Three Ways We Shortchange Law and Grace

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

First of all, I think we do injustice to God’s instructions in scripture — both testaments — by seeing them as merely law; arbitrary things we must do to gain His favor or to avoid obliteration. Psalm 119 saw the law as an insight into God’s deep love for us, and so did Jesus (Matthew 22:34ff). God gives us instructions for us to become more like Him, not only for our own good, but for the good of all.

Secondly, I think we understand poorly the concept that law has been supplanted by grace in the example and Person and sacrifice of Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Law is not bad, but it is insufficient to save (Galatians 3:21; Hebrews 7:11). Its time and function to lead us has past (Romans 6:14). It is now written on our hearts, which should be much softer than tablets of stone.

Third, God still has instructions for us through Christ. He repealed specific instructions through what He taught, did and suffered – rendering them obsolete: animal sacrifice, priestly tribes, sabbath observance, as examples. They were replaced by much broader, wider, more demanding, more perfect expectations: self-sacrifice, priesthood of all believers, constant spiritual act of worship, etc. But not all were specifically repealed.

Some were specifically reaffirmed. We still are not to commit murder … but neither are we to hate. We are still not to commit adultery … nor are we to look after someone not our spouse with lust, and thereby commit adultery in our hearts.

Some were left as matters of conscience and tradition, not binding on Gentiles.

And some of the 613 precepts of the law just don’t get mentioned at all.

This calls for discernment, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we can ask for it.

Does God still detest divorce (Malachi 2:16) and find remarriage to the original partner detestable (Deuteronomy 24:4)? When did it stop being an abomination to Him, so that some teach it as a requirement to please Him? Does Numbers 23:19 lie about Him changing His mind?

He commands (2 Chronicles 29:25) and is pleased with worship that includes singing accompanied by instruments of music, right through the the Old Testament– see Psalm 150 for a sample. When did He change His mind about this? Why would He not express this change explicitly as Jesus does about the Sabbath? Has He ever failed to tell — no, to SHOW — us what is expected of us?

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8

 

This article is expanded from a comment I made at Tim Archer’s blog.

Just Tell The Story

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Some time ago — and I can’t recall where; on what blog or forum — my contention was that we don’t need to judge the eternal predisposition of another person in order to share with them the Story of Jesus.

And it was met with objection. By someone who insisted that we do.

Really?

When you sit down and talk to someone that you barely know and the subject of the Dallas Cowboys comes up, don’t you get an impression fairly quickly about whether that person’s for or agin’ ’em — or they don’t give the first care?

Is it any less true if you talk about Jesus?

If the someone you’re talking to responds enthusiastically and positively, has an interest in the subject and enjoys sharing their own faith, don’t you pretty much know that you’ve found a brother or sister in Christ?

And if the someone you’re talking to displays no real knowledge of Jesus or a negative impression of His followers, or no genuine opinion on the subject either way, don’t you kinda deduce that you’ve met someone who doesn’t really know Christ and needs to?

I’m thinking that I don’t have to go into every conversation with a checklist of doctrinal possibilities and interrogate each person I meet before I can love them and share a table with them and have fellowship with them.

Oh, we may not have fellowship in the Lord; that’s up to Him to determine. But we can have fellowship of the Lord in the same way he dined with all kinds of people at all stages of belief.

And it can start so simply.

Just tell the Story.

Ease right into it just as if you knew what you were getting into.

“Would you mind sharing this table with someone who will have to say a prayer of gratitude even over a tray full of McDonald’s?”

“Is it okay if I ride next to you and read my Bible if I promise not to keep it to myself if I find something cool?”

“I am perplexed by this. Do you see here in John 5 where Jesus says we should eat His flesh and drink His blood. What do you make of that?”

“Do they have to put these tables so close together that a person doesn’t even have room to kneel down and say grace?”

“You look like a normal person. If I told you that I believed some guy two thousand years ago is still alive and was the Son of God, would I start looking abnormal to you?”

“This may sound selfish, but when I see a news report like that, I just want to start praying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ You know?”

“You are a really patient person with all us crazy folks at this table, and I’ve just got to tell you that your servant nature reminds me a whole lot of Jesus Christ. Thanks for serving us today.”

Yes, we believers are a little crazy. A little crazy about the One who gave Himself up for us, so we’d be a little crazier not to give ourselves up for Him. Give up a big tip. Give up a little dignity. Give up a bit of our time and love and self-importance.

If we can’t do those things for a chance at telling His Story, what does that say about us?

logica absurdum

/ W. Keith Brenton / 13 Comments

“Preacher? Oh, hi! I’m glad I caught you at a good time. I just had to tell you about my friend at work!”

“The one you’ve been studying the Bible with at lunchtime?”

“Yes! I’m so excited! We finished talking about the gospels today, and he said he believes that Jesus is the Son of God! He’s accepted Christ as his Savior!”

“Did he now? Well, that’s too bad.”

“Too bad? Excuse me?”

“Yes, too bad. You’ll have to stop teaching him now. In fact, you can’t have any contact with him at all. If you see him, turn your head. Walk away.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Are you so dull? Your friend believes that Jesus is the Son of God! You said so yourself! But he hasn’t been baptized. Doesn’t recognize it’s necessary for salvation. He’s just like all of the other denominational church-goers out there who think they’re saved without baptism!”

“Well, then I’ll teach him. We were going right into Acts next …”

“You can’t teach people like that! The best thing you can do for them is shun them! Show them your back! Have no fellowship with them until they learn! Maybe they’ll come to their senses and actually read the Bible and come crawling in penitence to the true church, but if not — and in the meantime — what’s happened to your friend is all your fault!”

“My fault?”

“Yes! You should have started with the plan, just like Peter did in Acts 2! There’s always plenty of time afterward to explain to people about Jesus and who they believe in … the important thing is to baptize them now, before something terrible happens and they’re forever damned in a fiery hell! What in the world gave you the idea to preach Jesus first? — And while we’re on the subject of your ineptitude, have you explained to that hapless sister of yours yet what will happen to her if she doesn’t divorce that second husband and remarry her first one?”

The Thrill of the Kill

/ W. Keith Brenton / 50 Comments

Lily Sloane had no difficulty speaking truth to power when she upbraided Jean-Luc Picard in the 1996 film, Star Trek: First Contact:

“Oh, come on, Captain. You’re not the first man to get a thrill out of murdering someone! I see it all the time.”

I have to take it on the word of others that there is such a thrill when murdering. That, and the fascination that young men seem to have with movies and video games which, I suppose, let them vicariously kill.

But I’m afraid I do understand the “thrill” part of the equation.

I’ve never been sure whether my martial-arts-trained friend and college roommate John Caplinger was joking, telling the truth, or both when he said that the best translation for one of the ninja attack shrieks is “I will only kill you a little.”

If you’ll forgive me for conflating the two concepts, I’m acquainted with the thrill of only killing a little. It’s what people do when they correct, criticize, belittle and berate others. Like Lily of the movie’s savage twenty-second century, I see it all the time.

I see it in the internet bulletin boards. In the chat rooms. In the comments of the blogs, and the blogs themselves. In the Facebook groups, open and closed. In the concise 140-character-or-less tweets of Twitter. Words meant to kill.

Just a little.

Oh, yes, I understand the thrill. Beating someone up verbally feels awesome. It makes you feel powerful because they’ve lost and you’ve won. It makes you feel right because they’re wrong. It makes you feel good because they’re evil. It makes you feel better than someone else, because after all, you are.

“Becauses” that are all bull-puckey, of course.

At their root is your judgment, and your judgment is just as flawed as theirs and it is just as flawed as mine. It is human. It is not perfect.

And no one should understand that better than a follower of Christ.

Which is why it should perplex me that I see it so unforgivably often in the bulletin boards, chat rooms, groups, comments and tweets of fellow believers. “Should,” I say. It “would,” if I had not experienced it myself so damnably many times.

I keep repenting of it. I don’t know how many times I have tried to blog my deepest intention to stop judging others, only to get sucked back into the festering muck of it again by some thrill-seeker in the comments of the very same post.

This week it has been with a few folks on a Facebook group who — to my way of perceiving it — want to justify doing what Jesus forbids in Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37 by trying to make the case that it is absolutely required to judge others in order to correct others, which is the loving thing to do. What they are called to do. I can’t even begin to comprehend the screwed-up priorities of that kind of thinking. It has called forth more patience in me than I have within to try to respond in kindness rather than in kind, until I finally ran out of it and had to quit before keying in something that Facebook’s Timeline might never let me forget.

(If there is one thing I have learned about folks who really like to argue, it’s that they feel they have won if they get the last word. If there is no response, then their arguments must be irrefutable, and therefore irrefutably right.)

My LIFE Group and I have spent several months studying Greg Boyd’s Repenting of Religion. He makes a strong case for the original sin of Eden being judgment: judgment of two people that God was not trustworthy; judgment that they should take matters into their own, more capable hands and eat the fruit and know for sure instead of having any more truck with this faith stuff.

Boyd builds on this premise of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to propose that the greater part of religion has long been and currently is little more than judgmentalism disguised as righteousness (which is really self-righteousness), rather than religion mirroring the love of God by (in his words) “ascribing unsurpassable worth to others.”

So I’ll just close this one with a question. I’ve already described above the number one reason I believe Christians immerse themselves into the unholy culture of judgment, criticism, abuse and condemnation of others: Self.

What do you believe contributes to it?

Coming Out of the Closet

/ W. Keith Brenton / 52 Comments

I think it’s time to come out of the closet:

I love gay people.

I’m straight, and happily so; married and father of two. But I love gay people.

My brother-in-law David was unabashedly gay, a great and loving uncle to our then two-year-old Matthew before lung cancer, an infection and AIDs conspired to take his life. And for those four short years that I was privileged to know him, I loved David. You almost couldn’t help but love David.

I love gay people. I love straight people. I love rich people. I love poor people. I love skinny people. I love not-so-skinny people. I love people who fearlessly tell the truth. I love people who lie. I love people who cheat and steal and murder; and I love people who don’t. I love people who accuse and judge and condemn others; and I love people who don’t. I love people who hate and I love people who love.

I love them because I’m called to. I love them because Jesus loved them first, and died for them, and lived again so they could too.

I’m not called to judge them. It’s not my job. I’m not good at it. I’m not qualified to do it. I’m not authorized to do it. And even though Jesus knew the hearts of people while He walked this world in sandaled feet, He didn’t come to judge them but to save them and to wash their feet — and their whole bodies — with a baptism of forgiveness.

He will judge later, of course. That’s His job as Son of Man with unsandaled feet that glow like bronze in a smelting furnace and a heart that knows every heart and two eyes that see every action and two ears that hear every word. He’s qualified. He’s authorized. He’s God.

I am called to love, and that’s what I intend to do. I am not much better at loving people than I am at judging them. But I am dedicated to getting better at loving them and to stop judging them altogether.

Some people are harder to love than others. Some people aren’t hard to love at all. We’re all different. God loves us all. Jesus died for us all.

Then instead of coming out of a closet, He came out of a tomb. And then He sent us out to love as He loved; to forgive as He forgave; and to tell and live His Story before everyone who would listen and see.

Everyone. All the world.

Love them.

Tell the Story.

Let it — and Him — work His miracle in their lives. That’s how it works.

I want to be part of that.

So I will start by loving.

Grace, Good Things, and Lazarus

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

We know the story and it teases, taunts and mystifies us:

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” ~ Luke 16:19-31

I’ve been criticized in the last few months for proposing that perhaps not all mankind is totally depraved, and that those who hear and believe are recipients of a promise of salvation, but that salvation is not necessarily denied to those who haven’t heard.

So I just wanted to bring up this little story that Jesus told and point out that (whatever His point in relating it was at the moment), the poor man Lazarus in this story dies and receives eternal comfort. He is not commended for exceptional behavior nor for his faith in God nor for any attribute of his life over which he seemed to have control.

The difference between Lazarus and the rich man in torment was that in life Lazarus received bad things and the rich man received good things.

And if this story has any value at all in describing the afterlife (and I believe it does; a second value in addition to describing the unwillingness of some in Jesus’ lifetime who would not believe in resurrection), then its secondary value may well be in pointing out that God saves whom He wishes to save. He is sovereign. He is free to do that.

That does not mean that He will necessarily save everyone; it’s not even implied. The Lord gives life to whomever He wills:

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. ~ John 5:21

Is Lazarus an example of this unqualified grace and mercy? A way Jesus meant to communicate it? What are your reasons for thinking so — or not?

Feel free to discuss among yourselves.

Possible Reasons Why God Conceals

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

Yes, I know that the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to man these days. Yes, I know that some maintain that the Bible can be read and understood by anyone. (I suppose, excepting those who speak a language to which the Bible has not been translated. Or people who have not been trained to read. Or people who are mentally challenged and can’t read. Or small children.)

But surely no reasonable person can maintain that God reveals everything about Himself in scripture, or that everything in scripture is crystal clear, or that every conclusion a person can draw from scripture can be relied upon with absolute certainty.

(Oh, wait. Maybe I’d better go back and review the comments from my last post.)

So let me put it this way: I don’t know anyone who can answer all of God’s questions to Job. I don’t know anyone who knows the exact time and date of Jesus’ return. I don’t know anyone who knows for absolute certainty what heaven is like or the biological characteristics of the resurrected body or the complete and literal story of angels, Satan, hell or judgment.

I have to conclude that there are a lot of things that scripture hints at, but does not fully describe; a lot of things it mentions, but does not go into detail about.

And if we believe that God’s Holy Spirit inspired scripture and perhaps even had a hand in the selection of materials in its canon … then we probably believe that God reveals in it, yet also conceals.

If so … why would He do this?

Let me offer a few possible reasons:

  1. The nature of faith. Faith is not fact (Hebrews 11:1). In His wisdom, God has decided that people who have not seen yet have believed are blessed (John 20:29). Those who believe are recipients of a promise (Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9).
  2. Our need to recognize God’s superiority. It makes us humble and brings penitence (Job 42:1-6; Isaiah 55:7-8) to realize that we cannot understand everything that God understands.
  3. Our need recognize our own inferiority compared to God. The fact is, there are things God does and knows that we simply can’t understand (Ecclesiastes 11:5; 1 Kings 8:39; Matthew 9:4; John 5:42).
  4. Our tendency to become conceited when much is revealed to us (2 Corinthians 12:17). Especially when we need to be humble (Romans 12:3) as Christ humbled Himself (Philippians 2).
  5. It is good for us to wonder about what is not revealed and meditate on it (Psalm 119:27 – see the entire chapter; Psalm 145:5; 2 Corinthians 3:18). There is blessing in doing so (Psalm 1).
  6. God wants us to ask for His help in understanding. There was no bound, collected Bible in the first century – nor for several centuries to come. There was never an indication in scripture that scripture alone was or ever would be the only way in which He reveals Himself. He promises to give us His Holy Spirit when we ask (Luke 11:13) and obey (Acts 5:32), and among the Spirit’s gifts are to aid in understanding (John 14:26), expression (1 Corinthians 12:13), and integrity of memory (2 Timothy 1:13-14). Jesus deliberately concealed some of His teaching in parables and intentionally waited for His disciples to ask their meaning (Luke 8). Was He withholding information? Only from those who didn’t ask.
  7. God wants us to ask for the community of others in understanding. An Ethiopian reading prophetic scripture was asked by Philip if he understood. His answer: “How can I, unless someone explains to me?” (Acts 8:30-31ff). Sharing understanding of scripture was to be part of gathered worship (1 Corinthians 14:29-31). We should instruct one another (Romans 15:14).
  8. God wants us to be discerning. That doesn’t mean that all knowledge and wisdom is handed to us, literally, word-for-word; but that — in addition to asking for help from His Spirit and from community of others who want to learn — we work for it and the labor adds value to what we discern. As a result of yearning and discerning (as opposed to shrugging and mocking), knowledge comes more easily (Proverbs 14:6). It speaks of our respect for Him (Proverbs 1:7).
  9. God wants us to understand that knowledge isn’t everything. In 1 Corinthians 8:1, Paul said it this way: ” … We know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.” In chapter 13, he will explain how absolutely vital love is: “… where there is knowledge, it will pass away. … these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

This last possible reason — to me — is perhaps the most deeply resonant one.

I’ve blogged before (Sunday Morning in a Garden) about the principle John communicates in saying on that blessed resurrection day:

Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.  (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

~ John 20:8-9

They saw and believed … even though they didn’t understand the scripture.

That is still possible for us: to believe even though we don’t fully understand every detail about God from scripture, or even about scripture itself. It is not by our level of understanding that we are judged; or by the accuracy of our interpretation that we are saved.

It is by grace through faith (Romans 5:2; Ephesians 2:8).

The Certainty Trap

/ W. Keith Brenton / 105 Comments

I’ve become convinced that certainty about what everything means in the Bible is a trap and a lie and the slipperiest slope ever.

Because it depends so heavily on the power of human reasoning.

And it usually doesn’t ask the Holy Spirit for help.

Certainty about everything in the Bible is, for some, absolutely necessary or their doctrine can become contaminated with uncertainty and their works found sinful because they did not — in every instance — rightly divide the word, and felt that somehow the intellect God gave them was a guarantee that they could and should and a command that they must.

That’s one of the dangers of seeing a command behind every period in every sentence of scripture, you see.

And I’m exaggerating, of course, for the value of emphasis — and please don’t take me to task for it as if no one on the “certainty” side of the argument has ever done that.

But let’s face it, when we lean on our own understanding … when we fail to ask for the Holy Spirit because we’ve convinced ourselves that He’s no longer given and wouldn’t help if He still were … when we become addicted to the adrenalin rush of certainty plus the power it brings over others ….

… we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess of trouble.

We’ve become self-reliant … authoritative … superior … judgmental … arrogant.

— when by contrast Jesus asks the believer to be reliant on Him, on His authority, on His superiority, on His judgment, on His humility.

Not everything in scripture is a command.

Nor is everything in scripture crystal-clear. Not every prophecy and mystery is self-explaining to the superior intellect.

If it were, then the humbly-blest (pathetic souls like me who can barely think their way out of a cardboard box) would be locked out of the gates of heaven for their ignorance and inability to decode God’s hidden agenda in scripture. Not because they didn’t obey; but because they didn’t obey everything they couldn’t understand.

Wow. That sounds really fair of God to damn the stupid.

Which leads me to believe that, when we rely on our own certainty instead of God’s, it’s because we’ve chosen to have a view of God that makes Him psychologically warped, secretive, vindictive, and condemnatory above all — while proclaiming Himself to be loving, kind, forgiving, merciful and just.

That’s where atheists go. They choose not to believe in Him because they don’t want to, and that’s the way they describe Him.

What does it say about the believer who chooses to believe in Him being that way?

Far too much of what we’ve been certain about are interpretations of scripture, conclusions drawn from it, based entirely on human logic that turns out to be fundamentally flawed under close inspection.

But there is one thing we can hang our hats (and souls) on — and should, and must:

God is who He says He is.

There are mysteries in scripture which He chose not to reveal in plain language — truths He reserves unto Himself, until the time He chooses to reveal them (and Himself) and in the way He chooses as well.

Even Jesus did not know the day and the hour.

Paul did not have instructions from the Lord on some issues.

There are things that angels long to look into.

You can be certain of it. You can be certain of what He says. You can be certain that He means what He says.

You can be certain that if you use even your best human logic to try to Sherlock out what He meant to not say, you will fail.

You can also be certain of this: reliance on self to be smart enough, good enough and by-golly-people-like-you-enough to earn your place in heaven is always going to fail.

Gnosis was never meant to be your god.

Certainty was never meant to be your god.

But what your God wants you to be certain about, He makes abundantly clear in scripture and His  words require no interpretation, no conclusions drawn, no human doctrine created to defend or explain.

They say what He means.

No more.

No less.

So don’t add. Don’t subtract. Don’t multiply or even divide them to the point where they no longer make His sense.

Ask for help. Ask for the gift of discernment given through the Holy Spirit. It just might be given.

If God loves us, He will tell us what we need to know.

But understand ahead of time that sometimes the scroll is meant to be eaten, and sometimes the words are sealed up for another time.

I’m certain of that.

The Return of New Wineskins

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I haven’t been at this blog very much recently. I’ve been very busy.

Over much of the holiday season, I’ve been trying to put New Wineskins (http://www.wineskins.org/) back into good operating condition, adapting and installing new page templates, sketching out new editions and recruiting writers for them.

The January, 2012 edition opened a couple of days before Christmas and has been going strong with the theme of “Incarnation: Being Christ in the World.” I’ve been very excited about the quality and quantity of articles published.

Readers of this blog who are interested in writing for NW should check out the Writers Guidelines, and the quick descriptions of Future Editions. You might also want to get up to date with the ministry itself by reading my introductory article for the January edition.

NW needs reviewers of books, movies and music (from a believer’s point of view, of course), writers of articles related to the monthly themes and not related to them at all, creative types who write or take photos or create art. NW needs writers who will keep track of new items and upcoming events. NW needs fresh points of view and perspectives.

Let me know, please — at this blog, by e-mail on the site, or in comments there — what your reactions are.

We now return you to our irregularly unscheduled programming.