Ever-Expanding Participation, Part II

Howdy people!  Here's part 2 of my Integration of Theology & Mission, focusing on the Church in the midst of a Creation whose Creator is by nature communal, relational, and therefore missional.  The last part will be more practically-minded, the actions that follow the worldview I've been spelling out.  

In the first post, I defended how a missional Church must begin their theology with the Trinity.  Each Person has always been involved in Creation, has been participating with the other Persons in Creation, and therefore the Church has been invited and called into this communal, missional act.  The focus is not merely some individualistic view of relation with only one Individual of the Trinity (Jesus).  Because participation and self-donation are inherent in the nature of the Trinity, and therefore determine the identity of any one Person in it, these characteristics are what the Church needs to embody to perpetuate the missio Dei.

Hope you find this to be a blessing today.  Grace & Peace

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            Where does this leave the Church?  If the entirety of the Trinity is actively being missional within the world, then it would seem that the Church is not strictly necessary for the missio Dei.  And if the Church does not have a monopoly on God’s salvific work, then it would seem that the Church may only get in the way.  However, the Church still has a central role to play in the missio Dei, and it is based entirely on the participatory nature of God.

            The Church is a missional paradox.  Historically in the Western World, the Church has claimed to be the vessel through which Christ’s salvation came to the world; and yet the Church has often found itself acting detrimentally to that very mission.[1]  David Bosch calls the Church itself “an object of missio Dei.”[2]  Christians remain humans, and so they must continually be renewed by repentance into new creaturely habits of heart and mind, just as Paul encourages the churches:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12.2 NRSV)

“So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed bay by day.” (2 Cor 4.16 NRSV)

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:  Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5.17-18 NRSV)

Bosch further reminds his readers that “Paul, who knew so much about the weaknesses of the churches to which he wrote his letters, began nearly every time by thanking God for their existence, their faith, their loyalty”[3] (i.e. Rom 1.8; 1 Cor 1.4-9; Eph 1.15-16; Phil 1.3-7; Col 1.3-4; 1 Thess 1.2-3; 2 Thess 1.3-4).  The Church, paradoxically, is both imperfect object and transforming agent of Mission:  Having been reconciled and in the process of being continually renewed, the Church also acts out the reconciliation and the continual renewing of the missio Dei.  The Triune God, by God’s own relational nature, is glorified by participating with the Church as a bride (Rev 21.9), entering into the Church as she empties herself for the greater glory of both.

            The Exodus narrative illustrates this participatory God with his people, Israel.  In Exodus 6 God promises to redeem his people, and God is celebrated in Exodus 15 for having done so.  The root word for each of these is tied to the idea of a “kinsman redeemer,” which “affirms a bond between [God} and Israel that is as close and as committed as any bond of human kinship, and with it YHWH accepts the obligation that comes from taking Israel as his own family.”[4]  This is the doctrine of election—God invited a people into a communal relationship because that is the nature of the Trinity.  The Hebrew Bible testifies to the participation of both God and Israel present in the call of Abram:

‘Now YHWH said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”’ (Gen 12.1-2 NRSV)

The very act of God calling Abram, making a covenant with him, blessing Abram, and sending him into another land was presupposed by the idea that Abram would bless those around him.  Abram must reflect the self-donating love inherent in the very nature of the Triune God who called him, and the nation of Israel after him is given the same command, even in exile.

“And seek the shalom of the city to which I have exiled you, and pray on its behalf to YHWH, for in its shalom there will be shalom for you.” (Jer 29.7)[5]

            The shalom of the LORD should not be restricted to humanity, however.  The entirety of Creation is interacting with the Triune God:

‘Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature on earth.”’  (Gen 9.10)

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  (Rom 8. 18-21 NRSV)

It seems that God has intentionally held Creation back, and it awaits the “children of God”—the Church, by way of being grafted into Israel (Romans 11.1-4, 11-12, 17-18).  So, as the Church continues to proclaim the name of the LORD and make room for the Triune God’s power, Creation itself should be the recipient of the blessing, just as every human being should be. 

            This then brings Mission to the Cross.  N. T. Wright connects the Kingdom of God with the missio Dei, then he plainly describes how “Kingdom and Cross belong together.”[6]  Wright affirms the purpose of Humanity to bear God’s image, the special election of Israel for the sake of Human’s redemption, and Jesus Christ’s completion of that redemptive task on the Cross.[7]  Not only did Jesus redeem Human, but he also bore the weight of the “the accumulation of the actual human pride, sin, folly, and shame.”[8]  Then through death Christ defeated Death, and through his Resurrection gained power and authority over it all—a power and authority the Church now has through Christ against Death and all its continuing forms, like oppression, hunger, hate, war, inequality, etc:

“When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.  He set this aside, nailing it to the Cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.”  (Col 2.12-15 NRSV)

The Church, in proclaiming the Kingdom of God, is also meant to be an agent of its coming; and this Kingdom, this “reign of YHWH,” brings justice to the oppressed (Isa 61.1), food for the hungry (Matt 25.34-40), peace to the nations (Isaiah 2.2-4), and economic prosperity for all people (Isa 61.2; Luke 4.19).[9]  This is what Christ died for; this was “the joy set before him” for which he “endured the cross” (Heb 12.2 NRSV).  And this is the work of the Trinity in all of Creation into which the Church is invited to become co-workers with the Triune God (3 John 8).  In addition, the Cross is also that which has created One Body out of many:  Those found in Christ have been unified through the suffering LORD, and therefore the Church bears that Cross and that Christ in the world by her actions, by her very habits of heart and mind.[10]

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[1] See Bosch ch. 7-9, and Bevans & Schroeder ch.

[2] Bosch, 396.

[3] Bosch, 394.

[4] Christopher J. H.Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press (2006), 266-7.

[5] Ibid., 99.

[6] N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 114.

[7] Ibid., 112.

[8] Ibid., 114.

[9] C. J. H. Wright, 309.

[10] Volf, 47.

Ever-Expanding Participation, Part I

Howdy all!  Grace & Peace.

I just finished an assignment for class that I felt like posting.  It is an integration of theology and mission, which seemed pretty practical to me, and was something I felt a little passionate about.  So I think it fits the blog pretty well.  It's rather long, so I'll be breaking it up into pieces (probably 3), which I'll post over the next few days.

Ever-Expanding Participation

Christianity's on-going conversation about the purpose and nature of Mission has come to the forefront of both the practical and doctrinal minds of the Church, as evidenced by the recent explosion of the use of the word “missional” in a variety of Christian contexts.[1]  The theological paradigm of Mission is in flux.  Some insist that theology is unnecessary—it is the practice of mission, of mercy, of grace that matters.  But what Christians believe and emphasize about God affects how they view the world, and how Christians view the world determines how they interact with it.  A robust theology that emphasizes the relational and communal nature of the Triune God, specifically in the act of participation, will provide a definition of Mission both historical and practical, and it will show how Mission as a part of the Trinity’s very nature has been active since the moment of Creation.  From this point must every missional action of the Church be informed.

I.  The Theology

            “There is nothing more elusive than an obvious fact.”

In the first account of Creation found in Genesis, the NRSV translates verse 2 as “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”  That word “wind” has most often been translated “Spirit of God.”  Interestingly, the Greek word translated Spirit in the New Testament also has the same primary meanings of “breath” or “wind,” just as the Hebrew does.  This linguistic history, and the history of the theology behind it, gives Christians precedent to tie the doctrine of the Trinity to the very act of Creation.  God the Father is present as “Elohim,” the Spirit is present and called “wind”—and both Paul and John depict God the Son as also an agent of Creation:

“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8.6 NRSV). 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  (John 1.1-3 NRSV)

The whole of Christian memory and tradition seems to show all three Persons of the Trinity to be active from the very beginning of Creation; many recent Christian theologians, however, have missed this very important image. 

            Study of the Trinity found new life in the 20th century, sparked in part by the tragedy of the Second World War and the expulsion of missionaries from now-Communist China, and it sought to redefine Mission by determining how the Triune God acts with Creation as pictured in the paragraph above.[2]  Karl Barth produced an entire ecclesiology on the notion that God is a God who sends even within God’s Triune self:  God the Father sends God the Son, who both then send God the Holy Spirit, and the three of them send the Church into the world.[3]  This puts Mission squarely into the realm of the nature of God.  Evidence of this view is prevalent in Christian writings from Tertullian to Pope John Paul II.[4]  The central passage for this view of Mission is what became known as the “great commission”: 

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28.19-20 NRSV). 

The word traditionally emphasized here is “go,” most often with an exclamation point at the end as if it were an imperative (which it is not, in Greek) that urged disciples to themselves be sent.  But, Van Gelder and Zscheile critique a linear emphasis of divine sending by showing how it diminishes the agency of God by making the Church as the primary agent in Creation.[5]  God the Father, in this view, has no direct agency in salvation, but is only related through the mediators of Christ and Church, the Body of Christ.

            Another consequence of this restricted view inordinately emphasizes individualism and hierarchy by focusing more on Jesus than the Trinity itself.  Mark Driscoll is a prime example of this movement, continually espousing “a simple return to Jesus”[6] as the starting point of Trinitarian theology.  It is an approach that is highly attractive in its simplicity and in how well it fits with modern Western individualistic culture, but it also distances God the Father from Creation, reduces the agency of God the Holy Spirit, and makes Mission into a mere discipline garnered from the example of Jesus as opposed to part of the nature of the Trinity—and therefore part of God's work from the very beginning.[7]  So, Christians are taught to emphasize their individual relationship with the individual Christ, and that the salvation of the Father comes to the world exclusively through the Church through the Spirit through the Son. 

            In response to this common paradigm of the missio Dei, the Church should start not from Jesus only but from the Trinity through an “epistemology of participation.”[8]  Returning to Jesus' own words in John 5: 

“Very truly I tell you the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise… I can do nothing on my own.  As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (vv. 19, 30 NRSV).

Jesus, the Son, testifies here to being sent by the Father, so this language should not be discounted in Trinitarian discussion.  However, he explicitly states that he can only do what he sees the Father doing.  Jesus understands that God the Father is continuously active in this world (not reduced to merely sending), and Jesus’ own will is to follow after the present actions of the Father.  The Spirit is not to be counted out in this work:  Mark’s gospel mentions the Holy Spirit's actions three times in the first twelve verses, culminating in verse 12 by saying,

“And the Spirit immediately drove him [Jesus] out into the wilderness” (NRSV).

Before Jesus has begun his ministry, the Spirit is actively leading Jesus in the wilderness of the world, not merely one sent after Jesus has later ascended into heaven.  All Persons within the Trinity were active at the foundation of the world, were active in Jesus’ earthly ministry, and continue to be active simultaneously in the world today.

            The Three Persons do not act separately but with a nature of participation.  Jesus did not claim to do any single thing on his own, but was directed by both the Father and the Spirit.  The participation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit determines how the Persons interact with each other as One God, and this relational manner can be called “self-donation.”  This theory is one in which “the self contracts to be expanded by the other, and we enter into the other’s contracted self in order to increase the other’s plentitude.”[9]  Jesus here does give an example to which we can return of the Trinitarian relationship:  Jesus empties himself of his own will, allowing God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to expand their power and will into that now empty space.  This results in Jesus willingly submitting to each of them, allowing both Father and Spirit to be glorified; but instead of this ending in a diminishment of the Son, the Son is filled by the other Persons and eventually brought to greater glory himself (John 17.1; Romans 6.4).  Each Person in the Trinity repeats this action, making the identity of each completely determined by the relationship of the communal whole.  This is the love relationship to which the author of 1 John referred by saying that “God is love” (4.8 NRSV).  The Trinity loves by each Person continually emptying their own self to be filled to a greater amount by the Others as they each spread out—an ever-expanding love relationship that is the foundation of Creation.

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[1] Craig Van Gelder & Dwight J. Zscheile, The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 1.

[2] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission—Twentieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Orbis Books, 2011), 379.

[3] Craig Van Gelder and Dwight J. Zscheile, The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 26.

[4] Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2004), 38, 41.

[5] Van Gelder & Zscheile, 75.

[6] Mark Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 15.

[7] Van Gelder & Zscheile, 80.

[8] Bosch, 371.

[9] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996).

Whirlwind of Trust

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind,
     "Gird up your loins like a man..."—Job 40.6-7a

Nearly two and one-half years have passed since my whirlwind.  A relationship that I thought had a future ran off without any explanation; understanding wouldn't come for another year or so.  Immediately after that, I found out that I had failed a final exam, which failed me in that class, which failed me right out of college.

Yeah, I had hit one hell of a whirlwind.

The rest of that story takes a while to tell, and maybe I will later.  It actually runs right up to the beginning of this blog.  For now, know that for a little over a month (could it have been 40 days?) I was listless, without a clue what future lay before me.  I felt like reading Job would help; I'm not sure why.

But I did read it, and, when I did, that line quoted at the top (also from Job 38.1) hooked me.  I couldn't get away from it.  "Whirlwind... That sounds exactly like what I've fallen into.  And God answered Job from it."

God often is depicted as something powerful, out of (human) control, or all-consuming whenever God shows up in the world (called "theophany").  Like in Jeremiah 23.19, or when God tells Moses that he cannot look on God's face without it destroying him, or the pillar of fire that led Israel from Egypt; Hebrews even chimes in with, "It is a fearful, terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

And so, God is in this whirlwind.  But, Job isn't destroyed.  God in fact replies to Job; God is moved to respond to his human servant's cry.  Granted, neither of God's replies (1 in 38-39, 2 in 40-41) seem to answer Job's questions or accusations.  I claim, however, that they give Job an encouragement to trust in God.

If you read Job's speeches throughout the book, you will see an interesting movement.  At first he responds to his suffering with "But the LORD gives and the LORD takes away; blessed be the LORD."  But then we get to 27.5: "Til I die I will not put away my integrity from me!" And then 31.6: "Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!"... As if Job knows himself to be righteous, and God can't figure it out.

Job continually spirals around the drain of his own self-absorption, even to the point of annihilation when he curses the very day he was born (3.1).

Here's an interesting question:  Did Job—does anybody—even have the ability to get out of that spiral once such great grief has grasped us?

The cultures surrounding Israel in the Ancient Near East wrote stories about a suffering man being met by his god as well, so what light can they shed on the context of the biblical Job?  Kirta from Ugarit is one, and A Dialogue Between a Man and his God from Babylon is another.  Interestingly, in both of these, when the god arrives his first action is to meet the needs of the suffering one:  The god in the Babylonian story brings the Man food and clothes and healing ointment, and the Ugaritic god El offers Kirta power or wealth (although Kirta really wants a family; this makes it seem like the god El is clueless about what's going on).  The 2nd story made me think of Ron Burgandy in Anchorman saying, "If I were to give you money out of my wallet, would that help ease the pain?"

It's funny, then, for us Christians to look at our God and say, "He is so much more merciful and loving than these other gods" when God doesn't give Job anything when he arrives.  He in effect tells Job, "Put your big boy pants on."

However, I argue that this was a much more beautiful solution than either of the aforementioned parallels could comprehend.  In God's responses, we see God take very seriously Job's accusations.  God doesn't directly answer Job's questions, but God DOES use much of the language Job himself uses throughout in a direct response to the movement of Job's heart and mind.

As I said earlier, Job moves ever inward into himself and his grief.  God reverses that movement by responding to Job with the panorama of Creation:  The images of God stretching out the heavens, holding back the waters, creating pair after pair of animals all parade before Job.  .  God's response was meant to first re-orient Job's very faith in God, in God's providence, in God's power, to let God back into the central place of Job's worldview... not to scare Job speechless as it so often is claimed.

Now look at God's second response to Job—40.15: "Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you."  God is pointing to an animal and telling Job that God made it just as He made Job—this creature is going to be an example of how Job can relate to God.

Behemoth is powerful:  Interesting that its power is derived from its loins (v.16), the same loins God told Job to "gird up" (v.7).  Behemoth is peaceful, an herbivore.  Behemoth is provided food by the mountain, and given shade by the marsh.

And, "even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened; it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth." (Job 40.23)

God exemplifies this creature, a creature just as Job is a creature, as one who is given what it needs and that responds with confidence and not fear even when the River, the Chaos (because waters and rivers commonly referred to the Chaos which God ordered at Creation—look for the word "waters" in Genesis 1.2), rushes against it.

The Babylonian A Dialogue Between a Man and his God supports this, too, curiously enough.  It also uses that ever-so-interesting-yet-confounding phrase, "Gird up your loins."  In line 48 of that poem, it says, "Gird you loins, do not be dispirited."  It's not a phrase of calling one out—it's a phrase meant to encourage.  It's God grabbing Job by the shoulders, shaking him, and telling him to snap out of his self-absorption because that only leads to nothingness.  God wants to replace that nothingness with God-centered, Other-centered, Creation-centered life, and Job can trust in God's power to sustain that life.

And that, my friends, is exactly the place in which I landed when hit with my whirlwind.  It was the strangest thing, but I never panicked after the first couple of days.  I just knew I'd keep walking, I'd keep breathing, and that God would sustain me as long as I did.

And although I healed, I did so with scars.  And I still deal with relationship issues.  But I did get to finish my degree, and now I'm in grad school.  I have been given a story to tell, as Job continues to tell his.  Not to say mine is anything on par with his, but it is my story, and God is still running the show.

So I'll leave you with one biblical parallel, one that many know but did not know that it related to Job in the least.  I'll let you work out some connections, and I hope they encourage you as they have me.

May we be strong enough to trust God in the midst of Chaos, even strong enough to call God out, in whatever way need be, so that God might respond to us and pull us out of the ever-pulling vortex of our own self-absorption.  May we, when faced with tempests that seem like they'll consume us, look for the word God has for us within it.  Grace & Peace.

Isaiah 40.24-31

²⁴“Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

                  ²⁵To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see:  Who created these?  He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

                  ²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

                  ²⁹He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

³⁰Even youth will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

                  ³¹but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Streams of Water

"Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents." - Phil. 1.27-28

"And now Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." - Acts 4.29-30


Shoutout to Brian Ng for throwing these my way today as encouragement.  I've needed it, as this year of study in seminary has been entirely draining, emptying my well of words and marked by the vertigo that comes with re-orienting my beliefs and assumptions and desires.

Yesterday I listened to a presentation by a prospective new faculty member in my grad school, ACU's Graduate School of Theology.  He spoke about the image of a tree depicting the disciplines of theological education (specifically, Schleiermacher's Tree).  He affirmed the wisdom of the idea that all areas of study—history, tradition, scripture, missions, etc—are organically connected and feed into each other.  But he added another element:  that tree must be planted by a stream of water if it is to survive.

"They are like trees
     planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in season,
     and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper."  -  Psalm 1.3

From this minister's point of view, the tree of theological education will dry out if it isn't planted in the Stream itself:  Ministers in training need to be planted, without fail, in the dirt and soil of the lives of the Christian community of faith and of those for whom Jesus specifically came to save (or, preserve or deliver), because that's where the Stream & Spring of Life is going to be flowing.

This fits especially with the verb in Philippians 1.27 that the NRSV translates "live your live": the root verb πολιτεύω implies living your life as a citizen of the city, partaking in politics, economics, etc.  To live in a manner worthy of the gospel, the gospel & gospel-bearers are expected to be acting out the gospel "in one spirit" in everyday dirt.

If we do that, "striving side by side" with those next to us in that dirt, we'll find that "waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water..." (Isaiah 35.6b-7a).

That's what I've found in my church Freedom Fellowship.  It is a place in which people from the mayor of the city on down to homeless men struggling to find work can come together for a meal & to sing to their God side by side.  All of this new knowledge I gain is thrown into the simple, the everyday, and often the painful at Freedom.  It has brought vitality to my old, dry bones, without doubt—but it's also brought a lot of questions and tension.  Hate of the ills that bring pain to my brothers and sisters there.

What I hope for is that our boldness in standing firm together will be met by a God who'll stretch out a hand of healing.  More on that later.

Message in a Labyrinth

"A long season of Surrender to beat Temptation; walking the Path in the Climate that is given."


The cryptic message came to me while walking the Labyrinth on ACU's campus on the morning of my first day of seminary.


A labyrinth is not a maze; you do not have to figure a way out, and you cannot get lost.  There is only one path to follow, for as long as you are willing, with one end in mind.  But you never know where you will turn.  You cannot look too far ahead without losing your place in that moment.


ACU's Labyrinth has a winding path with words like "Faith," "Light," "Sin," etc, around it.  You walk through it, stopping at any point for however long you need to do so.


I stopped at "Temptation" first.  One of my greatest temptations has been isolation, enjoying the lack of responsibility and drain of energy that comes from living on my own.  And that's exactly how much of this first semester of seminary has gone—spending hours on my own in my apartment, in the library, eating on my own.  And isolation is exactly where the Accuser brings us to draw out our greater sins.


The very next word I came to was "Surrender," and that cryptic message crystallized: "a long period of Surrender to beat Temptation."


"Surrender to what?" I ask.


I found my answer in After You Believe by N. T. Wright.


See, Surrender entails Obedience, particularly to a new Authority.  Obedience is not a one-time decision—it entails thousands of little actions over time, being formed into a new person by the Master.  Spontaneity can't do this, but Authenticity can.


What N. T. Wright calls "Eschatalogical Authenticity:" actions which become genuine through practice, and are informed and molded by one's beliefs of what is to come.  Specifically for Christians, this means actions taken in light of living within the promise that all of this world will be redeemed, resurrected, restored to God.


"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1.6


It's been extremely difficult to do that this semester, partly because of my isolation.  Still I have no church to call home, but I feel like that is changing.  I have not had the habits of body that I need to be healthier; I have not had the habits of heart to really be sensitive to people around me; and I have not had the habits of soul to become closer to God every day.  Only some days.  And I seem to have only had strong habits of mind to learn more about the nature of my God, which I guess is to be expected in seminary.  The problem is, if I'm not really doing the healthy habits, it probably means I'm walking in unhealthy ones.


‎"Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit-forming," N. T. Wright warns me.  "The more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more 'natural' it will both seem and actually be."


I need to remember here I'm going, because it will tell me how to act now.  I going to a life in Christ.  And so, I look to Hamlet and The Lord of the Rings to remind me that obedience, not spontaneous action, creates the habits of Christ in me, and that if I lack one then I should act like I have it anyhow—how else can it become genuine habit?


"assume a virtue, if you have it not...
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on.
Refrain tonight;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency." - Hamlet


"The westward road seems easiest.  Therefore it must be shunned... Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen.  There lies our hope, if hope it be.  To walk into peril." - Elrond


"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost." - Gandalf


As we enter the winter,
Dig your roots deep in the Spring.
By strenuous road he'll make
Heart, Mind, Soul be genuine.


Grace & Peace

A Crazy Random Happenstance

Friday I drove to Dallas for my last nose check-up, then went straight to Abilene to look at some of my books for seminary.   If you ever see a Greek-English Lexicon, you'll probably never want to go to seminary.  I didn't have that feeling, though.

Sitting at Monk's Coffee Shop in Abilene as Rosten Callarman serenades me acoustically, I am met with a Crazy Random Happenstance.

First, some awesome quotes, because I'm a quote junkie.

"for, after all, any man's actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him."—John of the Cross

"Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation."—Oswald Chambers

And, from Scripture:  1 Timothy 1:5b-6

"You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.  And you became imitators of us and of the LORD, for you received the Word in much affliction, with the Joy of the Holy Spirit."

Wait... did the Bible just say we should be imitators, when Oswald Chambers said that imitators aren't truly sanctified, that they only "imitate" and are not genuine in their sanctification?

And does being an "imitator of the LORD" mean it's all up to us to be sanctified?  Is sanctification or perfection "attained" by us alone, or is it an "impartation"—a gift—of the Spirit?

I read all of these these when I opened the first book I got for seminary (I'm reading early, figured I might finally be a good student since I'm in grad school) called "After You Believe" by N. T. Wright.

I am only in the introduction for now, but N. T. Wright explains my questions by looking at the rich young ruler and Jesus (Matthew 19:19-30; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-30).

Here, the rich man asks Jesus what he must DO to gain eternal life (which has a very different meaning to a Jew as it does to a modern Western Christian, but I won't go into that here), and Jesus in the end doesn't give him a set of rules but gets to the man's heart.  He knew the rich man was greedy, so he told the rich man to sell all his possessions, give them to the poor, and follow Jesus.

Jesus told the man he needed new character.

Not "Rules" with a capital-R.  Not a morally relative statement of "be true to yourself."

Jesus cuts to the heart of why we are here to begin with, which Wright explains can be found in gaining character by way of virtue.  

As I go on in Wright's book, and in my Graduate School of Theology work, I'll post more about this because it seems to be extremely relevant to the whole theme and reason I started this blog—to explain my Passion for Christ and His people as I work it out in a Practical manner.

Until then, I'll leave you with another quote I've learned to love recently:

"It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words.  His character is his message."—Henry Drummond

Grace & Peace, ya'll

Kingdom of Children

"And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
—Philippians 1:6


It's an odd thing, coincidence.  Particularly because I don't believe in it.


In reading last week, I ran across the afore-quoted verse and wrote it down, for no spectacular reason.  Days later, I get a card in the mail from Peggy Richardson, a letter of encouragement from a new friend. Phil. 1:6 is the precise verse that she gave and spoke about as an encouragement for me.


She was talking about God's work and will for me as I go to ACU for a Master of Divinity.  She's the great-aunt of my best friend, and we met somewhat randomly at dinner after one of his basketball games over spring break.  We both got placed at one end of the table, and what I feared might be an awkward dinner turned into one of the more fulfilling conversations of my life.


God surprises us like that, sometimes.  Wouldn't you agree?


From Texas, Peggy's also lived 40 years in New York (professing to be a pizza connoisseur) and loves to travel.  She is a three-time cancer survivor.  Her husband died a few years ago, and she is mere weeks removed from having a pacemaker put into her heart.

Peggy is thankful for all the good that's been given to her, and she regrets none of the pain.  She is ecstatic in the Joy that her pain brings (really, that God brings using pain as the vessel) because she knows it was all a part of God breaking her of her stubbornness, softening her heart, and bringing her to depend upon Him and not herself or something else broken.

So she reminds me: even if God has to wreck me, He will complete the work of bringing me to Him, of reconciling me.

"Come, let us return to the Lord;
For he has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us, and He will bind us up...
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
His going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."
—Hosea 6:1 & 3


Presently, that work is humility.  I seek knowledge.  I seek truth.  I seek to be higher and deeper into Him.  And through all my seeking, I am walking along a cliff that drops off into conceit.


Even in my continual study of prayer, to know more about the act and the relationship and what it means and what it looks like, I can over-analyze and over-spiritualize every single thing about it and become inordinately focused—a truth my younger sister knows all too well.


So what does God give me, as encouragement?


Mark Driscoll, talking about the first word of the Lord's Prayer in Luke ("Father"): 
"Some of you struggle in prayer because you're too focused on prayer.  If you want to grow in prayer, don't focus on prayer—get to know the Father...  If you want to learn how to pray, don't look to religious people...   Look at children with a father who adores them."


And Jesus Christ of Nazareth:
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."

Children terrify me.  I think it's because I was always the awkward, outsider nerd as a child.  Or felt that way, at least.  I feel like I don't know how to connect with them.


On the flip side, I feel like I may not know how to be a child anymore.  So then how can I really pray?


Thinking about Peggy, about her life and the journey it has been, I've been wondering much about my future.  And I came to an intriguing question.


What if, as my body gets older and older and closer to death, the goal of God's "ministry of reconciliation" in me is to make my spirit younger and younger, more like a child's that is full of life?


"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."—2 Corinthians 5:17


Because if He is to become more and more my Father, then I have to become more and more a child, His child.


And how can I be conceited about anything then, knowing my weakness and helplessness and vulnerability next to His Love and Will and Power?


I think I can become more of a child by being around children.
I think I can become more of a child by living holy, as God is holy.
I think I can become more of a child by inviting God to BE Father, then see what He does.

2 Cor. 6:16-18
as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty."