Some Thoughts on Christian Unity from Pete's Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 1

1 Corinthians 1:11-13, NAS: For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

 1 Corinthians 1:11-13, Pete's Paraphrase:  Brothers and sisters in Christ, I hear some of you bicker among yourselves! For example, some of you say, "I am of Rome," and "I of Luther," and "I of Calvin," and "I of Wesley," and "I of Pentecost," and "I have the Spirit's Gifts," and "I of THE Church of Christ."  Has Christ's Body been been dismembered into independent pieces? Luther was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Calvin? Do you pray to the Spirit's Gifts?

There are  boundaries - e.g. Hebrews 11:6, John 14:6 - but why can't Christian believers of different backgrounds work and fellowship with each other? We're all going to be spending eternity with each other, so why wait till then to learn to get along? Why not take away one of the excuses non-believers use for avoiding Christianity?

Human Professions, God's Character

A friend's blog, http://heartfullofhappy.blogspot.com/2011/06/days-of-thunder-lightning-061511.html, got me to thinking about how human professions can give us insight into God's character. She was commenting how farming is teaching her about how little she (we all!) controls. Yep, that's farming ... depending on the biological processes God pre-programmed into seeds and plants ... depending on the weather to water the seeds and plants ... depending on the sun to do its part in the process of photosynthesis ... depending on the weather to be right for growing and ripening plants.

Think about your professions, how they mirror aspects of God's character (or should) ...

An engineer designs things, and knows how those things should operate, how they should be used; God designed us, and knows what behaviors are healthy for us and for us to function in human society.

An artist lovingly creates, putting his or her personality into what is created.

A lawyer seeks and works toward truth and justice. As does a police officer.

A parent loves, nurtures and instructs their child as the child grows toward maturity.

Give some thought today about your profession, God's character and how you can better reflect that aspect of God's character that He wants to express through you.

A Weird Thought Moment

Driving home this evening from the store I saw something that got one of those weird thought processes going. It was a work truck for a company that specializes in graffiti removal. A very reasonable service, except it occurred to me ... this business exists solely and entirely because of human sin. No sin, no graffiti vandalism. And I started wondering ... how many other businesses are "out there" that exist solely and entirely because of human sin? Think for a moment ... lock manufacturers and lock smiths ... alarm systems ... safes ... security companies ... I'm sure there's many more. All because of sin! Welcome to Adam's Brave New World!

God's Scandalous Grace

Did that title get your mind going? Well, consider with me for a few moments ...

God accepted horrible people like the thief on the cross, the murderous persecutor of Christians, Paul of Tarsus, and the self-confessed sex addict, Augustine of Hippo, but will in eternity turn away untold numbers of non-believing "nice" "humanitarian" people. It's as if being a "good" person among fellow human beings isn't the criterion for God's acceptance ... scandalous!

Then there's my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ of a more legalistic bent. In their eyes, these worldly people coming into the church with their lurid pasts, worldly manner of dress and personal habits ... and their church is expected to accept these kinds of people? God did and does ... scandalous!

It occurred to me recently, there's a significant difference (not the only one, sadly) between the church culture in which I was raised and for the most part have lived for the past nearly 6 decades and that of the early church. Many of the Christians I've been around most of my life have been 2nd-, 3rd- and beyond-generation Christians, or denizens of a christianized culture who, while not Christians, still lived within the mores of that culture and finally had become (1st-generation) Christian believers. By way of contrast, in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Paul gave a laundry list of debauched sins, and then told the church at Corinth, "And such were some of you"! While the christianization of much of US culture up into the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s may have made for US culture to be, as a whole, pleasant, I think it had unfortunate consequences - dare I say it, scandalous consequences - in the church. For many US churches, and the people in them, the memories of fellowshipping with and helping people with a, "And such were some of you," background, are so dim or so far in the past that it has stunted such churches', such peoples', ability to reach out to and minister to and with people with "complicated" personal histories. I'm including me among those who have this problem!

As I occasionally say, our pasts may have different junk, but each of us does have our junk. And while some junk has greater human and temporal consequences than does other junk, in God's eyes, junk (sin) is junk (sin). Is it a coincidence that those churches - denominations and individual congregations - in the US that have been the most dynamic, across many decades, have been those that have been best at reaching out to and discipling people with a, "And such were some of you," background? One of the things about Christianity that has scandalized non-believers, across 2 millennia, has been the church's willingness to reach out to lower class, socially "marginal" people. It's as if the church has drawn and renewed its strength through those millennia from the change that Jesus, through God's grace, brings into such people's lives. If some Christians (me included!) have lost their ability to bring God's grace to people who need it (as if we all aren't in constant need of God's grace!), that is truly and eternally scandalous!

Lessons from Harold Camping, Part 2 of ??

Well, technically, I wrote this a month or two before Camping's false prophecy became national news, but it speaks to a broad issue that arises from how Camping arrived at his false prophecy, Biblical interpretation (see http://www.christianpost.com/news/exclusive-harold-camping-ex-follower-speaks-out-50708/ and my previous blog post, http://soapypetesbox.blogspot.com/2011/06/lessons-from-harold-camping-part-1-of.html). The following was written for our church home group:

Basics of Bible Interpretation

Without neglecting or diminishing the Holy Spirit's role in teaching us truth, the Bible should be approached as one would just about any literary document. Understanding should begin by following several fairly common sense principles.

Words - What does each word mean?

Grammar & Syntax - What meaning is coded into the grammar and structure of the
    sentences?

Figures of speech - Look for the point of similes, metaphors and hyperbole rather
    than trying to interpret such figures of speech literally (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:24
    and Hebrews 12:29 or Matthew 23:37).

Compositional Context - What does a statement mean and how does it function
    within the line of narrative or thought?

Literary Form - Is what one is reading historical narrative? A parable? Legal code?
    Corrective or encouraging exhortation? Prophetic vision?

Key questions to ask while reading:

Who is speaking?
Who is being addressed?
What is the speaker's purpose?
What is the historic context?
What is the Cultural context?

Of Sheep, Coins and Prodigals

Something occurred to me this past week while reading the parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin. These two parables are in the same context as the famous parable of the Prodigal Son, and together were Jesus' response to people who questioned His habit of associating with "sinners". Together, they told His hearers (and readers) Jesus' (God's) perspective of why He cared and what God did in sinners coming to salvation and repentance. In the first two parables, God does the searching and finding. Yet, in the parable of the Prodigal, the Prodigal "came to his senses". While different, it's not an either-or situation. It's both-and, looking at what God does and what happens in the sinner's heart, which God, being omniscient, can do.

One thing bugged me, though. There's "some one" missing in these scenarios, the human agent who calls the sinner to repentance. These parables present what happens from God's perspective: God seeks; God enables the sinner to repent. But God does work through human agents, Romans 10:14-15: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" 

The one preaching (sharing, etc.) the Gospel is responsible for the sharing, for being faithful to do it. God does the seeking and convicting, and the sinner's heart is changed.

Lessons from Harold Camping, Part 1 of ??

I came across an excellent article yesterday on Christian Post (http://www.christianpost.com/) about an interview with a former follower of Harold Camping, http://www.christianpost.com/news/exclusive-harold-camping-ex-follower-speaks-out-50708/. I recommend it highly. Evidently the one interviewed, Trevor Hammack, a Baptist pastor in Texas, has been away from following Camping for several years, and does an online audio "program" in which he examines the news from a Biblical perspective, including Camping's prediction antics.

Two things in the article stood out for me:

"But everything began to change in subtle ways and gradually when Camping began to develop a hermeneutic or a principle of Bible interpretation based on Mark 4, where it says that Jesus spoke in parables. 'He took that to mean that everything in your Bible is a parable. Everything.'"

To be sure, there is much of the Bible that uses symbolic language and visions (Books of Daniel or Revelation, anyone?), and of course, Jesus did use parables. But everything has symbolic meaning? "Judas went and hanged himself," is a parable? Well, maybe it's a parable about how idiosyncratic interpreters of the Bible twist spindle and mutilate the Bible to their own destruction, but that's my sarcastic joke, not a serious interpretation of the Bible. By applying a comment about a teaching method Jesus used, out of context, to the whole Bible, Camping threw the barn door of Biblical interpretation wide open, shooed out the horses, cows and rats, and set the barn alight for a conflagration of destructive nonsense! Now that's symbolic language, folks!

I appreciate it when people pointing out problems also point to solutions:

"The whole situation can only be used as a great opportunity for the church to take responsibility and equip people to handle scriptures correctly,' he highlighted.

'Biblical illiteracy is the womb in which deception is conceived. The church today is very illiterate when it comes to church history, when it comes to the Bible. Most Christians don’t really know how to handle it.'

He continued, 'Hopefully people will stop and say 'man, if all those followers of Camping got so confused, maybe we should relook how a) As a pastor, am I equipping my people? and b) As a church member, how well do I know the Bible and how well do I know how to study and interpret it?'"

Good heavens! Yes! Please! "Making disciples" (Matthew 28:19) is far more - and better! - than evangelizing people and then spiritually warehousing them till the rapture or death take them to heaven! Every Christian has a life in which they should learn to know and serve God! Every Christian has some ministry to do/be that is essential to the Body of Christ. Those things aren't going to happen if all Christians are taught is the very basics of salvation! Further, believers who aren't taught more of the Christian life and aren't taught how to learn from the Bible directly will be easy pickings for whichever Harold Camping they chance to meet! Those last 3 sentences are not parables; they are the sad, sober, truth!