Simple Living Isn’t Always

In my continuing reflection on the Resurrection, I’ve had the joy of reading several comments. In his comment on my “Resurrection Matters” post, my friend Derek writes:

I believe we need to recover the material aspect of obedience to God’s law without being legalistic. I mean this as a correction to a far too spiritualized idea of obedience. I have heard that Luther stated that a mother changing a diaper is as glorious to God as preaching the gospel, though I have never found a source.

Difficult to remember, but true. Because of the Resurrection, I can take as much joy in changing my son’s diaper as in witnessing to a lost person. Luther, however, puts the diaper in the father’s hands in his sermon “The Estate of Marriage.” Describing our natural reason as a “harlot,” Luther says when she looks at married life “she turns up her nose and says, ‘Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores. . . ?’” Luther won’t stand for it, and neither should we. Continue Reading »

For the disciples, Palm Sunday must have seemed like a dream. After their fears and Jesus’ warnings on the road to Jerusalem, they had arrived to see Jesus received like a victorious Messiah. And though the Pharisees had complained about it, the current of jubilant praise likely carried the men along as they followed Jesus up to the Temple. As they approached the outer court, their conversation would have drowned in the clamor from the Temple’s outer court.

The Court of Gentiles, the only part of the Temple non-Jews could enter, had become an open-air market. A barrage of sights and smells confronted the teacher and his disciples. To see everything—as Mark 11:11 says Jesus did—the group had to push through hordes of customers haggling with merchants, shouting to be heard over the sheep and cattle and doves used for sacrifices. Other pilgrims crowded around moneychangers’ tables, protesting exorbitant fees and usurious rates of exchange for the special Temple currency. And everything was permeated by the pungent mixture of sweat and manure produced by almost fourteen acres of jostling animals and people.

When He had seen enough, Jesus returned to Bethany, where He was staying. He had the whole night to consider what He had experienced, and maybe He did. Whatever He concluded, He headed to Jerusalem the next day on a mission.

Read the rest of the article at InTouch.org.

According to the WSJ’s OpinionJournal, Bible sales are booming.

The article describes the popular Revolve New Testament as “Corinthians and Colossians for the Cosmo girl.” And how about this heartbreaking comment? “Bibles are becoming as much personal statements as fashion statements. ‘What people are saying is ‘I want to find a Bible that is really me,’ noted Rodney Hatfield, a vice president of marketing at Thomas Nelson. ‘It’s no different than with anything else in our culture.’”

How should we react to that? As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, the inspired Scriptures. As someone who used to help Tyndale House Publishers (who share the top 80% of the market with Nashville’s Thomas Nelson) create specialty Bibles, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, getting a Bible into someone’s hands, a Bible they might actually open and read, is a crucial component of discipleship. On the other, the idea of the Bible as another product to tweak for the market turns my stomach.

Bible sales are on the rise, and I find myself wondering if that’s a good thing. Are those Bibles going to people who have no Bible, or are new to faith in Jesus Christ? Or will they join three or four other Bibles in a current Christian’s “armory”? Wayne Hastings, svp at Nelson, says: “Forty percent of my customers own three to 10 Bibles. … It’s sort of like me and golf. I have Tiger Woods’s book and Ernie Els’s book. I want all those different approaches to how to play golf. It’s the same with Bibles.”

But apparently there is a line. Kevin O’Brien, director of Bibles at my old job, says “If you get too trendy you’ve turned the Bible into a widget.” But what’s too trendy? Zondervan’s FaithGirlz! Bible in a Bag? Or is the really over-the-line content inside, when we add “study helps” that over-relevant the content?

I guess that big question is the same question churches and Christians everywhere are asking: When do our efforts to make Christianity “relevant” cross the line? But is it all that much different from what we’ve done with the church? At what point do we say, “Offensive? Yeah, that’s kind of what ‘rock of offense’ implies.”

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Over on Challies.com you can find a great post about revelation, inspiration, and illumination. I like Tim’s emphasis there, as I said in my comment there.

Too often, I jump right into “application” without allowing the Spirit to breathe life into me through the Scriptures, to light my sin-darkened heart. I guess I want Scripture to jump my heart to my hands, which cannot be grace-giving in the long run. This is all assuming more diligence than I usually give to Scripture anyway, which is a constant source of frustration and shame to me.

For a while I followed Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s calendar (get a great pdf version of M’Cheyne’s calendar here) with fervor, but I end up feeling overwhelmed not refreshed. I think my schedule is the problem, and my own lack of priorities where spiritual things are concerned. I was continually surprised at how the calendar demonstrated the unity of the Scripture. I still read, but more occasionally than regularly. None of this changes the fact that I’m starving my spirit.

How do you approach Scripture reading? Does a calendar help?