Everything is Backwards

The first reason why I’m planting a racially diverse church in Cincinnati: it’s biblical.

The second reason is this: The world wants racial reconciliation, but only the gospel can deliver it. Everywhere you look, from corporate advertisements to college promotional materials to fashion magazines, it is clear that people want to see a diversity of faces in the imagery. Martin Luther King, Jr. did our country a great service by helping to expose racial hypocrisy. He was (perhaps naively) convinced that white Christians would rush to his aid but most didn’t.

During the civil rights era, our country has come a long way to give all people of various races equal opportunities for advancement. Everyone is clamoring for it. You can’t watch the evening news without seeing it in the advertisements, or hearing of someone being sentences to probation and “diversity training,” or a story about someone violating political correctness with a “gaffe.” In fact, one of Joe Biden’s most recent gaffes involved referring to Obama as an African American who is “clean” and “articulate.” The world loves racial diversity.

But churches have long remained segregated.

Those who desire true racial reconciliation can only find it in the gospel. Here’s what I mean. The gospel tells us that we are all in desperate need of redemption for our sins. We have a common disease (sin) and a common enemy (Satan). Regardless of race, everyone on planet earth has this problem. Furthermore, we all have, as Pascal famously stated, a “God shaped vacuum” in our hearts that can only be filled by Jesus Christ. Our deepest longings and our highest aspirations are fulfilled in Him.

As such, Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 5 that Christ has given us the “ministry of reconciliation,” where men urge their fellow men to “be reconciled to God.” Our reconciliation to God entails new allegiances, new familial relationships, new identities based on our spiritual commonalities rather than our physical differences. Being reconciled with God should naturally lead to being reconciled to fellow children of God.

Can anything other than Christ deliver this reconciliation? Of course not. Worldly reconciliation can only be achieved through pluralism. “Diversity” becomes an idol we bow to and standards of right and wrong are made to serve this idol. As a result, it doesn’t matter what you think or how you live, as long as you demonstrate “tolerance,” which is code language for pluralism.

The gospel insists that everyone is sinful, and only Christ is worthy of universal honor. Revelation 5 highlights the 7-fold worthiness of Jesus, who is worthy to receive “power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

Jesus crushes our common enemy and unites us under his glorious rule. That’s true reconciliation, and only the gospel can deliver it.

The number one reason why I’m planting a racially diverse church in Cincinnati is simply this: It’s Biblical. I’m not doing this because a focus group survey revealed a “market niche” for a racially diverse church. I’m doing this because I simply cannot escape what the Bible has to say about race.

All the way back in the very beginning of things, back when God spoke to Abraham and made a covenant with him, God promised that Abraham would be a blessing to every nation on the earth (Genesis 12). And then God gives us a flash forward glimpse into the future, when Jesus is praised in heaven precisely because he “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” God’s worth is demonstrated by the diversity of His admirers.

Between these two major events in the beginning of all things and at the end of all things, God gives us the biblical story of redemption. He begins with one man, who becomes a family, which becomes a nation, through whom comes the Messiah, who is the blessing to all nations. Some of those nations were dreaded enemies of God’s people.

Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles fought their own racial conflicts in the early church as well. In Acts 2, “devout men from every nation under heaven” accept the gospel and believe in Jesus. A few chapters later in Acts 6, we find that “a complaint by the Hellenists ?arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in ?the daily distribution [of food].” There it is; racial discrimination. The minority group responded with a peaceful protest and the apostles appointed a racially diverse group of deacons to oversee food distribution. The result? “The word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly (Acts 6:7).”

The ministry God has given to us as Christians is labeled the “ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5).” We are first reconciled to God through Jesus, but then are reconciled to each other through Jesus.

In Jesus, God has broken down the barrier walls of hostility between the races, creating “one new man” in place of the two (Eph 2). The “mystery” of the gospel is not merely that non-Jews are part of God’s kingdom. That message is as old as the Bible itself. The “mystery” that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 3 is that there is no master race; every person derives his worth and forgiveness through Christ directly. Gentiles are just as worthy and have equal access to God through the Spirit. That, however, was a mystery.

Many Jews feared what a Gentile church would look like. Perhaps they wondered to themselves, “what if we don’t like their music? We don’t like their preaching. They are too noisy and out of control. Their theology is weak. They need to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses. ” Perhaps the Gentiles wondered, “why are they having such a hard time simply obeying Jesus’ command to love their neighbors? We love Jesus as much as they do.”

Peter also draws Paul’s rebuke for cultural and racial prejudice in Galatians 2, where Peter favored “certain men from James” because of their cultural heritage. In Galatians 2:14, the true problem with racial division is revealed: it compromises the gospel. When Paul rebuked Peter, he did not rebuke him for breaking the “no racism” rule; Paul rebuked him for not living “in step with the truth of the gospel.” In essence, racial division in the church tells the world that Christ is good enough to save us, but not good enough to unite us.

We American Christians owe a lot to the apostles for standing their ground against racism. Because of this, we Gentile Americans are a part of the Kingdom of God. We Gentile Americans can look at Acts 2, Acts 6, Acts 15, and see the story of the oppression of a minority Christian group and identify with them as my people. The Judaizers lost control of their version of Christianity, the thing they feared most.

That’s probably a similar fear many face about a racially reconciled church. White people might fear losing their music, their traditions, their comfort. Black people might fear losing their unique and wonderful spiritual heritage through assimilation with the dominant culture.

The Bible says that perhaps both races have made idols out of their cultural religious preferences and allowed them prominence over the gospel of Christ.

Can we worship with Fred Hammond instead of Matt Redman? Can we get used to “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” throughout church? Can we get used to preaching that is louder than we’re used to? Can we worship with acoustic guitars? Can we enjoy a quiet moment of sober reflection in a worship service?

That’s the number one reason why I want to build a racially diverse church. Racial division in the body of Christ diminishes God’s glory in our lives, and I want no part of that.

Racial unity in the body of Christ tells the world that our common allegiance to Jesus is greater than any potential division. It glorifies God.

Now that we have the number one reason out of the way, I have nine other reasons that are more practical in their orientation. These will appear in the next post.

[Acknowledgment: many of these insights are the result of studying Spencer Perkins, Chris Rice (not the singer), and Tim Keller.]

Backwards Verse of the Day #15: John 9:39-41

The state of unbelief in Christ is not a matter of whether or not one chooses to believe in Christ, but rather it is a much more profound condition. Throughout the Scriptures God calls this, in one form or another, “Spiritual Blindness.” The biggest problem with spiritual blindness is that those who are blind don’t know they are blind.

Here are a couple of examples.

1. Isaiah’s call to ministry in Isaiah 6 is to preach to people who “keep on seeing but do not perceive.”

2. When the ministry of the Messiah is summarized in Matthew 11, it includes this: “the blind receive their sight…”

3. Paul explains the power of the gospel by calling it a shining of the gospel’s light into spiritual darkness. God says “Let there be light!” to the spiritually blind person and “creates” light and sight in the unbeliever (2 Cor 4). This is the same as the creation account where God says “let there be light” into the dark void.

Conversion is a miracle of God restoring sight to those who are spiritually blind. If one thinks he can see, he cannot be healed because he does not recognize his own need.

This is what happened to the Pharisees in John 9.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, ?that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Since they refuse to acknowledge their blindness, they will never see. The blind man is a living parable to this fact. He knew he was blind, he called out to the one who could restore his sight, and his sight was restored.

This is exactly how it works in coming to faith in Christ. We acknowledge our own spiritual blindness, we call out to him who can restore our spiritual sight, God restores our sight. What we see when we first open our healed eyes is the beauty and wonder of the God who rescued us. Or in Paul’s words, we behold the “light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4).

When your church gathers for worship, what are you really doing? If you truly want to worship, then you should be giving ascent to the things God says are important.

What, then, are the things God really wants to see from you when you gather for worship? Does he want to see good musicians and a talented vocalists? Does he want to hear skillful arrangements and prayers laced with tender piano music, led by an up and coming worship leader with diving board hair?

If you have a kick-butt worship band, and everybody comes and raises their hands and sings out really loud, and the offering plate is overflowing, and everybody is having a great time… if you have all of this but your church does not have any sort of outreach to the poor, needy, broken, psychologically troubled, physically handicapped, or the otherwise down-and-out, and your church favors the affluent, pretty, smart, creative, educated, white, sophisticated, and/or the otherwise resourceful and well-to-do…

Your worship music will suck.

Amos 5:23-24

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Worship is primarily theological and secondarily musical. If you have great music but a man-centered, do it yourself, I’m OK and you’re OK bankrupt theology, God doesn’t want to hear it.

Backwards Verse of the Day: Luke 22:25-30

Since Jesus was going around announcing his Kingdom to everyone, the natural questions started to arise among his followers. Who will be the chief of staff? Who will be the Press Secretary? Communications Director? Secretary of State? Who will be VP?

Its hard to run a kingdom alone and his disciples knew that when Jesus’ kingdom is fulfilled he’d need to surround himself with the right personnel. Naturally, then, they wondered: “Who is the greatest?” This is not a school-yard conversation between bullies. This was a legitimate question to ask when one expects to be in the inner circle of a revolutionary new king.

This is how Jesus answers the question:

And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

This was at the heart of Jesus’ kingdom message. The poor, outcast, the hungry, servants, lowly, needy, the homeless, and so on are the best qualified in God’s kingdom to be the Chief of Staff, the Speaker of the House, etc. God’s Kingdom is not like the “Gentiles” who demonstrate power and authority via harsh rule; God’s kingdom is ruled by service, humility, and kindness to those in need.

The homeless man who doesn’t have a dime to his name but spends cold winter nights in an urban shelter, going to a store front church because that’s the only place that will accept him — he may be your boss in the Kingdom.

Backwards Verse of the Day #13: Luke 10:21.

I believe that the Bible teaches that God equips infants to glorify God in their own unique way.

We adults are conditioned with certain beliefs and assumptions in our day to day lives that we use to filter out certain possibilities when we observe things. When something strange or unusual occurs, we are much more likely to find a plausible, even scientific explanation for it than to explain it in terms of spirits or supernatural phenomena.

Children don’t have these filters. They passively make millions of observations every day which go unexplained until they build up a reservoir of explanations that they build into their psyche.

I was thinking of this while reading through Luke, where Jesus makes this cryptic statement:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Luke 10:21

Of course, we at first assume that he is talking about those who are children spiritually. But is this the most faithful reading of the text? Consider some other verses that might lead us to think otherwise.

In Matthew 21:16, Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2 in this way:

Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise

And again in Luke, Jesus says,

Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

At the heart of the Backwards theology of the Bible is our disposition in approaching God. We don’t come to God as knowers and teachers; we all come to God as little children. Here’s some conclusions, then.

1. God delights to reveal profound truths to children; both physical infants and those who are humble in heart. The educated and learned have greater knowledge but often that knowledge comes at the expense of a “childlike” faith.

2. God delights in infant children. The Bible doesn’t explain this, but Jesus clearly has this in view when he quotes the Psalms. God has prepared praise from the mouths of nursing children.

3. God gets a kick out of hiding things from the sophisticated intellectuals and revealing things to the “unschooled” and “ordinary.” This doesn’t mean for an instant that we should strive to be stupid. But it does mean that we should pursue education and knowledge with the greatest humility, because “knowledge puffs up.”

Backwards theology values simple faith and trust over dry intellectualism. But those who are of the simple-faith variety should humbly acknowledge that the English Bible that they now possess was provided for them by generations of tedious biblical scholars who preserved and translated ancient writings into modern vernacular.

I love the resurrection.

John 20:9 says this concerning the disciples on resurrection morning:

“yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

The fact that Jesus must rise from the dead indicates a certain purpose and accomplishment entailed in the necessity. The resurrection points to an overall purpose in the life of Jesus.

He was born to die. And he was killed in order to be raised. And he was raised in order to reign forever.
His resurrection means something for us, too. Paul says, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Furthermore, Paul says in Ephesians 2 regarding Christians these four things:

1. “You were dead.” (vs 1)

2. “But God…made us alive” (5)

3. God “raised us up”(5)

4. God “seated us with him.” (6)

As Christians, our story is not an “I-believed-in-Jesus” story, or even “I-committed-my-life-to-Christ” story. Our story is a resurrection story. Before I knew Jesus, I was dead. Dead people don’t believe in Jesus; dead people don’t turn and repent.

Jesus came to my spiritual tomb and he breathed new life in me. When I was raised from the dead, the first thing I saw was my Lord, telling me to rise and live.

Not only this, he seated me with him; meaning that I will rule with him. With Him. I am not just raised and turned loose to go and do whatever I want, my life is now bound to his to live for him. Because he reigns, so do I.

So my story is that I have been wrapped up in Jesus’ life; when I was dead, he died on my behalf. When he arose, he raised me up with him. Since he rules at God’s right hand for eternity, I reign with him.

Thank you, Lord Jesus!

I was struck recently while reading through 1 and 2 Corinthians with how many times the word conscience appeared in some form or another. It appears 8 times in 1 Corinthians, 3 times in 2 Corinthians, and 6 more times in the 2 books of Timothy and Titus, and 3 times in Romans.

But what does it really mean?

Conscience, according to Paul, is how we live according to God’s will.

Retirement has taken some shots from certain sectors of evangelical Christianity over the last decade or so, and for good reason. Many retirees use it as an opportunity to no longer produce for the good of society but rather leisurely set the cruise control to “almost dead” and hope for a peaceful transition to the next life.

David Bahnsen writes in World Magazine his definition of retirement:

Retirement is “a period of financial independence where one’s financial needs are provided for, even if income is no longer being generated.”

This is good specificity, because the complaints against retirement are not against leaving a job, but rather wasting one’s financial independence. In his view (which I agree with), retirement is not the issue, but what one does with this new freedom from their job.

John Piper urges folks to not waste their retirement.

Retirees are some of the best resources that the body of Christ has, because they are free to serve the Lord without the constraints of a 40 hour work week. And I’m not suggesting they do the landscaping around the church building or search the internet for the next cute marquee slogan.

There are countless organizations, social service entities, teaching opportunities, broken homes (as in, homes literally in disrepair among the poor), Big Brother opportunities, and so on that could benefit from these most experienced and wise of God’s children.

I’m not sure is Bahnsen’s article is available on the web without a login, so I’ve quoted it in full here.

“Retirement” is a difficult term for many to grasp. The word most certainly never appears in the Bible, and yet it has become an accepted goal of mainstream thought. Post-World War II culture involved the notion of a “golden watch”: People worked until age 65 and then exited the marketplace, prepared for the years they had left financially (through savings, a company pension, and government Social Security). The modern visual we have of “retirement” is often a “do-nothing” period of various leisure activities, and hopefully occasional time with grandchildren.

I use the term “retirement” in an entirely different context, one that pertains to financial goal-setting. “Retirement” to me is “a period of financial independence where one’s financial needs are provided for, even if income is no longer being generated.” Many people can and do stay productive for decades after they achieve this milestone. Some demonstrate this productivity by staying in the same career or job they were in before they achieved this level of financial independence. Some demonstrate it by exiting the workforce, yet staying involved in consulting or volunteer work.

My point is not ever to suggest how readers set their own “retirement” goals; rather, I want simply to encourage readers to view as a noble thing preparation for a day when body and mind may not be able to generate a paycheck any longer. We do not plan to one day be idle; we plan so that our gifts and talents can be used through a variety of circumstances that life may throw at us.

Ecclesiastes 5:18 notes that it is good to find joy in work: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun.” Christians ought to have a different mindset than the world does about retirement. Idleness is still the devil’s tool, even at age 65.

What a wonderful picture of the worship of God. The voice of the great multitude in 19:6 sounded like the roar of many waters and peals of thunder, and their refrain was simple: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”. The Bride has clothed herself with “righteous deeds” as the verse indicates.

This picture is quite inspiring. God has chosen his Bride, and has redeemed her, but has not yet taken her to the wedding ceremony. Our role as Christians are to make ourselves ready for that day and to clothe and adorn ourselves with the beauty of godly character.

John, the apostle, would certainly have had the proper theology to know that one worships God alone. And yet here, we find him bowing down to a glorious creature in worship. Although I have not yet read The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis (I intend to today), I understand he uses an analogy of our glorified bodies in the new creation are to be so wonderful and glorious that were we to see them now we would be tempted to bow down and worship ourselves.

This is a wonderful thing to long for and anticipate that someday we will be made like Christ’s glorious body. Romans 8 says that the creation “waits with eager longing” for that day when our bodies are resurrected in glory. The pain we experience now and the heartaches that we experience – these “sufferings” – Paul says that these sufferings “of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” To think about these thinks is exciting and I can’t wait for it. I want to have a deeper longing for eternity and the appearing of Christ where my earthly dwelling is made to resemble his glorious body.

The ugly underbelly of the prosperity that western Christians now experience is that we have so many comforts and so many of our pains have been taken away that we cannot very well relate to texts like these. Romans 8 and Revelation were written at a time when Christians were a heavily persecuted minority and the vision of the glorified and resurrected Christ coming in power at the end of all things was an awesome and hopeful sight. Now, we tend to see this world as really not all the bad, and the new creation will be a nice long vacation. But a theology of pain is a reminder that this world is not our home.

We have lost our ability to connect with the idea of real pain and suffering in a very real sense and thus our longing for the new creation is lessened. Our outward nature is wasting away but our inner nature is being renewed day by day. So now, in our current state, the “whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Lord, I long for that day! Help me to think of that day and to be making myself ready now as a bride adorns herself to make herself ready for her wedding day. Amen.