Month: February 2023

What Is a Revival? And What Does It Matter?

The spark in the beginning seemed to be a small group of students who didn’t want to leave. They didn’t want to stop worshiping.

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I did not take this photo, but I am grateful to the person who captured the scene.

I pay only casual attention to the news. Maybe that is why I didn’t know much about what is going on at Asbury University in Wilmore, KY until about 10 days into the 1-hour chapel service that turned into a two-week long, around the clock gathering of young people worshiping Jesus.

Or maybe I hadn’t noticed because most media outlets weren’t reporting on it. Not that they would know what to do with it if they had!

When I began scrolling through Instagram that Friday evening, I found one video after another from the chapel at Asbury University. It seemed like these videos were all I had in my feed, and I started following it.

Along with the live feeds, video, and people self-reporting on the Asbury phenomenon, I began seeing many cautionary pundits who were concerned about whether what was happening is a revival, and these people were convinced it wasn’t.

Notably, the Asbury school administrators and staff seemed uniformly hesitant to categorize what was happening as a revival. They were in agreement with the critics, but criticism rang hollow to me.

I have watched a lot of live video. I have listened to interviews with students, staff, professors and visitors. I have listened to people who are skeptical. I have listened to the cautions and warnings.

I “grew up” in my faith in charismatic churches in the 1980’s. Since the 1990’s, however, I have gravitated away from charismatic churches to more traditional evangelical churches. I have focused on daily Scripture reading, weekly church attendance, and getting involved in leading and participating in small groups, apologetics, and regular fellowship – and writing.

I have been disillusioned by the emotionalism and thrill-seeking that can characterize the charismatic movement. I have seen the dangers of idolizing charismatic leaders and the charismatic movement, itself.  

It’s all too easy to want what God can do for us more than we want God.

Some people I looked up to in those charismatic churches walked away from God. The church that I practically idolized in my early Christian walk, splintered and fragmented and fell apart in a very short time. The pastor who married my wife and I got divorced a few years later. It didn’t last.

I am an attorney. I am trained to be analytical, even skeptical. I am naturally more comfortable exercising my brain than my heart. I can easily settle into an intellectual faith that is thin on experience and authenticity.

I didn’t immediately pay attention to the Asbury University “revival”. We live in a sensationalized world of clickbait, and I have learned to look away.

Revival isn’t a biblical term, as far as I know. I can’t think of a verse or passage that uses that terminology (other than a plea for God to revive).

Anyway, I began scrolling through Instagram on this Friday night. I know better than to scroll through Instagram late at night like that, but it was a long week. I was looking for some mindless entertainment before I shut my eyes and went to sleep.

I scrolled to one video after another from Asbury University. Mild interest began to pique. Something was going on there. It was then that I realized that 10 days is a long time for a routine school chapel to last!

One video showed the last few minutes of the message that ended the chapel. It was ok, but anything but spectacular. It was far from a passionate call to the altar. It was an ordinary message by any measure.

Now, I was even more interested.

Continue reading “What Is a Revival? And What Does It Matter?” →

Is Offense a Measure of whether the Gospel is Authentically Preached?

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

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On a recent Unbelievable Podcast, Justin Brierley posed the question: is the gospel really being preached if no one is being offended?

That question might seem odd out of context, so I should quickly add that the question was posed in the context of the “Asbury Revival”. Many Christians are advocating caution. They are expressing concern about calling the happening at Asbury University in Wilmore, KY a “revival”. Some are questioning whether God was involved at all.

The claims people are making include, among other things, that there is no preaching going on, that the Gospel is not being preached, and that no one is being offended by the message. The latter statement prompted the question.

Is that the measure of whether the gospel is being preached? That some people are offended? Do we really think that it isn’t really the Gospel unless some people are offended?

Because some people were offended that no one seemed offended, does that count as people being offended?

As food for thought, it seems that everyone was offended during the Super Bowl by the two commercials paid for by a Christian group (with a lot of money) conveying the message that “God gets us”. It seems that everyone was offended by those ads, both the secular world and the Christian world. Does the offense mean that the Gospel was preached?

Perhaps, but only if the right people are offended? What if Christians are offended? What if progressive Christians are offended? What do we mean by “progressive”?

Again, is that really the measure of whether the Gospel was preached? Is that really the right question? Isn’t the Gospel the Gospel? Isn’t the Gospel the Gospel, whether some people are offended or not?

What is the Gospel?

We all know that “gospel” means good news, right? But, what is it? What is the good news?

Paul defines the Gospel to the Corinthians when he says, “I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you….” (1 Cor. 15:2) He adds, “ By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:3) Then, he says that the gospel message, which is “of first importance”, is as follows:

“… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve.”

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

When disagreements arose among the Corinthians, and some were lining up behind Paul, and others were lining up behind Apollos, Paul was perplexed by their disunity. He implored them “that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (1 Cor. 1:10)

Paul was perplexed that some were touting him above Apollos, and the other way around. “Is Christ divided”, he asked rhetorically. (1 Cor. 1:13) The obvious answer is no! And the obvious implication is that we should not be divided either.

The problem with the Corinthians was that they were quarreling with each other over their allegiances to Paul and to Apollos. They were disagreeing and quarreling over peripheral things. Thus, Paul says he only came “to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (1 Cor. 1:17)

Emptied of its power? What did Paul mean? Paul said,

“When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

Paul didn’t emphasize his preaching. He didn’t come with “wise and persuasive words”. He emphasized the “demonstration of the Spirit’s power”. The demonstration of the Spirit’s power is usually what we associate with a revival or an awakening. It isn’t the preaching; there is always preaching, but we don’t always get a demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

Continue reading “Is Offense a Measure of whether the Gospel is Authentically Preached?” →

Be Careful Lest You Fail to Take What God Is Doing to Heart

Pharaoh did not take to heart a movement of God in his time.

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In Exodus 7, we read that God moved in visible and compelling ways to convince Pharaoh to listen to the request by Moses to let the people go into the wilderness and be with God. Pharaoh was given demonstrative signs that God was behind the request, but Pharaoh was not swayed.

“Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart.”

Exodus 7:23 NIV

Pharaoh’s magicians answered Moses and Aaron with their own divination, and Pharaoh did not take the demonstration of the movement of God to heart. This is the character of hardness of heart. We see God move, but we have an answer to explain it away, and we do not take it to heart.

Pharaoh and Egypt are considered to be analogous to the world that does not know God, a world that has set itself against God. We don’t consider ourselves to be like Pharaoh or like Egypt.

When we do the same thing, however, we are no different. When we see God move, and we explain it away and do not take it to heart, we are no different.

The Pharisees, the religious leaders of God’s people, did the same thing. When Jesus performed miracles right in front of them, they explained it away. They said it was of the devil, and they did not take it to heart.

Be careful that you are not quick with an answer to explain away what God is doing and fail to take it to heart.

Do not be quick to explain away what is happening at Asbury University (and reportedly at other universities now, too). Do not be quick to dismiss it and miss what God is doing.

Take it to heart. Ponder it like Mary pondered what the angel told her: that she would give birth to Jesus. Be open to what God is doing, and what God wants to do in you.

The Pharaoh that didn’t take to heart what God was doing in his time lies entombed today like a stone. The God of Israel lives! Jesus, who was also entombed, rose from the dead and lives! The grave could not hold him, and he offers that same life to you!

Taste and See that God is Good: The Asbury Revival

We spend far more time praying for renewal of our strength than soaring on wings like eagles.

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I have noticed with some mild interest at what is going on at the chapel on the Asbury University campus in Kentucky. Posts show up in my Facebook feed daily, as I am connected to many Christians (and many other people too) on Facebook. One post today, shared from someone who has been there from the beginning, described it succinctly as follows:

“A chapel service that didn’t stop but continued spontaneously for 8 days now.”

Today has been ten (10) days since that spontaneous beginning, and I have been watching various live streams of the February 8th chapel service that is still going on. This is how it started:

How the Asbury University chapel started on February 8, 2023

I have seen doubters and critics, I have seen posts from people who jumped in their cars and traveled hundreds of miles to see it for themselves: this chapel service that started and has not stopped. It has continued around the clock for 10 days now.

I have seen hype. I have seen caution. Critics caution about emotionalism. Critics want to de-emphasize experience and double down on the Bible and doctrine. Critics say that an omnipresent God should not require a person to travel to a particular location to experience Him.

I have been cautious myself. I am also aware that a sovereign God does what He wants to do despite our understanding of scripture, and theology and the way things ought to be. I have experienced “moves of the Holy spirit”, myself.

I have experienced that people cannot dictate how, when, or whether the Holy Spirit moves. “The wind blows where it will.” We don’t put the Holy Spirit in our pocket like a rabbit foot. We don’t command or possess Him.

People have described what is going on at Asbury University as a revival. That term may conjure up images of a “tent revival” and flamboyantly crass preachers, artificially slick hair, words that drip like honey, and ecstatic chaos.

The Asbury Revival is characterized by a different atmosphere. The person’s post from today who has been there from the beginning said this:

“To quote Professor McCall, a theology professor at Asbury Seminary, ‘what we are experiencing now—this inexpressibly deep sense of peace, wholeness, holiness, belonging, and love—is only the smallest of windows into the life for which we are made.’”

As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, I am reminded of the hippies who wanted “Peace and love. Not war!” I think of John Lennon who imagined a world without war – and without religion – with only peace. Hippies, however, were a contentious bunch, and John Lennon was no saint.

Not that I blame them for dreaming or trying. It’s just that people are completely incapable of making these kinds of dreams come true. Just when we think we have created our utopia, it is already disintegrating and slipping through our fingers like a mirage we feel we can grab hold of.

I lived for several years in a communal house. It was a leftover from the flower children of the 1960’s who became the Jesus people of the 1970’s. I loved it, but it was no utopia. The reality is that people have rough edges. So, “iron sharpens iron,” but the sharpening isn’t always a pleasant process.

Yet, when people get together to devout themselves to following God together, to worship and pray together, to do life together, God is in their midst. These words of Jesus are as true today as the day he spoke them:

“Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 18:20

These words are true when our rough edges are rubbing against each other as much as when we “feel the love” (which may not be as often as we like). Even then, I have never experienced the intimacy with another human being as I have experienced when I have experienced the Holy Spirit “moving” in me, usually during times of group worship..

I have experienced the “inexpressibly deep sense of peace, wholeness, holiness, belonging, and love” described by the Asbury professor. It cannot be manufactured or trumped up. When it “happens”, words are difficult to describe it; the experience is life changing.

The experience is only truly life changing, however, if we recognize that the experience is not the point. The experience is a brush with God, who is the source of peace, wholeness, holiness, belonging and love.

If we walk away from the experience longing for another experience, we have missed the important thing. It isn’t ultimately the experience that we long for at all; we long for God, and relationship with Him.

If we chase the experience, it becomes ever more elusive. In our desperation and desire to repeat it, we may resort to emotionalism. We may even resort to trumping up experiences that are artificial.

We desperately need connection to our Creator and the lover of our souls.

Continue reading “Taste and See that God is Good: The Asbury Revival” →

Echoes of Paul in John and the Priority of Love over Knowledge

Paul and John had very different encounters with Jesus, but they both speak of knowledge and love in similar ways.

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I listened to a podcast this week in which the topic of discussion was the difference between John’s Gospel and the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Some people say the Gospels are so different that they couldn’t have all been written by people who followed Jesus. People say that John’s Gospel, which was written latest in time, includes theological progression and embellishment.

NT Wright, on the other hand, points out that John’s words echo words found in the other Gospels, though it is very different in its emphasis. He also observes that since John’s Gospel was written latest, he would have had access to the other Gospels. There would have been no need for him to cover the same ground the other Gospels already covered.

Wright’s observation about John not wanting to cover ground already covered by the other Gospels, or not wanting to cover it in the same way, makes sense to me. John also had more time to think over and chew on the words of Jesus because he lived long, and he wrote his Gospel later than the others.

John’s Gospel is more philosophical and theologically developed in an obvious sort of way (not that the other Gospels are lacking in theology). Did he embellish on what Jesus said? We don’t know. Would embellishment make it any less “scripture”? I don’t think so.

John was one of the three apostles who spent the most time with Jesus and was most intimate with him. He was part of the inner circle of disciples who were closest with Jesus. He may have gained more insight into what Jesus said in that intimacy and the luxury of a long life to reflect on what Jesus said than the other Gospel writers.

I probably like John’s Gospel the best because it is so philosophical, beginning with some of the most poignant words found in writing anywhere:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-4

Fast forward a few days: A friend texts me and a group of people a Bible verse or two every morning. I always read it as part of my morning Bible reading. Sometimes the things that I am reading tie together with other things I am listening to and thinking about.

That was the case this morning. The verses sent in the text reminded me of NT Wright’s statements about the echoes of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in John’s Gospel. The verses in the text from my friend this morning are as follows:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:2‭-‬3 NIV

These words are not from the gospel of John, but from the first epistle of John. As I read them, I immediately heard echoes of the words of Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, which was likely written earlier than John. In that letter, Paul said:

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:10-12 (NIV)

1 Corinthians 13, of course, is the famous “love chapter”, ending with the statement: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) John’s first letter is all about love. Just as Paul focuses on love in 1 Corinthians 13, John focuses on love in 1 John, and both of them speak in that context about the present limitations on our knowledge and knowing more fully when we see Christ face to face.

The statement that caught my attention is that we do not know what we will be until Christ appears; then, we will be like him, and we will see him as he is. These words of John echo Paul’s words when he says for now we know in part, but then we will know as we are fully known. Now we see only as a reflection in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face and we shall know fully even as we are fully known.

The similarities between these passages are striking to me., and all the more that they are both spoken in the context of love. They emphasize transformation that will take place in us in the context of our relationship to God. They emphasize that we see and know only partially in this life, and we cannot see or know exactly who God is or exactly what God has created us to be at this point.

Both passages speak to a future in which we shall know fully even as we are fully known (Paul) and see God as He actually is (John).

Now, though, we do not see clearly. The King James says we see only as “through a glass darkly”. I am struck by the implications of these things: both the fact that John echoes Paul, and Paul echoes John, and by the emphasis on love because we do not know what we do not yet know.

Continue reading “Echoes of Paul in John and the Priority of Love over Knowledge” →