Month: January 2018

Psalm 139:1-6

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            How do you talk to yourself?  You know what I mean.  The kind of speech that goes on inside your head.  The things which you say inside your heart that no one knows but you.  I think you will agree with me that you are rather hard on yourself.  In the reclusive parts of your mind, you speak to yourself in ways that you would never say to others, nor tolerate others saying about someone else.  Only you know the depth of your own sorrows, hurts, fears, insecurities, and worries.  Except….
            God.  He knows it all.  He knows it all intimately.  And He is not repulsed.  You see, God knows that the answer to all the doubts about yourself is His protection.  You have the freedom to plumb the recesses of your heart and soul – to bring out all that is inside the cluttered closet of your mind and lay it out on the floor without fear of God calling you what you call yourself.
            Slowly read out loud these verses for today several times.  Allow the protecting God to wash over you with grace and understanding.
139 You have looked deep
into my heart, Lord,
and you know all about me.
2 You know when I am resting
or when I am working,
and from heaven
you discover my thoughts.
3 You notice everything I do
and everywhere I go.
4 Before I even speak a word,
you know what I will say,
5 and with your powerful arm
you protect me
from every side.
6 I can’t understand all of this!
Such wonderful knowledge
is far above me. (CEV)

 

Amen.

How to Stay on Track Following Jesus Throughout the Year

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

paths are made by walking

Its normal to have a head of steam at the beginning of the year.  You have things you want to accomplish – goals you desire to see met.  On that list of things in your head, in your heart, and maybe even written down somewhere on your desk is the longing to know God better, to experience Jesus in a fresh way, to have better discipline with prayer or Bible reading.  Maybe you don’t know where or how to start.  Perhaps you have traveled the Christian road for a long time and its become stale and dull, and you think you’ve exhausted all attempts at following Jesus with enthusiasm.

There is a way, a road, a path for you to travel.  It’s a very well-worn journey that Christians for two millennia have been walking.  If you will walk with them down this road, your desires can spring to life and gain traction and direction.  It’s a path of truly walking with Jesus, to experience his birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification.

This journey with Jesus is not hard in the sense of simply following him.  Yet, it does require getting into a rhythm, just like you do when you walk.  Just as you have a certain gait, picture yourself walking with Jesus down a road.  Maybe it’s a slow saunter with him.  Maybe it’s going on a run.  Perhaps it’s a solitary tromp through the woods, or around the mall with others present.  Whatever it is, in this next year, imagine yourself recalling, retelling, and remembering the life of Jesus with him alongside you.

The Christian Calendar or Christian Year is a delightful and enlightening walk with Jesus throughout the entire year.  The Christian Year is a yearlong calendar that marks time according to the life of Jesus.  It is to live and walk in a rhythm with Christ at the center of your work and worship.  Observing the days and the seasons of the Year will bring you closer to Jesus with a greater awareness of his presence through the Holy Spirit.  It’s what I want, and it is, I believe, what you want, too.

The Christian Calendar is arranged in such a way as to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ over the course of a year.  Just one of the ways that help you to remember differing seasons is through color:  purple signifies a time for preparation and penitence; white represents celebration, joy, and victory; green lets us know it is time to focus on spiritual growth and mission; and, red helps us recall the Passion of Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Check-out how the Christian Year is organized and arranged according to seasons to aid you in your walk with Jesus:

Advent – The Christian Year begins not on January 1, but four Sundays before Christmas Day and up to Christmas Eve.  The purpose of Advent is to anticipate the incarnation of Christ and prepare us to celebrate the coming of Jesus.  We are also reminded that Jesus will again return….

Christmas – Yes, Christmas is more than just a day on the church calendar and encompasses the twelve days from December 25 to January 5 (you may recognize the 12 Days of Christmas).  Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ.

Epiphany – Epiphany follows Christmas from January 6 to the day before Ash Wednesday.  The term Epiphany means “manifestation.”  This is a celebration of God’s self-revealing, his manifestation to the entire world, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles, as well.  Epiphany emphasizes Christ’s earthly ministry of teaching, healing, and preaching.

Lent – There are forty days in the season of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday.  Lent is a time to recall Christ’s temptation, conflict, suffering, and death.  It is a season to contemplate being disciples in light of Christ’s Passion, engage in repentance, and put deliberate focus on spiritual disciplines.

Easter – As with Christmas, Easter is not just one Sunday; it is a season of fifty days up to the day of Pentecost.  Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus; helps us recognize our new life in Christ; and, includes celebrating the Ascension of our Lord.

Pentecost – This season runs from Eastertide to the Sunday before Advent.  Pentecost celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church, acknowledges our spiritual power, and calls us to rejoice in receiving God’s power.

Ordinary Time – Ordinary time refers to the ongoing work of the church to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the typical, expected, ordinary work of ministry that Christ’s followers are to do.

It’s easy to get distracted and get off track from our desires and goals.  But with observance of the Christian Year, we stay on track with Jesus.  The focus is on him, and not on our own schedules.  To center the year in Christ brings spiritual health, a close walk with Jesus, and a satisfaction to our hungry souls.

May your journey be fulfilling and fruitful.  Amen.

Judges 2:16-23

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Listening seems to be a lost art and a forgotten skill which needs careful development to be good at it.
            The Lord God Almighty is gracious, merciful, and kind.  He hears us when we call to Him, He listens when we incline our hearts to Him.  This is a characteristic of God – He always bends in a posture of listening to his creation.
            This is the reason why, as creatures in the image of God, we were meant from the very beginning of creation to listen.  But after humanity fell into disobedience, people have the tendency to talk more than they listen, to even refuse to hear what another is saying.  People even completely ignore God when He is speaking.
            The ancient Israelites were fickle in their attention to God.  When things were bad, they cried out to Him.  And because God listens, He heard and responded.  But when things were better, the people went about their business and forgot about Him.
            It was God who sent judges, rulers and leaders, to the people for their own welfare.  But we get this comment in the text of today’s Scripture:  they were quick to be unfaithful and to refuse even to listen these judges.
 
            Listening just wasn’t of value to the Israelites.  They talked and talked, and so could not hear what God or his appointed rulers were saying.
            We are to listen well, because God listens well.  We are to pay attention and hear because we are designed by our Creator to do so.  Perhaps our society would not be so perpetually upset and polarized if we would just take the time to listen well.
            Today, take a posture of listening.  Take just 10 minutes and don’t talk, don’t read, don’t check your phone, don’t do anything but just listen to the sounds around you.  What do you hear?  What do you think God is saying to you through those sounds?  How does He want you to respond?

 

            God of all creation, you have made me with two ears for listening.  Help me to so hear and distinguish you through creation and the voices of others so that I will follow you with confidence in my daily life through Jesus Christ, my Lord.  Amen.

Hermeneutical Hubris

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry Blog2 Comments
 
 
            What in the world is that!?  It’s the shortest little phrase I know to communicate a practice that I believe has been and currently is a destructive force in the church today.  With it, the best-case scenario is that congregations will continue to decline and eventually fade away and die; and, a worse case situation, congregations will abuse other people in the name of Scripture and leave a footprint of pain, depression, and woundedness that has terrible effects for all.  But without it, congregations can learn to do more than survive; they can thrive and flourish under a fruitful understanding of Christianity.
 
            “Hermeneutics” is the technical word for Bible interpretation.  “Hubris” is excessive pride coupled with misplaced self-confidence.  I can’t think of a better two words to describe the current state of a great deal of churches today.  It typically comes in the guise of “upholding the authority of Scripture.”  This is an evangelical catch phrase which means, “a literal interpretation of the Bible is what we hold to, and any other way of looking at Scripture is just wrong, and we will squelch any other view because we are right.”  Other interpretations are categorically labeled as “liberal” and discarded as progressive bunk.  Without a literal interpretation of Scripture, many churches believe that the Bible is thrown under the bus.  Like I said, hermeneutical hubris.
 
            Now, before you try and label me as liberal, just know that I take a “literal” interpretation on a good chunk of the Bible.  But I also take a poetic interpretation of Scripture; a mythological interpretation of Scripture; a metaphorical interpretation of Scripture; and, a typological interpretation of Scripture.  I do this because Scripture itself interprets itself in several different ways.  This is the reason why folks who hold to a solely literal view of the Bible continue to be befuddled by all kinds of Scripture verses.
 
            As one of many examples, the New Testament Gospel writer Matthew had a habit of referring to Old Testament passages in very non-literal ways.  When the child Jesus was taken to Egypt and came back to Judea years later, Matthew (2:15) quotes Hosea 11:1 – I called my son out of Egypt.  Matthew only quotes part of the verse.  The entire verse says, When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  Hosea was talking about the ancient Israelites’ deliverance from Pharaoh and the Egyptians. 
 
            Matthew employs this kind of interpretive method throughout his Gospel.  It is an old Jewish hermeneutic called pesher.  It is a way of interpreting Scripture that believes there is a plain surface meaning to the text which everyone can know, but also a deeper level of meaning buried within which one must dig out.  Matthew was “pesherizing” the prophet Hosea to identify Jesus with Israel as the Son who fills and fulfills the promises of God.
 
Another Jewish mode of interpretation is midrash, which is a way of looking at Scripture as a practical means to live by, and uses the narratives and stories of the Old Testament for contemporary significance.  Paul does this in his letter to the Galatians in talking about the Old Testament characters of Hagar and Sarah.  “The son of the slave woman [Hagar] was born in the usual way.  But the son of the free woman was born because of God’s promise.  All of this has another meaning as well [my emphasis].  Each of the two women stands for one of the agreements God made with his people…” (Galatians 4:21-31).  Paul was using an Old Testament story to highlight the freedom which believers have in Christ and that they should never return to the bondage of the law.
 
Speaking of bondage, insisting that a literal interpretation in the only means of understanding the Bible’s authority is to ignore and abuse the actual and real authority that exists with the Bible.  Let me be clear: I am in no way encouraging an “anything goes” type of approach to Holy Scripture that lets it say whatever you want it to say.  What I am saying is that the biblical writers themselves employed different methods of interpretation, not to mention that the early church fathers did, as well.  Its just one reason that I hold to the interpretive guides of the ancient Christian creeds, i.e. The Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed.
 
Far too often churches stick to a literal interpretation with the notion that they are keeping its fidelity out of fear that Christendom will be lost to the broader culture, and society will sink into an abyss of egregious sin.  The irony is that many churches are sinking into forms of abusive and ungracious behavior by fighting battles that Scripture itself never calls them to fight.
 

 

It’s time to do your homework.  Quit listening to evangelical pundits who prognosticate with scare tactics, and take up your God-given freedom in the power of the Holy Spirit to read your Bible.  The binary thinking of “I’m right and you’re wrong” is not an approach you’ll find in God’s Holy Word.  Set the hermeneutical hubris aside, and allow Scripture to do its intended work of leading us to Christ and to live into his words and ways.