Christianity 101

I'm about to launch into something I've been working on, in some ways, for 20 years. I've been working on it in earnest for over a year now. We need to equip the next generation to know what Christians ought to believe, why we believe it, and what difference it makes in our lives.

My oldest child will be heading off to college in a couple of years. College is a spiritual and cultural war zone for our kids. If they're not prepared, they will be casualties. At the very least they can be wounded and filled with doubt or maybe decide to compartmentalize their faith or perhaps try to hide from the real world in a Christian ghetto. At the worst they can walk away from the faith altogether. In any of those cases their ability to serve at witnesses for Christ will be impaired at best.

But if they are properly prepared, the battle field can be a mission field, and their faith can come out of the experience stronger. That's what I want for my children and for yours.

I had originally intended this to be just conversations I had with my kids, but for a variety of reasons I've decided the best way to do this is to put it in writing in little bite-sized pieces. And if I'm putting the hours in to write these little articles, I may as well share them with anyone else who might find them useful, so I'll be posting them here. My posting frequency is going to go up quite a bit — I'm hoping to put out two a week.

If you know anyone you think will benefit from this, feel free to share. Besides "following" on Blogger, there's an RSS feed, email subscription, and you can share via the social media buttons.

I hope you will benefit from these articles. I hope our kids will benefit from them. We are in a fight for our children's future. I intend to win.


Part of Christianity 101

30 Years to a Better You

It's hard to believe I have 30 years of Christianity to reflect on, but I appear to be getting old. So I began thinking about lessons learned, mistakes made, and positive changes I've seen in myself. I'm not what I want to be, but by the grace of God I am not what I was.

Herein I offer the benefit of my bumps and bruises for whatever use you may make of it.

Jesus doesn't just want to be your Savior. He wants to be your Lord.
There are a few things Jesus repeats in the gospels. "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." "Believe the good news." These get talked about a lot. There's one that gets less air time in many circles: "Come, follow me."

Believing is important. So is following. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." The thing we have to remember is that Jesus didn't come just to save us; he came to transform us.

A big part of following Jesus is reading his word.
Read it. Read it again. Keep reading it. A broad knowledge is important. A deep knowledge is important. You can't get both of those at the same time. Sometimes read to get as much Bible into you as you can.  Sometimes slow down and get hip-deep in the details. 

Study the Bible. Study studying the Bible. Study the Bible some more. The scriptures are the primary means by which God communicates with us. They reveal what he is like, what pleases him, what he wants, and what he intends for us.

So read it when you feel like it, and read it when you don't. Prioritize it. You don't have to spend hours a day in it. Some days you'll have half an hour, and some days you'll have five minutes. The commitment to spending time in his word is as formative as the time itself. And the day may come when "getting" to spend some time in the Bible will be a treat rather than a chore.

Just pray.
I think the primary lesson of the "Lord's Prayer" was that we should keep it simple. God's not looking for the correct formula or language. He's looking for you.

Sometimes you'll be a bit ashamed of your behavior in the recent past, and the last thing you'll want to do is expose yourself to God. Pray. This may be the most important time to pray.

Ask God for what you want, but remember that the purpose of prayer is not primarily about asking for things. It's about meeting God.

Slog through the doldrums.
There are seasons when you feel like God is right next to you, when the experience of his presence is almost tangible. Those do not last.

The rest of the time has been likened to the doldrums on the sea when the wind dies down and little progress can be made. Rankin Wilbourne, in Union with Christ, says, "The doldrums are an important, even necessary, part of learning to abide [in Christ]. They protect us from the dangerous temptation of enthroning our experience of Christ over the real Christ. See, if you always got a high, or a spiritual surge, every time you drew the sail, it would be easy to shift into pursuing your own immediate gratification instead of pursuing Christ."

Screwtape says, "It is during such trough periods, much more than the peak periods, that it [the believer] is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. ... Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

Habits help.
If you can set up your life so that certain daily actions trigger the behaviors you want, you'll do yourself a huge service. If you can get to the point where you reach for your Bible the minute you sit in your chair — even when that's not why you were sitting down there — all of this gets easier to maintain. Build a habit you can maintain. If you can't spend an hour a day in the Bible most days, don't try to do that. It's easier to spend a little more time when you have it than to maintain an impossible habit.

I've gotten in the habit of praying in the shower. I don't have anything else to do, might as well use the time, right? After a decade of that, it takes a conscious effort not to pray in the shower. So I'm guaranteed to spend at least a little time in prayer every day.

Does that feel cold and impersonal? It's really not. It's simply training yourself to do the things you want to do. And habits can really help you persevere during the doldrums.

Constantly evaluate yourself against what you see in scripture.
Don't just read it. Ask yourself what you need to change based on what you see there. Be specific. Make specific goals. "I need to be nicer" is not specific. "I will ask my neighbor how I can help her" is.

That thing you are absolutely sure doesn't apply to you does. That thing you really don't want to change is the thing Jesus most wants to change.

If you've read a passage a dozen times, and this is the first time you've noticed this place where you're lacking, that means this is the time the Lord has chosen to work on that. Cooperate and things will go better for you.

Hang in there.
I ran across a Desiring God article that speaks to this topic: Most Growth Will Be Slow Growth. The title pretty much says it all. We live in a get rich quick, get thin quick culture. This is the polar opposite of the Christian life. Sanctification is sloooow. Don't ask "Do I look more like Jesus than I did yesterday?" Yesterday could have been a particularly good day, or a particularly bad one. Ask "Do I look more like Jesus than I did five years ago."

Don't lose heart.
It's understandable that hearing "this is going to be a long, slow slog" can be disheartening. But we were never promised fast results. What we were promised was "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:6). You will get there. That's the important thing.

Related:
How to be a Self-Feeder
7 Tips for Reading the Bible in a Year

What the Angels Said About Jesus

Before John called Jesus the divine Word who "was with God and ... was God," before Paul called him "the image of the invisible God," even before Jesus ran around Judea and Galilee claiming divine prerogatives for himself, people were warned what to expect from this Jesus. The angel Gabriel did not just tell Mary, "You're going to have a son." The angelic visitations attending the birth of Jesus laid out the story for anyone who was ready to listen.

Luke 1:26-38
"You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.

"The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

Matt 1:20-21
"...what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ... She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Luke 2:11
"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

"He will be called the Son of God." In the Old Testament, there are many "sons of God." There is whoever Gen 6:2 refers to, there are references to angels being sons of God, and kings and all Israel are called sons of God. So what makes this kid special? This son will be conceived when "the Holy Spirit will come upon" Mary. He will be no normal man. Many in the Bible were unable to conceive without God's help, but this time it will be without the involvement of a man. Furthermore "He will reign over Jacob's descendants forever." Forever. This is no mere mortal. He's not mortal at all.

He will be "holy." Holy, especially when talking about people, means to be set apart. Samson was set apart from birth. So was John the Baptist. You know about Samson's hair. Zechariah was told about John, "He is never to take wine or other fermented drink" (Luke 1:15). These restrictions highlighted that they were set apart for God's use. There are no special instructions for this child. He's not a Nazirite. He's not "set apart for a special work." He's intrinsically holy. Like God.

"He will save his people from their sins." Do you think Mary and Jospeh wondered how he would accomplish that? I doubt they could have imagined the form that would actually take, but besides that, how can a human being save anyone from their sins? A human being cannot. The blood of bulls and goats does not bring forgiveness of sins, and neither would the blood of any mere man.

"He is Christ the Lord." "Lord" in the New Testament means different things. It can mean as little as "sir." It can mean a servant's master or an exalted person. Or it can mean the king. Calling him "Christ the sir" makes no sense, so he's obviously exalted to some extent. To what extent? He's no mere mortal. He's the Son of David. He's the special Son of the Most High. He'll reign as king forever. He will not be a lord but the Lord.

The Savior that was born to them and to us was no mere man. To anyone who was listening, the angels spelled out that this baby was going to be God in the flesh, come down to save mankind and call the nations to himself. The shepherds "spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child" (Luke 2:17), and so should we. We worship him best by joining his mission to call all nations to be reconciled to God.

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Related:
Of Sons and Promises
The Forever King

Simplicity

What's going to happen tomorrow?

There are lots of good reasons to spend less than we make: So we can give to charity; so we're not caught up in materialism and greed; so we can handle unforeseen expenses like car repairs; so we can handle foreseen expenses like retirement and college.

Here's another one: In the not too distant future, people you know may face the choice of giving up their careers to honor Christ.

In The Benedict Option, Rob Dreher argues the day is rapidly approaching when American Christians will have to pull together to help each other survive more than we have had to in centuries. We've already see bakers, florists, and photographers face the choice of giving up a huge chunk of their business or violate their consciences. The day may soon come when doctors, pharmacists, teachers, and other professionals may have to make the same choices, even to the point of going into a new career.

Could that happen to you? Would you be able to help a brother or sister in Christ who faced that situation? Would you be able to help your church make up the loss in giving? Would you be able to continue giving to your church if your contributions were no longer tax deductible?

How do we prepare for that rather likely eventuality? By learning to make do with less now. By learning to live simply. We can learn to ask whether we really need to buy that. We can ask how many streaming services we really need to subscribe to. We can re-evaluate our transportation choices.

We can decrease the pile of gifts under the Christmas tree. Christmas is the time of the year when we most clearly tell our children that piles of stuff is good. This year, cut back a little on what you spend on Christmas for you and yours. Instead, have your family do some buying for an angel tree. Or gather around the World Vision, Heifer International, or Samaritan's Purse Christmas catalog and together pick out some gifts to give people who can't give back to you. Start getting your family used to spending less on yourselves.

Fancy clothes, fancy cars, and fancy houses filled with latest electronic gadgets are just things that moth and rust destroy. Storing up treasures in heaven is a far better use of our money.

Let's learn to live simply and give lavishly before the world makes us.

Review: The Fallacy Detective

I buy books at a faster rate than I can actually read them. As such, I've had The Fallacy Detective on my shelf for a few years, intending to read it and have my kids read it. Then I came across an offer from the authors for a free review copy of their new Audible edition. "Reading" in my car is my primary form of reading these days, so I jumped on it.

The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Six Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning is a logic primer aimed at middle schoolers and up.

"Hold on," you say, "logic primer?!" Two things you need to know:

1) Logic is simply clear thinking. Christians need to know logic. We need to know how to think clearly, and we really need to know how to identify shoddy reasoning from the world around us, because it is everywhere, and the world uses it to try to influence us and our children.

2) This "logic primer" is no stuffy text book or pseudo-Puritan handbook. It handles the material in short sections with the occasional joke and light-hearted examples that none the less illustrate the skills in question. It has a breezy tone and presents the material clearly.

The book covers all the typical reasoning errors with examples, then it gives exercises (with answers provided) for practice in recognizing the fallacies. Finally, the authors offer a game to help you and yours (they recommend 3+ players) sharpen your skills. Each chapter could probably be covered in less than 10 minutes, including exercises.

About the Audible version: The narrator does a fine job of reading the material, and he uses different voices to make the example conversations easier to follow. There are weaknesses. It's hard to do the exercises that way at first, and sometimes he has to describe a figure in the text (it really doesn't work). The authors recommend the Audible as a supplement to the hard copy (or maybe as the parent's version), but if this is all you have, you can make it work.

Again, every Christian — especially young Christians who are about to enter college and then the "real" world — need to know basic logic. This is about as painless textbook as I can imagine. Logic is not hard, and you (and your children) can use any book, but this is the gentlest of all the books I've come across. Of the best of the rest, A Rulebook for Arguments is shorter, but less clear, and Come, Let Us Reason is quite clear, but longer and less ... friendly. I think The Fallacy Detective will serve you and your family well.


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