Christian Life with Michael

Do Fish Believe In Airplanes?

2012-05-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

I wonder if fish believe in airplanes.

Airplanes are simply not part of a fish's universe. Most fish live in the water all of the time, and most airplanes don't go into the water. There are fish who jump out of the water, and there are fish who may have been caught on a fishhook or by a predator and escaped back into the water. But in general, fishes are in the water, and airplanes are in the air.

Now, certain fish might occasionally have a certain kind of encounter with airplanes. For example, on a sunny day a fish who happened to be looking up might, by chance, see on the surface of the water the shadow of an airplane which happened to be flying by. Or, a fish who lives in a place where a seaplane lands might have a more direct experience with an airplane, maybe get to touch its pontoons. An airplane might even enter completely into a fish's realm of experience if it crashes into the ocean. Of course, even a theoretical Very Intelligent Fish (VIF) would not likely be able to explain these experiences very well. A VIF would have to be in the right place at the right time to experience Airplane, and although he might be able to predict some occurrences of Airplane (say, if it was a seaplane that landed at a certain place and time every day, or if the ocean was near an airport with regular takeoffs and landings) he would never be able to make Airplane happen, or truly explain what it was. He would only be able to experience it for himself and report what he experienced to other VIF. There would be varying theories as to what Airplane is, what it means, and how best to experience the mysteries that Airplane brings, but most of what Airplane is would remain a mystery.

Some fish would never in their lifetimes experience Airplane. Maybe they stay deep in the depths of the ocean where sunlight never goes. Or maybe they just don't happen to live in a lagoon where a biplane lands, or near that noisy airport where they could hear the rumbles and see the plus-shaped shadows. I imagine, though, that VIF that believe in Airplane and wanted to experience it might tend to congregate in places where Airplane might be experienced with some regularity.

Or maybe not... after all, we're just talking about worm-sucking fish here.

But fish, even VIF, would be making a mistake to say that airplanes don't exist at all just because they don't exist under the ocean. Airplanes inhabit a realm of existence that fish simply cannot go without help. It would be a very misguided VIF that would claim that because he hadn't ever experienced an airplane (and hadn't even tried) that he had authoritative proof that Airplane is a myth.

Airplane is real.

...And anyone who has had a genuine experience with God can tell you, even though God does not originate in or physically inhabit our realm of existence, God is still real. Occasionally God penetrates into our cosmos, and those who believe in Him sometimes gather (we call it church) to meet with others who believe in Him and to seek out those experiences, but we can't make God do things at our commands, any more than a fish can charter a flight to Disney World.

Maybe there really is not a God. Even after all of the times in my lifetime that I've had experiences with what I believe to be a divine being, and even though I believe that being to be the God described in the Bible, I can't offer you physical proof of his existence. I don't have his autograph, or the jersey he wore when he played basketball in Junior High. He's not from here; He doesn't live here.

Just because airplanes aren't submarines doesn't mean there are no airplanes. And just because God doesn't physically live in the house next door to me doesn't mean there's no God.

Thirteen Years Ago

2012-05-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Thirteen years ago today, plus a week or so, I asked my boss Harry for a week of vacation. He gave me a strange look (because I hardly ever used vacation time) and said, "Are you getting married?"

I had to shush him... my girlfriend's own mother didn't even know! But that Sunday morning I picked her up as though we were going to church like always, and when I brought her back a week later, she was my wife. We spent part of that Sunday driving from Tulsa to Arkansas, where we could easily get married in a little wedding chapel we had found out about on the Internet (after all, we had met on the Internet!), and then we spent another hour or two waiting at McDonald's because our County Clerk was out brush hogging his property instead of waiting around for us to be late for our appointment to get a marriage license! We had written our vows earlier that day at Long John Silver's, so we kind of made the fast food circuit in little Harrison, Arkansas that day.

But despite being something we began secretly (her dad did know what we were up to, by the way, and approved of us getting married) and despite us spending way more time in fast food joints than anyone wants to spend on their wedding day, our 13-years-and-counting have been anything but a disposable, fast-food marriage. We've certainly had misunderstandings, arguments, and hurts, but we've had so many laughs, fun times, talks late at night, and so much love that every rough patch is totally worth it.

A good marriage is funny. You start out thinking you are so alike that it's impossible to imagine not being together. Then in the first years of your marriage, you realize that you are in fact not as alike as you thought, and you learn to give each other room to grow as an individual. No marriage can last if one or both of the people in it are being stifled by the other. After a while, you discover that each of you has grown into an even different person than the one you were when you got married, but the person you've grown into is hopelessly tangled up with the person you've married. There's no getting loose! You're totally stuck! ...and you wouldn't have it any other way.

A few days ago I noticed my wedding ring. It was on my finger, of course; I never take it off. But these days, I'm not usually conscious that it's there. It just is. It's part of me. It feels wrong if it's not there. That's what marriage is like when it's a good one. And that's why it's good to celebrate when you pass another yearly milestone... something that you weren't born with, something precious and valuable, has become a part of you. And that's something that deserves celebrating!

Walking Around

2012-04-27T12:49:00.002-05:00

Isn't it cool when people walk around?

No, I didn't leave anything out of the sentence. They don't have to be doing anything special to be amazing, juggling chainsaws or doing card tricks or something. Just, walking around.

I have a four-year-old daughter who loves animals. Whenever she sees a creature that she hasn't seen before and it starts to move, she giggles. She gets so excited that the puppy or the turtle or the squirrel is moving! A little while I was walking from room to room, remembered something I had forgotten, paused to decide whether to go get it, and then turned around and went back to get it. When I did that, like a four-year-old watching a kitten walk, I suddenly became conscious of the specialness of it.

Have you ever thought about how many muscles have to work in concert for you to walk across the room? Some quick Googling returns the number 200 from a couple of sources, and I don't doubt it. I think there are only about five muscles in your leg, but what about all of the muscles that are constantly adjusting your spine, toes, feet, and all of the other parts of your body to keep you balanced and moving forward? And I didn't just move forward... I moved forward, stopped, remained balanced for a moment, then turned my whole body and walked in the other direction. At every point in that operation, many muscles were involved in keeping me doing what I wanted to do. At any time, one of those muscles could have done something different, and I would have been lying on the floor (or bashing into a wall or door, or whatever) instead of walking across the room. Mundane, you say? No! It's positively amazing! (Just ask anyone who has ever tried to design a two-legged walking robot!)

Why am I mentioning all this? Because to me, even something as simple as walking points to God. There's no way a system like the human body would have occurred by chance. People who would say "isn't it amazing how Nature designed our bodies like that?" are simply refusing to use the word "God" for the creator and using the word "Nature" instead, which doesn't really make any sense unless you're talking about "Mother Nature" and then you've just tipped your hat to pantheism, not atheism. Then again, I'm the guy who doesn't believe in the existence of atheists, so maybe I'm not the guy to apply those labels. Wait, where was I going with this again?

Oh yeah: your body is amazing. And I'm not just saying that because you are so good-looking, because everybody knows that the people who read this blog are SMOKIN' good looking! But even if you weren't so incredibly attractive, your body would still be an amazing creation by an amazing God. And when you stand up and walk away from whatever you're reading this on, I hope you are reminded of that with every step.

Blue Like Jazz: Shock Treatment for Christians

2012-04-22T18:50:00.002-05:00

As I drove up to the movie theater this sunny Sunday afternoon to view the new Donald Miller/Steve Taylor film, Blue Like Jazz, I had Christian rock playing in my car. This is the song that came on as I drove up to the theater:

When I left the theater, I skipped back to the beginning of the song, listened to it again, and cried my eyes out. Then I called some friends to tell them about the movie, and then I hopped on the Internet with my phone and streamed some John Coltrane (you'll know why when you see the movie), and I cried some more. (Leave it to musician-turned-filmmaker Steve Taylor to use a jazz album as a metaphor for Christ.)

Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
By Donald Miller

But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Blue Like Jazz is based on the bestselling Donald Miller book by the same name. I read the book several years ago, wound up a bit puzzled at the end, and enjoyed the experience enough that I sought out more of Miller's work. When I heard that he and Steve Taylor were teaming up to bring it to the big screen, I was excited and mystified. Excited because I'm a long-time fan of Steve Taylor and I really enjoyed Taylor's movie a few years ago called The Second Chance (which in my opinion did not receive the respect it deserved), and mystified because the book really is not a narrative at all. It's a series of essays, or maybe memoirs, that are based on some of Miller's experiences in college. I had no idea how they would turn it into something coherent on the movie screen.

Of course the way they did it was by creating a story that includes elements of the anecdotes Donald relates in the book, but stringing them together into a plot that makes sense. In an almost self-referential twist, the movie is structured around a mantra from a writing class: setting, conflict, climax, resolution - the four elements of a successful story. The screenwriters did a good job of taking the book, applying those elements, and turning it into a narrative that takes you to uncomfortable places where we, as Christians, desperately need to go.

I really hate to give away too much of the plot, because it's best if you take the journey with Don (the main character is based on the book's author, since the main character in the book is the author) without knowing too much of what's going to happen ahead of time. Suffice it to say that it's about a teenager who goes to college and has a crisis of faith - or, maybe more accurately, has a crisis of faith and then goes to college. His college is far from home, and far out of his Texas Baptist comfort zone. The movie is about his struggle to get a handle on his faith, and at the end he has discovered something important, something that every Christian needs to discover.

Sounds like a wonderful, cuddly Christian after-school special kind of movie, doesn't it? Well, hang on tight and keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times, because this is probably not a movie you want to take your 10-year-old to. This movie depicts alcohol being happily consumed by the Christian protagonist, an instance or two of drug use on-screen, a lesbian who does not become a Christian at the end, a shocking case of an unwanted pregnancy occurring outside of marriage, more profanity than some Christians are going to be comfortable with, people talking about sex using street slang, condoms (real ones and some very large ones with happy faces painted on them), an older man who has just had a sexual liaison with a young intern, and a back-story of sexual abuse of a child by a member of the clergy. What it does not contain are: sex scenes, nudity, violence, and the Plan of Salvation. What? A "Christian" movie where nobody becomes a Christian at the end? Tragedy! Blasphemy! Apocalypse!

Well, nobody does become a Christian at the end, but becoming a Christian is not what the movie is about. The point is that Don-the-movie-character, like Don-the-book's-author, learns how to be a better Christian by the end of the movie. He learns the vital, obvious but seldom-lived-out point that Jesus came to Earth because he loved sinners, and if we consider ourselves followers of Jesus, we should be loving them, too. On one of the most liberal college campuses in the country, Don gets through to one of the most liberal people on campus by showing him the love of Christ. Not by debating him about the Bible, not by telling him what a sinner he is, but simply by loving him. And that's why the theater erupted with applause when the credits rolled on the showing I was in. Because the film ends with one Christian young man making a heart-to-heart connection with a hardened, liberal, damaged non-Christian young man by, paradoxically, not being ashamed to say "I'm sorry."

One thing I really appreciated about this movie is the metaphors of Jesus that keep showing up. I've already mentioned the jazz records that represent Christ. There is also a young lady who is a Christlike character, and a Christlike Catholic priest who, at one point, offers a compassionate hand and pulls Don out of an overturned latrine. Not every Christian character in the film is Christlike (I won't give away a major plot point, but you'll know the main hypocritical Christians when you see them), but as Don is exposed over and over to Christlike figures in the middle of some of the most Godless situations imaginable, he finds himself transformed into a more Christlike Christian.

I've read some people's comments online about this film, and I've seen both glowing recommendations (I guess you can count this one among those) and some pretty harsh criticisms. The criticisms are not about the cinematography or the writing or the acting, but about some of the things that are depicted in the film, the lesbians-and-condoms-and-booze kind of stuff. Sadly, I think a lot of Christians are going to find something in the film to be offended by. And that's a real shame, because by Hollywood standards, this movie is seriously tame fare. I mentioned before, and I'll mention again, that this isn't a movie for children; it's a movie for adults, and maybe for older teens who are able to take in the subject matter involved. But come on... if you've watched the advertisements during the Super Bowl, you've seen more suggestive and offensive stuff than there is in this movie. It's a crying shame that some Christians will miss out on the amazing, life-changing, redemptive message because they allow themselves to be offended by a depiction of sinners doing what sinners do: sinning. Without the Godless "setting", the impact of the emotional "climax" would be all but eliminated. Sure, it would have been a safer film, but Steve Taylor has never been known for playing it safe. I'm so glad he and Donald Miller (and the tons of fans of the book who donated via a Kickstarter campaign to get this thing off the ground) took a chance and made this movie. If it helps one person to love others the way Christ did, like the single character of Don does at the end of the movie, then it will be worth it.

And that's why I was crying in my car on the way home this afternoon. I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, that one person will be me.

Visit http://www.bluelikejazzthemovie.com and find out where it's showing in your area. You'll be glad you did.

YouVersion - you should have it on your phone

2012-04-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I did something I haven't done often. I wrote a "User Review" of an app on the Android Market:

This is the Cadillac of Bible apps. It's designed simply to get you reading the Bible; it has very little in the way of study tools such as cross-references or Greek/Hebrew lexicons. What it does have is just about every Bible translation that the layman has ever heard of, even in audio in some cases, and scads of "reading plans" to help you get engaged with the translation of your choice. It eliminates any excuse you might have for not reading the Bible regularly. The icing on the cake is that it's free!

The app I was talking about is of course YouVersion, which I have mentioned here in the blog several times before. If you have it on your phone, it's probably just called "Bible". If you don't have it on your phone, right away you should visit http://youversion.com/download with your phone and download it! Here's a QR code you can scan to take you there if that's the way you roll:

Scan to download the Bible to your phone

YouVersion's Bible app really is the cream of the crop for mobile device Bible reading. Well, I'll temper that statement a little bit: the YouVersion app is free, and there may be paid apps out there that rival it in one way or another. In fact, since I use the Logos software on my home computer, I also have the Logos Android app installed, and it gives me a bunch of study materials that YouVersion doesn't have (the ESV Study Bible notes, for example), and on top of that it lets me split my screen in half and view two translations at once! But I use YouVersion far more often, and here's why:

YouVersion has probably every Bible translation you've ever heard of. It certainly has my favorites... the ESV, NAS, HCSB, NIV, NLT. There are scads of English versions, and a bunch of non-English translations as well.
This is what it looks like when you're reading on
Android... how simple is THAT?

It's easy to use. You open it up, tap the icon that says "Bible", and you're reading the Bible! Changing the passage you're looking at or changing the translation you're reading are intuitive processes (which is something I can NOT say about the Logos app... changing translations or passages in that app is pretty convoluted until you get used to it).
Audio. Not a recreational reader? Staring at a page of text makes your eyes roll back in your head? The YouVersion app has audio files for many of their translations, which means that after you point and click your way to a passage, you can listen to it instead of (or in addition to) reading it. This means that you could listen to the Bible in your car on a daily commute (I've done it), while you're going to sleep at night (done that too), or wherever you are.
Reading plans. YouVersion has tons of daily reading plans that you can choose from. Some of them are only a couple of days or a week long and cover specific topics or books; others range up to long-term plans to read through the entire Bible. And you can use the audio in conjunction with your reading plan, so instead of reading passages from sometimes several different books/locations, you can have them read to you. I'm working on a reading plan that has a two chapters assigned each day from two different books. If I start the audio running on the first chapter, when it reaches the end it proceeds to the second chapter automatically! How cool is THAT? If you sign up for a free YouVersion account, you can track your reading over time, and you can actually read through an app or their Web version and you "get credit" from whichever you use (so you could read from your phone one day, listen to audio on your phone the next day, and read on your computer the next day, and the system tracks your progress from all three). It can also be set up to fire an alert on your phone every day to remind you to read your passage, and if you miss a day or two you can shift your reading program's dates so that today's reading is the only one you have to complete to be caught up. No guilt trip and no scrambling to catch up by reading multiple days... nice! It's the least stressful Bible reading plan system I've ever tried.
Downloadable translations. Some, but not all, of the Bible translations in YouVersion can be downloaded to your mobile device so that you can access them even from places where you do not have data access; other translations (because of restrictions set by the publishers) are not downloadable.

The issue of downloadable translations does bring up the only major problem I've had with the YouVersion app: if you do not have data access, you may have trouble even getting the app to start. There is no public WiFi at my church and the building makes 3G availability a touch and go proposition, and this has given me trouble a few times. Usually if you have a downloaded translation it will start right up, but sometimes it insists on being able to see the YouVersion server on the Internet and it won't open at all. I haven't seen this happen in quite a while, though, so presumably I've either gotten every translation that I use downloaded, the data accessibility at my church has improved, or YouVersion has fixed it (they are pretty active about updating the Android app, and I understand they're good about new versions on other platforms as well). So I suppose your mileage may vary on that, but the fact is that this is an OUTSTANDING way to get yourself engaged with the Word. And even if you use a different Bible app, this one likely can give you access to translations that you don't have in that app. Scan the QR code above or visit your app store directly and download this thing. Tell yourself you'll keep it in your hip pocket when your regular Bible app fails you... but you may find yourself using YouVersion more often than you thought! And if you struggle with getting yourself to read the Bible regularly, the reading plans and/or audio versions may be the thing that enables you to start engaging more often. That's the goal of the YouVersion apps - to help you get into the Bible, wherever and whenever you can. What a terrific goal to have!

Sound Theology

2012-04-10T08:49:00.001-05:00

You go, Linus!

Easter Music: David Crowder Band Gives Us Rest

2012-04-07T18:42:00.001-05:00

Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys])
By David Crowder Band

I've always loved Christmas music. Some of my earliest childhood Christmas memories are accompanied by specific Christmas albums which as an adult I have sought out and purchased on CD. At this writing I have probably a couple hundred Christmas CDs in a box that I usually drag out every November or so with the Christmas decorations. As a Christian, though, I've been puzzled at the lack of albums designed to be listened to during the Easter season. I once worked for a man who told me that he pulls out The Master and the Musician by Phil Keaggy every year. Michael Card's Known By the Scars would be a pretty appropriate choice, and I suppose you could make an argument for something like The Jesus Record by Rich Mullins et al. For a number of years I compiled my own CDs with songs like Michael W. Smith's "Hosanna" and Petra's "It Is Finished". But that was a lot to keep up with, and although I still enjoy those mixtape-style compilations I came up with, I still wanted something with a single vision, something I could share with others without them having to cherry-pick songs from music download services. This year I may have unexpectedly run across a winner: the final double-CD album by David Crowder Band, Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys]).

In order to appreciate this work of art for what it is, you have to understand what a "requiem mass" is. I suspect most non-Catholic Christians don't even know what a "mass" is - essentially, it's a very structured church service. A "requiem mass" is a mass service in honor of someone who has died. Now, I'm not Catholic, so I'm probably oversimplifying things quite a bit, but I have a bachelor's degree in music composition; in my studies I've come into contact with requiem masses a number of times, because the requiem mass has inspired music composers for centuries. And I'm not talking about some obscure composers with unfamiliar names, either; there are very famous long-form musical pieces based on the requiem mass by Brahms, Mozart, and even Phantom of the Opera composer Andrew Lloyd Weber. These are powerful, emotional pieces of art, typically containing certain sections derived from the traditional Catholic mass, and if there are sung parts, they usually use the Latin texts of the mass. This CD from David Crowder Band uses those structural conventions, and even includes some of the Latin texts. But this is not a mournful album; this album, if listened to closely, deals frankly and completely with the subject of death, but it looks at it in the light of resurrection.

Death, if you think about it, is a very important concept in Christianity. Obviously, especially around Easter, we think and talk a lot about the death of Jesus on the Cross. But in Christian Theology, there are also a number of other critically important deaths. There is the spiritual death of the human race when Adam and Eve first sinned. There is the state of spiritual death that each of us lives in during our life on Earth until we accept Jesus' sacrifice and are spiritually born again. But even after we are born again, our bodies are still in a dying state, waiting for their own resurrection from corruptibility to incorruptibility at the end of time when Jesus returns. And there is the obvious physical death that each of us will one day face until that lucky generation (maybe it'll be us!) has the privilege of stepping from life in this age into life in the next age without crossing that threshold. Maybe the reason that this album is so long is that it deals with every one of those topics, always coming back to the resurrection of Christ Himself and the resurrection that He brings to us every day and ultimately after our own physical death. Not only did they cover all of these Theological topics, but they covered a pretty impressive number of musical genres including rock, orchestral rock a la Muse, big choral pieces, and yes, even quite a bit of the bluegrass music that DCB has always done so enthusiastically and skilfully. It's huge in scope. David Crowder Band bit off a big bite when they took this on, and I see the end result as a humongous work of art.

Let me give you something I was unable to find on the Internet: the track list of the two CDs, organized (as they are on the back of the CD) into the sections of the Mass. I think it's important to be aware of these subdivisions, especially on the first disc, because to my ears, this album is as much a collection of seven EPs as it is one album. Here's the breakdown:

Disc 1
The Entrance (or, the introit)
01. Requiem Aeternam Dona Eis Domine
02. Oh Great God, Give Us Rest
03. Lux Aeternam Shine
04. Come Find Me

The Plea (or, the kyrie)
05. God Have Mercy (Kyrie Eleison)
06. Why Me
07. Fall On Your Knees

The Plight (or, the gradual and teh tract)
08. A Burial
09. Let Me Feel You Shine
10. Reprise 1
11. Blessedness Of Everlasting Light
12. The Sound Of Light
13. Interlude

The Sequence (or, the dies irae)
14. Sequence 1
15. Sequence 2
16. Sequence 3
17. Sequence 4
18. Sequence 5
19. Sequence 6
20. Sequence 7

Disc 2
The Invocation (or, the offertory and the sanctus)
01. Reprise 2
02. Oh My God
03. I Am A Seed
04. After All (Holy)
05. The Great Amen

The Consummation and The Memory (or, the agnus dei, the communion, and the pie jesu)
06. There Is A Sound
07. Oh Great Love Of God
08. Our Communion

The Absolution (or, the libere me and the paridisum)
09. Sometimes
10. A Return
11. Oh My God I'm Coming Home
12. Leaning On The Everlasting Arms'Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus
13. Jesus Lead Me To Your Healing Waters
14. Because He Lives

The first time I listened to this album, I cried. I cried quite a lot. In the past five years or so, we've seen a lot of loved ones die young in my family, and the references to the loss that comes from a physical death were a bit hard to take. But even then I could see the beauty and hope in every song; it's just that kind of album. Let me walk you through the sections and give you an idea of what I see in them; hopefully I won't offend any Catholics or any musicologists who have a better grasp on music history than I do along the way!

The Entrance

This first section starts off with the sound of someone arriving at a funeral being conducted in Latin. The first song, "Oh Great God, Give Us Rest" is a heartfelt cry for help from God by a person in pain; this musical theme runs throughout the two CDs, being reprised several times. But only a minute and a half into this song, which starts off with just voice and piano crying out to God out of weakness, it bursts into a "Let it shine" section that does indeed shine with the hope that God will answer the prayer; it is very like some of the Psalms, which start in weakness but then end by drawing from God's strength. In fact, this whole section does that, going from that funeral scene quickly through a brief interlude called "Lux Aeternam Shine" into a song called "Come Find Me" that fairly explodes with joy - from the perspective of the recently deceased seeing Heaven for the first time! "Today is the day I rise like the dawn, up out of death, to a Son, to a Son; Oh day, what a day! Oh day, I'm yours! Oh, day of resurrection!" I wish the dead in Christ could send a message from Eternity back to their own funerals. There would be a lot less crying in sorrow, and a lot more crying for joy! The song ends with such a musical finality that there is no question in my mind: this is the first act of a performance of several acts. I actually recommend that you stop the CD after each section the first time you listen and take a breather. Get a glass of water. Think about what you just heard.

The Plea
Those of us who haven't had the "Come Find Me" experience of entering Heaven yet still have to live in a fallen world. This section is a prayer for God's help and protection while on Earth, and a celebration of the life and freedom we live in in Christ. "Kyrie elieson" is Latin for "Lord, have mercy", and we need God's mercy to live for God in this evil age. The middle section includes the lyrics, "Oh God, what have I done?" If you've never wondered that and felt the need to plead for God's mercy because of your sinfulness, then you're just not trying to live for God. "Oh we will bend and break/In such a fragile state/We won't be here long/No, we won't be here long." The second track is a very simple guitar and voice recording of the Kris Kristofferson song "Why Me" which starts off with the line, "Why me, Lord?" but then continues with the question, which is not "Why are bad things happening to me?" but instead is "Why has God given me so many blessings when I deserve none of them?" The third and final song in this section is actually the first song on the CD that sounds like what most people probably expect a DCB song to sound like. It's a worship song that celebrates the life we have been freely given by God's mercy, and it's a song that would not feel out of place in a contemporary worship service or a Christian rock concert. "He spoke and stars came out/He spoke and lighting flashed and thunder broke the quiet/He spoke and my heart, it burst to life!"

The Plight
The third section ("movement"?) once again starts out with a funeral. This one is in English (well, most of it is), and is apparently happening in the rain. The song you may have heard on the radio from this album comes on immediately after this "Burial." Here's the tune:

(Aside: here's David Crowder talking about the circumstances under which this song was written.)

This section of the album asks for light for the living and forgiveness for the deceased. It includes the first reprise of "Oh Great God, Give Us Rest", on strings this time, which reminds us that we are looking to God for our strength as we live life on this fallen world. You'll notice that the song titles in this section deal with light; the song "Let Me Feel You Shine" is about God's light in our lives as we live, and the song "Blessedness of Everlasting Light" is about the light of God in which the dead in Christ live in Eternity. Frankly, I'm still chewing a bit on the odd circus-like arrangement of "Blessedness of Everlasting Light" - it's a little creepy, to be honest. The lyrics are a little odd too, touching on the Catholic idea that the living need to pray for the dead; non-Catholic Christians mostly believe that once you are dead, it's Heaven or Hell for you and no prayers from the world of the living can change that. Maybe the two bits of weirdness are related. The section ends with two brief instrumental pieces, one an acoustic guitar solo over a synth pad, the other a piano solo over a string background, both quite pretty.

The Sequence
The "Dies Irae" section of the Mass, also called the Sequence, seems to always inspire composers. I still remember singing the exciting Dies Irae parts of both Mozart's and Lloyd Weber's requiems back in college. "Dies irae" is the Day of God's Wrath. This is a Bible concept that a lot of Christians are uncomfortable with; we are very used to talking about God's love and forgiveness, but the Bible does teach us that God is also a God of wrath, and one day that wrath will have to be faced. It's a terrifying thought! If you don't believe that there is wrath in store from God, check out the book of Revelations (angels pour it out by the bowlful) or Hebrews chapter 10. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" (Hebrews 10:31 ESV) BUT: the good news is that God's wrath is not aimed at humans, but at our sin. And the VERY good news is that Jesus Christ took that sin on Himself when He died on the Cross! But when Jesus took God's wrath on Himself, He made Himself the target of God's wrath, again, not because of being Jesus, but because of the sin that had been applied to Him. Just like certain perfume might make you the target for bees or mosquitoes, which aren't interested in you but in the scent, when our sin was laid on Jesus, God's wrath against the sin fell on Jesus. The Sequence part of this CD first gives us a glimpse of what might have happened to the human race had Jesus not taken God's wrath on Himself ("Day of wrath/Oh, day of mourning/See the ashes, cities burning/Hear the final prophets' warning..."), then a section in Latin which is about the trumpet in Revelation which announces the unleashing of God's wrath, but then "Sequence 4" is one of the most beautiful songs about Jesus' sacrifice that I've heard. "God You came, God You came, God You came... down." There's a song about the isolation Jesus must have felt when on the Cross, "forsaken" by God, and then a song about His decision to do what the Father was requiring of Him. The lyrics of that song, in their entirety: "I bow low with all my heart." The final song in the sequence (and on the first CD) says, "When all is done, judgement comes, and we will stand right in front of Him. Spare us, oh God; have mercy, oh God." The music of most of the Sequence section is furious and exciting, but this song ends with a single piano note.

The Invocation
The second disc starts off with another reprise of "Oh Great God, Give Us Rest". It does a nice job, especially after the intensity of the Sequence portion, of bringing us back into the present. And then the DCB guys do something totally unexpected: their invocation (an invocation is a prayer) is almost completely prayed in the language of... bluegrass! The songs, which if your heart is beating at all will have you tapping your feet and singing along, have an interesting dichotomy to them: they are musically joyful, and at the same time they talk about how tough it can be to live life in this world. They do a beautiful job of expressing the peace and joy that we as Christians can experience in life, even in the middle of suffering. "I Am A Seed" even talks about how we are planted like a seed in the earth that has to die before it can bring forth great fruit. Sound familiar? I understand that the last full song in this section, "After All (Holy)", will be on Christian radio shortly, so be listening for it. I say the last "full song" because "The Great Amen" seems to mostly just be there to make the point that an invocation is a prayer, by saying "amen." A lot of times. Getting louder and louder each time. They pretty much make their point (you'll see what I mean when you listen to it!)

The Consummation and The Memory
This section has songs that are a lot more like standard standalone DCB songs than most of the album. They are worship songs which you could sing in your church's contemporary worship service, right alongside your Chris Tomlin songs and your Hillsong songs and your Gateway Worship songs and... well, and your David Crowder Band songs. They are about Jesus taking away the sins of the World and a celebration of the spiritual resurrection of the Believer. One of my favorite lines from the album is in this section: "This is not a death, this is us waking, this is a return back to life." And one of my favorite musical moments is in the song "Our Communion" about 1:40 in, when it actually sounds like someone coming back to life. (And hey, who forgot to put that banjo away after the bluegrass set?) That song contains the final reference back to "Oh Great God, Give Us Rest", but this time instead of the world-weary "Oh great God, give us rest/We're all worn thin from all of this/At the end of our hope, with nothing left/Oh great God, give us rest" the lyrics are a joyfully hopeful "Oh great God give us rest/No more fear from all of this/Oh great God give us rest/Let your light come down on us/Oh great God give us rest!" Worship is a very fitting "memory" of Christ's sacrifice for us, don't you think?

The Absolution
The final section of the album is almost a microcosm of the whole album. "Sometimes" is a song about losing yourself in the love of God in those times when we feel irreparably damaged - when we feel lost in life, we can become lost in Him, and lose our fear in a sea of His love. "A Return" and "Oh, My God I'm Coming Home" invoke the story of the prodigal son, or rather our own prodigal son-like story, when we stray from God but begin to seek Him out and return to Him - you'll be surprised at how emotional you can become over a song that consists of an acoustic guitar, someone singing three lines over and over, and the sound of someone getting into a car and... well, going home.

The last three tracks are songs that wouldn't have felt out of place in the churches I attended as a child - a medley of the hymns "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms" and "'Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus", the classic Bill and Gloria Gaither song "Because He Lives", and in the middle, a new DCB song that would feel right at home on grandpa's back porch after a great Sunday night service. Apparently performed live, they're played in an old timey, traditional country/bluegrass style, very respectful of the way people experienced those songs in decades past. Something about the love that the David Crowder Band puts into these tracks makes them a perfect ending for this album.

What can you say about a musical piece that claims to be about death, but is instead all about life? You can say this: that's what the Bible is about, too. It's about dying to self so we can live for God. Even as I've been listening to the CDs to write this review, I've experienced tears of sadness, but more often tears of joy, because it reminds me so much of what Jesus has made possible. We don't have to experience eternal death. We don't have to suffer the wrath of God. Jesus took that wrath on Himself instead. Isn't that what the story of Easter is all about? I think I may have finally found my Easter CD, the one I can return to year after year.
I won't sugarcoat it: this isn't lighthearted fare. This is not the CD you'll probably listen to in the car on the way out to a day at the beach. And not all of it is singalong worship music, either. But this album is, unmistakeably and without reserve, a mature work of art. And it is a fitting final album for a band who has brought so much to the world of Christian contemporary worship music. This album essentially says everything that is worth saying about the Gospel: death was our destiny, and in a way it looms over us every day we exist on this planet, but Jesus took the sting out of it. Physical death is not the end of the story; the end of the story for us is not death, but resurrection.

Happy Easter!

Movie Smackdown: The Hunger Games vs. October Baby

2012-03-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'm annoyed, and a bit offended, by something that just showed up in my inbox. It's an ad for a movie I've never heard of called October Baby. Obviously it's a "Christian movie" about abortion. Now, I am totally 100% opposed to abortion (because I think that human beings are human beings from the moment of conception, and I oppose the killing of innocent human beings), but the copy of the first paragraph of the email got under my skin. Here it is:

This weekend, when the biggest box-office hit is expected be a film based on a popular book about young people being forced to fight to the death, OCTOBER BABY hits theaters with a resounding message about the sanctity of life. Talk about a culture in need of a wake-up call!

I'm annoyed because that paragraph unfairly implies that The Hunger Games is against the "sanctity of life" (which is almost the diametric opposite of the truth), and I'm offended that whoever wrote it either decided to take a pot-shot at a movie they haven't seen and don't know anything about, or thinks that I and every other Christian out there is too stupid to know baloney when we see it. The whole message of The Hunger Games (which, full disclosure, I have not seen yet on the big screen, but I've read the book series and from all accounts I've read, the movie is remarkable in its fidelity to the book) is that life is too precious to be manipulated and exploited for the entertainment of others. The story does not glorify the fact that the kids are killing each other in an arena; the arena combat is absolutely painted in a negative light. You might as well say that Star Wars is a story that celebrates the idea of blowing up whole planets full of people. Ridiculous.

The cherry on the ice cream sundae is the crack about "...a culture in need of a wake-up call." Ironically, The Hunger Games IS a wake-up call. The underlying themes are about a too-strong totalitarian government manipulating their population into complacency by using "reality TV" as a propaganda tool. Over the past half-century, real governments have become better and better at using the media to spin the facts to their own advantage; take a look around in an election year and see for yourself. At the same time, "reality TV" becomes more and more outlandish. Government-sponsored and approved violence could, given the right set of circumstances, become reality one day in this or any country. Just ask first-century Christians, who, depending on who was in charge, might wind up getting eaten by lions in public. Cruelty of man against man, heightened by the fact that the persecuted persons are children, is totally, unequivocally condemned by The Hunger Games. When we wake up to the fact that although they are not physically cutting each other's throats, many times the players in "reality TV" programs are mistreating each other publicly for their own ends, and we watch it and call it entertainment, then we will have learned the lesson of The Hunger Games.

According to reports on the Internet today, The Hunger Games has already sold fifteen million dollars worth of tickets, even though it doesn't actually open until tomorrow. It's obvious that some marketing person at October Baby is somehow trying to get a piece of that. I'm not sure what the exact idea is (viewing their movie as a protest against another movie?), but it's not going to work. The millions of Hunger Games fans are not going to say, "Oh my goodness, you are RIGHT! I will throw away the ticket I stood in line for and now buy a ticket to see YOUR movie instead!" In fact, the only thing I can see this kind of advertising accomplishing, if it accomplishes anything at all, is to put the idea in the head of a parent who is too lazy to really find out what The Hunger Games is all about that it is harmful to their teenagers, and forbid the teenagers to see it. What's that going to do but drive a wedge in families? The kids will either sneak out and see it anyway, or miss out on what could actually be a highly positive message for them (violence is bad, and so is believing that everything you see on TV is okay). Shame on you, American Family Association.

AFA, if your film is any good, you don't need to slam other good movies to sell it. Especially not films with a positive message. I won't be wasting my time with October Baby, but I will see The Hunger Games. Because I enjoy a movie with a positive message.

My New Study Bible: Life Application NLT

2012-03-19T09:07:00.000-05:00

Life Application Study Bible
New Living Translation

This past week I got a new Study Bible... the Life Application Study Bible in the New Living Translation. This is a hardcover copy that I won in an online contest; I actually already had a paperback personal size copy of the same thing on my shelf for a while, waiting until I had time to spend with it (I gave it away when I got this hardback copy), and my wife has had the NIV version for some time (she got it for Easter several years back). This is the first time I've really opened one up and spent quality time with it. I'm actually more impressed than I thought I would be!

For the past several years I've been a huge fan of my ESV Study Bible. I've read through most of it in my quest to read through the whole Bible in a year (which is now several months into its third year... go Ezekiel!) and learned an awful lot. The ESV Study Bible has tons of notes that give historical background, cross-references, and other supporting material to help you understand the text. I've also been using the NIV Study Bible, which contains materials along the same line (I've been reading them together, which has been very interesting... usually they have completely different supporting material, sometimes they are complimentary, and occasionally they come close to contradicting each other! But both are outstanding). The Life Application Study Bible is not like that. Certainly it has a copious amount of notes, but the study notes in this Bible are not primarily of a historical or even of a Theological nature, at least not in the academic sense. These study notes are firmly focused on one thing: showing you ways that the Bible text applies to your day-to-day life. They're not concerned so much with telling you how someone lived in the first century; they're concerned with how the Bible is telling us to live in the twenty-first century. They're very good at helping you start thinking about what the text means to your life, right now, today. I'm duly impressed!

Is this the only Study Bible I would want to have? Definitely not. Not for me personally, anyway. I'm very interested in all of that historical background and learning how different passages of Scripture interact with one another (by the way, the Life Application Study Bibles do have book introductions which provide some historical background, so it's not like they leave you high and dry). I enjoy a more academic take on the Word sometimes. I also find that I don't particularly trust the New Living Translation for serious study; it's still way too close to paraphrase for me, although it is less relaxed about fidelity to the text than the classic Living Bible, and of course almost anything is more literal than something like The Message. The NLT is more like having a good friend explaining to you what the Bible says, though, and I do kind of dig that for casual meaning. The Life Application Study Bible matches the NLT incredibly well because reading the study notes feels kind of like having that same good friend tell you what they learned from reading the Scripture passage they just told you about. For me, the overall effect is like listening to a message by a pastor who has a very relaxed style and who is very good at bringing the topics he finds in the Bible into a daily life context. I'm going to make it part of my devotional life, and I think I'll get a lot out of it!

I'm also pretty sure that it's the only Bible that I've ever seen that includes the little-known apocryphal Gospel According To Spider-Man:

(Just kidding... that's 2 Thessalonians there.)

Good stuff on the way!

2012-03-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

First off, I want to apologize for the too-long absence. My family has been in the middle of a crisis situation that I believe a lot of people are experiencing right now: we are trying to sell a house that stubbornly has resisted getting sold. Often when we have a crisis of circumstance, we Christians wind up having a crisis of faith as well, and that's where I've been... and I didn't want to blog when I was feeling at a loss for answers and risk making someone else feel the way I was. I'm being real with you here; Christians spend time not understanding what's going on sometimes. I've learned a lot of interesting stuff in the process, though, and I'm going to share it with you in the coming weeks! First up, though, I have a review of this book coming up; that will be a good jumping-off point for the entries about my recent house-selling and soul-searching experiences. So stay tuned! Book review should appear this weekend.

Crossway's Paperback ESV Study Bible - I don't see their logic

2012-02-08T18:00:00.000-06:00

Crossway recently released the ESV Study Bible in paperback. Their blog post about the release is mostly about the kinds of people they expect to buy it. I love the ESV Study Bible; it's the keystone of my twice-extended read-the-Bible-in-a-year program. And I don't doubt that people will buy it in the new paperback format, but I doubt that it will be the people they blogged about.

First they mentioned students buying it as a textbook. I guess it's possible that this will happen to some extent, but I think today's college student likes for everything to be as electronic as possible, and I can't see a student dropping $20-$30 for an almost 2½-pound paperback that they'll have to lug around and which will wear out when they could pay $20 for online access indefinitely at esvbible.org, or drop $8.54 and get it on their Kindle or Nook, or even from Google Books. I know some people like to write in textbooks, and other people like to sell them back to the bookstore to be re-sold the next year as used books, but I don't know... after Apple's recent announcements about releasing textbooks for iPad, I just think students are going to continue to go more and more digital.

The second category of buyer they mentioned is travelers. The argument is that a traveler isn't going to want to carry their "good" ESV Study Bible with them in their luggage and risk it getting damaged. But seasoned travelers, I believe, have also already adopted e-Readers, and they're going to want their ESV Study Bible electronically as well. Besides, don't all copies of the ESV Study Bible come with free access to the online version? If so, then folks who already have a "good" copy at home can already hop on some free Wifi, which is all over the place nowadays, and use the online version instead, and not have to carry along anything but the laptop or tablet computer they were bringing along anyway. Why add those 2½ pounds to your luggage when you don't have to? Also, serious traveling Bible enthusiasts are likely to have software like Logos on their computers, and I'm thinking those people will prefer to pony up the extra cash to have it in that software instead.

The final category from the blog post is "the church leader" ...meaning that it might be used for discipleship programs, Bible study groups, that sort of thing, and that churches might buy copies in bulk. This one, I can see. The logistics of having copies available for members on e-Readers are formidable, although I suppose in more affluent congregations the members are not unlikely to own e-Readers already (or be able to use the vendors' computer-based reading applications); since the electronic editions are lendable, I could envision a situation where a church buys a bunch of digital copies and lends them out for study group use, saving themselves twenty bucks a copy over the paperback version, and with the added advantage that the books would not wear out. But out of Crossway's three scenarios, this would be the one I would consider the most likely to generate sales... if, that is, churches are even using the ESV Study Bible in small groups. It would certainly be a good resource if they are, and if they aren't, this might be a good time to take a look at it.

The main people I would envision using this are people of slim means. I speak as someone who has spent a lot of time living on a shoestring, bargain-hunting every chance I get. In the case of the ESV Study Bible, I was so excited about it that I actually preordered mine and picked it up as soon as it was available, but if I wasn't able to afford the standard editions and had just found out about the ESB, and if I didn't have an e-Reader (I happen to have a Kindle, but let's imagine I don't) I would be all about this paperback version. Outside of the e-Reader route (which is an absolute steal!) it's the cheapest way I know of to buy a new copy, and I think bargain shoppers may well go for it. Heck, this puts the ESV Study Bible among the ranks of the least expensive serious study Bibles available! I certainly don't wish the paperback ESV Study Bible ill - I hope it sells remarkably well, because the ESB is an amazing Bible. I know it's changed my life and perspective on things. But I'm not sure Crossway really knows who their ultimate audience is going to be for this one.

Happy New Year 2012!

2012-01-16T16:36:00.001-06:00

What do you mean, I'm late? We're only like 4% of the way through the year! It's still new!

And it's that time of year again. The time of year again when blogs contain things like this and this... posts about ways to start a Bible reading plan and stick to it. I've done the same myself from time to time, and we've even got some Bible reading plans available at ScriptureMenu.com if you want to get your toes wet. It's the time of year for "resolutions," and judging from the number of weight loss/dieting/exercise/stop smoking ads I've been getting in my mailbox and seeing on TV, resolutions are still alive and well.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that I'm on an on-again, off-again quest to read all the way through the Bible. In fact, I am planning to do it all in one year. That year is 2010, so I am officially starting my third year of my one-year Bible reading plan. I faltered a little bit that year when we had some family situations that basically disrupted our lives for several months; at the end of the year I renewed my commitment to keep at it. And I did keep at it... for a while, at least! I wound up getting stuck at the end of the book of Jeremiah, not because Jeremiah was a particularly hard book, but because this summer we moved to a new town and I ran into an intense spot at work that often left me drained at the end of the day. To make things worse, the new place is a bit smaller (we'll be moving into a bigger house soon), which means it's a little bit harder to get away from the racket of having a 4-year-old and an 11-year-old in the house. Basically, it got hard, so I never officially "quit" reading, but I sort of just didn't continue reading consistently.

You know what? I can see the effect that it had on me when I was reading consistently, and I can see that it's not there now. I'm convinced: just reading the Bible consistently really does change you for the better. It's not just something that the Bible publishers say to get you to buy Bibles, and it's not just what your pastor says because it's his job; it's a reality. And listen, this blog is certainly not my job. I don't get any dollars or brownie points for saying this. It's the honest truth.

My good friend Justine blogged a few weeks ago about her failure to follow her Bible reading plan last year to the letter (or the number... make sure you check out her post if you're a math nerd like she is!) But actually, she didn't call her experience a failure, and I don't either. Time in the Word is never a failure, even if it's not as much time as you had planned. I don't really do the "resolution" thing, but now is as good a time as any to get back on the horse and ride... so last night I opened my Study Bibles back up to where I left off.

Lamentations.

I almost laughed when I realized I was picking up at maybe the least popular book in the whole Bible! I mean, even Leviticus isn't as not-popular as Lamentations. At least Leviticus is part of the Pentateuch, and everybody loves Genesis and Exodus. I wasn't afraid of Lamentations, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, either. I didn't have any feelings either way when I opened it up.

What I found when I read chapter one of Lamentations was a beautiful, vivid poem about how much sadness there is when God's people have ignored His instructions and leaped (not fallen) time and again into sin. I had read the story in the Historical books, and I read read the warnings in the Major Prophets, and this was the aftermath. I kept thinking about how sometimes I'll tell my kids, "You need to stop doing that or else I'm going to have to punish you," and then they keep doing it and keep doing it, and finally I know that if I don't punish them, I'm going to lose their respect as an authority figure who they need to obey. I've given them the rule, I've outlined the consequences, and I've even given them mercy a time or two, but they've proved that they have an unrepentant heart, and they've brought consequences on themselves.

That's what happened to the Israelites, and that's what I read in the first chapter of Lamentations. I stopped after one chapter; this year, because my study environment is still not particularly conducive to long periods of study, I'm not going to push myself. If I get a nice quiet block of time to read, that's wonderful, but I'm happy with as little as one chapter a day if that's all I can get. I'm going to try to be diligent to get that chapter in. One chapter a day won't take me to the end of the Bible by the end of the year, I don't think (I haven't crunched the numbers), but it will get me on track again. Some days I expect to get in more chapters anyway, so I may yet make it by the end of this year. But 2012 or not, I'll make it eventually. And I know that even a little bit of the Word most every day will make a difference.

Read it! You'll be glad you did!

Happy Epiphany 2012 - part 2

2012-01-08T10:40:00.001-06:00

On Epiphany I blogged that I had a surprise in store for my family to bring Jesus into focus for them this holiday season (if you need to catch up, click here for that post). When I wrote that blog entry, I had a little bit of a problem to overcome: I wanted to share the post with you on the actual day of Epiphany, but I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag on what I had planned! (My wife does occasionally read my blog, you know!) So I simply mentioned that I had something in mind, but didn't say what it was. I wanted to follow up on that and let you know how it turned out!

The big surprise was simply that I had gone to the Christian bookstore and picked up a small gift for each of my family members. I wanted it to be something they would like, but I wanted it to be something that would have a spiritual significance to them, and I wanted it to be something that would last them a long time. That's a tricky proposition, especially when you're talking about a 4-year-old girl, but I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit was guiding me, because everyone seemed to love what I gave them.

That evening, without telling them what I was going to do, I had everyone sit down on the floor near the Christmas tree, and I explained that Epiphany is the day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men (see my previous post for the whole scoop on that). Then I told them that I've been thinking this season about ways to make sure that we find a way to really focus on Jesus in the middle of all of the racket that's going on this time of year (see this post for more on that!) and that I had gotten each of them something special to remind them of Jesus. Then I began to bring out the gifts, one by one.

How to Study Your Bible, for Kids
By Kay Arthur, Janna Arndt

For my wife, I had bought a small, framed cross, with the words "Trust in Him" written under it; I told her that my hope for her this year is that she would learn even better to trust in God, no matter what is going on. Then I brought out my gift for my 11-year-old son: a book called How To Study Your Bible For Kids by Kay Arthur. Kay Arthur has written a number of successful books on the inductive Bible study method (it's basically what I was always taught, although I didn't know that was what it was called); the book has a storyline and activities and it will be lots of fun for him. And I knew that he truly does care about the Bible and want to know what's in there. Since the book uses the NASB and his regular reading Bible is an NLT (read about his iShine Bible here), I also bought him an inexpensive paperback NASB to use for study times, on the theory that it would be better if he has the translation on hand that the book is written for. I was surprised how excited he was to get it! He loves reading, and I think he's going to have a great time with this book.

My 4-year-old daughter was tricker; I wanted her to have something meaningful, and I didn't want it to be one of those cheap plastic Sunday school prize trinkets up by the register. I settled on something that will last her a little longer: I got her a life-sized velvet cupcake with a surprise inside. She opened the package and was so excited when she saw the cupcake, because she loves cupcakes! It's not instantly apparent that something is inside, so I took it and I said, "You can see this cupcake, right?" She said yes. "If it was a real cupcake, you could taste it, right?" She nodded. "Well, the Word of God says, 'Taste and see that the Lord is good!'" Then I opened it up and showed her the cupcake necklace inside! My wife and I hope to reinforce that Scripture for her every time she wears the necklace until the association is so strong that every time she sees it, she remembers that the Lord is GOOD!

A husband can usually tell he has done a good job when his wife winds up in tears. My wife did! And my kids were excited about their gifts too! We told our little girl that she needs Mama's help with her necklace and that it's only for church and very special occasions until she's older; she's already had the cupcake out this morning, ready to wear it to church! I told my wife that I don't intend to celebrate Epiphany exactly like this every year; I don't want it to turn into another day to anticipate getting some "stuff" and another gift-purchasing burden. But I do want to do something every single year, to remind my kids that Jesus is central to our lives. Santa is gone by December 26th; Jesus is here always!

Happy Epiphany 2012!

2012-01-06T10:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Epiphany!

What is Epiphany, you may ask? Well, I didn't know myself until several years ago when a friend who is lay clergy at the Episcopal church downtown told me about their church's annual Epiphany service. I knew that the word "epiphany" means a sudden understanding of something, and I had heard that there was a holiday by the same name, but I didn't know what it was all about. For those of you who are from a church background which does not observe Epiphany, here's how it lays out. Remember everybody's "favorite" Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"? The one nobody can remember all the words to? Well, it's not just a song! In many religious traditions, there actually are twelve days of Christmas, starting with December 25 and ending on January 5. The next day, January 6, is called Epiphany, and it is traditionally the celebration of the day the Kings from the East arrived to worship Jesus. Interesting that this tradition points out a fact that many Christians are not aware of: the Wise Men almost certainly did not arrive at the manger on the night of Jesus' birth. In fact, not only does the Bible say that the Wise Men arrived at a "house" to see a "child" (not a "stable" to see a "baby"), but it says that Herod, in an attempt to eliminate the new child who threatened his throne, executed male children aged two and younger "according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men." Judging from that evidence, it is possible that the Wise Men arrived as long as two years after Jesus' birth, and that Mary and Joseph had found more suitable lodging by then. The time between Christmas and Epiphany represents the time between Jesus' birth and the arrival of the visitors who had come so far to worship Him.

This Christmas season I did a great deal of thinking about how to make sure that Jesus is an actual part of the celebration, not just the statue in the middle of a scene like the one in the picture above. You can read some previous thoughts of mine here. Especially for children, there is so much emphasis on gifts that I started to wonder if there was a way that we could celebrate the festive season with gifts and trees and lights and eating and family and hustle and bustle, but also take some real time to think about the real Jesus. Then I hit on it: Epiphany! It's long enough after Christmas proper that there is some separation from the craziness, but it is close enough that there is still a connection. The manger is still fresh on our minds. Heck, they're still talking about it in my daughter's preschool class at church.

So I have something special planned for my family tonight. It's small, but hopefully it is going to be very special and personal, and hopefully it will help us all focus clearly, in ways that we comprehend at each of our own ages (which range from 4 to 41), on the amazing story that not only did Jesus Christ miraculously appear on Earth those many centuries ago, but He is present in the person of the Holy Spirit right this minute. Today.

What an epiphany that will be!

Want to find out how it turned out? Check here!

Be Still

2012-01-04T22:03:00.000-06:00

"Peace," said Jesus. "Be still."

You know the story. Jesus was out on a lake in a storm with His disciples, and all Jesus had to do was say those three words, and the storm stopped. The disciples were quite impressed, obviously; wouldn't you have been?

Things have been... interesting in my life lately. We've found ourselves in an uncomfortably precarious financial situation, and I've had to bob and weave a bit to keep things running smoothly; at work I've had some complex, high-profile projects which have taken a lot of time and mental energy to manage. Yesterday I figured out a little trick which allowed me to maintain my focus, but today that all got upended by a single phone call, and I found myself feeling anxious and out of control. Pretty embarrassing for someone who, almost exactly six months ago, was blogging about stress! I guess fear can overtake us even when we think we know all about where it comes from and how to avoid it. Boy, what a mess.

It's been cold out, but I went outside without my jacket... I needed to take a walk. (Good thing it was a little warmer today than it's been lately!) I started to take a walk around the block, and I wound up taking a walk around several. It did help a little bit, and I was able to finish out the day with some good progress on my project, but I knew I was holding it together with chewing gum and kite string... not a permanent solution. I asked God for some help, for a little insight, but I really got nothing. I've learned that usually when God doesn't answer your question, it's either because you already know the answer, or you don't really want the answer in the first place. I knew I really wanted the answer, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it might be. Luckily, I had a pretty good idea where to get my balance back: Encounter Night.

Luckily, tonight was Encounter Night. We have it at my church on the first Wednesday evening of every month; it's a service where we spend just about the whole time worshiping God with music. There's no formal message, although we do usually take communion. I went in needing something, and sure enough, by the time I left, I had found what I needed to persevere through the next steps of my work project and my financial commitments. But it wasn't quite what I expected!

Several weeks ago I blogged about storms. Actually, though, that post is more about one particular type of storm: it's about the kind of storm that is bringing the answer to a problem, but which makes it look like things are getting worse before they are getting better. That kind of storm is uncomfortable, but it is actually from God; like digging the bullet out of a wound so it can heal properly, it seems like the pain is getting worse, but the suffering actually causes the situation to improve in the long run. The storm I was experiencing today was not that kind of storm. It was primarily an emotional storm, something raging more on the inside of me than the outside. This was a storm of fear, not a storm of circumstances. This was not a storm of God. This storm had to go. But how was I going to get rid of it?

Recently I was reading a book that mentioned that being a disciple of Jesus means trying your best to know Him so well that you think and act like Him, react to situations like He did. As I stood there worshiping tonight in Encounter Night, I realized what it is that Jesus did that I needed to do. I needed to speak to this storm. I needed to tell it to Be Still. I'm not Jesus and I can't stop either a rainstorm or an emotional storm, but I can speak out in faith, in imitation of Him, and I can trust God to be the one that calms the storm. The storm of circumstances might or might not let up immediately, but when I speak to the storm of fear inside of me, believing that God can calm that storm, I know He will. At the right time, the circumstances will resolve themselves too, but from now until then, I'm speaking to the nor'easter when it blows up inside of me, and I'm trusting that God will bring it to a peaceful calm.

Scripture Menu on your Home Screen

2011-12-28T10:00:00.000-06:00

Hopefully if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that it's actually part of a Web site called ScriptureMenu.com, and that we've actually provided a mobile version of the site to make it easier to access using your cell phone. Here's something you might not know: although we haven't technically built a formal "app" to install on your phone, it is very possible to put a link to the mobile site on your iPhone or Android phone's home screen, and that link will look like an app and behave like an app. When you touch it, you will be opening a browser to the mobile site. Scripture lists at your fingertips! Here are instructions on how to do it (thanks in large part to this post on Phil Wilson's blog; I'm copying the instructions from there to here not to steal Phil's content, but so the instructions will still be here if for some reason one day his blog is not):

iPhone

Open http://m.scripturemenu.com/ in Safari
Click the icon at the bottom center of the browser. It may look like a square with an arrow in it, or it may simply look like a plus sign.
Select "Add to Home Screen."
If necessary, give your link a name (I recommend "Scripture Menu").

Android

Open http://m.scripturemenu.com/ in the Android browser.
Bookmark the page.
Open the browser bookmarks screen.
Long-press the bookmark you just created.
Select "Add to Home Screen."

Alternately on Android, when you get to step 3, instead just go to the home screen where you want to see the bookmark, long-press the space where you want to see it, then select "Shortcuts" and "Bookmark" and select the bookmark you created. Note that this may not work the same way if you use an alternate browser such as Dolphin or Firefox.

Either way, the result is that you've created a link that feels like a Scripture Menu "app" on your phone, but you haven't had to purchase, download or install a thing. The only thing you need is a data connection, and you've got instant access to the Scripture Menu wherever you are!

Merry Christmas 2011!

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-06:00

From ScriptureMenu.com, the New Living Translation, and a bunch of Christian artists!

Christmas Perspective

2011-12-22T18:00:00.000-06:00

The Christmas tree I set up
every year in my office at work

I've been doing some thinking about Christmas.

I know that seems like a kind of weird thing to say... hasn't everybody been thinking about Christmas? This time of year it's all around us. There are trees and carols about Jesus and songs about Santa and gift shopping and cartoons about Charlie Brown and people angry about the word "Xmas" and the phrase "Happy Holidays," and church Christmas programs and missions offerings, and people generously paying off other people's layaway accounts and buying gifts for children from poor families, and traveling and Christmas parties and white elephant exchanges and who knows what all else. And always, always, always there is someone telling us about the "true meaning of Christmas." In fact, that phrase has started sounding a bit ludicrous to me this year, like something people just say. Like when I say, "How are you?" as a greeting, and you say "Fine," even when you're not really fine. It's just what you say. And I'm starting to think that this time of year, people talk a lot about the "meaning of Christmas" without really putting much thought into what they're talking about.

This week I listened to some podcast sermons from a local church where the pastor started out from the premise that society is "trying to take Christ out of Christmas." He mentioned the recent debates over the use of "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," and the notion that was popular several years ago that using the word "Xmas" is the same as "X-ing God out of Christmas." He acknowledged that the "X" represents the Greek letter "Chi" which is an abbreviation for "Christos" which is Greek for "Christ," but then paradoxically proceeded as though he thinks people are using the X to remove Christ from the picture anyway. After that confusing start, he talked about what it would be like in the world if Jesus hadn't been born. He mentioned some of the charitable organizations started by Christians (the Salvation Army, for example, and the YMCA) and people who have done great things because of their faith in Christ (Mother Theresa, monks and scribes who preserved ancient manuscripts, missionaries who helped and still help non-literate people groups develop written language). His message was stirring, but it leaves you with the idea that unless Jesus had come, the world would be totally devoid of any of those things.

I just don't buy that. It's not like God had no hand in the world at all before He sent His Son down so God could finally have a say in what was going on down here. God has always been active in His creation; all through the Old Testament you see God intervening, and if you read it carefully, you'll realize that the descendants of Abraham were intended to be God's instrument of doing good in the world all along (God even refers to Israel as His "firstborn son" in a place or two!) I agree with Pastor that Jesus' coming and the rise of Christianity has had a huge impact on mankind, but the picture you wind up with is one of a world devoid of anything holy or good, with no philanthropy or kindness or Cyrillic alphabet or orphanages or anything. Based on my reading of the Old Testament, I believe that if God's plan had not included sending His Son into the World, God would have instead used the Jewish nation to do all of those things. The job would not likely have been done in exactly the same way, but I believe God would have made it happen somehow. Because God loves people.

And if you're going to hang the "meaning of Christmas" on the nice things people have done in the name of Christ, what are you going to do with the evil things people have done in Christ's name? What about "holy wars" and Crusades? What about priests raping children and parents browbeating their families with the Bible? What about Protestant/Catholic wars in Ireland? What about alleged witches being burned at the stake? What about weird stories like the tale of William Tyndale, who was executed by the religious authorities (in God's name) for translating the Bible into English (in God's name)? If Jesus hadn't come into the world, those things might not have happened, either. I don't think Christmas is a time for patting ourselves on the back, talking about how nice we are to people because Jesus made us act nice. I don't belittle the transforming power of Jesus Christ in the life of someone who follows Him; in fact, I depend on it. Without it, I would be a mess. But I don't think the "meaning of Christmas" is that Jesus makes us nicer.

Then I read this terrific blog post by a pastor who has become fed up with the consumerism of the Christmas season, seeing it as something that brings harm to us rather than good. I mean, when you come out of Christmas with debt you wouldn't have had otherwise, that's a bad thing. When you spend the whole month of December selfishly thinking about what you hope people will give you for Christmas, that's a questionable use of your time, especially if the end result is going to be disappointment or even anger if you didn't get what you wanted. Pastor Sammy makes some very important points about the attitude we should have about Christmas, but he seems to have reached a point where he's almost ready to throw out the baby with the bath water (not the Baby... I didn't mean Jesus. Stay with me on this, now!) Although I do agree with him that when we buy expensive things we can't really afford and then say it's because of Jesus, we do the essence of the story about Jesus' birth a disservice. And I want to make it clear that I understand (and you should understand, too) that when Pastor Sammy said "I hate Christmas" he didn't mean it in the sense that he thinks it should be eliminated; he was stating his case in a shocking way to get people's attention. Make sure you read his followup blog post (link at the bottom of the original) so you understand clearly where he's coming from. I agree with him particularly about doing consumer-y things in the name of Christ; I have a relative who was so turned off by that sort of thing that he essentially abandoned Christmas (and God) altogether. But I think there's a balance to the season that we need to strike.

Mariah Carey's Christmas album "Merry Christmas" is one of my all-time favorite Christmas albums. And listen, I have TONS of Christmas albums. I have a collection of maybe a couple hundred, both religious and non-religious. I like Mariah's in large part because it is actually far more reverent and Christ-centered than most of the "Gospel" Christmas albums I've heard. Who would have thought you'd hear a song called "Jesus, What A Wonderful Child" on a pop Christmas album? That song alone has the word "Jesus" in it more times than most entire Gospel albums. Her "O Holy Night" has got to be one of the most amazing arrangements/performances of that song ever. And when I hear a song on a pop singer's Christmas album end by repeating three times the phrase "He is light, He is love, He is grace, born on Christmas day," I can't help but be astounded at the guts it must have taken to record something with that amount of religious significance. That line alone could be the basis of a pastor's entire Christmas sermon! But you know what? Mariah wasn't afraid to follow up "Silent Night" with the love song "All I Want For Christmas Is You," and then to follow up "O Holy Night" with "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". And she also wasn't afraid to include her fun take on "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" right after that whole thing about light, love, and grace. So the real question is: has Mariah devalued the significance of the religious content of her album by including things about missing someone you love, wanting to be with them, or a Jolly Old Elf?

Balance.

I don't think there is a "meaning of Christmas." I mean, I think it means different things to different people, and it means different things to the same person at different times. I imagine it means something different to Mariah when she's singing "I miss you most at Christmas time, and I can't get you off my mind" than it does when she's singing "Jesus, born on this day, He is our Lord and our Savior." It means something different to me when I'm listening to Linus talk about the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night than it does when I'm watching my kids open their presents. The Christmas season, with all of our traditions and habits and history, is a complex thing, and you can't wrap it up in a pretty box and slip it under the tree. It's just not that small of a thing.

But I will tell you my favorite thing about Christmas, and yes... it's a "Jesus thing." The thing I love most about Christmas is that at Christmastime, people are more likely to act like Jesus intended for them to act. People are nicer to each other. People wish each other well - I don't care if they're wishing you well just on Christmas, or on the many holidays that occur in and around the month of December. And at Christmastime, it "feels" more "okay" to talk about Jesus. It's a time when it's easier to share your faith - don't browbeat with it, but share it, like a Christmas present that can be accepted or rejected by the recipient. But don't self-righteously deny people their gift-giving and their Jingle Bell Rock and the other trappings of the season. It's not an affront to God that you have a tree in your living room, whether or not the history has something to do with pagans in the woods. Jesus was not born on December 25th; probably not even in the month of December. If you're looking for a "meaning of Christmas," then Christmas essentially means that we have a few days off from work, give each other presents, sing traditional songs, that sort of thing. It's a festival. But I think we can adopt a new question: what is the opportunity of Christmas? Everybody knows the story of the sweet little baby who was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn, and if they don't, there are a billion shows on TV to tell that story. The opportunity we have at Christmas is to experience that story one more time, and maybe start a dialog about it with someone who doesn't understand that the real gift was not the baby, but the redemption He provided when He died on a cross thirty some-odd years later.

Have fun this Christmas! Sing carols, visit with family, enjoy your candlelight service, open your presents. I hope you have great stuff in your stocking Christmas morning. But you don't have to search for a "meaning" to Christmas, because it means whatever it means to you at any given moment. But remember the opportunity of Christmas... which is essentially the same opportunity Christians have all year long. The opportunity of Christmas is to remember that the baby whose birth we are celebrating grew up to love people, help the poor and sick, share God's message of hope, and ultimately give Himself for us... and then the opportunity is to allow Him to transform us so that we live more like He did every day of the year.

Night of the Living Dead Christian

2011-12-15T10:00:00.000-06:00

Night of the Living Dead Christian: One Man's Ferociously Funny Quest
By Matt Mikalatos

Every Halloween, I'm reminded of a theory of mine. My theory is that every kind of monster that you see in a scary movie, or read about in a horror novel, or imagine is hiding under your bed, actually is a symbol of a fear common to human beings, and that's actually what makes them scary. For example: why would a ghost be scary? They go right through walls! A ghost, in theory, couldn't even pick up a knife to stab you or a club to hit you. I think the reason people are afraid of ghosts is that ghosts represent something else people are already afraid of: death. I think people are scared of skeletons because we fear not having enough food... starvation. I think we fear mummies because we fear embarrassing or dangerous things that may come back from our past to ruin our present. I think we fear werewolves because we fear wild animals; I think we fear zombies because we fear strangers (what's stranger than someone you used to know who is now only an animated corpse?) It's easy enough to come up with a basic fear of mankind that matches up with just about any creature from any B movie you can think of.

In his new book, verbosely titled Night of the Living Dead Christian: one man's ferociously funny quest to discover what it means to be truly transformed, Matt Mikalatos, who must have had a heck of a time in Kindergarten learning how to spell his own name, takes a different approach. He matches up different approaches to living as a human being to different monsters. Then, in a whimsical twist, he writes a story starring himself as both narrator and one of the main characters. Apparently, some of the other characters in the story resemble some of his own real-life friends as well, and the neighborhood suspiciously resembles his own. However, the next-door neighbor in the book, a man named Luther, is (reportedly) not based on a real neighbor of his. Luther, who when he becomes angry transforms not into the Incredible Hulk but into an incredibly dangerous werewolf, soon also becomes the focal point of the story, because although it is a book that contains zombies, mad scientists, vampires, and one very large android, the book is actually about the transforming power of surrendering your life to Jesus Christ.

I almost hate to synopsize the story itself, because I feel like I'm giving away too many spoilers and it's much more fun to read it for yourself, but I'll fill you in on a few things to give you an idea of what the book is like. Luther, early on in the story, becomes estranged from his wife. In fact, the first time we see him (in human form, anyway), his wife has just loaded their baby in the minivan, and told Luther they are leaving him. After determining, based partly on Luther's wife's assertion that "He's a monster. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? A monster," that Luther is indeed a werewolf, Matt and his friends, who were unable to locate any silver bullets with which to shoot the wolf, instead attempt to kill him by pelting him with coins with a high silver content shot from slingshots. This attempt meets with limited success; the werewolf is not killed, but instead is befriended, and the crew sets off on a quest to figure out how to cure him of his werewolfiness. On the way they escape from a horde of Study Bible-toting zombies, get advice from a recovering vampire, and face off several times with a very persistent monster hunter. If you took Pilgrim's Progress, threw it in a cooking pot with a little bit of C.S. Lewis and a pinch of Monty Python, and then stirred in a season or two of Scooby Doo reruns, this book is what you would get. It's wacky and unusual. The line between metaphor and "real" is pretty blurry: Luther is a man who loses his temper and that transforms him into an angry person, and we might say he "became a monster," but he also actually transforms physically into a furry monster. So the book is a true monster story, although since it is not actually very scary, you might have to classify it as, I don't know, a "monster comedy" or something like that. But under the surface humor is a strong, important message about the way we non-monster human beings lead our lives.

That message is this: each of us has problems that we cannot solve without the transforming power of Jesus. Sometimes we can't use sheer willpower to keep from becoming angry. Sometimes we can't keep from selfishly, vampirically using others by making up our mind to be nice. It takes the power of God to change us. The scene where Luther is finally freed from his lupine tendencies, reminiscent in many ways of a similarly vivid scene from the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, illustrates a kind of change which is painful, horrible, and necessary. It's the story of all of us, after all. The final chapter is bittersweet; bitter because as in real life, not everything is resolved as we wanted it to be, but also sweet because there is a ray of hope which mirrors the hope that shines in each of our hearts when Jesus becomes our life focus.

I enjoyed this book very much, but didn't laugh out loud at it. (Then again, I don't laugh out loud at Scooby Doo and Monty Python, either.) I enjoyed it in the way that I enjoy a good fast-paced satire: I don't want to break out and laugh, because if I do, I might miss the next funny bit! It does take time to sort of acclimate yourself to the world that is unfolding in the story... particularly since the "Introduction" is written by the fictional Luther, whom we will not meet until chapter 3, and the "Prologue" is actually located in chapter 2. After that, you spend a lot of time trying to guess which characters are also monsters, and what the heroes are going to try next to cure Luther. For me, one of the funniest mental images in the book is when Luther, at the advice of a psychologist who asserts that he must accept that he is a werewolf and learn to control himself, dresses in a suit and spectacles while in wolf form and strikes up a chat with Matt. On the flip side, there are insight-loaded details there that might be missed by a too-casual reader, like the brief speculation that some of the partially-transformed zombies are zombies made up to look more like humans, and some are humans made up to look more like zombies, and the two are virtually indistinguishable. (Which might you be?) The silliness runs throughout; there is no shortage of light moments to balance out the seriousness of the primary theme. But the theme is always there, just beneath the surface.

When I finished the book, I found myself thinking about ways that I might sometimes transform into a manipulative mad scientist, or a brainless zombie, or a codependent, selfish vampire, or an angry werewolf. The "Are You A Monster?" section at the very back will either make you laugh, think, or scratch your head in confusion... hopefully it, and the rest of the book, inspires more "think" than "head scratch," but I suspect it was designed for a little of both. I know the book gave me pause to reexamine my reliance on Christ in my daily life; it's so easy, like Luther, to fall back into looking like a wolf but trying to behave like a human. I'm planning to spend some time with Mikalatos' other wacky novel, Imaginary Jesus, very soon. If it inspires change like this one does, I know I'll be glad I did.

Even if you don't like monster movies, I recommend that you give Night of the Living Dead Christian a chance. It won't give you nightmares about monsters... except, maybe, the monster inside of you. But if it does, it also will show you the way to eliminate that dangerous creature once and for all.

Read more about Matt Mikalatos at mattmikalatos.com

Read more about Night of the Living Dead Christian at nightofthelivingdeadchristian.com

Read more about Tyndale House Publishers at tyndale.com

Don't miss the details about the free book giveaway after the video!

watch on tyndale.com

We have a winner for the contest! Congratulations, Terry!

We have a copy of the book to give away! To enter the contest, simply leave a comment on this blog post (use an actual identity or at least click "Name/URL" and put in your name, so I'll know who you are) and then immediately send an email to me at contest@ScriptureMenu.com so I'll have your email address. Make sure your comment and email reach me before December 22, 2011. On December 22 I will randomly choose the winner, who will receive a free book certificate, redeemable at Christian bookstores or direct from Tyndale.

I was provided with a review copy of this book by Tyndale House Publishers. The opinions expressed in this review are mine alone.

All Night

2011-12-10T08:58:00.001-06:00

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (Exodus 14:21-22 ESV)

The children of Israel were in a bad spot. They were just a bunch of slaves who had been released by their captors, only to be accused of escaping and pursued by the mighty army of the nation of Egypt. Behind them was that army, camping out, presumably to either recapture or slaughter them in the morning. In front of them, sure, was the supernatural cloud from God which they had been following, but there was also an impassable expanse of water. The proverbial "rock and a hard place" scenario. The people were caving in with fear; the only thing holding them together was the reassuring voice of Moses saying that God was going to save them. Then God told Moses to do something. Moses was to hold up his arms over the water, and divide it so they could cross. God reassuringly and protectively moved his cloud between the Egyptians and the Israelites, and Moses held up his hands, and the wind began to blow.

The wind began to blow? What about parting the sea? All we get is a moving cloud and wind?

Look back at the Scripture passage I quoted above. The wind blew all night. It doesn't even say if Moses held up his hands all night; maybe he held up his hands, felt the wind, and then went to bed. But maybe not... it might have been quite a rough night for the Israelites. I found a news item about a researcher who, using computers, estimated that it would have taken something like a 63 mile-per-hour wind to do this. A gale-force wind, blowing all night. I wonder if that seemed like an improvement to the Israelites?

The wind is strong and the water's deep
But I'm not alone here in these open seas
Cause Your love never fails

The chasm is far too wide
I never thought I'd reach the other side
But Your love never fails

This year my family has been going through some difficult challenges... we've moved to a new town and have been trying to repair and sell our old house. Just moving from one place to another is a big job, but then contracting out the repairs and putting the house on the market brought another whole set of challenges and responsibilities. On top of that, last summer I had an unusually intense period of high-profile projects that needed completing at work. It's been difficult, and frankly, it's still difficult; although things have wound down a little bit, the house is still not sold, and some of those workplace projects are still ongoing. There's a lot to be anxious about, a lot to be stressed about. In the wake of all that, a few days ago I was running on the treadmill and listening to the new Newsboys CD, God's Not Dead, which contains the song I've quoted in this post (it's called "Your Love Never Fails"). And that particular morning something occurred to me.

Just because the seas don't part immediately doesn't mean that God isn't working a miracle.

Take yourself back to that story about Moses. Imagine you are a frightened ex-slave. A ferocious army is within attack distance; you can't see them because of a cloud, but you know they're there. If you don't get across the Red Sea, they're going to re-enslave or kill you. You can't swim it; you don't have a boat. You want God to create a bridge! You want him to send you dry land! And what does He send? A windstorm. All night you suffer through a steady 63 MPH wind. Is this what you asked for? Is this what Moses was crying out for? We need a boat, not a cloud and a hurricane!

What God was giving them became one of the most spectacular, famous miracles of God in history. But it must not have felt like a very good miracle at the time. It may have even felt like God had left them, or was actively punishing them. But God was working in their behalf, parting the sea so that the land they walked on would be nice and dry. God was rolling out the red carpet for His people, and when they had partaken of His salvation, He was going to use the same miracle to completely eliminate the threat to their safety by drowning the Egyptian army.

You stay the same through the ages
Your love never changes
There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning

And when the oceans rage
I don't have to be afraid
Because I know that You love me
Your love never fails

The next time it feels like you're trapped between an impassable see and an undefeatable army in a 63 MPH windstorm all night, remember: God may be parting the Red Sea for you!

NLT Life Application Study Bible (and more!) Giveaway

2011-12-08T12:09:00.000-06:00

Tyndale is running a great contest on the New Living Translation Facebook page. You'll need to like their page (and there's a lot to like about the NLT - my pastor preaches from it every week, and I use it to read devotionals to my kids every night!) and you can enter the contest. What are they giving away? Well, they're giving away a TON of hardcover Life Application Study Bibles. They're giving away a "family pack" of them to one random entrant every day - five Life Application Study Bibles of slightly different "flavors" (the "Guys" edition, the "Girls" edition, the "Student" edition, the regular unleaded edition, and the Large Print edition). And once a week, someone wins an iPad 2! Obviously, since there are daily prizes, there is no time to lose... you'll want to enter right away to have a chance at the good stuff. If you enter and win because you saw the contest here, please come back and let me know in the comments! I'd love it if someone fell deeper in love with the Word because of a contest they won because they saw it on my blog!

Here's the link again: NLT Giveaway on Facebook

I appreciate how many times Tyndale is willing to run these little contests and give away copies of their translation. They don't have to... currently the NLT is the fourth best-selling translation (after the NIV, the KJV, and the NKJV, beating my beloved ESV which is at #5 - see the CBA list here) so obviously they are doing pretty well even without running contests to drum up publicity. They've been known to give away digital copies to all takers, as well. I appreciate a company that, although they obviously need to sell their translation in order to continue to be in business, is also willing to share free copies from time to time.

By the way... I've been a little bit quiet lately, but I do have some good things coming up - a review of a new book called Night of the Living Dead Christian next week, for one thing. There is also something I haven't mentioned here yet, but I should have: for the next few days, you can download an "offline" copy of the NIV to your mobile YouVersion for free! (Normally the NIV is only available if you have a data connection.) This means that you can have the NIV available to read without using your mobile phone's data allowance or being in reach of a WiFi hotspot. Just open up your YouVersion (or download the app, which is always free and which is available on pretty much every mobile platform), find the NIV in the list of translations, and click the "download" icon - there are instructions in the blog post about it if you need them.

Whatever you use to read the Bible... a NLT Study Bible you won from a contest, the NIV you downloaded from YouVersion, some other software or Web site, a dedicated device or an audio Bible... whatever you use, get the Bible into you. Get it rolling around in your mind. It will change your life for the better.

Big Bible Sale

2011-11-22T08:49:00.001-06:00

This blog and ScriptureMenu.com were obviously born because of my deep respect for God's Word. But just because it is the most valuable thing in the universe outside of God Himself doesn't mean we can't get a good deal on one now and then! The bookstore at Westiminster Theological Seminary always has terrific prices on ESV Bibles, but right now they're having a sale on top of that... all ESV Bibles published by Crossway (and also the Reformation Study Bible) are on sale between now and Tuesday, November 29, for 45% off! See for yourself!

Righteousness - convinced of it

2011-10-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my pastor based his message on this passage, which quotes Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit, from the New Living Translation:

But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged. - John 16:7-11 (NLT)

Verse 10 ("Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more.") caught my attention, because it seemed subtly different in the New American Standard version I was reading:

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. - John 16:7-11 (NASB)

It occurred to me that the NLT makes explicit something that the more-literal NASB leaves you to figure out: that Jesus meant that the Holy Spirit's lesson about righteousness is that it is available because Jesus made it available by going to the Father. But as I read it, it seemed to me that what Jesus meant was that because He was the model of perfect righteousness while He was on Earth, when He left and that perfect model was gone, the Holy Spirit would have to reveal perfect righteousness to people instead! This seems to be the way the ESV Study Bible leans:

"Because I go to the Father means that Jesus will no longer be in the world to teach about true righteousness, and so the Holy Spirit will come to carry on that function, through illumination (v. 13) and through the words of believers who bear witness to the gospel." (ESV Study Bible)

Both of these statements are true: 1. Righteousness is only available because Jesus provided it; and 2. The Holy Spirit reveals that availability to us. Which did Jesus mean? Well, I still think in context it makes more sense to assume that Jesus meant that He wasn't going to be around to show us righteousness, so the Holy Spirit would have to take up that job. The NLT (which, by the way, I generally do enjoy reading because it's very comfortable English) doesn't leave you that option. It assumes that it knew what Jesus meant, and in this case, I disagree. Does it mean that the New Living is not a valid translation? Of course not! But it does highlight why it's a good idea to take a look at a number of translations and commentaries when you're studying the Scripture. Sometimes the insight in one version is different than the insight in another. Isn't it a blessing that we in the English-speaking part of the world have such a wealth of great information about the Bible available to us?

YouVersion - download NIV and NLT online for free!

2011-10-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Check it out... the NIV and NLT are free to download for offline use with YouVersion for the next 24 hours! From the YouVersion email newsletter:

NIV and NLT Available for Download: 48 Hours Only!

Some of you have let us know that you lost your offline Bible versions after upgrading or replacing your phone without having offline translations backed up. Most versions in the Bible App are available to download anytime. However, a few are not, so we reached out to our friends at Biblica, Zondervan, and Tyndale, and they have graciously allowed us to offer the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT) for a limited time.

For just 48 hours next weekend—from 12:00 AM October 30 through 11:59 PM Central Time U.S. (GMT -5) October 31—you’ll once again be able to download the NIV and the NLT for offline use. (When you download a version, that means you can read it in the Bible App even when you’re offline—that is, when you can’t connect to your service provider or to the Internet.) Special thanks go to Biblica and Zondervan for making the NIV available, and to Tyndale for the NLT.

Get 'em while you've got the chance! Hey, can you believe that YouVersion's app for Java phones is still in active development. How many mobile apps can say that?

Friend of God

2011-10-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

Who am I that You are mindful of me,
That You hear me when I call?
Is it true that You are thinking of me,
How You love me... it's amazing!

I am a friend of God! He calls me friend!

Back several years ago when my wife and I were in the worship choir at church, this song was the new thing, and we sang it quite frequently. It's a joyful, upbeat song; it's a fun one to sing. We sang it this past weekend at a marriage conference I went to with my wife, and it brought back some fun memories of those days. I remember we used to joke that the actual lyric is "...He calls me Fred" ...but we never sang it that way in church (not intentionally, at least!)

I also remember once our worship leader saying that she had actually received flak for the lyric. "Friend," the objection goes, is apparently too familiar of a term to use for God. When I heard her say that I immediately recognized that as a ridiculous objection which stems from a lack of actual knowledge of what the Bible says. What? That was what you were thinking? Let me show you from the Bible that God actually does call human beings His friend. I can think of an example from each testament right off the top of my head.

Old Testament: Abraham

    But you, Israel, my servant,
       Jacob, whom I have chosen,
       the offspring of Abraham, my friend... -Isaiah 41:8 ESV

Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 2 Chronicles 20:7 ESV

Obviously it was common knowledge back then that God said Abraham was His friend. It should be common knowledge to Christians now, because there is also a New Testament verse that says so (probably the inspiration, along with Psalm 8:4, for the song):

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. -James 2:22-23 ESV

Bonus Old Testament friend of God's: Moses. "Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent." -Exodus 33:11 ESV

But, weren't Abraham and Moses special cases? Surely not just ANYBODY can be a "friend of God," right? Just those special people. Is that what you think? Well, let me remind you of:

New Testament: Disciples

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." -John 15:12-15 ESV

In His farewell speech to His disciples, Jesus very specifically told them that they were His friends. Not His "servants," He told them, but His "friends." The disciples were far from special; they were a bunch of miscellaneous fishermen and other laypeople that Jesus had gathered around Him. And it's pretty likely that you believe, as I do, that Jesus' discourse here was intended not only for those present, but for all of us disciples of Christ which were to come (apparently the Apostle John felt the same way, or else he probably wouldn't have recorded it in such length). If you read through the rest of the discourse, you will find things that Christians have applied to themselves throughout the centuries. The gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise of Heaven. Being branches of the True Vine. Hatred of the World for Christians. All of these things we have applied to ourselves through the years; why not the simple friendship of God?