Category: theological rant

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Jacob the Pervert is Changed By God’s Grace.

Genesis 49:31 Rocked my world today.  Mouse over the verse to read it.  It’s not all that spectacular.  It’s a description of a graveyard, and who is buried there.

What rocked my world is what it didn’t say.  The guy speaking is Israel (formerly known as Jacob).  Stick with me, and I’ll give you the back story in 3 bullet points (with a hat-tip to Tim Keller’s insight from his latest book).

  • Jacob was a total perve who had the hots for Rachel, Leah’s younger sister.
  • Laban, the girls’ dad, was a con-man who tricked Jacob into working for him for 14 years in order to get Rachel as a wife.  7 years in he got tricked into marrying Leah, who according to the story is ugly (commentators believe she had a lazy eye or was cross-eyed). Lines from the 14 year period include “OK, time for me to have sex with that hot daughter of yours.” (did I mention Jacob was a perve?)
  • Leah spends the rest of her life in the shadow of her younger, hotter sister–trying to make Jacob love her.  She names her first three kids “Look! A son,” “God heard my prayer,” and “Now I’ll be connected to him,” (Genesis 29:31-35) all in an effort to win the love of Jacob, or at least in an expression of that effort.  Finally, we see her surrender to God’s grace, and name her last son “Praise the Lord.”

But what we never hear from the story is whether or not God’s grace ever changes Jacob.  Until Genesis 49:31.  When giving instructions as to where he wanted to be buried.  He in effect says “Bury me where Grandpa Abraham, Grandma Sarah, Dad, Mom, and Leah are buried.  The significance of that is huge.  God had so changed Jacob (now Israel)’s heart that his last wish was to be buried not with Rachel, who had her own tomb (Genesis 35:19-20), but with Leah.

God changes hearts.  Leah’s last son’s name, Judah, might sound familiar.  The “Lion of Judah,” Jesus himself, is a descendant of Leah.  Praise God for grace that changes us.

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What if Raising Support IS My Ministry?

I’m so quick to let heresy come out of my mouth.

The other day on a support appointment I said “We can’t wait to report to our assignment and start doing ministry!” What a shame, that I would further the unfortunate stereotype that to challenge someone to worship with their wallet is somehow different from challenging students to worship with their lives.

Raising support is a ministry.  We are seeing God change the hearts of countless folks toward our ministry.  Even if folks aren’t able to give, the ministry we have in their life is reminding them that God is bigger than the economy or the news networks.  We so greatly appreciate those who would sacrifice and continue to give in such a crazy, uncertain financial world.  Your heart is clearly resting in Christ, as evidenced by the clear, consistent placement of your treasure in causes so close to His heart.

I have to continually remind myself that my only duty as a slave of Christ is to follow his bidding.  Though my heart beats to reach college students with the gospel, (and I firmly believe that God is passionate about that cause) right now he would have me reach others with the true “prosperity gospel,” that real prosperity comes not from money or worldly security, but from Christ.  In calling people to partner with us financially, I am calling them to a radical position where we collectively recognize that God is not about our financial bottom line.

With this particular ministry of challenging folks to financial partnership, I need to be so careful that I don’t totally blow it by my financial lifestyle speaking louder than my words.  A tragedy of American Christianity is that pastors and leaders who would claim to be honoring God are falling prey to the same greed and consumerism to which the watching world is enslaved.  We need to have a wartime mentality toward our spending and lifestyle.  I’d highly recommend all folks (and especially vocational ministers) read the new introduction (link downloads a pdf file) to John Piper’s book “Let the Nations Be Glad,” as it was the stimulus to rocking my world, this morning.

So I repent of my heresy.  I am doing ministry when I make phone calls to develop financial partners.  Right now, today, I am in full-time ministry.

What about you?  In what ways have you allowed heresy to infect your view of God’s call on your life? Comment below.

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When Would I Tell You to Stop Supporting Our Ministry?

Check out Exodus 36:2-7.  And take notes.

I was blown away by two things:

  1. The people were so committed that they gave more than enough.
  2. The workers were so committed they told them it was more than enough, and to stop giving.

I wrestled this morning with the point at which I would tell folks to stop giving to my ministry.  Then I wrestled with the difference between the old covenant and the new in this regard.  See, in the old covenant, it was a “come and see” issue.  Folks from other nations came to see the favor God had bestowed on the Israelites.  The tabernacle, and later the temple, were places where the nations looked on in amazement at the glory of the only living God, Yahweh.

That changed in the new covenant.  Now the faith is a “go and tell” issue.  The gospel is to be taken out, proclaimed among the nations.  We are the temple.  And we show the glory of God not by how lavishly we live, but by how we no longer need riches to define us.  The nations see the glory of God in the face of Christ, who sacrificed his very life for his enemies.  That sacrificial giving of time, resources, and our very life is our new model of glorifying God.

So how does that affect the “more than enough” issue?  In the old covenant, once the tabernacle was finished, there was no longer a need for that specific type of giving.  In the new covenant, we never finish showing off the true and living tabernacle, this side of eternity.  Like giving to a war effort, you don’t stop making bullets until the war is over.

So I’ll never stop asking you to give to our ministry, until the war for the hearts and minds of students is over.  But I’ll also never stop repenting of the lie that finances are the point.  Jesus is the point. That’s what is so dangerous about prosperity theology.  We make the mistake of old covenant thinking (look how big the house/car/Rolex is that Jesus blessed me with!) without the wisdom to see that we live in the war-time mentality of the new covenant.  And nobody wears their Rolex to battle.

The hero of Exodus 36 is not the people who gave so much, or the workers who told them to stop, but the God who graciously revealed himself to hard-hearted people.  The tabernacle made of fine linen had nothing on the God-man who came and “tabernacled” with his people.

What about you, are you living in the war-time mentality or do you, like me, often fall prey to the old covenant way of thinking? Comment below.

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Building the Kindgom Using the Devil’s Tools?

Derek Webb’s album Ringing Bell has been ringing in my ears today.

I got an email through our ministry locator from a minister promoting an upcoming event.  It’s not a Campus Crusade affiliated event, as evidenced by the fact that I got alerted about it via our ministry locator.  The locator is a tool specifically designed to connect students, parents, and ministry partners with the ministry at specific schools.  It’s not a way to get in touch with staff to promote events.

So here’s how it goes:  excited minister wants to get the word out to as many people as possible about the upcoming event.  Knowing that Campus Crusade for Christ has thousands of campuses nationwide, and that we love Jesus, he decides to directly contact some staff through the ministry locator and let them know about the event.  Sounds reasonable, right?

But let’s change the scenario a bit.  Imagine instead of a ministry, it’s a taco business. Excited business owner wants to get the word out to as many people as possible about the upcoming event.  Knowing that Taco Bell has a way to directly contact franchises around the world, he sets about telling them about the event.

Sounds a little different if you paint it with a different brush.  See, whether you spiritualize it or not, using our ministry locator tool to promote events is spam.  Unsolicited email.  Illegal.

Now, I’m not going to report the guy and have him fined or penalized, because I’m relatively certain he didn’t mean to spam us, and unlike the taco example, we are not competing businesses.  We’re on the same team, looking to reach people with the gospel.  We’re about God’s kingdom advancing.

The question is whether or not you can advance the kingdom using non-kingdom resources.  Since spam is illegal, it therefore is not a tool God is likely going to favor in the building of his kingdom.

How you get the people to your event is just as important as how many people you get to your event.  Shortcuts, fudging numbers, and emotional manipulation might produce a throng of people who look very Christian at your event.  But it won’t honor God.  As Christians, we must go the extra mile to not just avoid guilt in these types of things, but because others have abused people, we have to avoid even the appearance of that abuse.

Since some online lines are still legally blurry, let’s make a commitment to stay well on the legal side of the blur.

That’s what’s got Derek’s song ringing in my ears.  His song “A Love That’s Stronger Than Our Fear” has a line in it that speaks to “building the kingdom using the devil’s tools.”  We have to watch out for the American lie that ends justify means.  Biblically speaking, questionable means condemn their ends, regardless of how “good” they appear.

What do you think?  Did I overreact?  What are some other ways we can strive to be full of integrity?  Comment Below.

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The Intoxicating Lie Of the Next Step.

When you’re young, it’s sort of programmed into you.  You are told what to do to prepare for school, and then to prepare for middle/high/undergrad/grad school.  Then they start telling you how to prepare for retirement, or for career advancement, or kid’s college.  You have to learn all over again how to prepare your kids for all of the same milestones.  All of life, it seems, is geared toward preparation for the rest of life.

So what a surprise to wind up where I am, at 29, finally realizing that all of life is not preparation.  At some point, boot camp is over, and it’s time to start fighting the war.  I’m not advocating a lack of discipline in planning and preparing for the future.  I’m advocating a mental shift regarding how we view the present.  And I am going to make a sweeping statement that may or may not offend you with it’s simplicity.

God has you where he has you right now for a reason. And how you handle what you are going through right now has a large bearing on where He will take you in the future.

Nothing gets me fired up (in a “you might not want to emulate this” sort of way) more than sitting across the student union table from a Johnny Sophomore and hearing him say “I am just waiting on God to reveal his will for me.”  As though God were behind on his paperwork, scrambling to get marching orders to this student.  But he and I take the same approach, if I’m honest.  We treat God like we would a barber before our big date.  Show up when you have an appointment, sit patiently and wait while he does some stuff to fix you up, and then leave once he’s done preparing you for the real fun.  We assume that we have no role in the preparation beyond small talk and tipping well.

Sure, God is preparing us and slowly revealing his will to us.  But if we aren’t faithfully executing the tasks he’s set before us now, what makes us think that he’s going to entrust us with bigger tasks?  That’s one of the reasons I think Bill Bright (the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ) saw so many people come to Christ after hearing the gospel one time from him.  He led Taxi drivers, bellhops, and people next to him on the plane to Christ all the time!  Why?  Because, I think, he lived every moment as if it were a divine appointment.  And God ended up entrusting quite a movement to Bill Bright.

So, how are we living every moment?  Like a divine appointment, or the preparation for tomorrow’s divine appointment?  I confess that I’ve been living, in large part, in anticipation of some fabled “next step” without any regard for the extraordinary provision that’s gotten me to this step.  And it’s time to start walking by faith now.

How about you?  Am I the only one who trips over this step in my haste to get to the next one?

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