impinged

After a couple weeks break to get married, honeymoon, and get caught up, I’m back to blogging.

Vacations are a great time to think and read and decompress. In these times I often gain a fresh clarity in life. As I finished a book by an author I had read before I realized that many authors, especially Christian authors, have a kind of life’s theme. They have found something that they feel so passionately about that it oozes out of them. They see it in everything and it is the underlying message in every sermon they preach, book they write, every prayer they pray, and even every thought in their head. I realized that I have a theme. And I think these life themes, as I like to call them, are God given. They are a response to the situations we have survived.

My life’s calling is to preach freedom. Freedom is my life’s theme. It is the freedom I now experience in Christ that oozes out of me, that I want to preach to everyone that they might experience it too. As I read the Bible, over and over again I see the message of freedom. Paul says in this chapter of Corinthians that all things are permissible but not everything is beneficial and we should become a slave to nothing. That sounds great but then he goes on to list things we shouldn’t do because they are sins and says that we should allow ourself to be wronged and to accept injustice. That’s freedom? I might be a bit turned off on the whole Christian idea if I just jumped in there. But when we look deeper at the end result of allowing yourself to be wronged and accepting injustice, we do see freedom. It goes back to being a slave to nothing, not even vengeance, and the opposite of slavery is freedom. So if we do these things: allow an injustice to go unpunished, avoid drunkenness, preserve sex for marriage between a man and a woman - we remain free from the self imposed prison they place on our lives. Sure we miss out on instant pleasure, and most people believe instant pleasure is freedom, but true freedom is having the self control to delay gratification for the true reward of an overwhelming joy in life.

I love this chapter. It explains something that Christians have misinterpreted and abused for far too long: who do we judge. Most people outside the church say Christians are too judgmental and hypocrites. Those of us in the church spend too much time judging out of one side of our mouth and saying God is the judge out the other. It is the 5th chapter of Corinthians that we have mis-quoted and misunderstood.

In order to understand what Paul is saying we need to start from a basic understanding of the underlying goal of Paul’s ministry - which should be our goal as well: the goal is to bring people into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that their soul might be spared eternal separation from God. When we look at the issue of judging the actions of others from an evangelistic perspective we are able to understand our God given role. And that is to be a judge of those professing to be Christians. If a brother or sister in Christ is involved in grievous sins such as incest, abuse, or drunkenness, they are to be removed from our community. Paul is very clear that we are not to associate with these people because they are the hypocrites who give Christianity a bad name. Above all though, anytime we judge it must be from a spirit of love and correction and not one of self righteousness. Our ultimate goal is to ensure the soul of the one who has fallen is saved.

For those who do not call themselves Christians our role is totally opposite. Again, we come from the evangelistic perspective of saving souls. Our calling is not to judge those who do not know Christ, their judgment is up to God. Not only are we not to judge them but we are called to love them and associate with them where they are at. We are to be in their culture just not part of their culture. For it is only in loving association with them that we are able to influence them by sharing the love of Jesus Christ. Christians for so many years have walled themselves off in their churches with the stained glass windows and high steeples. It is time we read the Bible again and follow the example of Christ. He spent his time in the culture: with prostitutes, drunkards, and the sick and dieing. When he was in the temple he was not shaking hands and patting backs. I think Jesus is appalled by those of us hiding behind the cross he hung on.

This last Friday night was my fiance’s bachelorette party. One of her good friend’s made it a point to tell her she wasn’t going because they were going to a bar. The reason she didn’t want to go to a bar was not because she doesn’t drink, because she does drink in private, but because she didn’t think it would be good for her to be seen there. She thought it might send a message to those who were going that she is different and that she is seeking to serve God. And she also didn’t want to be seen by any of the people she works with at a local restaurant because she didn’t want to give them the wrong idea. The fact is that nobody noticed that she wasn’t there. Absence witnesses to nobody. There was no opportunity to witness to anyone she might have known in the environment where they live: the culture in which they are a member. She fell in to the trap of so many Christians that says because we are different we need to stay away from those who are different. So my question would be, who is right - you or Jesus?

I read a couple books a month and they are almost always books about God. Some of them are so inspiring I want to share them with everyone. So what better place to do that than to post my occasional book review as a new feature of this blog.

As the title indicates, recently I finished the second book by Rob Bell. I was excited to read this book after reading his first book, Velvet Elvis, last year. Bell is gifted as a scholar and theologian. He spends a lot of time breaking down text from the bible: providing the actual translations to words in the Greek and Hebrew, explaining the context in which the biblical events took place, and then relating it all back to today. He shows how “this is about that.”

So what is with the title - Sex God? I have to admit the title seems a bit salacious. In a way it kind of turned me off. Ultimately, though, I understand why he named it what he did. God created us, we are sexual beings, and sex is about God. When it is not about God is when sex becomes something dirty. When it is not about God is where people get used and our souls are tainted. How is that? Well I’m not going to attempt explain what Rob did such a great job of explaining.

One final thought on Sex God. I grew up being told that sex was for marriage both at home and in the church. There are a lot of us who were influenced by conservative Christian churches who told us that sex was taboo outside of marriage. Unfortunately, that is where the conversation stopped. We spent our first 20 years believing sex was wrong and that inevitably spilled over into some marriages. Personally, I threw it all away. I know a lot of my friends did too. I couldn’t find in the Bible where it said we couldn’t have sex until marriage. I saw it said to stay away from sexual immorality, but what is that? The conversation ended and I assumed the answer was that most Christians were wrong. Sex God is the conversation we should be having. In this book Rob Bell unwraps the mystery. He shows us how everything is related, how we are related to each other, and how our actions affect others as well as ourselves.

Read this book. Continue the conversation.

I am reminded of the obstacles I’ve faced and the subsequent successes I’ve enjoyed as I’ve overcome these obstacles. It would be easy to be proud and say that I did it, that I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior, I’ve had success because I’ve pulled myself up time and again by my own bootstraps. It would be easy to accept the pride others have in me because they have also seen the path I’ve come down. But Paul reminds the Corinthians, who had become proud, that pride leads to destruction. The Corinthians had nothing to be proud of apart from God. The Corinthians were an idol worshiping, decadent, pagan society. Without God they were doomed - Paul needed to remind them of that, and he reminds me of that. All I have, all I’ve gained, every success I’ve enjoyed all comes from God for without him I am nothing. So while I appreciate accolades, as anyone would, I realize it is not me being praised but God, who is doing a good work in me and through me.

Click here to read this chapter for yourself