by Pastor John Kim

Jeremiah Burroughs provides a helpful definition of contentment in his classic work The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment:

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

If there is one character quality that really stands out in someone’s life, it would be this quality of contentment. While it is not something that seems flashy and glamorous compared to other qualities, there is something about contentment that really sets apart those who have it as ones who shine the light of Christ compared to those who don’t.

I suppose all of us would have to admit that it’s easy to murmur, complain, or grumble about our circumstances, whether those manifest as struggles with difficult people or being subjected to tests or trials that range anywhere from inconvenience to trauma. When we face those various trials that James 1:2 talks about, we are called to consider it joy knowing that God’s purposes in shaping our character are at work. But do we just grin and bear it? Or are we actually able to experience joy in the midst of trials?

When we are called to bear a cross or to suffer in some way, it is hard to imagine that we can respond with joy and not let it affect us. So how can we experience joy?

It would be hard to summarize all of Jeremiah Burroughs’ book in one article so I’ll have to encourage you to read it. But if there are two thoughts that have come out of studying the theme of contentment, it would be these:

1. A Murmuring Spirit Is An Evil Thing.

To have a grumbling, complaining heart is not something to be treated lightly. In fact, if you look at the nation of Israel when God delivered them from Egypt and was taking them to the Promised Land, the one thing that stood out was that they continually grumbled. Whether it was about the pursuit of the Egyptians, the lack of food, the kind of food, the lack of water, or disagreement with the leadership of Moses, there was a constant grumbling that took place. What is pretty serious to note is that God was not pleased and actually judged the people for their complaining. 1 Corinthians 10 highlights this in a way that we should carefully consider and take to heart:

“Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.

Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” (1 Corinthians 10:5–11)

Note that the penalty for grumbling was destruction. Not a warning, not a time out, not a “please stop” for the hundredth time. This should be a sobering thought to all of us. Verse 5 says that “with most of them, God was not well-pleased” and twice in the next several verses we are warned to consider their example so that we would not do the same.

A grumbling heart manifests a discontentment that ultimately shakes its fist at God because there is a dissatisfaction with His wise and fatherly disposal in all things. Our view of God is revealed to not be so high, so exalted, so sovereign. Instead, our complaining hearts reveal that until we get things our way, when we want it, how we want it, and in what color and size we want it, we are not freely submitting to and delighting in God’s course that He has laid out for us.

2. True Contentment Only Comes in Christ Alone

A temporary and superficial contentment can be experienced to some degree, but a lasting and deep contentment that perseveres–particularly in the midst of suffering–can only come when Jesus is truly seen as all we need.

In a famous passage that is often used in ways that are not justified by the context, there is one thing that is very clear: contentment is only possible through the strength that Christ provides.

“But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:10–13)

Paul knew how to get along with humble means, and during times of prosperity. That was because those things did not define him. His greatest point of identification was in Christ because what he valued more than anything was knowing Christ.

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7–11)

Christian contentment is only possible because Christ is seen as our greatest gain, to the point where we would count all other things as loss. This is obviously easier said than done when it comes to daily life. So we must cultivate and nurture a love for Christ, and grow in appreciation for the love of Christ in order to become more and more content despite whatever circumstances might surround us at any given time.

As we consider the daily pull of the things in life that seem to highlight what we don’t have, let us consider what we already have in Christ. Then we can have a heart of contentment that will also reveal itself through a life of thanksgiving, rejoicing, hope. After all, Christians are more focused on the future than the present: on the promises that we look forward to being fulfilled.

When we genuinely look to our Savior as the Author and perfecter of our faith, we can lay aside every encumbrance and the entangling sins that trip us, and run with endurance the race that is set before us, because Jesus has set the way for us to follow and has promised the strength to pursue it.

Editor’s Note: This article is part 2 of an ongoing series by Pastor Jim Kang on corporate worship. Click the following link to find the previous article: part 1. 

by Pastor Jim Kang

Who should worship God?

The answer: all of God’s creations!

But there is a problem. In fact, a big problem. Presently all creation is tainted with sin and experience the consequence of sin. This is what Paul means in Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

This is doubly true of man. The whole mankind is presently experiencing the consequence of sin, such as, either sinning to fellow man or others are sinning against him. Most of all, due to sin man is in the state of rebellion against God and refuses to submit to God’s authority and his rulership. As a result, man worships not his creator, but himself. If not, he worships someone else or something else.

It is true that we are created to worship God and to enjoy God. That is the implication from Genesis 1 and 2 before the fall. But something happened in Genesis 3, namely man chose to disobey and sin against God. So, what hinders us presently to worship God is the natural disposition of our sin. As a result, God is not the sole object of our worth, passion, affections, prize, priority, treasure, but now God is replaced with something else, someone else, or our self. That is why, at this very moment, if you are not worshiping the true and the living God, it is inevitable that you are either worshiping yourself, someone else, or something else. Everyone worships. But the question is, who do you worship?

If it is not God, it is your career. It could be material things. It could be relationship. For some they worship their parents. For some they worship their children or grandchildren. So the key question is, who do you worship? Or what do you worship? To whom or to what do you place your passion, affection, and priority?

The answer to that question has consequence. And its consequence is a matter of life and death. Perhaps nothing is more clearly stated by God than what he said in Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Certainly the consequence is not only true in the OT with the people of Israel, but also with us.

In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, who is God talking to? He isn’t talking to pagans! He isn’t talking to individuals who worship other gods, who worship their own ideologies, other people or things. Rather, God is talking to a particular group of people that he chose to redeem from the evil tyranny. God is talking to a particular group of people that he chose to redeem from their own self destruction and ultimately from God himself. Hence, God is giving this command to choose life to a particular group, namely the redeemed community. The implication is, even with God’s redeemed group, not everyone chooses life or chooses to worship God alone. This command carries a twofold purpose: 1) to encourage those who are walking in obedience to God to continue in their perseverance, and 2) to warn those who are not walking in the light. And this command still stands today.

So, the answer to who should worship God is God’s redeemed people. In fact, only God’s redeemed and spiritually regenerate people can worship God because the people who are not born-again are not bent to worship God naturally.

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

So, all you saints of the Lord, come let us worship and bow down to our creator and redeemer.

by Pastor Mark Chin

Sometime during the latter half of the first century AD, decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote a letter to encourage and advise Christians who were suffering increasing persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. That letter is the Epistle of 1 Peter and it has much to say about testing and trials.

In the opening section of this letter, Peter presents one of the great realities of the Christian life. Contrary to the heresy of many alleged Christians and prosperity gospel proponents who sell the lie that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ticket to your best life now, the Apostle Peter affirms the reality that the new life in Christ is frequently (one might add characteristically) beset by trials, tests, and suffering in this world.

Furthermore, those trials, tests, and suffering bring genuine distress, grief, and pain even as noted in 1:6 “you have been distressed by various trials …”

Yet how often are we shocked or disappointed when a believer we know suffers under trial, openly expressing grief and distress? How often are we surprised or upset when the test God has sovereignly placed in our lives is hard? How often do the questions rush through our head, “Why is this happening to me?” “Why is this so hard?”

The lies we battle with, of course, are that somehow if I’m a good Christian or have enough faith, I should be exempt from suffering, pain, loneliness, and adversity. And if trials do come, somehow the Gospel should allow me to float through those trials as if I was numbed out on Valium or Percocet – not having to feel any distress, grief, or pain.

Peter, in his letter, offers no such lies to those Christians who are suffering increasing persecution in the early church. What he does is put our trials and distress in a Gospel perspective. Though trials and distress are real, even as they were for Christ on the cross, they are temporary, not eternal. They are part of God’s sovereign plan of love for our lives. Unlike the trials and distress of unbelievers, for the child of God, trials are accompanied by a supernatural joy. I do not say replaced – but accompanied. This is the paradox of the cross – the paradox of the Christian life – sorrow accompanied by joy.

What is the source of that joy? It is the revelation of God’s gift of grace – genuine faith. Peter in 1:7 informs us that testing by God reveals in the true child of God undeniable proof of genuine faith – a faith more precious than gold, a faith which will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Loneliness, pain, discomfort, hardship – no one wants or longs for these things. But as people begin to see evidence of a love for Christ and the fruit of the Spirit in the face of such things – the proof and assurance of a genuine faith in Christ will bring us joy and will cause all those who are watching to marvel at the grace of God in our lives.

by Stephen Rodgers

Normally I’d be posting an article by Pastor James Lee of LBC OC today. However, he happens to have a really good excuse for not writing one.

Pastor James just returned from a missions trip to Southern India. As someone who briefly lived in that part of the world (albeit a tad farther north), I can tell you that it’s not an easy place to do missions.

So here’s the plan: in lieu of Pastor James writing an article for us today, how about we lift up a prayer for him?

Thanks.

by Pastor John Kim

Hebrews 11 gives an account of men and women who lived by faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). As you consider the examples, many, if not all of them would seem to be outside of the scope of what we would imagine to be our own lives. Noah building an ark, Abraham offering up Isaac, Moses leading the nation of Israel out of Egypt – all these would seem to be exceptional rather than normative in the life of a Christian. But we would do well to consider the principles that are interwoven in Hebrews 11 instead of just looking at the examples.

Hebrews 11: 6 states that without faith it is impossible to please God. Pleasing God can only take place through a life that is lived by faith. This is a pretty important principle to consider since we are called to live to God’s glory and pleasing Him is tied to that call. If we truly desire to please God, then living by faith is a non-negotiable. I’ll address the implications a bit later.

Hebrews 11:8 describes Abraham who lived his life by faith by going in obedience to a place he didn’t even know. Can you imagine leaving your homeland to go to a place where you have absolutely no idea what it’s like? There were no brochures of his destination, there was no internet site to look up and see pictures. He was going to a completely foreign place with just a promise from God.

Hebrews 11:13 shares something that might at first glance seem a bit sad – “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” These believers who died in faith did not see what they had hoped to see in culmination but they did see from a distance the promises that God had given to them. The idea of not seeing the fulfillment of what was hoped for would be disheartening for most people but for the one who lives by faith, it is welcomed because the reality is we know that we are strangers and exiles on this earth and that our citizenship is in a kingdom that is not of this world.

I wanted to highlight these three particular aspects of living by faith because I would like to challenge my generation, those who are in their 40’s and 50’s who have children graduating from college and high school and we are starting to look at the back end of our lives where the retirement years are beckoning and the hope for getting settled seems more appealing. I would also like to challenge the generation below that to follow, but as I look forward (God-willing) to the second half-century of my life, I can definitely make some anecdotal observations that serve to illustrate my concern for the 40’s/50’s crowd in the church.

I had a talk with an old college friend and we were discussing the issue of why so many of our peers seem to be settling for just a comfortable life and not be very engaged in spiritual matters like we used to when we were in college. Those college years were definitely full of activity and it seemed like we had inexhaustible energy that propelled us to be witnesses for the gospel, minister to fellow Christians, go on short-term missions, and eagerly soak up the word of God and pray. But after getting married, working hard to put the kids through school, that energy seems to be in short supply, the schedule seems constantly filled with various events for the children, and we are content with settling in places where every service is provided, including church. As parents we look for well-organized nursery ministries that have professionally trained staff that are also CPR/First Aid certified. We expect the comforts of nursery ministry to transition to a preschool ministry that helps our kids to mature and grow to make it into the elementary ministry, where we are happy to see a solid program that provides everything a parent could hope for their children to receive. Then on to the youth ministry where there are multiple staff members who disciple your kids, take them out to McDonald’s, attend their sporting events, and cry with them at their graduations. Not to say that anything is wrong with any of these things in themselves. But could it be that so many are willing to settle for what is provided for them and so few are willing to go out in faith to be a part of church plants because the cost is too steep and the new churches can’t provide enough services that make it convenient to go to church? Could it be that instead of living by faith, there are many who choose to live by sight and their actions are built on the principle of “the assurance of things that are proven and the conviction of things that are seen”?

I raise this question because it concerns me that not only does a life of faith seem to dissipate as Christians get older, the example of faith is then lost to the younger generation that follows. Is it no surprise then that a life of faith seems to be more the exception to the rule than the norm? Not that there needs to be a percentage or numbers to back this. That’s why I am quick to acknowledge that this perspective is based more on my observations than any scientific surveys or statistical studies.

I share this portion with a grain of salt because I truly do not wish to make this sound like I am the only one doing this. God has truly been gracious to provide the opportunity to be a part of three church plants and it really has been by His mercy that our family has been sustained through the tremendous changes and even trauma that has impacted our family through the many moves and relocations. And I am truly thankful for those that God has brought to partner in the church plants – without them these ministries would truly not be able to work as a church should. But the particular point that I would like to raise as a challenge is this – as you get older, will you see a life continue to grow deeper in faith and in trusting in the Lord or will you live more by sight and what is conventional?

Consider the lives of those mentioned in Hebrews 11. I find it interesting that for many of them, their lives of faith continued and are even highlighted in their latter years. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came (Genesis 7:6). Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old when they were told by God that they would bear a son (Genesis 17:17). Moses was 80 years old when he faced off with Pharoah in Egypt (Exodus 7:7). Yet even these saints did not see the fulfillment of all that they would have hoped. But they lived and died in faith.

Church planting is not just for younger folks who have less at stake in life. Yes, the transitions might be a bit more convenient and there may be fewer things to uproot. But I would dare say this – we need more older folks to live by faith and not grow lax in their latter years as they approach their 40’s and 50’s. There are obviously many challenges and even trials that come by taking the road less traveled when it comes to church planting. The likelihood of fewer families attending is high in many church plants because the children and youth ministries are small and still in development. The families that are there tend to be in the throws of parenting the little ones, and time and energy are at a premium while many are not able to participate regularly. Church services are either at a very inconvenient time (like 4:30pm on Sundays) or we are setting up and tearing down because we have to share the facilities with several other churches at a rental site. There are few established sub-ministries and usually nothing official in many areas. But the harvest is plentiful. The opportunities to share the gospel abound. There are many who still have yet to take a step into a church because no one has ever invited them. Many don’t even have a copy of the Bible because no one ever gave them one. Strange and weird perceptions of what Christians are like abound because there are some crazies out there and there are not a few who are not biblically grounded and gospel centered. But you know what would be helpful, even if it were to be increased by a few? A few more older families, with marriages that are seasoned so that those older couples could disciple younger couples and even singles who are dating. A few more older families that have grown children and can be a light through how they raise their family and to provide some perspective, especially for those with newborns and toddlers. A few more older families that would be willing to live more by faith and trust that even with the lack of “establishment” that by faith there will an investment to see things eventually grow and that the early years of being part of a church are crucial in having older mentors and disciplers that could provide some sense of balance for those that are still waiting to enter the later stages of life. A few more older families that would be willing to show that they are willing to sacrifice some of the comforts of life and to forego some of the freedoms and liberties for the sake of passing on the greatness of God to the next generation (Psalm 145:4).

Yes, we need older families to stay with the home base as well and provide consistency and stability. Yes, we need older families to continue to grow the churches that sent out church plant teams. No, I am not saying all the older couples need to feel guilty and go out with the church plants. But I am raising the thought to consider – maybe a few more would be helpful?

So if you want to please God, maybe go somewhere you don’t know anything about (or maybe don’t want to know anything about), and even consider that you are just going to be a link in the chain and not even see the fulfillment of the investment, then step out in faith and consider passing on the greatness of God in the young churches, the new churches, the churches that are lacking the older, godly presence of men and women that can be the kind of examples, mentors, and disciplers that would model the life of faith that the next generation can not only observe but then pass on to the following generation.

Please lift a prayer for the other Lighthouse churches. We really need to pray for one another. Pray in faith and then for those that God would lead, both younger and older, but maybe a few more of the older ones – consider fulfilling the Great Commission by actual going and partnering with one of the younger congregations and invest your life for eternal things for the glory of God.

by Pastor Jim Kang

The fundamental reason  we exist is to glorify God. Perhaps the best biblical summation is found in 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” In fact, at the onset the Westminster Catechism teaches that man’s chief end is to glorify God. This is not only true individually as a Christian, but also corporately as a church. But the million dollar question is how? How can the local church glorify God?

I don’t know of any church whose mission statement says that they exist to defame the glory of God. That would be ridiculous. Even the churches that are theologically liberal, unhealthy, unbiblical, or even unorthodox would not dare to say they exist to defame the glory of God. However, the truth of the matter is there are churches that do not glorify God by their practice. It is one thing to say you want to glorify God, yet fail to do so by malpractice. Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16,20).

The fundamental difference between glorifying and unglorifying churches is whether God-centeredness is both the goal and the means. That is, if the goal is to glorify God, then the means or the methods has to be consistently God-honoring too. You cannot just say you want to honor God and choose methods or means that would deny such goal. Hence, the heart of true Christianity and true Christian churches is the desire to glorify God and to do so by God-honoring ways. In other words, both theology and practice have to be utterly God-centered, God-ward, and God-honoring.

That is the heart of Christianity. Everything is about God, for God, and to God. It breathes the glory, the majesty, and the sovereignty of God, and puts not so glorious, not so majestic, and certainly not so sovereign man into its proper place. Here’s one example of such theocentric aspect of worship in prayer:

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.” (1 Chronicles 29:11)

Churches that joyfully embrace and practice the Bible believe that one of the ways in which the local church can glorify God is through corporate worship. Historically, churches believe that the public gathering as a church on the Lord’s Day is the most meaningful and visible way of honoring God. There is no other place, day, and time that is more important for Christians than worshiping God together on the Lord’s Day.

However, how should the church be worshiping when we come together? What is it that we should be doing during worship? Even more fundamentally, what is worship? What is corporate worship? And what drives our corporate worship?

These are important questions that we cannot ignore. Hence, I want to bring some clarity in the next several posts by raising simple journalistic questions, namely who, why, when, where, what, and how in regards to worship.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Who Should Worship?

by Pastor Mark Chin

How are we, as Christians living in the twenty first century, to consider and care for our physical bodies and our health? Historically, concerns such as these have often been neglected or ignored by the Church, being deemed of secondary importance, especially in light of the more pressing battles over such fundamental doctrines of the faith as the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the atonement, justification by faith, or the inspiration of Scripture. Many would argue that such neglect is the fruit of a Western Christianity that has historically leaned heavily upon a Platonic paradigm for its anthropological view of human nature, one that exalts the immaterial soul and disparages the material body, making the body and matters of health unworthy of serious theological consideration.[1] Whatever the reasons, the consequence of such neglect by the Church has frequently resulted in dogma, ethics, and praxis for the human body and health that are frequently informed and driven as much, if not more, by the prevailing culture, philosophy, or worldview of the societies we live in, rather than by the Word we profess to be authoritative and sufficient for the entirety of our human existence.

The modern and post-modern eras have been no exception to this pattern. Since the advent of the Enlightenment and the rise of the modern scientific worldview in the West, the answers to the questions posed above, have been increasingly informed by the scientific method, the physical discoveries, and the naturalist[2] conclusions of the clinical sciences. Conclusions so derived have, in turn, increasingly challenged the orthodox Christian worldview, especially its understanding of what it means to be human. The human body, as a modern scientific concept, has increasingly come to define who we are as persons and as human beings in the West, along with the ethics that govern our lives. Clinical scientists have become the prophets and theologians of the West and physicians have become our pastors and priests, the arbiters of life, death, and truth as it pertains to the natural world and human existence.

Such a trend shows no sign of abatement even in the postmodern era. Nowhere is this trend exemplified more than in the present scientific study of the brain. Fueled by the technological wonders of brain imaging that have begun to locate capacities once attributed to the human soul (cognition, behavior, and emotions) in various parts of the brain, the emerging wonder-field of neuroscience now hopes to provide a molecular and biological explanation for God, faith, and the soul in the higher functions of the human brain.[3] Our modern understanding of the body claims to explain and define not merely us, as human beings, but, allegedly, our faith and God as well. Clearly the body and its affairs are no longer things of secondary importance for the Christian community.

For many in the realm of contemporary Christian scholarship, such neuroscientific contributions to the anthropology and theology of the human body have been invaluable in shaping a more “accurate” understanding of the human body and what was once traditionally referred to as “the human soul.” This is evidenced by the increasing popularity of the physicalist position on human nature among Christian scholars.[4] In light of contemporary biblical scholarship understood within the context of the most recent neuroscientific evidence, this position argues that there “is no metaphysical element such as a mind or soul or spirit.”[5] Instead, human beings are monadic, allegedly composed of one “part” only—the physical body.[6] Simply put by Nancey Murphy, perhaps the foremost spokesperson for this position within Christian scholarship, we are not “immortal souls temporarily housed in physical bodies” but rather “we are our bodies.”[7] The consequences of such an understanding of the human body for the Church is not insignificant. As Nancey Murphy notes, such an understanding of the human body clearly challenges believers to rethink traditional Christian understandings of God, the Incarnation, the Trinity, salvation, sanctification, and the resurrection – doctrines of primary importance to the faith.[8]

Much of conservative evangelical Christianity in America, from the pulpit to the pew, have found such discussions to be too esoteric and complicated, having little direct relevance or practical value for one’s personal faith in Jesus Christ. Questions concerning the theology of the human body are frequently ignored—until one is forced to consider them out of medical necessity. Then, by default, they are often informed primarily by the conventional wisdom of the prevailing culture. The result has been a chaotic and confused compartmentalized Christian praxis and ethics that attempt to separate matters of faith from matters of the body. Christian praxis in matters of the human body frequently reflects either a Gnostic type dualism that ignores, neglects, or punishes the human body as the enemy of the soul and the repository of sin on the one hand or, on the other, a practical materialism that celebrates the body as the primary determinant of the entirety of life, including addiction, sexuality, emotional state, behavior, spirituality, and well-being (in short, the entirety of our present lives).[9] Stated simply, American evangelical Christians, like many Americans, either neglect health or body matters or idolize and obsess about them.

Nouthetic counselor Elyse Fitzpatrick and Christian Psychiatrist Laura Hendrickson have observed the familiar truism in Christian counseling ministry that “many of us who believe in the Bible are prone to think as materialists do when it comes to our health.”[10] The consequence, as addressed in the Elyse Fitzpatrick and Laura Hendrickson book, Will Medicine Stop the Pain, is an increasing dependency on prescription drugs for the treatment of emotional pain within the evangelical Christian community. On the other hand, Gregg R. Allison contends “that evangelicals at best express an ambivalence toward the human body, and at worst manifest a disregard or contempt for it…many Christians, due to either poor or non-existent teaching on human embodiment, consider their body at best, a hindrance to spiritual maturity, and, at worst, inherently evil or the ultimate source of sin.”

Regardless of where one stands or sits, whether it be the halls of Christian academia, the Christian counselor’s office, or the back pew of a Sunday church service, how one chooses to understand and care for the human body is hardly an issue of secondary or tertiary importance to the Christian faith. The nature of man that God has created after his own image is an embodied nature. The life that God has created, redeemed, and will one day glorify is an embodied one. The way in which God has chosen to most fully reveal His glory to mankind, to save His people, and to glorify Himself is an embodied one, the Word incarnate (Heb 1:2). The call that God has given believers in this present age involves the explicit command to “glorify God in your body,” because “you have been bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20). The believer’s hope, the consummation of the believer’s salvation, is an embodied hope where we will one day glorify God through the complete transformation by His grace into the likeness of the resurrected incarnate Word. The Christian faith is an embodied faith that does not allow one to separate matters of faith from matters of the body. Consequently, how we choose to understand and care for the human body not only reflects our understanding of the God we worship, in many ways it affects our worship as well. We neglect the understanding of the body God has created for His glory at the expense of the faith we confess and proclaim. How then are we, as twenty-first century Christians, to understand the human body, its meaning, its significance, its function, and its purpose rightly, in a manner that accurately reflects and rightly represents the true image of our God and His glory?

A careful examination of Genesis 1 and 2 demonstrates that our physical bodies were originally good and created for His glory. They are God’s gift to us. They are part of us. They were designed and given to us to help present the image and likeness of God’s glory in our lives. They were given to us – neither to be neglected nor idolized – but to be cared for and stewarded, in submission to the will and Word of our sovereign Creator, for His glory. As common grace, the created world was given by the Word of God to help sustain our bodies (Gen 1:29) in their task to glorify their Creator – though always subject to the Word of God. Such common grace can easily be seen to extend to medicines that include treatments such as vaccines. Certainly the sin of Genesis 3 destroyed and continues to destroy the image of God in both our spirits and our physical bodies. However, the divine design and purpose for our bodies remains unchanged, as well as the biblically informed stewardship we are called to provide for them.

Furthermore, the Gospel does not negate our responsibility of stewarding our bodies and health for the glory of God. Rather, by grace, through faith in Christ, it restores the body to its rightful place as neither god nor monster, but rather as the gift of God for the glory of His grace. In light of this, we would do well to consider Scripture closely as it pertains to the stewardship of our bodies and our health. For man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Dt 8:3; Matt 4:4).

[1] Gregg R. Allison, Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary contends the following: “Regrettably, the church has developed its neglect or rejection of this embodied reality (of human life) because of being negatively influenced by Platonic philosophy. Gregg R. Allison, “Toward a Theology of Human Embodiment” in SBJT 13.2 (2009), 13.

[2] Naturalism is “the twofold view that (1) everything is composed of natural entities—those studied in the sciences (on some versions, the natural sciences)—whose properties determine all the properties of things, persons included (abstracta like possibilia and mathematical objects, if they exist, being constructed of such abstract entities as the sciences allow); and (2) acceptable methods of justification and explanation are continuous, in some sense, with those in science.” Within this view there is no place for the presence or role of the supernatural. Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 596.

[3] Solomon H. Snyder documents the emergence of this quest through a survey of the works of the following neuroscientists: F.S. Collins, D.J. Lindern, M.R. Trimble, and R.R. Griffiths. Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., D.Sc., “Seeking God in the Brain—Efforts to Localize Higher Brain Functions,” N ENGL J MED 358;1 (January 3,2008): 6-7, www.nejm.org (accessed September 5,2008).

[4] John Cooper provides a brief survey of the leading biblical scholars who hold to this position in whole or in part. They include Joel B. Green, Nancey Murphy, Peter van Inwagen, Lynne Rudder Baker, Kevin Corcoran, and Trenton Merricks among others. John Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), xx-xxiv.

[5] The physicalist position is an ontological monist position that believes the concept of the human soul and ontological dualism (the belief that human beings are composed of two distinct substances or entities, a physical body and an immaterial soul) are largely the product of poor antiquated translation work of anthropological terms found in the Bible and of Platonic eisegesis of the Bible. Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), ix, 16.

[6] Ibid.,1.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 23-30.

[9] Though it may be argued that the prosperity, health and wealth gospel movements as well as much of the charismatic faith-healing movement are an exception to the separation of faith matters from those of the body, much of their doctrine and practice reflect a rampant materialistic view of the body and this present life.

[10] Elyse Fitzpatrick & Laura Hendrickson, MD, define materialism as “the belief that the material world (what we can sense and measure) is all that there is,” that “we consist solely of a body,” and that our thoughts and choices are determined solely by the physical activity of our brains rather than our inner person.” Elyse Fitzpatrick & Laura Hendrickson, MD, Will Medicine Stop the Pain: Finding God’s Healing for Depression, Anxiety, & Other Troubling Emotions, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2006), 27, 32.

[11] Gregg R. Allison, “Toward a Theology of Human Embodiment” in SBJT 13.2 (2009), 4-5. On a personal and anecdotal note I might add, some of my most difficult patients in seventeen years of family practice, with regards to their ability to cope well and appropriately with their illness, have been evangelical pastors.

by Pastor James Lee

In Part 1, I began my broader argument that we need to debunk the popularized idea that one can evangelize without verbal proclamation, perpetuated by a popular quote, that has been falsely attributed to St. Francis Assisi, which says, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” Not really. Actually, just, “No!” There is no “if.” It is always necessary!

Why is that saying so popular? And why do most believers in this country don’t really bat an eye? Perhaps because it subtly tickles ears and attempts to absolve folks of their evangelistic responsibility. Because when theology takes a back seat to methodology, and we drink the contemporary Kool-Aid of wanting to be liked, we’re going to find some sanitized way to justify our non-evangelism. It sounds faithful, sounds virtuous, but it’s anything but that… even though I think many do mean well and do care for the lost. But the idea we can evangelize without actually speaking the truth in love is unbiblical. And that ultimately is the ground and authority for which we must appeal and submit. Unfortunately, the most common proof-text for the myth of non-verbal proclamation is a text and context…that teaches the polar opposite. Our dearest Lord Jesus, authoritatively declares in Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

1. We don’t fail to shine because of darkness; we fail to shine because we refuse to shine!

The world’s darkness has no bearing on our shining or not, except to be the backdrop for which the gospel shines brighter. When Jesus spoke of the obvious visibility of light and the obvious impossibility of a true Christian’s not shining, He was giving description to the natural outcome of a true kingdom citizen in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. True believers, blessed because they’ve been enabled to be poor in spirit, to mourn over their sin, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, are a bright city sovereignly set upon a hill. True believers shine! Therefore, He said, don’t put your light under a basket, but on a lamp-stand! Be noticed for Christ! If we’re not seeking to evangelize the world around us, it’s not because of the world, or our church, or our pastor, and it’s certainly not because of God, it’s only because of us. The problem isn’t outside us, the problem is in us. Like Ananias and Sapphira, sometimes are we good at lying to the Holy Spirit? Because our Lord Jesus emphatically states that we alone, we His people, not anyone else, are, by His grace and blessing, the light of the world. We’re declared, to be already, by virtue of the new creation reality, the light of the world. If we’re true Christians, we’re automatically light, automatically shining, because of the work and life of Christ in us. So the only way for us not to shine, is if we actively, intentionally, violently fight against and refuse to be what we already are. The only way for Christians not to shine is when they attempt to cover or hide or extinguish what God has done and is doing, expressly so that they’re not noticed. Why? There are at least 2 possible reasons. First, at a given moment, we’re ashamed of the gospel. Simon Peter did that, I have done that, the rooster has crowed for many a true believer. Apostle Paul, decades later again admonished Peter to his face for being ashamed. There are sins of commission and of omission, but sin is sin. Yet, for a true believer, it’s only temporary, not habitual, not ultimate. The good news is that Jesus was the full propitiation for our sins of non-evangelism. Jesus prayed for Peter. Jesus prophesied that Peter would later strengthen the brethren, despite Peter’s prophesied failure. And it was at Pentecost, that Peter, emptied of his proud self-confidence, preached boldly in the power of the Holy Spirit!

On the other hand, it is also a possibility that we’re pre-committed to non-evangelism because we’re simply not light in the first place. We’re not true believers. Please don’t misunderstand, and let me clarify strongly, that we’re not saved by the work of evangelism! We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone! But if the desire to see people saved is not resident, it would benefit such a soul to ponder why a natural byproduct of saving faith hasn’t yet sprouted in one’s life and become a reality, regardless of how hard it may be? If there is no power to do so, then perhaps it’s because God’s Spirit is not in one to do so. You see, a pre-commitment to non-evangelism, being functionally content with that disobedience, is a scary condition for a professing believer to be in. Actively and habitually resisting the Holy Spirit is not a minor thing, regardless of how “respectable” a sin it has become in American evangelicalism. None of this is meant to condemn anyone, but to say that there is a much deeper problem and concern than an avoidance of evangelism… that one needs to be gripped by grace, given new affections, adoption, salvation, which is of far greater priority than one’s non-evangelism. It isn’t because non-evangelism will send you to hell, but because non-evangelism might be a sign that you’re not actually going to heaven. So the deeper issue is not whether you share your faith or not, but whether you have true faith. Matt 10:32-33 says, “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus Himself gave His people a loving command. It’s our Savior’s demand, a divine order, a clear imperative, a most personal issue for those who are so loved by Him. When Jesus said, “Let your light shine” in v.16, in Greek, it’s an aorist imperative. A present imperative is a command to do something continually, keep doing it, but an aorist imperative speaks of a task expected to be completed and continues to be so. Jesus gave the command with the full, unqualified expectation we’ll trust and obey. In fact, He’s the One, who only a few verses earlier (v.10-12), promised we’ll be persecuted. Often, we hear reports of Christians being arrested and tortured for preaching the Gospel in other parts of the world, so we naturally fear for own safety. I know history and recent history, it’s very possible, and in many ways I believe…inevitable. Thus, we should get ready, rather than get scared. It happened to our Lord, and He said it will happen to us. But even when Jesus was warning His followers of the dangers they would endure for His name’s sake, He didn’t excuse them from evangelizing for the sake of safety, did He? Rather the opposite. He charged them that the “Gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” And He was addressing people who had only recently come to believe. He said to them, whether you’ve been a Christian one minute or one decade, you’re salt and light, you’re My witnesses to the ends of the earth, you proclaim the Gospel, because you’re the only people in the world enabled to do it and called to do it. And the Lord doesn’t command us to do anything that He doesn’t expect us to obey and enable us to obey.

Evangelism is one of the most neglected public duties and delights in the Christian life. Can you and I testify to sharing the faith with the lost? That’s our mission in this world. That’s certainly, not the only thing, as we engage in many facets of following Christ in the everyday, but it’s a main thing. It’s a main thing that at some level, informs and gives holy purpose to everything else…raising our children, working at the office, moving into a neighborhood. You and I devote all kinds of time and energy to earn degrees, pass exams, and train ourselves physically, for comparatively trivial matters. What are you and I doing to equip ourselves for the work of the kingdom in gospel proclamation? If given an opportunity now, could we articulate the truths of the gospel, even in the most raw and nervous way? And if one couldn’t, would it be reasonable to say, that one hasn’t been faithful in proclaiming the good news? It doesn’t mean we don’t know the gospel or don’t believe the gospel, and it might be we just need lots of encouragement as we continue to grow … but are we aiming towards faithfulness in that cause? Are you and I sharing the gospel these days, or are we riding the coattails of some nostalgic yesteryear? Will anyone accuse us of proselytizing in the last month, last year, ever? Do we know who our neighbors are, and do they know us? Are we content to have only minimal interaction with coworkers? We should all be willing to be accountable in evangelism and helping one another in it. Which is more dangerous? Sin that occurred, or sin that is ignored? The latter is depravity, but the former is depraved. There are no excuses, none. I’ve claimed them all, I’ve heard them all. Well, a person might say God is sovereign, so He’ll send someone else. Maybe? Perhaps? Maybe not? Perhaps not? But it’s still disobedience. You might be the only viable witness to ever show up in a lost soul’s life. I can tell you that’s so often true. Most people I share the gospel with have either never heard the gospel at all before, or they’ve never really heard an adequate presentation of the gospel. Regardless, He calls and sends us all. Are we passionate about reaching the lost, passionate about His Church, passionate about God and His Word? All those go together. We can all agree that Jesus is passionate about them. Do we have the deep conviction that our lives must be about the Lord’s work in saving souls, in the midst of the many other things you and I have to do? Most of us just need to be reminded who we are, why we’re here, and what we’re supposed to do, because we forget. We’re aliens, strangers, this isn’t our home, making disciples is our real business. Let’s shine!

2. It is not good works that save, but the good news that saves!

Good deeds never saved anybody; it saved nobody. If you could never be saved by your good works, then why in the world do so many believers get hoodwinked into thinking that our good works, in and of themselves, will save other people? I’ve observed that’s functionally what many believers and many churches think. Protestants shouldn’t be reinstating indulgences by earning salvation for others by their own good deeds. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Anything else is confusing and distorting the matter. It’s bad theology. Yet, we got all kinds of good works being done outside the actual proclamation of the gospel being called evangelism, and people will say that feeding the orphans in Haiti is evangelism, or tutoring children in the slums is evangelism. It’s not! Look, there might be evangelism happening there. And let’s encourage opportunities to serve in those causes, but feeding orphans and tutoring children is not evangelism, in and of themselves. It might be and should be a platform or opportunity to share the gospel, but if there is no gospel message being shared, it’s not evangelism. There are Christians and even pastors that will take Matthew 5:16 and say, if they see our good works, then how will they believe Jesus because of that?! If they do believe, our good works might be part of their taking notice of the message, but the good works aren’t the message! Apart from the gospel, the only thing we can teach is moralism, to be a good boy or girl, live by the golden rule, such that at best in regards to salvation all we can offer them is works-based righteousness. Apart from the gospel content and truth, if all I had was good works, I’d have hell. If all I gave was my good works, they’d have hell. That has consequences! There are lazy pastors and lazy believers who perpetuate these falsehoods, primarily at the expense of those who need the gospel the most. Let me suggest, as we’ll eventually get to it, that one main reason this happens is not because Christians are totally ignorant of Scripture, but it’s because many times they’re ashamed of the message, and it’s easier to do something selectively good, to salve a guilty conscience, than to actually obey the Lord.

If hypothetically our good works bring people to salvation, then surely the Mormons and the Buddhists and our non-believing friends who serve the 3rd world through the Peace Corps or donate blood at the local ballpark, must be saving people too. No, that is not the case. We can’t say that, and we should not say that. Why? Because in order to be saved, the gospel message has to be preached. How in the world is one supposed to be saved, if one doesn’t know one needs to be saved, if one doesn’t know how to be saved, whom to be saved from, and by whom to be saved? That He lived, was crucified, raised, that He was a vicarious substitutionary atonement, a propitiation, bringing redemption, that it manifests in genuine repentance, that we’re forgiven by faith alone, not by works? When v.16 ends with the purpose clause, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven, what is that saying? It’s saying that we’re a means, for shining the light. What is the light? It’s the light of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4)! So can people know the good news only through our good works? No. Can someone know the message of the gospel in only my giving them a plate of hot food on a cold day? They might experience love, but they won’t know the message. Romans 10:14-17 declares, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!” However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” In other words, no one comes to salvation apart from the preaching of…the message! Do you know that if no one ever spoke or verbalized the gospel message, there’d be no church anywhere, and everywhere, and we would remain unsaved?

Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller), even in his continuing unbelief recognizes that. He said he could respect the Christian who evangelizes because they actually believe the message about salvation, that they’re loving enough to share with others. He said those who don’t evangelize either don’t really believe the gospel or they’re too selfish to care about other souls. So when people are saved and glorify God because of our good works, it assumes that there has been a verbal proclamation of the gospel, because people don’t get saved any other way. How would they even know who the Father is, unless we told them who the loving Father is? From a word study on all the occurrences of where God was “glorified” (32x) in the Bible, along with “glorify”, “glorifies”, none of them speak of non-believers who glorify God. Do non-believers praise and worship God? No, or as I’d rather say… not yet. Why? Because, it’s a problem of depravity and spiritual deadness (Ephesians 2:1-4). The idea of good works saving people is akin to the pagan idea that the problem is the environment, not the heart. When Hamlet rebuffed Ophelia, “Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me,” he was saying, “I’m the good guy in this play, but even I’m so terribly wicked inside, that you better not marry me, or we’ll just breed more sinners. Therefore, the only way to get rid of sin in the world is for all women to become nuns.” Jer 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” Rom 3:10-11 “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.” Rom 8:7 “Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” It like trying to get cable TV without a TV. If you and I wanted to stop sinning naturally, we just couldn’t. If I gave you $10 million to stop talking, it would be difficult, but possible. But if I gave you $10 million to stop thinking, you couldn’t do it. Clint Archer says, “When you evangelize, you don’t try to appeal to the person’s reason alone. Proof alone will never convince anyone. It is God’s power that will make them believe. When someone comes to Christ, we give God all the glory. We don’t congratulate them on making the right choice, we glorify God for changing their mind and heart. We can make this world better by education, police, and democracy. But we cannot make people better. Only the gospel can do that.”

Be encouraged to shine! The problem is not the message, never the message, but the problem is the nature of the one who hears the message. Yes, sometimes, the problem is the messenger, but the problem is never the message. Do not change or alter or adjust or subtract from or add to…or hide the message. The problem is never the message. It is not the power of you or I, but it is the power of God, to save everyone who would believe the message. I hope next time in Part 3, we would be further encouraged and emboldened to herald the good news. The Lord loves us so!

by Pastor John Kim

On May 17, 2014, Naval Admiral William H. McRaven gave a commencement speech at the University of Texas that was inspirational and challenging. As he introduced himself, he recalled how he had no memory of the commencement speaker at his graduation so he promised to keep his speech short.

But in the short speech, titled “What Starts Here Changes the World,” he gave some thoughts that from a practical standpoint especially highlighted the reality of life and how to respond to hardship. The training he had received to become a Navy SEAL particularly addressed the resolve a person needs to have to face adversity and not give up. Toward the end of his speech, McRaven shared these words:

Start each day with a task completed.
Find someone to help you through life.
Respect everyone.
Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often, but if you take some risks, step up when the times are toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never, ever give up – if you do these things, the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today and – what started here will indeed have changed the world – for the better.

When I hear words like these, I am often inspired, at least for a moment. The reality of life then sets in and I will echo what I think the majority will feel – inspirational words are fleeting and the injustice and bullies of the world seem to always win out. And since I am a Christian, I can’t retaliate and just have to take it lying down. On my own power, I feel completely overwhelmed, especially by how cruel some people can be, completely heartless in their desire to crush a person’s heart and soul. Left to myself, all the inspirational thoughts don’t even begin to help and if anything, I am left wallowing in freakish misery or the cold desire for vengeance starts to creep into my mind. Either way, I am not in a good place and feel like giving up.

The reality truly is that life is not fair. We will fail often. We do need to take some risks and step up in the tough times. We need to bow to the bullies and we need to lift up the downtrodden. We need to persevere and not give up. But the question is how can we do all these things when it really is impossible to do these things on our own power?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book Spiritual Depression gives a helpful framework to consider as we think through the dynamics of how we deal with life issues. How we think shapes the affections of our heart so that we exercise the choices of the will based on what we value. This simple process has really helped me to see how my thinking really does shape what my heart values. If I allow my thoughts to be preoccupied with discouragement, fear, anger, vengeance, bitterness, resentment, discontentment, there should be no surprise that my heart affections are then being given over to responses that reflect such a source. My actions will then be guided by these thoughts and affections, so ultimately the decisions I make in how I respond to life’s challenges will reflect my mind and my heart. What I do is not out of the blue. Everything I do is the result of what I have been thinking and treasuring in my mind and my heart.

Why is it important to identify this? The times that we are severely tested, especially with relational conflicts, are the very opportunities that reveal what we really believe and what we really have as convictions. I remember one of my professors from seminary talking about how many say they have a conviction about being faithful in marriage but by pursuing a divorce they reveal that they really did not have such a conviction.

I cannot say that I am anywhere close to perfect regarding these issues but I can say that the times when it has been the hardest, I have had to really consider carefully what I would do, especially in response to being criticized, accused, slandered, and misrepresented. While I obviously do not enjoy such experiences, the realities of life are such that what the naval admiral said is true, and God’s Word has already said it would be so and we should not be surprised.

But if there is one thing that I am reminded, it is that fact that these tests and trials are not just a time to struggle, they are opportunities to change the world. We know that we are called to a mission – to make disciples of Christ (Matt. 28:18-20) and this mission will not go unchallenged. There is an enemy out there that seeks to discourage, distract, and even destroy the work that we are called to do. We should expect such attacks to come from unexpected sources, even from within the church. While there can be some struggle in how we respond, the opportunity to persevere and carry on the mission echoes of the kind of battlefield experiences that the military faces – you cannot expect to enter the battleground and think that all will go smoothly and without surprises.

Our vision – to plant churches (Acts 1:8) – helps give us a long term view as to what we are hoping to see happen through the churches that God has so graciously planted. We are not here just for our generation alone. We are here to pass on the greatness of God to the next generation and we cannot afford to be satisfied with just enjoying the blessing for ourselves. This is exactly why the nation of Israel eventually turned away from God. The prosperity that they enjoyed in the Promised Land ended up becoming the very idol that led them away from the one who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Though there will be difficulties that come, we must endure and press forward for the greater goal of God’s kingdom being pursued.

Our passion – to love God and people (Matt. 22:37-40) – in many ways will be tested in the most mundane ways to the dramatic. There are the small irritations, the bothersome habits of those that we find strange, the personality quirks that give some the justification to avoid those who make them feel uncomfortable. Then there are the conflicts that arise from misunderstandings to deliberate slights and attacks and the great drama of betrayals and destroyed relationships. These are all a part of the race we run and as the Navy SEALs are challenged, don’t ring the bell and give up because of the weariness of these hardships. For sure we will feel worn down and we will see others worn down and give up and there will be times of great discouragement, even maybe to the point of despair. But don’t let the bullies beat you down and don’t let the hard-hearted convince you to bail. We have a great God who has assured us that He is working all things out for good. We have a compassionate Savior who has promised us and never forsakes us. We have a powerful Holy Spirit who comforts us and counsels us according to the Word of God to strengthen and enable us to be strong through God’s strength.

Take heart and know that God uses such little people like us to change the world for the sake of His kingdom and glory. So don’t let the mundane and the difficult cause you to stray from the path. Press on, run the race with endurance, and finish well. Be faithful in the little things. Don’t go at things alone but partner with those that God has provided both to disciple you as well as for you to disciple. Be gracious and kind toward all and manifest the love of Christ.

I’m going to piggyback off of what the admiral shared and follow a similar path of encouragement:

Start each day with a prayer completed and be faithful to do the small things.
Find someone to both disciple/mentor you as well as for you to do the same for someone else.
Be gracious, kind, and gentle toward all, even your enemies.
Know that life indeed is not fair and we will all fail often. Take the risks of faith and trusting the Lord especially during the difficult times. Stand firm in the midst of the battle, pick up your fallen brother/sister, and never, ever, no never give up the fight of faith. If we do these thing, the next generation and the generations that follow will be able to see a testimony of faithfulness to Christ that will hopefully encourage them, inspire them, and challenge them to pick up the baton and keep running the race for the glory of God. In this way, may what we do today change the world for the sake of God’s kingdom.

by Pastor Mark Chin

INTRODUCTION

Where do religious thoughts and impulses come from and why? With the advent of new dynamic neuroimaging techniques such as petscanning, neuroscientists like David Linden and Michael Trimble are now eagerly attempting to furnish the world with the answers.[1] Their quest to locate in the brain a definitive neurobiological source for religious thought highlights three modern scientific assumptions about the mind of man:

1. the human mind is merely the higher faculty of the brain,
2. the functions of the human mind such as thinking, understanding, desiring, or judging are biologically generated and thus synonymous with the “higher” functions of the human brain, [2] and,
3. the answers to the riddle of spirituality in the human mind lies within, not without.

Hopefully, most conservative Christians would object to such assumptions about the mind of man along with their implied scientific reduction of spiritual thought (or for that matter sin, salvation, and sanctification) to evolutionary aberrations of neurochemical impulses. For the Christian, the mind is something much more than the sum of the brain’s neurochemical transactions. Yet in spite of such a conviction, why is the conservative Christian’s working definition of the human mind so remarkably similar to the modern secular definition? The Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible defines the mind as “the part of the human being in which thought takes place, and perception and decisions to do good, evil, and the like come to expression.”[3] Dr. Zemek describes the mind of man as the seat of mentality, consciousness, intelligence, emotion and will.[4] By comparison, the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of the mind is almost identical, referring to the mind as “The seat of consciousness, thought, volition, and feeling or a pattern or way of thinking or feeling.”

The similarity can be accounted for by the fact that contemporary Christians and secular evolutionary scientists have both chosen to narrowly describe and define the mind primarily in empirical terms of observable function (i.e., what the mind does). The conviction of this writer is that a modern empirical focus on observable function is inadequate for a true understanding of the human mind. Scripture’s teaching on the mind of man extends well beyond observable function, distinguishing its definition of the mind from that of the modern world by describing it in terms of divine design, divine relationship, and divine purpose. It does so for good reason. The world attributes to the mind a primary role in the identity, behavior, and destiny of man. The Bible attributes to the mind a critical role in sin, salvation, and sanctification. How one understands the mind of man directly affects how one understands and addresses man’s relationship with his Creator. The stakes are immeasurably high. Christians can ill afford to conform to the the modern world, especially in its understanding of the mind of man.

THE MIND IN SCRIPTURE

How does God’s word define and describe the mind of man? In the absence of a specific Hebrew word for the mind[5] and with infrequent mention of it in the Gospels, answers to this question often focus on the apostle Paul’s teaching. With the Koine Greek word for the mind, nous, being found almost exclusively in Paul’s epistles, it would initially appear that a study of the mind should center primarily on Paul’s writings.[6] However appearances, as the cliché goes, can often be deceiving.

The modern functional description of the mind as the seat of man’s volitional and rational functions is often drawn from Paul’s use of the word nous. Based on Paul’s writings, four major functions have been used to define the mind:

1. Disposition, inner orientation or moral attitude (Eph 4:17),
2. Practical reason, i.e., moral consciousness as it concretely determines will and action (Rom 7:22-25),
3. Understanding, i.e., the mind as the faculty of knowledge and the seat of wisdom (Phil 4:7),
4. Thought, judgment, and resolve (Rom 14:5).[7]

However, the reference to such functions is not unique to Paul or his use of the word nous. The same functions are found in the use of the Greek and Hebrew word for heart, kardia in the NT ( disposition, Lk 16:15; will, 2 Cor 9:7; understanding, Mk 7:21; resolve, Ac 11:23) and leb and lebab in the OT (disposition, Gen 6:5; will, Jer 23:20; understanding, Prv 19:8; resolve, Is 10:7). Furthermore, the LXX, the version of the Scriptures most familiar to Paul’s original Hellenized and Gentile audience, also used the word nous six times as a translation for the Hebrew word leb or lebab.[8] Clearly Paul, a man of the Scriptures and, prior to his conversion, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, was not developing a unique functional theology of the mind to be understood apart from the context of the entirety of Scripture. His use of the word nous connects his readers to the grand theocentric OT anthropology of the heart, “the king of anthropological terms” and must therefore be understood in light of this relationship.

THE MIND AND HEART CONNECTION

The heart, leb/ lebab, in the OT refers to the whole inner person, and is distinct but not separated from the soma, the physical component of man.[9] In its fullest sense it is a broad entity that encompasses a wide range of functions, including but not limited to the faculties of thinking, judging, understanding, and conscience – those that are most often associated from the NT onward with the mind. In accordance with this OT understanding, the LXX, communicating biblical truths to Greek speaking Jews, deemed the heart as the organ of noein – thinking, judging, understanding, and willing (Jn 12:40; Is 6:10).[10] From a NT perspective, the Greek term nous or mind represented the intellectual or cognitive aspect of the OT concept of the heart.[11]

This is demonstrated when Jesus quotes to His NT audience the first and greatest command of Dt 6:5, “…you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (Mk 12:30).” Everyone present, including the Scribes, accepted his quotation as the word of God (Mk 12:33), even though His quotation includes a fourth noun (mind) not present in the original Hebrew text.[12] Far from adding something new to the Scriptures, Jesus use of the term “mind” emphasizes a particular intellectual aspect or agency of the heart that is understood to be present in the original Hebrew text in Dt 6:5. As such, the mind is not an agent or a faculty of the physical brain, which, for the Greeks, would have been identified with the soma, but rather it is an agent or faculty of the heart as defined by the OT.

THE MIND: THEOCENTRIC AND HOLISTIC

If, then, one is to understand the mind in the same way that both Jesus and Paul did, one must understand it within the context of the anthropology of the OT, specifically the OT anthropology of the heart. In sharp contrast to the empirical compartmentalized anthropology of the modern world, the OT anthropology of the heart is a theocentric and holistic one, built upon three key presuppositions. These presuppositions direct our understanding of the mind beyond mere function.

1. The first presupposition begins with a very simple truth, “ In the beginning God…” It is God, by His will and word, who has designed and created the whole of man, including his heart and mind.
2. The second presupposition is that God designed and created man, with all his complexities, as a unified whole, not as a bundle of separate parts functioning independently of one another.[13]
3. The third presupposition is that God has designed man, including his heart and his mind, for a particular divine purpose. Ultimately that purpose is to glorify God by being a true image or copy of the Sovereign Creator (Gen 1:27,28).

In light of these presuppositions, the Scripture teaches that the heart, as a reference to the whole inner person, serves to describe the core relationship between God and man.[14] It is the tabernacle of the soul, the entity of deepest connection or opposition to its Creator, the place where the glory of God resides in the life of the saints. The mind then, as an inseparable agent of the heart, participates at the deepest level of man in this relationship with God. This truth is borne out in Paul’s use of the word nous, where it is quite clear that his references to the mind are made in terms of this central relationship between the whole of man and God (e.g., Rom 1:28, 12:2, Phil 4:7, etc.). He identifies the mind of man as the core repository of the truth of God or the lies of man.

Within a holistic Scriptural framework, the heart never functions in isolation from the rest of man but is dynamically interwoven with the spirit, the soul, and the body. Scripture informs us that the heart relates to the rest of man by serving as the “mission control center” of man.[15] The heart directs the whole of man (Prov 16:23; Isa 32:6).[16] The mind, then, is the faculty or agency used by the heart to do so. The whole of man, including his behavior and his physical body, is directed through the thinking, understanding, judging, and will of the mind (Col 1:21). The whole of man is transformed by the renewing of his mind (Rom 12:2). So then the brain, as part of the body or soma, is a servant of the mind and not its master, as Linden or Trimble would lead us to believe. Furthermore, the nature of a man is the fruit of his heart and mind, not the fruit of his neurotransmitters or the chemical balance of his brain.

From the perspective of divine design, the purpose of the mind is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by Jesus in Mk 12:30, “… and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The mind, with its capacity to think, understand, weigh, and will, is a faculty that was designed to enable man to love His Creator and Savior in all truth. This includes providing man with the capacity to know God, by understanding His truth and by proving His will (Lk 24:45 ; Rm 12:2). It also includes the capacity to direct the whole of man, including his behavior and his body, to serve God rightly and fruitfully as an expression of His truth and His love (Eph 4:23,24). It is a faculty which, through the renewing power of the Spirit, allows man to fulfill his ultimate purpose – to glorify God by being like Him, walking in His footsteps, thinking His thoughts, and loving with His love (Eph 4:23, 24), essentially living in union with his sovereign Creator.

CONCLUSION

Where do religious thoughts and impulses come from? Scripture teaches us that they come from the heart by way of the mind. However, Scripture does far more than just identify the mind as the producer of thoughts, impulses, decisions, or behavior. Beyond function, Scripture informs us that the mind is a faculty or agency of the heart of man, a creation of God, designed to be the tabernacle of His truth and wisdom, enabling man to know and love God entirely, directing the whole of man to be one with His Creator, for the praise of His grace and the proclamation of His glory in Christ.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., D.Sc., “Seeking God in the Brain – Efforts to Localize Higher Brain Functions.” The New England Journal of Medicine 358:1-5 [Jan 03, 2008]: 6.

[2] Snyder, in the above cited article, notes that Linden attempts to tie religious impulses or beliefs that defy “everyday perception of reality” to speculative neural mechanisms.

[3] Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. “Mind/Reason.”

[4] George J. Zemek, “ Aiming the Mind: A Key to Godly Living”, Grace Theological Journal 5/2 (1984), 205-207.

[5] Theo J.W. Kunst, “The Implications of Pauline Theology of the Mind for the Work of the Theologian” [doctoral thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1979], 6.

[6] Of the 23 times Nous is used in the NT, 21 are in the apostle Paul’s writings.

[7] TDNT, 958-959.

[8] Ibid, 953.

[9] BTDB, 528.

[10] TDNT, 950.

[11] Theo J.W. Kunst, “The Implications of Pauline Theology of the Mind for the Work of the Theologian” [doctoral thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1979], 15.

[12] The literal translation of the Hebrew text for Dt 6:5 contains only three nouns. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Jesus’ quotation includes a fourth noun, dianoia – a compound derivative and synonym for nous, translated as “mind.”

[13] BTDB, 528.

[14] Zemek, A Biblical Theology of the Doctrines of Grace, 17.

[15] Ibid, 16.

[16] TDNT, 950.