What we would like to ask all church big-shots

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“…who loves to be first among them” (III John 9).

I’ve known the bigshots in quite a number of churches. They have no trouble identifying themselves as the force to be reckoned with around this church.

If you are the visiting preacher, their words to you before or after the service will be an announcement, not a comment.  You will know you have heard from the control room of the universe.  You have heard the voice of God.  This man is in charge around here.

No one has to tell you.  You just know.

This one calls the shots.  Rules the roost. Throws his weight around.  Is the power behind the scene.

He loves to have the pre-eminence.  (See Diotrephes in III John, above.)

Woe to the pastor trying to do the will of God in this place but having to deal with this millstone around his neck, this roadblock on the highway, this sandbar in the stream.  Metaphors keep suggesting themselves.  Clots in the arteries.  Bullies on the playground.

Obstinate. Headstrong. Bull-headed. Egotistical.

The only opinion that counts is his.

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The surprises of the prodigal son

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“A certain man had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’  And he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, where he squandered his estate with loose living….” (Luke 15:11ff.)

The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is iconic. That means it is typical, it is well-known, and it’s an accurate depiction of a thousand things about this life.  Understand that story and you know a great deal about how life works and what God does.

If you knew nothing more about God than how He is depicted in this parable, you would love him with all your heart.

You and I are represented by the foolish, younger son.

That son, the subject of a few million sermons and the inspiration of almost as many conversions, received a lot of surprises in this story…

One. He was surprised that the father granted his selfish request. Some lessons we just have to learn for ourselves, and the Father was a good teacher.

Two.  He was surprised that the father allowed him to leave.  Surely, he must have thought, I will be stopped.  After all, this is a lot of freedom I’m being allowed.

We are all surprised at the leeway the Father gives us.  Of course, when our decisions turn out to be ill-advised and the harvest of our wild oats are found to be bitter and diseased, we tend to criticize our Heavenly Father for ever allowing us such freedom in the first place. We want it both ways: for us to have the right to do as we please, but God to protect us from the result of our foolishness.

Three.  He was surprised at all the friends he now had.  Previously, back at home, it was just family.  Now, he is the toast of the town.  Surely, he must have thought, this is real life.

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You are somebody in Christ. But who exactly?

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“I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

We are loved. We are winners.

“I’m me and that’s good. Cause God don’t make no junk.” –from a poster by a child in a ghetto.  (source unknown)

The man said, “I think my wife’s health problems go back to something in her childhood, as to how she was treated.  She seems to have trouble accepting who she is in Christ.”

It’s always fascinating to consider what gives us our identity.  And what conditions robbed us of the same.

Smart Aleck is the biography of Alexander Woollcott, drama critic for the New York Times a long time ago.   Woollcott is said to have been a master wordsmith, which is what made me order the book in the first place.

Woollcott came from an impoverished background and carried enough personal hangups and oddities to set him apart for the rest of his life.  He was overweight, oddly shaped, and egotistical.  And those, goes the old joke, were his good points! When the New York Times hired him, that newspaper was one of 8 or 10 competing in that market, and not particularly distinguished.  His pay was $15 a week, and yet he was thrilled.  The author says he loved being “Alexander Woollcott of the New York Times.”

“At last,” writes author Howard Teichmann, “the sense of belonging began to set in…. Being somebody was infinitely better than being nobody.”

This may be why while unemployment is difficult for everyone, but men in particular have a problem with it.  Their identity is so often bound up in their jobs.  When men meet, they often begin with “What do you do?”  The answer helps to define us, we feel, whether accurately or not.

Ministers who find themselves unemployed experience the same weightlessness, the sensation of not belonging and thus being nobody. For a long time, the minister had introduced himself as “Pastor of Central Baptist Church” or “Assistant Pastor of First Church.”  Suddenly, that goes away.  Now, who is he?

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Read a book: Nothing can replace that!

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“I was amazed that some words on a page could change your life.” –Testimony of a woman in rehab last Monday night.  She had been in and out of jail more times than she could count, and in prison three times.  These days, she is a solid Christian woman with a strong testimony and a peace that passes understanding.

“I felt I had jewels in my mouth.”  –Frank McCourt, writing about his youth in Belfast.  When a teacher introduced the teenager to Shakespeare, a new world opened for him.  The movie Angela’s Ashes, based on McCourt’s book of the same name, showed him lying in the bathtub reading Shakespeare out loud.

Often I will read four or five books in a week.   Hey, I’m retired and some weeks the calendar is blessedly empty.  Those are great days for grabbing a book and disappearing into another world.

What’s funny about reading all those books last week–my wife thinks it’s more than a little bizarre–is that I read them all at the same time.  That is, I will read one for an hour, then switch to another.  Some nights my bedtime reading is two of the books.  Friends ask if I mix up the story lines.  The answer is that about two sentences into the reading and I’m back in the world created by that author.

I became a writer because I love to read.

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The minister should be able to teach

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“And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged….” (2 Timothy 2:24).

I am a teacher.

When I was a senior in high school, a classmate gave me one of those unforgettable moments that lives in one’s mind forever. Principal Andy Davis had summoned me to his office to help classmate Jerry Crittenden with a math problem. Now, Jerry was a big football player, lovable and kind-hearted, and a joy to be around. But in math, the guy was lost.

Toward the end of our session, Jerry said, “Joe, you should be a teacher. I can understand it the way you explain it.”

Eighteen months later, following a frustrating freshman year of college that taught me one huge thing–I do not want to major in physics!–I realized I was called to be a teacher. The Father had gifted me with a love for history as well as a delight in learning, and had surrounded me with some excellent teachers as role models.

At the time, I thought the idea was to become a history teacher in high school and later, after getting the necessary education, in college. Then, as a senior in college, God called me to preach. Soon I was pastoring churches and preaching every Sunday. However, I think members of my churches over these years would say Joe never quit teaching.

And that’s good.  I love to teach.

Able to teach. What an interesting thing the Apostle Paul did. In the middle of calling his preachers to hold down the noise, to quieten the arguments, and still the controversies, he wants them gentle and patient and kind–and able to teach.

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The lego moment: When the facts of the heresy snap into place

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“Even though we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8,9).

The devil, that master of falsehoods and creator of fake religions, is no fool.

He knows that a manmade religion has to look and feel right if people are going to buy it.

So, he keeps tweaking it until he finds the right combination to achieve that “aha!” moment when everything falls into place. He blends a mixture of doctrinal teachings that sound impressive, emotional incentives that feel good, and outlandish rewards out in the future that entice the unthinking along with a certain amount of history which he has either created out of whole cloth or tampered with to make it say what he wishes and a fellowship of the deceived-and-deceiving so the seeker can be locked into the system.

When the seeker is combing over the details of this new religion and suddenly finds it all snapping into place–a “lego moment,” if you will–two things are true:

1) It feels like he has made a discovery of something new and known only to a select few.

Christopher Columbus with his “New World” knew no greater thrill than the one surging through our duped friend at this minute.

2) It feels like orthodox Christianity has no answer for this, like he has cornered “Truth.”

Mark my words, he will not be calling the home church pastor to get his response. That man just doesn’t “get it,” he knows.  In fact, the church where he was raised feels like a sham which needs to be put out of business for its poor representation of reality. He has only pity for his former church friends.

Conversion to a wonderful heresy can be a heady feeling.  (We use the term “wonderful heresy” intentionally. Finding this lie feels great, like one has stumbled into a new world.)

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Why we need to say “I love you.”

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“My little children, let us not love in word or tongue (only), but in deed and in truth”(I John 3:18).

In our effort to encourage people to “love one another,” we must not leave the impression that words do not count.  While deeds of love and other expressions are vital, a lot of people need to hear the actual words.

“I love you.”  “You have no idea how much you mean to me.” “Thank you for being such a precious friend.” “I treasure you.”

Speaking love is a good thing to do.

First, something inside me needs to speak words of love.  It’s good for me.

One day, my young grandson said, “Grandpa, why do you tell me you love me so much?”

How perceptive, I thought. And such a good question. Why do I do that?

I said, “Grant, the love inside me keeps building up and I have to let it out. And the only way to do that is to say the words.”  Otherwise, I seemed to feel, I would explode.

This satisfied him. And it expresses the truth as well as anything I know.

Speaking love to someone dear to us can be a kind of pressure relief value.  We will explode if we don’t tell that person of our love.

For this reason, writing a love letter to our sweetheart can be almost as good as receiving one from them.

It’s good for us to say “I love you.”

We have all heard stories of a husband saying, “Honey, I love you so much it’s all I can do to keep from telling you.”  We want to scream, “Tell her! Tell her!”

You’ve heard of the trucker whose rig went off a Colorado mountainside in a snowstorm. He was found several days later, buried in the snow, his truck a crumpled wreck.  During the hours before he died, the man had written a note to his wife. He told her how much she meant to him, and added, “I’m so sorry I never told you.”

That line is nearly as tragic as the wreck itself.

In Dan Fogelberg’s tribute to his father called The Leader of the Band, one memorable line stands out:  And Papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough.

Most of us do not say it nearly enough.

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Making false assumptions

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The book centered around the year 1940 and all the war-related events of that year: Hitler’s invasion of the Low Countries, Churchill’s coming to power, Dunkirk, the Blitz, FDR’s election to the third term, and the isolationism in the USA.

I emailed the author of my appreciation for the book and added, “That year is also special because I made my appearance on March 28, 1940.”

Then I added, “But don’t think me old just because I was born in 1940.”

Later, I wondered why I’d gone to the trouble to say that, seeing as how I do not know that author and don’t expect to meet him. Why was that important to me?

I decided it’s a personal thing.

None of us want to be pigeon-holed because of demographics or statistics, nor for preconceptions or ignorance. Just because you are a Southerner does not make you a redneck. Living in Mississippi does not mean you are barefooted. All Louisianians do not speak Cajun. All Yankees are not rude.

Here’s a short list of assumptions I do not want people making about me. Again, it’s just a personal thing. Readers will have your own list.

Do not assume…

1) that I’m humorless just because I’m a preacher.

2) that I’m idle just because I’m retired.

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The Lord takes His best church to the woodshed, too.

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“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.  For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:5-6).

The Lord Jesus was unhappy with His young churches.  Five of the seven congregations scattered across Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) were already getting off-track and needed some swift attention.  The two exceptions were Smyrna and Philadelphia.  But the other five churches received stern rebukes.

To all the seven churches of Asia Minor, the Lord gave four things (with slight variations for Smyrna and Philadelphia):

HIS ANALYSIS.  This is His report card.  His “state of the state” message.

HIS WARNINGS.  Repent or else.

HIS INSTRUCTIONS.  Remedial actions the Lord would like to see.

HIS PROMISES.  To Him who overcomes, blessings await.  Each church gets its own promise.

These four blessings–for they were that–were not given to the unbelieving world, not to pagan religions, and not to political powers.  They were gifts from Heaven to seven congregations for whom the Lord Jesus had great expectations and important roles to play.

If you are sports-minded, then think of a football coach rebuking his team.  He reserves his harshest criticism for the best players, the ones gifted with the greatest talents, those expected to give the most.  The players receiving the least attention from the coach are the bench warmers, those with small talents and little desire, players from whom he has come to expect little and receive even less.

The greatest compliment the coach can give is his undivided attention, his closest scrutiny, his best analysis.

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Beware of religious people who do not know God

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“An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).  “Deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13).

I wrote something on this website calling for transparency and integrity from churches, using as a jumping off point the billboards up and down the Mississippi Gulf Coast where casinos glorify the fun, the shows, the money, the jackpots, etc., they offer without once mentioning the addicted souls, broken lives and destroyed homes that accompany these enticements. In the piece, I was wondering what if the government’s “truth in advertising” laws required them to tell the full story.

That article was directed to the churches. But someone who found it on the internet jumped all over it (and in ALL CAPITALS!) and accused me of worse things when our churches ask people to give money.

When people cannot see the difference in a church and a casino, forget about trying to reason with them.

The mental capacities of some people have been so skewed by their calloused souls and hardened spirits that they look at black and see white, look at evil and see good, look at Jesus Christ and see darkness.

We should not let such people intimidate us. They have been around from the beginning and are instruments of the evil one, deceiving and being deceived. (In Second Timothy 3:13 Paul says, Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. A profound observation.)

On the night before He went to the cross, the Lord Jesus, seeking to prepare His little flock for all that lay ahead, said, “An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).

That’s as bad as it gets, yet we see it happening all the time.

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