What does it mean when someone uses the phrase, “listen for the Word of God” just prior to reading Scripture in public?

Before last week I had never heard someone acutally use that phrase but a couple of years ago I ran across a discussion board where this phrase was being discussed. The tone of that discussion was frustration that someone would use this phrase and many thought that this revealed a bias about Scripture in the reader. I agree that this phrase may reveal a bias against the authority of Scripture but I’m also not sure what is really intended when someone uses this phrase.

Last week at church a guest speaker from the denomination used this phrase before reading passages from Acts and Mark. I don’t want to be hyper-senstive about phrases but in a theological context sometimes great meaning can shift on a simple preposition. And while the speaker last night, ended the reading of Scripture with the phrase “This is the Word of the Lord,” I’m still unsure how the first phrase is congruent with the last phrase.

When the phrase “listen for the Word of God” is used, does the Scripture reader mean to imply that somewhere behind what is read is the real Word of God? Or, do the Scripture reader mean that we should pay attention because Scripture is being read?

The former offends my sense of the authority of Scripture but I can live with the latter. However, becuase it creates confusion, even if there is no bias against the authority of Scripture, it seems that a better introduction to the reading of the Bible could be used.

 

This past weekend, Joel Osteen said, “God’s dream for your life is bigger than your dream.”

I grew up going to church most every time the doors were open and I’ve been a student of the Bible for years, so (to use a phrase my friend John is fond of), “this isn’t my first day in the class.” While there are many names and characteristics of God presented in the Bible, the characteristic of “dreamer” isn’t one of them.

Joseph dreamed dreams from God. God didn’t dream dreams. But even the dreams talked about in the Bible are different from the types of dreams J. Osteen was speaking of. In our human frailty we may dream of having better relationships or better jobs or better cars or whatever, but God is not day dreaming about me having a better car or better job.

God is not sitting enthroned in heaven, daydreaming about how he hopes that one day I will say or do something that will make a significant splash in history, even my own. The Bible says that God has a plan.

Psalm 139:16 says,

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.” (ESV)

Jeremiah 10:23 says, “I know Lord that a man’s way of life is not his own; no one who walks determines hi sown steps.” (CSB)

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (ESV)

God didn’t dream, hoping that Moses would lead Israel out of Egypt, God led Israel out of Egypt (Exo 29:45-46).

God didn’t dream, hoping that Jeremiah would preach his words, God put his words into Jeremiah’s mouth (Jer 1:9).

God doesn’t dream, God acts and that is the Good News!

Many airports across the US and other countries provide Interfaith Chapels. My own local airport hosts a chapel that is not only open 24 hours a day but also is staffed most of each day with volunteer chaplains who will provide spiritual help to those who seek it.

A list of airports with chapels is available at http://members.iinet.net.au/~holloway1/LIST.html.

The Greater Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Aiport chapel is shown in the picture below:

You can also see some images of the Midway Airport chapel at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownpau/sets/485713/

A couple of months ago I visited a church service where the minister preached on Luke 8:26-39 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%208:26-38;&version=50 . This is the passage where Jesus goes to Gadarenes and has an encounter with a demon possessed man. This is the same encounter which Mark descrbes in Mark 5:1-20.

In the sermon, the minister pointed out that most of what the man says to Jesus in this passage is actually a convseration between Jesus and the demons. He went on to say that even though this man was under such control of the demons, that he was able to search deep within himself and find a small part of himself that was not controlled by the demons. And in this small part he was able to go find Jesus and seek out help. To me, this seems like a contradiction. How can a man who can’t even speak to Jesus without the demons taking control of the conversation, find it in himself to go to Jesus seeking help. And there is no indication that the man knew who Jesus was or that he could help him.

Both Mark and Luke say that the demon-possessed man met Jesus when he came out of the boat after crossing the Sea of Galilee. But the Scripture does not say that this man knew that Jesus would be coming across the Sea of Galilee and so was waiting by the dock for him. To say that this demon-possessed man knew Jesus was coming to Gadarenes, puts some divine knowledge either in the man or in the demons. No created being has the nature of God; created beings cannot be omniscient. Looking over the whole of Scripture it is more likely that Jesus, who knew what was in man (John 2:25), went to Gadarenes knowing that this man was there, living among the tombs in the wilderness.

In the Sunday sermon, the preacher suggested that this demon-possessed man fell prostrate in worship before God as he sought out help from Jesus. However, in looking at the Greek word “prospipto” that is translated “fell” has some other connotations that are worth looking at. The Liddell-Scott lexicon shows that in some uses this word was used for “to fall upon, attack”; “to run into”; “to fall upon, embrace”; “to meet with, encounter”; “to come suddenly upon”.

Verse 28, says “When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him,….” I doubt this word prospipto (tranlated fell down in the NKJV) means encounter but it could mean run into, attack, or just fell down or slammed down (as another lexicon suggets) but it is not necessarily in worship of Jesus. I am not saying that it is impossible that this man fell down to worship Jesus, but I’m simply pointing out that prospipto can mean falling down for a variety of reasons. Some of which may be more consistent with the image of a demon-possessed man. If the man does not have much control over himself, it is more likely that the demons threw him down than that he fell down seeking help. The man may not have even known who Jesus was at this time. But, as we can see from the conversation, the demons recognized Jesus.

In the gospels, this account in Mark and Luke is the only time that we are told that Jesus went to this country, Gadarenes. And when this passage is complete, it appears that Jesus sails back across the Sea of Galilee as both Mark and Luke tell no more about the ministry of Jesus in Gadarenes but both say that he returned to Galilee and was welcomed there. It appears the crowd was waiting for him to return so Jesus wasn’t in Gadarenes for very long. Could Mark and Luke be using the term “welcomed” in contrast to the way that Jesus was received in Gadarenes? I’m not sure, but the imagery of one man in Gadarenes is contrasted to a group in Galilee.

Saying that this demon-possession overcomes the control of the demons on his own and for a split second and finds Jesus who just happens to be making his one and only appearance in Gadarenes at the same time, put the miracle here on the man who is possessed. However, to see this as a miracle of Jesus is more consistent with scripture. This man didn’t somehow make his own way to the dock at just the right second to find Jesus, rather, Jesus found him in Gadarenes and brought salvation and deliverance from the demons to him. It is Jesus who sails across the Sea of Galilee to bring salvatoin to this man living among the tombs.

I found today’s CNN article, “Survey: Americans switching faiths, dropping out” interesting on many levels. The article states, “More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.”

I should state for the record that I’m one of the Americans who has moved “from one stream or denomination to another.” And I see a lot of my friends in the same position; not because we all attend the same church, quite the contrary. One friend of mine began Episcopal and is now involved in the Church of Christ. Another grew up in a baptist church and is now a Lutheran minister. 

The article states that our American culture is open to change and this trend of switching faiths makes sense because of it. I’m not sure that changing denominations is actually changing faiths. Faith is from God and as Christians we believe there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Eph 4:5).” Most denominations are distinguished by theological frameworks and their understanding of how God works in us. Non-denominational congregations are more often marked by personality and worship style than by theology. And this is an important distinction.

“In the past, certain religions had a real holding power, where people from one generation to the next would stay,” said Penn State University sociologist Roger Finke, who consulted in the survey planning. “Right now, there is a dropping confidence in organized religion, especially in the traditional religious forms.”

While Finke may be right on some level in this statement about confidence in organized religion, I’m not sure that you can get that from the survey …. at least not with the level of detail that CNN has provided. This is his conjecture about why this shift is happening. I think there may be something more to this trend.

The article states, “On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses. Many Americans have vague denominational ties at best. People who call themselves ‘just a Protestant,’ in fact, account for nearly 10 percent of all Protestants.”

If this is true, and in my “neck of the woods” it seems to be, then theologians have to ask one another why are nondenominational churches “swelling” and denominational churches “showing net losses.” If we let only the sociologists comment we will get only sociological answers. But if we believe that there may be theological implications we must speak out about them.

I believe there are theological implications here. The church has been too quick to substitute good theological education for entertainment-driven messages. When families and persons are not grounded in theological understanding and knowledge, they can be carried away by the sparkling messages that tickle the ears. When entertainment is bringing butts to pews (instead of God), eventually the eyes and ears carried with them are going to get bored and looking for the next shiny thing that catches their attention. Maybe there is a diminishing confidence in traditional religion because too often our religious leaders are: 1) using entertainment to get people in the door; 2) worrying more about the packaging of the message than the truth of the message; 3) crafting messages they think people want to hear.

No one trusts a snake oil salesman!

Church-goers seem to be following personalities more than they are following Christ or the Scriptures. I think Paul has something like this in mind when he writes in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17,

Now I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by members of Chloe’s household, that there are quarrels among you. What I am saying is this: each of you says, “I’m with Paul,” or “I’m with Apollos,” or “I’m with Cephas,” or “I’m with Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul’s name? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say you had been baptized in my name. I did, in fact, baptize the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t know if I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with clever words, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied [of its effect].

The theological implications, the salvific implications of the move toward personality or entertainment driven ministries is critical to the spiritual health of the American church.  We must not let sociologists tell us it is just a matter of a fluid culture when people change faiths. If God is drawing someone to change denominations that is one thing, but if church-goers are chasing the sparkling entertainment driven messages popular among some congregations then there is real risk to spiritual health. In fact, these church-goes may be spritiually dead and not know it.

If congregational leaders are trading the truth of the Gospel for a lie packaged in feel-good wrappers, this is not a crisis of faith or relgious economy but of it is a crisis of spritual truth.

Jesus warns about the dangers in Matthew 7:13-27, when he not only warns us about building our faith on shifting sands but also declares that the path to the Kingdom of God is through the narrow gate. In this passage he also warns us about false teachers, who have signs and miracles but do not obey the Word of God.

The researcher says, “The American religious economy is like a marketplace — very dynamic, very competitive,” said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. “Everyone is losing, everyone is gaining. There are net winners and losers, but no one can stand still. Those groups that are losing significant numbers have to recoup them to stay vibrant.”

Just because the fruit is polished and looks good on the outside, it doesn’t mean that the substance of the fruit is good. American media wants us to believe that we don’t have to obey the Bible, that its more important not to offend any one than it is to be obedient to God. The Bible says something different, “For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ. (Gal 1:10)”

We must not trade the truth for sparkling messages that seem vibrant on the outside. True vibrance is in the life-giving Gospel of the Jesus.

During a Bible study I attended this morning, the presenter mentioned a passage that I thought went well with the post from yesterday titled “How do we know God?” The passage was 1 Corinthians 2:14. In looking a the larger passage associated with this verse, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, that the Bible contrasts the wisdom of the age to the wisdom of God.  Verse 12 says, we have received “the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

I think this verse makes the point that I was writing about yesterday. That to know God and the wisdom from God we must not rely on man’s wisdom but from the wisdom that comes from Spirit of God, who we have received.

The Bible says in Verses 14-16, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?”But we have the mind of Christ.”

We must judge the things taught by those who are not spiritually alive to see if they align with the Word of God. The Word of God is God’s revelation of himself to us. If we superimpose an ideology on the revelation of God, we choose to know the mind of man over the mind of God.
 

How do we know God?

Before we answer that question, it may help us to take a step back to consider another question, “How do we know any thing?”

There is a big fancy word known as epistemology that describes the field of study where people talk about these things. Wikipedia states,

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy which is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. The term was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864).

Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: “What is knowledge?”, “How is knowledge acquired?”, and “What do people know?”

But let’s simplify the discussion a bit. If you take Mathematics as an example, “How do we know math?” We learn the basics first, addition and subtraction, and then we build on that foundation. Typically we learn math from those who are experts in the field, teachers who not only understand the theories and principles but also how to teach them. But we know that a teacher of the basic foundations of math may not be an expert in the more complex issues that math can solve. Teaching addition is certainly different from teaching calculus. I don’t know if Mrs. Adams at Yealey Elementary could teach calculus, but I do know that if she hadn’t taught me multiplication in the third grade I would not have been able to pass calculus in the twelfth grade.

Since I don’t have any children I can only go on what those with children tell me. But I hear from my brother that they teach math differently know than they used to. I’m not sure what that means really. But I do know that when I was taking math classes, I learned the theories and then I learned how to apply those theories to many different applications. As the math theory got more complex, so did the applications.

Let’s return to our first question, ‘How do we know God?” The easy answer is to go to the Bible. However, the question is more complex than that.

If we go to the Bible with preconceived notions about who God is, we are going to gravitate toward things in the Bible that affirm those and tend to ignore or label confusing things that contradict our notions. A simple example is the story of the wise men or magi who visited Jesus after his birth. Most of us normally think of there being three of them, but the Bible doesn’t specify how many there were. The Bible says that the magi came from the east bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In this case, preconceived notions about the number of magi don’t really have that great of an impact on our knowledge of God, but it does illustrate how easy it is to approach scripture with preconceived perceptions.

It is more dangerous to our theology if we approach scripture with a preconceived perspective about who we are as men and women living in God’s creation. There are many humanistic theories underlying many ideas will have about the place of humanity in creation and relation to God. When we take these theories with us to scripture, they can cloud the truth of God’s revelation to us.

It is more appropriate and true to our calling as Christian men and women, to go to scripture without any preconceived ideas about who God is and how humankind relates to God and his creation.

One humanistic theory that is taking a hold on our culture is that there is no absolute right or wrong. This is one of the major teachings of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. “Scientology states that there is no absolute right or wrong but that right and wrong are actually a gradient from right to wrong. An action must contain construction which outweighs the destruction it contains in order to be considered good (quoted from Wikipedia, cf. Hubbard, Introduction to Scientology Ethics, 2007 ed,; Gradient Scale of Right and Wrong, p. 15).” If we seek to know who God is, but start with this assumption as a foundation to our search, we will not learn about God has he has revealed himself to us. Instead, the one who begin with this foundation will assume that passages about judgment and sin are allegories about the gradient between right and wrong.

Another example of how a humanistic perspective on God can create a misconception of God is one that we all live within every day, the concept of time. Here on earth, day and night pass and we count the days, hours and minutes that mark their passing. Almost everything that we know and do is in the context of time. But God is outside of time, he is eternal. To assume that God experiences our world they way we do, limits God to a human-centered perspective. God does not know because he learns or observes things over time, he knows because he is omniscient. When God led Israel out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus), he wasn’t surprised when he rounded a bend and the Red Sea was in his path. He knew where it was, he put it there and his plan for the rescue of Israel included the parting of the Red Sea.

An elementary student can’t go into math class believing that two plus two equals six and attempt to change the mathematical theories to accommodate the preconceived mistake. In seeking to know God, we must start without an ideology about who we want God to be or who we think God is. If we start only with the foundation that the Bible is God’s revelation about himself and humankind’s relationship with him, we will avoid creating humanistic idols based on who we think God is.
 

The Lockman Foundation, publishers of the NASB, has a monthly contest which you can register for at http://www.lockman.org/. October’s give away is a NASB Ministers Bible.

In Genesis 3:3, we see that Eve knew a good bit of what God had said about eating from the tree in question. Even if she didn’t get the quote exactly right, it was a paraphrase as good as waht most of us would come up with sometimes. But why do you think Eve was willing to take the risk of death for a piece of fruit?

At this time I’m not going to speak to all of the theological implications of Eve’s capacity for sin and making these choices, rather I want to consider what that sin creates in us a self-destructive bent. Because of the sinful nature (Romans 7) that is in all of us, we are too quick to self-destruct and we often try to destroy others along with us.

While some of those suffering from depression will cut themselves or worse, there are other types of self-destruction that we can get adicted to. I’m thinking not only of the use of illegal drugs, the excessive use of alcohol but also incorrect displays of anger, misuse and misapplication of Scritpure, and the ending of relationships. I’m sure there are many others but I wanted to just focus on these last three for now.

I think anger is a form of self-destruction. I know that the Bible says that we should be angry without sinning, but it seems that most anger that gets demonstrated is inappropriate and often self-destructive. Anger that explodes on our friends and family damages relationships, destroys self-confidence and creates distrust in those who have been targetted by the anger.

Another self-destructive behavior is the misuse of Scripture. Sometimes we use the Bible like a kaleidoscope, twisting it until we see something we like or that makes us feel good. Sadly, I’ve even seen preachers do this from a pulpit, which doesn’t help any one learn to use Scripture the correctly. Misusing scripture is self-destructive because it gives us a wrong perspective of who God is and who we are in relation to God. And if we fail to understand God’s revelation of himself, we fail to know God and be known by him.

A third self-destructive behavior is what I call familial suicide. When families decide to part ways rather than work to resolve their issues, that make a decision to end an important element of our society. The family unit was once a cornerstone of society and now the most important relationships in our lives seem to be easily discarded. It’s no secret  that divorce is on the rise and has been for some time, but there are other familial relationships that are also endangered. When brothers and sisters stop speaking to one another, a family is ended. When fathers and sons stop talking to one another, a family is broken. The breaking of the important relationships in both the immediate and extended families destroys a part of who we are. And when one family comes to an end, all of society is effected by its destruction.

The identification of self-destructive behavior is the first step in stopping the behavior and seeking healing. If identification is the first step, the second step of doing something to correct the issue is probably the most difficult. I would encourage you to seek God’s help through prayer to find inner healing and stregth to heal broken relationships. It isn’t easy to make amends with those we’ve hurt or who have hurt us, but self-destruction is much worse than the difficulty of fixing the problems.

Red Green says, “Remember, I’m pullin’ for you. We’re all in this together.” I say, “Remember, I’m prayin’ for you. We’re all in this together.”

2 John 7-11 says,

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

As I read this last night, the phrase “do not recieve him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” struck me. It made me think of the people we let into our homes through the television.

There are certainly many people on television who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. It is easy to assume that the stuff on TV or the DVDs we rent is just entertainment, but many of those in producing entertainment are with an agenda to teach their point of view.

I’m not saying all TV and movies have are produced to influence our thinking but we must be aware of what we are being taught through our own senses. There are many programs and movies that seem to have monologues where characters rant about their opinions. We should be highly suspect of these long monologues that are captured inside of a drama or other presentation.

But even if the things taught in our entertainment media are not shaping us away from a life with God, these things can still degrade our abilities to think critically. And we must always be thinking about how the material coming in through our senses effects us.

Neil Postman has written a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business in which he discusses TV and “its tendency to present everything murder, mayhem, politics, weatheras entertainment. The ultimate effect, as Postman sees it, is the shrivelling of public discourse as TV degrades our conception of what constitutes news, political debate, art, even religious thought.” — from Amazon.com

Obviously, John didn’t have TV in mind when he wrote the letter we call 2 John but we must consider what this word from God says about what and who we let into our homes.