Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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What if we followed Jesus’ example?

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ExampleIn reading through the Gospels, I am reminded that it is possible to take a strong stand against sin while honoring and loving those who participate in it. A paragraph that I read in Learning Evangelism from Jesus captures this thought well:

“But Jesus was a different kind of holy man and teacher. We have already seen that Jesus did not seek to keep apart from sinners. He also did not turn sinners away. Jesus did not abuse sinners, single them out for condemnation, or avoid them. Rather, he was a teacher who spoke words of comfort and grace to them, a teacher who showed them such respect, honor and love that many of them responded by happily turning away from their sin. This, of course, was what happened in the life of Zacchaeus. Grace and mercy are a far more effective means of creating love and devotion than condemnation. A new affection for Christ has a much greater power to drive out sin and bring lasting repentance than any sermon on moral improvement, or any program for straightening out one’s life.”

What would our world look like if the whole Church followed Jesus’ example in this?

What would the world around me look like if I followed Jesus’ example in this?

An Easter Meditation for 2016

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EasterIt appears to me that God is stripping away any illusion of security that we might have as Americans at the beginning of the 21st Century.

  • We have dysfunction in our political process where both of the major political parties are more concerned about conserving their power than they are about doing the right thing. In this election year we are bombarded by attack ads or insipid campaign slogans that are nearly devoid of the power to resolve the issues facing us.
  • We have an ever growing threat of Islamic terrorists who think that by blowing themselves up with innocent people around them they will achieve distinction in the afterlife.
  • We have dysfunction in our corporate leaders who think that it is acceptable to earn millions of dollars in bonus for destroying the earning ability of hard working men and women by announcing a “restructuring” which eliminates their jobs.
  • We have “Christian” leaders who repackage the pop psychology in a “Christian” wrapper. They make millions of dollars selling books and giving conferences that offer superficial help but no lasting change. They are like doctors who put bandaids on a cancer.
  • We have racial tension that is causing upheaval throughout our country. We should be long past judging a man or women based on the color of their skin but we are not.

I’m not arguing that times are worse than they have ever been. Even a casual reading of the prophets in the Old Testament provides ample evidence that the Nation of Israel faced many of the same issues.

Into similar social, political and moral chaos, God spoke these words through Isaiah:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” (Isaiah 9:6–7, ESV)

The answer does not lie within political reform or building a wall around our country or religious reform or tolerance training. The answer lies in the one who came to fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy. The answer lies in Jesus of Nazareth.

It is Easter Sunday, 2016, the day when Christians around the world celebrate The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

About The Resurrection, the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). The Resurrection validates that Jesus is who he claimed to be and that he is the one who will one day set this world right.

The Resurrection tells me that it is safe to find my security in Jesus, even when everything around me is messed up.

The Resurrection tells me that God has the power to accomplish what he purposes.

The Resurrection is like a down payment which holds our destiny in lay-a-way until Jesus comes back to complete the deal.

If ever I felt the need to appreciate and appropriate the meaning and the power of The Resurrection, it is today. I thought that perhaps you would also benefit from this meditation as we consider the empty tomb.

May we move forward with the encouragement that the empty tomb demonstrates that the evil and chaos will not win out.

The Resurrected Jesus will return and fix the mess we’ve made.

He is Risen!

Tinkering with Attempts at Honesty

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TinkeringIn an effort toward continuous improvement, I am constantly tinkering with the structure of Attempts at Honesty. Specifically, I want to make it easier for people to comment on posts. Over the years I have tried a variety of comment plugins. Disqus, Livefyre and Jetpack were some of the plugins that I have tried but they all felt short in one or both of two of these two ways:

  1. They slowed down the site. No-one wants to sit and watch a spinning icon waiting for the page to load.
  2. They made it more difficult to add a comment. Both Lifefyre and Disqus push you to obtain credentials in their proprietary systems.

As a result, I have gone back to the native WordPress comment system.

Not long ago, I found two new plugins that enhance the native WordPress system and add a couple of cool features. The plugins are called wpDiscuz and Super Socializer.

If you scroll down to the comment section below this post, you will see that you can log in using your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ ID. Or, you can simply add your name and email address and not log in. This simplifies the process of adding a comment.

In addition, if you like you can click on the “Facebook Comments” link and simultaneously add your comment to Attempts at Honesty and post it to your Facebook Page.

My point is not to bore you with the mechanics of how the blog is put together, but to point out that you have the opportunity to add your thoughts to what is presented in each post.

I hope that you find it easy to do so and I am excited to hear from you.

Paul Tripp on Ends and Means

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Dangerous CallingI decided to re-read Paul David Tripp’s book Dangerous Calling and thought I would share two paragraphs with you. Paul was writing about a particular pastor in a particular place, but I found what he writes challenging enough to pass along.

“The problem was the pastor’s lack of a living, humble, needy, celebratory, worshipful, meditative communion with Christ. It was as if Jesus had left the building. There were all kinds of ministry knowledge and skill, but those seemed divorced from a living communion with a living and ever-present Christ. All this knowledge, skill, and activity seemed to be fueled by something other than love for Christ and a deep, abiding gratitude for the love of Christ. In fact, it was all shockingly impersonal. It was about theological content, exegetical rightness, ecclesiastical commitments, and institutional advancement. It was bout preparing for the next sermon, getting the next meeting agenda straight, and filling the requisite leadership openings. It was about budgets, strategic plans, and ministry partnerships. None of these things are wrong in themselves. Many of them are essential. But they must never be ends in themselves. They must never be the engine that propels the vehicle (emphasis added). They must all be an expression of something deeper, and that something deeper must reside in the heart of the senior pastor. It must ignite and fuel his ministry at every level, and what ignites his ministry must ignite every aspect of his personal life as well.

The pastor must be enthralled by, in awe of – can I say it: in love with – his Redeemer so that everything he thinks, desires, chooses, decides, says, and does is propelled by love for Christ and the security of rest in the love of Christ.”

This challenges me with two thoughts:

First there is the personal challenge to examine my own motivations for being in ministry at my church. I am not on staff, nor am I a pastor, but I am a lay leader. What is my motivation for being involved in leadership? If it is not a result of my love for God, then little good will come from it.

The second thought I have is that if you have a sense that the pastor of your church is not motivated by love for God, then something must be done. There is no benefit to the pastor to allow the charade to continue if the pastor is struggling with his motivation.

Looking back on some of my church experiences, I suspect that I have been in more than one church where the pastor confused ministry ends and means as Paul Tripp describes above. In one case, I did not diagnose this as the root cause at the time, but the symptoms seem to fit the disease. In that situation, the end result was that the pastor would not allow anyone to speak into his blind spots and many people got terribly hurt by the pastor’s behavior.

But, as noted in the first thought above, I have my own flawed motivations to deal with. As a result, my first response should take the form of sadness rather than anger. I am glad that I am currently in a church that will gently, firmly and continously confront me with my need of the Gospel (Tweet This).

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