Here is a link to Steve Williams book What is Christianity. Steve used to preach at University City Church of Christ in Gainesville, FL and teaches at Amridge University (formerly Southern Christian). It is currently out of print but has been provided to download/print. It is an excellent resources that highlights our core beliefs in 30 pages. I would encourage you to pass this on to people of all maturity levels as well as people who are asking questions about Christianity. Here is the link. Never hurts to be free!

Did you know there is an ex-church of Christ support group online? I think this is pretty interesting because there is much we can learn from mistakes, misunderstandings, and our differences. You can find anything there from ICOC horror stories to all sorts of discussions on doctrine. Another interesting section is the “New Paths of Faith” section to find out how people are answering the question, “Now what?” or “Where do we go from here?” It is very important we understand people, why they come, why they stay and why some leave.

On the other hand there is a lot of sad information on this website. Lots of horror stories, splits, disunity, anger, and the like. It is an important reminder and wake up call that we are dealing with the most sensitive areas of people’s lives and that we must move forward in a way that is honoring to God but also sensitive to others. I am proud to be associated with the Churches of Christ but like any other religious group there will be mistakes made or things that could have gone better. Hopefully through all that we learn lessons rather than ignore them and learn how to be healthier as individual Christians and as congregations.

More and more I am seeing the trend of bash the one you’re with. I think it is important to realize two things in all of this:

1 – The church is beautiful, fulfills an important purpose in the world, and is bought with the blood of Christ.

2 – The church is composed of people who aren’t perfect yet and because it involves flesh and blood there will be problems from time to time. It is important we learn to walk through those problems in ways that are healthy and build up the body rather than tear it down.

The temptation is to think some other group does it better or that if we just leave this church or that church that things will get better. Bottom line, the church is the church and God doesn’t intend for us to reach perfection this side of heaven. That is no excuse to do things as we please and injure as many people as possible along the way. But it does mean that we live in tension. So in the mean time we rejoice and we groan all at the same time. But in all things we seek reconciliation with God and others in order to be who God wants us to be and to bring life and godliness to as many people as possible along the way.

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the issue of which “rock” Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16:18. Why not spill some more? First let’s have a look at the text. [To the left a picture of the Gates of the underworld in Caesarea Philippi.]

“¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

Possibilities:

1. Our view in Churches of Christ and protestantism in general has traditionally been that the rock Jesus was talking about was Peter’s confession.
2. The Roman Catholic view is that Peter himself is the rock (their basis for him being the first Pope). The second view does have its merit, although quite a weak one, that is makes sense of the word play between Peter and rock.
3. Ray Vander Laan offers up a third possibility that I had never considered. He mentions that in Caesarea Philippi there was a rock that had a cleft in it that people believed was the gates to the underworld. They believed evil spirits associated with the Greek god Pan would travel through those gates back and forth to Hades. Vander Laan believes that Jesus was referring to that rock that his church would be built upon. I believe his point is that the church is going to take supremacy over the gates of Hades and not so much that evil is going to be the basis for his church.

This is a little puzzling because the traditional filter we have used to evaluate this verse is that Jesus is talking about using a rock as a foundation and that only makes sense if the foundation is worthy to serve that which is built upon it. So the foundation and what is built upon it work in unison to accomplish a unified purpose. Vander Laan’s view doesn’t pass through this filter very well as a demonic gate into Hades where evil spirits live just doesn’t seem a very likely foundation for the church. It does challenge us to not read this story flat. It challenges us to stand in Caesarea Philippi, view what they viewed, and recognize some of the obvious parallels Jesus is making with the culture of the area. But we have to be careful and not stretch what Jesus intended to say into something catchy or nuanced in order to make it come to life more in a video.

I am still of the opinion that it only makes sense for the foundation and the building built upon it needs to fit together. It still doesn’t make sense to me to build the church on the rock of a pagan cult, even if the intended message was God wants to bring redemption to Caesarea Philippi and the pagan practices there. The bedrock of our Christian faith and the church is not some rock in Israel or the person of Peter. The foundation of our faith is the true message of Jesus Christ as messiah and Son of God. In my mind, that is the only conclusion we can come to that really makes sense in this passage. Peter’s confession still stands as the foundation for our faith. I think that is something Peter would agree with and I believe he would cringe at attempts to make himself or the stones of Caesarea Philippi the object of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:18 of what the church would be built upon. If Jesus really meant C.P. as the foundation of the church, wouldn’t you think the early Christians would have understood that and used it as home base more so than Jerusalem?

What do you think Jesus means when he speaks of the rock he will build his church upon? Do you think Vander Laan is off base based on the above summary of his view?

John 8:12-59 contains some of the best known lines in John but they aren’t said to a loving, accepting mob of fervent believers. They are spoken to a mostly obnoxious and rebellious group in Jerusalem. In 8:12 Jesus says he is the light of the world. One of the great “I am” statements and one of the better known verses in John. The response? The Pharisees challenge his words and question his acting as his own witness to the truth of his comments. In 8:31-32 we have the famous line, “then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The response? We have never been slaves to anyone! Most of them just aren’t getting it and Jesus is about to lay into them for it.

In John 8 Jesus is finally getting testy. For instance, in John 5:31-47 Jesus answers their apparent questions regarding his authority by appealing to multiple witnesses. According to the Law there had to be 2-3 witnesses for testimony to be considered valid (See Deut 19:15). If Jesus is the only one speaking for himself it doesn’t hold up in court. In John 5 Jesus freely admits that his testimony concerning himself cannot be considered valid (5:31) but that he has more witnesses who have testified concerning who he is: John the Baptist (5:33), Jesus’ miracles (5:36), God (5:37), the scriptures (5:39), and Moses (5:36). But now in John 8 Jesus says that he has two witnesses that make his case valid: himself and God. That seems to contradict his point in John 5. It seems to me that the first time around Jesus was willing to work with them to prove his point. He was patient and willing to lay out his case. But by John 8 he is ready for them to get it. By this point his testimony and words should speak for themselves and be heard as valid. If God himself spoke to them would God need 2-3 witnesses to confirm it as true? No. And neither does Jesus (the point he is making in John 8 – sent by God, obedient to God, etc). No more time to go back to the basics and lay out his case again. They should get it by now! His message should be producing its intended effect – faith.

Jesus doesn’t hold back in John 8. He says they are “from below” and “of this world” in 8:23, that they would die in their sins if they don’t believe in Jesus (8:24), that they are children of the devil for not loving and believing in him (8:44), and that they do not belong to God (8:47). None of these were popular expressions in their day! The crowd started eyeing the stones around them to see who would get dibs on the big pointy ones. Don’t you wonder why the Romans didn’t try to do a better job of keeping the temple area free from stoning usable stones?

What is crazy to me in the whole matter is by their actions they confirm exactly what Jesus said was in their heart. Jesus said they follow their father the devil who was a murderer and deceiver. They reject the claim and then try to stone Jesus for exposing the deceit that was in their hearts! In 8:12 Jesus told us he was the light of the world and starting with the woman caught in adultery, then her accusers, and last this crowd by the temple Jesus thoroughly exposes either life and light or death and darkness in the lives of those around him.

How do we respond when the truth about our lives is fully revealed? Do we embrace it or do we kick, scream and fight against it? Most of the crowd in John 8 were determined to hold Jesus at arms length and to reject him no matter how futile their efforts to prove him wrong were. You see it in the way they jumped from one thing to another. We are children of Abraham, no…children of God. Under Rome but not slaves to anyone…yadda, yadda, yadda. They tried to discredit him rather than listen to him – Aren’t you are a Samaritan and demon possessed (8:48)? As if they expected him to say, “Why yes I am.”?

The ultimate exposure of their hearts was seen in what their hearts told their hands to do – pick up rocks to keep from having to undergo the paradigm shift of Jesus as Lord. Do you ever guard your heart so tightly that you keep God out and make it impossible for him to effect any possible change to your thinking, actions, and attitudes? Or are you willing to embrace the truth even if it dings our pride, forces us to admit we were wrong, and humbles us to the point of total surrender? Hopefully it doesn’t take Jesus getting testy with us before we finally put our faith in him but if that’s what it takes he is certainly willing to bring it.

Time for the latest round up of blogs by members of the Church of Christ. If there are any you think should be on here run an alexa search to confirm, comment on the omission and I will update the list. The change column represents the change in rank since the last time this was updated in July (see this post).

There are several things that are surprising to me on this list:

1. The first is that it shows alexa is not as accurate as it is cracked up to be. For instance, Bill Williams (#57) gets about 100 views a day, which is more than a couple of the ones ranked in the 30s that get roughly 20 views a day. Another one in this boat is Terry Rush who I am certain gets close to 100 views a day or more and is ranked #48.
2. Another surprising thing is the ascendency of Mitchell Skelton (6), Tim Archer (7), and Matthew Morine (8). John Dobbs’ numbers are also coming back as he had recently changed URL’s when the last list was composed.
3. Also there are several newcomers to the list who did quite well including Craig Ford (10) who has an excellent Christian personal finance blog and who is a friend of mine from Harding Grad.
4. Last, it is impressive that the last list in July had 47 blogs ranking up to 20 million in Alexa. This list shows our blogs are starting to stack up better over all with 56 blogs ranked better than 8 million. For those who don’t know what Alexa is, it is a ranking system that tries to order blogs based on traffic. An alexa rank of 1 means that website is the site with the most traffic on the web. So the lower the better.

Check out a few of these links, you may find some excellent blogs you didn’t know were out there.

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A few posts from Perry Noble over the last few weeks that I thought were exceptional. Another blog to check out regularly, especially for ministers and church leaders.

1. 10 Ways to Kill Vision in Your Church
2. 5 Reasons We Are Doing a Singles Series
3. Staffing, Ministry and Vision
4. Dangers of Leadership Series: 1 – Jealousy, 2 – Ignorance, 3 – Pride, 4 – Misc

Tim Challies has an excellent blog and is one you should subscribe to if you aren’t already. Tim offers up an excellent series of blog posts on sex, pornography, addiction, etc. These are excellent and should be read by all the guys/anyone in ministry. Nice work Tim! We need to encourage our young people before they get themselves in trouble rather than after. Too many people go into adolescents and adulthood uninformed from a Christian point of view and cling to the only information available to them – the destructive and deadly message of the world in regard to sex and sexuality. Here are the posts. Have a look:

Sexual Detox: Recommended Resources

Sexual Detox 1: Pornifying the Marriage Bed

Sexual Detox 2: Breaking Free

Sexual Detox 3: A Theology of Sex

Sexual Detox 4: Detoxification

Sexual Detox 5: Freedom

As was already mentioned the Feast of Tabernacles had several ceremonies that keyed in on themes of Jewish history. The water ceremony remembered the wilderness wanderings where God dwelled with his people and provided them water to drink. Jesus worked off this theme in calling himself the source of living water (John 7:37). The second ceremony was a festival of lights. They would light large candelabras on fire to light up the night sky to remember how God went before the Israelites in the wilderness as a pillar of fire at night. Jesus plays off this in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” As with the water in 7:37, Jesus is saying that he is the fulfillment of all these things they had celebrated for over 1000 years.

This takes us all the way back to the prologue where Jesus was called the life that is the light of men (John 1:4). John then tells us the response we are to expect from the world. “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:5). We think of this in terms of pagan people not understanding Jesus today but in John you see that many of God’s own people, the Jews, didn’t get it. They had the law and the prophets. They had all the evidence, all the road signs. They had a “heads up” about the Messiah and when he showed up many found it impossible to believe.

There were several things that blinded people to Jesus as Messiah:

1. He violated the oral traditions and they equated that with breaking the law. Certainly a law breaker wouldn’t be Messiah.
2. He was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth. People assumed he was born in Nazareth and since the messiah was to come from Bethlehem certainly it wasn’t Jesus.
3. He “worked” on the Sabbath by healing the sick. Jesus pointed out that even babies were circumcised on the Sabbath…exceptions were to be made for the right reasons. Yet, some rejected Jesus as Messiah because of his Sabbath day miracles.
4. He cast out demons and instead of attributing it to the power of God working through him some believed he did it by the power of the devil. Jesus was quick to point out how flawed that logic was but it still wasn’t enough for some to put their faith in him.
5. Jesus spoke of Jesus as his Father and himself as God’s unique son (only begotten). People accused him of blasphemy.
6. Jesus referenced himself as God’s temple, that it would be torn down and rebuilt in 3 days. This didn’t make for a happy crowd.
7. Jesus went on the offensive against the abuses of the religious authorities of his day and at the same time told the common folks that their righteousness must surpass those they admired the most religiously (the Pharisees).
8. Jesus had difficult teachings including selling all possessions to follow him, eating his flesh and drinking his blood (figuratively), and putting anger and lust on level with murder and adultery.

In all of these things people let their presuppositions and assumptions blind them to the truth. What is so sad in all of this is that each and every one of these things that people rejected Jesus over were actually God’s attempts to shine a revealing light on the world and on men’s hearts. The truth of the matter is, Jesus was successful in doing so. When Jesus came to town, what was on the inside of a man was suddenly and unexpectedly brought to the surface. Farmers, carpenters, tanners, tax collectors, and all around every day, ordinary people all taking sides. Some believe while others oppose. Some have faith that grow and respond to the light and life of Jesus. Others wither in rejection of the truth and in stark opposition to the light that God was shining on their lives.

When Jesus shines the light of the world on your life how do you respond? Do you submit to it and allow it to reveal both good and bad in your heart, rejoicing in one and repenting of the other? Or do we so fear vulnerability and shame that we avoid the light, no…reject the light altogether for fear of what it will do in us and to us? Face it. He is the light of the world. That is something we all must deal with. Hopefully we do so in a way that brings to fruition in our being light and life rather than darkness and death. It is either one or the other.

I don’t have an exact figure but based on some projections I have probably typed over 1 million words on this blog since 2006. So what? What is there to show for all that effort? There is no way to add up the grand total effect that something posted on the internet has.

1. I hope this blog has a positive effect and not a negative one. The goal of this blog has a lot more to do with building faith rather than tearing it down.
2. Visitors from nearly every country in the world. I am amazed when I see people come from China, Iran, and other countries to K.L. I don’t know what effect it is having but I am certain it is producing fruit of some sort in places I will never set foot.
3. Friends across the United States and even several other countries. Although I have never met many of you I feel like I have friends all over the U.S. and abroad.
4. An archive – I can’t tell you how many times I have used this blog as a personal reference when working on something. I just knew I wrote something about a particular subject, did a search, and avoided a total reinvent of the wheel.
5. Emails – I get emails from time to time that normally express thankfulness for the contents of the blog or tell how something they found here was beneficial to them in a tough time or answered a question that had been bothering them.
6. Small group lessons – The small group lessons continue to benefit people in several congregations in the U.S. I periodically get an email asking permission to use them or of people who are currently using them and enjoying the lessons.
7. Sharpening – I have grown from the conversations here. There are times I have changed my mind on issues or really had to study hard to find out if I had a solid foundation on certain issues. I appreciate those of you who have commented here for that. Hopefully that went both ways. I feel this outlet has helped me grow in my faith and mature in my ministry.
8. Keeping in touch with old friends – I have known several of you for a decade or more and it is great to stay in touch with old friends. I cannot tell you how much I have regretted some of the friendships I let slide away in the past due to moving, etc. I am glad to have this outlet to stay in touch with many of you.

I wish I could say I had thousands of conversion stories of people who stopped by the blog, put their faith in Jesus and were baptized by a local congregation but I don’t. And that’s okay with me. I suspect the biggest impact of this blog will never really be known by me and that is something I am fine with. All we can do is let our light shine and do our best to not get in the way!

I want to thank the words: a, in, on, or, and, and the for comprising many of the 1 million words and for being so easy to type. Without you guys, this blog would lack readability and any semblance of being written in English.