Tag Sin

Church is Not a Shopping Mall

Todd R 1 Comment

I recently had a very strange dream, which occurred (kind of) in the church I went to as a kid.  This church, in Washington, D.C., has been around for over 130 years and meets in a stone building and has an amazing pipe organ in the main sanctuary.  The appearance and structure of the church communicates permanence and tradition.

In this dream, I was roughly a teenager on one end of the church building but had to meet up with my family at the other end of the building.  I started out in a place that seemed like the church I knew, but as I travelled to the other end, things got really bizarre.  First, the size of the building seemed to keep expanding and the number of people in it kept multiplying.  Soon I noticed that there was a gift shop selling all sorts of kitsch that had nothing to do with religion.  I kept going in the same direction, trying to find my family, but the building just kept growing as I went, eventually having many levels, with huge moving walkways and escalators.  The dream ended with me still in the church, but this end of it had become a very upscale, very massive, shopping mall.  I remember wondering “how did the church turn into this?”

What to make of this?  Consider what a shopping mall is.  Yes, it’s a large collection of stores in one place, but not a random collection.  Those stores were chosen to be as diverse as possible.  The more of our desires and wants the mall can meet by having different types of stores, the more economically successful the mall will be, and that’s what matters to the mall operator.  People want fancy clothes, jewelry, entertainment, snacks and candy, toys, and many other things.  So, a mall can represent our “do whatever you want” culture.

I wonder if the seed of the dream was something I saw on Twitter a few days before: “There are infinite ways to be non-binary.”  What they were saying is that not only are there not just two genders, but that we can endlessly create new ones with no limit at all.  It’s like a sexual version of the shopping mall, and also a denial that there’s any real right or wrong or that there’s any such thing as an inappropriate desire.  But can we really make ourselves into anything we want to be without consequences?

Consider this: no competent computer engineer would tell us that we can just arrange a diverse group of components any way we want and end up with a working computer.  The engineer isn’t being intolerant or mean, they just know what it takes to make a computer do what it’s supposed to.

Likewise, when Jesus says “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few,”[1] He is not being intolerant or mean by saying we can’t do whatever we want to, He just knows that we were designed, what we were designed to do, and also what will ultimately satisfy us.

Christian churches are supposed to teach us how to follow Christ, not tell us to do whatever we want to, but now many churches, just like in my dream, have turned into proverbial shopping malls.  In many cases, we’ve forgotten that people are not accidents of random circumstances in nature, and we’ve forgotten that our Creator knows what’s best for us.  We’ve decided to pursue “the way that is easy” forgetting that it “leads to destruction.”  Too many churches, now including the one I went to in DC, say that Jesus will meet whatever needs we think we have, rather than saying that Jesus knows what we need better than we do; that it’s our idea of need that must be changed.

It’s our idea of need
that must be changed

When Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” the “world” He loves is the one where we’ve come up with infinite ways to reject Him.  Where we’ve come up with infinite ways to deny that He made us and knows better than us what’s right and wrong, what “leads to life” and what “leads to destruction.”

When God gave His Son, His sacrifice was sufficient for all sin and can cover all the infinite ways we decide to ignore what’s good for us.  Because God loved this world, it’s also true that His people should communicate His love and grace at all times to all people, by word and action.  Yet it’s also true that church is not a shopping mall regardless of what people can imagine in their dreams that it should be.  The church is called to a higher standard of living, a holy standard informed by our Creator’s knowledge of what works.

So, in these troubling times, pray that people will continue to find Jesus, both within and outside the church and what much of it has become.  That God’s people will love holiness, but also love sinners.  Pray that we find the way that is hard but leads to life and that God’s church is a beacon calling people to it.

Amen.

[1] Matthew 7:13-14

The Way of Escape

Todd R 2 Comments

Reliable knowledge of good and evil is hard to come by, and the wisdom to follow it even harder.  A well-known and oft-quoted Proverb is 1:7, which says:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
            fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

This Proverb tells us that we only gain useful knowledge, wisdom and instruction when we have an attitude of reverent respect for God, and that we are fools if we do otherwise.  Fear of the Lord should be the rudder that guides us through the waves and storms that buffet us in this world.  Every decision we make should have as its foundation: does this honor God?  No other foundation is good enough for our lives to rest upon.

What’s left unsaid here in Proverbs is that we can’t expect this to come easy.  We are constantly tempted to not fear the Lord in our minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, and day-by-day decisions.  It’s hard, and not just because we aren’t perfect.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

In the account of the serpent’s confrontation with Eve in the garden in Genesis 3, the serpent’s whole objective was to get Eve to make one decision that wasn’t based on fear of the Lord.  “He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?””[1]  “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’”[2]  Eventually he wore her down and she ate from the tree God told her not to eat from, all because her reverence for God had been worn down by constant criticism of God by the serpent.  He wanted her to decide for any reason other than the fear of the Lord, to become a fool, and thus bring down humanity.

When we make decisions, are we always being guided by the fear of the Lord, or do we sometimes think “He didn’t really mean that”?  If you’re like me, you find yourself constantly confronted by influences that oppose God.  Are we foolish when we follow these influences?  Yes.  Do we do it anyway?  Yes.  Could there be a hostile spiritual influence pulling us in that direction?  Sure, but it could also just be our own broken wills, prone to go our own way.

However, in 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul assures us that “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  And if we fear the Lord, we will believe it.

If we fear the Lord, when we’re tempted, we will know that “he will also provide the way of escape.”  We need to look for it and pray for it until we find it.  When we do, God will remain in the driving seat of our decisions and knowledge and wisdom will be ours.  He can overcome any of our temptations if we let Him and we fear Him.

Let the fear of the Lord be your guide.  There is always a “way of escape.”

[1] Genesis 3:1b
[2] Genesis 3:4

What are We Willing to Leave on the Cutting Room Floor?

Todd R 1 Comment

From earliest times, debate has raged over whether God’s word can be taken literally.  Since the serpent asked, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”[1] people have debated if the world was created in 6 days.  If Moses really parted the Red Sea.  If Jonah really spent 3 days inside a great fish.  And so on.  Talk about whether the Bible means what it says often focuses on the miraculous events within.

But what about verses like Ephesians 4:29?  “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  When Paul wrote that, did he literally mean “no corrupting talk,” or just to aim for less crude language than the average person?  Did Paul mean each word needs to “fit the occasion,” or to repeat whatever catchphrase seems to work in most situations?  Did Paul mean everything we say should “give grace” to others, or is it ok if sometimes we want to look good or only appear gracious?  Do we need to always build up those who hear us?  Did Paul “actually say” what he wrote in Ephesians 4:29?

Failure to meet our ideals
does not mean that
we should change them.

We might reply that this is an impossible standard, but Jesus in Luke 18:19 said “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”  In that one statement, Jesus testifies that no one is good (everyone misses the mark), and also that He is God in the flesh, come to save us from failing to meet the standard.

So yes, Ephesians 4:29 should be taken literally, but we should also take literally that only Jesus can meet the standard, and that He did meet the standard.  Failure to meet our ideals does not mean they are the wrong ideals and that we should change them.  Holiness is holiness.

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy that “it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.”[2]

Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

In film editing, “the cutting room floor” refers to pieces of physical film that (in pre-digital times) were cut out of the movie and left lying on the floor.  When writing this blog, one of the hardest things to do is to cut out parts or phrases I care deeply about, but sometimes it’s necessary, because my words aren’t always Ephesians 4:29 words.  Finding these failures can be fruitful if I learn from them and move closer to the ideal.  In real-time, daily conversation it’s even harder, but to take Ephesians 4:29 literally, we all have to figuratively ask:

What are we willing to leave on the cutting room floor today?

[1] Genesis 3:1
[2] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (1908).  P. 163.

What’s in Your Temple?

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When describing His holiness, God provided pictures like the one in Isaiah 6:1 – “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”  Because “the train of his robe filled the temple,” there is no room in the temple for anything that isn’t holy.  Or in Revelation 15:8, which says: “and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”  Until God’s judgment was complete – both on the unrepentant and on the cross for His people – there would continue to be no room in the sanctuary for anyone but the Lord.

How do these pictures apply to us?  Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”  Therefore, we ask ourselves: does the train of the Lord’s robe fill our temples?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

A transformative moment came in my Christian life when I understood sin in contrast to holiness, rather than as a list of “don’ts.”  It’s possible (perhaps even easy) to convince ourselves we are not sinners in need of grace by defining sin as things we don’t do.  However, much of the time, the word “sin” in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek word hamartia, which means “to miss the mark.”[1]  The word has athletic connotations, such as if an archer couldn’t hit the bullseye, they wouldn’t win the competition and the prize.  As we all know, archers are supposed to be accurate, and if they aren’t, they’ve “missed the mark.”

Therefore, when Paul writes in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he is not saying everybody failed to follow a list of dos and don’ts, but that we have not fully lived the life God intended us to live.  Romans 3:23 declares that while we wouldn’t set up idols in our church building, all of us tolerate some idols in our soul, which is where the Holy Spirit of God chooses to dwell.  The train of His robe does not fill our inner temple, and we too often trod on it with dirty feet.  We’ve “missed the mark” any time there’s other stuff in our temple, directing our thoughts and actions.  However, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we have both a hope of living with God and a future where His metaphorical robe does fill us.

In Paradise, God’s people will – individually and collectively – “hit the mark” perfectly for eternity.  His perfect temple will be completed in Paradise, with the living stones of all His people.

Paul returns to holiness again in 2 Corinthians 6:16 to 7:1, quoting several Old Testament passages, since holiness of His people has been the plan from the beginning –

“What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
             ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
                        and I will be their God,
                        and they shall be my people.
            Therefore go out from their midst,
                        and be separate from them, says the Lord,
            and touch no unclean thing;
                        then I will welcome you,
            and I will be a father to you,
                        and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
            says the Lord Almighty.’

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

Amen

[1] Greek Strong’s Dictionary

Stay on Target

Todd R 2 Comments

Every Christian needs some “Gold Five’s” in their life.  Who is Gold Five?  He’s the guy known for saying “stay on target” repeatedly in Star Wars.  If you’re a fan, you know this line, but for those who don’t, here is some background:

In Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, released in 1977, the climax of the story is a space battle between the good rebel forces and the evil Empire.  The Empire built a moon-sized battle station capable of destroying entire planets called the Death Star, which was getting into position to destroy the rebel base.  Fortunately, some rebel spies stole plans for the Death Star and located one fatal weakness: an exhaust port that led to the main reactor, but could only be approached by a long trench in the surface of the Death Star.  After other pilots failed, the hero, Luke Skywalker, was getting into position to fly his X-wing starfighter down the trench.  He’s under constant fire from cannons and enemy fighters and distracted by the intense battle going on everywhere above him.  But in this battle only one thing really mattered: attacking that exhaust port.

Enter Gold Five.  We don’t know Gold Five’s name, but as Luke was flying down the trench and having trouble focusing, Gold Five radios to Luke several times “stay on target!”  Luke refocuses[1] on his mission and succeeds in firing torpedoes down the port and destroying the Death Star.  Just in time, of course.

Every Christian needs to hear from people like Gold Five – people who keep us on target – often.

Luke was distracted by enemy cannons and Tie Fighters, and our enemy seeks to distract us in many, many ways.  There’s a massive spiritual and physical battle constantly raging all around us.  Much of our culture is designed to draw us to every “new” thing.  These are constant messages telling us to pay attention to things we shouldn’t.  To put our politics or other philosophies above our obedience to our Maker.  To fight battles that aren’t ours and that keep us from our own goals.

Temptation to stray from Christ’s specific mission for us is everywhere, and the desire to not give Him our best with everything He’s given us can be strong.  When these distractions bombard us, we need to hear “stay on target.”  Not once and probably not twice, but over and over again.  When the world is screaming loudly in our eyes and ears, we need to hear Gold Five speaking into our headset.  We need someone to encourage us to stay on the path God has laid out for us.

As Jesus is quoted in Matthew 7:13-14 –

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

There are many voices that lead to the wide path of destruction, but who are your Gold Fives?  How can we all be better Gold Fives?  We all need more of them.

Stay on target!

[1] With some help from Obi-Wan as well.