Category: Blog

 

On September 2 we awoke to the tragedy of the refugee crisis now spreading across Europe. Aylan Kurdi’s body was photographed and chronicled for the world to see: a three year old, lost in the midst of war and sectarian violence. He was a Syrian Kurd, and his family was caught in the violence of a war that has waged for almost four years with no end in sight, a war that was a result of Arab Spring when another young man, Mohammed Bouazizi, lit himself on fire because of repeated insults and an inability to forge a future with hope.

What kind of father takes his family, paying upward of $800 per person, across a treacherous stretch of water knowing that some of them might not make it? What kind of man, in his twenties with a college education, sets himself on fire to protest the injustices of a country he lives in? Men without hope!

We live in a world without hope. The refugee crisis in our world is a great example. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) recently published total numbers for 2014 and stated there were almost 60 million refugees and internally displaced people around the globe. Syria alone counts for some 6.5 million people who have been displaced. Three million of those have fled as refugees to other countries.

Baptist Global Response (BGR) is working hard to help resettle, feed, clothe and care for many of these refugees fleeing a life of war and death, but what can the rest of us do? Most of us live in much safer places where our stomachs are full and we sleep securely knowing that the loud noises we hear outside aren’t bombs or explosions but just harmless sounds. Yet for college students and others, there are many things that can be done to affect at least our part of the world and reach out to refugees in our cities.

First, we can pray! I know it seems like a simple thing but prayer is where we should start and where we should end. There is so much to do, but without the Father guiding, directing and helping us there really isn’t much we can do! When the Jews were sent out in exile, Jeremiah told them to “pray to the Lord on its (the city’s) behalf, for in its shalom you will find shalom” (Jer 29:7). As the world finds shalom, it finds hope because ultimately shalom with God is the only thing that can give us hope.

Second, we can get involved. Just to understand how the Lord works, as I was writing this I turned off my phone so I could better concentrate. When I looked at it again, I had received a call from Kentucky Refugee Ministries (KRM), a ministry here in Louisville. They want my church to help resettle a Syrian family coming to Louisville in two weeks. KRM is serving refugees right up the street from Boyce College, and students can get involved. Refugees need people who can help them resettle, tutor their children, and love them as image bearers of God. As believers we know that only God can provide lasting hope, so we should be on the front lines of these resettlement programs.

Third, we can financially support organizations like Baptist Global Response and by taking trips to work in refugee areas. This summer one of Boyce College’s Bevin Center trips will focus on refugees and our response to them. We are trusting the Lord to provide us with opportunities to intersect with those who are hurting and displaced.

Fourth, we can promote an attitude that says God loves the refugee! Refugees come from all over the world. They are not numbers. They are individuals, they are vulnerable, and they need hope! As believers we understand that hope only comes from the gospel and it only comes through Jesus Christ. We were once without hope, enemies of God, and dead in our sins, but one came to give us life, and He is our hope.

Aylan Kurdi’s death should remind us of those who are lost, hurting and without hope. God has graced us with amazing lives, work and hope. May we never forget the masses who when Jesus saw them, “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’ (Matt 9:36).

 

Dr. John Klaassen serves as Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for Global Studies at Boyce College and works with the Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His new book Engaging with Muslims is designed to help the average church member connect to the Muslims in their neighborhood. John is married to Shari and they have two boys.

 

1. “It’s All About My Personality”

I thought I would be a good counselor because I am a people-person. Many do become counselors for that very reason—they just love people. That may be helpful, but by itself it isn’t help. People need direction, too. God gave me a caring personality so I could explain his truth in love, not just empathize (Eph. 4:15). I’m thankful for my personality, but I also know it’s not enough.

2. “It’s All Method”

After four years in the counseling program, I hoped to have some kind of rigid template to rely on for ministry. I’ve come to realize, however, that counseling is not like formatting a paper. There’s no magic formula you can use for the rest of your life. Biblical counselors depend on the Holy Spirit to work in them just like every faithful preacher on Sunday morning. We can’t just go on autopilot, give three points and expect people to change. Instead, my professors have taught me to pray before, during and after every counseling session for wisdom. They may have written the books on counseling, but they know they are still desperate for the Holy Spirit’s work.

3. “It’s About Being Cool”

When I first discovered biblical counseling, it felt like a new way to do ministry. It was trendy and innovative. Excuse my “I did Biblical Counseling before it was cool” bumper sticker. It turned out that I had misunderstood the movement.

What I needed to realize was that biblical counseling is not cool. Calling people to repentance is terrifying. Loving difficult people is exhausting. Walking through Scripture with people is perplexing. Yes, it’s true that the reward is worth every second. But I needed God’s Word to remind me that the ministry of reconciliation is like being sentenced to death – with life and joy only on the other side of self-sacrifice. (2 Cor. 1:8-9).

4. “I Don’t Need Biblical Counseling, Too”

Sometimes I’ll make excuses about why my problems aren’t serious enough to talk to someone about. If you’re like me and think only serious problems warrant biblical counseling, think again. Paul encourages us to exhort one another every day so that we are not hardened by the deceitful power of sin (Heb. 3:13). This implies dealing with our daily problems and not becoming callous to little sins in our lives. Biblical counsel is not just for “strugglers”; it’s for all of us.

5. “I Have This Figured Out”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.” It’s humbling to admit that sometimes I am the horse, and even though I found water in biblical counseling, I am often stubborn. I haven’t reached the goal; none of us in the movement have. We are all weak and human, in need of Jesus to save us from even our best efforts. Paul Tripp summarizes it when he says, we are “people in need of change helping people in need of change.”

God has used biblical counseling as an essential catalyst for my spiritual growth. Over the years at Boyce, I have too much good to share about how my degree has shaped my life and ministry. I pray that Boyce and the Biblical Counseling Movement will keep growing and be a help to people like me who need change.

 

Seth Mick is a senior at Boyce College. He is studying biblical counseling, and serves as a Resident Adviser.  He is a member at Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, KY.

1. Humans were created to know God. A human who does not know God is not fully human. Jesus is the only way to know God. Go to a college where the whole curriculum is designed to glorify Jesus and therefore make you fully human.
2. God’s ultimate revelation is in his Son Jesus. Jesus is now on the throne of the universe. Go to a college that recognizes Jesus as the Lord of the world and encourages students to follow Jesus as Lord.
3. God has given us a book that tells us how to know him and enjoy him forever: the Bible. Go to a college that values and teaches the Bible as the word of God, so you may understand what God has said and so that you may know God and enjoy him forever.
4. All truth is God’s truth, and the whole earth is full of God’s glory. Go to a college that encourages students to see God’s glory everywhere it is revealed.
5. The two ways that God consistently influences humans is through the literature of the Bible and through personal relationships. Go to a college where you may gladly come under the influence of the administration and faculty. After taking his class, there ought to be at least one professor about whom you say, “I want to be like him.”
6. Go to a college where the professors love God, love their subjects, and love their students.
7. Make good friends, for your friends will make you. Go to a college where you can make friends who will encourage you to pursue what is highest and most noble in life. He who walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools will come to ruin.
8. College years are a time of life when students examine their belief system. Go to a college with an environment where this crucial examination may take place under the caring oversight of mature Christians.
9. Most persons who go to college meet their mate at college. Go to a college where you are likely to meet an earnest Christian.
10. The college from which you graduate is known as your alma mater. Alma Mater is Latin for soul mother. You may not choose the mother of your body, but you may choose the mother of your soul. Choose wisely.

Dr. Jim Scott Orrick  is the Professor of Literature and Culture at Boyce College. 

Learn more about attending Boyce College by registering for our Fall Preview Day.

It’s hard to believe the beginning of a new semester is so close here at Boyce College. In a few weeks, hundreds of new students will arrive on campus to begin classes. Many more hundreds will be returning, and some (as they are all too happy to tell you) will be starting their last semester at Boyce. I look forward to meeting and interacting with the entire student body.

I’ve already looked at the enrollment lists for the New Testament classes I’ll be teaching. Each class will have between 25–40 students enrolled. Some names on the lists I recognize; others are students I’ll be meeting for the first time. I look forward to spending even more time with these smaller groups of students taking my classes.

Throughout the New Testament you finds “groups” as well. Jesus had 12 apostles (Matt 10:1-4). At the end of his letter to the Romans, Paul greets a large group of Roman church members (Rom 16:3-15). Hundreds followed Jesus to hear him teach (Luke 14:25). On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 became believers (Acts 2:41). The early church continued to grow rapidly partially because large groups of believers took the gospel message throughout the world.

But neither Boyce College nor the New Testament is only about groups.

I never cease to be amazed at how a passage I’ve read many times before all of a sudden takes on new meaning. That’s what happened this week. In the midst of thinking about the groups of students here at Boyce, I read Luke 3 about John the Baptist: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . . . the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. . . . As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Luke 3:1-4).

John, of course, would later have a group of disciples who followed him. But when he began his ministry, he began alone. Just him. Just one. Think of it: John prepared the way for Jesus, but who prepared the way for John? No one. John began as one solitary voice to the Jewish nation.

This passage got me thinking about students at Boyce. It reminded me that while it is only natural to think of “groups” at the start of a new semester, it is so important that we don’t forget about the “one.”

I’m starting my 19th year at Boyce College. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of teaching thousands of students. And yet, when I think about the students I’ve known, it’s not usually as a group (like “the class of 2012).” Rather, I remember the individual—the one. The student who stepped away from her friends because she saw someone else sitting by herself. The student who made a commitment to a local church and got involved in a specific ministry because he saw he was the one who could meet the need. The student who got a job and viewed it not just as a way to pay her bills but as her mission field for the semester. The student who, when he saw some unmet need, didn’t make excuses but asked, “Why not me?”

So to our new and returning Boyce College students, I say, “Welcome,” or “Welcome back.” We’ve been praying for you and we look forward to seeing you. As you attend your classes and become part of a group of 20, 30, or 40 in the classroom, and as you move into the dorms and become part of your hall, will you also ask God to show you how you can be the one—the one who can make a difference in the life of another?

Dr. Dave DeKlavon is the Associate Dean for Academic Administration and Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Boyce College.  

I took my first preaching class thirteen years ago: Sermon Preparation and Delivery with Dr. Michael Boys. Hundreds of sermons, lectures, and lessons later, the two pillars he established still stand tallest in my mind.

Pastor Boys taught us that accuracy and clarity are the most essential elements of biblical preaching. Accuracy is like air, clarity like water. Without air, people die immediately. Without water, they die eventually. Either way, they die.

So it is with God’s people. His Word is our manna (Deut 8:3; Matt 4:4), his truth our feast (Ps 1:2), and his will our food (John 4:34). We die without hearing the truth proclaimed with accuracy and clarity. Without accuracy, we die immediately. Without clarity, we die eventually. Either way, we die (Prov 29:18).

Preachers rightly have many concerns, and the kaleidoscope of categories can be overwhelming. Right interpretation, the sine qua non of biblical preaching, roots the tree: background and context, grammar and syntax, exegesis and theology. Without cutting the Word straight (2 Tim 2:15), accuracy is impossible and clarity irrelevant.

Homiletical elements then form the trunk and branches: structure and outline, introduction and conclusion, explanation and application. The preacher’s concerns, though, continue branching and leafing into matters of semantics and segues, stories and illustrations, timing and transitions. Miniscule veins and delicate buds appear in the soft artistries and developed instincts of pace, tone, and gestures, along with soul-touching images and mind-capturing metaphors.

Then there are the atmospheric concerns surrounding the preaching event: liturgy, song, seating, lighting, amplification, and a host of liturgical and spatial dynamics that affect the sermon. And we’re not even addressing those age-old homiletical questions every developing preacher must wrestle with. Preaching notes manuscripted or outlined? Delivery scripted or extemporaneous? Personality filtered or amplified? The thoughtful preacher, whether aspiring or established, can find himself exhausted navigating the labyrinth of expository concerns week after week.

But strip it down, boil it down, and apply the paint thinner of the final judgment to the glossy artifacts of oratory, and you’ll find (once again) these two essential and foundational elements of biblical preaching: accuracy and clarity. Speak the truth, and speak it clearly.

Of course, this requires rigorous interpretation and logical arrangement and enlightening illustrations and followable transitions. It requires laborious preparation and skillful execution. But healthy concerns over homiletical effectiveness should never bustle around the minister’s mind like bridesmaids taking over the wedding. Rather, these beautifying agents should be carefully prepared and positioned as handmaidens highlighting truth and clarity.

Yes, build effective scaffolding and structure—to uphold the truth. Yes, labor over your illustrations—for the sake of clarity. Yes, weave stories into your sermons—to capture the imagination with clearly proclaimed truth. Go ahead: Craft pithy proverbs and meaty maxims. Gesture with purpose and intonate with precision. Make your introduction compelling and your conclusion inescapable. Reach deep into the well of stories and illustrations, images and metaphors, proverbs and parables so you can reach deep into the psyche of your earthen, story-bound listeners. Do what you can, within biblical propriety, to capture our spastic attention spans.

But never forget that there’s a famine in the land, that people are starving, and that what emaciated pilgrims need most is not the Skittles of your best story but the true meat of God’s nourishing Word, sliced up with digestible clarity. Pressed in on every side, they need not the stained glass window of ornamented preaching but an unclouded view of divine truth.

Truth and clarity might not entertain, but the preacher’s responsibility is not to go viral on earth but to store up treasure in heaven. Readying souls to race well in this world and reach the next is the preacher’s calling and the sermon’s purpose. After all, there is more joy in heaven over one listener who repents than a hundred retweets that know no repentance.

So never let your capacity to be clever outrun your calling to be clear. Cleverness is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. When cleverness serves clarity, use it. But when cleverness stifles clarity, crucify it. The preacher’s job is not to paint the nail of truth but to drive it. So make your main goal and your heaviest burden this: to tell the truth, as clearly as you can.

This is biblical preaching: nails of truth, sharpened with clarity, driven by the Shepherd-builder of the church through a Spirit-anointed preacher. So until the new creation dawns and the church of Jesus Christ is saved to sin no more, this is the preacher’s calling, and these are his watchwords: true and clear.

David “Gunner” Gundersen (@GunnerGundersen) serves as Director of Student Life and teaches biblical counseling and theology courses at Boyce College.

Can you sense it? Life is getting busier. We feel it acutely in the transition from high school to college, and it just gets worse with each successive phase of life. Professors are exhorting you to academic excellence, everyone is talking about the importance of local church involvement, you are surrounded by opportunities for evangelism and new relationships, and you’re probably also working a job in the midst of all this. These are worthy pursuits, and faithfulness in this season of life means pursuing all of them with godliness and zeal. Add in the fact that we are living in a culture where success reigns supreme, and success is measured in productivity (money earned, books written, homework assignments submitted, godly children raised, to-do lists checked off) and it becomes so easy to forget one very important thing: sleep. Sleep is usually the first thing to get neglected or cut short when the schedule gets full, but it is crucial for both fruitfulness and faithfulness. Here are three brief reasons to make sure you get adequate sleep this semester.

1. Practical

Valuing sleep is countercultural, but it benefits those around you as much as it does yourself. The most difficult roommates (from personal experience and observation) are the ones who are constantly irritable and on edge from being tired and stressed. Anger and impatience are caused by a sinful heart that desires comfort above the good of your neighbor – or roommate – but a good night’s sleep and a clear mind go a long way in the fight against sin.

Sleeping doesn’t just improve your mood, it fosters creativity and problem solving. Multi-tasking as we usually think of it is actually impossible; we are only able to consciously focus on one thing at a time. But your brain is constantly processing information and problems in the background, and according to Jeffrey Kluger’s article Shhh! Genius at Work, your brain doubles up on this action while you sleep, allowing you to make connections and solve problems that baffled you while you were awake (or, like Paul McCartney, write the melody to one of the most recorded songs in the history of pop music).

2. Physical

Let’s be honest, though. Most of us skip sleep because the practical benefits seem to outweigh the practical expense. Snapping at your roommate and falling asleep in class don’t seem that important at 1 AM when you have a Greek quiz the next morning. But getting enough sleep every night is not just advice from your mom. Scientific research shows that productivity and health are crippled by sleep-deprivation. According to a Carnegie Mellon University study, people who sleep fewer than 7 hours a night are almost three times more likely to catch a cold than those who average 8 or more hours a night; research from Harvard Medical School indicates that sleep deprivation limits our ability to focus and access previously learned information. Essentially, it makes those late night study sessions less effective, and will make it difficult to remember all that information the next day when you’re actually taking the exam.

3. Spiritual

Not only is sleep important for practical and physical purposes; sleep also cultivates humility and requires faith. God could have created us as vampires instead of men and women – never sleeping, and able to maintain constant, unceasing productivity and labor for the sake of his kingdom. But God created us as we are. Like food and water, we cannot survive without sleep. More than eating and drinking, though, sleeping requires the conscious humility of relinquishing control and admitting that we are not self-sufficient or independent. There is a limit to what we can accomplish, not only in life, but in a single 24 hour period. The Psalmist says “it is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for he gives to his beloved even in his sleep.” (Psalm 127:2).

We fight against sleep when we fear what will happen when we allow ourselves to rest, and when we think our own work is too important to cease for a few hours; Psalm 127 calls this vanity. Sleep is our daily reminder that we are finite and that God is the only being in the universe who neither slumbers nor sleeps. Accepting the gift of sleep from the hand of God is a practical act of faith in the face of anxiety.

Worship God by working hard, with diligence and zeal. And then sleep, knowing that “he will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” (Psalm 121:3-4).

 

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Abigail Cavanaugh is a senior at Boyce College and plans to graduate this winter with a B.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies.  She currently works as the Administrative Assistant of the Boyce College Faculty, and is a member at 3rd Avenue Baptist Church.

 

I was lying in bed wide-eyed, bewildered, and exhausted. The ceiling was unusually close to my face and I couldn’t get the fear of falling off my bunk bed out of my head. I was in college. I was in college in Kentucky. What on earth was I doing? I had a car’s worth of stuff to my name and now lived on a hall whose name I couldn’t pronounce. I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. I was afraid and exhilarated at the same time.

Thankfully it doesn’t take very long to make friends at Boyce. In a matter of days I had people to talk to, study alongside, and church search with. Spending time with people only got sweeter the longer I was here. It didn’t take long to realize, however, that those closest to me were the easiest to take for granted. In the name of having fun (yet somehow being studious at the same time) it was dangerously easy to live past the people on my hall.

I started to think about this more and more as I realized the desire I had to be a wife and mom one day. I wanted to intentionally encourage and serve my future family and church. And as each semester passed, the people I lived with became more like family – and easier to take for granted. The correlation unsettled me. All areas of growth in life are connected to union with Christ, and I knew the habits I was forming now would come in to play later in life. But how did living on a hall with 18 girls translate into being a successful wife, mom, and church member down the road? I found the answer to be rather simple: care. I prayed for the grace and strength to care for the people closest to me. And as simple as that is, the implications of such a prayer are gloriously rich.

The New Testament is full of passages that tell us how we are to care for one another. Ephesians talks about loving, speaking truth, building up, being kind, forgiving, and being tenderhearted to one another. I was called to be these things to the girls I lived with. Not just sometimes or when I felt like it. I was called to cultivate a heart attitude that saw people through a lens of this type of care. And friends, unceasing care can only come from the wellspring of Christ. As soon as you buy into the lie that you can muster the “spiritual maturity” to love people well without Christ, you will begin a hard road of neglecting those closest to you.

We have so many things to do – papers to write, meetings to attend, books to read, church activities to plan. One decision at a time though, it becomes easier and easier to choose your schedule than those living around you. I would encourage you to press into Christ, pray for discernment concerning your schedule, and love people with abandon. You won’t regret it. You may get a B on your paper because you stayed up late talking through your roommate’s problems. Or you may wind up sitting in the ER with a girl from your hall instead of attending a concert. But do it. Live life with the people around you. Don’t try to be the captain of your own canoe. Start scrubbing the decks next to someone on the magnificent ship of your immediate context.

That first night in the dorms at Boyce College was quite a memorable one. I had the sense that I was on the brink of adventure, but little did I know just how true that would prove to be. College has the reputation of being a completely unique phase of life, one that can never be revisited or reconstructed. It’s only been a month since graduation and even I can tell that’s true. But what will be visited moving forward are new people and new ministry opportunities. And what will be constructed is church fellowship and families. In light of this, I would encourage you to sow biblical care into your relationships in your college years. You will be reaping from it for a lifetime.

 

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Renee Jarrett is an alumni of Boyce College with a degree in Biblical Counseling. She now works at the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), and lives in Louisville, KY.

Reading the Bible can strengthen your confidence in the Bible. There are good arguments already for the trustworthiness of God’s word, and I’m thankful for faithful scholars who argue for it from historical, archaeological, and manuscript evidence. But when a reader is immersed in the majesty and glory of God’s story, that simple act of reading can become a powerful apologetic.

In my academic studies I was introduced to biblical theology, which is a discipline that considers the Bible as a whole, attending to its organic unity and progressive revelation and seeking to understand how later authors interpret earlier texts. I enjoy learning how to think about the Bible in these ways, and I am still rejoicing at the many truths biblical theology teaches us. Here are three.

1. The Bible is telling one story.

From the beginning of Genesis to the consummation of all things in Revelation, there is a discernible and coherent storyline. The Bible’s sixty-six books are not filled with unrelated accounts. Rather, in multiple languages, on multiple continents, and over the course of about 1,500 years, many different authors were inspired by God’s Spirit to tell the story of promises made and kept, of a redeemer who was prophesied and who entered our broken world in the fullness of time and bore our sin and shame. The Old Testament prepares the way for Jesus, and the New Testament heralds the coming of Jesus, the most important person who ever lived and died—and lived again.

2. The Bible is interpreting history.

The Bible does much more than report major historical events from the ancient Near East. The one true God is Lord of all and wields human history for sovereign purposes. The Bible not only records history, it interprets history. For instance, the Israelites left Egypt, but that event should be understood in the larger context of how God was working out his will to rescue his people through an appointed deliverer who would lead them to a promised land. In the first-century A.D., a baby was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, and died on a cross outside Jerusalem, and the Bible explains the theological and cosmic significance of these events. History is not a collection of random happenings. The grand narrative of God’s plan is a marvelous tapestry that testifies to his infinite wisdom, where all of the parts have meaning in light of the whole. The meaning of history is not in the eye of the beholder but in the mind of the Creator.

3. The Bible is unfolding a worldview.

The Bible calls you to a different kind of seeing. The biblical authors, across sixty-six books, give you a set of lenses through which to view the world. The Bible’s worldview allows us to see why we’re here, what went wrong in the world, what God has done to rescue us, and what will happen when Jesus returns. We need biblical theology because we need to live faithfully before God, walking in a manner worthy of the gospel and understanding that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. To be a disciple on this narrow road, we need to see the world and our lives as the Bible does. We should immerse ourselves in Holy Scripture, beckoning God to renew our minds and conform our hearts and orient our affections. We should read not just verses and paragraphs but chunks of chapters and whole books. The Christian faith begins in Genesis, so we should rejoice in and submit to the whole counsel of God, which spans a garden in Eden to the holy city where all things have become new.

As Erich Auerbach rightly put it, “The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real world, is destined for autocracy. All other scenes, issues, and ordinances have no right to appear independently of it, and it is promised that all of them, the history of all mankind, will be given their due place within its frame, will be subordinated to it. The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”

 

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Mitch Chase (PhD, SBTS) is an Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at Boyce College, and is the Preaching Pastor at Kosmosdale Baptist Church. He tweets sporadically from @mitchellchase.

 

 

You are weak.

Whether you care to admit it or not, know it all-too-well or are blissfully naïve, you are beset with weakness.  By virtue of being human, your body tires at the end of the day, your mind fogs when the caffeine wears off, and your attention span will wane if this blog post it too long.

But some are beset by more intimate weaknesses.  Some are physically weak by a chronic illness; some are weak in resources that keep them from good pursuits like education; some are weak in skills and experiences that keep them from the job they want.

For most, the sensation of weaknesses isn’t a pleasant one.  We want to grow.  This aching desire is compounded for Christians – people whose inherent desire is to grow in Christ (Phil. 2:12-13).  Yet, we oftentimes are confused by our weaknesses.  Are my weaknesses sinful?  Should I seek to grow?  Should I just focus on my strengths?  Do I just accept my weaknesses?  Or worse: do I use them as an excuse any time I want to escape a difficult situation?

What are we to do about the things we feel we cannot do anything about?  Here 5 things you can do about your weakness:

1. Understand the Difference Between Sinful Immaturity and Weakness. Sinful patterns in your life are meant to provoke repentance, not contentment. Your faith will stagnate if you think your flaring temper is “just one of my weaknesses.”  On the opposite end, assuming you are to be strong in every area of your life will lead to a frustrating, guilt-filled, and joyless Christian life.  The college girl who just “can’t stop gossiping”, and as the guy who “just can’t stop” gawking at girls are not the same as the guy who takes longer to read the chapter in that book or the girl that is not as much of a social butterfly as her friends.  Understanding this difference between sinful immaturity and weakness is key.
2. Hide in the Sufficiency of Jesus. When Paul faces his weakness in 2 Corinthians 12, his response is contentment. Why?  Because in his weakness, Christ’s sufficiency is put on display.  We often pray for God to deliver us out of our weakness, when God wants us to first learn how to be content in our weakness.  You might not be growing out of your weakness precisely because God wants you to be humbled by your weakness. He wants you to find shelter in his strength.  When you are weak, he is strong.
3. Consider Your Weak Heritage. Christians often look at Hebrews 11 as the Hall of Faith. These are our heroes who endured until the end.  But this passage is full of flawed and weak heroes who kept their faith in their God and were “made strong out of weakness” (Hebrews 11:34).  Have you considered your heritage of faith?  Our legacy is full of unimpressive people, beset with weakness, through whom God accomplished mighty things.  Meditate on the weaknesses of God’s people, and let your faith be fueled by their strong God.
4. Embrace the Diverse Body of Christ. Some of our weaknesses are not meant to be strengthened, but supplemented by other people. If you are a foot, trying to be a hand, you don’t need to grow in your footiness, you need to embrace being a hand, and let the foot make up for your inherent weakness (1 Corinthians 12:14-20). God may not want you to grow out of your weakness, but may want you to grow in your dependence on his church.
5. Strengthen Your Weaknesses. Although we should be content with many of our weaknesses, some of our weaknesses should become strengths over time. When your weaknesses are exposed through a trial, a rebuke, or a new responsibility – find ways to grow.  Respond in prayer, asking God for growth; respond in dependence, asking others for help.  Identify any practical steps you can take to come out of weakness and into growth.

The Fertile Soil of Weakness

Paul says that he will boast “all the more gladly” of his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Why would anyone be glad in their weakness?  Because when our responsibilities exceed our abilities, we can be confident that we’ve been planted deep in the fertile soil of the sufficiency of God.

So get excited and get expectant.  The God of our weak forefathers is ready to display his power once again – through you.

 

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Spencer Harmon serves as the Activities Coordinator  in the office of Student Life at Boyce College.  He is a M.Div. student, and a member at Immanuel Baptist Church.  He’s married to Taylor, and has one daughter.  You can follow him on Twitter at @SpencerMHarmon.

 

It was my first year in seminary and I was still trying to learn the lingo. I had finally figured out what “eschaton” meant, and in some classes I prayed for it more earnestly than others.

I took an Old Testament course from the world renown scholar Dr. Dan Block that left a massive impact on my thinking, a seismic dent in my Christian worldview. He was lecturing on Psalms when I shyly raised my hand and asked, what seemed to me a perfectly logical question, “What would the Hebrews have thought about secular art?”

He just stared at me as if I had asked if God preferred ninjas to pirates.

Before seminary I was influenced by the back-masking, rock-music burning, independent, fundamentalist warnings against worldly music. I had learned that if you play “Another One Bites the Dust” backwards, and slowed the tempo down just a bit, that you would hear “Start to Smoke Marijuana.” Thou shalt not listen to Bon Jovi was basically the eleventh commandment back in the day.

The question seemed fair. But it exposed an unfortunate result of my former influences. I was viewing the world with a chasmic divide between the secular and the sacred. I had yet to learn of the truth so eloquently stated by Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Dr. Block was eager to knock some sense into me. With his Canadian accent, and what felt to a seminary newbie like myself to be a smidge of condescension, he replied, “The Hebrews understood that all of life is sacred.” Apparently I didn’t share in their understanding. I think that was his point.

And with that he went back to his lecture. But my mind refused to follow. I couldn’t move on. I have lingered in that statement for well over a decade.

I was jolted. Up to this point I had seen the world through gray lenses and it had just exploded into full color. It was kind of like a Skittles commercial.

So I broadened my my view of art. I opened my mind to new modes of expressing the truths of the Christian faith. And I even re-purchased a few albums that I had trashed during more reflective periods of my late adolescence. It was a Creedence Clearwater Revival. Actually, I was more into hip hop, but hopefully you get my point. I began to see the gospel as big enough to redeem a multitude of artistic genres and harness them for glory of God.

But I think there’s more to the story. I don’t have a major issue with the distinction that one can be an artist who happens to be Christian instead of being dubbed a “Christian artist” or feeling obligated to sign with a “Christian label.” But I think a word of caution is in order. If we aren’t prudent we could swing the pendulum to an unhealthy extreme.

For example, in a recent interview, the musical artist Sufjan Stevens shared his perspective about Christianity and art, “On an aesthetic level, faith and art are a dangerous match. Today, they can quickly lead to devotional artifice or didactic crap. This would summarize the Christian publishing world or the Christian music industry.”

If his point is that there is a lot of music by Christians that imposes unnecessary restrictions on lyrics or lacks imagination then I would agree. But his critique seems deeper than that.

The recent article “How Sufjan Stevens Subverts the Stigma of Christian Music” in The Atlantic praises Stevens for contributing to a needed course change in the approach to Christian music and how it is perceived. Having spent a few years living in Nashville, TN, and still visiting regularly, I wouldn’t argue that there is Christian music in need of subverting. But there is a certain attitude that I sense here, and have sensed elsewhere as well, that I think is dangerous.

Additionally, Stevens builds his case on a false analogy. He likens his approach to forms of art like paintings or instrumental music like Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, with nothing explicitly Christian outside of the fact that they’re produced by artists who are themselves Christian. But this comparison misses a massive distinction: words. Unlike a beautiful painting, or Bach’s concertos, much of Stevens’ music uses W-O-R-D-S.

Words matter. It’s true that we don’t really have Christian paintings, or Christian architecture, or Christian pottery. I get it. I do, however, think there is room to press back against these categories as oversimplifications, but that’s not really my point here. My point is that when you enter the world of words you are treading in a different category.

The Bible is chock-full of instruction regarding words. We are to use our words to build others up in the faith and minister grace (Eph. 4:29). We are to use our words to spread the gospel knowing that faith comes through hearing (Rom. 10:10). We are to use our words carefully knowing will give an account for them (Matt. 12:36). And this is just an appetizer of all that Scripture serves up on the topic.

Our words are to be used on purpose and for a purpose. 

I refuse to return to my former view that divided the world into the categories of secular and sacred. I like living in full color, what Francis Schaeffer referred to as applying the gospel to the “totality of life.” But I do think caution is in order. Even as we bid this false dichotomy farewell and watch it disappear in our rearview mirror, we should give attention to the road ahead. There are ditches on both sides of the highway. And there’s oncoming traffic.

And let’s not forget that the Hebrews, who saw all of life as sacred, used their most skilled musical artists (1 Chron. 25:7) with a diversity of instrumentation (Psalm 150) to call all of creation to its ultimate end of glorifying the Creator: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6).

I once heard David Platt flip this verse by asking the question, “What if this instead read ‘Let everything that praises the Lord have breath?’ What if our every breath was contingent upon its being fully devoted to the praise of God?” This is a powerful word: every breath we breathe is to be consecrated to the praise of the one true and living God.

Perhaps some would consider this a devotional artiface or didactic crap: but for the children of Israel it was simply a way of life. And if there is a stigma related to such an outlook, I wouldn’t attribute it to the Hebrews. It could just be the case that we are the ones not seeing clearly. I know I’ve had to learn that lesson before.

 

This article was originally posted on Dan DeWitt’s blog, Theolatte. You can view the original post here.

Dan DeWitt is the dean of Boyce College. You can find more content from Dr. DeWitt on his blog at Theolatte.com or follow him on twitter at @DanDeWitt.