We’ve Moved!

That’s right the Pulpit Helps Blog is now the Disciple Magazine blog and is located on our new site. Keep on following us at www.disciplemagazine.com/blog!

Posted by Justin Lonas on December 15th, 2009
Posted in General, Ministry, Personal, Update | No Comments »

Of Donkeys and Such

Reading this morning in Jeremiah (a book, I’ll confess, that has seldom been a focus of study for me–though the Lord has been leading me in a “renaissance” of the OT of late) and came across a passage I’d never noticed before: “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley! Know what you have done! You are a swift young camel, entangling in all her ways, a wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her passion. In the time of her heat, who can turn her away? All who seek her will not become weary; in her month they will find her” (Jer. 2:23-24).

Scripture is filled to overflowing with creative turns of phrase and vivid word pictures. I’m quite familiar with the prophets’ descriptions of Israel as a prostitute or adulteress for their unfaithfulness to God, but this one goes a step further, equating them with a wild donkey in heat. The difference is one of degree more than kind–a prostitute or adulteress does what she does for selfish reasons, standing to gain something (temporally) by her wiles; a wild animal does not reason through her actions, driven into a frenzy by chemistry and exercising no control whatsoever. In other words, the Lord is saying through Jeremiah that Israel worshipped whatever false gods came her way with no rhyme or reason, blindly following any and every path presented to her.

This is final stage of their degeneration before judgment–they didn’t get to this point overnight. In the historical books, there seems to be a progression from casually disengaging from God and distrusting His provision and plan to willful disobedience to God and turning to false gods for political, social, or economic gain (prostitution) to devoutly worshipping false gods our of spite for the Lord (adultery) to the utter degradation described here.

There is a clear lesson here for us, and not just in terms of our personal sin and wandering from the Lord’s presence. When we begin to drift from God, forsaking prayer and the fellowship of the saints, we open our hearts to deception. We are then tempted to accept false teachings (even, or especially, the subtle ones) because they are “hip” or “the new way to do things”. Eventually we come to hold falsehood more closely than truth and are in danger of completely sliding off our foundation stone. Just as the whole nation of Israel slid down this slope, so whole churches and denominations can and do take the spill.

We do well to guard our hearts and take the “dry spells” of spirituality as a call from the Lord to search our hearts and commit ourselves ever deeper to obedience to His will. As Peter cried out in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” He is enough. Whenever we forget that, we demote Him in our hearts from God of the universe to “personal assistant” and begin looking elsewhere for gratification.

“Oh to grace how great a debtor
  Daily I’m constrained to be.
  Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
  Bind my wand’ring heart to thee.

  Prone to wander, Lord I feel it!
  Prone to leave the God I love!
  Here’s my heart, O take and seal it.
  Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Posted by Justin Lonas on November 25th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Another Gospel?

If you’re not familiar with Kevin DeYoung, you need to be. His is an important voice engaging younger generations with the timeless truth of Scripture.

His post on the so-called “New Gospel” so popular among postmoderns is just a sample of the Spirit-filled work he’s doing.

Posted by Justin Lonas on November 24th, 2009
Posted in Gospel, Other writers, Theology | No Comments »

Moving On, after a fashion

With the last print issue of Pulpit Helps out the door, I’ve spent all of this week answering the phone and collecting e-mail addresses, hearing from subscribers who for whatever reason had not heard that we were moving online-only until our “last call” mailout.

The vast majority have been completely understanding, and a few have even been enthusiastically endorsing of our decision. Even some who aren’t able to stay with us (owing to not having a computer) have been more than gracious. Those calls have been a pleasure, and have often included heartfelt thanks for the ways our work has impacted their ministry through the years.

A few callers have been genuinely confused about the situation and rather distraught, leaving me to wonder how, if they read the magazine as zealously as they affirm, they missed repeated notices in the magazine of the coming changes (the most important of which was tagged with a banner on the front cover reading “SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, page 4″). Still, I have sympathy for these folks–we all miss things sometimes that seem, in retrospect, as plain as the noses on our faces. They too, have without fail been gracious and understanding once the situation was fully explained.

A third category, thankfully the smallest group with only a few isolated individuals, has been completely and openly hostile about the situation suggesting several things about themselves: 1) they do not pay attention to details, 2) they refuse to accept any responsibility for overlooking something important, 3) they approach misunderstandings by demanding “rights” rather than listening, learning, and pursuing a mutually beneficial solution, and 4) they haven’t learning anything from reading our magazine.

All this leads me to the broadly applicable question, how do I handle misunderstanding or conflict, especially over ultimately trivial matters like magazine subscriptions, and missed deadlines? The folks I castigated in the last paragraph probably aren’t generally “bad” or “disagreeable”, but because of the one interaction I had with them over this one issue, their witness with me is tarnished, and it would take a lot of positive interaction to rebuild trust. All of us, from time to time, get upset over things, and there’s something about human nature that makes us suceptible to “blow our top” to well-meaning strangers trying to help us navigate a decision over the phone–from the outside it’s a source of intense frustration as they try to figure out who we are and what we want; on the inside, they call it “customer service”.

For me, this experience has reminded me that I am carrying Christ in every situation in which I find myself, and even the smallest of customer service interactions is an opportunity to positively or negatively reinforce someone’s view of the Lord. If we take our calling seriously, even the “faceless phone people” deserve the utmost respect and patience befitting our fellow man, whatever our grievance. We talk often of how we “may be the only Jesus someone will ever meet”, but if we only apply that toward people we like or do not currently have any issues with, I think we’ve missed the point.

Also, speaking as one who has done customer service in many formats over the years, being Christlike motivates people to help you find the best solution to your problem–patience and grace beget patience and grace–being angry and offended will get you whatever poor solution results in the service person having to deal with you for the least amount of time possible.

Posted by Justin Lonas on November 20th, 2009
Posted in Christian Life, Personal | No Comments »

Timeless Truth in Ancient Greece: Biblical Archaeology Brings the Word to Life

From the Dec. Issue of Pulpit Helps 

Secular culture has a hard time with the Bible. Scholars desperately try to disprove and devalue it by claiming that it is neither historical nor literal because there are severe implications for those who don’t believe if this book is truly the Word of God.

Unbelievers often cling to these arguments to avoid encountering the God who convicts of sin and even Christians are tempted to doubt that God indeed said and meant what we have recorded in Scripture. For skeptics and believers alike, biblical archaeology can offer a “Thomas experience”, putting our hands and feet in the words of Scripture and turning faith in their truth into sight.

Nowhere does Scripture more readily spring to life than in the excavated ruins of Greek cities. Corinth and Phillipi are particular sites of interest because of their extensive and relatively well-preserved Roman structures from New Testament times and lack of classical Greek ruins (Greek Corinth was destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C and rebuilt as a Roman city in 44 B.C.; Philippi was re-founded as a Roman colony in 30 B.C.).

On a recent trip to Greece, I was blessed to be able to take a tour of Ancient Corinth with a licensed tour guide (one of only 3 evangelicals in the business) who showed us the city with an open Bible, carefully explaining the significance of each site and structure to the events and theology of the New Testament.

All around, the themes and imagery of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians were illuminated. Near the city center is a limestone fountain thought to produce “blessed” water; Paul’s metaphor of the Israelites “drinking from a spiritual rock” (1 Cor. 10:4) suddenly makes sense. Surveying the marketplace at the foot of the temple of Apollo, it is not hard to imagine the pervasive temptation of meat sacrificed to idols that Paul uses to teach about Christian freedom in 1 Cor. 8 and 10.

Walking on the 2,000 year-old stones in the agora, we came to the foot of the bema, or Roman judgment seat, and read from Acts chapter 18. In that passage, the Jews of the city dragged Paul across the same pavement before the Roman governor Gallio, seated on the bema. Paul was dismissed, and the Jews beat their own synagogue leader for publicly embarrassing them. The mind’s eye reconstructs the remains of the structures to see the city as it was then and plays out the scene of the confrontation. As the layout of virtually all Mediterranean cities was the same, even the scene of Jesus’ trial in the agora of Jerusalem comes into sharp focus.

Even in a city like Athens, where much of the Christian-era ruins have been lost in favor of the “golden-age” structures of the 400s B.C., the Word comes to life. Standing atop Mars Hill and looking up at the temple complexes on the Acropolis, you catch a glimpse of the divine opportunity given to Paul to preach to the “men of Athens…very religious in all respects” (Acts 17:22), and the Spirit-led boldness that gave him a way to lead them from their pagan practices (event the worship of an “unknown god”) to the One True God.

It is experiences like this, seeing the actual places where scriptural events took place, that set Greece apart as an archaeological destination. According to our guide (who asked not to be named to protect his relationship with the Greek authorities), Greek sites like Corinth provide a much closer contact with the New Testament than anywhere in Israel.

“Jerusalem is a city of tradition, not of history or archaeology,” he said, adding that most of the New Testament sites have been built over so many times that few claims of authentic locations can be substantiated. “In Corinth, [instead of tradition] you can touch the very place.” He showed us how biblical figures, particularly Erastus, the treasurer of Corinth (Rom. 16:23; Acts 19:22; 2 Tim. 4:20) are tied to hard evidence here (Several monuments reference Erastus by name), and how the excavation of Corinth had silenced some of the higher critics anti-scriptural arguments in the early 20th century.

However, the very factors that make these sites of such value to Bible scholars (extensive Roman-era structures and few or no classical Greek structures) make them undesirable to archaeologists and preservationists—the Greek government’s position on such sites is essentially, “if you want to see Roman-era ruins, go to Italy.” Surprisingly, our guide said that there is very little interest even from the Christian archaeological community in doing work in Greece. He lamented the focus of efforts and resources on Israel, “where you can’t find anything for certain,” while the Greek sites languish with limited protection and preservation.

He said that while ancient Corinth was a sprawling, metropolitan city of 500,000, only 5% of the site has been excavated (the scope of the original digs from the early 1900s), and nothing new has been done for decades. The government has issued building permits for the area, allowing new construction and preventing further exploration, and even some of the previously excavated areas are left completely unprotected.

“Where are the Christians?” our guide asked, wondering why American churches, organizations, and educational institutions don’t take notice of such a crucial opportunity for defense of God’s Word while the secular establishment “destroys ruins and evidence.” He said that lack of funds prevents restoration and reconstruction of these sites, and fears that without renewed efforts for preservation, their value to the Church could be totally lost within a few generations.

“I can’t believe there is no interest [in preservation],” he said.

For information on the Zodhiates Center for New Testament Studies (which makes extensive use of the archaeological sites around Greece), contact AMG International, 6815 Shallowford Rd., Chattanooga, TN, (800) 251-7206, www.amginternational.org.

Posted by Justin Lonas on November 9th, 2009
Posted in Reading/Study, Travel | No Comments »

“The Passing Pleasures of Sin”

“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (Heb. 11:24-26).

If, like me, you’ve grown up in the Church, you’ve probably been read that verse (and chapter) dozens of times. You may have even heard sermons built on this passage (particularly back in youth group days) exhorting you to “flee youthful lusts” and live a life of high moral character. To that I’d say, “great message; wrong passage.” Sure, there were bounless temptations appealing to all the senses in the royal palace that Moses would’ve done well to shun. However, the context says a lot about the choice Moses made to seek and do the will of God, and nothing about the licentiousness of pagan Egypt.

This reading probably comes from our American tendency to think of righteousness only in terms of “not doing bad things,” rather than in terms of life-long obedience to God’s will that His glory be proclaimed. When we sequester sin to the realm of activities “they” (”we” would never do that, right?) participate in, we wall off God as some sort of moral barometer instead of the Creator of the universe. The problem with this viewpoint is that morality is not about us. God desires that we be holy and blameless so that He can use us how He sees fit–so that we will be true witnesses of His character to a watching world.

This gives new meaning to the “passing pleasures of sin.” Perhaps they are those things–more often than not, things that, in and of themselves, are not only not sinful but useful and good–that distract us from our purpose of glorifying God by obedience to His will. Moses grew up into a sense of God’s purpose for his life as a deliverer (see Acts 7:25), and he knew that a life of luxury in the palace would keep him from that role.

In that light, everything we enjoy temporarily at the expense of participation in God’s purpose is a fleeting pleasure, and our obsession with comfort becomes a greivous sin. When was the last time you thought of your movies, music, television, or hobbies as “pleasures of sin”? How about your fridge or pantry well-stocked with an incredible variety of food, your manicured yard, or your car? Obviously, anything can be used as a tool for accomplishing God’s call to proclaim His name, but we have quite an ability to justify all manner of luxuries as ends in themselves. The theme of the Scriptures is that we are blessed to bless others (Gen. 12:2-3, et. al.), and that’s a teaching I fear we’ve lost sensitivity to. May the Lord convict us (myself chief of all) of thinking that the self-serving accumulation of wealth that distracts from obedience to His call is somehow not a sin.

Posted by Justin Lonas on October 27th, 2009
Posted in Christian Life, Uncategorized, sin | 1 Comment »

Dr. Spiros Zodhiates (1922-2009)

Dr. “Z”, as we’ve always known him, passed away yesterday afternoon, but the legacy of His commitment to God’s Word and to spreading that message to every nation is still going strong. I

f you’ve ever been blessed by the work of this magazine, a New Testament Light broadcast, the KeyWord Study Bible, or a letter from a sponsored child, please take a moment today to thank God for using His servant and keep AMG and the Zodhiates family in your prayers.

To learn more about his life and ministry, please visit: http://www.amginternational.org/www/docs/10338.2387/zodhiates-biography-greek.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiros_Zodhiates

Posted by Justin Lonas on October 11th, 2009
Posted in Special | No Comments »

The Sound of Heaven

From Scripture, it is clear that God cares about the nations of the world.

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed‘” (Gen. 12:1-3).

“God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us–Selah. That Thy way may be known on the earth, Thy salvation among the nations. Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for Thou wilt judge the peoples with uprightness, and guide the nations on the earth–Selah. Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise Thee. The earth has yielded its produce; God, our God, blesses us. God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him” (Ps. 67).

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20a).

“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy art Thou to take the book and to break its seals; for thou was slain and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth’” (Rev. 5:9-10).

God desires the praise of the nations in all the glorious multiplicity of languages and cultures that He designed us for. There is a very real sense in which each language is uniquely equipped to express God’s character, and He is magnified and glorified by the worship of the whole of humanity. The Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course (in which I’m currently enrolled) highlights this theme and rightly takes the Bible’s emphasis on God’s glory among the nations as the primary motivator for obedient missionary activity.

Perhaps no other time in my life has this truth been brought home more than my recent trip to Greece with AMG. As this was somewhat of a “vision trip” for our church, we participated in a wide variety of ministries in order to gauge where best to plug in for longer-term partnership. As such, we experienced different slices of the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual metropolis of Athens each day–working with Greek-speakers primarily, but also with Farsi-speaking refugees from Iran and Afghanistan and Romanian and Moldavian immigrants.

The unique sounds and pitches of each language were, and still are, unintelligible to me (true to form, I am a functionally monolingual American save several semesters of Spanish in college), but the joy of each when tuned to the praise of God was easily recognizable. Worship in the Greek churches was a wonderful time of fellowship as we clumsily worked our way through Greek melodies and sang the English words to hymns we knew, together praising the same God with our “joyful noise”.

In a Romanian church in the crowded municipality of Kallithea (part of metro Athens), I was ministered to by music in a way I’ll not soon forget. I had written off this service as a “byway” of our trip schedule, and I was admittedly skeptical after hearing that their Sunday evening service lasted at least 2 hours and was “very formal”. After spending 20 minutes driving around the block looking for a place to park, I stumbled in to the service late, and prayerful worship was the last thing on my mind.

As I sat down, the choir (which appeared to contain roughly 1/3 of the church members, each dressed to the nines) began to sing a setting of the Lord’s prayer in their native tongue. As the perfectly pitched hymn filled the room, I began weeping, both for the beauty of their worship and for my sinfully selfish attitude and prejudice toward them. The service (which lasted every bit of 2 hours) seemed to fly by with song after song lifted heavenward. I remarked to a teammate that this must be what heaven will sound like.

That Romanian choir will be part of the soundtrack of heaven, but even more beautifully brought into harmony with the worship of the nations. In that day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, we will cry together in every language, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12). Participating in God’s work around the world is our act of obedience to His plan, and when we follow Him, He sometimes allows us the opportunity to see just a small picture of the magnitude of His glory among the nations.

Posted by Justin Lonas on October 8th, 2009
Posted in Witness, Worship | No Comments »

Greece

Our apologies for the lack of posts over the course of September. The simplest excuse is that I was out of town almost the entire month.

The most recent excursion was a 9-day stint in Athens, Greece, with a group from my church. Over the next week or so, I’ll try to flesh out some of the lessons from that experience and get myself back into the habit of blogging.

Posted by Justin Lonas on October 2nd, 2009
Posted in Missions, Personal | No Comments »

The Curious Thing about Life

Ran across this article from Baptist Press today: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31060, an interesting article remembering a pro-life member of one of America’s most recognizably non-pro-life families.

It serves as a good reminder that personalities often get lost in politics, and that human life is not just a cut and dried issue to be kicked around in policy discussions but an intensely powerful reminder of who we are under the grace of our Creator.

Posted by Justin Lonas on August 21st, 2009
Posted in Culture | No Comments »

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