Tag: sin

Biblical Colonialism

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
There is a certain kind of idolatry that is rampant within many churches today.  It masquerades as godliness, but is really full of dead men’s bones.  As with most idolatrous behavior, it is not easily discerned or detected by those who practice it.  This is why it is insidious and dark.  The sin I am referring to is what I will call “biblical colonialism.”
 
            What I mean by this term is the activity of some believers and churches to approach the text of Holy Scripture with the intent of doing hermeneutical conquering.  That is, coming at the text of the Bible in such a way as to determine the right interpretation and defend that interpretation with life and lips to the point of holy war.  This is to reify in a position that is believed to be the right and true teaching of the Word of God.  The Bible then inevitably becomes elevated to such a level of being the Trinity:  Father, Son, and Holy Scripture.  The Spirit of God is replaced with what such colonizing persons believe to be the only plain and authoritative truth of the Bible.  And they will not be dissuaded even by the blessed Holy Spirit to change their position.  They will die for it, or, at least, go on (un)holy campaigns and wage battle after battle defending their idolatrous behavior.  It is, some Christians believe, the biblical high ground.  But is it?
 
            Instead, could it be more of the modernist impulse to have answers for everything?  It seems to me that the Enlightenment project of sheer rationalist thought has left in its wake a draining of all mystery; the belief that every biblical problem can be answered; the endeavor and even compulsion to understand every cultural, social, and political issue through the modernist lens of sheer objective knowledge.  In other words, it is the aggressive attempt to colonize the Bible and conquer it so that it serves my need to have clear black and white answers to every issue there is, as if this is the real task of the church.  It is to try and master the text of Scripture, instead of putting oneself in the humble position of being mastered by the Scripture.  If we are so certain about our interpretations of Scripture, then no wonder so many women feel oppressed by the church and even more gay individuals will have nothing to do with the evangelical church, not to mention the wholesale flock of entire generations of young persons from institutional church life.  It is the height of hubris to think that when we get beyond the core cardinal doctrines of the faith as expressed in historic Christianity that we can colonize the Bible and conquer it so that our interpretations on a range of issues are on par with God himself.  It is to value hermeneutics over love; to esteem interpretation over grace; to seek conquered territory over hospitality.
 
            Perhaps alongside the commonly identified idols of money, power, and sex we must also include the Bible itself.  After all, Holy Scripture is the revelation of God – not God himself.  To treat it otherwise is to miss its central message of redemption in Christ, and the great need that the entire world has to come to grips with the person and work of Jesus – not with my interpretation of particular Bible verses that are ancillary to people knowing Christ.  King Jesus is the rightful ruler of the universe – not me or my supposed conquest of Bible passages that purport to have all the correct and right answers to all of life’s problems and woes.
 

 

            If I am “right,” the only real posture to take for many believers and churches today is to prostrate ourselves before the God who is jealous for his Name to be set apart as the only one to be worshiped and adored.  There is a great need for repentance – not for other people, but for us who claim to know Christ and serve him.  Instead of belly-aching and complaining that the world should be serving the interests of evangelical Christianity, we have desperate need to come back to the ancient practice of seeing the church as the continuing presence of Christ on earth and serving the world’s people.  Only then will we reverse the curse of biblical colonialism and spread the good news of new life in Christ.

Evicting Complaints

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            

 

 
            Every person on planet earth knows what a complaint is because we have all done it and we have all been the brunt of it.  In order to handle grumblers we must first deal with our own complaining spirit.  When our ancestors, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and fell into a state of sin, their attitudes changed.  Whereas their reflex responses in the garden Paradise were to enjoy God and be open with Him, their automatic emotional reflexes after their fall were to hide and blame.  Adam’s first response to God after disobeying Him was to point his finger at Eve:  “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”  And Eve’s initial reflex attitude was blame, as well:  “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3).
 
The basic sinful nature of us humans from that time forward has been to have an automatic reflex attitude of blaming, quarreling, and complaining.  The heart drifts toward complaint as if by some gravitational pull because grumbling seems a reasonable response to disappointing events. Generally, you do not have to extend an invitation for complaint to show up. It arrives as an uninvited guest. You return home from a frustrating day to discover that complaint has moved into your guest room, unpacked its luggage, started a load of laundry, and is rooting through your fridge. Even as you work to evict complaint—as you move its bags to the curb and change the locks—it somehow crawls back into the guest room window. Complaint resists eviction.  Before we know it, complaint feels right because it is familiar. With every struggle, we become like the Israelites murmuring in the desert (Exodus 16-17). God desires to prepare our faith for his work and service in the community and in the world, but we are hunkered down in our automatic reflex pattern of grumbling.
 
We can discourage complaint’s residency in our lives by inviting another guest to move in with us. That new guest is a prayerful attitude of trust and gratitude. When we choose to trust God and give Him thanks in the face of deep disappointment, complaint has less space to maneuver. While attempting to unpack for an extended stay, complaint discovers that trust and gratitude have taken all the drawers in the guest room and already occupies the empty seat at the supper table. Faith and gratitude evict complaint because faith and a grumbling spirit are not able to live in the same house together. One inevitably pushes the other one out.
 
It does not take any effort to complain most about the people closest to us – which is why marriages need to be continually strengthened; the relationship between pastor and people must always be nurtured; and, the closest relationship of all, with God, ought to be characterized not by murmuring and complaining, but by an automatic response of trust and gratitude in the face of trouble.
 
The ancient Israelites experienced the greatest miracle of the Old Testament – being delivered from harsh slavery in Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea so that they could walk across on dry ground and escape the Egyptian army’s pursuit.  It is easy to praise God when great things happen, and the Israelites had a whopper of a praise and worship service after that deliverance.  But it is quite another thing to praise and trust God when trouble happens – and when it happens over and over again.  Immediately after the praise and worship, Moses led the people into the desert and there was no water.  God led the people on purpose into a difficult situation because he wanted to test their faith.  Faith is a muscle that must be exercised so that it can strengthen and grow.  But the Israelites quickly forgot the blessings and grumbled about their situation.  The Israelites reflex attitude response was to complain and ignore God’s direct commands.  Maybe they did so because they spent four-hundred years in slavery in Egypt and complaint had made such a home with them there that it was second nature to them to murmur about their situation.
 
 
 
I keep a little c-clamp in my office to remind me that I am not in control, but God is.  The c-clamp also reminds me that I need to keep a clamp on my tongue when it comes to grumbling and complaining.  Sins of the tongue are some of the most dominant forms of disobedience to God in the Bible.  We use our words and our mouths because the tongue is powerful.  The Apostle James put it this way:  “All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:7-8).  Here is a probing question:  Can any of us go 24 hours without complaining about something or someone?  Those of us who cannot answer ‘yes’ must recognize that we have a serious problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without drinking liquor, you are addicted to alcohol. If you cannot go 24 hours without smoking, you are addicted to nicotine. And if you cannot go 24 hours without grumbling about something or someone, then you have lost control over your tongue and you are addicted to murmuring and have an adulterous relationship with complaint.
 
We must drink from the well of everlasting life and not from the well of complaint.  Jesus is the Living Water we need.  If we find ourselves being compulsive complainers, it could be that we have not yet found the spiritual water we are thirsting for.  We complain because we are not content and we are thirsty.  So, drink deeply of Jesus Christ.  Everyone who drinks of complaint will never be satisfied.  But everyone who drinks the water Jesus gives will never thirst, and that water will become in that person a spring welling up to eternal life.
 

 

God is with us.  Difficult circumstances, trouble, hard situations, problem people, and the seeming impossibility that things will not change are not evidence that God isn’t there; instead, it is evidence that He is with us, wanting us to come to him and trust in his grace and provision.  Will you trust God with your impossible situation?  Will you give thanks to God for everything, including your trouble that humbles you to pray?  Will you come to the fount of Living Water and find satisfaction and contentment in Jesus Christ?

Confess Your Sins to Each Other

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
When it comes to learning a new skill, or developing some practice, it really requires the willingness to take a risk and go to places we have not been before.  But fear of the unknown can hamstring us and be a significant barrier to our development as followers of Jesus.  Any growth in Christian faith will require risk.  Understandably, this is uncomfortable.  Especially as we grow older and settle into certain routines and ways of life, we become used to being in control.  Over time our comfort zone might shrink to encompass little more than the things we are good at, doing the activities that bring us a reasonable chance of success, and avoiding things that leave us vulnerable.
 
            But God calls us to faith, which requires a real sense of dependence and the necessity of putting ourselves out there for him.  So, hearing the biblical phrase “confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16) may cause us to be anxious, nervous, or just downright scared.  All of us, without exception, have our adverse circumstances, our trials, and our tribulations in this life.  The perspective of the Apostle James is that coping and dealing with the things that trouble us and give us grief cannot effectively be dealt with apart from the church.  Overcoming our troubles requires corporate involvement.  The medicine that we need to deal with life is confession of sin and prayer.  It may be a hard pill to swallow, but every good thing in the Christian life is accessed through the humility of confession.
 
It is part of the church leadership’s job to encourage, to listen to confessions, and to pray (James 5:14-15).  The Apostle James clearly puts the burden on the needy person to share his/her need.  You cannot expect others to read your mind or pick up on clues; you should take the initiative to seek prayer and encouragement.  And you should not expect healing to happen if you do not admit your need for help.
 
            In his book Invisible Men, psychologist Michael Addis tells the story about meeting a middle-aged man named Patrick. Although by all accounts Patrick was an easygoing, happily-married family man who ran a successful business, he had just tried to take his own life. After some prodding from Dr. Addis, Patrick finally divulged the events that led to his suicide attempt. His business had steadily slowed until he was unable to make the mortgage payment on their new house. Things went downhill financially from there. Then the economy crashed.  Dr. Addis writes:  “It was Patrick’s response to these events that really struck me. Rather than letting his wife and close friends know about the struggles he was facing, Patrick kept it all to himself. Over time, the gap between what people thought was going on in his life and what was actually going on grew larger, and Patrick became profoundly depressed. He couldn’t face working, but he also couldn’t face telling people how bad things had gotten …. Eventually the depression became so overwhelming that he saw no other way out.  “How could I face them?” he asked. “What would they think of me? In their eyes I’d look like a has-been, somebody whose time had come and gone, only because he couldn’t handle it.”  “But those were extremely difficult experiences you had,” I said. “Nobody could have foreseen the financial difficulties.”  “I should have been able to. Besides, that’s not what I’m talking about. I should have been able to handle it emotionally. Instead, I fell apart and turned into a sniveling little boy. What was I going to say, ‘Oh, Mommy, please help me?’ I couldn’t let people see me like that.”  On the one hand, it seemed obvious to me that no man would want to see himself like a little boy asking for Mommy’s help. But then if you stopped and thought about it, is asking for help worse than dying? How far will a man go to hide his shame? How many Patricks are out there who would rather [suffer alone] than try to break through the gauntlet of silence and invisibility that prevents them from finding the support they so desperately need?”
 
  • Some Christians are emotionally suffering and mentally struggling because of their unforgiving spirit concerning some past event and are holding on to bitterness.  They will not be well until they accept God’s prescription of confession and prayer.
  • Some Christians are suffering in silence and experiencing physical ailments because of a stubborn refusal to admit need and obey the Scripture to confess sins.
  • Some Christians are overwhelmed with life circumstances to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion because they are holding on to things that they think are important, but are not important to God.
  • Some Christians have gone to doctors, counselors, and talked to everyone under the sun about their situation, but have not taken the Bible seriously through confession and prayer to deal with their problem.
  • Some Christians are harboring secret sins and do not have victory over them because, even though they have prayed, their pride has stopped them from confession to others.

 

So what should we do?  We should confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that we may be healed.  This is the responsibility of every believer.  God has not given a spirit of timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).  We can do this.  I am praying for you, that your personal courage will result in confessing your sins to a trusted Christian person.

Addressing Addiction

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

Addiction is as much a part of our culture and society as dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, or weeds in the garden.  For the person who wants to encourage and help someone caught in a destructive pattern of alcoholism, pornography, drugs, smoking, or any other addiction it is absolutely imperative to understand and use the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to address the situation.  This is not to say that approaching addiction from the medical end of things with a sensible regimen of appropriate meds is not necessary; in fact, it is.  However, people are not only fundamentally physical creatures; they are also spiritual beings and, therefore, addiction needs to be addressed from the spiritual angle with a vigorous biblical regimen.  It is important to understand that theology is not just something to passively believe but a powerful reality to be actively lived.  Here is one of the most incredible summaries of the gospel and shortest theological statements for our daily practical lives that you will find in Holy Scripture from Romans chapter 8, verses 1-4:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was  powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.


          The culprit of addiction is sin.  The answer to addiction is grace.  Radical, unconditional, unlimited grace.  In fact, grace is the answer to everything.  Law can’t save a thing; it isn’t designed to do so. Yet, the addict tries and tries to will himself to change but cannot.  He cannot because he is weak, and the law doesn’t help since it is inadequate to counter addiction.  It only hinders genuine help.  Sin is all too ready to attach itself like a cancer to the weakness of the flesh (NIV – “sinful nature”).  And it uses the law to do so by believing that addiction can be overcome through sheer willpower, effort, and turning over a new leaf.  So, the addict may get caught in a vicious cycle of sin, regret, expressions of never doing it again, and then returning to the addictive behavior.  The availability of sin plus the lack of accountability combines with a lethal dose of the flesh to equal addiction.

Only God can save.  Its called grace.  God sent his Son to deal with the the problem of sin and addiction.  He shared our humanity, and the weakness of being a flesh and blood person.  Jesus experienced human frailty to the full; he knew, personally, what desire and enticement is – and he never sinned.  Moreover, Jesus became a sin offering for us.  So, he condemned addiction in the flesh.  The power of addiction has such a hold on us as people that there is no other path than destruction if we go the way of the law.  The law itself is not evil (it shows us how sinful we are), but is not able to bring deliverance.  New Testament scholar James D.G. Dunn describes the work of God using the metaphor of disease:  “God is the divine surgeon who recognizes that the cancer of sin has so eaten into the flesh of humanity that there is no salvation for humanity other than by radical surgery, by the complete destruction of that cancerous tissue.  That radical surgery took place, as it were, on the cross.  The humanity which emerged from the operation is free from the cancer.”

Through Christ, and only through Christ, we are free.  It is our task, then, to enter into this grace and forgiveness through faith in the cross of Jesus.  That’s it.  God has brought an intervention through Jesus Christ in order to rescue and rehabilitate.  God’s rehab program is the Holy Spirit, which deals with the weakness of the law from within the life of the believer in Jesus.  In the Spirit, using the gospel of grace, we have the resources to put to death the sinful nature of addiction.

If you are helping a person caught in some addiction, here are some practicalities to consider:

  • If the person does not know Jesus, or you are not sure, start with communicating the gospel of grace – that there is forgiveness through the cross for all the addictive behavior and thoughts and offenses.
  • Have the person commit the entire chapter of Romans 8 to memory.  Focus on discussing aspects of this material in several conversations.  Memorize it yourself, and meditate on it regularly.
  • Be an accountability partner and an encouraging person; do not condemn.
  • Help the person think through what things need to go and what behaviors need to change, so that the flesh has no opportunity to rear its ugly weak head.
  • Pray with and for the person consistently.
          If you are a person caught in an addiction, seek the help of a trusted Pastor or church layperson immediately.  Christianity is not a private religion; it is designed to be lived and practiced in community.  The reason your private efforts have failed is that you have been created in the image of God and hardwired for relationships and community.  Find a church with a support group that addresses your addiction.
          Remember, Christianity is a paced journey of walking, a long obedience in the same direction, and not a magic pill to swallow.  Let us journey together along the road until we reach the heavenly city where there will be no more addiction.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.