Author: W. Keith Brenton

Off to Pepperdine This Week

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Angi and I will be presenting a class on the Pilgrim Heart Group Guide we wrote on Friday at the Pepperdine Lectureship (http://www.pepperdine.edu/biblelectures/schedule/complete-by-participant.htm?id=10337), and we’re looking forward to seeing good friends, meeting new friends and enjoying our first getaway together – without our kids attached – in about a decade. Too long!

Our home church is really well represented among presenters this year … our Singles Minister, our Family Life Center Manager, even a part-time member who lives in Tennessee but has family here and visits frequently.

We’re eagerly anticipating Pie Night, fish tacos, ocean air and ZOE worship.

And you, hopefully!

Where Should We Worship God Together?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 12 Comments

I just received my copy of Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna from Amazon, and have begun to read the first chapter.

I’m going to withhold full judgment until I’ve read it fully, but my first impression is mixed.

I can’t disagree with the premise that a lot of what Christians do today in gathered worship has little in common with what Christians did in their worship together in century one.

What I’m not certain about is whether that’s a completely bad thing.

The first chapter of the book speaks to the point that both Jews and pagans differed from early Christians in their worship by their emphases on sacred places, people and things – and that, over time, Christianity began to absorb the same fascinations. Did Christians in century one never purchase or build a place for worship together? There’s no record of it in scripture. Can we assume that it never happened?

More importantly – does it matter?

Can God be worshiped acceptably in other places?

In the early days of Christianity, Jewish Christians met in the temple courtyards. Daily.

For good reason: Jesus taught in the temple courts, too. And on mountainsides, from a boat, on a plain. He accepted worship in the home of a Pharisee, on the streets as he traveled, on horseback … all right, donkeyback. He went to synagogue, read Isaiah there. (Synagogue was not something God included in His commandments revealed through Moses.) He prayed in lonely places. He sang with his followers after Passover in a second-story room. He prayed in a garden.

Stephen taught on the road in a chariot. Paul taught (and presumably worshiped) in synagogues, and when they booted him out, went next door to the synagogue ruler’s house or rented a lecture hall. (He could have spent the money on meeting the needs of the poor.) Or looked for a place of worship and prayer by a river where there might not be any synagogues. Christians met in homes, broke bread together – however you wish to interpret that phrase.

You can probably think of a lot more.

I get the picture that what’s important about worshiping together is not so much the where, but the how: in spirit and in truth. With His Spirit poured into our hearts to commune with Him; with our hearts, minds, souls and strength truly engaged.

If God accepts worship from within a stinky animal stable from foreign astrologers, from inside a religious leader’s home tainted by a sinner’s perfume, from a magnificent incense-fragranced temple made with hands, from a fresh-aired lake or a mountainside or a plain made by His hand – where can we go to escape His Spirit? Where can we flee from His presence?

Are we not to be the aroma of Christ to others wherever we are?

Are the prayers of the saints not regarded as incense to Him in heaven?

Are These Commandments?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 7 Comments

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do … But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” … “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” … “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.”

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” … “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

“… do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. … Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” … “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”

“… go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

“Love each other as I have loved you.” … “This is my command: Love each other.”

Jesus said these things. Unless He was exaggerating, He wants us to do them. He knows that doing them will be good for us, good for the kingdom, good for others, good for the whole world.

Whether they are commandments or not.

So what would happen if we stopped fretting so much about things that we might or might not be authorized to do, and started diving headfirst into doing the things He has asked us to do – with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Is An Imperative Always a Commandment?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 10 Comments

When I was a kid, my dad tried to improve my attitude about the things he told me to do by telling me that they were “get-to’s” and not “have-to’s.” He knew it would be easier on me to regard them as things I get to do, rather than things I have to do; that I would be more likely to do my best at them and have my heart in them if I did them because I knew it made him glad. (I’m not sure I appreciated his effort until I had children of my own.)

In the gospels, Jesus is recorded as uttering a lot of imperatives – things expressed in a tone of instruction or command to do or not do.

His followers, in the books of the New Testament that follow, are recorded as often doing the same, speaking in imperatives.

Are all of them commandments?

There’s a way of looking at such scriptures as “God commanded it, we obey it, that’s all there is to it, and that settles it.”

Is that the way God wants us to regard his word to us?

Let’s look at Acts 2:38-39 as an example:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

(That’s the short version my tribe most often quotes. Sometimes we quit after “the forgiveness of your sins.”) Is the instruction to repent and be baptized a commandment? By far most of the people in the tribe of Christianity I call home would agree that it is. (In fact, I would be one of them.) But is it, strictly speaking, a commandment and nothing more?

There I might diverge with the most. The two verses begin: “Peter replied”. Replied to what?

Well, verse 37, of course:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

So, to me, the context of this verse indicates that what Peter said was the reply to a heartbroken, guilt-drenched plea for help and mercy. Why? Because they heard something, and for that something we have to back up one more verse, to 36:

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

God made us, and knows us, and knows that when we are convicted in our hearts by His Spirit when we have done something wrong that the conscience He gave us fills us with a need to do something to try to make it right; to set right our relationship with God once again.

The problem is, there is really nothing we can do to un-do what we’ve done.

Until there was Jesus.

Knowing this about us, God extravagantly provided not only His Son, but other gifts by which we could accept His Son and begin a new life in Him: penitence and baptism. Penitence has been around since there were two trees in the middle of Eden, but there really wasn’t a way for it to give it the power to turn lives around until Jesus came, was crucified, buried and raised to life again.

So He also gave us baptism, the pledge of a good conscience; the washing of rebirth; the means by which God chooses to perform His initial saving work in us – and a tangible way for us to express an intangible new Truth in our lives, as well as our gratitude for Him and our faith in Him and our willingness to host Him and partner with Him in good works and truth-sharing.

Even Jesus Himself was baptized – not because He was somehow being baptized into His own yet-to-come death, burial and resurrection for forgiveness of any sins He had committed – but “to fulfill all righteousness.” He did it because it was the right thing to do; an example to others of an experience that God wants for all of His children to remember and cherish and treasure – and build their lives and ministries upon!

So, among all the imperatives in scripture that we call or think of as commandments, has there ever been even one of them which (even if seemingly arbitrary to us) was not given to us as a gift by the God who made us and loves us and knows us – and that has been given for any other reason than it is the right thing to do before God, and therefore good for us?

Look back at verses 38-39 again, above. There’s a promise attached to this imperative: yet another gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is the means by which God empowers us to partner with Him to tell others about His Son – just as Peter and the other disciples did on that Pentecostal day recorded in Acts 2. How much of that gift do we need to share the Way, the Truth and the Life? Isn’t a life turned 180-degrees away from self and toward God pretty miraculous all in itself?

Is there anything God asks us to do that He has not been willing to do Himself? That He won’t partner with us to do through His Spirit?

Put that way, it all sounds too simple, doesn’t it?

I don’t know how you feel toward Mike Huckabee – and I’m not sure I would want him serving as President – but he did a remarkable job of working with legislators to reduce the amount of red tape and unnecessary paperwork and pointless hours of waiting to renew your Arkansas automobile license plate. The first time I went in to my local branch and zipped through the process in about five minutes, I was astonished. As I wrote my check, I asked the clerk “Are you sure that’s all? No sacrifice of my first-born son, or anything?” As deadpan as Ben Stein, she replied, “No, the Legislature won’t let us do that anymore.”

Does it really suit God’s purpose to load us up with as many commands as possible, making it as difficult as it can humanly be to divinely do what He wants to do with us and through us?

Is there anything that God wants FROM us that He does not also want FOR us?

Should we regard the things He asks of us merely as “have-to’s”?

Or are they really “get-to’s”?

The Law of Christ

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

Yes, there is one – for those who would remind me (in response to my recent question “Did Christ live, teach, bless, die and live again in order to bring more law, unspoken law – or freedom from law?) that Galatians 6:2 says so:

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

But what is that law of Christ?

The context of the surrounding letter to Galatia indicates that it can’t be another set of laws, commandments, rules, and amendments. There was nothing wrong with the law God originally gave – except that it couldn’t save anyone.

And the first phrase in that verse indicates that this law must be social in nature, because fulfilling it is achieved by carrying each other’s burdens.

I’ll tell you what I believe the law of Christ is.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.‘ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.‘ There is no commandment greater than these.”

“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. ~ Mark 12:28-34, emphasis mine

In Luke’s account, the teacher of the law who had it almost all figured out, almost spoiled it by trying to justify himself and asked, “And who is my neighbor?” So, gently, Jesus tells him a story about a traveler and some thieves and a priest and a Levite and a Samaritan – a very, very good Samaritan.

This is the law that Christ embodied, and when that body was taken and beaten and stripped and tortured and crucified, He embodied it all over again.

It is the law of Christ because it far predated the teacher of the law who commended it. It was from God, and John tells us that He was with God from the beginning. God emphasized it by repeating the first part five times in Deuteronomony alone (6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 13:3, and 30:31). The second part is Leviticus 19:18, and a huge chunk of the surrounding 613 precepts of the law are devoted to teaching how one should and should not express that love. With regard to this second one, Paul tells the Romans (13:9) that:

The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And in Matthew’s account of a similar test question from Pharisees and teachers of the law, Jesus answers with both these fundamental precepts, and adds:

“All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

You can list all of the other imperatives Jesus ever uttered, and weed out the ones that were specific to certain people or circumstances (“Go into the city and find a man with a donkey”) and call them commands all you want to – but they’re not. They will naturally fall, however, under one or both of these commandments.

Why?

Because it flows from the heart. It is the expression of devotion to God and love for others. Nothing else is regarded as a commandment in that attitude and mindset; it is an opportunity to imitate Christ, a blessing to be able to serve and give sacrificially as He gave; a gift of His Holy Spirit that empowers one to be a partner with God in Christ to do good works and to share this incredible, life-changing story.

Law can’t save. Commandments can’t save. You break one, you break the whole thing. If you look at everything imperative as a commandment, you have to do it or not do it. It’s no longer an “I get to” but an “I have to.”

“Give to the poor” but “You will always have the poor with you.”

And you can’t. You can’t do all of the things you perceive are commanded, or not do all of the things you perceive are forbidden.

So law and commandments lead to helplessness and hopelessness, but

Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

That is not what He came to bring.

He came to bring opportunity, and empowerment, and freedom to be a channel of them to the blessing of others and the glory of God.

And if we see everything imperative with that setting of mind-and-heart-and-soul-and-strength, we are no longer limited by what is “authorized” by a “law of silence” somehow hidden deep in the bowels of scripture that God supposedly put there to make it more difficult to share the gospel in far-flung lands or help orphans or worship our Lord together.

Jesus came to our world to bring fulfillment to law; and something much more important, more vital, more capable of saving us than law could ever be:

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” ~ John 1:17

A Prayer Before Blogging

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” ~ Jesus, Luke 11:13

Father God, to You be honor and power and glory forever and ever through Your kingdom and through Christ Jesus, Your Son. May this humble blog be Yours, as well.

Inspire the thoughts that take wing here, and ground the thoughts that are not Yours. Forgive when there is too much me, and not enough Thee.

I want Your will to be done in this world as it is done around Your throne.

I want Your Story to be told on this world as truly as it is reality in heaven.

I want Your Kingdom to be fully infused with this world as it is firmly established in eternity.

Please let your Holy Spirit rest upon the writer of this blog. Please pour Him out on Your servant, and fill Your servant with Him, so that Your glory might not only be reflected, but also glow from within …

That Your servant may be light to this world, as Jesus is the Light of the world

That Your servant may be salt in this world, as its Savior gives savor to an otherwise tasteless life

That Your servant may be leaven for this world, which needs the Bread of Heaven more than anything else

I beseech through the One Who is the Word from the beginning …

… may this always be so.

Where Authority Resides

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Okay, don’t accuse me of saying that there is no authority in scripture until you’ve heard me out!

It’s there. And it’s God’s authority.

But if you read your newspaper daily, and come across an account of a Supreme Court decision that will affect your life and the lives of all Americans – do you say that the authority for that ruling belonged to the newspaper?

Or that the newspaper was where you learned of it?

Was the purpose of the newspaper to create the ruling, or to make it known? Was it to enforce the new ruling, or to tell the story about how it came about?

Stay with me, here.

If the newspaper reported that the Supreme Court had declined to review a law in question, would you automatically assume that a new law was in place that struck down the old one; a new law which countermanded or significantly revised the old?

Or that the old ruling was judged to be constitutionally sound and clear, and still in effect?

Now extend the metaphor, just a little more.

If Congress repealed an amendment, would the entire Constitution be considered null and void? Or would the Constitution still have great value in defining our country’s legal system?

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. ~ Galatians 3:21-25

Does the law of the Old Covenant still have great value in instructing us about God’s will, even though many of its provisions have been fulfilled in Christ? Doesn’t it tell us specifically how God feels, for instance, about bestiality or rape – defining what is generally called porneia (sexual impurity) but not spelled out specifically – in the New? Doesn’t it still convey His will and authority about provisions not specifically changed? Does it not still “lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith”?

Has God changed his mind about bestiality and rape simply because animal sacrifice is no longer in effect?

Has God changed his mind about loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength or loving our neighbor as one’s self even though we no longer worship at a tabernacle or temple, requiring priests from the tribe of Levi to intercede for us?

Is His will and authority consistent through both testaments regarding what is right and holy, or what is wrong and evil?

If He does not specifically rescind or revoke a means He commanded of expressing worship and service to Him, is it safe or wise or even logical to assume that He has changed His mind? That such a means has suddenly become evil and sinful?

Or does His silence give consent?

Or is it possible that silence expresses silence – nothing more; nothing less?

I have read an author say that what God commanded in the Old Testament and what is practiced in heaven are irrelevant to what the church must believe and obey and practice. Is it irrelevant? Or irrefutable?

Our attempt to give authority to scripture rather than to God is just a way of de-Personalizing it so that the heinousness of re-interpreting it to our own desire seems logically holy and just and righteous. By our interpretation of it, we seem to have a voice in determining it. Is that rational? Or rationalization?

If we must have a motto like “Where scripture speaks, we speak; where scripture is silent, we are silent” … I’d be a whole lot more comfortable with one that says

“Let God speak and let us be silent. When God is silent, let us be in trembling, prostrate awe.”

But … but … but ….

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

Three simple verses, all beginning with the word “but.” They have a couple of other keywords in common.

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” ~ Jesus, Matthew 9:13

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ ” ~ Jesus, Luke 18:13

“But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” ~ Paul, 1 Timothy 1:16

Did you catch the keywords?

I think they begin with “but” because they state a truth that is in contrast to the world’s view and behavior. That is, to my view and behavior, all too often.

When I think I’ve sacrificed, when I’m tempted to boast to God in prayer about all I’ve done for Him, when I’m convinced that I’ve been doing the right thing in the right way and for the right reason … I need to be reminded Whose perfection and sacrifice did everthing for me that I could not do.

I need to be reminded that – though forgiven – I am still a sinner, and that I should show what I have been shown; give what I have been given: mercy, faith, patience, an example.

Questions for the Audience

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

Some things I’m curious about:

Was the “Law of Prohibitive Silence” created from the motto “We speak where the Bible speaks; we are silent where the Bible is silent” created by the Restoration founders?

What name(s) can be credited with its first phrasing and defense? (Surely – unlike Topsy – it must have be borned rather than just growed.)

Was its use initially or primarily to refute instrumental worship, or was its early use just as often dedicated to refuting cooperation among churches, multiple communion cups and sundry other items termed “innovations”?

Has anyone done a scholarly study of any elucidations of the “Law of Prohibitive Silence” regarding the amount of inductive reasoning compared to the amount of deductive reasoning used?

By the way, I don’t know the answers to these questions; I am honestly asking them.

It just seems like the answers would be enlightening.