Finding and Being Found

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In the passage, John 1:35-51, which I’m preparing to preach on Sunday, the greek word eurisko is used five times. The word means “I find.”

In v.41, Jesus finds Andrew.
Also in v.41, Andrew reports to Simon that he has found the Messiah.
In v. 43, Jesus finds Philip.
In v. 45, Philip finds Nathaniel.
Also in v. 45, Philip reports that they have found “him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

This implies that there was a profound amount of seeking. Johns disciples were seeking the Messiah, the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, but the Messiah — the Light — was also seeking them. It reminds me of the last line of Psalm 23, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

Eurisko implies a deep sense of seeking.

When we seek in darkness, it’s hard to tell what we are looking for,
but when we seek in the light, we find and are found.

Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, NTGreek, preaching

Jesus, Mr. Rogers and the Role of Neighbor

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son.” Jn 1:14

John, the evangelist, provides his reader with a deep sense of incarnational theology: Christ’s selfless abiding among his people. This was a radical worldview shifting idea, and still is. To this point, the deities sat removed from humanity, annoyed with humanity and only became god incarnate to meddle or get someone pregnant.

This God on earth idea changed the way God’s relationship with humanity was represented from that point in history forward. God among us. God with us – Immanuel. God not meddling, not coercing, not abandoning.

The Greek verb, skeinao, literally means “pitched a tabernacle tent.” The holy place got built next door. Eugene Peterson interpreted this passage, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”

A less subtle understanding is that God became our neighbor.
Even less so, we became his.
This reminds me of Fred Rogers, changing his shoes, switching his sweater, looking into the camera asking, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” That was a request, a question. The power in the relationship was yours.

This should transform the way we understand Jesus – as he said to an expert in the law: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets [Mt 22:37-40].”

How are these two commandments alike? They both share Jesus as their center.

Jesus is the Lord that we love heart, soul and mind. He is also, our neighbor. Remember, he moved in next door? Recently I listened to a podcast and heard Peter Rollins describe MT 22 passage like this: “[sic] I’ve always thought about these two commandments like they were twins walking down the street. You can’t tell them apart. They are different, but we can’t tell the difference.”

In the opening of John’s Gospel, the author locates Jesus not only in historical context, but also next door to you. The question of how to treat our neighbor is a dominant gospel theme. How we treat our neighbor (which the Greek renders ‘not you, but the other one’) has 50% share in the way our faith is lived. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? That story was told in response the question, “Who is my neighbor?” One could look at the entire ministry of Jesus as a ministry to neighbor.

When a new family moves into your neighborhood, how do you respond? Do you receive them? Ignore them? Wait for them to come to you? Remember that verse in Hebrews? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it [13:2].”

  • Does this change how we view our neighbors?
  • Does love of neighbor (as though they were Jesus) make you feel uncomfortable?
  • Why?


    • Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john, new testament, NTGreek

    darkness used to live here

    January 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

    The Gospel of John, 1:5, “…and darkness did not overcome it.”

    John does not implicitly say that light has overcome darkness. We can be sure, and find a divine sort of comfort and peace in the fact, that it has already overcome darkness, in a future sense.

    John is addressing the reality that in all of our lives, in all that we experience and can see, it often feels like darkness is darkness is on the march towards victory. As if twilight is soon to be fully eclipsed by the night. Here, as always, feeling

    But God has even set the moon and stars in their courses; who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever, who made the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever, the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever [Ps 136:7-9].”

    We have seen the Light of God’s glory in Jesus and that Light, that brilliant and dazzling glory, will not only put the electric company out of business and render the sun impotent, but that Light will take its rightful place as our one true source:

    And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of the Lord is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb [Rev 21:23].”

    Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, john Tagged With: , , ,

    Where Christianity and Islam Collide

    January 5, 2012 By 3 Comments

    Last night I stumbled upon this interview with Eliza Griswold, author of a book called The Tenth Parallel. In the book, the author describes her journalistic adventure into an area where more than half of the world’s Muslims collide with nearly half of the world’s Christians in daily life, matters of faith and politics.

    When I looked up The Tenth Parallel on Google, I found an interview with Terri Gross and Eliza Gross linked here. Take a look at the following video interview, especially the last three sections. The last one includes the inspiring story Dr. Hawa, whom Griswold met while traveling. You don’t want to skip that one. Pastors, there’s a great sermon illustration.

    Griswold joined Franklin Graham on a trip to Khartoum, Sudan to meet with President Omar al-Bashir. From the Fresh Aire interview:

    “What President Bashir did was try to convince Graham to convert to Islam. The two men engaged in this faith-based one-upmanship where each tried to convert the other to his respective faith. … [Then] Franklin remembered that in his pocket he had a 2004 election pin for the re-election of George W. Bush. So he reached into his pocket and he wanted to give it to Bashir and he said, ‘Mr. President, you’ll be speaking to my president later on today and I think you should tell him you’re his first voter here in the Sudan.’ In one way, to read what that situation really meant, was Graham showing Bashir that he had the ear of the administration — that here’s where faith and foreign policy were really intermingled. Graham was not an emissary of the U.S. government in any way, yet the pin, which he’d taken from the desk of Karl Rove’s secretary, indicated that he had access to the uppermost echelons of power — and that’s what he was trying to tell Bashir. Bashir only met with Graham because he feared his country would be the next country, after Iraq and Afghanistan, to face U.S. invasion.”

    Here’s the Video Interview. Great (and very kind) perspective on the collision of Christianity and Islam.

    Sobering quotes from the Kindle site for her book:

    Due to the explosive growth of Christianity over the past fifty years, there are now 493 million Christians living south of the tenth parallel—nearly a fourth of the world’s Christian population of 2.5 billion. To the north live the majority of the continent’s 367 million Muslims; they represent nearly one quarter of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. These figures are an effective reminder that four out of five Muslims live outside the Middle East.

    This is a good reminder for Americans. Islam and Christianity are taking root in the Global South. The continental US does not represent very much of the global demographic. To wit, Griswold notes, “Today’s typical Protestant is an African woman, not a white American man.”

    Read that again if you need to.

    Christianity is growing in the tenth parallel, “When it comes to gaining followers, Archbishop Akinola’s Anglican Church is more threatened by the rise of Pentecostalism than by Islam.”

    By way of another example, Griswold ends the Fresh Aire interview saying:

    Beyond the demonization of the other is really a fight [between the West and the individual] in terms of what peoples’ rights are. The real conflicts are not the religions, but inside the religions. Who gets to speak for God…the liberals or the conservatives?

    Thinking through these this material isn’t only about Christianity and Islam.
    It makes me ask the questions, “Where is my 10th Parallel?”
    Where does my faith collide with values in conflict with my own?
    Where am I trying to keep another culture separate from my own?
    What do I do about it?
    How do I respond to being in the majority?
    Does that align with the values of my faith?

    Interesting stuff. Look forward to reading the book. Just passing it on…

    Filed Under: books, contemporary hermeneutic, missionalism, reconciliation Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Trains Near The On Ramp

    December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Last night my family and I spent some time with an incredible couple from our church. After we arrived, I quickly learned that one of them was an ardent and committed train enthusiast. I had never seen model trains and tracks, nor had I heard the whirls and whistles of rattling locomotion as it circles the room.

    To be honest…I need a train set now.

    Watching them was a transcendent experience. There’s something mesmerizing about trains. It’s not just the train, but the accomplishment of the engineering that built them and the precision that moves them.

    Even watching them on a small scale propels you into a world where the history of sounds, sights and dreams fill your imagination.


    During our conversation, our host remarked several times how complicated the world of trains had become. The engines are chips and software. The controls have sub-routines and you need to be an engineer to repair them. What started as a childhood hobby, was no longer for children. Things have become to complex.

    Towards the end of the night he mentioned how the hobbyist industry has realized their error: they have moved beyond their target. Children aren’t getting into trains, because they aren’t born with Ph.D.’s. What used to be fun is now only fun if you are sufficiently specialized.

    This got me thinking about the Church today. The Acts 2 church looks like it had “toy train” appeal. Thousands wanted it in their lives. They had to have it. They understood their need for it. There was space for everyone to play. But like in the toy train world, things have changed for the Church as well.

  • Has passion and commitment become a hobby that’s too complicated for too many?
  • Has the “Church” left its intended audience behind?

    • If we were a hobby company, how could we put the “trains” back into the hands of the “children”? How could we get beyond the 80/20 rule, where 20% of the people know how to drive and repair the church for the remaining 80% who watch it go around? How do we build a model that anyone can love? That anyone can share? That anyone will pass on to the next generation?

    I realize that there are no easy answers, but these are some important questions and if we can’t ask those questions, then we know where the tracks are headed…to the highway.

    There’s nothing wrong with trains, they’re just getting too close to the on ramp.

    Filed Under: contemporary hermeneutic, ecclesia, thinkingoutloud, writing on