Why you won’t see me endorsing these people…

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

I spent 6 years at DTS to get my ThM (Masters of Theology). In those 6 years I heard numerous chapel messages since chapel was a requirement (6 years is a long time!). Truth be told, in my maturing years, I have trouble recalling a lot. But one message made a profound impact on me delivered by Nathan Holsteen, a professor in the Theological Studies department. Now I took many classes with Dr. Holsteen and he was also one of my thesis readers. But what really resonated with me is this chapel message he delivered in 2013 entitled Beware of Mud.

The message was built on 2 John 6-11

And this love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of the Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

He laid out the problem, that certain teachers from among the flock were going about teaching something that contrary to the Christian message. And let’s be clear; they weren’t just some obvious outsiders disparaging Christianity but those who came from within the church, who “proclaimed” the name of Christ but used his name in a dishonorable fashion. Continue reading →

Yes Sunday is coming . . . but today is Friday

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

eastercrossAs Easter draws near, I’ve noticed a trend and one that I’ve fallen comfortably into myself. On Good Friday, it is not uncommon to hear some brief reflection on the Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross followed by these words, “but Sunday is coming.” Of course, the sentiment strikes at the heart of the culmination of this Lenten season, the anchor of the Christian faith – not just the death of Christ, but his resurrection. That is where our hope resides. As Paul indicated, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:13-14).

To be sure, the resurrection cannot be undermined. I confess that for much of my Christian life, I treated Easter Sunday as kind of a resurrection birthday only to downplay it’s significance the remaining of the year. The cross of Christ is nothing without the resurrection. At the cross, Jesus final sacrifice of atonement, where he bore the penalty for our sin, is not complete unless he rose from the dead. In his resurrection, is where we find life in him. The resurrection is where we can anchor our hope.

We have the advantage of hindsight. Imagine what his disciples felt at that time. This person they followed and believed to be the Messiah, the promised Savior, who would come and rescue the God’s elect from the oppression of Gentile rule, was now seemingly defeated by it in the cruelest manner. But they would come to realize that in God’s paradox, he would use an instrument of death to bring life and nailed at his resurrection.

And so living on the other side of this revelation in Christ, we want to celebrate in the victory that secures eternal hope for those found in Christ. To put in more simply, we want to skip to the good part. Continue reading →

If God so loved the world, why do we hate it?

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The following is a slightly edited version of a blog post I did in 2011 on the Credo House blog.

globe being smashedIn my earlier Christian years, I was taught to hate the world and to avoid participation in it, especially as it related to culture.  That means it’s products – music, books, movies, etc.   I recall at times being torn because in the early eighties, music video was really taking off and I did like movies.  Well, some movies were ok as long as there was no sex, drugs, violence or bad language (God forbid there would be a curse word!).  The proof-text that was always used was 1 John 2:15 – “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  That seemed pretty simple.  That meant Christian movies with distinct Christian themes, Christian music, and Christian literature was acceptable. This is sacred and worldly things are secular. And Christians did not participate in worldly things, lest they love the world.

Over the years, I have come to a different understanding of what it means to hate the world and to love the world.  As Christians, we must love the world since God does and seeks to reconcile it to himself.  Yes, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son (John 3:16).   So why does John say don’t love the world?  I’m no Johnnine scholar but W. Hall Harris III is.  He identifies herethat world in John’s gospel (3:16) refers to humanity and particularly broken humanity, while 1 John references the philosophy and values that are separate from God.  Examining 1 John 2:15 in light of the next verse,  he says

We are dealing with people who operate purely on a human level and have no spiritual dimension to their existence. This is the person who loves the world, whose affections are all centered on the world, who has no love for God or spiritual things… It is not a reference to culture.

Nothing solidified this more than a class I took in seminary with Glenn Kreider on Theological Method with a particular focus on theology and culture and the fact that God not only operates through his word but through His world.  That means that Christians must interact in the world, which means interacting with the world, i.e. culture. Continue reading →

Mary, Martha…and Scripture?

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

I’ve been pondering this past Sunday’s sermon on Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

mary at Jesus feetWhile I have heard sermons on this passage dozens and dozens of times, I’ve not quite heard the inextricable link of sitting at Jesus’ feet and believing God’s word. I had typically heard the sermon on this passage in the context of prayer, worship, “being still,” etc vs. the busyness of doing. But in consideration of the redemptive narrative of Scripture, making Jesus the priority is more than the activities we engage in but the orientation of our hearts, which starts and ends on the surety of Scripture – what God has actually said. Considering that Scripture testifies to the incarnate Word, this connection made perfect sense to me.

The other day I came across a blog post with yet another progressively oriented Christian proudly patting herself on the back that she had moved away from the doctrine of inspiration. She was so pleased with herself having resolved the mystery of God’s breathed out word through human authors. They were, after all, merely human and probably got a lot of things wrong, she reasoned. It was ok to no longer wrangle over the unpleasant parts of Scripture because it’s too stressful to handle the tension of believing this is what God says and does when confronted with all the inconsistencies the mind cannot fathom. How many people claiming to sit at Jesus feet have said this? Continue reading →

The many faces of privilege: more than race and riches

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

I really appreciated this short article, 3 Reasons Why I Hate Diversity, from Christena Cleveland over on Ed Stetzer’s Christianity Today blog. While I wholeheartedly concur with her points regarding the discomfort that engaging with a multi-cultural body can bring, it is her point #3, “diversity exposes my privilege” that really peaked my interest.

In our stratified society, it’s fairly easy for privileged people like me to turn a blind eye to inequality. As long as I stick to certain neighborhoods and social settings, I am unlikely to meaningfully interact with people who struggle to survive underneath society’s oppressive boot. This makes it easy for me to sidestep feeling guilty about my privilege and the relative ease with which I move through life. But racial diversity has a way of bringing racial, economic and other forms of inequality into conscious awareness.

For this reason, as a person who identifies with some privileged groups (e.g. the upwardly-mobile, the educated, the mentally able, etc.) I sure as heck don’t want more diversity in my church. More diversity would expose my privileged life by bringing the inequality “out there” into the very sanctuary pews where I sit. True diversity would require me to stay alert to the reality of inequality. It would demand that I confront my privilege, recognize the ways that I benefit from a society that oppresses my brothers and sisters, repent, and join the fight for justice.

But I’d rather not confront my privilege. I’d like to keep believing that I’ve “earned everything that I have”, that “if people just work hard enough, they’ll succeed”, that “if people just obey the law, they won’t be harassed by the police” and that, frankly, I deserve to be treated better and earn more than others.

Diversity exposes my privilege, my desire to take credit for the social power that I possess and my tendency to justify holding onto the money that passes through my hands.

In our racially charged culture, when we speak of privilege, we often think of “white privilege” and for good reason since it has been the standard by which acceptability is set. However, her description reminded me that privilege has many faces. Merriam-Webster defines privilege this way, “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage or favor.” I don’t know about peculiar, but we should not balk at the idea that sociological circumstances can exist whereby a dominant group enjoys a certain kind of power because their privilege has been deemed the norm, giving them the right to marginalize others.  Continue reading →