TBT : The Cost of a Soul

  • September 17, 2015
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  • Park Forum
2 Corinthians 6.2
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
God’s servants are called to take many different positions. They are ambassadors under one aspect; they are workers under another. As ambassadors, they are ambassadors for Christ; as workers, they are workers together with God.
Oh, how much it costs to win a soul! I mean, not only how much it cost the Savior, so that he broke his very heart over it, and poured out his life’s blood; but also how much it must cost the messenger of peace! He must know how to ask fervently and beg earnestly; and when even this fails, he must still go on toiling, laboring, as a worker together with God.
As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,  beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;  through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. — The Apostle Paul
All these things Paul and his brethren were to be and to do in order to win souls for Christ. Just as the hunters in the cold North seek after furs, and try all sorts of plans to catch the wild creatures on which they grow.
They will trap them, or snare them, or shoot them; but, somehow or other, they will get them. They will be on the alert all day, and all night, too. They will learn the habits of every creature they have to deal with, but they will get the furs somehow. And so must the true minister of Christ be willing to be anything, to do anything, to suffer anything, to bear reproach and shame, to be nothing, or to be all things to all men, if by any means he may save some.
*Excerpted, and language updated, from Christ’s Sympathy with His People, delivered May 26, 1904.
Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 13 (Listen – 6:39)
2 Corinthians 6 (Listen – 2:31)

The Surprising Results of Forgiveness

  • September 16, 2015
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  • Park Forum

2 Corinthians 5.18

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation
“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.” — Miroslav Volf
Yesterday we examined harrowing acts of restoration following the Rwandan Genocide. On the other side of the same continent, and also in 1994, a recently freed political prisoner took the presidential office in South Africa.
Of the moment when Mandela was released from 27 years of imprisonment and forced labor Ghanna’s President, John Dramani Mahama writes for the New York Times;
The world was spellbound. We wondered what we would do if we were in his shoes. We all waited for an indescribable rage, a call for retribution that any reasonable mind would have understood…
Yet, the man insisted on forgiveness. “To go to prison because of your convictions,” he said, “and be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, is something worthwhile. It is an achievement for a man to do his duty on earth irrespective of the consequences.”
Mandela’s life illustrates the reality that when we have been hurt there is a debt which must be paid. We can either force the perpetrator pay, or we can forgive. Mandela’s presidency, and his legacy of dismantling structured racism in South Africa, were the results of his decision to forgive — the decision to absorb the debt.
When someone really wrongs you, there’s always a loss. You’ve lost reputation, or you’ve lost some opportunity you didn’t have and you never will get again. There’s a real debt. It’s not a monetary debt, but there’s a debt. You feel it, and you feel the person owes you. You feel the person is liable to you, but what are you going to do? — Timothy Keller
Moralism demands we forgive. The gospel goes farther. Jesus not only teaches about forgiveness, he offers up his life and blood of as payment for our own debts, as well as those we incur as the result of others’ sins. As I’ve written before, forgiveness is less about mustering up an emotion and more about extending the forgiveness God has already offered.
The weight of this reality did not escape Paul, who saw forgiveness as a foundational task in evangelism. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ — God is making his appeal through us.”
Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 12 (Listen – 5:25)
2 Corinthians 5 (Listen – 3:14)

Harrowing Images of Restoration

  • September 15, 2015
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  • Park Forum

2 Corinthians 4.8-9

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed… struck down, but not destroyed.
“I burned her house. I attacked her in order to kill her and her children, but God protected them, and they escaped.” — Godefroid Mudaheranwa, Rwandan Genocide perpetrator
“In this world you will have trouble,” says Jesus. The hope of the gospel is not the removal of suffering, but the reorientation of followers of Christ toward it. We can be struck down, but we will not be destroyed. While we have few examples of what this looks like, some of the most striking come from our darkest hours.
Over 800,000 people were slaughtered during the the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. The perpetrators were merciless, even using AIDS infected men as a tool of systematic destruction. Of the 250,000 women who were raped, 67% were intentionally infected with HIV. Homes were burned and children were massacred as the majority of an ethnic group was consumed by the fangs of evil running rampant.
“He killed my child, then he came to ask me pardon. I immediately granted it to him because he did not do it by himself — he was haunted by the devil… Before, when I had not yet granted him pardon, he could not come close to me. I treated him like my enemy. But now, I would rather treat him like my own child.” — Epiphanie Mukamusoni, Rwandan Genocide survivor
These words, recorded as part of a New York Times photoessay, are in many ways the direct result of the work being done by Association Modeste et Innocent. The group is the Rwandan branch of Pax Christi International Catholic Peace Movement and is dedicated to modeling, teaching, and facilitating reconciliation between perpetrators and survivors.
There are no simple answers to those who have been struck down. In the last two years, half of the 20,000 children who were conceived in rape have dropped out of school to care for their families, the prison system is overrun by crimes of genocide, and 70% of survivors have a monthly income of less than $8.00.
Yet faith has given a way of forgiveness — which has opened the door for reconciliation — and created a path for life to move forward. The woman who escaped Godefroid Mudaheranwa’s attack, mentioned above, now says this:
“I used to hate him. When he came to my house and knelt down before me and asked for forgiveness, I was moved by his sincerity. Now, if I cry for help, he comes to rescue me. When I face any issue, I call him.” — Evasta Mukanyandwi, Rwandan Genocide survivor
Jesus’ promise in saying “you will have trouble,” is this: “Take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 11 (Listen – 4:25)
2 Corinthians 4 (Listen – 3:02)

The Intense Happiness of Grace

  • September 14, 2015
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  • Park Forum
2 Corinthians 3.7-8
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?
The Intense Happiness of Grace
By Martin Luther
Paul undertakes to explain the difference between the righteousness of the Law and the righteousness of faith. The righteousness of the Law is the fulfillment of the Law according to the passage: “The man that does these will live in them.” The righteousness of faith is to believe the Gospel according to the passage: “The righteous will live by faith.”
The Law is a statement of debit, the Gospel a statement of credit. By this distinction Paul explains why [good works], which is the commandment of the Law, cannot justify, because the Law contributes nothing to our justification.
Indeed, works do follow after faith, but faith is not therefore a meritorious work. Faith is a gift.
When we believe in Christ we live by faith. When we believe in the Law we may be active enough but we have no life. The function of the Law is not to give life; the function of the Law is to kill. True, the Law says: “The man that does them shall live in them.” But where is the person who can do “them,” i.e., love God with all his heart, soul, and mind, and his neighbor as himself?
Paul has nothing against those who are justified by faith and therefore are true doers of the Law. He opposes those who think they can fulfill the Law when in reality they can only sin against the Law by trying to obtain righteousness by the Law.
The Law demands that we fear, love, and worship God with a true faith. The law-workers fail to do this.
All evils would have overwhelmed us, as they shall overwhelm the unbelievers forever, if Christ had not become the great transgressor and guilty bearer of all our sins. The sins of the world got Him down for a moment. They came around Him like water. Of Christ, the Old Testament Prophet complained: “Your fierce wrath goes over me; your terrors have cut me off.”
By Christ’s salvation we have been delivered from the terrors of God to a life of eternal felicity.
*Excerpted and language updated from Martin Luther’s A Commentary on Saint Pauls Epistle to the Galatians.

Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 10 (Listen – 3:19)
2 Corinthians 3 (Listen – 2:25)

Hard Hits: Faith and the NFL :: The Weekend Reading List

  • September 11, 2015
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  • Park Forum
“I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays.” — Kyle Turley, former offensive tackle for the Saints, Rams, and Chiefs
The NFL, Malcolm Gladwell says, “is a moral abomination… Can you point to another industry in America which, in the course of doing business, maims a third of its employees?” Gladwell compares the NFL to dogfighting where an owner, “willingly submitted his dog to a contest that culminated in her suffering and destruction. And why? For the entertainment of an audience and the chance of a payday.”
“[Pro] Football is one of the most dehumanizing experiences a person can face.” — Dave Meggyesy, former linebacker, Cardinals (1963-69)
“Dehumanizing sounds so extreme, but when you’re fighting for a football at the bottom of the pile, it is kind of dehumanizing. It’s like a spectacle of violence, for entertainment… It’s make-believe, really. That’s the truth about it.” — Chris Borland, former linebacker for the 49ers
“Part of what makes dogfighting so repulsive is the understanding that violence and injury cannot be removed from the sport,” says Gladwell. “It’s a feature of the sport that dogs almost always get hurt.”
Think Progress notes that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease which manifests in symptoms similar to Alzheimers, is the smoking gun of the NFL’s methodical destruction of its athletes lives. “Dr. David Geier of The Post and Courier reports that evidence of CTE — which has been linked to depression, suicide, and memory loss — has been found in the brains of 87 out of the 91 dead NFL players who were examined by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.”
The latest research on traumatic brain injuries shows the greatest damage to an athlete’s brain tissue — and future — comes from the “normal” hits, not the colossal ones. Sub-concussive hits, impacts which do not cause a concussion, occur up to 1,000x per season for an individual linebacker, adding up in the tens of thousands over a career that starts in high school.
This is a story the NFL has worked aggressively to suppress, including forcing Sony Pictures to take “most of the bite” out of an upcoming movie “for legal reasons.”
In the short term, players (even young ones) become addicted to prescription drugs and marijuana to manage their physical pain; and in the long-term they experience degenerative neurological disease at disproportionately high rates.
Many fans expect new technologies like instantaneous impact data and improved helmet design to help athletes stay in the game longer. Yet there are two problems which make this unlikely. First, sub-concussive hits occur in practice, even in the comparatively less violent “shells” practice where players only wear helmets and shoulder pads. More importantly the NFL’s most aggressive investments in technology are not to improve player safety, but to increase fan engagement and revenue.
“We’re focusing on making [local games] a five-to-six-hour, driveway-to-driveway experience.” — Brian Lafemina, SVP Club Business Development, NFL
This year the league is investing in RFID chips which will sit under both shoulder pads of every player in the league, as well as on the officials, yard markers, and pylons. CIO magazine reports that “The NFL plans to use the data generated to power the NFL 2015 app for Xbox One and Windows 10, allowing for things like ‘Next Gen Replay’ that will allow fans to call up stats for each player tied into highlight clips posted on the app.”
Some Christian communities’ obsession with the NFL is a living confession that we are as of-the-world as we are in it. The fallen reality of the game should dramatically reorient our posture toward the NFL. Christian communities could start by discussing how to rightly engage with the NFL — and how much time and energy is appropriate to dedicate to spectator sports in general.
There is nothing else to be done, not so long as fans stand and cheer. We are in love with football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else—neither considerations of science nor those of morality—can compete with the destructive power of that love. — Malcolm Gladwell
If Christians’ interactions with professional sports are no different than someone outside the church there is simply no testimony to be seen. Faith reorients our understanding of human dignity, fortifies our desires for justice, and releases us from the clutches of media overindulgence. We should lend our voices to reforming sports in every way we can — knowing that our loudest votes for or against the current state of the NFL come through our money and time.

Today’s Reading
2 Samuel 6 (Listen 3:34)
1 Corinthians 16 (Listen 2:54)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Samuel 7 (Listen 4:26) 2 Corinthians 1 (Listen 3:52)
2 Samuel 8-9 (Listen 4:51) 2 Corinthians 2 (Listen 2:13)

 

The Weekend Reading List