Love the Church

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Revelations 19:6-8 ESV

Revelation, the last bookend of the book, depicts the coming of the Lord and the end times. After depictions of coming wrath, we witness the vision of the coming Lord. The Bride has made herself ready. The Bride, the Church from all places, times, and peoples will be united as one.  She has been preparing herself for this final union, clothing herself in beautiful linens. What kind of linens?

These are the righteous acts of the saints.

From the past to the present, till the day the Lord returns, the Church has, is, and will be preparing herself. This clothing is not just reserved for the future, but we are clothing her now, in the immediate. Our deeds are not just grandiose acts that affect peoples and nations, but also the day to day choices we make, the moments in the mundane.

The Proof Text Generation pt. 2

Last week I wrote about how we tend to proof text Scripture. I talked about how it is often taken out of context. The question is, how do we read it in context?

Reading the Context

If we know that proof texting is wrong, how do we avoid it? We look at the context. Christianity Today recently put out an article about how Matthew Vines misuses context to support his claims. He uses some context, but he doesn’t use it well. So how do we use context?

Ken Berding, professor at Biola University, gives five helpful tips for avoiding proof texting and reading the Bible better. These tips can be summarized as ‘pay attention to context’. But what contexts do we need to be aware of?

Berding points out that we need to be aware of the historical, literary, cultural, scriptural, and big-picture contexts.

A Place for Place in Spiritual Formation: Douglas Harding

This weekend I have the privilege of attending the Biola Center for Christian Thought’s 3rd annual conference. This year’s theme is Psychology and Spiritual Formation. I’ll be posting blogs over the next few days and weeks about the ideas and lectures discussed at the conference.

A Place of “Place” in Spiritual Formation Presented by Douglas Hardy

A few years ago, Biola’s chapel theme was “Sacred Spaces” in which we learned about sacred spaces both in scripture and in our personal lives. I enjoyed the theme and thought there was something worth investigating beyond the normal chapel discussion. So when I saw this paper topic being discussed, I naturally gravitated towards it.

See, Act, Believe

In John 9 Jesus heals a man born blind. The man was not blind because of anything he or his parents had done, but that “the works of God might be displayed in him” (9:3). The man acted in faith and was able to see. God was made known. God’s glory was put on display as a result of one man’s blindness.

Glutton Free

The Vice

Gluttony. Not a word we use much anymore. We’ve replaced it with softer words, like ‘combo meal’, ‘super size’, ‘large’. We view obesity as a health epidemic, which it is, but completely remove the concept of vice from every arising. That is not to say obesity is gluttony. Not everyone who is obese is a glutton and not all gluttons are obese. I would have a hard time accusing someone who’s overweight of being a glutton, since there are several other factors to obesity. And just as obesity is bigger than gluttony, so is gluttony far more than over eating, it’s over indulging. Drinking to drunkenness, drugs, and all sorts of things we indulge in to excess are wrapped up in gluttony.

A Dinner Party with Jesus

“Jesus doesn’t want to eat with you”

I was sitting in the front row of Missions Conference one year when a speaker said something a little different. He said Jesus didn’t want to eat  with the people in the front, but with the ‘sinners in the balcony’. As a young student who loved Jesus, I was frustrated. I wrote down in my notes from that session:

He thinks that Jesus would sit in the balcony, not with the people in the front who are being the Marys. This guy makes me feel unloved by Christ. He’s saying that Jesus isn’t in the church, he’s in the bar. That’s limiting the power of Christ. It’s not that he’s not saying anything good and true, but he is bashing people who are fired up for Jesus. The issue I have with him is that he’s saying that Jesus loves some people more than others.

I thought Jesus loved me less because I sat in the front. Maybe I should sin more for Jesus to love me more? Why should I want to know Jesus if he only cares about those who don’t pursue him? Jesus does some strange things with strange people, but surly this wasn’t one of those, was it?

The question of Jesus’ table fellowship has always been on my mind. Who would Jesus have a dinner party with? I thought maybe Scripture might give a clear answer, so I began looking at who Jesus interacted with, trying to find some sort of criteria.

Jesus Saves: It’s Importance to the Biola Community and the World

This year our university’s theme is From This Place: Proclaiming Good News in a Changing World. We are called to go from this “sacred space” into the world around us, in line with the mission statement of Biola to “impact the world for our Lord Jesus Christ”. We find this idea from Lyman Stewart, oil tycoon and founder of Biola. He placed Biola strategically in the heart of LA, a central hub for world trade both then and now. The original building was meant to look like a fortress from which we engaged the world around it and defended the fundamental faith of Christianity. Over the years, Biola has served its purpose well, impacting the world for Jesus Christ in ways we have long forgotten.

Recently, Biola has become interested in remembering one of these old forms of impact that was used by Lyman Stewart. Stewart was interested in using the newest methods and technologies in sharing the gospel. He was interested in the new technology of neon signs. He invested in two neon signs that say “Jesus Saves”, placing them atop Biola. From there they dominated the Los Angeles skyline atop the highest building, declaring the good news in a changing world from this place. 

Easter: A Celebration

Let me begin by posting John 20:1-23, 30-31, the story of the Resurrection.

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³  So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. ⁴ Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, ⁷ and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to their homes.

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 

Mark’s Sub Sandwich

Torrey has taught me to read the Bible better and better. One of my Torrey professors, Dr. Henderson, taught us that Mark is full of sandwiches. Sandwiches occur when a story is split in half by a story in between. One example is in Mark 11:12-20. Jesus curse a fig tree, Jesus flips the money changers’ table in the temple, then they pass the tree again to see it withered. These stories are purposely placed to show a special connection (Israel and the tree didn’t bear fruit, for example). These sandwiches can be hard to spot, but you can find them if you’re looking.

This morning I was reading and found something interesting.

On Religion

It seems to be a current Christian trend to deny ‘religion’ and cling to ‘relationship’. I once had a t-shirt that said “Not a religion, just a relationship’. When we think of religion we think of Catholicism’s traditions, self righteousness, or fake Christians who go to church just to go. These ideas aren’t appealing. Shouldn’t we redefine what Christianity is today? ‘Religion’ is the basis of the crusades, the inquisition, a jihad, right? We want to separate those from us because those are dirty things done by fake Christians. Check out this video about ‘religion’ and see how much you agree with him.

And yet, despite the current trend, Christianity is religion. The word ‘religion’ has received a bad reputation over the years, so we’ve become repulsed by it. We don’t want to be labeled as “religious”. I read this article where Beiber says “A lot of people who are religious, I think they get lost. They go to church just to go to church” (read the article here).