MYTHBUSTERS: God has a blueprint for my life

One thing that every Christ-follower, and even some who are not committed to faith, seek to do is to find and understand God’s will.  Some people even think that God has a “blueprint” for our lives!  Yet, if you think about it, when we make one mistake, that blueprint is completely distorted.

Some take it to a ridiculous extreme, and even worry over which shoe to put on first in the morning (the message you’ll hear begins with me, pondering which shoe to put on first). 

In this message, based on Ephesians 5.15-20, I explore the possibility that God doesn’t have a blueprint for our lives – but he does have a game plan!

Click this link to listen to the message and find out the difference between a blueprint and a game plan.

Remembering the birthday of a friend

Today marks the birthday of a dear old friend of mine.  He died a long time ago, but he left an indelible mark on me and on countless others.  It could be said that there was no greater thinker of his time; some might even suggest there has been no greater thinker since.

 He is missed, but through his writings and those who have studied him, like me, he lives on.  Yes, today marks the 500^th birthday of the Frenchman born Jean Cauvin.  We know him better by his anglicized name:  John Calvin.

 Calvin’s name has been equally praised and maligned by people throughout the centuries since he became the Reformed pastor in Geneva in the sixteenth century.  There are those who think his understanding of God and of Scripture is harsh, while others think it is supremely insightful.  In the words of some other Great Theologian, “You can’t win ‘em all.”  (It might have been Yogi Berra.)

 There are five tenets that popularly denote Calvin’s theology:

• That humanity is, by virtue of the sin of Adam and Eve, inherently sinful and unable to choose right when left to our own devices;
• That followers of Jesus are, by God’s grace, chosen by God to be his without condition;
• That there is no universal salvation – only those who profess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are able to be saved;
• That when God fills us with his grace, we are powerless to resist it; and
• That those whom God calls and chooses as his own are his forever.

 These five tenets are all biblically defensible, though not always palatable.  Truth is not always easy to swallow.

 I celebrate the life and work of Calvin not simply because I affiliate myself with Presbyterianism, which he, through John Knox, founded as a denominational expression of Christianity.  I celebrate Calvin because he reminded us all that no matter what may happen in this world, God is in charge.  That is, he is “sovereign”.  And he has a plan for his people – a plan to prosper and not to harm, to bring a hope and a future (see Jeremiah 29.11).

 I celebrate Calvin because he reminded us all that God’s grace – his unmerited love and favour – is greater than our sin.  “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103.12, NLT). 

 I celebrate Calvin because in his preaching and teaching ministry, he sought to excite the hearts and minds of people with the Word of God.  He knew that the best way to captivate people with the majesty of God was to fill their hearts with the Word of God.   This was the legacy of both his preaching and his writing, for Calvin left not only his mammoth Institutes of the Christian Religion (which are worth the read, by the way), he also left commentaries on virtually every book of the Bible.  Calvin wasn’t an ivory tower theologian; he was a pastor who met people where they were with an understanding of Scripture that built people up and convinced them of the glory of God.

 I don’t pretend to be a thinker like Calvin.  But I do aspire, like my 500-year-old friend, to captivate people with the majesty of God – and the knowledge that his love never fails.

 Happy birthday, John Calvin.  Thanks be to God for your legacy.

Putting things in perspective

As I type this, the massive memorial for Michael Jackson, late pop singer, is beginning, and is being broadcast all over the world in every media format.  But I’m not watching it – for two reasons.

The first reason is that I simply wasn’t a fan of Jackson’ s music or his life.  When my friends were buying “Thriller”, I was buying other styles of music.  It just wasn’t my thing, and it never became my thing.  Further, regardless of what one may have thought of his music, his character never impressed me as one that was worth following.  So I didn’t.

The second reason is that I’m tired.  Why?  Because I’ve spent all morning leading children at Camp WannaKnowGod, the Bible Fun Camp at St. Paul’s Church, Nobleton.  I did it yesterday, too.  And I’ll do it again for the rest of the week.  By week’s end, I’ll be totally pooped.  And I’ll count it all joy.  Why?  Because leading people, and especially children, to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour is the highest privilege I can be afforded.  I don’t care how much energy it takes – I’ll do it.

I’m putting things in perspective here.  People are mourning the passing of an icon; while a death should be grieved, there are people – the news reporters interview these folks – who feel that their lives will barely go on without Michael Jackson.  I can understand if his family or even his close friends may feel this way for a time.  But fans?

On the other hand, I’m convinced, with the Bible as my guide, that without Jesus, life does not go on.  Oh, sure – we live until we stop breathing with or without Jesus in our lives, but after we die – what?  I’m banking on the promise of Scripture that I am spending all week teaching children:  “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10.9, NIV).  I don’t want to find out what eternal life without Jesus could be like.  And I don’t want anyone else to find out, either – which is why I have dedicated my life to spreading God’s good news.  And it’s why I’m taking the time to teach these kids.

In 100 years, Michael Jackson will be but a memory.  But in 100 years, what we did with Jesus will make all the difference.  I want these kids to experience new and full life in him.  So I’m happy to be tired.  But not so tired that I can’t put things into perspective.

MYTHBUSTERS: Church is boring!

Lots of people – even some who attend worship! – say that “church is boring”.  Why is that?  Is it really a myth?

I’ve visited a few churches where there was no denying that it was true – at least on the Sunday I visited!  But I think most congregations that even bother to entertain the question of whether or not church is ‘boring’ probably are working hard to dispel the myth.

(By ‘church’ here I’m talking about the worship gathering, rather than the body of Christ itself – though some would argue that boring people make for boring worship, but I’m not going there!)

When this was being discussed with our children, one of them aptly said, “Church is boring if you want it to be.”  That is, if we go expecting it to be boring, it might just turn out that way.  But if we go expecting God to speak, God will speak.  And that’s exciting.

There were many passages of Scripture I could have chosen to debunk this myth, but of them I chose 1 Corinthians 14.22-40.  As I note in the reading of the text, there is a portion therein that could serve as a red herring to the topic at hand, and I didn’t have time to deal with the issue of women speaking in church in this message. 

You can listen to the message here.  Feel free to comment on your experience of church – has it been boring or exciting for you?  And in what ways?

A visit to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum

Diana and I visited the ROM on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in the afternoon.  Having read on the internet that hours had been expanded for the summer specifically because of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) exhibit, we expected it to be busy.  Still, we were a little surprised by the queue outside the ROM, from the front door right to the Bloor Street sidewalk!  However, since we went all that way, we determined we would get into the line, and we were relieved that it moved quite quickly.  From the time we first queued up, we were inside the door in about 10 minutes.

Moving inside the building, however, there was another 10 minute queue to purchase tickets.  The ROM knows many people will come just for the DSS exhibit, and are taking full advantage of that; adult admission to the ROM is $22, and to see the DSS as well the admission is $28.  But, curiously, one cannot pay a lesser amount just to see the scrolls!

Our tickets were purchased for admission to the DSS at 2:30 (it was about 2:00 when the tickets were bought).  We took our time, poked around a little, and then moved downstairs to queue up for the exhibit.  That line took about 15 minutes to get through.  Once we were beyond the entrance, one could wander wherever one wished, and we did.

There is a great deal of historical context given to the DSS before one ever sees a scroll in this exhibit, and that’s good, given the dearth of biblical and historical knowledge of today’s average museum-goer.  Everything is, of course, under glass – a good thing considering the age of these artefacts.  The first item one sees on exiting the queue is an earthenware jar, a replica of one of the pots in which the DSS were found in the caves over the Dead Sea at Qumran (pictured at right).

Next, one sees several ossuaries (containers that hold human skeletal remains).  These ossuaries are small, only a little bigger than the average laser printer.  The exhibit contains several of these, perhaps just to give some anthropological context to the era of the scrolls.

Other jars and artefacts, as well as coin replicas, are on display.  One example that surprised me by their size was a series of phylacteries.  Phylacteries were little boxes in which some portion of the Law was written, and these were tied onto the arms or foreheads of faithful Jewish people (pictured at left); they were created as a response to Deuteronomy 6.8-9.  Their uses and abuses are noted by Jesus in Matthew 23.1-6.

Coin replicas can be found from the time the DSS were first written.

It’s worth noting that not all of the DSS contained what we know as Holy Scripture; there were several ‘extrabiblical’ documents found, including some texts that just added more laws to the community regulations.  Others were non-canonical Psalms (that is, Psalm texts that were not chosen for inclusion in the Bible).

The history is worth stopping to read.  There, one learns about the different sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes) and the history of the various Jewish revolts, some of which took place during the writing of the DSS.

Several videos are available to watch, which show archaeological sites, stories of the commercialization of the DSS after they were discovered, and how they have been preserved.

Canadian content exists, too:  there is acknowledgement that Professor R.B.Y. Scott, of the Faculty of Divinity at McGill University in Montreal, was instrumental in bringing DSS scholarship to Canada; in fact, he purchased a matchbox containing 17 scroll fragments and some coins in 1955, thus making Canada unique in its ownership, for a time, of some of the scrolls.  Scott was born in a Presbyterian manse, and was Knox College educated around the time of Church Union; he chose the United Church, and was ordained into its ministry in 1926.  Shortly after making national headlines as a DSS owner, Scott moved to the United States to teach at Princeton University.  (As another aside, a hymn he wrote, “O day of God, draw nigh”, appears at #786 in our Book of Praise.)

Beyond this, one gets to view some of the scrolls.  As the ROM says on its website, there will be a second ‘round’ of scrolls that will be shown later in the year; some may want to visit twice to see them all.

The labels put on the scrolls can be a bit daunting to understand.  For example, one of the first scrolls one sees on display is called “4Q112”.  It contains parts of the book of Daniel in Hebrew and Aramaic, and is dated to approximately 50 BC.  The “4Q112” means that this scroll was found in the 4^th cave, at Qumran, and it was the 112^th scroll catalogued.

If you’re used to telling time with “BC” and “AD” as I am, you’ll want to know that because of the pluralistic context, scholars use “BCE” and “CE” to be politically correct.  This is explained at one point during the exhibit.   What we know as “BC” is “Before Christ” and “AD” is Anno Domini, “In the year of our Lord”; those who aren’t so crazy about Jesus (and others who are being sensitive to same) use the rather more mundane terms “Before the Common Era” and “Common Era”.

Among the scrolls that are currently on display are the one from Daniel; an apocryphal (‘hidden writing’) Psalm; a Messianic Apocalypse (a document that purported to show the coming of the Messiah in an end-times context); a fragment containing Psalm 102.26-29 and 103.1-3; a section from the Book of War (dated to around the time of Jesus, or a little after); and even an old agreement (Bar Kokhba)!

Near the end of the exhibit – before entering the inevitable gift shop – there are some very old samples of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Scriptures.  (The New Testament that is on display is a Mohawk translation, which was the first translation work done by a Bible Society anywhere in the world; it was done in the very early 1800s for the Mohawks at the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ontario.)  The writing on the wall of this section claims that all three major western faiths worship the same God as Abraham did; while it is indisputable that all three trace their roots back to Abraham, I think it is entirely debatable as to whether or not Muslims can still claim to worship the same God as Christians or Jews.

Diana and I have two prints framed in our living room that are pieces of art based on fragments of the DSS, by Mrs. Lika Tov; her husband, Dr. Emmanuel Tov, is one of the leading scholars on the DSS in the world. We purchased ours directly from the artist at a DSS symposium sponsored by the Canadian Bible Society a couple of years ago.  Several of Mrs. Tov’s prints are available for sale in the gift shop at the end of the exhibit (though for a much higher price than we paid for ours).  Also in the gift shop are, among the dust collectors, some books that would be worth reading if you want to learn more about the scrolls.  I also have a couple of volumes in my library if you would rather borrow than purchase.

We completed our tour of the exhibit in approximately 30 minutes, but we are not lingerers at such things.  If you stop to read everything, you will take quite a lot longer, and there is certainly the freedom to do so.  If you go on a day when the line-ups are not as long, a more leisurely tour may be in order.

When we returned to the entrance, a little after 3:00, there were no line-ups at all!  So timing is an important factor.  (Purchasing your tickets online will save you one queue, too.)

Two additional observations are warranted:  first, the degree of security at this exhibit is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  This is partly due to the size of the crowds, to be sure, but it is also partly due to the potential for destruction.  Extremists in different camps may have a notion to do something stupid, and the extra security is an attempt to thwart that.  If you’re carrying a bag of any sort, be prepared to have it searched.  (They’re not looking for granola bars; trust me.)

Second, we should be encouraged by the great interest in this exhibit.  The cashier who sold us our tickets told us that 20,000 tickets were pre-sold for this exhibit.  To be sure, many of those interested in this exhibit will be of Jewish origin because, after all, the scrolls are ancient Jewish writings.  But there is a great possibility for witness to God’s faithfulness in preserving his Word as he has.  (Remember, the Dead Sea Scrolls are about 1000 years older than the oldest Old Testament manuscripts previously used in Hebrew Scripture scholarship and translation.)   People who think that the Bible is some sort of useless fabrication can do some reading, and see these scrolls, to understand that God’s hand has been mighty in the purpose of preserving the Scriptures for his people.  Folks are open to “spiritual things” even if they are not necessarily open to “church”; their openness to “spiritual things” can, however, lead to a deeper interest that may ultimately prompt them to at least visit a church on a Sunday morning.  Perhaps one of them will be a friend whom you can bring with you!

This exhibit has potential to draw many questions out of its visitors.  I’m confident that God is using it to open a door for many to receive Jesus.  May the church – you and I – be ready for what God is doing!

MYTHBUSTERS: Don’t get mad, get even!

We often hear the phrase, “I don’t get mad, I get even.”  Jesus has other ideas for how we deal with our anger, our hurt, our pain.  “Love your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you!” is what he says (Matthew 5.44).

This message, which was preached at an outdoor courtyard service (thus the sounds of airplanes and my comment toward one at one point!) at St. Giles Kingsway Presbyterian Church, Toronto, is based on Matthew 5.43-48 and can be listened to by clicking this link.

You don’t have to be famous for your death to be noticed

So two famous people died yesterday:  first Farrah Fawcett (to whom I paid much attention in my youth), and then Michael Jackson (to whom I paid no attention ever except when he made the news for some freakish activity like holding an infant over a balcony railing).

Each of these people had an effect on our media-saturated world.  Even those who are not fans of Jackson’s music cannot deny the indelible imprint he made on contemporary popular music.  And Farrah?  Well, thanks to her, I misspelled the synonym for my kitchen taps for years.  I don’t think I ever owned “the poster”, but I do remember coveting it once or twice.

It’s not everybody’s role or place to be famous – or infamous.  Most of us live in relative obscurity for much or all of our lives.  But that doesn’t mean that what we say and do goes completely unnoticed.  You and I might never make the six o’clock news for reasons good or bad, but our every move is seen by the One who made us, who redeems us by his Son Jesus Christ, and who longs to be in relationship with us through his Holy Spirit.

Does that sound a little “big brotherish” to you?  The difference is the heart of love.  “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it” (Matthew 10.29, NLT).  God watches over us and sees our every move out of sheer love for us whom he created in his own image.  That calls for a response from us.

The Lord Jesus goes on to say that people are worth more to God than sparrows.  We don’t have to have the Paparazzi chasing after us for us to be famous.  We are famous in the eyes of our Creator!  We are famous in the eyes of the only One whose fame and whose attention truly matter!

The three Hollywood deaths that occurred this week (don’t forget Ed McMahon earlier) will be talked about for days to come.  When you or I die, our death might be talked about for hours to come here on earth.  But when we live in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, our death will be a homecoming in heaven.

I don’t know about you, but rather than being written up in every newspaper in the world on my death, I look forward to being “high fived” by my Lord.

I’m praying that your relationship with God puts you in a similar mind set!

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls Are Coming!

…and numbers of you are saying, “So what?!”  But before you click elsewhere, take a minute to read why I think this is a pretty big deal.

 The Dead Sea Scrolls are rolls of parchment, or fragments of parchment, on which are written portions of the Old Testament.  They were found beginning in 1947, initially by shepherd boys who were tossing stones into caves high above the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea is a large, salty (thus ‘dead’) lake that separates Israel from Jordan, east of Jerusalem.  See the map for orientation (thanks to MSN/Encarta).

 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revolutionized Old Testament biblical scholarship as we know it.  There is an entire discipline within biblical studies that is dedicated to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it has a language all its own.  If you thought my ModelTrainSpeak was difficult to understand, try carrying on a conversation with a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar!  Each scroll fragment has an alphanumeric designation that makes my references to an AC4400CW locomotive seem simplistic.  Really!  In 2007, as part of my work with the Canadian Bible Society, I attended a symposium on the scrolls that we sponsored.  Most of the lectures went a long way over my head.

 The great thing, though, is that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has confirmed the reliability of the Old Testament.  Understandably, no one has possession of original manuscripts of the Old Testament.  So when the scrolls were found, scholars were very curious to find out if the manuscripts they had been working with – which were virtually all more recent than those found at Qumran (the ancient community whose ruins are near the caves) – would show any significant differences in how we understand the Old Testament.

 Remarkably, the differences were very, very few – usually in the form of small spelling errors that had been made in the process of copying manuscripts.  (Remember, this was in the days before Xerox or Gutenberg!  Everything was copied by hand.)  Where there were significant differences, these have been noted in all newer Bible translations beginning with the Revised Standard Version in the 1950s.  Footnotes are used to show where there are differences.  For example, in the New International Version (our pew Bible translation), Isaiah 51.19 reads, “These double calamities have come upon you – who can comfort you? – ruin and destruction, famine and sword – who can^a console you?”  Then, at the bottom of the page, the footnote reads, “^a19 Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac; Masoretic Text / how can I”.

 What that footnote means is this.  When scholars looked at the Dead Sea Scrolls, they found that the scrolls agreed with the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament, originally dating back to around 250 BC), the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible, originally dating back to the 4^th century AD), and the Syriac version of the Old Testament (the Bible in that language dates back to around the 5^th century AD).  They found that this was slightly different than the Masoretic Text, which was, up to the time the Scrolls were found, the oldest version of the Old Testament available for translation.  It was named for the Masoretes, who were a faithful guild of Jewish transcribers of the Old Testament.

 The Dead Sea Scrolls contain some part of every book of the Old Testament except the book of Esther.  In the case of Isaiah, Deuteronomy and the Psalms, there are multiple copies.  Most of the scrolls are written in Hebrew, but some are in Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke).  There are writings in the scrolls that are not part of the accepted canon of the Old Testament, too.

 Maybe I haven’t gotten to the “So what?!” part for you yet.  Here’s a thought:  the Scrolls are coming for an exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto beginning June 27.  Many of your friends have an interest in the Bible, even if they don’t go to church.  Why not have a fun day with your friends, and invite them to join you on the trip to the ROM?  You’ll find, together, that the exhibit will strengthen your trust in the Old Testament as an integral part of God’s Word.  It might even open your friends to consider coming to church with you.

 In 1 Peter 3.15, the apostle Peter wrote to the church (and to us):  “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect”.  Being “always prepared” doesn’t mean having to have all the answers; it means being receptive to the questions, and willing to seek answers.  The ROM is giving us an opportunity to share our faith with hundreds of thousands of people who will visit the museum during this exhibit; some of them will be our friends.  I encourage you to see this as an opportunity to share your love for the Lord and his Word with others.

 

MYTHBUSTERS: Church is not for guys

While God didn’t intend it that way, many churches often structure and present themselves in ways that don’t really appeal to men.  Strawberry teas and quilting generally don’t reach many guys for Jesus.  What does?  Adventure, challenge, risk – these things appeal to men, and it doesn’t mean the church has to be all about rock-climbing.  Even the regular worship and service life of the congregation can involve these elements.

Using Hebrews 10.19-25, I have attempted to bust the myth that church is not for guys.  You can listen to the message by clicking here.

A Guy’s Kind Of God

Good morning!

With Father’s Day approaching this weekend, I’m thinking about dads and men and their roles within the local church.  Let’s face it:  there are a lot of guys out there who think that the whole ‘church’ thing is just not for them.  Most of them believe in God, and many of them understand what Jesus did to bring us back into relationship with God.  But expressing that through engagement in the local church just isn’t part of the equation for large numbers of men.  Why is that?

Well, just as every guy is different and every church is different, there will be a myriad of reasons why men aren’t engaging with God through the church.

For some, the alternative of a morning to laze around, tinker with stuff, or have breakfast with a buddy seems more interesting.

For others, the idea of going to church doesn’t bug them too much.  They’re not crazy about getting dressed up (as some church cultures still require), and some of them are really not crazy about singing out loud, especially about, or to, a Saviour who seems, well, a little bit girly.

Does this mean that churches needs to start offering different worship opportunities for men and women?  Definitely not.  What it may mean, however, is that churches need to step back and examine their overall ministry to see if they strike a balance, in the light of Scripture, in (a) how they portray God, and (b) how they equip their people and serve the community.  That is, the social nature of much of the church’s ministry doesn’t always appeal to men:  guys aren’t into tea parties, but they do like to get stuff done!  So if the church isn’t making a measure of its ministry practical, and hands-on in nature, then it isn’t striking a balance to help appeal to men (not to mention that it’s missing the Bible’s call to put faith into action).  And, as long as the church continues to feed its people a steady diet of worship songs that sound like they belong on a CD of Air Supply’s greatest hits, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the guys would rather stay home and mow the lawn.

Please don’t get me wrong:  I’m not advocating that the church be turned upside down.  I think, though, that a more balanced approach to ministry will reach the community in a more holistic manner.  It may not seem politically correct, but the reality is that when husbands and fathers sign up to follow Jesus, there is a much greater likelihood that the rest of the family will follow suit.

The writer to the Hebrews, in encouraging people not to forsake the discipline of corporate worship, uses some strong practical verbs (action words!) to describe what the church should be doing.  For example:  “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10.24-25, NIV; emphasis mine).

If you know anything about cowboys and horses, you know the word “spur” as a noun.  As a verb, it makes me jump as much as the noun’s implementation does for a horse.  Spurring each other on is a great ministry!  And so is encouraging.  We tend to think of it as a term of comfort, which it is, but literally, to encourage is to offer words that give another person greater courage!

This Sunday at St. Paul’s, Nobleton, I’ll be exploring the myth that church really isn’t for guys.  May that truly be a myth in your church and in mine, that God may use us to reach men, women and children, for his glory.