BE CAUTIOUS BEFORE BEING CRITICAL

One thing I am learning this year is that it is good to know what you are talking about before you speak critically about someone or something. When we speak in ingorance, we run the risk of conveying the wrong message, leading others astray, and lying unintentionally. It is better to have an understanding of the subject before you offer any negative criticism. You never know, you may agree where you thought you would have disagreed. What is easier: to parrot what others have said or do the hard work of studying things out for yourself "to see if these things are so"?

HOGZILLA II

Presenting HOGZILLA II weighing in at 1051 lbs!! Believe it or not!

Tackling Social Issues: 'From the Center Out'

Recently we just finished a book on social issues in our adult Sunday School class at church ("Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong" by John MacArthur and the leadership team at Grace Community Church). Some of the topics included global warming, political activism, homosexual marriage, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. The book helped to further develop our Christian world-view on these controversial issues.

But a developed world-view should translate into faithful living. Jesus told his disciples that they were the salt and light of this world (Mt 5:13-16). Therefore, it makes no sense for followers of Jesus to turn a blind eye to the evil and suffering of the world. Such a path would be disobedience to King Jesus. How then should we as Christians tackle social issues? Might I suggest this helpful counsel by D.A. Carson:

Pundits have often noted that many in the Western world have become single-issue people. The church is not immune from such influences. The result is that many Christians assume the gospel (often, regrettably, some form of the ‘simple gospel’) but are passionate about something on the relative periphery: abortion, poverty, forms of worship, cultural decay, ecology, overpopulation, pornography, family breakdown, and much more. By labeling these complex subjects ‘relatively peripheral’ I open myself to attack from as many quarters as there are subjects on the list. For example, some of those whose every thought is shaded green will not be convinced that the ecological problems we face are peripheral to human survival. But I remain quite unrepentant. From a biblical-theological perspective, these challenges, as serious as they are, are reflections of the still deeper problem—our odious alienation from God. If we tackle these problems without tackling what is central, we are merely playing around with symptoms. This is no excuse for Christians not to get involved in these and many other issues. But it is to insist that where we get involved in such issues, many of which are explicitly laid upon us in scripture, we do so from the center out, i.e. beginning with full-orbed gospel proclamation and witness and passion, and then, while acknowledging that no one can do everything, doing our ‘significant something’ to address the wretched entailments of sin in our world. The good news of Jesus Christ will never allow us to be smug and other-worldly in the face of suffering and evil. But what does it profit us to save the world from smog and damn our own souls? There are lots of ways of getting rid of pornography. For instance, one does not find much smut in Saudi Arabia. But one doesn’t find much of the gospel there, either.

The point is that in all our efforts to address painful and complex societal problems, we must do so from the center, out of a profound passion for the gospel. This is for us both a creedal necessity and a strategic choice. It is a creedal necessity because this gospel alone prepares men and women for eternity, for meeting our Maker—and all problems are relativized in the contemplation of the cross, the final judgement, and eternity. It is a strategic choice because we are persuaded that the gospel, comprehensively preached in the power of the Spirit, will do more to transform men and women, not least their attitudes, than anything else in the world.

[D. A. Carson. “The Biblical Gospel.” in “For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future.” edited by Steve Brady and Harold Rowdon. London: Evangelical Alliance, 1996.]

What is the gospel?

"From a comprehensive theological perspective the gospel is the good news of the coming of Jesus—who he is, his mission, above all his death and resurrection, the inauguration of the final eschatological kingdom even now, and all that this means for how we live as individuals and as the church, the eschatological people of God, in fulfilment of all the promises God made in the scriptures that led up to Jesus."

[D. A. Carson. “The Biblical Gospel.” in “For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future.” edited by Steve Brady and Harold Rowdon. London: Evangelical Alliance, 1996.]

Making Peace

Lately I have been learning just how important our relationships are to Jesus. For instance, if you have come to worship (‘presenting your offering at the altar’) and you remember that your brother has something against you, Jesus commands us to leave the offering and go to our brother. First be reconciled to him. Then come and worship (Mt 5:23-24)! It appears that God has no interest in our worship if there is no peace between us and our brothers in Christ. This same concept seems to be evident in the words of the OT prophets (Isaiah 1:10-17; Hosea 4:1-3; Micah 6:6-8; Zech 7:1-14). We must take our relationships very seriously. Our Lord wants us to make every effort to preserve peace within them (Eph 4:3). If we allow our relationships to break down and disintegrate because of sinful communication and a lack of humility, then we will be found working against what Jesus died and suffered for. His great redemptive work was not only to reconcile man to God but man to man as well. If the communities where our local churches exist see a divided and bickering church, then we are in essence telling them that God did not send his Son into the world (Jn 17:20-23). As those who have committed themselves to following the Lord Jesus, we must be pro-active in our relationships with those who are in Christ. If our sin destroys the unity and peace of our relationships, may we clothe ourselves in humility and the fear God so that we might first make peace with our brother or sister and then come before God to worship him.