Coffee and Church Snobs

Among Christians, "the church" can have a bad rap.  There are "coffee snobs," and there are church snobs.  Unlike coffee snobs who know where good coffee can be found, church snobs resembling connoisseurs seem unable to find a church where they fit.  Like the Pharisees these have an amazing ability to find fault where there is really no fault at all.  Local churches which comprise the universal body of Christ may not be attractive to a visitor, just like a unique nose on a man's face could not be called particularly handsome. But it is the nose he has been born with, and it suits him just fine for smelling.  Church snobs embrace a role similar to an eager plastic surgeon looking for clients, happy to offer opinions how appearances could be improved.  One difference between plastic surgeons and church snobs are church snobs typically do not have a list of churches who have offered glowing reviews and endorsements of their services.

The church is compared in scripture to a building comprised of living stones which are people built on the foundation of Jesus through faith in Him.  It is also compared to to a body in where Christ is the head,  and people make up the diverse members and functions of the body.  To view "the church" as an organisation yet forgetting it is fundamentally a living organism birthed and sustained by God is a grave mistake.  It is more than structure but filled with breath, life, and light by the living God.  Human beings are much more than skeletons but living, thinking, speaking flesh.  God has placed unique personalities within all people, and because of our own human peculiarity we may find some personalities refreshing but others taxing.  Perhaps this is how it is with individual churches as well.  It is more than meetings, schedules, doctrine, and decor.  Every person and every church has a history, style, appearance, and feel all its own.  Pastors and parishioners alike through the transforming love of Christ make a church what it is.

I have heard people apologetically or boastfully claim coffee snob status, but to date I have never heard a church snob admit they are one.  Coffee snobs are all about barista skills, quality coffee, and enjoying the atmosphere of their preferred cafe.  They are receivers, consumers, looking to soak up the ambience.  Church snobs are very much the same, viewing a church like a person looking critically and wincing at the sheer ugliness of a man's nose.  Now a man cannot help the nose he was given at birth, but at least he can keep it wiped clean.  So it should be with church.  A man is grateful for a loving person who quietly alerts him to his dripping nose so it can be washed and be presentable, but to criticise his nose is to criticise the One who made him.  That is the error of what I  call the church snob.  Instead of criticism a contribution of grace would be most conducive to Christian fellowship.

When we commit to following Jesus, our responsibility before God is to cultivate intimate, regular fellowship with other Christians.  Church snobs seem to forget this, preferring their own convictions and company.  A critical and divisive spirit may lead to scathingly amusing cafe reviews, but it is murder on the body of Christ - and for the graceless soul from which it springs.  Instead of looking to receive, a humble servant of God seeks to give and contribute to the health of all through obedience to Jesus.  Instead of pointing out deficiencies, we are called to meet needs through Christ's sufficiency.  There should be a commitment to love believers made from the same stuff as our commitment to follow Jesus before we rebuke or chastise others.  How about sharing the love, mercy, and grace of God with others as you have freely received from God?  Out of His mercy God has maintained a relationship with us though we are undeserving:  how about happily sticking it out with others who love Jesus, contributing grace and being patient in the process?  Choose to learn to love others in the church, even when it seems impossible.  Then you will know it is God's love in you and not your own.

A Revelation of God

Before the death of Isaac, he called Jacob before him, blessed him, and directed him to go his uncle Laban in Padanaram to seek a wife.  Though Jacob had the birthright and his father's blessing, he was commanded to leave home and all that was familiar.  Unlike his outdoorsman older twin Esau, Jacob was a "plain" man who preferred living the comforts of home.  His dad gravitated to manly Esau, and his mother favoured Jacob.  He was a homebody, and apparently preferred spending his day tending stew over working outside.  In his advancing age Isaac sent Jacob away, and it must have been hard for him to leave.  I imagine many would have felt rejected and ostricised at that moment.

Jacob went from sleeping in the comforts of his tent to sleeping under the stars with rocks for a pillow.  After laying down to sleep in the darkness, in a dream God revealed Himself to Jacob.  Jacob had been sent away by his father, but God's eyes were upon him though he was alone.  Genesis 28:12-15 reads, "Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: "I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. ¹⁴ Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ¹⁵ Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."

See how God made a mundane thing like a night's sleep miraculous!  Darkness gave way to the light of divine revelation, and loneliness was swallowed up by God's assurance.  God promised to be with Jacob, to keep him, bring him into the land, and would not leave him until all was accomplished.  When Jacob woke from his dream, the place had not changed but he had.  Genesis 28:16-19 says, "Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it." ¹⁷ And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" ¹⁸ Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ And he called the name of that place Bethel; but the name of that city had been Luz previously."  A place where out of necessity rocks were used as pillows became "The house of God."  The God of the house had revealed himself to Jacob, and he went forth to Padanaram with blessing and comfort from God's promises.

Jacob trembled at the revelation of the Living God, the One who graciously called to Him and promised to provide and protect Him.  We might feel ostricised, isolated, and rejected, but the God who sees will come to those who cry out to him.  We may be far from others, yet God is always near to us.  Jacob went out from under the watchful eyes of his mother and likely lamented his situation.  After God revealed himself, Jacob knew he was not alone.  Perhaps he spoke within himself words to the same effect uttered by Paul in Romans 8:31:  "If God be for me, who can be against me?"  A man is blessed to go forth even to unknown territory through faith and confidence in God and not in himself.  This is the man who will be prosperous and have good success (Joshua 1:8).

God Exists; Therefore I Think

Old news came across my Facebook feed the other day about how Pope Francis boldly declared support for evolution saying, “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,”  I believe the Bible provides evidence God is far greater than a magician using sleight of hand who seems able to do everything - without waving a "magic" wand.  That fact God can do everything is the precise conclusion Job came to when God revealed Himself in Job 42:1-2:  "Then Job answered the LORD and said: ² "I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You."  A god who cannot do everything is not God, and certainly not worthy of worship.

The words of the Pope do not affect my beliefs in the slightest, but unfortunately much of the world sees him as speaking for the church with a degree of authority.  My entire life has been lived in a season during which Darwinian evolution is widely believed to be a reasonable means to explain the origin of species, and consequently anyone who believes in the literal creation of the world by God according to the Bible account is often ridiculed or at least seen to be a bit soft in the head.  Now G.K. Chesterton was a Catholic, and he spoke a lot more rational sense in his book Orthodoxy concerning evolution than Pope Francis from a philosophical vantage point on this subject.  Pope Francis reasoned evolution does not contradict scripture, yet Chesterton claimed evolution suicidal to reason.  Consider carefully this excerpt from a brilliant chapter titled, "The Suicide of Thought:"

"Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself.  Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself.  If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism.  If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time.  But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into.  It means that there is no such thing as a thing.  At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything.  This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are not things to think about.  You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought.  Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am."  The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram.  He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think," (Chesterton, G. K. Orthodoxy. New York: Lohn Lane, 1909. 39-40. Print.)

I do not find it particularly troubling in itself that people see evolution as intelligent and creation by God as idiotic, but I am greatly concerned when professing Christians yield to evolutionary dogma for a second.  All people have a prerogative given by God to think and believe what they want.  If you are a Christian, consider this:  we can only be Christians through the reasonable rock-solid doctrines contained in scripture.  We are beneficiaries of real promises in the Bible and transformational power from God - not metaphors or poetry from which we can draw superficial comfort or peace.  God's Word claims He spoke the world into existence, and thus God's Word has power beyond compare.  If Christians do not believe what is plainly written in the Bible, that God created all things to bring forth after their own kind, how can they believe in heaven, hell, sin, or that they are even saved?  Evolution does not need God, so why does God need evolution?  I need God as truly as I need the light and warmth of the sun, air to breathe, and water to drink.  If this makes me weak, stupid, and pathetic I will accept that gladly, for in my God there is strength, wisdom, and truth.  Darwinian evolution offers nothing but blind determinism, no freedom of thought or will.  Evolution commonly believed thrives on death, but God is the One who supplies life - and eternal life at that.

Knocking In

Being an immigrant opens a new world to explore and enjoy.  There are countless adjustments to life after moving to a new country.  Australia is a culture permeated with sport, and it didn't take long after moving to Australia to notice the popular sports are quite different to those I was familiar.  Instead of growing up playing baseball, kids play cricket or compete in "Little Athletics" (track and field events).  I have never seen gridiron (American football) played in a park, but I have seen plenty of rugby.  Australian football (footy) bears no resemblance to any football I knew previously, and netball seems to be more popular than basketball.

There is great personal enrichment available for all who will humbly lay aside what is familiar and be open to new things.  I remember hearing a message from Alan Redpath who hailed from Britain when he spoke of the "raw material" Abraham was made of, this flesh which "needed knocking in and knocking about."  Before I came to Australia, I didn't know "knocking in" is a cricket reference.  Before a English willow cricket bat can be used, it needs to be "knocked in." This process takes many mundane and tiring hours of using a special mallet or ball (these days rollers are used as well) to compress the wood fibres so the bat will not split or crack when the ball is hit.  A bat which is properly "knocked in" performs far better as well, the ball springing off the prepared surface almost like a trampoline.  I would never have understood this reference unless I had come to Australia and learned about cricket.

What Alan Redpath said is true concerning our lives when we first come to Christ.  There is a period of "knocking in" required to maximise our usefulness.  But if "knocking in" is a reference to putting away sin, repentance, growing in faith, and walking in obedience, the process of "knocking in" will continue until the LORD calls us home!  The process of preparing a cricket bat is time consuming and even tedious at times, but let us remember our justification and sanctification work in us to fulfill God's purposes concerning us.  We do not exist for ourselves but for God's sake and His glory.  When a batsman scores runs he will be complemented with, "Good knock mate!"  May the same be said of us when we run with endurance the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.  It is the one who expertly wields the bat who receives the glory for a "good knock," and may we be faithful implements in the hand of our Master who brings great increase to His kingdom.