Ecclesiastes feat. Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor would be seriously angry if he knew that someone was using his songs to talk about the Bible. Trent Reznor, of the band Nine Inch Nails, is sort of a nihilistic Industrial artist whose aggressive Atheism permeates every lyric. but his song, Hurt, strikes a chord that King Solomon once touched on in Ecclesiastes: on its surface life is meaningless and accomplishment has no purpose. Trent sings out of his nihilism about the numb futility of everything:

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of dung
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Solomon said "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless! The more you know, the more you hurt; the more you understand, the more you suffer. I looked at all the works that my hands had wrought, and there was no profit under the sun. The wise and the fool have the same death - how the wise dies just like the fool!" So Trent Reznor is half right; nihilism is half right: there is no purpose to anything, at least on its own. Everything is a waste of time.

The difference between the two, is that King Solomon did not stop where Reznor stops. In the end he found one thing that isn't meaningless: the worship of God. "Remember your Maker, before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

Amen.

Dumb on Boredom: Don't Play to the Slack Crowd

Tom used to launch spitballs during Bible Study. Our youth pastor would open up the Bible, start talking about some text or other, and Tom would just goof off and do something to interrupt the the whole Bible Study. I wondered why he even came - why come to something called a Bible Study if you aren't all that interested in studying the Bible?!

PLAYING TO THE SLACK CROWD
Pastors and Bible Study leaders sometimes respond to these situations by preaching to the lowest common denominator in their crowd. If a certain congregant/house church member falls asleep during their sermons, the pastor might preach for less time next week. The poor reading skills of some congregants might lead to the pastor embracing a more readable but less literal translation to replace the existing pew Bibles. Complicated theological subjects get to be avoided all together, because (after all) who would understand? The result of this is a slack, shallow theology for a group of increasingly slack and shallow Christians. When you play to the least motivated crowd, you get the people that you aim for - people who can show up to something called a Bible study and then act surprised and hurt that it's not really a games night.

DANGERS OF PLAYING TO THE SLACK CROWD
If you go slack on your Bible teaching, you are robbing your people. Lightening up on your campus group could mean that you aren't guarding them from arguments by the school's Atheists and Muslim clubs; it could mean the kids in your youth group don't have the tools to evaluate some random web link that says Christianity borrowed our beliefs from Paganism; it could leave those under your care completely defenseless against the seething doubt that this world of ours pushes against religious faith. Whether you are an army chaplain, a sports player, a campus crusader, a high school kid, or a youth pastor, you need to guard the weaker Christians under your care. But you can't do that if you are spending all your time trying to accommodate the kid in the back who does not care and who gets bored too easily. If he does not want to change, then at some point that becomes his/her responsibility. If you accommodate the slackers too much you will end up harming everyone else. It is not your responsibility to play to the lowest common denominator just because one or two people come to your Bible Study every week hoping that maybe, just maybe tonight will be games night. There are enough of those in the world. We need some place that will offer some real discipleship.

SOME ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SLACKERS
Some of the kids who are bored might get some leniency from you because you think they're not that bright. After all, how could a 16 year old kid possibly understand or care about civilization in early Corinth? Answer: the same way that they are able to understand enough ancient culture to pass their ancient-history exam. These kids can get what you are saying (that's to you, Youth Pastors). The same lesson goes for people on sports teams or Christian clubs or small groups; don't go too light on the meat of real Bible teaching. If you leave your people starved for the sake of 'dumbing things down' for the one guy who isn't all that dedicated in the first place, you're really just fighting boredom by fostering stupidity. And I'm not sure how that method of ministry really serves anybody.

The Most Precious Real Estate In The World

Happy New Year's and Monday evening to all you followers of the Voice! I've been meaning to put this post on here for about the past month, but with Christmas and New Year's both being over, I have no more excuses for being too tired to blog.

I ran across this pdf article and it discusses whether or not the nation-state of Israel has a legitimate claim to "their" land. Before you go judging the situation I implore you to read this article. It is well written and has some very interesting implications both in biblical prophecy and how American Christians should act towards our Israeli brethren. Enjoy!

ryan

More Than John 3:16

Aside from Matthew 7.1, which says "judge not, that you be not judged," John 3.16 is the most well-known Bible verse in the world. This verse is on plaques. This verse is on T- shirts. Max Lucado even wrote an entire book on this theme called 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, which came on the scene with a whole multitude of related products, church music, CD's featuring top Christian music artists, and "ancillary publishing products," according to the Amazon.com website for the book. This short quote completely overshadows the rest of the context in which it is found. The full verse is as follows:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

John 3.16 Out of Context
This quote just feels sort of warm and cuddly, doesn't it? God loves us, and we're going to have eternal life! And both of these things are true. Still, without context we don't know what it means that God gave His only Son, and we have no sense of what perish means, and we have no idea what happens to whoever [does not] believe in Him, and so all that we get from this verse is that God loves us and that we're going to have eternal life, whatever that means. It just sort of becomes this vague "God is loving" verse, which is why it gets used by people who try to argue against the existence of Hell (i.e., because God loves the world so much, He would never send anyone to Hell). Even things that are found in here get passed over because we need the rest of the Bible to show us what these words mean.

John 3.16 In Context: "Unless One is Born Again..."
The context for John 3.16 really stretches from John 3.1-21. A Jewish man named Nicodemus (a "Pharisee" and "a ruler of the Jews") had come to Jesus by night to ask some private questions. Jesus replied to Nicodemus with, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God - and that is the context for understanding this popular verse. Jesus is talking about us needing to be born again and what that means. Within that framework, the things that come after fit in to a pretty neat pattern. Here's a quick bullet-point list of things you can get from 3:16 in context:

• Apart from Jesus, we started off under judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (3.19). All of us were destined to perish (3.16) in Hell, we were condemned already (3.18), and we were not born again and therefore could not hope to see the Kingdom of God (3.3).

• God gave His only Son to death for us (3.16) in order that the world might be saved through him [from condemnation] (3.17).

• People are saved when they are born again (3.3), meaning that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and so are born of the Spirit (3.6-8), since unless someone is born of the Spirit he cannot see the kingdom of God (3.5). Being born of the Spirit results in people who love Jesus and believe in him (3.16), looking to Him for salvation (3.14), and so whoever believes is not condemned (3.18).
  

• Those who have been born of the Spirit (3.6-8) and believe in Jesus (3.16) are not condemned (3.18) and are rewarded with everlasting life, but those who do not believe in Jesus are condemned already (3.18) and perish in an eternity in Hell (3.16) and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (3.3). There is a way of life and a way of death.

John 3.16 is the Pure, Unfiltered Gospel
Taken together, John 3.16 is the Gospel. In it, we read that sinners are saved from condemnation by Jesus' death, are justified by faith in Christ, and are invited to share with God in his kingdom. Soli deo gloria.

Appendix: Full Text of John 3.1-21

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

Night Shift to the Glory of God

Maybe I’m a little bit crazy, but I think that working through the night shift (11pm-7am) is a great deal – especially if you are a Christian. And if you are unmarried, have no kids, and are young, I would argue that it is better to work the night shift than the morning (7am-3pm) or evening (3pm-11pm) shifts. The sleep schedule might be tough, but the benefits are worth it. Here are a few reasons why you should consider the night shift.

#1: The Hours Are Perfect for Evangelism
Morning shifts make you too tired after work to do much effective evangelizing during the afternoon. Likewise, shifts done in the evening take up your time just as non-Christians start to hang out at the usual social hot spots. So the usual options leave you too tired, or too busy, to engage the culture around you. It seems like either way evangelism efforts have to suffer because of work. But maybe that isn't the case: if you can work during the night shift, then things change considerably. If you get off from work at 7am, go to sleep at 8am, and then wake up at 2pm, all of a sudden you have hit the perfect window of opportunity; all of a sudden you have 9 hours of the busiest, most social hours available in your city to go out and meet people and tell them about Jesus. And you feel awake, too.

#2: Work Comes At the End of My Day
Most of us go to work and then come back home, and our entire day is defined by what happened on the job that day. We take our work fatigue back home with us. But with the night shift I see the opposite happening: work comes at the end of my day; I get to take my experience of praying, reading the Bible, talking to friends, and meditating on God’s providence in my life, and I take that to work with me. It is a totally different experience, having my work defined by my day, rather than having my day defined by my work. This simple bit of relief is the thing that enables me to show Christ more successfully to my co-workers, friends, family, and some of the random strangers that I meet on occasion. Having work come at the end of your day is a huge blessing.

#3: A Need and Appreciation for the Sabbath
On the night shift, things can be difficult: no matter how much sleep you get, your body naturally wants to go to sleep at night and stay awake during the day. So as a night shift worker you are always fighting your body's natural sleeping patterns. It isn't always that fun. I know I'm beat. So when it comes to Sunday morning I have a lot of love for the Sabbath – that day of the week when we stop trying to be productive, and try to focus on God instead. After a week or two of work, taking a Sabbath to sleep, read, pray, and hang out with our loved ones becomes an indispensable part of our weeks. We no longer have a choice in the matter because we can’t function without it. Taking the night shift makes us more aware of our need for the Sabbath. And taking a Sabbath makes us more aware of our need for God.

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Sean Rice is in the TESOL program at Briercrest Bible College, works full time in an overnight position in Caronport, SK, and prides himself on being a huge theology geek. He has been saved for almost 7 years and feels that he has been called to plant a church in Southern Ontario some time after he has completed his studies. In his spare time he writes for The Voice, hangs out with his girlfriend, and studies the works of the Rev. Matthew Henry.

Standing Between Extremes

So I'm reading Matthew Henry, preparing for a blog post on The Gospel of Mark at the end of the week, and this quote pops up: "We are in danger of missing our way, both on the right hand and on the left, and therefore must take heed, lest, when we avoid one extreme, we be brought by the artifices of Satan, to run into another" (commentary on Matthew 4.1-11). As examples, Matthew brings up people who go from legalists who say you've got to work to earn God's love, to being open sinners who take mistake God's grace for a license to live however they feel like; also, people who go from being apathetic Christians to self-righteous zealots. His point is that we should be careful not to fall into extremes.

Where else could we get caught up in extremes? Human beings are habitual extremists: we go from spending too much money on national projects to spending too little; from taking too much in taxes to giving back more than the government can afford. We go from fascination with house churches to fascination with multi-site campuses. We escape the liberalizing tendencies of modernist enlightenment thought, only to fall into romanticism, or postmodernism, and ruin ourselves. We move from heretical forms of Pentecostalism to cessationism; we stop believing that Christians can be rich if they have faith, and end up believing that the only good Christian is a poor one.

What the Bible points us toward is that we must avoid the extremist sides of the issues of our day. To be mistaken is to be gravely and seriously mistaken, and to be an extremist wrongly, is to be an extremist sinfully. Don't be an extremist.

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Sean Rice is a TESOL student at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, SK. When not working or in class, he spends his time hanging out with youth at Saskatchewan's largest youth center and making the Gospel known to teenage kids. His passions are Jesus, theology, teaching, and Reese's Pieces.

David Says, "Smite the Wicked... Please?"

This month, I'm on my second round of a year-long commitment to reading the Psalms and Proverbs completely through every single month: I'm starting to notice some patterns. Like, for example, I notice that King David prays for the slaughter of the wicked almost as regularly as I order a bacon cheeseburger with fries. And it comes out of nowhere. Which is unnerving for some people. It is for my girlfriend; she spent a good 15 minutes last week trying to explain it away as if she'd never read anything else in the book of Psalms before. And she isn't alone. Matthew Henry, my great dead mentor, came up with some creative ways of trying to get around these passages too. But I think that the judgment prayers (in Psalms 21, for example) are good things, for a few reasons: (1) God inspired these Scriptures, and did so through the pen and personality of one of his servants--which means that everything in here lines up with His good, pleasing, and perfect will; (2) If God did not eventually answer these prayers, we would be without assurance that God cares about the state of the world enough to judge it; (3) Any God who does not do these things is not worth my respect, awe, or fear, because He would be a pushover who has no power to punish sin; (4) If these are not true prayers, then we have no way to ask God to stop the wicked from oppressing others and leading God's people astray. God loves so much that He will viciously oppose the wicked to defend what He loves. When we reject that truth, I think we do it because we know that we're wicked too. But let God be God. He is altogether glorious and awesome and fearsome on His own. Celebrate that.

Studying A Book of the Bible

A FRIEND OF MINE RECENTLY ASKED about what I do when I'm studying a book of the Bible, so I thought I'd write down some quick notes for the whole process that I use. Hopefully the information is helpful! (And, if you've got any good ideas too, shoot.)

READ IT MORE TIMES THAN YOU'VE WATCHED FIGHT CLUB
Do you know why you know the alphabet? Because in kindergarten, the teacher had your entire class stand up every day, singing it to the tune of "twinkle, twinkle, little star" (it's the same tune: if you don't believe me, try whistling both themes out loud). And you know what? After enough repetition, the lesson stuck--hopefully. The same thing goes for The Bible: the best way to learn a book is to read it again, and again, and again, and again, and again... (Get the point?) I think anywhere between 3-5 back-to-back readings is a good number.

OVERVIEW: BE A NERD, BECAUSE SOMEDAY GEEKS WILL RULE THE WORLD
If you're not yet a geek, find some other geeks who can help you; check out a program like E-Sword, and you'll find that you can get a ton of commentaries on The Bible for free. Read through a little bit of what these guys have to say; they have tons of knowledge that you can benefit from. For this stage, I also have a huge shelf of geeky books. If you happen to be a close friend of mine, you can borrow some of what I've got. Bible thumpers unite.

How to Live Unusually

Fidel Castro once said that if he had to begin another Cuban Revolution, he'd feel comfortable starting with only 10 or 15 men this time (compared to the 82 that he originally had). Says Castro, "it does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.” To think that this man could have enough confidence to do that kind of thing, and with such a small group of people, is nothing short of amazing. When you think about it, though, the worldwide phenomenon that is Christianity began with a group of only 12 Jews (the Apostles) in a backwater province in the Roman Empire (Judea) during a time when the wider Greco-Roman culture felt hostility to Jews and the Israelite people despised and hated Christians. While the growth of the Church is ultimately due to the grace of God, I believe that He worked in and through many different methods and situations. Here's an idea about a method I think we Christians could use to change our world today.

Idea #1: A Full House
If Christians rented places together in large groups, that would free up a lot of money which could then be spent advancing the Kingdom of God. Starting in Moose Jaw, for example, I'm pretty sure that you could expect a reasonable place for between $600-$800, depending on where you look. From that point it would only take a little ingenuity (and the use of bunk beds) and you could start a Community House with established rules, pooling money to use for the cause of Christ. The following is the breakdown of what that could look like financially.

The Costs of a Christian Home
When you're done buying the bunk beds, selecting just the right shower curtains, and finishing up your artistic wall-murals of stories from the Bible, you could have something approaching the following basic monthly budget:

Redemption: When Justice Kissed Mercy

When Jesus hung on that Roman crossbar nearly 2,000 years ago, nobody considered it good news. Jesus was a righteous man, a holy man, and a great teacher who some hoped would deliver them from oppression at the hands of the Roman Empire. He was a great healer; He did not deserve to die. Jesus deserved honour and not death; He deserved fame and not mockery at the hands of His killers; He deserved worship and not the hatred of those who cursed Him, beat Him, spit on Him, and then brutally and torturously crucified Him. On that black Friday, there did not seem to be anything "good" about the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Despite Jesus' warnings that He would be crucified at the hands of the elders and chief priests (Mark 8:31), the day still came as a shock: in the face of the death sentence that was handed down, many of His followers were left "mourning and lamenting" (Luke 23:27) as they followed behind Him.