Stand to Reason Blog

No Pixie Dust

You can hear Greg's chapel message at Cal Baptist yesterday.  Greg gave his testimony and explains his philosophy of dealing with difficulties and running the long race as a Christian.

The First Advent Candle

I love Advent (I love Lent, too) because it disciplines me to focus on the true meaning of the Christmas season - the coming of our Savior to save us from our sins.  It's one of those liturgical practices that sadly have become less common I guess because they lost meaning for many people.  But I think it's a valuable practice to resurrect to put us in a spiritual posture to appreciate more of the significance of Christmas.

I find that Christmas day has much more significance for me when it's the culmination of weeks of preparation rather than the goal line of a busy month.  Advent draws our attention to our need for a Savior, the deepest desire of our hearts fulfilled in Immanuel.  It focuses on waiting - Israel waiting for their deliverance, our personal waiting for salvation, and waiting for Jesus' return, the culmination of all hope in Him.  Jesus is the answer to all that waiting, all that desire, and we celebrate the fulfillment of hope on Christmas.

Many families and churches light candles on advent wreaths, read Scripture, and sing Christmas carols that focus attention on this universal feature of the human condition.  The first candles are lit this week.

Isaiah 40

Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
  that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
  that she has received from the LORD’S hand
    double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
  the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Mark D. Roberts discusses this first week of Advent.  And he has provided an Advent calendar ( and other resources) you can follow day by day to prepare for Christmas in the way that matters most.

Never Read a Bible Verse series Part 4 (Video)

Greg takes a look at Bible verses commonly taken out of context: Romans 8:28 “God works all things are for the good.”

Christmas Cards

Today on the radio show, Greg talked about the importance of using Christmas cards to evangelize, have a very specific Christian message in your card.  Here are some of his suggestions for messages to add to your card if it doesn't have a Christian message already.

First Sunday of Advent

What a blessing Christians have in the New Testament era to be able to search the Old Testament prophecies and understand them, to see how God fulfilled His promises to His people of providing their redemption and salvation.  We can see that God kept His promises in Jesus, which gives us good reason, confidence, and hope that He will fulfill those promises He is still working out.  His grace is evident as we read of the fulfilled prophecies; and His grace is sufficient now.

1 Peter 1:10-12

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven, things into which angels long to look.

In Thee Is Gladness

In Thee is gladness, amid all sadness,
Jesus, sunshine of my heart.
By Thee are given the gifts of Heaven,
Thou the true Redeemer art.
Our souls Thou makest, our bonds Thou breakest;
Who trusts Thee surely hath built securely,
And stands forever. Alleluia!

If God be ours, we fear no powers,
Not of earth or sin or death.
God sees and blesses in worst distresses,
And can change them in a breath.
Wherefore the story tell of God’s glory
With heart and voices; all Heaven rejoices,
Singing forever: Alleluia!

Never Read a Bible Verse series Part 3 (Video)

Greg takes a look at Bible verses commonly taken out of context: Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Way Too Personal

The Personal Promise Bible:

Have you ever inserted your name as you read the Bible to make it more personal? Now you can experience the reality of God's love and promises in a way you never thought possible. In the Personal Promise Bible, you will read your first name personalized in over 5,000 places throughout the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, over 7,000 places throughout the complete Old and New Testaments.

Here's a sample (you can get a sample on the website):

John 3:15-16 Melinda has eternal life in Christ.
Melinda, believing in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved Melinda , that He gave His one and only Son, that Melinda, believing in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life.

I can see the appeal, but I'm really troubled by this.  In a good-hearted desire to help people understand God's personal love for them, this is tampering with God's Word and feeding the self-absorption common in our culture.

Christianity affirms verbal inspiration for the Bible.  That means the very words were God-breathed, not the general message, but the actual words.  Playing with the words shouldn't be taken lightly even for good intentions.  God gave us His Word, we take it as He gave it taking the words seriously.

Even a simple substitution changes the nature of the message in John 3:16.  It was given as a corporate message about the world, but now it's individualized.  That has already changed the meaning.  How far do they go?  Do the titles of the books get my name inserted:  The Letter to Melinda?

Christians are very prone to reading verses out of context and reading in their own subjective interpretation and application.  This only perpetuates that mistake.

Not everything in the Bible is about us.  This has tremendous potential to distort the meaning of passages.  And it perpetuates a sinful cultural trend to focus on ourselves.  I have to wonder whether any of the curses or judgments get my name substituted.  We have this tendancy when attempting to apply Bible verses out of context to only abscond with the good stuff that doesn't always have justification in the historical context (like blessings in the Old Testament).  We want the good news and not the bad.  So I'd bet that they haven't personalized much of the bad news.

The desire to help people understand God's love for them is a good thing put to bad use in this Bible.  Frankly, I think it's condescending and dangerous.  God has revealed His Word (words) to us in Scripture and we have to grow up in Christ to learn to read and understand the text, not substitute ourselves smack-dab in the text.  We can communicate God's love without tampering with His Word.

Never Read a Bible Verse series Part 2 (Video)

Greg takes a look at Bible verses commonly taken out of context: Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge so that you will not be judged"

Never Read a Bible Verse series Part 1 (Video)

Greg takes a look at Bible verses commonly taken out of context: John 8:32 "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Words, Words, Words

Much has been made from postmodernism in recent years that words and propositions are overrated.  That they're a result of the modernist/rationalist influence on Christianity.  The encouragement has been to move past words to more meaningful expressions of Christianity.  Kevin DeYoung has a good post this morning demonstrating how important words are to the Biblical message in the Bible.  God Himself has used words (and prepositions) in His revelation to us and has encouraged us to do the same.  Words aren't a diversion of modernism, they are essential to the Good News and its proclamation.

Perhaps you’ve wondered why Christian worship is so heavy on words? Perhaps you or your church has been criticized for being too propositional, too auditory, too…wordy. Well, here are twenty-five reasons why verbal proclamation–through the reading, preaching, singing, and praying of the Bible and biblical truth–should have the preeminent place in corporate worship.

Read the whole list.  It's revealing.