The Balance of Judgment

As time goes by i find that i am more a man who likes balance.  So often i hear people talk / preach / teach about something and my gut reaction is, "but what about!".  

For instance this past Sunday at church the pastor and people were discussing how we are not to judge one another.  People brought up stories about how either they or people they knew stopped going to church because other people judged them unjustly, and that we should accept people as they are and let God judge and convict them.  When we judge them we drive them away.  I kept telling my wife that this line of thinking was really grating on me.  Finally, i found the passage in I Corinthians 5 that instructs the people of the church to judge a man that was knowingly living in sin and remove him from the church.  The princple is that the responsibility of the church is to be judge over themselves and that when we allow sin to pervade the church it will tend to spread through the church.  There was quite a bit more to the conversation than that, but you get the gist. 

It's funny because about 4-5 months ago i was in a group discussion among other pastors in which i defended the other side of the argument talking about how when someone comes into the church we can't automatically judge them, but we need to let the Holy Spirit convict them.  The point was that when we judge a new Christian and place a whole bunch of rules on them, we are doing the Holy Spirit's job for Him and we tend to drive people away rather than help them to grow.  

So the question is, why the change in views?  What changed that caused me to go to the opposite extreme?  The answer is... nothing.  My view did not change.  In both discussions there was an imbalance.  Both arguments, are valid and understanding both sides of the argument is imperative to making the right choices and reacting properly to sin that is in the church.  If one extreme is taken without regard for the other, the church tends to be unhealty and self-destructive.  Balance is a very difficult thing to learn. 

Ecclesiastes 7:18 It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.

Image from aliceinpoetsheartlandonsabbaticalleave used under cc license.

Process of Change: The "Rite" Stuff

I was doing some research on rites of passage and how they work when i came across some info that really brought some things together. A rite of passage is a ceremony or test that brings a person from one stage of life to another. For our sake, and as is most commonly seen. The rite of passage refers to the time at which a child becomes an adult. They go from living a life of very limited responsibility and training to being considered and treated as an adult. That includes taking on the rights and responsibilities of adults. It is something that has been lost quite possibly to the detriment of youth and our society.

It's interesting looking at these rites of passage and how they work. There are actually three very important parts (or stages) to a rite of passage. Each part has and holds a purpose that helps to give meaning to and define the process:
1) The first stage is the abandonment stage. It is a matter of leaving the old behind. Childhood is removed like an old robe or as an old shell abandoned by a hermit crab who has grown too big to fit into it anymore. It is the point at which a child recognizes that they are no longer to be a child. They are abandoning their childhood in an attempt to become more. To become an adult.
2) Next is the separation stage. The separation stage is about training, testing, & trials. It is the part of the process in which the youth proves that they are ready for the decision that has been made. These could be through physical, mental, and/or psychological trials. These things could be merely an expression of a decision made, or they could be actual real trials that the young person is required to fulfill in order to be allowed to pass on to the next stage.
3) The last stage of this process is the reintroduction into the social structure of the group. The child is no more. There is some sort of ceremony or ritual and the child becomes an adult with adult status. The group accepts them back as their own and they are now treated as adults and expected to act that way.

When i was doing this research i was fascinated by this because of how much it parallels baptism, which in turn parallels Christ's crucifixion process. As i have stated before, repentance, water baptism, and baptism in the Holy Spirit all include these same features. They are death and burial of the old self, a cleansing or work being done, and rebirth in a new form or as a new person. It seems that this three part process comes into play time and time again.

So, what does that mean for us? What do we do now?

What God in the Spiritual Armor Means for Us

The other day i was thinking about how the presence of the trinity in the Spiritual Armor and the Spiritual Gifts parallel one another, and how there are so many connections that exist that we never see or understand.

As i was thinking about how the Holy Spirit is/= the Spirit of truth. He is the girdle of truth that protects the softest parts of our bodies. As a part of the spiritual armor he covers our stomach, intestinal area, and lower sexual organs. He covers the areas that are our appetites. Our two most natural and common appetites are nourishment and sexuality. Seen in obesity, drunkenness, and sexual problems. They are the weakest parts of our physical bodies, and also the most easily corrupted, hurt, and damaged parts of our lives.

The breastplate of righteousness is/= the righteousness of Christ. As armor, the breastplate covers our heart and lungs. It covers the areas of our body that control everything else. The lungs process the oxygen that we take in. They feed the blood (our life essence) that feeds the rest of the body. The heart pumps that blood throughout our body and is considered by many cultures to the the center of who we are. The righteousness of Christ covers this. It covers and protects who we are as a person. It covers how our daily lives come together and who we are in relationship with the father. It covers our actions and everyday lives. It is our lifeblood.

The helmet of salvation is/= our salvation. Salvation belongs to our God. It is the rebuilding of that relationship between us and God that was lost with the fall of man. As such, it is that salvation that covers our minds. It covers our thoughts and views. More than that, it covers what we believe, accept, and reject. When we are taught. When we learn & understand something, it all comes into and is filtered through our minds.

The enemy attempts to attack us at each of these different areas of our lives. He attacks our appetites. He attacks our actions and who we are as people. And, he attacks our thoughts and beliefs that give us a vision and a purpose. On the flip side it also means that when we struggle and continually have problems in any one of these areas of our lives, it means that that is the part of God, of the trinity that we do not have a grasp of or that we have let go of. We need to get a hold onto that again.

When we struggle with our appetites we need to seek out and better understand who and what the Spirit of truth is. We need to seek the Spirit of truth in our lives. When we struggle with our actions and who we are as people, we need to seek to reach and better understand our role with Christ. We need to seek Him and His vision for us. When we lose a grasp of what we believe, and when our faith, hope, and love are failing, that is when we are losing a grasp of who our Father is. That is when we need to seek Him the most. Thus understanding the spiritual armor becomes a role in who we are.

Image from North Grace Youth Camp used under cc license.

God in the Spiritual Armor

In one of my earlier posts i had mentioned the trinity (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit) of God showing up in unexpected places. I wasn't expecting to come back to it so soon, but something i was thinking about while helping to get the house cleaned up yesterday really brought it to the forefront of my mind. I processed it with my wife, but i wanted to post it here as well. However, it may not all fit in one post, so we will see...

Ephesians 6 talks about how our we do not wage war with other people, but that battles are with principalities & powers, spiritual wickedness in high places. As a result we need to have armor, not in the physical armor, but spiritual armor. Paul then goes on to write about that armor and goes on to list four actual pieces of armor a shield and a sword. Of those 4 pieces of armor, 3 are primarily for protecting the body itself. As a result that's where i want to focus.

Vs. 14 gird your loins with truth. In different version this is also called the Belt of Truth. This belt is not what we would consider a belt nowadays. It's not just a strip of leather that holds your pants. It is a piece of armor that could better be described as a girdle. It covers the lower private areas like a skirt would as well as the stomach area. It is meant to cover the softest and most vulnerable areas of your body. Next in vs. 14 it talks about the Breastplate of Righteousness. This Breastplate of Righteousness obviously covers a person's chest. It covers the heart & lungs which if pierced mean death. Next is the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. I am skipping over this as it is not what i would consider as life threatening in nature as the others. The final piece of actual body armor is the Helmet of Salvation that is covering the head & brain.

Piecing together this connection really began a while back when i was looking at Isaiah 64 where it talks about our righteousness is as filthy rags. Filthy rags don't really make very good armor, and certainly don't protect against an attack. They could hardly protect against the wind. Righteousness however, is continually associated with Christ. (At least 5 times in Romans, as well as in I Corinthians, Galatians, I Peter, & twice in Philippians). This came to mind as i was studying the spiritual armor but i didn't piece the rest of it together until later. In my previous study i really struggled with the belt of truth aspect because as is the question in today's society; what is truth? It wasn't until much later as i was reading John that i kept coming across a statement that i found to be interesting. Christ kept calling the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and since i had really been struggling trying to understand what truth is/= and how to distinguish truth from anything less, it really stuck out to me. Finally the connection clicked and i saw those two aspects together in the armor. The righteousness of Christ & the Spirit of Truth. At that point it was just a matter of looking... and sure enough. Now that i was looking for it, it was as plain as day! The helmet of salvation. Salvation from our sins to bring us back through repentance to a right relationship with God.

There it is, plain as day if you know what to look for. The trinity in the spiritual armor. The Holy Spirit is/= our Girdle of Truth. The righteousness of Christ =/is the Breastplate of Righteousness. The Helmet of Salvation is/= our re-formed relationship to God.

So what? What does this mean, and what does it have to do with anything? That's a great question and i'm glad you asked. More on that next time.

Mousie? Mousie? Where are you Mousie? Oh, There You Are.

It amazes me sometimes how often the trinity shows up in some very unexpected places. At least unexpected by me. A few years back i got into a discussion with someone who is involved in the oneness doctrine. The oneness doctrine teaches that there is no separation between the Father, Christ, & the Holy Spirit. No trinity, only 1... which is true. There is only 1 God. The Lord our God is One. Yet in 3 persons. In our discussion he gave me some literature talking about how in Matthew 28 the disciples are commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and yet every time in Acts the disciples baptize they do so in the name of Christ. The resultant conclusion is that as such the disciples recognized that the Father, Son & Holy Spirit are merely all titles for 1 God Jesus, for Christ, not three separate persons.

The Oneness Doctrine is an interesting (and flawed) view, but ultimately many of the teachings based off of it are very destructive. So i started to do some research praying that God would help me to see"the" truth and that i would be able to learn what He had to show me, and get past even my own misconceptions. (Even i know that i'm not right 100% of the time.) In doing this research i began to notice something. As much as i could find numerous different ways of arguing against the concept that the disciples only baptized in the name of Christ and not the trinity, the evidence did seem to show otherwise. So i brought it to God and asked Him what was going on here. As the research went on i began to realize that while yes, whenever the disciples were baptizing new believers in water the disciples did appear to only be baptizing in the name of Jesus, that wasn't the only thing going on.

I wasn't just seeing one baptism. I was seeing the baptism in water with the name of Christ, but i was also seeing baptism in the Holy Spirit & in power. I went through the research and scriptures, and yup, every time there it was; water baptism & baptism in the Holy Spirit. Well now, things were starting to make a great deal more sense. However, that still didn't account for the full trinity. That was only 2 baptisms, Christ & the Holy Spirit. So i started digging a little deeper and began to think about the fact that i was seeing 2 different baptisms and what baptism actually is. The very core of baptism is the principle of a death, a burial, & a resurrection. It's all very simple. The old man comes into the water, is buried beneath the water, and comes out a new man. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is death, burial, & resurrection into new power. So baptism of the Holy Spirit is for power, and water baptism is a physical baptism that is an evidence (representation) of...

OF COURSE!!! Water baptism is a physical evidence and representation of a personal choice that has already been made! It is a physical representation of repentance!!! Repentance is the first baptism. It is a choice to let the old sinful man die. Be buried in repentance... in God, and come out as a new man! That in itself is the first and probably the most important baptism! There you have it. The trinity in action. That brings us back to Matthew 28 Christ told the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them... There are 2 commands here, 1) go and 2) make disciples of all nations. Understanding the scripture better it is saying that you make disciples (by) baptizing them into repentance, water baptism, & into the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded. That's how you make disciples. It all to fit together! The pieces worked!

Needless to say, i came out with a whole new understanding, and i came out able to better explain and deal with the questions that were brought to me in an attempt to draw me into this view. Ever since then i have begun to see the working of the trinity in places that i have never seen them before. In fact, did you know that you can find the trinity in the Spiritual Gifts? Just look at I Corinthians 12:4-6. How about the trinity in the spiritual armor in Ephesians 6? It's there. You just have to allow it to be found (here's a hint: compare Ephesians 6:14 to John 14:17, 15:26, & 16:13)

There is so much to be seen and found... so many ways that the truth's of the Bible are there connected to one another and woven together as only a master storyteller could weave. Yet all of these different books were written by different people from so many different times and walks of life. Some wise and seasoned like Solomon and Moses, others young and brash like Jeremiah & young David. All woven together as a spiritual masterpiece standing the test of time and trials by fire.

Image from Product of Newfoundland used under cc license.
Extra points to the person who can identify the movie that the quote in the title comes from!

Help & Hindurance

I have been working on a lesson for the Jr. High youth this past week. I am finding that curriculum's over all to me tend to be more limiting than necessarily helpful. They have some good ideas for games and such, but when it comes to the lesson, especially in this one we are using right now, it tends to be a little simple minded and milk minded rather than meat minded. It's the kind of lesson i would expect from or for a pre-school and elementary level youth, or for someone who is brand new as a Christian. Not necessarily what is appropriate or best for those in the stages of becoming young adults.

The lesson that i was given for this week talks about the part of the fruit of the Spirit that is faithfulness. As soon as i was assigned to this topic, in my mind i put some ideas together as to what i wanted to touch on. When i read the lesson in the book my reaction was that half of the youth could do this lesson from years of experience in Sunday School. It's a simple concept, Christ is faithful. He is faithful to us as evidenced by scripture. Don't get me wrong. It is a very true and real concept, but at this stage in their life, the youth should be working on applying and bringing these concepts into fruition not just learning that Christ is faithful. If anything, at this age the young adults should already know how to do this and be teaching others to do the same. Yet the core of this lesson is; Christ is faithful, so what does that mean to you?

I guess that this bugs me because it simply reinforces this concept that Jr. High youth are nothing more than bigger kids. Sure they act like little kids quite a bit, but they have so much untapped potential that with a little bit of hard work and effort, they could easily become spiritual powerhouses... well, maybe not necessarily "easily" since becoming a spiritual powerhouse is far from easy, but you get my drift. If they are not trained at a young age to become powerhouses, chances are they may not reach that potential. I guess that this kind of thing just really frustrates me because i see it as being more of a hindrance than a help.