Tag: insights

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While I’m on the Santa topic…

I’ve heard some people say that they are worried about their kids, when they are told about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Jesus, that they might learn two of the three are a lie and assume the third is also.

That’s pretty silly, unless during family devotions you are praying to the Easter Bunny. Kids can tell the difference between something you devote your life to and something you talk about once a year.

If they believe Jesus is on the same level of relevance in your life as Santa Claus, it’s because you’ve lived like it.

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Hard Work.

I started my three new books with Roy Williams’ Hard Work, because (contrary to what the title might have me believe) I knew it would be the quickest read.  And nothing fuels reading like some good momentum.

Tim Crothers (Roy’s help writing the book) does an excellent job of hiding behind what sounds exactly like Roy Williams is speaking, and making it come off as both well written, and something Roy would say. I loved the behind-the-scenes look into coaching that it provided, and I think many people, especially vocational ministers, would profit from the lessons in how to effectively coach young people. If you are reading just for that, skip straight to the chapter called “philosophy.”

However, amidst the great retellings of some of the best moments of his coaching career runs a disturbing thread.  Here is a man literally on the top of his profession.  He’s among only 13 men to have ever won multiple national championships in men’s college basketball.  He has the highest winning percentage among active coaches.  At the time of the writing, he’s the current national champion. Yet it is clear that not even those pinnacles of achievement afford him any respite from the nagging pursuit of being the best.

As much as a fan as I am of UNC ball, it pains me that I get the sense Coach Williams is chasing wind.  (Ecclesiastes 2:11) What a shame to have worked so hard, done so well, and to have ended up with nothing of eternal significance.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that his pursuit of being the best is necessarily wrong  (I don’t know the man or his heart personally).  It is by no means wrong to pursue excellence.  But if that pursuit is done to validate me as a person, to make me “somebody,” I’ve missed it.  Only in Christ am I validated.  And only by my validation in Christ can I then rightly, actually, pursue excellence.

If a salesman has no assurance of where his next meal is coming from, it changes the motivation for selling. He’s selling that product to stay afloat!  If, on the other hand, he has a million dollars in the bank, he can sell for the love of the the product he is pushing. He’s been validated already.

My prayer is that Coach Williams (and I) would run to Christ, the only one who can validate us.  Christ is the one who has really done the “hard work.”

Then, run from there to Cameron Indoor Stadium and keep the streak alive against Dook.

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More verses I’ve never heard on "Christian" broadcasting.

This is the latest in a series.  To read the series from the beginning, click here.

Romans 1:18 in combo with Romans 3:23

I’ll give it to Christian radio.  They might have actually played these as the “verse of the day.”  But I’ve never head it.  The first one says that the wrath of God (not exactly a ratings-hog of a concept) is poured out against the unrighteous.  The second verse then clarifies (in the same book, a couple of chapters later) that all of us are unrighteous. (Even and especially religious folks, see Romans 2:17-29, especially verse 23)

Neither positive, upbeat, nor encouraging, as I read it.  God’s got a whooping stick with my name on it.  And yours.

But here’s where not taking the verses out of their context is helpful.  Romans is Paul’s most in-depth systematic treatment of the gospel.  He spends 11 chapters explaining it’s theology, and the remaining 5 explaining how that theology ought to change the way we live.  He nails all of us to the wall in the first three chapters, and then spends the remaining 8 of the first section showing us how Christ satisfies the law, and saves us, from the mass-murderer to the serial rapist to the smug, self-satisfied religious guy (who is worse than both, if you ask me).

Without the bad, discouraging, and condemning verses like Romans 1:18 and 3:23, the gospel makes no sense.  Rescuing someone from a building that isn’t burning down is foolish and annoying.  If you die during that rescue (as Christ did), it adds tragedy to foolishness.  But if a building is burning down, it’s the ultimate display of love to die in the act of saving someone.

These verses show us just how much our spiritual “building” is crumbling in burning embers around us.  And that’s encouraging, no matter how you phrase it.

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Earth.

Have you seen the movie Earth?  It’s narrated by James Earl Jones, so that alone should convince you.  That man could read the labels on a tube of lipstick to me and I would pay attention.

But the narrator is not why I’d suggest you go see Earth.  The movie is a fascinatingly well-done documentary that literally was shot from the North Pole to the South Pole.  We watched it at a family gathering this week, and the combination of Linda and Ron’s ginormous TV and the breathtaking images in the film made for a great time.

There are several scenes in the film where predator meet prey, with predictable result.  Ron, an especially animal-loving family member, said of the film “It was too violent for me, I like coexistent animals.”  The toughest scene to watch was the baby gazelle being targeted by the world’s most perfectly designed predator, the cheetah.  The camera they used to capture the scene shot at something like 1000 frames per second, and the image it produced was mesmerizing, and sickening.  A full-grown cheetah chasing down a baby gazelle.  There is something that is just not right about it.

And that’s why I’m a Christian.

Only the Christian worldview agrees with Ron, that it is not OK for the baby gazelle to get it.  The predominant western worldview, postmodern secular humanism, is based on the baby gazelle getting it.  Survival of the fittest.

Eastern worldviews would say that the baby gazelle was a money-hungry investment banker (or other such evil-doer) in a past life, and therefore deserves getting it.

Pantheistic and Panentheistic worldviews would say that the cheetah and gazelle are both a part of the divine, and therefore whatever happens must be ok.

The Christian worldview, on the other hand, says that someday Jesus is coming back to make things right.  In fact, in Isaiah 11:6 we get a great word-picture of what results the second coming will bring.  The wolf and lamb will dwell together.  The leopard and the young goat will peacefully coexist.

And, if we’re lucky, James Earl Jones will tell us stories around a campfire.  But I couldn’t find a verse to indicate that.

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The Reason for God.

The Reason for God by Tim Keller is a must-read for anyone looking for a pastoral, thoughtful, and compelling defense of the Christian faith.

I call it pastoral because, unlike some theological works (even those by such great minds as CS Lewis), this book doesn’t at any point talk down to it’s reader.  It is a defense, to be sure, of the Christian faith.  But it feels like Pastor Tim is talking to you over a cup of coffee, not a podium and his reading glasses.  He is respectful of, and even encouraging to, those who enter into the discussion with doubts.

The real strength of this book, (and what I’d like to see skeptics like Dawkins respond to) is when (in the chapter called “Intermission”) Keller points out the differences between “strong rationalism” and “critical rationalism.”  His basic point is that not even atheistic naturalists have to give proofs that will satisfy people from every conceivable perspective, yet that is precisely what those same atheists require of Christians.  This is the only point at which I think those atheists and skeptics could find reason to be offended by this book.

All things considered, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone searching, or any Christian looking for a model of how to have a thoughtful, intelligent conversation with skeptics.  My word of caution to those Christians would be to replicate the tone of the book (caring more for the person than the philosophical debate), and avoid weaponizing the very compelling truths contained in the book.

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