Soma

As most of you probably know, Camden Crane (a member of Shoreline) is currently living over in Ethiopia.  One of the unfortunate propesities we often have as Christians and as a church is that we quickly forget about our brothers and sisters who we don’t see every week.  We tend to live lives of “out of sight, out of mind.”  So, I wanted to just take a quick minute to bring Camden back to your mind.  Please continue to be praying for her and the team over there.  She has just started teaching, and is overwhelmed and excited.  I’d encourage you to check out the latest update on her blog, and continue to pray for her.  Send her an email (even just one line telling her your praying for her).  And, be encourgaed by what the Lord is doing in and through her over there.  She’s not doing anything particularly strange or crazy, she’s just living a radical, Christ-centered life in Addis Ababa, Ethopia the same way you are called to live a radical, Christ-centered life wherever you are.  So, pray for Camden…and pray for all of your other brothers and sisters as you think of them.  Pray that each of us would be living the kind of life Christ has called us to, and doing it with passion!

If you’ve taken the Bible Study Methods class that I teach at Shoreline, you’ve probably already read this book (or at least you were supposed to).  However, for those that haven’t, there are few resources that I could recomend more for those who want to begin to learn how to study the Bible.  In fact, I think that understanding the principles that are laid out in this book are so foundational to being able to understand and learn from Scripture that I’m going to make Living by the Book, by Howard and William Hendricks, the second member of the “Shoreline Must Read List.”  For those of you who are just tuning in, the first member is Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands.

The thing that I love most about his book is that it’s sole purpose is to help equip the reader to be able to study the Word of God for themselves.  There is no overarching “lesson” to be learned, no pet issue to be discussed, Hendricks simply desires for men and women to be able to come to the Word of God and hear in its pages the very voice of God.  And this is founded upon a deep conviction in the power, sufficiency, inerrancy, and clarity of that Word.  Hendricks wants people to know God’s Word, but not just so they can know stuff about His Word.  Through this Word, he desires people to come to know God Himself!  Hendricks explains his heart this way:

My appeal to every young person using this book is this: the only sure way to experience authentic Christianity is through firsthand acquaintance with the Word of God.  Don’t just let a friend or a DVD or a blog tell you what the Bible says - read and study it for yourself.

The book basically breaks the study process into three steps: observation, interpretation and application.  These steps can be inredibly helpful, especially for someone who is just learning how to read and study the Word of God.  Basically, if anyone in the church desires to know how to study the Word of God for themselves, this is one of the best places to start.  Here is what Hendricks says about each step:

Observation

The first step in Bible study is Observation, where we ask and answer the question, What do I see?…What makes one person a better Bible study student than another?  He can see more.  That’s all…The difference between you and the other person is the difference that Sherlock Holmes was fond at pointing out: “You see, but you do not observe.”

Interpretation

I like to refer to the step of Interpretation as the re-creation process.  We’re attempting to stand in the author’s shoes and re-create his experience - to think as he thought, to feel as he felt, and to decide as he decided.  We’re asking, What did this mean to him? before we ever ask, What does it mean to us?

Application

Application is the most neglected yet the most needed stage in the process.  Too much Bible study begins and ends in the wrong place: It begins with Interpretation, and it also ends there.  But we’ve learned that you don’t start with the quesiton, What does this mean? but rather, What does this say?  Furthermore, you don’t end the process by asking, What does this mean? but rather, How does this work?  Again, not does it work - but how?

Living By the Book truly is a great resource to get the new Christian (or even the old Christian who is new to really studying the Bible) off to the right start.  This book will definitely not answer all your questions, and it will not address every interpretational issue you’ve wondered about.  It’s not that kind of book.  What it will do, is give you the tools you need to begin to find the answers to your questions yourself.  You have the Word of God.  You have understanding.  If you’re reading this blog you have been blessed with literacy.  It’s time to take advantage of all you have been given, and this book can be a great tool to help you truly do that.

It’s been an interesting week.  At just about every turn, I seem to be needing to repent, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.  In fact, I think that since Sunday I have had to ask for forgiveness from just about every one of the people closest to me.  And all for different reasons!  I’m tempted to chalk it up to a rough week, and me just being a little extra sinful, but I think that’s a little too simple.  The truth is, I don’t think I’ve been all that more sinful this week than other weeks, I’ve just been more sensitive to my sin and actually sought to remedy it instead of cover it up, or pretend it’s not there.  I seem to be really good at emphasizing my godly motives for things while hiding my sinful and selfish motives.  I guess Jeremiah got it right (17:9):

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

But, in light of the gospel, I’ve been realizing how foolish it is to pretend that I’m not the sinner that I am.  I, too, desperately need God’s continuing grace.  Honestly, it’s been kind of embarrassing.  Even with someone who knows me as well as my wife, it’s not all that easy to confess, repent and depend on her to forgive me.  But, it sure is sweet to receive forgiveness and to know that I am forgiven in that exact same way by God.

One of the things that has prompted me in this direction and helped to expose the sin in my heart has been a section I came across in a book I’m reading by Stuart Scott (not this one, this one).  In regards to relationships (all kinds of relationships) there are a number of pitfalls that we all have a propensity to fall into.  Reading this section felt like reading a list of my shortcomings in many of my relationships.  The five pitfalls he lists are:

1. Not Pursuing Christ First and Foremost
2. Pride (self-exalting pride and self-centered pride)
3. Sinful Communication
4. A Lack of Appreciation and Thankfulness
5. Self-focused Expectations

Perhaps this list will cause you to think through your own heart and motives in your relationships.  If it does, I hope God embarassingly reveals the sin in your heart and humbles you, as He continues to do me.  And I pray that that embarassment does not lead to despair, but to humble trust in the infinite grace of our incredible God who is “slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness.”

…kidney?

As I sat down for lunch today (that rare lunch alone can be so sweet!), I pulled out the Wall Street Journal, skipped past all the articles screaming, “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  And checked out the front page of the “health” section (it’s a weekly section).  There on the front page was a story about “Kidney Transplant Trains.”  It was telling the story of a woman (right here at UCLA) who donated a kidney to a person (she didn’t even know!) who needed one.  That recipient already had a donor lined up, but they weren’t a match.  So, the lined-up donor, instead of going home happy he didn’t need to have surgery, decided to still donate his kidney (in honor of his relative who wasn’t a match) to someone else who was a match.  The WSJ story explains the “train” like this:

Transplant chains have the potential to help many more kidney patients…A chain starts with an altruistic individual who wants to donate a kidney to help a stranger in need. The anonymous donation goes to a recipient who has lined up a living donor, but who isn’t biologically compatible. In turn, that donor’s kidney can benefit other patients who have also lined up living donors who ended up being incompatible, each time passing an extra kidney down the line.

What an incredible impact!  One person donates a kidney and 10 people (one story actually recounted that many people in the chain) who didn’t have a match get kidneys!

This kind of blew me away.  For some reason I always assumed that the only people who could donate a kidney to a person were blood relatives.  Apparently, that’s not true.  You always hear about it being blood relatives because no one would go through that kind of surgery and donate a part of their body if they didn’t really love the person.

But, what does that mean for me as a Christan?  I’m supposed to really love my neighbor the way I love myself.  I mean, I have Christ as my example.  He gave his life.  Am I willing to give my kidney?  There are 77,000 people in the United States alone who need a kidney transplant, and are waiting for a donor.  And here I sit, with an extra one that I don’t need just chilling right inside my ribcage.

I’m beginning to wonder how loving my neighbor applies to a situation like this.  I’m beginning to wonder how the principles of stewardship apply to an organ that I don’t need, but that someone else does.  I’m beginning to wonder.

I love small books.  As someone who grew up hating to read, small books (and those with pictures!) were always a welcome sight.  At 93 pages and measuring about 4 inches wide by 6 inches tall, The Purity Principle by Randy Alcorn may be small, but it packs quite a punch.

There are definitely more exhaustive treatments of the battle with sexual temptation out there, and many of those are very helpful tools.  But, for someone who is in the midst of the battle with purity (in other words, for anyone reading this blog), this book is a great place to start (or to continue).  Alcorn lays out the foundational truths of treasuring Christ and the idolatry of sex in such simple and practical ways that we are drawn into the joy of purity as a result.  In addition, Alcorn in a fun writer who (unlike many Christian books) is a pleasant, easy read.  And he loves to state things as plainly as possible.  In fact (at the risk of giving away “the secret”) Alcorn identifies the “Purity Principle” as simply this:

Purity is always smart; impurity is always stupid.

Not sometimes.  Not usually.  Always.  You’re not an exception.  I’m not an exception.  There are no exceptions.

Flowing out of this very simple priciple (that he demonstrates clearly from Scripture), Alcorn then goes on to flush out what this battle looks like in all kinds of different situations.  He talks specifically to single people, he talks specifically to married people, he talks to people in the midst of a struggle that seems “hopeless,” and he talks to people who feel like they have achieved “victory.”  No matter where you are at in life, this book can be a great tool in your battle against sexual sin and lust.  Even if your problem is only with your roaving eyes, or your secret fantasies, leaving sin like that alone is a disasterous choice.

There is definitely much more to be said regarding this incredibly important topic than Alcorn can fit into these 93 pages, and you will not be “cured” by reading this book, but nevertheless I would strongly suggest grabbing a copy and allowing its focus on Scripture to inform your heart and your own battle.

And to help demonstrate the combination of gravity and humor with which Alcorn tackles this overwhelmingly important topic, I would be remis if I didn’t share one of my favorite quotes.

While other urges exist for our physical maintenance, sex does not (see 1 Corinthians 6:12-13).  We will die without food and water.  We will not die without sex.  No matter how strong the desire, sex is never an emergency, never a necessity.  A friend told me, “No body has ever exploded due to toxic sperm build up.”

See…some of you just learned something already!

There is an intense debate that is raging in light of the current financial crisis and the US Government’s decision to spend upwards of a trillion dollars bailing out corporations who made bad investment decisions.  Aside from the betrayal of justice inherent in a move like this, there is a much larger question regarding economic philosophies at stake.  Now, I am no business savant, stock trader, or even an econ. major, but I read the front page of the Wall Street Journal and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.  Regardless, a quote from MIT philosopher Noam Chomsky caught my attention in a BBC article.

The unprecedented intervention of the Fed may be justified or not in narrow terms, but it reveals, once again, the profoundly undemocratic character of state capitalist institutions, designed in large measure to socialise cost and risk and privatize profit, without a public voice.

We live in a weird, hybrid society that desires for cost and risk to be taken on by the community (socialization), but for profit and benefit to be doled out to the individual.  If it works, I get the money.  If it doesn’t work, the community foots the bill (see: $1,000,000,000.00 bail out plan).  Strict capitalism desires for both the risk and the profit to be solely in the hands of the individual.  If it works, I get the money.  If it doesn’t, I pay the price.

So, in light of the gospel, which system models how we ought to live and participate in the society as Christians?  Neither!

The gospel calls us to follow the example of Christ which (in economic terms) “privatizes cost and risk and socializes profit.”  We are called to live radically different lives!  We are called to love our enemies, pray for those who hate us, and follow the example of Christ who “shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, [He] died for us.“  We are to love our neighbor as ourself, which means we will take on the cost of any kind of endeavor, not to benefit ourselves (or our own bottom line), but to benefit him or her.

Running your life (or your business) like that sure wouldn’t be the most financially advantagious.  But, in light of the gospel (and the incredible model of Christ), does any other “system” make sense?

This past weekend we had a good friend of ours, Matt Moore, come down to Shoreline as a guest preacher.  The message that he brought was an incredible challenge and an incredible blessing (to me personally and to all of us as there).  It’s one that every person at Shoreline should listen to…twice!  If you haven’t heard it, click here to listen to it.

His message brought back a powerful lesson that I learned almost three years ago as we were preparing to plant the church.  As Lara and I got ready to sell our house, change our health insurrance, have our first baby, plant a church with 20 people, and look for different ways to support ourselves financially, I heard a common refrain of advice from many people (Christian and non-Christian) around me: “Count the cost!”

Nobody likes getting halfway into a project, only to realize that they don’t have the resources to complete it.  And it some ways, it may have looked like that was exactly what we were heading into.  Counting the cost is a good suggestion, we all need to make sure that the numbers add up and that everything makes sense before we proceed with each new endeavor God would have us embark upon.  We need to plan and crunch numbers, we need to assess and make sure that the way we are serving and loving others is within our “ability” and won’t leave us in more trouble than those we are serving. I mean, it’s Biblical…right?  At least it sounds Biblical.

The advice came from multiple trustworthy sources in my life, so I didn’t want to disregard it.  But, for some reason it just didn’t sit right.  So, I decided to look it up in Scripture myself (novel idea!).  This search led me to Luke 14.  In verses 28-32 Jesus says this:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

See, it is Biblical!  Or is it?  The problem is that we take this worldly annalogy and assume that Jesus’ point is that we need to make decisions that same way…we assume that that is wisdom.  However, if we look at the context (what another novel idea!) we realize that Jesus is making a very different point.  Here are the two verses (27 and 33) that contextualize this passage:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…

…So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Jesus point?  Count the cost before you become my disciple.  Counting the cost is not something we do every time we have a decision to make.  We are not to repeatedly ask ourselves whether or not the cost of obeying Christ and sacrificing our lives for his Kingdom is appropriate or not.  We are to ask ourselves (and answer) that question once.  You count the cost once. And if you are willing to renounce all that you have (your possessions, your finances, your career, your dreams, your family, your rights), you then spend the rest of your life not continually re-counting the cost, but simply making decisions in light of that one decision you made to let go of everything and follow Christ.

So, if you desire to follow Christ but have never truly thought through the significance of what it means for Him to be your Savior and Lord, I would invite you to count the cost.  And, if you have already counted the cost in light of the price Christ has paid for your salvation and freedom from sin, and have decided to be a disciple of Christ, stop re-counting it…and start living in light of that decision!

That’s not “Christianity”…that’s living like Christ!

A question came to mind lately, that I couldn’t quite kick without looking into:

As a Bible-believing, Christian woman, is it Biblically permissible for a woman (like Sarah Palin) to hold the highest office (or even second-highest) in the country?

The question sounds absolutely rediculous!  In fact, I have probably offended 90% of you simply by asking it.  My bet is that your gut reaction to that question goes something like this: “Of course it’s permissible!  Who even asks that kind of a question?!  Where do you think we are, the South in the 1950’s?”

But, a reaction like that exposes an authority that may exist in your life that you have (unintentionally) placed above the authority of Scripture.  You see, the place of women in the world/workplace/home is a very sensitive issue in our culture.  It’s sensitive because we have come from a culture that was degrading to women (one that at one point would not even let them vote).  But, our unwillingness to quesiton a cultural norm because of its “sensitive” cultural nature can expose the reality in our hearts that “the way the world is” may in a lot of ways be an authority that puts parameters on what we will and will not allow Scripture to speak to in our lives.

As a result of this “sensitivity” and the forward push of feminism, our culture has not simply sought for equality in essence, but has flown past that ideal and vigorously pursues equality in role.

The truth is, equality in role (Biblically speaking) is an afront to, and abdication of, the responsibilities God has called us to as both men and women.  As Christians, we call this viewpoint “Complimentarian.”  Basically, it means that men and women were both created in the image of God and are equal before his eyes, but that he has called men and women to different roles in the home and in the church by design.

Many of us claim to a Biblical view of manhood and womanhood, but we are (again!) oftentimes more impacted by the culture we live in than we will ever admit.

I’m not saying that taking a look at the Biblical data ought to make us change our mind about the suitability of a gifted, eloquent woman like Sarah Palin for elected office, but I am saying that it ought to drive us back to Scripture to make sure that the worldview from which we are making decisions is actually Biblically determined.

If you believe that it is blatantly obvious that Sarah Palin (or any woman!) should be encouraged and celebrated as they pursue the opportunity to potentially run our country, do you have any idea where to go in Scripture to demonstrate why that ought to be the case.  (Again, my point is not that it’s not necesarrily there, but that you may not actually know whether or not it is!)

If this is a question that you would like to think more about, there is a series of blogs by David Kotter that may get your wheels turning a bit.  Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.  These are definitely written for an audience that is not a West LA 20/30-something, but I like the discussion that they engender.  Because if you’re not at least willing to ask the question, the authority that Scripture has in your life may be a lot less than you’d like to believe.

So, there is plenty to talk about after our quick trip down to El Salvador, but I’ll save some of that for later and allow it to digest a little more.  However, an interesting theme occurred in some of my reading that I think is worth sharing.  On the flight down, I took my most recent issue of Newsweek, and in it found an interesting article the subtitle of which describes its thesis best: Peter Pans aren’t as happy as they seem.  The Peter Pans it is referring to are, of course, the large number of 20- and 30-somethings whose life mantra seems to be, “I will never grow up!”

In addition, on the flight home I was reading a book that highlighted this same trend that is one of the most universally recognized developments in American culture.  Here, the author identifies the implications of not wanting to grow up on the institution of marriage.

American men are spending a greater percentage of their lives single.
There are many reasons for this, including divorce and longer life
spans. Yet more and more men are also choosing to delay marriage. The
median age at first marriage for a man has risen sharply from a low of
just under 23 in 1960 to its current high of over 27 in 2004.

Welcome to West LA!  There is no way that any of us can deny the fact that we are living right smack dab in the middle of Pleasure Island (the place where boys become donkeys in Pinocchio).  The only way that the median age for marriage in West LA is as low as 27 is if there are a bunch of 12 year-olds secretly getting married somewhere in town.

But, I’m not going to rip on the culture or muse about how we got here…many of the causes are self-evident…but I do think that the existence of this mindset in our culture ought to cause us to pause and take account of what’s going on in our own hearts.

You see, getting married early does not necessarily mean that your heart isn’t dramatically affected by an “adult-lescence” culture, and getting married late doesn’t mean that you’re a product of that culture.  Those things can be symptoms of a deeper heart issue, but all of our hearts (if we are honest with ourselves) are affected in different ways by the allures of ditching the responsibilities of adulthood (or at least putting them off) because of our consuming self-centeredness.  Married or single; 20-something or 40-something; student or career-person…it doesn’t matter.

What does matter, is answering the question: “What is motivating my actions?”  Is it the desires of this world or our love for Christ?  Is it my love for others or my love for myself?  Is it my fantasies developed by the inudation of media or is it my understanding of reality developed by the truth of Scripture?

So, read the Newsweek article and think about the culture we live in.  Ask the questions of “how we got here” and “where’s our culture heading?”  But more importantly, check out what’s going on in your own heart.  Just because you aren’t identified with the guys who are looking for a “hook up” every weekend, or the girls who are treating their own bodies as objects, doesn’t mean that everything’s OK.

In Romans 12 Paul writes:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We need to look deep into our hearts and ask ourselves (and those closest to us!) how we are being “conformed to this world” and to its passion for “Adult-lescence,” even in sublte ways that may seem acceptable in the general Christian culture.  And then we need to turn to the Spirit and Word of God for the transforming renewal that will allow us to truly be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” (Phil. 2:15)

Now, I know that just yesterday I encouraged all of you to make sure you were checking out the blog network as we continue to write and muse for the purpose of your growth and strengthening, but this week is going to be a little different.  In about 10 minutes Brian and I are leaving for the airport and we’re going to be in El Salvador until Friday.  I’m not sure what kind of internet connections are going to be available, so we’ll try to blog, but if we don’t it’s not because we gave up on this thing three weeks in.

But, since you’re reading this, would you please commit to pray for us consistently this week (as I know many of you already do).  We’ll be in El Salvador checking out a few different relationship opprtunities and ways that we (as a church) can come alongside the church in El Salvador to aid in the gospel and to continue to promote the glory of God.  To be honest with you, I don’t really know what to expect.  I’ve been overseas a bunch, but this time I’m not sure exaclt what the Lord wants to do with these relationships.  But I do believe that He has sovereignly placed us where we’re at with an incredible opportunity to learn from our brothers and sisters in El Salvador and to come along side of them.  So, please pray for our time, our conversations, our discernment, our wisdom and our humility.  I’m excited to see what the Lord brings about through this.  I mean, maybe one of you is going to end up moving to El Salvador three years from now, and this is the first step in that long incredible process.  Pray big!