tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75648844396956802722024-02-08T11:01:16.446-05:00Dan's MarinationsDan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-31356826341996412942024-01-19T23:37:00.000-05:002024-01-19T23:37:35.988-05:00Into the world of publishing!<p> It began purely as mental exercise to work through my own thoughts and loss. My mother had recently died quite suddenly in January 2022, and about the same time I was starting to teach a Bible Study on Revelation. I began writing out in prose form the outline that I had used to teach this Biblical book. I was in essence fleshing out the bare bones that an outline represents. I had no thought of publishing, no idea how long it would be, I just wrote. It was more an effort in self-therapy than any sort of intentional book project. Some nights I wrote for a couple of hours, others just a half hour or so, and some nights nothing. I had no thought that this might be something that I would someday publish so I did not footnote as I went. </p><p>As I went along, the project took on a bit of a life of its own. It had been some years since I had written anything "serious" or "heavy" and I found myself very gradually shifting my writing style. What began in a relatively informal style became more and more formal. I went back, and re-worked sentences to make them more formal. Each week's session became, in essence, a "chapter." When it was all said and done I had 115 pages on a standard Word document. It was too long and represented too much effort just to ignore or toss aside. </p><p>After I had sort of "finished" it I e-mailed it to my mother-in-law, a retired Presbyterian minister thinking she might like to read it. She enthusiastically told me I had to publish it. I knew nothing of publishing. I also knew that what I had was not a technical commentary of the book. Furthermore, I am an "unknown," and as such the well-known publishers of Christian books- Eerdmans, Zondervan, etc. wouldn't even give me a glance. Nonetheless, I began tweaking, revising, and tweaking a bit more. I added in a proper "Bibliography" page even though I had not footnoted it. I created a map for the seven churches of Revelation. I added few more charts or graphics. Then came a proper foreword. A couple of English teachers in one of my churches agreed to proofread for me. </p><p>The publishing aspect still loomed. Small publishing houses were/are an option, but I had no desire to keep boxes of books in the basement and then have to be responsible for taking orders and shipping them out. That led to the "self-publishing" route. There are any number of different companies that do this, and after some researching the options, I ended up settling on KDP/Amazon. If I'm going to actually publish, that means ISBN number(s) and obtaining a legal copyright from the Library of Congress, so I filled out the necessary forms on-line and plunked down the $$ to take care of the legal necessities. Next came the rather daunting task of formatting, to convert original 8.5" X 11" document into a much smaller size in this case 5" X 8" to make a good size paperback. After I spent some time myself, I paid someone else to do this tedious work. My awesome wife painted something on canvas to serve as a cover background. All of this I converted to PDF and then uploaded to DKP/Amazon. </p><p>Now the finished product <i>Impending Doom or Incredible Promise: A Study of the Book of Revelation </i>is up on Amazon! At the encouragement of my wife (did I mention that she's awesome?) I wrote Bible study resources so small groups could use the book as the basis for a study and will soon have short video segments to accompany a small group session. I have very little experience or knowledge in website design, but my awesome daughter is pretty skilled at it and put together a website to "house" the resources. </p><p>I never went into this with any thought of making money as an author. Trust me I won't be! But, I do hope that what I've done will do two things. First, I hope that it will help people get beyond fear of Revelation. It's a powerful book, and one that is a worthy close to the canon of scripture. Second, I would love to think that other churches might find it useful. The website for the Bible study resources is <a href="https://preacher-dan.square.site">https://preacher-dan.square.site</a>. This has a link to order the book from Amazon, or to go straight to Amazon the link is: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQJ41TX3">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQJ41TX3</a>. Pick up a copy of it from Amazon, go to the website and download the resources. I hope that this will help open up this amazing and powerful book for you.</p>Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-6928615226527593972021-01-07T16:44:00.002-05:002021-01-07T16:44:53.410-05:00God Help Us...<p>I had planned on working on my weekly sermon some yesterday afternoon, but got sucked into the news watching the train wreck unfolding in Washington. Even this morning eighteen hours later, I find that I cannot put mental energy into a sermon without first putting together some comments about yesterday. On January 6, congress meets to count the electoral votes in an action that is largely ceremonial. Any idea that congress is a final arbiter of presidential elections is misguided. Every four years they meet on January 6, count the electoral votes, and nobody even knows or notices. That congressional proceedings from yesterday were even being shown on every cable news network is a sign that things are "going off the rails" so to speak.</p><p>Technically we live in a republic rather than a democracy, meaning that we elect people who will form a government and represent us in said government. Our practices for how that works are spelled out partially in our constitution, partially in statute, and partially in unwritten tradition. After general elections state governments certify their electoral results, the electoral votes for the state are assigned to the presidential candidate who won said state. The electoral college officially meets on December 14 to vote for the president. In some states electors are bound by statute to follow the will of the popular vote, in others they are bound by unwritten tradition. In a joint session of congress in January 6, the results are read out and formally counted. This year, our system broke down. It is complicated and cumbersome to be sure, but it has served us well until 2020 when it broke. </p><p>What happened this year? Our society is more divided than at any time in recent memory due in lage part to the influence of social media and the broader media culture. Facebook and Twitter divide us and fan flames of passion and hatred. If you are a left-leaning Democrat you watch MSNBC or CNN. If you are a right-leaning Republican you watch Fox News. If those media outlets don't tell you what you want to hear or spin things how you want to hear it, you find a media outlet even further to the margins. What we have lost is any set of common facts or knowledge. We don't all watch Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, David Brinkley, etc. on the nightly news at 6:30 so that we don't even have a common truth. In this climate conspiracy theories can spread and flourish like kudzu.</p><p>Yesterday as congress met for its ceremonial function (after all, do we really want congress acting as some sort of national board of elections??) large crowds of people gathered expecting something that was not going to happen and could not happen. Congress has no authority over elections except in the rather rare event of an electoral college tie, in which case the House of Representatives determines the winner. Occasionally there is an objection raised in the tallying of a vote, but it is dealt with in short debate and the whole matter is over. Upset because they thought that an election had been "stolen," the crowds gathered around the capitol and even broke into the capitol itself. The result was a spectacle like what one would expect in a "banana republic" than in what is to be a bastion of democracy. Speaking to the large crowd yesterday Rudy Giuliani said that there would be "trial by combat." Words mean things, words have consequences, and in this case four people died because of it, more were hurt, and scores of people were arrested.</p><p>Yesterday's events horrified everyone because we simply don't solve our electoral disputes by violence. The important thing is where do we go from here? To begin, it is imperative that we as a society listen to each other and scale back our rhetoric. The labels we toss around mean things- Republicans aren't all ignorant and hateful, Democrats aren't all Marxists. On social media don't post memes (they are misleading or inaccurate 75% of the time anyway) and fact check what you do post. For the sake of the republic we need to be more informed and conversant by and with the person next door than with Joe Scarborough, Sean Hannity, Anderson Cooper, Tucker Carlson, etc. Watching yesterday, don't fall into the temptation to equate it to rioting in major cities last summer. Both happened, both are wrong, but one happening does not excuse the other. One side shouldn't feel morally superior to another. The brokenness of our society is national not partisan, we all share in it. To the extent we point fingers self-righteously at "those people" on Facebook we are part of the problem. </p><p>The tumultuous election of 2020 is over. Each state government has certified results, the electoral college has met, congress has counted votes. What does remain is that millions of people in the country have lost faith in the electoral process. "Stop the Steal" shouted enough times and widening conspiracy theories about a stolen election, can have long-term damaging effects on the republic. Even though no evidence has been found to indicate any level of fraud great enough to alter the election results, the perception that perception that the electoral system cannot be trusted will cause people to be less likely to participate in it. Further, it could even make it more likely that some would resort to arms and violence to get their way politically, as we saw so tragically yesterday. Because state governments run and set electoral procedures, states should review their processes and be open about doing so to reinforce confidence in their electoral procedures and systems. There is no such thing as a perfect election, but there should be a level of confidence great enough to encourage people to participate. The broad populace should feel confident that everyone who is legally qualified to vote has the opportunity to do so, and likewise that there are safeguards to prevent fraudulent votes (multiple voting, ballot harvesting, and the "cemetery vote" for example.) More importantly, we have a wounded national conscience and psyche. Traditions that have served us well for generations have been shaken. We need desperately to heal. May the incoming president and the new congress being seated should take their cue from President Lincoln's second inaugural address when he promised to have "malice toward none, and charity for all." </p><p><br /></p>Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-50677954717848261452020-06-02T10:21:00.000-04:002020-06-02T15:54:33.267-04:00With Liberty and Justice for All"...With liberty and justice for all," that is how the Pledge of Allegiance ends. We have all said it so many times that it is by rote. Unfortunately, events of the last several months have shown that we as a society are far from that ideal. In late February Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down in the street in Georgia by two white men. His only crime was that he went for a run, something that I have done thousands of times. His killers were close associates of the local district attorney, so the D.A. called it justifiable on the grounds that they were supposedly attempting a citizens arrest. This would have stood had not a video of the event gone public. Justice for Arbery demands that his killers be brought to trial. Fortunately, the video did go public creating such a public outcry that charges were filed against the killers. On the other hand it should not have taken a video going public for charges to be filed.<br />
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Just over a week ago, in New York City a black man (Christian Cooper) was bird-watching in Central Park. When he asked a white woman also there at the time to leash her dog to keep it from scaring the birds, she called the police to report that he was threatening to kill her. In the aftermath, she has been lost her job and received numerous death threats.<br />
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On the same day that Cooper was accused falsely of threatening another's life George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police. He had attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a local market. In arresting him, Officer Derek Chauvin knelt with his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes with three other officers there. Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck until he was dead. We say we believe in "justice for all," yet there was no justice for George Floyd that day. Yes, he did attempt to pass off a counterfeit bill. It's understandable that the police would be called. However, in no civilized country do the police have the right to kill a suspect in custody.<br />
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I'm an older than I want to admit white guy, and as I reflect on these incidents I can't help but hurt and be angry. I hurt for Arbery's family, for Mr. Cooper, for George Floyd's family. In my youth I played some sports (albeit rather poorly), but I was on teams. I remember now some of those teammates- African American- whom I haven't seen in years. Edward Pickett, Brian Henry (whom we called Biggie), Larry Murrell, Chuckie Becton, Chris Johnson, Ervin Newkirk, James and Steven Avery, Tracy Williams and many others rode long bus rides with me to away games at Southwest Onslow, Pamlico High School, Dixon High, etc., took a field with me, or sat beside me in class. I hurt for these my old friends, classmates, team mates, for what they have probably experienced that I never did.<br />
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All of these incidents should have been long in the rear-view mirror of history. They shouldn't have happened a century ago, much less in 2020. Sometimes people say that we are a "Christian nation." I have my doubts about that. We manifestly are not a Christian society. Only a minority worship in Christian churches. Beyond that, Christians are not given the right to hate other people like this. We may get angry for sure, and should be angry at the injustices that have been suffered, but Jesus doesn't give us the right to hate other people.<br />
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As I write this, the media is full of footage of burning cars and buildings in cities around the country. In my opinion the rioting and looting is a distraction from the fact that every one of us needs to take a long hard look in the mirror. Jesus said that he (or she) who is without sin should cast the first stone. He said that before we would start looking for the speck in a brother's eye that we should examine the plank in our own eye. This is not a southern problem, nor is it a political problem. It is an "us" problem and we must resist the comforting and comfortable temptation to make it a "them" problem by blaming "those people" whoever "those people" are. In a deep south "Red State," in two northern "Blue" states, injustice is found too commonly. Christian friends, we need to change this broken society. First, we need to pray for it and its leaders. Second, we need to work to change it by examining the person in the mirror and repent where needed. Third, when you encounter someone of another race go out of your way to show some kindness- even if it's just a smile, holding a door open, or better yet take a few minutes to talk. Fourth, every last one of us who have positions of authority must insure that "liberty and justice for all" is more than just a rote slogan, and we who aren't in positions of authority must vote for people who will value "liberty and justice for all."Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-39665752440944692352020-02-22T14:21:00.000-05:002020-02-22T14:21:07.232-05:00Of Lent and AshesBelieve it or not, Lent is almost here. It seems as if it was just yesterday that Christians around the world had gathered in churches for Christmas Eve services. With the beginning of Lent we begin to look toward the holiest time of the year for our faith- the events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection. All four Gospels devote far more attention to Jesus' road to Jerusalem and the cross. Paul wrote that he "resolved to know nothing but Christ and him crucified." <br />
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If you're not familiar with Lent, it is the forty days leading up to Easter. The term "Lent" is not found in the Bible, but the broader church has observed it as a practice for over 1800 years. In the very early church, in the days when it was a persecuted faith, Easter was already the most important celebration of the church. From the earliest days, new believers were baptized on Easter Sunday. Those who had renounced their faith in the face of persecution, or who had for some other reason, become estranged from the community of faith, were welcomed back into the church. In either case, those to be baptized or welcomed back into the church spent a period of time in prayer, fasting, and study in preparation. This season was signified by the imposition of ashes, a emblem of penitence and mourning that is as old as scripture itself. Today, many churches are rediscovering the of baptizing people on Easter or welcoming new members that Sunday<br />
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Eventually, this period of preparation was established at forty days. This emerged as a matter of custom, but forty is far more than just a number. Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan at the beginning of his ministry. In the Old Testament it rained forty days during the flood. Moses was on Mount Sinai/Horeb forty days. Israelites were in the wilderness forty years. Elijah fled into the wilderness for forty days on the way to Mt. Horeb to encounter the Lord, The ancient practice of the church is to begin Lent with a ritual of penitence and forgiveness. If you count the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter it comes out to more than forty. The reason is quite simple. Sundays don't count as part of Lent! Every Sunday is a "resurrection day," a celebration. To fast on Sunday isn't a sign of extra piety, but of misunderstanding that every Sunday worship service is a celebration of Jesus' resurrection.<br />
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Next Wednesday in my charge we'll begin our Lenten observance, as will Christians around the world. It is common for people to "give up something for Lent." This is a good and ancient practice, but let's remember why. The Lenten disciplines are intended to make us more aware of God, to focus our attention on him. I would encourage some form of fasting if one is physically able. Fasting one day a week is a great way to do it. One may give up meat, chocolate, sweets, soft drinks, etc. for Lent, but the purpose is always the same- a means of discipline to focus the mind on God. One can also "take on" something for Lent- letter writing, extra time in prayer, extra Bible reading, or extra acts of charity for example. Whatever your denominational heritage or faith tradition, undertake the time-honored practice of observing a holy Lent. <br />
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Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-65979810168740111212019-09-18T16:15:00.001-04:002019-09-18T16:15:20.517-04:00Glory DaysIn less than six weeks, I'll lace up the shoes for marathon #9 in Washington, DC for the Marine Corps Marathon. I've been looking to this race now for several months, and have had decent, but not great training so far. When I have had poor runs, it is because of weakness between my ears more so than weakness in my legs. I write this now as much for myself as it is for the reader. For most of my "un-illustrious" career as a runner the one thing that I had in spades was mental toughness. Not so this time around. Perhaps it is a lack of confidence because I haven't run one in over four years now. Perhaps it is a factor of experience, and I can't approach it with the blissful ignorance I did many years ago. Perhaps it is age, and the creeping reality that I'm not as fast or as strong as I used to be. Golfers as they hit their forties are well known for getting "the yips." The four foot putt for par that used to be routine years earlier suddenly gets more difficult. Can runners get "the yips?" Perhaps they can and that's what I have experienced.<br />
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Lots of people walk onto a basketball court, football field, or ball diamond and remember the "glory days?" They remember the shots they made, the game saving tackle, the clutch base hit. At the same time, they are aware that their days of glory on the court or on the field are long gone. I confess that I was never much of an athlete, so there isn't much of the "glory days." I did play football in high school, but was never a starter. Basketball- are you kidding? There's not much need for short, slow guys who's verticle leap could be measured with a ruler instead of a tape measure. A few years after high school and college I started running, and completed my first marathon in 1993. Since then I've run eight of them, most recently in 2015 in Charleston. I haven't run many races since then, just a handful of 5K's. In training for this year's Marine Corps Marathon, I have found myself too frequently in the mindset of the person walking back onto the field one more time after many years away. It hasn't clicked until very recently, that this isn't an old guy reminiscing about the "glory days." This is the "glory days." I did let myself get a little out of shape, but I never totally left the field/court, which for me is the lonely highway.<br />
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If given the chance, I could probably do a pretty good job coaching somebody else through the challenges of the marathon. It's very hard to coach oneself, however, but I'm going to try to anyway. Most importantly, any athlete (even including a slow long-distance runner) has to embrace the process over the result. Numerous great coaches preach this- Dean Smith did, Roy Williams a Smith disciple does, Nick Saban does. Get the process right and the results take care of themselves. Applied to the marathon, let race day take care of itself. Until then it's each day. Put in the work, listen to your legs, take the occasional rest day for recovery. Next, I need to embrace a mantra, some saying to help when things get tough. I've used many in my running life. At times they've been Biblical such "because He is strong in power not one faileth" or "and in those days even the youths shall fail, and the young men shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall rise up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint," both from Isaiah 40. "Heart of a lion, eye of the tiger" is another. It's been verses from songs/hymns at other times. The runner (in this case me) should use one in training so it is there to draw upon when the miles are getting longer on race day. I know that I need to be very present and aware, to be running frequent "diagnostic checks" on myself. What's feeling good, what's getting sore, what's chafing or blistering? I also know that it is just as important to lose myself in the run at times. In other sports this may be called being "in the zone." The capacity to lose oneself for a time, to have your mind wander into all sorts of different avenues, can enable the miles to pass more quickly.<br />
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I have allowed fear to creep in at times during runs and in the time beforehand. Doubts have reared their ugly heads at times during long runs, each time robbing me of potential. The right mindset doesn't make a slow runner fast, but the wrong mindset can make a fast runner slow. The wrong frame of mind prevents one from pushing hard. Without pushing hard through pain, through fatigue, through hills that get seem to get longer and longer, confidence can't develop. For now, the most important battle I must face is with the proverbial man in the mirror. Race day will come. I can hope for 40 degrees, with no wind and low humidity, but I can't control that. I can't control the myriad things that can go wrong on race day. The one thing I can control is getting to the starting line healthy, well-trained, and rested. That is all that matters.<br />
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The U.S. Marines (who sponsor and organize this marathon) have a slogan or saying that goes something like this: "Not as lean, not as mean, but always a marine." I've never served in the corps, but I don't suppose that they'll mind if I adopt a version of that for myself. On my best day now I'm not as fast as I used to be. Father time is undefeated after all. Although I'm not as fast as I used to be, but I am convinced that even now, a little north of fifty years old, I can be as tough as I ever was. Early in his ministry John Wesley was given great advice from a wise Moravian man, "preach faith until you have it." Every time doubt or fear begins to slink in to my psyche, I need to vanquish them with the reminder that I am the toughest runner there is. I may not actually be the toughest runner, but I'll tell myself that until I get as tough as I need to be.<br />
<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-7414074002255340752019-04-18T12:45:00.000-04:002019-04-18T12:46:50.583-04:00"Therefore let us keep the feast"Today is Maundy Thursday in the Christian calendar, the day that Christians around the world remember the Last Supper that Jesus ate with his followers. In churches world over, whether they be grand cathedrals and basilicas, house churches in closed societies, or little white churches by the side of the road we'll gather tonight and celebrate the Lord's Supper, and in some cases follow Jesus' example by having a foot-washing.<br />
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There is a curiosity about this day that can be easily missed, however. The Synoptic Gospels are clear that this last meal with the disciples is the Passover meal, what is sometimes called a Seder meal. This was the meal described in great detail in Exodus 12. The Passover lambs were sacrificed and their blood smeared on the doorposts of the Israelite homes so that when the "the destroyer" (Exodus 12:23) passed through the land of Egypt, they would be spared the awful last plague- the death of all first-born. These lambs were to be roasted and eaten in haste, in preparation to leave at once the following day.<br />
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The curiosity comes when we read John's Gospel. According to John their meal is "before the festival of the Passover." This little discrepancy in chronology is actually very significant, and is a good warning to let each Gospel stand for itself. Following John's chronology Jesus' death takes place on the first day of the festival and he was, in essence a new Passover Lamb. In fact Paul refers to Jesus as our Passover Lamb in 1st Corinthians 5:7. Perhaps this is why John does not actually describe the supper itself in chapter 13. He refers to there being a supper, but doesn't describe it as Matthew, Mark, and Luke do. Instead, John focuses on the foot-washing and Jesus' subsequent teaching in the upper room.<br />
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Each year, the Revised Common Lectionary uses the same readings for Maundy Thursday- Exodus 12:1-14 (the institution of the Passover,) John 13's new commandment to love one another, and 1st Corinthians 11:23-26 as a description of the Last Supper. While we cannot now be absolutely sure of whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal or if Jesus was the Passover Lamb. Either way there is great symbolism. In the one case the last meal he shares is the Passover meal. In the other, he's crucified on the day of preparation and is in essence a new Passover lamb. However, let's play along with John. Jesus is crucified on the first day of the Passover- the Day of Preparation as it was called.<br />
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In the Passover, the blood of lambs was placed on the doorposts of the Israelites' homes for "the destroyer" was going to be going through all Egypt to strike all the first born. That first Passover night, the Hebrews were safe on a night that is almost too horrific to imagine. Now picture Jesus as the great sacrificial Lamb. The book of Hebrews describes Jesus' death in very sacrificial terms. Revelation uses the term "Lamb" twenty-seven times to refer to Jesus. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 5, "for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore keep the feast..." We as Christians gather on the Day of Preparation safely under the blood of the ultimate sacrifice. In, and under the blood of the great sacrifice we rest safely. Jesus the great high priest is also the greatest sacrifice. Through this ultimate offering, we know that here we are delivered from all sin, guilt, and from everything that would cause us ultimate harm. In, under, and through the blood of this Lamb nothing takes us from the God us loves us.<br />
<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-41810482820326484122019-04-17T11:06:00.000-04:002019-04-17T11:06:52.747-04:00Like FlintHow do we face adversity? Do we try to avoid it? Do we embrace it like a challenge to be overcome? A one-time marathoner I know has said that the best way to handle the inevitable pain that creeps in during the last 4-5 miles is to welcome it like an old friend. "There you are (knee pain/sore hips/cramping calf muscle) I was expecting you. I'm glad you came along for the last few miles." I confess that in the eight marathons I've completed I never had the ability to welcome the arrival of pain like that!<br />
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Isaiah's third servant song, which we find in chapter 50 refers to the servant of the Lord setting his face like flint. It's easy to picture rock-jawed Hollywood action heroes here. One can imagine faces like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or Matt Damon who seem impassive in the midst of explosions all around them; who deliver a bare-knuckled beating on their opponents- whether they be boxers, aliens, or general all-purpose villains. It is quite another thing to envision a "face set like flint" to one who will be suffering abuse, torture, and humiliation.<br />
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Luke records in 9:51, that Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." Jerusalem was his destiny and he must go. It is remarkable that all the <span style="font-family: inherit;">Gospels </span>are very heavily back-loaded. All four devote at least a third of their length to the last week of Jesus' public ministry, the passion. John goes even further by devoting five chapters to the night of his last supper with the disciples! Furthermore, though there are some subtle differences between the various Gospel accounts, they all portray Jesus as in some way being master of the events. He is not a helpless victim. If the passion of Jesus is to mean anything, he must willingly walk the path. John in chapter 10:18 records Jesus saying, <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #001320; text-align: justify;">No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." In Mark 14, as Jesus is being subjected to the "kangaroo court" trial in the house of Caiaphas the high priest, Jesus went even further. When asked if he was the Christ, the son of the Blessed, Jesus responded with, "I AM, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven." Jesus was in control that night, and in essence said that one day he would judge his would be judges.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #001320; text-align: justify;">The servant of the Sovereign Lord set his face toward Jerusalem and walked willingly into the hornets nest. Yes, this servant could have tried to avoid this. Yes, he could have pushed his "God button" to annihilate his tormentors, instead he set his face to the persecutors. As Isaiah put it, "I give my back to those who strike, and my cheek to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting." In Isaiah the servant of the Sovereign boasted that, "the Lord God helps me... he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty?" Did Jesus think upon these things as the week grew progressively darker? One can only guess. The stark truth is this. On the dark Thursday and Friday of that week, God didn't help him. There was none to vindicate him. Instead, there was a mob who judged him guilty and deserving of death. The Servant of the Lord, who had from eternity known the grandest love of all- that binds Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one- would be on his own. Heaven would be silent to his plea to take the cup from him. There would not be "peace like a river." Instead, he would be driven to gasp the first phrase of another portion of his scriptures, Psalm 22. The servant finally cried in his mother tongue, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #001320; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">We know how the story ends though my friends. It is very true that Jesus was utterly abandoned by his disciples and friends, and even by his God. It is also very true that Jesus would be vindicated. The darkness of Friday and Saturday would be pierced by the glorious light of resurrection. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #001320; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-19245387364355421732019-04-16T09:58:00.000-04:002019-04-16T09:58:54.009-04:00I Have Labored In Vain- Isaiah 49:1-7Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt like everything you've done was just wasted effort? You've poured yourself into a person. You've counseled, worried, and prayed until you're out of breath and words, but he (or she) does the same stupid things over and over. You preach or teach every Sunday, but never seem to see the changed lives for which you long. I want you to imagine such thoughts in the mind of Jesus. Hold on preacher! Jesus was/is the Son of God Almighty. How can Jesus who was the true and living Word of God ever have such thoughts? To put on my theologian hat for a moment, those sentiments are very true. On the other hand, Jesus was very, very human as well. In order to save us from our sins he had to be both divine and human.<br />
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Try to imagine what is going through Jesus' mind in those tumultuous days between his "triumphal" entry into Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion on Friday. He's spent around three years with his disciples teaching them the ways of the Kingdom, the values of the Kingdom. He's healed the sick. He's liberated the demon-possessed. He's even raised the dead. He's continually warned against self-righteousness. As he's travelled through Judea and Galilee, he's drawn larger and larger crowds. Yet what has it gotten him: a lot of trouble! His ministry lived out the frustration that Isaiah foresaw in ch. 49:4: "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity." Jesus knew that his road would in at a cross outside Jerusalem, but he also prayed fervently that it wouldn't be a cross. I can't help but believe that Satan was ever-present lurking just behind Jesus those last few days to plant seeds of doubt. Is all this worth it? Can you really do this? Is all this really necessary Jesus?<br />
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In my mind I can imagine Jesus hearing these words of Isaiah 49 as if they are being spoken directly to him and about him. "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." As the different competing factions of the Jewish leadership were making strange bedfellows with each other to oppose the odd rabbi who claimed to be God's Son, these words echoed in his head. I don't know what the weather was like on those days immediately after his entry into the city several days before the Passover around A.D. 30. They could have been bright or overcast, but one thing is for certain, they were increasingly dark. <br />
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Think again of my original question. Have you ever felt like all your efforts to accomplish something great and worthwhile were for naught? I suspect that any of us who have lived for awhile have been there. I have, and it's not a pleasant place to be. Failure, discouragement, guilt, and bewilderment are the "normal" state for our fallen race. We don't need to clean up our act to come to Jesus, only to admit that we're not clean. Consider that Jesus, only Son from the Father, the firstborn of all creation, the Alpha and Omega, has already been there. "Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation." If the Gospel is good news, then it must be good news to people who need good news the most. What good is a Gospel that is good news only for the healthy, wealthy, and popular? Israel's savior and redeemer, the savior and redeemer of the whole race, was also despised and abhorred. Jesus has already been there. He knows. He remembers, and never forgets.<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-45277142824649053292019-04-15T10:19:00.002-04:002019-04-15T10:19:59.440-04:00The Lord's Servant<b><i>The Lord's Servant</i></b><br />
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Students of Isaiah have noted that this long, multi-faceted book has four different "servant songs" or passages about the servant of the Lord. Now as we sit 2,700 years after Isaiah's era, it's very difficult to know exactly who or what he was referring to in these songs. We can't know for sure if he was intending to refer to a servant ruler of his own day or to someone yet to come. As Christians though, we legitimately look at these songs and see in them a beautiful portrait of Christ. One of the remarkable things about the prophets of old is that they could envision things they could not understand.<br />
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These four "servant songs" are found in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52-53. Certainly one can know the story of Jesus' atoning death and resurrection without having opened Isaiah. Just read the Gospels. We see the story told four times, slightly differently yes, but the same story nonetheless. These poignant and majestic passages from Isaiah fill it out for us. In his great little book <i>Christians at the Cross</i>,<i> </i>the prominent New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has likened these passages to the bass part of a piece of music. One can sing the melody, or even hum along with it quite nicely, but only when the whole harmony is heard does one get the full affect. Beethoven's 9th symphony has such a familiar melody that many beginning violin students learn it early on, and it is the basis for the hymn "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee." To hear the student violinist play that famous melody, even if done very skillfully, is not the same as hearing the full symphony with chorus perform it.<br />
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Palm Sunday has a very triumphant air to it, and it is even referred to as Jesus' "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem. He's surrounded by a great throng of disciples, followers, and curiosity seekers. According to John's account of it, his followers were waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!" This indeed was the Chosen One, Messiah or Christ. This is God's anointed one who is coming into the holy city. Isaiah 42 says, "behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights... he will bring forth justice to the nations." As this Holy Week unfolds, we'll see that God has a very different way of bringing justice to the nations than what they envisioned.<br />
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In the recent DC Comics movie, "Justice League," the villain, an evil monster named Steppenwolf and a horde of demons are giving the assembled heroes Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, Cyborg, and the Flash a terrible time of it, and as he picks Cyborg up over his head he shouts "you're all too weak to see the truth!" At that very moment, Superman the "man of steel" shows up and shouts, "I believe in truth, and I'm also a big fan of justice," and gives a superhero-sized whipping to the villain. The other heroes are powerful in their own ways, but none was Superman. None could dispense justice like the blue suited, red caped survivor of the planet Krypton.<br />
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That's how Jesus' contemporaries saw the establishment of justice in the world. There was lots of justice that needed to be distributed. The chosen nation had been victims of Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and now Romans. Sin, poverty, corruption, decadence, and decay were the order of the day. The crowds saw in Jesus the Superman who would deal with their demons. Jesus was truth incarnate, but didn't establish justice by crushing evil and injustice as much as by simply absorbing it. As Isaiah put it: he won't lift up his voice, break a bruised reed, or extinguish the faintly burning wick. Currently in our sanctuary, we are having difficulty with the wicks in our oil candles. Each week we fill them with oil, the acolytes light them, and each week they quickly turn into "faintly burning wicks" barely holding onto their flame. The powerful one to dispense justice will be so humble and gentle that were he to enter our house of worship the faintest glimmer of flame on our candles would not be blown out.<br />
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Palm Sunday's crowds anticipated a Superhero and the manner in which he entered the city was overtly Messianic. The jarring transition that we as modern Christians must make is to understand that the one to dispense justice wouldn't do so as a superhero but as a servant and sufferer.<br />
<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-87311288312243247402018-09-05T15:41:00.000-04:002018-09-05T15:42:18.365-04:00So What's In Revelation?<br />
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Ask folks what comes to mind when they think of Revelation (not Revelations by the way) and what will they say? Perhaps the Anti-Christ, perhaps the four horsemen of the apocalypse; or perhaps they will think of the seemingly incessant turmoil and violence in the Middle East. Images of destruction, "Hell on Earth," dragons and devils, angels and demons may come to mind. It may be the end of the book with its glorious image of the New Jerusalem coming down to earth. Far too commonly folks read Revelation about the same way they regard Tarot Cards or a daily horoscope. It becomes simply a book about telling the future. I argue that reducing the book to simply a means to tell the future effectively renders impotent one of the most powerful parts of scripture.<br />
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Yes, Revelation does refer to Christ's return, but it is also much more than that. The trouble with Revelation is that too often we listen to what others say about the book rather than actually reading it ourselves. "Why don't you read Revelation? Well, because I don't understand it. Well why don't you understand it? Well, because I don't read it!" Instead of reading and pondering the mysteries of the book for ourselves, we settle for the<i> Left Behind</i> series of cheap novels and movies. Yes, <i>Left Behind</i> and its sequels are works of pure fiction, and one could almost say that any similarity between them and and historic Christian teaching about Revelation could almost be said to be accidental.<br />
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So what is Revelation? Among many things it is a book of worship. The grandest scenes of worship in all of scripture are found here. We see here worship in the heavenly throne room, on earth, the entire universe even. Over the next five Sundays I'll be doing a series of sermons that I've been pondering for years. Each week I'll be preaching from one of the worship scenes of Revelation. In my opinion, this is far more important than trying to decipher from the pages of the book who the Anti-Christ is or when a temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt.<br />
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Why are the worship passages important? Primarily, it's because they focus our attention on the one who is being worshipped. The remind us that only God and the Lamb are to be worshipped. Domitian (the Roman emperor at the time Revelation was written) is not to be worshipped. God alone is. We aren't to worship any of the things that we make with our hands be they job, status, political party, political leader, or possessions. These passages can drive us to our knees in awe and wonder at the glory of our God. In seminary some years ago, one of these passages quite literally reduced me to tears as I studied it. Chapter five, the first of these worship scenes, sets in motion everything else in the book and is arguably the most important chapter in Revelation.<br />
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Come worship with us to hear, absorb, and breathe in these majestic passages. I won't mention the fictitious rapture event, the Anti-Christ, or the millennium. Instead, I will describe things far more important. You will hear the song of ten thousand times ten thousand angels worshipping the Lamb that was slain. You will meet a great multitude in robes made white in the blood of the Lamb. You will smell the incense that wafts up before the throne of God, incense that is the prayers of the saints and martyrs. You will taste the great feast that is the marriage supper of the Lamb.Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-60916113600750475002018-07-23T14:38:00.001-04:002018-07-24T10:12:57.956-04:00What's In a Name?Beginning this week I'll be starting a series of sermons on the names of God that we can find in scripture. As we read our English translations (NRSV, NIV, ESV, etc.) this may seem to be sort of a short endeavor. After all there's just "God" and "Lord" that our Bibles use isn't there. The reality is quite different, though. The ancient Hebrews actually used many different names or titles in referring to God.<br />
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To understand this consider culture and language. The language of the Old Testament is Ancient Hebrew. Hebrew is at once earthy, bizarre, picturesque, and straightforward. This is the language God used for his first communication with humanity. Hebrew is indeed bizarre in that it is read from right to left and that the individual letters look like they may have come from Mars. The language is also earthy and picturesque. A couple of examples illustrate this. The main Hebrew word for "glory" in the Old Testament is <i>kabod</i>. This word carries with it the connotation of weight and ponderousness. Think of that when you read "glory" in the Old Testament. It's not light and airy as the impression from the tall stained glass spires of Gothic cathedrals. It's not that there's anything wrong with Gothic architecture, but that the vision of glory they conveyed is different from what old Hebrew conveyed. The impression in our Old Testament is of something that is massive and solid. Another great example is how Hebrew writers phrased the simple word "behind." Hebrew doesn't have an exact word for word term that is analogous to "behind." In the Old Testament, the writers used the phrase, "away from the face of" to refer to behind. The little kid who grabbed the last cookie from the jar is not just behind his mother, he's away from the face of his mother. I can so easily picture the munchkin sneaking behind the mother's back, can't you?<br />
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Our ancient Jewish ancestors used this earthy picturesque language. Additionally, by culture they tended not to use adjectives in describing God as much as they did to use roles and functions, word pictures if you will. We may use an adjective like God is "omnipotent." An ancient Hebrew may convey the same point by saying that God is a "fortress." Remember that any of our human attempts to describe God are akin several blind people describing an elephant. Each of them feels a different part of the elephant without the ability to see the whole, and each describes different parts or characteristics of the elephant. Their descriptions of the great animal will be different depending on whether they are feeling the trunk, one of the legs, an ear, or a tusk.<br />
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With that as an introduction, over the next several weeks we'll be looking at the following terms used for God by the sages and prophets who wrote the Old Testament. First<i> elohim</i>,<i> </i>which is a generic term for god in Hebrew. This is the first term for God we find in scripture. Interestingly <i>elohim </i>is actually a plural term, but it is always used as a singular. Scholars theorize that the plural <i>elohim </i>is used intentionally to convey majesty instead of the singular <i>el </i>. Second is <i>el elyon</i>, or "God most high." The implication being that God is far above anyone else or anything else. We find this used in scripture implying sovereignty and majesty. Third is <i>el roi</i>,<i> </i>or "the God who sees." The slave woman Hagar used this term in referring to God in Genesis 16 when God saw her in her misery. Think of the implications of that simple phrase, "God saw." In Exodus 2, immediately before the call of Moses, we are told that God saw the Israelites in their bondage in Egypt. God sees. God knows. Next we get to the term<i> el shaddai</i>, a name for God made famous by Michael Card's song of that name. This is normally translated as "God Almighty," but is actually very difficult to translate. It is first used when God makes his covenant with Abraham. Though the actual linguistic origins of "shaddai" are uncertain, by putting it all together we can hypothesize that the image of a nurturing God who is also a fierce protector. Next is the most holy term for God in the Bible, <i>yahweh</i>. This is the divine name God uses for himself in Exodus 3. It is "I Am who I Am." The ancients never pronounced this term because it was too holy to be spoken by human lips. This term was in prior years transliterated as Jehovah. God has no past or future. God simply is. Think about the words Jesus tells John in Revelation, "I am the alpha and the omega." Similarly in Revelation we find the phrase, "he who is, was, and is to come." Lastly, is another term that may be somewhat familiar to some of you, <i>yahweh yireh</i>. Sometimes referred to as "Jehovah Jireh," it means "the Lord will provide." In Genesis 22, just as Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac as an offering an angel appeared and stopped him. At that instant he saw a ram caught in a nearby thicket. God had provided the sacrifice. We are told that Abraham named that place <i>yahweh yireh</i>, "the Lord will provide." In later years that mountain would be the site of the city of Jerusalem, the city where the great Father of all did sacrifice his Son for all.<br />
<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-15629491141152881002017-12-18T08:56:00.001-05:002017-12-18T08:56:20.106-05:00"Our Father who art in Heaven..."Last week Pope Francis set the religious world abuzz by commenting that he didn't like the traditional phrasing for the Lord's Prayer, known in Catholic circles as the "Our Father." He took issue with the phrase "lead us not into temptation." He strongly preferred a new adaptation of the prayer adopted by French bishops that reads,<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">“et ne nous laisse pas entrer in tentation.” This translates into English as "let us not enter temptation." The Pope's comments about what is certainly the most famous prayer recorded in scripture center on what is implied in the version that most of us recite in our worship services each week. If we pray "lead us not into temptation," does that not imply that God can and does at times lead us into temptation? Pope Francis' strong preference for the new version adopted for use in French churches results from its use of more passive wording, removing the thorny question of whether God does in fact tempt us. What are we to make of the pope's statements? Can a pope actually change the words of Holy Scripture?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">To the heart of the matter, what is the Lord's Prayer? To begin with, the Lord's prayer as most Christians know it is found in Matthew 6:9-14 as part the much longer Sermon on the Mount that takes up all of chapters 5-7 in Matthew. Luke also records a much shorter version of the prayer in Luke 11:2-4. When we read the Lord's prayer in any of our Bibles the exact wording will vary somewhat because there are so many English translations currently in use. I've got nine translations on the shelf in my study and there are still dozens more out there that I don't have. These English versions are all translations from ancient Greek manuscripts of Matthew and Luke, but even these Greek words of Matthew and Luke are translations in themselves, because Jesus almost certainly spoke Aramaic (a Semitic language very closely akin to Hebrew of the Old Testament.) It is a matter of faith that the apostolic authors </span><span style="background-color: white;">accurately </span><span style="background-color: white;">record and render Jesus' words. Beyond that we have the veritable alphabet soup of translations in English. The vast majority of them agree, translating it as a prayer that God would not lead us into temptation. The issue then is more one of interpretation than it is translation. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">If it is true, as seems likely, that we know what Jesus said, how do we interpret it? Does God actually lead us into sin, or tempt us? The short answer is "no." James 1:13 makes it clear that God does not tempt us. A good rule of thumb in interpreting and understanding scripture is to let scripture interpret scripture and to work from what is clear into what is less clear. We know that God is good. We know that God is love. We know that God does not tempt us. These are clear statements from scripture. We can let them guide how we should take the troublesome phrase in the Lord's Prayer. We shouldn't take it to mean that God does tempt us and that we must implore him not to do so. We should however, take this phrase and the one that follows, ("deliver us from evil" or "from the evil one") as one plea for deliverance- from temptation, from sin, from Satan. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Can a pope though change scripture though? Again the answer is "no." For all the power that the Roman Catholic Church ascribes to the papal office, not even he can actually change the words of scripture. According to their doctrine the pope is infallible when exercising his authority as head of the church, so he can definitely shape their interpretation of scripture. He can't actually change scripture itself, though. What the pope has done is to express a preference for one version over another in liturgical usage. Hymnals, books of worship, and books of common prayer all contain passages of scripture that are adapted or altered for liturgical use. The Lord's Prayer itself is an example of that. Nearly every English translation that I've seen of Matthew's version of the prayer has Jesus say: "forgive us our debts," but the common version used by most Christians in liturgical usage has been "forgive us our trespasses," for almost five hundred years. The 1989 United Methodist Hymnal also altered the wording of some of the Psalms in the Psalter to avoid using masculine pronouns in referring to God. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">My take on this is that to a certain extent it is much ado about nothing. The major media cannot be faulted for reporting when pope says something. They can't be faulted, I suppose, for being largely ignorant of matters of faith, religion, and scripture. On the other hand, I would differ with Pope Francis in this way. It would have been better to use this as a "teaching moment" and teach his flock how they should interpret and apply Jesus' words. </span><span style="background-color: white;">He has enormous influence on Roman Catholic doctrine and can use this as a chance to educate. This fills the need, but at the same time leaves unchanged familiar wording that has been in use for centuries. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The words of sacred scriptural texts used in liturgy should be changed only sparingly. Because they are used every Sunday in worship they get ingrained into people's minds and hearts becoming a source of security because they are unchanging and remind them of the unchangeable nature God's word amid a world that changes all to quickly around them.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-56467654290452673132017-09-27T09:19:00.000-04:002017-09-27T09:27:05.982-04:00Relationship, Religion or Both?A few months ago I preached a series of sermons on spiritual urban legends. Some of these are sayings that are assumed to be from the Bible, but really aren't, such as "God helps those who help themselves." Others, like "God needed another angel," "Heaven gained another angel" are simply spiritual sounding cliches that at best are untrue and at worst are devastating. If I preach another series of sermons on this topic, certainly another spiritual urban legend to take to the woodshed would be the well-worn and over-done cliche, "Christianity is relationship not religion."<br />
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Bloggers, preachers, and writers frequently say that Christianity is not a religion, but is a relationship. One blogger wrote this: <span style="font-family: inherit;"> "<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">Religions are man made, and are based on trying to get to God through rules and regulations and works." Compared to this definition of religion our faith is a genuine relationship with the person Jesus Christ. Our faith is indeed a relationship with Jesus Christ, but the often used phrase however, is a largely useless cliche. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">There are a number of problems with this phrase that make it a dangerous cliche. The first is that it starts from a false definition of religion. According to Mirriam Webster, religion is defined as 1) "the service and worship of God or the supernatural," 2) "commitment or devotion to religious faith and observance." Further, it defines religion as a "personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices." By that definition Christianity is most definitely a religion. It does entail the belief in and worship of God, and it does have a set of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices. In other words, if you believe in a god (or God) and have a set of practices associated with that belief you have a religion. The purveyors of the myth that Christianity is not a religion create a false definition of religion to support their claim.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">A second weakness of the cliche is this. It assumes that any sort of religious actions amount to "rules, regulations, and works." Jesus himself commanded that his followers gather to continue celebrating the Lord's Supper until he returns. Jesus himself commanded that we baptize. Jesus commanded that we pray, and assumed that his followers would fast as well. Paul said that we should sing hymns, songs, and spiritual songs. The writer of Hebrews said that we should not forsake gathering together. James said that "religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is to visit widows and orphans in their distress and to remain unstained by the world." All these rites and activities could easily be considered mere works that we would do. Do we set ourselves up to be more Christian that Jesus, Paul and the rest of the New Testament? Even going back to the Old Testament</span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">we find ritual water washings, animal sacrifices, grain offerings, etc. W</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">ho instituted the religious observances? You guessed it, all this was ordained and commanded by God. It is true that all these observances were set aside by the New Covenant, but they were originally commanded by God.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Another dangerous assumption of this phrase is this. Is any religious ritual, rite, or observance merely "works" done to earn God's favor? If it is then our faith is purely internal and without any external manifestation. Dare we say that Christianity is a purely internal exercise, whether of the head or the heart, without any external practices? Yes our faith is a relationship with Jesus Christ, but yes it is also a religion in the normal definition of the word. Even more importantly, there are rites and rituals that every Christian church practices- even those who claim that it is is "not religion but relationship." Every Christian church has worship services, every one of them prays, every one of them has some ritual that they follow. Even non-liturgical churches have rituals, it's just that their rituals are different and don't come from a Book of Common Prayer.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Yes, Christianity is a religion and we need not apologize for it. I do have a personal relationship with Jesus the Christ. I have a communal relationship with him because I am part of and pastor a church of believers who have a similar relationship. There are also a set of activities that I do and take part of that flow from my relationship. Because I love the Lord I am going to worship, I am going to pray, read scripture, I am going to partake of the Lord's Supper. To be a Christian is to have a relationship with Jesus, but to have a relationship is to have means and ways in which we live out that relationship and that my friends is religion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-89463046935430126122017-08-16T14:46:00.001-04:002017-09-25T15:48:13.022-04:00Of Racism and Hate...<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of Racism and Hate...</span><br />
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In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville this past weekend much has been posted on social media about what happened up there. One comment in particular caught my attention. One of my good friends from high school had posted a thoughtful response to Charlottesville, and that led to many, many comments and what was, by Facebook standards, a reasoned conversation in the many comments that it engendered. Even where the posters didn't agree, their comments to each other were remarkably restrained and civil. One comment caught my attention: "we do not have a racism problem in this county." <br />
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I know the county of which he speaks and, unfortunately, unless the residents there have overcome original sin it, like every other county in the country, has some degree of racism. I've seen it and heard it. As a white male born in the South, there is some racism present that I would not recognize because I haven't been the target of it. We are now fifty years beyond much of the structural racism that once existed in the U.S. Relegated to museums and history books are "colored" entrances to restaurants, water fountains, restrooms, etc. Long gone are legally segregated schools, poll taxes, and literacy tests for voting. Unfortunately, the more difficult work of changing attitudes and perceptions is much harder than repealing or enacting laws. The very fact that the Ku Klux Klan exists even now in 2017 is proof enough. (Don't even get me started on the logical absurdity of a Neo-Nazi party in America when the ideals of the two are so very different.) The long work of changing attitudes and perceptions is always the harder job and is something far bigger than whether there is a monument to Confederate dead on a town square. If one could instantly remove all vestiges of the antebellum and wartime era in the South (which would be unwise in my opinion as a "once upon a time" historian) prejudicial attitudes would still be just as strong. <br />
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The unfortunate truth is that our country has a another problem along with lingering racism. It is a hate problem beyond racial hatred. The bitter divisiveness in our politics are a symptom of this. The murder of police officers in Dallas a year ago in the aftermath of several questionable and/or wrongful police shootings is symptomatic of it. The inability that we have as a society to interact peacefully with each other on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media is symptomatic. A professor at the University of Arkansas was targeted by social media lurkers for bitter attacks, death threats, and calls for his dismissal because someone who looked like him was photographed among the racist thugs in Charlottesville. The fact that he was a thousand miles away at the time didn't seem to matter. As a society we must learn to love each other and live with each other. If we are to continue to live in a free republic we must be able to respect those who look different and respect those whose politics are different. A free republic depends on being able to sit around tables together, sit in halls of state legislatures together, and sit in congress together. If we cannot do this we are ungovernable and this "great experiment," to use de Tocqueville's phrase, will collapse into anarchy or despotism. Benjamin Franklin wisely put it this way. When asked by a woman in Philadelphia what had been produced at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he responded by saying, "a republic, madam, if you can keep it."<br />
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Racism, that great evil where people are treated badly not because of actual wrongdoing but simply because of skin color, is all too real and has been for centuries under presidents and congressional majorities of parties. Distrust, hate, intolerance beyond race is also alive and well. The solution to both is to love each other. This is both simple and difficult. The Christ about whom I preach each Sunday said this, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." That means that we should pray for the racist groups that assembled in Charlottesville, and also pray for the counter demonstrators. It means that conservative Republicans should have been praying for President Obama, and that liberal Democrats should be praying for President Trump. It means that we must be twice as quick to listen and understand as we are to judge- whether in conversation, on Facebook, or on Twitter. <br />
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One of the ironies of the the sad saga in Charlottesville concerns the statue they were debating removing. Though he died only five year after the war ended, Robert E. Lee was easily the most revered man in Virginia and the South in those years. Using that status, he probably did more than anyone to promote reunification and to end sectionalism in the state. He wrote to a bitter Confederate widow, "dismiss all sectional feeling, and raise your children up to Americans." Joseph Johnston, who as a Confederate General had been a rival and nemesis of Union General William T. Sherman, took ill attending Sherman's funeral on a bitterly cold February day in New York in 1891. One of Johnston's friends advised him to put on his hat, but he refused out of respect for his old enemy, and replied, "if I were in his place and he were in mine he would not put on his hat." He subsequently developed pneumonia and died six weeks later. Blind hatred led to a carnage between 1861 and 1865 that left some 620,000 dead on this continent. As years passed, the veterans from both armies grew to respect their former combatants and the one-time foes gathered on reunions on the same fields that had witnessed slaughter. If one time adversaries on the field of battle could learn to love and respect each other, we must do so as well. Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-68384038124032838882017-05-15T15:27:00.000-04:002017-05-15T16:16:22.337-04:00What Happened to Grace?In the past month I've been doing a series of sermons on urban legends, spiritual myths. Each week I have taken apart a common cliche that Christians use, that is commonly held to be true and even scriptural, but which is anything but Biblical or Christian. I planned out the sermons several months ago, but hesitated about it right up until the last. Am I ever glad I didn't second-guess myself out of doing them! These sermons have been great fun to prepare and have sparked me to think about something larger within Christendom and American culture.<br />
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The first four sermons took on the following sayings that are very commonly accepted, but which are not Biblical: "God needed another angel," "Everything happens for a reason," "God won't give you more than you can handle," and "God helps those who help themselves." None of them are in the Bible, and to one degree or another represent wretched theology. They represent an attempt to understand what cannot be understood, and to comfort. In reality, they fail miserably. Reflecting on these last week, I discovered an underlying theme in all of them, a very poor conception or appreciation of grace.<br />
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The baby dies of a rare disease or birth defect and out comes the cliche, "God needed another angel." The implied message there is that God intentionally killed the baby. So much for a God of grace and goodness. The second cliche is similar. "Everything happens for a reason." Is this reason God? If so then every neighborhood leveled by a tornado was targeted by God. Devastating typhoons and tsunamis in the far east are an intentional act of God. The drunk driver who runs over the kid on a bicycle is an act of God. Again, where is the grace of God in that? "God won't give you more than you can handle," almost sounds right, but as the old saying goes "close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades." The statement implies that God is the one who places all the burdens on us, and causes all the misfortunes of life. Compounding the problem, it places the power to hold up under the burdens on us. The power to stand is within. Not much grace there. Then yesterday, we covered the favorite verse of many Americans, "God helps those who help themselves." Unfortunately, this common saying isn't in the Bible either. In reading scripture, we find that in reality, God has a soft spot in His heart for those who cannot help themselves. The Old Testament repeatedly urges the faithful to look out for widows, orphans, and aliens- in other words, people who are unable to provide for themselves. Yes, the Bible does enjoin against laziness and encourage industry and productivity, but nowhere is this made a prerequisite for God's help. <br />
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Obviously, this preacher would be very happy indeed if Christians immediately dropped these worn out, trite sayings from their vocabulary. Alas, this is unlikely to happen soon. For these phrases to gain such traction in our society and in our churches, it seems to me that there must be something about them that appeals to us. As I mentioned earlier, it struck me that all four of them represent a gross misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for grace. Theologically we may pay lip service to the notion that God saves us by grace, but do we really believe in grace? Certainly the urban legends I listed present a distant and capricious god, rather than the loving Father whom Jesus said we should refer to as "papa" or "daddy" (translating the Greek word <i>abba</i>.)<br />
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Perhaps more importantly, do our lives reflect the concept that the God who is revealed in scripture is gracious? Consider what we find in some of the writings attributed to the aged apostle John. In the upper room before the betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus gives his followers a new command- to love each other (John 13). It's as if he were saying, "okay guys, I'm not going to be with you much longer, but I want to make sure you get this- you've got to love each other!" In 1st John 4, we find the writer saying that the person who does not love has not been born of God, because God is love; that we love each other because God is love and has loved us first. <br />
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Yes, I do believe in the wrath of God, but I also find in scripture that God's "default" is grace. God shows this grace in sending his Son to die for us so that we may live. May our lives reflect that same grace and love.<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-79283184440296718542016-11-08T12:04:00.000-05:002016-11-08T12:04:45.744-05:00Of Pharisees and SadduceesIn recent weeks the Revised Common Lecionaary has featured texts that feature the two main factions of first-century Judaism- the Pharisees and the Sadducees. With that in mind I thought I would take an opportunity to describe who these groups were and how they related to Jesus' ministry. Additionally, looking at them offers an opportunity for a critique of our contemporary church. <br />
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So who were these two groups? The Pharisees are mentioned dozens of times in the New Testament and are a frequent foil in Jesus' ministry. Because they are so freqently depicted as opponents of Jesus' ministry, they have have gotten a "bad rap" historically. In reality they were about the best of Judaism. They realized that the world in which they lived was corrupt and evil, and their agenda was to try live righteous lives in that corrupt world without being stained by it. Other Jewish groups- the Essenes and the Zealots shared that basic world-view but came to different conclusions. The former group sought to withdraw from the world by moving out to the wilderness. The latter group reacted to a corrupt world by violet revolution to change or overthrow it.<br />
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The Pharisees sought to remain pure within the world by strictly maintaining their Jewish identity. They fastidiously kept the Laws of Moses, they fasted, they prayed, they tithed, they were in the synagogue regularly. The Pharisees were much more commonly the party of the lower and middle classes of society. In general, they were very knowledgeable in their scriptures (our Old Testament.) One might say that to the extent that they so faithfully prayed, fasted, tithed, studied, and attended Synagogue, they would be ideal church members today. What pastor would not want pews full of people who fast, pray, tithe and study faithfully? Theologically, this faction accepted all of the Old Testament, believed in the reality of angels and demons, and the Judeo-Christian belief in resurrection of the dead comes from within this faction. The great error of the Pharisee was not their actions, it was their attitude. They are commonly portrayed in the New Testament as being self-righteous. Even though Jesus comes much closer to being a Pharisee than anything else within Judaism of the day, their tendency toward judgmentalism and self-righteousness made them common opponents of Jesus' ministry. Their judgmental nature and self-righteousness made them common targets of insults and ridicule from Jesus.<br />
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The other major party within Judaism was the Sadducees. The Jewish ruling council, the San Hedrin was comprised of members of these two parties, with the Sadducees being a majority of the group. The Sadducees were inveterate rivals of the Pharisees- socially, culturally, and theologically. In fact at one point in his ministry (Acts 23) Paul was being questioned by the San Hedrin and was able to slip away when fists started flying between the factions over the issue of the resurrection. The Sadducees commonly were the party of accommodation to society. Whether it was earlier Greek/Hellenistic culture and society, or the Roman society of the New Testament era, it was always the Sadducees that sought to blend in to culture, and to accommodate it. Because they represented the upper class of society, they would stand to lose far more by holding out against a pagan culture. This was the party of the Jerusalem elite, the party of the temple and the priests. Theologically, they only accepted the Pentateuch as being authoritative- rejecting the prophets and writings. They did not follow the Pharisees' traditions and legal interpretations on how to obey the Law. They denied the existence of angels and demons, as well as any form of eternal life or resurrection. The common rhyme about the Sadducees was that because they did not believe in resurrection of the dead, they were "so sad you see."<br />
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After encountering these two groups in recent sermon texts, I have been pondering the relation between them and our contemporary American church. In some local churches one can still find healthy crops of Pharisees. They are likely to be there every Sunday, in the same pew no less. They zealously guard the church's traditions, and are careful to make sure that "sinners" are kept out. Heaven forbid that some sinner might actually come to their church and get saved. Standing guard against long hair, tattoos, recovering alcoholics, and addicts, they stand watch at the doors of the church because they are there whenever the doors are open. Rigid adherence to the rules, whether they are actually Biblical or not, rather than being agents of light and grace characterize the modern Pharisee.<br />
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In my opinion, the greatest failing of the American church is not that it is too Pharisaical, but that it too closely resembles the Sadducees. For many years the broader American culture to a certain extent was "Christian." Churches became accustomed to an elite privileged position in society. The values of culture in many instances reflected values of church. The result being many people who were "cultural Christians," without actually having any sort of true relationship with Christ. Being Christian was "comfortable." As study after study has shown, the "cultural Christianity" is rapidly breaking down. Given the growing distinction between culture and Kingdom, the modern Sadducee opts every time for culture. Political power over piety, material excesses reflected in home and in church, morals shaped by politics and Facebook memes; on every score the modern Sadducee may "claim the name" of Christian, but judged by outward appearances, seem to be anything but. The modern Sadducee may have a Bible in the home, but just like their ancient cousins won't believe a third of what is in it. They wouldn't have any idea whether Isaiah is in the Old Testament or the New Testament, and would be scratching their heads looking in the table of contents of their Bibles if someone asked them to find "2nd Hezekiah." They aren't standing guard at the church doors to keep out undesirables. Where the Pharisee does his best to keep sinners out of the church, the Sadducee would be unwilling to even consider anything to be a sin without consulting Facebook or the most recent New York Times poll numbers first. If asked if they are Christian, they will answer affirmatively, but would be so assimilated into the the culture that they are unrecognizable from their atheist/agnostic neighbors except that they may put up a Christmas tree. <br />
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Unlike these characters I created, he ideal Christian will be one who prays, fasts, tithes, and studies "religiously" like the Pharisee, but who does so out of gratitude for all that God has done not out of religious duty. Rather than standing guard at the church door to keep the sinners out, they will stand at the church door to welcome the newcomer. They will believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, take scripture seriously, yet not see the Gospel as something that needs to be defended at all costs in fortresses called churches, but as something to be spread through the land.Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-39594911788425897502016-08-01T23:17:00.000-04:002016-08-01T23:17:01.862-04:00In the beginning... בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃ So begins Holy Scripture in the Hebrew Text, in English "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis begins with two creation stories that seem to be complimentary. This week our church is hosting its Summer Art Camp and creation will be the main theme of it. In connection with that I will be preaching on the first of the creation stories next Sunday. As I do from time to time, I thought I would address some things related to creation that won't fit neatly into one sermon.<br />
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One of the questions that many ask in considering the Genesis 1 creation account is when? How old is the earth? Bishop James Ussher in the Church of Ireland back in the mid 1600s is famous for dating creation to 4004 BC. He did this by simply adding up the ages of all the ancient patriarchs mentioned in the genealogies of Genesis, and by assuming the days of creation in Genesis 1 were twenty-four hour solar days. Some Christians today (most prominently Ken Ham with <i>Answers in Genesis</i>) still hold to an earth that is only a few thousand years old. In reality both of the assumptions Ussher used are faulty. Genealogies in the Bible commonly skip generations and are seldom the complete family tree that we might like. Also, it is very clear in a straightforward reading of Genesis 1 that the "days" were not intended to be sequential 24 hour solar days. In fact we find light and dark, and the term "days" before we have the creation of the celestial bodies. In short, the Bible, accurately interpreted, is conspicuously silent on the age of the earth. Modern astronomy and geology estimate that the earth is very old, perhaps as much as 4.5 billion years old. When simple observation seems to imply an earth and universe that is incalculably old, and it takes great mental gymnastics to make scripture and observation point to a very young earth, I think it is a greater disservice to God and the Bible to try to believe that people lived with dinosaurs than it is to believe in a creation that is billions of years old.<br />
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In my opinion the most artful and appealing reading of Genesis is something referred to as the "framework hypothesis." According to this interpretation, the six days of creation aren't consecutive at all, but are two sets of three. Days one and four relate to each other. Day one creates light and dark, while day four elaborates on that by describing the creation of the sun, moon and celestial bodies. Day two had separation of the waters and while day five describes creation of sea creatures. Day three describes formation of dry ground and plant life while day six deals with all the animal life and finally creation of mankind. <br />
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What is most clear from this creation story is not a mechanism of how, or a statement of when, but a resounding emphasis on the who of creation and the orderliness thereof. Read the first chapter of Genesis with emphasis on each time it says, "and God made" or "and God saw" or "and God said." Like a reverberating timpani, the word God resounds, seldom even using the pronouns "he" or "him." The cosmos, the earth, plant and animal life, human life at the apex of creation are not haphazard accidents, but come from the creative energy and will of the Almighty. Genesis 1 portrays God as presiding over a primordial chaos ("in the beginning the earth was formless and void and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep...") and bringing order to it. The witness of scripture as a whole is that God created everything out of nothing (<i>ex nihilo</i>), and church doctrine teaches creation <i>ex nihilo</i>, even though this isn't explicitly stated in Genesis 1. <br />
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I would also like to point this out about the created order of Genesis 1. The world with its oceans, mountains, plant and animal life was good. Humanity was very good and created in God's image. Sometimes Christians are dangerously close to the ancient heresy Gnosticism than they are to orthodox doctrine when they create a physical/spiritual dualism that equates to evil and good. The created order is not evil, our physical bodies are not evil, nor are they a prison for our souls. In fact Paul himself said that our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit of God in 1st Corinthians 6. All this was pronounced by God himself as good. If God says it's good, then who are we to say it isn't? The physical order is not inherently evil, was created good, and is to be valued by Christians. In fact, this is one of the Biblical bases for a healthy environmentalism. The original order, created good by God, but ruined by the fall in Genesis 3 will be restored and perfected at the End, as shown in Revelation 21. What we believe about creation, connects to what we believe about Christ's resurrection, to what we believe about his ascension, to what we believe about our own resurrection, to what we believe about the ultimate end of the cosmos.<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-29845838948199365732016-05-23T14:05:00.000-04:002016-05-23T14:05:25.853-04:00This summer I'll take some time to preach from the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In case you're not too familiar with them, they are essentially an ancient Hebrew version of a dystopian novel, except that in this case the story is true. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley got the the genre going earlier in the twentieth century with <i>A Brave New World</i>, <i>Animal Farm</i>, and <i>1984</i>, but in recent years novels and movies of similar theme have become very popular. The <i>Hunger Games</i> and <i>Divergent </i>series of books and movies are perhaps the most famous of them. This type of novel is set in a future post-apocalyptic world, and features heroes and heroines who struggle against overwhelming odds to maintain or to rebuild some sort of normal existence.<br />
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The apocalypse that was in the background for these two books was the destruction of Jerusalem in 586/587 B.C. by the Babylonians and the subsequent exile of most of the residents of the kingdom of Judah. Hundreds of miles from home, they longed and prayed for the day they could return. The day finally came in 539 B.C. when the Persian Empire, the new big bully on the block, overwhelmed the then crumbling Babylon. Cyrus, the Persian ruler, had a much different policy toward subjugated peoples than the Babylonians and issued a decree allowing the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland.<br />
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The return to Jerusalem and Judah would not prove to be easy. Their beloved holy city lie in ruins, the temple was utterly destroyed, essentially nothing remained of the life they had lived in their homeland. Other people had moved into the area including Samaritans from the north and people from other nationalities in the region. This is where you can envision the heroes in one of the popular books now trying to restore order and normality in a future world against the backdrop of a shattered urban landscape after a global conflict or nuclear war. <br />
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In the case of Ezra and Nehemiah, these books tell the story of the valiant efforts to rebuild their homeland. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel the first Hebrews returned to to their homeland, where they struggled to rebuild the temple against great obstacles, not the least of which was determined opposition from Samaritans. The story contained in the Biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah is largely set during the long reign of Artaxerxes (465-424 B.C.) The great struggle of the books is to rebuild the city- spiritually and physically.<br />
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As with the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one book in the Hebrew canon, and were somewhat artificially divided many years later. The names for the two books as we have them refers not to who wrote them, but to who the main character is in each. Ezra focuses largely on the work of Ezra the scribe/priest, while Nehemiah is devoted largely to the work of the secular leader Nehemiah. These two leaders were rough contemporaries of each other, and they are referred to a handful of times together in these books. The composition of these books has been the subject of intensive study, but there is a strong tradition that Ezra/Nehemiah was written by the same scribe who penned Chronicles somewhere around 400 B.C. or not long thereafter.<br />
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Ezra/Nehemiah are tremendously valuable resources for the church. In reading these books we are forced to ask ourselves, "How important is worship in our lives?" "How do we recognize and overcome opposition?" "How important is scripture in our lives?" "How we go about rebuilding our churches- not physically- but spiritually?" "How do we deal with the ever-present reality of sin, and are we really willing to repent?" Tune in this summer for how we rebuild our lives and churches one block at a time.<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-7004967250447458492016-02-02T14:54:00.000-05:002016-02-02T14:54:01.086-05:00Church and FamilyWe have all heard people say, "our church is a family." When stated of their own church, it is said as a matter of pride. When spoken by a newcomer, or someone who is not a member, it is understood to be a high compliment. The idea of family often inspires thoughts of love, acceptance, fellowship. In fact, it is true that churches should be places of love, acceptance, and fellowship. <br />
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With that as an introduction, allow me to play Devil's advocate. We should not envision, or aspire for our churches to be a family! "There are just so many people here now that I don't know." "Our church is changing so much." "I don't feel like we're one church anymore." These statements belie an unspoken fear that a church has too many newcomers. So begins the call for things to be done that would promote unity, that would promote nostalgic feelings of family. How can it be a family if there are all those people I haven't known for years? At this point churches have an invisible "No Vacancy" sign on the door. It is a sign they can't see, but which is clearly visible to everyone but them. <br />
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The fact is that any church with more than 40 or 50 in worship is not and cannot be a family. The broader Kingdom of God may be viewed as a family where people are adopted in as sons or daughters of the King, but the local church should not view itself as a family. Any steps to make it a family are likely to result in it becoming insular and closed, even if lip-service is paid to being welcoming and evangelical. Let's think of it this way, families are by definition closed systems. Someone doesn't walk into your home and say they want to be a part of your family. You may welcome them and be hospitable, but they will never be family. Families reproduce by making babies. Churches that are families grow the way biological families do, by making babies. The ancient Hebrews were a family, by nature they valued and cherished hospitality, but it was difficult to join from outside and they grew when their sons and daughters married and started families. Too many churches are exactly like this. The witness of the New Testament is that ancient Israel, using this model, failed to be the blessing to the rest of the world that it was intended to be.<br />
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The proper New Testament vision of a church is not of a family, but of a body. Organisms, like our human bodies, are composed of cells. Churches should look at themselves as bodies that are composed of cells, and the body as a whole grows as the cells divide and thereby multiply in number. The people within each cell experience the love, acceptance, and fellowship that I had earlier mentioned in connection with the idea of church as family. In even a medium sized church of 150-250 people (much less a large church!) it is impossible for everyone to know everyone and care for everyone. Rather, there must be groups (cells to use this analogy) where people know and are known. In such cells they are nurtured and challenged in the life of faith that is discipleship, where they care for each other. The cells that make up your toes and ears probably don't "know each other" very well, but are both an integral part of the same body, nourished by the same blood and led from the same head. The very fact that there are people you don't know is either an indication that you are not connected enough in the church, or that the church is a living body that is growing. The next time someone in your church says, "I don't know everyone anymore," it is very possible that the best response is not a lament, but a resounding, "Praise the Lord!"<br />
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Our bodies grow by division and multiplication. The cells divide, thereby multiplying the number of cells. In the early days of Methodism, the movement grew the same way, and the church today can grow the same way. The cells take care of their own and grow and as they grow they will need to split to make two cells, which will then split to make four. The church is a body, a living organism that grows by dividing and multiplying. It is not a family at rest on the front porch in the cool of the evening. At its best it is a strong, active living body that is always pushing forward. It is always dividing, multiplying and growing to be an unstoppable force in the world.Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-78868961154173811282015-10-07T14:38:00.004-04:002015-10-07T14:38:55.661-04:00Washed With WaterIn the coming weeks we will be baptizing several infants. We look forward to these days in worship; they are among the happiest occasions in the life of any church. Unfortunately, it is a part of our Christian heritage that few things divide us as much as baptism. Even though all Christians would believe with the Apsotle Paul that there is, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all," we don't live it out very well.<br />
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Some churches insist upon believer's baptism, and do it only by immersion. Others immerse infants, some pour water on believers, and many who baptize infants do it by sprinkling. Ideally, all Christians would be of like mind about this very important sacrament. In fact we don't even agree with the term "sacrament." Many Baptist churches, prefer not to use the term "sacrament" and use the terms rite or ordinance instead. Given the many differences we have over baptism, what do we do as United Methodists, and why do we do it?<br />
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First, who is to be baptized? In our tradition baptism is for adult believers and for their children. We happily baptize infants, but it is not for any and all infants. It should not be administered if there is not the likelihood that the child will be brought up in a Christian household. It is a sign of the grace of God, but is not magical. In the baptism of infants as well as adults, we follow the vast majority of Christians in the history of the faith. This practice goes back at least as far as the 2nd century A.D., and it is possible that the "household baptisms" referenced in Acts may have included infants as well. The greatest objection to infant baptism comes from the fact that there is no explicit Biblical mandate for it. I would argue that there is no explicit mandate for "infant dedications" as practiced in some churches. Neither is there Biblical mandate for guitars, microphones, pianos, or any number of other things that are part of any worship service. <br />
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Historically, the church has practiced baptism by three methods, immersion, pouring, and sprinkling. In our tradition we recognize all three of the methods, though by tradition sprinkling is by far the most common. In this we are in line with Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Roman Catholic churches who commonly practice sprinkling of infants. Though baptism in our churches is most commonly done by sprinkling or pouring, United Methodist churches will accomodate a request for baptism by immersion.<br />
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Probably the most important thing to point out is what baptism actually is. In our understanding baptism does two things. First, it is an initiation into the body of Christ, and as such is analogous to the rite of circumcision in the Old Testament, where that ceremonial rite initiated the infant male into the covenant community. Likewise, in the New Testament converts to the faith were baptized. In Acts 2 the three thousand converted were baptized. Philip baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch. Households were baptized. As Peter told the crowd who responded to his Pentecost sermon, to "repent and be baptized" is the proper response to the Gospel.<br />
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Secondly, we recognize that baptism is a symbolic act. In Romans 6, the person being baptized is uniting symbolically with Christ in his death and resurrection. The water of baptism is a sign of the washing of sin that is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. In this way, baptism is a very powerful sign of God's grace. The infant, before he or she knows anything, receives a sign of divine grace, very much in keeping with our belief that God reaches out to us before we know him. We don't come to God on our own initiative, but only as a response to prevenient grace.<br />
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When we unite around the water of baptism in the coming weeks, let us take seriously the oath we take to help raise the little ones to know Christ. Let this water be a reminder that we who call upon Christ have been washed and cleansed by the Holy Spirit. Let it be a reminder that the grace of God which we believe is reaching out to these little ones, also reached out to us before we ever knew God. <br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-87533349474170082512015-05-11T12:04:00.000-04:002015-05-12T10:16:24.819-04:00Family ReunionsMy paternal grandmother's family, the Howards, was quite large- she was one of ten children who lived to adulthood. I vividly remember family reunions from my childhood, when most of those original nine and their spouses were still living. Among those original siblings whom I remember were Esther, Bob, Ed, Harry, Ruby, Dee, and Anna Bell (whom they called "Sis Dick") my grandmother. For a time the reunions were twice a year, and then they became annual. Though all of the original siblings and their spouses are dead now, the tradition of the family reunions continues even though it has been some years since I have been able to attend because I live out of state. Among the most vivid memories I have are of Uncles Ed and Bob swapping jokes, stories, and tall-tales with my grandfather Ed Blair who, like them, was about as good as they come in the story telling department. I remember Aunt Dee's key-lime pie and copious amounts of Eastern NC barbecue (the good stuff, as in nectar of the gods good). <br />
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In attending a worship service the last Sunday of my recent sabbatical, I had the realization that I was like a guest at a family reunion. There were lots of folks who knew each other very well, and me the uninvited guest who was barely acknowledged as even being there. At first I was far from happy with this thought, but as I thought more about it I realized that all of our worship services are family reunions. The family (brothers and sisters in Christ) has reunited to worship him on Sunday morning. Like local churches, some families are very cordial and loving, others tend to be more aloof with each other, and some are just plain dysfunctional. Every church, like every family has its own DNA if you will. Some of this DNA is denominational heritage, some is specific to the local church. </div>
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At times, we in the church are called to task for being too "churchy" in our services. Upon thinking about it, I don't think we should stop being "churchy" whatever that term actually means. The "churchiness" is what distinguishes us, just as the family reunions I remember were characterized by key-lime pie, barbecue, and story telling. We can no more quit being "churchy" than a cat can stop chasing mice and birds. It's who we are. A Krispy Kreme will smell of donuts, a Starbucks will smell of strong coffee, and a church will be a church. They real issue isn't the "churchiness" but the willingness of the church to invite others in, welcome them, and show them to the really distinctive and cherished parts of its family reunions. </div>
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My own opinion is this. If it is your church's DNA to have an "invitation/altar call" at the close of every service by all means do it. It's who you are. If it is to be very high church with kneeling for prayers and sung responses, then do it. One of the great ironies in Shakespeare's plays is found in Hamlet. There the bard puts the great wisdom of the phrase "this above all, to thine own self be true," into the mouth of the sophomoric character Polonius. You can no more be who you are without these distinctives than our family could have a reunion without the key-lime pie. The problem isn't with "churchiness," it is with the inability at times of the church to welcome guests in to the family reunion. </div>
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In my opinion the issue with worship isn't that some styles are inherently better or worse than others, or even that some styles are inherently more inviting and "visitor friendly" than others. The issue is that some <i>churches </i>are more inviting and visitor friendly than others. We too often lay at the feet of worship style the blame for a church's failure to grow or even for it's decline into death. In my opinion a church that is cold and aloof will be cold and aloof no matter what the style, because its members are cold and aloof. My suggestion is to focus on how we welcome our guests and show them around our Sunday morning family reunions. Identify what is best in your church, most distinctive, and welcome your guests to it just as much as you would welcome a guest at your family reunion to the best dishes on the table. Don't stop trying to be "churchy." Don't stop being high church, low church, charismatic, or something in between. Don't stop being the Joneses or Smiths or Howards. Instead, genuinely welcome the newcomers to your family reunion and invite them to become a Jones, Smith, or Howard.</div>
Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-61487749997187422022015-05-04T15:45:00.000-04:002015-05-04T21:03:27.701-04:00We Need Salvaton, Does Our Worship, pt. 2A couple of days ago I mused about the nature of some of the worship in our churches. My point was that some of what we do in the name of "worship" may not even be worship at all. Worship is by definition participatory, it can't be merely occupying a spot in a service and being a passive spectator. However, this is becoming more and more common. I'm not the only one to notice this phenomenon either. A quick google search will yield virtually countless articles, studies, and blogs about the marked decline in congregational singing, particularly in "contemporary" services. Of the services I attended during my sabbatical the most participatory, with the best singing was by far the most liturgical and formal. In fact, it was more liturgical and formal than what I perfer in a service. The purpose of my marination today isn't to broadly condemn contemporary services, since I lead one every week. Rather it is to think about why this might be the case, so that we can make our services better.<br />
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A story is told that in Morehead City, NC that years ago First Methodist and First Baptist Churches were virtually across the street from each other. In the days before churches were air-conditioned the sanctuary windows had to be open to let fresh air in during the summer, with the result being that the congregations could hear each other's singing. As one might expect from rival denominations and churches, Sunday mornings at times became competition to see who could sing loudest (if not best.) Even if we don't have that sort of environment now, what has happened to the thought of an entire congregation singing their hearts out in praise of the Triune God?<br />
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It's not hard to imagine dear old Aunt Sephonia dutifully banging out hymns on an old upright piano in little churches all over the land in years past. The purpose of "Aunt Sephonia" banging out hymns on the old upright was to enable the congregation to sing better. There's not much thought of her actually performing on it, and a lot of the time nobody would have wanted to hear her actually just perform. However, she got the people started singing and played the four part harmony in the denominational hymnal. This gets to what may be at the heart of some of the issues with congregational singing today. The purpose of musicians in church is primarily to lead, encourage, and enable the congregation to sing better. The average band in a church cannot perform one of Kristian Stanfill's great worship anthems nearly as well as what you hear on the radio. It doesn't need to though, it needs to be able to do it well enough to encourage and invite everyone else to join in.<br />
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Contemporary worship has several issues to address. First, it is a given that the music that is used is indeed very, very popular making those popular services. You get to hear and sing much of the same music you hear on the radio in the car. A drawback to this is inherent in the music. It is all unison. Without access to written parts everyone sings melody. The difficulty for music leaders is finding a pitch that is comfortable for everyone. The key that works well for some people will be very difficult for others, thereby discouraging them from singing. Another issue isn't so much with the music itself, but with the way it is done. At one service I attended during my sabbatical, the band was quite good, but was so loud that I couldn't hear myself sing, and looking around the large auditorium,not another soul was singing either. One last issue that constantly needs hard work is the technology that is inherently necessary for a good contemporary service. They are much more technologically demanding than a "traditional" service. The church must have good A/V and sound equipment and people. If there is a problem with the computer communicating with the projector or if there are sound bugs, the entire service comes off the tracks resulting in a metaphorical trainwreck.<br />
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I think the key to improving this worship lies in part in addressing the issues mentioned above. First, regarding music. It's not practical to provide four part harmony in a contempary service so nothing can be done there, except that the music leaders need to be sensitive to the key they choose. Leaders should be intentional in inviting the congregation to sing, and this may mean turning down the volume. Music leaders should also be mindful that not all good music is necessarily conducive to being sung congregationally. As much as possible, the music should reinforce the message of the sermon, so that the service is a cohesive whole. Second, the church cannot do a good service on the cheap. It must be willing to pay for good equipment and to train good people. If it isn't willing to do this, then it shouldn't undertake a contemporary service. Third, there must be ways to involve the whole congregation. Obviously, congregational song should actually be <b><i>congregational</i></b>. Beyond that, what in the service invites the people to participate? Is there a place for the Lord's Prayer, is there some form of creed or response from the people? Fourth, there should be multiple voices in leadership. The pastor shouldn't do everything. For example, I don't do the children's sermon because there are several people in the church who are much better equipped to do it than I am. If there is involvement from others, then the service becomes more the worship of the people than a production put on for the people. Lastly, worship should be a family affair. We shouldn't segregate off younger children for their service, the youth for their own service, and then expect them to magically appear at the "adult" service when they turn 21. Part of worship should be teaching and training younger children in what we do when we worship. Inherent in the greatest commandment in all of scripture, the <i>Shema </i>in Deuteronomy 6, is the command to teach our children.<br />
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When you go to church this Sunday think about what you are doing there. What do you do beyond breathe and occupy a seat? What are you offering to a sovereign God beyond passive attendance? What is being asked of you during the service and as you leave the service? In a couple of days I will turn to one more iten relating to worship that has been marinating since worshipping at two very different churches yesterday- worship as a family reunion.<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-66783645851105672272015-05-01T12:17:00.000-04:002015-05-01T12:17:42.955-04:00We Need Salvation, Does our Worship?The first part of the title of this should be well-understood for any Christian. Humanity is deeply stained with sin and apart from the grace of God we are lost. We need to be saved from the penalty of our sin, from the personal guilt that accompanies it, and ultimately from the very presence of sin. Whether Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, Wesleyan, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Pentecostal in leaning, all branches of the larger church understand the human need for salvation. <br />
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I'm coming to the end of a four week sabbatical and as part of this have been visiting other churches, mostly incognito. This meant going where I can just be an average worshiper, not ordained minister with seminary sheepskin on the wall. It meant going where I would not be known by the pastor there or by congregants. This exercise has lead me to think about Christian worship pretty seriously. <br />
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In my opinion much Christian worship needs salvation, perhaps not from sin as such, but it needs to be rescued or at least reformed and reshaped. This is not so much about the traditional vs. contemporary "worship wars" that ravaged the Protestant landscape 15 to 20 years ago. It's not a complaint against contemporary Christian music as such, since some of the issues I will address in this post and in the one that follows can be present in any style of worship or music. However, the basic nature of the way contemporary music is sometimes done, it can lead to some serious issues regarding worship. I like good worship- whether traditional, contemporary, taize, etc or a combination. My own church uses two different styles. I am not not writing merely to critique "contemporary" music/worship. Though much of it does leave lots of room for complaint, there is also some that is remarkably good. What it is about is the very definition of worship. What constitutes worship?<br />
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Several times in the car recently I've heard Christian radio stations describe upcoming concerts in the area- "The Newsboys" and Laura Story to be specific- as being "a great night of worship." I'm not being critical of these artists because I really like listening to both, but am making the point that a concert is not worship. Worship is participatory- in the Old Testament worship involved bringing of the tithe and bringing sacrifices to the temple, it involved singing Psalms, as well as teaching from the Torah or Prophets by an educated rabbi. The New Testament church sang Psalms and "spiritual songs," as well as had reading and proclamation of scripture. One of the great advances of the Reformation is that it returned worship to the people. Prior to the Reformation, music was done by professionals and done in a largely unknown tongue (Latin), in fact the sermon and liturgy were in this same largely unknown tongue, with the result that the congregants were nearly totally passive observers of a show that was being done for them. The Protestant Reformation brought with it great shift in worship. As is well known it brought the scriptures and liturgy to congregants in their own tongue making it accessible. It also included a virtual revolution in hymnody and congregational song (Martin Luther himself was a great hymn writer in his own right.) The danger in some of our services isn't so much the music as it is the service itself, which can become too much performance and not enough participation.<br />
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One service I attended had no congregational singing at all. The words to the songs were projected onto screens so people could sing. The problem was that they didn't. As far as I could see looking around, everyone stood, but no one actually sang. The service itself was a short concert followed by a sermon, and in this case the sermon was live-streamed from another location. I would argue that this does not constitute worship at all. The band was good, great stage lighting, the sound quality was top notch. The problem was that like the pre-Reformation church, it left no room for the congregation. A really good band did a concert, but the congregants were only spectators to it. The entire atmosphere (style of the band, volume, lighting) produced good music but no worship. In a service where I as a congregant have no more involvement other than putting a check into the plate or bucket that is passed around, am I actually worshipping God? I contribute no more to the service than would if I attended a Casting Crowns concert or a performance of Handel's Messiah. Depending on one's preference either might be moving and powerful, but neither would be worship.<br />
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In a next installment I will delve a little deeper into this topic. What is the church to do in worship? What constitutes good worship? What is good church music? How are we to evaluate church worship?Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-51195546312599689132015-01-20T15:01:00.000-05:002015-01-21T10:08:57.094-05:00Just PlayingI'm three days removed from running my eighth marathon, this one in Charleston. The muscles are still a little sore, but improving. Though I did complete the distance (actually about 4/10 of a mile more than the 26 miles 385 yards because of an error by the pace car) I can find few positives to take away from this event except for lessons learned. The course itself is perfectly flat, and though not always scenic lends itself to good times. The weather was great- a little cool, but not cold. There was virtually no wind on race day. However, on this day, on this course, there would be precious little glory for me. <br />
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As anyone who has done one of these events can attest, there's nothing at all natural about running the equivalent of the distance from Spartanburg to downtown Greenville. Relatively speaking, there aren't that many people who have ever run one. This is an event that demands respect, and does not tolerate disrespect. The half marathon is a good and challenging distance that I enjoy, but all sorts of things psychologically and physiologically happen in the waning miles of a marathon that make it much more than twice as hard even though it's only twice as long. There are many things we can do in life that can be done "on the cheap." In fact, most of what we do in our everyday lives does not demand single-minded focus and commitment. A successful marathon is not one of them.<br />
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On this beautiful Saturday in a beautiful city I had a pretty ugly race. Sure,I felt pretty good for some 16 miles. Sure, I executed my pre-planned pacing exactly right. But as the poet said, "the best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry." First, it was the mind that rebelled somewhere about 17 miles where the insidious doubts began creeping in, "you'll never keep this up another 9-10 miles." "You've got to back off a lot or you'll be dead meat." Not long afterward the legs started to go, any notion of form and pace vanished. <br />
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Ironically, the marathon is only starting at mile 20. Most people never go beyond that distance in training runs because it is too taxing on the body. Miles 21-24 are the real "witching miles" when all sorts of strange things can happen on a good day. You've been in long enough to be exhausted, but you're not quite close enough to smell the finish line. Beyond 20 the body frequently runs out of glycogen, its fuel of choice and most efficient fuel. Deprived of fuel the body begins burning fat stores, which is very inefficient. Muscles begin to break down. The mind begins producing large amounts of seratonin and tryptophan making it increasingly difficult to concentrate. At the time when your body most needs a strong mind to keep going, the mind itself starts to go. All of this happens even in a good marathon. Saturday, my race was essentially over before I ever got to the "witching miles." <br />
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The problem with my run Saturday wasn't anything to do with Saturday, but had everything to do with the several months leading up to it. My mileage totals were not quite what I should have done, but they weren't that far off. I had done right much running, but precious little training. I hadn't done nearly enough to truly push myself to go harder and longer. The same plodding 4-5 mile runs several times a week, with equally plodding long runs on Fridays or Saturdays don't equal true training. I had been playing at running, but hadn't really dug deep to transform and hone body and mind. This was my eighth marathon, but I had not truly respected the event and as I said earlier, the distance will tolerate no disrespect. The challenge had been before me and despite my experience, I had underestimated it. No amount of good feelings, positive vibes, and good inspirational music will ever overcome a lack of respect and appreciation of the obstacles that one encounters in running or in life. <br />
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What is true of a significant challenge like running 26.2 miles is also true of anything else in life that is significant that we want to accomplish. Precious little that is great is ever accomplished simply by playing. Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson, and Woods didn't become great golfers by playing golf, but by truly honing their skills. The virtuoso musician doesn't amaze in the concert hall without countless hours in a practice room doing mundane scales and drills. The Christian doesn't become Christlike simply by "playing church." The long distance runner gradually transforms mind and body by pushing harder, faster, and longer. The Christian is transformed by the renewal of the mind as the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12. The training for Christians includes mundane acts of study- Samuel and Leviticus as much as Romans and John. It means praying when there seems to be no answer as much as when we are assured of God's presence. It is worshiping even if it feels like their is no audience, as much as when we are awestruck by the numinous. It is in the doing of a good deed when no one is looking and the "blessing" we get out of it isn't a thought. I limp away from Charleston with a lesson learned and fresh determination to work hard to hone body and mind, to transform them for the next one. Let's all work equally hard to be "transformed by the renewal of our mind," in a race that is infinitely more important.Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7564884439695680272.post-32088080932668843782014-11-07T18:56:00.000-05:002014-11-07T18:56:45.756-05:00Leaving Left BehindAfter a good period of time preaching several sermon series, I decided to return to the Revised Common Lectionary this fall. As I was planning out these sermons I couldn't help noticing that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 shows up as the lectionary epistle reading for this Sunday, November 9. With the very recent release of a remade <i>Left Behind</i> movie starring Nicolas Cage, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to preach it this week. Before doing so, I would like to go into a little more detail about this form of eschatology and spare having to do so much during the sermon itself. <br />
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The doctrine of a "secret" rapture of the church is almost an article of faith in some circles today. Drawing in part on this portion of 1 Thessalonians, it holds that Jesus will return twice. The first time is secret and snatches up the church, believers, leaving the rest of humanity to suffer through seven years of tribulation before Jesus returns in glory to usher in the Kingdom. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 says that those who are alive will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and will be with him always. On the face of it I suppose one could draw a secret rapture from this verse even though it isn't really taught there. <br />
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The difficulty comes from reading the rest of the passage. The whole point of the passage preceding this verse is concern about the dead, not the living. The good folks at Thessalonica were gentile converts. They didn't have the Jewish understanding of the Day of the Lord upon which to draw, nor did they have the distinctly Jewish understanding of resurrection of the dead. They had apparently been taught that Jesus would return one day and, like most in the very early church, they thought this return would be imminent. What they didn't know was the fate of their saints who had died before Christ returned. Would their dead saints miss the party? <br />
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Paul's response succinctly describes resurrection day. With a trumpet blast from on high, the shouts of the archangel, Jesus will return. The dead would rise and then he would snatch up the living saints. Let me offer a couple of notes about this. First, there doesn't appear to be anything secret about it. Biblically, heavenly trumpet blasts and and shouts of the archangel aren't the sort of thing that go unnoticed. For something like this, think of God descending upon Mount Sinai, which was anything but secret. The other thing to point out is this. The Greek term for "meeting" the Lord in the air in vs 17 was used in the first century to refer to a delegation going out to meet a returning king or conqueror to usher him back into the city. The clear implication is that they don't wisp off to Heaven, but return to earth, but more on that later.<br />
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The doctrine of the rapture is one that is surprisingly modern and, considering that most of its proponents are very strong Biblical inerrantists, very difficult to actually find. This actual view of eschatology seems to have originated with John Nelson Darby, an Irish minister in the early 1800s. It would have been unfamiliar to Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley. It never gained any popularity in the U.S. until the late 1800s. Two developments occurred that made this doctrine become almost unquestioned dogma in some churches. First, Cyrus Scofield used it in his wildly popular study Bible. Second, this popular study Bible had a great influence on the founding of Dallas Theological Seminary. Late in the 20th century, it became the basis for Hal Lindsay's popular book, <i>The Late Great Planet Earth</i>. Then in the 1990s it became the basis for the <i>Left Behind</i> books and movies. The fact this system of interpretation is surprisingly modern doesn't necessarily make it wrong, however.<br />
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The greater problem with it, is that it is very difficult to actually find and explain Biblically. No one verse or passage actually explains it. In my own reading of the New Testament, I would never would have thought such a thing existed unless someone else told me it was there. In other words, only if you have a complex eschatological framework in mind will you find this doctrine. In my opinion, the whole concept of a pretribulational rapture requires so much in the way of complicated charts and cross referencing between Daniel, Revelation, Matthew 24, and 1 Thessalonians to actually dig up that it loses credibility. Assuming that the Holy Spirit inspired the prophets and apostles who wrote the Bible, I have a hard time envisioning God intentionally hiding a doctrine that so many think is so important. In my own experience, I believed in this system of eschatology up until I actually read the New Testament for myself.<br />
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Eschatology is not merely an academic exercise, though. We in the church cannot wait to be "beamed up" (to borrow a phrase from Star Trek) to escape tribulation. Scripture never teaches that we will be spared tribulation, in fact Jesus says in the Upper Room discourse that as his followers we can expect persecution and tribulation. Additionally, we must understand that the future isn't our souls floating in bliss in the ethereal regions somewhere. Rather, our future and our hope is resurrection and recreation of the heavens and the earth. Looking at the end of Revelation which also describes the Lord's return and the resurrection of the dead, you find the wonderful and shocking notion that it isn't we who go to Heaven, but that it is Heaven that comes to earth. The physical world, our physical bodies are indeed important to God. So important that all of it was redeemed on the cross and will be recreated on the Last Day. "And so we will always be with the Lord, therefore comfort one another with these words," concludes 1 Thessalonians 4. Those are indeed words of great hope and comfort, but it is here in a remade creation in bodies that are remade to be incorruptible and imperishable that we are ever with our Lord Jesus. That is some hope in my book!<br />
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<br />Dan Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15332543724100690176noreply@blogger.com0