One of my favorite things to do - though it can drive my wife crazy - is to ask, "What does that mean?" I can find a way to ask it about almost anything. For extra fun, I'll put the emphasis on different words. ("What does that mean?" "What does that mean?" etc.)
Today I considered the phrase "I believe in..." which is commonly ended with Jesus, God, science, myself... what you will. I asked myself, "What does it mean to believe in something?
It means nothing! It is an incomplete thought. Belief is a perception about how things really are, a statement about what is true or false. For instance, I believe that the sky is blue. I believe our dog will mess on my carpet (again) by the end of the weekend. I believe I can do a push-up. I believe I cannot run a full marathon.
It makes no sense to say, "I believe in the sky," unless I add, "as something that is blue." Nor, "I believe in my dog" unless qualified by "as a willfully naughty pooper." To state a belief in something requires qualification, if you want to understood accurately.
Of course, we English speakers often use shortened or modified phrases in place of longer, but more complete, ones. I do. It works because we have a common understanding of what the modified phrase is intended to convey.
However, I object to oversimplification at the expense of clarity. When I hear someone say, "I believe in God," I assume the speaker means, "I believe that God exists." I assume this is what most people would understand, but it does require an assumption on my part. The speaker could also be meaning, "I believe in God to get me out of my awful situation," or, by contrast, "I believe in God as a figment of people's imaginations." Same phrase, three possible meanings.
The more clear offender is, "I believe in Jesus." I believe in Jesus to what end? That he existed? That he is God incarnate? That is was a mere man? That he saves people from their sins? That he died and was raised to life? As a political revolutionary? As the new high priest? As a worker of miracles? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT PHRASE???
Similarly inconclusive is, "If you believe in Jesus/God, then you will go to heaven," or "Believe in yourself."
I urge everyone - especially Christians seeking to communicate the gospel with people who do not necessarily assume the same meanings of certain common Christian phrases as you! - to use language effectively, not casually. Speak to ensure that your hearers understand you!Misunderstandings are inevitable, and should not be used as grounds to judge or look down on anyone. And let it be known that I try very, very hard to avoid the arrogance of elitism, that even now I am afraid you may be hearing in my words.
But at every possible opportunity, be clear in your speech! Take nothing for granted! It is better (in my opinion) to assume others does not know exactly what you mean, than to assume they do. The negative consequences of the latter assumption are far greater than those of the former!
And let's not judge someone just based on what he/she says. Words are windows that are sometimes cracked or opaque.
I realized this morning I tend to do this with certain famous evangelists/televised Christians. So I will try to do the same.
Friday, July 20
Wednesday, July 18
Being MINDful of God
I've been reading some good books (slowly, but nonetheless) about the role of reason/logic/mind in the life of a Christian. It's not about being book-smart or academic, but about making learning a priority, and aligning one's mind/paradigm with what it true, what is godly (believing that all truth is God's truth).
A Mind for God by James Emery White
Love Your God With All Your Mind by JP Moreland
Anything by Dallas Willard
Along the same lines, I'm going to make a plug for Gordon Fee, a highly respected textual critic of the New Testament (and a committed Christian). He is also an Assemblies of God minister. I've skimmed through his How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, and it appears excellent. One thing I love about him is his emphatic insistence that Christians NEED to read the Bible well, not to interpret it willy-nilly but to be good students of what the original authors were and weren't intending to convey. A lot of bad theology is put out by pretty decent people, simply because they abuse the Bible rather than use it. Often out of ignorance, not malicious intent.
For example, I found this very insightful:
"Let it be understood that the plain meaning of the text is always the first rule, as well as the ultimate goal, of all valid interpretation. But "plain meaning" has first of all to do with author's original intent, it has to do with what would have been plain to those whom the words were originally addressed. It has not to do with how someone from a suburbanized white American culture of the late 20th century reads his own cultural setting back into the text through the frequently distorted prism of the language of the early 17th century.
"(3 John 2, in the King James Version): 'Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.' Of this text, [Kenneth] Copeland [in The Laws of Prosperity], says, 'John writes that we should prosper and be in health' (p.14) But is this what the text actually says? Hardly! In the first place, the Greek word translated "prosper" in the KJV mean "to go well with someone," just as a friend in a letter two days ago said, "I pray that this letter finds you all well. (cf. 3 John 2 in the KJV, GBN, NEB, RSV, etc.). This combination of wishing for 'things to go well' and for the recipient's 'good health' was the standard form of greeting in a personal letter in antiquity. To extend John's wish for Gaius to refer to financial and material prosperity for all Christians of all time is totally foreign to the text."
That's from pgs. 9-10 of one of my new favorites, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels.
Go visit your local library!
A Mind for God by James Emery White
Love Your God With All Your Mind by JP Moreland
Anything by Dallas Willard
Along the same lines, I'm going to make a plug for Gordon Fee, a highly respected textual critic of the New Testament (and a committed Christian). He is also an Assemblies of God minister. I've skimmed through his How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, and it appears excellent. One thing I love about him is his emphatic insistence that Christians NEED to read the Bible well, not to interpret it willy-nilly but to be good students of what the original authors were and weren't intending to convey. A lot of bad theology is put out by pretty decent people, simply because they abuse the Bible rather than use it. Often out of ignorance, not malicious intent.
For example, I found this very insightful:
"Let it be understood that the plain meaning of the text is always the first rule, as well as the ultimate goal, of all valid interpretation. But "plain meaning" has first of all to do with author's original intent, it has to do with what would have been plain to those whom the words were originally addressed. It has not to do with how someone from a suburbanized white American culture of the late 20th century reads his own cultural setting back into the text through the frequently distorted prism of the language of the early 17th century.
"(3 John 2, in the King James Version): 'Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.' Of this text, [Kenneth] Copeland [in The Laws of Prosperity], says, 'John writes that we should prosper and be in health' (p.14) But is this what the text actually says? Hardly! In the first place, the Greek word translated "prosper" in the KJV mean "to go well with someone," just as a friend in a letter two days ago said, "I pray that this letter finds you all well. (cf. 3 John 2 in the KJV, GBN, NEB, RSV, etc.). This combination of wishing for 'things to go well' and for the recipient's 'good health' was the standard form of greeting in a personal letter in antiquity. To extend John's wish for Gaius to refer to financial and material prosperity for all Christians of all time is totally foreign to the text."
That's from pgs. 9-10 of one of my new favorites, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels.
Go visit your local library!
Wednesday, July 11
From Pope John Paul II
I've been listening to a book on CD, written by Pope John Paul II. He said something about youth and mentoring that I thought was worth sharing. At least, I connected with it.
"What is youth? It is not only a period of life that corresponds to a certain number of years. It is also a time given by providence to every person, and given to him as a responsibility. During that time, he searches, like the young man in the gospel, for answer to basic questions. He searches not only for the meaning of life, but also for a concrete way to go about living his life. This is the most fundamental characteristic of youth.
Every mentor, beginning with parents, let alone every pastor, must be aware of this characteristic, and must know how to identify it in every boy and girl. I will say more. He must love this fundamental aspect of youth.
If at every stage of his life, man desires to be his own person, to find love, during his youth he desires it even more strongly. The desire to be one’s own person, however, is not a license to do anything without exception. The young do not want that at all. They are willing to be corrected, they want to be told yes or no. They need guides, and they want them close at hand. If they turn to authority figures, they do so because they see in them a wealth of human warmth and the willingness to walk with them along the paths they are following."
The book is called "Crossing the Threshold of Hope". Visit your local library.
"What is youth? It is not only a period of life that corresponds to a certain number of years. It is also a time given by providence to every person, and given to him as a responsibility. During that time, he searches, like the young man in the gospel, for answer to basic questions. He searches not only for the meaning of life, but also for a concrete way to go about living his life. This is the most fundamental characteristic of youth.
Every mentor, beginning with parents, let alone every pastor, must be aware of this characteristic, and must know how to identify it in every boy and girl. I will say more. He must love this fundamental aspect of youth.
If at every stage of his life, man desires to be his own person, to find love, during his youth he desires it even more strongly. The desire to be one’s own person, however, is not a license to do anything without exception. The young do not want that at all. They are willing to be corrected, they want to be told yes or no. They need guides, and they want them close at hand. If they turn to authority figures, they do so because they see in them a wealth of human warmth and the willingness to walk with them along the paths they are following."
The book is called "Crossing the Threshold of Hope". Visit your local library.
Monday, June 25
Happy Anniversary!
Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary - I have now been married 2 whole years. It feels longer because of all the things Angie and I have since that fateful day in June '05. We have: honeymooned in Indonesia, spent holidays in California, Wisconsin, New York, and North Carolina, held 5 different jobs between us, changed churches twice, moved three times (counting our first apartment), bought a house, and renovated said house while having two siblings and a dog living with us.
And now we've been accepted to seminary, and we are both seriously considering taking full-time course loads while working full time. We may just be headed for crazy town. At least we don't have kids yet.
And we're not one of the 1 of 12 marriages that don't make it past the first two years!
I sometimes wonder where I would be if I hadn't met Angie. I don't think there's any way I could have met Angie and not married her. Maybe if I'd been assigned an RA position in a different building at UNC. Or if she had decided to go back to California as soon as she finished her senior year. Or if I had actually stuck with my now infamous declaration "I am not attracted to you" (ask Angie about it; she'd love to tell you the story) and willed myself single through what would have been a painfully awkward semester.
Looking back it seems somewhat inevitable: once the pieces were in place we just followed this script that had been the plan all along (not that we knew it at the time), and the only way things could have turned differently is if we had forced ourselved to screw it up. I really do thank God we made so many good choices, and that our bad choices were forgiven and given enough grace to become points of strength in what God was building.
But what if the pieces weren't put into place? What if one of us had been assigned to a different dorm, or not even made it as an RA? Considering my aversion to dating, we might never have been anything more than acquaintances. Then where would I be? Maybe:
1. In graduate school somewhere in the US
2. On staff with Intervarsity somewhere in the US
3. Working in North Carolina
4. Working in Wisconsin, living with or near my parents
5. Not working, and still living with my parents in Wisconsin
None of these options are wholly unappealing (except perhaps number 5), and I probably would be quite content had any of them materialized. Maybe even happy.
But that would be because I would have no inkling of the kind of life I have actually had since I met and married Angie. It moves at what feels like a frighteningly breakneck speed (whereas my inclination is to plod along like a tortoise), but I mind that less and less. How could I? If it's a choice between my life with Angie and anything else I can imagine, I will choose Angie every time.
In closing, I'm going to share a few principles by which I try to live my marriage and my life:
- Be open and honest. Hide nothing. The time it takes to understand and to be understood can be laborious, but the reward is rich.
- The other person is more important than anything else I think I need. Marriage means being willing to turn my back on any part of my old life to create this new one. I may never get back some things I've given up or lost. But compared to what I've gained, it's not really that much of a loss.
- It is a myth and a lie that I will lose myself if I let anyone alter or take away "the things that make me who I am" - my preferences, habits, hobbies, dreams, opinions, expectations, beliefs, and independence - especially without my permission. In loving someone and in being loved I will change (it's inevitable!) and not necessarily in ways I expect or approve. Part of love is allowing another person to make you something you were not before he or she came along.
People cannot help but affect each other. If a man was an island, he still couldn't avoid the weather. I rub off on everyone I meet, and I get something of them rubbed off on me. The more I open myself up, the more it happens.
To live in step with this is, I think, the only hope any of us has of being completely fulfilled. Maybe the lie at the root of all our struggles is that there can be equally viable ways of living, if we will just find them (or create them). But there is no other way. We need people and we need God, just like we need food for hunger, water for thirst, and air for breathing, and it has to be that they are more imporant than ourselves, or else it won't work.
Perhaps becoming like Jesus is just learning to live in line with how things really are, to realize once and for all that every time we ask, "Are you sure it can't be that way?" Jesus will say, "No, there is only one way - my way," and we say, "Then take me that way."
If anyone stayed with me to the end of this, I always welcome feedback. I might be wrong about some or all of it. After all, I need you, don't I?
This is dedicated to my wife, who is more beautiful, smart, funny, caring, self-sacrificial, incorrigible, and loveable than I deserve. Happy Anniversary!
And now we've been accepted to seminary, and we are both seriously considering taking full-time course loads while working full time. We may just be headed for crazy town. At least we don't have kids yet.
And we're not one of the 1 of 12 marriages that don't make it past the first two years!
I sometimes wonder where I would be if I hadn't met Angie. I don't think there's any way I could have met Angie and not married her. Maybe if I'd been assigned an RA position in a different building at UNC. Or if she had decided to go back to California as soon as she finished her senior year. Or if I had actually stuck with my now infamous declaration "I am not attracted to you" (ask Angie about it; she'd love to tell you the story) and willed myself single through what would have been a painfully awkward semester.
Looking back it seems somewhat inevitable: once the pieces were in place we just followed this script that had been the plan all along (not that we knew it at the time), and the only way things could have turned differently is if we had forced ourselved to screw it up. I really do thank God we made so many good choices, and that our bad choices were forgiven and given enough grace to become points of strength in what God was building.
But what if the pieces weren't put into place? What if one of us had been assigned to a different dorm, or not even made it as an RA? Considering my aversion to dating, we might never have been anything more than acquaintances. Then where would I be? Maybe:
1. In graduate school somewhere in the US
2. On staff with Intervarsity somewhere in the US
3. Working in North Carolina
4. Working in Wisconsin, living with or near my parents
5. Not working, and still living with my parents in Wisconsin
None of these options are wholly unappealing (except perhaps number 5), and I probably would be quite content had any of them materialized. Maybe even happy.
But that would be because I would have no inkling of the kind of life I have actually had since I met and married Angie. It moves at what feels like a frighteningly breakneck speed (whereas my inclination is to plod along like a tortoise), but I mind that less and less. How could I? If it's a choice between my life with Angie and anything else I can imagine, I will choose Angie every time.
In closing, I'm going to share a few principles by which I try to live my marriage and my life:
- Be open and honest. Hide nothing. The time it takes to understand and to be understood can be laborious, but the reward is rich.
- The other person is more important than anything else I think I need. Marriage means being willing to turn my back on any part of my old life to create this new one. I may never get back some things I've given up or lost. But compared to what I've gained, it's not really that much of a loss.
- It is a myth and a lie that I will lose myself if I let anyone alter or take away "the things that make me who I am" - my preferences, habits, hobbies, dreams, opinions, expectations, beliefs, and independence - especially without my permission. In loving someone and in being loved I will change (it's inevitable!) and not necessarily in ways I expect or approve. Part of love is allowing another person to make you something you were not before he or she came along.
People cannot help but affect each other. If a man was an island, he still couldn't avoid the weather. I rub off on everyone I meet, and I get something of them rubbed off on me. The more I open myself up, the more it happens.
To live in step with this is, I think, the only hope any of us has of being completely fulfilled. Maybe the lie at the root of all our struggles is that there can be equally viable ways of living, if we will just find them (or create them). But there is no other way. We need people and we need God, just like we need food for hunger, water for thirst, and air for breathing, and it has to be that they are more imporant than ourselves, or else it won't work.
Perhaps becoming like Jesus is just learning to live in line with how things really are, to realize once and for all that every time we ask, "Are you sure it can't be that way?" Jesus will say, "No, there is only one way - my way," and we say, "Then take me that way."
If anyone stayed with me to the end of this, I always welcome feedback. I might be wrong about some or all of it. After all, I need you, don't I?
This is dedicated to my wife, who is more beautiful, smart, funny, caring, self-sacrificial, incorrigible, and loveable than I deserve. Happy Anniversary!
Thursday, May 10
Toledo, OH
Recently at work I helped one of our Ohio districts sell a house in Toledo. Through the process I've learned that Toledo is a quickly declining city, with increasing unemployment and homelessness, and lots of abandonded property: economically depressed. And of course economics are consequence and cause of other kinds of depression/decline (spiritual, personal, social).
The District Supervisor sent me the web address of the Cherry Street Mission to get to the president's blog. I encourage you to check out both (links below). The mission seems to be doing good work among the homeless and dispossessed in Toledo. And Dan Rogers (the president) has some really good thoughts on homelessness and poverty. His heart is for Toledo, but his insights could apply to any community. And for those of us who live in an area where the depression is easy to miss or ignore, there is much to learn, and much of which we need to be reminded.
http://cherrystreetmission.blogspot.com/
http://www.cherrystreetmission.org/
Enjoy! I hope it blesses and challenges you, as it has me.
The District Supervisor sent me the web address of the Cherry Street Mission to get to the president's blog. I encourage you to check out both (links below). The mission seems to be doing good work among the homeless and dispossessed in Toledo. And Dan Rogers (the president) has some really good thoughts on homelessness and poverty. His heart is for Toledo, but his insights could apply to any community. And for those of us who live in an area where the depression is easy to miss or ignore, there is much to learn, and much of which we need to be reminded.
http://cherrystreetmission.blogspot.com/
http://www.cherrystreetmission.org/
Enjoy! I hope it blesses and challenges you, as it has me.
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