Sermon Starters: A Peace That Makes no Sense

Text: Philippians 4:4-7
Context: Silver Lake Camp

Introduction

• Neville from Harry Potter scene from final movie as he wakes up 
• The Song: "Firm Foundation" 
• It's hard to explain, but if you've had a moment like that, you understand: 
• "I've still got joy in chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense." I. 

I. The world is always in chaos, but God is in control.

• I had no idea there would be an attempt to assassinate former President Trump when I planned this sermon. 
• There's not much we can do to address the chaos of the world. We can vote. 
• There have been Christians in history who have watched their countries be taken over by other countries. There have been Christians who have watched their country deteriorate from the inside, and all they could do was pray -- Frau Michel. 
• Conversation I had with a conspiracy theorist once.

... but God is in control

• We are citizens of a heavenly country (Phil. 3) 
• Our homeland is in heaven (Hebrews 11) 
• "Be anxious for nothing, and make your requests to God" 
• "But if not" (Dan. 3:18) 
• The key is to center ourselves on God, outside of ourselves. If our center is in God, then it doesn't matter so much what happens to me.

II. Sometimes our individual world is in chaos, but God is on our side.

• Money can be a problem (Ps. 37:25 -- God will get us through) 
•  Sickness can be a problem (friends this year) but God will walk us through 
• Divorce and relationships can be a problem. God will walk us through.

... but God is on our side.

• Sometimes he delivers. Sometimes he doesn't (Hebrews 11). 
• He always walks us through. 
• He's there even when we don't feel it. 
• Sometimes he's on our side when our feelings or mind are all twisted and we think he has become our enemy (Anakin and Obi Wan in Revenge of the Sith)

III. God promises a peace that makes no sense!

• Philippians 4 -- "Rejoice!" and Paul is in prison 
• "I have learned to be content. 
• It's a God thing. Not something we can muster up on our own. 
• It's a prayer thing as we "other" our center on God. 
• It's a Scripture thing... but reading Scripture with the realization that God is love. 
• Not the God concept of one looking to blow us away.

Conclusion 

You don't just run a marathon. You train for it. You train for that peace in chaos that makes no sense. It's a long race with the occasional sprint.

The Core of the Gospel 1

The story of Jesus is "good news."  It is the "gospel" that God has enthroned Jesus as king of the universe.  A gospel in the time of the New Testament was extraordinary news, like the birth of a successor to the throne or a key military victory. In the preaching of Jesus, the image of "preaching the gospel" may have pointed directly at Isaiah 52:7 and the good news that God was restoring his people after a time of captivity. [1]

The sermons of Acts are all encapsulations of the good news as well, and almost all of them climax with the fact that God has raised Jesus from the dead and enthroned him as king of everything. [2]  They are all very similar, which probably shows that they are as much the handiwork of Luke as word-for-word transcripts of exactly what was said on each occasion. [3] But they nevertheless give us a clear picture of the earliest preaching of the church. [4]

The sermons of Acts almost all have a roughly similar outline. [5]  First, God had foretold his plan in the prophets of Scripture. He was now making it happen through Jesus of Nazareth. The people of Jerusalem had put him to death, but God had raised him from the dead. The resurrection is the climax of all the sermons in Acts but Stephen's. God installed him as king of everything and has now sent out his Spirit. In response, everyone should repent, be baptized, and they will receive the Holy Spirit...

[1] See Ken Schenck, Jesus: The Mission (Indianapolis: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2013), 22-23.

[2] See 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 for another narrative encapsulation of the gospel.

[3] We know from the Greek historian Thucydides that it was perfectly acceptable for a historian to compose speeches that fit the occasion about which they were writing (cf. History of the Pelopponesian War, 2.97.4). The sermon of Acts 2 gives us a hint of Luke's handiwork in that Peter seems to quote Psalm 16 from the Greek version, while Peter would have spoken Aramaic on the Day of Pentecost. Compare Acts 2:26 with Psalm 16:9.

[4] A classic here is C. H. Dodd's, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952).  You can read it for free online here.  I studied under Dunn who studied under Moule who studied under Dodd.  This basic gospel preaching is sometimes called the "kerygma."

[5] Arguably Stephen's sermon in Acts 7 would have ended up similarly, but he gets stoned before he finishes.

My Sermon: "Do not let Sin reign"

I gave this sermon in chapel a week ago as part of the Cox Deeper Life Series:

"Do not let Sin reign"

Final Installment: The Sermon

And now, the final part of the sermon. I should be getting up in the second chapel as this posts.

Introduction
The Head: God's Third Order of Business
The Heart: God's First Order of Business

The Feet: The Second Order of Business

And so I end this morning with God’s second order of business. The first order of business is your heart. More than anything else, God wants to transform your heart. He wants to make you a person after his own heart. God’s third order of business, I’ve suggested, is your head. Ideas are important. No one could ever rightly accuse me of not being interested in the truth. Why do you think I’m here at a university and now at a seminary?

But before our heads, God is not only interested in our hearts, but He is also interested in our feet. Our feet are God’s second order of business. What I’m talking about is our actions, how we live in the world.

A verse came to mind as I thought about our actions as God’s second priority. It is Isaiah 52:7: How beautiful are the feet, Of those who bring the good news: “Our God reigns!” Isaiah 52:7.

I have taken the verse a little out of context, another great inheritance of the Wesleyan holiness tradition. Dr. Lennox, here at the university, did his doctoral dissertation on the interpretive techniques of the Wesleyan writers of the late 1800s. And let me say that they were not known for how strictly they read the words of the Bible in context.

Again, there are those who look down on us for our past use of “spiritual methods” of interpretation, just as there are those who look down on Pentecostals and Baptists for lifting verses out of context, what we sometimes call “proof-texting.” But as it turns out, that’s pretty much how the New Testament interprets the Old Testament, so I guess we’re all in good company.

Isaiah 52:7 was originally about the return of Israel from captivity in Babylon. The image of the feet of the messenger is the picture of someone coming from a battle to announce victory. Most of you here will know what a Marathon is. The race takes its name from the Battle of Marathon, where the Greeks decisively beat the Persians. The Greek messenger ran a little over 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce victory in the battle (and then of course died).

So the original image in Isaiah 52:7 is of a messenger coming from Babylon to Jerusalem to announce that God has won, that many of those who were taken away for some seventy years would soon be returning.

But what jumped out at me from this verse were the feet of God’s messengers. God’s messengers—which is all of us—should surely have beautiful feet! How do our feet look to those around us? Are those around us happy to see us coming? God’s second priority is our lives.

Christians should not have ugly feet. Our lives should be good news to those around us! That certainly applies to those in need, such as those in great need right now in Haiti. We should bring good news in the form of food for the hungry and water for the thirsty and clothing for the naked. That’s what I believe. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

But our actions should also be beautiful to God as well. One of the verses that I learned growing up was 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has taken hold of you, That you don’t have in common with everyone else. God is faithful! He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, But He will also make with the temptation a way out, to be able to bear it."

I’ll be frank with you. I cannot find a single place in Scripture that, when read in context, tells us that we cannot help but sin intentionally. By intentionally I mean you know the right thing to do—or the thing you should not do—and you do the wrong thing. I firmly believe that popular interpretations of passages like Romans 7 (I do the thing I do not want to do) or 1 John 1:8 (if we say we do not have sin, we deceive ourselves) are misinterpretations. And yes, I am a Wesleyan.

But what I do find in Scripture are statements about how Paul wants his churches to be blameless at Christ’s coming or that those who persist in certain sins will not inherit the kingdom of God or that those who continue to sin willfully use up Christ’s sacrifice or that there is a sin that leads to death or that some who were part of the Christian community will have to depart from Christ on the Day of Judgment.

When it comes to summing up how we are to live in this world, what I find is 1 Corinthians 10:31, which I mentioned at the very beginning of the sermon about Doing all to the glory of God. "Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31. This verse sums it up for me, how God expects us to live.

I grew up with a misinterpretation of 1 Thessalonians 5 based on the King James Version—but I still think it was a true spiritual interpretation of the verse. “Avoid the very appearance of evil.”
Of course the old time Wesleyans probably took the verse too far. One of my grandfathers would never have eaten in Applebee’s because of the bar in the middle—it has the “appearance of evil.”

The point is rather that our orientation in life in how we live should be around what gives God the most glory. A teenager once asked me how far he could go with a girl before he would go to hell. It was completely the wrong question. In a very real sense, he had already gone too far in his heart.

The right question is not what can’t I do or what can I do to get out of being punished. The question is what can I do that will be most pleasing to God. How would every detail of my life look if I were completely surrendered to God?

These are things that excite me. It excites me that God is most interested in my heart, and that He empowers it to be like His heart. It excites me to orient my entire life around God, and that He will empower me to live a life fully devoted to Him. And, yes, I am excited about the truth and all that God wants to teach me through Scripture and through God’s people.

These are things that excite me. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

Third installment: Sermon

I should actually be starting the sermon in chapel as this third installment publishes:

Introduction
The Head: God's Third Order of Business

Now, The Heart: God's First Order of Business

So what is God’s first order of business? It is the heart, heart transformation. The verse that came to mind is not a particularly Wesleyan verse, but it is a verse that jumps out at me. And, yes, I happen to be Wesleyan.

Mark 7 says that Out of the heart, Evil thoughts come (Mark 7:21). And “What goes out of a person, That defiles a person.

Jesus here is talking to some Pharisees. Not all Pharisees were like the ones pictured in the gospels, especially in Matthew. But the picture we get is of a group of people who are so focused on outward actions (which are actually important, by the way) that they miss the first order of business, the heart. Jesus here sets the record straight. Actions flow from the heart, and if the heart is straight, then the actions will be too.

But it is not only these words of Jesus that lead me to think the heart is God’s first priority, over beliefs and actions. It is looking out at all of you. How is it that godly people from every church and denomination can have a true and vibrant relationship with God and God not bring us all on the same page on the details? Now God has brought us all on the same page on the Apostle’s Creed. Maybe those head things are really important. But God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to correct all of us on the things we squabble over among ourselves. It just doesn’t seem to be high on His agenda.

In fact, for those of us who are Protestants, God let the Church believe a lot of things we don’t believe for a 1000 years! He didn’t seem in too big of a hurry to correct it.

And how many 1000s of years did God wait before sending Christ? It was over a thousand years from Moses to Jesus, a period that Hebrews and Colossians say only involved a shadow of the reality in Christ. Hebrews says the sacrifices of the Old Testament didn’t actually take away sins—even though they no doubt thought they did. God just didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to set Israel straight on the details.

And none of that is even to say how long it was before God gave the Law to Moses. It was all word of mouth before then. 2 Peter 3 reminded the Christians of that time that “a day with the Lord is like a 1000 years.” Setting the record straight in our heads just doesn’t seem to be God’s first order of business.

You don’t need to have it all figured out in your head to be saved. You do need to have committed your heart to God as your king and Jesus as Lord. And I also have a hunch that God will judge those who have not heard—or those whose head is really messed up—according to the light they have had. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

All the studies of the brain and all the recent reflections on human knowing have concluded that we are far more “feeling” and “experiencing” things than “thinking things,” to borrow a phrase from James K. A. Smith. Socrates used to say that “right thinking leads to right action.” That’s a nice idea, that if we have our heads straight, then our actions will be right too.

But it is rarely true. Our minds are, as Augustine put it, “fallen.” It has not been my experience that people will do the right thing if they know what the right thing is. A much better version of the saying—and one that fits with Jesus—is that, “A right heart leads to right action.”

And of course when we are oriented around our hearts, then we will get along a lot better. John Wesley was not perfect or inspired. But he did have a saying I quite like, “If your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine.”

One thing I like about The Wesleyan Church is the fact that it has a “big tent” on a lot of issues. Take baptism. You can immerse. You can sprinkle. You can pour. You can baptize believers. You can baptize infants. You can decide not to baptize at all. If your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine.

You can believe communion is just a remembrance of Christ’s death or you can believe the bread and juice actually and literally become the body and blood of Jesus. But is your heart right with God?

You believe in pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, no trib. We haven’t even ever defined exactly what it means to say the Bible is inerrant. But is your heart right with God?

There’s a great saying that some Wesleyans used to say (although they probably didn’t practice it very well): “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.” The most essential thing is that you be a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. There is room for many differing ideas within that essential.

That’s what I think. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

Sermon continues

The introduction to the sermon is here.

The Head: The Third Order of Business
Third of all, there are a group of beliefs that get me excited as a Christian. Yes, I said third of all. It may seem strange for me to start with the third group of things instead of the first. In fact, you might chalk it up to those illogical Wesleyans. Figures, that they would get things out of order.

Wesley has sometimes been put down for not being a thinker like, say, John Calvin. (And let me make it clear that despite the statues of Wesley on campus, John Wesley was not the founder of The Wesleyan Church, and we are not bound in any way to follow his exact teachings.) But back to Calvin—Calvin produced a lovely, systematic theology that logically goes through Christian beliefs. But what did Wesley leave behind? What is the resource for the Methodism he started?

It’s a series of sermons. So it figures that I would put things having to do with our heads third on the list of things that excite me. That’s because I believe the head is God’s third order of business, not His first order of business. That’s what I take from the Bible; and, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

Of course, I’m saying this at Indiana Wesleyan University, a Christian academic community. The head may be God’s third order of business in general, but within the body of Christ, the head is our first priority here. IWU is not a church. This is a chapel service, but I sure hope you don’t substitute this gathering for becoming a part of a local church in a permanent community. Our number one task here is to address your heads.

But it is God’s third order of business. I start with the head because there are some things I believe as a Wesleyan that I think almost everyone here believes as well. We might call those things "Common Christianity." I’ve put on the screen my own wording of the Apostle’s Creed, which will be familiar to many of you. These are things I think almost everyone here in the room believes. They are certainly things I believe. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan:

We believe in God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin, Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead and buried. He descended to the dead. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, And is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, The holy Church universal, (you probably know that line better as “the holy catholic church,” but what it means is the Church everywhere), The communion of the holy, (which is what the saints are, the “holy ones,” and that is you and me and all the Christians who have ever lived), The forgiveness of sins, The resurrection of the body, And never ending life, (or as you may have said it, “and life everlasting.”)

These are things all of us who are Christians believe and we have for almost two thousand years. These things are important, even though they are only God’s third order of business.

Something else that we all hold in common is our valuing Scripture. All of us who are Christians—at least Christians in continuity with the last 2000 years (There are any number of people who still call themselves Christians today who are quite different from Christians in the past). All of us who are Christians would affirm the words of 2 Timothy 3:16:

All Scripture is God-breathed, And beneficial for teaching, For correction, For improvement, For training in righteousness.

I don’t care whether you are a Roman Catholic or a Baptist or a Lutheran or a Pentecostal or Reformed or a Wesleyan, you affirm that Scripture is a God-breathed source of divine teaching and training.

I believe you will also find in every Christian group those who also believe that the Bible is without error. There are Catholics who believe the Bible is without error and Baptists who believe the Bible is without error. There are Lutherans who believe the Bible is without error and Reformed people who believe the Bible is without error. There are Pentecostals who believe the Bible is without error and yes, Wesleyans believe the Bible is without error.

But even saying this brings us to a sobering moment. We have suggested that there are godly, righteous people in all of these groups who will be part of the kingdom of God. And we have suggested that there are people in all these groups who believe the Bible is without error. And yet we still have significant disagreements in what we believe the Bible teaches.

I remember talking to a family member once about the Wesleyan tradition—the Wesleyan tradition thinks this or the Wesleyan tradition does that. After a little while the family member got a little tired of me talking about the Wesleyan tradition. “Stop talking about the Wesleyan tradition,” they said. “We just read the Bible and do what it says.” Yes, and so do the Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Reformed, and Pentecostals I just mentioned.

It would seem that even to say the Bible is without error doesn’t actually say much. The far more crucial question is which interpretation of the Bible is the right one or authoritative one.The fact that God hasn’t got all the godly people from all these different groups on the same page with regard to the details may suggest that the head—at least on these sorts of details—is not God’s first order of business.

That’s what I think. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

Preaching tomorrow...

... at IWU. Here's the written version of the introduction:
____________
The calendar says that today is “Wesleyan Day,” which no doubt struck fear into the hearts of any of you who looked at the calendar. All it really means is that most of the prospective students here today are Wesleyans. And you’ll be happy to know that I don’t plan to talk about what a Wesleyan is today—well, not exactly.

Yes, I am a Wesleyan. But I suspect that most of you out there are not. In fact, you may not have a clue what in the world a Wesleyan is. Is that a cult? Kind of like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses? (And, by the way, my apologies to any Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses who might be out there). In fact, I even wonder if those of you out there who are Wesleyans are quite sure what a Wesleyan is.

And of course, what does it really matter anyway? There was a time, long ago in a far away place, when there might have been some people in my tradition who actually thought we were about the only ones going to heaven. (In fact, when I was in high school, I used to be amazed to think that I just happened to be born into the Christian group that had it all right. I mean, how likely is that?!)

I’m a little wiser now (I hope). I still think we’re pretty close to having it all right (smile), but I’ll have to admit that Wesleyans are probably wrong on at least something, even though we don’t know it. And I think you’ll all agree with me that there will surely be Christians “from every tribe and nation”—and church—in the kingdom of God.

Every church—I think—has a flavor and, just maybe, a specialty. Non-denominational churches have flavors too—they just don’t announce what it is on their church signs. Most non-denominational churches are basically Baptist or charismatic.

Baptists, I think, really “get” the security of believers in Christ. God’s not waiting around the corner just looking for an excuse to shoot you. Now, as a Wesleyan I might think they take it a little too far, but I agree that true believers shouldn’t worry about their salvation.

The Reformed Church and Calvinists really “get” the sovereignty of God, His complete control over everything and the fact that He is what everything is about. Pentecostals and charismatics really get the fact that God still does miracles and that His power is available right now in our lives.

I’ve asked myself what the special flavor, the superpower of the Wesleyan tradition might be--Free Methodists, Nazarenes, Methodists, Wesleyans. I think it’s actually quite similar to the Pentecostals. We are optimistic about God’s power to make you morally pure, holy, actually righteous right now and not just in the kingdom to come. You can actually resist every temptation that comes your way, by God’s power.

Not only that, but God often works through us to change the world, right now—not just when Christ returns and forces every knee to bow. I know the idea of world changers can be a little cliché and is even the subject of a course that must not be named. But I believe that there are periods of history where God actually does change the world to be more like the kingdom. That he does sometimes help us do away with slavery or give women equal status to men.

I’ve also realized that different Christian groups have particular passages of Scripture that speak more directly to them than to others. For example, I bet the last part of Romans 8 really jumps out at Baptists—nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It’s not that I don’t believe this as a Wesleyan. It just don’t hear quite the same thing when I read it.

I’ve asked myself what a good Wesleyan passage might be. Obviously you all would agree with the verse too. But I tried to think of some that might jump out at me given where I’ve come from. Certainly I can think of others, but a couple really jumped out at me. One is Colossians 3:17—“whatever you do in word or action, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The other one, where the title up on the screen comes from, is in 1 Corinthians 10:31—where the title of today’s sermon comes from: “Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”

Like I said, I don’t want to talk today about what a Wesleyan is, today—not exactly. I want to talk about what really gets me excited. You know the things that get your professors going. You know the questions to ask when you want to get them off topic. This morning I want to talk about some things that get me excited. And, yes, I am a Wesleyan.

Pagan Christianity 5: The Sermon

This is the fifth installment of my review of Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity? I apologize for the earlier caustic language I used about Viola. I don't have hateful feelings toward him. I just think some of his argumentation is absurd. I've edited most of my caustic language out.

The previous reviews were:

1. Viola's Preface
2. Barna's Introduction
3. The Church Building
4. The Order of Worship

Today we look at chapter 5, "The Sermon: Protestantism's Sacred Cow." I'm so tired of this book. Can I rewrite it for him? It will be a lot shorter. Of course I will not be as rhetorically effective as Viola or as entertaining. He's obviously studied writing at some high school and college that no doubt taught composition following the techniques of Greco-Roman rhetoric.

And of course to stoop to using the book form would be to submit to pagan influence, since none of the Old or New Testament writers used the book form. They wrote on scrolls. The book form actually came into Christianity from pagan culture in the third century because Constantine wanted all the churches to have a standardized form of Scripture that could be mass produced and put into every basilica (that he ordered built to stamp out vibrant, open participatory meetings). He ordered 50 complete copies of the whole Bible made on book form, using the text he had chosen, and distributed throughout the empire.

Of course half of what I wrote above is a joke. And you should take half of what Viola writes about as seriously as what I just wrote too.

What's good in the chapter
Do church meetings have to have a sermon or homily given by an official minister in the same format to individuals who do not feel free to ask questions or interact with the speaker?

As far as I'm concerned, if Viola and others want to meet in a home, pray, search the Scriptures, study together, maybe occasionally have a visiting speaker who is obviously graced by God with particular wisdom, go for it. I affirm you.

How's that?

As for your critique of preaching? Barna's research suggesting that most sermons do not facilitate worship or draw people nearer to God, or convey life-changing information (104)? I suspect there is some substance to their claims about the effectiveness of most sermons.

Frankly, the same principles apply to college lectures. What is it, students will likely retain 5% of a lecture, making it the most ineffective form of teaching in itself?

Viola's five points on preaching are:

1. It makes a preacher a virtuoso performer with muted spectators who watch a performance (97).

2. It often stalemates spiritual growth by fostering passivity (97).

3. It preserves the unbiblical clergy mentality (98).

4. It doesn't equip the saints but de-skills them (98).

5. Today's sermon is often impractical (99).

Number 3 is the next chapter so I'll leave it alone for now. Yes, I would agree that in perhaps even the majority of churches the congregation mostly lets the pastor do the work of the ministry when they should be fully involved.

Yes, I would agree that a good many sermons do not have the congregation's "address" on them. People leave thinking, "What am I supposed to do with that?"

And yes, an aweful lot of preachers "get off" on their overestimated authority and wisdom (of course that can apply to professors, bloggers, book writers, and people invited to come speak at conferences). I have longed complained at the dynamic in America that can take a below average person who would have difficulty succeeding at any other job, gives him (less often her) a Bible, and suddenly this person can speak with the authority of God? Nah, most of the time they still don't have much to say.

I'm not, by the way, suggesting that all preachers are this way, not at all. I'm targeting a particular kind of pulpit "know it all" that is actually a "not know much at all." Only in democratic America, where there has often been a tinge of anti-intelletualism, is this phenomenon of the know-nothing pastor at all common.

On the other hand, some people are just wiser than others. Viola is surely one of them in many respects (despite what I say of him below). I fully agree with Augustine when he suggests that you cannot make a person into a great preacher. I believe you can improve a person's speaking ability. But generally, some people were born to have something to share and share it well and most weren't. And some people are gifted to be wise and most aren't.

Again, by "most" I don't mean most preachers, but most people.

I hope you'll forgive me for suggesting that good preaching is primarily about having wisdom to share. We tend to play games with the biblical text, as if any old person can preach if they preach the Bible. Viola likely thinks that any old person in his house church can share great wisdom from the Spirit. Sure. Anyone can have a moment of inspiration or insight.

But in my opinion, God has simply gifted some people in these areas and, most, He hasn't. Most of the time, the wise ones should be speaking, whether in a house church or from a pulpit. A person that God has anointed with wisdom will bring God's word to others around her or him (Viola seems to assume it will be a him). A person not anointed with wisdom will not bring much to those around him or her, even if they are speaking from the Bible.

And by the way, I would agree with Viola that the forty-fifty-ninety minute sermon is no sign of anything except probably a congregation bored out of their skull. These preachers do often leave me thinking they have an overblown sense of the importance of their own words. I bet the take away of the vast majority of congregations is less than five minutes of a sermon, no matter how long the preacher speaks. For me, anything over twenty minutes is usually a waste of time.

There are things lurking in Viola's chapter that should be heard.

Don't read further if you are a Viola groupee.
OK, there's the chapter. Or at least the chapter might have been more productive if it had developed the points above. Instead, like Fonzi in the waning seasons of Happy Days, Viola always jumps the shark. Five pages into the chapter I wrote, "Oh, Come on" in the margin.

So he's going to blame the Christian sermon on pagan Greco-Roman rhetoric snuck into the church by Chrystostom and Augustine, after the vibrant open-participatory meetings of the early church died out?

Same myopia again and again and again:

1. All human life and thinking is enculturated, all the time. It is the nature of incarnation. It is misguided to try (and impossible) to tease out the Christian or absolute from the particular cultural forms of the day. All truth is incarnated and inculturated truth.

2. This was no less true of the life and thinking of the New Testament church and the Old Testament. The New Testament is at the same time thoroughly inspired and thoroughly pagan, in Viola's sense. God sanctifies people and thoughts within culture. He has not set up the system to where you can remove people and thoughts from culture.

And here let me give some reasons why I think Viola is nuts when he tries to pin rhetoric on those pesky church fathers.

Galatians
1:1-5 Prescript (letter opening used in "pagan" letters)
1:11-2:14 Narratio
2:15-21 Propositio
3:1-5:1 Argumentatio
5:2-10 Peroratio
5:11-18 Postscript

Looks a little to me like someone might have studied a little Greco-Roman rhetoric on the side. In other letters Paul has a thanksgiving section (e.g., 1 Thess. 1:2-10), which he borrowed from pagan letters that thanked the gods at this same point in their letters! Paul's omission of this section in Galatians is usually considered rhetorically significant!

Whether you agree with this outline or not, there is an entire branch of New Testament studies called "rhetorical criticism," which brings knowledge of the rhetorical conventions of the day to bear on the interpretation of the New Testament.

Hebrews...
The majority of scholars currently would consider Hebrews a sermon (13:22). Viola might try to argue that a "word of exhortation" was spontaneous in the early church from Acts 13:15. But Hebrews looks like it might have involved quite a bit of sermon preparation!

It opens in "periodic" style, a high style of Greek oratory. For example, the first verse has a string of p words: "polymeros kai polytropos palai ho theos tois patrasin en tois prophetais."

Filthy pagan! I'm appauled to find that Old Testament writers wrote pagan acrostic psalms, copied pagan Egyptian wisdom sayings, drew on pagan mythical imagery. I'm disgusted that New Testament authors use chiasms, inclusios, allegories, similes, synecdoches, metonymy, asyndeton... They draw on Jewish wisdom and apocalyptic traditions. John even draws on the logos of Middle Platonism found in the writings of Philo. Throw out the New Testament because it has been influenced by paganism!

Not really. I guess God doesn't operate the way Viola thinks He does. Oops. Kind of embarrassing, if you ask me.

P.S. Isn't Hebrews 5:11-6:12 an interesting example of captatio benevolentiae? And certainly we can all agree that Hebrews 11:32 a lovely example of praeteritio?

My Sermon Podcast: "Listening to Wisdom"

Here is the audio file of the sermon I preached last Sunday (July 6, 2008):

Listening to Wisdom, based on Matthew 11.

If I remember correctly, it's about 30-35 minutes long and will take a few minutes to download (as far as I can tell, Blogger uploads video but not audio files).

Pentecost!

Today is Pentecost, the end of Eastertide. We've seen the risen Lord and learned of him for 40 days before he ascended to heaven. Now we've been waiting in Jerusalem for 10 more days, waiting the promise, "I [John the Baptist] baptized with water, but one coming after me... will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire."

With the coming of the Spirit, we experience the full commencement of the new covenant made possible through Christ's blood and resurrection. When the Spirit comes, God writes His laws on our hearts.

It starts with prayer. Acts 2 doesn't specifically say that they were praying when the Spirit came, but Acts 1 tells us that's what they were doing those 10 days in the upper room. They will be praying again in Acts 4 when they are filled with the Holy Spirit again.

The Day of Pentecost was associated with harvest and with the giving of the Ten Commandments. We can find meaning in both in Acts 2. God writes His commandments on our hearts by way of the Holy Spirit. No one will have to teach his brother saying, "Know the Lord," for each one from small to great will know me (Jer. 31). Also on the Day of Pentecost we have the first ingathering of the harvest of Christ.

The baptism is associated with the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). A person's heart is purified on the basis of faith as a person receives the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:9). But the Spirit can fill and fill again (Acts 4:31).

My church, The Wesleyan Church, has traditionally associated the Day of Pentecost with the fullness of the Spirit. While the idea of the fullness of the Spirit is not the language of Acts, we can imagine what that would look like. If the Spirit cleanses us from sin, then the fullness of the Spirit would involve "entire sanctification," so that our whole body, soul, and spirit might be blameless (1 Thess. 5:23).

The primary consequence of the coming of the Spirit in Acts is power (you will receive power when the HS comes on you). This power is, for one thing, power to witness to the resurrection. The apostles acquire a boldness after Pentecost that, if not new, is at least finally headed in the right direction.

This power to witness is particularly seen in Acts 2 by their speaking in tongues, as the confusion of Babel is reversed and all the nations hear the good news in their own tongues. There is also power to perform miracles, such as to heal the lame man of Acts 3 or raise individuals from the dead.

What then flows from these consequences of the Spirit is two-fold. On the one hand, the church grows and grows--first 3000, then 5000, then the number is not even given. Yet there is also increasing persecution--first "no," then "NO," then someone dies.

Acts gives us no reason to believe that these sorts of consequences of the Spirit are only for their day. Paul certainly tells us nothing of this sort. From Jesus to Peter to Paul we have a ray pointing to us. The one with the Spirit can do even greater things than these.

For a nice three point sermon outline by John Drury for next year, see http://drulogion.blogspot.com/2007/05/pentecost.html.

It's also Memorial Day. Those who have fought and fallen in wars are worthy of such a day, even a Sunday.

It's unfortunate that it's this Sunday. Consider: what Christian outside America is celebrating this in church today? Also consider: Pentecost is the birth of the church, the arrival of the new covenant in the Spirit in force. Christians have marked their calendar everywhere by it for 2000 years. Yet how many American churches of my genre will even mention it? (and this one can't be chalked up to prejudice against high church... this one's clearly in the Bible, indeed, it's Bible central for my denomination's history!)

Another example of the widespread American confusion of patriotism with Christianity. True patriotism is noble and to be honored. Christ is greater... at least if you're truly a Christian.

Sermon Starters: Mother's Day

I'm preaching tomorrow, d.v. It's Mother's Day, which takes precedence for us of course as American low church types. In Christian time, we're still in Eastertide. In fact this coming Thursday is Ascension Day, forty days after Easter. What to do, what to do?

The women of Easter?

Faithful Women
Text: Matthew 27:54-56; 28:1-10

1. Women were an important part of Jesus' story!

• Begin with some not so wonderful thoughts on women from ancient authors--Sirach, for example, a bad man is better than a righteous woman. Or the rabbis--glad I wasn't born as a ... or a woman...
• But notice the women in the gospels, especially Luke. Women traveled around Galilee with Jesus--they were the ones that supported his ministry materially (Luke 8:1-3). While others were enjoying their loaves and fishes, they were feeding Jesus!
• The women had followed him to Jerusalem, again, to take care of his needs (Matthew 27:55-56).
• These were the women that first saw Jesus after the resurrection (Matthew 28:8-10; John 20:10-18).
• Some of the male storytellers of the resurrection left them out (1 Cor. 15), BUT GOD DIDN'T!

2. These women followed and obeyed although they did not understand any more than the twelve and were afraid.

• John 19:25-27 Jesus' mother, Mary, is there at the cross--scary place to be. Except for John, where are the other disciples? Mary is there.
• The composite picture we get of Mary throughout is one of someone who wants to steer her son in the right direction. She thinks she knows what's best for him, but she also has an open mind.
• She corrects him for staying behind at the temple when he's 12 (Luke 2:48-51), but she still ponders his explanation in her heart.
• So she tries to pull him from the crowds--she doesn't think he's barking up the right tree (Mark 3:31-35).
• BUT she is there at the cross. Should we not see her in the background of Jesus' brother James' eventual belief?

• Matthew 28:8--the women are afraid BUT filled with joy, ran to tell
• Mark 16:8--Mark as it is leaves us hanging, will they not tell? This accentuates our sense of their terror.
• John 20:13--see how distraught Mary Magdalene is
• BUT where are the disciples?
• They are at the tomb. Peter and John only go because the women tell them about the tomb! They are the first to bear witness to the resurrection; they are in a sense the first apostles (where an apostle is someone sent to bear witness to the resurrection)

3. Women were important witnesses to the new covenant.

• Aside from Mary M. and the others, Junias appears to be an apostle in the fuller sense (Romans 16:7).
• The fact that women prophesy alongside men is a sign of the age of the new covenant (Acts 2:18).
• The coming of the Spirit is the coming of the new covenant (Heb. 8:8-12; Jer. 31:31-34; 2 Cor. 3:7-18; Rom. 2:15). So in Christ there is neither male nor female, for we all partake of the one Spirit (Gal. 3:26-28)--God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (Gal. 4:6).
• There were of course women prophets in the OT. One of the most important is Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), for she is treated as the highest spiritual authority in Israel at that time. Deborah, the military general, is also said to be a prophetess (Judges 4:4) in addition to being a judge of Israel and a mother (Judges 5:7).
• But these roles in the OT are more the exception. The Day of Pentecost implies that we should expect women to do these things normally in the age of the Spirit.
• So Philip has four prophetess daughters (Acts 21:9).
• The prayer and prophecy of women was the norm at Corinth. 1 Corinthians 11 gives them instructions on how to dress when they are praying and prophesying in worship, but it assumes they do prophecy--it never questions it.
• That means that the silence 1 Corinthians 14 urges of the Corinthian women cannot refer to spiritual speech!
• Priscilla is mentioned before her husband as one who instructed Apollos in the Christian faith (Acts 18:26). Yes, a woman teaching a man!
• Phoebe is a deacon of the church of Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1)--not a deaconness. This is the same masculine word used of the leaders of the Philippian church and of Timothy in 1 Tim. 4:6. If we take Romans 16 to be a part of Romans, then she is likely the one entrusted to take the letter of Romans to Rome.
• The church at Philippi may very well have met in the house of Lydia at first (Acts 16:15). Other women also had churches in their houses: Priscilla (Rom. 16), Nympha (Col. 4:15), possibly Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11).
• We see no restrictions anywhere here. Indeed, against this theological and practical trajectory, 1 Tim. 2:12, the sole verse that might push in the opposite direction, is puzzling. It is like the verse on the baptism for the dead or Jesus preaching to the dead or women wearing veils or Jacob making his cattle give birth to speckled offspring by looking at speckled rods in calfbirth. Its very logic is puzzling, for we know that not all women are more gullible than all men on all topics.
• It has all the marks of a "we'll ask Paul when we get to heaven" verse, a "that must have something to do with their time or with the situation at Ephesus" verse.

4. Women and men, don’t limit God in what He can and wants to do through you!

• Be like Jesus' mother, who did what she thought was right, but kept an open mind.
• Be like the women who supported Jesus, who gave when everyone else was taking.
• Be like the women at the tomb, who obeyed even thought they were puzzled and afraid.
• Be like the women of the Spirit in the New Testament, who spoke for the Lord in a culture that would have resisted their leadership and insight.
• Men and women, don't quench the Spirit!

Ash Wednesday

"Dust you are and to dust you will return."

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, forty days until Palm Sunday. Protestants of my stripe are not much into Lent--too "catholic" in feel. And I'll confess as a Wesleyan that I'm never really comfortable with an assumed need for constant post-regeneration confession ;-) ... particularly the ritualization of the confession of sin. We affirm the power of the Spirit to give consistent victory over temptation!

But Lent is the practice of the church universal, and I have to take it seriously: forty days of repentance and of the foreboding of sorrows. It is a time to remember that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. It is a time to remember God's grace and our never ending need for it.

This generation is a strange combination of qualities on this subject. On the one hand, this generation is quicker than any to believe that "we're all sinners." And yet it takes that statement perhaps the lightest of any generation.

Here's an experiment, go up to someone in your church and ask them,

person 1: "Should a person judge others in the church"
person 2: "Of course not."

person 1: "Why?"
person 2: "Because we're all sinners. We've all sinned. All sin is sin so no one is any better than any other. We can't judge others because we're just as guilty as they are."

person 1: "So you're a bad person? You deserve to go to hell? You're a worm? a wretch?"

I believe at some point in the pursuit of this question most people will begin to feel uncomfortable at what you're suggesting. Most people feel pretty good about themselves. As one prof once found after a survey of his class, 80% of the class thought they were in the top 20% of students.

This is a generation that believes they are sinners... and that's not too bad.

If there is no God, then we are just animals, nothing more. And if there is a God, as we believe, then we are not God. Next to God, nothing is really anything.

It is only the fact that God loves us that makes us--and in fact God's whole creation--extraordinary. The authors of Job, Ecclesiastes, and many of the the psalmists understood this better than us because they did not yet know about the resurrection. We are dust and to dust we will return (Eccl. 3:20).

Before Christ's resurrection, this is where we are. Before the resurrection, we are without hope. Before the resurrection, we are of all people the most miserable.

Remember your death... then remember your Creator.

deNeff on Drinking This Morning

Steve deNeff spoke on the turning of water into wine this morning in church. His topic wasn't on drinking but since it was there he did make a quick aside.

His best comment to me this morning had to do with a common Wesleyan conversation you hear from time to time:

Person 1: "So Steve, if Jesus were here today, could he become a member of the Wesleyan Church, since he drank?

Steve: Absolutely!

Person 1: How?

Steve: Because if Jesus decided to be Wesleyan, he would submit to the practices of our community.

This question has a hidden premise that is unexamined and false, yet prevalent. We should be able to do whatever we want, especially if there isn't a definite right or wrong on the issue.

So if someone thinks a rule is stupid, they don't feel obligated to keep it. This is rampant in our homes and schools to where I fear what will happen when this generation is making the laws.

Do I break some rules of the various communities to which I belong? Do I ever break the speed limit? I would be a hypocrite if I said I didn't sometims treat myself as a higher authority.

The difference is that I'm willing to take the consequences. When I'm caught speeding--and I was speeding--I take the ticket as justice, as right.

Did Jesus need to be baptized? No. Then why did he do it? Because it showed his solidarity with the community of the repentant and cleansed being formed through John's baptism.

On the issue of homosexuality, I might just mention that the question of whether a person is born gay or not is irrelevant to the question of whether homosexual sex is appropriate or not. Both sides go at this one. Those who favor homosexual sex often assume that if a person is born a certain way, then God made them that way and must approve of them being that way. Many Christians then follow suit with the same assumption and argue vehemently for homosexuality being a choice.

But this discussion is a red herring. Christian theology teaches that the world, including people, are messed up. Christianity doesn't teach that if you are born with Turrets syndrome, that God made you to cuss uncontrollably. Christianity teaches that things like diabetes or heart disease are a part of a fallen world, not something God has micromanaged in every case. In this sense the Purpose Driven Life is off in its theology. It is unorthodox.

I don't mean to offend anyone who is homosexual by this line of thinking. I'm simply clarifying what the New Testament and Christian theology has always taught [in the light of Dave C's comment below, I'll add after the fact that there are some contemporary theologians and interpreters who disagree with this consensus of history]. The question of whether a person is born gay is a completely separate issue than the question of whether a person should have homosexual sex as a Christian.

So we return to the assumption that if a person has certain desires, it wouldn't be fair to keep them from expressing them. This would be the logic that would say, "If a person wants to drink and it's not absolutely wrong, it would be wrong to prohibit them from drinking." But some practices provide community identity and may not be universal. And there's no law that says that desires have to be gratified.

I didn't get married until I was 31. Given my understanding of Christian ethics, that means I could not have sex until I was 31. Just because I wanted to have sex did not mean that I had to be allowed to have sex. According to Christianity, sex is not a divine right and celibacy is a real option for anyone.

So kudos to Steve. God has given him great wisdom.

Disciple versus Christian

I'm a little sorry these posts have been coming almost one a day these last few days... I just seem to have had a lot of thoughts.

Our pastor always has thought provoking sermons. One of the distinctions he played with a little bit Sunday was the distinction between being a disciple of Jesus and being a Christian. This distinction is of course putty in the hands of the Barna crowd I suspect, but I don't think Steve was barking up that tree.

One of his comments was that the disciples were disciples a long time before Acts calls them Christians. He posed the question whether we tend to have the order the wrong way around. We talk about becoming a Christian and then only later about discipleship.

I also note that, in addition to the Barna follower of Jesus who doesn't buy into religion is the person who is a Yoder follower of Jesus. This is the pacifist, turn the other cheek follower. Such a person isn't necessarily unorthodox, but clearly places a certain primacy on the earthly ethics of Jesus and may not consider Paul or the other parts of the NT quite as significant.

Well, a whole bunch of thoughts are swirling around my head. I'll just stream them down here and anyone is welcome to pick any one up:

1. To what extent should we think of Jesus' earthly mission as a very specific mission to upper Galilee?

I think Marshall overdoes this in Beyond the Bible but I think there is a valid point in it too. The earthly Jesus tells us he was not omniscient on earth. He clearly targets Jews not Gentiles and "lost sheep," Galilean Jews at that. He mostly functions within the paradigms of ancient Israel rather than proclaiming an "all time" universal message. What this means is that we should not assume that the message of the earthly Jesus was meant to be "transcultural" (I don't like that word) or timeless in every respect. An aweful lot of his earthly teaching was likely addressed at a specific time and place in Galilee.

2. There is an important distinction to be made between the particulars of what Jesus preached in Galilee and the presentation of Jesus in the gospels. I am not arguing for a strong discontinuity between the two. But, in my strong opinion, the gospels were not written primarily to record for posterity the earthly life and ministry of Jesus. The gospels were written to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to their own audiences decades later than Jesus. In that sense I would argue that the gospels have the same authority as Paul's writings, not more or less. They are the inspired work of New Testament theologians just like Paul's writings.

3. Something very significant takes place at Pentecost that could not have taken place until after the resurrection. Because the Holy Spirit would not come until after Jesus' ascension, we are comparing apples and oranges to some extent when we place before and after Pentecost on some sort of timeline we would compare to the timelines of our lives.

This is one of the hermeneutical problems with the earlier generation of Wesleyans who saw in the disciples' pilgrimage a model for the ordo salutis of our lives today through entire sanctification. The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost was a unique event in salvation history, the transition from one age to another. We are all born after Pentecost and we all become Christians (or disciples) after Pentecost in the age of the new covenant. Technically, there could not have been any true "Christians" before Pentecost, for you cannot be a Christian without the Spirit (Rom. 8:9) and the Spirit had not yet come.

But none of this is really what Pastor Steve was talking about--I'm just doing a stream of consciousness with some thoughts he inspired. Steve was posing a legitimate question: do we need to follow Jesus for more than 10 seconds before we can realistically expect to find him, to encounter him? That's what he will be exploring for the next few weeks.

Sermon Starters: Epiphany 2007

I'm preaching tomorrow at College Wesleyan. Cheesy title: It's 2007, but the Kingdom's a Comin'

The goal is to combine remembrance of the visit of the wise men with the first sermon of the New Year.

The gist of the sermon goes like this:

Introduction

• New Year's Day not a Christian holiday per se, but for Christians a good time to hit the reset button on their walk with God.
• Jan. 6 is Epiphany in the Christian calendar, at one time Christmas was celebrated on that day, in fact today the Orthodox churches are celebrating Christmas.
• The West often celebrates the visit of the Wise Men at Epiphany
• The Wise Men: differences between Matt. 2 and our Christmas plays: no mention of 3, Jesus is probably at least a year old, star may be an angel, astrologers
• Many things of note, including things the Spirit may say uniquely to you: Jesus as a new Moses, foreshadowing that the gospel will reach the Gentiles
• Focus this morning: seeing what God is doing in the midst of so much busyness.

Point 1: The wise men looked up when everyone else was just looking around.

• nothing of this recorded elsewhere, star, wise men, murder of babies
• Golden Age of Roman literature, pax Romana,
• end of Herod's tenure, rebuilding the temple, murder of wife and children
• baby born, Savior of the world, Lord of the universe, God on earth
• Are we looking to what God is doing?
• Are we showing others the star?
• Are working to make His will on earth as it is in heaven? In Marion? In the United States? In the world?
• Are we working to see people change from the inside out? You can't force people to follow the star.
• Are we working to set up structures in our world that embody the love of our neighbor and thus of our God?

Point 2: The wise men didn't just see, they followed.

• The priests knew enough to find out where the Messiah would be born--but they didn't run to Bethlehem
• Mary was there, but we do not read of her following Jesus later in Matthew. In fact, when she and Jesus' family interrupt Jesus' ministry, he ignores them, calling the crowds his mother and brothers.
• The priests are the type of the person who knows with their head the things of God, but they don't make it into their lives. (Reminds me of my children completely oblivious to the mess they are creating as they make their merry way through the house)
• much of this is a matter of the Holy Spirit, we can only put ourselves "in the right place," that means being a part of the church, praying, reading the Scriptures, taking the sacraments, etc...
• We would come a long way if, like the wise men, we could recognize who the king is. This king does not currently demand our all, but one day he will. Right now he is asking for it.
• Does Christ's presence in your life have the same impact that your boss does when s/he walks in the room? the governor? the president of the US?
• Is there a disconnect between what we say we believe and our lives? philosophers who say religious language really isn't about reality, story of Afghans who killed daughter because of custom, despite the Quran... where have we dismissed God's will?
  

Point 3: The wise men didn't just follow, they worshipped

• Herod knew Jesus was the king, knew what that meant, tried to kill him anyway.
• That's stupid--to fight against God, running toward a Mac Truck?
• Herod is a type of the moral idiot, the person who not only is aware of what God asks, but actually fights against it.
• Amazing when people get caught lying, stealing, cheating, having an affair etc... and they get angry at the person who caught or exposed them.
• No one deserves mercy... that's part of the definition of mercy. By definition, what we deserve is justice (example of the student who cheated and then was upset that the professor changed their grade after he confessed)

Conclusion:

• There's a lot going on in our lives right now
• Don't be like Herod.
• Don't be like the scribes.
• Be like the wise men.
• moments of personal reflection on our lives in the new year

Sermon Starters: Jesus as True Humanity

I am preaching this Sunday and also working on some sample chapters for a new book proposal. My sermon relates to a small portion of the sample chapter.

The sample chapter is titled "True Humanity" and is part of what I am calling a "biblical systematic theology" (rather than a systematic biblical theology). It is meant to be my version of Wayne Grudem's Biblical Doctrine, which comes at theology from a 5 point Calvinist point of view. Grudem thinks he is unfolding biblical doctrine, although I suspect what he does is largely proof text his own theology.

I will of course also be giving my theology and fly it very close to the surface of various biblical theologies. But an authentic biblical theology ends up constructing numerous theologies, plural: Paul's theology, Johannine theology, etc... Even in each of these we can probably speak of developments and variations. That is not what I am trying to do.

I will acknowledge that I am creating a systematic theology--the Bible itself does not. As such I will have to interact with the voices of the Christians of the ages, tradition, reason, experience, etc... But I intend to fly the plane low to the text. I am not an expert in these other areas. It will be heavy on Bible but broader than biblical theology.

Preface, preface, preface. The chapter is what would conventionally be called anthropology. Most theologies turn at this point to Adam and the image of God as the starting point. I intend to approach it the other way around, Christ as the key to true humanity and the image of God. Here's a first draft for the chapter outline:

7.1 Christ and Adam (the latter as a biblical foil for the former)
7.2 The Faith-full Christ (true humanity in relation to God the Father)
7.3 The Sinless Christ (true humanity in life)
7.4 The Governing Christ (true humanity in relation to the creation)
7.5 The Prophetic Christ (true humanity empowered by the Spirit)
7.5 Humanity in the Image of God

But this is not Sunday's sermon, whose outline is:

1. Introduction from 2 Corinthians 4: Paul's identification with Christ's sufferings, WWJD with a twist.

2. The empowered Christ (Acts 2, playing it by the human rules to where there is nothing Jesus does on earth that Christians cannot also do through the power of the Spirit)

3. The sinless Christ (Heb. 4, tempted yet without sin, so also 1 Cor. 10:13 we can be through the power of the Spirit)

4. The faith-full Christ (2 Cor. 4, Romans 3:22, Phil. 2 and friends), Christ was raised because of his faith and faithfulness to the point of death. So also we will be justified before God on the basis of our faith.

Good Preaching

A few professors at IWU read through parts of Augustine's writings this past spring, including his classic piece on preaching. There he made an interesting comment that some people are born preachers, yet that it is difficult to become a good preacher if you are not born with such gifts.

I resonated with that. It's the idea that a person can improve their speaking skills, but that ultimately either you are born to speak or you're going to have to work hard each week to do an adequate job. Now I don't imagine that this will be a very popular idea, especially in a democratic society that boasts that you can do anything you put your mind to. And don't get me wrong, the preaching courses we take in college and seminary are helpful and useful. Almost anyone can do an adequate job of preaching with some training.

I also recognize that this whole line of thought seems to forget the Holy Spirit and being anointed in preaching. We have to believe that the Holy Spirit is there in the mix, like the wind that blows where it wills. But I think it is naive to have some magical view of pulpit inspiration. I simply do not believe that the most delightful speakers to the ear are somehow more spiritual or inspired than those we may find it torturous to hear. And some have gifts in other areas just as striking as those who are pulpit wise. Some are gifted counsellors and listeners where the gifted preacher might be a dullard.

So what does it take to be a good preacher--or for that matter a good conveyor of the Bible or theology? I am convinced that it takes wisdom. The Bible will not yield more on the lips of a preacher than the wisdom of the preacher. God may speak directly from the words of Scripture or through the mind of the individual in the pew. But the preacher's wisdom is the preacher's wisdom. The same goes for a "Bible conveyor." It is naive to think that the Bible equally shares wisdom with all. It usually takes wisdom to get wisdom from the Bible. The wisdom a teacher "of the Bible" finds and brings from the Bible is proportionate to the wisdom that teacher brings to the Bible.

So what if you are not wise? Get wisdom my son, get wisdom. If you are not wise--and I would put myself naturally in that category--then read and borrow from those God has gifted with wisdom.

It is more difficult to become entertaining if you are not a naturally enjoyable speaker. You can work to model yourself on those who tickle the ears. You can pursue illustrations that hold attention. You can work at these things and should. But there are limits to what you have here and you shouldn't try to be something you aren't.

Again, I think it is naive to think that this generation will delight as much in dryly presented wisdom as a less wise sermon with the tiniest drop of truth in a spoonful of sugar. This says nothing about the spirituality or wisdom of the speaker, only to one area of giftedness. But there are easily learned ways to adjust. A pastor who knows he or she is not enjoyable to hear can use objects or movie clips or can preach in 5 minute segments with some other interruption that holds attention by a quick shift of attention to some skit or action that illustrates yet mixes things up.

And we have to believe that the Holy Spirit is there in this mix. But where exactly is always a mysterious matter. Life is a tapestry and we can sometimes see in hindsight where the golden thread of the Spirit is interwoven. But just as often we will not know until we reach the kingdom.

Sermon Starters: The Words of God

The outline of my sermon this morning:

Introduction
Having the right tools or the right person with the right knowledge makes all the difference between a 10 minute thing and something that never gets fixed. Romans 10 tells us that the word of faith that results in salvation is in our mouth and heart. You don't have to bring Christ down from heaven to be right with God. You don't have to bring him up from the grave. Faith is only as far away as your heart.

The Word Near You 1: The Spirit of Christ
John 1:1-14: The Word made flesh is Christ, the word par excellence.
"Tabernacled" among us, as God met Moses in the tent.

Now present through the Spirit, John 16:7-13.
Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Leads believers into truth.
Not always clear what is the Spirit and what isn't. Word is near, but not always recognized.

Some people have an overactive conscience that isn't the Holy Spirit
David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions, Healing of Memories, "damaged love receptors"

Some people have no conscience... we can at least pray for them.

Many in the coming generation have a conscience that is a blank slate: they are willing to do what Jesus would do but don't have a clue what that is!

A place to start:
Love neighbor--don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you...
Love God--are you willing to do anything God would ask you to do?

The Word is Near You 2: The Speaking of God in History
A wander through Hebrews: the word of God is bigger than the Bible

Hebrews 4:12-13: Everything is naked and exposed before God's word.

The word of God, the Bible, is near us, but not always clear what God's word in it is:

The fundamentalist who limits the word of God to the Bible, the letteralist. Surprising interpretations about the Sabbath and about Moses' veiling in Paul.

The "liberal" who doesn't care what the Bible says at all.

The confused person who doesn't know who to believe on what the Bible says.

A place to start:
The love commands in how to live.
2000 years of Christian reflection on the Bible in what to believe (like the creeds). No need to start from scratch when God's been working through things with the church for 2000 years.

The Word of God 3: The word of faith that leads to salvation
Romans 10:5-13
We can walk by faith even when we don't know everything about the words of God near us.

Conclusion
Is your heart troubled about judgment: 1 John, God is greater than your heart
Is your heart troubled about sin: 1 John, if you confess your sins, God will forgive them
Are you worried about truth: Walk by faith until God gives sight.
Are you worried about salvation: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Sermon Starters: God Is Working Among You

I spoke at the Honors College Chapel this week from Philippians 2:12-18. I won't reproduce the entire outline. The heart of the message was certain thoughts on the "you" of the statements: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" and "God is working among you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure."

Anyone who has had much exposure to me will have heard me often mention that this "you" is plural. They will also know that Paul's use of salvation is primarily future oriented around the Day of Wrath (Rom. 5:9), which is at the same time the Day of Salvation. So Paul encourages the Philippian church, just as they have always obeyed whether Paul was present or absent, to continue to work together so that they are all saved on the Day of Wrath.

Although I left the subject open ended on Wednesday, most will know that Paul considered it a possibility that even he might not be saved after he had preached to so many others (1 Cor. 9:24-27). There is thus a real sense of striving together, of urging each other on to finish the race and win the prize. I also believe that much of our debates over whether a person is saved by faith or works is misguided. A person may be justified by faith, but the overall tenor of Paul's writings is that "fruit" and indeed "good works" (Eph. 2:9) are an essential component in making it to the Day of Salvation (Eph. 2:8 is mentioned below).

But the heart of the sermon was to point out how many of the "you's" of the NT are plural.

"You are the temple of the Lord, and God's Spirit lives in you" (1 Cor. 3:16). Of course God's Spirit is in us individually as well (cf. Rom. 8:9). But the in you plural is arguably more central to Paul's theology than the you singular. More than in my individual body, it is in the body of Christ that the Spirit of God dwells.

Here we might as a side note mention the Spirit fillings of Acts. Have you ever noticed that not a single person receives the Spirit (and thus becomes a Christian) alone? Paul does not receive the Holy Spirit during his vision on the road to Damascus. He does not become a Christian at that point technically. He cannot baptize himself. It is not until another Christian--Ananias--lays hands on him that he receives the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, we have good reason, I think, to see the laying on of hands as the sacramental sign that the early Christians understood to facilitate the reception of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 6:2 mentions it as one of the beginning teachings of Christianity (cf. 10:22 also). Notice that in Samaria (Acts 8) it is only after the apostles Peter and John lay hands on them that they receive the Holy Spirit.

So on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the refreshing of the disciples in Acts 4, with the Samaritans of Acts 8, with the Gentiles of Acts 10, and with the John the Baptist followers in Acts 19--in all these cases the Holy Spirit comes corporately or when another Christian lays hands on someone. No one ever receives the Holy Spirit all by themselves in the book of Acts. This is an important consideration for those who think they can just as well meet God out on a lake as in a gathering of other Christians.

Another interesting passage is in 1 Corinthians 6:19: "Your body is a temple of the Lord." While the word "body" is singular, the word your is plural. I do not think that this verse is simply saying, your bodies are temples (and thus, don't smoke or drink). It is rather a double entendre: 1) your individual body is the church's body too. When you visit a prostitute, you are taking the body of Christ and the church to the prostitute with you, but also 2) your body of Christ, the collective body of the church at Corinth, is the temple of the Spirit.

The kingdom of God is inside you (Luke 17:21). This is a favorite verse of those who want to say that the kingdom of God is an individual thing. It's a matter of God inside your heart. Unfortunately, this is a plural you. The kingdom of God is inside you all collectively, among you, in your midst (e.g., TNIV). Another strike out for the current trend toward lone ranger Christians.

Finally, by grace you have been saved (Eph. 2:8). I have been contemplating this plural this week. I suspect that Ephesians is not focusing on individuals, but on Christians as a whole and, arguably, even primarily on Gentiles as a whole. I believe the primary sense of this verse is, "You Gentiles have been saved by grace through faith... not of works so that no one can boast."

Some interpretive notes:
1. saved here is either proleptic--such a certain inheritance that we can speak of it in the past tense--or Ephesians is working from a "realized" eschatology atypical of Paul's other writings (things are already accomplished rather than waiting to be accomplished).

2. "By grace" in the ancient patron-client context meant neither that the client had done nothing to solicit the patronage, nor did it mean that there were no strings attached. We should not thereby think that God's grace here came "irresistably" or that it came without expectation--grace could be severed if the client gave inappropriate response to the patron.

3. through faith--I still tend to take this as a reference to the faith of humans, but simply mention that one might argue that it is a reference to Christ's faith--by grace you have been saved on the basis of Christ's faithfulness.

4. not of works--notice that Ephesians does not say, not of works of law, which is Paul's usual phrase in Romans and Galatians. I think it is precisely because this discussion is not aimed at the Jewish question of law but at Gentiles who stand somewhat beyond or outside that debate. In that sense, Ephesians is closer to Augustine and Luther's interpetation of Paul than Paul's other writings are.

5. As a complete side-note, I suspect that Tychichus served as the primary writer of Ephesians (6:21). That need not mean that Ephesians is pseudonymous, for Paul could have assigned him the task of writing. This would explain the differences in style and theological/perspectival shifts such as these in Ephesians. Further, it would account for my sense that Ephesians has primarily been composed on the basis of Colossians, which already is somewhat different from Paul's other writings in terms of style and perspective (Dunn suggests Timothy may have had more to do with its composition than Paul: 1:1). In short, I strongly insist that we should not use Ephesians as the starting point for understanding Paul's theology (thus my befuddlement at John McRay, Wheaton emeritus' approach to Paul in Paul: His Life and Teachings).

I am sympathetic to the argument that Ephesians was meant as somewhat of a circular letter without so much of a specific destination. The words "at Ephesus" are missing from several early manuscripts, even while "to those who are" is there. Further, it seems incredible to suppose that Paul would have written 3:2 to the Ephesians--"Surely you have heard of the inheritance of the grace of God given to me toward you..." He spent over two years with them--they hadn't heard of it; they'd experienced it. I suspect then that this letter was broadly meant for Asia Minor and perhaps found its home primarily in Ephesus.

So Ephesians 2:8 seems to me primarily a reminder to its Gentile audiences that it is only by way of the grace of God that they have been given the promise of salvation. God has destroyed the dividing wall of the law that separated them from Israel. So it is only by secondary connotation that "you have been saved by grace" applies to me as an individual. It is of course true of me as an individual, but it was not originally focused on individuals but on the Gentile race as a whole and, then, on all humans.