Back In Church

Here is David Jeremiah's daily devotion today--I thought I would share it.

Monday, January 31
Back in Church
So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily.
Acts 16:5
Recommended Reading
Acts 16:1-5


There's a new effort to persuade people to get "Back to Church." It's an annual Sunday targeting those who once attended church but who no longer come. Most participating churches showed an uptick in attendance, and the effort is gaining momentum.
We're for anything that gets people back to church. But how much better to never drop out to begin with! Many churchgoers run into trouble after missing a week or two--perhaps due to work schedules, sickness, travel disruptions, or sheer laziness. The devil takes advantage of these lapses. We find we like sleeping in on Sundays, taking the day off, reading the paper, going to the park, and catching up on our work. The next thing we know, we ourselves are the mission field, needing someone to persuade us to get "back in church."
The church is a community of faith where we share our joys and sorrows. Much joy comes from giving and receiving love, rendering worship, and serving Christ. We should never need to get back in church. Instead we should back the church with our love, appreciation, energy, and faithfulness.


It was a shabby church house, the preacher was plain, the organ wheezy, and the music off key. But there was something that reminded one of the Upper Room.
Vance Havner, about his boyhood church

Super Bowl Week

Super Bowl week is here and I think everyone agrees we have a great match up. I've always liked both teams. I suppose I'm going to lean toward the Steelers, although I won't be broken up if the Packers take the win. I am rather tired of Fox making Aaron Rodgers the second-coming of Joe Montana, but he may very well have a great game, especially since it's indoors. We all saw what he did to Atlanta under a dome. Admittedly the Steelers are NOT the Falcons.

My old stomping grounds of Tarrant County is sports rich over the last several months and I'm a bit jealous that I've not been there. The World Series, the Rose Bowl champ TCU Horn Frogs, and now the Super Bowl. Not bad at all!

The Challenger 25 Years Later

I didn’t realize it until I was watching Fox News this morning that this is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. There are some events in life that happen and you always remember where you were. I was a reporter for KARN in Little Rock, a news/talk station. Each morning I would help out with morning-drive and then I’d be off to cover some ‘event.’ That day I had covered the re-election announcement of the Pulaski County Sheriff. I hate I can’t remember his name [seems like it was Carroll Gravett), but I always felt sorry for him. His announcement got buried!

I had just got back into the newsroom when Neal Gladner, KARN news director, saw me and said, “Steve, the Challenger just blew up. Go to the mall and get some reaction.” So I headed to University Mall in Little Rock, not that far away from the station. I hate reaction stories, but what do you do? Where am I going to get reaction to something that happened only a few minutes before? I went to Sears, found the TV section of the store, and just as I thought—several people were standing in front of the televisions watching in disbelief. As I recall I got some good reaction sound bites. I went back to the station, put the reaction story together, and went home. Although I worked 4am-noon each day and took an afternoon nap to catch up on some sleep, I stayed up during the day, glued to the TV like everyone else as I watched the coverage of the disaster. I’ll never forget President Reagan’s speech to the nation particularly.

One of the things I’ve missed about being in the news business all these years later is a day like that one.

Southwestern and Association Controversy

Southwestern Seminary and Tarrant Baptist Association are in a squabble that involves the Association's offices on James Avenue on Seminary property. TBA's Executive Board met yesterday to discuss the issue as reported in Baptist Press. I served in Tarrant Association for a number of years, so I'm particularly interested in the story. I hope that this can be dealt with in a 'win-win' way.

It seems (at least from news reports)SWBTS is upset that Broadway Baptist Church is still a member of TBA, and they also seem to be upset that the association does not help students and faculty find places of ministry within the association.

Let's take these one at a time. The seminary has a right to be upset with TBA about Broadway, who has cut ties with the SBC and BGCT over its homosexuality stance. The statement about that in the BP story from Al Merideth, TBA moderator and pastor of Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, seems a bit weak. Of course, I don't know what action, if any, TBA plans or has planned to deal with Broadway.

However, the seminary seems to be stretching a bit in its criticism of TBA with regard to students and faculty. The association has little to do with whom churches call and use in their pulpits. I have had little help from associations with that in the past. Plus there are many SWBTS students (I was one for example) who serve in TBA churches in a number of capacities.

One of the major problems I see with the latter issue is the continuing "political" differences between the seminary and a good many of TBA churches affiliated with the BGCT (moderate Baptists). Churches affiliated with the BGCT are not going to use many seminary students and faculty because of the perceived differences in theology, ethical stances, stance on women in ministry, etc. TBA really can't do anything about that.

I pray that the controversy between the two groups can be dealt with keeping the two great commandments in mind. I would urge you to read the BP story to get some handle on it.

The Church God Will Bless

In the 25 years that I've served in Baptist churches, one of my greatest frustrations has been reading books and going to conferences about the church. Of course it is obvious that the church is not making the inroads into culture that we'd like, and most pastors I know are desperate to see God work in their churches, but I've been frustrated at all the so-called "new ideas" that I've been encouraged to embrace in the past quarter-century. In no particular order, here are just a few:

• The Traditional Church—this was the model most Baptist churches followed when I began ministry
• The Seeker Church
• The Purpose Driven Church
• The Missional Church
• The Transformational Church
• The Simple Church
• The Emergent Church

I've been asked in books, conferences, and pastor 'get-togethers', Is your church pastor driven, deacon driven, or elder driven? Is your church Kingdom centered? Is your church a cooperating Baptist church? Is your church a Sunday School or small group church? Is it traditional, blended, or contemporary? Are you Calvinistic, or non-Calvinistic? Is your church one-site or multi-site? The list could go on [I haven't even mentioned the conferences/books that deal with various generations], but you get the idea. I've heard people say with each one of these—If you follow this model God will bless.

I've almost stopped reading the books, and I have stopped going to conferences altogether. The Bible is the right place to give me the church model that God will bless. There are several passages that do that. One that I dealt with recently is Hebrews 10:19-39, particularly verses 19-25: 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh), 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled ⌊clean⌋ from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, 25 not staying away from our ⌊worship⌋ meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Three "let us" exhortations clearly show what kind of church God will bless. First, He will bless a church that confidently worships Him [vv. 19-22]. We have confidence because of the new and living way Jesus provided for us by His blood. We must draw near with a sincere heart, and if we do so, God will bless. By the way, a church can confidently worship Him no matter the so-called 'style.' To tout any one music style as better for worship is simply unbiblical. Second, He will bless a church that has an unwavering hope [v. 23]. Our hope is simply the expectation that God will fulfill every promise He has made to His children and that we will enjoy our full inheritance. It is hope that causes us to look at circumstances with an eternal perspective, living today with the end in mind. God will always bless that. Third, He will bless a church that shows a deep concern for one another [vv. 24-25]. A church where love is found is always a church God will bless. We cultivate a deep concern by worshiping together and encouraging one another.

Much more could be said about these verses. But God has not made it difficult for us. He has not given us a to-do list that is beyond our ability. We don't need a new paradigm; we simply need to follow the biblical mandate for the church. Follow Hebrews 10:19-25 and God will bless. Follow the principles of this passage and we will reach the people God has for us. We will disciple the people God allows us to reach. We will reach every generation. We will reach every people group.

Jesus and the Land

For years I have been telling my hermeneutics students that we are not OT saints; thus we must sift any OT passage through the NT to finds its application to the church. Gary Burge shows how this is done in his recent book, Jesus and the Land [Baker 2010]. The primary topic is found in the books' subtitle: The New Testament Challenge to 'Holy Land' Theology. The work is a thoughtful, responsible, and thoroughly biblical response to Christian Zionism.

Burge's divides his book into eight chapters. He begins with a brief look what the OT teaches about the land. He emphasizes several times the land is rightly called holy because it belongs to a holy God. When Israel failed to be righteous, they lost the land. Even God himself became an exile because 'the ruin of his land means that he cannot enjoy it either' [8]. After the exile, retaining the land was interpreted as embracing a strictly religious life. Between the testaments the land, as it was throughout the OT, was central to Jewish identity. Life in the land was contingent on upholding the righteousness expected by God.

Chapter 2, "Diaspora Judaism and the land," is an interesting discussion of how the land was viewed by Jews outside of Palestine. Burge shows that for Diaspora Jews, the promise of land was reinterpreted. For Philo, the land was reinterpreted as the knowledge and wisdom of God. Josephus reinterpreted the promise to Abraham as Israel's greatness rather than land. Burge insists that redefinition deeply influences Christian thinking in the NT.

In Chapter 3, Burge deals with how Jesus viewed the land. The land was a volatile topic in Jesus' world, and He would have been well aware of that. Burge notes that it is interesting that Jesus did not speak much about the land. In fact, it is instructive that Jesus' primary ministry is not in Judea but in Galilee. His primary message, the Kingdom of God, is not linked at all with territorial aspirations, and although it is first preached to the Jews, Jesus offered the Kingdom to those outside of the land as well. Jesus respects the uniqueness of Israel's location in the land, but He expresses no overt affirmation of first-century territory al theologies. Statements like, "The meek will inherit the earth (land)" shows a surprising reversal; those who fight to possess the land will in fact be trumped by the meek. Passages such as The Magnificant are important to Burge's argument.

I found Burge's discussion of "The Fourth Gospel and the Land" fascinating and persuasive. In John, it is obvious that the Jewish festivals are fulfilled in Jesus. So is the land. Jesus is the recipient of the land [John 1:51]. Divine space is no longer located in a place but in a person. Most profound is Jesus' statement, "I am the vine," in John 15. As Burge writes, "The crux for John 15 is that Jesus is changing the place of rootedness for Israel…God's vineyard, the land of Israel, now has one vine: Jesus" [54]. He summarizes: "The hand as holy territory therefore should now recede from the concerns of God's people" [56].

Burge's look at the rest of the NT results in essentially the same conclusion. Here are a few of his statements:

• Acts: "…the praxis of the Church betrays its theological commitments: Christians will find in Christ what Judaism had sought in the land" [59].
  
• Acts: "Therefore the Land of Promise was the source of Christianity's legacy but no longer its goal. The political concerns of the land were a part of Christianity's history, but no longer formed its mission. The new mission would be the restoration of the world, not the restoration of Jerusalem and the land" [61].
  
• Paul: "Jerusalem and its Temple are places that enjoy historic respect but cannot claim a universal or lasting theological significance" [74].
  
• For Paul "Christian theology had no room for 'holy places' outside of the Holy One who is Christ . . . Paul would have seen as aberrant any Christian territorialism wed to first-century politics" [94].
  
• Beyond Paul: "There is no discussion of Judea or Jerusalem as the site of ultimate commitment, affection, or veneration" [96].
  

  
   

While one can disagree with Burge's preterist approach to Revelation, I do agree that hope in the NT's final book is not found in the old Jerusalem, which is essentially evil, but in the new Jerusalem that will take up where the old city had failed. Hope is the new heaven and the new earth that 'reorders creation as it ought to be' [107].

 

In the final chapter, Burge provides an outstanding and insightful critique of modern Zionism. Primarily for Burge, Zionists do not think Christianly about the topic. I would tell my students, they fail to sift the OT concept of land through the NT. The primary point that Burge makes throughout the book and emphasizes in his conclusion is that "Ownership of the land is not a Christian question. The New Testament instead asks if we know the landowner himself, or, in a different framework, whether the land owns us" [127].

 

I would urge anyone interested in the Christian response to "Holy Land Theology" or Zionism, to read Burge's book. It is an example of proper hermeneutics done taking the One who fulfills the Law and the Prophets into full account.

Arizona and Rhetoric

I have been saddened greatly by what has happened in Arizona. It is horrible and I am in much prayer for families who lost loved ones and for those recovering. With that said I am even more horrified by the debate whether military metaphors and particularly radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin are to blame. The guy who shot Congresswoman Gafford and others in Tucson is a psychopath and political rhetoric, military metaphors, and Rush have nothing to do with it. I heard one commentator say in the last few days that military/gun metaphors should be banned from political speech. I heard the sheriff in Arizona say that the angry political climate is to blame (which he blames on Sarah Palin) for the shooting. Well of course that is a major over reaction at the least and nonsensical. Banning any kind of rhetoric will never stop what happened last weekend in Arizona no more than taking the "N" word out of Huckleberry Finn will stop racism.

Elvis Top 20

Elvis Top 20


Today would have been Elvis’ 76th birthday. I decided to sit down and compile my Elvis Top 20.
1. Suspicious Minds
2. Burning Love
3. Steamroller Blues
4. Heartbreak Hotel
5. His Latest Flame
6. Devil in Disguise
7. Viva Las Vegas
8. Hurt
9. Kentucky Rain
10. Just Pretend
11. It’s Midnight
12. Are You Lonesome Tonight
13. American Trilogy
14. See See Rider
15. Love Me
16. All Shook Up
17. Fool
18. It’s Now or Never
19. Always on My Mind
20. The Wonder of You

Most of these were pretty easy. There are several others that could go on the list. Some surprises perhaps would be songs like Just Pretend and It’s Midnight. Just Pretend was from what I think is the best Elvis Album, “That’s the Way It Is.” I bought the album when it first came out in 1970 and was instantly my favorite. Many of course believe Elvis’ sessions at American Studios are his best material. Can’t argue with that from a pure commercial success standpoint. I just disagree. No accounting for taste I know. It’s Midnight I believe is one Elvis’ underrated performances. Just a plain good song sung with lots of feeling.

I still believe Elvis’ birthday should be a national holiday. When will someone listen! 