Posts by Josh
How to read “bad news” in Scripture
The Bible’s picture of Mankind is about as encouraging as a swift kick to the groin or a terminal cancer diagnosis on your birthday. For instance, Romans 3, the most theologically comprehensive description of Man in Scripture, says…
- Not a single man is righteous or does anything good by himself
- Everyone runs away from God from the minute He gifts them with life
- Mankind is morally and spiritually “worthless”
- Our default mode is to use our mouths to promulgate deception about God and foster spiritual death
- Mankind’s natural bent is to declare war on God, hoping to shed his blood
Happy Monday! (sarcasm intended) When Christians read seemingly discouraging passages like these, they usually fall into one of two destructive ditches on either side of the road…
- Stay in the bad news. Rather than seeing condemning passages as on-ramps to a highway of good news, some people STAY IN condemning truths and dwell in them as if they were doing God a favor by fixing their eyes on how sinful they are. Because the whole purpose of the bad news is to drive us to good news, this is the spiritual equivalent of parking your car on an access road and proudly declaring, “I’m there!” These people live their lives in morbid introspection, stay downcast, don’t experience confidence on mission, and live false “joyless lives for Jesus”. He is neither savored nor glorified when this happens.
- Ignore or downplay the bad news. Rather than seeing condemning passages as on-ramps to good news, others either quickly gloss over or downplay what they’re actually saying, thinking they’re doing God a favor by “focusing on the happy stuff”. These spiritual Clark Griswolds often interpret The Bible as if it’s supposed to read like a spiritualized version of “The Power of Positive Thinking”. Because they rarely let the reality of their depravity and sinfulness “sink them”, these people never truly appreciate the heights of what Jesus has done for them. A forced, superficial joy takes the place of the deep, rich joy that is forged by embracing the fulness of the Sinner/Savior relationship. Jesus is neither fully savored nor glorified when this happens.
Rather than “wallering” in it or ignoring/downplaying it, the Bible gives us a third way to read bad news passages…
- Bad news passages as “on-ramps” to a highway of good news. In Romans 3 the unparalleled condemnation of Mankind laid out in verses 10-18 is immediately followed by the phrase, “But God…” in verse 21 and then it goes on to powerfully describe the grace we access to in Jesus. In this chapter the bad news serves as an “on-ramp” that leads to a highway of good news in Jesus. In other words, if you didn’t first see how BAD you were, you wouldn’t be able to see how GOOD the news is that Jesus has made you righteous in God’s eyes. This is how all the bad news in The Bible should be read – as access roads to a deeper understanding of the good news of the gospel. Bad news isn’t meant to be ignored or downplayed (none of Scripture is), but it’s also not meant to be “dwelt in” – it’s meant to push you elsewhere, to joyful thoughts of redemption in Jesus. See bigger sin and you’ll see a bigger Savior.
Either parking in the bad news or passing over the bad news will cut you off from experiencing the fulness of gospel-riches. Be devastated. But be devastated SO THAT you can be enraptured.
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5 ways to hate reproof
This Proverb has nestled into my heart like a healing splinter in the last two weeks…
Whoever loves correction, loves knowledge. But he who hates reproof is stupid. - Prov 12:1
Personal observation: the common denominator when I look at the people who are the most godly around me is that they’re very open to people speaking hard truth into their lives. They listen to and receive correction. Other personal observation: the common denominator of people who seem to fail to grow into spiritual maturity is that they “hate reproof”.
5 Ways We “Hate Reproof”…
- Turn the tables. This usually happens by appealing to person, setting, or tactic.
Person: “They’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced. They have no business instructing me!”.
Setting: “You should’ve talked to me about this as soon as it happened, not a week later!” or ”How dare you bring this up in a parking lot after church! If you were going to say anything, it should’ve been in private!”
Tactic: ”You just seem angry. This should be done in love! I don’t have to listen to this!”
- Shut down. When someone brings rebuke to you, you drown yourself in self-pity or despair and shut down. You don’t respond, don’t look the person in the eye, and don’t listen. You fully immerse yourself in the role of “victim”.
- Become Defensive. When someone is bringing correction, you switch into “defend” mode. While they’re talking, you’re mounting your defense, looking for any justification for your actions. You’re not valuing what they’re saying; you’re combatting what they’re saying. In short, you’re doing everything except actually listening to them.
- Become Dismissive. When someone brings correction to you, you politely hear them (not “listen to them”). You smile and nod and may even make a few comments of assent. But when they walk away, you immediately dismiss what they said. Your goal wasn’t to grow in righteousness, but to get the person off your back.
- Justify or Rationalize. Usually we do this by appealing to our personality or our circumstances.
Personality: “It wasn’t a sin to say what I said. That’s just who I am. I’m an opinionated person!” or ”People just can’t handle my honesty. Sorry, I was just raised to be honest.”
Circumstances: ”I’m going through a financial crisis, my schedule is crazy, and my marriage is struggling. I think it’s fine if I…” or ”I’m in the middle of a really hard emotional season. I can’t be expected to…”
Christian, there might not be a more important taste to develop than a taste for correction from people around you. Love it, cherish it, value it, and even SEEK it, and you will know the true joy of righteousness.
Read MoreWhy aesthetics and media are important to Jesus’ mission
I went through a phase in seminary when seeing any church that had a well-designed website or lights in their worship area really ticked me off. My thought would always be along the lines of, “They’re just selling out so they can be cool.” On the other end of this equation, I’ve almost done a complete 180 on this issue.
Here’s why…
- We live in a culture that communicates important ideas visually. In our culture if you believe you have a valuable idea, product, or organization, you get a well-done logo, webpage, viral video, or commercial to lend it legitimacy.
- Outsiders judge the importance of a message by the quality of its presentation. Consider this: When the whole “Festival Tennessee” fiasco hit Spring Hill, THE FIRST thing that had people thinking it wasn’t legitimate was the 1990′s-ish graphics that represented the project at the presser. People (correctly) didn’t think the project was serious because the graphics that represented it were poor and outdated. Think about that for a second: people AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED the project couldn’t have value behind it for no other reason than it had poor graphic design representing it. Fascinating.
- Contending for the gospel. Jude 3 instructs the church to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints”. One way we “contend for the gospel” in our culture is by having graphics, building aesthetics, presentation, and media that communicate our message (the gospel) is relevant and valuable to our culture. As silly as this sounds to some, it’s true: when the church has poorly-done or outdated graphics, that communicates to outsiders, “Our message is poor and outdated.“
When the church has poorly-done or outdated graphics, that communicates to our culture, “Our message is poor and outdated.”
We don’t care about these things because we want to be cool. If that becomes our motivation, we need to repent of worldliness and pride. We CARE about these things because we believe we have the most relevant, powerful, and important message that will ever be entrusted to Man. We need a small army of web designers, video editors, and people gifted in graphic design to help us contend for the gospel so that we don’t have a presentation that undermines our message.
Read MoreDisciplemaking: Air War, Ground War, Hand to Hand Combat
Disciplemaking, put simply, is helping someone become more like Jesus for God’s glory and their joy. We use the Air War, Ground War, Hand to Hand Combat analogy to describe the three levels at which this happens in our church body…
- Air War. Disciplemaking in our WG’s (Worship Gatherings) is a lot like air war. In air war a plane flies over the general vicinity of a large target, drops a bomb in the area, and hopes it hits what it’s supposed to. Preaching to the entire church body is like this. As I meditate, pray through, and study the Scriptures, I identify issues I see in our church body as a whole that the passage addresses and “drop the bomb” on Sunday mornings, trusting the Holy Spirit to apply my general preaching to individual souls.
- Ground War. Disciplemaking in our HG’s (House Groups), Kids, and Student Ministries is more like ground war. In ground war a small group of soldiers targets something more specific than can be targeted in air war. They’re “closer” to the target, able to look at it with their own eyes. HG’s function like this. HG Shepherds are able to look at a small group of people with their own eyes and target the spiritual issues of the HG, anywhere from 5-20 people.
- Hand to Hand Combat is the most specific form of attack. One soldier engages another soldier eye to eye with no distractions. Personal Discipleship is like this. One godly Christian comes alongside another Christian to help them believe the gospel at a deeper, truer level and fight sin at a deeper, more personal level. It’s 1 on 1.
Three things to notice…
- Level of effectiveness moves from left to right. As you move from Air War toward Hand to Hand Combat, discipleship effectiveness increases. Corporate worship is Biblically-mandated, unbelievably joyful, pleasing to God, and helpful to your soul; and it is a sin to omit it from your life. But from a pure discipleship standpoint, WG’s don’t hold a candle to the life change that someone can effect when they lead a HG or begin a personal discipleship relationship with another Christian.
- Level of control moves from right to left. Our church leadership controls virtually everything about our WG’s, much less about our HG’s, and literally nothing about Personal Discipleship relationships in our church body. This is OK because God’s Holy Spirit lives in every Christian, making every Christian a priest and empowering them for supernatural kingdom work.
- Scope of calling moves from left to right. The fact is that God calls very few people to corporate, public preaching. He calls a few more to Shepherd small groups of people in HG settings. But he calls EVERYONE to be a part of disciplemaking at a personal level.
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