LBBC 2.0

Just launched the Lebanon Bible Baptist website 2.0. We still have some stuff to add and kinks to work out, but the framework is pretty much all there. Let me know what you think.

Breaking Through the Fog

The difficulty with false assumptions, as I have already said, is that they are assumptions. They are those beliefs that you didn’t know you had. Generally, you’ve never thought about them, never realized they could be challenged, and certainly aren't looking for them to be corrected. So as we go through the list on what we are battling (i.e. the false assumptions), I thought it best to ponder also how battle to them. Thus, as we go along, I will sprinkle in some ideas on how we go about breaking through the fog.

1. Pray

For many Christians this may read like the obligatory nod to prayer. It’s not. Trust me, I have a visceral even violent reaction to the ‘obligatory’ (It’s a serious weakness of mine, which by grace I’m working on). How do you break through the fog of a false assumption? “Uh . . . hi . . . um, I think you are building the house of your life on a foundation of sand. See, the problem isn’t your job or your insomnia. It’s you. You’re a mess, and you don’t even know it.” That just doesn’t seem very effective, and it’s not.

Few things will make you feel as helpless as bringing people out of the fog. I started praying because I knew I should. I keep praying because I don’t know what else to do. G.I. Joe used to say that “knowing is half the battle.” Actually, it’s a lot less than half. There is a power that can make blind men see, but you and I don’t have it. So we talk to, we plead with the One who does. If we don’t start with prayer, we are going to war in flip flops. We’re showing up at a well-armed fortress, and we’ve brought super soaker. You may know what to hit, and you're aim may be dead on, but annoyance is about all you are going to accomplish.

The Other Hitchens

Some of you may know that Christopher Hitchens is a well-known and outspoken critic of all things religious. He is one of the leaders of what has been deemed the "new atheists" and is active both in writing and speaking against theism. Well, here is a clip of Christopher's brother, Peter Hitchens promoting his new book The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.

Gospel and Social Action

Tony Payne has a good and helpful article about the relationship between gospel and social action. Here's my favorite point from the article:

3. Evangelism and social action are inseparable
All the same, the language of ‘priority’ is probably not so useful (as in ‘evangelism has priority’), because it might imply that we sit down and devise our evangelistic ‘To Do’ list, and then see if there is any time left to help people (agenda items 16 through 20). In reality, the two happen side by side as we love people, live among them and seek to bring them the gospel. Proclamation may be central, but its context will be a life of love that seeks to do good to those around us. The nature of this loving social action will be largely determined by our circumstances (i.e. preaching the gospel in the slums of Calcutta will require a different form of action than if we were preaching in a leafy, materialist suburb, where the pressing need may not be material deprivation but a breakdown in relationships, marriages and family life)

Photos of Chile

Here are some heart breaking photos of Chile.

False Assumption #1: "I'm Alright"

Last week I described what I call the fog of false assumptions. You can see what that means and why I’m concerned about it here. In a nutshell, I mean there are many false, unquestioned beliefs in our society that blind us from seeing that the good news of Jesus is even good news. So now the task over the next several months is to identify those unchallenged assumptions and think about how to get ourselves and others to question them.

See You Next Week. I have now had the privilege of working with individuals fighting their way through highly volatile marriages, crippling and suicidal depression, financial ruin, just to name a few. And I’ve only been a pastor for two and half years! Inevitably, somewhere in the process, something positive will happen to one of these people. Suddenly, the marriage seems a lot better. A sudden revelation came and the depression fades. In excitement the individual comes to me explaining the thrilling new turn life has taken. “I’m changed,” they say, “Everything is different.” I smile, tell them how excited I am, and then think to myself, “See you next week.”

I’m Alright. The next week comes, and they are back, bewildered and troubled. The problem isn’t gone, and they aren’t changed. Generally, the experience they had was real and helpful, but they had one fatal flaw in their hope. They failed to recognize just how messy they actually are. They were operating under the assumption that basically I’m alright. Now no one thinks they are completely alright. “We’re human,” we like to say. But our problems are pedestrian, more like a midwest town after a bad wind storm. Tree down here, some shingles off the roof there, but all in all not too bad. We’ve never stopped to think that maybe are problems are more like New Orleans after Katrina. The rebuilding won’t take months, but years, even a whole life time.

The Bad News. Sadly, without realizing our messiness, we just won’t get the gospel. After all, what sense does it make for God to enter history in flesh and be slaughtered for our pedestrian problems. A radical act of salvation implies a radical problem to be saved from.

The Good News? Fortunately, we are not without ample material to convince individuals of their messiness. Their relationships are broken, they repeatedly make self-destructive choices, everybody around them is aware of some major changes they need to make. Should be an easy sell, right? Yeah, well it’s not. The problem is that much of our significance is built upon what we think about ourselves. Even the most rational man can’t rationally conclude that he is a mess. He’d rather go with his gut, and his gut is crying out, “You’re okay. You have to be okay. If you’re not okay, then what are going to do? What hope do you have?”

What We Need. So what we need is a way to cut through this self-preserving assumption. To help ourselves and others to see that coming to terms with our messiness isn’t the end of hope; it’s the beginning. But that will have to wait until next time. In the meantime, any ideas?

Books on Resurrection

If in anticipation of Easter you are looking for a good book to read on the resurrection of Jesus (which I know you all are), then I have a recommendation for you. Actually, I have several.

First, I have an anti-recommendation. This is a popular new book on resurrection by a well known blogger, but I wouldn't advise you to put your money or time into reading it. Grab a collection of quotes from John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones on regeneration and resurrection, throw in some filler, and you have this book. I would recommend just reading Piper, Spurgeon, or Lloyd-Jones.

In my opinion, this is the best book out there on resurrection. I have a love/ hate relationship with N.T. Wright. Sometimes he blows my mind with his insight, and sometimes he seems terribly narrow in his perspective. For the most part, Wright falls into the former category in this book. If you want your view of resurrection hope expanded to the point of transforming your entire view of the world, then read this book.

This book is the manual on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. It's thick, it's scholarly, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. But if you want a book that will cut down any and all objections to the historical veracity of the resurrection of Jesus, this is your book.



Finally, for those lacking the time (or desire) to read, here is a DVD by N.T. Wright on the resurrection. I haven't seen this video, but if it is anything like Wright's other work on the resurrection then I'm sure it's helpful.

Face Lift

So I've given the blog a face lift. My goal was to balance aesthetics with readability. Take a look and let me know what you think.

iPad and eBooks

I admit it. When the iPad came out, I thought it had some potential but not as an ebook reader. But as this video (which is a video of another video) demonstrates, the iPad opens up a whole new world of ebook possibilities.

What Evil Really Does

Chrysostom:

"It is not so much that sin plunges us into disaster as into despair."

Similarly, and just as true, G. K Chesterton said

"Evil doesn't make men wilder. It makes them meaner."

Colbert and the Ten Commandments

Russ Moore alluded to this clip in the article I linked to in the last post. A congressman wants the ten commandments in public buildings. Stephen Colbert wants him to name them . . . all. The result is hilarious and, well, depressing.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a District - Georgia's 8th - Lynn Westmoreland
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Christian Outrage

There's way too much of it. That's Russ Moore's point in this article, and I for one think he is dead on. I'm not sure why Christians are so surprised and outraged that the culture around them doesn't care about God, but instead of yelling at them, or sending 5 forwards a day griping about how secular America is, it seems like a good idea to tell people about Jesus. Should Christians ever be offended?

The Fog of False Assumptions

When it comes to changing lives, there are no easy roads. As Bono says (yes, that Bono),

“Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot.
How can you stand next to the truth and not see it.

Oh a change of heart goes slow
It’s not a hill; it’s a mountain
As you start out the climb.”

In a faith erected upon the foundation of the brutal murder of the God-man, that should seem obvious. Sadly, for me it has not been. Early in my life I was influenced by what has become known as the Church Growth Movement. Polish up your church, make your teaching “relevant,” sing modern songs, adopt the right ministry model--just do the right things, and you’ll change lives. This vision though influential never captivated me. It lacked that ingredient I and my generation are starving for, authenticity. Enter stage two, the truth stage. Get the truth about you, about God, about Jesus and what he did. Just teach the right things, and you’ll change lives. I found this approach easier to accept as it connected me with a big God who I could get excited about. Plus, it had the added benefit of making you feel like you were in the know (read “made me arrogant”). There was just one problem. People’s lives still weren’t being changed.

“It’s not a hill; it’s a mountain.” Ironically, both of these approaches forget that. Jesus, however, did not. Church Growth guys say making church as attractive as possible results in change. That’s a relatively easy fix. Truth guys say getting your doctrine right leads to change. And that’s a relatively easy fix. Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” That’s not an easy fix. As a pastor, you are forced into the dark realities of people’s lives. Here on the battle lines for hearts, marriages, and literally lives, it becomes clear that the reason change is a mountain is because our messiness has dug us into such a deep pit. Bono’s was right. We can stand next to the truth and not see it. Teaching the right things, just put people next to truth. They still don’t see it.

The Cop Out. At this point, many just throw up their arms. “Of course, we can’t make them see the truth, that’s God’s job,” they say. And on that point they stand on firm biblical ground. Only it’s interesting that Jesus who came with his revolutionary message and his deep insights into the soul and his masterful grasp of Scripture should spend so much time telling pretty earthy stories to people. Reading Jesus is reading a master story teller who obviously spent much thought into crafting illustrations and stories to make his point stick. How offensive, comforting and brilliant is his story on the prodigal. How penetrating the tale of the Good Samaritan. Jesus believed that “all that the Father gives me will come to me,” and yet he spent a lot of effort in translating his truth into their language.

The Fog of False Assumptions. Assumptions are dangerous things. They are the beliefs that you don’t even know that you have. Those hidden things in the soul that you’ve never even thought of questioning. Chances are that when you look at a man and consider his actions absurd he is not absurd at all. He just has a different set of assumptions. But since you cannot even begin to challenge your own assumptions, you call him absurd. False assumptions then are dangerous things indeed. They create a thick fog around minds, even whole societies, and blind them from the truth. To tell a man standing in a fog thick enough to blind him from the sight of his own feet that he should walk away from the cliff and toward the bridge is no help at all. He needs someone who knows the trail, who can in a way “see” through the fog, to walk to him, grab him by the hand and lead him to safety. This is Jesus’ model. He didn’t just send true information into the fog. He penetrated it. He shined his light into the darkness. Therefore, it is the duty of Jesus’ body, his present, living, breathing hands and feet, to do likewise.

So all of this has been a bit of intro into a new series that I want to write about. Over the course of the next few months, I want to consider the false assumptions that blind individuals, and particularly individuals in our context, from seeing Jesus. My hope is that this will aid us all in penetrating into the fog and grabbing the hands of bewildered and lost men and women and lead them to Jesus. As we go along, I am very interested in what false assumptions you’ve encountered, and perhaps how have you have answered them.