while today

Congratulations Graduates!

May 30, 2009

Graduation is an exciting time. Graduation is a hectic time. Graduation is a bitter sweet time.

If life has gone the way it should, parents and children have a special bond. Parents will sacrifice for their children – their love is that strong. Yet, the process of raising a child is a process of gradually letting go. Parents are like the scaffolding around a building project. Parents train, nurture and discipline. But the goal is the finished project. The training and discipline are to be internalized. The scaffolding is taken down, although with parenting a different and wonderful relationship remains.

That letting go makes graduation bitter sweet. Your mother may shed a tear. If you parents drive you to college or to your departure for boot camp (or you name the life changing event – new job, new apartment), your mother may cry (and even your dad may get misty-eyed). Yet there is a certain pride in seeing your child make his or her way in the world. That is what we raised you to do.

Enjoy the whirlwind of activities – baccalaureate, graduation, and open house. I don’t remember one speech from any graduation I’ve ever attended including my own. Yet, those moments are special and deserve to be savored. They are markers to a wonderful transition in life.

Graduation is a transition. It leads to the next chapter of life. That is bound to be exciting and maybe even a little frightening. My advice to young people is to follow your dream. That dream, of course, needs to be within the will of God. The New Living Translation captures Ecclesiastes 11:9 fairly well.

Young people, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. Ecclesiastes 11:9 NLT

When you are young, many choices face you. Choose wisely.

The next chapter of life will likely mean that you will be making more and more of your faith decisions on your own. I hope that you have a real faith, and not simply something that is hand-me-down. Faith will protect you from many of life’s mistakes (Deuteronomy 6:24). Make certain that you plug into a local church. (If you need help finding one, try http://www.churchzip.com.) God does not intend for us to make the spiritual journey alone.

Making faith your own will mean questions. I want you to know there are good answers to faith’s questions. God will bless the humble seeker (Proverbs 2:1-15, Isaiah 55:6-9, Jeremiah 29:13, Acts 17:27).

Congratulations graduates!

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Posted by Russell Holden

The National Day of Prayer

May 5, 2009

Our National Day of Prayer is Thursday, May 7, 2009. Calls for prayer as a nation have occurred throughout our history. The Continental Congress called for a day of prayer in 1775 as “a time for prayer in forming a new nation.” John Adams called for a day of prayer and fasting in 1798, and Abraham Lincoln called for one in 1863. President Harry S. Truman signed a bill in 1952 declaring a National Day of Prayer. The holiday originally did not have a fixed day, but an appropriate day was to be selected each year. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that amended this law so that the day would be fixed to the first Thursday of May.

This call for prayer has definite Judeo-Christian roots. Consider the following passages:

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Psalm 127:1, ESV

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 1 Timothy 2:1-2, ESV

What can I pray for?

Pray for wisdom for our leaders.
Pray for God’s protection. This may include prayers for members of the military. We have several who are on our prayer list as a congregation.
Pray for truth and morality to be portrayed in our public life.
Pray for safe and wholesome environments for our children.
Pray for revival. May God’s truth be boldly presented and may it touch our hearts.
Pray that families will follow Godly principles.

The above are just suggestions. You may think of many other things, for example, we may also be praying about jobs and health with the concerns over influenza.

The instructions of 1 Timothy 2:1-2 are practiced by many Christians, but I still appreciate the national call to prayer. May our prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be for all people.

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Posted by Russell Holden

A Difference of Perspective

May 4, 2009

The two men suppressed their laughter. He was joking—wasn’t he? Or was he just a paranoid old man, even if he was about to become their father-in-law.

He pleaded, but the young men had objected, “We live in a fertile area. It’s like a garden. The city is prosperous. Our lives are secure and pleasant. Why would anyone want to move, especially so suddenly? What could happen? Why should we expect tomorrow to be any different from any other day?”

He preached of the dangers of neglecting the poor, arrogance before God, and immorality. He warned of a Day of Judgment—a Day of the Lord!

The young men had countered, “Everybody sins. But aren’t most people good? Do you really think that God would condemn this whole city? Won’t most people be saved?”

He continued about the holiness of God. They needed to know God’s character and His message.

“We don’t like your holier-than-thou attitude!” one of them exclaimed. That ended the conversation, besides they were too busy for this. There was work to be done and deadlines to meet.

With the dawning of the next day, the older man made one more plea, but it fell on deaf ears.

As they watched him walk away, one of them quipped, “I guess this is what we have to put up with when marrying into that family.”

The other agreed, but noted, “Still, it looks like another beautiful day in Sodom!”

P.S. The above dialogue is fiction, but consider reading Genesis 19:1-29, Ezekiel 16:49-50, 2 Peter 2:4-10.

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Posted by Russell Holden

“What an Empty Tomb Can Do”

April 11, 2009

How odd that his enemies understood him better than his friends! His enemies placed a guard and sealed the tomb. His friends ran away. One denied him three times. At first reports, they regarded it as nonsense and did not believe (Luke 24:11). They didn’t understand the scripture (John 20:9). They were afraid of the Jews (20:19). Their hearts were hard (Mark 16:14). In a sonnet, D.A. Carson captures the mood:

Their unbelief, cowardice, and misunderstanding are hardly résumé enhancements for religious leaders. Their unflattering testimony about themselves is unlikely to have been made up. So, how do we account for the dramatic change in their lives from cowards hiding from the Jews to courageous proclaimers of the resurrection of Jesus. C.F.D. Moule stated it this way:

If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole of the size and shape of Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?

The explanation for the change from “old” to “unqualifiedly new” is best explained by “what an empty tomb can do.” Jesus was raised from the dead.

But the “unqualifiedly new” of the Apostles and early Christians was no minor affair. The dramatic event of the resurrection brought a dynamically different life in the disciples. The New Testament can talk about crucifying the old self, putting on the new self, and newness of life. That’s spiritual major surgery not a Band-Aid. Jesus was not a religious good luck charm to be dragged out of the drawer a couple of times year. Jesus became their life and their Lord. What about in your life? “Such change is what an empty tomb can do.”

¹D.A. Carson, Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century (Baker Books, 1994), p. 67.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Living in a Sex Saturated Society

March 28, 2009

Paul’s world was not unlike our own-it was a sex saturated society. Permissive sex, homosexuality, perversions, divorce and bawdy theater were a part of the Roman world in the first century AD. In spite of the culture, Paul called Christians to live “…not in passionate lust like the Gentiles” (see 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, ESV).

Paul notes that God’s will is our sanctification This word implies a process in which the Christian is maturing, growing in holiness, and becoming more like their Father in heaven. Paul later in the letter states, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it’ (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, ESV).

A part of holy living is avoiding sexual immorality. The word, porneia, translated “sexual immorality” and traditionally rendered “fornication” (see for example the KJV) is a broader concept than our English term “fornication.” The word fornication in English means sexual intercourse between a man and a woman not married to each other. But concerning porneia the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters writes, “This Greek word and its cognates as used by Paul denote any kind of illegitimate-extramarital and unnatural-sexual intercourse or relationship” (p. 871). For Paul, there was only one kind of legitimate sexual relationship, the one between a man and a woman who are married.

The consequence of sexual immorality is judgment. Paul solemnly warns “the Lord is an avenger in all these things” (1 Thess. 4:6, ESV). Elsewhere Paul warns that the sexually immoral, adulterers, and homosexuals (as well as a list of other sins) will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

To a world that often approaches such issues from a very subjective viewpoint, Paul ends his discussion of sexual immorality with very strong words. “Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:8, ESV).

God calls us to holy lives even when we are living in a sex saturated society.

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Posted by Russell Holden

The Insatiableness of Avarice

March 24, 2009

Though the covetous grown wealthy
See his piles of gold rise high;
Though he gather store of treasure
That can never satisfy;
Though with pearls his gorget* blazes,
Rarest that the ocean yields;
Though a hundred head of oxen
Travail in his ample fields;
Ne’er shall carking† care forsake him
While he draws this vital breath,
And his riches go not with him,
When his eyes are closed in death.

–Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III, Song III. (translation by H.R. James)

*a covering for the throat or a covering around the neck, †burdensome

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Posted by Russell Holden

Pleasure’s Sting

March 21, 2009

This is the way of Pleasure:
She stings them that despoil her;
And, like the winged toiler
Who’s lost her honeyed treasure,
She flies, but leaves her smart
Deep-rankling in the heart.

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III , Song VII.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Imagining Heaven

March 19, 2009

Imagining heaven is not easy for us. I suspect trying to describe it to us is like describing New York City to an aborigine. You might say a skyscraper is like a giant hut one hundred huts high, but the reality of a skyscraper is still greater than the description.

Bill Clapper in an article entitled “Beyond Imagination” pictures the difficulty this way.* Picture going back to 1866 and visiting a wagon train going west just after the close of the Civil War. You attempt to explain jet airplanes that can carry hundreds of passengers from the east coast to the west coast in five or six hours. To this group huddled around a campfire, you describe electric lights, hot water coming from a faucet, automobiles, and television. Clapper writes: “We have told them about how we live, and it was beyond their imagination…I can only say that God has prepared a place for us so great that we cannot imagine the wonders of it-any more than people of 1866 could understand the wonders of our time.”

Joseph Bayly captures some of this dilemma in his book, The Last Things We Talk About. He shares a parable:

I accept [heaven’s] reality by faith, on the authority of Jesus Christ: “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

For that matter, if I were a twin in the womb, I doubt that I could prove the existence of earth to my mate. He would probably object that the idea of an earth beyond the womb was ridiculous, that the womb was the only earth we’d ever know.

If I tried to explain that earthlings live in a greatly expanded environment and breathe air, he would only be skeptical. After all, a fetus lives in water; who could imagine its being able to live in a universe of air? To him such a transition would seem impossible.

It would take birth to prove the earth’s existence to a fetus. A little pain, a dark tunnel, a gasp of air–and then the world outside! Green grass, laps, lakes, the ocean, horses (could a fetus imagine a horse?), rainbows, walking, running, surfing, ice-skating. With enough room that you don’t have to shove, and a universe beyond.

Despite our difficulties in imagining it, heaven is real. In some ways, more real than the world in which we live because it will be eternal, while this world is temporary. Paul reminds us of this: “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV). Let us keep our eyes on the goal.

*Gospel Advocate (June 1997):15-16.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Outposts of Heaven

March 17, 2009

I’m a citizen of the City of Grandville. I live here. I’m a citizen of the State of Michigan. I live here. I’m a citizen of the United States of America. I live here. But Paul claims, “But our citizenship is in heaven…” (Philippians 3:20, ESV).

I obviously don’t live in heaven at the moment, although I want to be headed there. What does it mean for me to be a citizen of the New Jerusalem? Paul uses this language in a section of ethical instruction – “join in imitating me…” (Philippians 3:17, ESV). This occurs in a context where for some “their god is their belly.” Paul is writing to Philippi, a Roman colony. How would they have understood citizenship? Are there insights for us? C.B. Caird examines the background.

Paul was by birth a Roman citizen, and Philippi was a Roman colony, i.e., a city situated in one of the provinces, but with the full rights of Roman citizenship… Citizenship of Rome had first been extended to the whole of Italy, and then under the Empire, had been granted to cities in the provinces where veterans from the army were settled, and occasionally to individuals distinguished in public service. The purpose of this policy was that the colonies should be centres of Roman culture, law and influence through which eventually the provinces would become thoroughly Roman; and so successful was it that even in the course of the first century A.D. many of the most distinguished figures in Roman life were of provincial extraction. With this model in mind Paul depicts Christians as holders of the citizenship of heaven, established in the provinces of God’s empire as the means by which the whole might be brought within the influence of his reign.*

While we are on our way to that city, we are to spread the culture and influence of Jerusalem that is above. We are helping extend the borders of the kingdom. Christians are outposts of heaven.

*G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, pp. 179-180

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Posted by Russell Holden

Two Worlds

March 11, 2009

Peter calls Christians sojourners and exiles (1 Peter 1:1, 1:17, 2:11). The words convey the idea of someone who lives in a place that is not his or her home. This person is a temporary resident. Peter wants us to view life that way. Our home is heaven. We reside here temporarily, but we are always to live true to the ways of heaven.

That means in many ways we will be like our neighbors. We are not to be odd just for the sake of being odd. But it also means that in many ways we will be different.

The Epistle to Diognetus grasps this same but different aspect of Christian living. It was written between A.D. 150 to 225 – a time in which Christians were defending their faith in the circumstances of persecution. The author is unknown. Yet it contains a very thought provoking description of what it means for Christians to be temporary residents.

For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language, or custom. For nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric life-style. This teaching of theirs has not been discovered by the thought and reflection of ingenious men, nor do they promote any human doctrine, as some do. But while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one’s lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They marry like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food but not their wives. They are “in the flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.” They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws; indeed in their private lives they transcend the laws. They love everyone, and by everyone they are persecuted.

*The Epistle of Diognetus 5:1-11 in M.W. Holmes, translator, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, p. 541.