Tag: insights

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"Negative, Depressing, and Discouraging" Verse of the Day.

One of the reasons I can’t get wholly behind Christian radio is that they often whitewash the troubling doctrines and the tough-to-swallow parts about Christianity, when they could be contextualizing those difficult doctrines and glorifying God for them.

By taking verses like Philippians 4:13 out of their horrific context (the reason you can do all things through Christ is because he was beaten half to death by religious people like me in the worst hate-crime ever perpetrated) they rob them of the gospel, and turn them into pithy truisms. And I’d argue that’s not very “safe for the whole family.”

With that in mind, periodically over the next few days and weeks I’ll be posting some verses I’ve found that will likely never be featured on your local “positive, upbeat, and encouraging” affiliate, along with reasons I think they should.

Today’s “upbeat verse” (mouse over to read the text)

Nahum 3:5-6

The fact that the Lord is against the Ninevites ought to give us great encouragement. In fact, anybody who doesn’t publicly speak out against a city like Nineveh, one “completely full of lies and pillage” ought not ever claim even partial righteousness, much less perfect holiness.

God, perfect in holiness, promises in this seemingly horrific verse to someday completely rid the world of places like Nineveh.

Then He does it in the most surprising way. God sets Christ up as a spectacle, and throws filth on him. God lifts Jesus’ “skirt” over his face, and shows to the nations his nakedness. Jesus pays the penalty for people as wicked as the Ninevites. People like me.

And by his stripes we are healed.

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Negative, Downbeat, Discouraging Verse of the day.

I started yesterday with Nahum 3:5-6

Today we’ll keep it in the Old Testament with another seemingly non-uplifting verse:

Exodus 22:22-24

There are tons of these types of verses in the books of the law that are never going to see time in a top ten list of encouraging verses.  But they should.  The encouraging thing about a provision in the law specifically calling for the protection of orphans and widows?  Those are the most marginalized segments of society.  Nobody can read that kind of provision and then turn around and say “God doesn’t care about me.”  In fact, God cares so deeply for his people that he will kill with the sword anyone who doesn’t care for even the least of them.

But the real encouragement in this verse is again that it points to Christ.  All of us, at some point in our lives, have failed to care for (and have thereby afflicted) widows and orphans.  This verse would be crushing, apart from Christ, because we find ourselves on the receiving end of God’s death penalty.  But God’s wrath was kindled against Christ, and he killed him.

And we get credited Christ’s righteousness.

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A Downright Inappropriate Verse.

This is another in my latest series (that started out as one ginormous post I decided to break into several) on verses that will never be read on Christian radio.

This one is a verse that, if you are reading out loud to your underage children, (a practice I wholeheartedly discourage with any of my writing) I’d stop.

(mouse over the verse to read it)

Ezekiel 23:20

We are not likely to see much at all from this section of Ezekiel make it to the air on Christian radio.  It’s really racy.  The translators make the wording a little softer, here, but let’s face it, Zeke was not afraid to shoot straight with the people of Israel.  He crosses well over the line of propriety and decency.  But we here in the Evangelical camp are committed to all of Scripture being God-breathed and profitable. Even the parts that make us blush.

I love (is that a weird word in this context?) this verse because in it I find a God who is not afraid to tell his prophets all the dirty stuff going on in the hearts of his people.  God doesn’t pretend like the junk isn’t there.  This is a prophecy that most commentators agree is about Israel and Judah, the chosen people of God.  And yet God doesn’t go through and clean up the storefront so that the nations won’t find out how bad things are.  No, things are pretty rough when this type of lusting is going on.  And God includes details in this verse that he could have left out.  But he didn’t. 

When Christ came and died, he was aware of what he was paying the penalty for.  All of the sin, evil and brokenness in the world.  He didn’t just pay generally for general sins.  He paid for that specific act of lust, for those specific acts of unfaithfulness.  What a Savior.

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Kingdom in the context of Capitalism.

What am I running toward?  Why do I want to raise over $2000 in monthly support?  The Bible says that “for lack of vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18 King James Version) and I can definitely relate to that.

Unless there is a compelling picture in my mind of why the heck I am doing this—all the phone calls and appointments and initiating with strangers about their wallet and it’s contents—I’d surely stop.

Here’s the thing, though: God is concerned with the process of raising support just as much as he is concerned with the outcome of getting the support in and going on campus to impact students.  After all, he’s God, he could raise the support in 15 minutes.  So the fact that He isn’t tells me that there is something bigger out there than the dollars.  God isn’t just monetizing this thing with the support raising process.  He’s got some things he needs to tell us and work in us that require this angst-ridden (at worst) or uncomfortable (at best) context of “ministry partner development.”

God is a King, not a president.  His system is kingdom, not capitalism.  The end goal is no longer the dollars.  The compelling vision that keeps me on the phone (when I have enough contacts to call *cough*Prayer Request*cough*) is that He is sovereign, and has clearly, repeatedly, called me to this ministry.  I am more passionate than I have ever been about what God is doing on the college campus, and in and through students there.

As always, at the end of posts like this, I feel compelled to give you the opportunity to respond with your wallet.

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Santa Claus.

We’re probably not going to do Santa with our kids.

When I say that, immediately there are those who jump up to tell us how it’s just innocent fun to tell the stories of Santa.  (Funny how it’s not OK for me to tell others not to do Santa but it’s perfectly acceptable for others to tell me to do the opposite…)

They also often say something to the effect of “we were raised believing in Santa, and we turned out all right!”  And, to a great extent that may be true.  But George Burns smoked until he was 100 years old, and that doesn’t make smoking healthy.  I don’t make my parenting decisions (or really any other decisions) based solely on anecdotal evidence.

Here is the main reason we are leaning the way we are:

On a foundational level the story of Santa and the story of Jesus are exact opposites.  Santa gives based on how good you are.  Jesus gives based on how much you admit your inability to be good.  And that might be confusing to my child.

We ruin the concept of gifts by making them meritorious. I don’t give him gifts based on “you better not cry, you better not pout” because if I did I’d never give him anything.  Pouting is an every other breath activity at some points in his day.

The Bible is pretty clear about the naughty-nice list.  There’s only one name on the nice list, and it’s Jesus.

All of that to say we are not anti-Santa.  We’ve still got him up as a decoration.  We’ll tell our kids the story of Santa.  But we won’t tell it likes it’s true.  As should be apparent from my rant about the Halloween protesters, I am not about Christians making a stink about holidays that are often our only common ground with our non-believing neighbors.

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