Does Doctine Really Matter that Much?

Boa tarde (means "Good afternoon" in Portuguese),

I have had a number of people tell me that the thing that turns them off about conservative evangelical Christians like me is that we seem so darned sure of ourselves. They say that when it comes to religion or moral/ethical issues we insist that our way is the only way. They point out that we claim to have a corner on truth and believe that Jesus and the Bible are the only way to Heaven. They don't like the fact that we are so stuck on the Scriptures and that we emphasize doctrine. For many people today, "doctrine" is the new 4-letter word. They say that they would be much more comfortable with a softer, more inclusive brand of Christianity that leaves room for people to believe whatever they choose as long as they consider themselves Christ-followers and seek the fellowship of the church. After all, who are we to judge others? We are all on a spiritual journey and we shouldn't be so rigid, thinking that we have cornered the market on truth.

This sort of thinking accounts for the fact that there are touchy-feely churches popping up everywhere and many Bible preaching churches are experiencing decreased numbers of attendees. Frankly, it's frustrating, though I understand the dynamics.

The following is a video from CrossTV Ministries (www.crosstv.com) produced by Mark Kielar that does a good job of putting this issue in perspective. Watch it and then I will make a couple of comments on the other side.



While I recognize that some Christians are downright nasty in the way they express their faith, that still does not justify us jettisoning the Scriptures as our rule of faith and practice. Doctrine is important.  It always has been. The Christian faith rests not upon men's collective religious experiences or ideas about what is or is not true.  Our faith rests squarely on the revealed Word of God, the Scriptures, that have been passed down to us.

The apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:4-6 speaks of the things that go together to make up the glue that binds Christians together: we are of one Body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father.  Did you notice that it said "one faith"?  Paul was not talking about the Baptist faith or the Presbyterian faith.  He was not talking about petty differences between denominations or different styles of music used in the worship service.  He was referring to the fact that the Christian faith is grounded on God's revealed truth.  In the Word He has told us what to believe, and it is our choice to believe it or not, but our belief or lack of it does not change or diminish the truth and relevancy of what God has revealed.

Jude urges all Christians to "contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).  Doctrine is important.  What we believe is crucial.  One's religious sincerity and good intentions are meaningless if what he believes in turns out to be a lie.

There is a familiar old hymn entitled "My Faith Has Found A Resting Place" that says it best. The lyrics were penned by Eliza E. Hewitt in 1891.

Verses:

My faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed;

I trust the Everliving One, His wounds for me shall plead.

Enough for me that Jesus saves, this ends my fear and doubt;

A sinful soul I come to Him, He'll never cast me out.

My heart is leaning on the Word, the living Word of God;

Salvation by my Savior's Name, salvation through His blood.

My Great Physician heals the sick, the lost He came to save;

For me His precious blood He shed, for me His life He gave.

Refrain:

I need no other argument, I need no other plea;

It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me.

Standing for the faith whether it's popular or not,

Mike

The Plug Got Pulled

Hello again so soon,

Yes, the jump was canceled because of clouds and iffy weather over the jump zone in Molalla. Rats!! We have rescheduled for Thursday of next week, August 13th at 1:00 PM.  Like they say, "If at first you don't succeed..."

Disappointed but looking forward to Thursday,
Mike

Tomorrow Is the Big Day

Yes, my crazy friends, Friday is almost here. Only one more day before the Big Leap into fresh air. Tomorrow at 1:00 PM my equally deranged friend, Dave, and I are going to pay money to jump out of a perfectly good airplane at 13,000 feet and hopefully to glide gently to earth suspended by a beautiful, colorful nylon canopy. I haven't been nervous about the jump up until today but people keep asking me, "Aren't you nervous?" So now they are starting to creep me out. No matter, we are plunging ahead. After it's over I'll write and tell you what it was like. Wish me luck

Skydiver Mike

10 Days Left

Hello friends,

Yes, the days are clicking by very quickly. Since my last entry 5 days have already passed. There are only 10 left to go before my "big leap" into space. Thank you, by the way, for all the phone calls, emails, cards, and letters of support begging me not to jump. Of course I'm being sarcastic... Actually, not a one of you hairy cretins has written, called, or sent up so much as a smoke signal to say anything about it--not even my family members. From that I assume that either you don't care that I am risking life and limb for a cheap thrill, or that you are actually hoping that my chute won't open. I'm not sure which it is.

Anyway, I'm just keeping you informed. If anything happens to me, don't forget to feed my dog once in a while.

Counting the days,
Mike

Countdown to August 7th

Bom dia meus amigos doidos,

In Portuguese that means, "Good morning my wacky friends." I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. Many of you have suspected it for a long time but now it's official--I have indeed lost my marbles. Actually, it's not my fault. It's the crazy people I hang around with. They are to blame.

I have a friend, Dr. David Hopkins, a Presbyterian guy who is a missionary with a "first peoples" focused ministry called C.H.I.E.F. That stands for "Christian Hope Indian Eskimo Fellowship" (http://www.chief.org). I only mention that he is a Presbyterian to let you know that had I been spending time with Baptists this whole thing probably wouldn't have happened. Many years ago my mother warned me about Presbyterians.

But I digress. We meet together every Wednesday noon in a pastors prayer group. We've been doing this for about 13 years so we've logged a lot of time together. One day Dave happened to mention that he had jumped out of an airplane a few years ago. When he turned 60 he and his fruitcake brother-in-law went out to an airstrip, paid money to get into an airplane, and then bailed out at 13,000 feet.

When I showed some interest in his story he got a funny look in his eye and asked me, "Would you ever be interested in doing that?" Being all macho and proud I said, "I'd love to!" never dreaming that this Presbyterian lunatic was actually serious. Anyway, this past Wednesday Dave asked me, "How about August 7th?" Surrounded by my other moonbat pastor friends what could I say but, "Bring it on!"

Long story short... On August 7th David "The Flying Presbyterian" Hopkins and I are going to pay money to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, risking life and limb for a cheap thrill. There you have it, my confession. By my calculations that gives me 15 days to get my house in order, though some of you have seen my house and know that it is going to take longer than that. Anyway, I thought you should know.

It's nice to have friends at a time like this. Our ground-hugging cowardly pastor friends say they plan to be at the Molalla airport that day with shovels and a large black plastic tarp to gather the pieces. Apparently their only concern is how they will by able to sort out the remains to get the right victim in the right box for burial. How encouraging!

When I broke the news to Ramel, my wife, I expected there would be more wailing and gnashing of teeth. She's got me a little concerned. She spent all day yesterday on the phone talking with insurance companies. What's that all about?

15 days and counting,
Mike

You're getting a tattoo on your what?

Hello again, my wing nut friends,

I've been traveling to and fro, not stopping long enough to write. But I've repented and come in for a landing, at least for now.

Those of you who occasionally read this blog (both of you) know that I am an impulsive writer, a reactionary, if you will. I see things, I think about them for a while, and then I bust out with comments, usually that no one wants to hear. Really smart writers, on the other hand, are more pro-active. They start with an idea or a thought that has finally bubbled and burbled and worked itself up to the surface of their psyche. Then they write about it.

Like I said, I write about stuff that I see around me. And one of those things that I see is women of all ages getting tattoos, apparently on every part of their anatomy. What is this all about? Who came up with the idea that women need giant sailor tattoos to make them look better?

Now I'm not against women trying to look their best. I'm not against jewelry or makeup. I don't care if women want to color their hair or get their nails and toes painted. In fact, almost any barn looks better with a coat of paint on it! You see, I'm not completely closed minded. However, I don't understand why tattoos are on the rise among women.

Moreover, I have come up with a theory that I am calling "Mike's Law." Here it is: The likelihood that a woman will have a tattoo is in direct proportion to the degree of her ugliness and to her net weight. I have seen more fat, homely women with tattoos than I can count. Does she really think that a big honking tattoo on her meaty calf is going to make her more attractive?

My wife and I drove up to the North Fork Reservoir the other day and sat for a while and watched the boats. A family of four pulled their boat in and started to prepare to leave after a few pleasant hours on the water. The wife and mother of the family was wearing a bra-type top revealing her very ample middle. Her entire waist area was tattooed. What we could see was a band of tattooing about six inches high all around her middle, giving the impression that there was even more under the waist band of her tight-fitting shorts. Seeing her reminded me of Herman Melville's savage cannibal character, Queequeg, in his book, Moby Dick. Ramel diplomatically said, "Maybe she got the tattoo before she put on all that weight." Perhaps. But what the woman has now is an ugly tattooed spare tire around her middle. It ain't pretty!

I even see high school aged girls with tattoos. It makes me want to slap their mothers and fathers for being felony-stupid and apparently unable to pronounce the simple English phrase, "Over my dead body." When I see tattoos on guys I just figure they are idiots. Bubba and his buddies probably got wasted one night and dared each other to get a tattoo. That's just the kind of stupidity I expect from guys. Sorry, fellows but I know whereof I speak. But when girls and women come out sporting tattoos I think they look cheap, as well as stupid--a double whammy.

Now it's disclaimer time. This is my blog and I'm telling you my opinion. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with me. But I can't help but think that 99.9% of women who get tattoos when they are young will regret it when they get old. When she gets to be 75-year-old great-grandmother and her little grand-kids ask, "Grandma, what is that weird gray blob on your ankle?" she will rue the day that she got that infernal tattoo. A friend of Ramel's summed it up beautifully. A number of years ago she had a little dog tattooed on her breast. But time marches on and gravity is relentless. She told Ramel that now her little dog looks more like a giraffe!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the behavior of people in the world, because pagans do what pagans do, but I am very saddened when I see professing Christians following the same self-destructive fads. A few months ago a youngish woman I know asked me if I could get her a copy of The Lord's Prayer in Greek. She also asked for a copy of the 23rd Psalm in Hebrew. I went down to my office and got my Hebrew OT and my Greek NT and made copies for her of the appropriate pages. I just thought maybe she wanted to frame them or something. She got very excited when I handed her the copies, but then she broke the news to me that she was planning to have one or the other of them tattooed on her back, because she thought it would be "a great testimony." I about passed out! I certainly did not want to be complicit in that train wreck! After I was able to start breathing again I asked her why she thought that would be a good idea. She said that people would probably be curious and would ask her about it, and then she would be able to witness to them. While I praised her for her enthusiasm and desire to share her faith, I tried to point out some obvious loopholes in her misguided plan.

For one thing, I asked her if she had looked into the Scriptures for guidance about this. She said that she had not and didn't even know that the Bible mentions tattoos. I took her to Leviticus 19:28 which plainly says, "Never cut your bodies in mourning for the dead or mark your skin with tattoos, for I am the LORD." Her face went pale when she read this because she already has several other tattoos. She said, "I didn't know that was in there." But indeed, it is.

The heathen used both scarification and tattooing. However, the Lord told His people, Israel, that they were not to participate in those heathen practices. They were to be different and were to treat their bodies as holy unto the Lord. Some of you will undoubtedly jump at the chance to point out that this is an Old Testament passage directed by God to the Jews. It is not specifically about Gentiles and is not written to Christians.

First of all, if you start down that hermeneutical road you'll end up cherry picking the things you like in the OT and rejecting out of hand the things that you find objectionable. The apostle Paul tells us in II Timothy 3:16 that "All Scripture [including the OT] is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." The fact is that this principle in question is laid down in the Old Testament and then developed much more fully in the New Testament. The NT teaches us that our bodies are the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. Therefore, we are not to defile our bodies with sinful practices because our bodies belong to Him. Paul explains in I Corinthians 6:19-20, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." Seems pretty clear to me.

In my opinion, for any Christian, male or female, to get a tattoo it is like painting graffiti all over the walls of a great cathedral. It is a sacrilege. Our bodies don't belong to us anymore. We don't have a right to do permanent damage to them, no matter how cute we might think it looks. It's the same as vandals tagging another person's house. It's just wrong. That's what I think.

Crazy, but not stupid enough to get a tattoo,
Mike

How did they do that?

Hello all you loonies,

I have been fascinated by the Prius car ads on TV. Do you know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that use about a gazillion people in colorful costumes to form roads, trees, flowers, and mountains? Every time it comes on TV Ramel and I puzzle over how they do that. Curious minds want to know. So, like my hero, Sherlock Holmes, I went looking for answers.

And what better place to start than the Internet, the source of all that is true and authentic. I found a YouTube video that explains it all. Take a minute to watch it and then I'll have a couple of observations on the other side.



What fascinates me about this is the way it tricks your eyes. Watching the ad you would conclude that it took a cast of thousands, which is not true. They actually only used a crew of 200 extras, then multiplied them electronically using computers so that the finished product looks like 1 million people. To me that is truly amazing.

Are there any spiritual lessons here? I think so. The effect of Christians in the world is greater than their actual numbers. In the same way that Jesus borrowed a little boy's lunch of 5 barley cakes and 2 dried fishes and multiplied them to feed a multitude of 5,000 men plus all their women and children (see John 6:1-14), in the same way God multiplies us, and whatever we put in His hands and He makes it more, bigger, and better.

The Bible says that Christ's followers are light and salt in this world. Salt never stays where it is put. It always spreads out and permeates whatever medium in which it finds itself. And light does the same thing. A little bit of light can go a very long way. Soldiers on the battlefield learn this very quickly. Lighting a cigarette can give your position away to an enemy who is still miles away because that little bit of light spreads out and goes far.

I pastor a very small church, and one that unfortunately has been getting smaller due to a number of factors, some of which I understand and some that I am still trying to figure out. But I digress... My point is that with God's help and empowerment the effectiveness of a group of Christians in a local community can go way beyond their actual numbers. That is important to know and remember at those times when we begin to become discouraged, thinking that we are not having much effect and are failing miserably. Salt is seldom aware of how far its influence spreads, and light never knows how far it can be seen. Our job is just to keep on being faithful to what the Master has called us to do. We'll leave the multiplication to Him.

There is an old hymn that hardly anybody sings anymore. It was composed by Kittie L. Suffield back in 1924 and it's entitled, "Little Is Much When God Is In It." The Gaither Vocal Band has a good rendition of it and I want you to listen to it and pay attention to the words. It is a good reminder that our "little" can become "much" in His hands. A "few" can look like "many" when He is running the production.



One small crazy piece of God's big project,
Miguelito