where they went.

Those are lofty goals, I realize. Mostly today I just want to beat the junior league all-star team from Eagle Pass, TX!

- - - -

All right, so the trip to Waco hasn’t been perfect. The first game didn’t exactly go as we’d planned, losing 15-1. (There, I’ve said it.)

But there have been some great moments.

This tournament is run first-class. People who like kids and baseball running everything — from the tournament director to the people selling water. And the umps? They’re volunteer. Yes, v-o-l-u-n-t-e-e-r. I just talked to one of them at the hotel breakfast nook and he said it costs him about $350 to come call these games.

Also, this morning my bike and I went on the Tour de Waco. This is a city with lots of beauty! The tour included a roll through Baylor, which I’d never really seen before. What an incredible campus. I was inspired by riding around the George Truett Theological Seminary and reading about his life. And I loved that the most amazing building was the science building. There’s some kind of statement there, isn’t there? We aren’t afraid of the sciences. We aren’t afraid, because God is the creator of all that is — even if we don’t comprehend all his ways.

The best part was that yesterday we passed by Church Under the Bridge. (See www.churchunderthebridge.org.) I’d read about this church that was started by some Baylor students, but it was so inspiring to go by and see all the people meeting there under I-35.

Isolated or Identical?

Published
by
Mike
on July 14, 2006
in Salt and Light and faith
. 46 Comments

We are called, as followers of the incarnational Jesus, to be in the world but not of the world.

When talking about being salt and light in the world, I sometimes ask my freshman Bible class which they think is the greater temptation for the church today:

To fail to be “in the world”

or

To be “of the world”?

Is the greater danger today becoming identical with the world or being isolated from the world?

What do you think?

The Kingdom of God

Published
by
Mike
on June 29, 2006
in faith and scripture
. 32 Comments

The primary message of Jesus of Nazareth was the kingdom of God. It lies right at the heart of what his life and his message were about, according to the gospels. As his public ministry was launched he said, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Many of the stories he told were introduced with these words: “The kingdom of God is like . . . .”

Those words undoubtedly got the attention of his listeners. Most of the Jewish sects were eagerly awaiting the kingdom of God, though they were conceiving of it in very different ways. They anticipated the day when God would break in, defeat the hated Romans, and restore the land to his people.

The framework for this teaching goes back to the Old Testament, of course. There we learn that God is the King of the universe.

For the Lord Most High is awesome,
the great King over all the earth. . . .
God is the King of all the earth;
sing to him a psalm of praise.
(Psalm 47:2, 7)

For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
(Psalm 95:3-6)

The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.
(Psalm 103:19)

This God who created everything is the King of kings. No wonder so many of the prophetic visions anticipate a day when his rule will extend throughout the world. (See, e.g., Isaiah 11:6-9; Micah 4:1-4; Isaiah 65:17-25; and Daniel 7:13-14.)

What hope! A day is coming when the wolf and lamb will feed together, when infants will not die, when weeping and crying will be heard no more. The Shalom of God in its fulness!

Then John the Baptist comes announcing the nearness of the kingdom (Matthew 3:2 - “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”). And Jesus builds his teaching around that conviction.

The kingdom, we learn, isn’t what many of the Jews thought. It isn’t a political kingdom (John 18:36). Rather, it is the dynamic presence of God in Jesus Christ. “Kingdom” refers to the rule of God, to his sovereign reign in this world.

And in Jesus this kingdom was (is) present. He healed the sick, saved the lost, gave sight to the blind, and invited the poor. The reign of God was breaking in. The future had arrived to reverse the curse and to set the world right as God had intended it through the life and ministry of Jesus.

His stories and teaching pointed to a very different kind of kingdom than most of the Jews expected — a kingdom that was inverted, where the poor are blessed, the sinners are received, the dead are made alive, and the last will be first.

They shouldn’t look for armies and thrones and political borders, he told them. “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:21).

He came reversing the curse and taking the world back to the way God intended in creation. That’s the kingdom, or rule of God. So he taught his disciples to live with the perspective of the kingdom. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is: living in light of the inbreaking reign of God. Living in harmony with God and with others and with the world God created and blessed.

He taught them (and us) to pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s been widely recognized that these are parallel requests. He’s praying for the kingdom to come — or in other words, for God’s will to be done in this realm called earth just as it is in God’s realm called heaven. We’re praying for the rule of God to come more and more and, in essence, we’re reporting for duty to be a part of this. We’re offering our lives in confession, repentence, faith, and mission.

Some have thought we should no longer pray the Lord’s Prayer because the church has been established. But to reduce the dynamic concept of kingdom to the church is a serious mistake. The church enters the kingdom of God; the church receives the kingdom of God; and the church announces the kingdom of God. But the church doesn’t exhaust the kingdom of God! So we continue praying as Jesus taught us for the kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. As long as there is evidence of the curse, as long as the wolf and lamb aren’t feeding together, as long as infants are still dying, as long as there is weeping and crying, as long as there is war, as long as there is hatred, bitterness, and resentment — it’s still safe to pray this prayer.

The future reign of God has broken in through the presence of Jesus. And yet . . . it hasn’t arrived in its fullness. We are living “between the times” — between the incarnation/death/resurrection of Jesus and the coming consummation that we await.

Paul’s writings carry that important tension concerning the rule of God. Sometimes when he refers to the kingdom he’s talking about a present reality (Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 4:20), while at other times he’s referring to a future hope (1 Thessalonians 2:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; 1 Corinthians 15:24, 50).

Meanwhile, we continue to yield our lives to the reign of God. We seek to be used by him as lights in the world. We wait, hope, long, groan, pray, and work. We keep one eye on the task before us, knowing that the reign of God is present in Jesus Christ, and we keep one eye peeled for the future act of God when the dead will be raised, all tears will be wiped away, and God himself will be in our midst (Revelation 21-22).

Finally, these words from William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas’s book Lord Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer & the Christian Life:

The kingdom of God that is coming, here, not here, present, not fully present, is a banquet, a great party thrown for outsiders who, before Jesus, had no place in the promises of God to Israel. By an amazing act of generosity, Jesus has made possible a party to which even Gentiles like us have been invited. The kingdom of God is a party to which all of the good people refused the invitation so the host went out and invited all of the bad people. The kingdom of God is a party for a bunch of people with whom we wouldn’t be caught dead spending a Saturday night, had we not also been invited.

This is one of the reasons why being in the church can be a real pain, considering the sort of reprobates Jesus has invited to the party, the party that is called kingdom of God.

We are able to live hopefully in a fallen-yet-being-redeemed world because of the One who has taught us to pray “this way.” As Christians, to us has been given the grace to know that we live between the times, having seen the fullness of God in Jesus Christ, yet also knowing that all the world is not yet fulfilled as God’s world. That tension, stretched as we are between what is ours now in Christ and that which is yet promised, is our role as God’s people. We, you and I, are living, breathing evidence that God has not abandoned the world. We are able continually and fervently to pray that God’s kingdom come because we know that God’s will has been done. We are able to be honest about all the ways in which this world is not the kingdom of God in its fullness and to hope for more because we know that God’s will has yet to be done, God’s kingdom has yet to come. We are able to live without despair in the world’s present situation because, even in us, God has claimed a bit of enemy territory, has wrestled something from the forces of evil and death. That reclaimed, renovated territory is us.

The Appalachian Trail

Published
by
Mike
on June 24, 2006
in faith, sports and travel
. 33 Comments

Yesterday we went on two hikes in New Hampshire. Both were on the Appalachian Trail. A part of me wishes I could do it — take a few months off and go from Georgia to Maine. But would it still be fun after that first month? Would the twenty miles a day — sometimes with heat and sometimes with bugs — get old? I like the idea of doing it a week or two at a time over many years.

Here are some things I picked up about hiking from reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

First the joy is in the journey. You can’t just hold your breath waiting for Mt. Katadin at the end of the trail in Maine. It has its own thrill — and there really is a goal for the trip! — but the deepest joy comes every day. It’s the people you meet; it’s the shelter you find; it’s the trees, wildlife, hills, and streams. Bryson mentions once finding an old paperback novel in one of the shelters and the great delight he found in having something to read.

Second, weight matters. He made fun before his trip of the people who walked into hiking stores willing to pay exorbitant prices just for “better,” lighter gear. But on the trail, he realized that over the long haul it made a lot of difference. It was indeed worth paying for the lighter tent and the lighter backpack. (Now, check out Heb. 12:1: “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”)

Third, you don’t walk alone. There may be times of solitude, but you find encouragement by traveling with others. There are those you hook up with for a few miles, those you come across at the shelters, and those who sit around in the local pubs to visit before pressing on. Plus, there are all those who’ve come before you to actually make the path. The goal isn’t to find your own way. You have to trust the wisdom of those who’ve preceded you.

And fourth, you must endure. If you’re going to finish the Trail, you have to press on. Past bugs, past exhaustion, past blisters, past boredom.

- - - -

Today, that counter hits a million. Leave me a note with your real e-mail address (that doesn’t get published in the comment). I’ll get back with you in a day or two. (We’ll be traveling today.) Good luck!

The Morning My Brother Whistled

Published
by
Mike
on June 16, 2006
in faith, family, grief and memories
. 32 Comments

On June 16, 1999, tragedy struck our family again. My fun-loving, faith-filled nephew, Jantsen, died suddenly at the age of 15. There was no warning. He went to lift weights with the football team, laid down to rest, and his heart failed him.

Today I’ve asked my brother, Randy Cope, to reflect on these seven years since the death of his son.

- - - -

Seven years ago today my life changed forever.

Actually I knew that it had changed the moment the doctor came out of the emergency room and told my wife and me that our 15-year-old son had passed from this life from what we later found out was an undetected heart problem.

I had enjoyed my life up to that point – a healthy family, a good job, and a bright future – but as I stood in the hallway of Freeman Hospital there was no doubt that things would never be the same. Before I left my son’s side that day I prepared myself for a life that resembled a scorched forest after a wild fire. The hillsides filled with lush trees and the valleys filled with wildflowers would now be smoldering ashes.

As the fog lifted so did the reality of what had been lost. Each new act brought new pain – the first trip to the store, the first Sunday at church – even the first time I decided to make oatmeal and had to figure out how to make it for one person, since he and I were the only breakfast eaters in the house.

And such was my life – for a season.

Yet one day, months later, I caught myself whistling. There wasn’t much life in the tune, but it surprised me just the same. As I look back on it now I see that moment as a sign of the renewal that was to follow.

From that first sprig of life has grown not a forest, but a park. I say park because my days are not only filled with life, but an increasing measure of purpose and meaning.

Don’t get me wrong; to call my life a park is not to say that there are no weeds. Our enemy is relentless and is not even above using my grief against me to pull me down from time to time.

Yet as I look back over these last few years I see many wonderful lessons:
• God is creative and lavish in the gifts He sends to bring comfort. He brought friends I hadn’t seen in years, books, music, nature, and even complete strangers to bring healing.
• God taught me not to fear life in the valley. The valley of suffering to me was a place to be avoided at all cost. Now I see that it is strangely a place of peace. God dwells with His suffering people in the valley – in green pastures and beside quiet waters. The Bible reads completely different now that I have this perspective of suffering.
• There is nothing more beautiful than a friend that comes running to help, even when the emotional fallout is intense. Friends like Todd, Warren, Tracy, James, and Cary, who all jumped in to save us – and a brother and sister-in-law who came to sit beside us in silence and later whispered lessons they had learned, having started this journey of grief with their own daughter five years earlier.
• With a treasure of mine now in Heaven I see life much different. It is like studying a Magic Eye drawing and suddenly seeing a beautiful scene in what you once thought was simply a meaningless mess of color.
• With Jantsen on the other bank, the water that separates this life from the next is a brook, not a ragging river – one I am anxious to step over once my work here is done.

I see the work of restoration most in the life of my wife. On that day seven years ago I prepared myself to care for her through the years. I knew she would never recover.

Yet she did.

After a season of intense suffering I watched as our Lord lifted her up – not to her old self but He transformed her into a daughter who has a passion for those that suffer. This new perspective on life has led her to start a ministry that dries the tears and brings smiles to the faces of orphaned children in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, and Nicaragua. God also brought her – us – healing through our oldest daughter and our two young ones, whom we met when he led us to them half way around the world.

Some days the pain returns – not the intense “I can’t breath” pain that I remember from the early days, but a heaviness that I guess will be with me all the days of this life. Maybe, however, this heaviness is in some ways a blessing. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When a loved one dies, God comforts us enough to sustain us, but God leaves enough of the void and enough of the loneliness to help us to anticipate the reunion.”

And so it is, seven years later.

I can’t leave this reflection without thinking of a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman that helped inspire me to get up off the ground and “dive in” to what Got has in store for me:

The long awaited rains
Have fallen hard upon the thirsty ground
And carved their way to where
The wild and rushing river can be found
And like the rains
I have been carried here to where the river flows.
My heart is racing and my knees are weak
As I walk to the edge
I know there is no turning back
Once my feet have left the ledge
And in the rush I hear a voice
That’s telling me it’s time to take the leap of faith…

So here I go I’m diving in, I’m going deep in over my head, I want to be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head, I want to go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive
So sink or swim, I’m diving in

There is a supernatural power
In this mighty river’s flow
It can bring the dead to life
And it can fill an empty soul
And give a heart the only thing
Worth living and worth dying for.
But we will never know the awesome power
Of the grace of God
Until we let ourselves get swept away
Into this holy flood
So if you’ll take my hand
We’ll close our eyes and count to three
And take the leap of faith
Come on let’s go
…
Lord, I thank you for bringing peace to the valley – and for what awaits us all around the next turn.

“A person of prayer”

Published
by
Mike
on June 12, 2006
in Books and faith
. 14 Comments

From Greg Vaughn’s book Letters from Dad:

“Recently when my mother was in poor health I felt God calling me to capture the heart of this great woman on film. I flew to her with a video camera and asked if she felt well enough to speak. She gave the thumbs up.

“For the next three hours, I videotaped my mom talking about her life before I finally got to the most important question of all: ‘If you could speak to your great-great-grandchildren, what would you say to them?’

“I offered to let her think about it for a minute before I started taping, but she shook her head and said, ‘No, turn it on.’

“‘There’s a couple of things I want you to know about me,’ she said, speaking directly to the camera. ‘Whoever I am to you — your grandmother, your great-grandmother, whoever — I was not a person of power and prominence, but I was a person of prayer. And I have laid up for you in the throne room of God prayers that you will come to know the great God and Savior I have served for seventy-eight years. . . .”

That’s a legacy!

Did You Hear the One about the Monk . . . ?

Published
by
Mike
on May 23, 2006
in faith and scripture
. 38 Comments

I’m taking a short course right now with Dr. Jeff Childers on the history of textual criticism. It was one of the studies I loved a quarter century ago in grad school, and I’m enjoying getting back into it this week.

The field of textual criticism is so important because we don’t have any of the original copies of New Testament (or Old Testament, for that matter) books. We have copies of those books. Actually what we have is copies of copies of copies of those books. As you might expect once you realize that we’re depending on so many scribes in so many places, these manuscripts don’t exactly agree all the time.

So textual critics study the available manuscripts — along with early versions in other languages and references from early church leaders — and try to determine to the best of their ability what the original text said.

When the King James Version was translated, we didn’t have the early manuscripts we now have. So, in all likelihood, the translations we have today are much more reliable (if by reliable we mean that they more likely reflect what was originally written).

Another aspect of textual criticism is that you get to peek at the way the living word of God spoke to various communities of faith over time. It spoke with power, provoking deep conviction.

It’s not exactly an area that will produce a future sermon series. But it’s nice to jumpstart my brain; it’s nice to spend a day with a good teacher, sharp students, and an open Greek text. For the past couple days we’ve been reading pages from some of the earliest manuscripts, which is hard BECAUSETHEYUSEDALLCAPITALLETTERSDIDNT
LEAVESPACESBETWEENWORDSANDUSEDNOPUNCTUATION.

Textual criticism by day. Little league coaching by night. It’s a good life.

Senior Sunday

Published
by
Mike
on May 22, 2006
in Highland and faith
. 26 Comments

Yesterday was “senior Sunday” at Highland — as it probably was at many churches. We honored and challenged our 48 seniors who’ll be heading out — a few to work, most to ACU, and some to other places (Tech, A&M, Pepperdine, Howard Payne, UT, and the Air Force Academy were the ones I heard).

A few reflections.

First, a few years ago, we quit announcing all their high school awards and accomplishments when we read their names. Those accomplishments are wonderful and important — but they tended to make church one more place where people without all the honors and awards felt second-class. At church, we value you not because of your all-district awards or your GPA but because of the person you’re becoming in Christ.

Second, I love that the seniors are asked about the people at Highland who have influenced them the most. Their answers remind us that our words of encouragement are vital to the development of deep faith. It’s evident from their answers that the huddle leaders — this year it was four couples — had been spiritual uncles and aunts who had profoundly influenced them.

Third, when students are asked what activities at Highland have been the most important to the formation of their faith, the answer that always rises to the top is the summer trip to Mexico. Something about traveling together, having fun, working hard, being exposed to poverty, meeting brothers and sisters of another language, and envisioning yourself as a person used by God in his kingdom work that shapes you forever.

So to these 48 seniors from Highland and to all the others at your churches — may the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest on you!