Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion: About A Boy
Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 12:11PM Lately I’ve been intrigued by “non-traditional” family. I decided it takes more than biological links to create a family. Any two fools can make a baby, but fathering and mothering are very different issues. I know--this is no great revelation, but on Saturdays everyone’s entitled to my opinion, and today I’d like to suggest we could learn a lot about family from Hugh Grant.
Not really, he’s just the lead actor in a very good movie, About a Boy. The real teacher is British novelist Nick Hornby, who wrote the book and assisted on the screenplay. A 12 year-old named Marcus is the teacher within the film--a boy attached to a clinically depressed mother, a boy who is shunned on the playground even by the nerds, and a boy who possesses neither talent nor good looks. Oh--did I mention this is a comedy?
Hugh Grant’s role is the smarmy professional single guy named Will Lightman who discovers an untapped market--”single Mums.” Lightman is way too smooth to spend time on Marcus’ train-wreck of a mother, but still manages to meet and (surprisingly) befriend Marcus. I don’t know if “bugger off” counts as cursing in the U.K., but Marcus refuses to bugger off, and Lightman is saddled with his only true relationship in life. By the end of the film we’ve discovered that the title applies not only to Marcus but also to Will Lightman. Family, we learn, is about relationship, not biology.
That's it. Go get the movie. Like right now--hey!--did you know Netflix streams movies via the interweb? It’s amazing--now their library is closer than your closet.
Our True Destination
Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 07:11PM And then there’s the story about the guy who believed in predestination: after he fell down a flight of steps, he picked himself up and said, “I’m glad that’s over with.”
Monday’s Meditation discussed a common, everyday word: that. Today we invite spiritual whiplash by talking about predestination. There . . . did you feel it? Heaviness just entered the discussion. Nostrils flared as people began to dig in their heels because they already have strong opinions about this subject. The other sound you heard was the slamming of the door as right-minded people said, “Predestination? I’m outa here--who needs another argumentative blog post?” They are probably right to run. I’d leave, too, except I live here.
Is there a way to talk about about God’s sovereignty without small minds taking big positions? Probably not. Calvinism has become shorthand for predestination. Greg Boyd has been labeled a heretic for suggesting Open Theism. Most of the folks who hold to Arminianism are surprised to learn there was actually a guy named Arminius.
So join me in the deep end of the pool. If I start to sink, perhaps your comments will save me in the end. I’ve been thinking lately.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8: 28 - 29)
When you cut through the ten-dollar theological words in these verses, I think Paul means simply that God takes care of his children and wants every one of them to look just like Jesus.
This passage reveals that our destiny is to become conformed to the image of His Son. Pre-destination means someone in charge has determined where we’re going before we get there. The Father has determined that the place to be is Christlikeness--that’s home! What if predestination isn’t about a place, but instead about a condition?
Instead we’ve fixated on who’s in and who’s out. We’ve become protocol experts checking credentials at the door of heaven. The Apostle Paul considered Christlikeness to be the outcome of the gospel:
- “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4: 19). When Paul mentions the pains of childbirth in association with their growth, he’s telling the Galatians that spiritual formation is just as important as spiritual birth. After the new birth, he says, something is supposed to be formed in each one of us. That something is the image of Jesus.
- “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me." (Colossians 1: 28-29). When he mentions admonishing and teaching, Paul is describing a process. Being conformed to the likeness of Jesus is the result of applied supernatural wisdom. It not reserved for super saints, this passage says clearly, “everyone.” In verse 29 Paul sets his efforts and God’s energy side-by-side, describing a partnership between God’s empowerment and our strenuous response. Our spiritual DNA can come only from the new birth, our transformation comes our response and his continued grace.
Sometimes the scripture asks us to believe good news, news so good it stretches our faith and reaches way beyond our understanding. Part of that news is our destination--a destination pre-determined by the very heart of the Father: it’s not a place, but the possibility of becoming conformed to the image of Christ. The Father believes it about each on of us, do we believe it about ourselves?
The Father wants a big family. The First Son was born into the family. Since then sons and daughters have been adopted, and apparently he wants all the children to have a family resemblance.
Monday's Meditation: What is "that?"
Monday, November 8, 2010 at 09:52AM Sometimes the smallest word can hold the largest things. In this case, four little letters--just one common word, “that,”-- hold all of our future days on earth, and perhaps beyond. Do you see it?
“Not that I have already obtained [resurrection from death], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” (Philippians 3:12)
Paul understood that Jesus paid the price for his sin and that Jesus had secured a place for him in heaven. But wait, there’s more: Paul understood that Jesus had laid hold of him for some purpose in this life as well. Jesus had a grand mission for this world, and wanted to partner with Paul to achieve that mission. Further, Jesus used a guy named Barnabas to make sure Paul found a home in the church (Acts 11: 22 - 26).
John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement, used to teach that there were actually three conversions needed for every Christian: conversions to Christ, to his cause, and to his church. Wimber wasn’t inventing some new doctrine, he was pointing out that our relationship with Jesus begins with the new birth and that the Lord himself has purposes in mind for us. He’s not only saved us from something, he’s also saved us toward something, something so grand it takes a community of believers united under the Lordship of Jesus to accomplish. In our day, if our gospel does not ask the question, “what’s next?” then our gospel is too small.
Here’s a week’s worth of meditation: in my life, what is the that for which Jesus has saved me?
Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion: About Infallibility
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 11:05AM I'm visiting friends in the far-away land of West (by God) Virginia today, so I'm letting Dallas Willard sit in for me. That's good news for the reader--you're trading up!
"Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor." Proverbs 18: 12
From Hearing God Through the Year by Dallas Willard. ©2004 by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson
The Fellowship of Low Expectations
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 09:26AM Across the spectrum of Christian worship, our churches are filled with individuals who do not believe Christlikeness is possible. Individual believers have camped beside the river of God’s grace and drink daily of his forgiveness, unaware that this same grace can can provide spiritual transformation into Christlikeness. Discipleship, they suppose, is for those few super-saints called into the ministry.
Our difficulties embracing discipleship occur not only at the individual level, but also at the level of Christian leadership. Pastors rarely describe their task in terms of reproducing the character and power of Jesus in the people of their congregations. Nor do the people of the church expect their pastors to be spiritual mentors. Sadly, many pastors do not think the image of Christ is reproducible in their charges. As a result, leadership in Christian churches looks less and less like the Biblical model and more and more like models drawn from the secular world.
Individual Christians struggle in their relationship with Jesus, and his call to become like him. Pastors struggle with the same thing: the idea that Jesus calls each one of us to become like him. When pastors do not have a realistic expectation that every Christian can live up to the example of Jesus, pastoral ministry becomes about something other than making disciples. If pastors are not convinced of the Christlike destiny of each person in their charge, the role of Christian leadership drifts away from the Biblical example toward any number of earth-bound substitutes. These earth-bound substitutes may each be a moral good in their own right, but they will miss the high calling of developing a royal priesthood capable of demonstrating the glory of God to a watching world.
How many pastors carry the vision Peter expressed for the people in his charge?
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (I Peter 2: 9 - 12)
These four verses express high expectations for the assembled people of God. Consider this partial list drawn exclusively from these four verses:
- The people are chosen by God to do ministry;
- God has a regal view of his people;
- The people are ordained to represent God;
- The people are the light-bearers for the world;
- The people have a new identity with one another;
- The people have a reason to embrace life-change.
Peter presents a vision that the everyday conduct of “average” Christians will elicit praise for God from those who are not yet believers.
In my personal experience pastors rarely present such a high view of those they are called to shepherd. Many pastors lack the vision of a church filled with mature disciples. Is it any wonder the church at large is powerless?