Theology for Women

A couple days ago I was talking to a friend about a book she’s been reading that’s been really encouraging to her. The book deals with lies that women tend to believe about themselves, which is definitely a relevant topic to women, so I took a look at it. As I glanced over the Table of Contents and read the lies that the author identifies, there were a lot of lies that she had pin-pointed, and most of them hit the nail on the head in my life. However, there was one lie that stuck out to me, one I didn’t agree with: The lie that “We must learn to love ourselves.”

Now let me say up front that I haven’t read the chapter, so I cannot pass any kind of real judgment on the material contained inside of it, but my friend summarized it as follows: We do not need to learn to love ourselves, because we already do. God commanded us to love others “as we love ourselves,” and this command implies that we already love ourselves. That being said, the challenge is not loving ourselves, but loving others. If anything, we need to spend less time thinking about ourselves.

This argument is a common one. You will hear many a Christian argue against the self-centeredness of our culture. We love to think about ourselves and how to best serve ourselves. And for that reason, any teaching that encourages us to love ourselves *more* would surely feed our self-centeredness all the more.

While there is some truth to this claim, I must admit that I largely disagree. The kind of “love” to which these people are referring is not love at all–it’s vanity. And we must never confuse love with vanity, because the two are exact opposites. In reality, vanity comes from the same source as low self-esteem. Both the vain person and the person with low self-esteem are constantly thinking about themselves and how to make themselves feel better, worthier, greater. The only difference is that the vain person is succeeding.

That being said, self-centeredness must never be confused with love. If love and self-centeredness were the same thing, then to fulfill the command of “loving others as you love yourself” would mean placing an unhealthy emphasis on others. Rather than being in bondage to pleasing yourself, you’d be in bondage to pleasing others.

With this in mind, our standard for loving others must not assume that we are loving ourselves well. If we love ourselves poorly, then we will subsequently love others poorly as well. So how do we love ourselves rightly? By loving ourselves in a way that honors God. Our first priority should never be ourselves–it should always be God. Everything we do should center on God and our love for God. Once we get to the point where God is the center, everything else in our lives will fall into its right place. Instead of putting ourselves first, which will subsequently lead to a life centered around serving ourselves, we’ll learn to love ourselves in a way that keeps God first, and glorifies Him. The goal will be God’s glory, not our glory, so the way in which we love ourselves will fall in line with that priority.

Let me give you an example of this: One way to love yourself is by loving your body, not because it draws attention to you or makes other people jealous of you, but because God created you in His image, so your body is therefore beautiful. Or, you can love your personality, not because it makes you popular and everyone likes you, but because God shaped your personality in a certain way, and all of your gifts are echoes of God’s own identity. In this way, loving your body and loving your personality are simply ways of loving God, and worshipping God. This kind of love does not lead to vanity, but to blessed self-forgetfulness. We are no longer thinking, “me, me, me,” because we only have eyes for God.

So, I disagree with the author of my friend’s book–we do need to learn to love ourselves, because love ourselves is an integral part of loving God. And this is SO important for women, given the way culture teaches us to hate the bodies and minds we have been given, thereby stripping God of glory that is rightfully His.

Well this week I celebrated my 26th birthday, and for some reason I’m feeling old. I did have a 19 year old tell me I “looked good for my age,” so maybe that’s why. But I have to say that after turning 25 last year, the countdown to 30 has become more and more unsettling.

Why? Because I’m still single.

The older I get, the more concerned everyone in my life has become about the fact that I am single. It’s as if they are personally invested in finding me a husband. To give you a good example of this, a few months ago a friend of mine called because he and his fiance were discussing why it is that I am not dating anyone, and were speculating about who might be a good match for me. They had settled on one particular person that they felt would be a good set-up, and were taking bets as to whether or not I’d go out with him. They were calling to find out who won the bet.

Everyone from my parents, to my friends, to my parents’ friends, and even my pastor, have all tried to set me up with someone at one time or another. Fortunately, none of this actually bothers me all that much (except to perhaps annoy me). As far as guarding my heart is concerned, these comments don’t get to me. I don’t find myself pining away, wishing I was married, and crying myself to sleep at night because I’m not. The reason it doesn’t bother me is that I have a full life–I’m in seminary, I do college ministry, and I have wonderful friends, so there is no void in my life that needs to be filled by a boyfriend.

But birthdays are a little different. They cause you to reflect on the past and think about the future, and that is where I get myself into trouble. As soon as I start thinking about the future and the “what-ifs,” I freak out. What if I don’t get married by the time I’m 30? What if I don’t get married til even later? What will that do to me in terms of having kids? Will I still be able to have a big family, or will I only be able to have one because my biological clock will be close to clocking out? Or what if I don’t get married at all?

As all these questions creep into my mind, I feel my heart begin to race, my mind begin to spin, and the next thing I know I’m freaking out.

It’s at times like these that I have come to realize Jesus’ advice to “not worry about tomorrow” was not merely common sense–he was protecting us from ourselves. When I focus on today, and look at all that God is providing for me in this moment, I feel totally fine. I am content.

But as soon as I begin to think about the future, fear elbows in on that contentment, and worry consumes me. Why? Because as women, we are dominated by our emotions. We must constantly fight to replace our emotions, which often lie to us, with the truth of God’s love.

That is a lot easier to do when you can point to the fact that God is taking care of you in this present moment, but the unknowns of the future are a different matter. Who knows what God has planned for us, so it is hard to point to His faithfulness in the future when we don’t know if He willactually be faithful. In light of His track record, we can be fairly certain God will continue to take care of us, but there’s just that little sliver of doubt that makes us wonder if He really will. And soon, that manageable sliver of doubt grows into an uncontrollable monster of anxiety.

For this reason, thinking about the future can often be a treacherous exercise for us women, because we don’t sufficiently guard our hearts and minds before we do it. We carelessly dive into our thoughts about the future, never considering the kind of repercussions it might have on our heart.

This is even evident once you’re dating–you have a great boyfriend, so your imagination runs wild thinking about the wonderful life you’ll have together, all the fun things you’ll do with one another, and so on. Unfortunately, if the relationship ends you’re left feeling even more devastated than you would have otherwise, because you haven’t just lost your boyfriend–you’ve lost your future.

These are the kinds of things that happen when we base our future security on anything but Christ. If we base our future security on being married, then we will always live in fear until we get married. But the thing is, that mentality won’t be remedied the moment you say “I do.” Your security may no longer be based on getting married, but because you have started a habit of depending on other things for security instead of God, then you’ll simply replace marriage with another idol–perhaps with having children, or making a certain amount of money.

You will always have something in your life that, if you can just have it, will make you feel safe in the world. And as long as you don’t have it, you live in fear.

That is why we as women must truly guard our thoughts. Thinking about the future can carry us away in a chariot of lies if we are not careful. For this reason, whenever you feel yourself tempted to start dreaming/worrying about the future in a way that tempts you to depend on something besides Christ for contentment, you must take that thought captive and replace it with the truth that God is taking care of you NOW. As long as I don’t think about the future, I never have to worry about those pesky fears of being single swallowing me up.

Perhaps one day I will get married, but I don’t want to ruin the wonderful adventure that God has for me in the mean time simply because I’m dreaming about a grass that is greener on the other side. As a friend of mine says, the grass isn’t greener on the other side–the grass is greener where you water and nurture it.

“But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’” –Genesis 13:22-23

Most of us are pretty familiar with the story of the Rich, Young Ruler: A rich young man approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. In response to the man, Jesus tells him he must obey the Law. The young man replies that he has done so. Jesus then tells the man to sell all his belongings. But when the young man hears this, he becomes very sad because is a man of great wealth. So instead of forsaking his possessions, he merely walks away.

This story is really powerful given the radical and uncomfortable implications of its message, yet Christians have become amazingly adept at taking the teeth out of it. In spite of the sweeping changes that it calls us to, we somehow manage to interpret it in such a way that requires little to no change of us. We let ourselves off the hook by saying, “Jesus doesn’t *actually* want us to sell our possessions. Rather, he is merely asking us to store up treasures in heaven, instead of on earth. This story is actually about the state of the man’s heart, not what he possessed, so as long as our contentment rests in God and not our worldly possessions, then we don’t need to give them away.” And so nothing in our lives change–we can keep on driving our SUV’s, living in our nice houses and wearing our nice clothes–just as long as we still love God a whole lot.

Well I gotta be honest, I think that interpretation stinks. However, I bought into it hook, line and sinker until I read the above passage from Genesis. This passage blew me away. It comes from a less familiar story of Abraham in which Abraham has to rescue Lot when he and the other citizens of Sodom are taken captive by a foreign king. When Abraham succeeds in this endeavor, the King of Sodom is grateful, and tells Abraham that he would like for Abraham to return his people, but that he is welcome to keep all the possessions for himself. In response, Abraham declines the offer, saying he will not keep one thing because he does not want the King of Sodom to ever be able to make the claim, “I made Abram rich.”

What is striking to me about this story is Abraham’s desire to avoid even the *appearance* that his success or wealth came from anyone but God. He says nothing here of his own heart; never implies that he is avoiding the personal temptation of hording material possessions. No, his main concern is the *perception* that others might subsequently have of him. He never wants people to think that his happiness or his success originates from anyone or anything but God.

With that in mind, I think that this passage shatters our traditional interpretations of the story of the Rich, Young Ruler. No longer can we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that what we have is of no consequence as long as our hearts are right with God. On the contrary, we must also consider the appearance that we give off, because we might be indicating to the world that our happiness and security lies in what we have, not in who we serve. Thus having worldly possessions is not merely about us, but also those around us, and forsaking our possessions is not merely for our sake, but for the sake of all who know us to be Christians. The very credibility of our witness is at stake.

That being said, even if you think your heart isn’t wrongly holding on to your car, or your clothes, or your weight, or your make-up, the very *appearance* that those things matter to you, and that they are the source of your happiness in life, is enough to abandon them all. This is particularly difficult for girls, because that often means we must give up trying to be the cutest looking one at church or in class, because in doing so, we indicate to other girls that that’s what matters, that that’s what it means to be a Christian. When we spend a great deal of time on our hair and our face and our nails and our clothes, then we tell a lie–we tell the world that those things supply greater contentment than God.

Now I’m not telling you to start dressing in burlap and live in a box, but consider this–If anything I have mentioned here causes you the slightest bit of discomfort, and you find yourself readily making excuses as to why you don’t need to give it up, then your first problem is NOT appearance–your first problem is your heart.

The rationalizations in which you are engaging indicate that your heart is, in fact, too wrapped up in that object. THAT is why you don’t want to give it up, not because you have an alternate interpretation of Scripture. Whether God calls us to or not, we should always be ready to let go of anything we have, so if you find yourself resisting this message, then that should tell you something.

So although the main point of this lesson has been about appearance, I have ironically found myself most convicted about the status of my heart. We will rationalize our possessions all the day long, saying it’s perfectly fine for us to have them as long as our hearts are not attached to them, yet it is this very desire to justify our possessions that reveals the true state of our hearts.

We rationalize what we have because our hearts ARE holding onto our possessions. We wouldn’t feel the need to defend them so rigorously if our hearts were not so tightly wrapped around them. And realizing this truth made me realize that when we play that game of rationalizing the life we live, we are not reading Scripture faithfully–we are only interpreting it in such a way as to uphold the way of life we already have.

But not anymore. Between the story of Abraham in Genesis, and Jesus in Luke 18, there is no longer any justification for clinging to those possessions and practices which might undermine your witness. It is a hard lesson because it requires radical change, but if we are to affect the world around us, then we simply cannot look like the world. Your appearance must reflect your heart, so we must not comfort ourselves any longer with the lie that our hearts may change but our lives don’t have to, because in the words of James, that kind of faith is dead.

Today I realized that every single one of us was created for marriage. This was a somewhat strange revelation since I’m single, and I have no idea whether or not God intends for me to get married to a man during my time on this earth. But, it nevertheless dawned on me that we are all, every single one of us, created for marriage.

Why do I say this? Well, I was reading Romans 6-7 in which Paul talks about struggling with sin even though we have been saved through Christ. He teaches that we have been set free from Sin and Death, so the Law no longer rules over us. For most Christians, this is fairly familiar territory.

But, at the beginning of chapter 7, Paul does something really interesting–he compares our former relationship with the Law to the relationship of marriage. He goes on to explain that once you marry someone, you are bound to them for the rest of your life, unless, of course, that person dies, in which case you are free to remarry whomever you want. Paul then points out that we were once married to the Law, which meant we were bound to it for all of our lives…except in the event of death. Only in the event of death could we be free from the Law, and free to remarry.

And that’s exactly what happened when we became Christians. We died with Christ, as was symbolized in our baptism. And because we died, we became free to remarry, so we remarried Christ. Now, we are no longer married to the Law, but to Jesus (and thus begins the jokes about Jesus being your boyfriend).

Now all of that is pretty theological and dense, and even kinda boring, so you’re probably wondering what this mean for you practically speaking. Well, there is actually a fairly big question buried under all of that theology, and it goes like this:

Who are you married to? Do you live as if you are married to Christ, or do you still live as if you are married to the Law? The answer to this question will have pretty big implications on how you live your life.

Now in order to find the answer to this question, we must first understand what a healthy marriage looks like. When I look at my friends who are married, one of the aspects that really defines them as a couple and makes their marriage strong is that their spouse is the only one whose opinion ultimately matters. A man might feel like the whole world is against him, but if his wife says she believes in him, he feels like he can do anything. For a married person, their spouse is the greatest earthly source of confidence, and the standard by which they judge themselves.

So if your spouse is your greatest source of confidence, then you have to ask what is YOUR greatest source of confidence. Is it the Law, or is it Christ? Your answer to this question will reveal the identity of your true spouse. Now right about now you’re probably thinking, “I am DEFINITELY not married to the Law because I don’t believe that I am saved by works.” But don’t be so sure, because the evidence of your allegiance is not as obvious as you might think.

Recently I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller in which he argued that you can know whether you are serving Christ, or the Law, not by your actions, but by your motivations. This is an important distinction because the two actions can look exactly the same–two people may both be honoring their father and mother, but one is doing so for Christ, and the other for the Law. So how do you know the difference? –> Whether or not *fear* is in the equation. When you serve Christ, you do so out of love and gratitude. When you serve the Law, you do so out of fear, a fear that you will be punished if you do not do obey.

When Keller said this, and I looked at my own motives, I was knocked off my feet. Suddenly I realized that I’d been functioning as a practical legalist. There is always a part of me that fears if I make the wrong decision, choose the wrong path, or disobey God, that He will “discipline me” or “teach me a lesson.” After all, Scripture does tell us that God disciplines those whom He loves. But as a result of my thinking, I was living my faith out of fear, not freedom. I was afraid of what God would do to me if I failed. And as a result, I had deceived myself into believing that this wasn’t a form of works righteousness, because I have never doubted my salvation. But, I was still pandering for God’s approval. While I knew my salvation was secure, I was still afraid of earthly punishment and discipline, and I therefore did all I could to avoid it. I was still working for God’s grace.

In this way, the greatest source of my confidence had become the Law, because I felt that if I was doing everything just right, God would have no need to “discipline” me. Only then, when I was perfectly obedient, was there nothing to fear. And in this way, I essentially become my own savior. There was no need for Christ because I had become the source of my freedom and rest, rather than God’s love and grace.

So that is what it means to be married to the Law–doing good is your greatest source of confidence in life, not because you think it will save you, per se, but because you fear what will happen if you don’t. If there is ever fear behind your actions, then you are an adulterer in your marriage to Christ.

All of that to say, we were all created for marriage, which means we will all be married to something, but the question is what. Are you married to the Law, or are you married to Christ? Or perhaps more specificlly, are you married to self-image, to success, or approval from other people? If you can ever detect fear in any of these areas, then I think you know the answer. To be married to Christ is to experience the freedom of life without fear, so we must strive to live as faithful wives to a husband who grants us such a blessing. No matter who you are or where you are in life, embrace your role as a married woman, because it is freedom.

so I just heard about two ministries that I think you should check out. One is called “JC’s Girls” and the other is called “Hookers for Jesus.” Both ministries reach out to women in the sex industry, and both ministries were started by women who were themselves in that industry. What is so beautiful about these ministries is that they’re doing EXACTLY what Christ did. Today, the idea of going to porn conventions for outreach is a shocking idea, but given that Jesus himself hung out with prostitutes, I think that’s exactly where he would be today, so I think we should support our courageous sisters who are in the trenches fighting for the Gospel.

Below are the websites. Both ministries sell t-shirts, so if you wanna support their ministries then this is a good way to do it. My favorite is the “Holy Hottie” t-shirts! what a great idea!

–> JC’s Girls: Right now they only have myspace page links on their website, but the myspace pages will still give you a good idea of what they’re about…

http://www.jcsgirls.com/

–> Holy Hottie t-shirts: Their t-shirts support the JC’s Girls ministry…

http://designs-by-shelly.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=2

–> Hookers for Jesus: http://www.hookersforjesus.net/

For this ministry’s t-shirts, go to: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=96152370

Today a friend of mine informed me that she had just purchased a year’s supply of tanning from a local tanning salon. I didn’t even know you could do such a thing, so she proceeded to explain to me the ins and outs of tanning culture. (Apparently in Texas, where she’s from, it’s pretty popular, so being from North Carolina, I’m totally out of the loop!) In the course of telling me all about it, she explained to me that last summer she went kinda crazy and went tanning every day for an extended period of time.

As a result, she pretty much changed ethnicities–she was super dark. But the funny thing about it is that she didn’t realize just how dark she had gotten until she looked back at her pictures later.

That’s the thing about tanning–the change is so slow that you have no point of reference to compare it to, no way of knowing when you should stop, because you’re not all that darker than the day before. And as a result, you just keep on tanning, and keep on thinking you could be tanner.

What was interesting to me about her story was how strikingly similar this behavior sounded to that of eating disorders–you lose a healthy point of reference for your weight, so you just keep on going further and further. What’s more, the change is often so gradual that you don’t realize how extreme you have become. All you’re focused on is getting thinner, so there is no point at which you reach the end. I can even see this in my habit of shopping for clothes.

I’ll begin to think, “if I can just get this one pair of shoes then it will complete my wardrobe. I’ll have everything I need!” Then, as soon as I purchase those shoes, a couple weeks later I find myself fixated on something else–if I can just have that little black dress, or that perfect pair of jeans, then my wardrobe will be complete. *Then* I will he content. But *then* never comes.

I think that all of these examples (over-tanning, under-eating and forever shopping) are good examples of what vanity does to us. It deceives us into believing the lie that perfection is an attainable goal. And once we believe this lie, we fixate on one thing about ourselves, thinking, “If I can just take care of this one aspect of myself, then I’ll feel secure.”

Unfortunately, one of two things happen when we believe this lie. On the one hand, we can trap ourselves into constantly pursuing that one single goal, such as being skinny, or getting tan. This tendency is much like an addiction because there is one particular focus that consumes us. We establish one specific standard as the measure of our perfection and as the source of our contentment, but because we never quite seem to reach that point at which it fully satisfies us, we keep feeding it. Eventually, it becomes the center of our lives. It becomes the final determinant of whether or not we are happy.

On the other hand, not all of us have this addictive tendency in ourselves, so once we reach that perfect weight, we are able to move on. However, that does not mean we are free of vanity’s insatiable appetite. We may not get stuck on one particular part of ourselves, but we will instead move on to something else, and then something else, in the same way I do with new clothes.

We always find something new to fixate on, because we realize that while we might have attained one goal, it did not, in fact, give us the self-esteem we were looking for, so we turn instead to having perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect make-up, or perfect grades or the perfect career. The cycle goes on and on.

That being said, just because you don’t specifically struggle with a compulsive behavior like an eating disorder doesn’t mean you’re free from the downward spiral of vanity. As soon as you give in to the lie that anything will fill you but Christ, you begin to play the vanity game.

Why? Because feeding the your self-esteem with worldly means does feel good for awhile. The feeling will eventually wear off, but you’ll still remember that feeling, and you’ll want it again…and again, and again. Instead of doing the hard work of addressing why it is you have low self-esteem, you take the instant gratification route. And nothing ever changes. The source of your self-esteem remains unaddressed.

It is for this reason that we have GOT to identify those things in our lives that are trapping up in this cycle. For me, that cycle was shopping–I was tying a lot of my self-confidence in to how I looked, so i was constantly looking for something new and cute to wear. I therefore decided to give up buying anything related to how I look for Lent.

It hasn’t been long, but I’ve already noticed a difference! I don’t feel like such a slave to the way I look anymore. Whenever I’m at the mall and I’m tempted to buy something, and I think how good it would feel to strut around in in those stylin new cords, I instead force myself to turn to the one thing that does give me worth and does give me self-confidence: Christ. And it’s so liberating! I’m no longer constantly thinking about the next thing I can buy to add on to my wardrobe. I don’t have to anymore, because there isn’t a void of self-confidence to fill. I have taken myself out of the cycle.

So I encourage you–figure out what it is you’re serving, what it is that’s got its claws wrapped around you so tightly that your self-worth is dependent on it, and begin to determine how you can let it go. Vanity is insatiable, so it’s time we give up up the hopeless battle of satisfying it. Otherwise, the cycle will never end.

I was recently directed to a blog that a woman named Carolyn McCulley wrote entitled, “Women Who Intimidate.” In this blog, Carolyn discussed what it means when a woman is labeled as being “intimidating.” (If you wanna check it out, the link is below). She argued that labeling a woman as “intimidating” is not necessarily a comment on her success, as feminists would like us to believe, but is instead a comment about her spirit.

1 Peter 3:4 instructs women to have a “gentle and quiet spirit,” but our spirits do not always reflect this kind of calm and peace in Christ. Instead, we want to control things and do them our way, in the same way that Eve did in the garden. We manipulate, we scheme, and we can become shrill when we don’t get what we want. Any person would find this kind of behavior to be intimidating, which is why Carolyn concludes that the title is not a compliment.

However, while I agree with Carolyn to an extent, it is at this point in the discussion that we part ways, because I do not think the label of “intimidating” always reflects the truth, nor is it always a negative label. I whole-heartedly agree that women can be bitter and angry and drive people away with their fitful spirits, but this is not the only reason women are intimidating.

On the contrary, I think there is some validity to the claim that women can also be intimidating because they are smart, and because they are successful, or even because they are spiritually solid. Some might accuse me of sounding “feminist,” but I don’t think my claim is Biblically unfounded. The attitude of a woman is not the only element to factor in when a man is intimidated by her.

Shortly before reading Carolyn’s blog, I read an article entitled “Real Men Risk Rejection” by Michael Lawrence (link is also below) in which the author explained that men often fail to initiate interactions with women, not because the woman has done anything wrong, but simply because the men are scared.

So while it is indeed important for women to check their attitudes and make sure they’re not acting out of a desire to control or manipulate, I think Michael Lawrence offers us insight into what is also going on when men are intimidated by women. It’s not simply the woman’s fault; it is also the man’s.

The reason I think this distinction is so important is that it would be easy for a man to write off a woman as being “intimidating,” simply because he’s not at a place spiritually to lead her. And as a result, the woman is left blaming herself, thinking she did something wrong, when, in fact, she did not.

The larger result of this thinking is that we now have a generation of Christian women who are afraid to study theology or come off sounding too smart because they don’t want to “intimidate” men. We treat our minds more like an obstacle to dating than a gift to be used for the Kingdom of God.

But the solution to this predicament is not the dumbing down of women. Dumbing ourselves down will not only result in weak women, but weak men as well, given that men will not be spiritually challenged in leading such women. The best solution, I believe, can be found in men like Michael Lawrence, who are raising the bar for men by challenging them to take more risks and put their egos on the line in the face of solid women. It’s intimidating for them because their pride is at stake, but it makes them better, stronger men, which in turn encourages better, stronger women.

So don’t get me wrong, there are times when intimidation is a bad thing. If we as women are not resting in the love and security of Christ, then it will certainly show through. BUT, I am wary of attaching a stigma to the word “intimidating” for fear that if someone labels you as such, you’ll immediately assume you have done something wrong, when it may be just the opposite.

Instead, the next time someone labels you as intimidating, search your heart, and see if there is any grounding to the statement. Do you struggle with humility? Do you struggle with wanting to control people? Do you often feel manipulative? If you answer “yes” to all these, then perhaps you deserve the title.

But, if you feel that you are truly placing your heart in God’s hands, and that your actions and words flow out of that trust, then it is more likely that the label of “intimidating” is a compliment, because that kind of faith in Christ can be mighty intimidating to a Christianity that is dominated by mediocrity.

Carolyn’s blog: http://solofemininity.blogs.com/posts/2007/03/women_who_intim.html

Real Men Risk Rejection: http://boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001443.cfm

Earlier this week I attended a debate on “Religious Speech in the Public Realm” in which my Southern Baptist pastor debated with my pacifist professor. The discussion was interesting to say the least. It really is amazing how two men who both love Christ can differ so greatly on things.

In this particular instance, they disagreed on the extent to which a Christian should be involved in the government, one man allowing more leeway than the other. Although I certainly tend toward one position more than another, that is not what I want to talk about here. I think there is a more pressing issue at hand, and that is how Christians on opposing sides have treated one another since the debate.

Following the debate, Christians who sided with one position or another have been at each other’s throats. I have heard all kinds of hateful name calling, even to the point of questioning each other’s salvation! What is going on here?? Can this really be right? Scripture tells us that the world will know us by our love (John 13:35), so why are we finding it so difficult to love one another on an issue that isn’t even central to the Christian faith? Why are the emotions running so high?

Well, I think there are two issues going on here that have resulted in the explosive nature of the conflict. The first is that we have forgotten we are all members of a larger body, the Body of Christ. Somehow we have fallen into thinking that every Christian needs to be an arm, just like me, or an eye, just like me, and if they are not, then they must not be a part of the Body at all. What results is groups of Christians who think they have a monopoly on the right reading of Scripture and that they are the only “true” Christians.

They may not say it outright, but they act like it, and I can tell you this happens in liberal and conservative Christian camps alike. Within these groups there is no room for listening to those who are different than us, especially those who disagree with us.

Thus the teaching of James 1:19 to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be angry” is treated more like a mild suggestion than a command. And what results from this kind of thinking is division. We are more concerned with being right than glorifying God, so Christ’s name and reputation suffer.

No wonder Paul spent so much of 1 Corinthians warning us against this very thing–we fall into this sin so easily. But if we can instead stop and listen to our Christians brothers and sisters, and treat them as the members of Christ Body, made in God’s image, that they truly are, then we at least stand a better chance of loving them in a way that honors God. We may still disagree with them, but at least we have not responded out of anger, or even worse, belittled the extent to which God is at work in them.

After all, that’s the real problem here–when you insult a brother and sister (not what they believe, but them personally), then you are insulting Christ.

But the second reason I think this situation has become so volatile is that I think many of the Christians involved are guilty of a form of hero worship. My professor is known around the world and is heralded as being one of the greatest ethicists of our time. He is passionate about Christ and the cross, and his message for the Church has even been called prophetic. As a result, he essentially has “disciples” who can parrot his every thought.

In the same way, my pastor is a charismatic, engaging, passionate man who is one of the most convincing preachers of the Gospel I’ve ever heard. You can’t help but be drawn to him, and you can’t help but respect his intellect. All the members of my church love him and would follow him almost anywhere.

In both cases, these men have come to symbolize for many of their “followers” the one true embodiment of the Gospel. If these men say it, then it must be true. What results from this mentality is that these men end up supplanting the Gospel, though not by any fault of their own. What they say becomes Gospel, instead of the Gospel itself. And as a result of idolizing these men in such a way, their “followers” are left with only one response if anyone challenges them: They must reject the opposition as being thoroughly unscriptural. If someone attacks “your representative of the Gospel,” then they cannot possibly be right, or even worth listening to. And they certainly can’t be reflecting Christ.

In case you think you don’t fall into this category, check your reaction the next time someone disagrees with a person you look up to. Measure the amount of time and thought you give to defending your idol or justifying them, versus the amount of time you give to listening to the other person.

And I mean *really* listening. If you find yourself struggling to do this, then most likely you have made a false idol of that person. You probably care more about what they think than exploring what Scripture actually says. This is indeed a dangerous place to be given that no human being is ever right all the time.

So while it is certainly good to have men and women that we look up to and who encourage us in our faiths, we must still be open to the possibility that they can be wrong, and the two best ways to be open to that possibility are by constantly holding them up to the standard of Scripture and making sure they are consistent, and by listening to those who disagree with them. If God wanted us to all look the same then He wouldn’t have made us different, so it’s time we actually take advantage of the fact that He made us a diverse Body, rather trying to act as if He didn’t.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. –Romans 12:2

Recently I confronted a friend of mine who, I felt, was conforming her faith to the world. I thought that her friends had swayed her too greatly, that she was not no longer seeking holiness, but rather a lifestyle in which she could call herself a Christian, meanwhile living according to culture’s accepted standards. She agreed with me to some extent, but argued that her faith looks different to me because I live in the “Bible belt” where I am still sheltered. She, on the other hand, lives in a place where Christianity looks completely different. There was a nuance of resignation as she explained, “…but the more I get to know people, they’re just more concerned with their heart than they are their actions. Which doesn’t excuse them, it’s just that they totally think that messing up, screwing up, sinning, whatever you want to call it, is just part of life…” And so, my friend adapted to this line of thinking.

My first reaction to her response was sheer frustration. She had said her friends were more focused on their hearts than their actions, but Scripture tells us that our actions are an overflow of the heart. If your actions are falling short of God’s standard, they’re merely a reflection of the extent to which God has control over your heart.

And that is what I wanted to tell her—but I couldn’t. Every time I sat down to write her back, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I had many an eloquent thought concerning holiness, and grace, and passion, but every time I attempted to put it down, I looked inward and asked, “Does my life lend credibility to this argument?” The answer was of course “no.” I couldn’t tell her to shed her luke-warm Christianity and start living a life sold out for Christ, because I had not done so myself…

Ephesians tells us to avoid coarse joking, but I constantly employ sarcasm. The parable of the widow’s mite tells us to give sacrificially, but I still have enough money to drive an SUV and pay for the gas it wastes. Jesus tells us to forgive seventy times seven times, but how often I have held a grudge because I “deserved to be treated better.” And let’s not even get started on my road rage. The sins of greed, jealousy, pride, and gossip are all listed next to murder and God-haters, yet we only see the last two as being truly bad. The first four are much more acceptable by society’s standards. Yet is this what God desires of us?

Most of Paul’s letters were written to churches battling the prevailing moral standards of their time. The church of Corinth had been influenced by sexual immorality, the church in Ephesus was influenced by pagan religions, and the church of Galatia had been corrupted by false prophets. No church was immune to its culture’s practices, which is why Paul teaches the Romans, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Paul is teaching us to be set apart. We will have zero credibility in today’s moral debates if the rest of our lives look exactly like the world’s. We have turned into buffet style Christians, picking and choosing from Scripture that suits our already comfortable lives. Yet the Bible is not a self-help book; it is a God glorifying, Lord magnifying, Christ exalting, “me” minimizing, divine work of supernatural revelation. The way we pick and choose from the Bible merely reflects our true sentiments on its authority. Yes, it is about the heart, but a heart wildly on fire for the Lord cannot be hidden. It should stand out!

So where does your heart stand? Is God truly the Ruler of your life, or just parts of it? In a world where we are combating moral relativism, we cannot afford to be relativists ourselves. But more importantly, we will never win hearts to Christ if Christ has not conquered ours. Is your life proof of this faith you profess?

He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet. –Proverbs 27:7

What an insightful picture of the fallen world before us! This simple verse describes the desperate state in which our lost brothers and sisters find themselves. We live in a world in which people are so lost and so alone, so hungry for truth, that they are grasping at straws, looking for anything that will satisfy their longings. They turn to money, success, sex and drugs, and to a spiritually starving person, these things all taste sweet…at first. But eventually they will be revealed to be the bitter and empty promises that they really are. They promise to fill, but they only leave one hungrier than they were before. God has placed an infinitely large hole in our hearts that can only be filled by an infinitely large God, so as long as we keep throwing finite objects into the hole, it will never be filled. And soon, we will find ourselves a slave to that endeavor. As we become more and more desperate for fullness, we grasp more and more frantically at bitter foods to quench our hunger. And the more that these bitter foods fail us, the more hopeless we become. What a wretched state for humanity!
But there is an alternative to this desperate state, and that is the prospect of being genuinely filled. God can fill that infinitely large hole in our hearts, and the frantic searching will end. In fact, those bitter foods that tempted us before will no longer look so appealing. What’s more, we won’t even be tempted to fill ourselves with the truly sweet things of this world, such a marriage and family. Although these things are good, they are nothing but honey when it comes to our spiritual nourishment. Honey is truly sweet, but it is no true sustenance. No one can live off of honey alone. So while we may partake of honey as a reflection of the sweetness of God, we cannot mistake it for our true sustenance—the bread of heaven. Those of us who live in Christ should loathe honey when it is substituted for our true, spiritual nourishment. We can see it for the empty nourishment that it is.
One who rests in Christ needs neither the bitter nor the sweet things of this world. We can certainly enjoy the sweet things if we remember they are merely a reflection of God’s love for us, but we should never depend on them for life. When it comes to renewing our souls, both honey and brackish water are one in the same—bitter and empty. That is what it means to be full in Christ—we want for nothing more than that which He provides. It is more than enough.