On Turning 30

At this point in my life there are many things I thought I would have been true of me by now. Some are thankfully/positively not true. For example, I still have a thick head of hair, which I expected to have been reduced to a polished cue given that both my grandfathers were bald before 30.

Others are lamentably/painfully not true. I would have thought that by now I would have been happily married. Only the Lord knows how long and how deeply I have desired to know and love the woman God has prepared me for and prepared for me. To know and love her not as a category, but as a uniquely beautiful whole person. To know and love her with all the lifelong, immersive vulnerability, physicality, and grace that God intends for those called to the true mutuality of marriage. To share a love that, as it participates in God’s own love and life-giving grace, overflows into the joy of creating new life as an expression of that love. But a love like this I have yet to find, a prayer I have yet to see answered.

As I enter my third decade, I would have thought that I would have a child or even children of my own. As the Lord knows, I have wanted to be a father since long before I even had the slightest idea of how children are made. I look forward to the day when I can kiss my children’s foreheads goodnight as I tuck them in and say “I love you” even if they seem to be sleeping as my father did for me every night after he got home from work (as an aside I am keenly aware of how greatly I have been blessed to have the father and mother I have, without whom I might have had much a more difficult time understanding and experiencing the rich love of God—Thanks Mama and Dad for all you’ve sacrificed to make my brief 30 years so richly blessed).

My fatherly disposition I have always had. In fact, I miss having children more visibly present at the service I attend at my church. I miss being able to express the simple love of listening to their excited stories and their truly insightful questions. I hope I have always had the same disposition towards them as Christ has: warm and keenly aware of their sacred worth—refusing to let them be viewed as an inconvenient distraction to “grown up things.” My Catholic friends might suggest this is rather reflective of my pastoral vocation, the mark of a man destined to love the lambs of God. But while I would never completely reject the fatherly dimension of pastoral and even theological work, Jesus’ words still ring in my heart “Call no one your father on earth, for there is [only] One, your Heavenly Father. And don’t be called teachers either, because your teacher is One, the Christ.” And now living the land of the Oxford don, the danger of the latter is just as glaring as the former.

I also thought that by age 30 I would be entering the last year of my doctoral studies, rather than the second-to-last, Lord willing. I mean, I suppose I’m actually not too far behind on that account, but even still I had hoped to be closer to finishing. However, I’m actually loving my DPhil experience, it almost feels like vacation sometimes, or a vacation with deadlines I guess. I am even thinking the unthinkable regularly now: the postdoctoral research fellowship.

I would have hoped that by now I would have been more instrumental in bringing the faith to the nations, in seeing many turn to find faith, hope, and love in Christ. As one who wants all the billions to know the joy, love, and vitality of knowing Christ as Lord and Saviour, it does grieve me know that most of those billions still have not tasted, seen, or perhaps even heard that the Lord Jesus is truly Good. Some might cynically suggest this is about some vapid ambition towards a glamourous ministry, preaching to the masses—some weird twisted longing to be the centre of attention, but the centre of my attention is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not that I long to be recognized but that I long for Christ to be recognized as the God and Saviour He is in and through me. After all, as John the Baptist said, “He must become greater, and I lesser.” The supreme joy of instrumentality is not that I am known, but that He is known. Thus, for as long as my instrumentality can be said to have been ineffective in this regard, the greater my longing for a participatory instrumentality by the Spirit in making Christ known in my life, actions, and love in such a way that He is desired to be known relationally and not solely as some intellectual, cultural curiosity from some dusty era evacuated of all contemporary significance. Anyways, the point is I would have hoped to have seen many more fellow lost sheep be found by the Shepherd of our souls and had some minimal participating role in that historical process.

I would have thought that at least in concrete earthly terms I would be able to say my pastoral work was more clearly fruitful. That when I left churches they were in better conditions than when I entered them. Alas, that is not the case. While certainly there were and still are amazing faithful people in all the churches I served, and while I did see some fruit from my labours, I have to admit that every church I served suffered upheavals or struggled against structural issues that limited their growth. Most people would measure success by how many people joined their church, but while I saw people join, I am still left measuring my “success” by how well I prepared them to face the challenges that were to come, not by which challenges I have seen them overcome. I am looking at how many God used me to send out, not how many God used me to keep. The truth is it would be easy to categorize my ministry from the outside as a failure.

So there it is: failure—simple, clear, and diverse in its claim. I’ve failed at finding love, having a family, progressing quickly in academia, sharing the good news, and pastoring churches, not to mention all the other things I don’t have space to mention that I would have thought would be true of me at age 30.

Yet…

While one might say the only thing I have succeed at is failure, there is one thing I can say has been far more successful in my life than I could have ever dreamed: My Triune God’s grace, mercy, and love.

Despite all my failures, sins, and even outright rebellions, one thing has thankfully remained true: I know the true and living God and He knows me, because He never fails to make Himself ever more present, ever more real, ever more gracious, ever more faithful to me. At age 30, few people are given the grace to say in honesty: to die might be gain, but to live is Christ! I know Christ—crucified for my sins, and resurrected for my life!

I live acutely aware that not even the next breath is guaranteed, but at the same time I live gratefully into the guaranteed eternal breadth of life I have in Christ.

I am not perfect. Far, far, far, far, far, far from it. But I am perfectly loved. When I was a child I don’t remembering looking up to any of the Biblical figures as role models, just Jesus. He alone was King and Saviour, and I was too young see myself as anything but one of the precious children Jesus Christ would not let be kept from his loving embrace and the grace of His truth—and little has changed in many regards. Even still, as I grew and failed and became the man I am today, I came to identify more and more with two particular biblical figures.

As to my keenly theological, pastoral, and intercultural mind, I can’t help but to see some minor reflection of myself in Paul. Truly much of my days are consumed with theological reflections and pastoral affection for the global body of Christ. I think deeply and sarcasm is my native tongue—and if you don’t see how these are connected, please go read something of Paul’s. I am never satisfied with anything other than the growth of the global body of Christ.

But while I may think about the things Paul wrote, my personality and life pattern more accurately remind me of Peter. In fact, at this point, I am not sure there is any more characteristic interaction between me and Jesus than there was between Jesus and Peter at the Last Supper:

Jesus:   I’m going to wash your feet now Anthony.

Me:      NO WAY JESUS! I should be washing your feet.

Jesus:   If you don’t let Me wash your feet, you’ll have no part of Me.

Me:      Well, in that case, Jesus, give me a bath! Wash me from head to toe! Scrub me till my skin bleeds!

Jesus:  Take it down a notch, Anthony, you’ve already had a bath. Just the feet is enough.

*Some time later…Jesus is warning me to take heed lest I fall*

Me:      Jesus, I’d never DO THAT!

Jesus:   …

Me:      No, really, I would never do that. It’s an abomination to me!

Jesus:   Yeah, to Me too, but when you have I’ll wash your feet and you’ll be fully clean.

*insert some act of repulsive human foolishness*

Me:      Jesus, I can’t believe I did that. I don’t deserve any of your blessings. I’ve wrecked all you wanted to do with me. I’ve invalidated all your callings, promises, and grace to me.

Jesus:   Have you now? You’ve done all that?

Me:      Lord, you know, Paul and Peter have nothing on the putrid godlessness I just pulled! I am keenly aware of the consequences of evil. I’ve sinned and You discipline those You love.

Jesus:   Yeah, sure, but Anthony, do you love Me?

Me:      Of course, Lord, You know I love You. How could I not?

Jesus:   Then feed My lambs.

…

Anthony, do you love Me?

Me:      Lord, of course I love You. You know that.

Jesus:   Then shepherd my sheep.

            …

            Anthony, do you love Me?

Me:      Lord, You know that I love you with all my heart!

Jesus:   Then feed my lambs.

Me:      O Lord, that I might love You as You have loved me!

Jesus:   Don’t worry, Anthony. You will. You will.

A Pauline mind with a Petrine heart pretty much sums up the whole of my life with the Triune God, really it sums up the last 30 years of my life quite well. I screw up more and worse than most, but I am given more and better grace than most.

I write these things knowing full well there is a certain heaviness about them, and that those who do not know me well will think I am languishing is some dismal hole of depression or disappointment. But if so, you have missed the hope of grace which is the true theme of this whole reflection. I feel deeply—oh yes—but faith, hope, and love are more fundamental to the laws of the universe than gravity. 30 years has given me access to such a perspective.

Consequently, I write these things, because it is appropriate at certain points in life to take count and consider what has been one’s life. I write these in the hope that they encourage others and that they provide a model for my brothers and sisters who themselves will come to a time of self-assessment, to a moment of recognition, to a season of waiting on grace. The timing and trajectory of God’s grace always operates according to a superior logic of perfect love than the frail logic of human rationality. Essentially, many things may turn out in ways we would not have predicted or chosen for ourselves, but all things turn out better than those predictions or expectations for those who love God and are called according to His gracious plan.

In 30 years-time, I may reflect again and think about all I failed to see become true of me in life, knowing mine is largely over. However, this one thing will remain true then as it has till now: the grace of God.

Therefore, this one thing I do, as I run the race of faith by the Spirit so as to win the prize for which I have been called heavenward in Christ Jesus: I press ever more fully—running with feet regularly washed by Christ—into the grace of my One and Only Heavenly Father. May I love Him as I have been loved by Him. May that love—mine and God’s—overflow to my family, to the body of Christ, and to the nations for whom Christ died.

Post Scriptum:

I want to especially also express my sincere thanks and love to my brother Christopher, who has had to forgive more than his fair share as a younger brother, and who I am very proud of and miss gaming everyday with more than he’ll ever know. And to my sister, Olivia, who will always be adorable and 7 years old in my mind, to her great chagrin, and who I hope will take my constant nudgings to move to Spain as an expression of my desire to have her closer to me. You both have made 28 and 23 years of the 30 much more fun and the next 30 years all the more desirable! I love you.

Mama and Dad, I am very grateful to you for all that you do and have done. Thank you especially for always pushing me academically and for supporting my call to ministry, despite how financially destitute it may leave me. Thank you for putting up with all my pickiness as child, and for all the freedom and responsibility you gave me in equal portions. Thank you for feeding, clothing, and housing me. Thank for all the love and affection as well. I love you.

And to all my friends, who in the scope of 30 years are far too many to name—though I am tempted to try—but without whom I would not be the man that I am today. Not only have you made life fun, but you have challenged, encouraged, rebuked, shamed, supported, prayed for, and humbled me. Thank you. I love you. And I look forward to being connected with you 30 years from now.

However, I simply must succumb to the temptation to name my friends who have been actively involved in my life for 20+ years: Paul and David Vinci with the rest of your family, and Jon Dennis with the rest of your family—we may not be technically related, but you and your families are my family too I love you all and look forward to looking back 30 years from now and reflecting on friends that endured half a century.

And lastly, though first in my heart, all thanks, praise, glory, honour, power, worship, allegiance, and love to my God and Father, and to my Saviour and King Jesus Christ, and to my Leader and Empowerer the Holy Spirit! Without You, my Triune God, I would be hopeless, lifeless, useless, and loveless! Knowing you IS eternal life, full stop. Thank you for 30 years! May I be granted at least 30 more for your glory and for tasting more of your goodness! Amen.

On Leadership: Overview and Leadership as Skill

Greetings! 

It's been about 4-5 months since I left my church in Chicago and followed the Spirit to the University of Oxford to write my DPhil dissertation, currently titled "Stories the Church Lives By". And as much as I love both the calling and the process of fulfilling that calling, my pastoral soul is itching to preach as much as it is itching to lead. Not everyone is called to leadership, but as someone who is called to it, my bones yearn to lead someone, anyone, somewhere. 

Unfortunately, at least until I complete the necessary work to move to stage two of DPhil and open the doors for teaching in the fail, my bones will have to yearn on. But there must be some small balm for this itch, some tonic for my yearning bones. 

What is that tonic? the balm? The next series of posts. Over the next several posts, I will be exploring what leadership is, as well as more practically how to do it. Leadership, as much as it is a gift, it can also be a cultivated skill. As anyone who's ever tried it knows, it's not about mere knowledge, it's about wisdom. 

Series Overview

As true wisdom starts with some knowledge, and with some awareness of dangers (that is knowing that a cliff is high and present is not the same thing as knowing you're safer not roughhousing near one), this series will start with the Three Cores of Christian Leadership: Faith, Hope, and Love. After the question of what it means to be a leader is addressed, we can move to consider how to actually lead in more concrete situations. That section will address things like Psychological Dynamics, Social Dynamics, and Structural Dynamics. 

Leadership as Skill

Conspicuously absent will be the normal mission, vision, values, etc. that you can pick up in virtually any leadership book, popular-level or otherwise. That's not to say that mission, vision, values, etc. aren't important. They are. But they are well covered. That, and true leadership is always more complicated than mission, vision, and values. The reality is that mission, vision, values, etc. (hereafter MVVE) is a popularized leadership tool, not leadership itself, which is why many people, companies, and churches can have MVVE and still fail to have leadership. 

It's true you have to tell people what they are headed towards, how they are going to get there, and what kind of constraints or ethos they should have along the way. However, if all you do is throw this MVVE tool at people, probably all you're going to get is a bunch of people ducking out of the way so they don't get hit by the flying wrench through the air. A wrench has to be fit over the nut and used to either tighten or loosen the bolt. 

Likewise, if you fail to realize MVVE is just a tool and not the skill of leadership, you are likely to fall into the same trap as the old adage "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." And this is often the main problem when some people read some leadership book, or take some leadership workshop/seminar. They think they are going to get leadership, the skill, but really all they are get is leadership tools. So, because they have learned a leadership tool and not leadership itself, they go back to their respective leadership situations and start wielding their newfound tool as if it was the skill of leadership. 

This means, even if aspiring leaders go to a good workshop that gives them a bunch of tools, but fails to make it clear that's all they are, then they will go home and use the hammer, wrench, and screwdriver on things that require a saw or a drill. Have you ever tried to cut through a 2x4 with a hammer? Don't. You can beat the crap out of that board, but will you ever really be able to say that you cut it? Will you ever get the length and shape you were looking for? Maybe--probably not--but at what cost? As with the 2x4, there is a cost to using a leadership tools without leadership the skill--both for the leader and to the led. 

Leadership is a skill and not a tool, an art, not a technique. The most important things about leadership are not tools, like MVVE and others we will cover, but faith, hope, and love. This is because leadership is not about us as leaders, its about people as created in God's image and called to God's glory and purpose. Thus, leadership is about God and others, but only tangentally about leaders. 

Who is This Series For? 

To that end, many people--aspiring leaders of all kinds--should be able to benefit from these next few posts, whether pastors or not, whether Christians or not. However, I will be gearing my tone towards my fellow pastors, since they are ironically not always trained in leadership as skill and my heart goes out to them, and since theirs is the context that I know best. If you are a elder or deacon or some other kind of lay leader, it should be easy enough to translate things to your own set of responsibilities--and I probably will throw in some comments in your direction too. 

If you're a business leader or some kind of community leader, I think there will be plenty that you can gain as well, although not everything will translate--like I said, leadership is a skill and art, not a set of tools, so seek the skill of leadership and pick up any tool that looks helpful. 

If you're outside of the family of Christ, do join us in the discussion and don't let its Christiany-ness keep you from gaining something. Full warning though, Christians often view leadership very differently than those on the outside, but I think our version of leadership has a great chance at leading to large-scale human flourishing. Also, I might point out that Jesus was apparently so good at leadership, that 2000 years later the leaders He trained are still training new leaders, and we continue to learn much about leadership from Him. 

So let's venture together to discover what leadership is and to increase our skill in it. 

The next post will be On Leadership: Trusting in God and Entrusting to Others. 

Dying for Jesus and Nabeel Qureshi

This afternoon I heard the news, my brother in Christ and comrade at arms, Nabeel Qureshi has met our Savior Jesus Christ face-to-face. Some would call this meeting an end, others might call it a beginning. As for myself, it's hard to know what to call it, so I'll just call it a "well done!"

Many look at dying for Jesus as simply the province of the hallmarked martyrs: the apostles, the church fathers, the missionaries, the brothers and sisters, who were jailed, starved, raped, beheaded, and gunned down with hellish hatred. Without taking anything away from that sacred trust given only to the chosen few, in the last year or two, I have become more and more aware that we have considered "dying for Jesus" far too narrowly. By the grace of God we all will die for Jesus.

You see, dying for Jesus is not the calling of the few, but of the many that Jesus has called His own. Each one of us, in picking up our cross and following Him, pick up also His calling to be obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Now, in the mercy of God, few must be obedient unto death on a cross, but all of us will follow Christ into death. Each one of us.

It is the grace of every Christian to die for Jesus. Some of us will die for Him by sword, others will die for Him by Alzheimer's, and still others will die for Him by cancer. Nabeel Qureshi was one such man, who full of love and passion for His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did so die. He died for Jesus by trusting Him into death, following Him through the shadow of death right into the mouth of death itself.



Nabeel did not die because he was cursed for turning to Jesus. It would be easy to think this. But this is to fall into the trap of pop-victory--the "I beat death" victory that makes for great t-shirts, good Huffington Post/Buzzfeed clickbait, or even easy religious explanations. Yet, throughout the centuries, Christian victory has not been overcoming death in the world but overcoming the world through death!

Death is an enemy defeated, but it remains the last mission that Jesus sends each of us on. It is the last challenge to overcome. How could it not be? It was for Jesus--and it is His life that we all live as our own! Not only martyrs must trust Jesus with death. No, we all must trust Him through it, fixing our own eyes on the joy set before us as it was set before Him and entrust our own lives to the One who can save us from death!

One day, perhaps a day sooner than I anticipate, my final mission will be issued and I too will run headfirst into the terror of unending night, likely with the same apprehension as the Forerunner of my faith. But as Nabeel Qureshi can now speak authoritatively, that last statement is not properly true.

It is NOT an mission into the terror of unending night, but simply into night. And like all nights, even those that last for days near the polar regions, they eventually end in dawn. So too our Dawn is coming! And He comes on the clouds as all dawns come, but it will be His face shining as the sun!

So, may the light of the Lord shine on our hearts on the day that we sleep for the night and rest securely in Him until He dawns! And may the grace of that hope be with all who have crossed from darkness to dawn, and with those they have left behind, especially now with Nabeel Qureshi's family.

If you want to support Nabeel Qureshi's family, click here.

After some server issues, we're back...and black holes..

So, unfortunately I missed the importance of some random email sent to be by the domain host, which meant they closed down the site and kept people from seeing anything. I've been working on my thesis pretty intensely for the past few months, so I don't know how long the site has been out of commission. That said, my thesis is still unfinished, so until it is, I will not be posting consistently. However, I have to leave you with something. So...here's a theological thought for the day.

Augustine, among many others, has suggested that sin and evil are the absence of good, much as darkness is the absence of light. Perhaps this is true, on some level, but what if sin is actually more the spiritual equivalent of a black hole. It is not so much that it is an absence of light, but that it is such a profound and serious disruption of space-time that everything, even unrelated things are sucked into it. Perhaps sin is more like the unstoppable force of a black hole's hyper-gravity. Things that had nothing to do with its formation are sadly caught up in its pull and torn asunder by its ravaging vorteces. In this sense, creation came under the destructive reality disruption of sin. A reality even more foundational than space-time was distorted, and with that distortion what was warped was not just time and space, but the fabric of the human soul. All creation and all humanity along with it is being pulled towards one massive black hole, but it is not the one at the center of our galaxy, or even some even more massive one that could be at the center of our local galaxy cluster, rather it is the terrible black hole that is created when a mere star attempts to become the Light itself and collapses in on itself and its own weight cements it in an eternal fall into infinite oblivion.

Christians, Vaccines, and Moral Complicity (Part 1: Are we gaining life at the cost of death?)

So I started writing this while preparing to leave the US for a class in Feb. 2016. And this has brought a certain issue up in my mind: "Do I get the vaccines for Hep A and B before I go?" This is a question, because there is a particular moral question about vaccines that concerns me as I think about what I should do.

First of all, before I go on any further, let me tell you what this post is not about:

    1) it is not about whether vaccines as a concept are good or bad...because they are clearly good (no one I'm aware of is a fan of dying for no reason nor is suicide or killing someone by neglect anything close to what God calls Christians to do)

    2) it is not about whether there may be some medical risks associated with using a vaccine, since obviously all medical treatments involve risk (and thus one could discuss the ratio of risks, but to summarize my thoughts, cost-benefit analysis seems almost always to be in favor of vaccine use)

    3) it is not (at least directly) about whether choosing not to vaccinate puts others at risk (although you and I are responsible for the well being of others, disregarding this is called reckless endangerment or neglect)

Q: So then what are we going to discuss?

A: The relationship of some vaccines and abortion

While most members of the American public and thus most members of the American Christian community are unaware of this issue, it is actually an issue. Apparently, some vaccines, NOT ALL, have had to be developed using human cells to culture the virus in question, because the virus in question did not culture in animal cells well enough to be useful.

This leads us to the question of where exactly researchers got those human cells from to do their research and produce the vaccines we all enjoy the benefits of today. And that is where the vaccine issue arises. And unfortunately the answer is a murdered pre-birth baby.

(That abortion is murder is generally uncontested by the Universal Church, that is to say virtually all Christians agree that it is, if you want to discuss that issue, please comment one of my earlier posts about that issue.)

The way vaccines were produced from human cells was that certain cells were harvested in the 1960s from two aborted babies. Those cells, unlike most human cells, have the ability to replicate indefinitely, whereas most human cells can only replicate about 50 times. It is from those cells' daughter, grand-daughter, great-granddaughter, etc. cells that vaccine researchers produced vaccines by infecting them with a virus and letting the virus adapt to non-normal cell conditions over several viral generations. The result is a virus that is still the same virus but unable to be successful at infecting a real human body.

The human tissue harvested from those two aborted babies continues to generate new cells such that no new human tissue is required. However, the morality of using cells derived from murder for our own benefit is certainly a question worth considering.

Is it moral to benefit from the murder of someone else? Yes and no depending on the circumstances, right?

If you murder someone, you obviously do so for some personal benefit, even if you killed someone just because you could, you are still fulfilling your desire to kill and thus directly benefit from that person's death.

On the other hand, if someone gets murdered and you are given their liver so that you don't die, that is probably just fine, unless you are the one that killed the person to get their liver.

The issue with the fetal tissue is that the persons donating the tissue are the same ones who are killing the child. Moreover, while the tissue was harvested post-abortion, it should be asked whether the researchers solicitation of the tissue contributed to the decision to kill the children.

It is rather like one person telling another that they are going to kill someone, but instead of the other person turning them in or trying to persuade them not to kill the person, that person responds with "Hey, so when you've done it, can you give me their wallet?" or if we wanted to be a bit more grotesque "Hey, so when you're done, can I harvest some organs from the body? I know I could help a lot of people (and make some money in the process) with those parts."

A person like that would likely be considered some sort of accomplice in court even though that person never personally killed the victim. Moreover, if a person was still wavering on their decision to kill, it is very possible that the knowledge that the murder could have medical benefits derived from it would push the decision towards murder.

The question is whether that short story is the best parallel to the way vaccine researchers acquired the tissue they would use to produce a number of very helpful vaccines.

Obviously it would be best if all vaccines were made with non-human tissue, or rather made with tissue not acquired via an immoral act. Unfortunately that is not the case, although as Christians, we should advocate for that to become the reality.

However, we obviously have not really settle much of anything here...at least not yet. In the next part we will continue to consider whether users of vaccines share in the moral complicity of the abortion that made them possible by looking at the issue through the parallel of slavery. Hopefully, at this point there is a bit of discomfort simmering within, let's humbly walk together through the process of considering whether that discomfort should be brought to a boil or taken off the heat. 

Summertime! Posts!

Happy Summer everyone!

We'll call this past semester an imposed academic sabbatical from posting...haha...but it's summertime now and I've only got a mere 2 credit hours between me and my M.A. in Systematic Theology degree in the fall. So, the posts should be more consistent...famous last words...

That said, here is glimpse of posts (or rather series of posts) that what I am (and have been) working on.
   1. Christians, Vaccines, and Moral Complicity
   2. Depersonalizing the Body: Hyper-Mind-Body Dualism Today
   3. Contemporary Passivity of (United States) Christians and (Lack of) Boldness
   4. Christians and Drinking (Alcohol)
   5. Christians and Social, Cultural, Technological, and Artistic Engagement
   6. The Nature of Language and the Trinity
   7. Poetry

I'm also up for having some topics suggested to me, so comment if you've got a suggestion. Of course, it doesn't guarantee I'll be interested in writing on it, but I am open to ideas. Further, I am hoping to update the look and feel of the site over the summer, so be prepared for that. My desire is to have sections dedicated to various aspects, e.g. a section for theology, a section for academics, etc.

Happy Summer!
Grace and peace and hope in Christ alone!

Blog Update

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the massive amount of time between posts. My life has been pretty crazy the past few months.

I wrapped up 7 blessed years of ministry in Buffalo Grove at Lord's Love Community Church/Canaan Church in September. I started as a children's pastor at LLCC in Sept 2008. I later became the Children's/Youth Pastor. After LLCC merged with Canaan Church in May of 2013, I worked as the youth (including college) pastor. It was a wonderful experience with lots of wonderful people. After sensing from God that my work there was done, wrapping up my ministry there was a bittersweet process. I love the brothers and sisters of Canaan Church, especially the awesome students, volunteer leaders, and fellow ministry staff. Yet, at the same time, I also knew that my work there was done and following God's will is always the greatest delight of my soul!

After much prayer and seeking the Lord, I accepted the call to serve at great church in another Chicago suburb: Naperville Korean First Presbyterian Church. I am very blessed to be working there as the English Ministry Pastor. For those of you outside of the immigrant (Korean) church world, an English ministry pastor is NOT a pastor that teaches people how to speak English, but rather a pastor that serves the people of the church that speak English. I blessed to get to work for the good of a great group of people of different life stages and backgrounds. I love them all and I am excited to see what God uses us to accomplish for His glory in the near future.

I also had a pretty crazy academic season. After completing my M.Div. at the end of the summer, I began another program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I'm now working on an M.A. in Systematic Theology. Lord willing, I will finish that program within the next year. After that, my calling to get a Ph.D. God will hopefully bring to fruition. I'm also in the process of submitting a couple articles for publication in some academic journals.

On top of all the normal craziness of Christmas and New Years, I had the opportunity to speak at my friend's youth group retreat.

Anyways, I hope to be more on top of things moving ahead, posting an average of one post a week.

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God we Worship? (Part 3)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be described with those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. First, we looked at The Lack of Variety in Themes and Subjects. Last post we talked about The Dearth of Poetic Genres in Christian Worship Music. This time we will cover the absence of diversity of musical styles in Christian worship. 

What is the number one joke (that's funny only 'cause it's true) people tell about Christian worship music? It's actually the same as the number one reason I've heard people give for not enjoying listening to Christian music. 

...  "It all sounds the same."

True that. Ok, fine, to be fair there are some exceptions...there are...right? 

Average answer: "uh...there's...uh...yeah, well, just 'cause I can't think of any right now, doesn't mean they don't exist." True. but the fact that many people would face such a difficulty illustrates the problem. 

I know that Chris Tomlin and Hillsong do sound different, but they do in the same way that I thought Justin Bieber was Taylor Swift singing the first time I heard him on the radio. See, just like Bieber and Swift are both essentially pop music, Tomlin and Stanfill are both CCM. They may have some slight differences, but they both belong to the same musical style. 

If we are honest for the most part on Sunday mornings, in many if not most churches in the U.S., we only worship God from within one musical style. Ok, for some the one musical style is "Hymns" while for others it is "CCM," and perhaps for others it is "gospel." But the fact remains that despite the fact that we worship the God Who invented artistic expression including music, and Who radiates His multifaceted nature in the colors of love, justice, wrath, gentleness, power, patience, creativity, and sovereignty, we worship our God in the same musical style week in and week out. 

I'm not suggesting that God is bored (although if we are, perhaps He is too), more like He is being under-worshiped. You see the nature of musical styles is that they typically allow for/generate a limited set of emotive responses, and usually cohere with a limited set of subjects and poetic expressions. 

For example, one style of music is blues, one which brings up and allows for the expression of sorrow, disappointment, and loss. It is given to talking about those subjects, and lends itself to laments. Rap on the other hand allows for the expression of anger, frustration, and even pride (often as a means of pointing out difficulties faced and overcome). This takes the form of boasting, confrontation, and declaration of the way things are. The form is also given to covering a lot of content quickly and memorably. Screamo, for contrast, tends to allow for super angsty, angry, or depressed subject matter, expressed in the form of wailing or screaming, venting raw emotions. 

Yet, doesn't God deserve us to worship Him in loss, in frustration, and in raw unbridled emotions?  Doesn't He deserve to be worshiped for all that He is and does? Doesn't He deserved to be worshiped in a variety of poetic forms? Doesn't He own and deserve all the musical styles to be actively used in giving Him glory through our interacting through them with Him? That's my biggest issue. Our Multifaceted and Totally Awesome God, the Holy Trinity, is being under-worshiped.

The thing is that while we might not always think of different musical styles being that important, the truth is that the absence of different musical styles in Christian worship music may have lots of unintended consequences. It may be one of the big-picture reasons that Christian worship music lacks all kinds of subject matter and many poetic forms. And those lacks may have other connected unintended consequences. 

The lack of musical genres may be one of the reasons that people in many churches feel a deficiency in their worship experience. They need to "have the blues", they need to confront terrible realities, they need to vent their deep emotions to God, but the music styles they are being offered by their worship leaders is to some degree holding them back from engaging with God on the levels they need to. Their personal spiritual growth is being held back. 

Another possible result in the contemporary American church is an overly simplistic understanding of faith in God. In other words, maybe our music is what is reinforcing the patterns of flawed thinking that many people have about God, prayer, and faith. 

And maybe what the researches call "moralistic therapeutic deism" is not merely coming poor sermons, poor discipleship, poor parenting, and poor perspectives coming from the non-Christian world, maybe it is also coming from poor worship. 

It is my hope through this short series that Christians will feel free to worship God about all subjects, in all poetic forms, with all musical styles, so that they can grow in their relationship with God personally, and so that collectively as churches and the Church we will give God the worship He deserves.

Please engage through the comments or share this post with someone who you think would have some good input in the discussion. 

Short Poem: Christus Victor

Light from the Tome.
Life from the Tomb.
Hell cowers.

This poem is a modified haiku structure. It'd be great if you'd share your thoughts or your own poetic expressions in the comments.

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God we Worship? (Part 2)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be called by those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. Last we looked at the first, The Lack of Variety in Themes and Subjects. This week we will also talk about the dearth of poetic genres in Christian worship music, while next week we will cover the lack of musical styles in Christian worship. 

You've been there before. You're in church. The band is playing. They are playing a song. It's a good song. But it's not the song you want to be singing. No, I'm not talking about a cover for the newest Hillsong hit. I'm talking about that time when you are there and you want to be singing your heart out to God about something going on in your life, but you can't. Not because you don't know what you want to say. Not because you don't feel like singing. But because the praise team is playing a song of worshipful celebration, and you want to sing a song asking God to actually show up. Or maybe you're singing a song about love and forgiveness, but you want God to bring your enemy to shame. 

Some people will tell you the problem is probably with you: "You are too depressed or too angry to worship God." But while for sure sometimes you are the problem, what if the problem this time is not a lack of faith or a lack of forgiveness, but the lack of a song of desperation in your praise team's repertoire, or the lack of a song of justice on the lips of  your brothers and sisters? 

Last week we discussed how our worship music as Christians tends to lack many prominent themes of Scriptural worship, in terms of what is said/sung about God. This may or may not be related to the problem we're looking at today. Someone could suggest that it is precisely because Christian worship music lacks certain themes and subjects, that it also lacks certain poetic forms or genres. While I suspect there is at least some correspondence between the two, I think it is also the case that the problem sometimes with our worship music is that we really only have one kind of worship music: praise music. 

The problem is that the Bible has way more kinds of worship music than just praise music. That means that the longing in your soul to sing something else in a moment of pain or oppression may not be your lack of maturity as a Christian, but the mark of the Holy Spirit working in your soul to express yourself honestly in His presence. 

Jesus is famous for saying in John 4.23, "But the time is coming, and now is that time, when genuine worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, and in fact the Father is looking for those kind of people worshiping Him." But gives us two questions: 1) How can we worship in the Spirit, if we don't allow for the Spirit to express Himself however He wants? and 2) How can we worship in truth, if our hearts are not able to express in worship what truly is in them? 

This is not just a question of content or theme, because in fact you can sing about the same themes if very different ways. For example, I can praise God for the love that He always gives me, or I can ask God to reveal  His love to me, or even I can humbly remind God that because He loves me, He is committed to keeping His promises to me. 

The point is the Bible gives us a lot of kinds of poetic genres to use in worship, or in other words God wants us to be able to praise Him in worship (Psalm 150) as much as He wants us to be able to cry out in pain (Ps. 88) and desperation in worship (Ps. 22) as much as He wants us to reflect on the nature of the world (Ps. 1) as much as He wants us to cry out for justice/vengeance (Ps. 137) as much as He wants us to repent of our sins in worship (Ps. 51) as much as He wants us to beg for the needs that we have in worship (Ps. 86) as much as He wants us to celebrate Who He is and what He has done (Ps. 136) as much as He wants us to claim the promises He has given us in worship (Ps. 50). 

The book of psalms has many examples of all those poetic forms of songs. Sometimes a praise song is not want the community or an individual needs, sometimes we need to beg for God to avenge the wrongs done to us, other times we need to lament the wait of Christ's return or intervention into our problems. 

So don't be afraid to look for worship music that allows you to express all you need and want to God, and don't be afraid to demand it (humbly) from your church leadership, since they owe it to God and to you to open up the beautiful bounty of God's given forms of worship music, as much as they owe it to God and to you to worship God in all His Multifacetedness. 

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God We Worship? (Part 1)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be called by those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. Today we look at the first, over the next couple weeks, we will also talk about the dearth of poetic and musical genres in Christian worship.

First, unless we are singing about God's love, we Christians in the West seem to not know anything to sing about. Ok, so we also sing about His holiness and sometimes our commitment to Him. That's good, but we are still missing out on worshiping God for His other important attributes. But what could they be? How about His wrath? His Truth? His Creativity?  His Triunity? 

Someone just choked on their coffee and destroyed their keyboard--"HIS WRATH!?! Why would anyone ever praise Him for getting angry? Anger is bad. It isn't nice. I thought God was nice. I don't like thinking about when God doesn't act nice like good people should." 

Ok, well for us in the west, we have believed a lie abundant in our culture that all expressions of anger are bad. Sure, many are, but not all. On top of that, if anyone has a right to get angry at the world, I'm guessing it's the One Who created it to be good and now is watching fill with more and more evil. Make no mistake. Our God gets ticked. Angry. Enraged even. Throughout the Old and New Testaments this has been something that God's people have celebrated, just read Revelation 6, Revelation 11.16-19, or Exodus 15.1-21. 

His Truth and His creativity, subjects of such grand importance one would think that they captured more of our attention given Isaiah 44.6-20 on God's Truth/Reality and Psalms 19 and 139 on His creativity and reality. Not to mention His Triunity, which distinguishes Him from all other so-called gods. 

This subject has come up to my attention again and again throughout my years in ministry. It is pressing in upon me again right now because I am preaching through the book of revelation, which is not really about the love of God. Yet, I want the songs we worship with to resonate with the passage we will be listening to and meditating on. For the past couple of weeks, and for the next couple God's wrath will be the main focus of the passages, so I have looked all over for a song that celebrates God's righteous anger and praises Christ for His coming ruthless victory over all those who oppose Him. I have found this song, written by the worship team at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville. It's called Warrior. FYI the Warrior is Jesus. Please enjoy it. Please leave a comment on your favorite line in the song (or least favorite, if you want to be that person). 

The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage

***This is a series on gay marriage. This is the first of two posts. This one aims to reorient the discussion and our perspectives on the SCOTUS decision. The second is an honest appraisal of the pros and cons of the decision.***

The Pros and Cons will be release in the next couple days, please check back then.

God's Perspective on the Supreme Court Decision in favor of Gay-Marriage

***This is a series on gay marriage. This is the first of two posts. This one aims to reorient the discussion and our perspectives on the SCOTUS decision. The second is an honest appraisal of the pros and cons of the decision. I would especially welcome comments and discussion in the comments section below.*** 

_______________________________________________

“You want gay marriage that much? OK, you can have it.” –God.

Surely that is the response of celebration of many people who have long been fighting for what various groups have called “gay-marriage” or “marriage equality.” They have been crying foul in society and I am sure many to God for what they have perceived as a great injustice. And with the recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, they feel like God has given them what they wanted. They feel a sense that justice has prevailed.

But others have been vigorously been fighting for a different vision of marriage, one in which the only participants are one man and one woman, Christians and non-Christians alike. Their vision has come in direct conflict with the version of it espoused by the other group. They hear the claim of the pro-“gay marriage” advocates that justice has prevailed, that God has said “If you want gay marriage that much, you can have it.,” and they grieve and bristle at the suggestion that God has given the pro-“gay-marriage” advocates exactly what they wanted.

But the question is: Who is right? Did justice prevail? Did God give gay marriage to the United States?

The answer I want to give you, the answer I think the Bible demands, is…

Yes…but not in the ways you expect. The truth is justice did prevail and God did give gay marriage to those who wanted it so badly. But the significance of those statements is not what you’d expect.

Justice?!! Some of you reading this, just had a heart attack. Is the CPR finished? Ok good, let’s pick up where we left off. God did give justice, but maybe not the justice you expect. Let’s read Romans 1.18-32 (or you can skip ahead to where I highlight the relevant parts).

¹⁸You see, God’s anger is being revealed from heaven on all human irreverence and unrighteousness by humans who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹because what is knowable about God is clear among them, because God made it clear to them. ²⁰You see, His invisible attributes have been being observed from the creation of the world understood by what was made, including His eternal power and Godness, the result being that they are without excuse, ²¹because although they knew God, they didn’t glorify Him as God or thank Him, instead, they made themselves empty-headed and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they were made stupid. ²³And they exchanged the glory of the Immortal God for the likeness of image of mortal humans and birds and four-footed creatures and serpents. ²⁴Therefore, God gave them over with the desires of their hearts to impurity resulting in dishonoring their bodies with one another, ²⁵who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator—Who is praised forever, amen! ²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to dishonorable passions, you see, even their women exchanged the natural sexual act for the unnatural, ²⁷and similarly even the men, by abandoning the natural sexual act with a women, blazed in their lust for one another: men with men, producing shame and receiving in themselves consequences, which had to come from their delusion. ²⁸And just as they did not approve of knowing God, God gave them over to an unapproved mind, to do the things that are not right ²⁹being completely filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, badness, full of envy, murder, conflict, deception, meanspiritedness, gossipers, ³⁰slanderers, God-haters, violent, arrogant, bragging, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹thoughtless, unfaithful, callous, uncompassionate, ³²who, although they know the just verdict of God that people who practice these kinds of things are worthy of death, not only do these things, but also they celebrate those who practice them.

But what does that have to do with Justice? Well, it is really all about justice, God’s justice. The person being given justice in a positive sense in this passage is God. In a very real way, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States is not about getting justice for humans deprived of justice, but God deprived of His.

But how does gay-marriage becoming the law of the land give God justice? Well, humans rebel, refusing to acknowledge Him as God of the universe, despite the amazing amount of proof in the world. God has been treated unfairly by humans, part of that rejection of Him as God involves humans duping themselves into idolatrous patterns of life, lifestyles that celebrate not the Glory of God, but the fading honor of creation.

But justice, how does gay marriage give God justice? Some of you reading this are thinking: God gets justice from this by humans embracing justice. But actually, the reverse is true.

God is getting justice from this decision not because humans are embracing justice, but because God is.

...???...

The answer is that God is getting justice because He is judging us. Make no mistake the most important judge in this Supreme Court decision was not the swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, but God, the Judge of the Universe. And while it may look at first that God has ruled in favor of those advocates of gay marriage the truth is far different.

You see, God, by giving the advocates of gay marriage what they want, was not saying “I am with you in your pursuit of a fuller embrace of a homosexual lifestyle.” Instead, He was saying “I am against you.”

But the judgment of God, as we see in Romans 1.18-32, often does not come in the form of fire from heaven or a holy war on earth, but the removal of His gracious restraint of our own human sinfulness. In the case of the recent Supreme Court decision, God was punishing the advocates of gay marriage by giving them what they want so much.

The truth is that sometimes the punishment for sin is not immediate destruction, but more sin. In a very real way, sin is a fate worse than death, because it destroys the soul.

But it is also a fate better than death, because it allows time for repentance. Although the recent passage of gay marriage is actually the judgment of God, it is also the opportunity from God for people to repent. Unfortunately, the curse of more sin, also pushes people further away from the God they need. Make no mistake, as gracious of a punishment as the passage of gay marriage is, it is still a punishment.

So, who is right? At the end of the day, it is the most important person: God.

Who has received justice? The One most deserving of justice: God.

What about advocates of “gay-marriage,” did they get what they want?

Yes and no. They got what they wanted, but what they have yet to realize is that what they have really received is the judgment of God.

What about the advocates of marriage, have they really lost? Yes and no.

They did lose their battle over the definition of marriage in this country, but they can now see not just the lack of support of human beings, but the full support of God, expressed not by siding against them, as it would be easy to initially think, but expressed by His siding with them, by giving the punishment of more sin. 

Recommended Reading in Theology

I was recently asked to compile a list of 5 theological works that are readable and theologically useful. The following list are 5 theological books that I think every Christian would benefit by reading, even if I don't agree with everything they may teach in every minute detail. But all of them are written by people passionate about the Gospel, and will be very useful.

1. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem

This book is a must read for every Christian. It is clear, well-written, and does move from doctrine to application.
or if you are intimidated by its size, the condensed version Biblical Doctrine: Essential Teaches of the Christian Faith.

2. Center Church by Tim Keller

Even if you are not a church leader, this book is helpful for thinking about what the church is and how it should interact with the world. And since, last time I checked, you are part of the church and the world...yeah...uh...you might want to read it.

3. The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship by Robert Letham

I love the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and so should you. It is all about the God we worship. This book is so well written, thorough, and interesting that I have had it on my Amazon wishlist for years. Full disclosure, I've not read the whole thing, but it was so good that I actually want to at some point. If you know me, you also know that such a statement essentially means its a great book, because I hate reading.

4. Global Church Planting: Biblical Principles and Best Practices for Multiplication by Craig Ott and Gene Wilson

My friend is thinking of missions in the future, but the true is that all of us Christians are called to missions, whether God puts the focus of the mission either inside or outside of our default culture is the only question we must ask. That said, this is very helpful for planting churches, but also helping established churches become more effective in the mission of God. I have had Dr. Ott in class before and the man planted churches in Germany, so what he is talking about works no matter how hard or post-Christian the soil.

5. Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson

Please. Read. This. Your spiritual life will thrive more if you are able to avoid muffling God's voice with poor interpretation...also...this is a bit self-serving, because if you are better at reading and understanding the Bible, my job as a pastor will be easier. Haha. Yeah, so, while it is not strictly theological, it is helpful in constructing better theology.

Ode to the God of Light

A Spontaneous prayer of Praise, of varying meter

Good Morning Abba!
Today is beautiful--serene.

The sun is clear and beaming
light dancing and streaming.
all in the world seems so good, true, and right,
in the purity and bliss of the light.
A light and joy so pure as dawn
streaming in the room and across the lawn.
God, a taste of a world eternal,
a land rich with abundance vernal

You are God and Good and Righteous and Just,
to respond in praise is truly a must!
On days like these the peace is almost transcendent,
streaming in from Your Throne all resplendent!
The light is still but a faint echo of bliss
compared to the joy of Your presence!
The Spirit living with in me is a joy truly Divine,
to think that we so foolishly abandoned this design!
The fall into sin stole the light so sweet,
cursed as we are to return to the dust beneath our feet.

Yet on days like today, as I sit here in the Sun,
I am reminded that that curse was undone!
By Jesus, the Son--Your Son, my Sun--
a joy and pleasure so grand--

He rises to stand, to stand in my defense,
to stand for my reward, having paid my recompense!
I am a fool, cruel and dumb with drool,
yet sitting in something of a Heavenly school,
sitting in the light where all seems right,
sitting and waiting hope fixed aright
On Jesus

My light, my Sun beyond this sun,
Light beyond this Heaven echoing light
He is Right, the Light, the Winner of the Fight,
Whose life blazes bright, even in the darkest night,
of the soul, of the woe,
making the broken whole.
Forever.
Amen.

Pentecost Sunday: The Promised and Providing Holy Spirit (Acts 2)

Scripture: Acts 2

Translation: ^{Acts 2.1}And when the day of Pentecost arrived, all of them were together at the same place. ²And suddenly a sound came from the sky like the sound a violent wind brings. And if filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³And tongues like fire appeared being distributed to them. And it settled down on each one of them. ⁴And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages according to how the Spirit was giving them to speak out.

⁵And there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing men from every ethnic group from all the places under Heaven. ⁶And when this sound came, the huge number of people gathered together and became confused, because each one of them was hearing them speaking in his own dialect. ⁷And they were shocked and amazed, saying, “Look, don’t absolutely all of these people speak the Galilean dialect? ⁸So how is each one of us hearing them in our own dialect that we were born in? ⁹Parthians and Medes and Elamites and those who live in Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Cappadocia, Egypt and the parts of Libya that are near Cyrene, and the visiting Romans, ¹¹both Jews and converts, Cretans and Arabs, we are hearing them speaking in our languages the great things of God!” ¹²And all of them were shocked and dumbfounded, one saying to one another, “What wants this to be?” ¹³But others who were making fun of them were saying that “They’re really just drunk on new wine!”

¹⁴And Peter standing with the Eleven lifted up his voice and spoke boldly to them, “Men, Jews, and all those staying in Jerusalem, Let this be known to you and pay attention to my words. ¹⁵You see, it is not as you suggest “these people are drunk,” because it is 9am. ¹⁶Instead, this is what was spoken about through the prophet Joel. ¹⁵“And it will be in the last days, God says, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams! ¹⁸And indeed on My male slaves and on My female-slaves in those days I will pour out My Spirit and they will prophesy! ¹⁹And I will give omens in the sky above and signs on the earth below: book and fire and billows of smoke. ²⁰The sun will turn into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious Day of the Lord comes. ²¹And it will be that everyone who will call on the Name of the Lord will be saved!”

²²Men, Israelites, listen to these words! Jesus, the Nazarene, a man who really was endorsed by God for you with miracles and omens and signs, which God did through Him in the middle of you just as you yourselves know, ²³This Person by the determined plan and foreknowledge of God, who was given over, you killed via the hand of lawless people by nailing Him to a cross, ²⁴Who God raised breaking the pains of death, given that it was not possible that He be held by it. ²⁵You see, David says about Him, “I saw the Lord before me through it all, because He is at my right hand, so that I would not be shaken. ²⁶Because of this, my heart is rejoices and my tongue celebrates, but moreover my flesh settles on hope, ²⁷because You will not abandon my life in Hades, and You won’t allow You Holy One to see decay. ²⁸You make me know the path of life. You fill me with joy with Your Face!” ²⁹Men, brothers, I have to speak to you with boldness about David the Patriarch that he is both dead and buried. And his tomb is among us to this day. ³⁰So, because he really was a prophet and knew that with an oath God promised him someone from the fruit of his loins would sit on his throne, ³¹looking ahead, he spoke about the resurrection of Christ that he was not abandoned to Hades and His flesh did not see decay. ³²God raised this Jesus, which we are all witnesses of.

³³So, after being exalted to the right hand of God, and receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He poured This Spirit out, which you both see and hear. ³⁴For David didn’t go up into the heavens, but he says, “The Lord says to My Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand. ³⁵until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet!’” ³⁶So, certainly, all the house of Israel had better know that God made Him Lord and Messiah—this Jesus Who you crucified!”

³⁷And when they heard they stabbed in the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, What should we do, men brothers?” ³⁸And Peter said to them, “Repent and each of you get baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, ³⁹because the promise is for you and your children and all those far into the future, as many as the Lord our God will summon.” ⁴⁰And with many other words he was warning and urging them saying “Get saved from this warped generation!” ⁴¹So, those who accepted his message were baptized and about 3000 lives were added on that day.

⁴²And they were focusing on the teaching of the apostles and on sharing, breaking bread, and prayers. ⁴³And fear came over every life, and many omens and signs were happening through the apostles. ⁴⁴And all those who believed were at the same place and they held absolutely everything as shared. ⁴⁵And they were selling their possessions and properties and distributing them to all according to how someone had a need. ⁴⁶And daily focusing with one mind on being in the Temple, and breaking bread in different homes, they were sharing food with great joy and sincerity of heart, ⁴⁷praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding the people being saved every day to their group.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       The Coming of the Spirit (vv.1-4)

b.      The Response of those in Jerusalem (vv.5-13)

c.       The Spirit-empower Sermon of Peter (vv.14-36)

                                                              i.      Peter Explains the Languages as a Fulfillment of Joel 2 (vv.14-21)

                                                            ii.      Peter Explains Christ raised from the dead, not David (vv.22-32)

                                                          iii.      Peter Explains Christ poured out the Spirit and is Lord, not David (vv.33-36)

d.      The Response of the People in Jerusalem to Peter’s Sermon (vv.37-41)

e.       The Nature of the Early Church (vv.42-47)

2.      Themes

a.       The Holy Spirit

b.      The death and resurrection of Christ

c.       The killing of Christ by the Jews

d.      Languages/tongues

e.       Prophecies interpreted

f.       Calling on the Name of the Lord

g.      Conversion

h.      Church

3.      Doctrines

a.       The Holy Spirit comes from God via Jesus

b.      The Bible is reliable

c.       The Holy Spirit comes on every Christian at conversion

d.      The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts, boldness, insight, and empowerment

e.       The Holy Spirit transforms the human heart

Applications

1.      Outline

a.       The Promised Holy Spirit

                                                              i.      Promised by Jesus (Acts 1.4-5, 8)

                                                            ii.      Promised in Joel 2 (Joel 2.28-32)

b.      The Providing Holy Spirit

                                                              i.      The Holy Spirit Provides Spiritual Gifts

1.      He provided different languages

2.      He provides other gifts too, like leadership and preaching

                                                            ii.      The Holy Spirit Provides Boldness

1.      Boldness to speak up in general

2.      Boldness to say harsh and even dangerous things

                                                          iii.      The Holy Spirit Provides Words

1.      He will give the words we need when we need them

                                                          iv.      The Holy Spirit Provides Insight

1.      He enabled Peter to correctly apply Joel 2.28-32 to His coming

2.      He enabled Peter to correctly apply Ps. 15.8-11 to the resurrection of Christ and not David

3.      He enabled Peter to correctly apply Ps. 110 to the Lordship of Christ not David and in particular to the sending of the Spirit from God by Christ

                                                            v.      The Holy Spirit Provides Incentive

1.      The Holy Spirit is so awesome and should be such a part of our spiritual lives that He naturally comes up in evangelism as an incentive to convert

2.      The offer of the Holy Spirit can motivate people to come to Christ in faith

                                                          vi.      The Holy Spirit Provides Dedication

1.      Dedication to learning and following God’s Word

2.      Dedication to sharing our stuff generously

3.      Dedication to eating together regularly

4.      Dedication to praying consistently

                                                        vii.      The Holy Spirit Provides Generosity

1.      Through Him we can share our time

2.      Through Him we can share our talents

3.      Through Him we can share our money

4.      Through Him we can share our stuff

                                                      viii.      The Holy Spirit Provides Joy

1.      His joy is sometimes mysterious

2.      His joy is always overwhelming

                                                          ix.      The Holy Spirit Provides Praise

1.      He brings the praise of God out of us naturally

2.      He brings the praise of people to us naturally

                                                            x.      The Holy Spirit Provides Unity

1.      He brings people together from all the different languages

2.      He brings people together from all the different places

3.      He brings people together from all the different cultures

4.      He brings people together from all the different backgrounds

5.      He brings people together from all the different statuses

2.      Discussion Questions

a.       What do you think it would have been like to have the Holy Spirit rush on you with fire over your head and different languages coming out of your mouth?

b.      If you had been on the outside looking in, what would you have said about these Jesus-followers?

c.       Before today, did you know God promised through prophecy to send His Holy Spirit on all His people? Why is sending the Holy Spirit so important to God?

d.      How important is the Holy Spirit to your daily life on a scale of 1-10? Why do you say that number?

e.       What places do you want the Holy Spirit to have on your daily life? What is keeping that from happening?

f.       How can you rely on the Spirit while reading and applying the Bible?

g.      Of the 10 things the Spirit provides mentioned in the sermon today, which 2 things do you want Him to provide to you the most? Why? Which 2 things do you want Him to provide the Universal Church the most? Why?