Remember this.

Musing about the Last Days

In Acts 2, Peter quotes Daniel's prophecy of the last days:

And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams:
and on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and vapor and smoke:
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

“The last days,” Peter goes on to explain in his famous Pentecost sermon, have arrived. The surprising things that people had been hearing and seeing among the Jesus people in Jerusalem were in fact a fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy. The last days, a phrase so loaded with hope and long-deferred expectations, had begun.

But you might notice that not all of Daniel's prophecy had been fulfilled on Pentecost. The latter part (“the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes”) was yet to come. You may also have noticed that all this recalls Jesus' prophecy of “the coming of the Son of Man” in Matthew 24:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

All this is of course part of a larger prophetic teaching of Jesus in answer to the questions put by his disciples: what will be the sign of the closing of “this age.” So you see Jesus hearkening back to Daniel's prophecy and saying, there will be these phenomenal signs in the heavens. You see Peter hearkening back to Daniel in his Pentecost sermon to explain the pentecostal signs, but clearly the celestial phenomenon mentioned by Daniel have not yet taken place. It is only a partial fulfillment.

And all this is of course reminiscent of another New Testament prophecy, given to John near the close of the apostolic era and recorded in Revelation 6, where John is vouchsafed an elaborate vision of the last days:

When [the Lamb] opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth when the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

What is clear through all this is that some of the celestial “signs” prophesied by Daniel, and then repeated by Jesus, by Peter at Pentecost, and finally by John, which will be associated with “the last days,” have not yet taken place. These aspects of Daniel's "last days" prophecy are yet to be fulfilled. They are still to come.

So from all this I am going to surmise a few simple truths concerning “the last days.”

1. The last days have begun. Peter said so, and I believe it.
2. The last days shall culminate in certain dramatic celestial occurrences, just prior to the return of Jesus to establish his everlasting kingdom.
3. The period of time between the beginning of the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy at Pentecost, and the culmination of that fulfillment (“the great and glorious day of the Lord”), is called “the last days” by Daniel. In other words, the period of prophetic fulfillment inaugurated at Pentecost and culminating in the return of Jesus is called “the last days.”
4. Thus, it is safe to say, we are in the last days.

I mention all this, because I have heard much talk by Christians lately as to whether or not we are in the last days. I want to say, well of course we are, but I think what these people really mean is, are we at the very end (or perhaps at the beginning of the end) of the last days? Is the return of Jesus, the end of this age, imminent?

This question seems to distract people endlessly, and otherwise quite sane people get a little crazy. It does no good to remind them that Jesus said “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” They just say, well, yes, maybe we don't know the hour, but what about the day and the month and the year? [No, I'm not kidding.]

Which leads me to ask the question, why might it be that Jesus chose to deflect such questions about the precise timing of “the day of the Lord”? Why didn't he want his disciples thinking in terms of exact timetables, or focused on the when as opposed to the why? Any ideas out there?

Hint: Martin Luther said that we should live like the resurrection happened yesterday and the second-coming will happen tomorrow.

If I was church-shopping....

Scott at From the Pew is a self-confessed church shopper these days. His little list of preferences presents nothing I would disagree with. "Real wine and bread in communion" is one I totally agree with but don't actually expect to find outside of Catholic or Lutheran communions.

Me, I don't actually consider myself a church-shopper right now. Maybe just "browsing." Anyway, having read Scott's list, and assuming the Gospel essentials are there, I too would prefer a singing church, joyful congregational singing. Imagine that. I kind of think it's a vain hope, but I can dream, can't I?

The one that Scott mentions which I totally agree with and which I do think is important concerns church membership. You're a member if you regular assemble there. In other words, no formal church membership program. One day when I'm feeling argumentative I'll write a lengthy post on this subject. I'm 99% sure I'm not going to change my mind between now and then!

Summer, so far

Here in Maine, "summery" weather started only a week or two ago, and now there are distinct signs that it's nearly over. I'm sitting in my front yard right now, on a fine warmish day, while hurricane Bill churns northward about 250 miles to my east. Red and yellow maple leaves lie scattered on the lawn. Full-blown Autumn cannot be far behind.

Well, it takes a touch of melancholy in the soul to speak this way on a warmish August morning in New England. But in any case it has been a good summer. My son Nate has been with us for a while and even painted out house! And life seems good.

I have not attended my own church ina few weeks, and that has eased a certain tension in me that was bound up with Sunday morning church attendance. It has been good to take some time off. I recommend it.

I'm reading Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Alan Timmis. Chester and Timmis have a vision for church life that truly is relational and communal in nature, as opposed to gathering weekly to listen to the master-preacher. Along that line, I'll be dropping by a house church later this week. I'm looking forward to that.

And that's all I've got. Except, here's one of my favorite songs:

This one rocks, in a Gospel-centered kind of way...

Tulian Tchividjian on What is a Gospel-centered Church?

Fretting and Meekness

Take a good look at Pslam 37. Read the whole thing, but the verses I want to focus on are right here:

7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
9 For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

10 In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

Note: fretting and waiting are set against one another. Fretting leads only to evil, but those who wait on the Lord will ultimately "inherit the land."

Note also: those who wait are described as "the meek." the fretters plan out aggressive strategies to get what they want (and thus, they hope, relieve them from the need to fret) but these plans only tend to evil. They are "evil devices." The meek, on the other hand, simply wait, not trying to engineer or manipulate ends of their own devising.

Question: what are you fretting about? Have you noticed how fretting leads to evil? Perhaps you've noticed that in another, but not yourself. When your boss frets, for example, you may notice how it clearly leads to evil, but do you notice this about your own fretting? Or are you an anxiety justifier? If so, go back and read Psalm 37 again. And again.

It's pretty clear the "age of anxiety" is still going strong. But is all our worrying only leading to evil? And evil, by the way, will come to naught. That's the promise of the kingdom. But those who wait patiently, the meek, as Jesus says, will inherit the earth!

Think about that, and then bow down.

Musing about Meekness

"Blessed are the meek," Jesus says, "for they shall inherit the earth." Thinking about this passage yesterday, I was reminded about something James, the brother of Jesus, would later write:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:1-3

Quarreling is of course a product of unmeekness. Each one wants what he or she wants, and that they get it is the overriding concern. But our wants conflict, so the wants of one are set against the wants of the other. It gets extremely complicated and entangling, and frustration--frustrated desires--is the result. In our frustration we bring these desires to God--God, I want it, I want it bad, I've been wanting it for so long, please satisfy my desire!--we ask wrongly. Our wanting becomes a burden, and we want to be rid of wanting, and simply have what we desire, but of course this can never be. Sometimes I think what we really desire is the feeling of not wanting any more, but simply of having. Always having. Like someone who has come into a fortune suddenly, and can always have whatever he wants. So we play the lottery, or we cheat on our taxes, or we go into massive debt, or we quarrel in frustration within our own family, which is made up of other frustrated wanters. Oh who shall save me from this body of death?

The zen answer would be to quit wanting, I suppose, but good luck with that. The Bible answer is, rejoice in the Lord. Look at the last chapter of Philippians, where Paul mentions the names of two who had apparently been quarreling (he must have heard about it from Epaphroditus). He urges them to "agree in the Lord." I'm not exactly sure what that means--maybe they are to focus on their having the Lord in common, though they may disagree about some lesser thing. Anyway, right away Paul says--is it his antidote to quarreling?--"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand."

Odd that he says "reasonableness" here, at least I've always thought it odd. Not a typical Pauline word perhaps. Except that it is the antithesis of quarreling. The ESV Study Bible footnote says of this word: "Reasonableness is crucial for maintaining community; it is the disposition that seeks what is best for everyone and not just for oneself."

Which reminds me of something Paul said earlier in this same letter:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Meekness. You begin to see that our oneness must be Christ-centered. We rejoice in the Lord because Christ has made such rejoicing possible, opening the way. But all our quarreling is self-centered, not Christ-centered.

Years ago, I was in a quarreling church. It was awful. People seemed to have nothing in common except which side they were on in the great ongoing quarrel. It was devestating, sinful, God-dishonoring, Christ-spurning, and a dreadful testimony to the world.

Which brings me back to the meek. Jesus says they're the ones who are going to inherit everything. Yes, the whole world! It's all going to be theirs! James says we quarrel because we desire what we not not have, and by quarreling we hope to get what we desire, but here is James' brother, Jesus, saying by implication, guess what, it doesn't work that way. I'm going to upend your selfish expectations and give everything to the meek, who never fought for anything, and who in this world's system were therefore always the losers in the great game of getting.

Now back to Paul: so why don't you two who have been quarreling just rejoice in the Lord together. What could be more reasonable than that! And instead of pleading with God for that which you've been quarreling for,

"do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

See if you're anxious about nothing, it's going to change the way you pray. Instead of praying in the wrong spirit, out of our frustrated desire, we're praying out of our oneness in Christ, our rejoicing, and I would suggest certain kinds of long-time wants are just going to pale in that atmosphere, and we'll be praying with thanksgiving for what we've been given instead of out of frustrated desires. Amazing! And then the peace of God guards our hearts and minds!

[Cross-posted at Mount Jesus]

In the summertime...

Life is good. I've got one of my boys home for an extended stay (and painting my house, to boot!). Summer has finally arrived in Maine, and I'm sitting in the yard listening to the birds. Cool. It seems like a good time to say:



Also, I'm going to Joshua Otte's church tomorrow, where he will be preaching. Things are almost eucatastrophic around here!

"uranium tipped motivational bullet points"

John Mahshie at Mount Jesus:

I do not believe Jesus ever intended his words to be fired off as uranium tipped motivational bullet points designed to impel people into productivity. However, this is often the case, which produces fruits of fear and condemnation instead of belief, faith, rest and trust in the Lords grace, peace, sovereignty and mercy.

People are unique. Each individual has a unique upbringing, story, outlook, brain chemistry and personality, which have led to the development of their individual disposition, character, habits and (last but certainly not least) paradigm. My purpose in pointing all this out is to acknowledge the fact that every individual possesses certain advantages and/or disadvantages in their ability to accomplish specific tasks. The religious rhetoric that centers around productivity, prudence, diligence and duty ushers in weighty and rigorous rituals that focuses on external results instead of an internal heart change.

Beyond Diagnosis: Jared Wilson's Your Jesus is too Safe.

The diagnosis of the contemporary church in America has been thoroughly hashed out. There's not enough of Jesus in the church! It's now become a familiar lament around the blogosphere, and I am personally grateful to those who have been in the forefront of this diagnostic endeavor. I think particularly of Michael Horton's Christless Christianity. Click on the link and watch the video for a five minute primer on "American pop spirituality."

Okay, as I say, it's a familiar lament. I remember discussing it with an old friend, who answered with deep concern, "So what do we do now?" That was a very good question. And it's a question I didn't really have an answer for. Part of my own agenda these days is to find out how others are answering that very question. People like Tim Chester in Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community, or Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost in ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church.

The danger, of course, has always been to be content with the diagnosis, walking away smugly without even suggesting a healthier approach. Some are calling that approach “missional,” while others are simply calling for a more Christ-centered understanding of the whole of the Christian life. You can of course include Jared Wilson in that category. He's been on my blogroll just about from the beginning, and now he's written a much talked-about book, Your Jesus is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior. It is the antidote to Christless Christianity.

Jared's point is a simple one: get to know the Savior. He may not be the kind of guy you thought he was. Ed Stetzer sums up the point of view nicely in his introduction:

What we need now, as we have always needed, is a far-ranging recovery of awe over, and trust in, the sheer power of the gospel, beginning with a return to the dangerously full embrace of the God of the universe present in the saving, interceding, exalted person of Jesus Christ.

Note the descriptive terms these people are using about Jesus: radical, wild, dangerous. Jared is down with all that. His agenda is to counteract the portrait of Jesus that is more likely culturally-defined than Biblically-defined. He has chapters on “Jesus the Promise,” “Jesus the Prophet,” “Jesus the Forgiver,” etc. He is winsome and colloquial in tone (like the good blogger he is), but also stubbornly insistent about drawing his portrait of Jesus in biblical colors only.

So what would Jared's answer me to my friend's question, “What do we do now?” I think he would say, freshen up on Jesus. Read the Gospels again, and then again. Talk about Jesus with your friends. Take nothing for granted, and try to get discernment when it comes to the ways the world influences your understanding of Jesus. As Jared writes near the end of his book:

The most important way that I've tried to synchronize the disparate portraits [in the four Gospels] is by tracing throughout the entire journey the great unifying presence of the gospel. The gospel is the hope of the world—and these days it's a hope that many inside our churches are just as starved for as those outside. My prayer is that more and more churches in Western evangelicalism will repent of their relegating of the gospel to a place inside the Trojan Horse of attractive programming and performance-driven worship and self-help sermons, and once again herald it boldly as the only and supreme hope of a dying world.

That's a great quote, and I'm tempted to stop there, but Jared is nothing if not quotable (even his footnotes are not necessarily reserved for the usual bibliographic references, but are more often humorous afterthoughts or punchlines). What follows is my favorite lines from the book, and a good example of his trademark blending of humor and high seriousness: It's from the chapter entitled “Jesus the Provision”:

My friends, Jesus is not a pop song, snuggly sweater, affectionate boyfriend, a poster on your wall, self-help book, motivational speech, warm cup of coffee, ultimate fighting champion, knight in shining armor, or Robin to your Batman. He is blood.

And without blood, you die.

That's one for the refrigerator. Thanks, Jared, for taking your redemptive, Christ-centered blogging to the next level.

[BTW: you can read other posts on the YJITS blogtour right here.]

Learning Contentment

It sometimes seems to me that many people would love to hear about your problems, but few really know what to do with your contentment.

If the substance of most of your conversation is discontent, people feel right at home. They feel good about giving advice and adding you to their prayer list. They are able to fit you into a familiar and often-utilized mental compartment.

Sometimes I sense that my Christian acquaintances only want to get together to "share" their problems. Over time, it gets to seem like Christians, though they may wax joyful about God from time to time, are not particularly satisfied with their lives.

Now, they may have very good reasons not to be. Life is struggle. But how much of our dissatisfaction is really just cultural conditioning? Television, for example, continually reinforces our discontentment with our looks, our smell, our homes, our cars, our sex-appeal, our current tooth-brush, etc.

So I'm just wondering. I'm not suggesting people should walk around in some kind of vacuous bubble. But most of our supposed woes are those that the flesh is heir to, and will be with us until the end. In other words, whatever level of contentment we are able to experience will be experienced in the midst of these woes, not necessarily as a result of their being taken away.

I wonder how we will ever get to the point that Paul had arrived at late in life. Here is Paul, writing to the Philippians, who had sent him a gift during his Roman imprisonment:

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We like to quote that last bit to one another, but if we believed it we wouldn't be so focused on our troubles. But how do we get to this point? I will note that this was "learned behavior" for Paul. It was not a sudden miraculous download from God, but a discipline that he developed through years incredible hardship. Disciplined Contentment!

But what's the process? How do we "learn" contentment? Well, that passage just quoted is in Philippians 4:10-13. Go back a few verses and you'll see that it is really Paul's summary of the kind of life that results from doing this:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Kind of reminds me of something Jesus said:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Look, I get anxious. I had a day last week, Wednesday . . . well, forget about it. There is often conflict in me, a warring within myself, so that everything I try to build comes out crooked and rickety. But I do think I am learning to be content, little by little. It's amazing, actually, and I thank God, for the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places (Ps. 16:6).

Glory Bound

When I hear that trumpet sound / I will lay my burden down / I will lay it in the ground / then you'll know I'm glory bound.



The band is called The Wailin' Jennys, best band-name I've heard in a while.

How to read the Bible

Well, I gave my son ReJesus by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, and look, he's blogging about it. And of course, it's fascinating.

"Pour it upon the ground."

Check this out. They are the words of 1th century Puritan preacher Thomas Goodwin:

If a man had killed your friend, or father, or mother, how would you hate him! You would not endure the sight of him, but follow the law upon him. Send out the avenger of blood with a hue and cry after thy sin; bring it afore God’s judgment seat, arraign it, accuse it, spit on it, condemn it and thyself for it, have it to the cross, nail it there, if it cry I thirst, give it vinegar, stretch the body of sins upon his cross, stretch every vein of it, make the heart strings crack; and then when it hangs there, triumph over the dying of it, show it no pity, laugh at its destruction, say, Thou hast been a bloody sin to me and my husband, hang there and rot. And when thou art tempted to it, and art very thirsty after the pleasure of it, say of that opportunity to enjoy it, It is the price of Christ’s blood, and pour it upon the ground.

[HT: Tony Reinke]

Concerning Moral Insiders

Here's an excerpt from Tim Keller's Prodigal God:

Throughout the centuries, when this text is taught in church or religious education programs, the almost exclusive focus has been on how the father freely receives his penitent younger son. The first time I heard the parable, I imagined Jesus’s original listeners’ eyes welling with tears as they heard how God will always love and welcome them, no matter what they’ve done.

We sentimentalize this parable if we do that. The targets f this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them. It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.

No, the original listeners were not melted into tears by this story but rather they were thunderstruck, offended, and infuriated.

Read more here.

Wolves

I'm no heresy-hunter or blogging guardian of the faith, but I just wanted to mention something I've been hearing a lot about lately from "Christian" sources. Maybe you've heard the one about how "the world" is going to give its wealth to the church in the end times! One prophet/guru guy (who shall remained un-hyperlinked) says we need to start "thinking like billionaires" in order to position ourselves for the great flow of cash that is going to come to Christians in the end times.

Ummm, that's just poop.

Anyway, have you noticed that these prophetic Christian gurus always present their case in the form of:

1. We are in the end times
2. The Bible says [though often in some veiled or coded manner only discernable to the great prophet] that in the end times such-and-such will take place
3. Therefore, you should . . . buy my latest dvd series on how to be ready for such-and-such

Anyway, this sort of thing has always been around, it doesn't surprise me much, but I admit I can still be surprised by the propensity of Christians not to see through this stuff. In the NT, whenever people get to talking about the "end times," there's one particular warning that frequently repeats, but none of these end-times-prophets of our day ever seem to mention it. In other words, people are looking for this sign or that sign proclaimed as "near" by the guru, but they never look for the one sign that Matthew, Mark, Paul, Peter, and John all mention. Here's a sample:

Matt 24:11
Matt. 24:24
Mark 13:22
2Cor 11:13
2Thes 2:9-11
1Tim 1:3
2Peter 2:1
1John 4:1

See what I mean? They all warn against false prophets coming along in the end times, misleading many. So why then isn't that the sign these people are looking out for, since it's apparently the sign that all the major NT authors very clearly warned about. In other words, if assertion 1 above is true, then assertion 2 ought to be, therefore be watchful for wolves disguised as sheep, invading the community of believers and misleading many.

I'm just sayin' . . .

Fight Clubs

Jonathan Dodson's book, Fight Clubs: Gospel Centered Discipleship is now available free in pdf. This is very exciting to me, because Jonathan is one of those people who connects the dots between Gospel-centrality and daily life. I urge you to check it out.