The World’s Worst “Wife Birthday” Card

Posted on 04/18/2011 by Paul Pavao

Today I found the worst “wife birthday” card ever.

I was at WalMart (yes, I confess I was shopping at Corporate Evil HQ) for a birthday card for my wife, and I found one that said … Well, I’ll have to paraphrase because I can’t remember word for word:

Dear wife,
I love you because you understand me. You love me despite my faults, and you see me for who I am.

What???

Now, I want you to pause here, look away, and decide whether you agree that’s a really terrible card. If you don’t understand, then what I’m about to tell you will change your life and your relationship with everyone.

Pause, pause, pause, while you’re not looking and deciding why it’s a terrible card.

…

The World’s Worst “Wife’s Birthday” Card

Can you paraphrase what that card says? Here, let me give you a different paraphrase:

“I love you because you think about me and let me talk about myself even when it’s your birthday. You’re not bothered by the fact that I can’t get my mind off myself.”

If you’re a Christian, you have to do a lot better than that—and with more than your wife.

At Rose Creek Village, we like to say that if you want to speak into another person’s life, you have to answer three questions for them: Do you love me? Do you see me? Do you care?

You can answer those questions with your eyes or with your words. You can answer that question in advance by the way you treat the person that you’re talking to. But in some way, you need to answer those questions—and answer them all with yes—before you can really expect them to hear what you have to say.

That world’s worst wife’s birthday card doesn’t answer those questions, it asks them.

Husbands, at least on your wife’s birthday, surely you can answer those questions for her, not tell her you appreciate that she answers those questions for you! Talk about selfish! Good grief.

If you’re one of those guys who would have bought a card like that, then it’s time to look at yourself ONE LAST TIME. Acknowledge your selfishness, repent, and forget about whether anyone, including your wife, understands you. UNDERSTAND THEM INSTEAD!

I think it was Frances of Assissi who prayed:

Father, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all of my heart

Time to pray that prayer, then buy a card that talks about her, not you.

A Final Note

Some years back, I used to run a warehouse by myself. Every day UPS would come by and pick up the packages I’d packed. The UPS driver was a real chatty fellow, very pleasant to be around.

Anyway, he’d get to telling stories, and then he’d stop and say, "Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?"

He was joking. Make sure when you act like that, you are, too.

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Grant’s Tomb and the Words of God

Posted on 04/16/2011 by Paul Pavao

"Get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding." – Proverbs 4:5

Recently I saw a movie called Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. There’s a modern remake, but I saw the 1936 version with Gary Cooper. Really good movie. I love romances, and this one was both humorous and insightful into human nature.

Anyway, at one point Gary Cooper, playing Longfellow Deeds, gets to see Grant’s Tomb for the first time in his life. The worldly-wise female reporter, who obviously was going to become the other half of the romance, says, “Well, there it is.” She clearly expects him to be disappointed, and she comments that most people are.

He then says, "Do you know what I see? I see an Ohio country boy who grows up to be a general in the United States Army. I see Lee surrendering to that Ohio boy. I see him standing and taking the oath to be president of the United States. That could only happen in a country as great as ours."

Grant's Tomb, public domain

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

It really wasn’t that moving of a scene, but it distinctly highlighted the difference that attitude can make.

I know people that are excited all the time about the Word of God. They are excited when they read the Bible. They are excited when they hear preaching and teaching. They are excited when people speak into their lives.

Free Gift

Here’s a little free gift that has nothing to do with today’s post: What’s the difference between preaching and teaching?

In modern parlance, nothing really. But in Scripture, there’s a very significant difference. For example, in 1 Tim. 2:7 and 2 Tim. 1:11 Paul describes himself as both a preacher and a teacher in the same sentence. If you look through the two words that are translated "preach" in most Bibles—euangelizo and kerusso—you’ll see that they are exclusively used of proclaiming the Gospel to the lost. Teaching, on the other hand, is for the church.

When we call a pastor a preacher, we lose the Scriptural distinction between a shepherd and an evangelist. Bad move, in my opinion.

The fact is, though, that we have already lost the distinction, and most pastors do very little actual shepherding, but instead are held responsible if the church isn’t growing! Hmm …

What’s even more amazing is that these people can listen to some pretty boring and occasionally rather shallow teaching and still be excited.

Why? Because the Word of God is the Word of God. It is the very life of a disciple. Thus, they happily sit through an hour of chopping rock to get one precious gem. (That’s supposed to be a mining analogy, which I point out just in case poor writing or my poor understanding of mining makes the analogy unclear.)

But how many of us struggle to find some time to read the Scriptures. How many of us sit through good or very good teaching, loaded with precious gems, yet complain because 50% of the teaching time was like chopping rock. Or worse, we complain if even 10% of the teaching time was a little slow.

We’re lazy people. We want the riches of God handed to us. We can find a YouTube video of some spectacular teacher, who never lets one minute of his sermon get boring. Why should we labor our way through the disorderly words of some lover of God who has to struggle to get his point across to us.

When Longfellow Deeds saw Grant’s Tomb, he didn’t see an unimpressive building. He saw an idea. He saw the sweat and labor of pioneers and soldiers.

It’s the exact same kind of thinking that makes the difference between a disciple, who is granted access to the treasures of God, and a member of an audience, who is happily entertained but for the most part granted access only to “strong delusion,” following the many in blissful ignorance of what Jesus said about what road the many travel on.

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Making Christian History Exciting and Interesting

Posted on 04/08/2011 by Paul Pavao

This is a shameless, self-promotion of my ebook. It’s a reprint of my Christian History Newsletter.

I’m allowing myself to do both because the general reaction to the ebook—It’s a full-fledged 440-page book on the Council of Nicea—has been surprise that it’s so interesting. This blog explains why they’re surprised, and why we shouldn’t be.

Ready?

The Council of Nicea transformed the faith to which you and I belong. But who knows?

Christian history doesn’t arouse images of excitement and urgency. When I write “the Council of Nicea,” almost no one thinks, “This will be fun!”

That’s not the fault of the story. The Council of Nicea could easily be a Hollywood movie. Intrigue, murder, vying for power, sinister plots, religious hypocrisy, but also some gallant, earnest, and courageous men and women.

The motto of Christian History for Everyman has always been that we’re rescuing our heritage and stories from the boring halls of academia. Think about it. What is history? Isn’t it the collection of stories and facts that we think are the most interesting, exciting, and memorable of all time?

How could that be boring?

It’s a saying that truth is stranger than fiction. We all can think of instances where we’ve said, “That’s too far out to be made up.”

Hollywood gives us, mostly, the made-up stuff.

Exciting as that is, real history’s BETTER!

In the Beginning Was the Logos

I’m releasing a book today (an ebook; the printed version will be available around May 15). Only friends have read it so far, and the universal reaction is:

  • Wow. I never dreamed this would be interesting!

Of course it’s interesting!!!

You have to work to make the Council of Nicea boring. You have to work even harder to make the Council of Nicea boring for Christians.

  • It affects your faith!
  • This is your heritage!
  • It’s full of fascinating twists and turns and the most incredible scheming!

Arius, the man who started all the hoopla, was excommunicated by a council of over 100 bishops.

Why didn’t that simply resolve the issue?

The answer is that a distant relative of the emperor used his political influence to move himself from the insignificant town of Berytus to the residence of the emperor in Nicomedia. His name was Eusebius, and he hated the bishop of Alexandria–the very man who had led the excommunication of Arius.

Further, both Arius and Eusebius had been taught by an elder from Antioch named Lucian. Lucian had been out of communion with the church of Antioch for at least 16 years and possibly 35. Later, though, he’d returned, was martyred, and today he’s “Saint” Lucian, whose feast day is celebrated every year on January 7.

Eusebius gave Arius just the leg up he needed, and the rest, as they say is history.

But what history!

In their efforts to have the bishop of Alexandria framed for some crime and removed, Eusebius managed to get hold of a severed human hand. He claimed that the bishop of Alexandria had tortured a bishop who agreed with Arius, then cut off his hand to use in magic rites.

Unfortunately, the supposedly tortured elder, named Arsenius, couldn’t contain his curiosity. So he turned up in a tavern not far from the court.

He was spotted.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The stories are incredible. The twists, delightful. The information, crucial.

The Bishop of Alexandria

I mentioned the bishop of Alexandria above. I actually mentioned two of them, but I didn’t tell you because it seemed a distraction. Eusebius hated both of them.

One excommunicated Arius and battled Eusebius at the Council of Nicea. The other was Nicea’s greatest champion afterward.

How did that first bishop meet the second?

That story, too, is fascinating, but I’m not telling it to you here.

The Book

If you’re getting this newsletter, then you’ve been to Christian-history.org, and you liked something enough to sign up for my newsletter. I haven’t had time to do the newsletter since December because I’ve been writing this book, which was research-intensive, to say the least.

Hopefully, if you’ve read much of my site at all, you know the incredible effort I put into every page. I don’t gloss over things. I research them, and I tell you where the stories came from. Whenever possible, I tell you stories from the people who were there.

In the Beginning Was the Logos is no different.

The Council of Nicea made some decisions. Their creed is recited in millions of churches every week to this day.

I want to show you that almost every church that recites it pays very little attention to what it says.

Two Men Named Eusebius

There was another man named Eusebius at the Council of Nicea. He was a historian, and he was having some trouble with both sides of the debate.

So when the creed was formed, Eusebius the historian asked some questions. He asked lots of questions. Then he wrote a letter.

  • “We have all concurred, but not without due examination.”
  • “On justifiable grounds we resisted to the last moment”
  • “[We] received them without dispute when, on mature deliberation … they appeared to agree”

He asked the meaning of every controversial expression in the creed. Then he wrote to his church and told them what the council itself said those words meant.

Does anyone care? Why would we forget such things?

They brawled in bars over these words, and they beat each other–quite literally to death–in the streets over these things.

Why? What was so important?

What can we learn from this most momentous event in the history of the church?

I believe that this is the easiest to understand, the easiest to verify, the most interesting, and the most believable book answering those questions that exists.

What I’m hoping is that this email and what you’ve seen on my site makes you believe me enough to find out. I’ve convinced the friends who know and trust me. They expressed genuine surprise as well as some joy that this history can belong to them as well. But can I convince you?

It’s an ebook right now. It will also be in print in about a month. You can buy it now at:

That link will take you straight to Christian History for Everyman’s page about the book.

For this blog and for the Christian History Newsletter, I’m offering half price, at $9.95, until April 15. (This book is over 400 pages. It’s a full treatment of the subject, and it’s quick-paced all the way through.) I’ll put the price back to $19.95 the next day and advertise it on Christian History for Everyman as well. For now, it’s just those who read this blog and get my newsletter that can get the book!

You will never have felt so close to history before, and you will never have been more confident that you know what, where, who, and why about any other event of history. This event matters to all of us.

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Church or Weekly Speech?

Posted on 04/03/2011 by Paul Pavao

Today, when we stopped for our lunch in the midst of our travels, I watched Dr. Drew on TV.

The emphasis here is on “watch.” There was no sound. I was in a restaurant. It was apparent that Dr. Drew was in church, speaking very dramatically and with excellent hand gestures and body movements. Otherwise, I know nothing about him. I never heard about him before I saw his name on the screen after his speech.

I like entertaining speakers. I like them even better if they have something worthwhile to say. I listened to Zig Ziglar in person once, about 25 years ago, and I was impressed. I also thought, and think, his motivational ideas and positive attitude towards life are worth following.

In fact, what I remember from his speech is his wonderful, positive attitude and all the glowing things he said about his wife, “the redhead.”

I like Rob Bell, too. Excellent, excellent, speaker, and once more I’m recommending everyone listen to his excellent teaching called Covered in the Dust of Your Rabbi.

Christians should hear inspiring teachings like the ones Rob Bell gives. They should read articles by N.T. Wright. They should even occasionally catch people like Zig Ziglar, and at least once they ought to read How to Win Friends and Influence People.

But I wish there were some way to communicate how ludicrous it is to call a speech a church!!!

The Church

The Church is wonderful.

  • It is the body of Christ, the Son of God seated at the right hand of God in heaven. Thus, the church is a people moved and animated by Jesus Christ!
  • It is the household of God. What better family could a person be in than one in which God himself is the Father? What care, what joy, what power, and even what fun that family must have!
  • It is a place where extra money comes in solely to be held for the care of those who are short of money. What wonderful love the members of the church must have for one another!
  • It is people whose love comes not from themselves, but from the Holy Spirit. God’s love—that love which is deeper, more practical, and more insightful than any human love—is "shed abroad" in their hearts, available abundantly for all to partake of.
  • It is the people among whom everyone is needed, and where no one is independent or completely self-reliant because none of them are able to say they don’t need the others.
  • It’s the people where your every pain and joy is shared because it’s a body with the blood and life of Christ flowing between them and giving them a shared life.
  • It’s the pillar and support of the truth, where the members can come together and be led by the Anointing into what is true and not a lie, so that we no longer have to wonder about direction for our lives.

The Weekly Speech and Songs

Weekly speeches are also wonderful … though not as wonderful as the church, of course.

  • The Weekly Speech is a place to learn potentially life-changing truths.
  • The Weekly Speech is a place to be entertained by a skilled speaker and a skilled singer and also get to participate in inspiring group singing and praise.
  • If you attend the right weekly speech, it can be a good place to meet people who are in God’s family, though the vast majority don’t actually participate in that family.
  • The Weekly Speech is a place to contribute up to ten percent of your income—based on a grossly-misused Old Testament command—to professionals and programs while people all around you—who don’t know you and thus are embarrassed to tell you—lose their jobs, their houses, their cars, and move in with a biological relative because although they’ve been told they’re in God’s family, they don’t actually know anyone in God’s family who would do the same for them.

I better quit. I tried to check the sarcasm, but it just came gushing out.

The Travesty of the Church

"Travesty" means "an exaggerated or grotesque imitation" (TheFreeDictionary.com).

It is amazing to me that we can read the Bible and claim it’s our "sole rule for faith and practice," and then join a Weekly Speech club and say we’re joining the church! Have we really paid no attention to the Scriptures that produced the description of the church I gave above?

"Grotesque imitation" seems like a very fair description of the Weekly Speech when it masquerades as the church.

An Illustration

Let’s say I ran across some poor, lonely person with nowhere to live, and I said, "You don’t have to be without a family anymore; you can join my family!"

"Really?" asks this person, whom I’m about to con in a most terrible manner.

"Yes, really! It’s a great family, too, filled with a supernatural love."

"What do I have to do?" this poor sucker asks.

"You just show up for our weekly meeting," I explain. "There, we’ll sing some songs together, and my dad will give you an inspiring speech to help you know how to live life. Oh, and in between, we’ll collect ten percent of your income. Then you can go away for a week. Do call occasionally if you need some counseling, and if dad’s not busy working, he can give you some."

Isn’t that great? What an awesome way to join a family!

Enough said.

Lighting a Candle

I’ve pointed out the darkness. Let me light a candle.

Weekly speeches are good. Attend them if you want. Maybe once a month or something. More if you find a really good one. They can be a good place to meet other Christians who have been deceived into thinking they’ve joined a church.

But do this, too:

  • Quit paying them an Old Testament tithe. They’re not Israelite priests, and you don’t live in Israel. Even if they were and you did, you should be keeping 2/3 of your tithe to spend on good food and strong drink at the yearly festivals (Deut. 14). Good speakers can get by on a lot less than that.
  • Join a real church that’s like what I described above. That’s almost impossible to find, but Christians aren’t. Get involved with some (try meetup.com, googling "men’s breakfast," or attending a Weekly Speech and actually talking to people about getting together like family.
  • I’ve never been among committed Christians where I couldn’t find several that, when removed from the pressure to "be a witness," didn’t admit to being lonely, confused, or in doubt. Find one or more of those, and meet their need. That’s what family does. You’ll get off to a much better start if you’re concerned about someone else’s need rather than your own.
  • You don’t have to create that family with such people. By the blood of Jesus, you already are family. The Scriptures command us to maintain the unity of the Spirit, not create it.
Posted in Church, Modern Doctrines, Unity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Untranslated Words in the Bible; A Rant

Posted on 03/26/2011 by Paul Pavao

There are numerous words in our English Bible that aren’t translated, but transliterated. Sometimes that’s not a big deal, but there are some cases that it’s at best a theological cop-out and at worst purposeful deceit.

Baptizo

An example of transliteration, rather than translation, is rendered baptizo as baptize rather than dip, plunge, immerse, or drench.

With baptizo I understand. I once read a list of the various ways baptizo is used in Greek literature. It’s used even of a wave “baptizing” a beach. In almost every case, the object being “baptized” was completely soaked.

On the other hand, the Didache, a very early church manual. mentions that while immersing in a flowing river or stream was the preferred means of baptism, it’s acceptable to pour three times over the head as well. The Didache was written in Greek, so we English-speakers can’t accuse the writer of misunderstanding baptizo.

Others, though, I’m not okay with.

Angelos

Angelos is used 186 times in the New Testament. 179 of those times, it’s rendered as “angel,” which means it’s transliterated, not translated.

The word means messenger, not angel. It’s stupid—there’s probably a better word I should be using—to render it angel. Worse, it’s not very honest to render it angel 179 times, then never let people know that in the few cases where it refers to an earthly messenger, rather than a heavenly one, you translated it as messenger.

For example, when the Scriptures talk about John the Baptist being sent as a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord, it uses the word angelos (Matt. 11:2; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27). Jesus sent messengers into Samaria in Luke 9:52. The word there is also angelos (well, angeloi, the plural). John’s messengers, sent to ask Jesus whether he was really the one, are referred to with the same word (Luk. 7:24).

Hebrew’s worse. Malak is rendered angel 111 times, messenger 98 times, and ambassador 4 times.

Don’t you think we’d understand better if angelos and malak were actually translated? Gabriel’s not an angel, he’s a messenger. Yes, he’s a heavenly messenger, and a powerful being, but he’s a messenger. That’s what the word means.

Maybe Gabriel didn't look like we think he did …
(Jeremiah Briggs has this image for sale.)

Seraphim

I have a whole web page on this one. This one irritates me because I find it dishonest.

There are seraphim mentioned in Isaiah 6. They fly, and they cry out praises to God night and day. They have six wings.

There are seraphim mentioned in Numbers 21, too. They bit the children of Israel in the wilderness. They were poisonous, and the children of Israel died.

There, in Numbers, the translators, who can’t seem to figure out what the word seraph means in Isaiah, have no problems rendering it “snake” or “serpent.”

It’s funny, though, in Isaiah 14:29 and Isaiah 30:6, they don’t seem to have problems figuring out that seraph means snake or serpent, either. It’s only in Isaiah 6.

Maybe we just don’t like the idea of flying snakes in heaven.

I like it. I call them “dragons.”

Diakonos

This one really bugs me, too.

Diakonos is in the New Testament 31 times. It’s only rendered “deacon” three times; in 1 Tim. 3:8 and 3:12 and Php. 1:1.

That’s ridiculous religious terminology. Give me a break. Translate the word! It’s SERVANT, thank you … SERVANT!

The really ridiculous translation is when the word is used as a verb, diakoneo. That’s in the NT 37 times, and they transliterate it, sort of, just twice, both times in 1 Tim. 3.

You can’t really transliterate it, though. “Deacon” is not a verb. So, when they don’t want to correctly translate it, like they did the other 35 times it’s found in the NT, and they instead want to lie to you, deceive you, trick you, and get in the way of your following God, they have a problem.

So they got around it by turning the one word, diakonos, which simply means “serve,” into “USE THE OFFICE OF DEACON.”

What????

That’s ridiculous.

In 1 Timothy 3, we should be reading about the fact that one has to qualify to be a servant in the house of God. It’s a position of honor, and those who serve well (not “use the office of deacon well”) obtain good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. Now I’m all irritated.

I hate dishonesty. Both goats and wolves mingle comfortably with God’s sheep because their “shepherds” are not honest, brave, trustworthy, properly taught, or really even shepherds at all. I want to run them all out so that God’s sheep, so few as they may be, can actually be the flock of God, shepherded by real shepherds raised up by Jesus Christ, the Chief Shepherd.

Posted in Leadership, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

My Book, Titles, and the Council of Nicea

Posted on 03/25/2011 by Paul Pavao

I’m really looking for help on the title of my book. I’ve got a little help so far, and I’ve learned that I’m not as bad at titles as I thought. Titling a book is just difficult!

I have four chapters available online at the Council of Nicea page at Christian History for Everyman. A number of people have downloaded them‐yes, I have a way of tracking you!—for which I’m glad.

Please let me know what you think, and give me title suggestions. At Christian History for Everyman, you can use the Contact Me button on the NavBar to send me an email. There’s also a link there for title suggestions (use the link in the paragraph above). You can also use the comment section here.

Here’s the titles I’ve considered so far. Feedback on those would be great, too!

Setting it Straight
An Honest Man’s Look at the Council of Nicea
In the Beginning Was the Logos
The Council of Nicea for Everyman
Going the Wrong Way
An Honest Man’s Look at the Council of Nicea

I have an awesome picture that would go with the middle one. Jeremiah Briggs, my friend and brother and incredible artist, told me I can use a great painting of a boy holding a shining object in his hands. You can’t see the object, but it lights up his face and the front of his body. It would work great with In the Beginning was the Logos.

Thank you for any and all feedback!

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged | 14 Comments

Behavior Is Better Than Belief

Posted on 03/24/2011 by Paul Pavao

Today, I just have some points for you to consider:

  • After 300 years of church history, the Council of Nicea still found only a paragraph’s worth of doctrine important enough to encapsulate in a creed.
  • The foundation of God, according to Scripture, has to do with behavior, not belief (2 Tim. 2:19).
  • Jesus didn’t say, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only those who can accurately answer a question about the atonement” (Matt. 7:21).
Posted in Gospel, Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Free Chapters of My Book: The Council of Nicea

Posted on 03/22/2011 by Paul Pavao

I posted earlier today, too, with more content :-D.

If you read my blog, you probably know that I’ve been working on a book about the Council of Nicea. My writing part is done. All I’m doing now is formatting.

I’m having trouble picking a title, so this blog post is for two reasons:

  • You can read four chapters of the book for free. You can find the links at the Council of Nicea page at Christian History for Everyman.
  • After you’ve read those, I’m taking title suggestions! If I use yours, I’ll give a free, signed copy of the book (for whatever that’s worth) and a $25 gift certificate to amazon.com.

For the record, I’ve tried three titles so far:

  • Setting It Straight: An Honest Man’s Look at the Council of Nicea
  • Going the Wrong Way: An Honest Man’s Look at the Council of Nicea
  • In the Beginning Was the Logos: The Council of Nicea for Everyman

I’m not very good at title creating. Any help or feedback is really appreciated.

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Can You Be Controlled?

Posted on 03/22/2011 by Paul Pavao

I wrote someone recently and told them that the best argument for some of the things I teach is Rose Creek Village. (Not that RCV does what I teach; I teach what RCV does.) I described “great power, great joy, and great satisfaction in God.”

Honestly, though, not everyone at Rose Creek Village believes that’s true.

I know a couple people, right here at our village, who would say that they can’t do anything because they can never get permission for the things that are on their heart. I always wonder if they live at the same place I do. In fact, I ask them, when I hear something like that, whether they live at the same place I do.

I’m talking about real personal stuff here, but it applies to all Christians.

The difference is not where we live or what we’re told. Those couple people and I have two major differences.

  • I don’t think I’ve been told no until I’ve been told no.
  • I’m willing to risk making people angry if I think I’m doing God’s will.

Maybe those both could be summed up in one statement: I care less what people think about me.

It’s not that I’m assertive by nature. All the psychological tests I’ve ever taken say that I’m extremely introverted. Growing up, I was shy and picked on all the time. I’m terrified to talk to strangers.

It bothers me greatly when people don’t like what I’m doing. When I say something controversial, and people don’t like it, I get nervous and jittery. It takes a great effort of will to choose to stand on a controversial truth.

But I do it.

I don’t feel like I have a choice. If I give up on a truth that comes from God, then I believe that God will give up on me. I get that from the verse where Jesus says that if we’re ashamed of him here, then he’ll be ashamed of us there.

So I don’t like it, but I do it anyway.

I’m a pretty good teacher, you know. I can be entertaining. I can say what people want to hear, and they’ll all pat me on the back when I’m done. Sometimes, when I lead a Bible study and I encourage everyone to talk, I’ll have people come up to me after and say, “I came to hear you talk, not them. You’re a lot more interesting. Do those others have to talk?”

I have a couple friends who are pastors. They became pastors by, well, lying. They said they agreed to a statement of faith that I know they don’t agree with, and they did so because they were told everyone does that. One of them told me, “You can’t repair a sinking ship from the outside.”

I can’t do that. I can’t do that at RCV, either. I’m at RCV because it’s the church. No, I don’t mean its the only church. I mean it’s the church. It’s people, gathered together for the purpose of following Jesus Christ.

So I listen to the church. When I say, “I think this,” and everyone disagrees with me, then I assume that the church is the pillar and support of the truth, not me. I yield.

But when everyone frowns, and says, “I don’t like it,” that doesn’t mean anything at all. I make them think about what they don’t like. If I think it’s God, then I go do what they don’t like. Maybe I’m wrong, and I try to pay attention to God putting a stop to me, or a brother running me down to say I’m sinning, but otherwise, I go on.

And if you’re trying to follow God, you’ll find that people don’t stop you. God has a way of moving everything out of the way, leaving the path open, and allowing you to blaze a trail …

… while everyone’s frowning at you.

Now, keep in mind, this only works for people who want God’s will. For those that are full of their own opinions and who have no fear of their own self-deceit, I just described a route to self-destruction, heresy, and destructive behavior towards the church that will result in God destroying you.

It’s good to be afraid.

But it’s good to be more afraid of God than you are of people.

That way, you won’t be confused into thinking that just because people frown at you a lot, they won’t give you permission to do anything. Get off your rear end and do something that you’re pretty sure God wants you to do!

Posted in Church, Leadership, Miscellaneous | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Picking the Winning Horse

Posted on 03/18/2011 by Paul Pavao

First, as a total aside, you have got to read about this bat that lets any scorpion sting it in the face.

God’s creation is marvelous, isn’t it?

A Whole Thesaurus of Bad Manners

I’ve been watching a couple Rob Bell videos tonight. One in particular was an interview conducted by an obnoxious host who either didn’t care about or couldn’t tell the difference between a hard question and a petulant one.

For example, one question was concerning Japan. “Is God all-powerful but not loving, or is he loving but not powerful enough to prevent this disaster.”

Asking once was okay. This was a terrible disaster. Rob Bell gave a somewhat evasive answer; after all, it’s hard to explain why God lets the world be the way the world is.

I’m pretty sure from the rest of the interview that the interviewer thought he was being pointed rather than fatuous when he repeated the question. I thought, there’s two answers to the man’s question:

  1. God is both all-powerful and loving. Disasters cause us to question this, but God is also far greater than we are, and the universe and life are really difficult for humans to understand. There are several speculations we could give for why disasters happen, but they’d just be speculations. The fact is, some things are still mysteries to humans.
  2. God is both all-powerful and loving, but you’re too stupid to understand it.

That might give him a taste for the difference between being straightforward and being querulous.

Anyway, Rob Bell handled it marvelously well.

Is Rob Bell a Universalist?

The real point of the interview was to harass Rob Bell about his new book, Love Wins and to charge him with universalism.

Rob did a good job of—in so many words—saying that he’s raising questions, not necessarily giving answers. This is the impression that he left Greg Boyd, author of The Myth of a Christian Nation and several other books, with as well. Greg apparently knows Rob Bell and wrote a rebuke of all the people who critiqued Bell before they even read the book.

The host, while carefully maintaining a belligerent polemic, pointed out a couple places where Bell’s book, unlike his interview responses, gave some very clear answers, and they really did sound universalist.

What should we do about this?

Picking the Winning Horse

Let’s establish some parameters here that I think we can all agree on.

  1. Jesus is not going to consult Love Wins when he conducts the final judgment.
  2. The only way Love Wins could possibly affect the judgment is by getting some people to see how great our God really is, believe in Jesus, obtain his grace, and thus live a holy life.

The real question for me is not whether Rob Bell is a universalist, but whether he is getting people to see how great our God really is, believe in Jesus, obtain his grace, and thus live a holy life … with "holy" being defined by Jesus.

I can’t answer whether he’s doing that with Love Wins because I haven’t read it. I can, however, answer it in general. For example, his teaching on being covered in the dust of your rabbi is out of this world. It is so good and so inspiring that it just cannot be ignored.

Even if universalism turns out not to be true, “Covered in the Dust of Your Rabbi” will get us one step closer to everyone being saved!

That’s my opinion, anyway.

Further, I’m pretty sure that the hard-headed, hell-defending, purposely ignorant and sometimes petulant, fatuous, querulous, and belligerent purveyors of the “believe in this version of the atonement and you’ll be saved even if you’re evil” gospel … I’m pretty sure those folks are turning more people away from God than toward him.

Sorry, but mostly they’re making people who are twice as much disciples of hell as they are.

So, if this is a horse race, and the goal is to bring people to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9), then I’m betting on Rob Bell over the fatuous folk.

My Final Judgment on Rob Bell

I don’t really have time to judge Rob Bell, and I highly suspect Jesus wouldn’t pay much attention to my judgment, anyway, except to see how harsh it is so he knows how harshly to judge me.

But I need to have time to judge a couple things so I can determine where to learn from Rob Bell … and where not to. (Kind of like the time I’ve spent learning where to follow and mostly not follow the ignorant—on purpose—and querulant mainstream folks I mentioned above.)

Jesus occasionally accumulated masses of followers. Almost exactly as occasionally, he offended most of them so that they quit following him.

We have to be careful to speak the truth and keep people on the spot. People, in general, are liars and hypocrites. (Yeah, you and me, too, unless you’re making war on that part of you.) The lying and hypocrisy are not always real extensive, but where we don’t have people around us telling us the truth about us (and smiling and loving us at the same time) … well, most of the time we end up hiding some really important problems.

I’ll bet you think I mean internet pornography, drinking, or gambling or something like that.

I don’t. Those are important, too, but you already know about those. No, I mean coldness toward your wife, self-interest, ambition, and worshiping money and comfort by the way you live. I mean no real effort at overcoming the areas where you don’t get along with people, and I mean disinterest in finding out what God wants you to change today.

What does that have to do with Rob Bell?

Chances are, nothing. I happen to be a Christian teacher myself, and I use some of the same methods when I teach, so I’m prone to envying his incredible skill at getting a point across and keeping an audience’s attention. But I have enough of an audience myself to have to warn myself that having an audience doesn’t matter. The truth matters.

My goal has to be to speak the truth, not worry about audience size or audience approval. The real Truth is a being, and he can create his own audience, large or small. When he was on earth it was both, sometimes changing from one to the other quite rapidly. More than once his audience suddenly prepared to kill him!

Rob’s a charmer. Good for him. I’m not ready to follow him in that.

But getting people to be covered in the dust of the Ultimate Rabbi? Now that’s an awesome goal, and Rob Bell will talk you into it.

Posted in Gospel, Miscellaneous, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , | 2 Comments