This Sunday we come together at QBC to look at Heaven, Hell and all that stuff. Its the stuff we rarely think about (at least hell is) and then there is the idea that we will spend eternity in ‘heaven’… another curious inheritance that may need some re-thinking and clarifying. I like NT Wright’s assertion that ‘sure – you will go to heaven – but you don’t stay there’. He focuses on what he calls ‘life after life after death’ which is definitely more hope-filled and inspiring than whatever heaven may be.

Bell’s book Love Wins (see promo above) put this issue back on the mainstream agenda quite significantly when it was released and Francis Chan’s response Erasing Hell pushed back hard arguing for a more traditional take on the subject.

This video is a clever pushback on the Love Wins promo and takes a different perspective

Chan’s basis for argument was that ‘God is always right about everything’ so if I don’t understand hell then the problem lies with me. Bell was a bit more elusive, but does seem to be saying that God will ultimately draw everyone to himself in this life or the next.

There are of course other options and the late John Stott is known for his annihilationist perspective an argument he suggests may not be traditional but is certainly within the bounds of orthodoxy.

So on Sunday we will come together to chew this one around. And… yes… I will offer my two bobs worth at the end but only after we have helped people really grapple with the issues both biblically and practically.

The title of this post is of course tongue in cheek as I’m sure we all will feel that our persepctive is the ‘truth’ and that we have taken the ‘biblical’ position. Whatever you may think of Rob Bell (I like the guy) he does remind us that we have a tendency to use the word ‘biblical’ as a lump of 4×2 to batter others into submission to our point of view. In reality we bring our own perspectives to the Bible and while we will endeavour to interpret it truly we may well end up with the ‘truth as we see it’.

If you read the gospels and listen to Jesus it seems that he comes to ‘preach good news to the poor’ and that it is almost impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. He is pretty harsh on ‘the rich’ (whoever they may be…)

If the gospel is (as Scot McKnight summarises it) ‘Jesus is Lord’ then the news of his rule taking place will certainly be good news for the poor. They are going to get a much better deal than they have done and life is going to be much more attractive – perhaps even something like what the creator intended…

But for the rich…

‘Jesus is Lord’ can be a complicating statement, because to most of us who are rich that is not very good news… You see we tend to see ourselves as in control of our lives and destiny and Jesus wanting to stake a claim is hard to swallow.

Jesus never spoke of preaching ‘good news to the rich’, in fact if anything he preached ‘woe to you who are wealthy now because you have your reward in full’ (Luke 6:24) It has me reflecting this morning on the challenge of mission to the middle class west – where we are actually ridiculously rich beyond belief – even if we can’t see it.

The news of God’s kingdom coming may not be that exciting. The news of God restoring the world and dealing with poverty, sickness and sin may not ‘work’ for us because to deal with poverty means sharing what we hoard.

Perhaps that is why the gospel in middle classdom gets translated almost exclusively as ‘sins forgiven and eternity in heaven’ – a far more attractive package to the person who doesn’t want to resign control of their own life and possibly share their wealth…

I think the gospel is good news for all, but given our self centred western mindset it is difficult for us to see how there is any good news in life revolving less around us.

I found this quote on Stephen’s Said’s facebook today and it ties in well with our struggle to accept the gospel.

Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, inclusive, and loving. We made it, however, into a formal established religion, in order to avoid the demanding lifestyle itself. One could then be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain at the highest levels of the church, and still easily believe that Jesus is “my personal Lord and Savior.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

I picked this up at Scot McKnight’s but its actually by Ben Irwin – the gospel sketched for kids. I have to say I think this is one of the most helpful articulations for adults who need to have their understanding fleshed out to see the gospel as the whole story of God’s work in the world from the creation to the new creation rather than the truncated version that often gets preached in evangelistic messages.

I have read it a few times and love its simplicity. I might read it to my kids, but as an adult who didn’t ‘get’ this framing of the gospel for a long time I think it might be of value amongst us older folks as well. Ben wrote it after reading McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel

The King Jesus story

It all began with God.

God made everything you can see.

(And even some things you can’t see!)

God made the world to be his home.

Then God made the very first people

so he could share his home with them.

God gave them a beautiful garden to live in.

He gave them a job to do:

take care of God’s good world;

rule it well on his behalf.

But they didn’t.

They didn’t like doing things God’s way

and not theirs.

So they took what wasn’t theirs,

and tried to rule the world their own way.

They tried to be God.

So the very first people

had to leave the garden.

They had to leave God’s presence.

Without God,

they began to die.

But God never gave up on his people.

He still loved them.

He promised to fix the world

so he could share it with them again.

But it wouldn’t be easy.

Everyone who’s ever lived,

from the very first people

all the way to you and me,

have gone the same way.

We’ve all taken what isn’t ours.

We’ve all tried to do things our way.

We’ve all tried to be little gods.

Things kept getting worse.

But God had a plan.

God chose a man named Abraham.

He gave Abraham children,

and grandchildren,

and great-grandchildren.

God turned Abraham into a great nation

and called it “Israel.”

God made Israel his chosen people.

They would help him fix the world.

God went with Israel

everywhere they went.

When they were slaves in another country,

God remembered them.

When they were treated badly,

God rescued them.

God gave Israel a home.

He gave them a job to do:

show the world what it’s like

to be God’s people.

God gave Israel priests

to teach them how to love God.

He gave them laws

to teach them how to love each other.

God told his people,

“If you follow me,

you’ll have a good life.

You’ll get to help me fix the world.”

But Israel didn’t listen.

God’s people didn’t want God

telling them how to live.

They wanted to do things their way,

just like the very first people — just like all of us.

God’s people didn’t want God

to be their king.

They wanted a king of their own,

a person just like them.

So God gave Israel a king.

Then another king.

And another.

Some were good. Some were bad.

Mostly, the kings did whatever they wanted.

They took what wasn’t theirs.

They ruled Israel for themselves, not God.

They tried to be little gods.

So God sent prophets

to tell the kings and their people

that there is only one true King;

there is only one true God.

But the kings and their people wouldn’t listen.

So they had to leave their home.

Other nations came and conquered Israel

and carried God’s people off by force.

Israel lost everything.

Then there was silence.

Years went by.

No one heard from God anymore.

Until . . .

something new happened.

God sent someone:

a person just like us, yet different.

Someone who could rule the world

the way God wanted.

God sent Jesus,

his chosen one,

to rescue Israel

and fix the world.

Jesus did good wherever he went.

He healed the sick.

He fed the hungry.

He rescued people from all sorts of problems.

Jesus did everything God wanted,

but it wasn’t what God’s people wanted.

They didn’t want Jesus to be their king.

They didn’t want the kind of kingdom he would bring.

So one day, some powerful people decided

they’d better put a stop to Jesus

before he took their power away.

So they arrested Jesus.

They stripped him naked.

They nailed him to a cross

and watched him die.

Jesus didn’t fight back.

He didn’t raise a sword;

he didn’t even raise a finger.

And so the powerful people

thought they had won.

They thought they had beaten

God’s chosen one.

But there was something they didn’t understand.

They didn’t know that Jesus died

not because he had to,

but because he chose to.

They didn’t know that they,

like all of us, deserved to die

for all the times we’ve gone our way

and ruined God’s good world.

They didn’t know a servant’s death

was the only way to live.

They didn’t know a servant’s cross

was the only crown worth having.

The one true King had come

and given his life for the world.

But they didn’t even know.

No one did.

But then God —

the one who made the world,

rescued Israel,

and sent Jesus —

raised him from the dead.

Lots of people saw him alive

before he went back to God.

But Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead.

He defeated death,

so it wouldn’t have power over us any longer.

God gave us the King we needed,

a King who loves, forgives,

and changes everyone who comes to him.

This King gave us a job to do:

love each other with all we’ve got.

Because that’s how we show others

what it’s like to be loved by God.

That’s how we show others

what kind of King we serve.

For now, the world is still broken,

still waiting to be fixed.

But someday, our King is coming back

to rescue us and share his home with us again.

Never again

will anyone take what isn’t theirs.

Never again

will anyone ruin God’s good world.

God will live with us,

and we will rule the world for him.

Forever.

(For Elizabeth)

Being Baptist

We went to church on Sunday, not something we always do on holidays, but we both felt it would be good to gather with some others for the morning so we choofed off to Broome Baptist church.

It wasn’t the only choice before us, but it was where we finished up. Before we left I was pondering why we would make that choice – instead of gathering with the SDA church on Saturday, or lobbing in with the Pentecostals just down the road… Why are we Baptist?…

So (as I do with all tough questions) I asked Danelle… ‘honey why do we go to a Baptist church?’ And in typical Danelle fashion she replied with ‘because we always have?…’ That was what I was thinking but it just seemed a bit lame… However for reasons of history and longevity and familiarity this seems to be our tribe or our clan. I was hoping it might be a theological claim or a particular inspirational aspect of our identity but I think if we honest it’s really just that it’s what we know best.

And it’s not that I like everything about who we are. I don’t. I see many ‘Baptist blind spots’, but it’s still my tribe. I did jump ship once back in the 80s when I started teaching and found myself in a small country town (Wagin) where I ended up joining the Uniting Church. Seems odd – and I think it seemed odd to some of the local Baptists who knew me and thought I would head their way. But I made a friend in the Uniting church who is still a good mate today and that was what landed me there. Good people in that church, but since then I’ve been a ‘Baptist’ for 26 years. (I even got invited to be a youth pastor at a Pentecostal church at one point in that time but I was only two years into teaching and it just didn’t feel right.)

Back to being Baptist though…

If I had to choose words that would describe most Baptist churches they would probably be words like ‘quiet’, ‘reserved’, ‘orderly’, ‘predictable’. The ‘upside’ of these qualities is that we don’t trade in hype, but the downside is that we can often appear lethargic and dull – uninspiring even – and sometimes we are. I don’t like that about us. In fact it irks me badly. There are days I wish we could express some excitement visibly and spontaneously without it feeling forced or odd. But for some reason when it gets announced in church that someone in the church is healed of cancer (or similar) we sit there sedately as if we had just heard that there was a change in the morning tea roster.

As an introvert by nature I find a lot of our qualities appealing, but I would hope we could express more energy and passion in our gatherings and relationships. Actually as I consider it more closely it seems that it is primarily our worship gatherings that carry this reserved and steady (absence of) energy.

There is a cerebralness to Baptist churches that seems to typify our DNA. I am probably a typical example of that. I could sit thru the most awful singing and music week after week (and I’m not saying I do!) if I knew there was a decent bit of teaching to follow. I think that’s pretty typical of most Baptists – get the preaching right and you can keep a lot of people very happy. Which isn’t to say that doesn’t matter in other traditions, buy for us a well developed expositional sermon really is the ducks nuts.

I imagine I could ‘jump ship’ if I had to but I don’t think I could jump far. I couldn’t settle easily into a pentecostal church theologically or culturally. I wouldn’t feel at home in Anglicanism although there are aspects I like. The Salvos?… Good people but funny clothes… There are some closer to home – Vineyard and Churches of Christ that would fit us better but for better or worse I seem to be a Baptist.

Ironically there is much to like in our distinctives (even we don’t always adhere to them). The priesthood of all believers is a biggie – but still bigger in theory than in practice. I think the more paid staff a church has the harder this one gets to maintain.

Congregational government in its best form (discerning together the will of God as opposed to ‘voting’/democracy) is something I can cheer for and hope to see more of, but it is an unwieldy method of decision making in a larger church. (The easy solution here is to keep churches sufficiently small for it to be possible and I think that deserves some serious thought.)

Freedom of conscience – allowing one another to differ on our position on various issues – is another one I can say ‘yeah baby’ to but it has it’s challenges too as we enter contentious areas. Churches – especially conservative ones – seem to feel a need to ‘mark their territory’ so lines get drawn and people get hemmed in when it isn’t always appropriate. I’m not sure if Baptist churches allow ‘freedom of conscience’ on the issue of gay marriage, as it seems that in the debates around the place the denominations are tending to draw boundary lines and defining some as ‘out of the tribe’… Which seems just a bit ‘unbaptist’.

Then there’s believers baptism as a distinctive and ironically this is one I am less concerned by. Theologically I see it as the preferred baptismal mode, but all those others who have read infant baptism as normative aren’t mugs… So one of us is possibly wrong… Maybe it’s us?

The authority of scripture is another big one, but hardly a distinctive. Of course the question in there is what ‘authority’ means in practice. How does it work in our interpretation and application?

I could go on…

I am certainly ‘Baptist’ because I see value in our core distinctives, but if I’m honest I’m ‘in’ more because it’s where I feel at home – where my family are – and where I feel I belong.

I do sense my life is poorer for not being as expressive and celebratory as my Pentecostal friends. I sense there is something in the sacramental Anglican churches that I miss because I just don’t regularly connect with God like that. And I also miss the warmth and flexibility of simple church gatherings that use homes, parks or wherever they like to get together.

So I’m not about to change seats at the table (‘change teams’ is a bad analogy) at this stage, but I do hope we will be able to find ways to enrich the culture of our own church so that we aren’t ‘typical’ Baptists, but rather can learn from the best of all traditions while retaining our own uniqueness.

I used to hold my ‘Baptist’ identity lightly, and in one sense I still do – (‘Christian first – Baptist second’) but I can’t deny that this my mob and I’m ‘in’ for better or worse.

Just some reflections from under the mango tree on a balmy afternoon in Broome…

You know, you teach on stuff and read about stuff for so long that sometimes its hard to see what its actually about.

I found that this week with the whole topic of spiritual gifts. To be honest I found myself bored again… wondering what knob picked this subject?… Oh… it was me… We picked it because part of our priorities for 2012 is to get people finding their place in the family at QBC. So part of that is finding your gift, using it, etc etc… You probably know the drill.

This week I sat down to map out some kind of teaching for Sunday and found myself seeing things I hadn’t really noticed before. Perhaps its because the pragmatist in me is dying and I am less concerned for mere results. As I began to prepare an overview type message I began to skim the major passages (Eph 4, Romans 12, 1 Cor 12, 1 Pet 4) and couldn’t get past Ephesians 4.

The more I read it the more I feel this is the core DNA of the church. I’ll be quoting my old friend Andrew Dowsett who writes on it more articulately than I can here here. This is stuff I have known but this week it combusted.

Then – and perhaps more significantly – I began to reflect on the reason for spiritual gifts and realised that for so many years I have taught that they are to a) help the church work well b) bring you personal fulfillment as you become the person God created you to be. I don’t doubt these are true, but I don’t reckon they were top of God’s priority list when he was dreaming this stuff up.

Eph 4 says:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

If you are like me you may have read that a gazillion times and missed some of it. As I was reading this week the thing that impacted me was that God has given gifts to his church (APEST) not just to get the jobs done, but rather to help us reach unity and maturity and in that reflect the fullness of Christ. When we know who we are and when we live out of that we don’t just make ‘church work’, we become the reflection of Christ to one another and the world.

That seems a much more inspiring outcome than simply filling the rosters… you probably already knew that, but I enjoyed learning it this week.

In my last post I mentioned Ben Witheringon’s series of posts reflecting on the death of his daughter and the accompanying grief process.

The series of 4 posts (so far) is very ‘gut’ honest and admirable for that. But I’d suggest its greatest value is in the theological framing it gives to the issue of pain, suffering and grief. Its a bold move for a theologian, to theologise in the midst of pain, but I found it all inspiring and hope giving.

I’d encourage you to read it.

Start here.

As a church we have been working our way thru the book of Exodus and reflecting on the issues of following God as a community.

This week we land up in the one of the most crazy chapters of the entire OT – Exodus 32. Its the story of how Moses is away up the mountain with Joshua getting the 10 commandments and while he’s gone the people ditch God and set up a golden calf to worship.

It has some great insights into our foibles and frailty as people, and it offers a great contrast in leadership approaches (Aaron and Moses) but it also raises some serious questions about the nature of God. And they aren’t easy questions. I’ve spent a couple of hours this morning just reading and thinking and pondering how to hit it.

Here are some of the issues:

vv9-14 is a conversation between God and Moses where God wants to completely obliterate the people and Moses goes into bat for them. In this conversation it certainly seems like Moses talks some sense into God – to put it crassly… God is losing the plot with anger and Moses says ‘chill… that aint such a good idea… remember the plan?… covenant?…’ And God says ‘oh yeah… ok’.

You have to admit that it does read a bit like that… no?…

Then when Moses comes down from the mountain and sees all that’s going on he has his own meltdown. He really loses it and burns up the calf, grinds it to powder and makes the people drink it. You can literally feel the intensity of his anger.

After calling the people to make a choice he sends out the levites under God’s orders to wipe out the rebels. The story reads:

Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

God orders the Levites to go around and kill their brothers/friends/neighbours… Harsh?… I think we’d all agree its pretty extreme measure.

After this Moses tries to get God to let up on the rest of the people and even offers himself in their place. The chaptr ends:

The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.” And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

Now much of how you interpret / teach this passage will depend on your pre-existing theological framework. Some would argue that if God is holy then this is a natural outcome. Open theists would see this as a classical example of God changing his mind.

But I can’t help wondering how you would explain it to people who don’t have any faith, or who view Christianity with some skepticism. It can appear as a pretty bizarre and disturbing story.

I could just focus on the issues of idolatry, rebellion and leadership, but you simply can’t read this chapter and not be challenged to wonder what God is like.

Love to hear your reflections!

I’m going to talk about money this week at our Sunday gathering – more specifically the whole issue of generosity and giving and how we go about this.

I’m not one of those people who gets ancy about the topic of money and avoids speaking on it. I actually reckon its the critical topic if we are going to make disciples in 21st C Australia. If we can’t help people become disciples in the area of finance then we are probably going to limp along as the church and actually make very little difference in our world – not because we won’t be able to ‘pay our pastors’ (as if that were the critical issue) but simply because we don’t come to grips with our own Achilles heel and our primary cultural dysfunction.

We love money – at least we love what it can do for us – and to give it away just seems absurd. Last week I heard that most people fantasise more about money than about sex!

Crikey… I gotta tell you I am not in that crowd.

So my objective on Sunday is not to compel people to give more in the offering bag, but rather to challenge us to look critically at how we view money, how we use our finance and to think seriously about why we give what we do and where.

My hope would be for a church where there is incredible generosity and where we are known as absurdly generous people.

Since spending a fair bit of time studying the whole issue of tithing I have become convinced of its irrelevance to the church today. Stuart Murray Williams was probably my most significant read in this area, but there are others also who are questioning whether this is a practice we should continue with at this time.

One of my big concerns is that we muddy our theology again with tithing. You know when we welcome people to the ‘house of the Lord’ we revert to an OT ‘temple theology’ and when we advocate tithing we pick up on OT worship practices that are not intended for today.

One of the original tithes was for the priests and levites and I hear that as a primary argument today – to pay our pastors – but – and maybe its just me – I am concerned for how that morphs the ‘pastor’ into a NT priest.

Aren’t we all priests now?…

If we go this route aren’t we sending some muddy mixed messages theologically?

Interestingly – while we equate the tithe to 10% the OT tithe was actually quite different. Biblical tithing was based on a person’s produce from the land and was done annually on a seven year cycle. Three separate tithes were instituted. The first was the Levitical tithe of 10% on everything for the first six years and was given to the Levites and priests. The second tithe was the Festival tithe of 10% on the 90% remaining produce after the Levitical tithe. This tithe had to be eaten in the presence of the Lord and was collected on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th years only. The third tithe was the tithe for the poor to be collected on the 3rd and 6th years only. No tithe was collected on the 7th year or Sabbatical year. The farmers were to let the land rest in that year.

And as well as tithes the OT people were also required to bring various kinds of offerings to God.

From that Old Testament base we have for the most part concluded that to honour God with our wealth today we need to give back to him 10% of our income. Which is kind of ironic, because if you add it up they were actually giving around 17% for 6 years and nothing on the seventh.

So why do we preach tithing?

There is no rocket science required to figure that one out!

I think we generally feel that people need a marker to aim for so we set 10%. Its much more of a pragmatic argument than a theological one. If we don’t set out for 10% then maybe the people won’t give enough…

But they don’t anyway.

During my study on this I read a survey that cited the average giving by church members to the church offering to be around 2% of their income. And my own experience over 20 years of church life would suggest this is spot on.

Most people don’t tithe!

In churches the 80/20 rule is alive and well with 20% of the people funding the activities and resourcing the other 80%. Its a pretty sad situation really – quite lamentable – but it opens bigger questions of where should our money go anyway? And why is this the case?

The NT has a lot to say about giving freely and generously,about everything being God’s (rather than 10%) but nothing to say about a tithe…

Lets move on.

One of the things I have noticed is that as I get older I am less compelled to believe some of the things I did as a younger person.

For example, I no longer subscribe to a literal 7 day creation view, holding more to the view that God created, but evolutionary processes are still in place and that these were his idea too. I realise for some that is anathema, but I think it is both faithful to scripture and reason.

I am less convinced of what it means to be ‘saved’ these days and what constitutes a ticket to heaven or a one way route to hell. As Dallas Willard says ‘surely salvation is about than God inspecting our brain to make sure we have an adequate theology of the atonement’. I find myself a lot more circumspect about making any of those ‘in’ / ‘out’ judgements and I continue to wonder what critical theology we (as evangelicals) have got wrong that God will overlook in his grace.

But while the more debatable aspects of faith have seen me tempering my views and admitting my own limited understanding I haven’t lost faith in the miraculous. We are about to read John 6 as part of our teaching at Quinns and the story of the miraculous feeding of 5000 people doesn’t lend itself to a lot interpretation. It feels like a story we either take at face value and say ‘wow – no idea how – but wow!’ or we toss it and the rest of Jesus’ miracles out.

Of course the Bible gets pretty thin then and when we stop allowing for the element of supernatural we really aren’t talking about Christian faith any more.

I guess a creationist could argue that God ‘supernaturally’ created in 7 days calendar days… but then the weight of evidence to support an alternate view is strong and it does not compromise the integrity of the Bible to hold a different view.