You Are What - and How - You Read

By Rosaria Butterfield
February 13, 2014

As Christians, if we are strong about our walk with Christ and our subsequent Biblical convictions, we face more and more contradictory cultural values that are sort of 'in-your-face.' Gone are the days when the sinners were afraid to speak out but it seems the stage is theirs' now and they have the mic now. What are we to do? How does our intimate walk with Christ and knowledge of His Word meet the sin of this world? Here is a great reminder of how we can do just that. For many believers this may be new information, but I do want to anchor and hinge every single soul-encounter I encounter personally: The Word of God (and the Holy Spirit) is not dead. The Word and The Spirit are very much alive, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword (Romans 8:9-11; Hebrews 4:12). 

Here's Rosaria:

I just returned from a well-known (and well-heeled) Christian college, where roughly 100 demonstrators gathered on the chapel steps to protest my address on the grounds that my testimony was dangerous. Later that day, I sat down with these beloved students, to listen, to learn, and to grieve. Homosexuality is a sin, but so is homophobia; the snarled composition of our own sin and the sin of others weighs heavily on us all. I came away from that meeting realizing—again—how decisively our reading practices shape our worldview. This may seem a quirky observation, but I know too well the world these students inhabit. I recall its contours and crevices, risks and perils, reading lists and hermeneutical allegiances. You see, I'm culpable. The blood is on my hands. The world of LGBTQ activism on college campuses is the world that I helped create. I was unfaltering in fidelity: the umbrella of equality stretching to embrace my lesbian identity, and the world that emerged from it held salvific potential. I bet my life on it, and I lost.

When I started to read the Bible it was to critique it, embarking on a research project on the Religious Right and their hatred against queers, or, at the time, people like me. A neighbor and pastor, Ken Smith, became my friend. He executed the art of dying: turning over the pages of your heart in the shadow of Scripture, giving me a living testimony of the fruit of repentance. He was a good reader—thorough, broad, and committed. Ken taught me that repentance was done unto life, and that abandoning the religion of self-righteousness was step number one. The Holy Spirit equipped me to practice what Ken preached, and one day, my heart started to beat to the tempo of my Lord's heart. A supernatural imposition, to be sure, but it didn't stop there.

I'd believed gender and sexuality were socially constructed and that I was the mistress of my own destiny and desire. Through the lens of experience, this was self-evident. I'd built my whole house on the foundation of “gender trouble” (the title of Judith Butler's book), and then stood by, helpless, as it burned to the ground. But the Bible was getting under my skin. Hours each day I poured over this text, arguing at first, then contemplating, and eventually surrendering. Three principles became insurmountable on my own terms: the trinitarian God's goodness, the trinitarian God's holiness, and the authority of Scripture. And then, Romans 1 nailed me to the cross: “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. . . . Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts . . . because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. . . . For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions” (Rom. 1:22-26).

Homosexuality, then, is not the unpardonable sin, I noticed. It is not the worst of all sins, not for God. It's listed here in the middle of the passage, as one of many parts of this journey that departs from recognizing God as our author. Homosexuality isn't causal, it's consequential. From God's point of view, homosexuality is an identity-rooted ethical outworking of a worldview transgression inherited by all through original sin. It's so original to the identity of she who bears it that it feels like it precedes you; and as a vestige of original sin, it does. We are born this way. But the bottom line hit me between the eyes: 

homosexuality, whether it feels natural or not, is a sin. God's challenge was clear: do I accept his verdict of my sin at the cross of Christ, or do I argue with him? Do I repent, even of a sin that doesn't feel like a sin but normal, not-bothering-another-soul kind of life, or do I take up Satan's question to Eve (“Did God really say?”) and hurl it back in the face of God?

I had taught, studied, read, and lived a different notion of homosexuality, and for the first time in my life, I wondered if I was wrong.

Three Unbiblical Points

As I write and speak today, 14 years have elapsed since my queer activist days. I'm a new creature in Christ, and my testimony is still like iodine on starch. I'm sensitive to three unbiblical points of view Christian communities harbor when they address the issue of Christianity and homosexuality. Everywhere I go, I confront all three.

1. The Freudian position. This position states same-sex attraction is a morally neutral and fixed part of the personal makeup and identity of some, that some are “gay Christians” and others are not. It's true that temptation isn't sin (though what you do with it may be); but that doesn't give us biblical license to create an identity out of a temptation pattern. To do so is a recipe for disaster. This position comes directly from Sigmund Freud, who effectually replaced the soul with sexual identity as the singular defining characteristic of humanity. God wants our whole identities, not partitioned ones.

2. The revisionist heresy. This position declares that the Bible's witness against homosexuality, replete throughout the Old and New Testaments, results from misreadings, mistranslations, and misapplications, and that Scripture doesn't prohibit monogamous homosexual sexual relations, thereby embracing antinomianism and affirming gay marriage.

3. The reparative therapy heresy. This position contends a primary goal of Christianity is to resolve homosexuality through heterosexuality, thus failing to see that repentance and victory over sin are God's gifts and failing to remember that sons and daughters of the King can be full members of Christ's body and still struggle with sexual temptation. This heresy is a modern version of the prosperity gospel. Name it. Claim it. Pray the gay away.

Indeed, if you only read modern (post 19th-century) texts, it would rightly seem these are three viable options, not heresies. But I beg to differ.
 

Worldview matters. And if we don't reach back before the 19th century, back to the Bible itself, the Westminster divines, and the Puritans, we will limp along, defeated. Yes, the Holy Spirit gives you a heart of flesh and the mind to understand and love the Lord and his Word. But without good reading practices even this redeemed heart grows flabby, weak, shaky, and ill. You cannot lose your salvation, but you can lose everything else.

Enter John Owen. Thomas Watson. Richard Baxter. Thomas Brooks. Jeremiah Burroughs. William Gurnall. The Puritans. They didn't live in a world more pure than ours, but they helped create one that valued biblical literacy. Owen's work on indwelling sin is the most liberating balm to someone who feels owned by sexual sin. You are what (and how) you read. J. C. Ryle said it takes the whole Bible to make a whole Christian. Why does sin lurk in the minds of believers as a law, demanding to be obeyed? How do we have victory if sin's tentacles go so deep, if Satan knows our names and addresses? We stand on the ordinary means of grace: Scripture reading, prayer, worship, and the sacraments. We embrace the covenant of church membership for real accountability and community, knowing that left to our own devices we'll either be led astray or become a danger to those we love most. We read our Bibles daily and in great chunks. We surround ourselves with a great cloud of witnesses who don't fall prey to the same worldview snares we and our post-19th century cohorts do.

In short, we honor God with our reading diligence. We honor God with our reading sacrifice. If you watch two hours of TV and surf the internet for three, what would happen if you abandoned these habits for reading the Bible and the Puritans? For real. Could the best solution to the sin that enslaves us be just that simple and difficult all at the same time? We create Christian communities that are safe places to struggle because we know sin is also “lurking at [our] door.” God tells us that sin's “desire is for you, but you shall have mastery over it” (Gen. 4:7). 

Sin isn't a matter of knowing better, it isn't (only) a series of bad choices—and if it were, we wouldn't need a Savior, we'd just need a new app on our iPhone.

We also take heart, remembering the identity of our soul and thus rejecting the Freudian ideal that sexual identity competes with the soul. And we encourage other image-bearers to reflect the Original in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, not in the vapid reductionism that claims image-of-God theology means he loves you just way you are, just the way your sin manifests itself. Long hours traveling the road paved by Bible reading, theological study, and a solid grasp on hermeneutical fallacies gets you to a place where as sons and daughters of the King, people tempted in all manner of sin, we echo Owen: “The law grace writes in our hearts must answer to the law written in God's Word.” We also take heart, remembering that God faithfully walks this journey with us, that victory over sin comes in two forms: liberty from it and humility regarding its stronghold. But it comes, truly, just as he will.

Does the World See Your Love?

This interesting quick read came to me by email this morning from Breakpoint. It is about Ana Marie Cox (pretty much the creator of blogging) and her fear of publically confessing her Christian faith and commitment. Before reading further, I tried to figure out and predict why a newly converted believer would fear publically professing their faith in Christ. I couldn't have been more wrong...

(After reading this, which Scriptures come to mind? Thanks to Biblegateway.com, I count 19)

Why Ana Marie Cox Feared Coming Out as a Christian by Breakpoint

In 2004, a new player in what might be called Washington’s Political-Entertainment Complex was born, the blog known as “Wonkette.” A combination of satire, gossip, and sarcasm, “Wonkette” was the creation of Ana Marie Cox, who helped define the form of writing that would come to be known as “blogging.”

Cox left “Wonkette” and eventually Washington, but she never stopped being a symbol for a kind of liberal and snarky sensibility, which is why what she recently wrote about herself at the Daily Beast caused such a stir. Actually, it knocked my socks off, metaphorically speaking, of course.

She wrote that “Since leaving Washington, I have made my life over and I am happier, freer, and healthier in body and spirit and apparently it shows.” People ask her “what changed?” and “how did you do it?”

“The honest answer,” Cox writes, is “I try, every day, to give my will and my life over to God. I try to be like Christ. I get down on my knees and pray.”

This isn’t an answer she felt free to give in conversations with her colleagues in the media. She recalled telling people at Fox News about her faith and, to put it in less colorful language than she used, it didn’t go over very well.

To those who might see her previously “closeted Christianity as evidence of a liberal media aversion to God,” she replied that it had “nothing to do with fear of judgment by non-believers.” Instead, she was “nervous to come out as a Christian because [she worried that she was] not good enough of one.” Her fear wasn’t that “non-believers [would make her] feel an outcast.” She worried that Christians would.

Why would she worry about that? She saw the exchanges about whether the president is a Christian and wondered if, because of her liberal politics, they would ask the same questions about her. She admits that “the Word is still a second language I speak less than fluently” and wonders if she, too, is not a Christian in any “meaningful sense,” as was said of the president.

It’s an especially poignant question. Especially coming from someone who wrote that the fact she is “completely whole and loved by God without doing anything” is a “painful and reoccurring” stumbling block in her journey of faith.

The good news is that Cox’s willingness to share and be vulnerable touched a chord with many of the same Christians whose reaction she worried about. In a follow-up piece, she wrote that she “was proven wrong in the most wonderful way: I found amazing warmth and generosity that far outweighed criticism and negativity.”

She continues, “Many wrote to say that it was my brief discussion of my own insecurities that resonated the most strongly.” Others acknowledged that they have treated liberal Christians judgmentally.

In the end, instead of being the occasion of rejection, the public confession of faith prompted the “best response” she had ever received in her professional life.

Praise the Lord that Cox’s fears were proven wrong. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have real discussion about what it means to be a Christian and whether that should affect our political beliefs, because that’s something that I often do and think we all should do. But the question is, how do we do it? Now if we’re honest, we have to admit that sometimes we don’t love our fellow Christians as we should. Especially those with whom we may have disagreements. But if the world doesn’t see us love one other, will they know we are Christians at all?

BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Publication date: March 12, 2015

A Biblical Meditation on the ISIS Execution of 21 Egyptian Christians

by Tom Schreiner

Most of us have read the story of 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya. An ISIS video showed about 12 of them being beheaded, and it is quite certain that all of them were murdered.

We Are Not Surprised

Jesus told us to expect persecution, teaching his disciples that unbelievers would hate us just as they hated him (John 15:18-20).

Jesus predicted that some of those who kill us “will think” they are “offering service to God” (John 16:2).

Even though most of us won’t lose our lives for Christ’s sake, we should not be surprised if we do. All of us need to be ready to surrender our lives for Christ. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

We Are More Than Conquerers

Jesus calls us “to be faithful unto death” to receive “the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).

Jesus also calls us to rejoice when persecuted, for it is a great honor to die for our Lord and Savior, and our reward will far exceed our suffering (Matt. 5:10-12; Acts 5:41). Naturally, we may be frightened and scared at such a prospect, worried that we don’t have the strength to suffer. And we don’t have the strength in ourselves, but God promises to be with us in the fire and the flood (Isa. 43:2), and he promises to give us grace to endure the hardest things. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).

In dying for Christ’s sake, in not loving our “lives even unto death,” we are not losers but winners; we are not overcome by evil. Instead, we are “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37; Rev. 12:11). Those who are slain for Christ’s sake come to life and reign with Jesus Christ (Rev. 20:4).

We Grieve with Those Who Grieve

Paul says that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Still, the matter is not simplistic, and life is not easy. We “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). Paul said that if Epaphroditus had died he would experience “sorrow upon sorrow” (Phil. 2:27). Grief floods the hearts of those left behind.

We Pray for Both Our Enemies and Our Suffering Brothers and Sisters

We need a special grace to pray for the salvation of those who have done such a great evil.

We also pray for our brothers and sisters suffering around the world; we plead that God would grant them his joy and strength and perseverance to endure until the end.

We pray that God would protect them and sustain his church.

We Plead for God’s Just Judgment

At the same time, like the martyrs under the altar in Rev. 6:9-11, we cry, “O Sovereign Lord . . . how long?” When will you act and bring justice to this world? When will you vindicate your saints and judge the wicked for the sake of your great name?

The day of judgment is coming, the day when everything will be made right. Meanwhile, God is calling out many more to be his children, even among those who persecute us. We praise God both for his saving love and for his just judgment. And we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

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Thomas R. Schreiner is the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Professor of Biblical Theology, and associate dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His latest commentary is on the book of Hebrews for the Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation Commentary (B&H) and he is currently completing a commentary on the book of Revelation for Crossway’s 12-volume ESV Bible Expository Commentary.

5 Ways to Teach Your Children to Hate the Ministry

Pastors' Kids are prone to hate Church ministry. Why? How can it be avoided? | Ed Stetzer

     

To put it bluntly, a lot of pastors' children hate Church ministry. My team interviewed 20 pastors' kids who are adults now. They provided some insights that were both inspiring and disturbing.

Children with a pastor-parent can grow to hate the ministry for many reasons, but there are five guaranteed ways you can make sure they hate being a pastor's kid (PK).

1. Put the ministry before your family.

Let's face it, ministry is demanding. Sometimes church members make you feel like you have hundreds of children to rear. It feels like neglect not to address their needs. So, you leave your own children to minister to someone else's family. After all, your family will understand your being gone "just this once."

If you have to be away, it may be beneficial to bring members of your family with you on ministry opportunities. One PK reflected on his childhood, "My father included me in everything. We would spend summers in Spain planting churches. He took me on most of his global mission endeavors as well as many of his speaking engagements. The experience with my dad made me love ministry (I am in the pastorate) and I wouldn't change my experiences for anything."

If you have to be away, it may be beneficial to bring members of your family with you on ministry opportunities.

Your kids need to believe that you would rather hang out with them than with the people of the church. Children will learn to hate the ministry if you put the needs of everyone else ahead of your family's needs.

2. Tell them how much is expected of them as a pastor's kid.

"Your actions are going to ruin my ministry," a middle-aged PK woman bitterly quoted her father's oft-repeated words. Pastors can put excessive expectations on their kids because the church wrongly puts these expectations on the pastor's family. One minister's kid said, "It was VERY stressful being a PK because EVERYONE judges you differently, like you're supposed to be perfect. And then if you did mess up it was a bad reflection on Dad. We were told that by my parents often."

PK's often rebel for a number of reasons. High expectations led one PK into rebellion as he reflected back, "I felt an enormous amount of pressure to keep up appearances, something which I could not do for long. This eventually led me into a state of rebellion and anger toward my parents and people in the church."

The expectations are not limited to behavior, but also include the child's participation in church functions. The pressures on kids to help the pastor look good in front of his congregation can be overwhelming to a child. "I think my father viewed our family as the model family for the church," said one PK man in his early 20s. "So every place where volunteers were needed, his family served: weeding flower beds, singing in the choir, working VBS, or showing up for Sunday afternoon organ recitals."

3. Tell them about church conflicts as often as possible.

Ministry includes relational conflicts. Pastors will need to practice some level of transparency with their children so they won't assume Dad's and Mom's emotional upheaval is a result of the child's actions. Your children will take it very personal when you are angry.

A young man said, "Even when Dad tried to keep it just between him and Mom, you pick up on things." Try to explain to your children why you are frustrated but guard the details from them. The fact is, you will resolve most of the relational strains and will resume relationships. Be sure to tell the kids. Otherwise, they will become angry and bitter for you.

One PK explained it this way:

"The most difficult thing being a PK was watching my dad remain faithful to a church that wasn't. To see my dad as he prayed, loved, and shepherded men who stabbed him in the back was hard. It was extremely hard. By the time I left for college I was so mad at church, I would have gladly left."

Children will take up an offense for their pastor-parent and may not be mature enough to handle the complexities of relationships—especially church governance.

4. Look godlier at church than when you are at home.

Children will grow bitter about watching a parent live an insincere lifestyle. They will assume the faith was all an act, turning them away from you and the gospel (because they've not seen the real thing). One lady PK said, "He treated my mother awful. He ruled the house with an iron [fist], never was grace given. I knew most of the stories in the Bible, but I never learned from observation how to apply them to my life."

Your family needs to hear you confess your shortcomings more than anyone else.

This is problematic for a pastor's family. "Dad always showed more affection to mom at church than he did anywhere else," a lady said with sadness. "Work got his best," said one young man. "Work took a lot out of him so he was very short [tempered] and easily frustrated by his kids. He had a strong devotional life but found it hard to show grace to the family while showing vast amounts of grace to the flock."

Your family needs to hear you confess your shortcomings more than anyone else. Tell them you are sorry. Ask for their forgiveness regularly and then repent from any actions that are sinful. Your child's needs from their parents are not intrinsically different from any other profession.

Integrity always matters-- but if a Christian leader is different in public than in private, the gospel is dishonored and people are eventually disillusioned. When that involves your children, expect them to walk away from the gospel—disillusioned.

5. Act more like a live-in, full-time pastor at home, rather than a parent.

Your kids need a parent, not a live-in pastor. One 22-year old PK explained it this way, "I am not a rebellious, spiteful PK because I am not really a PK. I am just a guy whose dad also happens to be a pastor. Sure, having a pastor-dad is different, but I think one of the biggest reasons PK's get so rebellious is that they don't really have a dad—they have a live-in, full-time pastor who treats his kids more like a member of his congregation."

One middle-aged PK lady pleaded with ministry parents, "Please, be a parent first to your kids and their pastor second. I don't call my father my pastor. He is simply my daddy. And I thank God for that every day."

How to help them love church ministry

Not all children of pastoral parents hate the ministry. We must do what is best for their overall well-being, fight our own insecurities, and then trust the grace of God to do the rest. One well-adjusted young man encouragingly said, "Being a PK with godly and realistic parents, I've also had an example for what it looks like to love Jesus and cherish His word. The example of my parents and wonderful people in the church has encouraged me to follow Jesus because I see what He's grown in their lives, and I want that. And I want my friends to have that too."

If you have adult children who were PK's, maybe you need to go to them and ask for forgiveness.

If you have adult children who were PK's, maybe you need to go to them and ask for forgiveness. We heard from so many grown adult PK's who are hurt, bitter, angry or disillusioned. They need to hear from their parents how much they are loved in spite of all of the mistakes you made while serving in ministry.

If you are still raising your little PK's, ask the Spirit to show you where your children are adversely affected by your actions. Humbly ask their forgiveness—even if they are preschool. Then, raise a generation of PK's who see their parents in need of a Redeemer and who are resting in the grace of God more than they fear the accusations of a congregation.

Source: http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/january/5-ways-to-teach-your-children-to-hate-ministry.html?paging=off