Tag Archives: Christianity

From the Archives: Jesus Was Not Religious

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During his lifetime Jesus was an observant Jew.  But doing more and more religious things is not the same as living a life that is being transformed into the image of Christ.  The following was originally published June 22, 2009.

I’ve said before that the problem with religion is that it’s easier than following Jesus.  It is usually a given that something is wrong with us, wrong with the world, perhaps critically or else just a little off, but most people agree that something must be done because all is not right in the world as it is.  Religion, in most cases, offers us the chance to do something.  If we read the right book, say the right things, act right, talk right and treat each others the right way we can “fix” what is wrong.  Religion, as such, is worthless.  But what could I mean that Jesus was not religious?

The religious leaders of his day were the Pharisees, and a careful reading of the Gospels shows that Jesus never really had much good to say about them.  He was always willing to share with anyone seeking to understand the truth (i.e. Nicodemus), but as a group Jesus was most likely to call them hypocrites, false teachers, spiritually blind, and sometimes worse.  Continue reading →

Not Enough Hours in the Day

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There are posts filed away that were started and never finished.  I have ideas that never got as far as unfinished posts.  There are things I would like to share that are just never going to happen.  There are just not enough hours in the day for me to blog everything I would like to.

Blue Like Jazz (written by Donald Miller, see also Searching for God Knows What) has been made into a movie.   It opens April 13th.  I saw this a couple of days ago about Barack Obama’s Christianity, and read an interesting article asking “Who is authorized to Baptize?” at SBC Voices.  I wish I could read everything on the Christian blogosphere and link to everything you should read, but for the time being I’ll leave that to Paul Wilkinson (Wednesday Link List) and Jeff Dunn (Saturday Ramblings on Internet Monk).  I rely on those guys to keep me informed.

Maybe I want too much.  Isn’t that always the way?  We’re in full time ministry, raising a two-year-old, and I’m trying to finish a book.  The same book I’ve started three times already, this time making it to chapter six.  Sometimes I daydream about starting a vlog, but I started a Bible Survey website that never got out of Genesis.  I probably don’t need to do more, but focus on doing a better job at what’s already on my plate.  Still, I look at these guys that post 3 or 4 times a day, often more than I do in a week, and think how do they do that?  Must be nice.

Welcome to the World

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A straw man is an argument set up by one’s opponent that can easily be defeated.  This video is quite condemning of Christianity as an organized religion.  If all these things were true I probably wouldn’t be a Christian either.  Watch the video a couple of times, and perhaps take a minute to calm down.  You may need a dose of Maalox, then consider these counter points:

  • You WERE NOT born worthless.  If Christians are teaching this as doctrine they need to be slapped, not the makers of this film.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.  There is no person without worth, regardless of the judgements passed by the world or by Christians. Continue reading →

The Gospel of the Old Testament

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Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the Gospels in that they tell the story of the life of Jesus.  Jesus preaches in Mark 1 “repent and believe in the gospel.”  More than those four books, gospel means good news.  Jesus died for our sins; he is the way, the truth and the life; he brings the New Covenant, and we are no longer under the Law; all things things are part of the gospel message.  Paul says the Law is bad news; it cannot make us righteous, only more guilty.  But there is more to the Old Testament than the Law, and it’s not all bad news.

The Bible has many stories and characters, but only one message.  (Have you read this?)  The Old Covenant was about keeping the Law and bearing the mark of circumcision.  Paul has many analogies about the difference between the Law and the Gospel; the Gospel brings life, the Law only brings death.  But my point is that there is plenty of good news in the Old Testament as well.  It is part of God’s message. Continue reading →

How to Mix Christianity with Patriotism

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This isn’t really about how to mix Christianity with patriotism.  There are plenty of people already doing that.  But if you’re a follower, either online or in real life, you know that’s one of those things that makes me a little nervous.  I’ve been an American since birth and a Christian since age 12, but one is not synonymous with the other.  I get a little weird when Christians quote those Old Testament land promises God gave the Jews and act like those are about us.  A literal kingdom with borders and a king on the throne – that’s what God was doing then.  The kingdom he is building now is bigger than any one nation or one people.  We don’t live in a “Christian nation” either, and on that point I run the risk of starting a war of rhetoric.  We live in a free nation in which many people choose to practice Christianity without fear; but many choose not to as well.  The melting pot of many cultures, languages, races and religions is an essential part of our national identity.  We are not a Christian nation for instance the way Iran or Afghanistan are Muslim nations.  These are sermons I’ve preached before and I don’t want to get too distract before saying

However… Continue reading →

Where is God?

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Where is God? Lots of people have a take on where God might be. Atheists believe that there is no god of any kind, anywhere. Agnostics believe there may be a god or some type of higher power, but we either don’t know what that is or perhaps we cannot know. Deists believe the universe was set into motion like the gears of a clock, but that we are tiny and insignificant to such an omnipotent God. Then there’s New Agers, Scientologists, Oprah and so forth. Some spend their entire lives looking for God, but he isn’t hard to find. The truth is it should be hard to miss God. Continue reading →

Book Review: Jesus Died for This?

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Jesus Died for This? by Becky Garrison came out in August.  (Why I’m just reviewing it now is kind of a long story.)  In this volume Garrison reports as a pilgrim, a sojourner on a quest to find out whatever happened to Jesus.  She documents her travels from early 2007 to the election hype of 2008, taking her all the way from Jordan and Israel to Seattle and Manhattan.  Along the way she witnessed a lot of “Jesus junk” but also found genuine communities living out the Gospel in small groups of broken individuals. Continue reading →

The Body of Christ

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John Lennon’s quote that “we are more popular than Jesus” sparked controversy and protest once it reached the United States.  That statement, part of a much larger discourse, was taken terribly out of context.  Here’s what Lennon really said:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.

Lennon was commenting on the decline of Christianity in England (and all of Europe for that matter) and over there no one even got upset.  In it’s context, what Lennon was saying was true. Continue reading →

More Popular than Jesus

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Update: this is a very good introduction.  Read the whole thing here.

Yesterday, Oct. 9, would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday.  Huge crowds gathered across the street from his former New York apartment, at the appropriately named Strawberry Fields Park.  He’s still fondly remembered, both here and in the UK, some 30 years after his death.  Google honored his birthday with their first animated doodle.

Back in 1966, protests and violence erupted in the United States after Datebook quoted Lennon on the cover of their magazine saying that the Beatles had become “more popular than Jesus.”  Concerts were cancelled, KKK members rallied, the Fab Four once thought they were the target of gunfire.  Well… here’s what Lennon had really said:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.

We still remember Lennon 30 years later; and despite what you see on the covers of Time, U.S. News & World Report and so on every Easter, Christians still remember Jesus some 2,000 years later.  Lennon had studied many religions extensively.  There are much more vocal enemies of Christian faith today than anything he said back then.  Perhaps he was just ahead of his time.

“His disciples were thick and ordinary.”  Yes they were; and yes we are.  And we the body of Christ.  That my friends is the Gospel.

Jesus Would Not Burn a Koran

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Last Wednesday I asked the question “Would Jesus burn a Koran?”  I was responding to recent events in the news regarding Terry Jones and his Gainesville, FL church.  Jones and company will be hosting Burn a Koran Day on September 11th, marking the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

That post was somewhat stream of conscience as I worked through the issues and hoped we would all arrive at the same conclusion.  I have worked those ideas into a sermon, with more focus on exactly what Jesus would do and why.  The major points are:

  1. In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us to live counter-culturally.  He speaks on anger, retaliation, going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, and the golden rule. Continue reading →