Philemon Devotionals

So I am going to begin sharing a string of devotionals I have written for a local church, in case anyone else can find them useful.  Here are the Philemon devotionals:

Philemon

Day 1: What is the Story?

This week we are going to dive into one of those postcard books of the New Testament, Philemon.  This first day we are going to spend a few minutes familiarizing ourselves with the story behind this letter, at least what we can gather of it. 

Begin by reading the book of Philemon carefully (it’s only one short chapter).

As is the case with any book of the Bible, there are varying opinions about what is going on in this letter, but most understand this letter in basically the same way.  This is a letter written by Paul and sent to Philemon, written on behalf of Onesimus.  We can’t know the entire back story, but what we can gather from the letter is that Philemon was a wealthy and influential member of his community, he was a leader in the church (which met in his home), and he was mentored by Paul in the faith.  Most likely Philemon lived in Colossae, since Paul addresses Archippus in both the introduction to this letter and in his instructions to the Colossians (Col. 4:17). 

During this time wealthy members of culture usually owned slaves, a perfectly acceptable practice then.  Slave owners are often implored by Paul in the New Testament to treat their slaves fairly and with dignity.  At the same time, Paul emphasized that in Christ there is no longer slave or free—we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:26-29).  We see in this letter a balance of these perspectives. 

Most scholars are in agreement that Onesimus was Philemon’s slave, and he had probably run away from his master.  Paul confirms that Onesimus was “useless” to Philemon (v. 11), but now emphasizes that he is useful.  Though he was his slave, Paul implores Philemon to treat him no longer as a slave but as a dear brother (v. 16).  Though Onesimus had probably wronged Philemon and owed him a great debt (v. 18), Paul asks Philemon to “put it on his own tab.”  Through this strong, not so subtle request, Paul is reminding Philemon that he himself is in great debt to Paul, who sacrificed much to share the good news about Jesus with him.  In other words, Paul is invoking his authority over Philemon as his “father in the faith” in this request, and is asking him to wipe out the debt of Onesimus. 

He is couching this invocation of authority in deferential terms, praising Philemon for his love and obedience.  After a little bit of this “buttering up,” he makes his strong request for Philemon to obey him and forgive Onesimus.  Paul also seeks to assure Philemon’s cooperation by addressing this letter not only to him but also to the entire Colossian church.  The whole church would hear Paul’s request for Philemon to forgive Onesimus and treat him as a brother, so no matter what Onesimus had done to wrong him, it is almost certain that Philemon would let it go. 

Paul closes with the real kicker in verse 22.  He says, “And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.”  Wow.  Paul must have really cared about Onesimus, because he had laid it on thick!

It is easy to see this “postcard” letter of the New Testament as only a directive of Paul to Philemon without much spiritual value, but that view is mistaken.  We can learn many important lessons from this short letter, and we will dive into those lessons over the next few days.

What important lessons do you think we can learn from this letter after reading through it?  

Have you ever been wronged in a serious way, so that you would have a hard time even seeing the person who wronged you?  Are there certain wrongs you refuse to forgive?  How does this correlate with Paul’s words to Philemon?

Have you ever wronged someone in a serious way and realized that you will probably never be forgiven for it?  When you think of this, what do you think of Paul’s words to Philemon?

Spend some time in prayer, asking God to use even this small letter in his Word to impact your life.  Spend some time communicating with God, both sharing your heart and listening to his voice.

Day 2: Constrained By Community

“This is most certainly not a private letter, even though

its message is directed at Philemon.”[1]

As we talked about yesterday, this letter was not merely addressed to Philemon.  Paul also addresses the letter to Apphia, Archippus, and the church that met in Philemon’s home (v. 2).  By mentioning the house church in the greeting (which Paul does in no other New Testament letter), he “turns what might have been a private letter into a public appeal and perhaps democratizes to some degree the way the Onesimus matter is to be handled if Philemon is not to lose face with his fellow house church members… The eyes of the church will be on him, watching how he responds to Paul’s appeal.”[2]

This is important, and this is the lesson we are going to explore today.  If we are followers of Christ, we do not merely sign up to be individual Christians.  We sign up to be a part of something far bigger than ourselves, a part of the community of believers.  We do not and cannot follow Christ by ourselves; we follow Christ together. 

Therefore, our decisions must not be made on our own, in a vacuum.  They must be made in company with those we are following Christ with.  We must open our lives and open our ears and open our hearts to hear what our brothers and sisters in Christ are saying.  We must be honest about our challenges and struggles and listen to the advice and encouragement of our fellow Christians.

Is this something you find easy or difficult?  Do you tend to seek the advice of others or treat personal issues as if they are strictly personal and confidential?  Are you open to sharing your life, including your struggles, with your fellow Christians?  Are you open to hearing what they have to say to you on such matters?

The church at Colossae would have watched Philemon’s response to Paul.  They would surely have expected him to honor Paul’s request and forgive Onesimus.  This request may have included an expectation for Philemon to release Onesimus from slavery, and the church would watch to see whether Philemon would listen.  But even more than watching, the church would help Philemon determine his response.  They would speak into his life, would give their advice and encouragement, would challenge him to respond appropriately.

Paul saw the church as a body working together; its members were tied together permanently, forming a community that did life together.  They were not individuals who all happened to go to church so they shared something in common; they were a community, a body, who shared everything in common.  In Paul’s view, addressing the church along with Philemon was perfectly appropriate, because it was a community decision.  Not only was Onesimus from their community and not only would his status affect all of them, but because Philemon was a member of the church, his decisions affected the entire body.  His decisions were not his own…

Philemon was constrained by his community.  Though we like to speak a lot in our culture about our personal rights and our personal choices and our personal decisions, if we want to be a part of Christ’s body we must in some sense give up on some of these personal boundaries.  We must be willing to have our freedoms constrained, our lives observed, and our decisions challenged.

What do you think about this idea?  What is most challenging about it?

Are you willing to share your “personal” decisions with the community you follow Christ with?  Are you willing to be constrained by your community?

Spend some time asking God to break down the walls that might be in your heart around this issue.  Ask him to give you great humility, to be willing to lay down your rights and submit to your Christian brothers and sisters in your decisions.

Day 3: Forgiving, and then Embracing

“We must not think evil of this man.”

The quote above was uttered by the grandfather of a little girl ruthlessly shot and murdered by Charles Roberts in 2006.  This man killed five little girls on that day for no reason, and then he killed himself.  Totally senseless.  I cannot imagine the rage I would feel if that were my little girl.  I cannot imagine how I’d even continue to function.  In the aftermath, it was not the killings that got the most attention, but the response of the Amish community that had been attacked and had lost five of its children.  People were flabbergasted at their response, one of immediate forgiveness.  I confess that I, as a follower of Christ, could not even resonate with their response.  I knew they were responding in the way Christ would, but I wanted revenge for them.  My anger at and disgust for this man and what he had done was greater than any desire to forgive him.

Yet the Amish community did not take a couple years to hate this man and then slowly offer forgiveness after they had a chance to heal.  Incredibly, they offered instant forgiveness.  And not only did they offer forgiveness from afar, in theory.  They went to the wife and parents of the killer and literally embraced them, expressing love and forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted them. One Amish man held Roberts’ sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him.  Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, wrote an open letter to the Amish community, saying, “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.”

Can you imagine embracing those who have wronged you terribly?  How difficult is it to forgive those who have abused you, taken advantage of you, stolen from you, or slandered you?  When you are eventually able to forgive, how difficult is it to go to the next step and actually embrace the ones who have most deeply wronged you?

This is the next lesson we learn from this short letter from Paul to Philemon: as Christians, we are called both to forgive and to embrace those who have wronged us.  There is no room for revenge among those who follow Christ.  There is no room for grudges.  As we have been forgiven lavishly, we must forgive lavishly.  As we have been embraced by God after our sin led to Jesus’ death, we are called to embrace others whose sin leads to our pain.

It is clear from Paul’s letter that Onesimus had greatly wronged Philemon.  If not, Paul would not have spent so much time imploring Philemon to forgive him.  He clearly had done him wrong and owed him a great debt (v. 18), yet Paul asks him to instantly let it go.  Erase it.  Forget it.  Then he asks him to go a step further.

Do you remember being a child and having to “make up” with your sibling or another child with whom you had a fight?  I remember being able to mutter the words “sorry” or “I forgive you” without much problem.  But when my parents asked me to go a step further and “give him a hug,” that’s where it became challenging.  Hugging someone is a vulnerable position, a position of trust and openness.  That’s what Paul was asking Philemon to do.  Don’t just say you forgive him—go a step further.  Embrace him.  Show him love.  Treat him as a dear brother, as a loved one.  In order to embrace someone from the heart, there can be no more residue of anger or bitterness or hostility.  You cannot hold someone at bay any longer; with an embrace you are letting them back in, choosing to trust them again.

Clearly there are times in abusive relationships where we must choose to protect our hearts and hold someone at bay, even if we forgive them.  But for the most part, we must both forgive and embrace those who have wronged us. 

What is most difficult about this for you?  Do you think you could get to the point where you are able to embrace those who have most wronged you?  What steps do you need to take to begin offering real forgiveness to those who have hurt you?

Spend some time in prayer, asking God both to forgive you for all the ways you have wronged others and to help you forgive those who have wronged you.

Day 4: No Right to Retribution

In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus tells the parable of the unmerciful servant.  The basic gist of the parable is that the servant of a very powerful king owed the king a great sum he could not pay.  In order to recoup some of the debt, the king ordered the man and his family to be sold.  The servant begged the king on his knees to have mercy, and the king was moved.  He canceled the man’s great debt and let him go! 

Then the servant left and saw a fellow servant who owed him a small debt by comparison.  He grabbed the man and began to choke him, yelling at him to pay up.  The man begged him for mercy, but he refused and had him thrown in prison until he could pay.  When the king heard about this, he was very angry and threw that ungrateful servant in prison until he paid back every penny he owed.  Jesus concludes by saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:35). 

This is not a true story and is a parable to get a point across, but it seems that Jesus is saying that as God has forgiven us without making us first pay for what we have done, we ought to forgive others without requiring retribution, without ensuring they have paid for their sins.  The one who is wronged must offer forgiveness before that person is punished, even before that person admits their fault or asks forgiveness.

This is also a way of thinking and living that is very contrary to the dominant viewpoint of our culture.  In our culture, we have the right to hold accountable those who have cheated us or hurt us or abused us or stolen from us.  We have the right to sue them, hurt them back, or, at the least, shut them out of our lives. 

This aspect of our culture is not too different from the culture of Paul’s day.  Though his culture was much more based on honor and shame, so that if one had dishonored another he would be shamed until he repented, the same principle applied: retribution for wrongs was the norm.  But in his letter to Philemon (and in many other places in his writings), Paul challenges Philemon to lay down his right to retribution.  Though as his owner Philemon had the right to punish Onesimus harshly for what he had done, Paul says to completely let it go.  He tells him to release his right to retribution.

Many think Paul gave this word to Philemon because Onesimus had become a Christian in his absence.  Since he was now a follower of Christ and a brother in the Lord to Philemon, Philemon must offer forgiveness to him.  Many also say Paul is instructing Philemon to release Onesimus from his bonds of slavery because he is a believer and there are to be no such boundaries between believers. 

But I think it goes beyond this.  I think giving up our right to retribution applies also to those who are not believers.  Surely when Jesus said that if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also, he was not speaking about something done by a fellow believer.  Or when he says that if someone steals your cloak, offer him your tunic as well, surely he was not speaking about relationships within the community of faith.  He displayed this in ultimate fashion when he asked God to forgive those who crucified him.  His mockers, his tormenters, his killers, he instantly forgave.  He laid down his right to retribution.  In the same way, Paul instructs Philemon to excuse the wrongs Onesimus had done. 

We are also called to give up our right to revenge.  We are also called to forgive without ensuring punishment for those who have wronged us.  It is challenging for all of us who are a part of our culture to give up rights, but our right to revenge and retribution is one that all Christians must lay down.

What is most difficult about giving up your right to revenge?

What emotion do you feel when you are called to forgive, even though the person who wronged you has not apologized or shown remorse?

Have you ever felt the great freedom and joy that comes with offering forgiveness in this way?

Ask God for the strength not to claim your rights but to give them up, especially your right to retribution.  Ask him for the strength to forgive as he has forgiven you.

Day 5: Submitting to Forgiveness

It is common to think mostly of Philemon when we read this letter, since the entire book is addressed to him, and since Paul’s requests all rest firmly on his shoulders.  But I think we can also learn an important lesson from thinking of Onesimus in this situation.

He had done something pretty terrible, and all were in agreement that he was in the wrong.  Paul, clearly a huge fan of Onesimus, admits that he had a big debt.  And now Onesimus is being sent back to the one he has wronged, to submit again to him.  Sure, he was hoping that Philemon listened to Paul and forgave him, but that may not have happened.  And even if it did, submitting to him again after what had occurred had to be extremely difficult.

I think one of the main reasons people who have committed terrible sins against others do not apologize is not because they are not sorry for what they have done but because apologizing is one of the hardest things we must do in life.  Walking up to someone we have wronged in a big way and saying sorry—submitting to them in the process—is harder, in some cases, even than forgiving a great wrong.  This is what Onesimus was asked to do by Paul.  Walk back to your master, the one you have wronged, the one who has the legal right to take great vengeance on you, the one who has surely been very angry with you—and submit to him.  Admit what you have done.  And accept whatever his response to your actions is.  That’s tough!

It might be easier to be a hero, to offer forgiveness and have others marvel at your grace and mercy.  But to ask for forgiveness and to allow another to forgive you is an act of great humility.  It is unglamorous, and can be painful.  Yet if we are to become the community of believers God has called us to be, we have to excel at submitting to each other.  We must get used to going to those we have wronged, whether our offense is small or great, and submitting to them humbly, not knowing whether they will immediately offer forgiveness or not. 

How are you doing at submitting to others and asking for forgiveness?  What is the most difficult part of this for you?

What difference could it make in our church if we all embraced humility in this area and excelled at going to one another and submitting to being forgiven of wrongs?  What difference could it make in our families?  In our neighborhoods?  In our places of work?

Jesus speaks clearly about the need for us to be reconciled to one another.  Something that has always bothered me about his words in Matthew 5 has to do with going to someone to resolve an issue if they have something against me.  He says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).  I have never liked the way this verse calls on me to go to someone else if they might be upset with me.  I always sort of twist the verse around in my mind to mean that if I am holding a grudge against someone else I need to get it fixed.  But that’s not what Jesus is saying here. 

He is saying that if anyone has anything against us, if we have hurt someone else in any way, we should stop whatever we are doing (even leaving a time of worshiping God) and go to that person and work it out.  We ought to apologize and submit to them and ask forgiveness.  As Christians, we do not have the luxury of blazing through relationships and assuming all is fine unless someone comes to us and tells us we hurt them.  We must be more caring than that, more attuned to the feelings and emotions of those around us.  And if we hurt others, we must not wait for them to tell us so—we must go to them and make it right.  We must submit to forgiveness…

Spend some time asking God to make it clear in your mind and heart if you have hurt anyone, and ask him for the strength to go to that person and make it right…

Pray for whatever else is on your heart…

---

[1] Ben Witherington, The letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: a socio-rhetorical commentary on the captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 54.

[2] Witherington, 55.

Tiptoeing into a Political Discussion

So I generally have nothing to do with politics.  And this is not a polemical post for or against any political views on any side of the map.  I try to be as anti-Republican as I am anti-Democrat, and that doesn't mean I'm an Independent!  I just happen to be of the opinion that politics, as a fully human institution, are frail.  And each politician and political party takes its own stab at what it sees as the "right" way, or the appropriate platform(s); to assume that any politician or political party could "get it right" in every way, or to assume that one could find a party that expresses perfectly all of one's own convictions, is ludicrous.


As I said, that's my opinion.  I speak the above paragraph in humility, knowing I don't have it figured out.  In fact, I know next to NOTHING about politics, specifically because I tend to stay out of it and see the whole endeavor as fairly pointless.  If you are passionate about a particular political party, my goal in this post is not to bash your party, and it certainly isn't to upset you.  Instead, I hope you will pause to consider whether there should even be a "your" party.  Said differently, when you fully support the "party line" of any political party, should there not be areas of dissonance, where you find yourself disagreeing with some of the platforms of "your" party?  What are parties, after all, or party platforms?  Aren't they just conglomerations of ideas and stances held by a majority of a group that holds to similar patterns of thinking?  For example: put me in a room with 10 people who think in a similar way to me (perhaps all Bible students with similar family backgrounds from similar parts of the country), and we could probably come up with a list of beliefs that a majority of us hold to.  That would be our party line.  But certainly there would be beliefs that I didn't quite agree with, where I was in the minority.  Just because that's my "party," shouldn't I still think critically as an individual about what I believe?


Here's what stoked all of this thinking and stimulated this post.  There was an article on Drudge Report about the Tea Party, and this article was quoting from German political theorists who were commenting on the political situation in America.  I found all of their quotes very interesting.  (I am just learning about the Tea Party, and I found the article informative and helpful.  You can see the full article here).  In this article, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt was quoted as saying this of the situation in American politics (and specifically of the Tea Party), from an outside (perhaps fairly objective) viewpoint:

"Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are part of an opposition movement outside of Congress which is moving mountains. This is a revolt against 'Obamaism,' which is seen as representing big government, more taxes, a higher deficit and not enough 'Americanism.' Day by day, it puts more and more pressure onto those at the top."

"In the US, people ... spend time and money supporting the Republicans. Unlike in Germany, in America, which never had a Hitler, being 'right-wing' is not taboo. 'Right-wing' represents Reagan, religion, the free market, individualism, patriotism and small government. In reality, it is an impossible mixture: National pride, God and tradition are conservative 'us' values. The profit motive, competition and a weak state are 'me-first' sentiments ... . But this mixture of conservative values and neoliberalism works well in America, where it transcends social class -- that's the difference to Germany."

Pay attention to the last three sentences.  I am not wise enough about politics to know whether I agree with his (or her) assessment, but I find it fascinating that they claim an "impossible mixture."  An "us-first" mentality (evidenced in the author's eyes by national pride and religion) is held side-by-side (due to the Republican party line) with a "me-first" mentality (evidenced by a motive for profit and competition in the business world).  How can this be, without at least a mild amount of dissonance?  How can there be so many politically-minded people who hold to both a me-first and us-first mentality, without sensing there is something awry in this party line?  Or to consider another example, how can the Democratic party be so passionate about "caring for the least of these" by providing for those in need (seeking to provide health care or welfare, for example), yet at the same time de-value life by condoning abortion?  And how can Republicans value life by being anti-abortion, yet de-value life by being pro-death penalty?  The questions could go on.  

In my opinion, party platforms are nothing more than a group of beliefs held by a majority of people who group themselves together, and if we are thinking people we should NEVER be comfortable with all of the assumptions of "our" party...  

If my words offend you, I do sincerely apologize.  I know people get very heated about politics.  You are certainly entitled to your opinions, and if your opinions include the belief that your party's party line is 100% correct and does not contain any of these "impossible mixtures", you are entitled to disagree with me.  But it is my opinion that every party contains these impossible mixtures, and that none of us should ever be at home in a political party--especially if we call ourselves Christians and are called to a way of thinking drastically different from that of the world around us (1 Peter 2:9-12).  

Those are my thoughts.  I'm 100% confident they are not all correct!  Just trying to stimulate us to think and ask questions.  I don't have the answers.  If anyone tells you they have the answers, especially on an issue as complex as politics, walk away slowly...  :)

Serving Others From a Position of Weakness

I ran across a great quote from Karl Barth in my reading today.  In case you don't know, he is a very well-known German theologian, probably the greatest theologian of the 20th century in many minds.  He wrote a HUGE work called Church Dogmatics that I believe is supposed to be a systematic theology (expounding on all the basics of the Christian faith), and he also wrote many other works.  This quote comes from his commentary on Romans, and he is commenting on Romans 2:1, which says, "You, therefore, are without excuse whenever you pass judgment on someone else, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."

Barth says, "Whenever thou dost erect thyself upon a pedastal, thou doest wrong; whensoever thou sayest 'I' or 'we' or 'it is so', thou dost exchange the glory of the incorruptible for the image of the corruptible (Romans 1.23)... The removal of thyself from the burden of the world by some pretended insight or vision does but press the burden of the world more heavily upon thee than upon any other.  By striding ahead of others, even though it be for their assistance, as though the secret of God were known to thee, thou dost manifest thyself ignorant of God's secret; for by thy removal from thy fellows thou dost render thyself incapable of assisting even the most helpless among them.  By beholding folly as the folly of others, thine own folly cries out to heaven" (Romans 56).

Though I disagree with Barth when he states that this is what Paul means in 2:1, I love his thoughts.  I especially resonated with the statement that when we remove ourselves from the burdens of the world by some pretended insight, striding ahead of others even to help them, we show ignorance.  To help and serve and love others, we cannot claim positions or power or wisdom or knowledge or prerogative.  We simply must offer our help to them as one sinner serving another.  When we act like we are in some sense an expert, like we have something to offer, it is then that we are furthest from being able to make any impact on the needs of others...  It is then that our "own folly cries out to heaven"!

The Finish...

I heard a commentary on ESPN Radio today, where the speaker was talking about a recent vacation he and his family took.  He talked about how the vacation was excellent, the kids had a great time, no one got hurt, it was a great bonding experience, etc.  They had nothing but positive emotions related to the vacation.  Then they got on the plane to come home with their 1 year old, and everything changed.  The way the vacation ended, he said, totally colored the vacation as a whole.  How quickly those fun times were forgotten as they stumbled into the house exhausted from the trip home!

He went on to relate this to the US Open golf tournament which was played this past week, where a golfer was absolutely dominating through the first three rounds of the tournament.  He looked calm, made all the right decisions, and just generally was the best golfer on the course.  Yet in his final round he completely bombed, shooting an 11-over par.

These things made me consider the finish in our relationship with God, and how really this is all that matters.  The start is crucial to getting us on the journey, but it is only the start.  And anyone can start.  Very few can say with Paul, "I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race.  I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).

So you were really close to God a few years back?  Great.  You used to study the Bible all the time, so much so that you still remember TONS about the Bible?  Cool.  You have always been known as a very devoted follower of Christ by all your friends?  Fantastic.  But are you still running the race?  Are you still seeking God?  Are you still in relationship with him, communing with him on a regular basis?  I know these questions have been very humbling and challenging for me to consider, for it is so easy to sort of "ride the wave" of your spiritual past, forgetting that God is not dead.  On the contrary, he is very much alive, as alive as your spouse or your child.  And he is not interested in the past of our relationship with him, good or bad, nor is he even too interested in our future relationship; he is interested in the present, the here-and-now, daily walk with him he longs for us to have.

May you not merely begin the marathon of faith, and may you not fizzle out at mile 18.  Keep going.  Fight the good fight of the faith.  Keep the faith.  And finish.  It is all about how you finish, and none of us know where the finish line is...

The Rich Man and Lazarus: a new reading

This morning in my time with God I flipped to Luke 16 and began reading the parable Jesus told there about the rich man and Lazarus.  I memorized these verses when I was in high school, and have read them or heard them preached many times.  But today I read them in an entirely new way, and I think I may have finally understood what Jesus was actually intending to say through the parable.

In case you’re not familiar, and so that we’re all on the same page, here is the parable:

Luke 16:19 ¶ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

Luke 16:20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,

Luke 16:21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

Luke 16:22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

Luke 16:23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

Luke 16:24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’

Luke 16:25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

Luke 16:26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

Luke 16:27 He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—

Luke 16:28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’

Luke 16:29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’

Luke 16:30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

Luke 16:31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Until now, I have read this parable as a statement about the afterlife and about the interplay of wealth and poverty in the world’s eyes versus true wealth and poverty.  And certainly I think these issues are at play in the parable.  But it finally occurred to me that Jesus did not tell the parable to make any sort of statement about the afterlife.  This is at best a sub-plot.  As you read the parable, it is going somewhere, and that somewhere is the final few verses.  The entire story about Lazarus and the rich man seems to me to merely be the set-up, the context, for the punch line. 

Jesus wants to get a point across TO THE PHARISEES about the fact that they need to listen to what Moses and the prophets have said.  He makes it clear in other statements that Moses and the prophets (a shorthand way of saying the entire Old Testament) all point to him, find their culmination in him, are ABOUT him.  The parable is about Jesus, and he is trying to get a point across to the Pharisees, who will not listen to him.

He gives the context of the rich man and Lazarus, with Lazarus in heaven and the rich man in hell.  THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT ABOUT WHAT HEAVEN WILL BE LIKE.  It is merely the set up for his parable.  Now surely we can assume that if anyone knows what heaven will be like, it is Jesus.  Christian doctrine even states that he was in heaven with God from the beginning, and he descended to earth.  So I am not saying Jesus is unaware of what heaven will be like, or that he is wrong, or that people in hell can’t see those in heaven, or anything like that.  I’m merely saying that wasn’t his point.  It wasn’t his point at all.  It’s all just part of a story he’s telling to get to an important truth.  We must not read a doctrine of heaven and hell into a parable, extracting doctrine from Jesus’ words when he is speaking in parable, in metaphor. 

After giving the context, he gets to the crux of the parable: the rich man’s brothers.  Since they are his brothers, we can assume they were also elites with some measure of wealth and authority.  These men were Jews.  In fact, it is important to remember that this parable is spoken to Jews (by a Jew) and is about Jews.  This will become important in a minute.  The rich man is rebuffed by Abraham when he requests a drip of cool water.  (Again, Jesus is not making a statement about what Abraham’s position in heaven will be—it’s part of the story, and we must use our imaginations and not seek to extract doctrine).  After this, he begs Abraham to send the dead Lazarus to his father’s house, so that he can warn them about hell.  Abraham’s response is crucial to what I am saying: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” 

As I said, this story is about Jews, so this is why this statement makes sense; the prominence of Abraham in the story emphasizes the thorough Jewishness of everyone in the parable.  Jesus is making a statement to the Jewish leaders, to whom he is telling this parable.  The rich man’s brothers in this parable are the Jewish leaders hearing the parable.  Though they are in positions of power, there is an afterlife, where everyone is rewarded or punished for what he has done.  What we do on earth matters.  And they need to change their attitudes and actions, and stop seeking out power and influence (which is the primary reason they persecuted Jesus) and start seeking God.  If they did, they would realize Jesus was not an impostor or a blasphemer but was from God, was God.  The rich man in the parable begs Abraham to send Lazarus so that they might understand, and Jesus is saying that he wishes the Pharisees would understand.  He desires the best for them. 

When Abraham explains that they have Moses and the prophets, the rich man responds by saying that is not enough.  They need more proof.  Likewise, Jesus is saying that for the Pharisees, the fact that the entire Old Testament points so starkly to him has not been enough to wake them from their vengeful slumber, to take the scales off their blind eyes.  They still don’t understand.  And then comes the punch line of the parable when the light went off for me.  Abraham responds to the rich man’s second request to send Lazarus (since Moses and the prophets won’t be enough to convince them), “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  Did you hear that?  After reading this a hundred times, it never dawned on me how clearly this statement is about Jesus.  He’s speaking directly to the Pharisees about himself, saying that he will rise from the dead.  They probably didn’t get it, and no one else who heard him probably did either.  But that’s how Jesus worked, and that’s how parables worked.  They become clear after the fact, or they confuse us until we see them in a new light.  Of course I could be wrong about all this, but at least I am convinced! 

If you, Pharisees, are not convinced that I am the Son of God by Moses and the prophets, and that you better stop persecuting me and start following me, you will not be convinced even if “someone” rises from the dead.  Even if that someone was me, after you kill me!  If you don’t want to believe, you won’t.  Simple as that.

This has so many implications for us: certainly for how we read this text, but also for how we understand belief and faith.  Faith is not about being able to define everything and get all the facts straight.  It’s about seeing what is plainly in front of our faces, and trusting that it’s not an illusion.  It’s about believing the compelling truth that is offered to us, instead of trying to find ways to rebuff it (because only a truth tested and examined and “put under the microscope” can be trusted).  The reason this sort of “faith” doesn’t work is because we can always find reasons not to believe.  Even if someone were to rise from the dead, we could find reasons not to believe… 

May you see the truth that has been presented to you: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior and Forgiver of sins.  And may you not seek to find the reason why it’s NOT true, but fall headlong into the freedom of a relationship with him.  The best way to know the reality of God and the presence of God and the love of God is simply to be with God; in his presence faith becomes so simple…

The Greatest of these is Love

I have a thought I wanted to share from Scripture, simply because it is beautiful to me and thought someone else might appreciate it.  This is a thought pointed out by a Greek professor I had a couple years ago, so it's something I've been thinking about for a while. .

It is regarding 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter.  My professor asked us what we thought Paul was getting at when he said, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love."  I had never really given much thought to what Paul meant when he said this, or to what God is saying to us as Christians today through these words.  If asked, I probably would have said that Paul was simply saying that faith, hope, and love were all extremely important, but that love was the greatest.  In other words, it was just a poetic way to emphasize love's exceeding importance.

However, my professor challenged us to think about why love is the greatest of these three.  In his view (and after a couple years of thought I agree with him), of these three virtues love is the greatest because it is the only one that will last.  It is the only one that, in the end, will ALWAYS remain.  There will come a day when faith is no longer necessary.  If faith is being certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11), there will come a day when faith will be obsolete, because we will see clearly.  We will see Jesus face to face.  We will know him, and he will be with us, and he will be our God.  And there will come a day when hope will no longer be necessary, for who hopes for what he already has?  On that day Revelation 21 tells us there will no more death or mourning or crying or pain.  Everything will be restored.  Shalom has returned.  Hope is no longer needed, because things are right.  But love...  Love is the greatest, because it will last.  The love we experience now is but a taste of the deep and full love we will experience for eternity, as we are loved by God with the deepest love, loved by the essence and creator of love...  And as we love him back, and love each other.  The greatest of these is love...

Spiritual Formation

My own personal spiritual formation is an issue that I have struggled with and continue to struggle with: in the midst of life and all its demands, and in light of my own self-centeredness, how do I establish a rhythm or routine that enables me to encounter Christ and be formed spiritually?  I have been working through this for quite some time, and this semester was reintroduced to the work of Ruth Haley Barton called Sacred Rhythms.  Actually working through this book has been so refreshing for me, has introduced or re-introduced several spiritual disciplines that I think will be so helpful for me, and has laid the groundwork for me to incorporate a rhythm into my life that will enable me to grow.

I won't bore you with the details of my own journey, but I wanted to share that in case this book could help prod and encourage anyone else in their spiritual journey.  I'll post a link to it on Amazon below...

Is Hunting Off-limits??

So I have never hunted before.  Let me preface this post with that admission, or claim to the moral high ground, however you see the issue personally. :)  I have never given much thought to the ethical dimensions of hunting, probably because I have never been that interested in environmentalism.  I am starting to wake up to the importance of this issue, although I still am not as cooperative as I should be in the recycling my wife tries to do.  I see how important it is to value and treasure the earth, since it is the only earth God has given us and we are the stewards of that gift (in a similar fashion to how we have been given one physical body and must be good stewards of that).  But I have been slow to act on my realization of the importance of this truth.

I have been even slower to recognize how important it is to treasure animals and all of God's creatures.  Part of this stems from my strong negative feelings toward the "pet idol" movement I have observed in America: pets are like people, and we value them to such a great extent that they become an idol for us, something we value more than human relationships.  Despite that unhealthy tendency, though, it is true that God's creatures are valuable in his sight--all creatures, both human and animal--and we must value them and treat them with respect.

I just read a quote that got me thinking of all this, and here it is:
"The Noachic covenant [God's covenant with Noah found in Genesis 9] emphasizes reverence for the mystery of life, symbolized by the blood.  Permission is given to human beings to slaughter meat for food, but with appropriate reserve and reverence (Gen. 9:4-5).  Their God-given freedom does not entitle them to kill for sport or to destroy species.  The nonhuman creation is not there simply for humans to use or exploit.  Animals too are precious in God's sight, and this valuation may extend to trees, flowers, and other parts of 'nature.'  In short, human beings are caretakers of God's creation... This is what is involved in being made in the image of God: to rule the earth in wisdom, justice, and compassion so that the rule of God may be manifest in human actions" (Bernard Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology, 95).

Wow.  That's a great quote in my opinion.  The comment near the end about being made in the image of God goes back to his earlier discussion of what this phrase means.  To be made in the image of God, in Anderson's view, means to have a function or role, to represent God on earth, "just as a child represents the parent on a family estate" (90).  In this view, man "is not an autonomous being, at liberty to rule the earth arbitrarily or violently.  On the contrary, human dominion is to be exercised wisely and benevolently so that God's dominion over the earth may be manifest in care for the earth and in the exercise of justice" (91).

This is what all goes back to hunting!  If we are not free to treat the earth how we want, whether through treating animals violently or through raping the earth's natural resources in whatever fashion we want, then that certainly has implications for how we live.  We must do what we can to treasure the earth and its creatures, both in our own lives and through the laws we support.  And maybe we should take another look at hunting and the underlying assumptions behind it.  I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the idea of killing an animal for fun, but Genesis 9 seems to instruct us to treat the blood of animals with great respect, for the life given to it by God is in its blood.  It is one thing to kill an animal to nourish our bodies.  I believe this is absolutely okay, mainly because Scripture says it is okay and because I do believe that animals are subject to humans, since God set it up that way.  However, does our "dominion" over animals give us the right to kill them for fun?  Isn't there something about this that fails to treasure God's creation?  Isn't there something about this that fails to rule the earth in wisdom and compassion?  I'm just asking the question...

Purpose of the Church: Michael Frost

I just posted a mini-review of the first section of The Shaping of Things to Come, and this post is about a youtube video I just watched with one of its authors, Michael Frost.  Michael talks about the purpose of the Church in compelling ways, ways that challenged me, and I wanted to share some of his thoughts.  If you'd like to watch the video for yourself (it's only 3 1/2 minutes), you can go here.

“The purpose of the Church, I think, is to alert people to the universal reign of God in Christ, in the same way as that was the purpose of Israel—to alert people to the universal reign of Yahweh…The gospel for Israel was that Yahweh reigns…over all kingdoms and dominions.  The Christian message is the same, except that reign and rule is exemplified and confirmed for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.”

The purpose of the Church, then, is to alert people to the reign and rule of God in Christ.  This is “more than church growth, attracting more numbers, more than saving the lost.”  He says there are two ways we alert people to God’s reign: we announce it and declare it, through relationships and public praise and proclamation, and we also demonstrate what the reign of God looks like.  If the reign of God is characterized by love, justice, mercy, grace, then we as the Church ought to go and act that out now, demonstrating for the world what the reign of God looks like: “show people what the world to come looks like here in the midst of the disorder of this world.”  Arguments about whether the Church should do social action or evangelism have no place.  The Church ought to be like a trailer for the greatest blockbuster movie in history—the world ought to look at the Church as it demonstrates what the universal reign of God looks like and want to participate!  “People ought to look at the Church—they ought to look at individual Christians—and they ought to see a trailer of this world to come.  They ought to see peace, justice, love, mercy, kindness.  They also ought to see celebration and joy, delicious flavors and beautiful life.  They ought to look at it and think, ‘I’d like to see the whole thing!’  I think that’s the purpose of the Church: to announce and to demonstrate the universal reign of God in Christ.  And then, if the Church grows, it’s incidental.  I think it will grow… But the primary goal is this alerting people to this irreversible truth of God’s reign.”

This is a beautiful way to see the purpose of the Church in my opinion: to announce and demonstrate the reign of God in Christ.  Personally, I think a big part of announcing is going, and as we go we also must demonstrate as a community this reign of God already being played out in our midst.  Too often the Church has stayed stagnant, attempting to announce from our pulpits and demonstrate from our cozy church buildings the reign of God.  We must do so by going and through proactive relationships with our neighbors, friends, colleagues, family members, etc. 

One of his most crucial points for me is that our focus has been skewed for too long, and we have made church growth and numbers our focus.  If we are living out the universal reign of God in our midst, demonstrating a radically loving, just, sacrificial community, the church will grow.  We'll never need another outreach "program" or church growth plan.  May we as individuals and as the Church be this trailer for the world, both announcing and demonstrating the wonderful, freeing, righteous reign of God.

The Missional Church

So I read a book called The Shaping of Things to Come by Frost and Hirsch a while back, and I am going through it with some friends right now.  I wrote out a few thoughts pertaining to the first section of the book, and I thought I would share those thoughts here as well.  The book certainly has some ideas that I don't wholeheartedly agree with, but on the whole it hits the nail on the head and makes some very important challenges to the way the church in the West is currently operating.  I invite and encourage you to get this book and work through it.  There is a link to buy it at the bottom of this article...

Thoughts on The Shaping of Things to Come through page 107

This book was like a breath of fresh air for me.  It addressed many areas I have been working through and trying to come to grips with.  Though it didn’t answer all my questions, and though I didn’t agree with every point or resonate with every idea, I was incredibly refreshed by the authors’ fresh vision for the Church.  This book introduced me to the idea of the “missional church,” which is summed up very well by Rick Meigs on his website www.friendofmissional.org.  Part of his description says: “At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, Breaking the Missional Code (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:

From programs to processes

From demographics to discernment

From models to missions

From attractional to incarnational

From uniformity to diversity

From professional to passionate

From seating to sending

From decisions to disciples

From additional to exponential

From monuments to movements”

This is a good way to introduce this stream in the church that is moving in a powerful way.  It is in part a reaction against the institutionalized church, and I feel that Hirsch and Frost have summed up its main thrusts very well in this book.

My journey has played a large part in the ways that this book has challenged me, shaped me, and set me on a path toward being involved with a new kind of church.  For my entire life, I have always been an integral part of whatever church I have attended: I was a leader in my youth group as a student, I was at a small church while at college where I was well-known and then was a youth pastor after that.  I was always sort of in a privileged position, and it was easy for me to get to know people—in fact, people were seeking out relationships with ME mostly! 

Then we moved down here to Kentucky, not really thinking about the transition to finding a church.  We had a very difficult time.  We went from church to church trying to find a community of Christ-centered people who would embrace us and whom we could embrace.  We signed up for welcome classes that got cancelled, we signed up for small groups and were never placed in them, we sought out friendships and were turned away.  We felt like we were finally encountering what it must be like for people who are trying to “break in” to the culture of the church.  It was tough!  Because we are committed followers of Christ, we kept looking and eventually settled on a church merely because we were able to get into a small group there.  We have become hungry for community, a genuine community of Christ-followers who are focused on loving God, loving each other, and loving the world.  This has been hard to find, and this vision is what I feel the authors tapped into for me.  I am so tired of churches worrying about sustaining themselves (as institutions), focusing on the building of buildings and the budget and the maintenance of the programs of the church.  I know these things have their place, and I certainly have played my part in sustaining these aspects of the church.  But they seem to take over and mask the entire nature of the church!  The church is not an institution—it is a living organism, a community of people, a family.  I personally feel like this nature is hidden in the vast majority of churches by its own programs and goals and budgets and passions.

All of that is introduction, believe it or not!  J  Let me move on to talk specifically about the book’s first 107 pages and what struck me the most.  I found the discussion at the beginning about the Burning Man festival interesting.  Of course such a festival is not the church, but I resonated with the authors’ connection between this festival and the longings of humanity, specifically in our postmodern world.  The most powerful longing I think this festival displays is a longing for belonging.  We all want to be a part of something with others, to be in community, and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  I also resonated with the festival’s focus on the experiential and on celebration—I think these are longings that the church too often ignores…

I really appreciated their discussion on Christendom, and from my education in church history I found them to be right on target.  They said that through the shift under Constantine, “Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, social, and spiritual movement to being a religious institution with its attendant structures, priesthood, and sacraments” (8).  This is key to me, and points to the source of many of the problems in the Church’s focus and understanding of its nature and mission 1700 years later.  We must regain our focus on being a missionary movement rather than an institution.

While I disagree with their sweeping assessment that the church planting movement has gone bust to a large degree, I agree with them on their point that most church plants are merely carbon copies of the dominant Christendom model, “duplicating a failing system” (18).  They seem to still be advocating church planting, in fact, although a missional type of church, one that abandons the Christendom assumptions and sees the nature and purpose of the church as a church sent “to bring healing to a broken world” (18). 

Their summary of what this missional church will look like is spelled out on page 22, and overall it’s a vision I get very excited about: it places a high value on communal life, has more open leadership structures, and values the contribution of everyone in the community.  It is experiential and participatory in worship and is deeply concerned for matters of justice and mercy.  These are the things I have been longing to see the church focus on, moving away from its “come to us” mentality and its institutionalized focus.  I believe existing churches can begin to make these changes, but it will take serious shifts in the way we look at ourselves and the purpose and function of our churches.  We must begin to see the church we attend not as a club you can join but as the corporate community of individuals following Christ…

Their focus on the church becoming incarnational was a little confusing for me as I read back through it, but I appreciated the descriptions on page 38 of what they meant—we must truly become a part of the people group we are trying to reach, identifying with them in real ways as Christ identified with humanity in his incarnation.  In other words, we must not stand apart from our neighbors or call out to the not-yet Christians among whom we live, telling them to come to church!  This has been the attractional model: we have the goods, and you need to get with the program and come to us if you want those goods.  Instead, we must enter into real relationships with them and identify with them in true ways if we ever hope to invite them to know Christ. 

Beyond this, the church must turn its gaze toward this incarnational stance; we must not stand apart from our culture or neighborhoods but must become enmeshed in them.  “Jesus moved into the neighborhoods; he experienced its life, its rhythms, and its people from the inside and not as an outsider” (39)—we must also do this if we hope to do the work God has called us to.

The graphs on page 41 sum up the difference between attractional and incarnational: the mission mode and impulse in the attractional model is inward, seeking to get people to “come to church,” while the mission mode and impulse in the incarnational model is outward, seeking to go and share life with the communities of which we are a part.  Through this shared life we can invite our friends to join us in the journey of following Christ. 

Frost and Hirsch say: “We believe that the web of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances that Christians normally have makes up the net into which not-yet Christians will swim.  We believe the missional-incarnational church will spend more time on building friendships than it will on developing religious programs” (44).  This is a beautiful challenge to me, and a needed one.  We need to regain (as individual followers of Christ who are a part of his body, the community, the church) our focus on relationships with others, in the process sacrificing some of our focus on programs and planning and productivity.

One more thought and then I'll stop.  The authors provide a very powerful discussion about the way we view the Church and the world, ourselves and our neighbors.  They express that for too long Christians have bought into a faulty way of thinking, which they refer to as the "fence" mentality.  In other words, those who follow Jesus are "in" the fence, and those who do not are "out" of the fence.  This in/out, us/them mentality has led directly to the institutionalization of the church, to viewing the body of Christ as something you can become a member of, a sort of social club.  Rather, we ought to view the journey of faith in terms of a "well."  Jesus is the well, and there are no fences.  Some are close to the well, connected with Christ on an intimate basis, and some are far from the well.  But all are on the journey, and it is our role as Christians, as the Church, to draw those who are far from the well toward it.  We are missionaries, going to all who are far from the well (not-yet-Christians, rather than "unbelievers" or "non-Christians") and inviting them to know Christ.  We are not an institution, waiting for those who are "out" to come to the source and get the goods...

I again invite you to buy this book and read it.  At the very least, it is challenging and insightful.  If you have thoughts about the book or about what I've written here, I'd love to hear your thoughts...