I get asked about tricky verses a lot. But the guy I was talking to on this day was very upset.  As he told me his story, this frustration was so clear you could almost touch it.  So we started to chat about it.  The two instances he was talking about are recounted in Matt and Luke.  In them, Jesus was talking with a group of people about how things work in the Kingdom of God. How God intended us to live. How in some ways life in the Kingdom of God is very similar to the kingdom of this world and in other ways, it is very different. Let me list both of the instances.
Matt 7.7-8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Luke 11.9-10 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Â For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Here we have two fairly straightforward accounts of Jesus talking about how things work with those who follow God. They sound great too. The only problem is that we all have countless examples of when they haven’t been true. Times where we have asked for things that range from the selfish to the selfless. Yes, I have asked for my share of Hokie victories and things to go my way, primarily for my benefit. But I have also asked for things that go far beyond me, very selfless things.  Likely we all have.  Some of those have happened and some have not.
So, either Jesus was wrong, someone got his statement written incorrectly, or I am not looking at the whole picture. As I have spent a lot of time in teachings and on the blog dealing with questions of the accuracy of the biblical scriptures, and I believe Jesus wasn’t wrong, I am going to hone in on the last option. I think we miss the point.
And I think Jesus thought the same thing. Come back Friday and see why I think that.
J.R. Briggs and I really could have ended up one another’s arch enemies. Â If you know J.R. and I, then you immediately get why.
He and I might be the two best looking men that are a part of the missional movement of the church. Â I know for a fact that he and I are the two best looking men on the board of Ecclesia.
But do we fight? Â No. Â Do we try to bring the other down to raise ourselves up? Â Not recently.
Instead, we took the road less traveled.  We  got to know the person behind the beauty, and (at least I) discovered, he is a great guy that I respect a great deal.
So, I am very excited to let you know about a conference that J.R. has guided into being. Â It is called, Epic Fail Pastors Conference. Â Let me share an excerpt from the conference site…
The idea for this conference came from two sources: A blog post from J.R. Briggs, a pastor at Renew Community in Lansdale, Pa and the wildly popular site www.epicfail.com.
A few dangerous questions were asked:
-What if we offered a space that is gutsy, hopeful, courageously vulnerable for pastors to let go of the burden to be a Super Pastor?
-What if we could hold an event that was free from the thrills and frills of other pastors conferences?
-What if we came together as epic failures and sought not successful models or how-do’s but instead celebrated faithfulness in ministry because of the reality of Jesus?
-What if we were reminded that we’re not responsible for being ‘successful’ in ministry, but we are responsible for being faithful to the calling that God has laid out for us – regardless of the outcome?
-What if we had a conference that was not led not by famous pastors who are household names, but by scandalously ordinary ministers and leaders who are faithfully attempting to join with God – even in the midst of glaring obscurity and anonymity?
I love those questions!
In my experience I have run into countless examples of two extremes.  I have been to many events where either those that are speaking or those that are attending find ways to let everyone know about the numeric success they have experienced.  Sometimes this is subtly done, and other times, less subtly so.  I have also seen examples of those that are so broken, usually by their reletive lack of numeric success, that they become bitter and ultimately frustrated with the very group they were trying to reach.
I can say that I have been in both of those camps. Â During my time at [nlcf] I have experienced multiple seasons of numeric growth and also multiple seasons of having lower numbers. Â Times where I have given in to the temptation to let others know how “well” we are doing and others where I have grown frustrated that the people I am trying to reach don’t want to be reached!
The thread that runs through all that, is that it is primarly about me. Â My kingdom building, my success.
Yes, we get that numbers matter. Â Each of those numbers is a person who matters a great deal to God. Â To that extent, there is an important place for hearing from people that have seen God bless their efforts. Â So, this conference doesn’t deny the value of that. Rather, it honors the fact that the life of faith is a challenge. Â That living our lives in an honest way before our Messiah will mean that at times we will face frustration, confusion, difficulty and failure. Â And in a culture that so highly values numeric success, not demonstrating that success; while not a failure, can certainly feel like it.
So, having a space where men and women can gather and be honest about what hasn’t gone right, what hasn’t shown results and what hasn’t been pleasant, could be a great thing. Â A space that doesn’t worship failure, but one that worships Christ in the midst of it; a space, not to be cynical, but honest, is necessary.
So, go if you can and encourage friends in the ministry to do so as well.
I like the idea so much, I am going to encourage all 2,000 people that attend our church to consider it as well. Â Wait, did that just drop out? 🙂
Peace, Jim
“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong†Ben Franklin
Jim Pace would like to officially indicate that likely he is never one of the best looking guys in any room (even when he is alone in it) and that his church isn’t close to 2,000 people…
Late last year we started a conversation about some of the more difficult issues that can come up when you are trying to read,reflect on, and live in light of the bible. Â It is beautiful, powerful, transforming. Â But it can also be confusing, frustrating and strange.
How do we handle that tension? We know that even those (myself included) that believe that the bible is God’s word to us don’t follow all of it word for word. Â So what do we make of that?
How do we walk through the many tricky issues that living life through the bible brings up?
What do we make of the writers who claim the bible we read is so inaccurate and wrong that it likely serves no purpose at all other than to make us feel good?
I have heard from many people that they would like to pose some questions and interact over a few of these issues, but that the end of last year was too busy to do so. Â So, let’s get this party started up again!
What issues do you have with the bible or living a life of obedience to it? Â What questions? Â What makes you angry or sad? Â What do you love and appreciate?
There is a question I get almost all the time when I am interviewed or when someone stops me to ask about the book. Â They inevitably ask why God does things the way he does them. Â God is so different from us in many ways and those differences can make things quite difficult.
It’s a bit like learning a new language.
When I initially took French 1 at Clifton Middle School I walked into a language that made no sense to me. Â My name wasn’t even said the same way. Â The first day I was taught how to ask people whose names I already knew what their names were. Â But we had to start at that basic level. Â We had to learn how to say the letters of the alphabet differently, we had to learn how to blend them into words differently, how to pronounce those words differently. Â Let’s not even get into the conjugation of the verb aller.
But over time more and more made sense. Â Over time I learned the language and what was non-sensical on the first day was an understandable language very quickly.
Learning to understand God is much the same. Â We have to relearn a good bit. Â Go back to basic things we haven’t questioned in years and reflect on them a bit differently, but with God this time. Â And somewhere along the line we stop trying to make God do things our way and we start seeing the wisdom of doing them His way. Â Even when His way seems strange.
I am very grateful to the great folks at Highlands Fellowship in Abingdon VA for the chance to speak again. Â I always love it when I can join them.
If you are interested, here is the video of that talk…
Tomorrow, from 11.15 until noon I will be interviewed by Tim Wildmon & Marvin Sanders on the Today’s Issues program. Â It is carried on American Family Radio which is a part of the Christian Radio Network that has over 200 stations and 19 affiliates that tune in and covers 34 states and Canada.
Other than my generalized fear of anyone that is French-Canadian (they all seem like very tough and hardy people that could beat me up without ever losing the cigarette that would be dangling from their lips) I am excited to be able to speak to a very broad listening audience.
My being interviewed on their show doesn’t speak to whether I agree with everything the program would suggest. Â I haven’t agreed with everything on any show I have been on so far. Â That having been said, I am very grateful to Tim and Marvin for having me on and allowing me to chat about issues that I think are critically important to a meaningful expression of our faith.
Every now and then there is something that is truly creative. Â Either it brings something to the table that hasn’t been brought before, or it casts something in a new light.
The Digital Story of the Nativity seems to do that. Â Not only is it funny, it is an interesting reflection on how we interact with important events today with, and through, technology. Â So, again, for the two or three that haven’t seen it yet… here you go!
This is a part of a discussion called Sticky Issues. Â In this particular topic thread we are talking about what to do with some of the more odd commands in the Old Testament. Â The last post that this builds off of is here.
One of the key descriptors God uses for himself is that of father. He seems to see himself as our Father, our Dad. He calls us his children. When he discusses the idea of our being reconnected to him, he uses the term adoption.  He could have used any terms he wanted, he chose those.  He sees us as family.  It is by far the most common descriptor set he utilizes when he is describing his relationship to us.
So, let’s turn that thought over a bit and see if it is helpful.
As our Father, he looks at us both as individuals and as a holistic group. It isn’t that he cannot handle just giving us the individual treatment, as if he didn’t have the processing power to be up to the task, the RAM. It would seem that he actually looks at us differently than we look at ourselves, as much more interconnected with one another than we, as post-Enlightenment Westerners would.
So, as our Father, let’s consider the situation that God was in. Just to start, let’s consider how things were going for the Jewish people starting in the period starting in Exodus.  It is the second book of the bible.  The Hebrew people had been in captivity for at least a couple hundred years. After some very wild and miraculous interactions with the Egyptian leadership, they find themselves free. (If you would like to discuss the plagues, let me know.  That is a whole other conversation in itself.)  They would have likely known nothing about being a free people and likely just as little about the God that freed them. The false gods the Egyptians followed would have likely been much more understood. So, if God sees himself as a parent and sees his children as not knowing how to interact with their environment or himself as their parent, he would likely do what most parents would do in that situation.
He would parent his children.
The best parenting stage that would seem to describe where the Hebrews were in terms of being able to operate in their environment as it was, would likely be that of the toddler stage. This isn’t an implication of the Hebrews’ intelligence, as the toddler stage isn’t indicative of intelligence in kids. Just awareness of the world they are in and how it works. Among other things, it is a the stage where danger isn’t understood. Simply put, many toddlers do not know the difference between the shiny mirror they have seen on playmats and the shiny edge of a knife. They see shiny and think fun.
The response of a parent to a child in that stage isn’t terribly nuanced. There is a lot of “no touch†when they get near things that are dangerous and big smiles when they do the right thing.  Messages  are very obvious. You don’t expect an infant to grasp subtle details, even their toys have bright, high contrasting colors. During this stage, the parent isn’t just protecting the child from themselves, they are helping to set up neuronal connections within their child’s brain that help them to understand what is going on. This isn’t a stage that you would expect a child to stay in. In fact, if they do, it is a signal that something abnormal is going on. It is just that, a stage.
Again, during this stage there isn’t much nuance. The world is ordered in very specific ways. We never cross the street without holding mommy’s hand. You don’t ever take candy from a stranger without asking daddy first. You are showing them how the world works in a manner they can understand. You are showing them what is good and what is bad. What is safe and what is not.  Of course, none of this means you don’t want them to explore their world.  It is essential that they do.  It is more an issue of how they explore it.
It is interesting that it is during this “toddler†stage of the Hebrews’ experience with God where the really wild stuff happened. Water was pushed out of the way. They followed a pillar of smoke during the day, and a pillar of fire when God wanted them to move at night. Not super nuanced, eh? The question of “where is God leading me?†was a simple one. Just look for the pillar. Food is miraculously provided and if you don’t handle it the way that God said to, it became unusable for the rest of the day.
But just like the toddler stage in parenting, they were absorbing an incredible amount about God. He would protect them, he would guide them, he was aware of them; both individually and as a nation. He both wanted and could communicate with them and it was important that they listen. He had expectations for them and he was doing things on his end as well. This was a real, two-way relationship between themselves and God.  He had made promises to them several hundred years earlier, and he was keeping up his end.
I have to admit, that when I saw this on CNN.com’s Belief Blog I was a bit surprised. Â To quote the artist, “I wanted to elicit the feeling of this family that’s desperate and lost and, you know, ‘What are we going to do? We’re having this baby. We’re not at home. This wasn’t our plan. This wasn’t what we um had thought we would be doing,'” sculptor Sarah Pratt.
Okay, it would seem that she has missed a bit of story, but I can work with that. Â To me, the wildest part of this whole thing is that, at some point there was a conversation that included… Â You know the nativity scene right? Â Okay, now picture it, in butter...
Probably for all of you, as for me, one of the biggest events of Saturday was the Va. Tech / UVa game. Â Okay, I realize that is not likely true, especially from my regular readers from Eastern Europe and Asia. Â But for those of you who regularly read this blog, AND live somewhere around Virginia, AND like college football, AND don’t have some sort of weird “I have always lived in VA but I just LOVE Ohio State football” thing going… Â It’s a big one.
Sports columnist for the Roanoke Times, Aaron McFarling, and I don’t always see eye to eye. Â But I recently discovered a gift that has, up to this point, remained hidden from my view.
Aaron may be my new favorite poet. Â And looks a bit like my friend, Mike Snow.
I would like to share his gift with you so that he can be your new favorite poet as well.
You can check out his article here and from there take a look at his blog and other columns. Â I recommend doing both.
But today isn’t about other columns. Â Today isn’t about his thoughts about other important issues in the world of sport. Â Today is about poetry and the Tech/UVa game. Â So grab a pipe, light a fire and let this wash all over you…
They showed up on schedule
Saturday, noon,
One team was streaking
The other? Full swoon
Every statistical break-
Down would say
This game favored Tech,
And not UVa
Yet still they must play it
Proceed with the show
For after James Maddy
You simply don’t know (more…)
This post is a continuation of a series of posts started here. Â Welcome aboard and I would love to hear your thoughts!
The first topic we are reflecting on is the question of whether or not we can realistically take the bible literally. Â This post will make a lot more sense and flow better if take a look at Part One. Â Either way, this should give us a running start…
As, as it pertains to vocabulary, we are overall pretty well equipped to make those distinctions. We generally know what words mean and are fine with that.  Certainly, as language progresses and as words’ meanings shift, we might miss something if we are reading something that draws on an earlier meaning of that word.  But overall, that is not a huge issue.
Where we can sometimes run into issues would be when we fail to appreciate the type of literature that are interacting with. The danger here is that we might be asking questions of a piece of literature that it isn’t intending to deal with and that we might also miss issues it is trying to speak to.
For instance, as I am writing this blog I am rocking out to the 80’s pop station on Pandora. Rick Astley was just up and was sharing his perspective on how he and I are no strangers to love. He is aware of my high school dating exploits and, as such, is stating that he is also aware that I know the rules (as does he.) Then he seems to want to offer me a commitment, which is fortunate because apparently he is the only guy I would get something like that from.
While I appreciate his awareness that I am no stranger to love, his focus on me feels a bit creepy and his flat out statement that he is the only guy that I can expect any kind of commitment from feels a bit overreaching.
I can hear the cries of all of you intrepid blog readers. Yes Jim, we get it, first of all he isn’t talking to you and so your taking his words at that level isn’t getting at what they are truly trying to say. Â You have to understand he is writing awesome 80’s music and read his words within that framework.
And of course you are right. That is an obvious example of what I was talking about. It takes a certain level of ambient awareness to get an accurate read on the intent of the author. In the arena of pop music that is fairly clear. But what about the genre of literature that are more obscure?
If you are tempted to think I am making more of this than I should, keep in mind that the numbers of genres are widely debated, and not just scriptural ones, overall literary genres. Â Here that, the issue isn’t should we acknowledge the impact of different genre, but how do we read in light of it. Â And by some pretty big smarty pants thinkers. Â Aristotle felt that there were only a few different universal genres. He recognized epic, lyric, and drama. Cornelius de Man, a 17th century painter and thinker, saw things very differently.
Our notion and experience of the literary text seem inherently at odds with the procedure and goals of its explanation. We typically strive both to unfold the unique and unmediated particularity of the text of our reading experience and to generalize this particularity, phrasing its explanation in terms not its own. The resulting reduction and distortion has proven always undesirable and frequently untenable.
The Power of Genre Adena Rosmarin
de Mans seems to be saying that we read, and even analyse, literature within our own frameworks, and in so doing, we lessen the intent or power of what we read in the first place.
The point is this, many very powerful thinkers have struggled with how many genres there are, and the implications of ignoring them, but they aren’t saying this doesn’t matter. Not only did the original author select specific words to get their point across, they chose a medium for those words to float in.
Both matter.
So, if God is guiding the authors of the scripture that we have in the Old and New Testament canon, and if he is wanting to communicate something to the first readers and (most often) hearers of it, how would that impact our reading of them today? Â On Wednesday we will look at what those cultural differences might be and also the impact they have on our reading today….
What is your take on all this? Â Where should what I have said be challenged?
crossroads church
Crossroads, encouraging our people to understand, embrace, and grow in their practice of being “on mission” everyday. Meets in Severn MD
crossroads church
Crossroads, encouraging our people to understand, embrace, and grow in their practice of being “on mission” everyday. Meets in Severn MD
noel heikkinen
innovative thinker and pastor of riverview church in michigan
pete davis
if you need a photographer and are anywhere near charlottesville va, you want this guy
todd hiestand
Todd is a pastor in the Ecclesia Network at The Well in Feasterville, PA
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parables of a prodigal world
raffi has a lot of interesting takes on different issues, you may agree or disagree, but the questions he is asking are excellent
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nuru international
a truly innovative organization that pursues holistic, sustainable solutions to end extreme poverty, together, one community at a time