That the word would speed ahead

[1] Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, [2] and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. [3] But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. (2 Thessalonians 3:1-3)


Paul asks the Thessalonian church to pray for him and for the work in the gospel. Here we see five main players in the missionary life of the church.


Senders
Paul asks for prayer from the Thessalonians. Not all of them could go and proclaim the gospel away from home in the way that Paul could. So he invites others to join in his mission through prayer. In addition to the Thessalonians, we also know that Paul is in touch with all sorts of other churches. Sometimes he asks for prayer, sometimes he also receives financial support. But the main point is, Paul doesn’t work alone.


In planting New City church in Cincinnati, we've had literally hundreds of "senders." We have a sending church that supports us financially, prays for us, and gives us oversight. We have one time and monthly supporters, who make it possible to grow as a church without crushing budget constraints. And we have well over a hundred people who receive our prayer letter. Without all these people, we never could do what we're doing.


How might God be calling you, your family, or your small group to act as a sender for a church planter or missionary?


Missionaries and Preachers
How will they hear, if they have no one to preach to them? Paul asks for prayer as they go to proclaim the “message of the Lord.”


Those Who Hear and Believe the Gospel
Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that the gospel would go out, and that it would be honored, "as happened with you." The Thessalonians honored the gospel by believing in its truth, by confessing with their mouths and believing in their hearts that Jesus is Lord. They humbled themselves, confessing their sins and asking for Christ’s forgiveness.


Those Who Hear and Oppose the Gospel
"[Pray] that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith." Proclaiming the message of Christ will not be easy. Many will accept the gospel and there will be wonderful rejoicing. But some will also reject it. Christians need to have thick skin, knowing that even if you present the gospel with all sensitivity, winsomeness, and grace - some will oppose it. Just ask Jesus.


God
No matter how much Paul emphasizes human responsibility and action, he always comes back to the fact that God is at work. The success or failure of any ministry or mission rests on God. But this should not cause us to sit on rear ends, click on the TV, and forget about mission. Yes, God is in control. But he chooses to fulfill the Great Commission through the church.

The Heresy Itch

I went to school with a girl named Sarah Hinlicky. She wrote an article called “The Heresy Itch” awhile back for Christianity Today.


In the article, Sarah tells the story of a conversation she had recently with a man who unloaded on her an entire catalog of grievances he had against religion and religious people. He objected to institutional religion, claiming that he didn’t like to be told what to believe. He wanted to investigate his doctrines before believing in them. He thought for himself.


Now these are pretty typical objections, really. But then the conversation got interesting.

“What I’d really like is to get my hands on those scrolls,” he said.

“Scrolls? You mean the Dead Sea Scrolls?”

“Naw, those were discovered in 1947. I’m talking about the scrolls that were discovered in 1991.”

“Scrolls discovered in 1991?” I said, confused.

“Yeah, these scrolls were written by Christ himself! You know, the Roman Catholic Church is trying to cover them up and say they’re heresy. But I’d sure like to see them for myself. They say there’s totally different things in there!”

I was a little suspicious. “How did you find out about these scrolls?” I inquired as casually as possible.

“Well, I read about them on a Christian website. They say the forensic evidence dates them back to the time of Christ and to the very town he lived in before he died. Also,” he added, “they’re written in Christ’s own handwriting.”

I narrowed my eyes a bit. “How can they tell it’s Christ’s own handwriting?”

“Well,” he said lightly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “they cross-referenced it.”

Okay, that guy is a weirdo. But we may have more in common with him than we'd like to admit. Somewhere deep down, most of us are attracted to conspiracy theories. We’re suckers for this kind of thing. We’re hungering to be on the inside of some secret circle, to have secret knowledge. This desire in us is what makes ridiculous books like The DaVinci Code a bestseller. Dan Brown makes ridiculous claims based on whack-job scholarship, and yet, we’re tempted to believe it because we love the idea of unraveled mysteries, uncovered secrets, buried treasure.


The heresies in the first few centuries of the church were based on this same concept. The term Gnostic comes from the root word, gnosis, meaning secret wisdom or knowledge. Some people claimed they had tapped into a deeper knowledge that only an elite few could have. The average person can read the Bible, but only a special few can lay claim to the deeper, spiritual meaning.


This kind of thing still exists today. Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology – they all claim to know secrets that you can’t get at on your own, and as you develop through the ranks, gradually you are trusted with the secrets. The new-Age movement and a lot of the interest in Eastern religions appeals to the same instinct. Truth and spiritual knowledge, these people claim, are only open to a select few and can only be achieved through certain spiritual practices or study. Only the elite can really reach spiritual truth, enlightenment. The rest of us are left out in the cold.


Only Christianity is different. Sarah Hinlicky says it right. “Gnosis flatters human vanity and polishes it with the luster of spiritual authority…But the Christian faith does not deal in secrets. All nations are to be baptized and made into disciples, not a privileged few. The faith is not the purview of sages and mages alone. If anything, it’s quite the opposite: Jesus said to his Father, ‘You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants’ (Matt. 11:25). The tomb is empty and the Scripture is in print: all are welcome to behold and adore.”

A trustworthy saying

"The saying is trustworthy and deserving full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Tim 1:15)

Paul often had to fend off bad teaching. And he does so by going back time and again the gospel - which is the heart of all good teaching. In 1 Timothy 1, Paul points out a few effects of this kind of gospel teaching:


It moves people into ministry
Paul says that bad teaching leads to "speculations" while good teaching promotes "stewardship from God, that is by faith" (1 Tim 1:4). Gospel teaching pushes people to use their time, talent, and treasure for the kingdom.


Love
"The aim of our charge is love" (1 Tim 1:5). Jesus says love is the fulfillment of the law (Mark 12:30-31). When we sit under good teaching, we will have more love for God and for other people, precisely because we are overcome with the love of God for us made tangible in the gospel.


Worship
"To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever" (1 Tim 1:17). Paul regularly breaks into praise as he writes, especially when he's doing serious theology. Good theology makes for great doxology. Ruminating on the gospel will lead to worship.


Christian Maturity
Good teaching helps people stick with it for the long haul. Paul writes to Timothy to help equip him for "warfare" (v.18) - for their will be many assaults on your faith (persecution, doubts, suffering, temptation). Good teaching grounds you in the gospel and gives you the resources to press on through difficult periods.

The Prodigal God (Book, DVD, and Discussion Guide): Short Review

Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (2008, 133 pages, plus notes).
Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God Discussion Guide: Finding Your Place at the Table (2009, 65 pages).
Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God DVD (2009).

Tim Keller (founding pastor of Redeemer Pres NYC) offers a book-length treatment of the Parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15. Traditionally understood as a story warning against the waywardness of the the younger son, Keller recasts the story as being about two lost sons. Yes, there is the younger son who asks for his inheritance from the father and takes off. But Keller believes the scandal of the parable is found in the lost older son who, like his brother, self-servingly balks at the father's love in favor of the father's things. The younger son rebels and runs away with the inheritance. The older son tries to merit the inheritance by his good deeds. Both are lost because they reject the grace and love of the father -- one with his sins, and the other with his good deeds.


What Worked: This is a great book to read devotionally, but also tremendously useful as primer for how to think about discipleship (and really as a refresher on how real life change occurs). For a limited time, Keller's 7 week sermon series on Luke 15 is being offered for free at Redeemer NYC's online store.


What Didn't: There is a now a 6 session small group resource meant to go along with The Prodigal God. The Discussion Guide questions were pretty good, but I wasn't a fan of the video clips meant to go along with it. Like most pastors, Keller is a better preacher than an actor. In an attempt to be artsy, they tried to do interesting camera shots and have Keller walk around while teaching on the parable (to make it more visually interesting). I would rather have just seen clips from Keller's preaching at Redeemer.


Grade: A for the book, C for the small group material.


Read it if: You want to grow in your understanding of grace, and particularly how the gospel is not just the way you enter the Christian faith, but the way you grow in the Christian faith.

Bad Teaching

Doctrine is important. Good teaching is important. Paul begins his first letter to Timothy by talking to him about the importance of good, sound teaching in the church Timothy is being commissioned to lead. He defines "sound doctrine" as that which is "in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim 1:11).

Jesus told us that we could spot good and bad teachers by the fruit, or the characteristics, that play out in their lives. Paul agrees. What are some of the fruit by which you can spot bad teachers?

1.) Focus on Meaningless Talk and Controversies (1 Tim 1:3-4, 6) - Some in Ephesus tended to focus on "myths and genealogies." In chapter 4, Paul calls these "old wives' tales" (4:3-8). These are probably stories or add-ons to Scripture. Paul was worried about the bad doctrines that can result from speculative reasoning not based on the Bible. Today, we guard against this by making the Bible the focus of all our teaching. Beware churches and ministries that use the Bible merely as a jumping off point to some topic, or who rarely encourage people to read it for themselves.

When I was in campus ministry, students often asked me what criteria they should use in choosing a church. There's a lot to say there, but I led with the notion of consecutive expository preaching (preaching through large portions of Scripture). With this kind of preaching, you know that you're going to get to hear sermons on a wide range of topics, not just the pastor's hot buttons. And over time, the Bible will strike its own balance in terms of emphasis (i.e. predestination and free will, evangelism and social action). Topical preaching isn't wrong from time to time (especially to address certain issues with the congregation or in the culture). But the best way I know to teach the Bible is to actually work through texts in the Bible.

2.) Ambition without knowledge (v.7) - Paul pointed out that there are many who want to be teachers, though "they don't understand what they are saying." I take this to mean that they care more about their position and authority as a teacher than about the promotion of the gospel. Some things to watch out for in churches: pastors who seem more passionate about their position as a teacher than what they are teaching; guys who don't devote the time to really knowing their stuff; teachers who resent anyone questioning something they said; sparkle without substance.

Now some caution here on all of those things. There is authority that comes with a role of teaching elder, and members of any congregation should respect that. So you should support your pastors and, when you do raise questions, do so respectfully. Also, take into consideration that while you want your pastor to "know his stuff," you also don't want him studying 50 hours per week, lest he neglect the other duties of ministry. And sparkle is not bad - just make sure there is substance too. In trying to overcorrect, some pastors have made a virtue out of being boring. Let's just call that what it is - stupid.

3.) Lack of humility (v.7) - Paul says that while bad teachers often speak out of their rears, they  still made "confident assertions." So here's the balance. Good teachers know their stuff, but they also can admit there are things they don't know, or aren't as confident about. There should be a huge red flag if someone speaks on any and every topic with the same level of confidence. This is indicator of arrogant self-assurance - something dangerous in a church leader.

Another thing to watch out for is someone who has to win every argument. If you've never seen them admit a wrong, or admit some lack of expertise, or even simply say, "I don't agree with you, but you make some good points"...if you've never ever seen this in them, watch out.

What are some other things to watch out for? Any other hallmarks of bad teaching?

How do you know you have the gift of singleness?

I wish that all were as I myself am [single]. But each one has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. (1 Corinthians 7:7)

Paul refers to singleness as a gift. I've always understood the "gift of singleness" to be a permanent thing, and I think that's how Paul talks about it here. So how do you know if you have it? I'm not sure you can know for sure. I've known people who thought they were going to be single, and were for many years, and then God brought someone into their life and they got married. On the other hand, I've known people with a desire for marriage, and God never seemed to bring the right person along.

But if you have the gift of singleness, probably the single life will come a little easier to you. "His commands are his enablings." If God calls you to this kind of life, then he will give you the grace to do it. This doesn't mean there won't be challenges, but if you have the gift of singleness, then it shouldn't be a crushing burden.

And it's also important to remember that there's also a difference between a gift and a duty. Some people have the gift of evangelism - it comes easier to them. People respond more readily when they share their faith. They see lots of fruit. But the rest of us are still called to do evangelism, even if it's not our gift. It might be more difficult and scary, but something we need to do nonetheless.

So it is with singleness. Some of you may not have the gift, but you may be single today. And therefore, you have the duty. You have the duty to "seek first the kingdom of God" and live out God's call in your life right now.

There is no weakness in being single. And there's no weakness in wanting to be married, either. But there is a weakness in wanting to be married so much that you devalue what God has for you today. You may miss out on the blessings and opportunities he has for you now, by being so preoccupied with a time in the future when you will be married.

I'll leave you with this bit from Paige Benton Brown. When she wrote this, she had been single and in campus ministry for ten years.

Every problem is a theological problem, and the habitual discontent of us singles is no exception…I long to be married. My younger sister got married two months ago. She now has an adoring husband, a beautiful home, a whirlpool bathtub, and all-new Corningware. Is God being any less good to me than he is to her? The answer is a resounding NO. God will not be less good to me because God cannot be less good to me. It is a cosmic impossibility for God to shortchange any of his children…

Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me. (Read the whole article here)

The Challenges of the Single Life

In the last post, I talked about the gift of being single. But there are some significant challenges to living a godly life as a single man or woman. There's a lot we could say, but here's two big challenges I see for single folks in our church, and ones I personally experienced as a single.

1.) Sex. Even if you're not "aflame with passion" (1 Cor 7:9) there's a longing we all have for sex. And whether you know from past experience, or simply hear it from others, you're aware that sex is enjoyable. And yet the call of the Christian single is the be chaste. That's not easy. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair. Why do they get to experience this while I'm called to be chaste?

The Bible teaches that sex is meant to communicate "I'm for you, and no other" (see 1 Cor 6:12-19). It brings a kind of closeness that can only be described as "one flesh." And thus, it's to be reserved for a man and a woman in the covenant relationship of marriage.

That's a pretty different view of sex than what most in our culture seem to believe. Many see sex as a vehicle for pleasure or fulfillment, and thus it's not that big a deal to have multiple partners. Others see sex as a basic need (not a desire, but a need), and thus the calling to be chaste is a way of robbing people of something that makes us human.

But the Biblical view is different. Sex is great, but it's not necessary. Sex is meant to communicate something specific, and when it's misused, it robs it of its meaning.

Abstaining from sex as a single person doesn't have to be awful, but it is a challenge. Especially when the culture around you keeps telling you that you're missing out on something. But the Christian's call is to remember this: what you need most in life is the Lord, not sex. And if he calls you to be single (for a time, or forever), he will supply everything that you need to enjoy and flourish in life. And you have proof of this - he gave you his Son. Will he not then then give you everything else you really need?

2.) Loneliness. One theologian called the "epidemic of loneliness" among singles a major moral failing of the church. The church is a family, and married people within the church ought to take seriously the notion of including all kinds of people (especially singles) in their family life.

If you're single, you need to be proactive in developing deep relationships. As a single, I remember hearing about a conference entitled "Marriage is For Your Sanctification." I remember sulking and thinking, "Does that mean I can't be sanctified?" The truth is, marriage and family do help with sanctification. Living in proximity with a spouse and kids has a way of smoothing out your rough edges. As a single, when things get hard relationally, it's easy to avoid the other person. But with a family, you're stuck with these people.

But the same process can happen with singles, but it's harder. You have to really be purposeful in pursuing those kinds of relationships. But as you do invest in other people, God will grow you through the ups and downs of those relationships. God will use other people to smooth your rough edges.

In Mark 10, Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30). Many singles have discovered hundreds of family members in the church community. That's the way it should be.

So, though there are unique blessings to the single life, there are also challenges. What are some other challenges I'm missing here?

The Gift of Being Single

There are 90 million single adults living in America (according to a report released by the Census Bureau in 2005). That's 41% of the adult population in the U.S. That's an awful lot of people.

Unfortunately, singles have not always felt comfortable (or at home) in churches. Perhaps it's because the church provides so many programs aimed at families. Or evangelicals, rightly responding to the devaluing of marriage and family in the broader culture, unitentionally devalue the single life. Howard Vanderwell writes this:

I believe most Christians don't subscribe to the legitimacy of singleness. I am convinced that is the reason for so much pain and hurt in the church about that issue. Directly or indirectly, subtly or not so subtly, we have ascribed to the conviction that singles are unfinished business.

It's important for Christians to esteem marriage and family, because the Bible certainly does. But the Bible also esteems the single life, and even recommends it in some cases. There are a few things we ought to remember in thinking about the single life:

1.) Jesus Christ was single. He was the most complete, fully alive person who ever lived, and he never married. Thus, we cannot have the view that singleness is somehow a lesser state than marriage. Truly, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18), but when we read through the Gospels, we see the wideness of Jesus' relational life. He had deep friendships with all sorts of people. And the apostle Paul was the same. If you look at Paul's letters and start to jot down the names of people he mentions and the stories he tells about them, you see a rich web of relationships. Christianity cannot devalue the single life because it's founder and chief propagator were single.

2.) Singleness is our future. This is a tough one to swallow for people who are married. But the Bible teaches that marriage (at least as we know it) will not exist in the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 12:24-25). John Piper rightly points out, "This has profound significance for the single life." It means that if two wives in this life will not be one too many, then no wives will not be one too few" (Piper, "For Single Men and Women in Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, xvii). The same reason why it is okay for a widow or widower to remarry is the reason singleness is a blessed route.

3.) The single life provides freedom and flexibility for the gospel. This is Paul's reason for wishing more would opt for the single life in 1 Corinthians 7. Rhena Taylor writes:

Being single has meant that I am free to take risks that I might not take were I a mother of a family dependent on me. Being single has given me freedom to move around the world without having to pack up a household first. And this freedom has brought me moments that I would not trade for anything else this side of eternity.

Now, being single doesn't necessarily mean you have more time. Singles are often guilted into doing too much in the church because some assume that since they are not married, they can devote every non-working moment to ministry. That's not any more true of single people than married people. But being single does offer different and unique experiences to participate in ministry.

4.) Singleness is a gift. There's a Derek Webb line that says something like "If it's a gift, how come no one wants it?" Decent question, and there are unique challenges to single life. But much of our acceptance and appreciation of anything has to do with our frame of reference. And the Bible says that the single life is a gift - a grace from God. When we view it that way, we start to fixate less on the challenges, and embrace the freedoms and opportunities. Both married and single people in the church would do well to recapture a vision for the single life as a special grace of God.

Beyond the pagans and the prudes

[7:1] Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” [2] But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. [3] The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. [4] For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. [5] Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:1-5 ESV)

Paul was writing to a church plant in Corinth. And in this church, there were a lot of questions about a proper view of sex (much like today). One view of sex that some in Corinth were influenced by came from devotees of "mystery religions." The other dominant view came from those influenced by Platonism.

Those who followed the mystery religions had an earthy view of sex - you have an appetite, you should do what you need to in order to satisfy it. Tim Keller described the pagan notion like this: "If you're hungry you eat. If you're tired, you sleep. If you're sexy, you sex."

On the other hand, the Platonists had a very low view of the body. The soul was good, but the body was bad. Desires and urges have to do with the body, and therefore physical desires and sensuality should be resisted. This is dirty and would pull you away from the spiritual life.

If the followers of the mystery religions were the pagans, then the Platonists were the prudes. And we still have these people in our churches, maybe we even swing between these notions in ourselves. But Paul tells us that the Biblical view of sex is different. Sex is created by God, and therefore good. And it's meant to be enjoyed between a man and a woman in the context of a covenant relationship (marriage). Sex is not bad, but it also is not without limits.

Paul is especially concerned that married people do not adopt a platonic view of sex and abstain from physical intimacy with their spouse. Sex is not only appropriate, but important in marriage. It's a way of communicating love and affection. It's a way of saying with our bodies what we should also be saying with our mouths: "We are one flesh. I am for you, and no other."

The Divine Nevertheless

I've been blogging for a couple of years now. Sometimes vigorously, often sporadically. I wrote about books, music, mission trips, daily life, reflections on Scripture, sports, politics, and more. And therein lies the problem. I was never sure what my blog was about. I once heard Ravi Zacharias say of Hinduism, "She's opened her arms so wide, she swallowed herself." That's how my blogging had been. I wrote about everything, and thus the blog became about nothing in particular.

So I'm trying something new. "The Divine Nevertheless" is going to be much more narrow. I'm going to write reflections on Scripture. I love the Bible. I love to read it, mediate on it, and teach it. So I'm going to write about that. No more sports or politics posts. I suppose I'll have the occasional book review, but the great majority of my writing will be devotional.

What about the name? Eugene Peterson once praised Dostoevsky for writing novels that consistently involved the reversals of human assessments. X happens, and we think Y should be the result. But then grace breaks in and turns cause and effect on it's ear. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," etc. Peterson said Dostoevsky's characters were shaped under the rubric of the "divine nevertheless." Yes, the character has this weakness, and this is what should happen to him, but nevertheless... That sounds like the Bible to me. That sounds like grace to me. As U2 so aptly puts it, "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things."

So there you have it - "The Divine Nevertheless." I hope you'll read often and comment as Scripture comforts, challenges, and transforms you.