Abilene Christian has expanded its online church relations services. Click on the link for their invaluable minister/missionary salary survey, ministers support network, health insurance program for churches, among many other services provided to the Churches.
So far as I can tell, of our affiliated universities, ACU has the most active program of services to the Churches of Christ — and my church has used several of them over the years. Highly recommended.
The scene is a table in a smokey barbecue restaurant. An elder (Ed), a deacon (Dan), and the head of the adult Bible class program (Harry) are eating to discuss curriculum.
Harry: I really appreciate you all joining me for lunch. I’ve really been struggling with this material. I mean, I thought I’d get run out of the church when we started on Genesis 1! There just wasn’t a safe position, but I think it went pretty well. I’m still on the church roll (I think).
But now we’re at the Flood, and I just can’t make heads or tails of the story. I’ve got 20 pages of notes I’ve downloaded from the internet on whether the Flood was local or global. If I argue “local,” I’ll get crucified for questioning inerrancy. If I argue “global,” we’ll have some folks point out the absence of any geological or archaeological evidence at all of a global flood.
Some will want to insist that we accept it on faith — which is fine. But others will want to get into the evidence and all. And I just don’t see the point in spending that much class time on the question. Maybe we should skip it — and the Tower of Babel — and move straight to Abraham. What do you think?
Dan: You’re forgetting something. You’ll have some people want to do the math on how many animals could fit in the ark, and whether the ark could have held enough food. And I grew up on a farm — I’ve always wanted to know about the sanitation issues! Continue reading
“Commands” is the “C” in CENI, and it would seem to be the easiest to apply. Obviously enough, if God commands it, we good Christians should obey it. How complicated could that be? Pretty complicated indeed, as it turns out.
Let’s take a few examples.
(Rom 16:16) Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings.
(1 Cor 16:20) All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
(2 Cor 13:12) Greet one another with a holy kiss.
(1 Th 5:26) Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.
(1 Pet 5:14) Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
Five commands saying the same thing, from two different authors, written plainly enough for a child to understand, and we don’t do it. Why not? Continue reading
(Mat 7) “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Why not judge? Because we’re sinners, too. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that the church, which honors the Sermon on the Mount, is known by the world as judgmental. We seem to struggle to honor this teaching.
Condescension and judgmental attitudes tear up a community and make that community extraordinarily unattractive. We never be evangelistically effective until we take this to heart. Continue reading
Last week, we tried to cover Matthew 5 in a single lesson. Now we’re going to take the last two chapters and cover them ni 55 minutes. Well, we’re doing to try.
(Mat 6) “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Notice, first, that Jesus assumes that his disciples will give to the needy. It’s not a question of “whether” but “how.” That’s because charity to the poor was plainly and repeatedly taught in the Law of Moses and the prophets. Any good Jew of the age would have understood the importance of giving to the poor. Continue reading
The third, and most important, issue is our loss of focus on the Gospel. I find it difficult to even say such a thing, but, I believe it to be true. We must recover a gospel centrality and cooperate in proclaiming that gospel locally and globally. David Dockery and Timothy George pointed the way with their helpful booklet, Building Bridges, in last year’s SBC messenger’s packet. They called for a unity around the Gospel, and the time grows increasingly urgent.
If we’re not growing, it’s ultimately because we aren’t as gospel-centered as we should be. It’s really that simple. This, of course, leaves the question of where we fall short of the gospel, and that’s a good place to start the conversation.
The Conservative Resurgence failed to produce a Great Commission Resurgence. It restored our denomination’s value of Scripture but application is often absent, at least in the area of evangelism.
The Baptists divided over inerrancy. After decades of infighting, the defenders of inerrancy prevailed — and the denomination is losing members. You see, they fought over the wrong issue. Defending the Bible and defending the gospel are two different things. We tend to see as the darkest sins the disagreements among our own people. But the darkest sins are those that separate people from God. Continue reading
We humans have a natural tendency to overreact to emotionally traumatic events. We tend toward avoidance behaviors, that is, if one dog bites us, we stay 100 feet away from the next dog we see.
And this affects our theology. We like to think that we’re rational, scientific, unbiased, scholarly people — and sometimes we are — but we are also often deeply emotional and influenced far more by our feelings than we wish to admit.
When the Restoration Movement was caught up in disputes over instrumental music and missionary societies after the Civil War, both sides turned to the scriptures to find arguments for their side and against the other. For a time, both sides treated the other as fellow Christians, although in error. But as churches were split and suits filed over the ownership of buildings, many leaders began to press CENI as not only the proper means of finding authority but the way of finding salvation. Continue reading
A second issue is the infighting which defines so much of the SBC—its meetings, its churches, and its blogs. It is public knowledge that we do not always settle our differences amicably. The national caricature once again colors many local scenes where First, Second, and even Third Baptist Churches exist in one town because of past infighting. Satan has used our incessant bickering over non-essentials to promote his last great mission on earth—to keep lost people lost.
The communities in which we live simply do not want to hear what we have to say when we can[‘t] speak kindly to one another. If the focus of every SBC meeting is a new controversy to be debated, new parameters to be narrowed, and new issues to be fought, the trend toward decline will only accelerate.
Oh, wow. Now, be very careful here. If the SBC has this problem, we have this problem times 100. What’s the solution? Well, we need to stop fighting. And how does that happen? Continue reading
Nothing like a little cynicism to start off your Saturday —
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On Moderating Comments
When I began this blog, I decided not to moderate comments. I just think the truth is best found through free and uncensored discussion. And I don’t really mind some of the really outlandish comments that get posted here. I figure they show the kind of thinking that leads to the mistakes I’d very much like to correct.
But some comments try the patience of my readers, and when this happens, I figure it’s time to put the poster on moderation. “Moderation” means that I have to pre-approve all comments from that person … which is a pain in the neck for me (and the commenter), but sometimes less of a pain than not moderating.
Anyway, WordPress has this feature that lets me poll the readers. So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to let the readers weigh in on who gets moderated. After all, no one ever emails me and asks that so-and-so not be moderated. This way, I won’t be moderating someone that most of the readers enjoy hearing from.
So what do you think?