Paul's Comments on Women

Much of modern misogyny in the church can be attributed to Paul’s comments on women in the Bible. But is misogyny really what Paul intended to communicate? In today's message, Jamin takes a look at Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 11 and sorts out what's at the heart of Paul's message. As it ends up, from a cultural perspective he is simply trying to establish order in light of creation, cosmology and science. All three of these points go over the heads of modern people because we think entirely different on all three subjects. Therefore, we can only truly understand what Paul is saying by getting into a head 2,000 years older than ours.

Chameleon Evangelism

So often the church takes Biblical truth and shoves it in people's faces without first submerging themselves into the world of those they're trying to reach. Such evangelism requires little sacrifice on our parts and ignores Paul's only evangelistic method to "become all things to all people." If we truly want to reach people, it often requires more effort than bold statements—though it doesn't mean we water down the Gospel either.

If in the end we are not relatable, then we can hardly be heard. God, of course, gives us the ultimate example of this truth: He puts on skin and comes and lives among us as Jesus to show us exactly what God looks like. He "chameleons" himself into the people He's reaching. He wears their skin, their culture, their understanding, their world, and in doing so, He clearly shows them who God is.

And so, this kind of chameleon evangelism is expected of us to an extent, too.

Judging Angels

In today's passage Paul rhetorically asks, "Do you not know that we are to judge angels?"—as though we would nod our heads in agreement and understanding. But truthfully, most of us would put our hands up and respond, "Actually, Paul, we don't know what you're talking about."

To understand what the apostle is saying, we have to get our head into his world and understand the spiritual mindset he lived in. Jamin works off Michael Heiser's book, The Unseen Realm, in order to establish the Bible's picture of a divine council and give some backing to Paul's blatant statement. As it ends up, he does have a context and the Bible gives us the ability to understand what he's getting at.

The Gentrification of Christianity

Just as cities often gentrify (like our own Jackson seems to currently be doing), so do our churches. Myisha explains how this process often works so that we can keep an eye out for the problem.

A Heavenly Reward

Paul offers a metaphor that interprets in a rather surprising way: While Christians are saved only by faith and belief in Christ, our works as Christians play a part in a reward to come in Heaven. Working with this metaphor, Jamin surveys similar explanations of the afterlife through Jesus' teachings and then invites us to let Christianity get so under our skin that our focus becomes entirely Heaven-focused. We don't need to live lives full of earthly riches now, but lives aimed at Heavenly riches later. And if we let Heaven get under our skin enough, we may just find that even basic things like our sex drives can be called into question.

The Scene of the Resurrection

There are a few interesting Biblical callbacks it seems John is giving us as he paints for us Jesus' tomb—that is, the scene of the resurrection. As we look at these possible references, we retrace the presence of God throughout history and pinpoint it on Jesus. Furthermore, we come to see Jesus' role in and as the presence of God in an important light.

The Presence of God

Because we're not used to going to temples to worship we often miss the significance of them throughout the Bible. For ancient people, temples were the places where their gods resided physically on the earth—and while Yahweh is omnipresent and everywhere, He still practiced this method of putting His concentrated presence in buildings. As it ends up, God's manifest presence has found a few homes throughout history: Eden, the tabernacle tent, Solomon's temple, Jesus, and us.

The theological impact of this message is crucial to understanding who we are as Christians, the supernatural ministerial power we can have, and the spiritual growth available to us. In today's podcast, Jamin starts at the very beginning and unfolds the story of God's temple throughout the ages and why all of this is important to us today.

Joyful Christianity

I've been really surprised that my chapter on joy in A Taste of Jesus has gotten the most comments. Apparently we have widespread difficulty in making this a part of the Christian faith. Today I shared some thoughts on this topic with a group at the Grande Villa Retirement Home.

Holy Spirit & the Imagination

In this message, Jamin works off of 1 Corinthians to explain that whatever you do to hear yourself think is what you need to do to hear God speak. We are all crafted differently and therefore connect with God in different ways. After explaining his own journey into discovering the Holy Spirit, he goes on to give a testimony from his life as to how he has used imagination to engage God's voice.

Elementary Christianity

Myisha takes a look at Hebrews in order to explain what makes up the milk that new Christians are to be fed.

Lady Wisdom

It feels like wishful thinking to imagine Jesus being physically present in the Old Testament. In fact, some would say that to read Jesus into the Old Testament in such a way is to abuse the Bible. But if that's true, then it seems like the New Testament writers themselves abused the Old Testament, because they seem to be attesting to his presence there.

In today's podcast, we dissect a number of verses that give plausibility to Jesus' pre-incarnate and Old Testament existence, whether it be in the physical form of Yahweh (a theophany), the Angel of Yahweh, or Lady Wisdom. The Bible paints a very intriguing and strange picture for us to consider, and it seems the New Testament writers want us to embrace the thought.

The Wisdom of God

Paul's theological cornerstone was to know nothing more than Christ crucified. This was not something he only had to remind himself of, but the Corinthian church as well; for they were trying to blend worldly wisdom into Christianity and suppress the message of the cross. Jamin and Myisha tag team preach their way through the topic of worldly and Godly wisdom.

Across Denominational Lines

The Bible never promotes division in the church. Not only did Jesus pray that we'd all be one, but Paul called the Corinthians out when they began to identify themselves too much with church leaders rather than with Christ. It is clear from the Scriptures that there was a struggle to keep the church unified and now two thousand years later we have hundreds of thousands of denominations—each one sharing in its own differences. The church looks less unified than ever. So how do we honor Jesus' prayer in light of all of this? I propose an option and it is not to turn away from denominations.

The Already But Not Yet

The Gospel of Mark has been forcing me to preach on a lot of eschatology at church lately. Today we took a look what theologians call, "the already but not yet"—an understanding of our currently place in spiritual history based on a tension we find all throughout the Scriptures. A Biblical Theology of the New Testament puts it succinctly.

The already/not yet tension. The outworking of God’s salvation is seen by Hebrews in an already/not yet tension, as in the New Testament in general. The decisive era in the fulfillment of God’s promises has been reached or inaugurated in Christ, so that in some sense the fulfillment is already present. But the consummation has not yet come, and significant events in God’s program are eagerly expected in the future.

This topic is fresh on my mind as it's a section of the new book I'm working on, The Rest & the Rush. The topic becomes crucial for understanding our place as Christians in the world and our work under the Holy Spirit. Check out the podcast for this morning's message.

Resurrection: The Final Afterlife

The American church has more or less communicated this idea that when we die, we go off to Heaven to be with God. While this is true, the Bible communicates this to be more or less an intermediate state on the destination to which we are headed: a new Heaven and a new Earth with new imperishable physical bodies. This is Pauline theology and should be Christianity 101, but many of us aren't even aware of the Bible's message on this. It's "Life after life after death," as N.T. Wright puts it.

In this week's podcast episode I preach out some of the details while reflecting on passages from Paul's letters, Revelation, and N.T. Wright's books, Surprised by Hope and The Resurrection of the Son of God. If you're interested in learning more, I suggest Surprised by Hope for the crucial points in the conversation. The Resurrection of the Son of God is very good, but quite comprehensive.

The Prevailing Church

If we want to be a thriving and prevailing church, we need the Holy Spirit to enter our midst and take us forward. Superintendent Bruce Rhodes of the Southern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist Church speaks in this special sermon.

Sociology & the Cross

When we look at the society of Jesus' time, we're appalled. How on earth could an entire society approve of nailing a man to a cross? How could that kind of atrocity be considered just another day in the life? We think that in 21st century we're more civilized than that and that we would never do anything that resembled crucifixion.

But our thoughts are undone by history, because 1,900 years after the cross, Hitler rose to power and many in Germany (including some of the church) followed him into his darkness, treating his satanic ideologies as though they were gospel. Our thoughts are further undone by the Rwandan genocide some 24 years ago when Hutus were handed weapons by the government and told to go kill their Tutsi neighbors and friends whom they ate and talked with—and they did it!

It ends up that we are far more susceptible to sociology than we thought. It seems that if all of society is willing to submit to the darkness together, many will follow without question. The world around us is constantly trying to force us to kneel before it, and if we're living by the flesh and not by the Spirit, chances are we will do so whether we're aware of it or not—regardless of how dark it gets.

Lead Like Jesus

Myisha hits on 3 characteristics of Jesus' leadership.

The Fourth Cup

There was a tradition at Passover in Jesus' time that speaks volumes as to what Jesus was communicating at the Last Supper. Scholars have done their best to reconstruct these traditions and in the light of them, everything from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross (to the end times?) comes into deeper understanding. We begin to see the things that the Jews of Jesus' time would have recognized in the Gospels and we realize that there's a lot to the story we've been missing due to 2,000 years of cultural separation. 

Drawing from Brant Pitre's book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Jamin looks at the four cups Jesus would have drank at the Passover and why they are important to understanding our place in the story of God today.

The Delayed Return of Jesus

C.S. Lewis once remarked that Jesus saying he'd return within a generation was, "certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible." While Lewis' words are a bit brash, at least he was honest about his feelings. It's clear in reading the New Testament that the early church literally thought Jesus meant one generation. Even 2 Peter has to face the question: "What's taking so long?"

So if the early church had to wonder 90-95 years after Jesus, perhaps we too can wonder what's taking so long some 2,000 years later. I believe that the authors of, When the Son of Man Didn't Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia (which was beautifully written by an interdenominational group of believers), have a solution for the world. Their answer is not to interpret "generation" in some weird apocalyptic or symbolic light, but to simply understand how prophecy works. And it ends up that the Bible is quite clear: God can decide to change prophetic words depending on how his people interact with him.

In borrowing (almost entirely) from this book, my message today proposes that God changed his mind about when Jesus would return—and I don't think that's anywhere near as jarring as it sounds. Checkout the podcast to see how I get there.