Preparing to Pray Romans Well – Part Two: Getting to know the author, Paul and his Passion

Who was St. Paul? What motivated him in all of his journeys around the eastern Mediterranean and stirred his desire to go to Rome and then westward to Spain? These questions can help us get a better feel for what motivated Paul to write this letter to the house church communities in Rome, and give us ears to better hear his most impassioned pleas and feel his deepest concerns.

To get to know the author of Romans, we do well to step outside of the letter for a few minutes. While Paul does get autobiographical in some of his letters, he does have a lot to say about his history in Romans, besides introducing himself as a servant/slave of Jesus who has an obligation to proclaim the good news to Greeks and non-Greeks, gentiles and Jews at the outset and then later to tell a little bit about his previous missionary travels, work to collect charity for the (Jewish) believers in Jerusalem and his hoped for plans to travel to Rome and then on to Spain. So, let’s take a look at the book of Acts where Saul of Tarsus (our Apostle Paul) meets Jesus the Messiah in a blinding, eye-opening moment on the road to Damascus: a story that is rehearsed three times in Acts.

You will see the story narrated first in chapter 9, and then you hear it again in chapter 22 where Paul shares his personal story with an angry mob in Jerusalem (the mob that got him arrested leading to more than four years of imprisonment that included his incarcerated trip to Rome), and then once more in chapter 26 where Paul shares his story again for Roman leadership that lacks clarity in why Paul is in chains in the first place. Each narration is slightly different, but all the important details are the same. I encourage you to read all three of them. And while an in-depth study of these three narratives could result in all sorts of useful insights, I will keep this investigation brief, highlighting the points that seem most relevant to helping us understand what Paul is doing in Romans and then helping us pray with Paul through these inspired words.

First, Saul of Tarsus was a strict Torah-keeping Jew, zealous for the Law and all it meant for the Jewish people in ancient Rome. Much of what that meant was identity marking, keeping the Jewish people from being washed away in the flood of Hellenistic paganism, but it was also hope in the One God of Abraham to fulfill His ancient promises. The zeal for the Law could become hatred for the Roman oppressors, but also violence against other Jews whose relationship to the Law was lax: compromisers of the covenant. This was Paul’s history, “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples (Acts 9:1; cf. 22:3-5, 19-20; 26:4-11).”

Second, Saul of Tarsus met the risen Jesus in a powerful, objective encounter on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. A light brighter than the sun burst open the sky and a voice spoke to him from the heavens. The details about what Saul’s companions saw or heard vary slightly in the three accounts in Acts, but the gist is unchanged: Saul talked to Jesus and was physically blinded by the light while his companions saw the light but did not understand any message from the dazzling display. This conversation with Jesus led to Saul’s complete 180 regarding who Jesus was and who Jesus’ followers were. They were no longer threats to the integrity of Israel, but the fulfillment of all that Israel (from Moses, to David and the prophets til the present) was meant to be. This reality hit Saul hard and fast, and he began articulating it in synagogues to other Jews within weeks of meeting Jesus (9:4-9, 20; 22:6-11; 26:12-14, 20).

Third, Saul’s blinding meeting with Jesus not only opened his eyes to the reality that Jesus had resurrected from the dead as his disciples had been claiming and truly was the Messiah, King of the world, but also left him with a new mission to be zealous for. It did not come to fruition immediately (9:30; cf. 11:25-26 and Galatians 1:17-24), but Saul eventually became Paul the apostle to the Gentiles based upon the heavenly vision he received on that desert road. His understanding of the Scriptures was reworked around this call to “proclaim [Jesus’] name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel (9:15),” hence Paul was “obligated to both Greeks and non-Greeks,” and “so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome (Romans 1:14-15)” (cf. Acts 22:14-21; 26:16-19).

Paul’s meeting with Jesus radically changed his personal life, to be sure. It also immediately put him out of a job and probably was disastrous to his family life, at least for a while (cf. Acts 23:12-22). More importantly to our interests in Romans, that meeting with Jesus began a lifelong journey of reconsidering what God’s promises to Abraham and David and through the prophets meant (cf. Genesis 12, 15; 2 Samuel 7; Jeremiah 31; Isaiah 42ff; et al). Paul was called to take the message of the Jewish Messiah to the Gentiles so that they too, might “receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in [Jesus] (Acts 26:18b).” This was radical and it caused no little amount of trouble for Paul, as Jesus promised him from the get-go (Acts 9:16; 22:18; 26:17). The manner in which Paul began to see Jesus in all of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and his interpretation of the Scriptures about the Gentiles in light of the revelation of Jesus was earth-shaking and literally changed history. The fact that God was working through Jesus and now through Paul and his companions to make one people for God out of both Jews and non-Jews was one that many found confusing, distressing and even maddening, but Paul never gave up on that vision. And it is from that zeal for God’s glory through Jesus and passion for a people made up of all peoples living in love that Paul writes to the Romans.

Let’s take a look at four passages from the letter to the Romans that illustrate these insights into Paul’s passions and concerns.

Romans 3:21-26

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The theological grist in this paragraph is rich, and the history of its interpretations and the debates that have unfolded around it is equally rich, while at times confounding, for its literary and Jewish contexts have often been left behind. However, for our purposes I just want to point out the Jew and Gentile unity that stands behind the purpose and efficacy of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The Cross of Jesus does not, in Romans, stand alone for individual spiritual actualization, but rather is the point through which God’s eternal plan for Abraham’s call to become the Blessing for all peoples passes (cf. Rom. 4). Paul is passionate for the righteousness of God and the one people of God to be realized as the culmination of God’s redemptive work through the shedding of Jesus’ blood; this sacrifice proves God right in His judgements and in His merciful forbearance.

Romans 15:17-24

Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
    and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

I’ve already commented on this passage in the opening entry to this prayerful exploration of Romans, so I’ll make this brief. Here we see Paul’s unrelenting passion to proclaim Jesus as King where he has not yet been proclaimed. His whole life agenda revolves around this passion, which by the way, probably goes a long way to explain the global missionary focus of Reformation churches whose theology is so heavily Pauline. But the other side of this passion is his incarnational purpose. Paul didn’t show up in a new city simply to say some words, as good as they were, but rather to demonstrate the reality of the message he proclaimed. It was what he said and did, and what the Spirit did through him, that won Gentiles to trust in King Jesus. NT Wright helped me see this point more profoundly in his biography of Paul where he shows how Paul engages the Servant Songs of Isaiah to be about himself than other New Testament writers who apply these prophetic poems to Jesus the Messiah. It is this radical identification with Jesus that motivates Paul’s life and mission. He wasn’t suffering messianic delusions of grandeur, but giving up his whole self to demonstrate the wonder of Jesus’ life, suffering and resurrection wherever he went (cf. 1 Thess. 1:4-2:12; Gal. 3:1; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17).

Romans 9:1-5 & 11:11-8

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

Finally, despite Paul’s vocation as ‘the apostle to the Gentiles,’ his heart for his own people, the Jews, only grew more passionate. His longing that the majority of his Jewish contemporaries would turn away from their rejection of Jesus as Messiah is as deep as could be imagined. It’s honestly hard to take Paul seriously, which is probably why he goes to such lengths in chapter 9 to convince his readers/hearers that he’s not exaggerating; who could truly wish that they themselves would be cut off from Christ so that others could know Christ?! Even as Paul faithfully planted churches among the Gentiles, his heart longed that the Jews witnessing their transformation would also come into fellowship with God through Jesus. And, as always, Paul’s desire for Jew and Gentile to be united in Jesus, to respect and love one another, comes through in this passage from chapter 11.

Prayer Exercises

1. Choose one of the three narratives of Paul’s call to Jesus and the Messianic mission to imaginatively meditate upon. Enter into the story as Saul of Tarsus or one of his companions, or even Ananias of Damascus. What do you hear, see, feel? How are you affected? How does Jesus meet you in this meditation?
2. Listen to Paul’s compassion for his fellow Jews in 9:1-5 and ponder how that kind of heart would look on you. Then pray for that kind of compassion from God to fill you.
3. Pray for unity in the churches of Jesus around the world.
4. Pray with Paul that many Jews would recognize Jesus as Messiah and King.

Advertisement

Privacy Settings

Preparing to Pray Romans Well – Part One

Scripture, Christians believe, carries and is carried along by the breath of God. This inspiration is God’s respiration, the thoughts of God unveiled into the world of hearing and speaking human beings who themselves find their breath to be from God. God’s breath, the brooding wind that hovered over the chaotic primordial waters of Genesis 1, is God’s ruach (Hebrew) or pneuma (Greek); these words are the same words for God’s Spirit who is the living, loving carrier of God’s presence into the world and into the hearts of believers. Scripture is life and conversation, a platform of communion with the Living God who speaks.

All of this means that reading the Bible, for a believer, is not only or even primarily about knowledge acquisition, for we are invited into a love relationship with the living God, not a theology course (as helpful as good and clear theology can be). The Bible is not a list of rules to follow or propositions to believe in order to pass some religious quiz, but is instead primarily a story. The Bible narrates the activities and words of God’s Spirit as He breathes in and through creation and the lives of human beings. The reader of this narrative is invited into the story, invited to continue the story of breathing in God and breathing out praise and thanksgiving, obedience, service and worship. A life lived in communication with Scripture becomes a life that smells like God: a body saturated by God’s respiration, a heart captivated by God’s song, a mind reworked by God’s words. So when we approach Scripture, we are invited into the Narrative, this Song, this Life of togetherness with God, which sounds more and more like what we think of when we say “prayer” than it sounds like just reading or even study. I’m embarking on a journey to meet with God in conversation through St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, to “pray Romans,” and I’m inviting others into that journey. 

Now that we have moved to a more expansive view of this letter that contains God’s breath than merely mining it for theological nuggets to place on our mental shelves or to fashion into weapons to use in argument with believers and unbelievers who fail to read like we read or believe like we believe, I want to take a step back to admire the forest of Romans before we begin communion with God in the shade of individual trees. Bluntly, I want to take a look at what this letter is all about before beginning the practice of meditatively praying short passages from the letter; I’m actually going to get studious before going mystic.

The present thoughts have been formed in nearly 25 years of reading, memorizing, studying and meditating on Romans, and more recently by some insight from The Bible Project,  N.T. Wright in his biography or Paul and Scot McKnight in his Reading Romans Backwards. These two biblical scholars shed much needed light on the why of Romans and the primary aims Paul had in mind when he wrote the missive. This particular epistle is often read differently than Paul’s other letters, except maybe Ephesians, as readers get caught up in the deep theology of chapters 1-5 or the intensely intimate and psychologically penetrating passages in chapters 6-8 or the knot of predestination vs. free will that seems to be so tightly tied up in chapters 9-11. The final section of the book is often seen as a stand alone exhortation to ethical living, rather than the logical conclusion to all the theological work Paul had been doing in the first eleven chapters. This misses much of what Paul was really after and often ends up in fruitless arguments.

My first step in attempting to explore Paul’s reason for writing Romans takes us through the two main points of his practical agenda. Later, I will look into Paul’s personal passion in life with Christ, and then an exploration of the church(es) situation in Rome that Paul wrote to address, and then a quick overview of what he means when he says ‘my gospel.’ All of this will add up to a decent summary of Paul’s theological agenda in the epistle, and from there more fruitful prayer and meditation should be accessible, along with more helpful interpretations and applications.

Paul’s Practical Agenda: Romans 1:7-15; 10:9-15; 15:1-33 and 16:1-3

Romans 16:1-3a

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

This brief greeting carries more weight than we might usually give it, so it’s worth paying attention to. In this Greco-Roman era there was no postal service, so letters were hand carried by slaves, hired servants or colleagues to their recipients. It was common practice to send a letter like this in the hands of a close associate who would know the letter well and would read the letter aloud to the recipient, in this case the house churches in the city of Rome. In fact, the reader would likely perform the letter, seeking to replicate the author’s tone and special emphases. A letter like Romans would also call for pauses to explain certain passages that would be met by blank stares or questions from the audience. Phoebe seems to be the carrier, so likely the reader/performer/explainer of this deep well of truth and challenge from the Apostle Paul. It is well to remember that the recipients of this letter likely saw Phoebe’s face and heard Phoebe’s voice as she attempted to fully communicate Paul’s heart to them.

Romans 1:7-15

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

St. Paul was a praying man, and his prayers reached to Rome, even though he had never yet been there and to the Christians there, even though he had never met most of them. But, he didn’t write this letter (longest of all his extant writings) just to let the Roman believers know about his prayers; he also had been longing to visit them and is growing hopeful that the time for that long awaited visit may be near at hand. He wants to strengthen them in their faith and to be encouraged by them in faith. He wants to visit them in order to see more Gentiles in Rome come to recognize Jesus as Lord, because that is his life mission, but not even just that. He tells them more about his reasons for writing and for longing to visit them later in the letter.

Romans 15:17-33 (selected verses 19b-24 quoted below)

So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Here is the pressing matter pushing Paul to write at this particular time. For numerous reasons, including the success of his preaching and church planting, the regions of modern day Greece, Turkey and Syria are no longer where he believes he needs to be laboring with the Gospel. Instead, he desires to continue his Christ-given mission of proclaiming and promoting Jesus as Lord and Savior to the center of the Empire (where Caesar claimed to be lord and savior) and then beyond, to the west, even Spain where Jesus of Nazareth was not yet known. And, he hopes the churches in Rome will unite around him in prayer now, but also that they will provide some material support for him on his Spanish mission when he arrives. This support would look like money, but probably also personnel to travel with Paul for protection (travel could be dangerous) and to help in the mission as was his practice throughout his travels and labors in the eastern Mediterranean. Paul hints at this “being sent” in 10:9-15.

As he states later in this passage, he hopes to travel to Rome after completing a trip to Jerusalem to deliver a gift of money from the churches throughout Greece (Achaia and Macedonia) to the believers in Jerusalem. This was to be a sign of solidarity between the mostly Gentile churches in Greece and the Jewish mother church in Jerusalem. But, more on Paul’s passion for unifying Jews and Gentiles in the Church in my next entry. 

Extra Info: What Paul doesn’t know is that he will eventually make it to Rome after visiting Jerusalem, but it will be two years later, and he will arrive in chains with a Roman escort as a prisoner of the empire. What we don’t know is exactly where Paul was when he wrote this letter, but the best evidence points to Corinth in 57 AD/CE.

Romans 15:1-16 (selected verses 1-3, 5-7, 15-16 quoted below)

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” 

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God

In these verses Paul reveals an even weightier reason for writing, but one that was, on its own, less time sensitive. So much of the heavy theological work Paul does throughout the letter is to help these small congregations (as we would call them) that were more like families learn to live in unity and love with one another. That unity and love was at risk because of cultural, religious and socio-economic differences. Here a little history is in order, and while this reconstruction of the situation in Rome is, by nature, somewhat speculative, it is highly likely, well regarded in the scholarship and based upon the known facts:

Several years before Paul wrote to Rome, the Emperor Claudius had expelled ‘the Jews’ from Rome over some disturbances that may have been linked to the spread of Jesus’ message in the city and the negative reactions of Jews who rejected the message. Whatever the cause was, Jews, including Jewish Jesus followers, were expelled from the city at their own expense. The Jesus movement in Rome at that time was probably majority Jewish or close to it. When the Jews left, the Gentile Christians were left to develop on their own for at least a couple of years, or maybe as long as a decade or more.

When the Jews were allowed to return to Rome after Cladius’ death, they returned without recompense for the homes and businesses they left behind (economic privation). The Jewish believers would have found the house churches totally dominated by Gentiles. These Gentile Christians would not be wholly free of general Roman disdain for Jewish people and would not likely have been eager to give over leadership to the newly returned Jews. Add to this the fact that many Jewish Christians still held very tightly to the Law (food prohibitions, circumcision and Sabbath being major markers in keeping the Law), while Gentile Christians would have, most often, seen little value in those regulations as they had come into the family of Jesus without previously knowing or obeying them. This Law issue is massive throughout our letter.

This is a very brief sketch of the situation, but it gives a taste of the situation Paul was writing into. I will go into some more depth of how it plays out in the letter in a later installment to this exploration. Suffice it to say that Paul had heard that the Roman believers were not all getting along, were not willing to eat together and were even condemning and shunning one another. This is not the kind of acceptable offering he wants to offer to God, nor is it the kind of church that can really get behind him in his hoped for mission to more Gentiles farther west. Paul wants the believers to live in love through Jesus “so that with one mind and one voice [they] may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and so that he may be sent forward by both Jewish and Gentile Christians – sent from a unified Church to extend that unified Church.

For Prayer Exercise

1. Memorize some or all of Romans 10:9-15
2. Pray for Christian workers you know of who are working to proclaim and promote the Kingship of Jesus into areas that do not yet know him (cf. 15:30)
3. Practice Lectio Divina with 15:1-7

        This is a form of praying with Scripture. A simple introduction can be found here. The four steps are very helpful in drawing one’s heart and mind into God’s presence through the Scriptures. They can be significantly expanded upon from the simple introduction linked above.

Responsibility and Anxiety

The following thoughts are so thoroughly dependent upon my readings of Dallas Willard, that I need to simply give him credit for all of it (that makes sense). Trying to footnote it, would be tedious beyond measure.

One of the most beloved New Testament Bible verses comes from St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans (8:28). It tells us that God works in all things for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purposes. Sometimes this verse is used to support the claim that everything that happens is actually good, which is not at all what Paul was saying. What Paul was telling the Romans, and now us, is that no matter what happens God is at work to accomplish good in and through those who are walking in good faith with Him. So if something really good happens to you, and you are a person who loves God and is called according to His purposes, then God is working in that good experience to bring out more good in your life, through your life and so forth. It also means that if something annoying, painful or just plain evil happens to you, happens around you, happens to those that you love, that God is at work in the midst of that circumstance to bring about good for you and through you and around you. So, the verse is not telling us what kinds of events or circumstances we should expect; instead, it tells us what we should expect from God in the midst of whatever circumstances we may come across.

Romans chapter 8 (a beautiful chapter that everyone should be familiar with) talks about suffering, that suffering is a real and a normal experience for believers in Jesus. Creation itself is suffering as it awaits the full revelation of the children of God, when God’s glory is fully revealed and all creation is redeemed. In this time of waiting, our prayers are sometimes like groans as we hope for what we don’t yet have. Even as all of creation is subjected to frustration as it waits for the glory of God, frustration is part of what it means to follow Jesus. 

Another New Testament letter writer, drawing on the Proverbs, teaches us that God disciplines his children because he loves them (Heb. 12:5-6; cf. Prov. 3:11-12). James (1:2-4) and Paul, earlier in Romans (5:1-5), discuss suffering of all kinds as opportunities for growth in faith and character. This is another facet of how God is working in everything to make good for those who are called according to His purposes: their destiny, that they would experience justification and glorification and would ultimately come to look like the Son of God, is sealed (8:29-30).

In everything that God does and everything that you go through (that God allows in your life), God has a goal. God’s goal is his glory, but that’s not a self-seeking glory because God’s glory is his holy (perfect and unchanging) love revealed. His overabounding, superabounding love that never fails revealed is the bright light of His glory, because that’s who He is. He glories in pouring His love out upon us. God wants to be glorified because God loves, and that’s good for everyone. God also wants us to fulfill the glorious destiny of our lives, the destiny He created us for, which is to know Him and to be like Him and to represent Him in our lives, and in our domains of authority and responsibility: glory shining everywhere!

With this comes the idea of being called, and if I’m called, if I have a vocation, then I’ve got something to do. We’ve just discussed the overall call upon every life through Jesus: to be shaped into his likeness and eternally revel in his glory. Oftentimes we get a sense that God is calling or directing our lives in a particular and personal direction. Prayer and godly counsel and life itself lead us to the conviction that God’s Spirit is calling us to make a bold move, to take a new track in life or maybe in a relationship. Maybe that’s a really small thing, or maybe it’s something that seems a little wild and crazy. Doing what God says seems a sensible and good thing, right? Since God is calling toward this venture, this decision, this relationship, this role of Christian leadership, we make the assumption that success is inevitable.

But why do we think that? Who told us that we should assume that success is what God has intended for us when God calls us in a particular direction? Maybe we draw this from many of the Old Testament stories that we hear: When God calls somebody to do something, ultimately they succeed, albeit, they often succeed slowly. They often succeed through many trials and tribulations. They might be like Abraham and wait 25 years for the fulfillment of the promise of God. And then later he heard God calling him to sacrifice his son, the son who was the fulfillment of the promise he waited 25 years for!

If you talk to Abraham after his experience with God, I think he would tell you that God is really good and true to His word, but that the call of God is not a guarantee that you’re going to get what you want when you want it. When God calls you to follow Him, He has other goals in mind besides giving you what you imagine to be success in the timing that you imagine to be good and correct. When he calls us to something, to anything, He’s ultimately calling us to Himself, and He has this big dream in mind that we would actually reflect who He is to the world around us. Ultimately, the Bible tells us that God has post-death responsibilities for us that we would reign with Christ forever which is really, really wild to think about (cf. Mt. 19:28-30; 1 Cor. 6:1-3; 2 Tim. 2:2; Rev. 5:10).

God wants people whom He can trust to rule in His name. That’s not just to have people who are responsive to His word and obey His commands, although it’s going to have to start there. No, God wants people who have His law, His word written on their hearts and in their minds (Jer. 31:31-34, et al). This is the new covenant, the Spirit living within us. This is the new reality that we do the will of God from the heart, a heart is bent toward righteousness: it is in good standing with God, it agrees with God and desires what God desires. When God looks for people, He’s looking for people that He can trust to do what they want because what they want is good (2 Chron. 16:9).

We discern God calling us to different areas of responsibility, like stepping into a role of leadership, or going to a particular college, choosing a particular major, intentionally befriending a new person, speaking out in some situation, taking a particular job or moving to a new city and so on. It’s natural to assume that God’s purpose in that guidance or calling is primarily about accomplishing something ‘godly’ in that realm of responsibility, that vocation. Quite likely,

God does want you to touch somebody else’s life and to ‘accomplish something,’ because God alway wants us to be loving people and love accomplishes a lot. But first, in that new responsibility, that new relationship, that new location, God wants to accomplish something in you because God’s goals for you go far beyond this immediate step that you are about to take. God wants to make you look like Jesus. And so, God is that work in everything for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes: for those who want to become like Him, for those who love Him so much that they want to be near Him. They want to look like Jesus because Jesus is beautiful to them, the most beautiful. It is for those people that God is working, and He will never stop working on their behalf in any and every situation to bring about good. 

God is working, according to His purposes, for those who love Him. This requires us to adjust our expectations, because God might be calling us to walk a road of suffering and frustration. God is known to do such things. Take a look at Jesus (Phil. 2:5-11). So when we get to the place of frustration, we don’t have to be angry and desperately confused. When things don’t work out as we expected, we often think we made the wrong choice, that we misunderstood God’s gentle nudges, or even that God abandoned us. We might find ourselves upset like Jeremiah. He knew that God was calling him to something really, really hard (read Jeremiah 1), but when it went as badly as God told him it would, he was so upset he actually accused God of deceiving him (Jer. 20:7-11). 

And so you may still be upset at God, “Why did this go so wrong?” But when we walk into what we believe God has called us to, we need to release the outcomes to God. If we insist that God brings about what we imagine God should bring about, we will be frustrated. God doesn’t think the way we think. God never has exactly in mind what we have in mind. As Isaiah teaches us, God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are different than ours (Is. 55:8-9). We’re not like Him, not yet. So we need to actually trust Him to bring about good even when things look bad; that’s called faith. You’re believing for something you don’t yet see; you’re believing for goodness when all that you see appears to you to be pretty bad. Like, if somebody steals your identity, that’s bad. That is not a good thing in itself. How in the world does God bring about good from your stolen identity? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that God can and God will bring about good through that experience because that’s who God is and that’s what God does, and He does it in ways beyond our imaginations.

So we adjust our expectations to allow God to be God, rather than making our own expectations into a god. We don’t worship our expectations, we don’t worship our dreams, we don’t worship our hopes; we worship God. That doesn’t mean you don’t have expectations and hopes and dreams, but you bring those freely to God and abandon them to Him to work out.

“God, when I begin this new major, I want it to look like a 4.0 GPA and a six figure job offer.” That’s good. God wants to hear that from you, but you bring it to Him and you partner with Him to shape those expectations, hopes and dreams. You don’t just demand from God, that God does what you want, because then you are trying to be God, the ultimate authority on what is and should be. So we adjust our expectations and lay those before God, and we abandon the outcomes to Him. 

We are looking to take proper responsibility in our lives with God. What is my responsibility to take in each opportunity and situation? I do not take responsibility for what belongs to God. This is especially true when it comes to things that we associate with serving God or serving in the church, but it applies absolutely everywhere. If I am a student, I have the responsibility to pay attention in class and to be aware of the responsibilities and assignments given to me, to prepare for the examinations and tests and so forth. These are my responsibilities. What then is not my responsibility? 

It’s not my responsibility to have a perfect gpa, because that may very well be beyond my current capacity for any number of reasons. I could lose my computer, notes, books and all that to a fire or a bad case of dorm mold. I could miss a month of class due to a personal or family illness. My professor could take a personal vendetta against me and drop my A to a B+, and that’s going to be really hard to argue with the Dean.

It is not my responsibility to get myself into med school. It is my responsibility to do what I can do to make myself a viable candidate for medical school, but it’s not my responsibility to put myself into med school. If I take that responsibility, that probably means I’m hacking some med school’s admission system and that’s a crime which is not the way of Jesus, right? 

When it comes to leading others to God, it’s my responsibility to be a credible witness to the reality of Jesus. It’s my responsibility to actually open my mouth and tell people about the goodness of God. If I’m a small group leader, it’s my responsibility to show up to small group with some level of appropriate preparation that the conversation might actually go well. It’s my responsibility to find some people to invite to small group, and to make that invitation at least somewhat inviting. I can make the environment welcoming for those who do come. These are things that are within my realm of responsibility. 

But what is not within my realm of responsibility, are other people’s responses. I cannot dictate how people will respond to the gospel that I share with them. I cannot dictate how they will respond to the invitations that I share with them. I cannot dictate if they come back to small group after they visit, even though I did my very best to make it a great experience for them. I cannot dictate that people hearing me will like what I have to say. It is not in my responsibility to decide for people what they think about me, what they think about what I have to say and so forth and so on. It cannot be my responsibility, because it is their responsibility. I shouldn’t try to steal agency from others. 

What is our responsibility when it comes to things like leading people to faith in Jesus for the first time? Obviously, this radical change within a person’s deepest being is beyond my level of responsibility. I may weep for those who don’t yet know Jesus, my friends, whom I long for and love, that they would know him. So I’m not going to share the Jesus story with them and then take some attitude like “Yeah, whatever it’s not in my hands anymore.” I’m going to bring it to God in prayer, and I’m going to seek God on their behalf, but only God can save a soul, and each person is the only person who can respond to God’s invitation to their own heart to be changed.

I can’t change anybody besides myself with God’s help. I cannot force myself to have a successful small group, whatever level of success I determine. The only level of success I can guarantee is simply that I did my best; I obeyed the Lord and I tried to love some people well. I can be responsible for that level of success. But how many people come and how often do they come? Do they like it? Do they invite their friends? These are things that I have influence toward, but I do not determine. Too often in our lives, we spend a lot of energy frustrated about and anxious about results or outcomes that do not belong to our realm of responsibility. We try to force things or make ourselves sick ‘hoping and hoping and hoping,’ but we don’t rest. We don’t trust, so we’re anxious about things beyond our control and that anxiety saps our strength and saps our attention and even saps our affections. At this stage, the things we actually are responsible for suffer, because we’re giving ourselves over to things we don’t have responsibility for.

We need to be careful. We need to be wise. We need to ask God for help to take appropriate responsibility for what belongs to us, and then to let go and truly let others, including God, be responsible for what belongs to them to be responsible for. For we are partnering with God. 

We’re not doing God’s work for Him, we’re doing God’s work with Him, and that requires trust. So let’s be people, by the grace of God, who actually believe that He is always at work for good, and that in every situation His plans are higher than ours. His goals for our lives are full of goodness and beauty, because His goal for us looks like Jesus. Let’s let God be God. He’s in charge. He determines the outcomes, and we are privileged to be responsible for what we can be responsible for, and we can be at peace about the outcomes that do not belong to us to determine.

A Partial (and biased) Primer on a Life of Prayer

People socialize, fraternize, relate and mate. We do very little alone, a fact attested to in our biology, neurology, history and daily experience. Human beings are social creatures, and when they are alone they rehash old conversations and imagine new conversations in their minds, or even just talk to themselves; it’s what we do. The communicative instinct within us is not evolutionarily accidental or simply strategic to species survival. It is part of the divine design from God, our Maker, who designed us to be like Him so that we might know Him, love Him and commune with Him, the Creator God who accomplished the work of making the worlds via communication: speech acts that made everything out of nothing. And the fullest revelation of this One, True, Living God is the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah (Christ), who is called the Word of God. (Gen. 1-3; Ex. 19-20; Ps. 1; Jn. 1, 17; Acts 15; Rev. 21, et al).

Every relationship begins with some initial meeting and exchange. That first impression may have been wordless and awkward or immediately deeply conversive or anywhere in between. Whatever that meeting looked or felt like, communication was established, and the relationship grew from there through successive interactions where information, requests, feelings and the like were communicated. Communication is a key fuel for relationship, alongside things like trust, shared experiences (which may well be another form of unspoken communication) and grace.

The primary divine commandment is to love God with one’s whole being. Considering that God is a communicative being who made us to be like Him, and also considering the nature of love and relationship, can we imagine a successful human life where communication with God is absent? Of course not. And the thing is, everybody does pray. Every heart exhales or explodes toward God at some point, whether that be in a fit of fear or rage, or a moment of rapt awe and gratitude. Even the atheist’s heart whispers toward God or rages against Him despite their best intentions, because it’s innately human to do so.

The Bible is full of repetitions of several very important truths. Without making any attempt to list them all, here are a few especially apt to our topic: God loves people and wants to shower goodness upon their lives; God wants His people to pray and invite His care and power into their lived experiences; God wants to share intimate relationships with His people. These truths are the invitation to breathe freely with God who made you to converse. That instinct is to be nurtured and celebrated in real relationship with God (Ex. 34; 2 Chron. 7; Ps. 23, 139; Jer. 31, 33; Mt. 5-7; Lk. 11; Jn. 14-15; Rom. 8; Rev. 2-3; et al).

The Gospels present Jesus to us, and he goes from place to place proclaiming the coming of God’s Kingdom (the Kingdom of the Heavens): The realm of God’s goodness and joy is coming alive right in your midst, if you will open your eyes, change your thinking and accept it! This means that God is near. And Jesus further teaches us that God is present and concerned for our every care and need to the point that God is actively aware of the number of hairs upon your head. Jesus invites us freely into life in God’s Kingdom (Mk. 1; Lk. 12).

The Apostle Paul, writing after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus and after the outpouring of God’s Personal Presence (aka Holy Spirit) upon all believers, frames this life in the Kingdom in the imagery of living or walking in/with/by the Spirit–getting your life into step with God as you, in community, learn how the Spirit moves and communicates. This life looks like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control–a beautiful life, right! Entering into that life begins with a confession, our first real conversation with God where we speak the truth about ourselves (sinners) and about Him (righteous savior through Jesus Christ). That conversation continues in singing, meditation, asking and more with the aim being that we learn to live without anxiety because our thoughts and feelings and overall beings rest in God. All of that conversation is prayer. So, like his Master Jesus, Paul invited his followers to pray and never stop (Rom. 8, 10, 12; Gal. 5; Phil. 4; Col. 3; Mt. 6; Lk. 18).

Part II

What are we aiming for when we pray? There are some very lofty aims for the life of prayer, and we will address those shortly, but first let’s just begin simply. Why do people communicate? Why do they share looks and words and gestures, or even a touch? The desires and motivations behind these interactions begin to help us set goals for our lives of prayer and to imagine how we might attain to them.

People communicate, first, because they believe communication works. They believe their messages can be received and even reciprocated. They believe that their words or gestures will affect someone and can create a change or something new, even if that change is simply getting a friend to laugh at a stupid joke. So, when we come to communicate with God (to pray), we must act in confidence (faith) that God is alive and listening–willingly listening, not just putting up with an unwelcome barrage of words. This does not mean that there are no doubts in your mind, nor does it mean that you are completely confident that what you are saying will elicit the response you think you want, but it does mean that you are acting, in your life and your prayer, as though God were real and that God is benevolently disposed toward you (Mt. 9; Heb. 11).

Once you have the basic confidence to begin communication with God, there are innumerable things you might talk about, sing about, dream about, listen about with God. People talk and gesture to get help, to communicate feelings, to inform, to create trust and nearness, to confess their failures, to vent their frustrations and on and on. Of course, if we are talking with God based upon Jesus, we know that some forms of communication are right out with God (and with other humans, for that matter). We are not manipulating, dishonoring, lying or hiding in and with our words, but coming directly, simply, honestly and humbly. Yet, this doesn’t mean that we must be ‘prim and proper’ with God all the time.

This is where the Psalms are of immense value. The Book of Psalms is the Prayer Book of the Bible. It teaches the community of God how to pray, and it shows us how to bring our whole selves (good, bad and ugly), and all of our circumstances (heart breaks, joys and ravings) before God. And the goal of this is to bring God and His goodness to bear upon our entire lives, and to effectively practice seeking Him first in all of life.

Instead of burying rage or depression, or taking out our anxieties upon other people or a bottle of booze, or plotting bloody vengeance, we bring the whole ugly mess to God and seek His help in the midst of it. We give up our ugliness to God in return for His beauty. The Psalms and the OT Prophets are full of examples of raw prayers, prayers that make 21st century Christians blush, but we must be honest with ourselves and learn from these faithful pray-ers how to get our whole selves before God. Go dig into the Psalms for yourself and see what I mean. Our communications with God are not wholly unlike our communications with others. The same kinds of goals and concerns motivate the conversations.

Prayer, like most communication, usually begins with desire. You want something, so you ask the appropriate person for that something. A lot of communication is simply doing business, making exchanges and the like. Our conversations with God must certainly transcend pure economics, but please do not attempt to skip this basic level of communication. Like any father or mother, God wants to know what His children need, and He wants to know it from them. He wants them to ask for what they need! And like a good mentor, teacher or coach, God wants to hear your questions. God wants to respond to your questions, to help you understand, to help you learn new skills… so ask! Do business with God daily, because there is daily business to be done and everything is best and rightly done with God. If you want to become a person of faith and power and intimacy with God, begin simply. Make a daily discipline, a habit of coming before God for the business of the day (give us this day our daily bread).

Most of prayer is quite simple and straightforward. You can easily talk to God about your day, your feelings, your hopes and frustrations, and you can easily ask God to help in the midst of your life. The Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms help get us started when we feel any loss for words. To help get your thoughts together, you can also write your prayers, as God is quite literate. Yet, I would encourage you to pray out loud when possible. It’s been my great mistake for too long to keep the conversation with God trapped between my ears, and that is a mistake. Move the conversation out of your own head and its incessant ramblings, and help yourself have a cleaner distinction between talking to God and listening to God. When your mouth is moving, you are talking. When your mouth is still, you are listening. Your internal stream of consciousness has no punctuation, nor any clear distinction between yourself and an actual conversation partner. But of course, God hears the unspoken murmurings of your mind and your heart and He’s listening to your silent prayers just as closely to the spoken prayers.

Part III

The goal of the upward journey (or the inward journey) of prayer is described by the devotional masters throughout the centuries from several perspectives using myriad images, but one word can probably summarize them all: communion. The relationships that mean the most to us are never merely transactional. Even if a relationship begins that way–like a newborn to her mother–the best and truest relationships eventually become transformational. And so it is with God. We come to God in our time of crisis and need and call out for rescue, healing, help or provision and maybe our relationship to God remains there for some time: periods of apathetic silence on our part, punctuated by impetulant screams for help at each of life’s plentiful problems.

However, we know God is after much more than this, and ultimately, God will refuse to coddle such immaturity. His answers will begin to sound more and more like ‘no,’ because it is more important for us to learn who He is and how to relate to Him in that knowledge than it is for us to get what we think we want or need in the moment. To truly know God is eternal life. To know Him is to know joy to the full and to live in unshakeable confidence through all situations, and to have wisdom for every decision and responsibility: transformation.

If we have moved our habits with God to daily conversation, rather than merely periodic panic calls, we have already begun to make room for a new stage of trust and interaction with God. Jesus told his disciples that his food is to do the will of the Father. Isaiah proclaimed that those who wait on the Lord will find new strength for life in Him. Without getting too metaphysical, here is the point: God has energy for us at every moment; this is grace, the gift of the Spirit’s presence within our lives through Jesus. As daily talks with God grow into ongoing conversations throughout our days, we can come to a place of consistent, gracious partnership. Here is power to do what we otherwise could not do on our own, as the spirit is willing but the body is weak. Grace can become my habituated response instead of anxiety or despondency when things get difficult. When someone does me wrong, my new normal can be one of feeding upon the reality of God, rather than resorting to wrathful outbursts or the withering cold shoulder. Just as the presence of a good friend or relative can give you courage in a tense situation, you can learn to live with God’s nearness in every moment in life! This is prayer without ceasing, a life of consistent and constant interaction with God in His Kingdom (Mt. 10; Lk. 12; 2 Cor. 12; Gal. 5; Phil. 4).

Yet there is one more step of intimate communion I’d like to briefly point to before setting down the pencil. From the beginning we were made to be like God, and God’s intention for us has never changed. He still desires to make us look like Jesus in holiness, glory and righteousness. The goal of a life of prayer is to live like Jesus whose face reflected the face of the Father to a sin sick world (1 Cor. 13; 2 Cor. 3; 1 Jn. 2, 3).

Have you noticed how family members and good friends begin to look like each other? They spend a lot of time together, they communicate consistently, and they begin to share facial patterns and mannerisms, body language, speech patterns and the like. Our brains are made to mirror the faces of other people, and the more often you look into a person’s face, the more normal, even habitual, it will be for you to mirror their face to others. That is the aim of prayer, to see God’s face so clearly and so often that the world around you begins to see the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love … in your face. So be it.

Reflections on Bonhoeffer and His Encounter with Harlem’s Black Jesus

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an inspiring and intriguing human being. His path from aristocratic intellectualism through a conversion to radical discipleship under the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the Harlem Renaissance, and then becoming a pastor of pastors internationally known for his work to bring the Church to bear upon the dire political realities of Nazi Germany by the time he reached his 30s, and culminating in his imprisonment and execution for his part in a plot to rid the world of Hitler and rescue Germany and the Jews is the stuff of legends: saints and martyrs. His personal, political and theological transformations occurred so rapidly and in such internationally turbulent times, that he can be hard to pin down. The fact that he ever retained his aristocratic and intellectual breeding and died young, without the benefit of time (or marriage and family) to smooth and mature both mind and character leaves him liable to misunderstanding, and even occasional self-contradictions. And yet, the stories told by his fellow prisoners from his final days before being hanged leave history with the image of a 39 year old man wholly committed to his Master (Jesus) and his course of obedient action. Throughout two years of imprisonment, including the morning he confidently walked forward to a new life beyond this world, he was a man filled with peace, loving and serving his fellow prisoners and the soldiers who were his guards.

I’ve read a few of Bonhoeffer’s books over the past year and a half, am slowly working through Eberhard Bethge’s massive biography, and recently read Reggie Williams’ Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. This reading inspires all kinds of thoughts, but today I focus on three aspects of Bonhoeffer’s life and theology that rise to the top of my thinking: 1) personal transformation against the flow of culture is possible and normal for the disciple of Jesus, 2) discipleship is obedience in action in the real world, and 3) the Gospel (the way of Jesus) is radically incarnational.

Personal Transformation

Bonhoeffer’s life is a moving portrait of personal transformation as he submitted his life to the Master, Jesus. His personal prides and prejudices were transformed as he learned from, followed and imitated Jesus. He encountered God alive in Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City and the living ethic of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5-7) in his early 20s, and he was never the same again. His theology and politics, as well as his priorities and ambitions took sharp turns from their previous trajectories. Where he had been comfortable with German Nationalism as a product of his Christianity, and had considered Christian dogma devoid of actual ethical content just a couple of years before visiting New York (see his Barcelona sermons and lectures), he became a man willing to die in his stand for humanity and the integrity of the Church against National Socialism out of obedience to the ethics of the Kingdom (alive through the Church). He deeply explored and expounded upon that Kingdom ethic in two of his better known books: The Cost of Discipleship, and Ethics. Bonhoeffer’s life is a case study of what it can look like when a rich young man does sell everything to follow Jesus. Faithful discipleship today can learn from and be inspired by his example of taking up his cross, forsaking his life in order to follow Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on a weekend getaway with confirmands of Zion’s Church congregation (1932)

Discipleship: Obedience and Incarnation in the Real World

While there is much more to Bonhoeffer’s life and theology than these next two themes (including themes and developments I haven’t yet delved deeply into), I select them here because they carry much of the content that motivated and/or flowed out of the transformation explored above. Bonhoeffer, like many before and after him, learned to take the Sermon on the Mount as programmatic for the Kingdom of God and a life of following Jesus (aka discipleship), and he took the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:2-12) to be programmatic for the Sermon, as well as the whole Gospel Jesus proclaimed. Taking seriously Jesus’ pronouncement of blessing and kingdom presence upon and among the poor and the meek, those who mourn, long for justice (in other words, they’ve been wronged or have done wrong-righteousness), make peace, practice mercy, are not satisfied with the way of the world (pure in heart) and experience persecution for doing righ and/or for their allegiance to Jesus, called Bonhoeffer’s comfortable, intellectual, aristocratic German Christianity deeply into question. His experiences in New York opened his eyes to the plight of the poor and oppressed (primarily African Americans suffering under poverty and racism) in ways his intellectual criticisms of bourgeois faith could never equal. It was transformative, as can be seen by his aggressive intention to pastor in a poor, working class neighborhood after returning to Germany and receiving his ordination. Political realities, including the Reich’s intrusion upon the German churches with the Aryan Clause, shut this door to him. Also, his encounter with the living, active faith of the worshipers at Abyssinian Baptist Church (ABC) opened his eyes to the nearness and accessibility of God. He saw “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven,” actualized before his eyes. He began to know Jesus as he joined with ABC in serving the poor and needy.

The Sermon on the Mount has been read by some as a creative argument by Jesus to demonstrate a Reformed view of depravity, or to bolster a clear division between the ‘religious’ and the laity. Both of these interpretations idealize the Sermon as a kind of vision of what life in Heaven will look like, rather than a vision of practical discipleship. The problems with this view are legion, but most simply, there is no indication in the Sermon itself, or its parallel in Luke 6:17-49, that Jesus intended anything other than obedience to his teachings in the immediate context of his hearers. In fact, he calls ignoring his commands a direct path to destruction (5:19-20; 7:21-27). Factor in Jesus’ call to discipleship–taking up one’s cross to follow him (Lk. 9:23-26, et al), and the Great Commission’s insistence upon teaching obedience to Jesus (Mt. 28:18-20), and it becomes absurdist to argue that all of this is hyperbole to convince sinner that they can’t save themselves. The need for grace is made plain in the crucifixion of Jesus and in his ministry of healing, exorcising and forgiving.

This emphasis on practical discipleship, obedience to the teachings (modeling the way of Jesus) flowed directly into Bonhoeffer’s insistence upon action and incarnation. Even before his transformation, his ecclesiology (theology of the Church) was highly incarnational: the Church is Christ on earth, however he had little content to fill that ontology with, allowing nationalism to creep into that ethical vacuum. With his discovery of the Sermon on the Mount as programmatic for Christian discipleship, the purpose and mission of the Church became clear: to obey Jesus, to take up the Cross, to live out and stand up for the priorities of God (see the Beatitudes) on planet earth (Mt. 6:33). His personal journey of obedience led him into poverty/social justice work (blessing the poor; Mt. 5:3; Lk. 6:20; cf. Lk. 10:25-37), ecumenical peace work (Mt. 5:9; 6:43-48), making disciples (Mt. 28:18-20) and then, surprisingly, into actively opposing the Nazi regime all the way to the extent of working through with his international contacts to assist in a plan to assassinate and replace Hitler, a plan which would include the humiliation of the nation he loved.

This final move is, in my current knowledge, less capable of direct scriptural/Gospel backing from specific texts. Bonhoeffer’s reasoning followed his deep conviction (in a somewhat existentialist manner thank to Karl Barth) that faith must act in the real world. Bonhoeffer was no pietist or quietist; his discipleship was bold like Luther, whom he always built upon, even if he rejected some Lutheranism. He was practical, earthy, worldly (in the best sense of the word), believing God meets the faithful in the world. This is Kingdom living.

This is following Jesus down from the mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17:1-8; et al) into the demon-possessed valley (Mt. 17:14-20); following Jesus into the religion the God our Father considers pure and faultless: caring for widows and orphans in their distress, rather than being drawn after the self-seeking pattern of the world (Jas. 1:28-30). The Word became flesh (incarnation) and moved into the neighborhood (Jn. 1:14, TM; cf. Phil. 2), and all who follow Jesus must imitate him, taking up residence in places where the sick need to be made well, the blind need to see, the oppressed need liberation, the weak need justice…

Bonhoeffer took up his cross to follow Jesus, and we see this in action on multiple fronts: opposition to the Nazis, boldly fighting for the truth the the Church as subject to Jesus alone, pursuing peace in a world obsessed with war, and then ultimately making the bold decision to actively participate in a plot for the violent removal of Hitler, a decision I look forward to more fully research and understand–to reconcile with his previously growing allegiance to nonviolence. But, let me end with one final lesson from Bonhoeffer, his path of incarnation, forsaking privileges to get into the lives and neighborhoods and experiences of the poor, the working classes, the less cultured and educated.

As previously mentioned, the community ministries Bonhoeffer encountered in New York led him to seek to do similar work in Berlin’s East Side before Hitler’s seizure of power closed his path to parish work. He valued children, even rowdy children of working class families, and welcomed them into his life, his home, and even his family’s elite, cultured, aristocratic home. He learned how to know, love and serve the weak and downtrodden by getting into their world. He looked into their faces, he listened to their stories, he visited their homes, he laid aside his academic pride (he completed his doctorate in theology by age 21, and completed two post-graduate courses of study by age 24) to simply tell Bible stories to children. He follwed his Master, Jesus, and all who might want to follow Jesus must do the same.

Many times, groups of people fail to understand each other. Misunderstanding breeds distrust, distance, prejudice and fear with the potential for hatred. If there is a group of people whose concerns are lost on you, whose complaints are obnoxious to you, whose customs are absurd to you, go! Get into their world. Explore their experiences. Hear their stories. Try to walk a moment in their shoes. Take the place of humble learning, even service. It is there where you will be living the life of Jesus, and you will find those previously mystifying concerns, complaints and customs to be less foreign or dangerous or ridiculous than you had assumed. You may still have disagreements and challenges to understanding and unity, but your capacity for empathy, patience and love will be, immeasurably, transformed.

pages (a poem)

Dry waves, the pages turn;
the paper is stout and eager to drink the ink of a life well lived,
but the binding is incomplete,
the covers untended and ignored.
Many pages are frayed from the play of a bored thumb;
they are often empty, misspent and forgotten,
while the rest contain mostly incomplete sentences,
a single word,
directionless lines without shape,
or just frantic scratchings that wear holes through the well made paper
turning like dry waves in the night.

Do Not Fear (Isaiah 40-41) – A Sermon

When I preach for Tulane Chi Alpha’s weekly service via Zoom (we usually meet face to face), we plan the messages and the service to be very brief. To stay on point and keep to time, I manuscript my messages. Here’s one from yesterday that I hope might prove timely for others, as well.

Raging seas, bloody moons, smoke and darkness obscuring the sun – distressing signs and omens. These images of nature at war cause humans to lose hope, fail in courage, lose strength. They are helpless.

We find these kinds of images in the OT prophets and through the NT. This biblical language is often symbolism for apocalyptic upheavals in the human world: wars, the rise and fall of empires and rulers, events and movements that shake the foundations of societies and cultures. These symbols portray the painful unsettling that marks turning point moments in history and the human devastation in their wake.

This is our moment, “unprecedented times,” and all. The most turmoil, fear, anxiety and uncertainty the USA has known in nearly two generations, more than 40 years. The hearts of people are melting with fear, foaming with rage, floundering in anxiety. What is God’s answer in this time?

Isaiah 40:26-31

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:

    Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one

    and calls forth each of them by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

    not one of them is missing.

Why do you complain, Jacob?

    Why do you say, Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

    my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

    Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

    and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

    and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah is prophesying in the moment between empires: Assyria and Babylon, with Persia right behind. These mighty powers are clashing with each other while ruthlessly conquering other small kingdoms. Israel and Judah are swept up in these conquests under the judgement of God. There is nearly constant war and devastation all around. 

The character, power and promises of God are being called into question.

In chapters 40-41, Isaiah sets up a rotating scene of courtrooms and creation where God, Israel/Judah and the nearby nations (those conquering and being conquered) come to ‘trial’. We see God vs. Israel, God vs. the nations and God vs. the idols. Within this kaleidoscope of judgement there are multiple invitations into the rest and strength of God, multiple guarantees of God’s care, concern, power and presence, and a repeated command to God’s people to not be afraid.

The idols – Isaiah 40:18-20 

With whom, then, will you compare God?

    To what image will you liken him?

As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,

    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

    and fashions silver chains for it.

A person too poor to present such an offering

    selects wood that will not rot;

they look for a skilled worker

    to set up an idol that will not topple.

People choose and create different kinds of idols, different images of imaginary strength and security based upon their social class, cultural values and ethnic heritage, but the root is the same.

41:5-7

The islands have seen it and fear;

    the ends of the earth tremble.

They approach and come forward;

    they help each other

    and say to their companions, “Be strong!”

The metalworker encourages the goldsmith,

    and the one who smooths with the hammer

    spurs on the one who strikes the anvil.

One says of the welding, “It is good.”

    The other nails down the idol so it will not topple.

In the second passage, the islands (or the nations) are coming to face God, who is sovereign over the international calamities they desperately fear. God has invited them to be renewed in strength (41:1), but instead they turn to make another idol, an idol they have to nail down in hopes that it won’t topple.

Idols are clearly futile. They are the cobbling together of human ignorance, hubris and craftiness. They are symbols of hopes built upon anything other than God, human efforts to stave off destruction, to have something permanent when everything is crumbling, things like national pride, democratic dreams, social justice rhetoric, governments, brands, corporations, Facebook…

Isaiah 41:29

See, they are all false!

    Their deeds amount to nothing;

    their images are but wind and confusion.

They cannot save.

Humanity, in the face of problems and powers beyond its control seeks to build or make something to save itself, but salvation is only in the Lord: the One not contained by human minds (Is. 40:13-14), the One who sees and knows all, unconstrained by time or space, the One who created everything and before whom all the nations and empires amount to nothing (40:15-17, 21-24).

This impulse in premodern times and cultures is explicitly religious, and often takes the shape of statues, shrines, temples and sacrifices. Times have changed and idols have changed. Especially since the Enlightenment, these impulses take the shape of rationalizing away risk, empirical investigation to conquer nature and solve problems, marketing imagery and celebrities to wash away the anxieties of responsibility, and all sorts of tools and toys for self-actualization. And there is still the premodern, modern and postmodern penchant for political power and militarism. We don’t bow to statues or build religious temples today, but idolatry lives on long and strong.

Today, our democracy is in question. We know that our news media is compromised – which source is not drowning in its own fear of the other side? Scared journalists cannot report the truth, and power hungry politicians and their backers thrive on fear and twisting the truth. Our culture has been losing its capacity for graceful disagreement, for trusting the motives of those we disagree with. We are gaining speed on the tracks of making enemies, canceling those we dislike and fear, rather than growing in our capacities to build a common good together.

I sometimes fear for the future of the Church in America where so many Christian leaders stand for what seems absurd or against what seems like common sense. Yes, I think some of them are dead wrong, but when I let fear turn into an anger that threatens my capacity to love them, bless them and pray for them, I’ve turned away from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and bowed down to an image my self-made or culture-derived image of what things should be. I’ve given up seeking understanding in order to discern truth together in favor of slinging mud and accusation. Lord, have mercy.

What have we been turning to as a nation?

What have you been turning to?

God promises to be with His people, to deliver them and calls them out of fear!

Isaiah 40:11; 41:10-14

He tends his flock like a shepherd:

    He gathers the lambs in his arms

and carries them close to his heart;

    he gently leads those that have young.

So do not fear, for I am with you;

    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

“All who rage against you

    will surely be ashamed and disgraced;

those who oppose you

    will be as nothing and perish.

Though you search for your enemies,

    you will not find them.

Those who wage war against you

    will be as nothing at all.

For I am the Lord your God

    who takes hold of your right hand

and says to you, Do not fear;

    I will help you.

Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,

    little Israel, do not fear,

for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,

    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Jesus taught his disciples not to fear those who could merely kill the body. Instead, they should fear the One who can destroy both body and soul. Their fears should be driven out by contemplation of the Creator God of infinite power and absolute sovereignty, who is also their loving shepherd and very Good Father.

The place of fear in the human heart–dread, ongoing anxiety and worry, not alarm or momentary fright–belongs only to God. Anything else we fear is an idol, something taking space in our hearts and minds that belongs to God alone, something staging an insurrection against the rule of God’s shalom.

Where do you turn in the time of alarm? The moments of deep unsettling?

Do you turn to diversions (pretty idols)?

Do you turn to self-reliance or hope in the machinations of society (practical idols)?

Do you turn to worry, fear and anxiety (passive, miserable idols)?

Or, do you turn to the God who set the stars on their courses in the heavens, who made all things and orchestrates history to bring about the salvation of His people rescued out of every nation?

God gives strength to the weak and the worried. “Just as the Lord’s attributes include eternity, creativity, self-sufficient strength and wisdom, so they also include sharing strength. This is not a spasmodic or occasional activity but part of what he is.” (Motyer) He will overcome where we must otherwise fail, and he will give us strength to triumph where we must otherwise faint.

The Living God proves His trustworthiness to Israel and the nations through Isaiah by foretelling the rise and demise of empires and kingdoms through dire warnings of impending doom and promises of redemption and renewal (41:17-29). The Living God has proven His trustworthiness forever to all people through the Gospel we confess in the Creed: Christ has come. Christ has died for us, the ungodly. Christ has risen and conquered death!

It is time to lay down and demolish our idols of diversion, human reliance and fear!

Conversation Questions for Response

1. How have you observed the things we often take for granted being exposed as failed idols over the past year in your personal life, or in our nation?

2. How does fear affect your ability to be the kind of person Jesus calls his disciples to be (loving God, neighbor and even enemies?)

3. How can you turn away from idols and look more fully into the wonderful face of Jesus this week? This year?

2020: A Year in the Books

I love books, always have. 2020 started with a goal to increase my reading (including audiobooks) from 3 to 4 per month. When COVID struck, I increased the goal again, and with help from books I read with my boys for bed-time I accomplished my reading goal and read more books in a year than I ever have as an adult.

Here’s the full list and some notes on several that really stood out this past year. Also, I wrote some summary reviews and responses to a few of the books; they are hyperlinked in the lists.

Children’s books I read with my boys: We read with our boys for bedtime every night, and the older boys (8 and 7) like to read longer books now, which is great fun. Jen and I rotate, so it can take a while to get through some books, but here are most of the “chapter books” I read with the boys this year.

The Green Ember series by S.D. Smith is great, in general. It’s intentionally an heir of The Lord of the Rings, including faith-based themes. Instead of humans, hobbits, dwarves and elves, the protagonists are rabbits and the minions of evil are wolves and birds of prey, and the books are intentionally for children in the elementary to middle school range. Honestly, I think the first three books are all better than Ember’s End, which is the conclusion of a four book epic, but this book was still fun, albeit a bit drawn out, and overly focused on violence. None of the first three books carry those weaknesses.

The Narnia series by CS Lewis is classic for good reason. We had so many hearty laughs reading these books, especially The Magician’s Nephew, The Horse and His Boy and The Silver Chair. The plots are quite good for children’s literature and it was great to see my boys key in on the major symbology. They are already looking forward to our next reading after Isaac, currently five, makes it to six and might be ready to enjoy them.

• The Magician’s Nephew – CS Lewis
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
• The Horse and His Boy – CS Lewis
• Prince Caspian – CS Lewis
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – CS Lewis
• The Silver Chair –  CS Lewis
• The Last Battle – CS Lewis
• Ember’s End – S.D. Smith
• Rabbit Hill  and  The Long Winter – Robert Lawson
• The Mysteries of Spider Kane – Mary Pope Osborne
• The Rescuers – Margery Sharp

Fiction I read to keep things interesting: So, Cry, the Beloved Country is one of my favorite novels of all time. I first read it in A.P. English as a senior in high school, gave it a second reading a decade or so ago, and loved it again this past fall. I appreciate Paton’s simplified approach to dialogue, and his capacity for communicating complex emotions is remarkable. The story follows an elderly Anglican priest in apartheid South Africa through his personal tragedies, which echo the nation’s tragedies. Read it and your heart is likely to grow.

Silence by Shūsaku Endō is also excellent, but deeply discomfiting. I read the novel because the Martin Scorsese film from a few years back was riveting, so I thought Endō would be a good author to check out. Scorsese’s film is even more brilliant in my estimation after reading the novel. In some ways, the story is told even better on screen. The film is also slightly less upsetting in the way it poses the deepest questions of loyalty and faithfulness up against compassion and self, but I think the questions might resonate even more powerfully through the film because of the slight decrease in discomfort.

And, just for the record, I did not enjoy or like Cormac McCarthy no matter how hard I tried, even if I did appreciate some aspects of his unique style, including a presentation of dialogue somewhat reminiscent of Alan Paton’s.

• Farside – Ben Bova
• The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoyevsky (2nd reading)
• Silence – Shūsaku Endō
• Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton (3rd reading)
• The 1989 Annual World’s Best SF – ed. Donald A. Wollheim
• Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

Social Psychology, Sociology and Cognitive Sciences: This is a wide range of different, but connected material. Most of my reviews came from this small group of books this year, but that has much to do with how much I was writing when I read them, and little to do with the value of these books up against the value of others. Since I’ve already written about half of these, I’ll just throw this out there: The Culture Code is a fun read and a very helpful book for anyone involved in leading groups of people.

• Focus – Daniel Goleman (audiobook)
• OCD and Me – Adrian McCarthy (audiobook)
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure – Lukianoff and Haidt
• iGen – Jean M. Twenge
• The Culture Code – Daniel Coyle (2nd reading)
• The End of Policing – Alex S. Vitale

History & Biographies: So many good reads here. I don’t have time to write about all of the good ones today, so I’ll just highlight a couple and let my readers know that I think all these books are meaningful reading, except perhaps the book on Erasmus (informational but very dull to me) and the biography or M’Cheyne (I didn’t even finish, honestly).

The Great Pandemic was a tour de force. I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before, but this book was brilliantly written, and the audiobook recording was excellent. Obviously, a book about a pandemic is apropos for 2020, but this book does much more than recount the history of the 1918 flu pandemic. Charles Berry uses that virulent virus as an opportunity to explore the development of modern medicine in the United States, its transition from bleeding with leeches to research based medicine. I highly recommend this book.

Becoming Dallas Willard was a watershed for my life. I had known of Dallas Willard and read a couple of his books before this year, but his legacy was brought more fully to my attention through The Ruthless Elimination Hurry (see below), so I got a hold of this audiobook and learned that Dallas Willard wasn’t merely a great writer, but was a modern day saint, a man whose life echoed Jesus in all he did. The forward by Richard Foster was enough to convince me that not only was I interested in how Dallas Willard became Dallas Willard, but I want to study Dallas Willard so that I might become like him.

The Color of Compromise is a book I’d like to recommend. Jemar Tisby does an excellent job exploring and exploding some deep ugliness in this history of American Christianity. Honestly, that’s not all that difficult to do. What makes this book worthwhile is Tisby’s gentleness and brevity. He says a lot in a relatively short book, and he explores some really egregious hypocrisy without succumbing to bitterness. I could sense his love for the church through this book.

Two more great books I have to at least mention: The Hiding Place is a must read. At the Existentialist Cafe was just plain fun for me and helped me remember and rediscover my love for philosophy.

• Bakht Sing of India: The Incredible Account of a Modern-Day Apostle – T.E. Koshy
• Becoming Dallas Willard – Gary Moon (audiobook)
• No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green – Melody Green
• How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone – Brian McCullough (audiobook)
• Erasmus and the Age of Reformation – Johan Huizinga
• The Great Pandemic – Charles Berry (audiobook)
• The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism – Jemar Tisby
• At the Existentialist Cafe – Sarah Bakewell
• Biography of Robert Murray M’Cheyne – Andrew Bonar
• Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World – Jon Sensbach
• The Hiding Place – Corrie Tenboom (audiobook)

Christian Living, Ministry and Leadership: This collection and the following (Theology & Devotional Literature) overlap at points; my arrangement is mostly personal and to keep some authors together.

Both Bonhoeffer and Willard have become very dear to me, and I will be reading from them and about them and around them throughout 2021. The Divine Conspiracy is a classic that has helped solidify a profound life change within me. Life Together is also a classic, and after my second reading I love it more than ever. I’ll try to write about both of them another time, and I’ll definitely have more to write about Bonhoeffer and Willard this year. I might also read some more of James K.A. Smith going forward. I’m grateful to have been recommended in his direction this year, another step in rediscovering my love of philosophy.

Just a month or so before the COVID lockdown, I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and it proved to be a game changer for me. As an author, I thoroughly enjoyed John Mark Comer. He made me laugh out loud and literally cry. He also helped me understand some significant opportunities to make life changes toward peace, humility and joy. The final third of the book where he attempts to go very practical wasn’t the best, in my opinion. Otherwise, it’s a book I’d happily give to anyone. It’s a quick and easy read. Go for it.

• Jesus: The Path to Human Flourishing: The Gospel for the Cultural Chinese – I’Ching Thomas
• Lead So Others Can Follow – James T Bradford
• How to (Not) Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor – James K.A. Smith
• Meditating On the Word – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer
• Domestic Monastery – Ronald Rolheiser
• The Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard (listened to and then read)
• A Short Method of Prayer – Madame Guyon
• On the Road with St. Augustine: A Real World Spirituality for Restless Hearts – James K. A. Smith (audiobook)
• Dirty Glory – Pete Greig (audiobook)
• Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge – Dallas Willard
• Life Together – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2nd reading)
• How God is in Business – Dallas Willard

Theology & Devotional Literature: Revival is not always easily defined among Christians, but in the simplest terms, it’s a movement among God’s people toward Him and His purposes in new zeal and faithfulness. I experienced such a movement in my teens in Grand Rapids, MI and I want with all my heart to see another such move within my own life, family, ministry and beyond. This led to exploring Charles Finney’s classic Lectures on Revival, along with learning that this text played an influential role in forming some of Dallas Willard’s view of life within the Kingdom of God. This book is exhilarating in how it challenges so much ‘nice’ religion. At times, Finney borders on being overly formulaic in how one might accomplish a revival in his insistence upon God’s constancy and faithfulness to respond to prayer and obedience. There are many take aways from this book, but the greatest may simply be the conviction that God is responsive to His people. When God promises to respond to humility and repentance, we can be certain of it. When God promises to hear and answer prayer, we must be certain of it. When Jesus gives the gift of the Holy Spirit and tells his disciples to wait until they receive power from on high, it is the duty of every disciple to be filled with the Spirit; we only have ourselves to blame for living mediocre spiritual lives.

The most gut-wrenching book I encountered this year was James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Cone is an academic theologian, but that does not hinder the pathos of this text that covers similar ground as Tisby’s The Color of Compromise, but in a much more bracing and focused fashion. Cone explores the history of lynching in the United States and the parallels between these atrocious murders and the public, semi-legal, brutal, humiliating lynching of Jesus, the Son of God. This is not a long book. In fact, I listened to it for free on the Hoopla library app. I think every honest American Christian should engage this text and let it lead you to repentance. You can take or leave the liberation theology within Cone’s writing, as that becomes a subtext to the most important lessons of this book: the capacity of people to dehumanize others in order to bolster their own view of themselves is appalling and terrifying.

Christianity Rediscovered is a missiology text from a Catholic missionary to the tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, mostly the Masai. I love this book! This was my third or fourth time reading it, and it continues to help me rediscover the essence of the Gospel and expose cultural trappings that I’ve allowed to encumber my own faith, as well as the faith I proclaim. This lesson: learning to recognize what is God’s truth and what is human, temporal and relative is too often in short supply among pastors and missionaries. St. Paul argued furiously for the purity of the Gospel and its freedom from social and cultural constraints, and God’s people today need to relearn how to fight that fight. That is part of what Fleming Rutledge works to accomplish in her tome The Crucifixion. I don’t have space to explore that work today, but to mention two of her primary theses: 1) Christ died for the ungodly! 2) A quote from Anselm: Nondum considerasti, quanti ponderis sit peccatum (“You have not yet considered what a heavy weight sin is”).

• King Jesus Gospel – Scot McKnight (audiobook)
• Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots – J.C. Ryle
• Silver Shadows – FW Boreham
• Lectures on Revival – Charles Finney
• Sovereign Grace: Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects – D.L. Moody
• What Christians Ought to Believe – Michael Bird
• The Gospel of the Kingdom – George Ladd
• Evangelical Theologies of Liberation and Justice – eds: Mae Elise Cannon and Andrea Smith
• Paul and the Trinity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters – Wesley Hill
• The Cross and the Lynching Tree – James Cone (audiobook)
• Christianity Rediscovered – Vincent Donovan (reread)
• Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses – Andrew Murray
• The Crucifixion – Fleming Rutledge
• The Root of the Righteous – AW Tozer (audiobook)

Biblical Studies: The New Testament in its World is an excellent resource that I highly recommend. Reading While Black is an excellent introduction to exploring the Bible from the African American perspective. McCaulley makes this book very accessible. Any American Christian who is not black or does not have roots in the black church would find this book very enlightening and helpful in understanding some significant differences in Christian experiences. And, I have been told by a black friend that he wants to put this book in the hands of every black college student Christian to help them make sense of the Gospel from their lived experience, especially when they face peers who try to tell them that Christianity is a “white man’s religion.”

• 1&2 Thessalonians NICNT – Gordon Fee
• The New Testament in its World – Bird & Wright
• Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope – Esau McCaulley
• Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society – Anthony Saldarini

Now on to put another year in the books!

Goodbye 2020 – I’m Grateful

As we come up on 2021, I’m grateful. In many ways, 2020 was the wildest, weirdest and most challenging year of my life. Yet, in other ways, it was one of the very best years of my life. 2020 was hard for the world, and very hard for the USA, and I’ve felt deep sorrow through those pangs. I’ve mourned for the deep divisions in the USA, and the visible and vocal disunity among Christians here. I’ve had some painful conversations, which became gifts. Like so much of 2020, the harder things got, the more I found joy filling my life. As so many fought depression, anxiety, fear and hopelessness, I found the light of hope shining ever more brightly within me.

Here are some reasons for the joy and peace I’ve experienced:

1. My wife is simply the greatest ever. She doesn’t complain; she is powerfully frugal, and she keeps life simple. She is also a rockstar mom and gave me a new baby boy this year.
2. A new baby boy! Elliot is healthy and amazing.
3. Homeschooling is not easy, but we are glad for the opportunity to teach our boys at home for this stage of their lives. The pandemic made our gratitude that much greater. My sympathy goes out to tall the parents that have had to work through online and hybrid schooling; that is far more challenging than traditional homeschooling.
4. Being a missionary: I love the message of Jesus, and having the privilege. to make it my full-time vocation to teach and share that message is one of the great joys of my life, and that joy increases year by year.
5. The generosity of God’s people: As a missionary, I (and the ministry I lead) am dependent upon the charitable giving of individuals, families and churches to have a living. Despite all the economic upheaval of 2020, my family has been incredibly well cared for. God’s people have continued giving in the midst of it all.
6. Time to slow down: The lockdown came at a great time for me. I had recently read this great book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and when everything shutdown in March I was forced to try to put some of the lessons into practice. 9 months later, I continue to live at a healthier pace, and am simply less ‘driven’ than before. My dreams are no smaller, but my fear of failure has been whittled to nearly nothing.
7. Another positive aspect of the slow down has been more time with family. I’m blessed with four boys, now. They are growing up as fast as boys always do, and I’m grateful to have been forced to be more present to them.
8. Books: The lockdown also presented some time to me for reading. I set some goals and have continued prioritizing reading and audiobooks to the point where I’ve read more than 60 books this year, where my usual average is 35-40. (I’ll write about these books in the coming days and weeks.)
9. Hope and spiritual vigor: The strength and stabilizing power of my hope in God has become more and more obvious during this year, as has my hunger to know and encounter God more fully. I have experienced the goodness of God internally and externally this year and I am full of hope for the future.
10. I’m also grateful to have been spared from sickness in 2020. In fact, my entire extended family has remained COVID free this year, and my father in law has beaten cancer twice!

Matt’s Absolute Essentials for Successful Jesus-Centered Small Groups

Something I put together some years ago, and thought I’d share.

These Values and Activities are listed, basically, in order of importance.

Before any of these comes the prerequisites of loving God with all of your being and loving your neighbor (soon to be small group member) as yourself.

1.    Prayer: Only by consistent communication with the Lord Jesus can we discern what we even should be trying to accomplish in and through our small groups, as well as what the Holy Spirit is working on in you through the experience of leading the group. This includes praying over every meeting, for the Spirit is the one who will do the work most needing to be done.

2.    Prayer: You have to pray for the members (or future members) of your small group every day. This is the first step in learning to love your people through Jesus and is your most important service (ministry) to them. This time will also increase your awareness of your people and allow for times of creativity in how to encourage them individually and as a group. Sometimes this will be very brief, other times it should take at least several minutes.

3.    Accept and Act on Pastoral Responsibility aka LOVE YOUR PEOPLE: Small group leadership in the Jesus way is a shepherd activity: you are helping feed God’s sheep through this role of service, you are caring for their souls, if even only in a small way (but maybe in a very big way).

4.    Define What Success Is and Act Accordingly: Lots of people have lots of different definitions for what a successful small group looks like, but what are you looking to accomplish? This must be defined, or you’ll never know if you’ve failed or succeeded, nor will you have a map for determining which direction you should be headed. Your definition must closely align with your co-leader’s (if you have a co-leader), but does not have to be identical to anyone else’s. 

        This must be fashioned in prayer, should be in line with the vision and mission of the larger community your small group is a part of, and should consist of the following components: real friendships and people getting closer to Jesus. Usually, this will also include at least a little bit of growing in understanding and applying God’s Word.

        This is a big deal and will take some time to do well. ***see below   

5.    Communicate Love to Your People: Do the people God has given you to serve know that you love them? How do they know this? Find creative ways to demonstrate your love to them on a regular basis: serve them, send encouragements, value what they value, speak the truth in love, be generous, spend time together, hug… And, tell them you love them–say it out loud (unless that’s totally culturally inappropriate).

6.    Spend Time Together Outside of a Regular Meeting: Just do it. What happens in the group meeting will rarely make it into real life if the relationships don’t make it into real life; and if the relationships don’t make it into real life, they aren’t worth much of anything. I could say more, but I don’t think I need to.

7.    Involve Others in the Servant-Leadership of the Group: This inspires group ownership and is essential to real discipleship. The members of your group need to find their own places of service within the Body of Christ. Some of them will be leaders of small groups in the future. Some of them have much better ideas than you do. Some of them are the keys to reaching new people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. This is not “your” small group. You want it to be “our” small group, but remember it should first be Jesus’ small group.

        This will often start really simply: someone to bring a snack, host the meeting in their room/res. hall, say an opening prayer, bring a fun ice-breaker, facilitate an outside get together, etc. But, this should grow, sooner rather than later, to group members helping you lead the meeting itself, and then to them facilitating the discussion on their own with your feedback.

8.    Communicate and Invite Constantly: However your regular gatherings look, you’ve got to have people present for it to be meaningful. People forget, people get busy, people sometimes need an extra reminder to shake them out of their <whatever> that might make them decide to skip at the last minute. Also, if you have any interest in welcoming new people into your group, you need to invite new people all the time, every week. Sometimes, you’ll invite the same people over and over again, but if you’re only inviting the same people over and over again, don’t expect many new people. Communication and invitation also sets the example for your members.

        Be willing to feel awkward, but try to avoid being obnoxious. Hint: most people feel awkward about giving invitations long before they feel awkward about turning invitations down.

9.    Do Creative Things in Your Meetings: Don’t let the group devolve into simply a Bible study or some other kind of self-help conversational group. Get real life into the group. Pop outside the box and get inside one another’s heads, hearts and histories. (That’s a good one, remember that: heads, hearts and histories.) Meet in a different place. Do something fun. Serve someone. Your imagination is the limit; just be sure you don’t exclude people by what you do.

10.    Plan Well for the Weekly Meeting: You will have regular small group times, partially, because structure is what facilitates growth (think the skeletal system). Since you’re going to have these meetings, make sure you’re prepared to lead/facilitate them well. Don’t teach. Don’t preach. Make sure Jesus is the primary guest. Remember: heads, hearts and histories. 

     And yes, sometimes, the group will need someone to do a little teaching or encouraging, exhorting or even preaching; just don’t make that your default.

    This is so far down the list, because if the other things are not happening, it might not make much of a difference how well you’ve planned for your meetings, as they’ll be fairly lifeless and/or empty.

11.    Learn. Grow. Ask Questions. Receive Coaching: If you think you’ve arrived or look only to yourself to figure out challenges, you’re shortcutting yourself and your small group. You know this; act on it.

***How to define what Success Looks Like:

Ask yourself some of these kinds of questions:

1. What will the people in my group be doing/living like in 5 years if this group is successful at being part of their spiritual formation?
2. What will the relationships within this group look and feel like?
3. How many people will be a part of this group?
4. What sorts of people will this group draw in?
5. What sorts of people will this group live among and influence? What will that influence look like?
6. What will people in this group value? How will that shape their lives and relationships within and outside of the group?
7. How do you hope a first time guest to the group would describe the group to a friend?
8. Is your vision large enough to stretch your faith, yet specific enough to know when you reach it?