The Manhattan Declaration

Today I signed The Manhattan Declaration and urge you to do the same. This declaration is a call for the church to be salt and light in society with regard to the sanctity of human life, the dignity and spiritual reality of marriage, and freedom of conscience.

The link above provides an Executive Summary of the full declaration, which can be read here.

biblical roadmaps

Jeremiah 33:14-16

For Sunday, November 29, 2009

First Sunday of Advent (starting Year C)

““ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’”

(Jeremiah 33:14–16 NIV)

Passages like this are fascinating because to be understood they point to the need for a roadmap for understanding the Bible as a whole. The context here is this: the kingly line of David had been cut off leaving only the stump of a tree. Yet a shoot would spring forth from that stump and grow to provide eternal and enduring refuge for God's people. Most if not all Christians agree that the shoot is Messiah, and that Messiah is Jesus.

What we don't all agree on is what Jeremiah had in mind when he says, "Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety." Is this a promise already fulfilled when the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Persian King Cyrus? Or is it a promise being fulfilled in our own day with the establishment of the modern State of Israel? Or is it a future promise, and if so, is it to be fulfilled with reference to the nation-state of Israel, or with regard to the church as spiritual Israel?

There is a wonderful chart and article in Wikipedia to help you determine whose roadmap you want to use. The chart appears at the beginning of this post.

The article contains a good summary of a number of hermeneutical roadmaps of the Bible. They are:

• Supersessionist
• Covenant Theology
• Kingdom-Dominion Theology
• Dispensational
• Allegorical

The two that I find most compelling are Covenant Theology and Kingdom-Dominion Theology. Between these two I find Kingdom-Dominion Theology most persuasive. It suggests that the incarnation of Christ is the center point of all of history and that the overarching theme of Scripture is the Kingdom of God, meaning the establishment of God's rule over God's people in God's place.

Here is how this roadmap makes sense of passages such as Jeremiah 33:

In the New Testament, God's rule is exercised through Jesus Christ the King, who is also the "temple" of God (John 2:19-21), over his people the Church (of which Israel was a type). Salvation for all people in all times is found by trusting (explicitly or implicitly) in Jesus. Thus, Abraham, Moses, David, and all Christians today are saved by the same faith. The Jews are regarded as special in God's plan (as in Romans and Ephesians) and yet the Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel find their fulfillment in Jesus and the Church rather than in a literal restoration of Israel.^[1]

If you haven't already chosen a biblical roadmap for yourself, let this be the week that you pick one by which to navigate your understanding of Scripture as well as the very trajectory of your own life. A secular culture which has lost its way as well as its very belief in a destination desperately needs people who know where they are going and what to expect along the way.

activism on ObamaCare

I think it is the duty of every Christian to seek to have a redemptive influence politically. While believers can respectfully disagree on policy choices I hope we can encourage one another to engage.

I sent the following email message to Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl this morning:

Dear Senator Kohl,

I am writing to express my opposition to the health care bill being presented on the Senate Floor today. I am opposed to it and urge you to vote 'no' for the following reasons:

1) The best health care solution is one in which citizens and private insurance companies are free to make decisions for themselves.

2) A 2,000 page bill that is released 1 day before a weekend vote is politically and ethically disgraceful.

3) This legislation is not revenue neutral and as a nation we can't afford it.

Sincerely,

Steve Godfrey

I will be sending a similar message shortly to my other Senator, Russ Feingold. I urge my fellow Christians who agree with this point of view to do likewise.

understanding the times

William Blake, "The Ancient of Days"

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Proper 29

For Sunday, November 22, 2009

One of this week's readings, albeit an alternate one, is Daniel Chapter 7. I've always found the Book of Daniel intriguing. It offers what appears to be a scheme for interpreting history. There are four beasts - a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a fourth terrifying beast with ten horns.

The first three beasts appear to correspond with three historical empires: the lion being Babylon, the bear being Persia, and the leopard being Greece under Alexander the Great. Much speculation has gone into the identity of the fourth beast. It has often been thought of as Rome and the continuation of the spirit of Rome, which is often thought to include the contemporary West.

Stepping back for a moment from the details, in which it is so easy to lose sight of the forest for the sake of the trees, what's really the point? It is what we read in vv. 13-14:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

All of us long deep down for something secure to which we can anchor our lives. Some of us devote ourselves to our careers. Some of us pour ourselves into an avocation. Some of us buy gold.

The "one like the Son of Man" is Jesus and "the Ancient of Days" is his Father. Jesus has been given authority, glory, and sovereign power. If we want to anchor our lives to something truly enduring then it is going to have to be him. For his is the only dominion which is everlasting and his the only kingdom that will never be destroyed. If not even Babylon, Persia, Greece, nor Rome could endure, in what else are we going to put our hope? The U.S. Dollar?

Ask yourself this: "To what am I anchoring my life, ... really?" If it is to anything other than Jesus Christ, then your spiritual GPS is currently chirping, "You have deviated from route. Would you like to recalculate?" How will you answer?

boundary lines in pleasant places

Psalm 16

For Sunday, November 15, 2009

Proper 28

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance" (Psalm 16:6).

Where are the boundary lines of your life falling today? I see in my own life how so much of this is framed by the state of my relationship with the Lord. When I truly seek him, prayerfully and faithfully, then despite the hardships that are present, I see God's redemptive hand powerfully at work.

I see this looking back five years when the mission team I was leading imploded without warning. The conflict was so deep that our own teammates asked us not to return to Siberia where we were serving. As I've shared with friends subsequently, I'd like to write a book about it entitled _Exiled From Siberia_. This remains the most painful experience I've ever gone through, more painful than my Dad's death 3 years ago, and even more painful even than presently watching my one and only younger brother waging a life and death struggle with cancer while simultaneously watching my Mom wrestle with a debilitating mental illness. By the end of this year it is likely that I'll be the only functioning member of my family of origin left standing.

Yet despite all of this I can say that the boundary lines for me are falling in pleasant places. Had we not been exiled from Siberia I would not have had four precious years with my Dad before his death. I would not have been there holding his hand and looking into his eyes as he passed, which was a direct answer to prayer. My three boys, the oldest of which is now 13, would not have really ever known their Grandpa.

My Father is using the pain of being exiled from Siberia, the pain of losing my Dad, and the present pain of walking with both my brother and Mom through profound illness, to shape my soul for his purpose. It is a purpose that includes being a resource to other missionaries who have or are going through team conflicts, something that is remarkably common on the field. It is a purpose that includes a continuing ministry to Russian-speaking people both locally an internationally. It is also a purpose that is now leading toward a ministry to urban churches and leaders right here in Milwaukee.

When we were preparing to go to Russia fellow Christians would ask us, "Why are you going all the way there? Aren't there enough problems here?" The Lord gave me a great answer: "Yes, there are profound problems here, and that's why you're here." Well, ... now I'm here, and in fact, some of the social dynamics we experienced in Russia, particularly in regards to both human servitude and fatherlessness, are clear and present dynamics which we can now help to address.

Our gracious Father intends for the boundary lines of each of our lives to fall in pleasant places. This doesn't mean that within those boundaries there won't be some deep chasms. Yet what the enemy intends for evil God will certainly transform into good. Christ's resurrection at Calvary is both the downpayment and security on this divine promise.

Will you today along with me entrust our Father with the boundary lines of our lives? When we truly yield ourselves to God's plan and purpose profound blessing is the inevitable result.

Jesus wept

Rembrandt, "The Raising of Lazarus"

"Jesus wept" (John 11:35). This is the shortest verse in the Bible. Granted, the Bible's authors didn't write in verses. The verses were added later as an organizational scheme. The scheme we use today was developed by Archbishop Stephen Langton between 1227 and 1248. Langton was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1207 and 1228.

With that important factoid in place, back to the question: Jesus wept, but why? As my friend and Australian Bible teacher Ray Barnett puts it, there are a couple of apparent reasons but also one deeper reason that may actually be primary. The apparent reasons are these:

• Lazarus was Jesus' friend, and Jesus may have been grieving over his death
• Mary and the Jews with her were weeping, which may have caused Jesus to weep with them in empathy

Yet upon deeper reflection, these reasons don't actually make sense. Before Jesus started weeping, he says to Mary, "Your brother will rise again" (v. 23). Mary took this to mean that her brother Lazarus would rise again on the Day of Judgment. Yet clearly Jesus knew what he intended to do. He knew that he was going to bring Lazarus back to life. Therefore, he could not have been weeping over Lazarus's death, because he himself was about to reverse this.

If this holds, then it also seems that the weeping of the others present wouldn't have caused Jesus to weep. Again, he knew already that everything was about to change.

Yet, Jesus wept. Why? Ray's answer is this: Jesus also knew that by raising Lazarus from the dead he would be setting in motion the events that would lead to his own death by crucifixion. Note that the plot to kill Jesus takes shape immediately after this episode (see 11:45-57). Note also that in chapter 12 Jesus arrives in Jerusalem and refers directly to his own impending death: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (11:23).

So Jesus wept more likely because he knew he was setting in motion the events that would lead to his own death. In the fully human aspect of Jesus, there may well have been a feeling of abandonment, certainly a ready cause for weeping. Yet even deeper than this, in the fully divine aspect of Jesus, maybe the weeping was also over the profound sinfulness of humanity, a problem so deep that God Himself would have to die to overcome it.

As Christians, do we understand and appreciate our own profound sinfulness as well as that of everyone around us? We are all broken people. How much more loving and gracious would our relationships be if we could accept this about ourselves, as well as about those around us? How much greater then also would our appreciation for the grace of the gospel be? For as deep as the problem of sin runs, and it runs to our very core, the remedy of grace runs even deeper. This reality ought to engender in us a profound gratitude as well as a profound commitment to give our lives completely to bringing glory to God.

If you read this today as a Christian, do you realize that your deepest brokenness has already been made new? If not, might it make sense to take some time today to observe Jesus weeping, and to ask yourself, "Why?" If you do realize that your deepest brokenness has been made new, what would be the best expression of gratitude your life could offer up? Will you go there? Jesus is already there, extending his hands to you, and saying, "Come out from your old life and follow me."

consulting your spiritual compass

Salvador Dali, "The Persistence of Memory"

Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm). © 2007 Salvador Dalí,

Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Every Monday at work I have the privilege of participating in a lunch-time prayer group where we meet to pray for one another as well as our unchurched colleagues. It is a small group: there are usually 3-5 of us. It's remarkable to me that at a corporate campus of 2,000 that 3 is the most we can often muster, but such is the lot of those heeding the call to the Special Forces of prayer.

Beyond the privilege of participating in this group on a regular basis I have the additional privilege of offering a short devotional to begin these sessions. This past Monday I took a few moments to share how significant my personal commitment to the weekly readings of the Revised Common Lectionary has been in terms of deepening my relationship with the Lord and setting direction for my own life and ministry.

In my former missionary ministry we wrote monthly newsletters to our ministry partners. One of my favorites was from the very first year of our ministry, in which we were trying to raise funds and recruit a team before venturing off to language school to learn some Russian. I entitled that newsletter "The M-68", which referred to my personal spiritual compass. It was named 'M-68' after Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O Man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

A world which is confused, distracted, and lost desperately needs people who know who they are and where they are going.

What is the model number of your spiritual compass? How regularly do you consult it? If you have misplaced it, need to dust it off, or even need to file a claim for a loss, might a commitment to the four simple weekly readings of the Revised Common Lectionary set this compass front and center once again, or even for the first time?

Remember this as well: the point of Bible reading is not to know the Bible, but rather to know the Lord, and his calling on your life. One of the great challenges and blessings of the lectionary for me is that because the weekly readings are limited, there is time and space to ask, "Father, what do you want to do with this in my life today?" It is this step of reverent submission (as the author of Hebrews puts it in a recent reading) that brings power to the words on the page.

Let us today check our course and set sail into the destiny our Father has for us.

the flying spaghetti monster (FSM)

I came across a reference to 'FSM' and 'WWFSMD' the other day that piqued my curiosity. 'FSM' refers to "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" and "WWFSMD" to "What would the Flying Spaghetti Monster Do". FSM apparently stems from Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion.

One of the reason this intrigued me is that one of this week's readings is Hebrews 1 & 2. I've always loved the Book of Hebrews because at its core I think its an apologetic to the Jewish world about why belief in Christ is compelling. I like to ask myself, "What do people believe in today, and what is a compelling way to engage them with the claims of Christ?"

Secularism, the belief that the natural world is all that there is, is certainly a worldview that many people base their lives upon today. If we as Christians were to write the Hebrews equivalent of an apologetic to the secular world, what would be it's basic outline? What would be the best way for me as a Christian to engage a secularist in a mutual pursuit of truth?

One place to start might be with the work of theologian and writer Alister McGrath who has written some detailed responses to Dawkin's arguments.

I'm not going to try to answer these questions within the confines of this post. However, if you have thoughts on this that you would like to share, I invite you to do so.

church in the world

Karl Barth said that Christians ought to live with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Saturday's Wall Street Journal provides wonderful grist for the latter.

First is the editorial page homage to Irving Kristol, the "man who put 'neo' into conservatism. The lead editorial notes that Kristol's defining characteristic was his prescience, which is not the ability to predict the future as much rather "seeing the direction in which the future is heading".

The facing page contains a fascinating collection of Irving Kristol quotes from his 25 years of contributions to the Wall Street Journal itself. Rupert, don't mess with the Zohan. The first one calls out the emptiness of the politics of emotion: " 'All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling,' wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics . . . It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves."

The next one anticipates both the recent credit collapse and the energy of the Tea Party Movement: "But there is little question that the ideological atmosphere has changed, and in a direction that can be fairly called conservative . . . Expectations that outdistance reality by too much create unstable people and unstable societies. A politics which constantly incites such expectations is a politics of disorder, and ultimately of self-destruction."

The last one delivers a broadside to the mirage of security through socialism: "The world has yet to see a successful version of . . . an egalitarian society in which the state ensures that the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared. The trouble with this idea . . . is that it does not produce those fruits in the first place. . . The state cannot and should not be a risk-taking institution, since it is politically impossible for any state to cope with the inevitable bankruptcies associated with economic risk taking." AIG, BOA, GM ... anyone?

A second interesting section of today's paper are the letter to the editors about last week's offerings on evolution and theology from Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong. Regarding the latter, Ravi Zacharias puts it well: "Asking Karen Armstrong to debate Richard Dawkins on God is the political equivalent of asking Hugo Chavez to provide counterpoint to Osama Bin Ladin." Regarding the former (Richard Dawkins), leave it to Joseph Furman to break it down succinctly: "I had only two semesters of college physics, so I must have missed the part where Mr. Dawkin's much vaunted laws of physics began permitting man to love, laugh, and cry."

Finally there is Mary Tomkins Lewis's meditation on both "The Power, and Art, of Painting" and the fleeting nature of life itself as embodied in Velasquez's "Las Meninas" (pictured above).