Monday, March 18, 2024

Assisting Apollos With Open-Heart Surgery

Suggested Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, 16:12

The movie Something the Lord Made dramatized the story of two men, Dr. Alfred Blalock and his assistant Thomas, who developed and performed the first open heart surgery. While Dr. Blalock was recognized as a renowned surgeon, Thomas was his black assistant in a day when blacks were still required to enter Johns Hopkins University through the back door. On the day of the first open heart surgery, performed on an infant with Blue Baby Syndrome, Blalock stopped the surgery. In front of a gallery of other surgeons, Blalock realized that he was going to have difficulty performing the surgery on his own and, even though it could damage his own reputation, brought in Thomas, his black assistant, to talk him through the procedure. No one expected the surgery to work in the first place and Blalock would simply have been thought ambitious for being willing to try it if he had failed and the baby had died. But bringing in a black assistant to talk him through the surgery? That was sure to diminish his standing among his colleagues. In the end, though, Blalock decided that the life of the infant was worth more than his own reputation.

The Apostle Paul planted the church in the city of Corinth. At some point after his departure, Apollos came on the scene and began working in the church of Corinth as well. Apollos' presence diminished Paul's standing among the Corinthians and Paul wrote to them, urging them to stop arguing about whether they followed Paul or Apollos but to focus on following Jesus together (1 Corinthians 1). Paul insisted that he and Apollos were on the same team, working for the same goal, even though Paul had lost some influence due to Apollos' work among the Corinthians. But toward the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote of a conversation he had had with the other famous teacher, saying, Now about our brother Apollos- I urged him to visit you with the other believers (1 Corinthians 16:2, NLT). Even though Apollos' presence had diminished his own influence, Paul urged Apollos to visit the Corinthians again because he thought that the Corinthians would benefit from his teaching.

I've discovered that we often do a great of job of talking about being on the same team but our walk doesn't always match our high ideals. Instead of getting the best replacement at work to fill in for us during vacation, we find someone who is competent but won't become competition. Community churches talk about working together to reach youth, but then won't let their youth participate in a joint worship service at another church because they might get "confused" (often code for: "they might like that church better than us"). Instead of coming up with joint solutions that will help the country, our politicians grand-stand to make the other party look bad to increase their own standing. Instead of picking the best person for a particular task, we reserve it for ourselves because it is a more visible or prestigious task and we want to be seen doing it.

Like Paul, we must learn to put aside questions of personal influence and renown in favor of doing what is best - best for our church-members, best for our co-workers, best for our customers, and best for the people we minister to. Do we really believe that we are all on the same team? Are we really interested in doing what is best for the people we care for? Or are we more interested in maintaining our own influence? We must make our decisions based on what is best for the people God has given us, not what is best for us.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Celebrating Property Damage

Suggested Reading: Mark 2:1-12

Several years ago, I was part of a church that was considering doing a Vacation Bible School for the first time after a long hiatus. But as I led the church through a discussion about VBS, I discovered a pocket of resistance. The only space in the church that was big enough to host many of the activities was our sanctuary. But while the chairs were easily removable, people began to voice concern about the carpet. More than once I heard concerns that we might mess up the carpet for a whole year for the activities of a few days and that such a thing simply wasn't good stewardship. In the end, sadly, that church did not host a VBS that year.

When Jesus began his ministry and called the first disciples, he seemed to base his ministry out of Simon Peter's house in Capernaum. After a tour ministering in the smaller villages of the area, Jesus returned to Capernaum and picked up his ministry right where it had left off, healing people and casting out demons from Peter's living room. On one occasion, when the house was so crowded that no one could get in or out, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus (Mark 2:3-4, NLT). Jesus forgave the man's sin and then healed him so that he could pick up his mat and walk out under his own power. But what I find odd is that no mention is made of Peter's reaction to having a hole dug in his roof.

Sometimes ministry gets messy. Sometimes it costs us money or means we have a mess to clean up. Sometimes, bringing someone to Jesus means that more work is created for us, that we have someone else who needs to be discipled, someone else who needs instruction and encouragement. Sometimes ministry means we have more mouths to feed or that our worship times are disrupted by people who have never been in church before and don't know how to behave. Sometimes ministry means that people are so excited and enthusiastic that they get carried away and we have to deal with the consequences.

When we find ourselves in the midst of messy ministry, are we willing to look past the mess and rejoice that someone is being brought to Jesus? Are we willing to put up with extra work and repair the property damage because it means someone's life has been changed by a relationship with Christ? Are we willing to be inconvenienced or spend some money we could have personally used elsewhere in order to meet a need in someone's life? Or is the carpet too important? Is the possibility of a stain or that hole in the roof so daunting it overwhelms the possibility of someone coming to Christ? If Peter could deal with a hole in his roof without making a fuss, couldn't we handle a little mess of our own?

Friday, March 8, 2024

The Dumbest Arguments

Suggested Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-14

When my kids were young, they argued about the dumbest things. They argued about whether bacon is meat or a pig. They argued about whether enchiladas are Mexican food or normal food. They argued about whether or not a jacket qualifies as a coat. Inevitably, one of them would get convinced of a particular position and the other would be convinced of the opposing opinion and they would argue back and forth until the argument escalated into a fight where they both ended up getting their feelings hurt. Most of these arguments sound stupid on their surface and probably amounted to nothing more than semantics. But, at times, it seemed like they just couldn't help themselves.

Unfortunately, as Christians, we often get into arguments with each other that are essentially the same. We argue about whether God knew we were going to sin or whether we sinned on our own. We argue about whether Christ's death on the cross was substitutionary or conciliatory. We argue about whether this sin is tolerable or whether that behavior is acceptable. We argue about whether the Creation account was literal or whether the author intended us to read it figuratively. We argue and we argue and we argue about things that, many times, don't amount to much more than semantics. We stake our salvation on insignificant things that have nothing to do with God's offer of forgiveness through Christ. We argue over stupid things until we rightfully look like fools to a watching world. So often I want to tell arguing Christians the same thing I tell my kids, "It's ok if he calls a jacket a coat! It's ok if you call enchiladas normal food! You're not responsible for what the other person thinks! You are responsible for behaving and for getting along with each other!"

Paul knew the danger that flows from arguing about every little thing. In 2 Timothy 2:14, Paul warned Timothy, "Remind everyone about these things, and command them in God’s presence to stop fighting over words. Such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them." (NLT). Some things in Christian theology are worth fighting for. But many of the arguments we get into with other Christians simply are not worth the time and the energy that we put into them. Worse, they do much more harm than good. These silly fights alienate brothers and sisters from each other and drive wedges between us and our partners for the cause of the Gospel; they distract us from the primary goal of reaching a lost and dying world with the love of Christ and cause us to spend all of our energy on a war of words that will ultimately mean very little, if anything.

Hopefully, as my kids grow older, they will learn to pick their battles a little more wisely and argue only about those things that really matter. Hopefully, they will learn to have even those disagreements in a manner that demonstrates they still love each other. But what about the arguments we have with our Christian brothers and sisters? When we get into arguments do we evaluate the significance of the disagreement or do we jump on in regardless of the consequences or the resources we will expend? When we pick an argument, do we carry it out in a spirit of love for each other or are we more concerned with proving that we are "right" and eliminating the other person's "false" perspective?

What have you argued about recently? Have you picked your battles wisely? Or are you wasting precious time and resources on things that don't really matter?

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Translating the Language of Karmic Balance

Suggested Reading: 1 Corinthians 14:6-12

Several years go, I had the privilege of spending a summer witnessing to a Vietnamese family that had moved into the neighborhood. Most of my conversations took place with a college-aged young man from the family. He had been raised in a Buddhist tradition and had only been in the States for a couple of years. Very early on in the discussion I discovered a significant difficulty in witnessing to this man: language. I don't mean that we spoke different languages in the sense that I spoke English and they spoke Vietnamese because most of them spoke very good English. I mean that there were entire concepts that were alien to them. Sin was literally a foreign concept. How do you convince someone that they need to be saved from sin when they don't understand what sin is or why it could cause lasting consequences? When you believe firmly that karmic balance is always possible, why would anyone ever need a savior? That summer I had to learn ways to communicate the Gospel in its most basic form and in terms that someone completely unfamiliar with Western Christianity would understand.

In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul was discussing the roll of speaking in tongues in the church and he wrote, There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world, and all have meaning. Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker will be a foreigner to me (1Co 14:10-11, HCSB). Paul was specifically addressing the benefits of saving that particular spiritual gift for non-public moments unless an interpreter was present, but the statement also has larger implications pertaining to basic communication, like the example of witnessing to my Vietnamese neighbors.

More and more we live in a world where people do not understand the language we use when we witness. Words like "sin" and "saved" mean little in a world where people either believe everybody goes to Heaven or that your existence ends the moment you die. Fifty years ago, the American church still had the educational power that ensured nearly everyone knew what "justification" and "atonement" meant, even if they didn't put much stock in those things. Today's society has grown up without those influences and educational experiences and we must learn to speak a new language. We must learn to step outside of the church cultures in which we operate and speak in a language that unchurched, unreached people understand. We must strive to understand the Gospel well enough that we can communicate it in its most basic form to those who have no reference for what we are saying. Who is Jesus? Why do we need Him? How do we follow Him? What difference will following Him make? If we cannot answer these questions in simple terms, we might as well be speaking a foreign language.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

When Pastors Get Facebook Bombed

Suggested Reading:Proverbs 18:12-20

On Facebook, a while ago, I read a post that disturbed me. Someone had posted an opinion piece about a particular prominent pastor who was supposedly trying to blend Islam and Christianity. I clicked on the article to discover that the author didn't cite any sources or link to any articles but proclaimed this pastor the Spawn of Satan for mixing up his theology so badly. The comments on the article were even worse, decrying how this pastor was a false-prophet and the anti-Christ for pushing such an evil idea. The problem was, none of it was true. So I linked to an article which contained an actual interview with the pastor in question, an article in which he not only denied the accusations in the first article but gave compelling reasons why he would never hold those views. Once I linked to the article, suddenly the hateful comments stopped and no one had anything else to say. The experience reinforced a proverb I have read for years: The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross- examines him (Proverbs 18:17, HCSB).

We quite easily fall into the trap of believing the first thing anyone tells us, especially if we are told something that reinforces a negative feeling we already have about someone. Because we already have negative feelings we are much more likely to simply say, "Well, that wouldn't surprise me," and then quickly accept the claim as fact.  Sometimes, we are shocked that such an accusation could be true but swallow it anyway. At other times, we hear something from a source we trust and, even though the accusation doesn't make sense, we believe it because we trust that person. The problem is that nasty accusations always have some kind of emotional baggage attached to them and every single one of us has blind spots when it comes to certain groups or people. There is always another side to the story.

If someone were to make a nasty accusation against me, I would want them to investigate the claim before accepting it.  I would want them to verify the truth before passing it on to other people. So the least we can do is verify such claims when we hear them. If we can't verify nasty accusations or we don't have the time to check it out ourselves, we ought to let the accusations drop.  Most of the time, the first person we hear is going to sound right until we hear the other side of the story.

Don't just believe nasty accusations or pass them on without verification. You would be pretty upset if you were the one being accused.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

White-Water Canoeing Up the Road to Hell

Suggested Reading: Acts 9:10-19

When I was in seventh grade, our church youth group went on a white-water canoeing expedition for Spring Break. We drove up river, paired up in canoes, and then started down the river. Most of us had never done this before, but we all seemed to be doing well. Until the rain started. Within a few hours, the river had risen several feet and the rain was still coming down hard. Most of the group reached the camp where we were supposed to stop for the night, but several were still unaccounted for. As the waters continued to rise, a few of our more experienced canoers got back in their canoes and headed up-river to find our missing people. We all knew that setting out, canoeing up-river with the water rising, was not safe. But teenagers were missing in the storm and someone had to go save them. So, even though the men were scared and we were scared for them, they headed out because someone had to save those teenagers lost on the rising river.

Looking at Acts chapter 9, I was reminded of that Spring Break trip by the reaction of Ananias of Damascus. Saul of Tarsus, the nemesis of the early church had been sent to Damascus to arrest and detain followers of Jesus. Without telling Ananias that Jesus had appeared to Saul on the road into town, Jesus appeared to Ananias, telling him to go find Saul and heal his blindness. Oh, and Saul already knew he was coming.  "But Lord," Ananias exclaimed, "I've heard people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name"(Acts 9:13-14, NLT).  With some pretty good justification, Ananias was scared to death of walking right into Saul's hands.  But going to Saul was an important task. Saul needed someone to open his eyes, both literally and figuratively. And so, even though it scared him to death, Ananias went.

We understand the urgency of saving people who are in danger, of sending rescuers into burning buildings to save children from fires and of searching for teenagers lost on raging rivers when the water is rising. We understand that urgency and we commit ourselves to action because, even though we might be scared, something has to be done. But far too often, we fail to apply that same urgency and commitment to reaching the lost, in spite of the fact that the consequences can be even more significant.

Every day we see people living without hope, never living out the potential with which they were designed to live in Christ. We see people who are either casually strolling or running at full speed down the road to Hell, people in desperate need of forgiveness and purpose. Yes, the idea of sharing the Gospel with them may be a little scary, but we wouldn't let fear stop us if there were children drowning in a river or standing in front of an oncoming car. Why would we allow fear to keep us from sharing the Gospel with people in need of rescue from Hell? Do we hold back simply because the danger doesn't seem as immediate?

Bravery isn't the lack of fear but the ability to do what is necessary in spite of fear. Isn't it about time we put a little bravery back into sharing the Gospel?

Monday, March 4, 2024

Idolatry in Back to the Future

Suggested Reading: Mark 15:27-38

As a teenager, one of my favorite film series was the Back to the Future series. In fact, when I was sick and I would stay home from school, I would lay down on the couch and watch all three movies back to back. The first two movies are a lot of time-traveling fun, but they set up the third movie where Marty McFly, the main character, learns an important lesson about how to respond or, more accurately, how not to respond when people call him a coward. See, Marty's biggest flaw was that he couldn't stand for anyone to call him a coward and he felt compelled to demonstrate his lack of cowardice anytime anyone did. Only when that tendency landed him in a life-and-death situation did he realize that trying to disprove every disparaging statement made about him was not the brightest idea in the world.

I was reminded of Marty's lesson recently when reading the crucifixion scene in Mark. As Jesus hung on the cross, his political enemies (and those who just joined in the "fun" of a public execution) mocked and taunted Jesus, demanding that he prove his status as Messiah by coming down from the cross as a sign. They scoffed, "He saved others but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel come down from the cross that we may see and believe" (Mark 15:31-32, NIV). If Marty McFly had been on the cross, we would all have been in a lot of trouble because he would have had to prove himself to his mockers by coming down from the cross. But coming off the cross would have eliminated the primary task Jesus fulfilled as the messiah, enduring the crucifixion so that he could rise from the dead. Fortunately, Jesus was sure enough of himself that he endured their taunts, knowing that he did not have to prove himself to anyone.

How many times do we feel the need to prove ourselves to someone? How often do we do things we know are unwise because we want to silence those who mock us? How often do we take a position we don't really believe because we don't want people to see us as stupid or ignorant? As believers in Christ Jesus, we cannot allow our actions to be dictated by the possibility of someone looking down on us. We cannot silence the words God has given us to speak or hold back acts of love and service because people might think we look stupid. We have to remember that, like with those people who wanted Jesus to come off the cross, proving ourselves is not worth the cost.

More than that, when we allow ourselves to be goaded into an action we would not take on our own simply because of what those people might think of us, we give those people, rather than God, control of our lives. Our desire to look good (or to not look bad) gives those people who would mock and ridicule us power over us, and that turns us into idolaters who worship at the altar of other people's opinions rather than faithful followers of Christ.

People thinking badly of us is not the end of the world if they think badly of us for doing the right thing. We should respond to taunts, insults and mocking in the same spirit as Jesus: "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:23, NIV). Sometimes, not responding is the very best thing we can do.

Assisting Apollos With Open-Heart Surgery

Suggested Reading:  1 Corinthians 3:1-9, 16:12 The movie Something the Lord Made dramatized the story of two men, Dr. Alfred Blalock and ...