Tag: Bible

On the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate and Reeds Blowing in the Wind

Should Christians be influenced by shifting political winds?

kevingdrendel3 Comments

I recall today the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate award from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In back in 1968. When I was 8 years old, Laugh In was a hip variety show of biting political humor that was mostly lost on my young mind. The award was a dubious honor ceremoniously presented each week to public figures, corporations, and government agencies for ridiculous “achievements”.

The Fickle Finger of Fate suggests the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of luck or destiny. As finite human beings, we don’t control our fates, and we cannot know the twists and turns that await us in the future.

The award has an ironic backstory. Star Trek was moved from the coveted 7:00 PM spot to the dreaded 10:00 PM “death slot” by NBC to make room for Laugh In. The hip, comedic variety show, however, was popular only for a relatively a short stint from 1968 to 1973 and has largely been forgotten by all but impressionable young minds.

Star Trek, on the other hand, went on to become an iconic science fiction series. It was ahead of its time, and it became a hit in off-network syndication, inspiring sequels and movies for almost 50 years.

Fate is certainly a fickle thing. Driven by polls and ratings to attract the largest audience, NBC obviously did not foresee the lasting success of the Star Trek brand. They also did not expect the short-lived lifespan of their cutting edge variety show that replaced Star Trek.

As Christians, we don’t believe in fate, of course. We don’t believe in random chance. We believe in God who designed and ordered the universe and established our place in it.

The future, however, is equally unknowable to us. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said thousands of years ago, “God set eternity in the heart of man, but not so that he can know the end from the beginning.” (Ecc. 3:11). The Prophet Isaiah said it this way,

“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.
‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.'”

Isaiah 58:8-6

God famously, but lovingly, rebuked Job for insisting on understanding things he could not fathom. As with Job, we are invited to have faith and to trust God, but we have more reason for hope and trust than Job, because we know our redeemer lives. He rose from the dead!

We understand that God can be trusted because of His willing demonstration of love for us in emptying Himself to become a man and laying down His life for us. We have no option but to trust Him, but we know we can trust him because of His love for us that He demonstrated on the cross.

Still, we easily are easily swayed and influenced by external pressures. We may think that we understand the times when we are only blowing in the shifting winds of “fate” (powers and principalities that want to blow us off course).

Paul says these powers and principalities are operative in the world. They are “spirits of the age” that play us like instruments if we are not grounded in the Word of God and led by His Holy Spirit.

Jesus used the phrase, reed blowing in the wind, when he addressed a crowd that went into the wilderness to see John the Baptist: “Did you you go to see a “reed swayed in the wind?” (Matt. 11:7-18)

John the Baptist was not just a curiosity. He was not a fleeting personality (like Rowan & Martin) with no lasting importance or purpose. He was the messenger of the Messiah, foretold by the prophets preparing the way for Jesus, the suffering servant who would take away the sins of the world. John was an agent in God’s eternal plan, and Jesus was (and is) the key figure in that plan.

Though he was foretold by the Prophets, no one knew exactly how things would unfold – not even God’s own people. In fact, they didn’t recognize God’s Messiah or receive him when he came. (John 1:11). Crowd of common people were drawn to Jesus, but smarter and more prestigious religious leaders were not.

Many have come, and many have gone. Many have claimed to be the harbingers of promise and special knowledge in their times, but many have proven wrong in their predictions.

The reality is that we do not know what we do not know. We must ever remain open to letting God’s Word shape us and direct us, and we must ever remain attentive to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in applying His Word in our times.

Even now, smart people – including learned, religious people – believe and act as if they know the times. It is the same in every age and every generation, but we are easily swayed and blown by the winds of fate and human influence that seek to drive the course of history not always in ways that are aligned with God’s plan and purposes. To that generation, and to ours, Jesus said:

“They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’”

Matt. 11:16-17

Human tendency is to trust ourselves. The smarter we are, the more we trust in our own ability to figure it out. Perhaps, this explains why so many scientists and PhD’s are atheists. Perhaps, this is why so many of the religious leaders in the time of Jesus were blind leaders of the blind. Perhaps, we are susceptible to the same error.

We don’t know the end from the beginning. We don’t know God’s thoughts unless He reveals them. God doesn’t dance to the tunes we play. Our tunes are often just riffs on the spirits of our age changing as those spirits change their tunes that we follow.

I reflect on these things as I think through changes in the winds influencing the evangelical church in my lifetime.. We need to be grounded in the Word of God and in tune with the Spirit of God. (See Hearing the Voice of God for Today) if we are not, we become reeds blowing in the wind.

A few weeks ago, I created a short list of issues on which Evangelicals (my tribe) have swayed in the political winds during my lifetime. I have done some research to confirm and correct my intuitions, and that exercise has confirmed my suspicions that we have, indeed, been reeds blowing in the political winds over the last 60 years. Following are just a few examples.

Continue reading “On the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate and Reeds Blowing in the Wind” →

Putting Experience into Gospel Perspective

Love, truth, and personal experience

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I think most people are skeptical of other people’s experiences. It’s only natural to be skeptical of experiences we have not had and do not share. When people have had experiences in common with or similar to us, we are much less skeptical. It’s also natural to assume the validity and legitimacy of experiences that we share in common or similar to the experience of others.

We have an affinity for people with whom we have shared experiences and for people whose experiences are similar to ours. Shared experiences bind us together. Those shared experiences affirm us and become part of our individual and common identities.

We let our guards down with people with whom we have shared experiences, and we can “be ourselves” with them. We want to affirm them because they affirm us.

These are all good things in and of themselves, but the affirmation is not always positive. Shared experiences can form the basis of co-dependency that is unhealthy and even destructive.

If we spend all our time with people with whom we share experiences, we can become insular and narrowminded. If we don’t venture beyond those circles of commonality, we may find ourselves in an echo chamber of conformation bias that blinds us to the false stories we tell ourselves and reinforces our narrowmindedness.

Common experiences can also have the opposite effect. People who spend significant time in other countries and with people not like them tend to be more openminded, more humble, and more accommodating of people who see the world differently.

As Christians, the common experience of being “in Christ” with people who are very different from us in ethnicity, native language, economic strata, age, etc. is mind and heart expanding. The usual commonalities that define us – like Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free – give way to a greater identity that we find together in Christ.

Being in Christ should be a defining commonality for Christians, though we often default back to commonalities that are of lesser significance. We need to guard against that.

Jesus challenges every Christian to stretch ourselves in these things – to strive to make our shared experience in Christ the commonality that is preeminent in our lives. That commonality should be the one thing that unites us, though we may have little else in common.

Jesus also urges us to stretch back from that one commonality to engage a world that does not share that one common, all encompassing identity that unites Christians around the world. Jesus bids us to go out into the world to share the Gospel with people who do not yet share that common identity.

In doing that, we need to use other, lesser commonalities to bridge the gap, to make connection, to open doors to sharing the Gospel. Jesus is our ultimate example. In Jesus, God became flesh so that He could share in our humanness and, therefore, to connect with us so that he could share the good news with us.

We often become insular in our Christian community, however. It’s comfortable there, and the effort to connect with people who do not share the most important aspect of our lives is hard work.

We sometimes vacillate between the groups of people with whom share certain commonalities like chameleons, fitting in where we go. It’s hard to maintain our distinctiveness as Christ followers among people who do not know Jesus. Yet, this is our calling.

The religious community in the first Century was insular. The religious leaders criticized Jesus for making those human connections with the world – the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners of his day.

If Jesus was born today, I am convinced he would be criticized for hanging out with the LGBTQ community, Muslims, and atheists. The people in those communities would be just as critical of Christ followers as they were in the 1st Century, yet our commission is to bridge the gap to share the good news. I don’t think the dynamics were any different when Jesus walked the earth in the flesh than they are today.

We cannot let our experiences define how we operate in the world. They can be good and bad, positive and negative, helpful in living out the Christian life and unhelpful, depending on our perspective. They can define us and bind us in our closedmindedness, or they can be tools for making critical connections in furtherance of the plans and purposes of God.

My thoughts today are inspired by something Preston Sprinkle said in response to a questions posed by a listener to his podcast, Theology in the raw. Sprinkle gets much criticism from within the Christian community for his efforts to bridge gaps with the modern world – especially the LGBTQ community.

I appreciate his heart and his attempts to make connections with the “sinners” of the world. Of course, we are all sinners. We know that, but we have a hard time putting it all in perspective. It’s difficult and sometimes messy work trying to remain pure and undefiled in the world and to “go into” the world at the same time with the Gospel.

One thing that he said seemed important enough for me to write it down. He said:

“I don’t determine my theology from other peoples experiences. You can’t. Which experience are you going to choose to determine it? .. . But I do think listening deeply to other people’s experiences should shape how we think theologically, how we hold on to our theology. Listening well to other people helps us put our theology into the conversation with real people.”

If you will indulge me, I am going to try to break down what I think he is saying. I think it is critical to our role as ambassadors of Christ to get this right.

Continue reading “Putting Experience into Gospel Perspective” →

“Suicidal Empathy” and Weakness: Trust and the Church

Confusion and red flags are reason to stop and consider who we are and where we are going

kevingdrendel1 Comment

A funny thing happened to me one evening recently. I received a text from a number that was not in my contacts. The texter introduced himself and said he was from “VBC”. He said he emailed me, but I didn’t respond, so he was sending me a video of the child I sponsor from Uganda with a link for me to click.

I didn’t know the person. I didn’t get an email, and I don’t sponsor a child from Uganda.

Since scamming people is a billion dollar industry, I was cautious,. I do sponsor a child from Africa, but she lives in Ethiopia. The initials, “VBC”, are the initials for the church I go to, so I didn’t just delete it. I looked up name of the texter, but I couldn’t find his name in the directory.

I wanted to respond positively if he was a brother in my church, but I didn’t know him. What if someone hacked into the church directory? What if they found just enough information to make it sound good and to get me to click on a malicious link?

I texted him back and asked what email he had for me. The email he sent back was one letter off. He also sent an email with a shortened version of my former wife’s name, but it isn’t the shortened version she uses. It was close, but wrong. He had just enough of the right information for me to think it was legitimate but just enough of the wrong information for me to pause.

Finally, I texted the campus pastor, and he confirmed that the man was from VBC (but a different campus). He also did go to Uganda where the church has an ongoing missionary presence.

Then, I remembered: there is a young man in the church with exactly my first and last name. I have only met him once because he is a distant relative, and he goes to a campus of the church that is furthest from the one I go to. With this information, I called the man who texted me, and we had a good a laugh.

My name isn’t common. We both sponsor children in Africa. We both were marred to women with the same first name (different nicknames). The similarities were uncanny, but the differences signaled the need for caution.

I was thinking about this after doing my routine reading the next morning. The reading plan focused on James’s letter “to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1), and it posed this question:

Have you ever been confused about who sent a text, email, or note?

In light of my experience the previous night, I realized that God might be talking to me! The follow up questions ask whether not knowing who sent the message confuses the meaning and whether knowing who the sender is changes our understanding.

The answer is definitely, yes and yes! I was confused when I wasn’t sure who sent me the original text, and knowing it came from a trusted source changed everything.

The context in which this story and my thoughts arise this morning is the confusion in the church caused by Donald Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk. I have seen red flags since 2015 and reason for caution. The topic has been much on my mind, because some Christians champion these men and defend everything they do, and other Christians don’t.

It seems to boil down to who you trust and whether we should ignore look the other way at the things that seem a little “off”.

What are we to think? Can we trust them? Do we know who they are? Do we ignore the red flags? Perhaps, more importantly: Do we know who we are?

I am afraid I can’t get very deep into this subject without writing a tome, and I have already written much, so I want to stick with the context out of which this experience and these thoughts flow. Specifically the controversy over Elon Musk’s comment to Joe Rogan: “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.”

Continue reading ““Suicidal Empathy” and Weakness: Trust and the Church” →

How Should We Judge Our Neighbors?

Who we judge and how we judge are keys to how we will be judged.

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Many things are said about judging, and confusion persists about whether Christians are to judge or not to judge. I wrestled through the seeming conundrum a number of years ago and came up with 8 Important Points About Judging and Judgment. I didn’t realize, then, how these principles tie into the way we should look at immigration.

In very brief summary, Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1), and followed immediately with the statement, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” (Mt. 7:2) He was not telling us not to judge; he was telling us to be careful how we judge. This is critical.

The statements in Matthew 7 cited above are the set up for the short parable of the person with a log in his eye trying to take the speck of his brother’s eye. The parable ends with Jesus telling us first to take the log out of our own eyes; then we can see accurately to help take the speck out of our brother’s eye.

Paul riffs on this theme Jesus preached when he said, “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” (1 Cor. 11:31 NKJV) Paul also picks up on something I missed for years in the log and speck parable. In that parable, Jesus is talking about “judging” our brother (by helping take the speck out of his eye, after I have taken the log out of mine).

Who we judge is just as critical as how we judge. When I first discovered this, I was surprised. I and most Christians I know had it all wrong. Paul says:

 “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”

1 corinthians 5:12

Jesus only talked about judging our brothers, and Paul makes it clear this means people in the church. We have no business judging people outside the church. “God will judge those outside.” (1 Cor. 5:13) (This is why we need to preach the gospel to them!)

One take away from this is that any time we feel compelled to judge someone else, we should always first examine ourselves. We should always be careful how we judge, because we how we judge others is how we will each be judged. We should never judge people outside the church – because Jesus came not to condemn, and neither should we; he came to save them.

Notice these themes that Jesus preached:

  • We will be shown mercy as we show mercy to others (Matt. 5:7)
  • We will be forgiven as we forgive others (Matt. 6:15); and
  • We will be judged as we judge others (Matt. 7:2);

Consistent with what Jesus preached, the themes of judgment and mercy are tied together by James:

 “{J]udgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”  (James 2:13)

When James adds that “mercy triumphs over judgment,” he is highlighting a standard that is based on God’s character. God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6); God desires mercy, which is why Jesus came to call sinners to himself (Matt. 9:13); and God desires us to be merciful as He is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

So many people view God as an angry God who is full of wrath and judgment. Nothing could be further from the truth. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8) “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” (Lamentations 3:22)

God is just because he is merciful! Biblical justice is characterized by mercy. Thus, justice without mercy is not biblical justice:

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” 

Isaiah 30:18

But what does this have to do with judging neighbors? Why did James ask the rhetorical question: “Who are you to judge your neighbors?” This question ripples back to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The context in which God told us to love our neighbors is a good place to start with answers to these questions.

Continue reading “How Should We Judge Our Neighbors?” →

What Is the Evidence of the Person Who Claims to Have Faith But is Only Deceived?

We are created by God to bear good fruit.

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One thing about God’s Word is that it is deadly serious. God’s Word is a double-edged sword. It cuts, as it is designed to do, like a scalpel. Paul says poetically that “it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,” and “it judges the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

If you let it do its work in you, it will save your life, just as a surgeon’s scalpel saves lives. It isn’t often comfortable, but it is necessary, and it brings healing to our condition.

In the first chapter of James, he warns, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22 NIV) This is a sober reminder of what Jesus said about building a house on sand and trees that do not bear good fruit.

The person who hears the words of Jesus and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand (Matthew 7:24-27), and trees that do not bear fruit are cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 7:19)

We are created by God to bear good fruit. He plants His seed in us with the hope and the intention that we bear good fruit. If we are truly connected to the Vine (Jesus), we will bear good fruit.

God has a purpose and a design for the world, and he created us to engage Him to be an active, fruitful part of that purpose and design. So, how do we do that?

Continue reading “What Is the Evidence of the Person Who Claims to Have Faith But is Only Deceived?” →