A couple of weeks ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spoke these words at a special service at Westminster Abbey celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible.

It was meant to be read aloud. And that means that it was meant to be part of an event, a shared experience. Gathered as a Christian community, the parish would listen, in the context of praise, reflection and instruction, to Scripture being read: it provided the picture of a whole renewed universe within which all the other activities made sense.

It seems as if I’ve spent much of this year writing blog posts about the Bible. So when I got my new National Geographic in the mail recently, and the cover story was the King James Bible, I knew it was time to write a post about it (which I’ve been thinking about for a while). Now I’m not a “KJV only” guy. In fact, the irony is that even though I’ve been a part of Bible Churches my whole life, I’ve never really used the King James all that much. The Bible I grew up with and used until recently was the New American Standard (NASB).

But being a man who loves history, I can appreciate the impact of the KJV Bible on the Church and to our culture as a whole. And, of course, now being an Anglican, I really have to appreciate it! The KJV was written by Anglicans. There were a mixture of scholars, including Puritans, but they were still part of the Church of England at that time. There are many articles and videos you can read or watch that give the history of the King James Bible including a recently, well-done documentary/movie about it.

Here’s a list of 122 Common Phrases that we still use today that come right out of the King James, such as:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

A leopard cannot change its spots.

By the skin of your teeth.

Eat drink and be merry.

For everything there is a season.

Labour of love.

Many are called but few are chosen.

No rest for the wicked.

The root of the matter.

But mostly, what I’d like to do, is simply post a few audio links. That way, you can take a few minutes and simply Hear the King James Bible read…like Archbishop Williams stated.

Psalm 23

Isaiah 40

Luke 2

1 Corinthians 13

Shane+

I was on the radio last night, KPXQ 1360AM, being interviewed by the Pastors from Roosevelt Community Church. They invited me to answer the question, “What is an Anglican?” It was crazy, chaotic, mostly “off the cuff” and a whole lot of fun. I did my best to try and articulate some of what it means to be an Anglican.

Listen to the interview

Shane+

In the last post I wrote (2 months ago!), I shared about how important the Bible has been to me in my life. Think of this as a short followup. In this video interview NT Wright, the retired Bishop of Durham, gives his views on how to read the whole of Scripture. It’w really well done and I encourage you to watch, and take up his challenge to sit down with the Bible and read.

Shane+

I grew up in conservative, evangelical Bible churches. They were old school, Dallas Seminary Dispensational, non-charismatic Bible churches. I grew up with expository Bible preaching, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Bible verse memorization and “sword drills” (used to love them!). They were not quite fundamentalist churches, but sometimes close. In them, I learned the Bible. I also learned and came to believe that it was the Word of God written, that God spoke to me through it, and that I was to submit my life under it.

My formal theological education continued in these same type of schools: Moody Bible Institute, Arizona College of the Bible and Western Conservative Baptist Seminary/Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix Seminary broke away from Western after my first year and I completed my M.Div. at Phoenix…which is now broader in its theological views then when I was there, no loner strictly dispensational, but still in the conservative Evangelical camp). I write all of this not to disparage my upbringing in any way, but that you might have an understanding of how this fits into my Anglican journey.

It was only after I completed my theological education in 1996, that I turned to really studying Church History. History is my first love. I wanted to know where I came from. This was the one area that was really lacking in education. I had one 4 hour Church History survey class in my 96 hour M.Div. and none for my B.A. in the Bible. So I began reading. And as I wrote about in my other posts on my Canterbury Trail (#1 and #2), I started worshipping at liturgical churches, the first being a Lutheran one. A little later I was exposed to Anglicanism.

I bought my first Book of Common Prayer in 2001. It was the 1979 Episcopal Church’s, but it was a start. Since I was not worshipping at an Anglican Church, I did all my study in isolation. What I found in the back of the Prayer Book were “The 39 Articles of Religion.” I didn’t know at the time that the Episcopal Church put them under the heading of “Historical Documents” for a reason. No, I read them and read them so more. And as part of my journey, found myself agreeing with the theology of the 39 Articles. I thought to myself, if this is what the Anglican Church believes, then I’m an Anglican.

The “39 Articles” are simply that, 39 short Articles of belief. They were first written by Archbishop Thomas Cramner around 1552 as 42 Articles, and then revised to their completed form in 1571 under the direction of Archbishop Matthew Parker. The Church of England mandated assent to them by all clergy, stating:

No man hereafter shall either print or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and Full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.

So what’s the big deal about the Articles? First off they are committed to the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God and the Final Authority in all matters of Faith and Practice.

Article 6 is titled “Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.” It states:

HOLY Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

Article 8 is about the Three Creeds of Christianity. It states:

THE three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.

I emphasized that last line because it clearly states that the Creeds are to true only because they agree with Scripture.

Articles 19, 20 and 21 are all about the Church and how it derives it’s authority.

19. Of the Church.THE visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

Article 19 states that the visible church is one where the “pure word of God is preached” and mentions the both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic church have made errors. How have the erred? That is what the next two Articles address.

20. Of the Authority of the Church. THE Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of faith; and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ: yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.

21. Of the authority of General Councils. GENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.

These are just a sampling from the Articles, but the sampling is all related to the Bible and its place in the Church. The Articles affirm that the Church is under the authority of the Bible,  the written Word of God. This is the same Evangelical conviction that I was born, raised, educated with and still believe today. I discovered that I could be Evangelical and Anglican.

As I continued in my journey, I was connecting other dots as well. Some of those dots were people that I had no idea were Anglican that I had been exposed to most of my life. Of course I knew that C. S. Lewis was Anglican, but John Stott, J.I. Packer, and John Newton who wrote “Amazing Grace”? That blew my mind. Stott’s book on the Cross of Christ and his commentary on Romans were as soundly Evangelical and committed to Justification by Faith as anything that I’d ever read. I was feeling strong confirmation that I was supposed to become Anglican. Just wasn’t sure when, or even how.

Those came together in the summer of 2005 with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). I should finish that story up in another post, but I’ll tie this piece together. As I looked into AMiA, I found that all clergy in AMiA have to annually sign on to the “Solemn Declaration of Principles” which includes this statement about the “39 Articles”

This Church subscribes to the teaching of the 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of England. These are to be interpreted, as ordered in the Declaration which prefaces them in the English Book of Common Prayer, “in the full and plain meaning thereof” and “in the literal and grammatical sense.”

This, amongst several other reasons, was why I knew I had found a home in the AMiA.

I’m going to finish this post with a quote from the recent biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxax (Bonhoeffer), which is excellent. It is a powerful statement on the Bible. Bonhoeffer was in the midst of the modernist movement that denied that the Bible was any sort of special revelation or divine book. He, under Karl Barth’s influence, rejected that and came to believe that God speaks to us in the Bible. And they are not just words, but the words of the the one who loves us, if we receive Him and them in repentance and faith. As an Evangelical Anglican, I believe this too. This is from a letter that Bonhoeffer wrote in 1936:

First of all I will confess quite simply–I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us(emphasis mine). And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us…we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on…so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we venture into the words of the Bible. as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us (emphasis mine) and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible…(Bonhoeffer p. 136).

Shane+

This is the first post by Scott Bennion, our new Minister of Pastoral Care and Discipleship. He’ll be posting here from time to time.

“O Lord Our God, most mighty and merciful Father, …Preserve and defend our rulers in church and state. Bless the people of this land, be a father to the fatherless, a comforter to the comfortless, a deliverer to the captives, and a physician to the sick. Let thy blessings be on our friends, kindred, and families. Be our Guide this day and forever…”
General George Washington’s
1752 Prayer Journal

For those of you that don’t know I am a chaplain with the Boy Scouts of America. Earlier this month on May 5th I had the opportunity to go down town and participate in the National Day of Prayer. What a privilege it was and is to pray for those who lead us in our nation, state, and local governments. The following is a little of the history of the National Day of Prayer found at their website.

The National Day of Prayer was established as an annual event in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. The observance of the National Day of Prayer is founded on the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion and can be celebrated by all Americans. The mission of the National Day of Prayer Task Force is to mobilize prayer in America and to encourage personal repentance and righteousness in the culture.

This month’s event marked the 60th Annual National Day of Prayer. It is estimated that millions united in prayer at thousands of events from coast to coast. The theme was “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”
The custom of offering prayers for civil rulers is one of the most ancient traditions of Christian worship.

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly an dignified in every way. “– 1 Tim. 2:1-2
In the early centuries of persecution of Christianity such intercessions were in essence prayers for peace and in particular peace for the Church.

Our country’s leaders are best equipped to lead us when they recognize their limited sovereignty in contrast to the universal rule of God. It is for this reason that, as Anglicans, we pray for our leaders. We pray that they would be humble and seek the counsel of Almighty God. We also pray that we would remember whose authority they hold and as such that we would be faithful in following them.

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. – 1 Pet. 2:11-13

What follows are prayers from An Anglican Prayer Book and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer respectively. These prayers are adaptations of the Prayer for the King introduced in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer.

A Prayer for all in Civil Authority
LORD God, our Governor, whose glory is in all the world; we commend this nation to your merciful care, that being guided by our providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to [here the appropriate persons in government are named] and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness; and make them always mindful of their calling to serve this nation and people in reverence before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

A Prayer for The President of the United States, and all in Civil Authority.
ALMIGHTY God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of thy servants THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED SATES, The Governor of this State, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek thy honour and glory; and that we and all the People, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honour them, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

Let us make time in our lives for this important discipline of praying for our leaders. Thanks be to God for the gift of prayer.

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” – Psalm 91:2
Under HIS Grace,
Pastor Scott

It all started with this video for Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived.”  It started just a little bit of controversy.

I watched the video and my response was not positive. In fact, I immediately thought that Bell, pastor of one of the largest churches in America in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had finally come clean with his true thoughts just like Brian McClaren did last year with his “New Kind of Christianity” (read my post about that). Then I read that some others had watched it, had negative reactions and blogged and/or tweeted about it. Others were upset that Bell was being criticized befrore the book even came out. So I waited. Then the book came out and the reviews lined up just like you might expect them to. But still I waited, not really wanting to read the book, but I promised a friend I would before making any comments.

So having finally read the book, I’m ready to write my reflection. I’ll start with the title of my post, which a quote from the book, “We shape our God and then our God shapes us” (183 & 184). I can say that I agree with Bell’s statement. And while we all are guilty of falling into the trap of making god in our own image, I think the god that Rob Bell has shaped strays way too far from the Christian God. Too far from how God has revealed Himself to us in the God-man Jesus and in His written Word, the Bible.

Kevin DeYoung’s excellent and comprehensive review of Bell’s book (which I highly recommend) makes this bold statement:

At the very heart of this controversy, and one of the reasons the blogosphere exploded over this book, is that we really do have two different Gods. The stakes are that high. If Bell is right, then historic orthodoxy is toxic and terrible. But if the traditional view of heaven and hell are right, Bell is blaspheming. I do not use the word lightly, just like Bell probably chose “toxic” quite deliberately. Both sides cannot be right. As much as some voices in evangelicalism will suggest that we should all get along and learn from each other and listen for the Spirit speaking in our midst, the fact is we have two irreconcilable views of God.

And that pretty much nails it for me. Over and over in the book Bell tells us that we need a different story, a different narrative than what we’ve been told and what we’ve been telling. But before I can address the new (really quite old) story that he tells about god, I must address what He does with “the old, old story.” Bell takes the worst caricature of evangelical Christianity and sets this up as the story that needs to be retold.

Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean vicious tormentor who ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony (173-174).

Wow. I don’t want to write a book in response, and you don’t want to read that much, so I’ll try to be brief! This is the story that the Church has been telling for 2000 years? That God changes? That’s what he is saying. But Bell is wrong. Let’s be clear about what Jesus and the Bible says.

Jesus said these famous words:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16 ESV).

But He didn’t stop there. In the next two verses Jesus went on to say:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:17-18 ESV).

Jesus said whoever does not believe in Him is condemned; in fact, is already under condemnation. To make the point even clearer, the last verse of John 3 states:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36 ESV).

Now the term “wrath of God” is not a term that any of us like to hear or contemplate, but there it is. Jesus and the Scriptures teach that until we believe in Jesus, we are in a state of condemnation with the wrath of God remaining on us. St. Paul in Ephesians writes:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Eph. 2:1-3 ESV).

What I’m trying to point out is that God does not change in the moment we die. He is not our “loving, heavenly father” one moment and then become our “cruel, mean vicious tormentor” the next. This is not the story of the Bible or the Church. Bell is setting a “straw man” to argue against because he doesn’t like the hell. Guess what, neither do I. But I cannot change what the Scriptures teach and what the Church has affirmed for 2000 years.

And since the book is largely about Hell, must address his story here as well. I agree with Bell that the Church has often been too narrow in its story telling. The Church has often reduced salvation to saying a prayer that allows us to go to heaven one day and escape the fires of hell. The story includes that indeed, but is much bigger than that. But again, rather than expanding that truth, Bell changes the story. Hell is no longer a place (as far as I can tell, he is not exactly clear on this). Hell is simply our refusal to trust God in this life.

Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story (170). We create hell whenever we fail to trust God’s retelling of our story (173).

This is hell. It is reduced in Bell’s story of god to our life here on earth. And while that is partly true, we indeed experience some of hell’s misery: separation from God and His love while on this earth, it is not the whole picture. Bell even devotes a whole chapter to hell. He claims to deal with every verse in the Bible where the word hell is mentioned. Based on this, he argues against the doctrine of eternal punishment in a real place called hell by all who fail to believe in Jesus.

Technically he is correct; however, he does not even mention, let alone deal with some of  the most challenging verses about hell and eternal punishment in the Bible. Such as:

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life (Matt. 25:41 ESV).

Bell talks about Matthew 25 in the chapter, but only to argue that the Greek word translated “eternal” doesn’t really eternal in sense of time. However, the last verse of the chapter and the of the Parable of the Sheep  and the Goats contrasts “eternal punishment” with “eternal life.” The word eternal means the same things here and it is referring to time. But there’s more.

Bell fails to mention this verse from the mouth of Jesus.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ (Mark 9:42-43 ESV).

Bell goes on about how the word for hell that Jesus is uses actually refers to the garbage dump outside Jerusalem that was continually burning, which is true. He does this to claim that that is all that Jesus means. However, he doesn’t tackle the challenging statement about the worm not ever dying and the fire not being quenched. And maybe if there was nothing else in the New Testament about hell, his argument might be a little stronger. But there’s more that he fails to even metion.

Oh, he does mention Revelation 20, but only to talk about heaven really being earth (again a lot of truth here), but fails to mention the Great White Throne Judgement. I think if you’re going to write a book on hell and state that it is not a place of eternal punishment and that ultimately everyone will be going to heaven at some point, then I think you should deal with this. First from Rev. 14:

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,  he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name (Rev. 14:9-11).

And then this from Rev. 20:

and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10-14).

Here’s a question for Bell: If love wins, does that include Satan and the fallen angels as well? If not, then is God really love?

This is not pretty or easy stuff and I said before that I, as a human being, do not like it or even like to think about the implications of it for those I know and love. But the Jesus and Bible seem pretty clear about this.

Let me address one last point from Bell’s book (I’d like to tackle his poor Church history as well, but this post is too long already). In one of the passages that saddened me the most, Bell says this:

Many have heard the gospel framed in terms of rescue. God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life. However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from God.

Let’s be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescues from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer (182).

Let me be very clear, this is a true statement, “God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life.” For Bell to dismiss it with the disclaimer, “however true or untrue technically and theologically” phrase is alarming. Again, the statement does not tell the whole story. It is only a part of the big picture of God’s mission of salvation. But it is true! It cannot be dismissed because Bell doesn’t like it.

And the next part of the statement Bell is only half right. He states truly that God is our rescuer from sin and death. But he falsely states that we don’t need to be rescued from God. And He pits Jesus and God against each other. I want to be clear: Jesus is God, the God-man who rescues us from Himself. Again, apart from Jesus, we are born into sin and remain in a state of condemnation. If we die in this state, we will face the Lord Jesus at the Great White Throne Judgement. St. Paul pictures it like this (in another passage that Bell never even mentions):

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,  and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from  the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed (2 Thes. 1:5-10).

Jesus is coming again in glory and power and might to inflict vengeance on those who do not know God and who obey the Gospel. And obedience to the Gospel is to repent and believe in Jesus’ work on the cross and in His resurrection for the forgiveness of our sin. Paul is VERY CLEAR about the Gospel of Jesus that he received directly from the Risen Jesus:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed (1 Corinthians 15:1-11 ESV).

The Gospel of Jesus is simply this: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, He rose again, and He appeared to many witnesses. It is a message of Good News to be preached and to be believed!

It is to believed because Jesus and the Bible teach that we are born sinners. They both teach that a Holy God who is also Love provided the way for a relationship with Him to be restored by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And by faith in Jesus, God becomes our “loving, heavenly Father.” But not before and apart from Jesus. God does not change. God is the One we need to rescued from and the One who chose to suffer and die in order to do what we cannot do for ourselves, rescue us.

If you’re still reading this, let me finish with some quotes from C.S. Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity.” Here is speaking of the Gospel and our need of repentance and faith. He is speaking of the TRUE old, old story. Not the one the Rob Bell mischaracterizes in his book.

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed…Now what sort of ‘hole’ has man got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor–that is the only way out of our ‘hole’. This process of surrender…is what Christians call repentance.

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something that God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you back without going back. It cannot happen (55-57).

I finish with those words because that is the part of the Story that Rob Bell is no longer telling. He has shaped a god in his image, one that is willing to take us back without really going back. That is not the Christian Story, that is not the Good News.

Shane+

One of the most read articles in the Wall Street Journal this week is titled “Why Do We Let Girls Dress Like That” by Jennifer Moses (author of “Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou” and “Food and Whine: Confessions of a New Millennium Mom”). She asks the provocative question:

Why do so many of us not only permit our teenage daughters to dress like this—like prostitutes, if we’re being honest with ourselves—but pay for them to do it with our AmEx cards?

The answer she gives to the question made me think of my sermon last Sunday night. It was the 2nd Sunday in Lent and I preached from the Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. The Apostle Paul makes the strong statement, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification:  that you abstain from sexual immorality” (4:3). Sexaul immorality is defined as any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. My sermon came down to three reasons why we shouldn’t. We sin against our own bodies, we sin against others and we sin against God.

So I found Jennifer Moses’ answer more than interesting. She’s not a Christian and here’s what she had to say about how we let teenage girls dress and sex.

I have a different theory. It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret. A woman I know, with two mature daughters, said, “If I could do it again, I wouldn’t even have slept with my own husband before marriage. Sex is the most powerful thing there is, and our generation, what did we know?”

“Sex is the most powerful thing there is” might not be exactly true, but I think her point is. It is such an intimate act. We give ourselves in a powerful way to another person that makes it really is hard to grasp the depth of bonding between two people in sex.

Moses goes on to say:

So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn’t), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don’t know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We’re embarrassed, and we don’t want to be, God forbid, hypocrites.

Still, in my own circle of girlfriends, the desire to push back is strong. I don’t know one of them who doesn’t have feelings of lingering discomfort regarding her own sexual past. And not one woman I’ve ever asked about the subject has said that she wishes she’d “experimented” more.

In recent years, of course, promiscuity has hit new heights (it always does!), with “sexting” among preteens, “hooking up” among teens and college students, and a constant stream of semi-pornography from just about every media outlet. Varied sexual experiences—the more the better—are the current social norm.

I wouldn’t want us to return to the age of the corset or even of the double standard, because a double standard that lets the promiscuous male off the hook while condemning his female counterpart is both stupid and destructive. If you’re the campus mattress, chances are that you need therapy more than you need condemnation.

But it’s easy for parents to slip into denial. We wouldn’t dream of dropping our daughters off at college and saying: “Study hard and floss every night, honey—and for heaven’s sake, get laid!” But that’s essentially what we’re saying by allowing them to dress the way they do while they’re still living under our own roofs.

Now while I’m not focusing upon the main issue of her article, how we let teenage girls dress, I don’t disagree with her either. What I’m focusing upon is how she and her circle of non-Christian friends have come to the conclusion that they were wrong about sex. They were wrong to think that it was merely something to try, do, or experiment with. Rather, sex is something so special, so unique, that it shouldn’t be cheapened in the way our society has made it out to be.

As a man, I also agree that the “double-standard” of old is just as wrong. Men are not immune to the cheapening of sex either, even though we’d like to think we are. And I wish that in my youth I hadn’t bought into those lies either. So early in this Lenten Season, it is good to reflect upon this area of sexuality, because it is such a powerful part of our lives. And God’s intention for us is good. He wants us to walk in holiness and beauty. God give us grace to do so.

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Shane+

Earlier this month I spent 2 weeks in Boston freezing in the snow (although it’s only gotten worse since I left!). I was there to start work on a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in “Church Planting and Multiplication.” It will take me 3 years to complete this program and I am looking forward to what God has for me in it.

One of the the main things that I took away from my time there was the idea that God is a “God on Mission.” His mission is the redemption of humanity and creation for His glory. Now this wasn’t anything earth shattering or something new that I hadn’t heard before. About a year ago I even posted a video on the “missional church.” But sometimes you hear something in a way that you hadn’t fully grasped before. I think that’s what occurred for me. It’s the way in which this theme was framed for me that I found helpful.

God is a God on a mission and that mission is redemption. We need redemption because of sin. We are all fallen and separated from God. So God sent Jesus to accomplish the work of redemption by His death, burial and resurrection. We get redemption when by repentance and faith we become followers of Jesus. We become part of a new redeemed community of people whom God has invited to participate with Him…on His mission.

When Jesus ascended back into heaven, he sent His apostles to carry on the Mission until He returns again. Being a redeemed follower of Jesus means to be part of a redeemed community that has been commanded to be on mission. The mission given to us is to “make disciples” through our witness of love and by calling all people to repentance and faith in Jesus. Our lives individually, and even more so, our life together communally, along with our service to those in need outside the community is our witness. This witness is coupled with the proclamation of Good News that Jesus saves (the Gospel).

Now I grew up in church and the word mission was always connected to “missionaries.” Missionaries were people who went to far away places like Africa to spread the Good News of Jesus and see more people get saved. What I am coming to understand now is that is too narrow of an understanding of mission and missionary. As Christians, we are all on mission and all missionaries. The church is an outward focused body…it exists not for it’s own members, but for others.

I found this recent article on the web which describes the Missional Church really well. The author, Ronald Toft, states that, “A return to the utmost importance of having Jesus as the major focal point for everything Christianity concerns is paramount.” It’s hard to argue with that. He describes the Missional Church as:

Born out of a desire to recapture the vitality and meaning of Christianity and to reinvigorate its value to society, the missional campaign calls for a complete reformation of the church’s values and prerogatives. The term ‘missional’ aptly describes the ideology that defines the movement. The main priority is for the church to begin to see itself as a mission-based organization. The major effect for both the church body at large and for individual churches is decreasing institution and increasing personal, active faith. In other words the idea of being missional calls the church to change from an “attraction mode” of enticing people into the church building for services, to a “incarnation mode” of meeting people where they are and influencing them with a Christ-like life. This ultimately results in churches changing their focus from a passive, audience-style congregation to an active, participating congregation both within the church and outside its walls.

For the individual, the missional mode is just as challenging, perhaps even more so. To be a “missional christian” implies seeing oneself as a missionary to one’s own context. The emphasis of the Christian life is no longer on attending church, Bible studies, weekly outreach programs, missions trips and other church-sanctioned events, but rather taking upon yourself the responsibility of living out the gospel in every area of life.

Even as I wrote in my post on the Missional Church earlier, we at St. George’s are just beginning to press into these implications. I believe that this D.Min. program is only going to challenge me and help me become a better leader of a mission community. This year of 2011 is going to bring us new opportunities to join God’s mission in downtown Phoenix and I’m looking forward to what God is going to do.

Lastly, here’s a cool video which tells this missional story quite well.

Shane+

Happy New Year 2011!! And while we celebrate the beginning of a new year on the regular calendar, on the Church Calendar, it is the 8th Day of Christmas. We are still in the midst of celebrating the miracle of the the Incarnation: the baby born in a manger. Today also happens to be the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. I wrote about it a couple of years ago.

Today I wanted to post a couple of items that I came across this week that Sarah Hey posted on the Stand Firm blog. The first is wonderful quote (actually 2) from Dorothy Sayers about the Incarnation.

He [Jesus of Nazareth] was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”—he was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.

And:

So that is the outline of the official story—the tale of the time when God was the underdog and got beaten, when he submitted to the conditions he had laid down and became a man like the men he had made, and the men he had made broke him and killed him. This is the dogma we find so dull—this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero.

What words to ponder! This is the story that we are “telling on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere!” This is the story that God invites us into and to live out. It is His story. So that leads me to worship Him.

So for the 2nd item, Sarah posted a link to a Service of Readings and Music for the Christmas Season from the New College of Oxford. Select the “December 5th, 2010″ date on this link.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Shane+

Tomorrow is the last day of the year on the Church Calendar, which means Sunday begins the New Year! I am excited about this as the Church Year begins with the Season of Advent. Advent means “coming” and refers to the Coming of the Messiah.

On our regular calendars Advent is really the Christmas Season (which seems to start November 1st these days). So there is a close connection between Advent and Christmas. On the Church Calendar it is meant to lead us into the Christmas Season when we celebrate the fact that the Messiah already came to us 2000 years ago, born as a baby in a manger. And we can truly celebrate the First Coming of the Messiah because it means that God is with us: Emmanuael. But on the Church calendar, it is still over 4 weeks away; and in the meantime, we reflect upon the fact that our Messiah is Coming Again…with the clouds.

“He is Returning to Judge the Living and the Dead.” This is where the focus of the first part of the Advent Season most especially lies: on the Second Coming of the Messiah. Only this time when He returns, He will not be coming as meek and mild, as a babe in a manger. This time He is coming in glory and power as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And as we recite in the Creed…to judge the living and the dead.

So the question that most quickly rises when I contemplate this fact is, “am I ready?” Am I ready to meet the Lord when He returns? This is a question that we all have to ask ourselves. I want to encourage you to do so this Advent Season. We’ll be doing that on Sunday nights as St. George’s where I’ll be preaching on the line of the Creed, “From where He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.”

The first and most important question to answer is “do I have a relationship with God through Jesus the Messiah?” If not, then you can start by seeking Him in Faith. Jesus spoke  these words when He walked the earth.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).

Our relationship with God starts with His love for us in sending the Messiah. We respond with belief (faith). But that’s just the starting point. Faith is also the means by which we walk with God.

So for those of us who have already started the journey of faith, the next question we have to ask ourselves in Advent is, “am I continuing to walk by faith and love God with my whole being and my neighbor as myself?” Make room for God to enter your heart afresh as you ask this question and speak to you.

December can be a crazy, busy month that is sometimes overwhelming. Carve out time to spend with God and His Word this Advent Season. Do so knowing that He will meet with you. Do so knowing that one day, we will all meet Him face to face when He comes with the clouds.

Shane+