In What’s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey tells the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15 by recasting the prodigal as a teenage girl who leaves home in pursuit of a life of drugs, poverty, and eventual prostitution. The story brings me to tears every time, because it transforms an ancient story into a setting that clearly communicates the power of the parable.

In similar fashion, Mikalatos takes a number of parables and familiar Bible stories and retells them in a series of overlapping narratives. The book’s primary strength is how the characters weave into other narratives. Instead of a chapter-by-chapter collection of Yancey-like retelling, Mikalatos has characters appear again and again in the various stories he presents. It provides a comprehensive picture of a world in which the power of the Gospel shines forth in ways that effect not solitary characters, but a community of people.

A second strength of the book is that the stories cover much of the breadth of the Gospels. Instead of picking only those stories which are easy to recast in modern settings, Mikalatos perseveres through the story of Jesus to present his life in many elements. Because of this, the reader watches the life of Jesus and those he impacts unfold in a narrative that follows the drama of the Gospels themselves. It provides a captivating picture of Christ and makes the pages easy to turn.

The largest drawback to the work is when Mikalatos is forced to stretch his creative license too far, adding elements that may not be historically justifiable. This is not a problem unique to Mikalatos, but one of the central problems in bridging the ancient world and our own, so he is not to be faulted for it. However, at certain points in the stories, it felt to me like he stretched a bit in order to provide an overall narrative that was well tied together.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I recommend it. But with my recommendation I would encourage people to read it alongside the parables that he retells in order to understand what the Scripture is teaching us in them. Stories like these are immensely helpful in making difficult to understand, culturally-bound stories come to life. But, obviously, they cannot substitute for one’s study of Scripture.

Enjoy this book when you’re seeking to build bridges in your preaching. Enjoy this book when you want to help students understand Bible stories in contemporary settings. Read this book with your small group to get a fresh grasp of the powerful reality of Jesus’ grace and mercy.

I heard the words as if spoken from a great distance, though the captain was only four feet behind me. My spinnaker line was flying through my hands, making deep cuts that are now scars, as 50 knot winds barreled across our 42 foot sailboat racing down Boston Harbor. Time slowed down as our boat heeled to the port side, water came over the rails, and our crew scrambled starboard to keep the boat from capsizing. 

The weekly race had been going well. We were comfortably in third place and on our downwind leg, which meant I was flying the spinnaker. A spinnaker is that colorful, parachute-like sail boats use when the wind is behind the vessel. If flown well, the spinnaker looks like a parachute filled with wind as it draws the boat downwind.

As we worked to maintain our position, the sky suddenly darkened and 50 knot winds came across our boat. My spinnaker line went flying into the water, we dropped our other sails, and other boats in the race capsized. The storm was short-lived and nobody on our boat was severely injured. For the few minutes the storm was upon us, it felt like everything slowed down and I was hyper aware of what was happening around us. My actions were slower and more deliberate, my decisions were quicker, but felt slower.

When we find ourselves in adrenaline-fueled crisis situations we experience this slowing of time. But as we go about our days, moments pass us by with such rapidity that we are often surprised to find our day is already over. Moments become days, days become years, and years become decades. Time moves beyond our control and because we sit within it like canoes in a river current, we are swept away, unable to see beyond the moments and view the big picture. 

We lack perspective because we are bound by time, but God exists above time and has perspective beyond our ability to comprehend. When we look at decisions we’ve made, sins we’ve committed, people we’ve left behind, opportunities we missed, we see them within particular contexts in particular moments in our lives. But when God looks at individual decisions and unique events, He sees a plan unfolding like the strategy of a world champion chess player. 

In 2 Samuel 12, David is confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sinful relationship with Bathsheba. While he loses the first son born to her, she conceives again and bears Solomon who would carry forth the line of David so that the Gospel of Matthew records in chapter 1 that David and Bathsheba were ancestors of Jesus Christ. 

Within our own lives and from our own perspective time is a fast-moving stream. Sometimes it slows down so we have perspective beyond normal, but time for us will never be slow enough to gain the perspective of God. God sits outside time, sees His plan unfolding, and works to execute it despite our failures, despite our sins, despite our issues. God does not see moments, He sees generations.

The War Photo No One Would Publish During the Gulf War, a photographer captured a stunning photo of an Iraqi convoy destroyed by American forces. No American news outlet published it.

The Wrong Kind of Christian A few years ago Vanderbilt University changed the rules on how religious clubs were allowed to operate. This article offers an insider perspective from former InterVarsity staff.

Google Is About to Take Over Your Whole Life Google is a fascinating company. Here’s a look at developing technology.

He recounts an invitation he received from a friend to see the Christian movie God’s Not Dead and how he tried hard to find excuses not to go. In the end, he went and concluded that he had become a Christian culture snob and that sometimes he needed to be reminded of the simplicity of the Gospel message through such mediums as Christian film.

While his article was convicting and I think his criticism valid, I think there is still room to criticize many artifacts of Christian subculture. It is not simply a matter of taste that one prefers Hollywood films to “Christian” films or that one prefers K-Love to pop radio. While taste plays a part, what is at the center of the debate is how Christians should consume and create culture.

Christians have done themselves and society a disservice by creating a subculture of “Christian” artifacts. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Christians responded to the growth of Darwinism and secularism by creating their own universities, music, movies, radio programs, etc. Anything produced by non-Christians became profane and unsafe, while all products produced by Christians were sanitized and safe.

Art then became about the message and the artist’s belief rather than the beauty and quality of art according to one’s God-given artistic talents. Instead of celebrating great art created by non-Christians for its beauty, Christians dismissed “non-Christian” art as profane. This lowered the bar for artistic excellence creating a subculture that tolerates mediocre art because of its clean bill of approval as “Christian.”

Wear’s reaction to this subculture is to appreciate art for its own beauty without regard for its origin believing that God is the source of artistic ability and that cultural creation honors Him. The snobbery of that comes in when we begin to think that all Christian art is sub-par.

While Wear is correct to caution us against being snobbish about Christian art, we should not accept sub-par or mediocre art simply because it’s produced by Christians. If we affirm what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says is the chief end of man, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” then our pursuit of glorifying God should include glorifying Him by creating and appreciating great art.

We don’t need to be snobs about art that is not great and dismiss it all, but we should develop less of a stomach for it in order to push brothers and sisters in Christ to produce better art, better music, better literature. Instead of being dismissive snobs, we should encourage higher standards.

(Read this great, related article over at the Gospel Coalition The Problem with Christian Films.)

Six Things Every Community Needs

We think of them as golden years, because once we graduate we find ourselves in a radically new environment where we are forced to forge new relationships and find new community. Relationships that once developed so naturally now require investment and time. At times we can feel like we have no friends and that finding relationships like we used to have will never happen.

The reality is that community does not happen. You have to build it.

When I graduated from college and moved to a new city I was lonely. I experienced the terrible feeling of not knowing anyone, not connecting with my co-workers, and wondering if I was ever going to find friendships like those in college.

A few months after moving I found myself among friends beyond the relationships I had in college. I had found a community that was far superior to my community in college. What made it unique?

First, it was Christian community. My community in Boston was founded on Christ and built from relationships developed in a small group Bible study that met every week.

Second, it developed from commitment. I was committed to Stephen, Sarah, Greg, Summer, Sarah, Stacy, Neil, John, and others. We spent much of our non-working hours at one another’s apartments, eating out, hiking, and shopping. We committed to doing life with one another, sharing meals, running errands, and sharing many experiences both mundane and profound.

If your Christianity is more than a hobby, which it should be, then you need to find people with whom you can commit to building community. If you’re in a small group, be there every week. If you’re running errands after work one night, invite someone to go with you. If you attend church only once or twice a month, go every week and invite people to lunch afterwards.

You can find community with other Christians, but it takes work. Commit to building it.

We get excited about things, and we go so far as to purchase equipment or begin the process of learning, but then life happens and we return to our lives as normal.

I wonder sometimes if we treat Christianity that way. We hear the Gospel in high school or college, maybe during our twenties after we’ve graduated, and we get excited about Jesus. We read the Bible. We go to church. We pray. We learn to do all the things Christians tell us to do. Then at some point, we put aside our Christianity along with that copy of War and Peace we started five different times but never finished. We treat Christianity like a hobby.

Christianity, of course, is not a hobby. Being a Christian means affirming a number of crazy ideas and living a life that is completely committed to what Jesus taught. If we treat Jesus like a hobby we try out for a while, then we will dismiss Him when it gets difficult. In a culture increasingly antagonistic toward Christianity’s claims to exclusivity, moral absolutes, and the like, difficulty is the norm.

The question all of us who call ourselves Christians have to answer then, is this: Is my faith a hobby? If my Christianity is not a hobby, then what do I need to change in my life so that it more fully reflects the beliefs I say I believe?

How can I commit to being a follower of Jesus and not making my faith a hobby? How can I commit more deeply to my church family? How can I commit to living out the Gospel at work today? How can I commit to sharing my faith more regularly? Christianity is not a hobby. It is the well from which we drink meaning and purpose. Commit to it.

An article in Slate Magazine discusses the growing trend of pop-sci books on neurological research that degrade the notion of evil. Researchers studying such things examine brain scans to determine what occurs when people make particular decisions–in this case empathetic or evil decisions. The conclusion of a growing number of research is that evil decisions are made not because of some inherent tendency toward evil, but because of some kind of brain malfunction.

The article  points out that this is a troubling assertion for a number of societal reasons, but beyond the practical it seems like an asinine assumption. To assert that evil is not an inherent trait ignores life experience and plain reality. Although most of us would rather forget our awkward middle school years we can all remember incredibly evil acts perpetrated by fellow students against others. By and large those perpetrators did not grow up to be life-long criminals, proving some sort of brain dysfunction, but generally law-abiding “good” people. They simply perpetrated evil acts as part of the process of learning to control their own behavior.

Further testimony of inherent nature of evil comes from stories of children. Why do two year olds instinctively hit, bite, and kick other kids without reason? Why do they steal things from other kids and shout “mine” all the time? There is an inherent tendency within us all toward evil.

This is not to say that most of us are evil in the sense of Hitler or Stalin, but if we are honest with ourselves we recognize our own tendency to commit and think about committing awful deeds. If we are truly honest with ourselves we know that our own sense of goodness only extends so far as we all harbor dark memories and thoughts. If science can explain away these tendencies then we as a society will fail to grapple with the realities of decisions. In every moment of every day we make decisions to act in certain ways. Without a sense of our tendency toward evil we will be kept from moral behavior guided by a well-trained conscious. And that would lead to anarchy.

Beginning with the old explanation of world politics based on two cows:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

the author then uses cows to explain Middle East politics.

Enjoy

Having discussed the roots of the Reformation and Martin Luther, I am now going to look at the development of Protestantism in the 16^th century. It is better to think of the movement as a group of many smaller movements or, perhaps, many protestantisms. In upcoming posts I’ll examine John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, the Anabaptists, the English Reformation, and the Catholic or counter-Reformation. But first, it is important to define what Protestantism means.

Inherent in the Reformation was a negative understanding of what it meant to be Protestant. Within the term itself is the word protest, and in many ways that is an accurate description of the reformers. They were protesting the right of the Roman Church and the Magisterium to interpret the Bible for the masses. They were protesting the right of Rome to control ecclesiastical affairs in Europe. They were protesting doctrines of the Medieval church they found contrary to the instructions and tenets of Scripture. Indeed, the legacy of Protestantism as a movement in opposition continues to this day. In the West we have traded Catholicism for Secularism as our primary enemy. In the global South many churches define themselves in opposition to Islam, while others continue to fight Catholicism, or in Pentecostal churches, traditional Protestant churches.

There are positive components to the definition of Protestantism as well. Alister McGrath points out that “In one sense, ‘Protestantism’ designates a way of doing theology rather than any given set of possible or specific outcomes.”[1] Central to this way of doing theology was the emphasis on the priesthood of all believers—the idea the Bible is the foundation of Christianity and should be accessible to all believers and authoritative in all manners of doctrine, faith, and practice. Protestantism then becomes the outworking of various groups of people studying the Bible and applying its teaching to their lives and realities. This is really the power of Protestantism. In its purest form, it is a movement unbound by structures of authority that limit its ability to adapt to social change and new challenges.

Luther represented the first generation of Protestantism, and after him came several key leaders and movements that shaped the history of Protestantism as we know it today. We’ll talk about these key leaders as this series continues.