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Anything Else Comes From the Devil

December 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”   ~Matthew 5:37

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had been interpreting the Scriptures’ use of oaths to mean that anything sworn to by the name of God was binding. Promises made by swearing to less sacred things—heaven, earth, Jerusalem—were not as binding. And these loopholes devalued the oath, devalued the word of man.

The existence of oaths is proof that there are lies. Oaths were given to safeguard against lies. But the religious culture of the day was such that oaths were also being used to facilitate lying, to hide dishonesty. It reminds me of the way we acted as kids. We were always able to get out of an “I promise” by confessing that we had our fingers crossed. A one dollar wager on the outcome of a race or a free-throw contest was negated by exclaiming, “We didn’t shake on it!”

Technicalities. Hiding behind our oaths.

By the time Jesus addressed this attitude—these external applications and false practices of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law—in the Sermon on the Mount, some religious groups were already demanding a return to the true intent and spirit of the Law on oaths. Jesus taught that all oaths were wrong. The Essenes were teaching the same thing. Josephus writes this about the Essenes:

“Any word of theirs has more force than an oath; vowing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury, for they say that one who is not believed without an appeal to God stands condemned already.” (Antiquities of the Jews, 2:135)

Jesus, and the Essenes, teach that we should be people of such integrity and character and truthfulness of heart that everything we say is absolutely believable and dependable. No doubts. My word should be as trustworthy as a signed contract or notarized legal document. The idea is that every single word we speak is always spoken in the presence of God and so falls under God’s judgment. And since we always speak the truth, there’s no need for an oath. The oath only throws doubt on all our other statements. It’s not necessary. Anything other than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ according to Jesus, comes from the devil. Because anything other than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ implies that you’re trying to hide something or deceive someone or lie.

Of course, all of God’s Law and all of Jesus’ teachings have to do with relationships—relationships with each other, with our community, and with our God. And these teachings on truth and honesty and dependability all strongly relate to everything else in Scripture. Untruthfulness and dishonesty destroy relationships. They wreck fellowship. But if we’re a people of complete honesty and total truthfulness, we’re all liberated to trust each other freely without any complications or second-guessing or looking over our shoulders or suspicion or speculating about hidden agendas. And that fosters true community. Wholeness. Peace.

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There’s a HUGE crane out here this morning, get ready in a couple of hours to set all the 90-foot steel beams on the worship center. Super cool. I’ll post some pictures this afternoon.

Peace,

Allan

The Two-Way Way

December 5, 2007 / / 8 Comments

We are very familiar with the concept of Jesus as “The Way.” Jesus is the Way to God. He is the Way to Heaven. He is the Way to peace and forgiveness and wholeness. He is the Way to eternal life. As disciples of Jesus we walk in his Way, the Way. We recognize all this. We understand it. We get it.

But do we also see that Jesus is God’s Way to us?

It’s a two-way Way.

And I appreciate the Christmas season because it reminds us — it forces us — to reflect again on the Incarnation of the Christ. The way we come to God is the same way God comes to us. God comes to us in his Son, Jesus. Eugene Peterson, in his latest book The Jesus Way, writes:

“God comes to us in Jesus speaking the words of salvation, healing our infirmities, promising the Holy Spirit, teaching us how to live in the Kingdom of God. It is in and through this same Jesus that we pray to and believe, hear and obey, love and praise God. Jesus is the way God comes to us. Jesus is the way we come to God. The way up and the way down is the same way.”

We often ask, and rightly so, what would Jesus do? But at the same time, we should also ask what is God doing? Jesus is God in action. Jesus is God speaking. Jesus is God touching lepers. Jesus is God forgiving a condemned and dying criminal on a cross and an adulterous woman threatened by men holding rocks. Jesus is God blessing children. Jesus is God giving sight to Bartimaeus and life to Lazarus. Jesus is God restoring peace to the demon-possessed. Jesus is God feeding the hungry. Jesus is God calling down judgment on religious posturing. Jesus is God weeping over the city.

Walking in the Way requires doing what Jesus did—love, service, sacrifice. But it also means jumping in to join what God is doing—saving, redeeming, reconciling, forgiving.

Jesus is the Way. The two-way Way.

Peace,

Allan

All Sorts of Possibilities

December 4, 2007 / / 3 Comments

ScrewTapeThe Screwtape Letters, a collection of theologically profound and provocative messages between a senior tempter and his protege in Satan’s service, is valuable to me in many, many ways. I suppose the main reason it is my favorite book and the overarching reason I find myself reading it from cover to cover every couple of years is that it reminds me in hard-hitting ways of the cosmic battle between God and evil. I can’t see it. But it’s going on all around me. And I can’t be too aware of it. C. S. Lewis’ book helps to focus my thoughts and my direction on the dramatic difference between appearance and reality, between the temporary and the eternal.

In discussing his patient’s response to the war, Screwtape advises his nephew/apprentice devil to give him a full account “so that we can consider whether you are likely to do more good by making him an extreme patriot or an ardent pacifist. There are all sorts of possibilities.”

The devil is in the extremes. He does his best work in the extremes. Extreme views and extreme beliefs and actions, as they relate to our world and to our fellow man, tend to shut out our neighbors and judge those who don’t share our views. Extremes tend to leave no room for mercy and grace.

Our call to discipleship is an extreme one. Following Jesus requires extreme decisions and extreme changes. As God’s children we should be radically different from the ones around us. And we’re called by the teachings of our Lord to take extreme action to get rid of the sin in our lives.

But let’s treat our extremes with caution. Let’s make certain our friends and neighbors, our brothers and sisters, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in the gate are not excluded. Let’s never crowd out mercy and grace and love.

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PatriotsAre you rooting for or against the Patriots to go 16-0? I want to know. And don’t just tell me “for” or “against.” Tell me why.

After last night’s game, the second in a row in which New England’s inferior opponent blew a late lead by collapsing on both sides of the ball, the Patriots were all the talk here at the building early this morning. Some are rooting for the Pats to do it because it’s neat to see that history being made. Some were rooting for the Pats to do it until Tom Brady shot his mouth off a couple of weeks ago about their glee in blowing people out. One of the many Cowboys fans here wants New England to lose just so they won’t have a better record than Dallas.

Where are you on this deal?

I’ve always admired Robert Kraft as an owner. When Terry Glenn was a rookie wide-receiver for the Patriots he received a ticket for speeding. And Kraft, as I’ve heard the story told, called Glenn into his office and told him that his players did not get tickets for anything. He fined him and told him it would be worse if it ever happened again. In a culture in which our professional athletes are celebrated as righteous role models, even when they plead guilty to obstruction of justice and lying to police in a double-murder investigation (see: Ravens MLB & Pro-Bowl, MVP, Madden cover, etc.,), that was refreshing.

But Bill Belichick. There’s something about him I don’t like. There’s something very Bill Parcells-ish and Bobby Knight-ish I don’t like about him.

But isn’t it also our tendency as Americans to root for the underdog? We love to see David take down Goliath. I despise the Ravens because of everything Ray Lewis stands for. But I surely wanted them to win last night.

Where are you on all this? Why?

The Pats may be 15-0, coming off a pasting of the 0-15 Dolphins, when they face the New York Giants in the regular season finale. Saturday night. On the NFL Network. History will be made. Those on both sides of the fence will be stoked. Casual fans and those indifferent to the plight of the Patriots will be interested. They’ll hype it for weeks. In fact, it’s already begun.

And it’ll be on the NFL Network, unavailable to almost 2/3 of our country.

Peace,

Allan

In The Garden

December 3, 2007 / / 0 Comments

GardenOfGethsemaneRemember Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion? Powerful film. When that movie came out three or four years ago, a lot of the debate centered around the question of just how faithful it was to the Gospels. True, there was a lot of artistic license flexed by the movie makers. But I feel that most, if not all, of it was theologically sound.

Remember the garden scene? In that movie, Jesus was not praying alone under the olive trees at Gethsemane. Not totally. The snake was OliveTreesAtGardenOfGethsemanethere. The serpent of old, the devil, was slithering around the garden while Jesus was asking God to take away the cup of suffering and the task of the cross. And the mood isn’t so somber and tragic when you see the snake. Suddenly the scene is injected with vigor and power as we realize the cosmic battle that’s taking place in this olive grove. And the scene climaxes with Jesus simultaneously saying, “Not my will, but yours be done,” and standing up and crushing the head of the serpent with his foot.

What was really happening in the garden? The night Jesus was betrayed and the whole plan was beginning to unfold, what was really going on?

Crushing the head of the snake is a clear reference back to Genesis 3:15, a verse the Church has held forever as a messianic prophesy of God’s ultimate defeat of Satan.

But it takes us back to that very first garden, the Garden of Eden. In that first garden the first Adam, the first man, fails his God. Not only is he not talking to his Father, he’s ultimately listening to the devil. Adam, rejecting the will of God, looks upon the tree and disobeys. As a result, God removes man from the garden. And even though he lives a very long time, Adam ultimately dies because sin and death have now entered the world.

Now at Gethsemane we see the second Adam, the last Adam, Jesus. He, too, is in a garden. He’s in a garden and contemplating a tree: the tree of crucifixion right before him. And Satan was there, too. He was there at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, don’t you think he was there at the end? I can hear him.

“Save yourself! You don’t have to do this! You’re the Son of God! Call down your angels! Make yourself King!”

He’d said it all before.

But unlike the first Adam, this second Adam is listening to his Father, not the devil. He obeys the will of his God who tells him he must partake of the tree. And as a result, Jesus is removed from the garden; not by God, but by man. Jesus dies within 24 hours. But ultimately his life returns anew because salvation and reconciliation and everlasting life have now entered the world.

Through his decision he agonizingly confirms again in the garden, Jesus forever becomes our path back to our Father’s garden, the one we were removed from so long ago. Praise God for the Savior’s love. And for his obedience to our God’s will.

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He proudly wears his Marion Barber jersey to church functions. His sweet daughter is an answer to my family’s prayers. He’s an open and honest man with a unique perspective. My conversations with him, in person and via email, about our God and his church or football, always stretch me and give me appreciated insight. And now Mel Williams has joined the blogging community. Check out Mel’s brand new blog, Simple Man Walking, by clicking here.

Peace,

Allan

Rick Romo Rules!

November 30, 2007 / / 9 Comments

CowboyJoeRandom thoughts on last night’s really weird game. Was it really great or was it really awful? Most of the following RomoFistPumpthoughts revolve around the inconsistent and contradictory messages I kept getting while watching the Packers and Cowboys.

The hype and the buildup for the past two weeks has been Super-Bowl-esque. And rightly so. It’s been years since I looked forward to a Cowboys game like I did this one. The championship history of the two franchises. Favre and Romo. Homefield advantage in the NFC playoffs. And those 1960-63 Cowboys throw back unis! Love those uniforms. It’s hard not to root for whoever’s wearing those uniforms. They just drum up such wonderful images of Don Perkins and Don Meredith and Bob Hayes and Bob Lilly. Those are my all-time favorite Cowboys uniforms.

(Side note: the most disappointed I’ve ever been with the Cowboys, aside from the signing of Terrell Owens, was in 1994 when the NFL first encouraged its teams to wear throwback uniforms as part of the league’s 75th anniversary season. The Cowboys announced that they would wear their uniforms from the early ’60s for a Monday Night Game against the Lions. A buddy and I got tickets. We drove up from Marble Falls that afternoon. I couldn’t wait to see those clean blue and white uniforms in person, the ones I had only seen in pictures in old programs and in old TV clips. And the Cowboys came out in those horrid double-star monstrosities with their same silver helmets! Never mind the hideous nature of the double-star look that is nothing like what the Cowboys had ever worn in their storied history. None of it matched! Jerry Wayne exclaimed that the throwback helmets would each cost over $300 and that was too much to spend on something they were only going to do once. I was sick. I thought it was embarrassing. It’s the same kind of thing that led to this look for assistant coach John Blake. It’s about that time, the Barry Switzer era, when things began to turn for me.)

And before I mention anything about the game itself, can I please comment a bit on the NFL Network?

Are you kidding me?!?

Jerry Wayne and the NFL Network don’t have a case against any cable company that doesn’t want to air that stuff. Who would want to put that on their system? I couldn’t tell if I was watching the NFL game of the year between two great franchises for home field advantage or the local access presentation of the junior college scrimmage. The sideline microphones were so overmodulated I couldn’t understand a word Deion Sanders was saying. Although I’m certain it had something to do with Deion Sanders. We must have missed at least three extra-points because the cameras were somewhere else or they were airing a promo. I saw an old promo for the Thanksgiving Day matchup between the Colts and Falcons run at least once. The referee’s mic kept cutting out and I’m sure the NFL Network had something to do with that, too.

BryantGumbelAnd Bryant Gumbel. Have you ever heard anyone do a worse job? It was like he’d never called a football game before. He kept calling the Cowboys the Packers, several times in the first quarter. As the Cowboys came out of the tunnel before kickoff he said, “Here come the Packers!” When the Cowboys had a first and goal he said it was the Packers. He called Marion Barber the “heart beat of the Packers.” At the end of the 3rd quarter when Dallas was in the red zone again he went to break exclaiming that the Cowboys were leading and “barking at the door.” I don’t think Fox or CBS would ever use this guy, not even on their D-Team calling the Cardinals and Dolphins. Brian Baldinger does a better job. It was amazing. And then Gumbel tops it off by telling his audience at the end of the game to stay tuned for the “Wendy’s Post-Game Show, I mean the Home Depot Post-Game show” where we hope to get a few words down on the field with Cowboys quarterback “Rick Romo.”

I can’t believe the most powerful professional sports league in the history of the world, this league that does everything with excellence and class, that pays excruciating attention to the smallest of details, is being represented by this low-budget, duct-tape-and-twistie-ties network.

And then you’ve got the golden voice of NFL Films doing all the ins and outs to and from commercials. Talk about contradicting messages and conflicting signals.

How about the officials’  black winter pants? They look so much like NBA warm-up pants that I kept thinking, again, I was watching something that didn’t count. Is this practice or is this a real game in late November between two conference powers?

AaronRodgersAs I watched Aaron Rodgers, I couldn’t help but think about the Magic Man, Don Majkowski. His hair, his eyebrows, his nose. Yeah, maybe Barry Manilow, too. I don’t know.

I was surprised by the huge and loud numbers of Packers fans at Texas Stadium. Just the noise reminded me of a regular season game against the Steelers in 2004. Down on the sidelines, I was blown away at how the Steelers fans were louder than the Cowboys fans. It was like an away game that afternoon for Dallas as they lost a heart breaker to Ben Rothlisberger in his rookie season. Seemed that way again last night. And that’s very rare at Texas Stadium. But, imagine, that’s the way it is for every team that hosts the Cowboys in their stadium. Every time.

I love Geico commercials.

HappyRomoTony Romo goes for over 300 yards again. He throws for four touchdowns again. And his line would say five TDs and zero interceptions instead of the 4 scores and one pick except for Terrell Owens’ inexplicable lateral to Al Harris in the end zone. That was weird. Being stripped by Harris on that first drive and his other two drops last night look like the Owens of last year and earlier this season. Did you see in the LoveMeSomeMecurrent issue of Sports Illustrated that T.O. was voted by his peers in the NFL as the number one easiest wide receiver to intimidate? Interesting that he has that kind of game last night, huh?

Lot of weird plays and crazy bounces. Those two plays with Owens were wild. But what about Green Bay’s onside kick in the first half? Every Cowboy on the field and even those on the bench had turned tail and run to set up the wedge. Nobody stayed home. The Packers could have let it roll 20 yards and been OK. But the ball bounced up and glanced off somebody’s elbow, negating what would have been a huge momentum play.

And then Favre. Even though his play was ridiculously horrible during the 20 minutes he played, I hate it that the game FavreGoesDownwas decided with him on the sidelines. His QB rating for last night is officially 8.9. But doesn’t it take some of the luster off the win for Dallas that they didn’t get a 60-minute duel with the one guy who’s made the Packers what they are this season? Doesn’t it cheapen it a little? A little? I think you have to put an asterisk by this game because of that.

Weird game.

RickyRomoRick Romo Rules!

Peace,

Allan

The Medium and the Message, Part Two

November 29, 2007 / / 12 Comments

If all of the world were to fall down today and worship our Father and submit their lives to him, it would not add one bit to his holiness and glory. And if all the world were to reject our Father and deny him today, it would not subtract one iota from his sovereignty and reign.  In the same way, the Gospel itself — the Good News of salvation from God through faith in the Christ — is not strengthened or weakened by our attempts to proclaim it. The perfect Gospel of Jesus cannot gain power or lose effectiveness.

But just as Paul told the Corinthians that “it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat,” even though they were eating and drinking and praying as a body of believers just like everybody else, the Gospel isn’t really the Gospel if it’s proclaimed in a way that contradicts the message.

And sometimes the package can contradict the message so that it’s not the Gospel at all. It’s something else.

If the National Enquirer’s headline was “Tony Romo Dating Jenna Bush,” you wouldn’t believe it for a second. But if that same headline appears in the Dallas Morning News, you don’t doubt it at all. You never question it. The reputation of the package and the public perception of the package definitely impacts the message. Give Away Day and Trunk Or Treat are effective ways to preach the Word. But if we used Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in the church parking lot or off-color innuendo on our flashing sign out front to attract people to Give Away Day or Trunk Or Treat, that’s a problem.

What if I used four-letter curse words while I preached? What if I preached while holding a gun and shooting anybody who refused to be baptized? I know those are extreme, hyperbolic illustrations but they make the point. The packaging definitely impacts the message. And we’re setting ourselves up and jeopardizing the Kingdom if we ignore that.

My point is this: we are the ones who control the medium. We control the packaging and the way things are presented. It only changes if we decide to change it. We make those decisions. No one else is making those decisions for us. But for some reason we in the Church just assume that since everything around us in our culture is changing, the Church must change also. For some reason our attitude in the Church seems to be “We must be like the culture” instead of “We must change the culture.”

Why is our culture and “the way things are” seen by us as a reality to which we must adapt instead of a point of view with which we should argue?

Peace,

Allan

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