June 2004

Congratulations Go To...

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/25/04
  • 0

Congratulations to my little sister Maryanne and my brother-in-law Pat on the birth of their second child, Joshua Patrick - a brother to Anna Grace. Little Joshua made his entry into the world this morning away down south in Atlanta.

These are the times when it is difficult to live 1000 miles away from the rest of the family! However, if all goes well Pat, Maryanne and their now-bigger family are intending on travelling up this way in just a few weeks so I will get to meet my nephew at that time.

Babywise & Other Ezzo Nonsense

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/24/04
  • 2

Just a few weeks ago I had no idea who Garry Ezzo was and how controversial his childraising programs are. I had looked over his book “Growing Kids God’s Way” but had never really read it. Then Matt Hall posted about Babywise and a little bit about the controversy. This article drew me especially and I was amazed to see that this Babywise stuff is very nearly a cult!

If you’re interested in the subject, TulipGirl has some great articles that describe her own experience with it as well as the experiences of some other women. All their stories sound eerily similar as they come to the realization that what they thought was helping their child was in reality starving their child.

This Babywise thing sounds like yet another substandard Christian version of a secular program. Filled with bad theology, terrible exegesis (God forsook Jesus on the cross and in so doing provided the ultimate example of why parents should leave their children to cry) and bearing just enough resemblance to a Christian program to keep people happy, it draws in millions of Christians.

So if you are interested in the program, I would highly recommend reading through those resources before committing yourself (and your child)!

Love & Humility

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/24/04
  • 2

I know so little about love. This thought occurred to me just a few weeks ago and I began to look at love to see what it is and how I can learn to love more and love better. It is no great mystery that the Bible places great emphasis on love. The word "love" appears hundreds of times through the Scripture as God tells us not only how much He loves His children but also how we are to display God's love to others.

It did not take me long to learn about the unbreakable link between love and humility. Love is impossible without humility. If I want to excel at love, I first need to learn to be humble; to learn to count my own joy and pleasure as less important than the joy and pleasure of someone else. Perhaps the key to love is learning to derive pleasure from someone else's pleasure. Selfless love is to find pleasure in another person's pleasure.

I think of my daughter and how much she loves it when I blow on her tummy. I derive no pleasure from the act of blowing "raspberries" on her stomach, but I derive nearly endless amounts of pleasure from hearing her squeal "stop!" and then "again!" I receive pleasure from her pleasure. While I could be reading a good book or surfing the Internet, thus deriving pleasure directly from my actions, I choose instead to find pleasure through my daughter's pleasure. I put myself first by putting her first, finding pleasure in her pleasure.

I wish I could say that this was the rule rather than the exception, but far more often I seek to find pleasure selfishly.

I found in the Bible that there are two types of humility, and though they are related, they are distinct. God tells us to first to be humble before Him and then to be humble before our fellow man.

Humility before God is a humility before His Word. I need to approach the Bible with humility each time I open its pages. I need to acknowledge that the Word is the teacher and I am the student. I need to allow the Bible to tell me who I am and describe my condition as a human being. I need to accept the Bible's solution to my condition. Psalm 25:9 says "The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way." If I approach God's Word to humble myself before it, God will guide and teach me. If I approach His Word with pride and with a haughty spirit, God will oppose me, for "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6)

When I read God's Word with an attitude of humility I can learn from the tragic times faced by characters such as Samson or David. I know that I am as human as they were and as prone to sin as they were. I see myself in the words of Genesis 6:5 which says "the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." When I read Jeremiah 17:9 I know that it describes my condition; I know that it is my heart that "is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." If I approach these same passages with an attitude of arrogance, feeling pride in my own abilities, I will learn nothing.

I believe this attitude of humility is what separates those believers who really "get it" from the masses of professed believers who never do - those people who continually show an attitude of arrogance before God do not allow Him to change and mold them. They make gods of themselves, believing that they are capable of doing God's work in their own lives. They deny the truth and gravity of their situations. I can think of so many people I have known who never humbled themselves before the Word. When they read about sin, they saw other people. When they read the passages of Scripture that demand changes to their lives or that went against what they believed, they refused to humble themselves. I have been in that position and have refused to change and I am sure you have been too.

God forgive us for our arrogance and give us humble hearts.

When we have humbled ourselves before God, we are able to show His love to others by humbling ourselves before them - by esteeming them better than ourselves. Without first humbling ourselves before Him, we merely show our own love which is fatally flawed and full of sin. I think of Mother Teresa, a woman who outwardly showed love to so many, yet just a brief look at her life will show beyond any dispute that she never humbled herself before God. Think of the good her life could have accomplished had she been able to show God's perfect love to the world rather than only her own selfish love.

Imagine how my life would change and how your life would change if we were truly able to derive pleasure from the pleasure of others. Imagine if we dedicated the time we spend deriving pleasure from television to gaining pleasure from the joy of helping others and esteeming them better than ourselves. Imagine how Christians could impact the world around them if we really understood the value of humility.

Many months ago I studied the book of Proverbs and learned the absolute importance of wisdom. Since then I continually pray that God will help me grow in wisdom. I have recently begun to pray that He will also grant me humility before His Word, so that He can change me and so that I can then show His love to the world around me.

Are...You...Ready, Ready, READY?!?

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/23/04
  • 0

I was doing my morning rounds of the Internet and came across an article at Pastors.com, a site run by Rick Warren as a resource to, you guessed it, pastors (He seems to resource them by strongarming them into purchasing endless amounts of his sermons, his books and so on). The article is part of Warren’s weekly “Ministry Toolbox” and in this particular article he is writing about nationwide conference calls he is hosting to discuss his 40 Days of Purpose program. Anyone who wants to can join this conference call and listen to Warren share what God has been doing through this program and listen to a Bible study on one God’s five purposes for our lives.

The article Warren wrote to describe this program is really quite funny. It reminds me of some of the spam that infiltrates my mailbox every day. He continually alternates between standard text and bold. When he’s really excited he does bold italics.

We’re preparing for a time of nation-wide revival!

Right now there are a number of factors that are tipping the scales toward a possible national spiritual awakening, and I'd like to talk with you about partnering together to accomplish God's purposes at this historic moment.

But now 15,000 other churches have used 40 Days of Purpose as a tool and over 20 million people have read The Purpose-Driven Life. This is a significant number when you consider it only takes 2% of a culture to change it.

My suggestion is that you invite a key business leader from your church - one who might serve as your 40 Days of Purpose director - to join you in this phone call. Even better, you can put me on speakerphone and invite your entire leadership team to be a part of this call.

It reminds me of a monster truck rally. “God is sending revivial, revival, revival! Join my conference call or you’ll miss, miss, miss out, out, out!”

Like everything else Warren writes about his program, this article is chock full of unsubstantiated numbers. 15,000 churches have done his 40 Days of Purpose program and another 15,000 will be doing it this fall. 20 million people have read the book! 2% of a culture will change it! 100 denominations are doing the program! And on it goes…

The long and the short of it is that Warren has suddenly realized that God is going to begin a nationwide spiritual revival based on his Purpose Driven Life. He must feel good to be the instigator in history’s first revival that bears no mention of sin and repentance.

Of course we all know that God always chooses to use poor theology, poor methodology and terrible use of Scripture to reach people, right? God approves of methods that minimize the gospel in favor of humanism and the Spirit’s leading to being driven by purpose…doesn’t He? God is going to change a nation based on people muttering “I believe in you and I receive you.”

Mr. Warren, I suspect you are starting to display the hubris that all humans are prone to slip into when they receive the kind of laud that has been given you. If your 40 Days of Purpose program triggers a nationwide revival, I will eat my hat. Yes, you heard it here first. I will take my Toronto Maple Leafs hat and ingest it before witnesses. As a matter of fact, I’ll eat your hat too if you wish. If God chooses to send Revival to the land, I will rejoice - but I guarantee it will not be on the basis if your book.

Dear Neighbor

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/22/04
  • 0

Dear neighbor,

I know that it is sometimes difficult to live in a townhouse. I know we each only have a postage-stamp-sized backyard and that sometimes you can hear us in our house just like we sometimes hear you. I sympathize.

I would like to point something out. We’ve noticed that you have a bad habit that you only indulge on the weekends that your daughters are with their father. You think you’re sneaky about it too - always making sure the dryer is on with a whole lot of fabric softener in it when you head outside. Now I assume you don’t realize this, but marijuana smoke is a much stronger smell than fabric softener. I’ll give you credit for trying, but let me tell you…it’s not working!

Now I really don’t care if you choose to smoke up - you’re a middle-aged adult and by now must know better, but you are your own boss now. I do wonder what your teenage girls would think if they found out and how you would explain it away. But honestly, we both know it’s not even a criminal offense in Canada anymore. What I do care about, though, is when my entire home starts to stink like a frat house! So please, please…do you think you could find some other place to smoke your weed? I’m tired of going up to bed, only to find my room stinking of pot.

I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

Tim

Book Review - More Ready Than You Realize

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/22/04
  • 1

Brian McLaren is a pastor and author who is leading the church's charge into postmodernism and is one of the foremost voices of the emerging church movement. His book More Ready Than You Realize was recommended to me by several people. One called it "the best book I've ever read on evangelism" and another went almost as far, calling it "one of the best books" he had read on the subject. In my discussion of the book I am going to avoid speaking about the emerging church, since evangelism is the true focus of this volume. Though it is difficult to separate the emerging church from McLaren's approach to evangelism, I will seek to do so.

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End Of An Era

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/22/04
  • 0

Over the past two years I have been very fortunate to receive free hosting for two of my Web sites, Challies Dot Com as well as Websonix. Today I found out that I will no longer receive free hosting. The owners of the server have decided to no longer offer hosting and have asked me to move along as soon as I can. While it’s disappointing that my hosting will no longer be free, I can’t say I blame the people.

So…I do have plenty of other hosting options available. I am not the least bit concerned with moving the site. What does concern me is the thought of moving Movabletype (the software that runs my blog) and phpBB (the software that runs the Forums to a new server. That could prove to be a terrible headache!

Now that I am going to be paying for hosting, perhaps I have reason enough to add a “tip jar” to my site! Nah. I can’t stand those things. I’ll only do that if I really need to…

So I guess I should warn that there may be some turbulence ahead as I attempt to seamlessly move this site to a whole new server…

Raising Holy Hands

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/21/04
  • 8

Yesterday I wrote about 1 Timothy 2:8 being the inspiration for the song Unchanging which includes the lyrics so we raise up holy hands / to praise the holy One / Who was and is and is to come.” I said that this verse cannot be used to prove that we are given license to raise our hands while we sing for two reasons. First, the context of the verse shows that it applies specifically to men and second, it speaks of prayer, not singing.

Since I posted that there has been a bit of discussion in the forum about raising hands in worship and I thought I would post a few thoughts on that.

I will start by stating that I have never had a real problem with people raising hands during singing. There was a time when I was encouraged to try it out and was told that it made the experience of worship more intimate. I was told that raising hands to God was similar to the act of a child reaching out to hold his fathers hand. So I thought about trying it, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that there was no way I could do it without it being very artificial. Though others may not have noticed this, I knew that I would be so self-conscious of what I was doing that it could not be a real act of worship.

The questions I would ask about raising hands in worship are:

  1. Why? Why do you want to raise your hands during music? What does it mean to you? Is it merely learned behavior or does it really have a profound meaning to you?
  2. When? When do you raise your hands? The Bible tells men to raise their hands in prayer? Are you able to raise your hands during prayer or only when the music is playing? Worship is more than music, so shouldnt you also be able to raise your hands during the reading of the Word, during preaching and during the sacraments? Further to this question, are there certain songs that make you raise your hands while others do not? If so, why?
  3. Where? Where is the Scriptural proof that we are given license to do so? As a Reformed Protestant I always hold the Bible as the plumb line. If it does not line up with Scripture I cant support it.

I know that there are many reasons people raise their hands. In some churches various gestures carry specific meanings. For example, two hands raised with palms turned inward is a posture of surrender whereas two hands raised with palms turned outward is a posture of receiving (as in receiving Gods blessing). Because hand-raising can have different meanings depending on who does it and how they do it, I guess there will be different ways of justifying the act.

So are you a hand-raiser? Were you a hand-raiser? Lets discuss this a little bit

BlogSwap

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/20/04
  • 0

Several months ago I had an idea about something I thought might be a fun activity for myself and some of my fellow bloggers. Now, several months later, after receiving some positive feedback about the idea and having spent more time thinking about how it would work, I am finally going to present it to you and see who is interested in participating.

My idea is to have regular BlogSwaps. A BlogSwap is where, for one post, another blogger will write on your site and you will write on someone else’s site. Here is how it would work:

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Sunday Ramblings

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/20/04
  • 0

I don’t like capris pants (those pant-short hybrids that come down to about mid-calf). While I strongly dislike them on women, I really don’t like seeing men wearing them. Yes, you read that correctly. I have seen men in capris pants. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen lots of men wearing capris pants. While we were wandering around the zoo yesterday I saw several men wearing them. And in case you are wondering, these were not particularly feminine men - they were just guys out for the day with their families. I am guessing the male version of capris pants has a masculine name. They are probably sold as “hiking shorts” or “macho masculine legwear” or something. I will never wear them. I promise.

I did some quick math this afternoon and estimate that today I filled out my two thousandth blank. I figure that each sermon has an average of 8 to 10 blanks to fill out. I have been attending churches that hand out the “fill-in-the-blank” message outlines for about four years now, so I should be right around 2000 blanks.

I was thinking today about the song “Unchanging” by Chris Tomlin, a song that many churches sing on a regular basis. The chorus includes the words “so we raise up holy hands / to praise the holy One / Who was and is and is to come.” Nice words and a great tune. I got to thinking, though, about the Biblical inspiration for the song and realized that the verse it comes from, 1 Timothy 2:8 reads “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.” The context of the verse is about how men should worship and is followed by a few verses speaking about women and worship. According to this passage, then, only men should be lifting their hands during this song. Actually, even more correctly, men should be lifting their hands in prayer, not in song.

This song also contains a grammatical error…I think. It says “wide is your love and grace.” Shouldn’t that read “wide are your love and grace?”

Coming up this week I have a review of Brian McLaren’s book More Ready Than You Realize. I am also working on a series of interviews to be posted (eventually) on this site. I have a few other things I am working on so hope to have a productive week of writing.