Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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The idol of approval

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UbelievableThis morning I was challenged by a paragraph that I read in The Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan K. Dodson.

“In Christ, we possess a power that can rip the muzzle off, chase away the shadows, and bolster winsome, authentic gospel witness. That power lifted Jesus out of the grave, but it sits latent in our blanketed heart, where we are inordinately troubled by what others think. Beneath the blanket of persecution there often lies a golden idol, the one thing we cannot live without – the approval of others. We pine for the approval of others and would rather quiet down about the good news than speak up and risk our coworker thinking we are preach, impersonal, or intolerant. Our reluctance to talk about Jesus springs from a desire to gain the approval of others instead of resting in the approval of God our Father. We desperately need to set apart Jesus as Lord in our hearts, not what others think as lord. This is where deep security is found. To get there, the idol has to be replaced with a greater God who offers deeper security and meaning. We need the gift of repentance, regularly, to exchange our worship of what others think of us for what God the Father thinks of us in Christ – fully loved, fully accepted, no condemnation, no rejection.”

This paragraph highlights two of the reasons why I often fail to speak up about what I believe.

The first is that I forget (or I never really learned) that the power that conquered death is promised to be operative in my life if I am in Christ. The power remains constant, my appropriation of that power is restricted by my weak faith.

The second is that I am far too concerned about alienating anyone and far too concerned about what others think of me.

To these, I can add a third reason. That reason is that I am very aware of my failures and do not want to be labeled as a hypocrite. The problem is that I will never perfectly live out the truths of Scripture. I should not let my failures deter me from sharing the gospel, because my failures are why I need the Gospel in the first place.

The solution to all three of this is rather simple to understand, but difficult to do. The solution is to take my eyes off myself and focus on Jesus (see Heb. 12:1-2). In those verses in Hebrews, Jesus is presented as enduring the cross for the joy of being united to believers as a result of his sacrifice.

Certainly then, I should be willing to endure a little embarrassment for the joy of seeing others come into relationship with God.

N. T. Wright on Intellectual Totalitarianism

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On death and tyrants“The intellectual coup d’état by which the Enlightenment convinced so many that ‘we now know that dead people don’t rise,’ as though this was a modern discovery rather than simply the reaffirmation of what Homer and Aeschylus had taken for granted, goes hand in hand with the Enlightenment’s other proposals, not least that we have now come of age, that God can be kicked upstairs, that we can get on with running the world however we want to, carving it up to our advantage without outside interference. To that extent, the totalitarianisms of the last century were simply among the varied manifestations of a larger totalitarianism of thought and culture against which postmodernity has now, and rightly in my view, rebelled. Who, after all, was it who didn’t want the dead to be raised? Not simply the intellectually timid or the rationalists. It was, and is, those in power, the social and intellectual tyrants and bullies; the Caesars who would be threatened by a Lord of the world who had defeated the tyrant’s last weapon, death itself; the Herods who would be horrified at the postmortem validation of the true King of the Jews. And this is the point where believing in the resurrection of Jesus suddenly ceases to be a matter of inquiring about an odd event in the first century and becomes a matter of rediscovering hope in the the twenty-first century. Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different world view is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word.”

N. T. Wright in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Summer is over already?

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Labor DayTraditionally, in the USA, Labor Day (the first Monday in September) marks the end of the summer vacation season. It is also the time when students go back to school and in this blogger get back to blogging.

We marked some significant events this summer.

We gained two sons-in-law this summer. In August, we had the privilege of seeing our two older daughters married to fine young men. Being of the male persuasion, I was less than enthusiastic about all the details leading up to the weddings (and requisite drama), but the weddings were wonderful events and I am happy for the new couples.

We also dropped our youngest daughter off for her first year of university study. It has been interesting to watch as she works through the process of discovering how her talents and desires relate to career choices (and selection of a major field of study).

We were able to tack on a few vacation days before and after the drop off, so we spent some time with our daughter and spend a few days decompressing after the very busy weeks that had just taken place.

So now I happily return to blogging. Hopefully, I am refreshed and ready for what God brings to us as we enter a new phase in life as empty nesters. It is still my plan to produce 2 or 3 posts per week which are designed to encourage you, the readers, to begin or deepen your relationship with God.

I hope you also had a great summer. Feel free to share some highlights from your summer in the comment section below. I’d love to hear about what is going on in your lives.

Have a great summer

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Have a great summer
Copyright: mearicon / 123RF Stock Photo

I started blogging in April of 2010. Over 600 posts have been published since the inception of Attempts at Honesty. Through the years, y’all have given me much encouragement to keep at it, encouragement for which I am grateful.

It is my intention to keep going, but circumstances are pushing me to take a break.

Between my day job, family obligations and ministry opportunities, it is shaping up to be a very busy summer. In thinking and praying about this, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to take a break from Attempts at Honesty. There is some hesitation on my part about doing this since blogging has become such an integral part of my life. But I am convinced that taking a break is the best thing to do right now.

Therefore, this will be my last post until September. Call it a vacation, call it a sabbatical, call it whatever you will, I will be taking a break.

I will maintain the functionality of the blog and respond to comments but I do not intend to write any new posts until September. If you follow me on Twitter, you will continue to get “from the archives” tweets.

One of the thoughts behind this is that I can spend time reading and studying without feeling the need to be writing a blog post. This will free me up to absorb, reflect and recharge. On the plus side, I will be gathering ideas for posts once I resume blogging in the fall.

So, there is nothing left for me to do but to wish you a great summer.

Let’s get back together in September.

I would be open to publishing guest posts while I am “away.” If you are interested in writing for Attempts at Honesty, please see the guest post guidelines.

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