Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

Weakness

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            When we think of Jesus, we might immediately think of him as Lord and King, the sovereign of nations, the high and exalted ruler above all creation.  But in this time of year, we remember that Christ did not come to this earth with triumphal strength.  Jesus came as a weak little baby.  He purposely divested himself and became just like us – vulnerable and subject to weakness.  “He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:7).  The incarnation is an astounding doctrine.  Such a doctrine really ought to inform our church ministry and how we operate with one another.
 
            Weakness tends to be one of those things we don’t like.  We don’t want to be vulnerable.  We fear being taken advantage of if we are exposed.  So, instead, we value self-sufficiency, independence, and holding our own.  Strength is a value we can buy into.  The Apostle Paul struggled with his weaknesses.  Yet, he learned not only to accept human weakness, but to actually value it.  It wasn’t easy, especially since Paul had to hear from Jesus himself:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  It was then that Paul made the decision:  “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses… For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
 
            From a biblical perspective, weakness is not a bad thing.  In fact, it is through the weak that God delights to work.  “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong,” was Paul’s message to a Corinthian church that esteemed strength and looked down on weakness (1 Corinthians 1:27).  Weakness and strength are not moral or ethical terms.  To be weak is simply to recognize reality.  The goal of life and ministry, of both pastor and parishioner, does not really demand strength.  I always chuckle when a church tells me they are looking for a “strong” pastor to lead them.  Um, maybe they should get their job description from Scripture.  Vitality and vigor among pastor and people are not the goal but by-products of dwelling together in Christ as real people without pretense or posturing.  It is when we insist on strength that we get things like hypocrisy and two-faced behavior.  We keep up appearances so that we can avoid being seen as weak.
 
            Weakness is vulnerability.  And vulnerability demands reality.  In order to become real people in a real church we must embrace our collective weakness.  Until we can get to that point, there will continually be an emphasis on manipulation and technique to produce strength.  Black and white thinking takes over the unreal church.  The lone ranger and rugged individualist who seem to have it all together are held up as the model.  But Scripture will have none of this.  True community comes through weakness and vulnerability. 
 
            We cannot truly understand ourselves until we can admit our weakness and our inability to understand everything.  Indeed, one of the great mysteries of Christian faith is that God himself exists as a perfect One in a community of Three.  Embracing weakness allows us to embrace the mystery of God and the Gospel.  This compulsion that so many have to nail every theological statement down in neat packaged solutions is to treat weakness and vulnerability as some disease to be cured.  The obsession for clear answers to every question only creates anxiety, which, in turn, produces irrational behavior.  An anxious church makes decisions with no sense to them because they are always trying to gain the high ground of certainty through strength.
 

 

            If we want to live into our weakness, then we need to drop the pretense and admit how we are really doing, feeling, and even believing.  For, no one can truly live life to the full in a fantasy world constructed of our own strong making.  Weakness allows us to experience true community, significant relationships, and connection with God.  God became a baby.  He embraced weakness and vulnerability.  Let that thought marinade in your heart and soul in this season so that the New Year will bring a truly new life.

Matthew 12:33-37

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            This is what Jesus said:  “Your words show what is in your hearts.  Good people bring good things out of their hearts, but evil people bring evil things out of their hearts.”  Our speech is the outward demonstration of what is really within the heart.  There really isn’t any room to believe that a constant stream of gossip, backbiting, slander, and negative comments is anything but coming from a heart of evil.  A person who speaks such words is not a loving, gracious, merciful person.  But the person who continually encourages, uplifts, and seeks to be positive reflects a deep heart of love for others.
 
            Therefore, simply altering our speech around certain persons is not the point and does no good.  That kind of behavior only breeds hypocrisy and is two-faced, a la the Pharisees.  Instead, the place to aim is the heart from where the speech arises.  And the only way to truly renovate a heart is to sub-contract the project to Jesus.
 
            The people we typically hang-out with the most are the people that most influence our attitudes and our speech.  So, if we spend copious amounts of time with Jesus it is inevitable that our hearts will become more like his and, thus, our words will be in alignment with the words and ways of Christ.  For, it is God who replaces a hard heart of stone with a soft heart of flesh.  Be rooted in Christ and the fruit of the tree will demonstrate it.
 

 

            Sovereign God, you hear every careless word spoken and see each harmful conversation as it takes place.  Our guilt is very great!  Forgive my egregious sin against you through the things I have said, and the things I have left unsaid.  Please let the benevolent and generous Christ rule my heart through the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Romans 15:14-21

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
            Paul was an apostle, that is, a person commissioned by God and sent to the Gentiles – people other than the Jews.  Through Peter, and then Paul, the good news of Jesus spread to persons that were beforehand considered unreachable.  Paul saw himself as having no limits as to who could hear and respond to the gospel of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.  He understood himself as standing between heaven and hell, interceding and pleading on behalf of people who need their lives changed through Christ.
 
            It is quite possible that there are persons in our sphere of influence in which we think that they would never respond to the message of Christ’s redemption.  In this holiday season of the year, in which we remember God’s loving gift in the humility of God becoming man, it is far too easy to lose sight that at that Christmas party, family gathering, and interaction with that person in the long shopping line, there are those who need Jesus – and we will never know if God is wooing them to himself unless we share life with them.
 
            Perhaps we need to see ourselves as Paul did – standing in the gap and always trying to find ways to proclaim the gospel to people who require deliverance from empty ways of life.  That cousin or uncle, that co-worker or friend, and that neighbor or new acquaintance, can be forgotten by us as to their ultimate and most real need to discover faith.  We, my friends, are the conduit that God has ordained to bring his life-giving message to people all around us – people for whom we might have already written off as unreachable.
 

 

            We praise you, O God, for the ministry and success of your servant, the Apostle Paul, through whom we who are Gentiles owe our own faith and calling.  Grant us a vision like his, the conviction and commitment to pursue it, and the grace which confirms and prospers it.  Amen.

Taste That the Lord is Good

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            Throughout the past thirty-one years of Thanksgivings that my wife and I have celebrated together, many of them have included college students, co-workers, and church members – all with no family in the area.  On one particular Thanksgiving we had a young woman from India over to eat with us.  She was a Hindu from the highest caste in Indian society.  She looked like a real live Indian Barbie doll and carried herself like royalty.  She had never observed Thanksgiving and been with an American family to celebrate it.  It is always our tradition to go around the table during the meal and describe one thing we are thankful for in the past year.  I purposely made sure she was the last one to share, and let her know that she was not obligated to do so.  But she wanted to speak and said this:  “I never knew that there could be love like this amongst a family.  You see, in my culture we are always concerned about how we are displeasing one of our many gods and what we can do to appease them and solicit their help.  Love is not something we think much about.  I do have a question, if I might ask:  Why do you eat this food, and why so much?”  Yeah, good question!  Why dowe do that?  And why do we do what we do at Christmas?  Why do we hold to certain traditions and do particular things in the holiday season?
 
            I said something to her like this:  “The food reminds us that the God we serve is a good God who provides us not only with what we need, but graciously gives us beyond what we even ask or deserve.  This is what we call “grace.”  And the fellowship we share around the table reinforces the story of God – how we were once spiritually hungry – and God sent his Son, Jesus, to give us what we could gain for ourselves.  He satisfied us with the spiritual food of forgiveness and freedom to become the people we were intended to be from the beginning.  The food is symbolic and the celebration is a ritual that reinforces God’s grace to us in Christ.”  She left that day with many questions and lots to think about.
 
            God uses symbols to reveal himself to us.  For example, when he wanted to show us the ugliness of sin and the cost of forgiveness, he told his people, the Israelites, to kill an animal and sprinkle its blood on their clothing and on the altar.  It sounds awful.  But no worshiper ever walked away from that experience scratching his head and wondering what in the heck it was all about.  That’s because he encountered and tasted the drama of sin and redemption.  His senses saw it, felt it, smelled it, and tasted the meat from it. 
 
            Symbols have power.  God wants us to know him, and we cannot know him with only our minds.  We are not just brains on a stick.  We need more – we need ordinary events, like shared meals, that include symbols and rituals.  We need both words and sacraments.  That’s why holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas involve both verbal expressions of gratitude and love, and particular actions of love in giving gifts and sharing food.  Together, it all connects us to God, to one another, and to a history of God’s people.  Jesus met his disciples in the Upper Room to celebrate Passover together.  Jesus energized their time together by filling it with words and symbols of love and redemption.  Jesus did not just tell them about his upcoming death.  He spoke and acted symbolically.  “Take and eat – this is my body….  Take this cup – this is my blood – drink from it, all of you.”  The disciples did not sit around and analyze the bread and discuss the wine’s vintage.  They ate and drank.  They tasted real food and drink, but they also tasted real spiritual food.  It is one thing to speak of God’s presence, and it is another to experience that presence through an ordinary shared ritual of bread and cup.
 

 

The taste of bread reminds us of:  the life of Jesus who humbled himself and became a baby; the incarnation of Christ; Christ’s humiliation and death.  The taste of drinking the cup reminds us of:  the blood of Christ; the sacrifice of Christ; the drops of blood which Jesus sweated in Gethsemane; and, the beatings, floggings, nails, and crown of thorns that resulted in Christ’s bleeding.  Tasting the bread and cup when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper reminds us that:  our sins are forgiven; we are united to Christ; and, we are united together.  We are encouraged through word and sacrament to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ until he comes again.  Respond to God’s wooing invitation through his church to eat and drink, to taste and see that the Lord is good through repentance and faith in Jesus.