Paul, Athens, and Navigating Culture

On July 27, 2022 By Dan LacichIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Have you ever felt like you live in a culture that you don’t recognize any longer? The values you are faced with every day are nothing like what you grew up with. The practices that people carry out in their lives each day are at times shocking to you. How do you respond as a follower of Christ when the culture seems to be so far removed from what you think God desires for you to flourish? Have you found yourself feeling out of touch with what is going on in the world and needing to figure out how to fit in?

Throughout history, followers of Christ have generally taken one of two routes when dealing with a culture that did not embrace biblical values. One route, taken by large numbers of historic denominations, is to embrace the cultural change and fill your sails with the prevailing cultural winds. That typically results in the loss of the Gospel and the loss of the power of what God does through the Gospel. The other route, one more common among conservative and evangelical churches, is to loudly denounce the sins of the culture and withdraw into a Christian ghetto in order to remain untainted by the culture all the while fighting the culture through political means or social media posts.

Here is the question. Is there a third way? Is there a way that avoids giving in and becoming like the culture AND avoids withdrawing while lobbing theological barbs and the culture? I think the answer is a resounding yes and we find the biblical example of this in Acts 17. In that chapter, Paul finds himself in Athens, a city of countless temples and altars to every imaginable God. It was a city rampant with all the sin a city could offer. When Paul visited there, he spent several days just walking around the city and getting a handle on its culture and values. Finally, only after digging into the research, does Paul begin to speak in the public square, the Areopagus.

What is striking about Paul’s response at this point is what he doesn’t do and say as much as what he does. One would reasonably expect that a man so deeply committed to Jesus and opposed to paganism and idolatry as Paul, one who comes out of the legalism of being a Pharisee, would have leveled both barrels at the Athenians. Like some contemporary, angry street preachers today who denounce the sin they see at every turn, it would not be surprising to hear Paul cry out, “You filthy, idol-worshipping pagans, you are all going to fry in Hell”. I have heard a few of those kinds of preachers in my day and have certainly seen more than enough of them posting on social media. Paul certainly has the kind of reputation that most people would probably expect just that from him. But it is a reputation that is not deserved.

Paul shocks the world when he begins, not with denunciations, but with compliments for the Athenians. That is shocking in itself. But it is the nature of his compliments that is really eye-opening. He compliments the Athenians for their idolatry. In Acts 17:22,23 we are told this, “So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship”. Instead of ripping into their false religious ideas, Paul actually makes a connection with them. He recognizes that the Athenians care deeply about spiritual things. They want to make sure they are honoring the gods. They want to cover all the spiritual bases to the point that they have altars and temples to every god they have ever heard of, and even an altar dedicated to The Unknown God. After all, what if some god shows up one day and asks to see their temple and the Athenians don’t have one? They ask the name of the god and declare, “So that is your name! We wanted to give you an altar but had no name to attach to it. Here it is right over here. We will have the stonemason add your name forthwith.” They are clearly a deeply spiritual people.

Paul is also deeply spiritual and he uses that commonality to his advantage. It is that altar to the Unknown God, that Paul uses as the jumping-off point to help the Athenians know who God really is. In doing so, he begins where they are and with what they can all agree on together. He quotes some of their own poets and philosophers that speak of a creator and uses that to point them in the direction of the God of the Bible who is the creator of all. From there he points them to Jesus, the resurrection, and the Gospel. Paul’s goal in all of this is not to denounce what the Athenians believe but rather to show the truth that can be found in what they already believe in order to lead them to a more complete truth that leads to faith in Jesus.

Paul could have easily denounced the Athenians, their ideas, and lives and withdrawn into his Christian bubble, or he could have acquiesced and gone along with them just to keep the peace. Paul chose the third way, the way of engagement and dialogue. He researched the culture. He found points of common understanding and used that connection to point ultimately to Jesus. That was his goal, point people to Jesus. He chose a more difficult way. It is easy to withdraw and denounce. It is easy to go with the cultural flow. It is harder to show a better way.

Paul wanted to show the Athenians that Jesus was the answer to all their hopes and dreams. His goal was always for people to find life in Jesus. In Acts 26, Paul is making his case before a Roman official named Festus. Paul is awaiting being sent to Rome to stand trial before Caesar and is telling Festus and a Jewish official named Agrippa, about Jesus. “And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”.

Paul’s deepest desire is for people to know Jesus. He didn’t let the idolatry of the culture force him into a cultural battle. He didn’t let the lifestyles of the Athenians turn him against them. He didn’t withdraw from difficult conversations and disagreements. What he did do was show them respect. It is what Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15 that when we make a case for our faith, we are to always do it “with gentleness and respect”. That doesn’t mean doing it weakly. Paul was strong and courageous as he stood in the heart of academic learning of his day. Athens was the Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard of the ancient world. It took courage and grace to stand there and make your case.

How do you navigate the ever-shifting cultural landscape around you? Paul shows us how.

Make sure you know what it is you believe and why. Being a follower of Jesus means being a student of the things of God, a life-long student.
Make sure you know what it is that others believe. Paul understood the belief systems of the Epicureans and Stoics of Athens. He didn’t argue against a caricature of those beliefs that would have been easily dismissed by the philosophers. They knew that he knew what they believed.
Find common ground to work from that leads to Jesus. Far too often followers of Jesus only point out where the differences are with others and never show the key points of agreement that allow for a true dialogue.
Don’t freak out over practices and beliefs that defy the Gospel. Paul was surrounded by stuff in Athens that was clearly wrong and in some cases vile. He didn’t let that turn him away. Rather, he confidently lived the life that he knew Jesus wanted him to live, in hopes that it would be a light to others.
Always show respect no matter how disagreeable and argumentative people become. Yelling louder and having the more witty retort, is not what brings people to Jesus.

Wanting Christianity Without Christ

On July 21, 2022 By Dan LacichIn apologetics, Christian Living, Christians and Culture, loving your neighbor, Politics and the Christian2 Comments

When we live in our own cultural setting, with little real exposure to other cultures, it is easy to miss how we got to where we are. When we live in our own microcosm of time and ignore the centuries it took to get to this moment, it is inevitable that we will have blinders on. We will fail to understand and appreciate the foundational ideas and events that our current values are built upon. In the western cultural world of Europe, North America, and Australia, among others, there is an existing set of cultural values that want certain trappings of Christianity, but without the Christ who is at the heart of Christianity. They are values that find their roots in the biblical teachings of Jesus.

We want kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, love, compassion, and respect for others. These things have become ingrained in our culture to the point that most people simply take at face value that it has always been so and always will be so. The problem is, that most people don’t realize those values are the natural by-products of a culture shaped by and infused with, the teachings of Jesus, over many centuries. They are not things that are naturally found in the human psyche and are not typically found in cultures outside those impacted by Christianity. Values like kindness, care for the poor, compassion, and respect for others, are the flowers of the teachings of Jesus. They have bloomed and blossomed because of their connection to Jesus. Sadly, in today’s cultural climate, they are like cut flowers in a vase. They look lovely in the vase on the table and smell wonderful. But they have been severed from their roots, in this case, Jesus, and because they are no longer rooted, they will eventually wither and die, no matter how much plant preservative we add to the vase. And you can begin to see the withering when you look at the vitriol that has become part and parcel of our current disagreements in society.

This idea that our western values are actually based on biblical values has been brilliantly demonstrated by author Tom Holland, no not Spider-Man Tom Holland. This Tom Holland is a graduate of Cambridge University and author of the landmark book Dominion. In that massive 640-page book, Holland details how the values that we take for granted in the west as enlightened and desirable, are historically, uniquely, Christian values. Don’t get the idea that Holland is some on-fire Christian conservative. He is actually something of a religious skeptic when it comes to God. But he is enough of a historian to recognize that so much of what western culture values, comes right out of a Counter-cultural, biblical Christianity.

For instance, contrary to current perceptions of the past, the rights of women were non-existent in ancient Rome. Until the teachings of Jesus took hold, women were little more than property who had no say in the direction of their own lives. Their husbands could treat them with contempt and abuse and that was considered normal. They could be tossed aside on the whim of the husband. The teaching of the New Testament actually leveled the playing field, even if Christians have not been great at following that teaching. Care for the sick, unless they were extremely wealthy, was non-existent, until followers of Jesus began to care for them. People with power could force those without, to have sex and there was no #METOO movement to say otherwise. Why? Because it was a normal, cultural value for the powerful to force sex from the weak. Respect for all people of every socio-economic class was considered outrageous until Christians taught a message of a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-racial family, all united by a common faith in Jesus. Even the basic idea that we are all to be treated with respect and dignity only came to be a cultural value because of the biblical teaching that all people are made in God’s image. In ancient Rome and most of the world, power was the prime value and people without it were considered expendable and useable. Any objective look at history will show that where we are today in terms of our values of human dignity, care for the downtrodden, compassion for the poor, respect for others, and so much more, all find their roots in the life and teachings of Jesus.

If you are a religious skeptic and reading this, it would be worth your while to ask, why do I hold the values I do? Where do they come from? Holland’s book may be a bit much to dive into. Another option would be Glen Scrivener’s book, The Air We Breath, How We All Came To Beleive In Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality, is a must-read. It makes a very strong case that our current western values are uniquely the values of Jesus.

Unfortunately, we are seeing the unraveling of those values and teachings before our very eyes. The more we hear secular voices cry out for tolerance and acceptance, without being connected to the author of those teachings, the less tolerant and accepting we actually become. When there is no foundation to the message, no spiritual or intellectual weight to back up those values, the method of trying to achieve them is to yell louder, become more shrill, and block out anyone who disagrees. Why? Because deep down inside there is a gnawing fear that we don’t have good reasons for our values. We can’t make a defense for them. So we emotionally react and those emotional reactions come from the baser portions of our personality, the very things Jesus taught against and that all other values are ultimately built upon. The fact is, without being rooted in Jesus, we humans are ultimately incapable of living out the values of love, compassion, kindness, and sacrifice for others, that He taught. Oh to be sure, we can have short bursts of those things. But we can’t sustain them.

The popular culture wants Christians to tone it down, to become more blended into the rest of the culture, to privatize their faith. What we actually need is for Christians to double down on being more Christian not less. You see, as the culture has lost its Christian roots, sadly, so have many Christians. The more secular society becomes, the more likely it is for many Christians to also become cut off from their roots that are found in the person and teachings of Jesus. Being cut off from those roots leads to the kind of insipid Christianity we have in our culture. Or worse, it leads to Christians who are arrogant and self-righteous while they try to bolster a faith that no longer resembles Jesus, through the exercise of political power. The answer to both the insipid and power-hungry expression of Christianity is to become more like Jesus, not less.

Becoming more like Jesus means following the radical teaching that he laid out, and not just a little bit. Culture wants us to be tolerant of our neighbors. (If you want to read why I think tolerance is not an option read this post, Why I Refuse to Be Tolerant) Jesus doesn’t want tolerance. He wants us to love our neighbors and not only them but our enemies as well. Culture wants us to make a small donation to some charitable cause. Jesus wants us to live sacrificially and give extravagantly as He did. Culture wants us to respect people of other races and religions. Jesus wants us to throw open the doors of our own homes and invite them in, showing radical, biblical hospitality and inviting them to be our brothers and sisters.

Why does He want us to be so different? So that people will be drawn to Him. The greatest good we can do for anyone is to live in such a way that they come to know the deep love of Jesus and put their lives in His hands. They will not experience that if followers of Christ are not kind, loving, and respectful in their relationships with people who are not followers of Jesus. In other words, if we are not living an even more radical Jesus-like lifestyle then people are not going to see the real Jesus and will ultimately end up with Christianity without Christ. They will have a cut-flower religion that looks good for a time but will eventually wither and decay.

The Flip Side of Justice

On September 26, 2021 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture1 Comment

Want to make people uncomfortable? Just bring up the topic of justice in American culture today. There will be immediate reactions of every conceivable type. Some will cry out about the level of injustice with claims that America has never been concerned about justice and that the entire enterprise is rotten to the core. Others will shout about this being the greatest country in the world and a near approximation of God’s heaven on earth. And of course there is everything in between. It is a debate that seems to be tearing at the very fabric of social interaction and connectedness and threatens to push us into barbaric tribalism over disagreements that are often ill defined and misunderstood.

The church of Jesus, both at large and on the local church level, is not immune to the division. A recent article by Michael Graham, The Six Way Fracturing of Evangelicalism, (1) brilliantly describes the breadth of ideologies that are overtaking churches and the lack of charity in dealing with the disagreements. While we might assume the fracturing is over theological issues, at the core it is really over how we approach social and political issues and wrap them in theological garb.

What has become apparent in the debates about justice is that first and foremost, Christians are often not starting with what the Bible has to say about Justice, at least not a fully orbed view of what the Bible says. Rather, both on the political right and left, many are starting with unexamined world views they have long held, and making the assumption that they have the Bible and Jesus on their side. Any pushback on those views is automatically assumed to be an attack on what the Bible and Christianity teaches. That is a dangerous assumption.

Something that adds to the discord is that the topic of justice has rarely been dealt with in a comprehensive way by preachers and teachers within Christianity. One result of this lack of teaching is that older Christians have functioned under a malnourished understanding of justice and not engaged the issues of the world from a wholistic biblical framework. Younger Christians on the other hand have been confronted with the various injustices in the world and the churches failure to engage. Often times they end up latching on to secular approaches to justice that distort the biblical approach and serve to cause more division.

One Christian author has clearly explained the current situation.

In the Bible, Christians have an ancient, rich, strong, comprehensive, complex, and attractive understanding of justice. Biblical justice differs in significant ways from all the secular alternatives, without ignoring the concerns of any of them. Yet Christians know little about biblical justice, despite its prominence in the Scriptures. This ignorance is having two effects. First, large swaths of the church still do not see ‘doing justice’ as part of their calling as individual believers. Second, many younger Christians, recognizing this failure of the church and wanting to rectify things, are taking up one or another of the secular approaches to justice, which introduces distortions into their practice and lives. (2)

The Bible Is Loaded with Teaching About Justice.

Even a cursory glance at the Bible is going to reveal that it speaks about justice a bunch. The words Just and Justice appear more than 500 times in English translations of the Greek and Hebrew. That doesn’t even take into account that Righteousness is often synonymous with Justice in the Bible and it shows up more than 800 times in its various forms. At the heart of it all is the fact that an attribute or characteristic of God’s very nature is that He is just. He is a God of justice because at the core He is a just God. That in itself should move Christians to dig into the question, what is biblical justice and not take simple, surface answers as the end of the matter.

When we do the hard digging we find that biblical justice of far more robust, rich, and nuanced than our sound bite arguments can accommodate. Often times when we engage complex topics we recognize that there are two sides to the coin. It is a way of saying there is another aspect that needs to be considered and it is integral to the whole piece. When it comes to understanding Biblical Justice it gets a bit more complicated because there are actually two coins in the treasury of Biblical Justice and each of the two coins has a flip side to it. Our tendency as people is to latch on to one side of one coin and miss the other three sides. At best we might see both coins but still only see one side of each. One of those coins is what I call the punishment/protection coin. The other is the individual/communal coin.

The Punishment/Protection Coin

That the Bible speaks of punishment for wrongdoers as an aspect of justice is not news. If anything it is the most often examined side of the justice coins, at least among American Evangelicals. We understand that sin is wrongdoing against God and others, and justice requires that it be dealt with. Preachers have rightly declared for centuries that human beings are sinners deserving punishment from a holy God, but in His mercy, the Father sent the Son into the world to take that punishment for those who would trust in Christ.

What we often miss is that justice is also about protecting those who are wronged, Amos chapter 5 is but one example. In that chapter the prophet chastises the people of Israel because they are doing grave injustice by having rulings in their court system that favor the rich, who have given them bribes, and ruling against the poor, the widow, and the orphan who have no resources to spare in bribing judges. This is one example of injustice and Amos is calling for people to seek justice, which would include protecting those who are most vulnerable in society.

Throughout the scriptures we see four classes of people who we are to protect and provide for if we are to see justice. Zechariah chapter 7 makes this clear and is one of many times this shows up.

Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the immigrant or the poor. Zechariah 7:10–11 (ESV)

True justice requires assuring that the widow, the fatherless, the immigrant, and the poor, are shown mercy and compassion and are not oppressed. We may differ as to the remedies for showing justice to those who are vulnerable, but there should never be any doubt among followers of Jesus that justice in God’s eyes is BOTH punishment for the wrongdoer and protection and provision for the one who is wronged. Most often those wronged are those among us without the resources to protect themselves, like the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the poor.

There is a long history favoring this side of the justice coin in American culture. One needs to simply look at any list of western genre movies and you are going to find the theme of justice as protection and provision for the oppressed. Think of movies like, The Magnificent Seven, Unforgiven, High Noon, Tombstone, High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, even Blazing Saddles and The Three Amigos. They all had a theme of someone or a group of someones who are being oppressed by bad guys. We look at that and say to ourselves, “That’s not right”. Then the hero or heroes comes to town and make things right and we cheer. That is a full expression of justice. The bad guy is punished AND there is relief and vindication for the oppressed. Both are required for true, biblical justice to exist.

In law enforcement we see this same theme played out. On the side of many police cruisers you will see something along the lines of “To Protect and Serve”. Just who are the police protecting and serving? It is those who are potential victims of injustice. We don’t need to be reminded that the police are there to bring wrongdoers to justice. No police cruiser has “To Apprehend and Punish” on the side of the car. We don’t need to be reminded of that side of the justice coin. But we do need to be reminded that justice is also about protecting and serving the vulnerable.

The Second Justice Coin – Individual and Corporate Responsibility

We can wrap our minds around the notion of justice being both punishment for the wrongdoer and protection and provision for the vulnerable. What gets really dicey is when we get to the next coin. This is the coin of individual AND corporate responsibility for justice. Again going back to Amos 5 we see this as part of God’s call for justice.

Amos 5:24 is one of the two or three key verses that were part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s in America.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:24 (ESV)

The word justice in this verse is the translation of the Hebrew word Mishpat. Righteousness is the Hebrew word Tsadek. At first glance we might think that Amos is talking about two different things here, justice and righteousness. In fact they are the same thing. This is an example of Hebrew parallelism in poetry. It is using similar yet slightly different words to speak of the same thing. In this case, justice and righteousness are both to have a quality of water flowing. When we get to the Greek New Testament, there is one Greek word, dikaiosune, that is translated as BOTH justice and righteousness. Biblically speaking both justice and righteousness are closely connected.

But let justice (mishpat) roll down like waters,

and righteousness (tsadek) like an ever-flowing stream,

So what is the point of all this word study? Mishpat is one side of justice from a Hebrew perspective and Tsadek is another. Tsadek we can understand. It is the one to one relationship between people. I need to treat you justly and you need to treat me justly. We are each responsible for our actions and need to do right by one another. The more politically conservative you are, the more likely you are to understand and call for individual responsibility when it comes to justice issues.

However, the Bible also understands that there is a communal or corporate side to justice. Going back to the issue of bribery in the Hebrew court system of the city gate we see this corporate, or mishpat aspect. If we only thought of tsadek we would say, it is a corrupt judge. While that is true, mishpat would also be concerned about the fact that other people obviously knew about the bribery and at best turned a blind eye to it and at worse, received a cut from the corrupt judge. This is what is meant by systemic injustice. In this case, the community bears some responsibility for the injustice. Certainly not as much as the corrupt judge, but their hands are not clean either.

I find that this is where the serious pushback and arguing begins. We don’t want to share in the blame for something that we did not directly do. This is where our western French enlightenment individualism, clashes with a biblical understanding of the communal nature of life. But we are not without examples of times when we instinctively accept the communal aspect of guilt.

Parents seek to raise their children to live rightly and do the right thing. When children go off the rails in some way, parents can feel a certain amount of responsibility for what their children do and may even apologize on their behalf. Of course it works the other way around as well. Children can find themselves apologizing for their parents behavior. Why? The answer is simple. We understand that we are connected to our family and the actions of family members reflects on us in some way. Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures understand this. The Bible was given originally by God to a Middle Eastern people and if reflects how God values community.

Sins of Commission and Omission

As western individualist we tend to focus of what the reformers of the 16th century church referred to as sins of commission, those sins we committed. Whenever the question of communal or corporate responsibility comes up there is a quick reaction that says, “ I did not do that”. We think of sin as only being something we have done wrong.

But the Bible regularly points out sin that is the result of us NOT doing what is right. In fact, NOT doing what is right could be said to be the most serious of sins. When Jesus was asked by a religious leader, “What is the greatest commandment,?” he replied to “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself”. Loving God and neighbor calls for us to DO something that is loving. It is not just about not stealing from your neighbor or not slandering your neighbor. It is also a call to do things to care for, serve, minister to your neighbor. Failure to love your neighbor in those ways would be sins of omission.

As a follow-up to the question who is my neighbor, Jesus tells the story of Good Samaritan. Two religious Jews walk by a man who has been beaten and left for dead. A Samaritan stops and cares for the man and serves him. The point is clear. The Samaritan is the one who loved his neighbor. By failing to love their neighbor, and care for the beaten man, the religious leaders committed sins of omission. They didn’t beat up the man, but they also did not do anything to help him in his plight.

This notion of sins of omission is imbedded in the historic liturgy, or worship structure, of many churches. There is often a time of prayerful confession followed by an assurance of God’s pardon or forgiveness. That prayer is said corporately as an expression that we are all in this together.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

How often has that prayer been recited without considering how our failure to provide for and protect the vulnerable is actually a sin of omission?

But why should I be held responsible for what someone else has done?

One of the most difficult stories in the Bible is the story of Achan in Joshua 7. The Hebrew people had just conquered Jericho, a mighty fortress. The next town on the march was Ai. They thought it would be a pushover. They were defeated badly and cried out to God for an answer. The result was that Achan had stolen booty from the defeat of Jericho, in direct violation of what God had commanded so the whole nation was defeated in the battle at Ai. The short version of the story was that not only was Achan punished for this offense against God, but his whole family was well. To our modern, western ears this seems horrific and unjust. Yet, God clearly sees a connection between the guilt of Achan and his whole family being involved.

As hard as it may be to accept, Achan’s family were complicit in his sin due to their failure to call him to account. Theirs was a sin of omission. It was just like the people in Amos’ day who knew that widows and the poor were being denied justice in the city gate and did not come to the defense of the oppressed. That sin of omission was a failure to love their neighbor.

What we need to wrestle with as followers of Jesus is to what extent do we see corporate responsibility being taught in scripture. To what extent is mishpat to be experienced. We cannot deny that it needs to be part of the equation. The error of denying it exists, along with the error of blaming everything on systems and accepting no individual responsibility is equally wrong. That is why I use the illustration of two sides of the coin. The Bible holds both individual, (tsadek) and corporate, (mishpat) together as a wholistic approach to justice. To stress one over the other is to have what amounts to a counterfeit justice.

Asking the Why Question

My hope is that followers of Christ will wrestle with and come to grips with what the Bible says about justice and ask WHY does it say what it says, before trying to argue the “what” or “how” of dealing with injustice. Simon Sinek points out our propensity to only ask what someone has done or how they did it, without asking the important question of why. You cannot come to a biblical solution to the problem of injustice by getting stuck on what or how. If we do not know why God cares about justice we will never understand true, wholistic justice. Without that we will never have real justice in our society. We also need to understand that this is not a secondary issue. It is of primary concern. God cares deeply about justice. His very nature and character is to be a God of justice.

,Arguments over things like reparations, or affirmative action, or wealth redistribution, or securing the borders, are dealing with “what” questions. What should we do? Those are important questions. They rarely ever get to the how of things, other than to tax some people more or give some people more or just let everyone in, or no one in. Asking why we do something is crucial. Asking why something is the way it is may be even more crucial.

A great example of the need to start with why, is to look at the highly controversial statement, Black Lives Matter. Is there a more polarizing phrase today? The immediate response is to say things like, All Lives Matter, or Blue Lives Matter. Those are certainly true statements but they don’t get to the heart of the issue. Another reaction is to immediately dismiss the statement because the organization Black Lives Matter has roots in political and philosophical ideas that would be contrary to scripture. But what we really need to ask is why. Why would a 25 year old black male feel the need to say, Black Lives Matter. Is it possible that he says that because in his experience he has come to believe that his life really doesn’t matter to some people, or even most people?

Why do I as a 63 year old white male not feel the need to say white lives matter? The simple reason is because I have never been made to feel as if my life did not matter. I have never had to wrestle with a history that says people of my color only count as 3/5ths of a human being or that people of my color were not allowed to drink from certain water fountains or swim in certain public swimming pools. While those things are mostly things of the past, they are part of our collective, mishpat, history. The effects of which still linger.

I would not be one to say things are worse than ever when it comes to justice issues in our culture. I have been around long enough to know that in fact things have gotten way better, not worse. The short sighted view of history that sees only our contemporary situation and deems it worse than ever is possible only if we ignore history. We practically burned the country to the ground in 1968 in response to the Vietnam war and the assassinations of Senator Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What we saw in Portland or Minneapolis recently was played out in every major city in the country for an entire summer, if not longer, in 1968. We have made huge strides since then. We have had a person of color as president and currently as vice president. That was beyond imagination in 1968. Things have gotten much better but there is still much to do.

The only way to really move forward is to understand and adopt a biblical view of justice. It was just such a view that drove the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s and needs to be what drives us today. The secular answers to questions of injustice will always fall short for the simple reason that they are not rooted in the character of God. We only care about justice because of the latent sense we have within us that justice matters because it is a character trait of God. We must be willing to adopt a biblical view of justice, even when it clashes with our politically left or right notions. And in fact a biblical view will conflict with both in different ways. Neither the political left or political right has all the answers and the correct foundation when it comes to justice. Only justice that is rooted in who God is and what God has done, will ever fully satisfy our desire and need for justice.

Footnotes:

1 The Six Way Fracturing of American Evangelicalism. Michael Graham

Mere Orthodoxy Blog June 7 2021

2 A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory, Tim Keller

Gospel in Life Quarterly. Special Edition 2020

A Year of Listening to Jesus 1/25 John 4:16-24

On January 25, 2020January 27, 2020 By Dan LacichIn A Year of Listening to Jesus Devotional, Uncategorized1 Comment

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

A single woman, divorced multiple times, living with the latest man in her life. In the culture of first century Israel she was an outcast of outcasts. Even today there are many who would reject and judge her. What a different encounter she had with Jesus. He not only did not reject her, he actually engaged her in conversation. He treated her with dignity and respect.

Typically we deal in extremes in situations like this. People would either reject the woman or accept he and her lifestyle as being perfectly fine. Jesus did nether of these things. He absolutely accepted her but he also called her life choices into question. He did it without heaping condemnation on her but he did make it clear that her life was not what it could be or ought to be. She knew that was what he was saying, that is why she deflected the conversation. She really didn’t want to talk about her life.

Interestingly, Jesus went with it. He engaged in the conversation she wanted to engage in. He didn’t do it because he didn’t want to talk about her life. He did it because it kept her engaged and allowed that opportunity for further ministry to emerge. And that is exactly what happened. This woman began to feel the love and respect Jesus gave her and as a result she opened up and her life was forever changed.

People often say, hate the sin but love the sinner. Yet rarely to people stay engaged in the relationship long enough for the other person to experience that love. They are already sensitized to being rejected and will sniff out any hint of it and bale. How willing are you to hang in there, over the long haul, with people whose lives are a mess and need Jesus? Do you know how to truly love them while not affirming their poor life choices? The more you watch how Jesus did it the better you will get at it.

A Year of Listening to Jesus 1/7

On January 7, 2020January 27, 2020 By Dan LacichIn A Year of Listening to Jesus Devotional, Uncategorized2 Comments

³⁹He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. John 1:39

When Andrew and his companion asked Jesus where he was staying, Jesus understood it was not simply a question out of curiosity or to make conversation. They wanted to spend time with him. They wanted to get to know him because they were intrigued by John the Baptists description of Jesus as The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So instead of just saying where he was staying, Jesus invited them to come and see for themselves.

As a result of the invitation to come and see, the two men spent that day with Jesus. They had their desire fulfilled beyond their wildest imaginations. They got to know Jesus better than they could have ever dared hope. Andrew was so enthralled by Jesus after spending time with him that he went and found his brother Peter and declared that he had found the Messiah.

We see a few things in this brief encounter. First there is the openness on the part of Jesus to engage anyone who is curious about his. But he engages them on levels far deeper than they anticipated. Andrew could have never anticipated the way Jesus set aside his entire day and devoted it to Andrew and his friend. And this is what Jesus does. He doesn’t simply answer your request for information. He invites you into a relationship that is a journey beyond your dreams. He invites you to come and see who he is and what he is doing. He invites you to sit down to a meal and share life together.

Second, we see what a real encounter with Jesus can do to you. Andrew could not help but let others know about Jesus. When you encounter Jesus and have your life changed by him, you feel a compelling desire to let others know about this wonderful savior who has brought you freedom from guilt and shame, who has made you feel alive again, who has given you forgiveness and purpose.

That is as is should be. And yet we see little evidence of such a compelling story from followers of Jesus today. One recent study reports that 25% of all Americans identify as Evangelical. That means in part that they believe Jesus is the Messiah and their faith in him has brought them the freedom and forgiveness previously mentioned. That is one out of every four Americans. Yet we see very little of the kind of joy that drove Andrew to find Peter and share the good news with him. What is missing? Among so many things I have to believe that far too few of them have actually answered the call of Jesus to come and see, come and spend time, come be on the journey to change your life and your perspective. Rather, we have turned a relationship with Jesus into a quick prescription for forgiveness and a minor tweak of a life’s complication so we can move on feeling better about ourselves rather than enamored with and in love with Jesus.

Have you answered the call of Jesus to come and see, come and spend time, come and devote your life to him so that he can bring you what you really need, freedom, and forgiveness, and a new life?

Of Refugees, Politics, and Jesus

On November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, Christians Outside the USA, Uncategorized3 Comments

If there is something sad that characterises how we approach difficult or controversial issues in the age of internet memes. It is that the extremes move to center stage and gain all the attention. The pithy, mic-drop sound bite becomes the be all and end all in the debate. Emotion packed retorts push out any chance for real dialogue and the process of using our brains to do the hard work of thinking becomes replaced by visceral, knee jerk reactions.

Nowhere is this more evident today than the argument over the fate of Syrian refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris that resulted in the deaths of more than 120 people. On one end of the spectrum is a view that sees every Muslim as a Kalashnikov toting, bomb vest wearing, destroyer of the western world. On the other end of the spectrum is a view that sees every refugee as an innocent child, or elderly woman, on the verge of starvation being left to die by heartless, angry racists. Those positions either focus on the need to protect ourselves from terrorists by keeping all refugees somewhere other than where we are or the need to supposedly be like Jesus and welcome all of them without hesitation. Those on the protection end of the spectrum are castigated by the other side as being hypocritical, unchristian, violators of Jesus command to love others. Those on the welcome them all in end of the spectrum are castigated as being foolish, weak, idiotic, and naive.

At the risk of being run over from both directions and castigated by each end of the spectrum, let me suggest that both are wrong and both misunderstand the teachings of Jesus.

First, both are wrong in thinking that memes, sound bites, 140 character tweets, and Facebook postings are the way to have a dialogue about this issue. Those things may make us feel like we stuck it to the “other” side and allow us to puff out our chest and claim the moral or intellectual high ground. But that is a fantasy and self deceiving. It does nothing for the refugees.

Second, both are wrong in thinking that this is an all or nothing issue. It has become normative in the debates of today’s issues, whether they be political, moral, social, or religious, to make a simplistic either/or argument for a complex problem and leave no room for a both/and solution. I have a theory that the reason this is a growing trend has to do with us becoming intellectually lazy. It’s just easier to make something an either/or issue and entrench ourselves in our ideologically or emotionally driven position than it is to actually engage our brains, look at the bigger picture and acknowledge that the other side may have a point or two worth considering.

Third, as this discussion enters the religious world and invokes Jesus I find that there is a major failure to wrestle with the totality of what Jesus taught. Calling people to embrace all refugees with open arms because Jesus was a refugee may tug at emotional heart strings or promote guilt but it is hardly presents a viable biblical answer for dealing with something as chaotic and even terrifying as several hundred thousand refugees on the borders of your country. Telling people they are unchristian for being afraid in that situation does nothing to help them get over their fear. On the other hand, the calls for no refugees what-so-ever fails to take into account that Jesus was serious when He said to love our neighbors and our enemies. He made those statements knowing full well that such love was dangerous and risky and yet fully expecting us to obey Him.

So what is the answer? I think it is to be found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:16 when He sends the disciples out into a dangerous world to do ministry. He said,“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Jesus acknowledged that the world is dangerous. That did not mean we withdraw and hide for our own safety. Rather, He intento On the other hand He did not advocate naively rushing off willy-nilly without considering the danger and taking some precautions. Jesus did not propose and either/or solution. He proposed a both/and solution. What He proposed was that we be both gentle and wise.

So how does that apply to the current crisis? Be gentle by taking every step we can to care for refugees, provide shelter, food, clothing, medical care and as followers of Christ, bring the message of the Gospel, make disciples and plant churches among refugee communities. It also means be wise, do what is necessary to make sure, as much as we can, that wolves in the midst of those sheep are prevented from using this crisis to make their way into our midst and spread greater evil.

It is equally easy to say either, “welcome them all” on the one hand or on the other hand “welcome none of them”. Both positions are in my mind, lazy, simplistic, and only make things worse. The hard answer is to think through what it would take to be wise and gentle at the same time and then do that. Governments need to do the work of protecting their people. Paul makes that clear in Romans 13. Followers of Christ need to do a better job of loving people. Do I even need to quote chapter and verse for that? Both need to find a way to work together better which, in a time of hyper-separation of church and state, may be the hardest part of all. As governments do the work of finding the wolves in the midst of the sheep, so the sheep can be taken in and cared for, there needs to be a place for the church to come and help provide some of the love and care that refugees need. But that means Christians must be willing to take the risk of serving those refugees and possibly being confronted by a wolf in the process. Now that is something I am confident Jesus would do.

A World On Fire

On February 21, 2014 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, Christians Outside the USA3 Comments

Freedom always comes with a price tag. The sad and tragic fact is the price is often shed blood. My own country’s struggle for freedom 240 years ago was a struggle soaked in blood. This morning as I read the news from around the world I see that same struggle happening in country after country. This is nothing new yet in recent days it has struck me in a far more personal way. I have personal connections in many of the places where people are striving for and in some cases dying for freedom.

Freedom Square in Kiev, known locally as Maydan, is a place I have visited many times. I have numerous friends who have been in the square making their voices heard, not only for freedom but for the Gospel. They have had a prayer tent in the middle of the square since day one and they have served the broken and wounded, both the physically broken and spiritually wounded. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds severely injured. Venezuela is following in the footsteps of Ukraine. Reports are that paramilitary bands are roaming the streets on motorbikes shooting anyone who looks like they are going to protest a government that has increasingly oppressed huge portions of the population. Torture and death have become commonplace but still people are massing to protest the brutality. Venezuela is on our minds because one of our daughters-in-law’s family is from Venezuela having been forced out under Chavez. In the South Sudan cities of Juba and Malakal there is gunfire in the streets with rebels and government forces battling. With a team from Northland I trained 100 church planters in those cities a year ago. They and their children go to sleep at night with the percussion of gunfire and explosions of grenades as their lullaby. Bangkok is barely in the news but I have paid close attention, having been there recently and knowing a team of people who are there now training church planters. Then of course there is Egypt which continues to boil. Once again a place in my heart. I have been there 8 or 9 times over the years. My middle son lived there for the first year of the revolution and we have a close partner church one block from Tahrir Square. That church, like others in Kiev, has served as a makeshift hospital in the midst of bloody turmoil.

These places are not far off distant lands to me or my family. They are very real, tangible, close. We can hear the sounds, see the sights, and smell the unique aromas of each of those places. We hear the voices of friends there and see their faces, hear their laughter, feel their anguish. We have talked about the fact that as a family we have a connection to each of these places, about how our hearts ache for our friends. I honestly wish I could be there with them. I long to be there to stand with them, to let them know they are not alone, that others around the world have not forgotten them. But how do you go to half a dozen places at once? You don’t. But even going to one is not an option. Not because of the danger, but because I know my friends. In one moment they would be thrilled and encouraged by my arrival and in the next their amazing love and hospitality and concern would kick in and they would end up focusing their time and energy on me and not the task at hand. So I stay on my back porch and think of them, pray for them and write to all of you about them. I pray for Oleg, Anatoly, Nadia, Olena, Fayez, Nader, Sarah, Matta, Patrick, their families and many others who yearn for freedom and are paying a price in its struggle and are at the same time being a witness to others of the love of Christ, risking their safety so others may know Jesus.

Know Jesus. That’s really the point isn’t it? Even in thinking about freedom and the price paid for it, one cannot escape the Gospel. I said that the price of freedom is often paid in blood. I wonder, should we really be surprised by that when the price of our ultimate freedom was also blood? There is a great passage in John 8:31-6 where Jesus says that the truth will set us free and that in Him we have true freedom. The religious leaders argued that they had always been free and didn’t need Him to make them free. But as He usually did, Jesus meant something far deeper than physical or even political freedom. He was talking about being spiritually free, which is the most important of all freedoms. He was talking about the fact that we are all enslaved to our sins and desires but that He came to pay the price, the blood price for our freedom. We say that our freedom as Americans has been purchased by the blood sacrifice of countless others who died so we might live. Jesus is the premier example of paying that price for our freedom. He shed His blood so that all who believe and trust in Him might have freedom from guilt, freedom from sin, freedom from the bondage and slavery of our broken human nature. I can’t think about Kiev, Bangkok, Juba, Malakal, Cairo, or the friends I have in those places without thinking about Jesus who gave everything that I might be free. As He said in John 8, “If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed”.

So I pray for my friends, that they would know Jesus presence and freedom even in the midst of suffering. I pray that they would know they are not alone, that He is with them. Yet I wonder perhaps if they don’t already know His presence in the midst of pain far better than I do from the comfort of my back porch. I suspect they really do, for Jesus makes Himself known to us in the midst of the furnace in ways not possible in the midst of comfort.

Finally I ask that you pray for them as well. Pray for Jesus to show up in those places and change hearts as only He can. As you pray for them, pray for yourself also. Pray that Jesus sets you free and makes Himself known to you as never before.

Talking to 80 Muslim Students about Jesus

On February 9, 2013 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, evangelism7 Comments

It was the type of opportunity about which one can only dream and pray to come to pass. A group of exchange students from more than two dozen countries visited Northland Church in order to have a 90 minute presentation and Q&A about Christianity and Jesus. They came as part of a program, supported by The State Department, with the intent of encouraging dialogue that leads to mutual respect and a lowering of tensions around the world.

There were a few things I hoped to accomplish with my time. One was to help them understand that what tolerance really means is that I respect you as someone made in the image of God and treat you with dignity, even if I disagree passionately with what you think. In the past there was a common cultural ethic that said, treat one another with respect, engage people with different ideas, debate those ideas, and seek truth in the process. The current understanding of tolerance says, you cannot tell anyone that your ideas are right and theirs are wrong. But the end result of that new tolerance is to not pursue truth and disrespect and marginalize anyone who claims their ideas right and others wrong. We need to get back to a place where we can say what we think, agree and disagree with others, respect them as people, and never attack the person, only the ideas.

Second, in light of that understanding of tolerance, here is what I believe about Jesus, why I follow Him, and why I think He is the only way to Heaven. It was a delight to hear the questions that students asked regarding Jesus, why I thought He was the only way to Heaven, what place I thought Mohammed had in God’s plan, the Bible vs the Quran, and a host of other questions. Even though my answers clearly showed that I disagreed with much that Islam teaches, they loved the open yet respectful honesty of the answers.

Third, in the midst of our dialogue, questions and answers, I wanted them to see in real life the tolerance I just told them about, so they could actually experience someone who disagreed with them yet loved them. You see it is one thing to talk about tolerance and respect and dignity, but it is another thing altogether to demonstrate that in the real life tussle of questions and answers over difficult topics that are passionately embraced.

Not only is this type of understanding and tolerance needed between Muslims and Christians, it is even more needed among Christians of various stripes and theologies. We can’t really expect to engage, in a respectful Christ-like way, people who do not follow Christ, if we are unable to do it with people who identify themselves as Christ-followers.

God, Applebee’s, Tips, and Misguided Christians

On February 1, 2013February 1, 2013 By Dan LacichIn Stupid Stuff Christians Do15 Comments

Once again under the category of Stupid Things Christians Do, we have the story of a pastor complained about a tip for an Applebee’s waitress. And of course the story went viral which is what prompted this post. When the bill arrived it included an automatic tip for 18% due to the size of the party. The pastor wrote a note on the receipt saying, “I give God 10% why should you get 18”, then wrote zero in the additional tip line. Originally I thought she scratched out the 18% and gave nothing. Thanks to a reader who pointed out the error I was corrected. But that still left me thinking that the pastors response was just not the kind of story and behavior we want to connect with followers of Jesus.

Sadly, when you have a few billion people on the planet who call themselves Christians, there are going to be regular examples of people who embarrass the rest of us and give fuel to anyone who wants to attack, God, religion, or religious people. I am guilty of this myself on occasion. When I first heard this story I thought, no, can’t be. No pastor would be that short-sighted. Surely this is an atheist posing as a pastor in order to create a story, please let it be so. No such luck. It turns out an actual pastor of an actual church is the guilty party. We know this because she complained to the restaurant manager that the waitress violated her privacy by posting a picture of the offending note on the web. Now the pastor and her church are getting their fifteen minutes of infamy.

It was bad enough that the pastor in question complained to the waitress in writing and pulled God into the fiasco. Then she compounds it by protesting that the waitress is the one behaving badly. Because of her complaint the waitress was fired! She lost her job because a pastor who acted badly in the first place complained that she was caught. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (sorry, I had to scream at that point before my head exploded)

Here’s the deal. I understand that you may find the automatic tip of 18% to be a bit cheeky. But that is no reason to bring God into it. He is happy with the 10% He asks for and seems to have no problem with people being blessed with a bigger percentage. When the standard tip in the USA was 15% I never heard God complain about that. In fact as I read Scripture I am fairly certain you can make the case that God would love it if we gave all we have to people who are poor, or in need.

Second, we are told to love others as we want to be loved. Seems obvious to me that no one wants to be loved by receiving a note like that about how much someone loves God instead of you. Jesus gives us the Great Commandment to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then adds that loving our neighbor as ourselves is just as important. He makes the two go hand in hand. It’s like what Sinatra said about love and marriage going together like a horse and carriage, “you can’t have one without the other”. So waitress stiffing pastor who claims such a love for God that you tithe, God is not impressed. You didn’t love your neighbor and tried to justify it by your love for God. That just doesn’t fly with The Almighty.

Jesus dealt with some religious leaders who claimed they couldn’t help their needy parents because they dedicated the money to God. He rebuked them soundly. I think He wanted to smite them as well but thought better of it. The point being, people have been using God as an excuse for sometime in order to not give to the needs of fellow human beings. God wasn’t buying it then and He isn’t now.

If anything, Christians, especially pastors, should be known as big tippers, givers to all in need, people who hold their resources in open hands for others to share. After all, those resources come from God for the purpose of meeting our needs AND blessing others. At Northland Church, one of the seven responses we think we need to make to God, based on who He is and what He has done for us, is to Live Generously. That means to give freely of our time, talent, and treasure to anyone in need, for the glory of God. After all, God so loved us that He generously gave His only son to die on a cross, be risen again, and ascended into Heaven, so we might have eternal life. Surely we can give a little bigger tip to someone who has served us in this life. Love your neighbor as yourself. It is that simple and clear.

Provocative Bible Verses: John 3:16

On December 18, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Provocative Bible VersesLeave a comment

For years John 3:16 had a seemingly constant presence and American sporting events, especially in the end zones of football games. The ubiquitous man with the rainbow-colored Afro held up his sign for all the world to see, week after week, game after game. Clearly it is the most famous citation of any passage in the Bible.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16

My personal love for the passage extends to it being the verse that got me admitted back into The United States after a mission trip many years ago. I had taken a group of high school student into the mountains south of Mexico City for two weeks. By the time we returned and were coming immigration, my hair was even longer than normal and my full beard was well, full. It didn’t help that I was wearing old jeans and a rough cotton homespun hoodie when the immigration officer asked me what I did for a living. “I’m a pastor” I replied. Silence from the immigration officer as he looked at my hair, my beard, my hoodie and my jeans then my hoodie, my beard, and my hair again. At which point I heard, “quote John 3:16”. I did so flawlessly and with a sigh of relief that he didn’t ask for something like 2nd Chronicles 8:12. I rather enjoyed the puzzled look on his face so I let him know I was a youth pastor and all these teenagers behind me were the youth returning from a mission trip. His face lit up with a smile and he said, “that’s wonderful, welcome back kids” and he quickly stamped fourteen more passports and let us through.

But let’s not be lulled into a shallow view of this verse. It is far more than a cliché at sporting events or an easy ticket back into The United States. It is one of the most profound statements in the Bible. The first thing to notice about this verse, and something that most people miss, Jesus is the one who says this. These are not the words of a narrator telling us something about Jesus. These are the words of Jesus himself telling us something profound about himself, his mission, and his Father. Recognizing that little bit of information gives a much deeper and personal meaning to the words.

Think if it this way, in this short sentence Jesus is making it abundantly clear that he came into the world for one purpose. His mission was to come and die in order to open the door to eternal life for anyone who would put their trust in him. That is really what he means when he says “whoever believes in him”. Belief from a biblical point of view is all about trust. Putting your faith in Jesus is about trusting him, trusting that he is in fact God come in the flesh, that he is the savior, that he did rise from the dead, and that he will fulfill his promise to give eternal life to all who believe in him.

Certainly the message that God loves the world is a comforting one. But don’t stop there. Don’t breath a deep sigh of relief as if that somehow makes everything perfect and safe. That God loves the world is not a particularly provocative statement in our day. Most people only think of God in terms of his being loving. What is really provocative is the exclusionary nature of the second part of the verse. Jesus does not say that he came to give his life and the result would be that no one in the world would perish but that everyone would have eternal life. Rather he says that anyone who believes, trusts in him, would not perish but have eternal life. That is not something that most people find comforting in our day. Most people skip right passed that part of Jesus declaration. It is just too discomforting to ponder the implications. If eternal life is given only to those who trust Jesus, then it is not given to those who do not trust him. In the western world that is one of the worst possible things a person could say and believe. It is considered intolerant beyond measure. The theology of our day in the west is that all roads to God are equally valid. Pick whichever road feels best to you. It will eventually get you to God and be sure that along the way you never dare to tell someone else they are on the wrong road.

But it is Jesus himself who says that only those who trust and believe in him, who truly follow him, will have eternal life. He makes that clear in John 3:16 and in numerous other verses where he separates those who follow him and welcomes them to eternal life and those who don’t who he consigns to condemnation. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is also the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will one day return to this world he died for and he will bring with him his judgment. Consider what Jesus says just two verses later in John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Those are certainly words to shake us out of our spiritual doldrums and ask if we are truly trusting and following Jesus or if we are taking false hope in “For God so loved the world”.

The love God has for you must be combined with the reality that God is also just and that eventually, one way or another, sin must be judged and condemned. This is where the most provocative piece of this verse comes in. God so loved the world that he came into the world through the incarnation of Jesus and willingly went to the cross in order to pay the price for your sin. That is what is contained in the seemingly innocuous words “gave His only Son”. The Father gave His only son over to the hands of wicked men so they would torture him to death. That death was the price to be paid for sin and rebellion against God. God made that clear to Adam and Eve from the start. Jesus paid the price of that death so that those who do believe would be assured that they will truly live for eternity. You and I have sinned against God and deserve whatever punishment comes our way. Yet in His love, the Father has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him. The resurrection of Jesus from the grave and his ascension to the Father’s right hand validate his death and vindicate him before his accusers. They are also part of the assurance his followers have that they too will be raised up on the last day.

One final thought for those who are already followers of Jesus. This verse should motivate you to love your neighbor with a reckless abandon. It should move you to sacrifice for them so that they would experience the love of God and turn to follow Jesus. It should motivate you with the realization that they may not be on the right road and the road they are on may lead to perdition. Do not rest in the comfort of knowing that God loves the world without owning the truth that not all the world loves God and that you are an ambassador on His behalf, calling people to their only true hope, to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

Honoring Obama Even When You Disagree With Him: The Sequel

On November 7, 2012November 7, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, Politics and the Christian5 Comments

This piece was first posted four years ago today. I find that it is just as relevant now as it was then and can only hope that people who claim to follow Christ will exhibit Christ-like character no matter what their political position may be. It is deeply concerning to me that I see many Christians, politically right and left and theologically right and left, who have made their political ideology superior to their Biblical commands. By that I mean, many people are interpreting Scripture in light of their politics and not their politics in light of Scripture. I think this because the vitriol that I see in the Christian on Christian attacks and ad hominem arguments are only possible if we are setting aside the things that Jesus taught us about our relationships and responding to one another out of human pride, bitterness, and anger.

With that said, I trust that the following will speak to you and that you will be encouraged to trust in an almighty God who has been running the universe very well, long before you and I ever showed up on the scene to tell Him how to do it.

First published in November of 2008

“This morning I was confronted with one of those Bible passages with which we like to do one of two things. It is a passage that we either try to ignore altogether or explain it away so that we become convinced that it could never apply to our situation. The passage deals with giving honor to leaders, even bad leaders, even if you vehemently disagree with what they are doing. The words come from the Apostle Peter in 1st Peter 2:13, 14 and 17. “13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good…17 Honor everyone. Love the Brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the Emperor” Peter goes on to talk about also honoring your boss as well as being willing to suffer for doing good. Those are not easy things to put into practice.

Now before I go any further let me make it clear, in the last election I voted for the other guy so this is not coming from an apologist for the current administration. Rather, I am trying to look at this from the standpoint of making Christian witness a priority over political ideology. What I have seen in recent months, in terms of political rancor and vitriol is not new, at least not in my eyes. One advantage of being a child of the sixties is I have seen demonstrations against the government that make the G-20 demonstrators look like a Sunday school class out for an ice cream social. So I am not concerned about the general population getting all angry and nasty in politics. That is nothing new no matter what the media says. What does concern me is the level ridicule, bitterness, and anger bordering on hatred that is being poured out by many claiming to follow Christ. Instead of attacking the issues that we disagree over, many are falling into the time-honored tradition of attacking the person expressing the ideas.

I always find it humbling to the extreme that the first century Christians continued to honor the Emperor with the exception of worshiping him as a god, even as he was having some of them put to death for their faith. Peter makes it clear why this was to be the practice of Christ-followers. 1st Peter 2:21-23 says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His footsteps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.” That is the kind of life that we as Christ-followers are to demonstrate to the world around us.

But what is the purpose in it? Peter also makes that clear. We are to live this way, honoring those in authority even when they make us suffer so that they will glorify God. “Keep your conduct honorable among the gentiles so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” 1st peter 2:12 This is why I say I am more concerned with our Christian witness than I am with political ideology. Peter says that the ultimate goal is NOT for us to shape the government. Certainly we are to be involved in the process but if we get the public policy we want and do not live in such a way that leads people to people glorify God, then we have failed. It would be better to have lost the policy debate and have won people to Jesus than to have won the debate and lost our witness and our souls.

This is why Peter says that we are to honor others. We are to treat them with respect and dignity, even serving them while we disagree with their policy or their methods. We debate the issues. We don’t attack the person. We should be involved in the public debate in order to demonstrate what a Christ-follower is really like, not just what we think, but how we love and honor others. So disagree all you want with President Obama, with your governor, mayor, town dog catcher. If you are in another country the same applies to you. Disagree with policy but honor the office and the person in it. It may mean that you will suffer for disagreeing, because we should never be surprised when unbelievers don’t play by our rules. But that is never an excuse for us to do anything differently from how Jesus did it.”

Jesus said to them, “my wife”

On September 21, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Uncategorized7 Comments

Yep, that’s the line that has the theological nerd world all a buzz. Of course it probably also has caused no small amount of questioning and consternation among the faithful as well as gloating among the skeptics. It all stems from a scrap of 4th century paper about the size of a business card on which those words appear. Of course the paper is just a fragment and doesn’t include what Jesus said to his wife or even the identity of the wife. Christianity Today has a very helpful article on this.

So what are we to make of this find? For some it is seen as vindication that Jesus really was married and that the early church, in the worlds longest running conspiracy/cover-up, was embarrassed by the fact of Jesus marriage and has destroyed and denied evidence ever since. But let’s deal in reality and what we do know. It is a long-standing tradition, from the very earliest generations of the church, that Jesus was never married. That tradition existed centuries before the creation of this 4th century fragment. Some argue that there is no historical evidence to back up the claim that Jesus was married, as if that is somehow significant . The fact that we have so much written about the life of Jesus with never a hint of a wife is what should be taken as being significant. The reverse should be where the burden of proof lies. If there is a 2,000 year old tradition of something, then those who deny it are the ones who need to show some proof that the tradition has no basis in reality and needs to be changed.

Some will claim that this fragment is proof that Jesus was married. Really? One thing I find amusing is that some of the same people who will deny the reliability of the Bible will assume the reliability of this fragment. The argument has been that since we do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament authors and the earliest copies are from possibly the late 1st and certainly the early 2nd century, they are not reliable. Well if that is the case, why would anyone put stock in a business card sized fragment from the 4th century? I can only assume that it is because one was already predisposed to believe what they thought it said, no matter what logic or evidence said to the contrary.

But let’s assume there is some authenticity to the fragment. What then? Well there are a couple of options. First, the Bible refers to the Church as The Bride of Christ. Context is crucial to understand any statement. Given the fact that we have no context for the fragment, no idea what Jesus said to “his wife” in the missing pieces, and that we have no identification of the wife, it is certainly reasonable that Jesus may have been referring to His Bride, the Church. Without the missing pieces of the document we will never know. Secondly, let’s suppose Jesus was in fact married. Then what? Well my answer is, so what? You see, our ultimate authority is not tradition, as important and helpful as it may be. Our ultimate authority is the Bible and nowhere in the Bible does it ever address the marital status of Jesus, one way or the other. We know that Peter was married, and that Paul was not, because the Bible speaks directly to that. But it says nothing about Jesus. Which again I stress is significant. We have so much more written about the life of Jesus than we do about Peter or Paul, yet we know their marital status, one married, one not. It must be stated very clearly there is no Christian doctrine built on the marital status of Jesus. No matter of faith, theology, or accepted biblical interpretation is effected by it one way or the other. In fact, one could make the case that if Jesus was married this could fit rather nicely with Hebrews 2:14-18. That passage makes it clear that in order to be the perfect sacrifice for sin Jesus became like us in all ways, with the one exception that he never sinned. Now I don’t think the author of Hebrews was making the point that Jesus had to be like us in every single detail of life, as if the had to eat the same food we all eat, or dress the same way we all dress or listen to the same music we listen to. But if one wanted to push the thought to an extreme application, if you are single and Jesus was single, that could be a point of identification with you just as it would be if he was married and you are also married. However, in neither case is it a doctrinal issue that Jesus must have been one or the other.

In the final analysis, finding a 4th century fragment that has the phrase “and Jesus said to them, my wife”, is much ado about nothing. Although I am sure that for the next 40 years there will be untold numbers of television documentaries, books, blogs, and podcasts about this “incredible” find and how it revolutionizes our understanding of Jesus and proves a massive cover-up.

Christianity’s Fate Is Not Contingent on America

On September 15, 2012September 18, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, Gospel and Government9 Comments

Before you go off on me as being somehow un-American, I was born into a typical Pittsburgh blue-collar family. My Dad’s first job was in a coal mine before he worked his way to owning a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership and fulfilling his version of the American dream. My favorite actor always has been and always will be John Wayne. As a kid I cried when he died at the end of The Alamo. As an adult I tear up when an American flag gets handed to a family member at a funeral with the words, “on behalf of a grateful nation”. If I have a slight regret it is that I didn’t sign the enlistment papers that Marine Captain Tacksus had ready for me back in college. So yes I love America. But America and Christianity are not the one and the same, and the fate of Christianity is not dependent on the fate of America or any other country.

If, as history shows to be the way of all great nations, America one day becomes eclipsed by some other nation, that does not mean Christianity is somehow eclipsed or automatically in decline. I get the distinct impression that many people think otherwise, both Christian and non-Christian. Some non-Christians seem to relish the possibility of both the decline of America and Christianity. If it would be possible to deal a blow to both with one stone, then they say, so be it. For some their primary hatred is for America, which they view as monolithically Christian and so they hate Christians/Americans. The recent violence and demonstrations in Egypt, Libya, and now strangely enough Australia would fall into this category. Many Muslims see America as a Christian Nation and their picture is the decadence of Hollywood, sex, drugs, alcohol, and more sex, hetero and homosexual and a nation that militarily is trying to impose “Christian values” on other countries. For others their hatred is for Christianity and they view America as the bastion of Christianity and if America must decline for Christianity to lose its influence that’s all well and good.

This illustrates the problem that Christians create when we too closely align ourselves with any kingdom other than God’s Kingdom. The missteps of a government or society that we cannot control can easily drag Christianity, or the external perception of it, in a direction that is neither helpful nor accurately Christian. Most people outside Christianity, not to mention within, do not appreciate the nuance of a Christian being a model citizen of their country, yet with a higher citizenship that trumps anything the earthly country might do or call for. Additionally, most people paint with a very broad brush and we let one example fill in the blanks for us in understanding a whole group. That was part of the point of Daniel Khaneman’s book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow” that I reviewed some time ago. So when a government, an anonymous movie director, or a screw loose preacher, says or does something provocative in a destructive way, people paint with a broad brush, decide that is what all America and thus Christians are like and they get violent against all things American/Christian.

The connection of a country with Christianity is not new. At least since the Reformation and the 16th century it has been largely the case. Prior to America it was the British Empire that Christianity hitched a ride with and circled the globe doing missions wherever the Union Jack got planted. In some cases with worked well. In others, Christianity became synonymous with English invaders and colonial oppressors. Prior to that it was Spain and the expansion into Central and South America that tied a Roman Catholic brand of Christianity to the Conquistadors. So you see the problem. Christians and Christian mission can benefit as a result of the work of countries and empires. Certainly the existence of the Roman road system made it possible for Christianity to spread in the first few centuries. But when we become so closely connected to the culture and/or government that Christianity becomes nearly indistinguishable from them, then Christianity looses its power and message.

I said even many Christians do not understand the nuance of being a model citizen of an earthly country while being first and foremost a citizen of God’s Kingdom. There are at least two reasons for this that I can see. One is our inability to disagree with someone or something and still love them. The other is that our view of success is based on one of worldly power and dominance.

As to the first, one only needs to look at a few church splits to see that Christians have a hard time disagreeing on even the most mundane and unimportant things, without taking sides that cause conflict. It goes all the way back to the first disciples of Jesus who wanted to prevent some people from casting out demons in Jesus name because they were not part of the group. In another case, James and John wanted to call fire down from heaven onto a village that did not want to listen to Jesus preaching. In both cases Jesus harshly rebuked them. In America we Christians need to learn how to disagree with people in a Christ-like manner. In Ephesians 4:15 Paul says we are to speak the truth in love. There is a dynamic tension with which few seem willing to live. We either love someone and don’t speak any truth for fear of hurting their feelings, which is actually incredibly unloving and untruthful, or we speak the truth without any love, under a false guise of love, while in the process ripping a person’s guts out, which is also not loving and incredibly dishonest. Christians must absolutely learn to disagree in as loving a way as possible. That must be the case in politics, religion, and any other area of life. You can love your country, serve it, sacrifice for it, but at the same time disagree, lovingly, when it goes wrong.

The second issue, our view of success and power, is more difficult to deal with. No one would argue against being more loving as we speak truth. It is obviously what Jesus wants. But our view of success is far more deeply rooted in our culture than we Christians want to admit. The thinking goes something like this. America is a great nation because God has blessed us, because we have been a Christian nation that was obedient to the Bible. As long as we follow the Bible and are a Christian nation, we will be a world power and a blessed people, in every way, including our material, physical, and emotional well-being. If we start to decline morally, as we seem to be doing, then God will judge America and we will lose our place of blessing, and Christianity will decline around the world as American influence declines.

There are so many false assumptions in that line of thinking that I fear it would take a whole book to address. But let me briefly deal with a few. First, Christianity did just fine expanding from place to place and reaching more and more people, long before America ever existed. Remember, the first viable English colony in North America that succeeded, didn’t get going until almost sixteen hundred years after Jesus walked the Earth. It was another one hundred and fifty years before the colonies split from England and became a separate nation. It has really only been since World War 2 some seventy-five years ago that America has been a world power and with the collapse of The Soviet Union, THE world power. God was doing just fine in expanding His kingdom for the 1900 years of history from Jesus to American dominance, and I suspect He will do just fine until Jesus returns, no matter how long that takes. A second presumption in the previous paragraph is that America has, until recently, been a model Christian nation. For almost the first hundred years of that City Set On A Hill we call America we allowed white people to own black people as property. Not exactly a shining Christian nation moment. Let’s not even talk about what we did to people who were Red not Black and lived here before European’s arrived. On the other end of the spectrum, motivated by Christian Temperance Movements we passed a constitutional amendment banning alcohol. It was the worst kind of Christian Pharisaism and resulted in all sorts of violence and corruption not to mention leaving a lasting picture of Christians as extremely legalistic fanatics who want to dominate others. No, America has not been the ideal Christian nation that would automatically be showered with God’s blessing. Perhaps the most dangerous assumption in the previous paragraph is that America somehow is fulfilling a role of being The New Jerusalem. As a result people attach to America all sorts of Old Testament prophecies about Israel, Jerusalem, or various Hebrew tribes. Now it is generally true that if nations follow the things of God that things will go better than not. But that is a result of God’s truth having that effect whether we are believers or not. However, that is a far cry from saying that America is God’s new chosen nation and applying prophecy to it; especially prophecy that was already fulfilled in Israel 1500 years ago.

The bottom line is this. America is a great nation that has at times demonstrated amazing “Christian” principles and culture and at others times not. In the last few decades it seems to be more not. God’s Kingdom is far greater than America. God does not need America to fulfill His plan of redemption that was set before the foundations of the world. God can and does use America as He has and does use any nation. Christians need to actually live what we so often point to on America money, “In God We Trust”. We do not trust in American dominance or success in order to feel secure that God’s plan of redemption will succeed. Conversely we do not fear failure in God’s plan of redemption is things in America are not going as we would hope. In recent history, America has been the key player in the World Christian Movement, but South America, Asia, and Africa are seeing massive growth in Christianity. China will soon become the nation with the largest number of Christians in the world. South Korea, as small as it is, is beginning to lead the way in missionaries sent. Some see that as the decline of America. I think God sees it as the ascendency of a global Christianity. No matter what happens in America or any other nation, God is still sovereign and will prevail, as will The Church. Jesus promised that even the Gates of Hell could not withstand the ultimate success of His plan.

Chick-fil-a and Wondering “Where Have All the Liberals Gone”?

On August 3, 2012August 3, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Uncategorized26 Comments

I had a seminary professor who was what I call a true liberal. By that I mean, she really believed in and lived according to the idea that we all have the liberty to hold our own opinion of things, live by them, and express them. Our differing opinions, when shared and engaged, make us wiser and stronger. To her, disagreement was an opportunity for learning and growth. Being a true liberal she was always open to hearing what others said and even when she disagreed with them it was as a learning experience, characterized by respect in the midst of disagreement. The disagreements could at times be serious and important, from the nature of God, to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, or even if the crucifixion was necessary for the forgiveness of sin. In a seminary those are hot topics and could at times produce a shower of sparks in debates between liberals and conservatives. But not with this professor. She had the respect of the conservatives because she would engage in serious dialogue and treat others as people made in God’s image and worthy of being treated with dignity.

During this latest cultural tempest over Chick-fil-a, their position on homosexual marriage, the protests and counter protests, I have often thought of that professor and wondered to myself, “where have all the liberals gone”. You may think that I am just not paying attention because clearly there are lots of them. Many of them are planning a kiss-in protest at Chick-fil-a stores across the country today. But that is not what I am talking about. I don’t mean people who are morally liberal as opposed to conservatives or evangelicals. I am talking about true, philosophical liberals who really do believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion, expression of it, and their version of truth. Those liberals are few and far between today. What I find in their place are people who are morally liberal but philosophically conservative. What do I mean by that? Simply this, a true liberal would not attack you telling you that your position is wrong and you are a hateful person for holding it. They would simply tell you that they disagree, and then tell you what is true for them and works for them. They would simply acknowledge that it is different from what you think or believe. What I see in the outrage against Chick-fil-a is a philosophical conservatism that says, your position is wrong, it is untrue, incorrect, and in fact dangerous, and hateful. In a rather obvious twist, obvious to me at least, I find many liberals engaging in the exact hate speech that they accuse Dan Cathy of spouting. Just this morning I read the report of on Arizona CFO getting fired after he posted a YouTube video of himself berating a Chick-fil-a drive through attendant over the company’s position on gay marriage. So my request to liberals everywhere is simply this, be a true liberal. Be consistent. If you really want to live as if there are no, or few moral absolutes, as if people should have the liberty to do as they want, then you must allow the conservative the liberty to hold their positions just as you do. You have no philosophical grounds on which to tell them they are wrong for the positions they hold. Liberalism is about liberty, the liberty to think and believe and express whatever you want. Dan Cathy should have that liberty as should anyone else. It even gives mayors of major cities the liberty to say things that they later regret and realize they need to clarify or retract.

But I also want to say a few things to my conservative and evangelical friends. If you truly think that there is right and wrong, good and evil, and that there are moral laws we should follow, then follow them. Start with what Jesus said was the most important, love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Such love is not confined to feeling all warm and fuzzy about someone. The biblical kind of love, the Jesus kind of love, is the kind that acts lovingly, even when you don’t feel like it. If you are a conservative or evangelical then ask yourself these questions. Is there a LGBT person who considers you a friend? Is there an atheist who knows that they can talk to you about anything and that if they were in trouble at two in the morning they could call you without hesitation? Is there a Muslim or Buddhist who respects you because you first respected them? Is there anyone who is of a radically different lifestyle from you who knows that you love them because you have consistently served, encouraged. prayed for them, and treated them with respect and friendship? If the answer is no or you are not sure, then I suggest you skip waiting in line for your chicken sandwich and go do something that builds a bridge and demonstrates the love of Christ. I am pretty sure that Dan Cathy would gladly give up the profit on the sandwich if he knew you were investing in the life of someone who desperately needs to know that Jesus and you, love them.

You see, as much as it makes us feel triumphant that people needed to wait in long lines for a piece of chicken on Wednesday, such triumphalism will not bring people closer to Jesus. Our love and kindness will. That’s not my idea. That’s what the Bible says. “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4 It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. It is the love of the Lord that draws us to him. It must be noted that this word kindness is part of Paul’s’ argument against sin in the early verses of Romans. The particular focus of the end of Romans 1 is on homosexual practice and sin. Many Christians trot out those verses and use them to beat over the heads of proponents of same-sex marriage. Yet Paul, for all his strident words against sin, reminds us that kindness is what God most often uses to call us to him. That kindness is first and foremost to be made evident though followers of Christ as we treat others with kindness. That doesn’t mean we say everything is acceptable. It means that we graciously, humbly, lovingly hold to what we believe, including that we believe Jesus calls us to serve and love even our perceived enemies.

We conservatives and evangelicals need to take a page out of the playbook of that liberal seminary professor. We need to treat people, no matter how much we disagree with them, with kindness and respect. We need to demonstrate that we love them and will serve them and sacrifice for them in order to show them the love of Christ. I suspect that if more of us lived that way, there would be a true dialogue and not a parade of useless protests, counter protests, showing support by buying sandwiches or showing disdain by boycotting sandwiches.

I bring this all back to the point of this blog site, provoking a response to the sake of Christ. According to 1 Peter 3:15, Christians should be living life so differently, so hopefully, faithfully, and lovingly, that people who are not following Christ become intrigued by our faith, hope, and love and want to know the reason for it. It is then that we can point people to Jesus and say, “He loves me and because of that, I love you, and He wants you to know that He loves you too”.

The Pain Possibilities of Africa

On July 21, 2012 By Dan LacichIn Christians and Culture, Christians Outside the USA8 Comments

I am coming to the end of a week in Burundi in Eastern Africa. I don’t know how many times I have been to Africa in the last 6 years. It is probably approaching twenty. I do know that I have been to eleven different countries from Egypt to South Africa. Without fail I am struck by the extreme contrasts one finds in Africa. It doesn’t matter which country I visit, or what leaders or everyday folk I speak with, the story is the same. This is a continent of incredible beauty and massive ugliness, abundant resources and crippling poverty, gracious hospitality and violent division, widespread Christianity and rampant paganism, sacrificial generosity and selfish corruption beyond measure. It is not unusual in the least to one minute be in awe of the natural beauty of Africa and the next be heartbroken at the ugliness of civil war and genocide that often overtakes parts of Africa. I regularly meet people who are eager to serve a guest and give the best of what they have but also hear unending tales of politicians and other leaders who stuff their pockets to overflowing, siphoning off foreign aid meant for their people, only to put it in off shore bank accounts.

More than once I have been asked what the answer is to the problems of Africa. My answer is the same time and again. Everything depends on leadership, and for Africa to realize its true potential everything depends of leadership from the church. As I see it, only an African Church that has leaders who live the radical faith of a follower of Christ, can begin to point the way out of the current state of affairs. With corruption being at the heart of economic problems in Africa, there is a desperate need for leaders in the church to first live above that corruption themselves and then be in a position to model and call for a new way of doing business. But if pastors can be bought off by politicians then they lose their credibility and their power to bring about change. Pastors and other church leaders must become servant leaders, serving others as Jesus did, not living as the chief who expects others to serve him. That kind of servant leadership then gives them the standing to be able to call other leaders, business, academic, and political, to also be servants of the people.

On a more corporate level, pastors need to begin to work together and not care who gets credit, or benefit from the work. The division among pastors in Africa is epidemic. I suspect that some of it is left over from the days of colonial missionaries who did not always cooperate with one another. But there has been fifty years of independence in most of Africa and it is time for Africans to work together, along with the rest of the Body of Christ around the world, so that together we can do more. The need for schools, hospitals, businesses that provide jobs and job training are beyond what any one or a few churches can do. But if pastors begin to set aside their own ego and pride and fear, then maybe, just maybe, they will be able to provide leadership that results in a partnership and synergy that really does begin to tackle the problems of Africa on a large-scale.

I realize that I am writing this as a westerner, and a white American to be specific. As such there are some who will immediately discount what I have to say or even react against it. I can live with that, in the hope that there are some, both in the west and in Africa, who will read this first with eyes of faith and not eyes of culture and colonialism. What I would hope is that what any follower of Christ says will be taken on its merits by any other follower of Christ and not cast aside because of cultural or ethnic bias. You see, we followers of Christ need each other. We are brothers and sisters in Christ first, and then somewhere further down the list of importance we are American or Burundian or Egyptian, or Kenyan, or white or black or any of the other distinctions we use to separate one from another. We need to see those distinctions not as things that divide us, but as blessings that together make us more than we could ever be apart from one another. That is the lesson of 1st Corinthians 12. We are all different by the will of God and those differences should make us stronger and more dependent on one another, not weaker and divided from one another.

I look for the day when Christian leaders, not only in Africa, but from every continent will rise above division and self-promotion and instead live for the sake of others and work together for the Glory of God.

	Deacon W on A Year of Listening to Jesus…
	Forget The Church Fo… on Why Forgetting the Church and…
	Dan Lacich on Is Mel Gibson a Hypocrite…
	Filetosi on Is Mel Gibson a Hypocrite…
	Mila Browning on Provocative Devotion: Psalm…

Dan Lacich: Provocative Christian Living

Tag: Jesus