The ABSOLUTE BEST Bible Passage for Resolving an Age-Old Debate

NOTE: Since this message from January 24, 2018 is one of my favorites, I am repeating it .

God has blessed me with wonderful Christian friends from various faith traditions:  Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Charismatic, non-denominational, Wesleyan, and others.  Although we all agree on the central issues of the faith – what C. S. Lewis would call “mere Christianity” – we sometimes have different “takes” on certain principles of Christian living.  

A core issue for believers concerns how “demanding” we can be in prayer.  Jesus himself promised several times that we can ask anything of God and expect him to answer as long as these prayers are “claimed” in the context of God’s sovereignty.  After all, he is the God of the universe, and I’m not, so he may have outcomes I can’t see from my limited perspective.

But this raises a vexing problem.  How can I pray confidently, expecting an answer not knowing if what I’m asking is really God’s will?

Some Christians stress our unfettered access to our loving heavenly father and boldly ask for miraculous interventions.  If you extrapolate this position to the extreme, it can almost border on the “name it and claim it” false theology – insisting that God apply one of his promises exactly the way I want it to look.  

Other Christians are more reserved and, following Jesus’ example in the garden, stress prayer’s “nevertheless, not my will but yours” aspect.  Taken to an extreme, this position approaches “practical deism.”   That is, although I ask God to intervene on my behalf, I really don’t expect him to do anything, so he more or less becomes a non-entity in my daily life.

How do we resolve this tension between perhaps being presumptuous on the one hand and being “of little faith” on the other?  

There is no better Bible passage to address this than Daniel 3:17-18.  Enemies of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ratted them out to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar for not worshipping the golden image the king had set up.  The penalty?  Incineration in a furnace hot enough to instantly kill the soldiers who threw the three into it.

Given one last chance to reconsider, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it . . . .  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”   

That’s it!  The perfect blend of believing God’s power and a willingness to continue trusting him even if his will doesn’t match my personal agenda.  If God could make the Milky Way and the Grand Canyon, and if he could bring Jesus back from death, certainly he is able to suspend the laws of nature to preserve the three from the flames.  But will he?  I can and should ask for the miraculous, but God may be after other things.  That’s his business.  My job is to trust him even if my prayers are not answered precisely as I think they should be.  So ask away, and rejoice regardless of the outcome.  

Thank you for this transformational insight, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!

When a Big Deal Issue Suddenly Dissolves

During the summers between each of my college years, I worked as a counselor at the Dorothy P. Flint 4-H Camp in rural eastern Long Island. I loved that place, largely because of the great counselors on staff.

 

The fall after my first 4-H summer, I had the lifechanging experience of realizing that my stereotype of Christianity was all wrong. I thought you became a Christian by cleaning up your act and trying harder to be good. But I learned there’s nothing you can do to meet God’s standard of perfection. That’s pretty discouraging!

 

But there’s a good-news solution for this problem. Jesus died to take upon himself the penalty I deserve for falling short of God’s standards. That’s what Good Friday is all about! (By the way, I don’t even live up to my own standards.) Becoming a Christian involves acknowledging my sin, asking for the forgiveness Jesus offers, and inviting him to run things from now on. 

 

Coming into that relationship with him was truly revolutionary, and I wanted all my 4-H friends to experience this too.

 

As it turns out, about the same time I became a Christian, Jerry, one of the other counselors, had also found a new belief system – the Bahá'í faith. Bahá'ís recognize the validity of nine different great world religions and believe the latest prophet of God was a man named Bahá'u'lláh, a 19th Century Iranian. Since I don’t have the space to discuss the considerable differences between Christianity and the Bahá'í faith, let me just say they are not compatible.

 

The first I ever heard of the Bahá'í faith was from Jerry, and I was intrigued to learn more, probably for two reasons. As a relatively new Christian, I wanted to make sure I had hitched my wagon to the right star. Plus, I wanted to learn more about Jerry’s new faith so I could help him understand that the Bahá'í faith and Christianity are irreconcilable. So, I did a fair amount of research into this group over the next few years.

 

But then something happened.

 

I heard through the grapevine that after a few years, Jerry had rethought his belief system and no longer followed the Bahá'í faith. In an instant, this faith became a total non-issue for me. The only reason I originally cared about it was so I could have more meaningful conversations with my friend, but now none of that mattered.

 

As I’ve thought about this experience, I realized it offers a tiny, tiny glimpse of what the future holds for Christians. Our would is plagued by the pandemic, death, poverty, war, racism, hatred, and a host of other tragedies. But we know that some day all this will end. Anyone who has trusted Jesus to forgive their sins can anticipate spending eternity with him in heaven. Of course, we can’t fully comprehend what that will be like. But the New Testament describes what it will be like in the new heaven and earth:

He will wipe every tear from [his people’s] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).

 

I don’t want to minimize our current afflictions, but the implication of this truth is that, just like the Bahá'í faith became instantly irrelevant to me, all my problems – physical ailments, relational problems, financial woes, discouragement, the fear of death, and every other concern – will someday only be a distant memory. How awesome is that!

 

But I should point out that this future only applies to those who have trusted Jesus to forgive their sins. Although Jesus clearly and repeatedly offered incredible truths about God’s love, he also stressed that many are headed for a horrific future. Of Jesus’ 40 parables, 18 (or nearly half) clearly teach that some are destined for eternal separation from God. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way introduce the concept of hell right in the middle of his most uplifting messages. The sharp right turn is almost shocking, and some people try to explain away his teaching about God’s judgment. But keep in mind that it’s a pretty bad idea to reject what Jesus clearly taught.

 

I truly hope that you will experience the blessings of a tearless, painless future free from death and disease when the “big deals” of this life melt away. And Happy Easter!

What Is Your Passion Really Costing You?

It’s one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen in someone’s house. In fact, the only other time I saw a similar item was on a visit to the New York Historical Society Museum in Manhattan.

As I walked into my brother-in-law Frank’s family room, my eyes were drawn to a thirty-inch-long model of a steam locomotive and coal car. “What in the world is that?” I asked.

“It’s a working model of Baldwin 0-6-0 locomotive my grandfather built in 1935. He machined all the parts himself, and it’s fully functional. He used to have a track in his yard that it would run on. The thing is made of brass and steel, and it weighs about 45 pounds. He made a total of five locomotives over a period of forty years, all of them of different models. This was his first, and it’s actually the simplest of the five.”

“That’s crazy!” I said. “I can’t believe anyone could make one if these, let along five! How did you end up with it?”

“When my grandfather died in 1985, my grandmother gave it to me . . . because she hated it.”

“What!?” I exclaimed. “It’s amazing! How could she hate something so awesome?”

“Well,” he said, “most weekends, my grandfather would drive from his home in Southern Pines, NC to nearby Aberdeen to check and double-check his measurements so he could build exact scaled-down replica. Instead of being a real dad to his kids, he spent hours and hours and hours working on those locomotives Because of her husband’s neglect, my grandmother wanted nothing to do with any of them after he died, so I got this one.”

What a story! As an uniformed outsider, I was incredibly impressed by the locomotive’s beauty, craftsmanship and precision. I could no more produce something like that than I could run a 100-mile ultramarathon. Little did I know the dark side of Frank’s grandfather’s achievement.

We hear a lot these days about “following your passions,” and the word “passionate” shows up on many resumes. I’m in no way suggesting that you should not be fully committed to what you do. God intends you to live life to the max, and that includes thrusting yourself headlong into his calling on your life.

High achievers are driven to excellence, and that’s wonderful, as long as their activities don’t suck up the rest of their lives. In the world of entrepreneurship and startups, founders must dedicate countless hours trying to prevent their dream from ending up in an ash heap. There may be seasons that require intense focus, but if those periods merge into each other and last year after year, you just may live to regret it.

In the case of Frank’s grandfather, his “passion” lasted four decades, and, in his wife’s eyes, it cost him much more than the steel and brass used to fabricate his masterpieces.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke 9:25:  “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” Although the immediate context refer to Jesus’ requirement to follow him completely, I think one aspect of doing that is by living a balanced life that honors Jesus and appropriately prioritizes your responsibilities, not allowing your pet interests to overshadow what really matters.

What do you think?

What Do You Do When Your Daughter Is in the ICU and Almost Dies?

“You’d better get over here right now. Things are very bad, and she might not make it.” I was sitting at my desk at work when my mother-in-law called from the hospital with this terrifying message. This was the scariest moment in my entire life.

Here’s the backstory.

Our sixteen-year-old daughter Stephanie was in the ICU at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) with a terrible condition called Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS). In a nutshell, SJS is a rare, extreme allergic reaction to medication where the body literally burns from the inside out. The mortality rate is about 30%, and many of those who don’t die often experience permanent damage to their soft tissue including their eyes, mouths and lungs. Many lose their sight entirely. And Stephanie had a severe case with second degree burns on 75% of her body

She had recently started a prescribed sulfa antibiotic, and after a few weeks developed flu-like symptoms, strange sores around her mouth, other serious skin eruptions, and a life-threatening fever that reached 105.7 degrees. Our local ER transferred her to CHOA where she spent 20 days in the pediatric ICU, most of the time intubated and in a drug-induced coma. During her hospitalization, she nearly died three times.

Thankfully, the medical experts were able to identify and correct the problem that prompted my mother-in-law’s horrifying call, and Stephanie survived. She eventually recovered, albeit with eye damage and other significant, lasting problems. By God’s grace, she is doing reasonably well physically, and she and her husband recently welcomed their first child into the world. (I assure you, that boy will NEVER take a sulfa medication.)

Throughout this crisis, God made his presence known in a supernatural way. One question that many asked was how we could appear to be so calm in the midst of a parent’s worst nightmare.  All we could say was that somehow God sustained us emotionally.

I distinctly remember him telling me, “It will be alright.” He did NOT say, “SHE will be alright.” The message was, “IT will be alright.” We had no assurance that Stephanie would survive or that she would not have brain damage or go blind – real possibilities. But we DID have an uncanny sense of God’s presence.

Some wondered how we could trust God in this situation. I clearly recall thinking, “Why would I turn my back on God?” I could either scream at and curse him or run to him and cling to him in unprecedented ways. By God’s grace, despite all the emotional turmoil, neither my wife Annette nor I were ever seriously tempted to turn our backs on God.

I had always heard that God provides grace at precisely the moment we need it but not necessarily in advance. Corie Ten Boom, a saintly Dutch woman from a previous generation, once wrote that when she was a child traveling by train with her family, her father would only hand over her ticket to her at the last minute, just as she was about to board the train. This helped her see God provides – not necessarily by fixing our circumstances, but by assuring us of his presence – when we need it, and seldom before.

There is no guarantee that we will always be spared from tragic circumstances, but God does promise to be with us through even the worst of times:  “I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).”

I pray you never experience a similarly traumatic episode, but if you do I urge you to tap into the grace God offers in such pivotal times of trial. Annette and I can testify that it is real.

 

Part 2 - “What’s Your Definition of Legalism?"

Last time, I identified three aspects of legalism as any practice or activity that:

  1. God has used in my life which I then expect other believers to follow

  2. I feel compelled to do to enhance my relationship with God and which, if I don’t do, will jeopardize my standing with him

  3. Fans my spiritual pride or causes me to look down upon those who are less “spiritual’

And I promised to amplify these thoughts this time with comments on how misunderstanding context and culture or misreading Scripture can make the legalism problem worse. This happens in at least four ways:

  1. Elevating “non-essential” doctrines or opinions to the level of undeniable truth and judging other Christians who disagree.

Theologians often categorize Christian beliefs into three levels:

  • Level 1 – Things over which there can be no compromise, such as the Trinity, Jesus’ deity, his virgin birth, the fact that his death and physical resurrection are the only provision for forgiveness of sin, and the recognition that Christians should be baptized and participate in communion.

  • Level 2 – Doctrinal differences of opinion, such as the appropriate age for baptism (infancy or adulthood), the mechanics of baptism (sprinkling or full immersion), the frequency of communion (weekly, quarterly or “whenever”), or the “theology” of communion (whether Jesus is physically present in the bread and wine, whether he is spiritually present, or whether they are just symbolic elements). These are issues around which denominations appropriately form.

  • Level 3 – Opinions, such as whether it’s OK for a Christian to buy a Lamborghini, what type of music is best for worship, or whether a church should go into debt over a building program. Although Scripture contains helpful principles to think these things through, there are no verses giving specific answers.

It’s perfectly fine to develop strong theological positions. However, they become problematic when you insist that every Christian agree with you on every point. When people “sanctify” their Level 3 views on clothing, hair styles, music preferences, etc., legalism thrives. In their terrific book How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, Gordon Fee and Doug Stewart observe:  “ . . . there is no such thing as a divinely ordained culture” (page 85).

2. Getting so caught up in defining every last possible sin that your distinctions become laughable:

  • Some Christian groups prohibit going to the movies “because you are supporting the evil Hollywood movie industry.” However, they allow watching the same movies once they hit TV. Really?

  • Some who forbid all alcohol say you shouldn’t even drink a Coke at a social event because “how does an observer know you don’t have rum in your Coke?” Water is the drink of choice. To that I would ask, “How does an observer know that it’s really water and not vodka?”

  • Writer Phillip Yancey recalls during his school years walking the halls of his Bible college – which forbade facial hair on male students – seeing portraits of renowned professors and school leaders from bygone eras sporting full beards.

3. Applying some New Testament commands literally while ignoring others and judging Christians who don’t obey the ones you latch onto. For example, based on Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 14:34 (“Women should remain silent in the churches”) in some Christian circles, women are not allowed to hold pastoral roles that involve public speaking. However, since Paul also penned 1 Timothy 2:9, to be consistent, these same people should forbid women from wearing expensive clothing, gold or pearl adornments, or elaborate hairstyles. I have never seen “jewelry police” at the sanctuary door. Furthermore, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:13 that it’s improper for a woman to pray with her head uncovered. Very few Protestant churches require this.

Ironically, in the late 1960s, when “hippie culture” was beginning to flourish, many of the same Christians who ignored 1 Corinthians 11:13 about women covering their heads while praying invoked the very next verse (“If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him”) as “proof” that God condemns long hair on men.

Other practices which Paul presents as commands, but which are often ignored include:

  • Drinking a little wine for the stomach – Some ban all alcohol.

  • Greeting each other with a holy kiss – Pretty much unheard-of in Western churches.

  • Not prohibiting speaking in tongues – Some denominations forbid this practice. 

4. Basing some prohibitions on a misreading or misapplication of Scripture. I ran into this as a newbie when I heard an older Christian admonish a mutual friend to put down his beer. “You’re making me stumble,” he said, invoking Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 14. If you flip to that passage, you will see Paul is discussing a particular practice – eating food that had been previously sacrificed to a pagan idol – and concludes that, although there is nothing inherently wrong with that action, a newer and “weaker” Christian could become confused by seeing such behavior and stumble in his faith. Ironically, rather than identifying as the “weaker” Christian, the person urging our friend to not drink “because it will make me stumble” is implicitly claiming the high spiritual ground.

These four factors play into the discussion of legalism in my last post and make the problem worse.

I am not in any way implying that the Bible is not helpful for teaching us how to behave, but we must carefully understand the context of these instructions so we don’t come up with questionable or inconsistent applications. And I am certainly not saying that, when it comes to our actions as Christians, “anything goes.” We are to pursue holy lives that honor God, but we should not do so in ways that elevates certain applications of biblical principles to absolute truths when there may be other equally valid ways to follow those principles.  

What do you think?