on the walk

This isn’t an event per se and so it breaks the rule for this series, but before I comment on the next events, we have to notice a bit about the kind of life that pervades the early church.  (I will talk about the two events that are mentioned in the next post.)

 You can check the story out here: Acts 2:42-47.

The first truth with which we must contend is a truth about content.  This text lists four devotions: apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers.  Do these represent four event types or four things that happened at every event or neither of those options?  I grew up in a church culture that looked to these four things as the defining markers not only of a church but more particularly of a church event.  If nothing else happened on Sunday morning, it was expected that these four things did happen.  Other things like singing and announcements may happen, but it was these four elements that were required and if they happened, then it was by definition a church service regardless of anything else that may or may not have happened.  I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and if nothing else it creates a balance on Sunday mornings between four vital practices.

While that view has served a lot of churches very well, I am no longer sure that this interpretation is required of the text.  Perhaps these four realities are essential not for each event but for the rhythm of the life of the church overall.  If the other reading insists that all these practices be mixed together like a casserole, the alternative view would suggest that a four course meal was equally healthy.  In this model we might have some events that are focused on teaching and others on prayer and fellowship.  Some might focus on the community meal with little teaching and a lot of prayer.  Other community meals might bubble over in fellowship with only a bit of prayer.

This difference matters for at least two reasons.  The first is that we want to honestly respond to the meaning of the text.  If this text (as I now read it) is giving us examples of the kind of life led by these early Christians rather than giving us a list of the four things every church event must have, then we should admit that so that we are able to read the text honestly for what it says rather than assume a patternism that isn’t there.

The second is that at some point we must begin to actually plan an event.  When we do so, there are fundamental decisions to be made.  Can we plan an event focused just on fellowship?  Can we call an event a Christian event that is not centered on the meal?  If these elements are examples and not blueprints, then we are freed to plan a comprehensive and complementary collection of events that in different ways address these values.

I am convinced that these devotions are exemplary of a wide variety of events and should not be interpreted as essential to all events.  The key reason for this conviction is the examples that are given.  There is no indication of a single central event that attempted to cover all of these bases.  On the contrary, the implication is that in a multitude of overlapping ways, these four values are expressed.

Fellowship is expressed in the sharing of possessions and mutual support.  Surely some of that happened at organized events.  Maybe even a first century potluck supper. (Paul has to deal with some problem potlucks in his letters to the Corinthian churches.)  But clearly what is most directly described here is not a program or an event but a lifestyle embodied by a community so intimately connected that needs could be known and shared.

These four are the marks of the church not because they can be checked off a programming list, but because they are the natural life expression of the church.

BUT..

It does seem that these core values did find expression in at least two regular events, and having indulged in this excursus I will turn to those two events in the next post.

on the walk

-Ethan

It is rare that I find myself so completely and thoroughly recommending a book as I am today.  I suppose that with diligence I could find things to disagree with.  In fact I am sure that in the fifth chapter there was a sentence that ended with a preposition.  (That was irony, see the previous sentence.)
But seriously, this book is readable, profound, clear and wonderful.  It seeker friendly. In fact I think that those far from the church and from God would love this book.  (It has plenty of critical things to say about the church and the people who populate it.)  At the same time it is deeply challenging to those that have walked long in the faith.  This challenge is so compelling that as I read I was moved almost to tears and had to stop to confess to God and to thank God for this book.

It is relevant.  It is clearly designed to connect with people that are rarely tempted to open a bible or visit a Bible study class.  At the same time this book is not much more than an extended exegesis of a single parable.

The book is short.  It could easily be read in a quite afternoon. At the same time it is rich.  You could spend a week discussing each chapter.

Now that I have written all this I realize that I ought to be setting you up for some trick like recommending the Gospel of Mark (which does meet all of the criteria I listed above).  But I am not.  I am recommending a regular book.

It is called The Prodigal God.

It is fantastic.

on the walk

-Ethan Magness

I was able to preach today.  I am always grateful when I have that opportunity.  You can catch the audio here.  As always happens when I get to preach, I always have a few leftover thoughts that I wish I could have shared but ran out of time.  I won’t bore you with all of those, but I will share just one choice quote that had to leave on the cutting room floor.

(Actually in the spirit of honesty, this is really more of a paraphrase, I am working from memory.  You can find the original somewhere in the middle of The Great Divorce.)
C.S. Lewis once said something like this:

Anything no matter how good, if it is not given to Jesus, can drag you down into hell.  Likewise, nothing, no matter how evil, if it is given over to Christ can keep you out of heaven.

The truth of that quote sustains me in my darkest times and challenges me in my brightest.

Today in the sermon we all had a rock.  The rock represented those things that are obstacles to our following after Jesus.  Things that we will nto release into his control but instead cling to on our own.

When I  went to church I was pretty sure that I knew what my rock was going to be.  It was as if I was pre-scripting the encounter I was going to have with God based upon the script I have used so many times before.

But as I stood in line holding my rock, I was startled.  I got off script.  I asked God, “What is holding me back from following you?”  And with surprising clarity, I knew.  It wasn’t a sin issue.  That was what I planned to do with my rock.  But that wasn’t it.  I have long ago surrendered the evil in my life over to Jesus and I trust he can handle it.  Instead I was confronted with something good.  Good plans that I have for my life.  Plans that are admirable and important.  But nevertheless they were plan that I had not surrendered to God.  They were my big plans.   How many half-deals I have struck with God offering him most of my life as long as I still get to pursue these big important plans of mine.

And suddenly to my great greif, that was my rock.  Those good plans, those plans so precious to me were my rock.  I was glad that the line moved slow.  It took me a while get up the nerve to set my rock on the stage.

I’m still not exactly happy about it, but I feel a great peace.  I don’t pretend that the temptation to those plans won’t return, but for the moment, I feel a great release of conflict.  I feel like I am following.

on the walk

-Ethan

We cannot underestimate the central authority of the Bible.

I often find myself out of step in many conversations about difficult decisions.   Other people seem much more impressed with the wisdom that can be found in experience or in experts.  Or they are very confident in the wisdom they will gain from the subjective experience they will have as a result of prayer. I am not.  They may be right and I may be wrong, but for me the only authority that carries much weight is the Bible.

This is why I devote so much of my energy to learning how to wisely and faithfully interpret the Bible and apply it to our lives.  As the old line goes, it is our only rule for faith and practice.  That doesn’t merely mean that it is the best one, it means what it says, it is the only one.

Consequently although I am not a biblicist, the Bible is where I will start for any major investigation of what the church is called to believe and how the church is called to live.  So long before I consider what we can know about God through the post-biblical language of the trinity, I am going to consider what we can learn about God from scripture. And long before I consider what I can learn from the traditions of church worship and programming that I have inherited in my life of faith, I want to return to scripture, to ask, “What is the church doing?”

So I am not a biblicist.  I know that God has continued to guide the church and we must learn from the wisdom of all of church history.

But as my rule for faith and practice there is one source.  The Bible.

So that is where we will turn for our foundation of the core events of the church.

on the walk

-Ethan

Consequently I believe that while the Bible is the sufficient rule for faith and practice it is not exhaustive.  The Spirit still speaks.  Christians have had lots of good ideas since the Bible was written and I am please to benefit from those ideas.

There are some Christian circles in which this is not a radical suggestion, but I grew up in a tradition and I minister in a tradition in which biblicism is easy to find.  In fact a major family of this movement of churches goes by the name acapella Churches of Christ.  They will not use instruments in worship.  This is because in the new Testament there is no record of instruments being used in a worship service.  Some other Christians insist that women where head coverings. This is biblicism.  This view holds that every post-biblical innovation is an innapropriate Christian practice.

If this view had a motto it would be “If it is not in the Bible, I won’t do it.”

You may be thinking to yourself, “that sounds like a great motto.”  I agree.  It does sound like a great motto, but believe me, it isn’t.   It turns out that Christians have thought of lots of good things that aren’t in the Bible.  Now of course because they are not in the Bible that means that we can’t pretend they are essential, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good things.

Here are a few things that are not in the bible,(or at least not in the same way we have them today.)

• Church Buildings
• Offering Trays
• Projectors
• Christmas
• Easter
• Sunday School
• Seminaries
• Heated Baptisteries
• “Quiet Time”
• Church Calendar
• Daily Office
• The Trinity
• Alter calls
• and lots of other stuff why don’t you help me add to my list.

See that is all good stuff.  I wish that it was as easy as being a biblicist.  INstead we have to ask the much more difficult question.  Is this practice or teaching that is not in scripture still faithful to scripture.  Does it exprtess what scripture teaches without going further than scritpure does?

That takes discernment and the wisdom of the whole church guided by the Spirit and that is why I am not a biblicist.

(tune in to my next post for the big BUT…)

And this matters for our conversation about church events.  It won’t be as simple as asking what are the 3 or ten or fifty types of events that the church in Acts had.  Just because they had an event doesn’t mean that we must and just because they didn’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.  As we ponder the core evens of the church we will need submit fully to the authority of scripture but to do that we must do more than just copy the church in Jerusalem or Phillipi or Corinth (please don’t copy the church in Corinth).
on the walk

-Ethan

I recently ran out of gas.  This is my first time.  It was rather un dramatic.  The car stopped running as I was driving home.  I was about a mile and a half away from my house.  I coasted toward my home and parked on the side of the road less than a half mile from home.  Consequently I was back to my car with a can of gas in about 20 minutes.

The few days before the incident were rather uneventful as well.  Life was busy, (perhaps even a tiny bit busier than usual) but not frantic.  I knew I was low on gas because I had a little light, so I saw the whole thing coming and knew exactly what was happening when it happened.  The light came on three days before I ran out.  At first I wasn’t worried because I can still drive quite a ways after the light comes on.  After a day I knew I needed to deal with the situation but then I was a bit late for a meeting so I put it off. And then I just wanted to get home so I put it off, and then I was running behind getting the kids to school and so I would stop on the way home.  And then it slipped my mind because I was on the phone.  And then I remembered at work and was going to leave early to get gas on my way to get the kids but I had to run an errand first which took longer than I had planned and so I had to go straight to get the kids and they were cranky so I wanted to take them right home so they could play before it got dark.  While they were playing I had to back to work for something quick and didn’t want to be gone long so I could play with them and we could all go Christmas shopping. And then on the way back home, I ran out of gas.

It was all so mundane.  I never made a radical choice. I didn’t ingore the little light and the gas gauge, I just kept making it my second priority.  And something that is always the second priority never happens.

That is the metaphor.

I’ll let you tell me what you learn from this.

on the walk

-Ethan

I often disagree with Piper.  But I admire his grounding in scripture and his commitment to faithful proclaim God’s word.  Here is a fine example of his teaching about a scriptural perspective on voting.  It is well worth your time:

 Let Christians Vote as if not Voting

on the walk

-Ethan

Yesterday was a great day at Mountain.  If you missed it, you can catch up to the sermon here.  The whole service directed us to the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ (which means Gods-anointed-prophet-priest-king).  In particular we considered the implications of Christ’s Lordship as we face the election season.

My favorite thing about the day is that it was a day when the gospel was declared.  It is easy for a sermon about politics to become a divisive laundry list.  But instead it was the gospel, “Jesus is Lord.”  I don’t remember all of his points but here are a few that have stuck with me.

Because Jesus is Lord, Christians serve in this present world but we are part of a new kingdom and that is where our true allegiance lies.

Because Jesus is Lord, we find our unity in our agreement and submission to Christ even when we disagree on how we should vote.

Because Jesus is Lord, we need not be overly fearful or overly joyful about any election.  Elections are not the source of true change and real power anyway.

Because Jesus is Lord, we are not satisfied to vote our conscience but instead we live out our service to our Lord in the midst of a broken world.  We hope that our vote might do some good, but we are not satisfied with only voting.

It was a gospel filled day.

I will confess that there was something in me that wanted to say, “But really it pretty clear how we must vote, isn’t it?  There are some issues that are so grave and so urgent and so opposed to God’s will.  We must act.”

But I know better.  Because I know godly, wise, Bible-reading, Jesus-loving Christians who also care about those issues but disagree with me about how to address them and consequently are voting differently.  I have heard Christians ask me, “How can a person be a Christian and vote for a Republican?”  I have heard others ask, “How can a person be a Christian and vote for a Democrat?”  If one of those questions stumps you, I actually know the answer to both questions.

I have been doing a lot of reading this year on how Christians are facing the election.   I am pleased at the improved level of dialogue.   I feel like this year I find real wrestling in places where in years past there was only simple assumptions made.  [There have been plenty to be sad about as well.  Apparently "bearing false witness" doesn't apply during the election season.]  But in general the state of the dialogue has improved.  For those who want to read some insightful thoughts, here is a fine article you way want to check out..

John Stackhouse offers a review of a handful of new books on evangelicals and politics.

For those who don’t want to read but may want to discuss.

I welcome your loving comments on this complicated issue.

on the walk

-Ethan

[Note: For those of you following the One Month to Live series, don't worry it will be back on Monday.]

On most nights, the night ends for my boys with prayers.  After a story (if there is time), PJ’s, bath, teeth, water, music and lights out, the boys and I pray.  Everyone gets a chance to pray.  My youngest (3.75)is on a bit of a strike right now, but my oldest (6) loves to pray.  Our evening prayers are mostly thank you’s although we have been talking about how it is good to tell God other things as well.  We can tell God about our worries and fears and even talk to God about things that we want.  Nevertheless on most nights it is a list of thank you’s.  A pretty typical prayer segment sounds like this:

Thank you for this day and thank you that we got to play the star wars video game and that we got to eat apple slices for snack and that we got to make what were they called  (I whisper wreaths) oh yeah that we got to make wreaths even though daddy wouldn’t let me do it by myself or use the what are they called (clippers) even though they are just like big scissors and I know how to use scissors thank you anyway and thank you that daddy is going to remember to put butter on the toast right away next time so that it will melt but thank you for toast anyway because that is a special breakfast and it is important to be grateful even when we don’t things exactly the way we want them and thank you for mommy who is the best mommy in the world, Amen.

A couple of night ago was a surprise variation.  After a prayer through a days worth of gratitude he paused and said,

And God, about the bee, thank you and no thank you.  Thank you that I found out that I am not allergic to bees and that it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would so that now I can be like daddy and not be afraid of bees, but not thank you that I got stung today.

I am not sure I have much to add to that.  I have suffered very little in my life.  But that is exactly how Christians should feel about the little suffering I have done.  Thank you for the good you do through it, but not thank you for it.  We are not called to be masochists.  We don’t have to pretend that we are grateful that we suffer.  The scripture is full of the lament of those who suffered and told God in pretty clear language that they were not happy about it, but we can learn to trust God and be grateful in our suffering for the good that God can work.

Suffering is a reality of life.  When I suffer I pray that I can so straightforwardly say to God, “thank you and no thank you.”

on the walk

-Ethan

I recently discovered a blog that is one of the funniest places I have ever been. But since this blog isn’t usually about funny, I haven’t linked to it. But this blog is also occasionally powerfully and profound.

Here is a recent post on the importance of letting our scars be ugly. I will quote best paragraph but you can follow this link for the whole thing.

Here is the best part:

Have you ever thought about what type of party the father threw the prodigal son in Luke 15?

I didn’t until last night. I didn’t see the implications for you and me until I thought about shining my own scars. But you know what the prodigal son gets when he comes home? A welcome home party. The father doesn’t throw him a “you never left” party. He doesn’t call the servants excitedly to get things ready for the “everything is fine” party. Not at all, he makes a point of saying, “Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

He says that twice. Once to the servants and once to the older brother. The father got it. The reason to celebrate was not that things were perfect. It was that the son had been lost, voluntarily so, and was now found. He had been willingly dead by leaving but was now alive. The fact that he had blown it, the fact that the son had broken his life was not a source of shame, it was a cause to celebrate. The gross of being lost and dead was part of what made the reality of being found and alive so bright and true and undeniable.

Amen and Amen,

on the walk

-Ethan

Ps. Once you are there, be sure to hang around and explore the funny.