Kathy Keller on hermeneutics, ladies, and misinterpretation

A number of months back, blogger/speaker/writer Rachel Held Evans shared a number of reasons why she became disillusioned and left the church. I deemed this a helpful list, and even responded to that list here, here, and here,  though I obviously disagreed with her conclusions. Later she shared a list explaining why she returned to the church.

Now she has a book out called A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a liberated woman found herself sitting on a roof, covering her head, and calling her husband master.

Apparently her publicist must have done some good work as Evans ended up on The Today Show. But do not count Tim Keller's wife Kathy among her fans. I commend her review  called "A Year of Ridiculous Biblical Interpretation."

Whether you intend to read Evan's book or not (I don't unless folks in my church start reading it), do yourself and your friends a favor and read the review, if for nothing else, then its sound, simple, but helpful lesson in hermeneutics. 

Hermeneutics is simply the method of interpreting something, though its use is often employed in reference to bible interpretation. Kathy gives several parameters which will help you interpret the bible. According to Keller, one of Evan's main contentions with so called "Biblical Womanhood" is that primarily folks are simply picking and choosing which bible verses to apply. Yet Keller wisely recognizes in her review/open letter, "In doing so, you (Evans) have further muddied the waters of biblical interpretation instead of bringing any clarity to the task." Here are a few things we can glean in regards to how to more responsibly interpret the bible.

• Interpret the Old Testament with the new. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law and so we can eat bacon wrapped scallops now. It is not picking and choosing to not follow dietary or cleanliness  laws (Mark 7:19)

• Narrative or Prescriptive? Is the author telling the story to condone/approve/teach evils (prescriptive) or does he include the "dirt" of God's people to show everyone that even the "heroes" need a savior. Is Abraham's passing off his wife as his sister to save his butt something the bible approves of/instructs us to do (prescriptive), or is it a display of a lack of faith ultimately displaying our need for Jesus? The writers no more condone or approve of evils perpetrated on women than a newspaper editors approve of a rape or murder they report. Nice one Kathy!

• Intended meaning in context. What is the writer trying to communicate? She gives two examples. One includes a misapplication of proverbs as she literally stands on the corner of the street with a "Dan is great" sign when the text of proverbs reads, "Her husband is respected at the city gate." It just means the husband is generally respected in the community. The 2nd is when Paul explains to Titus that even one of the Cretans own prophets declares that they are lazy. Paul isn't being a racist, but instead reminding Titus that he his work cut out for him and their own prophets agree!

While Evans espouses a how will we pick and choose bible verses to apply, this is not how, even the bible writers, assume one should interpret it. In the end, hopefully one of Evans "gifts" to the community will be a heightened awareness that each person needs to  examine his heart when coming to any subject matter addressed in the bible. We should do all we can to make sure we aren't picking and choosing which ones to apply. Unless of course, Jesus tells us specific ones (ceremonial law) not to apply in the ways they were first intended.

Like I said earlier, read the review, if only for the hermeneutics lesson. It's well worth your 5 minutes or so.

Making your own "study bible" and some prayer apps

My last post focused on how not to use your cell phone during corporate worship. But recently I have come across some helpful ways to use technology in and outside church.

1.) All kinds of tablets offer various versions of the bible. Provided you can resist the urge to check facebook or update your fantasy football roster, tablets can be quite helpful. A woman in our church actually takes notes within the electronic bible app. So in essence she is creating her own "study bible" whenever she hears the word preached. Since we at Redeemer preach expositionally through books of the bible, she will have "commentaries" on various books or sections of scriptures (like the Sermon on the Mount which I'm preaching).

2. I'm not very technologically advanced compared to most, but I'm still benefiting from the Prayer Notebook app. Tim Challies recently shared a number of prayer apps for iPhones here and I ended trying the free version of the app called Prayer Notebook Lite. After I saw how it worked, I felt it worth the price of $ 1.99.

One of the more convicting things about the app is that I'm now realizing folks I've simply not prayed for. But the bright side is that I'm praying for more folks and more situations now. While I'll never pray for everyone as much as I would like, fewer people are slipping through the cracks. The app allows you to separate requests into categories, days of week, mark as "answered", and will even send you reminders if you want. Just started using it a few weeks ago, but very helpful, especially for those requests which fit outside my normal categories.

Here's a screen shot of what it look likes

If you have any other helpful apps, please share them.

Shoud you facebook and tweet during church?

A pastor in Arizona actually encourages social media during the worship service. "What" say you, or at least that's what I say. I'm a pastor. Is that really a good idea?

Just before The Office took a nose dive in quality, it depicted a beautifully tragic/accurate cell phone addiction scene. Ryan, one of the younger characters on the show had his cell phone taken away during a game of bar trivia. He was cheating with it. After it was taken away, and for just only a matter of minutes, he confessed he couldn't play the game any longer because, "I can't live without my cell phone."

I confess now that I have a smart phone, I use it all the time. I take it places where I probably shouldn't. But is "having to have it" all times a good thing? My wife says no, and I think I agree with her. And I'm pretty sure Jesus is on her side on this one.

If you watch the short clip, which of course you should, you'll see a pastor leading his congregation to share the gospel on facebook and other social media. During the service. He argues that the church should be ahead of the times and take advantage of these opportunities.

As one who tends to embrace the pragmatic, I can sympathize with this direction. The Reformers certainly embraced technology in the form of the printing press. They took great advantage of it, and one wonders what kind of influence they would have had without that wonderful piece of technology. I don't remember Luther or Calvin saying, "I want to go 'old school.' Let's just get some people to hand-write our materials. Helmut or Pierre, you guys have good penmanship, right?" Nope they took advantage of what was out there and used it for the spread of the gospel.

While I love the outward facing direction of this pastor, and the truth that people need to hear the gospel preached each week, my concern is more in regards to the timing of when this should happen. Here are my three main concerns:

 1.) Cell phone idolatry. We're on our cell phones 24-7. Can we not take a break from them, taking our gaze off our idols (even if we're using them for good things like inviting folks to church)? Aren't we more like Ryan from The Office than we want to admit? Who greater to deal with our idolatry than the beautiful risen Savior King Jesus?

2.) Church and worship. Should the church worship service be a time no different than any other during the week? Or is it a once-a-week special time when God's covenant people gather together to offer up their hearts, minds, time, wallets, voices to serve the God who has graciously saved them and lavished them with grace? Invite people to worship. Ask early and ask often. But when God issues His call to worship Him, just direct your attention on Him as much as is possible. You've got tons of time to invite folks over facebook, twitter, text messages, etc....

3.) Are invitations during worship more effective than invitations extended before or after church? Do you really think its more effective to take a picture of yourself singing and then tweet it to others than to send the same message after or before worship starts? Perhaps the most effective communicative tool is asking someone in person. You don't even need a cell phone plan to do that.

Other pastors have thought through the issues of technology during worship. Some don't even want power point or media shout. Some think printing words in the bulletin is from the devil (God only wants you to sing out of man-made hymnbooks I guess...). That's not me. Use technology for God's glory, our edification, for outreach and mercy.

Use technology but don't let technology use you. I think someone smarter than myself probably already said that once. Or twice maybe....

If you're interested why well known Reformed pastor Tim Challies thinks you absolutely should not tweet sermons in real time, check this out. I don't always agree with him-why do pastors feel the need to always make that disclaimer when its pretty obvious we can't agree with everyone all the time-but he is very biblical, thoughtful, and "down with the times."

Next post will be on some spiritual benefits of technology folks have passed on to me.

Implications of believing in Judge Jesus

We have been watching the video Soul put out by Christianity Explored for youth group time. The video and materials that come with it are intentionally evangelistic, so any visitors will get to hear the gospel or at least part of it (the video is 7 weeks long). The benefit for those in the youth group is that they get to better understand it or believe it for the first time. I never assume everyone who regularly comes is a Christian.

In addition the youth are afforded a way to learn the gospel in a way that they can share it in the language of those outside the church, as opposed to "simply" using words like "ask Jesus into your heart" that only people in the church understand. 

But the final benefit of hearing and re-hearing the gospel is that it provides so much application for believers as well. For instance, the video highlighted the resurrection, but spent time explaining one of the "perks" of the resurrection for Jesus' followers: Jesus is the Great Judge.

Jesus is being "judged" by the high priests, he tells him that they will see "The Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds in heaven (Mark 14)." Jesus is ultimately saying, "You're judging me now, but you will see me judging you in just a bit. And I'm right and you're wrong." What irony: that the one being judged is actually the just judge of all!

So what difference does that make? Well the video highlighted some helpful stuff. First of all that no one will pull a "fast one" on God. Jesus will have the last laugh. Not the Taliban, murderers, rapists, etc....

Since Christians don't stand on their record but Jesus' record, the image of a Great Judge should provide comfort. But it also makes a huge difference in life. We went a bit further than the video to mine this truth for more application.

Oprah teaches us to not let anyone judge us (meaning don't let anyone tell you are sinning, even if you are). Paul teaches us to not let anyone judge us according to the new moon or a Sabbath (Col 2:16). I think he means that we can defend our not celebrating new moon or special Sabbaths (not referring to the weekly Sabbath). Don't cave. Relax. You're in the right. Let Jesus take care of it.

But what happens when people do judge us incorrectly? What happens when other Christians judge us according to standards not in line with the gospel? I think the Jesus response to the high priest applies for both situations: "you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power."

Whether our accusers are Satan and his goons (the great accuser), non-Christians, or Christians, we will all face the great judge. Thankfully.

Give it to Jesus. If we're right, we'll be vindicated. If we're not, we'll be forgiven. Win-win.

Now that's not always easy to do. In fact, whenever I'm judged incorrectly (as far as I know), I hate it. It seems so unfair. But it's not nearly as unfair as what was done to Jesus. And I want to retaliate. Yet ultimately why I demand justice now is that I don't believe what Jesus says. That's really it.

But there is also hope in this life too. Consider Paul's words to Timothy: 

Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds......At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might by fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

-II Tim 4:14, 16-18

That perspective can be ours when we believe. Lord give us faith to believe.

I've accepted who I am: I'm bad

My wife and I have been making our way through Breaking Bad on Netflix. As we are approaching the middle part of the 4th, and I believe, penultimate season, I've actually noticed a number of "common grace" (beneficial things non-Christians display and do) and fairly biblical insights. Let me share with you one particular questions that the series raises, and then answers.

If you are unfamiliar with the plot, it all centers around Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who discovers that cooking Meth can provide for his family. Everything goes downhill from there. Duh....

His partner Jesse regularly goes to a recovery group for drug addicts. The ultimate presupposition of this group stated in their beginning session is that you need to first accept yourself and that change is not the most important thing. You have to like and accept yourself. This Oprah-esque mantra is assumed as gospel over the period of several different sessions.

Now what is positive about this is that it points us to a God who accepts and justifies us not because we clean ourselves up, but completely because of His Son who took our dirt and gave us His cleanness. Therefore we don't first clean ourselves up to come to Him. This kooky psychiatrist chooses to forgo the "religious" way to acceptance. You shouldn't try to clean yourselves up so that someone else will accept you. I'm with that.

But he instead opts for the irreligious way of self-acceptance or self-actualization. Just accept yourself for who you are. You don't need to change at all. You have to like who you are despite all that you've done, and how much your actions have literally destroyed lives.

Jesse gives it a shot. Instead of quitting the drug dealing industry, he hops back in with more vigor, determination, and delight than before. He used to to do it for money. Now it is who he is. He tells Walt that, "I've accepted who I am, and I am bad. I'm a drug dealer."

In a later group counseling session depicted in another episode, the same leader presses him to open up and share. Then he drops the bomb shell which exposes this "self-acceptance" theory of change. "Do you know why I've come here? I've come here to sell the recovering addicts in this group crystal meth. Should I accept myself? How bad is that!"

The scene is beautiful in a broken sort of way. It exposes the follies of the religious/irreligious ways of salvation and change as futile shams. The only thing missing is Jesus.

The gospel is a third way to live. We don't change in order to be accepted. But we also don't NOT change because we should accept ourselves and all of our sin. We're sinful. We shouldn't see our sin and say, "That's good stuff. That's me." The gospel says that is NOT the way God designed us to live. That is not you. Yet neither accepting ourselves, nor working to change our situation before God does any good. Change isn't primarily the problem. Self acceptance isn't primarily the problem. God's acceptance of us is, and can't be bought by self work or self-acceptance. 

Instead, the gospel offers us both God's acceptance (which then allows us to say-I like who am re-created to be) and the gift of a desire to change. Not a desire to change in order to please God or others, but a desire to change because we already have God's acceptance. And consequently the acceptance of His congregation of fellow struggling addicts.

It's not time to go solo: "spiritual but not religious?"

Spiritual can have lots of meanings today. I've heard it used in ways that I'm pretty sure the framers of the word never intended. I went to a "spiritual" church, one that told me the future. My personal favorite is one I heard during a foreign study trip in college: "The most spiritual people I know are atheists." Hmmm.....

But then there are more common and more widely accepted uses of the term "spiritual." I guess it means I believe in God, but not "organized religion." How organized are you willing to go? Are Quakers too organized?

Anyhow....

Everyone has heard the age old euphemism "I'm spiritual but not religious." Not long ago the CNNbeliefblog ran this article "My take: I'm spiritual but not religious."  A non-pastor gives some helpful insight. That thinking needs retiring.

1.) It's helpful to realize that beliefs like this have a root. They don't just come out of nowhere. People don't just say, "I'm spiritual, not religious" without having already adopted some deeper picture of reality.

It is within the context of today's anti-big, anti-discipline, anti-challenging climate - in combination with a therapeutic turn in which everything can be resolved through addressing my inner existential being - that the spiritual but not religious outlook has flourished.

2.) While mega churches are not bad per se (probably many are much healthier than smaller shrinking ingrown churches), have profited from the most from this therapeutic driven, shallow, doctrine-less philosophy and way of life? This guy thinks so.

The boom in megachurches merely reflect this sidelining of serious religious study for networking, drop-in centers and positive feelings.

3.) Why does the "spiritual, but not religious" philosophy matter? The organized religion of Christianity has made possible a number of things we all hold precious in Western history and culture. Why should we embrace a worldview that won't allow for such creations?

Christianity has been interwoven and seminal in Western history and culture. As Harold Bloom pointed out in his book on the King James Bible, everything from the visual arts, to Bach and our canon of literature generally would not be possible without this enormously important work.


4.) What happens when we jettison sin? If we don't call "sin," sin, then we don't change. It is bad for us. It is bad for our families. It is bad for our neighbors, co-workers, etc....We accept an extremely selfish picture of ourselves with less concern on how our "sin" keeps us from loving others.

The idea of sin has always been accompanied by the sense of what one could do to improve oneself and impact the world.

Yet the spiritual-but-not-religious outlook sees the human as one that simply wants to experience "nice things" and "feel better." There is little of transformation here and nothing that points to any kind of project that can inspire or transform us.

This is what I think when I hear "spiritual but not religious"
 
1.) I rightly hate the hypocrisy of professing Christians (or you fill in the blank _____), but those people are beyond redemption. I'm so much better than them that it's waste of time to associate and gather which such people. I hate pride but I live just as pridefully.

2.) I rightly hate the negative experiences I've had with organized religion. I know people will hurt me in the same way with a new church because all churches operate in the same fashion. I won't give them the pleasure.

3.) I rightly hate people making up rules and telling me what to do. But I clearly know better than everyone else how to live and don't need any input in my life. I'd rather discover the truth for myself, even though the truth I discover will be completely shaped by what I want it to be.

4.) I would much rather serve myself than to serve other people and be concerned about their good. What matters most is what makes me happy. If there's some happiness left over, I'll try to do something nice for someone else.

5.) I don't want or need a community that can love me and speak truth to me. I don't need to be loved or to love. I'm a rock. And an island too, by the way.

6.) I worship God how I want to worship Him. If He exists, he's just happy to have someone as good as me pay Him a bit of attention. He likes it when I go hiking or fishing.

7.) My time is my time. I'm obviously busier than you are.

"Organized" churches have really done lots of damage to a number of people. As a result many have, like Vanilla Ice, felt "it's time to go solo." But in the end, "spiritual not religious" is the height of arrogance, selfishness, and foolishness.

Jay Mohr on "suffering"

Jay Mohr played a dirtbag agent Bob Sugar in the movie Jerry McGuire. From what I can tell after hearing him numerous times guest hosting the Jim Rome show, I don't think he had to "act" too much for that role. Actually I have never enjoyed him filling in until a few days ago. 

Mohr referenced someone complaining, "We've suffered through years of bad quarterbacks and we finally have a good one now." 

He responded, "Oh, so you personally suffered during the bad quarterback play? What, did you go without a coat all winter? Were you evicted from your house? Did you have no place to live? You suffered because of bad quarterback play?"

I'm sure I've said similar things. A good reminder in regards to words we use to describe sporting events. We don't really "suffer." Even long suffering Browns and Bucs fans.

But he wasn't done. Mohr went on to fairly accurately describe the way some folks view their sports teams. We slave 40 hours at a job we hate with a boss we dislike to check out for 3 hours and have something to really live for.

I guess you can see why some folks use the word "suffer." Not a good way to view sports. But when there is no alternative bigger picture other than sports, success, family, it makes sense. And when Christians forget the bigger picture of the gospel, we can very quickly revert back to our old form.

I may never say this again, but, thank you Jay Mohr.