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RevolutionInTheSpirit
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Name: Esteban
Gender: Male
Interests: I love doing ministry. My amazing wife Sherry, my two boys and my little girl. Let's see... anything with the outdoors, the guitar... I like Twinings Earl Grey tea. Fall mornings - or evenings. My very cool back yard.
Expertise: I like to talk.
Occupation: Youth Pastor
Industry: Ummm... Can ministry in the ch
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
6/24/2006
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| A Great Quote from George Muller:
"It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost, for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit." | | |
| Let me start by saying I'm NOT for tattoos. However, there are bigger issues here.
People who oppose tattoos frequently quote Lev. 19:28: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.” If we have to obey Leviticus 19:28, which prohibits tattoos, then we have to obey Leviticus 19:27, which prohibits haircuts. Furthermore, we are obligated to abstain from pork (Deut. 14:8), to abstain from all work between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday (Lev. 23:3), and if anyone does work on the Sabbath, we are required by law to stone him to death (Lev. 15:32-36). We are required to be circumcised (Ge. 17:10-14; Lev. 12:3), and any male who is not is to be cut off from God's people.
I could go on and on. If a Christian wants to use Mosaic Law to make a case against tattoos, then he is obligated to obey the entire law, along with everyone who agrees with him.
Christians constantly stumble over this. What is the place of Mosaic Law in the life of a believer? What about the 10 Commandments? Is the Old Testament still valid? Why do we eat pork and work on Saturdays but oppose murder, homosexuality, adultery, and coveting? Isn't that being selectively obedient?
Read Galatians! (And throw Romans 1-11 in for good measure!)
The Law points to God because it defines sin and reveals the character of God, but it also points us to Christ because it points out our complete inability to conform to the character of God and thus the need for a savior.
Josh McDowell put it best: Every law (precept) is based on an overarching principle, and every principle is based on the person (character) of God Himself. God wants us to conform to His character, and so the logic of the Law.
But as the Bible points out repeatedly, no one is capable of obeying the Law. So what to do?
Christ obeyed the Law perfectly. Christ fulfilled the Law (Mt. 5:17). Christ is the end of the Law (Romans 10:4) and through the New Covenant, made the Old Covenant OBSOLETE (Heb. 8:13).
When a person becomes born again, they are placed in Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). All that is Christ's becomes reckoned to the believer: His death, His burial, His resurrection, His righteousness, His sonship, AND his standing in regards to the Law! If I am in Christ, I am regarded as having obeyed the Law - I am JUSTIFIED! Declared RIGHTEOUS!
So why do we obey some laws and ignore others? It's really simpler than it sounds.
Principles never change. They are eternal and based on the character of God. How they are expressed CAN change – significantly. Precepts (laws) are expressions of principles. The principle behind "no tattoos" was separation from the Pagans, since the pagan nations around Israel ritually tattooed themselves. Same principle behind not cutting the hair at the sides of the head (which is why Orthodox Jews have LONG sideburns!). That principle still stands today. God's people are not to imitate the world (!!). If the Pagans were all cutting their sideburns as an expression of their devotion to Baal (or Krom or color TV or whatever) then God's people should not do it. We are to be separate in this sense.
We are still obligated to every principle expressed in the Bible, but not to Mosaic Law. We don't murder because people are created in God's image. That still stands. Homosexuality is wrong because it violates God’s essential design for human sexuality (Ge. 1:27) AND it mars God's picture through marriage of His relationship to the Church. We are still obligated to rest, and to set aside time sacred to God, but it does not have to be restricted to a single day or a specific form of activity. Hebrews tells us that our Salvation is a fulfillment of Sabbath rest! (So when I'm asked which day I celebrate the Sabbath, I respond 'Every day! I'm saved!')
Am I for tattoos? Absolutely not!
They arguably do mar and dishonor the body, though that is up for debate.
They are often a sign of impulsiveness and immaturity.
They are expensive, permanent, and a poor stewardship all the way around (think of how far that money would go in Africa or India).
It would be hard to convince me that a Christian would get one and not be in imitation of the pagans.
I also think they are most often an expression of REBELLION.
If my kid ever gets one I'll kill him!
But you cannot convince me that they are sinful in and of themselves (any more than trimming your sideburns is!) and you CANNOT appeal to Mosaic Law to make your case! (Unless you appeal to it on the basis of the principle it expresses: Separation)
If we're going to argue this stuff, let's argue on sound biblical thought rather than yanking verses out of the air (proof-texting). I could justify almost anything by doing that! There are plenty of good reasons not to get a tattoo without becoming legalists.
Remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free! (Galatians 5:1) | | |
| A parable is a story that teaches a deeper truth by way of analogy. In this particular analogy, the yard is the city, the weed is violence, the grass is people and families, and the soil is the spiritual matrix those families and people grow in. Or don’t.
Now as with all parables, one cannot press the analogy too hard. The point is to illustrate the point.
So what’s my point? The spiritual soil many people in Chicago grow in is toxic. It’s poor at best and dead and barren at worst. This “soil” includes the way people relate to other people, the cumulative effect of both the sins committed against them and the consequences of the sins they commit, their emotional and social health, and especially the way they relate to God.
Violence comes from all kinds of people – rich and poor, white and minority, educated and uneducated. But it seems especially prevalent among the poor and minorities in blighted neighborhoods in the city. The soil these people grow in has been made toxic by everything from systemic disenfranchisement to generations of bad choices to corporate greed to exploitation by the record industry to open rebellion against God. It’s complex. Neither the liberals nor the conservatives have a corner on explaining the actual nature of the problem, which is often what happens when an issue becomes politicized and polarized.
But the problem at hand is that kids are dying, and all the awareness campaigns, candlelight vigils, prayer marches, gun legislation, prison sentences and educational initiatives have failed so far to make a lasting dent. Interestingly, this was not happening 40 or 50 years ago, even among the poor and disenfranchised. One would think people would ask themselves what has changed between then and now. Of course, people were killing each other back in the day. In fact, that has been happening since Cain killed Abel. But one did not see the devastated families and kids killing kids. I believe the increasing rejection of God is at the heart of this issue. Rejection by every level of society in Western culture. Humans have always been guilty of gross sin, and it always brings death, but the Western phenomenon of seeing God as quaint, even among professing Christians, surely causes us to forfeit His peace and order.
Nothing short of a spiritual revolution can change this problem. Even if the shooting stopped, the toxicity would simply manifest itself in another way. The bad soil has to be stripped away, rich, living soil has to be put down, and the grass needs to be able to grow healthy and strong. Families and people have to be healed. We must deal with the problem at its root. There is no solution that does not include the spiritual healing of families and people, and I just don’t see this happening unless the church rises up. | | |
|  I have a fairly large back yard, at least for Chicago. We bought our home here on the western edge of Humboldt Park almost five years ago, and when we moved in the yard was about in the worst shape you can imagine. It was barren, with broken glass and bricks and concrete and weeds and sterile soil. Where a pool had once been, there was a large area of sand that was completely devoid of anything living.
Not long after we moved in, I set out to create the Garden of Eden in my back yard, starting with the grass. So my plan was to remove the concrete and paving stones, pull the weeds and bring in some good soil. I bought six yards of dirt from Farmer’s Market up on Elston Avenue – about a dump truck full – and on my vacation that year I roto-tilled the entire back yard, then painstakingly transported the dirt from the pile in the empty lot next to my house to the middle of my yard using a plastic wheelbarrow. When I spread the soil over my back yard, I came to realize that I had only purchased enough to cover the existing dirt by about 2 or 3 inches. Undeterred by such a small detail, I proceeded to plant nearly a hundred dollars of premium grass seed and waited for my yard to transform into a golf course.
So it did. The grass came up beautiful and green, and it looked like I was going to have the yard I had always envisioned – a paradise for my kids to play in and a relaxing landscape for my wife and I to develop our green thumb in.
But then the problems began. Significant areas of grass just couldn’t handle the summer. I had to baby them with extra water, and still they looked like they were from Arizona. The grass just wouldn’t stay thick, and wherever the grass was weak and thin, weeds would pop up. Finally I gave in and bought a bag of Weed-N-Feed from Menard’s and spread the toxic junk all over my yard. Within a week – voila! – Beautiful thick lush grass was taking over again.
Problem solved.
Well, maybe not. Winter came and went, and the spring found my grass struggling again – in the same spots. Right over where the pool had once been, where the sand was just a couple inches beneath the topsoil. I painstakingly reseeded the bad areas and added some more topsoil from a bag, and when summer came I used the Weed-N-Feed again, but I soon realized that my efforts were in vain. Every year, my grass struggles.
I figured out what my problem was… I have bad soil. In the places where the soil is good, which is maybe 2/3 of the yard, I never have a problem. The grass has been thick and healthy since 2004 and weeds only show up on rare occasions and are quickly dispatched. This leaves me with a couple options: I can keep playing the Weed-N-Feed game every year, and every April and September painstakingly reseed the same struggling areas and do battle with weeds all summer, or I can go through the monumental job of removing the top layer of soil, getting rid of all that dead sand, bring in about $1000 worth of good soil, and actually deal with the root cause of my problem.
So what is the meaning of the parable?
Chicago is plagued with violence, particularly among young people. Every summer, as if on schedule, the gangbangers start shooting each other and numerous innocent bystanders, and the newspaper editorials, the neighborhood activists and the politicians parade their obligatory outrage over the problem and suggest the same tired approaches to try to deal with it.
What seems to be remarkably missing each year from the dialogue is the elephant in the room: The fact that these communities and the people who populate them are, for the most part, profoundly broken.
Broken people break things.
Poverty, fatherlessness, substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships and hopelessness are the order of the day. Yet when the politicians and activists speak, all I hear is more talk about more legislation and more funding, blah blah blah. Chicago is under four layers of firearms legislation, for example. Federal, State, county and city. In order for a criminal to use a gun in an act of violence in Chicago, he has to penetrate all four layers of government and violate around a dozen laws, many of which carry felony-level penalties. Despite the fact that this historically has resulted in nothing regarding reducing violence, the politicians suggest that if we just do more of what isn’t working, it will work.
I believe many of them mean well, but it’s hard not to think that some of it isn’t just posturing in order to appear that they are doing something about the problem. This is, in fact, the Weed-N-Feed approach: Ignore the genesis of the problem and keep attacking the symptoms.
And what is the genesis of the problem? Whew, that’s a thick one. It's the "bad soil" part of the parable.
That will be the next post… | | |
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