Monthly Archives: April 2007

Imagined Communities and the One Real Community

Posted by Matthew on April 25, 2007 None comments |

A book entitled “Imagined Communities” by Benedict Anderson describes the idea that typical human communities are really only imagined ‘entities’ in which people “will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or ever hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion.”

We can be thankful that as the body of Christ we are certain that we don’t live in any such ‘imagined community’. An authentic communion with each member in the Body is proved real and true because of the Spirit of God which inhabits us as “temples of the Holy Spirit”. This is why we need each other and cannot say hand to foot, “I don’t need you”. This is why we must make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Let us partake of the one bread for we are all of the one body!
This is also often used by God as a witness to the ‘imagined communities’ of the world in that when we plant ourselves as families or teams among the unreached, we present, by God’s grace, the testimony of a true common and living Spirit within us that the world has not seen nor heard of. It is then the power and love of the Holy Spirit can be seen and witnessed.
It behooves us therefore to not accuse or judge our brothers or sisters for then we are truly judging ourselves. If you are angry, do not let the sun go down on your anger lest you become bitter toward your own. Strive to make mends with any brother who does not take company with your ideas or convictions but because he is truly your own. Never neglect to help your brother or sister in anyway you are able to as you are helping your own—in fact you are giving to Jesus which is a truly honorable thing.

Our obligations as a real living community and not an imagined one are great. In truth, we cannot make such a community work on our own, otherwise it would be destroyed because of our fallen nature—even now we are constantly battling this dilemma amongst ourselves. Just look at all the friction in the church! It calls rather for the redemptive working of the power of God’s spirit to make it work. A community is a pure thing. And what is impure cannot bring forth what is pure. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing’. I like to paraphrase that saying like so: ‘apart from Jesus we can do nothing good.” Without Jesus all we can do is iniquity. Our community as the body of Christ is the true and everlasting community. Just look at the vast amount of text written by the apostles on this and you can see how important it is! So do whatever it takes…

“…bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit…” (Eph 4:2-4)

“…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Eph. 4:13-16)

John Piper to the mission field?

Posted by Matthew on April 21, 2007 None comments |

That would be pretty cool to see. This evening I had a chance to hear him speak in a local church, and also a chance to ask him a question that I was curious about. In a sermon a long time ago–I believe it was ‘Doing missions when dying is gain’– I remember him saying he would rather live out the end of his life on the mission field than to rot on the golf course or in an old folks home. He is now 61 years old. I was really curious if he remembered that and if he was still looking forward to becoming a missionary. Well he said they are praying about it…
We are too Piper!

Pride and Superiority

Posted by Matthew on April 18, 2007 None comments |

“You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.” (Exodus 33:5)
Because of pride, one is unable to see their sinfulness. Pride completely blinds us to our sin.

Pride is so monstrous and wicked. And just as C.S. Lewis once said, it is enmity against God. It is everywhere and is the world you wake up to every morning. And what’s more, it permeates America in a special way.

Jesus said, “He who is forgiven much, loves much.” But if pride blinds us, we don’t see just how much forgiveness we all really need. Where’s the love, people ask? Most people in the West, consider themselves “good people”. Everything they do is right in their own eyes. We find, too, that a Christian in this blindness does not think he has a whole lot of sin to be forgiven of. Tell me where the repentance and forgiveness is, and I will tell you where the love is.

But as one draws nearer to the light of God’s word seeking His righteousness, he will see himself for what he really is: fully impure and fully in need of the blood of Jesus. A soul gone astray and alienated from God and righteousness. Even the ‘good works’ are only as dirty rags. That is total depravity and pride utterly blinds us to it. In this, I think we begin then to understand the prick of Peters convicted heart when he told Jesus, “depart from me, I am a sinner!”

I have noticed a most interesting contrast between the popular gospel songs of China and the popular gospel songs of America. According to Jesus Film project research over the last 25 years, China is seen to be incredibly responsive to the gospel while America is very unresponsive. The popular gospel songs of the Chinese church are thick with humility and are full of that sweet aroma of repentance and very often speak about forgiveness for their sins. You (who are in America) know what the popular gospel songs in America are. I have noticed a little movement in American Christian worship back to some of the old hymn songs which, interestingly, are rather thick with humility and forgiveness…Jesus Paid it All…Come thou Fount…Before the Throne of God Above, to name a few. Just look at the words of those songs and the conviction behind them. The blood of Christ and the cross were so predominate.

It must have been inevitable that our nation should be so encumbered with pride. God has made it a superior nation in nearly every way in the last century. The most successful, the wealthiest, the most gold medals, the most educated, the most missionaries, etc. We look up to no one. My question then is how can the American Church, if it follows suit in its superiority, ever know and see the power of Christ which is only “made perfect in weakness”? An interesting dilemma indeed…

Arab-Israeli Conflict Class

Posted by Matthew on April 17, 2007 None comments |

I just noticed that my class “Arab-Israeli Conflict” has been offered at my university ever since 1972. How crazy. I had assumed that it was a newer course offering. The current increase in interest and conflict really only started (at least for my generation) back at the turn of the millennium.
But again I have noticed that the course went from alternate year offerings to being offered every year after 2002. So there has definitely been an increase.

And really… the vicious cycle of political strife, conflict, peace conferences, and then more political strife has been non-stop. Why have they still not learned that no man, or president, or prime minister, or party will ever bring the solution? But I guess they will keep on trying. As I read the history, they just don’t seem to get it so it keeps going and going…
And the day they do proclaim ‘peace, peace!’, it will only be a lie just like all the former times…

“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and security forever. ” Isaiah  32:17

“Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Psalm 85:10

Enemies of God – Our Crucifixion

Posted by Matthew on April 16, 2007 None comments |

It’s a matter of seeing yourself and how wicked you are when you come to God. The modern Gospel says only that you are merely separated from God because of sin. But is it not much more than that? You are not merely separated from God because of sin, rather you are against God. An enemy of God. (Rom 5.10) Not separated. Against!

This dying is necessary because we came as enemies. Our fallen nature is against him, hates him. On Satan’s side. Not just separated! Ah it can make you feel so sick, and yet thats the conviction of the Holy Spirit!
When we die, Christ comes alive in us. And it’s a continual thing throughout our lives. But often there are very hard sins within us that require us to go through some very hard deaths.

“Did that which is good bring death to me? No way! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” Rom 7.13

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” Psalm 51:3

“the Lord commanded us…for our good always” Deut. 6.24
“the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him” Ezra 8:22

All this to us who were “children of the devil” and doing his desires. (1 John 3:10, John 8:44)

Such descriptions of sinners in the bible apply to you and me. We all come from Adam, and so have the exact same nature as Cain, Korah, Balaam, Esau, the man of lawlessness, haters of light, dull hearers, accursed, wolves in sheep’s clothing, etc.
Inspite of running around always ever rebelling against him, God gave his only Son for us.

Your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick… (Jer. 17.9)

The greater this truth is understood, the greater the peace, restoration, and rest that is experienced in your heart.

“To any casual observer of the religious scene today, two things will at once be evident: one, that there is very little sense of sin among the unsaved, and two, that the average professed Christian lives a life so worldly and careless that it is difficult to distinguish him from the unconverted man. The power that brings conviction to the sinner and enables the Christian to overcome in daily living is being hindered somewhere. It would be oversimplification to name any one thing as the alone cause, for many things stand in the way of the full realization of our New Testament privileges. There is one class of hindrances, however, which, tends out so conspicuously that we are safe in attributing to it a very large part of our trouble. I mean wrong doctrines or overemphasis on right ones. I want to paint out some of these doctrines, and I do it with the earnest hope
that it may not excite controversy, but bring us rather to a reverent examination of our position.”

-by A.W. Tozer.
“PREACHING that HINDERS”

Original Sin, Original Righteousness – Romans 5:15-19

Posted by Matthew on April 13, 2007 None comments |

6,000,000.

The thought that such a number could represent something as unimaginable as a number of people from a specific race that were exterminated is almost impossible to grasp. Even natural disasters don’t wipe this many people at once. Well, perhaps Noah’s flood.

Meticulously planned and executed by a only few men, it became one bad dent in the ‘reputation’ of the world’s history.
This is a document from World War II that shows the Nazi’s well thought-out plan of one of the worst crimes ever known:

At the end of August 1944 I was talking to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, whom I had known since 1938. The conversation took place in my home in Budapest.

He expressed his conviction that Germany had now lost the war and that he, personally, had no furthur chance. He knew that he had millions of Jewish lives on his conscience. I asked him how many that was, to which he answered that although the number was a great Reich secret, he would tell me since I, as a historian, would be interested and that he would probably not return anyhow from his command in Rumania. He had, shortly before that, made a report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed. On the basis of his information he had obtained the following result:

Approximately four million Jews had been killed in the various extermination camps while an additional two million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia.

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
vol. V, document 2738 – PS

How can a human be so base? Why would a human do such an abominable thing? But humans do. Humans have ever been doing this.

But of course the crime is theirs and not yours, and all works will be weighed and tried at the coming of our King and each will be dealt with according to their works. Some humans may have some serious penalties to pay. Perhaps you can have yourself a sigh of relief. Or perhaps not?

There remains one small troublesome thing. What if that which was in Hitler was also in you? Perhaps Hitler was possessed demonically. But then perhaps you couldn’t blame everything on him. But the blame does rest on him, whether there was demonic influence or not. But what was in him that he would obey such evil thoughts? And where did it come from? Take a close look at these verses:

“Sin made its entry into the world through one man, and through sin, death. The entail of sin and death passed on to the whole human race, and no one could break it for no one was himself free from sin.” (Rom 5.12 Phil)

“…death reigned…even over those whose sinning was not like the sin of Adam [or Hitler] …” (Rom 5.14 Phil)

“…you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–among whom we all once lived…”(Eph 2.1-2)

It was much like a virus that Adam contracted and is subsequently inherited by every one of his sons and daughters right down through the ages, making us all children of disobedience, for disobedience can only give birth to disobedience.
The same father, Adam, is the father of us all. Through one man all were, and are, plagued.

Also consider:
“We also are men, of like nature with you…” Acts 14.15

Why do we at all obey what is evil, whether a small evil, or a great evil?
What if what was in Hitler (or Mao, or Nero, or Judas, or Esau), was also in you?
How could you get it out?

Where we humans have inherited a sinful nature to which we are enslaved, through the work of Christ and being born again in spirit, we are set free and inherit his righteous nature!

“But the gift of God through Christ is a very different matter from the “account rendered” through the sin of Adam. For while as a result of one man’s sin death by natural consequence became the common lot of men, it was by the generosity of God, the free giving of the grace of one man Jesus Christ, that the love of God overflowed for the benefit of all men. Nor is the effect of God’s gift the same as the effect of that one man’s sin. For in the one case one man’s sin brought its inevitable judgment, and the result was condemnation. But, in the other, countless men’s sins are met with the free gift of grace, and the result is justification before God.

For if one man’s offence meant that men should be slaves to death all their lives, it is a far greater thing that through another man, Jesus Christ, men by their acceptance of his more than sufficient grace and righteousness, should live all their lives like kings!

We see, then, that as one act of sin exposed the whole race of men to God’s judgment and condemnation, so one act of perfect righteousness presents all men freely acquitted in the sight of God. One man’s disobedience placed all men under the threat of condemnation, but one man’s obedience has the power to present all men righteous before God.” (Romans 5:15-19 Philipps)

What a marvelous thing that is. That of all in the human race, there was one man, born of a virgin, who didn’t inherit that plague. And yet chose to give up his life, so that the rest of us could be healed!