Day-to-Day Normalness of Life

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

Everything changed. In little more than a month on that barren, floating shoal, their perspective on their lives was so radically altered. What they valued most in their lives up to that point--the tiniest pleasures that were their largest preoccupations, thought lives filled with what they considered “normal” things--all so quickly and unalterably became of so little consequence. In a relative moment in time, the “stuff” of their lives became the basic, unadorned preoccupations of survival. So little mattered of their old lives; so much rested on a new point of view.

If you haven’t read Alfred Lansing’s gripping story of Sir Ernest Shackelton’s ill-fated 1914 expedition to Antartica, I highly recommend it. It is a survival story of 29 men set adrift for five months on ice packs after their ship was crushed by ice, only to then suffer through a 1,000 mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe. It is a magnificent picture of persons pulled away from everyday normal life and forced to live and think in radically different ways.

Short of subjecting ourselves artificially to some form of fringe experience, I wonder what it takes for us to break through the day-to-day “normalness” of our lives? How do we who seek to bring freshness and new perspective to those to whom we minister keep our own lives fresh? How do the things that really matter from God’s perspective become our common, consuming passions?

I certainly don’t claim to know the answer to these questions, but if Shackelton’s story is of any help, it is that none of these men would have changed on their own. To a man, all of them were relatively comfortable with the make-up of their own lives. It was only as they were forced to change that they did change.

Certainly this is what is behind the joy we are all called to consider in the first chapter of the book of James. God makes trials and temptations part of the warp-and-wolf of our lives because He knows that we don’t have it in us to change on our own. Our faith grows, not from within, but from without as God works in and through the circumstances of our lives.

Work and Pray

By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling Charlotte campus

“. . . work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (NASB Php 2:12b–13)

Does having a business plan, using marketing strategies, or taking lessons on how to raise funds for a mission on ministry mean that we are not living in faith and trusting God? Several times in the last month, I have heard Christians indirectly talking about this question. I know people who land on both the positive and the negative side of the answer to this question. A new missionary wants to practice his “spiel” on me to see how it flows and if it will be effective in getting financial commitments. We have a discussion among faculty, and one faculty member asserts that marketing strategies demonstrate a lack of faith that we are engaged in God’s ministry and that he will provide. What are we to believe about this?

When I was a brand-new Christian, before I had read this passage in Philippians, my spiritual mentor encouraged me to “work as if everything depended on me and pray as if everything depended on God.” When I read Philippians, I had an aha! moment. I can work as if everything depended on me because God is working in me, both giving me the desire to fulfill his will and enabling me to do the work to accomplish his good pleasure.

So many times, Christians argue about whether the ultimate is one thing or another (for example, God’s sovereignty versus human responsibility, or here, works versus faith). When I read scripture, it becomes clear to me why it’s so difficult for us to reduce it to one ultimate thing. It is because the Bible teaches both. God is sovereign and we are responsible. Our salvation is by faith and we must do works as evidence of and response to that faith and salvation provided by God. We must resist the temptation to seek a single ultimate, bottom line assertion.

This verse is a great comfort to me because it assures me that I can step out in faith and use all of the gifts, resources, skills, and education that God has given me to plan, strategize, and execute these plans and strategies, knowing that it is a God at work in me, giving me these gifts, resources, skills, and education so that I may follow the desires he has implanted in me to accomplish his good pleasure. Of course, one of the gifts we must always exercise is discernment. I believe God guides us into what he would have us do, but also when and how and with whom. But as I plan and move forward, I pray and I trust God that I am moving forward in his plan.

When Dr. Sid Bradley, former dean at Charlotte and founder of the counseling program of which I’m the director, talked about utilizing psychology as a Christian counselor, he talked about the Exodus, and how the Israelites when they left Egypt, at God’s command, “plundered the Egyptians.” When we learn strategies and approaches from the world (compatible with biblical principles of living), we are plundering the Egyptians. We are taking the gold, silver, and precious jewels of the world and utilizing them for Kingdom work. So may I also encourage you to “work is if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God.”

Happy Reformation Day; May We Always Be Sempre Reformanda!

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

This week many Protestant churches celebrated Reformation Day, in commemoration of Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Door on October 31, 1517, in response to the preaching and selling of indulgences. It is still worth reading those theses, both for their historical significance and for greater awareness of what Luther’s position was on the related issues at the time. Perhaps the key to the whole is found in the 18^th thesis, where Luther indicates his understanding that doctrines must be proved “either by reason or Scripture.” The actual positions affirmed in the theses reflect what is called the “early Luther,” before he developed his more distinctive understanding of justification by faith. The fact that Luther’s views on some key subjects evolved in time reflects the fact that the Reformation was not about the rejection of one completely agreed upon set of finalized theological positions for a new set of finalized theological positions, but about continual reformation (for the church to be sempre reformanda) in light of our best understanding of Scripture (see again that part of his 18^th thesis as the presupposition behind them all).

Of course, our temptation is always to think that our current understanding is the ultimate and that we are beyond a point where our understanding might still need further development through continued study of Scripture, perhaps from perspectives we have yet to consider, or that have yet to be formulated (perhaps due to our own cultural or interpretive blinders). That does not mean we’re prepared to turn our theology on its head at the first proposal to interpret Scripture in a way that conflicts with what we have thought to be true. It does mean that our confidence is not in our own doctrinal formulations, but in the Scriptures, and the more clearly our theological convictions are supported by the Scriptures the more likely any future changes to our convictions will reflect merely nuancing of views that passed the test of time and experience.

The question is not if Luther had it all right when he posted his theses, or later when he lectured on Galatians or something else, or if Calvin got it all right with the first edition or with later editions of his Institutes, or if Wesley got it all right at one point or another of his ministry. The question is, where might I still learn from others today, even from (or with) those with whom I might have serious disagreements, and especially from (or with) those whose experience and whose blinders are different from my own?

Reformation Day reminds us of our need to continue to be humble before God’s Word, recognizing our own perpetually limited grasp on the truth we have discovered so far and our need to go on being taught by Scripture, rebuked by Scripture, corrected by Scripture and trained in righteousness by Scripture so that we might “be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17; NIV). May the Reformation continue, to the glory of God and the blessing of his people!

Approaching the Center (and Temptations) of Imperial Power

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

I spent last week in Istanbul. It was my first time ever in Turkey and I loved the experience. Most of the week was spent with some of my favorite kinds of people – Bible translators – as an invited participant in a global consultation called by SIL International to discuss some challenging issues being faced by Wycliffe Bible Translators and others working in the field.

On Saturday¸ my last day in the country, I was able to do some basic exploring of the city. I visited the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and got to see the Soreg Inscription, the Siloam Inscription and the Gezer calendar, among other things. I also visited the Hagia Sophia museum, which was Constantinople’s cathedral from A.D. 360 until it was turned into a mosque in A.D. 1453. It has been a museum since 1935. It is a fascinating place, the key to so much important history in that time period. Among other sights in the main hall one may see the Omphalion, the spot where the coronation of every Byzantine emperor took place over many centuries (the large round slab in the middle of the smaller marble slabs) and where they would sit during religious ceremonies.

I couldn’t help but think about the continuing relationship between religion and politics through time – of both the good and the bad things that flowed from establishing Christian (and then Islamic) empires – and of our current political situation here in the U.S. where one can find a fusing together of some forms of evangelical piety with Republican political agendas with little or no attention being given to the exploitation that takes place when political agendas and religious identification are merged. All the talk about “culture wars” suggests a very dangerous metaphor is at work that is designed to lead to militant political fighting and to perceiving some Americans as enemies to be opposed and beaten. As the political campaigning in this country begins to get more and more heated I’m sure we can expect to see more and more candidates seeking votes on the basis (in part, at least) of the religious convictions they hold, and with the explicit or implicit promise that those convictions would lead them to support policies that would be pleasing to those who hold similar religious convictions.

I confess this keeps me thinking about issues of cultural and religious imperialism and their presence even in places that lack kings, emperors and thrones…. May God give us all wisdom to discern the kind of leadership our nation needs and to live out our faith with a humility that honors Christ, the perfect King, the one who taught us to put the needs of others (especially the weak, powerless and marginalized – those who are unable to help themselves) above our own interests. In 1 Peter 5:3-4 we are told that Christian leaders should follow Christ’s example and “not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away” (NRSV).

If only our politicians (and the Christian leaders they woo) would demonstrate a commitment to using their influence not to build the coffers and power of one political party at the expense of the other, or to lead one sector of our society to lord it over any other, but to lead us all to adopt stances of humility marked by wisdom, compassion and selflessness. I think that kind of power would show just how wrong-headed both explicit and implicit forms of imperialism are when it comes to seeking the common good.

The Residue of Another Day

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

When I came through the front door of the house the other day, Cec, my wife, hardly had to look up. She knew precisely what I had been doing that afternoon. I wore the residue of my day’s avocation like a woolly cloak. Although she hadn’t followed me step by step through the day, she knew with certainty my life had something to do with rich black dirt, back yard greenery, mulch and twigs , and…sweat. I had spent the entire day accumulating such, little by little. What to do with the excesses of the day? Off to the shower I went.

We talk a great deal these days about building lives of character, both in our churches but also in terms of a larger value-laden conversation we have with our culture. More times than not we speak of the enterprise in simple subjective terms as if character were a commodity that is manufactured solely from within ourselves. Like hardboiled New England farmers we think of character building as picking ourselves up by our bootstraps and “just doing it!”

Without diminishing our own initiative in living lives of integrity, I am increasingly thinking of character as an external phenomenon, as those things in life that cling to us. I used to meet regularly with a group of men on Wednesday mornings, and we used to talk often about the nature of temptation and the fact that none of us seem to get through a day without feeling the often-times grimy effects of the culture around us. How do we keep ourselves clean when our entire environment is so contaminated?

Indeed, in many respects, we are the sum total of the residue that clings to us. None of us—not even those of us who live between parsonage and pulpit—live outside the realm of our influences. And isn’t it the case that the influences that are least apparent to us are the most destructive spiritually? And we wonder why the Apostle Paul is so intent on disciplining us to put on the whole armor of God to combat the influences that so easily cling to us.

But, to speak of Christian character only in terms of the boot black that rubs off on us from our world is to look at one side of the story. What of the godly residue that we brush up against in the context of the influences God places in our lives each day? Can you name the five most influential individuals in your life, past and present? Who has God put in your life that has shaped you, one person, perhaps, who has altered your thinking and behavior in dramatic ways? Who has left a residue on your life? And, what character residue are others receiving from you as a result of your influence on their lives?