** Study & Meditation... **

So last week I spoke to our church family about the disciplines of study & meditation. As part of this series, we're posting a follow-up blog entry each week, so here's what I wrote over there this week, on "pursuing the truth of God":

Sorry this blog post is a little later in the week than it's supposed to be; I truly apologize! But the reason it's so late actually ties in well to what we talked about Sunday, regarding pursuing God's truth and the study/meditation on Scripture. See, I'm honored to be currently working through the process of being ordained as a pastor, and one of the requirements for the process is to develop a "personal doctrinal statement" covering what I believe about every area of Christian faith, life, and theology... and that's no small task!

So after preaching Sunday, followed by the 20's+ Lunch and a college leaders' meeting, I packed up and headed out to hide myself away with a Bible, books, some good music, and my laptop, devoting the last few days to writing out my views on God, the Bible, salvation, the church, end times, and so forth. After 22 typed pages and three 12-hour days of too much caffeine, no phone calls (except for my wonderful Jess who's in CA!), very few emails, and not much sleep, I'm just about ready to wrap it up.

I bored you with that story (thanks for reading!) for only one purpose: you see, in developing my doctrinal statement, in covering all those topics, in hitting on as many points within each "area" of theology as I can, and especially in substantiating my beliefs as true, I only had one authority to which to turn. I couldn't rely on my own intelligence, because first, God's truth exceeds what I can comprehend and second, let's be honest, there's not much there worth relying on! I couldn't rely on my own emotions or logic because they're faulty and lead me to my perceived truth, which likely isn't truth at all. I couldn't rely on... (fill in the blank - anything within myself!).

Instead, I'm only able to base my theology on what God reveals to us in Scripture. Because if I'm developing a theology of God, I can't start anywhere but with himself and his word, in which he has spoken his truth - the truth! So for literally 36+ hours this week, I have been flipping pages in my Bible, trying to remember "where that verse comes from," seeing how "this verse connects with that one," dwelling on different words and concepts, questioning the order of terms and phrases, and in every sense of the word, studying and meditating on Scripture.

And let me be, just for this moment, an affirmation to you: there's stuff in there that is deep; there's stuff that's frustrating; there's stuff that's confusing. But even just in these last few days my view of God has become wider; my knowledge of him has become deeper; and my awe and reverence of him, because of the many-faceted sovereign goodness he has revealed, has become far richer. I think I'm figuring out a glimpse of what it means to "love the Lord your God with all your mind..." What would it look like if we all spent a little time in this great pursuit?

It's been a long few days. But let me assure you and encourage you, it's totally worth it!

Ben

** Summer Vacation... **

For a few of you who have mentioned it to me, you're right - haven't posted in a bit... My free time has been consumed with a couple sermons and even moreso, developing a "personal doctrinal statement" for upcoming ordination... which is really exciting, but as you might guess, is no small task! With a couple weddings added to that, give me a bit; but I'll be back! I'm still reading Tolle and Romans, and won't give up posting my thoughts on those two texts.

In the meantime, please pray for me, and for authors Robert Woglemuth and Mark DeVries: these two men might be interested in considering an interactive curriculum I wrote as a “marriage preparation supplement/workbook” for their book The Most Important Year… (Zondervan, 2003). They are reviewing his curriculum throughout this month/summer… That’s all I know right now, but please keep the process in your prayers. Thanks!

And just for fun, I got my first "bloggy" award - it's very prestigious, and is coveted by many. Check it out here... Thanks Tina!!

Dear Rome... (Romans 1:1-17)

Today we’d have written, “Dear Rome, howdy.”

What an introduction to this 16-page letter! Here’s an overworked tentmaker/minister, a man who is hated by his old Jewish friends for his new life and feared by some of his new Christian ones because of his old; a church-planter and missionary across the known world of the time; a man who had been beaten and who would soon be both shipwrecked and imprisoned (both, ironically, on the journey to Rome he wishes for in today’s text!). Here’s a guy who knew suffering; who faced hardship. And here’s a man who was passionate about God, knew his mission, and had an unyielding drive to accomplish as much as he could that Christ’s name be magnified across the world.

Am I that passionate for God? Am I OK with suffering?

In Paul, we indeed see a true servant of – willing to do anything for – Christ Jesus; we find an apostle – a messenger sending the greatest message ever; a man who is unashamed of the Gospel, for in it alone is God’s power for salvation by God’s grace, through the faith of believers.

Am I truly unashamed? Am I really willing to do anything for God’s message?

And in Paul, we see a man who cares deeply for a people group who, at this point, he’s never met. He thanks God for them; he prays for them; he longs – yearns, begs, desires, is eager – to see them; he wants to preach and encourage and love them with the truth of Christ. But God has kept him from doing so. And Paul is patient enough with God to wait. To step back. To look at the bigger picture. To realize God has work for him with the “Greeks and barbarians” before he can go to Rome.

Am I that passionate about ministry? Do I pray and thank God and love others that well?

And am I willing to stop and see the big picture and realize I’m where God wants me to be? Or do I just get frustrated when I want something and don’t get it when I think I should?

I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a mid-20’s guy in Rome – or sandals, as the case may be – who opens the letter Paul just sent from Greece. “What an example this guy is! Could I live up to this example?” And noticing some wrinkles in my toga as I hang my head in shame, I think the answers to most of these are not what they should be. “The righteous shall live by faith” – which means I thank God that I’m declared righteous through Christ, but that I also need to work on my faith. Because right now I think I definitely don’t “live by it.”

And if that’s the case, just 17 verses in, I think it means Romans will be a pretty long letter!

** Bear's Flower **

A few folks have asked about the mention of Bear Grylls a few posts ago. It's from the episode of the Discovery Channel survival show Man vs. Wild entitled "Ecuador" (premiered July 13, 2007, according to www.discoverychannel.com). Context: Bear is in the jungles of Ecuador, and after one of the most frustrating series of events I've ever seen on the show - first spending hours building a ladder to climb over a river to a cave for the night only to have it shatter into the rapids below, then being unable to start a fire [for the first time ever!] because of the climate, then being unable to find any shelter and having to spend the night in the rain forest with wet grass stuffed in his shirt to stay warm. Fun, eh?

The following morning, he narrates (think in a cool British accent; it makes everything way cooler!), "It rained for most of the night. But when things seem really bad, it's often the little things that give you hope." Then it cuts back to the footage, where Bear points toward a single bloom on a rain-soaked branch in the middle of the jungle, and says "See that there? A little purple flower, just on its own? So beautiful. And there's no doubt that moving through this sort of terrain is hard work, and it's often the little things that give you a 'pick-me-up.' But for me it's suddenly coming across that sort of a flower. And I always think of it like - sort of like it's God's extravagance, you know? It's there; nobody might ever see it, but - it's like nature can't help but create beautiful things. I just love that." Then he continues surviving his way through the overgrowth.

On a related note, this is from Bear's website: How is your Christian faith important to you?

"It feels like the rock in my life and it has taken me a long time to no longer be afraid to say that. But I have learnt that it takes a proud man to say he needs nothing. Faith gives me a strong backbone and when we find that within ourselves we can then live more exciting, effective, kind, passionate and giving lives. Life has a meaning again. It doesn’t though make life easier in any way, and I still battle with my fair share of struggles and doubt and often great self-doubt, but that is just the product of trying to stretch beyond the norm and to live life fully. I depend on a few simple verses everyday that have held me thro so many tough times. They are a mix of these:

• 'I am here to help you'
• 'I am holding you by your right hand'
• 'The lord himself watches over you'

That’s it for me in a nutshell." (www.beargrylls.com)

And yes, I'm aware the recent controversy of both Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. Either way, they do some pretty dang cool stuff, and crew or no crew, local help or no local help, I'd rather 'em stay alive and keep on filming new episodes than take it off the air or let someone perish!

So there ya go!

** Freedom... **

Politics and faith are NOT the same; America and God are very two separate entities, and I'm truly excited that our church doesn't spend a day worshiping the USA this weekend ("let's enter a time of worship..." [musical interlude] "O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain..." isn't worship. But apparently "America the Beautiful IS our "national hymn" - but I digress...).

But while I strongly hold to these beliefs, so also I think I would be remiss should I go throughout the day without thinking of the freedom I have to worship freely, to declare the greatness of God openly, to express my faith unfettered, and on the great sacrifice of much shed blood, who God used to make it all possible. That's freedom. And that's a blessing I take for granted everyday!

And since all created things reflect their Creator, my question today will be "how does my freedom as an individual - as an American - reveal my true freedom to worship and glorify God, which also came through a great sacrifice and bloodshed? How does Independence Day point me to God?"

Happy Independence Day!

(P.S. - in honor of the holiday, we've posted a 2-week series of talks on our freedom in Christ on our podcast: "the great paradox of freedom" and "the fine line of freedom". Click here to listen in!)

** Response to "A New Earth," part 1**

“This book’s main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness, that is to say, to awaken” (p.6-7).

Thus are Eckhart Tolle’s own words to describe his goal for his wildly-popular book, A New Earth. Having heard Oprah and her millions rave about it, and having heard outspoken hear-sayers bash it before reading it, I thought I’d spend some time this summer flipping through the pages of Tolle’s text and see what I could find out for myself. From chapter one, here’s what I gleaned (or, was awakened to, if you will):

First, there’s some good stuff: Tolle sees the beauty of creation pointing to something beyond itself, or “temporary manifestations of the underlying one Life” (p.4); he understands the imperfection in “religion,” the human-created rule systems across the world (p.14-15), and admits that for all their errors, “the Truth to which they point still shines at their core” (p.16). He recognizes the imperfection that plagues us all: “sin…stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition” (p.9); he even understands human inability: “you cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness” (p.8), even saying “trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and high-minded thing to do, yet is an endeavor you cannot ultimately succeed in…” (p.12).

But then, coming just “one degree off” of truth (to use Jess’ phrase about someone she knows), he follows up these great thoughts with something like “…unless there is a shift in consciousness” (p.12, immediately following the last words in the paragraph above), “the light of consciousness is all that is necessary” (p.8), and the truth that “shines at [our] core” is “glimpses of that Truth within yourself” (p.16). For all his insight into the spiritual condition of mankind, he thinks the answer is within us somewhere, just hidden by our material form, which he calls “ego” (I think – I’ll read ch.2 soon!): this, the “material” aspect of mankind – the “ego” – is that which we must overcome, by the power of our own consciousness, in order for our true, spiritual selves to “awaken.”

Unfortunately for Tolle and wide-eyed masses, this is no “new idea,” but rather a heresy that began before Christ walked the earth. People have often argued, since Old Testament times, for a dichotomy (or even a trichotomy) within human beings: body and soul, or body and spirit, or body, soul, and spirit, or something of that nature. Our personal experience might lend itself to this, as we know what’s right and still choose wrong; even a poor understanding of human nature might lead us to think this, as we wrongly separate good from bad, sinful from perfect, carnal from psyche, “the part of our life that God rules” from “the part of our life we do” (or, “old man/new man,” in New Testament terms). The reality, however, is that we cannot divide ourselves into parts: we cannot distinguish our “self” from our “body” (by saying “I love you,” I don’t just love part of you; I love all of you). Sin, or imperfection, is not restricted to “one part” of who I am; it encompasses my entire being; it is imputed to me as a spiritual reality, and thus affects my physical, emotional, natural, spiritual, mental, and every other aspect of life!

And if all of our human nature is corrupted; if every aspect of our “self” has been effected and has become imperfect; if, in Tolle’s own words, there’s an overarching “dysfunction inherent in the human condition,” and if “you cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness,” then how can the answer be “finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge” (p.13)? How can he state, in our fight against darkness, that “you [meaning, each of us] are the light (p.8)?

There is no dichotomy; there is only one, unified “self,” fully created by God, fully corrupted by sin and imperfection, and fully in need of renewal. There is no “material vs. immaterial” in the human nature; there is no “body vs. soul”; there is no “partially-old-man vs. partially-new-man.” There is only an exchange made: an admission that, as Tolle says, “[we] cannot fight against the darkness,” and instead we give our lives over to an outside agent of change. And then, when we have been given (“imputed”) a new life and righteousness, we still battle an ongoing tendency to sin/imperfection/”missing the mark…to miss the point of human existence” (p.9), but we are in a legal sense “justified” and freed from the penalty of that imperfection, through the power of a Being who DOES have the power to make that change in us, while we do not.

Further, if Tolle’s not trying to “add new information or beliefs,” then his words seem fairly contradictory throughout this introductory chapter: he introduces several definitions, or re-definitions, without explaining his basis for the definitions. And he makes several bold claims, especially about centuries-old, widely-regarded and respected faith systems and spiritual leaders, without much logical backing or proof of his claims. Just a few by means of example:

• In the midst of a great argument against the evils that have occurred within organized religion, Tolle jumps from a proper critique of religions, who “defined their identity throught their enemies, th ‘others,’ the ‘nonbelievers’ or ‘wrong believers,’ who not infrequently they saw themselves entirely justified in killing” (p.15) to ridiculously – and without backing or explanation – claiming that the concept of “God” is an idol: “Man made ‘God’ in his own image. The eternal, the infinite, and unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as ‘my god’ or ‘our god’” (p.15, immediately following the previous sentence).
• He claims that “Gnosticism and mysticism,” and similar movements in other religions, were the only ways “the major religions regained the transformative power of the original teachings…” (p.16). In case you’re unclear, Gnosticism and mysticism are both heresies, one from the first century and one from the middle ages.
• “Ego” is defined as “identification with form, which primarily means thought forms” (p.22). No further explanation is given.
• “If evil has any reality – and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality – this is also its definition: complete identification with form – physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms” (p.22). There’s no backing for the bold claim that evil is not absolute; nor why the definition of evil is “forms.”

Along these same lines, Tolle makes several strong, incorrect, unsubstantiated, and seemingly un-researched statements about the Christian faith. He makes the same kind of statements against other faiths as well, but alas, I don’t know them as well, so cannot speak in their defense:

• “[Jesus’ and others’] teachings, although both simple and powerful, became distorted and misinterpreted, in some cases even as they were recorded in writing by their disciples” (p.14-15).
• “In the teachings of Jesus, salvation… [is] the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness” (p.13).
• In explaining the title of his book, which is a stark misinterpretation from Revelation 21:1 and Isaiah 65:17, Tolle (intentionally or otherwise) tries to parallel his concept of the new world order with Scripture’s, claiming with no substantiation, “we need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness…and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus. Earth, on the other hand, is its outer manifestation in form, which is always a reflection of the inner… ‘A new heaven’ is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and ‘a new earth’ is its reflection in the physical realm” (p.23).

Because this thing is already far too long to read, I won’t go into teaching-by-teaching explanations of Jesus’ teachings on heaven, except to point to Matthew 5, where “heaven” is mentioned no less than 5 times, each time as a place (v.3, 10, 19 twice, 20), and the following chapter, where Jesus prays, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). And in context, “the new heavens and the new earth” in Isaiah 65:17 are a God-created reality (a “location”), where the souls of the redeemed will dwell with God forever. Interestingly, this concept is mentioned one further time in Scripture, which Tolle does not note in his references: 2 Peter 3 explains the hope of the Christian, in the future coming of Christ: “according to his promise, we are waiting for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (v.13).

That’s enough for today –thanks for sticking with me to the end! I close chapter 1 with a touch of irony: Tolle begins his book with a story of the first [supposedly-evolved] single flower: “rare and isolated,” beautiful, delicate, how “humans would increasingly be drawn to and fascinated by them,” and how “flowers were most likely the first thing they came to value that had no utilitarian purpose to them” (another unsubstantiated bold claim). After building this great, beautiful picture, Tolle concludes thus: “seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their inmost being, their true nature…” (p.1-3, italics added). On the other hand, while watching a rerun of “Man vs. Wild” earlier today, adventurer Bear Grylls was surviving his way through an Ecuadorian jungle, and after an insanely difficult day and night (an hours-in-the-making ladder shattering; the inability to create fire or find shelter in a freezing night; etc.), he awoke and pointed out a single flower. He too found optimism in the glimpse of this tiny violet symbol of beauty. But his explanation went thus: “Nobody’s ever going to see that flower. That’s God’s extravagance. Even though no-one’s ever going to see it, He just can’t help but create something beautiful…”