students of jesus

John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement, had a saying: “The way in is the way on,” by which he meant the very actions and attitudes that empower the miracle of new birth in Jesus are the same actions and attitudes that empower spiritual growth. In much of the North American church, however, the saying could be changed the phrase, “the way in is all there is.”

I once attended a meeting of pastors who were planning a “city-wide revival.” The pastor of a respected and growing church opened the meeting with these words: “God is only going to ask each of us two questions when we get to heaven--’Do you know my Son?’ and, ‘How many others did you bring with you?’” It was a memorable opening because it was short, dramatic, and wrong. The record of the first century church, preserved for us in the book of Acts and the letters written to newly-planted churches, reveals a profound concern for a spiritual transformation that flows from a decision to follow Jesus.

Consider the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the people of the church in Colosse:

Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1: 9 - 14)

Paul, perhaps the greatest apostle in history, prayed for the spiritual transformation of people who “already knew” Jesus. This Holy Spirit-inspired prayer lays out at least three priorities each follower of Jesus. Perhaps we can discover “the way on” through Paul’s prayer.

We need to be filled. Paul asked God to pour “the knowledge of his will” into the believers in Colosse. Apparently the next step after coming to Jesus as Lord is to be filled with the knowledge of his will. It requires something more than mere human intellect--it requires spiritual wisdom and understanding. I believe Paul prayed these words because he understood our tendency to apply the old way of living life to our new life in Christ. The problem is, we were “born again” into a new kingdom. How many babies know how to find their way around their new environment? If we take the image of the new birth seriously we should realize there’s a whole new life ahead. The new life ahead requires something beyond our old resources. It requires seeing things--and understanding them--from God’s perspective.

We can live a life “worthy of God.” Each of us has heard the message of forgiveness so often we are tempted to think forgiveness is all there is to the gospel. Some live in a continuing cycle of sin-forgiveness-sin, and consider it normative for God’s children. Paul knew better. He understood there is a proper response to God’s initial grace. That response is a changed life--a life “worthy of the Lord.” A life in which it is possible to please God, bear fruit, and grow in new life. These first two aspects of Paul’s inspired prayer are beyond the grasp of many believers. Too many of God’s people despair of ever knowing God’s will for their lives and consider “pleasing God in every way” an impossibility. Paul’s expectation was completely the opposite:  forgiveness is a continuing reality for followers of Jesus, but the core of our life in Christ is a transformation that draws us ever closer to the likeness of our Lord.

The kingdom of God is at hand: Paul prays that we would each receive our inheritance--”the kingdom of light.” Jesus died to pay the price for our sin, and like everyone who dies he left an inheritance to his family: a new kind of life. This new life looks dramatically different from the old kind of life. He described this life as “righteousness, peace, and joy in he Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17). Here’s a bell-weather question for each follower of Jesus--does my life differ dramatically from my old kind of life? The in-breaking of God’s kingdom floods our lives with light, and light is necessary if we are going to move through this new kind of Kingdom-life. Yet how many believers stumble about in everyday life, unable to navigate the ordinary troubles of life? Paul envisioned a church filled with individuals able to receive the Kingdom-life God offers to everyone born from above. Paul had this confidence because he had heard the good news that “it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Paul prayed these words over a church filled with people he did not know. That's important because it gives us a picture of what Paul prayed (and hoped!) for each follower of Jesus. Can you hear him praying over you now?

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” ~ Romans 12:1

Scripture presents a progressive revelation. God’s greatest expression is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the true Word of God. The revelation of the Old Testament--which is still God’s words of life to us today--is made complete by the revelation of the New Testament. Consider the Old Testament word “repent” (teshuvah). It means to away turn from sin and its consequences. It is an action word: turn around, restore, repair. The New Testament word, metanoia, refers to the mind: rethink your thoughts, or, transform your mind. One kind of repentance comes only after the fact, the other can prevent us from the wrong choice beforehand. Of course, both kinds of repentance are good: the Old Testament reveals an outer repentance--one of action, while the New Testament reveals an inner repentance--one of transformation. Old Testament repentance tells us to retrace our steps, the New leads us to rethink our thoughts. The old repentance can pick up the pieces, the new can hold us together.

When Jesus said, for example, that one who looks after a another with heart-lust has already committed adultery, he was not trying to widen the net of condemnation. He was trying to reveal the possibilities of a transformed mind. He was teaching us that when we think God’s thoughts, we will realize adultery is harmful to us, the other person involved, and indeed all those we love. The New Testament “repent” cries out within our thoughts, “If you’ll think God’s way you’ll see fidelity is really the best thing for you.” And so with every aspect of our lives: unforgiveness, bitterness, greed and all the rest. Jesus introduced the gospel of the Kingdom with the word repent because the Kingdom of God must take root within us. Worldly kings impose their rule from the outside, Jesus plants his rule and reign on the inside and causes it to grow.

The truest repentance is to think God’s thoughts with him. True repentance causes us to walk in holiness instead of living in a cycle of sin and cleansing. True repentance demonstrates the grace of God by keeping us clean.

This week, why not consider the challenge of true repentance? It starts with facing the possibility that we really can learn to think God’s thoughts after Him.

It’s a sure sign of God’s grace that he would put a journalist with the heart of a poet in a town like Dayton, Tennessee. Rachel Held Evan’s Evolving in Monkey Town is a piece of narrative theology, a spiritual coming of age memoir of how a young woman schooled in a bastion of Christian conservatism found her way to freedom of thought and conscience in Jesus Christ.

Dayton took the nickname Monkey Town after hosting the “trial of the century” in 1925 when a high school science teacher named John Scopes was charged with the crime of teaching the theory of evolution. Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, and a horde of onlookers descended upon the town during that hot summer to debate the big question of the day--a literal view of Biblical creation or the theory of evolution? When the smoke had cleared, Scopes was convicted and fined $100, but Darrow captured the nation’s attention, news coverage, and fundamentalism began its long slide into caricature in the national consciousness.

Rachel Evans missed the trial, arriving in Dayton some seventy years later, in the late 90’s when her father, a Dallas Theological Seminary product, moved the family to Dayton in order to teach at Bryan College (established in William Jennings Bryan’s name just after the trial). Evans spent her teenage and college years growing up in Monkey Town, a precocious and insightful girl from a loving household, determined become the best Christian she could in the world she knew. She found herself the commencement speaker at Bryan college, hailed as the girl with all the answers, delivering an orthodox Christian conservative speech while secretly beginning to question her foundations.

The book is divided into three sections, Habitat, Challenge, and Change, the names of these sections echoing the central metaphor of the book: namely, her faith required adaptation, change--in short, her faith needed to evolve in order to survive. Evans drives home the irony that her faith had to go through the process of evolution, the very process considered anathema within her Christian circle. Woven into these three narrative sections are refreshing vignettes of the people from Dayton, Tennessee, and elsewhere. We are introduced to “June the Ten Commandments Lady,” “Laxmi the Widow,” “Adele the Oxymoron,” and “Dan the Fixer” among others. Each person influenced her faith (for good or for ill) in profound ways. Evans’ skill as a journalist shows through in these vivid pictures of the people in her life. Each portrait crackles with descriptive power.

The strength of the book is her choice of personal narrative. Since Evans herself was trained in the high art of apologetic combat it would have been easy for her to deconstruct the tenets of her upbringing and conservative Christian education. “I’d gotten so good at critiquing all the fallacies of opposing world views,” she writes, “that it was only a matter of time before I turned the same skeptical eye upon my own faith.” Instead her story unfolds from childhood through adolescence, adolescence through college, and into her new-found conclusions as an adult. Her personal story is compelling and resistant to argument precisely because it is her story.

The poet’s heart meets the apologist’s training early in her life. Evans tells her story with transparency and honesty. Even when the reader may disagree with her conclusions, her intentions are laid bare as someone with a strong sense of justice and a compassionate heart. Her journey begins with the conviction: “Salvation wasn’t just about being a Christian: it was about being the right kind of Christian, the kind who did things by the book.” By the time she evolves into a woman in her own right she posits: “Perhaps being a Christian isn’t about experiencing the kingdom of heaven someday but about experiencing the kingdom of heaven every day.”

It’s a pleasure to read well-crafted sentences that sum up her experiences. A few examples:

• “Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God.”
• “When the gospel gets all entangled with extras, dangerous ultimatums threaten to take it down with them. The yoke gets too heavy and we stumble beneath it.”
• (And my personal favorite) “The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God himself will break one."

There are few quibbles along the way: her conversations with friends seem a bit contrived--the voices of her friends all begin to sound the same. She does not explain how the very fellowship and educational institution she criticizes could produce such a free thinker as herself. And she leaves this reader wondering about the current dynamic of her family relationships--although this might be the curiosity of a nosy reviewer.  But these are minor flaws--this is a good book. It will speak to anyone who has ever felt the stifling heat of orthodoxy, to those who want to be free to worship God without a spiritual Big Brother looking over their shoulders.

I recommend this book to anyone who is considering whether there is room in the church to ask troubling questions without being ostracized. I may even assign the book to the college freshman I teach this fall, if the campus bookstore will allow me to switch at such a late date!

Evolving in Monkey Town is available from Zondervan Publishing at Rachel Evans website or at Amazon.com

Have you ever been instructed by the things Jesus didn’t say? Jesus, the Master Teacher, wants to do more than simply convey information. He wants to draw us into his way of thinking. He wants us to participate with him in discovering the Kingdom of God.

Take just one example, say, when Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” This is the seed of an idea: life with God begins like childbirth. I’ve always been astonished that those who treasure the phrase “born again” rarely develop the idea beyond the moment of conversion.

Birth doesn’t happen instantly. Before the moment of birth there is the travail of labor. Prior to labor there are months of gestation. After the moment of birth, the infant is in desperate need of attention: a clean environment, warmth, love and food. Beyond the first few moments a new-born child requires the community of family and the commitment of a mother and father. In “real life” each of these elements are critical. Remove any one of them and the child’s development is in peril. Each of these ideas could impact how we share the gospel or disciple new believers.

Could Jesus mean all that in the simple phrase, “You must be born again?” Well, he is pretty smart. When he uses metaphor or parable, I believe it’s an invitation for us to meditate upon his words and ask the Holy Spirit for illumination.

Even the few suggestions above do not exhaust the possibilities that flow from meditating on this single image.  Decades later His disciple Peter encouraged us

You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” ~ I Peter 1:23

Peter moved from the image of new birth to a seed. The seed capable of generating eternal life is itself imperishable (you can read more reflections on the seed here).

If you’re looking for a meditation path this week, why not take one image from the words of Jesus and explore the possibilities over and over again. Take the whole week! You may find that God’s word is living and active, revealing practical wisdom for your life. Don’t be surprised if the Holy Spirit becomes your guide!

I’d like to recommend a movie Roger Ebert called, “shallow, dumb, boring, and endless:” Luc Besson’s 1999 film based on Joan of Arc, The Messenger. It grossed a mere 14 million dollars that year, finishing in the top 100 films of the year by an eyelash--it was 100th.

It’s the story of the French teenager who led France to victory over England at Orleans in the 15th century. Joan (Milla Jovovich) was hailed as a visionary, followed by thousands, posed a political problem, and was finally handled over to ecclesial authorities who found her guilty of heresy and burned her at the stake. She died at 19.

Besson, as far as I am aware, is not a believer. His storytelling includes horrific violence in the battle scenes, and a rape sequence early in the film that is nothing short of disgusting. It earned its R rating. At two and a half hours it represents a serious investment of time.

Why would anyone recommend this movie?

This film is about the dangerous balance between passion for God and human zeal. The viewer is drawn into her passion in the opening hour of the story, only to wonder whether Joan has indeed heard the voice of God or not. In the final thirty minutes of the film she is alone in her cell. She will speak to no one. She is visited by a spectral figure (Dustin Hoffman). Is he an angel? The Holy Spirit? Her conscience? Her imagination?

Deserted by those who hailed her, Joan is left to consider whether she has ever heard God at all. At the edge of madness she is forced to re-consider her motives and actions, and eventually goes to the stake in peace.

For any follower of Jesus who believes he or she is willing to follow God at any price, this movie is a sobering faith-check. In my opinion you should watch this movie at your peril.