Dahhh…

One aspect of traveling I enjoy is visiting the churches that my friends go to and listening to the pastor’s preach. It’s amazing how a very familiar passage can be completely new to you when it’s taught by a different pastor. This weekend I was in New Jersey visiting my old college roommate.

The sermon was on a very familiar passage, Mark 12:28-31, which talks about the greatest commandment, which we all know is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus also replies with the second command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The pastor tied the two commands together, saying that the two are intwined, basically that a passionate love for God will automatically lead to loving your neighbor.

Then as application he mentioned three things that suck your passion for God that you should watch out for in your life.

• Unbalanced life- If we are too busy with work, school, etc we will not find time to renew our passion for God, we cannot train ourselves to be godly as in 1 Tim 4:7
• Unconfessed sin- If we are filled with guilt we cannot bring ourselves to God Ps 38:4-6
• Unsupported lifestyle – It’s easier to be passionate along with others who have the same passion (he gave the awesome example of mountain biking) Heb 10:25

Even though I’m guilty of doing it myself, one pet peeve of mine is when people take verses too far out of context.

Sometimes we read too much into a verse, meaning sometimes we look for meaning in bible verses that may not be there. Or sometimes we twist a verse to suit our own purposes, creating meaning that isn’t really there. One verse I’ve heard used in this way is Romans 8:37 “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” I’ve heard it used somewhere along the lines of, “Because God loves our team we will destroy you on the basketball courts today…” I’m pretty sure basketball did not exist in the Roman empire in the first century A.D., so I’m pretty sure that’s not really a great interpretation of that verse.

But then sometimes I wonder if it’s good to read a little bit out of context for some verses. One verse I’ve been thinking of lately is Galatians 1:10- “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

It’s pretty clear from the rest of the chapter what the context is. Many believers in the Galatian church are turning away from Christ because they are being taught a false gospel. This verse comes smack dab in the middle of Paul’s defense of the gospel that he has taught. It’s a gospel he taught not to win approval from people, and not to gain fame or followers for himself, but out of obedience to his calling as missionary to the Gentiles. It’s a gospel that can seem unpleasant to some, because it says that we are all sinners and that we are all in need of a savior. It’s a gospel that polarizes people as much today as it did when Paul preached it. If you were trying to please people, you would not preach the gospel.

So it’s clear that this verse was about why Paul teaches the gospel. Yet I wonder if this is one of those verses that would be helpful if taken slightly out of context. It’s interesting that all the bible translations that I read separate this verse into it’s own paragraph, standing on its own. I like to call these verses that can sort of stand on their own loaded verses.

So this is why I think this loaded verse is useful. For some reason many Christians seem to be somewhat shy about their faith. Some may be shy about praying in public, some may feel weird about having bible studies in coffee houses, others may feel weird about bringing their friends to church events. I am very guilty of these myself. Others are shy about what they say, wanting to look good in front of others. I am sometimes very guilty of this too. (Although nowadays I’m more inclined to need to remember the lessons from James 3 about taming the tongue. I’m sure I say a lot of stupid stuff that I don’t even remember saying…)

So I guess this loaded verse is important for me to remember. It’s very easy to want to be a people pleaser– to say the write things and do things that don’t draw attention to myself. But I need to remind myself that I am not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.

This passage from James 4 has been on my mind since we studied James 4 in SSG a couple of weeks ago.

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

I’ve been thinking about the future a lot lately. I guess the big three-oh approaching has made me more introspective, even more introspective than I already am (which is probably already too much). Some of my closest friends are turning 30 in the next few months. For me, fortunately, it’s later on in the year– I still have almost three fourths of a year before I turn 30. I had a bunch of goals set up which I wanted to complete before that fateful day comes, and although some of them are probably now out of reach, a lot of them are still doable in the 9 months I have left.

Now I’m realizing that a lot of those goals aren’t all that important, or even really worth achieving. While not ignoble per se, I could see how they could fall into the category of arrogant schemes, especially some of the financial goals I had. And they could easily lead to boasting– it’s really easy to start boasting about how much money you’ve saved up, or how much money you’ve made in stocks. So I guess I shouldn’t focus too much on these goals, and not worry too much if I don’t achieve them.

Missionary work is kind of along the lines of something I know I ought to do. I actually sort of planned out my life to be able to do it in the future. My basic plan was to try to retire at the ripe old age of 50 and spend the rest of my life overseas as a missionary. The passage made me realize that I should have a shorter term horizon on these sorts of things, because it’s true, we really don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

The last thing I came to realize from this passage is to be more mindful of praying. I tend to just plan out a basic framework for things and just go and do them. It’s like that when I travel, I have a make up a list of things that I want to do, then hit the ground and start doing them. My life is sort of like that too, I set up a list of things that I want to do and just start doing them, without much reflection beforehand. There’s no real thought of, “If it’s the Lord’s will…” So I guess that is where the prayer should come in for me.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to lead bible study for small group. I think it’s been like a year since I’ve led. It’s funny- although I’ve been told by many people that I would be a good leader, I tend to avoid leadership as much as possible. I actually don’t mind leading all thaaaat much, it’s really only the planning portion that I don’t like. I don’t really like meetings and I don’t really like having to schedule things in advance. I enjoy leading bible study though, I enjoy prepping for them and I enjoy hearing everyone’s thoughts on the passage.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that there are really two types of leaders. There are leaders that set the vision and overall goals of an organization. They are the face of the organization, the ones that most people would think of when asked, “Who is the leader?” I call them the ‘generals.’ In the church/fellowship world they are the pastors and the core leaders of a fellowship. Then there is the second type of leader, the type that I most identify with and admire. I call them the ‘sergeants.’ They don’t really have a high position, but they lead by example. They put themselves in harms way along with the soldiers under their command. I don’t know if they really have a parallel in the church/fellowship world. I guess they are the ones that you kind of gravitate towards and look to for advice, even though they are not really a leader per se.

Anyways, that was sort of a random spiel. I’m not sure why I started writing about leadership. I guess my thought is that in a world where everyone wants to be a general, there aren’t enough sergeants. And what we really need are sergeants.

This post was titled ‘two worlds’ because I’ve been thinking about this recently– that it’s almost like Christians live in two different worlds. We have the secular world– for most people this world revolves around work or school. And then there’s the so called Christian world– the church, the fellowship, the bible studies, etc.

I see that in my own life too. It’s even apparent in my blogs. I have two of them, DT and MT. They originally stood for something. I think DT stood for ‘devotional thoughts.’ I think I originally was going to try to read a bible passage every day and write a short devotional every day. That was obviously way too ambitious a goal for a lazy person like me. I think MT stood for ‘miscellaneous thoughts,’ sort of all the rest of the junk that flowed in my brain, my empty thoughts (get it? MT = empty? bwahahaha….) Although I try to incorporate my faith into my empty thoughts once in a while, it’s pretty obvious that these blogs are two different worlds.

There are those who are able to bring both worlds together every day. They are the ones that I truly admire, although there are very few of them in my life. I don’t think I’m at that level yet. And so I will continue with both of these worlds. What I will try to do is be more consistent in DT, at least as consistent as this empty MT world. And who knows, maybe these worlds will cross from time to time.

Two worlds
http://mt.dahhh.com
http://dt.dahhh.com