Understanding Jesus for who he is, or, the problem of ultimate fighter jesus

Who do you love?
Girl I see through, through your love.
Who do you love?
Me or the thought of me?
Me or the thought of me?

- John Mayer, “I don’t trust myself (with loving you)”, Continuum

This lyric caught me when first listening through the album, because it directly addresses our tendency to idealize on some level the people we love, or more generally to see what we want or expect them to be instead of what they are. For that matter, it’s not even limited to the people we love. We do this with a wide variety of pretty much everybody. Our perception of a person is largely based on our own expectations, desires, and feelings regarding that person.

If we do this with people we physically see and interact with daily or weekly or monthly, how much more likely are we to do it with Jesus?

Courage: being who God has called us to be

Willow Creek. Saddleback. Mars Hill (Seattle). Mars Hill (Michigan). Thomas Road Baptist Church. The Crystal Cathedral. Coral Ridge Ministries.

What do all these ministries have in common? Not much, in some cases. They’ve all taken a lot of flack for various reasons. If you like one of them, you don’t like all of them. They’re all huge. They’ve all been effective in different ways, reaching different people.

This may sound overly simple, but before Willow Creek, there was no Willow Creek/seeker sensitive movement (at least not on that scale.) Before Saddleback, there was no articulation of the Purpose Driven principles and pastors did not preach in obscenely ugly Hawaiian shirts. Before Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Seattle, fundamentalists didn’t cuss while talking from the pulpit about drinking beer. Before Jerry Falwell and Thomas Road … well, I’m going to leave that one alone.

The point is, all these ministries and their leaders have had the courage to figure out where God was leading them, and go there. There’s a part in the movie About a Boy where the boy tells Hugh Grant’s character that he might have a shot with the woman he loves, if he doesn’t bugger it up (or something like that). Then he comments in narration that he wasn’t trying to be excessively negative — he just doesn’t think that couples are the wave of the future. You need more people in your life; you need back-up.

Well, being like Saddleback is not the wave of the future. Being like Mars Hill (either one) is not the wave of the future. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum. What men like Jerry Falwell and Bill Hybels and Rick Warren have been showing us for years, men like Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll and Brian Mclaren (love them or hate them) are showing us now. God blesses us, and we are most effective, when we have the cojones to listen to God and find out his unique vision for us and our communities and then go for it. Our world doesn’t need a “next Billy Graham,” or a next anyone. Our world needs people of God who are courageous, who are willing to risk it all by learning from others yet not following anyone’s blueprint but God’s for their lives and ministries. True ministry effectiveness cannot be prefabricated and sold in a pretty package. It can only come as we humble ourselves and step out in faith towards what God has for us.

I am encouraged that I see this being worked out in the lives of churches and men of God whom I know and respect and, in some cases, love as close brothers. I see it in new churches like River Ridge and plants like The Dialogue Church. We are seeking to put it into practice at Living Hope. And I see this process taking place in the lives of friends like Scott, Matt Bruns, Tim and beaNie, and others whom I know but not as well, like Jared Byas and Steve Jesmer. (Actually, the genesis of this post lies in some wise words from Steve.)

Carry on, brothers. Go full out. Don’t be scared into taking the “safe” route. Cause in 20 years, I want to look around and see the amazing things God has done in our lives and ministries as we’re sown across the country and maybe the world. God has a plan, he is moving, and he will be glorified as we seek his will.

illumination and the cooperation of our minds with absolute truth

When we talk about absolute truth in the postmodern church, one of the questions that’s been coming up is:

Even if we have absolute truth and it’s communicated in the Bible, how can we have certainty in our understanding of that truth? After all, humans are finite to begin with and depraved since the fall. So how could we be presumptuous enough to believe that with our corrupt minds, we’ve truly got a grasp on much (if any) of what God is saying in the Bible?

I was thinking about this in the shower today. And into my head popped the name of a doctrine I haven’t even really thought about in years: illumination.

Of course, as the evangelical dictionary of theology points out, the word illumination has been used to refer to several different concepts in the history of Christian thought. And apparently, wikipedia considers it a synonym for enlightenment. But I’m talking about the idea I learned as a child that when a follower of Christ reads the Bible, God in the person of the Holy Spirit (okay, no more wikipedia today) may interact with our minds so that we can correctly understand the passage we’re reading. The existence and extent of that interaction would be dependent on the believer’s being “in fellowship with God,” as sin in a believer’s life hinders the work of the Spirit. According to Ryrie’s article in the EDC, the doctrine is supported by John 16:13 and helped by 1 Cor. 2:9-10. To me, these verses don’t specifically teach the doctrine as I’ve stated it, but they certainly would allow for it. And perhaps this is one answer to the question of how we can trust our understanding of absolute truth.

When our finite minds which corrupted by the fall look at scripture, if we are walking in an intimate relationship with God, then the Holy Spirit will open our minds to properly understand God’s absolute truth.

This is obviously going to be a pretty subjective idea — after all, if the Holy Spirit illuminates the minds of believers to understand scripture, then why don’t all mature Christians interpret scripture the same way? But maybe it’s a start for understanding how our minds truly can interact with God’s truth in a valid way. We should also consider the idea of the present fulfillment of our status as “new creations” and how that affects our interaction with truth.