Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Play nicely with your fellow citizens

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“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,” (Ephesians 2:19, NASB)

Too often I have experienced situations, even in good churches, where people lose sight of the fact that the person in the next pew is a fellow citizen, with the same access to God. True, I’ve seen this more in unhealthy churches, but unfortunately, it can happen in any church.

It usually happens when one thinks himself of more value or superior in some way. It could be because of education, or length of service in the church. It could be because of a sordid background. Pride can find a million reasons to look down on another person. This should have no place in the church of Jesus Christ.

Divided Church Citizens

The antidote is to keep in mind that Jesus tells us that the one who wants to be first has to be the servant of all (Mark 9:35). Oh, and that whole beam and speck thing should be remembered also. What can you see in your fellow church member that isn’t a problem in your own heart?

Jesus has no tolerance for pride. Pride is always destructive and is the chief sin and chief tool of the Enemy.

Whether you are a leader or a follower, whether you are a teacher or a student, whether you are a shepherd or a sheep, this should be kept in mind: We’re all equal at the foot of the Cross. What do you have of eternal value that was not given to you? If you cannot earn your spiritual standing, what is there to be proud about?

So play nicely with that saint in the next pew, you will likely get to spend eternity with him.

C. S. Lewis on educators

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Lewis on Educators

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.”

-C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places?

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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” (Ephesians 1:3, NASB)

Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places

When I read this verse, there is something that haunts me. Paul tells me that I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. The verb is past tense, so it has already happened. Why then do I often feel so unblessed?

It seems that if I were to appropriate this promise that my life would be lived differently. This is what haunts me.

The question then becomes, “what inhibits me from appropriating this promise?” The truthful answer is that I don’t really know what holds me back.

Perhaps it is because I am unable to imagine what “every spiritual blessing” looks like. It must be independent of my circumstances, but it doesn’t feel that way. Often my circumstances cause me to look to the heavens and ask “what happened?” This is in spite of the fact that I’ve had it easier in life than many. Yet, I struggle to look beyond the stuff that is in front of my and see beyond.

Perhaps it is because my understanding of God is too small. As a result, my trust is too small. If I really understood God and his expectations for me, I might live differently. I might be more inclined to act and less inclined to wait until the opportunity is passed.

I do not know whether to admire or pity those who seem so presumptuous in appropriating all the blessings in the Bible. Yet, when I read those promises, there is a nagging sense in the back of my mind that perhaps these who pursue with such reckless abandon are the ones who have it right after all.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places has been my blessing. Perhaps I will start living that way.

How about you?

Does the church bring freedom or coercion?

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Freedom or Coercion?A common perception of Christians is that we are a bunch of people who want to impose our form of Sharia law on the rest of the world. In other words, we are viewed as people who use coercion to get people to conform to a set of laws to which they would rather not be bound.

Yet what I find in Scripture should cause the Church to be perceived as a group of people who strive for freedom in response to the spiritual freedom that the Gospel has brought into our lives. Consider the following:

  • Jesus came to provide freedom – In Luke 4:16-21, Jesus reads Isaiah 61:1 in the synagogue and applies that Scripture to himself as one who brings release to the captives and freedom to those who are oppressed.
  • In Galatians 5:1, Paul reiterates Jesus’ claim that the gospel sets us free.
  • The History of the last 2,000 years supports the idea that Jesus Christ brings freedom. The countries in the world where freedom is currently experienced can tie that freedom to a Christian heritage.

We do have to admit that the Church has not had a perfect record in the area of coercion. My own experience lends support to the idea that the church can be coercive in her tactics. This is a point that the church needs to face up to and change.

In too many congregations, there is pressure to conform to a standard of behavior. In some cases the coercion is overtly proclaimed from the pulpit, in other cases the pressure is more subtle. When someone does not live up to the standard of behavior he is either directly chastised or the subject of gossip.

When I read the Gospels, I see no coercive tactics used by Jesus. Jesus told people where they went wrong, using the law as his guide, but loved them through the entire process. In reading the story of the woman at the well in John 4, it is difficult to imagine that the woman felt shamed or coerced. One gets the sense that she already felt ashamed and Jesus offered her love, hope and a way out of her bondage.

What can the Church do in response?

  1. Live out the claims of the Gospel – demonstrate by changed lives that the Gospel is indeed true. We need to allow God to “will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil 2:13)
  2. If we are yielded to God we can then love like Jesus loved – those outside the church community must feel our love before they will be willing to hear our message. In reading the accounts in the Gospels where people came to faith in Jesus, it is obvious to me that they felt Jesus’ love and were drawn to him by that love.

We do not need to impose any standard of behavior on the world around us. Paul wrote his letters to communities where moral decay and depravity were rampant, and I find no hint of an assertion that the church should work for a legislative response to that decay.

Coercive tactics should find no place in the church. We are called to speak the truth in love (Eph 4;15), not bully people into conformity.

God does not like bullies any more than we do.

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