Da Good Book, or, What’s It to You?

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a small series here on stranded, and I figure that now’s as good a time as any to get started. It likely won’t be very long or exhaustive (so if you’re looking for that sort of professional work, look to triplefiber’s Romans series (or should I say commentary?) or Silas’ work which has proved himself the lord of the date) but I’ll do my best to have a few posts on the Bible itself.

Here begins the post proper, I suppose.

Some time last week (I really am bad at remembering dates) I watched The Book of Eli. It was meh. But despite the quality of the movie itself, one of its central issues got me thinking, what does the Bible mean to me? In the movie every character sees the Bible in a different way, and it drives their actions. So too in life, what you think about the Bible will dictate how you live.

So I have to ask, what’s the Bible to you?

1. Is it nothing to you? Sure you may know about it and even some of the things it says, but ultimately, does it not matter? Do you just go on and do your own thing, regardless of whether the bible says otherwise?

2. Is it just a good book? Do you see it as having some wisdom, some good things to say, but not as authoritative? Does it help you with how to live, like how a good friend tries to help you see what to do in a hard time? Can it be overruled by experience, preference, or other advice?

3. Is it a weapon? (Bear with me here.) Is it something that you can use to move up in life, to gain popularity, friends, respect? Do you use it so that people in your Christian circles look up to you, so that they value your opinion? Do you use whatever knowledge you may have of it to judge other people or to make you feel better than them?

4. Is it the Word of God? Do you see it as the authoritative, divine rule for your life? Do you see in it the very words of God, his message of salvation and life to us? Do you see it as the overrider of your will, as the Truth it is, final and conclusive in all things?

Now before you answer, look at your life. Many who read this blog will say the fourth answer because they know that it’s the “right” answer, the Christian answer. Answer the question with your life, not with your knowledge.

Because it’s so easy for us to “know” that the Bible’s the Word of God, yet live like it’s nothing, or, even worse, use it for our own sinful motives. What you do with the Bible to a very large extent determines (and reveals) your relationship with God. There’s no such thing as a healthy Christian who lives a life that does not follow the Bible. There’s no such thing as a person who’s right with God that doesn’t believe and live out what the Bible teaches. And that’s why I want to do this series.

So examine yourself. This thing is important, and we will be held accountable for what we do with it.

-djstevens

What Do You Say?

What do you say to a dying man? What do you say to someone whose dreams are crashing to the ground unfulfilled? You get one letter, if it makes it in time, what do you write? What confidence, what comfort do you have? What can you give?

What do you say to someone on top of the world? What do you say to the man whose every dream has come true? You only get one shot, and then you’ll never see them again, what do you say? What wisdom, what plea do you have? What can you give?

Is it the same message to both?

It should be. Fundamentally, anyway.

You give them the Gospel, the true, pure Gospel that applies to every life at every time. Because, really, we’re all the dying man. We’re all desperately sick. We all need the Great Physician of our souls.

-djstevens

Like a Child

The other day I ended up going visiting VBS, (vacation bible school) an evangelistic  outreach program focused on kids and young families put on by my old church. My brother and sister were serving there so I thought I’d go support them. I sat there in the audience as they were setting up with all the elaborate decor. And as they were setting up their western theme decorations decked out in cowboy boots, bales of hay and attempted western accents, I sat there reading the the Holiness of God by RC Sproul.

As I sat there, I pondered questions like: How many of their leaders actually know the gospel? Do they realize how much of a responsibility these leaders have to these kids? Are they receiving the full gospel? Can we really make Christian VBS-ified statements like, “We’ve all got the brand of God?” (Brand as in like the hot metal rod that you’d use to mark cows on ranchs). Of all the 100 volunteers serving at VBS, how many of these leaders are actually saved? Of all the kids who call themselves Christians, how many of them will actually see heaven?

Then the preschoolers came up to sing for us. In my mind I thought, “These western themed songs are cute, but cheesy. Not nearly as much substance as my favorite hymns.” But then, in that moment, I realized my overbearing cynicism, and my own sinful heart was exposed.

I realized that though my questions may have had some real validity, it also was mixed in with my pride. In Joshua Harris’ Dug Down Deep, he discussed how easy it was for theological knowledge to translate into pride, rather than greater grace, and I have been only realizing more and more how I am the epitome of that. In my last two years at college I’ve learned more about God and the Bible than my entire life put together, but so very often it turns to greater pride rather than greater praise. I failed to remember that we aren’t saved, chosen or used by God because we are any smarter than the schmuck next to us. And its a good thing God doesn’t pick his people based on IQ, or I’d have absolutely no chance at heaven.

I was boasting in my knowledge of the Bible rather than my relationship with Christ. I was focusing on intellectual power rather than the Spirit’s power. I was fostering a heart of stone, and rather than a heart of flesh. I was being a Pharisee.

As I heard those tiny preschoolers with tiny voices and tiny hands praise a God who they knew very little about, I realized what it was to have a childlike faith. God showed me that I need to  be okay with not knowing everything, not being able to rationalize, intellectualize and analyze every aspect of every nuance of every conceivable detail. In fact, I needed to revel in my inability to know everything and turn that towards greater worship. As humans, (and especially for guys) we just want to figure everything out.

In short, we try to eliminate faith from our lives by explaining away everything, until there’s nothing left to explain but explanation itself.

As those kids continued to sing, God humbled me and put me in my place. I was not having the child-like faith Jesus called me to. I had failed to remember what happened  in Matthew 18:2-4

²And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them ³and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you^(B) turn and^(C) become like children, you^(D) will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ^4(E) Whoever humbles himself like this child is the^(F) greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

I was clearly not exhibiting the kind of child-like faith that God calls us to have. And here these 5 year-olds who probably had no idea was propitiation or justification were, (let alone spell it) were better examples faith than a 20 year-old campus ministry leader. And it is this kind of faith, that we all need to have, one that accepts what their father gives without questioning, that doesn’t seek to rationalize and analyze everything. One that simply accepts, thanks and begs.

That’s what true faith is about. So how about you, do you have a child-like faith?

-RBChew

If

Here’s a mini post for tonight before I write a normal one to keep you all satisfied in between Jon and Rob’s.

If God is as glorious as we say he is, and he’s coming, then why do we live so shamefully?

If he’s so strong, why do we live so weakly?

If he’s so good and gracious, why are we so bitter, so petty?

If he’s so holy why do we take sin so lightly?

See, see what we’re doing to the testimony of God!

May the power of God dwell in the people of God to put forth the gospel of God.

-djstevens

Fluff and Stuff

While surfing the web, I came across a list of the oddest collections on the web. At the top of the list was a navel fluff (otherwise known as “bellybutton lint”) collection that has spanned over 26 years. The owner of this collection, Graham Barker, began his collection on January 17th, 1984, collecting approximately 3.03 mg/day,  and his collection is so extensive that he even has a Guinness World Record to show for it. (see his website, http://www.feargod.net/fluff.html, for more details)

We often talk about not “storing up treasures for yourselves on earth,” (Matthew 6:19) and when we see Mr. Barker’s collection of navel fluff, we might think “Wow, this guy takes useless treasure-storing to a whole new level.” The truth is, however, his storing up navel fluff is no worse than our storing up fame or wealth or anything else. Many of us spend years upon years of our lives trying to achieve fame or amassing a huge fortune, but at the end of all things, what good will they do us? Let’s just pretend, for a moment, that we could actually take all of our earthly possessions with us when we die (I know this isn’t true, but bear with me here. I have a point.). Imagine, then, that we are standing before God and we say “God, this is what I have to show for my life. A collection of navel fluff.” The idea seems ridiculous, but showing Him that huge fortune or those many followers is not any better. When we stand before God what will we have to show for our lives? Millions of dollars? Millions of Facebook fans? (Millions of fluff?) In the eyes of God, these are all equally worthless. All that He will see is a wasted, sinful life spent glorifying oneself more than Him, and then deny us entrance to an eternity with Him. After all, it is those that have taken the narrow path, through Jesus, to salvation that will be able to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Is it wrong to have these things? By all means, no. The question to really ask is, what do we do with them once we have them? We can get ourselves a huge fortune, but how much of it will we give to the church or to the poor? We can be the most famous person on the planet, but will we proclaim His name? In the end, what is most important in our lives is glorifying God in all that we do, whether it be through ministering to the needy, going on missions to far away places, serving in the church, or sharing our faith with our friends and family. We can spend our entire lives gathering riches (or navel fluff) or we can use that time and effort to bring even just one more person to salvation in Christ. Ultimately, we must consider things in eternity to make the right choice and we will see that when we do, all of these things here on this earth do not matter.

-JCLi

What Is It?

How can someone live their entire life in the church, and still not know the gospel?

Is that even a necessary question? I mean, the answer should immediately be “You can’t, it’s impossible.” Shouldn’t it? How can someone go years and years in a Christian church without hearing the absolute foundation of Christianity? It’s like being a physics major and never learning math; being a Greek major and never learning grammar, or vocab, or the alphabet. Except worse. Except with heaven and hell in the balance.

This past week I had the opportunity to serve at Mt. Hermon, and I am absolutely grateful for the chance. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a week-long camp where youths from a whole bunch of churches in a whole bunch of places come together for a giant retreat. While serving at the Sr. High branch of the camp, I was constantly surprised by one thing: how few of the kids actually knew what the gospel is.

These are 15, 16, 17 year olds, churched their whole lives, and yet they had no idea what the gospel is. They had no idea what it meant that Jesus died on the cross. They had no idea of the penalty of sin, nor the desperation of our estate, nor the grace of God. One question broke forth and echoes still in my mind, “How can this be?”

This is a colossal failure on a grand scale. It means that churches, but not only churches, families as well, that claim to be Christian don’t know the gospel at all. Or at least that while some may know the facts, they don’t see it as important enough to teach. We have, across the West Coast and, I can only assume, across the nation lost our first love. In fact, many churches have lost the foundation and the fullness of the Christian faith by losing the gospel. This is a tragedy of the greatest scale, for now many of the places which are to be havens of salvation and hospitals of the Great Physician now leave people lost and sick while telling them all is well, telling them that they are really Christian.

And if those within the church don’t even know the gospel, what chance do we have of affecting the world? How can we be as salt and prevent moral decay, if we don’t even know the One who is truly righteous? How can we be light and reveal the deeds of darkness, if we ourselves have never seen the light which the darkness can never overcome? This loss of emphasizing (or even preaching!) the gospel not only condemns ourselves, but also leaves the church powerless to save. It seems that churches have, by and large, been forsaking the Great Commission and all the commands that Christ has left his church.

So what about you? What will you do? In your church, not just now, but (for most of my college age readers) when you become an adult, in your family, will you put forth the gospel as the first and highest priority? Will you have the gospel central to your own life and insist that it be so in the lives of all who call themselves Christian?

Or is it even central in your life now? Do you see the importance of living for it, of loving Christ above all else in light of who he is and what he’s done? Or do you forsake it for the sake of being nice, being relevant, being (laughably termed) missional? Do you even truly know the gospel? Has the truth that we are sinners, responsible before God, guilty and liable to eternal punishment and yet that the Son of God came down, lived a perfect life, died to take the wrath due all those who would believe and rose again to give them life eternal pierced your own heart, has it been accepted with repentance of faith?

To lose the gospel is to lose all. Let us found our lives upon it. Let us fight for it. Eternity is in the balance.

-djstevens

Books vs. the Bible

I decided to take a break from looking at genealogies today to blog about something a little different. I’ll probably be returning to it another time, but for now I’ve decided to take a short hiatus.

Today was at Border’s Bookstore, and I remember entering through the sliding glass doors and realizing, “Wow, right before my eyes is a massive wealth of knowledge. I could easily spent hours in this bookstore soaking up everything from World War II facts, to philosophic theory to how to bake a double-decker chocolate cake. The possibilities for learning and knowledge was endless, and this was only book store out of the hundreds of thousands that there probably are. It’s not as if it was the first time that I realized how much is in a single book, or how many books are in a bookstore, but for whatever reason, it really captivated me today.

I could spend endless hours reading books about the oddities of life, the amazing feats of mankind, and the useless trivia that will probably never benefit me except in Jeopardy. I continued to browse through the different sections of the store, photography, history, science, philosophy, and then I came to the section on religion. Inside the religion section was a whole shelf just with Bibles. I stopped, I had just spent an eager hour picking up books like a child in a candy store, savoring the beauty of secular wisdom and knowledge, and yet, I had to ask myself, do I have that same fervor and passion for the Word of God? Do I constantly hunger and thirst for the wisdom of God? Or the wisdom of this world? Don’t get me wrong, knowing history, science and literature are all good things, after all, the Bible does praise the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. But nothing, absolutely NOTHING is as good as God. No book is as amazing as the Bible.

My experience at Borders reminded me of the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:11. It reads (ESV):

^11(W) The words of the wise are like goads, and like^(X) nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are^(Y) given by^(Z) one Shepherd. ¹²My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making^(AA) many books there is no end, and^(AB) much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Solomon’s words reminded me that while books are great, if I’m not careful, I can be consumed by learning about the world, instead of learning about the God who created the world. There are an endless amount of things we could write books about, and equally so, there are an endless amount of things we could read about. And if we’re not careful, its easy to read books that are perhaps seemingly more interesting, more pragmatic, and easier to read than the Bible, thus exerting all our energy on those books, and to never read the only book that truly matters.

Any knowledge about the world apart from knowledge about the creator is useless.

And so after thinking about this, I had to ask myself one question: “How much time do I spend reading the Bible? And how much time do I spend reading everything else? Or in a more broad sense, how much time do I spend in the world, learning to live in the world? And how much time so I spend with God, learning to live for God?

Maybe not a lot of us are heavy readers, but how much time do we spend reading our textbooks in comparison to our Bibles? As Daniel blogged about earlier, how much of a priority is the Bible in relation to our studies?

So how about you? When it comes to priorities, what’s it going to be? Books or the Bible? This life or our lover?

-RBChew