Posted on

On the Back Burner

Sometimes life makes you feel like you’ve been placed on the backburner of the stove in God’s kitchen. Forgotten, whatever is being sauteed in your life is now burning. Smoke rises and sets off the fire alarm, while God does nothing to intervene. At least that is how it feels. You’ve been there. So have I. So has a New York city grandmother.

On a cold winter’s night in 1935, in a New York City courtroom, a tattered old woman stood before the judge, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. The storekeeper was pressing charges. The woman pleaded her case, “My daughter’s husband has deserted her. She is sick and her children are starving.” The shopkeeper refused to back down and drop the charges, saying, “It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor, and she’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson.”

The judge sighed. He turned to the old woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you; the law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.”

And that is life on the back burner. No one listens, not even God. No one cares as hope evaporates like forgotten boiling water on the back burner of a stove.

Would it surprise you if I told you that Paul carried similar feelings?

By 2 Corinthians 2 Paul is in the midst of defending his decision not to visit this church, and his decision did not sit well with certain members who were influenced by outsiders. Instead, Paul dispatched a letter and began the long wait. Here is Paul’s description.

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-bye to them and went on to Macedonia (2 Cor. 2:13-14).

The situation in Corinth had grown toxic. The church attacked him like a rapid dog, and he was still licking his wounds. Having written a letter, which caused him great distress (2 Cor. 2:4), he outlined expected behavior. Without a reliable mail system, he dispatched Titus with the letter in hand to Corinth. He would meet with the church, read the letter to them, and gather a response to report back to Paul. All of that took time and introduced a waiting game. No email. No texting. No phones. Paul wrote a letter. Gave it to Titus who travels to Corinth. Titus reads the letter and allows the church to absorb the message before assessing their response. Then Titus makes the journey to find Paul.

That is a long time to wait. What happens in the meantime? In the void of unknown information, we tend to fill in the gap. No matter how hard we try, we insert information to complete the void, and it’s usually the worst-case scenario. Someone appears to ignore you; you assume they are angry with you. Your child is late coming home, you presume that there has been an accident. The boss calls you into his office and you start thinking, “What have I done wrong this time?” God won’t answer your prayer and you wonder, “What sin is in my life?” You’re arrested for stealing bread in the wake of the Great Depression and the judge with the law stands against you. So now you find yourself on the backburner of life and everything feels likes it’s about to go up in smoke.

Lloyd C. Douglas might have stumbled upon a solution. You might remember him as a minister and writer whose works included The Robe and Magnificent Obsession. As a university student, Douglas

lived in a boarding house. On the first floor was an elderly, retired music teacher, who was now an invalid and unable to leave the apartment.

Douglas said that every morning they had a ritual they would go through together. He would come down the steps, open the old man’s door and ask, “Well, what’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say, “That’s Middle C! It was Middle C yesterday; it will be Middle C tomorrow; it will be Middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but my friend, that is Middle C!”

The old man discovered one thing that he could depend, one constant reality in life. He could have felt like he was on the back burner of life, I know I might have felt like that like. Instead of filling in the gaps with anxiety, lies, or fake truth, he chose something that wouldn’t change. He remembered Middle C. That is what he attached to his life too.*

Troas was the meeting place (2:12). Paul ventured to the city and waited for Titus to arrive with news. Titus never arrived. In the meantime, Paul preached in Troas, to which he claims, “the Lord had opened a door for (him).” Good things were happening in Troas. People were receptive to the gospel. Unlike the Corinthians, those in Troas trusted Paul and made course corrections to their lives. God was working. God was saving. But Paul found no resolution. No Titus. No news. No peace.

We’ve experienced the silence. A text is unanswered. A phone call is not returned. In its spot, anxiety.

With a plan in place, the backup was for Paul and Titus to meet in Macedonia, likely Philippi (2:13). With no clear directions from God, Paul was filled with apprehensive. His pot was simmering on the cusp of boiling over. Uneasiness. Worriedness. Anxious. He left a booming and productive ministry in search for answers he may or may not find. In truth, answers he may or may not want to know. And for now, we’re at a cliff-hanger and don’t know how this situation will get resolved. For Paul, he headed for Macedonia to wait for Titus on news of Corinth.

We live in a world where the forgotten backburner is so prevalent. We walk into people’s lives who feel discarded by society and abandoned by God. They live with broken promises to be there to the end. We bring a smile. We confidently step into their lives offering hope in a moment when they feel hopeless. They have filled in the gap with negative messaging, and we have the chance to redirect their thinking to believe again. To hope again. To love again. So, we sit and talk to our patients. We hold their hands. We listen to their stories, or complaints. We act for their good. We walk with them on a path that is difficult to navigate. And soon the pot that looked to be on the verge of boiling starts to simmer. Peace reclaims its place while hope is restored.

Still, sometimes life makes you feel like you’ve been placed on the backburner of the stove in God’s kitchen. Forgotten, whatever is being sauteed in your life is now burning. Smoke rises setting off the fire alarm, while God does nothing to intervene. At least that is how it feels. You’ve been there. So have I. So has a New York city grandmother.

On a cold winter’s night in 1935, in a New York City courtroom, a tattered old woman stood before the judge, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. The storekeeper was pressing charges. The woman pleaded her case, “My daughter’s husband has deserted her. She is sick and her children are starving.” The shopkeeper refused to back down and drop the charges, saying, “It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor, and she’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson.”

The judge sighed. He turned to the old woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you; the law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.”

And that is life on the back burner. No one listens, not even God. No one cares as hope evaporates like forgotten boiling water on the back burner.

However, the judge that evening was no ordinary judge, but the sitting mayor. Having dismissed the judge earlier in the evening, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia – yea, that LaGuardia who has an airport named for him – was the sit-in judge. And while he was pronouncing sentence, LaGuardia reached into his wallet, took out a ten-dollar bill, and threw it into his hat with these words, “Here’s the ten-dollar fine, which I now remit, and furthermore, I’m going to fine everyone in the courthouse fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”

The following day, a New York newspaper reported, “Forty-seven dollars and fifty cents were turned over to the bewildered old grandmother who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Making forced donations were seventy petty criminals, a few New York policemen, and a red-faced store-keeper.”

It’s a reminder to us that no matter how we feel at the time, to God, we are never a forgotten pot on the back burner.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* A story by Max Lucado.

Posted on

The Freedom to Play in Grace

Anyone who has been around sports knows that a coach has favorites. Right or wrong, he trusts certain players to play. Those players, who perform under the favor of the coach, play without fear. They know that their coach will not remove them from the game no matter the errors they commit. Other players, who are not under the coach’s grace, play in fear. You can see it in their timidity. You can see it in their eyes after committing an error. They look directly at the bench to see if the coach will send in a substitute. When the coach does substitute, the player steps off the court or field in shame, as their chin rests upon their chest. How much better will a player play knowing the coach will not yank him off the field for making mistakes?

My collegiate coach was the epitome of success. By my senior year our cross-country team had won the conference meet seventeen years in a row and twenty-four out of twenty-five years. Oddly enough, his background was basketball, not running. When he began his coaching career, he coached basketball. As much as he loved to play the game, he hated coaching because he despised taking kids out of the game for committing errors. He hated seeing the fear in their eyes. Loving the value of sports, he shifted to running where each runner could excel on his/her own merit. He taught self-discipline and inner motivation. He encouraged us to keep our moral and spiritual lives as disciplined as our running, for he understood the stranglehold that guilt and shame have on people and its debilitating impact on athletes. He wanted us to run in grace, not guilt.  

In a performance-based environment, success is tenuous. Fear, guilt, and shame tend to hold the upper hand and fuel motivation, a fuel like using diesel to a car needing unleaded gas. Fear gnaws at people believing something dangerous will occur or that failure is around the corner. Guilt, real or imagined, captures the emotional aftermath of failing. Shame is the painful feeling of humiliation. All of these are real, and we’ve all experienced them at one time or another. Fear: ask a child who has seen the anger in a parent about to respond to their defiance. Guilt: ask anyone who has ever been pulled over by a cop. Shame: ask anyone who had to make the amusement park “walk of shame.” Fear, guilt, and shame are interwoven into the fabric of this world, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape those feelings.

Church is supposed to be a different story. Jesus never motivated out of fear, guilt, or shame, instead he motivated people out of freedom and grace. They had a choice. We always have a choice. The younger brother in Luke 15 was allowed to walk away while the father never shamed him for leaving, or for that matter, for returning home. Zaccheus was never guilted into giving away his wealth but did so in freedom and grace. It wasn’t the fear of Jesus that caused Peter to sink into the sea, but the fear of the waves. Still, the church has used fear, guilt, and shame to motivate members to attend services, to participate in ministries, to keep them on the straight and narrow, and to give their lives to Jesus. Let’s be honest, if you provide too much freedom and grace, what’s the end result? Oh, that question in an of itself is rooted in fear.

The Corinthian church needed motivation to change. It was a mess. A big, dirty mess. It’s not the kind of church you want to bring home to meet the family. The church was imploding from division. They divided over their favorite preacher. They divided over spiritual gifts. Their divisiveness exploited the socio-economic tension, of all places, at the Lord’s Table. At least one family was embroiled in a lawsuit against another family. They saw themselves as wise when they acted foolishly. They prided themselves on embracing a man who was sleeping with his stepmother. Idolatry held the church in its clutches. They demanded their rights while claiming to follow a Savior who gave up his rights. That’s just Paul’s first letter. His second letter may be even worse. Idolatry still had its claws clenched into their lives. They had bailed on promises made to Paul to collect monies to send as aid to the Jerusalem church. They allowed a third party to come between them and their preacher, maligning Paul’s character in the process. What I know about the Corinthian Church is that I wouldn’t want to preach for them, much less be a member of that community. And if you were honest, you wouldn’t either.

Paul could have employed fear, guilt, and shame. He could have. If I was in his shoes, I would have. I would have reached deep into the Jonathan Edwards sermon that we are nothing more than being held in the hands of an angry God, standing on the very fringes of hell’s fire. More fear. More guilt. More shame. More control.

But Paul is not me. He confronts the sin in Corinth head on, but always as a pastor who loves his flock. And here, while he is defending himself against the accusation that he breaks his promises, he appeals to a promise-keeping God who himself creates an environment of gracious freedom by removing the fear, shame, and guilt from the equation. He’s not bringing in a substitute, he’s playing the team he’s called. Here is what Paul says,

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come (2 Cor. 1:21-22).

Paul tells us that God makes us stand firm. We do not secure ourselves, but God makes us secure and steady in Christ. It’s all on God. At our strongest, we are too weak to play or to fight. To underscore this, Paul gives us three descriptions of God’s power. He does so in very strong, definitive wording that is unmovable.

First power: God anoints us. Anointing was common for healing. More importantly, prophets and kings were anointed as being set apart for service under God. The word used here for anointing is the same word for Christ, carrying with it Messianic overtones. One might say, since we are anointed in Christ we are linked to him for his purpose. All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ where we are the recipients.

Second power: God puts his seal of ownership on us. A seal is an official emblem by a lord, governor, or king. By placing his seal on us, likely a reference to the Holy Spirit, we now belong to God. We are now in his possession. Remember the Toy Story moment when Woody checks the bottom of his boot to find Andy’s name? Woody knows he belongs to Andy. More importantly, Andy realizes that Woody belongs to him because his name is on his boot. Essentially, God is looking to see if he has sealed us with his Spirit, and those whom he has belong to him. No one else.  

Third power: Paul uses marketing or banking terminology of earnest money. Suppose you are shopping for a car, and you find it. Your dream car. You want it, but don’t have the money. In a bind, you make arrangements to secure the car with a downpayment. The dealer or owner holds the car until you come back with the complete amount. The downpayment guarantees full payment. Similarly, God giving us his Holy Spirit is only a down payment guaranteeing that when he returns, he will make good on his payment, and we will be filled to the full with his Spirit.

All of this effort by God to anoint us, to seal us, and to giving us a deposit guaranteeing what is to come is the means for us to play in grace. If Paul argues to the dysfunctional Corinthian church that God is creating the freedom to succeed, what does that say about you and me? It’s like we can’t fail.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I worked for a man who owned a gas station about a half a mile from where I lived. His little gas station had a good reputation in the community and for all accounts he was a successful businessman. He was a Korean War vet who ran his business like a min-military unit. He barked orders and made his employees toe the line; mistakes were not tolerated. He had mystery shoppers who came to the station for service just to report back to him. In Oregon self-service pumps were banned and attendants pumped the gas for the customer. We had to wash every windshield and ask to check the oil. The station had to be kept neat and clean, and when it wasn’t he let us know in no uncertain terms his expectations. We kept busy, and if we weren’t busy, we created work to do or looked busy because attendants sitting around was not a look he wanted. When our tills were short, he took it out of our paycheck. I was the recipient of numerous berating’s that summer. I learned a lot from him, I grew to appreciate and respect him, but if truth be known he operated out of fear. His employees, those hired to pump the gas, did not respect the man and often feared losing their jobs at any given moment.

Four years later I spent the summer in Nashville, Tennessee living with my brother to spend more time with Cile. My summer job was working for a small cookie company. The owner discovered his grandmother’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies and began to market them. By the time I was hired they had moved to a small warehouse and made a half-dozen kinds of cookies: chocolate chip, white chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, et.al. With convection ovens and industrial mixers, my job was to mix the dough and bake them. The owner of the company expected and anticipated that mistakes would be made. Cookies break and recipes get botched, and the boss would simply say, “I’ve ruined plenty of batches, you know where the garbage can is.” I loved working for this boss and because his work environment was built-in with a freedom to fail, I gave him my best.

As evident from these verses from 2 Corinthians, God is more like the second boss than the first. He has created an environment for us to play with freedom in grace so that we can give him our all without fear of failure. Even when we do fail him.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

Posted on

The Lies We Believe

We live in a world of lies. We are either convinced by them or are being convinced of them. The result is that the lies we believe are the lies we embrace, and the lies we perpetuate will shape our character.

Years ago, I walked into the office of a church member who I was scheduled to have lunch with. He was on the phone. I waited in the lobby, but I could see he was deep in a serious conversation with the person on the other end of the line. I waited as the conversation felt like it was part of a “never-ending story.” When he hung up the phone, he came toward me. Shaking hands, we began to exit his office, and he said, “They’ll lie to you, Jon. They’ll lie to you.”

To this day I do not know what the nature of the conversation was, nor who the person was on the other end of the phone. I do remember his words and that they remain crystal clear today, “They’ll lie to you.” And they will.

Lies come in all shapes and sizes, and colors too. They infiltrate our society and our lives, not only becoming part of our vernacular but framework and mindset to understand the world. If unguarded, lies will fester like a cancer and before we know how deceived we are the prognosiswill be terminal. The problem is that we are so easily deceived.

Just ask the radio listeners in 1938 to Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater on the Air program, who believed that Martians were invading the world. Radio then was today’s version of YouTube or TikTok, and with Wells purchasing the rights to HG Wells’ novel, The War of the Worlds, he set about presenting it in dramatic fashion. As the program unveiled landing sites with play-by-play destruction, pandemonium broke out across the nation. People were reacting to events based on a lie.

Or, just ask the Enron employees who were encouraged to reinvest back into their corporation. Believing their company was sound and profitable, they lost everything in less than six months. Actually, the money believed they had in stocks never existed. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling developed a means to exploit loopholes in their accounting to hide billions of dollars in debt from shareholders. Employees invested, not in their future, but in the CEO’s lies.

Or, just ask the good German Christians who supported the Nazi Regime. Following the demoralizing defeat of World War I, Hitler used his charisma and vision for a new and improved Germany. The Jews were not only excluded from their “New World Order” but were scapegoated and blamed for their nation’s problems. The Jews were criminalized, dehumanized, and victimized. Tapping into the anger of the people, Hitler called the Jews, “parasites,” “race-tuberculosis,” “blood suckers,” and “vermin.” How could good German Christians be accomplices to the genocide of an entire race of people? Allow a big lie to be told over and over until you start to believe it, then rationalize it, then act on it.

Andy Andrews might have said it best when talking about one of his childhood friends, “The truth has no chance against such a convincing lie.”* He may be on to something.

The big lie of the ancient world is so foreign to the contemporary American culture, it’s often minimized and mocked. The big lie? Idolatry.

We don’t understand it. By either caricaturing the wood and stone carvings or over-simplifying it to hours watching TV or electronic devices, we reveal our ignorance. While idolatry offered lies about answers to life issues – such as explaining the turning of the seasons or why tragedy strikes – their fake answers were that the gods were angry with humanity or in a battle with each other and the fallout impacts life on earth. By removing the mystery of the universe, they felt they had more control over their lives. All of this is and continues to haunt us today. It was all a lie, but it felt like the truth to them. If we were honest, we’d fall for it too.

From the Ancient Near East to Greco-Roman times, three factors helped drive idolatry. First, sex sells, and it has always been marketed. Fertility rituals ensured successful crops and were always coordinated to temple prostitution. If you can imagine a modern-day marketing firm selling idolatry and linking it to religion and sensuality, then you can begin to understand the draw. Secondly, money talks. Ensuring that the right amount of rain will fall on the land is essential for an agrarian society. The rain makes the crops multiply. Rain allows grass to turn green and to grow so that herds and cattle may graze. This rain, they believed, was controlled by the gods. In our sexually saturated society, consumed with money and building wealth, we can understand the temptation to trust anything to increase pleasure and profit. Finally, politics warps. When a king imposes his idolatrous worldview on the people, this leaves very little room for resistance. From King Ahab to Nebuchadnezzar to the Caesar’s’ imperial worship, the pressure to fall in line removes the wiggle room for the individual to ignore or even protest. Standing against a king held deadly consequences. These reasons – sex sells, money talks, and politics warps – fueled the big lie of idolatry.

Corinth had its own struggle with believing the big lie. Paul had already warned his church to stay away from born-again Christians who worship idols (1 Cor. 5:9). With further questions, Paul spent three chapters helping the church navigate the culture of idolatry (1 Cor. 8-10). Unfortunately, the issue moves beyond the big lie, to the role and place of the pagan temple in the lives of the people. It wasn’t just a place of worship but served as the community center for the people as well. Banquets were held at the temple. Weddings took place in the temple, and if your neighbor invited you to his daughter’s wedding, what are you going to do? Work guilds held meetings at the temple, and if you were a member of the fishing or hospice guild, and you didn’t attend, you could be blackballed. What do you do? The struggle was real and the temptation to buy into the big lie was always present. Always.

Paul tackles idolatry and its lie one more time with the Corinthians, and he pulls no punches. First, he frames his argument in 2 Corinthians 6:14 by prohibiting the yoking of believers with unbelievers. The use of yoke takes the reader back to Deuteronomy 22:10 where Moses forbade yoking oxen to donkeys. Foreshadowing our own “cruelty to animal laws,” the oxen’s size and strength would overpower and kill the donkey. The two are incompatible. Paul views such yoking as a real threat to the life of the believer using words like “purify” and “holiness” while avoiding anything to “contaminate the body and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:2).

Secondly, Paul poses a series of five rhetorical questions (6:14b-16a) where he basically asks what truth has anything to do with lies. Clearly, the answer is “nothing.” Idolatry is the big lie and Jesus is the Truth, and the two merging is like food contaminated with salmonella poisoning. Even though the idolatry draw is so magnetically powerful, and the lie feels so right, Paul wants Corinth to fight and resist its pull.

Finally, Paul quotes a series of Scriptures in rapid fire. The quote in 6:14b is particularly interesting. “Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you” is from Isaiah 52:11. It’s the hopeful instructions to Israel as they see the day when they will return home from exile. The very lie they believed was that lie that shaped their character, which led to their destruction, which ushered them into exile. That lie is the one Isaiah says to avoid at all costs. The warning to the Corinthians is that something more is at stake than a home in Jerusalem, but a home with God.  

We swim in a world of lies. They are all around us, enclosing in on us while suffocating the truth. Like an onion, the more layers of lies we peel off, the more painful they become until our eyes water and our hearts break. If everyone has their own truth, then it’s likely everyone believes their own lie. The struggle to find the truth is real. Herein lies the hope. We can take steps to curb the onslaught of lies, many of which we likely believe.

First, open our eyes to how many lies are woven into the fabric of society. Simple awareness goes a long way in stopping lies from shaping our character and defining who we are. Secondly, if it’s too sensational to be true, then it’s likely a lie. Lies will lead you into a rabbit hole till you are lost in its caverns with no way of escape. Their magnetism will suck you in convincing you how everyone is involved in its plot. But if you cannot pull off a surprise party for a family member, how can you expect the whole world to be involved in a lie? If it’s too good to be true, it is. And finally, realize that sex, money, and politics fueled idolatry in the ancient world, and it continues to fuel the new form of modern-day idolatry. We need to live with this tension that all three are necessary for living. That said, all three will distort reality making you believe you’re serving God when in truth, you are really serving something evil. Something very evil.

It’s the lies we believe as my friend reminded me, “They’ll lie to you, Jon. They’ll lie to you.” Or, as Andy Andrews once said, “The truth has no chance against such a convincing lie.”* He may be right. But Jesus countered, promising, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn. 8:32-32). And it will.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* Andy Andrews, Baseball, Boys, and Bad Words.

Posted on

A Vision Where the Content of Character Counts

On a hot and muggy summer day in 1963 some 250,000 people gathered on the Mall in DC for the March on Washington to bring awareness to the civil and economic rights for people of color. America was in the throes of the Civil Rights Era, and the movement would reach a climax at this gathering. Ten keynote speakers, largely forgotten overtime, addressed the crowd prepping them for the final speaker who delivered the concluding keynote of the day: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And deliver, he did.

Historians rank King’s I Have a Dream speech as one of the greatest orations ever delivered. He waxed, but never wanned, as his words echoed through the crowds and throughout history. The imagery and rhetorical savvy was unprecedented. King walked a thin line by honoring the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution, while calling out the oppressive and abusive actions of America for over a hundred years. All along sowing seeds of hope.

Five times King declared that he had a dream, followed by a descriptive verse envisioning a time beyond the racism in America. The most quoted dream statement is likely the one involving King’s own children, believing that one day they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Character. Who the person is on the inside matters. The admirable qualities driving a person’s decisions carry far more weight than their job, position of power, or wealth. Truth. Faithfulness. Courage. Perseverance. Humility. Kindness. Discipline. Respect. These, and other qualities, are the virtuous lenses that Martin Luther King, Jr. was hoping society might view one another. Hoping, by the way, is a virtuous quality in and of itself.

By the end of the 1980’s the general sentiment was that the moral and ethical behavior in students was not only declining but freefalling. Believing public schools had abandoned their post of teaching the importance and virtues of character, the Josephson Institution formed the Six Pillars of the Character Counts program.

The first Pillar was Trustworthiness: being honest without deceiving others, while having integrity and keeping promises. The second Pillar was Respect: following the golden rule and accepting difference of others, while being considerate of people’s feelings. The next Pillar was Responsibility: doing your best, being self-disciplined, and learning perseverance. The Fourth Pillar is Fairness: playing by the rules without taking advantage of others. Another Pillar was Caring: being kind and compassionate. The final Pillar was Citizenship: making your school and community a better place. This curriculum was taught in many schools exposing children to the importance of its premise: character really does count.

In 1989 Steven Covey wrote a run-away best-selling book entitled, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Seeing a trend that has metastasized today, he warned about the dangerous tendency of embracing personality ethic over character ethic. Noting, prior to World War II, most American leaders were chosen because they held certain qualities in their character. No, they weren’t perfect, but their lives held a balance by their pursuit of a high level of moral and ethical qualities. Since World War II the trend has been to choose leaders owning a personality ethic. Simply put, someone with a personality ethic holds charisma that draws people and crowds to them. They look good and sound good on stage, but they very well may be morally and ethically bankrupt. Covey raises the concern of what happens when businesses, schools, churches, and the government are led and fueled by people who are charismatic without character. For him, character doesn’t just count, it matters.

Paul may have foreshadowed the tension when he wrote 2 Corinthians. Charismatic leaders infiltrated the church in Corinth, and instead of serving the church they looked for ways to control, manipulate, dominate, and selfishly squeeze the church for everything it’s got. Like the smell of a new car, they looked good. Once you looked under the hood, they weren’t that new but refurbished as their inner corroded lives were exposed for all to see.

Oh, their stories of unlimited accomplishments were told at great lengths. Their preaching drew a crowd. They healed the sick. Visions and revelations were the norm. They boasted of God’s power working through them, while noting Paul’s stage presence was lacking. Paul was weak and soft.

Paul wasn’t, at least according to their standard. He healed people, even bringing someone back from the dead (Act. 20:10). Jesus spoke to him on more than one occasion, too (Act 9:4-5; 18:9-10; 23:11). More importantly, Paul experienced at least one vision, a powerful vision, where he saw and heard things he could not express or explain (2 Cor. 12:3-4). As overwhelming his experience was, he gives us very little detail, leaving much to the imagination. He does not even fully understand what happened. He does so for very good reasons.

First, he blunts his experience by speaking in the third person (12:2-4). He says, “I know a man who was caught up to the third heaven” (v. 2). Using third person language, Paul deflects attention off himself, even when needing to share his experience. With his own credibility on the line, Paul, talking about someone else’s vision, makes no sense for the argument before him. He’s willing to share what happened to him, but, unlike his distractors, Paul is not the center of his own universe.

Secondly, Paul tells us that this experience occurred fourteen years earlier (12:2). Those in the know tell us that this vision occurred sometime between his conversion in Acts 9 and his first mission trip in Acts 13. Two conclusions can be drawn by this date. For one, if Paul had to reach back fourteen years to recount this story, then this experience was the anomaly, not the norm. And another, this very well may be the first time the Corinthians heard about his experience, which means he’s not going around trumpeting his encounter. They are, but he’s not.

Thirdly, Paul is the walking wounded (12:7). Because he experienced such a vision, a thorn in the flesh was given to keep him humble. Whatever the thorn was, and we are not told, the need for it was a reminder for Paul to trust God’s grace and not his own strength. With a knowing wink, Paul may be saying, “If I’ve had such an experience which caused me to limp away, why is their gate fine?”

All of this leads to Paul’s statement that if he spoke about his visions, he would be telling the truth. He is only talking about events in his own life. But he won’t, because, in his own words, “But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say” (v. 6b). Paul will not allow people to put him up on a pedestal because God revealed something to him. Such a trait is called, “humility,” which reaches to his own core characteristic. Contrast Paul’s words to his antagonists spewing arrogant pride, constantly boasting of their experiences. For Paul, character counts, and without character what you say or do is like offering God a beautifully wrapped present. Yet, once unwrapped and opened, nothing is in it.

We live in an era where we are easily drawn to the power and prestige of celebrity leaders. We’re captivated and captured by their charisma even when such leaders are devoid of character. We’ve convinced ourselves that good things will happen by following the person whose words speak to our hearts instead of to our souls. We expect the world to push back on the virtues underscored in Scripture, and sometimes they do. But when we listen to our own Christian voices mocking the Fruit of the Spirit qualities as wimps, or ridiculing the Beatitudes’ virtues as being soft, or deriding the “turn the other cheek” as weak, then we are listening to the wrong voices. We’re being shaped by lyrics, languages, and lives foreign to the gospel Jesus brought and Paul preached. The truth is the saint(s) who have charmed and enchanted us are really venomous snake(s) ready to bite only to satisfy his/her own narcissistic needs.

The truth is our society is flooded with leaders with little to no character fiber in their bones. At best, they’ve sold-out for fame, for control, or for the path of least resistance. At worst, they’ve abused and profited from the people they are called to love and to lead, while demanding fealty. And you don’t have to look very far to see the fallout in churches, businesses, schools, social organizations, and our own government.

In a recent article by Christianity Today editor, Russell Moore, he may have summed it up best when he said,

If we are hated for attempted Christlikeness, let’s count it all joy. But if we are hated for our cruelty, our sexual hypocrisy, our quarrelsomeness, our hatefulness, and our vulgarity, then maybe we should ask what happened to our witness . . . Character matters. It is not the only thing that matters. But without character, nothing matters.*

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* Russell Moore, “Why Character Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” Christianity Today, March 22, 2024 (an online article).

Posted on

Like the Encroachment of Kudzu

The 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition was a six-month celebration of the hundredth birthday of the United States. Holding a World’s Fair-like presentation, the Exposition showcased the industrial achievements of America. Nearly ten million visitors were exposed, not only to world-cultures through the eyes of America, but more so to its stories of might and ingenuity. The celebration was nothing less than a success.

During the Exposition, the native Japanese and southeast Chinese plant, Kudzu, was introduced to the West. Touted as a beautiful ornamental plant with its sweet blooms and sturdy vines, the plant became a hot commodity. During the Dust Bowl era, vines were planted throughout the south to prevent soil erosion. Its fast-growing vine, up to a foot a day, took hold of the soil to prevent the dirt from blowing and/or washing away. But its “mile-a-minute” growth rate quickly became known as “the vine that ate the South.” Like most vines, this one began choking out every plant and tree for its domination, destroying all life in its path. While cows will eat Kudzu, no western insect eats the plant. The vine was brought to America without a natural predator to regulate it. Quickly, it got out of control.

With no means to contain the plant, the vine encroached on foreign territory, choking the life out of plants and trees, leaving death in its wake.

As Paul was surveying the church in Corinth, he might have seen the Kudzu in the form of the antagonistic group who came to the church to turn them against the apostle. They had encroached onto the church promising life while choking the heartbeat out of the people. Paul accused them of being self-promoting since they went around “commending themselves” for everything they did (2 Cor. 10:12a). Not only were they bragging about themselves, and ensuring everyone knew their great deeds, but they themselves were the standard by which they measured themselves (v. 12b). Once we become the standard, then no one measures up to our expectations. They don’t serve as much as me. Their listening audience is smaller than mine. Their sin is worse than mine. I’m more dedicated than they are. Like ignoring the speed limit on a highway: anyone traveling faster than me is crazy, while anyone driving slower than me is a nuisance. A standardized measurement no longer exists, leading to a “law of the jungle” mentality. Such is the case when people decide to brag about their faith or ministry while measuring themselves against each other.  

Paul, on the other hand, is willing to boast, but not like his opponents. Paul boasts only within the limits God has provided (v. 13), limits that include the Corinthians. Having invested heavily in the church at Corinth, Paul seeks their best, even at the expense of himself. He brought them the gospel and began nurturing their faith. He lived with them. He worked with them. He spent time with them. He wants desperately to see their faith grow and develop (v. 15), in part so that they can help Paul expand his ministry to other places. Paul wants to brag about the Corinthians, not about himself.

Here is one of the differences between Paul and the antagonists. Paul will not take credit for work completed by others. Oh, they will (v. 15). By encroaching on the territory Paul already established, they will come in and claim it as their own. Like classmates taking credit for an assignment written by someone else, or a coworker pitching a stolen idea to his/her boss, these antagonists were trying to take credit for the work Paul did at Corinth. And we know the endgame: such leaders do not want challenged or questioned and eventually pull away from the very people they are called to shepherd.

Some might think they are jealous of the apostle, though Paul was not jealous of them. He’s willing to share. As he himself once said, he plants, Apollos waters, while God gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). They, though, are willing to exercise a hostile takeover of Corinth to fulfill their own passions. Paul will not play such games. He will not take credit for ministries completed by other people and in regions he has not tread (2 Cor. 10:16b). Instead, all boasting will be done in the Lord (v. 17).

Very few of us can say we are staking out new territory. Most of us are building off people who have come before us. As the Deuteronomy author said, “We drink from wells we did not dig” (Dt. 6:11).

When I moved to Minford to preach, I followed a pastor who spent twenty-two years preaching and ministering for this church. Sure, I have my own style and personality and will naturally leave my imprint on the people as my legacy. That said, while I was their preacher, I did what I could to honor and respect his family and ministry, valuing what he had built and knowing his ministry was built on the ones that came before him.

When I arrived at Heartland almost three years ago, I joined a team who was already doing good ministry. Yes, I have my own style and personality which will naturally leave its own imprint on the company, but I, like you, have tried building from what others have constructed without taking credit, and certainly without tearing it down.

We do this because we’re not kudzu encroaching on someone else’s territory.

As Paul is writing these words to Corinth, he has his Bible open to Jeremiah 9:23-24. In that section the prophet is taking the people of Jerusalem to task over what else? Boasting. Jeremiah declares that the wiseman should not boast about his wisdom, or that the strong man boast about his strength, or that the rich man boast about his wealth (Jer. 9:23). Jeremiah takes on the arrogant people who beat their chest and set themselves up as powerful individuals who control or manipulate the masses. Not only are people drawn to such definitions of success, but those in power tend to flaunt what they have. They let you know they are the smartest, strongest, and substantially loaded person in the room. And they care less for the people and more about themselves. For the record, I also know people who excel in each of those categories but are too humble to intimidate or brag. And isn’t that the difference? It’s not having wisdom, strength, or wealth, but how you perceive to use it is the difference.

Jeremiah’s solution does not include stopping the boasting, but to redirect the bragging toward the Lord (9:24). In this form of boasting, Jeremiah gives three descriptive words worthy of boasting regarding God. First, speak about him exercising kindness. Kindness, here, is far more than God performing random acts of kindness as we know it. We think of kindness as maybe holding a door for someone, or helping clean up a mess, or volunteering to help sit with a patient. Kindness here, can also be translated, “loving kindness” or “steadfast love.” Such kind love is the word to describe God’s loyalty to the Covenant he made with Israel. Where Israel broke the terms of the Covenant – from the golden calf to the rebellion in the desert to corruption in Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah – God never broke his Covenant with Israel. He kept his word. He preserved his promises. He refused to be guilty of breaking his Covenant. That is something worth bragging about.

The second and third descriptive words are found together in the Old Testament like they were best friends. You rarely find them separated from each other. In the New Testament these two concepts are rooted in the same word: justice and righteousness. Sometimes context can help distinguish which one the author is intended. Both terms are relational in nature and rooted in the character of God. Biblical justice is about treating people fairly, regardless of wealth, power, status, or wisdom. One of the reasons God has a heart for the marginalized and the poor is because society will not act with justice. He will, and his desire is for us to as well. The third descriptive word is righteousness, which means a person stands in a right relationship to God who he himself is described as righteous. Sometimes righteousness has a moral and ethical element to it. Other times it has religious piety attached to it. Still other times, it is linked to how people treat the poor and marginalized. Someone like Mother Teresa was a righteous woman, if for no other reasons, she chose to remain in poverty with the people of Calcutta instead of a lucrative position somewhere else. Bragging about a God who treats people the same regardless of stature, wealth, strength, and wisdom is something worth bragging about.

Jeremiah’s point, which Paul picks up, is that if someone is going to boast, then they need to boast about God. And if one is boasting about him/herself, it is likely that they do not know God. They are boasting about what they know. Themselves.

Back to Paul in 2 Corinthians 10, he quotes a portion of Jeremiah 9:24 to drive home this important point. If they are bragging about themselves while taking credit for Paul’s ministry and participating in a hostile takeover of Paul’s God-given territory, then one thing is clear. They don’t know God. Oh, they smell like a pleasing fragrant flower and their blossoms are beautiful to admire. But they are nothing more than a pesky vine that will quickly encroach on the land and choke out everything that lives, leaving spiritual death in its wake.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

Posted on

Measuring the Depth of Love

Exiting his study off the sanctuary, Reverend Paul Ford mounted the pulpit. Perched high above his congregation, he looked down on them like a vulture eyeing his prey or like a judge about to pronounce sentence on the guilty. His deep, baritone voice boomed and echoed throughout the church like thunder. Lacking compassion, fear reverberated throughout the congregants; even the chandelier shook when he spoke. Seeing the worst in his members, all he seemed to encounter was jealousy, scandals, and backbiting. Unleashing the wrath of God, as he tapped into their greatest fears, he led the church to the edge of hell’s fires declaring, “Death comes unexpectantly!”

“And now he will deal with you. Now the great King of Heaven and Earth will abolish and annihilate this pride! Will crush the hardened wretch of the polluted infinite abomination, and rain on him a deluge of fire and brimstone! And where is their strength, then? Where are the great leviathans who defied God, then? Where is their courage, these proud spirits? Yes . . . Death comes unexpectedly.“*

The irony is clear enough. Reverend Ford preached about arrogant pride never realizing that he himself was struggling with the very same sin. For the Reverend the condescending barriers kept him from his church. He believed that since he only had his people in church for one day, he had to inoculate them against the other six days of exposure to sin. His inoculation, instead of offering himself to them, was to bring the fires of hell closer to them. He preached without tears because his heart was far from the people he ministered to, evident that while the church was worshiping, the Reverend secluded himself to his study. In his haughtiness he looked down on them, not just physically, but spiritually as well. Ultimately, his harsh words, instead of broken tears, reflected the depth of love – or lack thereof – he had for the church.  

Around 1980 a ten-year-old-boy claimed his fifteen minutes of fame by embracing the street preacher persona at school. He dressed in a suit, held a big black Bible, and quoted Scriptures at the top of his lungs. Talk show hosts like Oprah, Larry King, and Salley Jesse Rafael lured him and his parents onto their program and sold tickets to the audience like he was a freak show for their carnival. Raised in North Carolina, and fearful of the public school’s influence on racial integration, evolution, and sex education, the boy began standing outside his school and shouting Scriptures he had memorized to his fellow students. Without offering either exposition or hope, he quoted Scriptures underscoring condemnation and hell’s fires.

Multiple problems arose from this situation. Not only parents allowing their son to be exposed to such national scrutiny, but also adults finding a warped venue of entertainment to generate an audience to fuel the greed for television ratings. More so is the caricature of the preacher who pronounces condemning judgment on his people without first identifying with them or showing any signs of compassion. In short, he shed no tears over the sins of the people he was preaching to.

Jonah was a great prophet, but he was no role model for preachers. He was called to preach to his nation’s enemies, but his national loyalties were stronger than his obedience to God. He ran away, until he could run no farther. God re-sent him to Nineveh. When he finally showed up, he gave a powerfully simple sermon, “You have forty days to repent!” (Jon. 3:4). A short, effective sermon preached over and over that omitted hope mixed with the grace and mercy of God. Still, repent the people of Nineveh did. And when God relented by showing compassion, grace, and mercy, Jonah fumed. He wanted them to burn. He envisioned how it would end. He hoped their nation would fall at the hand of God. He planned their punishment with courtside seats for the event. Jonah lacked tearful compassion, and as God pointed out to him, Jonah cared more about his own selfish needs than he did for the people he was trying to save.  

George Younce was the bass singer and frontman for Southern Gospel’s premier group, The Cathedral Quartet. With a sense of humor and comedic timing, George put the audience at ease. He and the other members of the group created a relaxed atmosphere so that their beautiful singing and harmonies might disable any resistance to the Gospel message communicated to the audience during the concert.  Laughter was at the heart of George, but so were the tears he shed as he confessed, “When the eyes leak, the head won’t swell.”

↓

Paul wrote a letter between what we know of as 1 & 2 Corinthians. While we do not know the contents of the letter – that letter is lost – we know it addressed the incident which he calls a “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1). At that visit he was rejected by the church, and essentially “run out of town.” In Paul’s letter he had to address the situation as it was getting out of hand. The antagonists were amid a hostile take-over of the church, and Paul was on the outs. He wrote them, and he spoke openly, honestly, and harshly to them causing them to grieve (2:2). Unlike others, Paul took no pleasure in writing such a letter. Even more, the words of the letter were expressed through great distress and many tears (v. 4). Paul wept while writing them. Where Paul wanted to brag and find confidence in the church (v. 3), they forced him to take the trail of tears, and as he walked that trail, grief accompanied his journey until he finally heard from Titus. Finally (7:7). Only then did he know that the deep love he had for them was finally reciprocated, showing that love is best expressed through tears, not harsh words.  

Until the mid-1990’s I always pictured Jesus as bringing the hammer to the Pharisees when he delivered the seven woes (Mt. 23). Occurring during the final week of his life, after Jesus was grilled by his adversaries but before his prediction of Jerusalem’s fall, it seemed like a perfect time for Jesus to unload on the Pharisees with both guns blazing. He let them have it, while I always pictured myself standing behind Jesus and not in front of him. I viewed myself as teammates with Jesus and I was always on his side. Always. But in the 1990’s Bruce Marchiano played Jesus in the Visual Bible on Matthew. Bruce brought an emotive side of Jesus as one who smiled and laughed with the people. Watching his portrayal of Jesus made one believe that God really did love humanity, and even found joy in being human. So when Bruce reached the seven woes in Matthew 23, he portrayed Jesus not as one who had a hammer to break the Pharisees, but as a Savior who was broken by pronouncing the woes. As his Jesus begins the first woe, his voice began to crack and its crescendo is felt through the last three woes when he proclaimed them through broken tears. The dams broke and broke hard. Such an interpretation makes sense as Jesus concludes the seven woes with his lament,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Mt. 23:37).

The first time I watched this scene my pride was broken. I no longer saw myself standing behind Jesus, but in front of him as if the tearful broken heart of Jesus was directed at me.

Out in a field, Reverend Paul Ford was rehearsing his Sunday sermon. Little Pollyanna delivered a message to him from her aunt. Reverend Ford was too busy to be disturbed by this little girl, but Pollyanna was too naïve to realize who she was up against. Wanting to dismiss her, she lured him into a conversation by asking if he was glad that he was a preacher. Glad. Her father was a minister who felt like his congregation tuned him out. Not surprisingly, Ford felt the same way. Coming closer to her, he asked if her father ever solved the dilemma. He did, she replied, when he read a quote from Abraham Lincoln which said, “When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.” Intrigued, Ford had taken the bait and Pollyanna reeled him in by bringing attention to the 800 glad passages in the Bible like “Rejoice and be glad,” or “Shout for joy,” or “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” She snatched his heart when she innocently said, quoting her father, “If God took all the time to tell us 800 times to rejoice and be glad, then he must have wanted us to do it.” Pollyanna left the Reverend holding the words in his heart.

The next Sunday as Reverend Ford mounted the pulpit, he chose not to be the voice of God, but he found his own voice in confessional tones. His pride was broken. Convicted, he decided to spend more time on the 800 glad passages and to share those passages in his sermons. His deepest regret was his failure to sit and to spend his time with the church as a fellow struggler against sin, for the true way to inoculate people against sin is to walk and sit with them.

What Reverend Ford finally realized was the depth of love is never measured in the harsh words we speak, but in the broken tears we shed for one another.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* Pollyanna is a 1960 movie by Disney, with Haley Mills as Pollyanna and Karl Malden as the Reverend Paul Ford. This script was lifted from www.insearchofthesinglechristian.blogspot.com from 2011. Accessed 2-19-24.  

Posted on

Unveiled Hope

No moment showing such promise and potential turned so quickly leaving nothing but despair and despondency in its wake, then the golden calf story recorded in Exodus 32. Israel had gathered at the Mountain of God. They had been slaves in Egypt, now they were liberated, freed, and headed to the Promised Land. Oh, the sound of freedom is music to the ear. Like a cookout on Memorial Day with summer just around the corner, what could go wrong? In a word, everything.

Moses was engaged in deep negotiations with God, while Israel was encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai. With the Covenant established and the Testimony* engraved by God’s finger on two tablets of stone held by Moses, the prophet began his trek down the mountain. But something was wrong. Something was really wrong. The sound of freedom morphed into the cries of war. Except it wasn’t war, just the shattering of the very covenant God founded with his people. On the ground were the pieces of the tablets, fragmented, a poignant representation of what Israel did, not only to the Testimony,* but also to the Covenant established by God.

All was lost. Like mist burned off from the hot sun, hope had dissipated. Wanting to wipe out the entire nation, God was willing to start over, only this time with Moses (Ex. 32:9-10). Moses, on the other hand, pleaded with God for mercy. God relented as mercy prevailed. But things had changed. Trust was broken. And in the balance was a damaged relationship between God and Israel.

Something else happened too. Moses changed. Physically. His encounter with God made his face glow (Ex. 34:29-35). The radiance was bright and frightened the people who saw him. Each time he met with God, his face radiated like the sun on a bright blue cloudless day. After communicating with Israel what God revealed to him, he wore a veil, which he removed before meeting with God again (Ex. 34:33-35).

Paul picks up Moses’ veil image in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 to restore the hope lost so many centuries earlier. Unfortunately, before hope is restored, Paul says the veil is still in play, blinding the hearts of those who wear it (v. 14-15). Two points of interest are worth highlighting before we pursue further. First, whatever Paul says in these verses, he is confronting the antagonists infiltrating Corinth to undermine his ministry. We know they are Judaizers, but they are not the same ones or kind that demanded the Galatians be circumcised. Circumcision is not mentioned in 2 Corinthians, but a love for the Covenant at Sinai seems important to the antagonists. Secondly, Paul may either be relying on a tradition or taking liberties with the Exodus 34 veil story. Exodus says nothing about the reason Moses wore the veil, only that he did (Ex. 34:33,35). He met with the Lord unveiled, then spoke to Israel unveiled. After speaking with Israel, he donned the veil until he met with the Lord again, and the cycle repeated itself. Paul, on the other hand, says the reason Moses donned the veil was to hide the fact that his radiant face was fading (v. 13), a foreshadow of the Sinai Covenant reality with Israel.

Paul tells us that the glory of the Sinai Covenant, or in this case ministry, is fading and fading fast. Moses donned a veil to hide how that glory is diminishing. In the meantime, Israel themselves wore their own veil blinding them from seeing the real glory. The more they wore the veil, the duller their minds became (v. 14). They stopped thinking. They quit processing. They ceased hoping. They discontinued dreaming. They were so blinded by their own theology and understanding of Scripture that they failed to see Christ holding it all together. While it’s true that “. . . when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts” (v. 15), Paul is not only addressing Jews who reject Jesus, but he’s also addressing the antagonistic Jewish Christians bent against him and his gospel. They are either veiled to the Jesus they claim to follow, or they are veiled to conceal that Jesus is not in them. Remember, Paul is addressing this letter to people who are already Christians, who have given their lives to Christ. So, something is ironically wrong when Christians cannot see Christ because their own hearts are veiled.

I come from a tribe of believers who, probably like you, wear their own blinders preventing them from seeing or showing Jesus. We hold a high view of Scripture with clearly marked doctrinal lines. While I hold much of our doctrines close to the heart, I do so knowing the questionable approach we’ve taken Scripture to reach those doctrinal beliefs. Sometimes, those questionable approaches and conclusions have hurt the very people we are called to love and to serve. Those who have not walked the line have either been black-balled or given enough cold shoulders to show how much they are no longer welcomed. Others, who dared to remove the box holding God, found their character maligned and were shamed for “coloring” outside the doctrinal lines.

I share this because my tribe is just like your tribe, and my people are just like your people, and my story is probably your story, too. On our best days the blinders are removed and it’s like seeing Jesus in HD. On our worst days, our blinders keep us from seeing anything, trampling on the people we’re called to love the most. Or the veil is in play to hide the fact that we care nothing for Jesus only for ourselves.

So we fight every day to shed the blinders and remove the veil keeping us from being the very Jesus we proclaim to being. We have our theology lined out and our doctrine clean and simple. We tend to keep everything neat and clean to avoid messy conclusions, reading the Bible only to confirm what we already believe, forgetting that the very Bible we cherish is written by messy people engaging with messy people who are radically loved by a very un-messy God. We prefer clearly drawn lines of right and wrong, of left and right, of true and false, as it helps us know who is in and who is out, so that we know who is going to heaven and who isn’t. But when we do that, we have a veil over our hearts and we’re living with blinders on. Truth be known, if we were to remove our blinders, we’d see that we and our churches are far messier than we care to admit.

Along the way we’ve failed remove the veil to reveal that the transformation of unveiled faces is the goal of the gospel (v. 18). We’ve failed to remove the veil and to take a good long look in the mirror, while standing in finger-pointing judgment at those whose sin seems greater than ours. We’ve failed to remove the veil that distinguishes our culture of acceptability against the culture of being accepted by Jesus. We’ve failed to remove the veil to discern between our national politics and the politics of God’s Kingdom, assuming that they are one and the same. They’re not. We’ve failed to remove the veil showing the compassion of God extended to us to provide our comfort is intended for us to extend that compassion to others while comforting them. We’ve failed to remove the veil exposing the perceived enemy before us is clearly our neighbor. We’ve failed to remove the veil that feeds our selfish narcissism so that we can sacrifice for the good of others. We’ve failed to remove the veil that underscoring the needless point of suffering is how God is able to comfort his people. We’ve failed to remove the veil so that we can still clutch the stone held in our hands ignoring the voice saying, “he who is without sin, may cast the first stone.” We’ve failed to remove the veil, in part, because we like the darkness and have embraced the darkness while claiming to walk in light. We’ve failed to remove the veil because the hopelessness seems more familiar than offering hope.

I remember my sophomore year of college. I was in Bible class when the professor talked about his weekend. He mowed his lawn. Actually, he said he was in the middle of mowing his lawn when he noticed that his five-year-old son had retrieved his toy lawnmower and was “helping him” mow the lawn. Immediately, a veil was removed as he saw with clarity. His son was mimicking his every movement, following his father’s example. My professor said he thought he could be self-absorbed and continue to mow the lawn. Instead, he loaded his mower onto his truck and invited his son to do the same. With his son sitting next to him, he drove across town to an elderly widow’s home whose lawn was in extreme need of care. For the rest of the afternoon, he and his son served the widow.

By removing the veil, my professor saw a means by which to serve. By removing the veil, he not only saw Jesus clearly, but he was able to be Jesus to his son. When that happened, they experienced an unveiled hope.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* See Exodus 32:15. While known as the Ten Commandments today, that phrase is a late development and was often known as Ten Words.

Posted on

We Are Not Home Yet!

In the wake of the 1997 Heath High School shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, Steven Curtis Chapman released a song entitled, Not Home Yet! How much the song was written in response to the mass shooting is unknown. Chapman himself was reflecting on the themes of heaven and aimed at writing a song for those facing difficult trials to provide hope for their journey. In the song Chapman describes life as a pilgrim on a journey. Sometimes the view is breathtakingly spectacular, and the steps are easy as your feet are light as a feather. Other times, the view is hidden from sight. Storms hit and hit hard. Your shoes feel like concrete blocks, inching forward is all but impossible. You cannot take another step, and each step feels closer to the storm that drives the hopeless fear in you. So Chapman writes, “So close your eyes with me • And hear the Father saying, ‘Welcome home’ • Let us find the strength in all his promises to carry on • He said, ‘I’ll go prepare a place for you’ • So let us not forget • We are not home yet.”*

Max Lucado believes that deep within us lies the tiny Whipporwill who sings of eternity. His songs remind us that we are not intended for the temporary but for one day to be joined by the everlasting. His beautiful and soft melodic voice resonates with our soul. Too many times, though, his voice is drowned out by the noise around us, while other songs focus on the present not the future. The songs clamor for our attention to be satisfied. They play for our egos to be stroked. They thirst for our power to be quenched. They woo us for our affection to be fulfilled. But their competing songs do not and will not endure. They fade away like that last echo in the mountains. The Whipporwill, in the words of Lucado, says that “Out of the gray he sings a golden song. Perched in time he chirps a timeless verse. Peering through pain’s shroud, he sees a painless place. Of that place he sings.”** When he sings, we are reminded that we are not home yet.

Sunday mornings is a time of renewal and refocus. For six days we journey through the “here and now” until we come to worship where the focus is on the “then and there.” We live in the temporary, but we long for the Eternal. Sunday morning is that reminder that the real world is not the one that unfolds throughout the week, but the one that engages us on Sunday morning, as we peer with faithful eyes to what will be, not to what is. We read, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go . . . I will come back and take you to be with me . . ..” (Jn. 14:2-3). When we’ve read those words, we sing, “Oh, the land of cloudless day • Oh, the land of an unclouded sky • Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise • Oh, they tell of an unclouded day.” As we are renewed and refocused, then return to our houses, we are also reminded that we are not home yet.

Hidden beyond the message of 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 is this home, a theme Paul will explore further in chapter 5. For now, Paul takes the readers back to Sinai where Moses receives the Covenant while Israel, camping in Sinai’s shadow, is doing everything they can to shatter any hope for a covenant with God. By using the word “ministry” instead of “covenant” Paul contrasts the difference between what Moses mediated and what Christ provides, noting that both ministries bring their own glory. Paul drops the word “glory” eight times.

He says the ministry at Sinai came with glory (v. 7) and that Moses’ face shined with glory (v. 7). Contrastingly, he says the Spirit’s ministry is more glorious (v. 8). In a “how much more” question Paul shows that the ministry that condemns is glorious, but that the ministry that brings righteousness is more glorious (v. 9). What was then glorious, referring to Sinai, has no glory when compared to the surpassing glory of this ministry with Jesus (v. 10). And finally, with the glory of Moses’s ministry fading away or faded away, the new glory of Jesus will endure forever (v. 11).

All that “glory” may be a bit much to absorb without slowly working through verses 7-11. But it is verse 11 that drew my attention when Paul writes, “And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!” For fifteen hundred years the glory of Moses’ ministry permeated and sustained Israel. And one might say that it sustained Israel in spite of themselves. But Moses’ ministry was finally coming to an end. As glorious as Moses’ ministry was the clock had been ticking and what Moses was offering was soon running out.

On the other hand, the ministry brought by Jesus has an enduring quality about it. The glory of Jesus’ ministry is not only its power, but that it will endure. Whatever you do in the name of Jesus will not be in vain or ultimately leave one empty handed. Jesus’ ministry brings meaning and substance to life as people are changed and transformed into his likeness (v. 18). In essence, what Paul is saying is that the closest we find our home on this side of eternity is experienced through the glorious ministry of Jesus. And that home or ministry lasts, no matter what.

The tension between the ministry that occurs in the “here and now” and the ministry that takes root and grows into the “then and there” is present and felt. Too often, with limited vision, all we see is what happens in the “here and now” without clear sight on the “then and there.” It gets frustrating. It feels like we are always estranged from home. When that happens, we all wonder, “What’s the point? What good have I done? Who really cares?”

We care for our patients. STNA’s minister through bathing them. Nurses minister by checking on their vitals. Social Workers minister by calming their financial worries. Spiritual Care ministers by leading them closer to God. Visitation Coordinators minister by providing team support while they suffer. Patients come and go and sometimes the eternal gets lost in the daily grind, the temporary, day-to-day visits, as we check off who we’ve seen and who we need to see next. I get it. I do too.

For thirty years I gave my life to ministry. In the process, like most church ministers, I’ve worn a lot of hats. I welcomed babies at hospitals, taught the young, married couples, worked with the aging, and overseen funerals. Outside of caring for churches, I’ve volunteered for civic organizations. I led Cub Scouts, helped with Boy Scouts, coached baseball teams, was an ongoing presence the schools where my children attended. At the end of it all, what did it get me? If what I see in this temporary is all I see, then I’m not the only one to feel the weight of disillusionment. Others have felt it as well, including Samuel Morrison.

In the early days of the Twentieth Century, Samuel Morrison decided it was time to go home. For the past twenty-five years he had given his life as a missionary to the African people. At the end of his tenure, he had nothing to show for it. He was broken. His finances were broken as he had run out of support and barely had enough money to return Stateside. He had no retirement. His heart was broken as he had buried his wife in Africa. His spirit was broken and had nothing left to give. With no fanfare, he left the mission field behind and boarded an ocean liner for the United States.

By happenstance one of the passengers on that ship was the President Teddy Roosevelt who was returning from a successful hunting expedition in Africa. All the excitement and fanfare kept the ship a buzz during the journey. But it was when the ship docked in New York Harbor that Samuel Morrison saw that the entire city of New York came out to the harbor to catch a glimpse of the President. Banners were raised. People were cheering. Choirs of children were singing. Balloons were floating in the air, flashbulbs were popping, cameras were recording the President’s arrival. Bands were playing. As the president departed the ship confetti and ticker tape showered on him like summer rain.

Samuel Morrison watched the spectacle unfold as one more broken moment sank in. He quietly exited the ship. No one greeted him as he was a nobody, a ghost. Alone, he slipped through the crowd hoping, to no avail, to find a cab. As walked the streets of New York, he prayed to the only one listening, if he really was listening, “Lord, the president has been in Africa for three weeks killing animals, and the whole world turns out to welcome him home! I’ve given twenty-five years of my life in Africa, serving you, and no one has greeted me, or even knows I’m here!”

Samuel Morrison continued to walk in his own silence. But in the quietness of his heart, a gentle, loving voice whispered, “But my dear child, you are not home, yet!” You are not home, yet!

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* Steven Curtis Chapman, Not Home Yet, 1997.

** Max Lucado, “The Song of the Whipporwill” from When God Whispers Your Name, 1994.

Posted on

Who Is Equal to Such a Task?

The line between calling and competence is as thin as a sheet of ice. Being led to a ministry is one thing. Being able to complete a ministry is something entirely different. Most will tell you that God led them into ministry or to a particular ministry. At the same time, studies will reveal that most will also tell you that ministers lack experiencing the grace to pilot the ministry. They feel someone else is more qualified than they to lead the same ministry. It’s a struggle I faced many times.

During my early ministry days, I often wondered if someone else might be a better fit for the church I was pastoring. I had finished a solid education, was on the cusps of my thirties, and started a family. Preparing three lessons a week is a challenge in and of itself, but preachers figure out how to meet the challenge. Navigating church dynamics and personalities is another story. Conflict and conflict resolution is a tall order for someone lacking experience. Church politics is always a minefield. The need for building trust when one assumes that trust has already been built can be a fatal mistake. Extending grace when others refuse is not for the faint of heart, but for those who have already persevered under trial.

Introspectively, far more than I care to admit, I raised the question, “Who is equal to such a task?” knowing full well that it wasn’t me.

When Paul asked that very question, he was delving into the aroma of Christ imagery of 2 Corinthians 2:15-17. The gospel is not always popular; the gospel has never been intended to be a complete crowd pleaser. While to some we are the aroma of Christ – which is a pleasing smell – the aroma still comes from the carcass offered in sacrificial ritual worship. The dead body burns and those in the know believe its smell is a pleasing aroma. Those on the outside smell the odor of the decaying, burning body, and it is rank. Like that burning corps, our ministry is viewed by the people and society as either a pleasing aroma or the smell of death, though both images are about a carcass. The question remains, “Who is equal to such a task?”

When Moses met God at the burning bush, he was being called to lead Israel out of slavery and bondage from Egypt. Not surprisingly, Moses believed he wasn’t up to the challenge. The last time he played hero ended badly for him. After murdering an Egyptian to protect an Israelite, the move backfired. He ran with his tail between his legs to Moab to escape the reach of Pharoah and to live his life under the radar. Moving back to Egypt or to live with the Israelites was never in his plan. Nearing eighty years of age, he was enjoying his retirement. Five times Moses gave God reasons for passing him by. “Who am I to go to Pharoah” (Ex. 3:11), “I don’t know your name” (v. 14), “What if they don’t listen to me” (Ex. 4:1), “I’m not a good speaker” (v. 10), and a final desperation plea, “Just send someone else” (v. 14). Each of those reasons raised by Moses gets to the heart of Paul’s statement: who is equal to such a task? Moses readily admits, he’s not.

When Gideon was called to rescue Israel from the Midianites, God told him that he was a mighty warrior (Jud. 6:12). A mighty warrior, indeed. Something tells me Gideon had never fought in a battle, much less drawn swords. No, Gideon was anything but a warrior as he confessed that he was not only part of the weakest clan in Manasseh, but he was the least in his own family. Essentially, Gideon told God that he was a nobody. A nobody. In his rationalization Gideon struggled with Paul’s question, “Who is equal to such a task,” Gideon knew he wasn’t.

In the same year that beloved King Uzziah died, Isaiah witnessed a vision of the Almighty Lord. Seated high and exalted on his throne, he was surrounded by angelic beings singing to him. The hem of God’s robe filled the temple because nothing on earth can contain him. His voice shook the threshold and doorposts while smoke filled the temple. Isaiah’s “face-to-face” encounter with God drove him to cry out, confessing his sins. “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Is. 6:5). By looking upon the Lord himself, Isaiah got a good look in the mirror. Quickly, all his sins and shame were crystal clear as if he were watching himself in HD. The guilt and reproach forced him to wonder who was equal to such a task. Certainly, it wasn’t him.

Jeremiah’s task was set before him, and to say it was a tall order was an understatement. The motto for his ministry was, “to uproot and tear down” (Jer. 1:10). The motto might have caught on if it were applied to Babylon. It wasn’t. It was applied to Israel, which is hardly a popular motto for a national ministry. Truth be known, outside of a couple of people, no one listened to Jeremiah. His message was politically loaded as he advocated surrender to Babylon. He was abused, arrested, imprisoned, and even betrayed by his own family. When God called Jeremiah, the soon-to-be-prophet goes directly to his youth for his play, calling himself a child (Jer. 1:6). If, as some believe, Jeremiah was about 20 years of age at the time of his calling, then Jeremiah wondered who was equal to such a task. For him, he was too young.*

But God was not accepting any of the excuses or rationalizations. God wasn’t dancing to their song. After Moses’ five excuses were countered, God told him, enough. Aaron was on the way to meet him, and he was going anyway. After Gideon argued that he was the weakest among the weakest, God showed him how the Midianites were shaking in their boots. After Isaiah confessed his sinfulness, God purified his sins by touching his lips with a hot coal. And when Jeremiah saw only his youthfulness, God promised him his presence, telling him not to fear for he will be with him. Yes, who is equal to such a task? It’s a good question, until one realizes that God is a force to be reckoned with.

In the next chapter of 2 Corinthians Paul begins to answer the question, “Who is equal to such a task?” Given the antagonists who had infiltrated Corinth and were beginning to undermine Paul’s ministry, the question was relevant for Paul to address. Paul suffered too much. Paul’s speaking ability was far from eloquent. Paul carried no letters of recommendation. While they were taking him down, they threw shade on him for refusing money from the Corinthians. To the antagonists influencing the Corinthians, Paul is far from equal to such a task.

And on his own, Paul readily agreed. He said that the confidence we have is not from ourselves, our talents, our education, our connections, or our exegetical and hermeneutical abilities. Our confidence is rooted and grows out of God and the power he gives us. As Paul says,

“Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God” (2 Cor. 3:4-5).

God is the one who fuels competency in what we do. We may be Spiritual Care offering divine and compassionate hope to a patient without hope. We may be an STNA who offers gentle physical care like bathing a patient without dehumanizing them. We may be a nurse taking vital signs or counting pills or educating family members on treatment, while making the patient feel like he/she is your favorite patient. We may be a Bereavement Coordinator who holds the hand of the family after the patient has passed. We may be a Volunteer Coordinator whose greatest role is to sit and actively listen to the patient as they reveal their worries and concerns. We may be a social worker who leads the family to secure the final preparations of life. Or, we may be a TC whose soothing voice calms the anxiety of the person on the other end of the phone call. The competency to fulfill these actions do not come from us, but from God. When that happens, we are equal to such as task.

Thirty years have passed since I stepped into my first preaching ministry. It was a long time ago but feels like yesterday. I was arrogant, but also unsure. I was hopeful, but also anxious. I was mentoring, but also needed mentored. I made mistakes but was often too prideful to admit them. I felt the thin ice between calling and competence crack more times than I care to admit. If my older self could pull my younger self aside, I’d try to reassure him. I’d tell him it was going to be ok, and that God will supply what is needed to make you equal to such a task. Some may say that sounds mysterious. Some may push back and say that such a statement isn’t goal driven or a purpose driven model to build a ministry. They may be right. Still, others might call it the one thing we need most. Grace.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

*These examples were inspired by comments made by Scott J. Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 127.

Posted on

Letters of Recommendation

My college admission likely hinged on the quality of recommendation letters written by personally selected alumni. My grades were far from impressive, reflected in my ACT scores. I was an academic bubble risk because I was an ADHD/dyslexic kid before ADHD was diagnosable and dyslexia was understood. Reading and reading-comprehension, with an inability for rote memorization, all but doomed my hopes of a college experience. Truth be known, some even told me to quit dreaming of going to college. I needed help getting into my college of choice, because I was not getting in on my own merits.

I sought out my high school principal, my cross-country coach, and my preacher – all whom graduated from the school I was sending my application to – and asked them to write a letter of recommendation. They agreed. I never knew what they wrote. They never shared, and I never asked. All I knew was that I needed someone to go to bat for me. I needed someone to speak for me if I was going to have a chance to begin my academic studies.

Letters of recommendations help in introductions, giving credibility to the one whom the letter is written about. They are a common practice and have been around for a very long time. You have probably written one or have had someone write one for you. They are a staple in society. They are a staple in almost every society.

The letter connects three points of a triangle. The first point is the subject or whom the letter is about. The second point is the recipient of the letter who does not know the subject personally. The third point is the author of the letter who knows the subject and the recipients, and acts as a mediator to introduce the two. The one writing the letter pours his/her own credibility into the subject since the subject has no credibility with the recipients. Essentially, letters of recommendation sound like this: “Hey guys, Jon here. I know Joe and I think Joe is a good guy who does good work. You guys ought to give Joe a look, or a second look.”

Since letters of recommendation introduce people and give an endorsement to lay a foundation for believability, they are commonplace and, as said earlier, have been around for a long time. Long before access to the internet, or making a quick phone call for verification, or dropping a quick text to a friend, carrying a letter endorsed by someone else or a group of people was crucial in establishing credibility.

No better example of this can be found than in Acts 18. Apollos, who was in Ephesus at the time, wanted to preach in Corinth. So, the church in Ephesus wrote letters to the church in Corinth on behalf of Apollos (Act. 18:27). The church in Ephesus knew Apollos, but the church in Corinth did not. With a letter from the Ephesian church, the Corinthian church welcomed Apollos with open arms. From 1 Corinthians we know that many came to love Apollos and his preaching (see 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4-6, 20-22).

Letters of recommendation played an important role and function in society, especially in the early days of the church. Having some proof of who you are goes a long way in establishing trust, rapport, and credibility.

One of the issues Paul was facing was that the Corinthians were seeking letters of recommendation from him. Supposedly, some individuals had arrived in Corinth carrying such letters. Who they were, what the content of the letters were, and who authored the letters are all unknown. The simplest answer is that the individuals and letters originated from Jerusalem. If that is the case, we are likely not talking about James, the brother of Jesus, or Peter, or one of the other apostles, but a faction group in Judea that resisted Paul, his teachings, and his mission.

So, a group of individuals carried letters of recommendation to establish their credibility with Corinth. Paul had no such letters. Paul needed no such letters. But the group infiltrating the church began using Paul’s lack of letters against him. They had letters, he didn’t. They had credibility, he didn’t. They had authority, he didn’t. They had support from Jerusalem or Judea or whoever penned the letter, Paul didn’t. And that became their point of entry into undermining Paul’s ministry. He had no letters.

Paul had no letters of recommendation because Paul needed no letters. He came to Corinth empty handed, except for the message of Jesus to share with people. No church existed in Corinth when Paul arrived. Working bi-vocationally he set up a tent business to support himself, while speaking, teaching, and preaching in the Synagogue on the Sabbath. He planted the seed and started cultivating the church in Corinth. Nurturing their faith, he led them through the waters of baptism and out of the darkness of paganism. They knew him. They worshipped with him. They walked with him. He had no reason to carry letters of recommendation as the Corinthians probably knew him better than people in Jerusalem.

Thus, when Paul probes the Corinthians, he asked them rhetorically, “Do we need . . . letters of recommendations to you or from you?” (2 Cor. 3:1b). Of course, he doesn’t need such letters. But then he turns the issue on itself, stating in the next line, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody” (3:2). The proof of Paul’s credibility and ministry is not based on a letter written by someone a thousand miles away who never ventured into Achaia but written by the church themselves through their faith and growth in the Spirit.

Paul places the burden of proof, not on someone else, but on them. When people look at Paul’s ministry, he will not allow them to judge it by his personal credentials. He does have them: a Hebrew, an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham (2 Cor. 11:22-23), circumcised on the eighth day, tribe of Benjamin, Pharisee, and faultless in regard to legalistic righteousness (Phil. 4:4b-5), and schooled in Jerusalem under the feet of Gamaliel (Act. 22:3). Paul neither relied on those experiences to garner his credibility, nor flaunt them as a means to strengthen his standing. Looking at his people in the pew, he implored, “You are my letters of recommendation. Your lives, changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, are the proof to validate my ministry.”

If you ask me, the easy step is to provide a letter from someone verifying your credibility. Letters are a dime a dozen. I once wrote a letter for a young man I knew six months so that he will get into a school. I questioned why he should ask me; I barely knew him. He said, “It’s just formality, I’ve been accepted into the school already.” Drumming up a letter to provide as proof of ministry is easy in and of itself. The hard step is to look at the people we minister to and allow them to be the proof of our ministry. Has the body produced the Fruit of the Spirit? Has harmony replaced dissonance in the community? Has love, forgiveness, and grace switched with hate, bitterness, and legalism? Is the community marked by being a place of healing or a place where pain festers? Is the community caring for the marginalized or consumed with serving their own people? The hardest part in all of this is the trust one must have in a community to place one’s credibility with their behavior.

For our hospice care, the most important letter we write is the one on the heart of our patients and their families. What they say about us and about our service is the letter worth reading. We make that happen by how we engage and serve our patients and their families.

I once experienced a profound letter of recommendation. It wasn’t written on paper, nor was it about me. It was penned in and from the heart of my sister.

Deanna and I were playing under the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon. We were in the third grade and were reflecting on Sunday school class hours earlier. I don’t remember what were playing or why we were under the table. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but I suspect it was summer since our Sunday school teacher did a no-show at church. With no back up teacher in play, Deanna and I were sent up a grade for Bible class. I can’t remember if we were sent to the 5th and 6th grade class or the junior high class, but I do remember the classroom was among the upper rooms of the church building, a place I rarely ventured to. I remember climbing the stairs to the classroom like we were climbing steps of a mountain to visit the wise guru. We entered the room where a handful of children were being taught a Bible lesson from their teacher. The teacher was our mother.

I don’t remember what the lesson was that morning as most of that day is a memory fog. What is clear, as if it said it yesterday, was the comment my sister made to me under the table in the privacy of our own little world. Deanna looked at me and said, “When mom teaches, she makes you want to be a better person.” Mom did not have a lot of credentials as a teacher, but she had biblical knowledge, a passion for the Scriptures, and a heart for storytelling. She made the text come alive with clear application for our lives. Thus, it was an easy step to be a better person because she showed us how.

What Deanna stumbled across that Sunday afternoon under the dining table sits at the core of Paul’s thought in 2 Corinthians 3. Teaching, preaching, or ministering is less about crossing denominational doctrinal “T’s” or doting “I’s,” and more about whether the person teaching, preaching, or ministering is inspiring you, motivating you, or modeling for you to become a better person, to become a better version of “you,” who reflects Jesus Christ. And when you are that better person, God gets the glory while your source of inspiration is validated through your life. And no letter of recommendation can substitute for a transformed follower. As Paul concludes, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:3).

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)