Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Why are you amazed?

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Amazed“Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” – Acts 3:12

I can read about miracles in the Bible and not be amazed. The flannel graph presentations of my youth have made the stories so familiar that too often I do not connect with how radical the events actually were. This healing should amaze me but its familiarity masks how marvelous it really is.

But how would I respond if I actually witnessed a miracle of this nature?

In Acts 3, Peter and John passed by a lame man who frequented the gate to the Temple. Rather than giving the man some money, they grabbed him by the hand and commanded him to get up and walk. Not only did he walk, the formerly lame man was jumping around and praising God for the miracle.

Yes, the people who saw this were amazed. Which is exactly how I would be under the same circumstances.

Peter then asks them the question quoted at the beginning of this post, “why are you amazed at this?” The people who witnessed the miracle were coming to the Temple, the place where the miracle working God of Israel’s history was to be worshiped. They should have come to that God with the expectation that he would intervene on behalf of his people.

The people had low expectations as to what God was willing to do on their behalf.

Perhaps I am speaking only for myself, but it seems that those of us who grew up in the church have low expectations as to what God is willing to do for us. Do I pray as if I expect the miracle to take place? Am I banging on the doors of Heaven in anticipation of my petition being heard and a response enacted?

The notion that God’s response to my prayers is in proportion to the faith in which I offer them is dangerous and goes against Biblical teaching. I am certainly not saying that my expectation of being answered is the currency that buys a correct response from God. God is not a vending machine that gives me what I want if I put in the right amount of money. The amount and quality of my faith has nothing to do with it. My expectation of an answered prayer is not something that I can muster up. I don’t need to exercise my “faith muscles.”

What I am saying is that my prayers are tepid because I am not allowing myself to connect with how awesome and powerful God really is.

I need to remind myself that God does want to work in history, this is the major lesson from the incarnation. God does want to bring healing (emotional and physical). God does want to draw people to himself. God does want to bring me through the difficulties of life with my faith intact. I should not be amazed when I see him doing the very things for which I pray.

Then when God acts, I should be grateful but not amazed.

Tune my heart . . .

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praying_handsI love many of the old hymns. The ones I most appreciate are those for which much thought was put into the lyrics. One of my favorite hymns is “Come Thou Fount.” Here are the lyrics:

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2 that I need to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. This transformation is what the author of Come Thou Fount has in mind. Phrases like “tune my heart,” “by thy help I’m come” and “bind my wandering heart” speak to the need for God to transform me.

This morning I attended a Men’s breakfast where the speaker talked about prayer. As he was speaking, I thought about this need for transformation and how this should be the first thing for which I pray. Perhaps this is why my favorite prayer recorded in Scripture is, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Now on to one of my pet peeves. I notice that in the last few years when “Come Thou Fount” is sung in churches the lyrics of the first verse have been changed. Instead of saying “Praise the mount” the lyrics have been changed to “Praise the name.” While this seems innocuous, I think it actually does violence to the meaning of the song. The mount to which the author refers is Mount Calvary, without which the transformation is not possible. If we take the cross out of the song, from where will the transformation come?

It is precisely because Jesus died and rose again that I can have hope to be other than I am. For what could I pray if there was no hope that my sin has been conquered? For what could I pray if Jesus did not rise and demonstrate that sin and death are vanquished? What hope have I without the Cross and the empty tomb?

But he did go to Mount Calvary and the tomb is empty, therefore I can be transformed.

On the real meaning of stewardship

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StewardshipIf you’ve spent any time in a church, there is a high probability that you have been exposed to the word stewardship. It is a great word and a great concept, but too often it is used only in reference to finances and giving. “Stewardship Sunday” is the day when the pastor talks about the financial situation of the church and people are encouraged to give money. But this is only one aspect of Christian stewardship and I would argue that it is one of the less important aspects.

What is a steward?

The third definition from the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a steward as a “person whose job is to manage the land and property of another person.” The idea is that everything that we’ve been given is a gift from God over which he retains ownership. The Greek term for steward is a compound of the words for house and law. In other words, the steward is the one who rules the house or the house manager.

In what area are we to be stewards?

Financial giving is one aspect of stewardship, but it is not the only one, or even the most important one. Here are some other areas over which Scripture indicates that we are to be good stewards:

  • Time
  • Relationships
  • Talents / Abilities
  • Spiritual gifts

Time

Maybe it is only me, but I find that I waste a lot of time on trivialities. That time could be better spent on things more important. On the flip side, we are not wired to work at peak capacity all the time. We need to balance work, rest and recreation in order to be effective in the long term.

How I spend my time is a reflection of what I think is important. So, to be a good steward of my time, I should prioritize activities and make sure that sufficient time is given to the most important activities.

Relationships

Relationships are the only thing from this life that we will carry into the next. Therefore, it seems that the building of relationships should be a high priority.

Jesus gave us the mission of making disciples wherever we happen to find ourselves. This speaks to the fact that God wants all men and women to come into relationship with himself and with each other. We should be investing in relationships toward that end.

Talents and Abilities

We have the responsibility to develop the talents and abilities that God has given each of us. Part of this being thankful for and working with the talents I do have rather than being envious of those who have talents I don’t possess.  For example, I was never on a path to play Major League Baseball, but that did not prevent me from enjoying church league softball. Compared to the big league players I was hopelessly deficient but it was still fun to work to progress to a higher level of mediocrity.

One of the great things that came out of the Reformation was the understanding that by using our abilities to their full potential, we paid honor to the giver of those gifts. The craftsman could worship through his craft.

Spiritual Gifts

I put spiritual gifts in a separate category because they are different than talents and abilities. A spiritual gift is a gift given for the building up of the church. Gifts like teaching, service, hospitality and exhortation come to mind. These are supernaturally given and should also be developed in cooperation with the leadership of the local church. Too often people do not seek to understand or develop their spiritual gift and both they and the body of Christ suffer as a result.

???

What other category would you add where the principle of stewardship applies?

Oswald Chambers on the Gospel

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Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers

What is needed to-day is not a new gospel, but live men and women who can re-state the Gospel of the Son of God in terms that will reach the very heart of our problems. To-day men are flinging the truth overboard as well as the terms. Why should we not become workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth to our own people? The majority of orthodox ministers are hopelessly useless, and the unorthodox seem to be the only ones who are used. We need men and women saturated with the truth of God who can re-state the old truth in terms that appeal to our day.

Oswald Chambers in Approved unto God

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