Musings

Living Words

by Bob Thune

I use a lot of words, every day. Talking is my business. But a soft-spoken friend of mine said to me tonight in one sentence more than I have said to anyone all year.

My friend James is a hockey superstar. He was drafted out of college by the Philadelphia Flyers and pretty much had an NHL career in the bag until concussions began to take their toll. For medical reasons, the Flyers chose not to resign him for a second season. I think he would say that was the saddest moment of his life. It was the end of a dream that had carried him since childhood.

Tonight, James and I were sitting around in my basement with some other guys. I was asking them to tell their stories - stories of hope and brokenness and where they have experienced grace. James' story became the gospel to me tonight.

He told it differently than I've heard him tell it before. The part that was different was when he said: "What I've learned through Bob in the past three years is worth more to me than any contract I could have signed."

I know how much James could have made in the NHL, and I'm pretty sure my influence isn't worth quite that much. But James wasn't kidding. And his words were life to my soul. I know that not a day goes by when he doesn't dream of being on the ice. And yet he says the ways God has used me in his life are worth the cost of that dream.

Jesus said, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Perhaps the benefit to the soul that comes from gospel-centered community really is worth more than all the riches in the world. James made me believe that tonight. And for a minister who wonders every day whether it really matters... those are living words.

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue," Proverbs says. Tonight, I actually believe it. What I say - and what others say to me - is much more significant than I realize.

Learning Community

by Bob Thune

I had to do a small group intervention in our church today.

You know what I'm talking about. Maybe you've been in one of these groups before. Seven awesome, godly people. Not a single one of them that you'd have a problem with. But for some reason, when they got together, they fell into that stale awkwardness of a first date: playing it close to the vest, offering honesty only when it's a sure bet, always jockeying to see if the feeling is mutual or if a second date would be suicide. The consensus opinion was that the group just flat out sucked.

As we sat down to talk it out and try to move toward healthy community, we made some interesting observations. I'm wondering if you've noticed these same trends in your faith community. Since Will and Brett and DT and I just got done writing a book on community (see sidebar), this blog seemed like a good place to hash this stuff out. I'm not usually the one to think out loud, but what can I say: I'm trying to apply what Brett wrote in the book.

Observation 1: It's hard to create community that's both intentional and natural. The problem with natural community (your chosen friends, those people you'd hang out with anyway) is that it's rarely intentional. For some reason, a good game of Ving-Pong doesn't mix with a heavy conversation about where Satan is lying to you right now. The problem with intentional community (the kind that's forced, i.e. evangelical small groups) is that it doesn't feel natural. Doing a Bible study together creates purposeful community, but since it was formed for a purpose, it has a very unnatural feel. (Which is another way of saying that Bible studies rarely break into spontaneous Ving-Pong games; apologies to readers who have not experienced the sporting frenzy that is Ving.)

Observation 2: Christians seem to be the only people who have trouble being honest. We all agreed that our worldly friends generally say what they really think, and they don't mind if people know how screwed up their lives are. Christians, on the other hand, have painful problems with honesty in groups. We excuse this by saying that our community isn't "deep enough" yet, or that it takes time to build trust, or that it wouldn't be "edifying" to share what's really going on. But we agreed that all these excuses are basically ways to mask our heart-idols. The truth is, we want to be seen as people who have it all together; or we don't want to be accountable for really changing; or we are deathly afraid of losing the approval of our peers. If we were really living in light of the gospel and finding our identity and worth and value in Jesus, wouldn't we be at least as honest as our unbelieving friends?

Observation 3: True community should be pastoral. At one point, my friend Scott was talking about how he needs a high level of relationship with people before he gets spiritually honest with them. I stirred the pot by asking this question: "How come none of you applies that logic to your relationship with me?" Judging from their blank stares, I could tell no one was following me. "Here's the thing," I said. "I'm your pastor. When you're really struggling spiritually, you don't sit around wondering if we've 'hung out' enough for you to really lay the heavy stuff on me. You just call me up and tell me what's going on in your soul! Because I'm your pastor, and you expect spiritual ministry from me. So why aren't you expecting that from each other?" They thought that was a pretty good point. Unless we expect pastoral ministry from the body of believers around us (and are ready to give it ourselves), we're not living a biblical vision of community.

All this gospel-centered community stuff would be so much easier if it "just happened," the way sitting around on the couch does.

Dave the Writer vs. My iPod

by Bob Thune

Last week Dave the Writer was in town from Fresno. When Dave is in town, we always hang out. ‘Hanging out’ for Dave and me means hours of deep, meaningful conversation. (We are introverts, and that feeds our souls. You extraverts can party all you want; we’ll cut out early to pursue a cup of coffee and a good argument.)

This time was no different; we had dinner together with my wife and children, and then we departed for a coffee shop where we talked until they kicked us out. I was surprised and challenged to learn of some big changes in Dave’s life. Most notably, he is leaving his very lucrative day job as a grant writer to spend the next year helping to launch a non-profit focused on economic development and AIDS relief in Malawi.

But Dave is not moved to this because it’s the cool, Bono-like thing to do (although I surmise that might be mixed in there somewhere). He is convinced that this is what Jesus would do. He thinks we’re missing an important piece of the Gospels – solidarity with the poor. He mused that when we read of Jesus feeding the five thousand, we almost always focus on God’s power to do more with less, or the fact that it was a Messianic sign, or the spiritual implications of the story for our lives. We almost never talk about the fact that Jesus fed five thousand people.

The past year for Dave has been a journey from selfishness to others-centeredness. He actually sat down and calculated how much of his income he had spent on himself. “I was appalled,” he said. The decision to leave his job was as much a spiritual discipline as it was a romantic vision of helping Africa. “I realized that if I wanted to become someone different – someone selfless – I had to start becoming that person now. And that meant some drastic changes. If I keep making good money, I’ll keep spending it on myself, and then I’ll look at myself when I’m 50 and hate what I’ve become.”

After having coffee with Dave, I came back to my comfortable home in the suburbs and thought about how much I want an iPod like Will’s and a flat-screen TV. I think if I didn’t have people like Dave in my life, I might have gone and bought those things. But I haven’t (yet).

Dave and I decided that for most of us, Christianity = capitalism. This topic arose when Dave told me that he’s spent the last year reading about liberation theology and Marxism. But don’t worry, you truth-defenders; he’s a good guy, and he’s not going to become a communist tomorrow (which, of course, would result in his immediate condemnation to hell, because you can’t be a Christian and a communist). The way Dave put it, “I just had to get out of the capitalist grid for awhile so I could learn to hear the rest of what the Bible says.”

Yesterday, I was driving in my car and listening to K-Love, the behemoth Christian radio station that spans the nation. (Because I don’t have an iPod, my listening choices are limited). The DJ’s were talking about the “K-Love Cruise” that’s coming up soon. You can spend your vacation money to ride on a cruise ship with lots of Christian music artists. To convince me of the joy of this event, the DJ’s spent 2 minutes of airtime talking about how much food there is on the cruise ship, and how you can wake up at any time of the day or night and gorge yourself.

WHAT??!!

Dave said that in his mind, true Christianity is “a different religion” from American-capitalistic-Christianity. At first I was skeptical, but I think the radio convinced me. Decide for yourself: K-Love, one of the loudest voices for mainstream Christianity, is playing music that’s “positive and encouraging” and selling Christian cruises to entertain the capitalist masses (and, no doubt, to raise some money for positive, encouraging radio). By contrast, at the U2 concert I went to, Bono was signing people up for the One campaign to end global poverty. Which one would Jesus do?

It's Not Transformation Unless You Agree With Me

by Bob Thune

Ryan was back in town over the holidays. Two years ago, Ryan was a God-hating, cross-dressing trans-sexual. Now he loves Jesus and is living a sexually pure lifestyle. The story of his transformation is a long and joyful one, fraught with the grace of God and the brokenness of humanity and the feeble but prayerful efforts of some godly friends. I've written about Ryan before; in fact, my friendship with him was the framework of an entire book chapter. If you have any doubt that the grace of God changes even the hardest hearts, one conversation with Ryan would change your mind. He is in every way a different person than he was when we first met.

This past weekend, I saw him serve others instead of demanding his rights. I saw him dance with girls instead of dressing like one. I saw him at peace and content with himself instead of brimming with anxiety and self-hatred. There are quite a few people in our faith community who knew the "old Ryan." One of them told me today, "He looked like a totally different person." And that is as it should be: "Behold, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). He still has a lot of spiritual growth ahead of him, but even the dullest observer can recognize the change of allegiance in his soul.

Ryan's not so sure, though. He told me over lunch that he wasn't sure if he could be a 'real Christian,' because he still had lots of doubts about some things. "Like what?" I asked.

"Well, I just can't believe right now that the earth is only 4,000 years old."

"Who told you you had to believe that?" I asked. "Well, some Christians I know told me that was a pretty big thing. And I was looking at some Christian websites, and they seemed to agree."

Evangelicalism, how I love you. Only in the matrix of American Christianity could a bitter transsexual become a tender Christ-follower, experience the profound lifestyle change that proves the reality of his conversion... and then be told that it's all for naught unless he's a young-earth creationist. So much for majoring on the majors.

Jesus said one time: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." I sure am glad he wasn't talking about American evangelicals.

Simple

By Bob Thune

There’s a new rising star in the evangelical universe (and I use evangelical in its broadest possible sense). Mullet haircut notwithstanding, this southern gentleman is filling the seats and the airwaves with his upbeat and positive preaching. His church is one of the fastest-growing in the nation, and his book is now outselling Rick Warren’s.

To his credit, watchdog groups have found no financial mishaps; no glaring issues of integrity; no mistresses leaving out the back door. It seems his appeal is built around simplicity and positivity. When a news reporter asked him recently to describe the essence of his message, here’s what he had to say:

My message is God is a good God… he wants you to be happy and healthy and whole. I’ll be the first to admit my sermons are uncomplicated. They’re simple, but they’re Bible truths, and when Jesus was here, he taught simple.

The reporter goes on to editorialize about how refreshing it is to hear messages that are void of “stern judgments and threats of hellfire and damnation.”

Setting aside for a moment the fact that Jesus did in fact speak of hell and damnation (and that such topics are therefore an integral part of Christian doctrine), let us examine this preacher’s assertion that Jesus “taught simple.” At first glance, it certainly sounds correct enough. Jesus did say that the kingdom of heaven belonged to children, and that those who seek him will find him. Protestants have always held to the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture – that the essential truths of the gospel can be apprehended by even the simplest reader of the sacred Word. 

So maybe we should be thankful for preachers who “just teach simple.” There are many in evangelical churches today who would enjoy such freedom from deep thought.

Here’s the problem: if what Jesus taught was so simple, why have the best minds in history stretched to plumb its depths? Why have some of the brightest thinkers in the history of the world spent entire lifetimes searching out the things He said? Certainly a simple understanding of revealed truth is a good starting point; but the Bible itself commands us to “leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity” (Hebrews 6:1). Simplicity in a preacher is good. But his simplicity should be rooted in the profound depth of Jesus’ teaching – and an ability to make that depth accessible to the average man. I learned Calculus because my teacher knew it well; not because he was convinced it was simple.

Here is how AW Tozer put it:

Though God… has provided answers to our questions concerning Him, the answers by no means lie on the surface. They must be sought by prayer, by long meditation on the written Word, and by earnest and well-disciplined labor… ‘As nothing is more easy than to think,’ says Thomas Traherne, ‘so nothing is more difficult than to think well.’ If we ever think well it should be when we think of God. (from Knowledge of the Holy)

For some reason, the simpler things get, the less I see Jesus in them.

Taking a Fastball

by Bob Thune

Last night, Denise pitched me a fastball down the middle: “What if, no matter how good we are, it’s still not good enough to get us into heaven?”

We were sitting out on the patio at Crane Coffee, Tony and Jennifer and Derrick and Denise and me. We had just read the first chapter of John out loud, and we were talking about stuff like heaven and hell and God and Jesus and all the problems in the world. Derrick and I are the only ones who love Jesus. The others might love him, too, if it weren’t for how much they’ve been offended by Christians. 

I’ve been trained in evangelism since high school. It’s been a lot like batting practice. After looking at enough pitches, and taking enough swings, you just know what to do. There is a standard answer to Denise’s question. It’s a great segue into the message of the gospel: We aren’t good enough. Jesus was. He has done it all for us. Trust in him makes his obedience our own and turns away the wrath of God on our behalf.

But I didn’t say any of those things to Denise. I chose to let her pitch go by.

I think my decision would make some of my evangelical friends nervous. “What? You had someone ask you that question, and you didn’t give them the answer?” Certainly if we’re about counting statistics or measuring our worth before God by the number of times we swing the bat, then I hurt my average last night. But if we’re about loving people the way Jesus would love them, I’m not sure it’s that simple.

Jesus didn’t just say things people needed to hear; he said them at certain times, and in certain ways, with an artistic eloquence that was unsurpassed. He spoke of living water and bread from heaven and true light that dispels darkness. What’s fascinating about Jesus isn’t that he swung the bat. It’s the art and beauty and timing of his swing.

A wise author once convinced me that evangelism is both art and science. Most of us have the science part down pat. And that’s exactly why the watching world is tired of hearing what we have to say. They’ve heard us say the same things, artlessly, mechanistically, formulaically, and the stuff we’re selling just doesn’t resonate with what they intuitively know of the complexity and love and grace and beauty of the Creator.

Players who swing at every pitch rarely make it to the big leagues. Players who know when to take a pitch, and when to pull a pitch, and when to bunt, and when to swing for the fence, and when to lean in and take one for the team – those are the players who make a difference. I’m trying, by God’s grace, to become that kind of player. Not because swinging the bat would be wrong; but because Denise’s soul is infinitely more important than my batting average.

Subculture vs. Subculture

This past week at church, we featured a Christian motorcycle ministry. They parked their Harleys on the front sidewalk and came into church with their full leather gear and everything. They gave an update on their ministry to bikers, and how they try to talk about Jesus with people who are into the motorcycle scene. The whole event was a clash of subcultures.

I mean, think about it. These guys are definitely in a subculture. They are bikers. They wear the leather and the bandanas and ride the big loud choppers. The biker subculture seems to be fairly well defined. I don’t think my preppy blue jeans and thrift store t-shirt would fit. And needless to say, their subculture and the suburban church subculture mixed about like oil and water.

Since the Christian subculture bothers me, I admit that I felt a tinge of glee as the bikers went up on stage to give a report on their ministry. The old people who care a lot about “dressing nice for church” had to be squirming in their seats. The tension in the room was worth a hundred boring sermons. The Harleys on the front sidewalk and the men with long braided hair don’t quite fit the Sunday morning norm. 

The bikers helped me see another reason why I hate the Christian subculture. I hate it because it takes really good, godly people and turns them into outsiders in their own society. Have you ever noticed that the subculture is obsessed with “ministries?” To be legit in evangelicalism, you have to start a ministry.

And that’s what the bikers had done. They had taken what should be a really natural, normal, relational connection with other humans and turned it into a ministry.

I don’t mean any disrespect to the bikers. It’s not their fault. I am just weary of the Christian subculture and all its ministries. It seems to me that some Christians riding Harleys with some non-Christians is a great way to relationally connect with a neighbor. But some Christians starting a Christian motorcyle ministry and having their own booth at the Sturgis bike rally and giving away free water and evangelistic tracts just seems… well… artificial. It seems contrived. I find myself wondering: if Jesus rode a Harley, would he be behind the Christian Motorcyclist booth handing out tracts, or would he just be hanging around like a normal biker guy, talking about bikes and chrome and the kingdom of God?

I can’t help but wonder if the Christian Motorcyclists are ostracized by their own biker subculture, like maybe they’re called the “Jesus bikers” or something and people try to stay away from them because they are preachy and stuff. All in all, they strike me as really nice people. I just think it would be nicer, and more natural, and more effective if they just were Christians who rode motorcycles instead of the Christian Motorcyclists. Once you start a “ministry,” you’re a slave to the subculture instead of a servant to the culture.

Just What the Bible Says

by Bob Thune

Chances are you’ve heard someone say this before. As in, “I’m not giving you MY view here; I’m just telling you what the Bible says.” A recent edition of a popular study Bible claimed that the interpretive notes did not promote any theological viewpoint; they only helped the reader understand “what the Bible actually says.”

Modernist nonsense! Can we dispense with this lunacy already?

Modernism is the philosophical milieu we’ve been swimming in for the past two centuries. It’s the worldview that convinced us that it’s possible to approach the Bible (or any book, for that matter) objectively. As detached, cool-headed, objective readers, we come to the text, apply the tools they taught us in church or Bible college or at the latest John MacArthur conference, and discern the objective meaning of the text. Hence, we arrive at “just what the Bible says.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that we now have more Protestant denominations than ever before? More Christian ideologies than ever before? More theological disagreements than ever before? And each faction, of course, convinced that it is reading “just what the Bible says.” No creed but Scripture. No systematic theology, only the Bible.

Bull.

Every reader comes to the Bible with presuppositions. With biases and slants and angles and preconceived notions, conscious or unconscious. We cannot help it. It is part of being human. For some reason, the church of Jesus Christ has been reluctant to admit this. Apparently we’re afraid that we’ll lose the authority of Scripture, or that this is the “slippery slope to postmodernism,” or that the devil is lurking just around the bend. I suspect the real reason is more nefarious: we like having the Bible in our corner. Being convinced that OUR view is “just what the Bible says” conveniently prevents us from having to honestly consider any alternative viewpoint. It also prevents us from having to depend on the Holy Spirit. Who needs the Holy Spirit when you have the MacArthur Study Bible?

Though it’s cloaked in the garb of being “biblical,” we are simply performing a Nietzschean will-to-power, using the Bible to oppress those who disagree with us (whoever “we” are). It’s time for us to ‘fess up: we all have agendas. We all have presuppositions. We cannot fully remove them. Objectivity is a myth. The best we can do is to admit our biases and seek to compensate for them as best we can. That’s exactly why we interpret in community – our own faith-communities, and the community of the worldwide church, and the church throughout history. More people provide more filters, and more correction to our own myopia. And of course, the Holy Spirit is active in the life of the church to keep her on the path of orthodoxy. Imagine that… the third person of the Trinity actually does matter for something. 

The Bible is true. But we are human. And humans constantly “spin” the truth in ways favorable to them. If you don’t think so, you’ve been watching too much Fox News. Or maybe listening to too much NPR. Not me… I’ve been busy mastering “just what the Bible says.”

On Earth as it is in Heaven

by Bob Thune

Where are you going to spend eternity?

If you’ve been raised in evangelical America, your answer to this question is predictable. We anticipate being in heaven with Christ. None of us are quite sure what we’ll do there; apparently we’ll be worshipping and casting our crowns before Jesus and saying “Holy, Holy, Holy” for awhile, but it’s hard to see how that could last for eternity. Playing harps isn’t compelling to most of us, and even hanging around a mansion will get old after a few thousand years. Most of us have been taught not to question: we’ll be in the presence of God, which will be immeasurably glorious, and we can’t even imagine it, and anyway, shut up and stop trying to figure it out. When someone once asked what God was doing from all eternity, Calvin said, “Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that.”

But according to Scripture, heaven is a temporary address.

The Lord’s prayer taught you this, you just never connected the dots. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What kind of a prayer is that, if earth is only the precursor to heaven? Why not pray, “Help us do our best while we’re here, and get us ready for where we’re really going?” It doesn’t make sense to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth if God’s kingdom is actually in heaven, and if we’re headed there.

Then there’s Genesis 1 and 2. Why did God go to all the trouble of creating a paradise – a literal heaven on Earth – which was not only the most beautiful place in the world, but where God actually walked and talked with Adam and Eve? If God ultimately wanted to get us to heaven, why would he hang out on Earth? Why not create an ugly, not-so-hospitable place, where we wouldn’t get comfortable?

The answer the Bible gives is that the earth is God’s final destination. The earth is not peripheral to God’s plan for the universe; it is central. God’s plan is eventually to bring his kingdom to earth and take up permanent residence.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them’” (Rev. 21:1-3).

Christianity is not about getting our personal souls saved, and then huddling up and praying that we don’t get Left Behind. Christianity is about God’s people preparing the earth to be the place of His royal habitation. This means making Christ known to everyone. It means bringing the gospel of the kingdom to bear on every aspect of life: personal, family, civic, social, political, religious, economic. The church is the beachhead of God’s great empire which will one day fill the earth: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas” (Habakkuk 2.14).

So what are you doing to make the world a better place?

Teaching What vs. Teaching How

by Bob Thune

Will and I are both taking graduate-level theology courses this week. He’s in Colorado; I'm in Florida. And I think he’s having a better experience than me. It’s not just that his professor is better than mine (I’ve had both); it’s that my prof (and really, the whole enterprise of theological education in general) seems content to show WHAT instead of showing HOW.

My class is about Christian ethics. As you might imagine, we’re diving into some pretty thorny issues: divorce, gay marriage, euthanasia, justified war. These are fascinating things to think about. And they cannot be thought about simplistically; the Bible often challenges our preconceived notions about these issues. One of the main problems in Christianity today is that people have been taught to parrot the party line on right and wrong without first engaging in serious biblical exegesis. In other words, they’ve been taught WHAT, but not HOW.

My professor is a good and godly man. But so far, he seems content, through hours of lectures, to make his case for what the Bible says on these issues. That’s the problem: it’s his case. It’s biblical, but it’s already digested and packaged by him. Our job is to pay our money, sit back, and listen to his expert view on WHAT we should think. That doesn’t do much to teach me HOW to think.

Don’t get me wrong: I do believe that teachers should be experts – at least as much as possible. I don’t think I know as much as my professor. I don’t think education should be fun instead of work. But based on what I’ve learned so far, if one of my friends tried to make a biblical case for gay marriage, my only response would be, “It’s pretty clear that the Bible doesn’t allow gay marriage, and I have a professor who’s done a lot of work on that subject. You should read one of his books. I can’t remember all his arguments, but trust me: he knows his stuff.”

Contrast this with the model of education that Will and I espouse: relational dialogue. Will has said that “frustrated people learn stuff.” And it’s true. When Will teaches, frat guys threaten him because they want to know the answers so badly. My students question my orthodoxy because I ask so many questions and give so few answers. If I could impose that model on my ethics professor, here’s how it might look differently: Instead of telling us what to think, he might open up a dialogue with the class: “When is it right, biblically, to go to war?” Then, as students began to give answers, he could say things like, “Actually, that point of view is not in the Bible at all,” or, “You just gave a Buddhist answer instead of a Christian one,” or, “Congratulations! Immanuel Kant is still alive and with us.” This would frustrate students so much that we would beg to know: what DOES the Bible say about this? And HOW do I discover it?

Teaching people WHAT to think is OK if intellectual knowledge is what we’re after. But if the gospel really is about the person of Jesus, and if what we’re really looking for is spiritual formation – discipleship that actually changes us – then we’ve got it all wrong. Until we start teaching people HOW to think, our theological education will be little more than Christian tech school. A diploma on the wall does not a thinker make.