Today in Blogworld 09.10.15

Mike Leake

Ecto Cooler: It’s Shady Appearance and Mysterious Disappearance

I loved Ecto Cooler. And I’m happy that there is a knock-off recipe here.

Exegetical Fallacies: The Word Study Fallacy

This is great advice.

My Wife’s Plea to Christian Men

This makes me incredibly sad, but Aileen Challies is spot on here.

3 Simple Suggestions About Sermon Illustrations

I think sermon illustrations are one of the hardest things. So, I appreciate these suggestions.

I’m sure there is some sort of Snoop Dogg joke that could be made here:

Jesus Isn’t Peter Pan

Mike Leake

Though my wife owns about 14 different Peter Pan movies, I’ve only a cursory knowledge of the green clad man-boy who can fly. But I do remember one particular scene in one of those fourteen aberrations, where Peter Pan can’t do his typical magic because people don’t believe in him. In fact I remember some scene where people were clapping and with each clap he’d fly a little higher (at least I think it was Peter Pan and not one of my late-night burrito induced dreams).

If you believe in Peter Pan he can do amazing things. No belief, then he’s just a powerless guy wearing a funny hat. I can’t help but wonder if sometimes we view Jesus the same way.

Mark 6:5 even seems to give us permission to view Jesus a bit like Peter Pan. “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Matthew 13:58 is even more pointing saying that he didn’t do any mighty work there “because of their unbelief”. We often combine these two and conclude that Jesus’ ability is somehow limited by the faith of humanity. And then we say things like, “If you really want to see God work and move in your life then you’ve got to have faith. We limit God by our lack of faith.”

Joel Osteen’s fortune cookie theology is a pretty decent slice of what many professing Christians in America believe about God. Now read this and tell me if the same thing can’t be applied to Peter Pan:

God is not moved by our doubts, by our discouragement, by our complaining. He’s moved by our faith.

You get Peter Pan to fly by your faith, and apparently Yahweh as well. I’ve also read a number of quotes from pop-Christianity about limiting God by our faith. But is this really what Matthew and Mark are saying? Do we tie God’s hands by our lack of faith? Why couldn’t Jesus do anything in Mark 6?

First, notice a difference in the way Mark and Matthew word what happened at Nazareth. Matthew says he wouldn’t because of their unbelief. Mark says he couldn’t, but doesn’t fill in why. So, why the difference?

Actually they are saying much the same thing. Mark is just doing it in idiomatic form whereas Matthew is just saying in plainly. Think of it this way. If a friend invited you to go to a party but you already had plans, what would you say? You’d probably say something like, “I’m sorry, man, I’d love to go but I can’t. I’ve already got other plans.” It’s not like you physically couldn’t go—its just that you aren’t going because you’ve given higher priority to something else.

The same thing is happening here in Mark, and Matthew spells that out clearly. Jesus isn’t simply a miracle worker or a traveling faith healer. His aim is to preach the good news of the gospel and these miracles are not an end in themselves. He is pushing back the works of darkness and so on occasion he’ll heal people just because that is what he does. But in Mark there is an inextricable link between faith and healing because Jesus, the Son of God, called people into his kingdom. To refuse his kingdom is to essentially refuse his devil-destroying acts of healing.

Jesus doesn’t do mighty miracles in Nazareth not because he’s like Peter Pan and needs belief of the people to give him healing power. He doesn’t do mighty works because He isn’t Peter Pan. He’s the Son of God. On this occasion to push back the soul-crushing effects of the Fall would be counter-productive. He’d give them a touch of a redeemed Eden that they apparently aren’t yet ready to receive. And so Jesus can’t do a mighty work there because He has a purpose which supersedes doing mighty works; namely, calling people to repent and believe the gospel.

There is some bit of truth to what Osteen and others are saying. Jesus does respond to faith. But he doesn’t do it because he’s Peter Pan and somehow he needs our faith to unbind him. No, he’s the one who is in the business of binding up the strong man and plundering His serpentine kingdom. Our faith is simply what puts us on the side of his darkness-overturning mission.

Jesus isn’t Peter Pan, and that’s great news because there are times when my faith wouldn’t be strong enough to make him fly. Thankfully the gospel is that my weak faith can lay hold of the infinitely strong Christ.

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Photo source: here

Today in Blogworld 09.09.15

Mike Leake

Doctors Advised My Mom to Abort Me

This is powerful stuff.

11 Easy Steps to Repenting on the Internet

I really appreciate this list. I also like what Barnabas said on Twitter in reference to this sick cycle, “It makes people voyeuristic instead of empathetic”. Amen.

We Must Put God in a Box

I appreciate the correctives here. I’ll likely still use the phrase but I’ll do it with a bit more caution.

13 Things a Pastor Should Never Say to a Congregation

Thankfully I haven’t said any of these…yet.

This dancing dog is hilarious:

One Of My Youth Ministry Regrets

Mike Leake 4 Comments

I was involved in youth ministry in some capacity for about 15 years before taking a position as a senior pastor this past Spring. I have many fond memories and am still amazed that God used me to shape students for His kingdom for over a decade. I’ve also got plenty of things I wish I had done differently.

One of my biggest regrets is that I wish I would have taught Galatians less and Proverbs more. Maybe I should just say I wish I had taught them Proverbs more. I don’t regret one second that I spent with these students teaching them justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. But I do regret that I often did this at the expense of teaching them things like Proverbs.

As I’ve watched former students (and even myself) grow up what I’ve noticed time and time again is that a firm understanding of the gospel does not automatically translate into knowing how to do life. If it did I don’t believe God would have inspired the Proverbs and preserved it for the His Church. We need the Proverbs to know how to do life. That’s not a life divorced from the gospel by any means. The Proverbs are the gospel with legs.

Galatians will tell a young man to walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Proverbs will tell him that what this means in the day to day life is that he won’t flirt with sin by thinking he is so gospel-informed that he can walk by the house of a whore and not be impacted.

Galatians will tell you that you’ve been crucified with Christ. Proverbs will tell you how one with a crucified flesh uses his words and his wallet. Can you really be gospel-centered while your reputation in your community is one who doesn’t pay his bills on time and who doesn’t work hard to provide for his wife and kids?

And so I’m not saddened by any second I taught our students the gospel. But I am saddened for the times when I neglected the whole counsel of God’s Word and didn’t equip students to live out the gospel. I rightly believed and taught students that we need the gospel for every area of life and that everything centers upon the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I wrongly assumed those truths would magically inform students how to love their wives, pay their taxes, and work their tails off at their job. I wish I’d cracked open Proverbs more.

Thankfully the gospel is true and God is sovereign. Even as I largely neglected the Proverbs, the Spirit hasn’t. And so I’m able to sleep at night knowing that Jesus is a faithful Shepherd and leads his people into green pasture even when his under-shepherds are a bit bone-headed and neglect portions of His Word.

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Image source: here