Not all Christians are disciples--and that's by design

What if the gospels were designed to train disciples which were actually supposed to be future rabbis? And then the Epistles were designed to equip the saints? This would help explain why the word disciple disappears in the Epistles.

Jesus was training disciples--these are people who would become teachers in the movement that He was beginning. The epistles seem more focused on equipping the saints, rather than training disciples. The word disciple seems to be replaced with saints as the recipients of the literature of the New Testament.

Lots more could be said about this.

Children, Parenting, the Curse, Suffering, and the Pieta

I had a very disturbing dream that felt like an spiritual attack. The enemy's most powerful attacks against me come in the form of intimidation. I woke up at 3am and began to pray in part about my children. At 330am I began to journal and I wrote for 4 hours. I thought about a conversation I had with someone in our church about their child's desire to be a missionary and the fear that struck in the mother about the dangers of missionary work. 

I then connected Michaelangelo’s Pieta and the angels’ message to Mary in Luke 2:35. Both of these show that part of the role of mothers is to offer their children up to God, knowing that they will suffer. Fathers also must do this, but stereotypically mothers are more challenged by this. This is a “soul piercing” exercise that requires great faith from the mother, who has temptations to overprotect her children in order to keep them safe. Luke 2:35 is the warning beforehand that proper mothering means you will offer your children to God, knowing that their following Jesus will mean suffering because of the sin and brokenness of the world. The Pieta is a breathtaking masterpiece that shows the result of proper mothering and the soul-piercing grief that inevitably strikes the mother when she has to suffer through seeing her child suffer. 

As I was processing my dream in the hours before morning, I connected these ideas to Genesis 3 and made a connection I had not made before. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world and so the world was subjected to futility and cursed. The judgment on the woman was, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” This clearly indicates that the process of being pregnant and the act of giving birth would be riddled with multiplied pain. But the new thought that occurred to me was that childbearing begins with conception, 9 months of preganancy, and delivery, but the end of childbearing (meaning childbearing’s telos/goal) isn’t merely a new, live human being. The telos of childbearing is a mature man or woman who is strong enough to stand against the evil in the world and to push it back as they exercise dominion over the earth. They are designed to exercise this dominion by reflecting the image of God and being empowered by God's Holy Spirit. This is what we aim to produce by preparing ourselves to parent and then through our parenting. And ALL OF THIS is riddled with multiplied pain.

So of course the pain that is multiplied includes everything leading up to delivery. But doesn’t it also include the realization of the mother that her children must leave the home and face the suffering of life and the evil that works against Jesus and His kingdom? Doesn’t it include their actual leaving and their actual suffering? So all the worry and anxiety of what might be in our kids’ lives are including in the mother’s multiplied pain. The Pieta is an image of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Luke 2:35. Mothers throughout history can know that they aren’t alone in the soul-piercing pain that their children’s suffering causes. Even the perfect Child caused the most acute pain to the heart of His mother as she was forced to watch him walk the Via Dolorosa and then to be nailed to the cross. The Passion of the Christ meant suffering for Jesus, and suffering for His mother.

Stepping back even farther, how much greater suffering did the Father of Jesus endure as He was moved to forsake His Son? The eternal Fellowship that the two enjoyed before time began (John 17:5; John 1:1) was broken as He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2Corinthians 5:21). Herein lies the reason why any mother (or father) would be willing to accept this pain, and continue to worship God. Herein lies the reason why any mother (or father) would humble themselves, and follow Mary, saying, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”(Luke 1:38). It is because the suffering of the Son of God destroyed the power of death and the evil that wields it. It is because from the death of Jesus comes ever flowing streams of life to the whole world. It is only through the suffering and death of the Son of God that death may be swallowed up in the victory of resurrection life. The wages of sin is death, so the Son of God tasted death so that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who fear of death of death were subject to lifelong slavery”(Hebrews 2:14-15).

Mothers (and fathers) are taught to have a pain-filled faith that knows that when our children suffer and hold on to their faith, they too overcome the world (1John 5:4). God crushes the Satan under their feet (Romans 16:20). God’s kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). What a glorious victory that is ours when instead of over-shielding our children from suffering we instead strengthen them to head into it and stand against it, fully clad in God’s armor! (Ephesians 6:10-20).

So yes, there is multiplied pain in bearing and raising and releasing children. But isn't there a glorious justification for saying yes to such pain when we see that through the Spirit-empowered faithfulness of our children, they in small ways bring heaven and earth together in a foretaste of the new world (Matthew 19:28). In their lives they demonstrate Jesus' ultimate victory over sin and death. 

The glory doesn’t make the pain less multiplied. But it does lead us to conclude that the sufferings of this world cannot be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in us (Romans 8:18)!

  

May this encourage and inspire you to raise your kids as stewards, ultimately offering them to God and longing first for their strength, not merely their safety.

Burial vs. Cremation

There are some layers to understanding the Bible here. Here's my overview of the issue. 

1. The practice of people who followed God in the Bible was to bury, NOT to cremate. This seems to be for 2 related reasons:  1) Separation from other religious practices. 2) Expressing a belief about the body's future. Other religions cremated because they believed that in death, the good soul escapes the confines of the evil/plagued/unnecessary body. This is not the biblical understanding of the body/soul relationship, nor of the future that God has designed for people. 

God made human beings to be body+soul creatures. He designed us to flourish body+soul. Incidentally, this is why we enjoy food, sun, water, mountains, music, etc. Aesthetics are sensorial. They are aspects of the physical and embodied nature of our existence. To be embodied is not bad, but it's part of how we experience the glory of God. This one application of what Romans 1:20-23 says about how the invisible God has manifested His invisible attributes and His glory through what He has made. 

The incarnation of Jesus and His resurrection further prove that body+soul is good and is God's design for humanity. It's true that when we die, our souls leave our bodies and go into the presence of the Lord. But in the future, when Jesus returns, we will be raised beyond death and we will be given new, resurrection bodies (1Corinthians 15:35-55). We will inherit a physical+spiritual new heaven and earth (Revelation 21-22). Then for all eternity, we will be perfected body+soul beings in communion with God, others, and all of the physical universe. Because of this, Jews and Christians practiced burial as a declaration that the body is good and it was buried in hope that it will be raised and renewed in the future resurrection of all things (John 11:24). 

So Jews and Christians practiced burial because of their belief in image of God in the present physicality of the universe and the future physicality of the resurrected and renewed universe. They rejected the way that other religions discredited or repudiated the physical. It is true that it's possible to cremate for other reasons than to reject the goodness of the physical present and future. This leads to my next point.

2. I believe that the practice of burial in the Bible is DE-scriptive, rather than PRE-scriptive. This means that the Bible reports what God's people did, but does not say that this is the only way to do it. There is no command from God to bury. Burial is what they did because of what they believed about the present and future. I think that it's possible to cremate without believing in a pagan understanding of the "free-the-soul-from-the-body" or "reject the physical in favor of the spiritual" dynamics. Even if you do bury someone, that person will return to dust in a way that is not dissimilar to the ashes produced by cremation. Both ashes and dust reflect the undoing of the process of God bringing human life into the world (Genesis 2:7). 

Because people can choose to bury or cremate and still have a robust faith in the Bible's worldview of the body, I think this is an issue that is similar to the "Meat Offered to Idols" issue that the early Jew+Gentile church wrestled with. Paul addresses this issue thoroughly in Romans 14-15 and in 1Corinthians 8-10. His conclusion is that it's okay to eat or not eat as long as you are doing it (or not doing it) as an expression of your faith in Jesus. Along these lines, I believe it's okay to bury or cremate as long as you are doing either in faith--meaning that you believe in the goodness of the physical of the present creation (even though the present creation has been marred by sin and temporarily cursed) and you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and in your own future resurrection.

3. It's most important to make a decision based on your faith in the resurrection from the dead. If God will raise you to live beyond death, if God will give you a new body and have you live forever in a body+soul reality, then I think you want to make a decision that reflects your faith in that future. Many people just don't worry about it. They think--well, God can find the ashes or the dust wherever they are and just put it back together. I would suggest that people handle someone's remains in a way that shares with those left behind your faith about your future. So I would suggest (this is my best wisdom, but this isn't the only way) that whether you bury or cremate, choose a location for the remains. This honors your body and it honors you with a place. Your soul will be with Jesus from the day you die, but your physical remains will have a location that can be remembered and honored by those who you leave behind.

Intellect and Emotions are not at Odds? EVERYONE is emotional

Here’s a development of thoughts we began on Monday. I’m very excited about this. I’d love your thoughts and feedback.

Being emotional isn’t in tension with being intellectual. Intellectuals are emotional about their ideas and about being right.

The real question is what is producing the emotional reaction in people who aren’t moved by ideas and being right? Is it relational connection? Is it the closure of a good story? Is it a sense of rightness that is told in a narrative vs. propositional arguments?

In Exodus, the purpose of priestly garments was “for glory and for beauty.” Romans 2 says we are to seek for glory and honor and immortality. Psalm 8 says that being made in God’s image means that we are a little lower than angels and we are crowned with glory and honor. Maybe “beauty” is not only a description determined by characteristics that something has. Maybe beauty is in part indicated by the impact it has on others. Maybe beauty is a description that indicates that something is showing all who look at it or think about it that something is ideal in it. Maybe things that are beautiful actually show us something beyond the ordinary, maybe beauty is a reflection of God’s image In things. Maybe beauty is an indication of the glory of something. That It affects others, it impresses and amazes and it puts people in awe. They have to stop and stare, they are mesmerized. They worship. They devote themselves to it. Maybe that’s what beauty is and what it’s for.

JBP says that one of the personality trait is broken down into two different things:  apprecitation of ideas vs. appreciation of aesthetics. This dichotomy might be an indication of non idea driven (non logically driven assessment of –assessment of things. This would fit with the idea that there is something aesthetical or beautiful that “non-intellectual” or “non-logical” people are drawn to moves people very deeply. I also believe that these other aesthetical or beautiful things that move people are very logical and rational (meaning that when they are understood they both make sense and can be explained), but that many people feel the right-ness of it before they are able to explain it, and many times for various reasons they don’t end up getting explained.

The more I think about this, the bigger it gets. Appreciation of aesthetics doesn’t just have to be physically appealing things like beauty. This is important because when conflict happens in marriage, in friendships, in churches, in politics, etc. very often the conflict is the result of the two (or more) people valuing different things, or having a different order of priority for their values. This also relates to Jordan’s rule 4, which includes a discussion of the reality that what we focus on is what we see. So often in the church, conflicts arise because people thing one thing is most important and that one thing is different from what the leadership thinks is most important. For instance, which is more important—caring for people or theological accuracy? Obviously both are important.

So the thing that I would love to discuss further is this:

The issue is not Intellect vs. Emotion. The reality is the intellectual people get emotional about logic and ideas.

What is it that “emotional” people are getting emotional about? It’s not that they are emotional, where Intellectual people are not. Everyone gets emotional—intellectual’s peoples’ emotional commitment to ideas just doesn’t look like what an “emotional” person’s emotional reaction looks like. But I think that emotional reactions are actually what both sides have in common. So what is it that produces the emotional reaction from people on the “emotional” side of the spectrum? Understanding this would help us to create new categories for people and lead us to understand them much better. Here are some suggestions:

What moves non-intellectual people to become emotional?

Beauty—there are people who are moved by and committed to beautiful things, artistic things, things that are visually compelling.

Relationships—there are people who think that people and relationships are the most important things

Feelings—there are people who think that how you feel is most important

CASH VALUE OF THIS IDEA:

Knowing that people are moved by different things can help a lot when there are disagreements. Maybe the conflict is the result of different people valuing different things? Maybe the way to engage in conflict is to step back and ask yourself, “What is it that this other person is valuing? How is what they are valuing a reflection of something good? How can I affirm the value of what they are valuing? How can I share what I’m valuing in a way that is a ‘Yes, and…’ rather than a ‘No, but…’?”

This seems like it could really impact marriages, churches, friendships. It would lead to much richer conversations.

What do you think? What other things are there that move people to become emotional?

Why Are Animals Different from Humans, According to the Bible?

I think the best answer is to tell the story of God's desire to create people that he can be in relationship with. He made the world with a desire to have a special relationship with people that He would make in His own
image. The idea isn't that He doesn't care about animals or anything else that He has made. Rather, the idea is that in His infinite creativity, God wanted to share as much of Himself as He could with us. 

So human beings were the pinnacle of His creation, the highest form of life that He created. This is what it means that we were made in His image. He made us to have the capacity to know Him and to relate to Him. One picture that the Bible gives of the relationship between God and human beings is that of a father to his
children. God wanted to create a world where people could relate to Him as family, and He created the rest of the world to be the environment where that relationship could exist and flourish. So the world God created teaches us all about Him and what He's like. The world also shows us how we can live lives that would imitate Him. I believe this is why He created so many forms of life that aren't in His image. These other forms of life are gifts from God for us to enjoy and take care of and to use. These become an opportunity for us to reflect God's care and stewardship--celebrating what is good and using what is useful. All that we do in relationship to the rest of creation is to bring about abundant, teeming, fruitful, and flourishing life. God gave us a world that was very good, and our stewardship of the world was designed to make it even better.

So in relationship to other forms of life that we are stronger and smarter than, we get a very sincere opportunity to taste a little bit of what it's like to be God. All that we do should reflect God and how He treats us (with appropriate differences and qualifications).

Very practically, animals are gifts from God to us so that we could learn more about Him and be reminded of what He is like. They are gifts given to us to help us flourish. They are opportunities for us to learn how to be
good stewards and increasers of multiplying life.

Why is the world so screwed up? Is it God's fault?

This is a complicated question. There are lots of layers both in understanding what the Bible says God's perspective is on this subject, and then also how God's perspective impacts the people who are experiencing the brokenness of the world. Here's one effort to offer a simplified explanation of how to think about this:

1. God is love.
2. God made the world and filled it with people that He wanted to love to have love Him back.
3. Love requires free will. If you can't choose, or you are forced to choose, it's not love.
4. Human beings have used their free will to do evil:  to themselves, to other people, and to the world.
5. The good people and the good world have been vandalized and corrupted by the evil things people have done.
6. The evil things people have done has taken control of the world and become almost a ruling power in and of itself, being further propagated in the world. 
7. God loves and cares so much that He has consistently acted to re-engage with the world that has banished Him, to rescue people from the power of evil, and to renew them so that they can fix what has been vandalized and corrupted.
8. God loves and cares so much that He actually entered into the world in Jesus to be a human strong enough to overcome the power of evil in the world. 
9. God and cares so much that He entered into our broken world and experienced the full evil of the world and of people in His suffering on the cross. His suffering was Him taking on the consequences of the evil of people. He did this to bring forgiveness from God for the evil the we do, and to bring power into the world so that other people could receive that power and overcome it in their own lives. His resurrection shows that He is stronger than the world's evil. When we believe and follow Jesus, we receive His power. Overcoming evil in our lives means having the strength to endure the evil and brokenness of the world in our own personal lives and to be able to respond to it all with grace, understanding, love, and the strength to show others a better way.

Christmas is a chance to celebrate that we have a God who didn't destroy evil people from up in heaven, but He came into the world to rescue and renew it.

If God Makes All These Promises, Then Why Is My Life This Way?

All of us have things in life that we want. Some of them even seem to line up with things that God says are good:  Ability to provide for our needs through work, Have meaningful companionship, Get married, Have children, Feel like our lives matter, etc.

God hasn't promised we'll be married or have children or that other people will change the way we want them to... Even when we read stories of conception and child birth to the barren (like Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 15-21), it doesn't mean that God promises to make that happen for everyone. So what promises does God make to us? Here are just a few:

God promises to forgive us for the things we do that drive wedges between us and Him and that make us people who bring decay to others (1John 1:9-11).

God promises to be with us always--in us and with us through His Spirit (Romans 8:11-15).

God promises to work all things together for good if we love Him (Romans 8:28).

God promises to complete the work He begins in us when we first believe in Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

God promises not to tempt us beyond what we can handle (1Corinthians 10:13). 

God promises to strengthen us so that we can make other people better (Romans 15:14).

This is just the beginning of the promises that are made by God to His children. Admittedly, some of God's promises are not pleasant, but painful. God promises that we will have conflict in the world and we will be persecuted (2Timothy 3:12). The point is that when we see the specifics of God's promises, it should change our expectations. We can trust God's promises to be true and to come true. Outside of that, the Bible teaches us that we live in a broken world that is frustrating. Sometimes that brokenness comes from outside of us, sometimes that brokenness comes from within. Sometimes the brokenness is unintended results, sometimes there is intentional evil behind the brokenness. Sometimes the brokenness comes from things outside us, sometimes, it comes from within us. The promises of God are true and come true in the midst of our broken world and lives. This is what creates the tension of celebrating God's promises, while continuing to frustratingly endure the brokenness.  

When we see what God actually promises, it radically adjusts our expectations. It helps us to see God more clearly in our lives because we stop looking for Him in things He hasn’t promised. Then, we begin to see Him where in the promises He has made. This often takes real grieving—I have so often in my life been confronted that some things in my life may never get better, and so I’ve had to sorrowfully grieve and let go of those expectations. It’s frustrating and confusing and painful, but after it’s done, life for me is better, because I don’t have that rain cloud of disappointment hanging over me. Plus, seeing God at work where He has promised brings a joy and contentment because I feel like I'm finally on the same page with what He is doing in my life.