Rest and Reflect

January 26, 2010

KP Yohannan — Christ’s Call To Follow In His Footsteps

The call of Christ is not just to be informed, but to do something about it. You are bombarded with information. You get enough spiritual information in one week that all of China and India people don’t get in five years! … Because you got people coming here, large numbers, … nice building … let’s not fool ourselves – that don’t mean we are impacting the world. Go into the world and touch the poor, the needy … the dying, the hurting… and rescue them! That is the call of Christ! The call of Christ is to die, not to live. … I know those are strong words. Unless you are sensitive to the Lord, you can easily misunderstand. … We misunderstand obedience for legalism and bondage. … Our priority, number one, must be… Lord I love you and out of that, I give all to touch the lost world.

1 Peter 2.21 – To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.

David Wilkerson — A Call to Anguish

I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are the inventions and ministries of man and flesh. It’s mostly powerless. It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church, rather than the church impacting the world. … An obsession with entertainment in God’s house. A hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it any more. Whatever happened to anguish in the house of God? …

Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotions so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you, or around you. Anguish. Deep pain. Deep sorrow. The agony of God’s heart. …

We’ve held on to our religious rhetoric and our revival talk but we’ve become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. … You search the scripture and you’ll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation… He would share His own anguish for what God saw happening to His church and to His people. And He would find a praying man and take that man and literally baptize him in anguish. You find it in the book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins. How is God going to deal with this? How is God going to restore the ruin? Now folks, look at me… Nehemiah was not a preacher, he was a career man. But this was a praying man.

And God found a man who would not just have a flash of emotion. Not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die. He said: “No. I broke down and I wept and I mourned and I fasted. And then I began to pray night and day. Why didn’t these other men… why didn’t they have an answer? Why didn’t God use them in restoration? Why didn’t they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish. No weeping. Not a word of prayer. It’s all ruin.

Does it matter to you today? Does it matter to you at all that God’s spiritual Jerusalem, the church, is now married to the world? That there is such a coldness sweeping the land? Closer than that… does it matter about the Jerusalem that is in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that’s slowly draining spiritual power and passion. Blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that’s creeping in. That’s all the devil wants to do is to get the fight out of you and kill it. So you won’t labor in prayers anymore, you won’t weep before God anymore. You can sit and watch television and your family go to hell.

Let me ask you… is what I just said convicting to you at all? There is a great difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something that begins to interest you. You take an interest in a project or a cause or a concern or a need. And I want to tell you something. I’ve learned over all my years… of 50 years of preaching. If it is not born in anguish, if it had not been born of the Holy Spirit. Where what you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God. I know now. Oh my God do I know it. Until I am in agony. Until I have been anguished over it… And all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do… Where are the Sunday school teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and are going to hell?

You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish. You see, if you set your heart to pray, God’s going to come and start sharing His heart with you. Your heart begins to cry out: “Oh God, Your name is being blasphemed. The Holy Spirit is being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness and something has to be done.”

There is going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening, until we are willing to let Him once again break us. Folks, it’s getting late, and it’s getting serious. Please don’t tell me… don’t tell me you’re concerned when you’re spending hours in front of internet or television. Come on. Lord, there are some that need to get to this altar and confess: “I am not what I was, I am not where I am supposed to be. God I don’t have Your heart or Your burden. I wanted it easy. I just wanted to be happy. But Lord, true joy comes out of anguish.” There’s nothing of the flesh that will give you joy. I don’t care how much money, I don’t care what kind of new house, there is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It’s only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey and take on His heart.

Carter Conlon — Run For Your Life

Listen to me like you’ve never listened to me ever in your life.

We have got to lay our lives down for the purposes of God. This is not a Sunday School picnic, the church of Jesus Christ. This is not an invitation to have continuous good time. This is a war for the souls of men.

Come out from among them. Run for your life. Because this is about your life. This is not just about an opposing theology or conflicting viewpoint on Jesus, this is about your life.

My mind is forever branded with the stories that I heard of police officers from the city of New York. As people were fleeing from a crumbling building there were police officers and firemen and others that were running towards the buildings saying “Run for your life,” at their own peril. And in some cases I believe they knew they were going to die but there was a sense of duty. I was crying out to God, I said “God, Oh Jesus, don’t let my sense of duty be less for Your Kingdom than these beloved firemen and policemen were for those who were perishing in a fallen tower. We are living in a generation when truth is falling into the streets. I want to be among those that are not running away from the conflict but running into the conflict saying, “Run for your life.”

Run from gospels that focus only on success and prosperity. Run!

Run from those who use the name of Christ only for personal gain. Run from those who are picking your pocket in the name of Jesus. Run!

Run from gospels that only focus on self-improvement. Run!

Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified. Run!

Run Body of Christ, Run! Get out! Don’t touch the unclean thing.

Run from churches in America and Canada where there is no Bible. There is no cross in the theology. There is no soul-searching word. There is no repentance from sin. There is no mention of the blood of Jesus. Run! It’s unclean. Run!

Run from churches where you are comfortable in your sins. If you come into the house of God and you got sin in your life and your not convicted of it, you are at a table of devils.

Run from pulpits that are filled with political men, who are using the pulpit of God for a personal political agenda. Run!

Run from those who preach division between races and cultures. Run!

Run! Get out! Turn it off! Get away from it!

They know nothing of God.

Run from ungodly spasmodic movements and aimless empty prophesying. Beloved Church, run for your life!

Run from preachers that stand and tell stories and jokes. Run like you’ve never run before!

Marching Orders January 19, 2010

The time demands greater efficiency and deeper consecration. I cry to God, Raise up and send forth messengers filled with a sense of their responsibility, men in whose hearts self-idolatry, which lies at the foundation of all sin, has been crucified; who are willing to consecrate themselves without reserve to God’s service; whose souls are alive to the sacredness of the work and the responsibility of their calling; who are determined not to bring to God a maimed sacrifice, which costs them neither effort nor prayer.

The Duke of Wellington was once present where a party of Christian men were discussing the possibility of success in missionary effort among the heathen. They appealed to the duke to say whether in his judgment such efforts were likely to prove a success commensurate to the cost. The old soldier replied:

“Gentlemen, what are your marching orders? Success is not the question for you to discuss. If I read your orders aright, they run thus, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.’ Gentlemen, obey your marching orders.”

My brethren, the Lord is coming, and we need to bend every energy to the accomplishment of the work before us. I appeal to you to give yourselves wholly to the work. Christ gave His time, His soul, His strength, to labor for the benefit and blessing of humanity. Entire days were devoted to labor, and entire nights were spent in prayer, that He might be braced to meet the foe and fortified to help those who came to Him for relief. As we trace a stream of living water by the line of green that it produces, so Christ may be seen in the deeds of mercy that marked His path at every step. Wherever He went, health sprang up, and happiness followed where He passed. So simply did He present the words of life that a child could understand them. The youth caught His spirit of ministry, and sought to pattern after His gracious ways by assisting those who needed help. The blind and deaf rejoiced in His presence. His words to the ignorant and sinful opened to them a fountain of life. He dispensed His blessings abundantly and continuously; they were the garnered riches of eternity, given in Christ, the Father’s gift to man.

Workers for God should as surely feel that they are not their own as if the very stamp and seal of identification were placed upon their persons. They are to be sprinkled with the blood of Christ’s sacrifice, and in the spirit of entire consecration they should resolve that by the grace of Christ they will be a living sacrifice. But how few of us regard the salvation of sinners in the light in which it is viewed by the heavenly universe,–as a plan devised from eternity in the mind of God! How few of us are heart to heart with the Redeemer in this solemn, closing work! There is scarcely a tithe of the compassion that there should be for souls unsaved. There are so many to be warned, and yet how few sympathize with God sufficiently to be anything or nothing if only they can see souls won to Christ!

When Elijah was about to leave Elisha, he said to him, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.” [2 Kings 2:9.] Elisha did not ask for worldly honor, for a place among the great men of the earth. That which he craved was a large portion of the spirit given to the one whom God was about to honor with translation. He knew that nothing else could fit him for the work that would be required of him.

Ministers of the gospel, had this question been asked you, what would you have answered? What is the greatest desire of your heart, as you engage in the service of God?

(Ellen White, Gospel Workers, p. 114-116)

Words everyone longs to hear January 16, 2010

“I’m so glad you’re here.”
“It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

We all want to be wanted.

We want people to want to talk to us, to spend time with us. We want to not have to work to get people’s attention. We want love that is freely given and unconditional.

While there is nothing we can do to receive that, let us put in the time and effort to seize the opportunity to speak those words to others. To make them feel wanted and loved.

Your loved ones need to know that they are loved. Don’t allow them to wonder. Don’t let them be unsure. Don’t leave space for any doubt. That your love for them is real, unconditional and forever.

Evangelism January 16, 2010

The word gospel comes from the word euangelion, which literally refers to the news of victory in war that is spread by heralds across the land.

This is my mission statement.

Phil 1:6 (NIrV)
I pray that you will be active in sharing what you believe. Then you will completely understand every good thing we have in Christ.

Gal 6:9-10 (NLT)
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.

1 Cor 9:24-27 (God’s Word Translation)
Don’t you realize that everyone who runs in a race runs to win, but only one runner gets the prize? Run like them, so that you can win. Everyone who enters an athletic contest goes into strict training. They do it to win a temporary crown, but we do it to win one that will be permanent. So I run-but not without a clear goal ahead of me. So I box-but not as if I were just shadow boxing. Rather, I toughen my body with punches and make it my slave (I train my body and bring it under control – NIrV) so that I will not be disqualified after I have spread the Good News to others.

Joy January 16, 2010

Joy isn’t happiness. It isn’t purely a feeling of enjoyment.

Joy is more a description of a state of being. Almost an “attitude”.

Joy is like climbing a tall mountain. Somewhere along the way, the sun is hot, your feet ache, you pant for breath, your tongue yearns for a drink. You feel pain. You feel tired. It feels like your body is suffering. And it’s all real. But you need not be disheartened. No, instead you are joyful for the fact you are making progress.

Despite our circumstances, even in our trials, we are called to rejoice (James 1:2; 1 Peter 1:6-9). For we know God is always with us, and always working in our lives.

The knowledge that we are God’s brings joy in every circumstance (Jeremiah 15:15-18). Where God dwells is where we find strength and joy (1 Chronicles 16:27), for it is His presence which comforts us (Psalm 21:6). And remember the Lord is near (Philippians 4:4-7).

Read also Psalm 43 and 139. These hymns bring joy in times of trial as we recall to mind the truth about God.

This is why Joy is among the fruit of the spirit (Gal 6).

How to speak to someone struggling with seeing January 9, 2010

Colossians 4:6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt

Eph 4:15 Speak truth in love

1 Peter 4:8 Above all… love

Why did this person share this with me?
What does this person need to hear, that God is asking me to speak?

Towards a simpler gospel January 9, 2010

Love – is self-sacrifice for the good of another; Love given to one who is patently unworthy of it could be termed Grace (though by its definition Love demands no prerequisite conditions); Grace offered for violations present and future could be termed Forgiveness

Faith – is a relationship that is the response to and is sustained by Love

Holiness (Right-ness; how things ought to be) – is the result of Faith, sustained by Love – in relationship to God (spiritually), in relationship with yourself (psychologically) and in relationship to others (socially/ethically); the restoration of Holiness (both individually and corporately) could be termed Justice

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. (Galatians 5:6)

Ron Osborn on the Young Earth Creationism Debate in the Seventh-day Adventist Church January 1, 2010

http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/12/26/controlling_metaphors_are_adventist_scholars_breaking_eighth_commandment

Especially appreciate the comments by:

David Trin

Ron is a clever thoughtful man, and his views are always welcome but here is playing with words, in a way that actually is intellectually dishonest. I think he must know very well that, in its assertion that “God … has revealed in Scripture the authentic account of His creative activity”, the church’s fundamental belief on creation is intending to claim that the Genesis account is to be taken realistically and literally. It’s fine if he wants to change that, but the intent clearly was to to uphold a literal seven-day creation week. Just be honest about that and don’t pretend that the fundamental beliefs are meant to endorse a different view.
I am all for faithful dissent and expect to disagree with Ron for years to come, and remain SDAs. The fundamental beliefs, seeing we maintain they are not a creed, describe rather than prescribe Adventism, and they can be changed. But what Ron (and Chuck and so many readers of this website) would like our church to be isn’t as it is at present, and let’s not pretend that those who defend that position “have deviated most clearly from the language of official Adventist belief and who stand in need of correction by church leaders”, or have somehow become like corporate moguls – a false analogy and a deliberately pejorative one at that.
I’m for respect on both sides of the debate, and Ron does his cause no service by adopting some of the methods of the worst of his opponents.

Weiers Coetser

I believe that David Trim’s perspective merely serves to highlight an issue of what is already inherently being presented in Ron’s article. The current discourse deals with power, and who has the right to make which claims based on an interpretation of the Fundamental beliefs.

David rightly asserts that the dominant position is that we cannot interpret the Bible or our Fundamental beliefs in any other way than literalisticaly. Like Ron, I am not sure that there is any foundational reason or authority to take this stance on the Fundamental beliefs, other than, that the literalists have ascribed it to themselves. And if my observation is correct, it serves to affirm Ron’s original statement about controlling (corporate) metaphors.

I am certainly attracted to Ron’s “supreme court” alternative. I wish it was not as American centric. Even though this debate is a very American debate in its current form, I reckon that the largest groundswell movement against “faithful dissent” will eventually come from other parts of the world where the debate is sure to be framed in terms of power and uniformity.

Is it possible to find a controlling metaphor that draws on a closer, perhaps more literalistic, reading of scripture? I think the tensions between different traditions in scripture could be a starting point. When debate centres around power, the best tactic might to subvert that power. Karl Barth’s argument about the confessionary nature of all theology might be pertinent. The fact that we are always answering to God before we answer to human institutions is something that sits well in the general discourse of those who currently claim the power to themselves, but also for those who present alternative voices.

Ron Osborn

Hi David. I appreciate your taking the time to respond to my posting and am always happy to engage with people in reasoned debate over substantive disagreements. I’m taken aback though, by the frankly invidious way in which you refer to me as a “clever” man (did you really mean to say “sophist”?) who is “playing” with words in a way that is “intellectually dishonest”.

I have no access to the minds of the committee members who wrote the fundamental belief statement but I strongly suspect they spent a great deal of time and care choosing the precise wording they did on a matter as contentious as the meaning of Genesis because they were trying to delicately affirm the traditional Adventist view (which is indeed a literalistic one) while at the same time giving some breathing room for other readings. Chuck has now posted a note in which he confirms from conversations he has had with several people who sat on the 1980 committee that this was exactly what happened as a matter of history. As a historian, I think the burden of proof therefore now falls on you to establish from interviews or meeting minutes that in 1980 the committee in fact chose the word “authentic” with no such goal in mind and was really trying to say “literal” in a rather obscure and dim-witted way.

I am not suggesting, incidentally, that the fundamental belief was trying to “endorse” my own views on creation (a misreading of my article that is careless and misleading on your part) but that it was trying–or in any event simply accomplished–a language that is far more pliant and open to interpretation than some literalists allow and most Adventists probably realize. You need look no further than the Organizing Committee of the International Faith and Science Conference to see that the language of the fundamental belief is perceived as problematic and too open to interpretation by some. And we might well see a revision of the wording as a result. Please pause to think about that. I have no desire to see the wording of the fundamental belief changed. There are highly conservative Adventists who think it should be and that the wording we now have before us was a mistake or didn’t go far enough. Even apart from the kind of freedom encouraged by the preamble which has been completely ignored by those who want to use the beliefs as a way of defining people in and out of the church, who, then, is deviating most clearly from the language of the fundamental belief?

As for people attempting to exercise power in a way that mirrors corporate thinking, I stand by what I wrote. There is nothing “deliberately pejorative” in pointing out that the preferred language and moral reasoning of some Adventists is a language of “business ethics” and that this seems to offer some insight into their vision of how Adventist educational institutions need to be controlled from above. I am very much a literalist when I say that human beings are radically fallen and that one of the basic impulses of fallen creatures is to attempt to exercise power and control over others in all kinds of ways–including by turning church into something very like a hierarchically-structured multinational corporation. Of course, to a large extent we are already there. But when people tell us (repeatedly) that Adventist scholars need to take their lessons in commandment-keeping from Nike or other corporate workers, something significant–and to my mind deeply troubling–is going on.

Nor have I resorted to the same methods as those I disagree with. To do that I would need to show that they are nothing less than commandment breakers who literally stand under “the condemnation of God.”

But perhaps I have misunderstood or misread your own words. I will therefore leave you with the final reply if you desire it. I think my words in this article as well as in numerous other articles that have appeared on this site in the past speak for themselves.

Herb Douglass

Ron: I was delighted to see your mind at work, as I have on many private occasions. Nothing bruises the Adventist soul more than high-handed “recommendations,” or pontifical resolutions from various “elected” committees. Our history has a few nightmares where theological positions long established have been hi-jacked–and not in a “progressive” direction(and not too long ago!).
That being said (which you can also footnote), David is also making the point of a literal understanding of what God had on His mind in writing the fourth commandment. How, in all the marvelous trails of logic, can anyone doubt the literalness of the 4th commandment? Too much plain history as well as the words of Jesus would have to be “spiritualized” or “metaphorized.”
I do fnd it interesting, Ron, that you used the Supreme Court as your “better” metaphor. The Supreme Court is not what the president of the United States swears to uphold–it is the Constitution. The Supreme Court, at times, ties itself into a knot trying to marry 21st “wants” with very clear “do’s and don’ts”–that Constitutio, the marvel of 200+ years, has kept this country from becoming like all others that have preceded us.
Could it be that the TEN serves as this world’s Constitution and when people or nations try to rewrite it into something less literatlistic, all hell breaks lose? IMO, Herb

Ron Osborn

Christmas greetings from the Osborn family to yours Father D.! 🙂 I’m afraid I can’t join you in saying with confidence that I know beyond question “what God had on His mind” in any number of passages in Scripture. My unwillingness to accept literalism as the only theologically sound way of reading Genesis in fact emerges not from my lack of faith in God or the authority of Scripture but my lack of faith in my own abilities to fully know what all parts of Scripture mean, to penetrate the mind of God, or to enclose Her within human systems of language and reasoning. I am not so apophatic, though, as to say we can’t know anything about God or the creation. I say with confidence that Genesis tells us what is most important for us to know and it is on these points that any theologically sound critique of evolutionary concepts needs to occur: that God is the Creator and creates from nothing; that God is entirely other than the creation; that God’s purposes and methods of creating are good; that human beings are made uniquely in the “image of God”; that God has given us as a memorial of the creation a literal Sabbath day; and that the creation has been distorted and broken as a result of sin. I take all of these statements to be absolute literal and historical truths. So would Karl Barth. So would C.S. Lewis. Does a faithful Adventist really need to affirm or claim certain knowledge of more than this? Those who say we do–and that they have–always seem to me to betray a fatal error known all too well to the Greek tragedians: the error of hubris.

Dave Larson

Chuck Scriven is correct. The language on Creation in the Fundamental Beliefs intentionally left some room for a range of understandings.

This is why there is a concerted effort led by some at Andrews University to tighten up the language. They read the Fundamental Beliefs as Ron Osborne does and differently than David Trim does and it sincerely alarms them.

My view is that we should stick to the language of Scripture itself, saying nothing more and nothing less.

Herb Douglass

Ron: I close my thoughts with Dave Larzon’s signoff! Some subjects merge into the shadows with only human opinions chasing them. So much left to ponder, beginning with what Jesus thought about the subject. That’s where I am rooted. Thanks for your patience with us. Cheers, Herb

Bonnie Dwyer

Thanks to all for a fine discussion. Two points that I would like to add:

1. While the case-based nature of law and the Supreme Court has appeal as an operating metaphor for church, particularly given its provision for dissent, it has drawbacks, too. When choosing metaphors for the church, my preference has always been the family. You don’t kick people out of families because they have different ideas. You figure out how to get along. We need to learn how to get along, to be comfortable with differences in Adventism. A world-wide church with 16 million people needs cultural elbow-room.

2. Having attended the Faith and Science Conference in Denver where there was a very strong push to change the wording of the Fundamental Belief #6 to a more literal statement, I recall Jan Paulsen standing up in front of the group and telling them very distinctly that changing the wording of the Beliefs was not their assignment. The affirmation of creation that was then voted with the more literal wording now gets distributed in place of the fundamental belief and it seems to me to be a push-back by those who were thwarted in Denver from changing the Fundamental Belief. The heated discussion that has taken place since then seems to be good reason to leave the wording as it is. We certainly are not of one accord on what the wording should be.

Ron Osborn

Hi Bonnie. I thought about the analogy/metaphor of “family” before writing but opted against for a few reasons. Family is a warm word that may be a good way of thinking about the kind of openness and acceptance the church needs to extend to all who walk through its doors, whatever messiness and heterodoxy they bring with them. But Christ also refers to the church as a polis on a hill–a direct allusion to the Greek city-states which had a very particular kind of social-political form. The word “church” itself is a political analogy/allusion since ecclesia was not originally a religious term but described a council meeting concerned with matters of community. For certain kinds of questions/problems, I therefore think that institutional/political analogies are the most helpful.

Some people might be surprised to hear me say that I think Adventist colleges and universities in fact do need to maintain institutional and doctrinal integrity, and probably in some cases have not adequately done so, to the harm of some students. I don’t think, however, the belief statements can or should be applied as a kind of Rorschach test of people’s faiths–particularly not by outside pressure groups led by persons of frequently limited theological and scientific training. If an Adventist professor “dissents” in the classroom from any particular Adventist belief, this is something serious that the administrators of schools need to carefully look at. The question, though, should not be something so blunt and wooden as: Are you a literalist on Genesis or not? The question must be: How do you arrive at your dissent, how do you communicate these ideas to students, and how do these ideas integrate with the rest of your faith?

Returning to my Supreme Court analogy, there is a heavy burden on professors, in other words, to explain their dissent not in terms of the laws of any land but as a carefully thought out development of principles to which all of the judges are sworn. As one person mentioned earlier, the U.S. court is in fact sharply divided over questions of constitutional interpretation…but all agree that it is the Constitution that needs to be interpreted. That is significant.