The Right Kind of Compromise

June 2010 Newsletter

What can Moses’ law on animal blood teach us today?

     The early church’s handling of the Old Testament prohibition against eating blood provides today’s church with a wonderful example of Christ-like compromise, Spiritual maturity, and Christian liberty. In Acts 15, the leaders prayerfully—and successfully(!)—handled a hot issue that had the potential to split the church.

     It is beautiful to see that this letter expressed the loving unity of people who had once been debating with each other and defending opposing views. The legalistic Jews willingly gave up insisting that the Gentiles had to be circumcised to be saved, and the Gentiles willingly accepted a change in their eating habits. It was a loving compromise that did not in any way affect the truth of the Gospel. As every married person and parent knows, there are times in a home when compromise is wrong, but there are also times when compromise is right.

What did this decision accomplish in a practical way?

1. First, it strengthened the unity of the church and kept it from splitting into two extreme “Law” and “grace” groups. President Eisenhower called the right kind of compromise “all of the usable surface...”

2. Second, this decision made it possible for the church to present a united witness to the lost Jews (Acts 15:21). For the most part, the church was still identified with the Jewish synagogue; and it is likely that in some cities, entire synagogue congregations believed in Jesus—Jews, Gentile proselytes, and Gentile “God-fearers” together. If the Gentile believers used their freedom in Christ to eat meat containing blood, this would offend both the saved Jews and their unsaved friends whom they were trying to win to Christ. It was simply a matter of not being a stumbling block to the weak or to the lost (Rom. 14:13–21).

     We today can learn a great deal from this difficult experience of the early church. To begin with, problems and differences are opportunities for growth just as much as temptations for dissension and division. Churches need to work together and take time to listen, love, and learn. How many hurtful fights and splits could have been avoided if only some of God’s people had given the Spirit time to speak and to work?

     Christians need to learn the art of loving compromise. They need to have their priorities in order so they know when to fight for what is really important in the church. What a wonderful opportunity to exercise our freedom in Christ and demonstrate our Christian maturity!

     As we deal with our differences, we must ask, “How will our decisions affect the united witness of the church to the lost?” Jesus prayed that His people might be united so that the world would believe in Him (John 17:20–21). Unity is not uniformity, for unity is based on love and not law. There is a great need in the church for diversity in unity (Eph. 4:1–17); that is the only way the body can mature and do its work in the world.

For the Kingdom,
-bill

Note: Portions of this are adapted from W. Wiersbe’s commentary works.

A Salute to Moms

Mother’s Day 2010

Scripture

Rom 16.1-13, esp. 13 (NLT)

John 2.1-3 (NLT)

Quotes

Rudyard Kipling:

If I were hanged on the highest hill, I know whose love would follow me still.
Mother of mine, Mother of mine.

If I were drowned in the deepest sea, I know whose tears would come down to me.
Mother of mine, Mother of mine.

If I were damned by body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole.
Mother of mine, Mother of mine.

Anonymous

Wherever I wander; wherever I roam;
wherever mother is; there is home.

Resources

Pictures from Israel Pilgrimage (Online Album)

What is the Church?

May 2010 Newsletter

May this old children’s hymn touch our hearts, and may we always remember the faith we held as children.

I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus, All around the world! Yes, we're the church together.

The church is not a building, The church is not a steeple;
The church is not a resting place, The church is a people!
And when the people gather, There's singing and there's praying;
There's laughing and there's crying; sometime All of it saying:

I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together!

All who follow Jesus, All around the world! Yes, we're the church together.

We're many kinds of people, With many kinds of faces,
All colors and all ages, too, From all times and places.
I count if I am ninety, Or nine, or just a baby;
There's one thing I am sure about, And I don't mean maybe:

I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus, All around the world! Yes, we're the church together.

One of Many Faces for Jesus,

-bill

Straight Talk: 4 of 4

Where do I Go From Here?

 

Scripture

Luke 9.23-24

Matthew 7.21

Philippians 2.9

Matthew 16.15

Acts 2.37-38

1 Peter 3.21

Quotes

We usually begin our journey toward God thinking, “What do I have to do to get this or that from him?”  But, eventually we have to begin asking: “What do I have to do to get Him?”

A Christian is literally, “Christ’s One”

Bono interview with Michka Assayas; The Reason for God: pg 229, f

Repentance is not less than being truly sorry, but it means much more.

It’s not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that saves you.

 

Resources

Keller, Tim: The Reason for God

Straight Talk: 3 of 4

Was Jesus Religious?

Scripture

Romans 7.14-25

Gen 11

Luke 9.23-24

 

Quotes

“The gospel is not so much concerned with what as it is concerned with why.”

Religion: building your identity on moral achievements
Irreligion: building your identify on any other secular pursuit

Religion: Salvation through moral effort
Christianity: Salvation through grace

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others…[But as] I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect…at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde.”

Tim Keller, The Reason for God

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself or less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.”

 

Resources

Reading

Keller, Tim: The Reason for God

 

Sites

www.podcast.billmesaeh.com (download or hear the series again)

the ONLY question...

…that matters for those hoping to affect change in the Church:

“Is this aimed at bringing as many new people to Jesus as possible?”

If that’s your goal, then you should be a part of the conversation. If it isn’t, then you can’t. If we’re not always asking and answering that question, then we’re not a church.

Jesus gave us that kind of singular, unmistakable focus to help keep us on track.

¹⁷ When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Mark 2.17, NLT)

Straight Talk: 1 of 4

How Can I Know God Exists?

Scripture

Gen 1.1

Psalm 19.1-4

Rom 1.19-20

Job 38.1-11

Col 1.15-16

Quotes

-Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

“Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the Universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. Their reactions provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind—supposedly a very objective mind—when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in our profession. It turns out the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict with the evidence. We become irritated, we pretend the conflict does not exist, or we paper over it with meaningless phrases.”

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”

“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every start, every planet, every living thing in the cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover….That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; his is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Arthur Eddington

“The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

Francis Crick

“Biologist must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”

Richard Lewontin

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

Resources

Reading

Geisler, Normal & Frank Turek: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

Keller, Tim: The Reason for God

Jastrow, Robert: God and the Astronomers (Note: I have not read this entire book and am not giving a full endorsement)

For more information on various apologetic-related topics, including Cambrian Explosion, abiogenesis, homochirality, and Christian documents, go to: http://www.billmesaeh.com/Xnty%20&%20Xn%20Living.htm#Christianity_101

Sites

www.bethinking.org (general apologetics)

www.answersingenesis.org (strengths of creationism)

www.podcast.billmesaeh.com (download or hear the series again)