A holy church
Arthur at “the voice of one crying out in suburbia” is putting a damper on some people’s holiness party with his post “A quick thought on holiness.” Arthur says that something is missing from many discussions of holiness: “how our holiness is lived out and impacts others.”
What?!? Has Arthur gone mad? Isn’t holiness all about our personal piety and our personal relationship with God?
Well, not according to Arthur:
Any exhibition of personal holiness that is not accompanied by substantive action and an urgent sense of compassion is not Biblical holiness. It is nothing more than self-righteousness.
We cannot speak of holiness in the church as something that is marked merely by personal acts of piety. An internalized holiness is not holiness in any true sense but we have created a norm that sees religious observation as the pinnacle of holiness. (emphasis in original)
All sarcasm aside… I completely agree with Arthur.
If your “personal devotion” and holiness do not lead you to demonstrate love toward others and serve others, then you are not listening to God nor are you following Jesus.
But, what about for a church? The same is true…
If your church meeting (worship service, mass, whatever you want to call it) do not lead you (y’all – i.e., individually and together) to demonstrate love toward others and serve others, then you are not listening to God nor are you following Jesus.
Four Generations of Disciple-Making Disciples
I don’t know Miguel Labrador personally. I’d like to get to know him personally (along with many other people). But, for now, God has him in Ecuador, and I’m in North Carolina, USA.
But, I’ve been challenged by many of his facebook and blog posts. For example, consider his post at “Missiorganic” called “7 God-Directed Deviations in Disciple Making.”
In this post, Miguel shares several ways that they are discipling others, and how those ways differ from some of the methods often taught or modeled. Using these “directions”, Miguel is seeing four generations of disciple making disciples WITHIN ONE YEAR.
Here are Miguel’s “deviations”:
1. From Follow Up to Follow In
2. From Outreach to Inreach
3. From Fly Paper to Flying Like Eagles
4. From Dependency to Development
5. From Verbal to Tactile
6. From Regimental to Relational
7. From “Because they say so” to “Because he says so”
Miguel describes each one in detail in his post, so jump over and read what he says.
What do you think of Miguel’s “deviations”?
Books for Studying NT Greek Addendum
Dave Black wrote a new essay called “Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek.” His list is great! But, because of his humility, his list is missing some of the best books for studying New Testament Greek.
First, if you are studying NT Greek, you should definitely have Black’s grammar Learn to Read New Testament Greek. Black uses a morphological approach that makes the language easier to learn and understand.
Also, you should pick up a copy of Black’s short (but extremely helpful) book It’s Still Greek to Me. This is an intermediate grammar that digs deeper into the nuances of nouns, verbs, prepositions, pronouns, etc. in a manner that is still easy to understand and fun to read.
Black’s other introductory books are also very helpful. For example, get Using New Testament Greek in Ministry for help in exegesis and teaching, New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide for an introduction to the often complex subject of textual criticism, and Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek for an introduction to the field of linguistics and discourse analysis.
For an even more detailed analysis of some of these same subjects, read Black’s (as editor) Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek and Interpreting the New Testament.
So, there you have it. Add this books to Dave Black’s ten, and you’ve got a great library for studying New Testament Greek.
A disciple is…
Geoff (his blog is called “My Blog“), a regular commenter here, has a very good post called “What is a disciple of Jesus.” Geoff’s short post is built around Dallas Willard’s definition of disciple:
A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do. A disciple is not a person who has things under control, or knows a lot of things. Disciples simply are people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus.
There is much to affirm in this definition. Like the disciples who actually walked with Jesus, we also often misunderstand and must correct our steps. We occasionally find ourselves heading in the wrong direction, or making a wrong turn. But, Jesus is there (just as he was with his disciples while he walked this earth) to correct us.
So, I like the connection between “constantly revising” and discipleship. It also shows that when we (or others) think that we’ve got it all figured out, we’ve stopped being a disciple.
What do you think?
Who should we speak with?
Think about the people that you’ve talked to over the last month or so. Specifically, think about those people with whom you have had spiritual conversations. How many times were you speaking with individuals? How many times were you speaking with groups? How many times were you speaking with people who were already followers of Jesus? How many times were you speaking with people who were not followers of Jesus?
I started asking myself these questions after reading the post “The Open Communication Model of Jesus Christ” written by Art at “The Itinerants.”
Look through the charts and graphs in Art’s post (Art loves charts and graphs), and compare your own communication patterns to those of Jesus.
How do you compare? Do you, like me, recognize that you need to look for more opportunities to speak to different kinds of people, both individually and in groups?
Who are we inviting to Thanksgiving Dinner?
Don’t you hate it when someone spoils your fun?
That happened to me when I read the post “When you give a banquet” by Alan at “DownshoreDrift.”
Actually, I guess it wasn’t Alan who spoiled my fun, it was Jesus. Alan just happened to post this passage of Scripture:
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14 ESV)
How many of us are willing to follow Jesus’ instructions this Thanksgiving? Are you? Am I? I’ll keep you posted.
Love Your Enemies
Strider at “Tales from Middle Earth” tells a great story about “Loving Your Enemies.” His story is not an analogy or a hypothetical or fictional. It’s a real story that really happened to real people with real enemies.
I’m not going to post an excerpt of Strider’s story. It’s not very long, so jump over to his site and read it.
You know, Strider’s story has a happy ending. We are not promised a happy ending when we love our enemies. But, we’re also not supposed to obey only when the outcome seems favorable to us.
Strider, thank you for this excellent story and example!
How many should speak?
There’s a good discussion over at Eric’s blog “A Pilgrim’s Progress” and his post “Six Sacred Cows.” While most add “sacred cows” to Eric’s list, one commenter disagrees with Eric’s statement concerning “the sermon.”
Here is Eric’s statement:
5. The Sermon
Each week as churches across this country gather, one man will stand up in front of the assembly and “bring a message from God.” Wow. That sounds impressive. The problem is that, as we have seen before, this is not a N.T. church practice. Simply put, one-direction preaching didn’t happen in early church gatherings.
This is a massive sacred cow. If you challenge it, be ready for a not so friendly response.
When the early church gathered, we see many people sharing teachings from scripture. This may have been pastors, but maybe not. Many people taught; nobody preached – especially not a sermon like we see today.
Here is my comment and my addition to the discussion:
If we only look at 1 Corinthians 14:26-40, we see at least 7 people speaking: three speaking in tongues, at least one (possibly more) interpreting the tongues, and at least three prophesying. However, Paul also includes that others should weigh the prophecy… so that would be more than 7 people speaking. As you’ve mentioned, Paul does not tell us how many should bring psalms or teaching. Let’s assume he would use the same principles: that would mean 3 people bringing songs/psalms and 3 people teaching. So far, we’re up to at least 13 people speaking when the church meets, just from 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. That’s certainly more than I’ve seen at every church that I’ve met with (except one).
But, there’s another part of this discussion. When we say someone teaches, we usually think of lecture style teaching, which means that one person speaks and everyone else is quiet. Is that what Paul meant? Perhaps. But, perhaps not. We have several examples of Paul speaking to unbelievers. But, we don’t have many example of how Paul taught the church. There are two striking examples however.
1) In Acts 19:9, we see Paul and the disciples of Jesus leaving the synagogue to meet in the Hall of Tyrannus (not a home, by the way). It says that Paul continued “reasoning” with them (according to the ESV). This same verb is used to describe Paul’s speech among the Jews in the synagogue in Acts 19:8. What does this verb mean? Well, it has a wide range of meaning, but it is the source of our verb “dialogue”. It could mean anything from a dialogue between two people to a discussion between many, to an all out argument. In essence, the verb indicates that more than one person was taking part in the speaking.
2) Using the same verb (dialegomai, if you’re interested) Luke describes how Paul spoke to the church in Troas in both Acts 20:7 and Acts 20:9 (translated “talked” in ESV).
In both of these examples of Paul speaking to the church, a verb is used to indicate dialogue or discussion. How many people were speaking during this time? It’s hard to say.
So, just looking at these three passages, it seems clear that several people spoke (in order and without chaos) when the church met in the NT.
What do you think? When the early church met, did they meet to listen to one person speak, or did they meet to speak to and with one another – that is, many people speaking (decently and in order, of course)?
Are we going to be satisfied?
James at “Idle musings of a bookseller” recently started reading the book Missional Small Groups. He recommended that I read the book, and then he started posting a few excerpts on his blog. If the past is any indication, he’ll continue to post excerpts (probably after ETS and SBL).
Here’s part of the latest excerpt from his post “There must be more“:
If we don’t live in a way that is distinctive from our culture, then why not? If we are going to be satisfied with living our lives like the rest of the world and adding a weekly sermon and a small group Bible study on top, then what exactly are we up to in the church? Isn’t there more?
The excerpt begins (part that I didn’t quote) by noting that the rhythms of the lives of most people (including Christians) are “shaped by the broader culture.” It’s true. I’ve seen it in my own life and in the lives of others.
Are we satisfied with that? Are we willing to break those rhythms and step into a new kind of life? It won’t happen until we stop thinking first about ourselves and our desires and even our needs.
Are we going to be satisfied?
And sees his brother in need…
Frank at “Reimagining Church” makes an impassioned plea for “Helping the Family in this Economy: A Great Need.” He reminds us of how the early church helped one another during times of financial (or other) crisis. (Remember the great famine? Acts11:28-30)
Frank says:
In my country (the USA), we are facing an economic crisis. While the world looks to and waits for the government to solve our financial problems, I know many believers who are out of work. Some are struggling to put food on their tables each day.
Thankfully, the Lord has financially blessed some in the body of Christ today, and they are prospering despite the economic downturn…
All told: it’s on my heart today to say the following to every disciple of Jesus: If you are doing well financially, may I encourage you to seek the Lord regarding helping those who are hurting right now, especially those who part of the household of faith — your fellow sisters and brothers in Christ, members of the family of God?
Frank’s plea and exhortation reminds me of what John wrote:
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:17-18 ESV)
I echo Frank’s challenge. Please consider giving to those who are struggling during this economic downturn (especially to your brothers and sisters). If you do not know of individuals or families that you can help, pray and keep your eyes open. If you still don’t know of anyone, let me know. I can point you in the direction of several hurting families.