Just when you thought things couldn’t get any sillier, scarier, sadder …

The online video of this absurdity is some 12-14 minutes long—far too long to bear for anyone with any sort of grasp of biblical and historic Christianity, with any love for the church of the living God (“which he obtained with his own blood”), with any concern for lost sinners, with any heart for the cause of the Gospel in the world!

This is the sort of thing let loose on people when “church” is detached from its biblical moorings. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “… we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard [i.e., the biblical Gospel], lest we drift away from it” (2.1). The truth and teaching of the Gospel are matters of life and death. It’s critical to get this right.

It’s critical to teach and preach this faithfully—with power and proportion, but without any apology. It’s why James issues this warning: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers … because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). And it’s why the danger of drifting away from truth, and so losing truth, can’t be treated too seriously. If we drift, we not only lose the gospel, we lose ourselves as well at last. Fellows like Long and Messer are in a fearful place!

The world is full of exotic currents, ready to take you off to who knows where. There’s a strong current to this present evil age, always pulling us away from safe harbor in Christ. Richard Phillips reminds us, in his great commentary on Hebrews, that there are all sorts of subtle undertows at work in daily life.

Just don’t pay attention—just read uncritically, watch TV mindlessly, embrace the unspoken assumptions of the workplace or of popular religion, become preoccupied with the sights and sounds, the offers and applause, and the special effects of the world—and you’ll be drawn out, out, out until you’re swept away!

Eddie Long and Ralph Messer, and the whole bunch of their ilk, should seriously come to grips with what Jesus himself did, when the crowds meant to crown him a king. We read, “Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6.15). Even he, who had claim to the throne of David, would not be made “king” on false pretenses, under false impressions, on the authority of men, because of misguided enthusiasm. His sole concern, rather, was for the kingdom of God, and the “King” God himself would crown!

By the way, a very good piece outlining at least 27 misrepresentations of the Torah and other Jewish sancta, as well as of New Testament and Christian biblical interpretation and theology made during this bizarre ritual (written by Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD, Associate Professor of Biblical Hebrew and Jewish and Christian Scripture at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia) can be found and read HERE! I recommend it as a good exposé of the kind of foolishness these sorts of “pastors” and “rabbis” are spouting.

There is only one King who matters!

He is both “Lord and Christ”—”he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6.15-16).

King Eddie? Really? No! Not really!

See, there is a story—there really is a “way things are,” history is full of meaning, your life in history is momentous in the most far-reaching ways—and that story is God’s, the God of

the Christian Scriptures. There is no way to live as you should, to live in a way “pleasing to the Lord” that meets the end of your existence, apart from finding your place in God’s story; and there’s no way to “find your place” in God’s story if you don’t know God’s story, as he’s told it to us in his Word.

So, the purpose of this series during our Wednesday evening study time is to put “the big story” in place—to help you know what you believe and why you believe it in a way that works itself out in greater wonder, greater worship, and greater good works than we’ve known before as we love and serve our great God!

Let me encourage you to make the commitment—re-order, re-prioritize, re-think, revise your whole schedule, if necessary—to fill your seat in this study and find your place in God’s story!

“We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1.9-10)

But go ahead, if you haven’t al ready, and get started on a plan to read the whole Bible over the course of 2012.

You can find a selection of reading calendars HERE! To quote Jim Hamilton: “there it is, throbbing on your desk, the living word of God”!

In our place and time, how does this idolatry express itself Of course, there are all the obvious sorts of culprits (“the usual suspects”)—money, sex, power, etc. But as I thought about it another, more subtle and disturbing possibility came to mind. What if the obvious things aren’t really the idols? What if they’re just means for worshi

ping the idols? What if the idols are closer to home? What if we are the idols we worship? What if the prevailing sin of our time and place is self-deification?

The theme this year revolves around “the fellowship of the gospel” in the context of “life together” in the local church.

Happy reading!

One of the books through which I’ve been reading (and working) recently is Susan Bauer’s The Well-Educated Mind. It’s a practical and encouraging guide to a classical self-education through reading the great books of literature. Near the beginning, in a chapter on “The Act of Reading,” she responds to a common objection that often serves as a rationale (however unjustifiable) for not even attempting to read serious books. The objection is: But I read so slowly; it will take me forever to get through those lists of Great Books! Her answer is “spot on”:

Reading is a life-long process.

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There’s no hurry, no semester schedule, no end-of-term panic, no final exam. The idea that fast reading is good reading is a twentieth-century weed, springing out of the stony farmland cultivated by the computer manufacturers.

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As Kirkpatrick Sale has eloquently pointed out, every technology has its own internal ethical system. Steam technology made size a virtue. In the computerized world, faster is better, and speed is the highest virtue of all. When there is a flood of knowledge to be assimilated, the conduits had better flow fast.

But the pursuit of knowledge is centered around

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a different ethic. The serious reader is not attempting to assimilate a huge quantity of information as quickly as possible, but to understand a few many-sided and elusive ideas. The speed ethic shouldn’t be transplanted into an endeavor that is governed by very different ideals.

I say again, “Amen to that!” So why not start today to nourish the life of the mind for the love of God

As I listened to these words—from my Platoon Sergeant to her soldiers—I longed for them to be the words and the heart found in our churches. Alas, that it’s so rare.

Let’s commit ourselves altogether again to “walk in a manner worthy of [fitting, proper, of comparable value to] the calling” to which we’ve been called (Ephesians 4.1).

“The culmination of all things is near. So be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of prayer.

Above all keep your love for one another fervent, because

love covers a multitude of sins.

Show hospitality to one another without complaining. Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God. Whoever speaks, let it be with God’s words. Whoever serves, do so with the strength that God supplies, so that in everything God will be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4.7-11, NET).

He concluded with this troubling illustration: “Yesterday I received in the mail a letter from one of America’s premier television preachers, inviting me to send money and offering me in return a Christmas tree ornament of an ‘angel’ with a trumpet, to remind me that God had commanded the angel looking after

me to blow a trumpet

to celebrate me.

What kind of pared-down and domesticated image of God do such leaders hold that they should utter such nonsense?” (D. A. Carson, from the August 14 Devotional, For the Love of God)

Indeed!

and my hope is that the Lord is about to do great and mighty things for his church in our place and time.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts …” (Hebrews 3:15; 4:7).

When I went in I was greeted by a young man I had met there before … and he looked serious, intent, concerned. He leaned over and said, “We still need to believe.” And I said, “Yes we do!” He then told me that he’d been thinking that morning about the state of things—the world, our nation, the economy, people’s lives—and he was burdened about it all and about the fact that so much skepticism and pessimism and fear of the future and all that kind of stuff was what occupied people’ s mind’s every day.

So, he said, he wanted to make a difference, to change the way people think about life, to help them through trouble and trial and sorrow. And to that end, he’d sat down that very morning and written a reflection, an exhortation, on “Why We Should Still Believe.”

He gave me a copy.

Then he gave me a lot of copies and asked me to give them to folks at church if we had a Christmas Eve service. I took them and told him I’d give it a look. He went on about his “work” and I grabbed my coffee and sat down in the corner at a table, and started to read:

“The world today has become complicated and full of negativity,” he wrote. “You look at the headlines on the newspapers and the front page is consumed with financial scandal and war.” I couldn’t argue there. Then he wrote, “Realizing this I start to think about what is missing, what is strong enough for us to go back to a time of simple innocence.” I was hopeful. He went on, “As my mind races looking for an answer, one name comes to mind, Santa Claus.” I nearly fell out of my chair. His conclusion? “The world today needs Santa Claus more than ever … On this Christmas I have one wish, that we all start to believe in Santa Claus again.”

And in that instant, my heart was broken, not just for him but for a whole culture and a world so desperately empty, rudderless and adrift that people look for hope and help in a fable they know to be false, grabbing for anything they think will help keep their heads above water, longing for some lost innocence, some moment of inspiration, some little anticipation for a better world. I looked around for him, but he was gone. I wanted to say, “Yes, we do still need to believe, and there is a Name that comes to mind, but it’s not Santa Claus. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God the Son born under the Law to redeem us from the Law, Redeemer, Mediator, the One that Christmas celebration is all about, the only One who has done something about all that’s wrong in our world, who is taking all who believe in him not back to innocence but on to holiness and glory, who has promised not just a better world, but a new heaven and earth! In him we have life, in him we have hope, in him we find joy, in him we’re given peace that passes understanding and hope here and hereafter.”

And that’s no fable!