Thoughts on James 3: Not many should be teachers

For the past 23 years I have been a teacher in some capacity or another.  The past few months I think is the longest stretch where I haven't taught since I was a teenager.  So, every time I read James 3:1, it makes me cringe a little.  I don't cringe because I don't want to believe it.  I cringe because I know just how true it is.  You not only face the daunting task of taming your tongue, but everything you say is magnified due to a forced audience.

I get queasy every time I think about the various improper things I have said in front of my students.  I regret a lot and am often on the verge of despising myself for all of my many mistakes. 

And yet, as I write this, I also know that I am actually a pretty good teacher.  I do have a gift for explaining complex things in ways that others find easier to understand.  But, I also know that I don't want to teach right now.  I don't think I am in a place mentally or spiritually where I can adequately guard my tongue.  I think this is the point of James 3:1.  As a teacher, all the normal damage that can be done with your tongue is amplified. 

So, what should be coming out of our mouth?  I think the attributes of wisdom that James expresses in vv. 13-18 is a good start.  I want to attain that kind of wisdom before I get back in front of a class of any kind.

Thoughts on James 2: Showing favortism in the church

I have far too many thoughts for the amount of time I have to write today.  In fact, I am in the early stages of writing a book based on vv. 1-9.  So, yes, I have a lot of thoughts.

Many of these thoughts were triggered by my first experience being at a church where I wasn't known by the credentials of my father and grandfather (both pastors).  I grew up doing ministry.  For me, that was always what it meant to be part of a church.  I couldn't really envision being a part of a church without being active in ministry.  Then I started going to a church while attending graduate school.  I was treated as a second-hand citizen, probably due to a combination of being single and being socially awkward.  I received snide remarks from members.  Even the well-intentioned ones acted in ways that belittled me.  This church wanted to start a new ministry in an area where I had experience starting and running a similar one.  I offered my services.  The pastors rejected them. This left a mark on me and it still hurts to think about it.

Upon thinking about it further over the years, I have been on both sides of the favoritism scale in churches.  I grew up being the favorite and receiving special treatment.  I never realized this until I was on the other side. 

I our churches, we need to be very careful about these things.  It is hard enough for a stranger to walk into a church.  How much harder is it for the stranger to be on the losing end of blatant favoritism?  Will that person enter back into those doors?  What type of long-term damage will be done?  Are we hindering people from entering the Kingdom?  For now, these are just some thoughts.

Thoughts on James 1: Looking in the mirror

James is a very dense book.  Dense in that there are several take-away points in every chapter.  The first chapter is no exception.  A few years ago, when I was attending a small church, the pastor went on a brief sabbatical and I filled in for five weeks behind the pulpit.  I pulled five sermons out of the first chapter of James, and I could have easily done more than that.

Right now I am going to focus on vv. 19-27 (and will probably do the rest of the chapter in future years as I hopefully remain faithful to this blog and continue to revise my chapter-by-chapter thoughts), mostly because those are the verses most applicable to my own life at the moment. 

One of the primary reasons I made the commitment to write thoughts several days a week on a chapter of the Bible was that I found myself slacking in my own study.  I would do the reading, but it wouldn't seep in.  I was looking in the mirror and then forgetting what I looked like.  It was affecting my life.  I was becoming bitter with my life circumstances.  Since I started this practice, I do recognize a shift in my mindset.  While I can't say that I'm joyful with my life circumstances yet, I'm not bitter now either.  It has significantly helped my marriage.

Perhaps the biggest struggle for me was guarding my tongue.  As James points out in v. 26, my religion became futile.  Considering that most of my human interaction since my wife and I moved is with my Hindu in-laws, this was a problem.  I generally reserve speaking about living with Asperger's to my other blog, but I think this verse is particularly important with those of us who profess Christ living on the autism spectrum.  Neurologically, we have a propensity to not hold our tongue.  We tend to speak whatever is on our mind and offend people while doing it.  We then use our neurological framework as an excuse.  That isn't what God wants.  We are as responsible for holding our tongues as anyone else is.  Just because it is harder for us, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.  Those not on the spectrum generally have a harder time neurologically following rules than we do, but that doesn't mean that they don't have to follow rules.  Holding our tongue is the hard part for us, but we are still responsible for doing it. 

We all need to take an honest look at ourselves in the mirror and, in the light of Scripture, evaluate where we are and where we need to be.

Thoughts on III John: What a good pastor should look like

III John seems to have two basic messages:

1. Support missionaries
2. Watch out for dangerous pastors

I'll focus briefly on the second.  It appears that Diophrenes was a leader in a local congregation in that he had the ability to force out members.  He was arrogant and did not recognize apostolic authority.

Unfortunately, this is not a completely rare circumstance.  I have known my fair share of arrogant people who were attracted to full-time ministry (especially youth ministry).  If you think about it, it makes sense.  How many other jobs are there where people will automatically look up to you just because of the position you hold?  How much of a rush is it to have a room full of people listening to you give a talk every week?  And of the jobs where it is possible to do this, becoming a pastor probably has the fewest hurdles.  (This is coming from a former college professor.  I had people looking up to me and they literally got tested on how well they paid attention to what I said.  I saw many of my colleagues let that get to their heads.  But it is a lot harder to become a professor than a pastor.  Sorry to all you seminary grads out there, but my Ph.D. program was significantly more difficult than your seminary courses.  I was sitting in on seminary courses when I was in high school.) 

In my view, it is important for seminaries and churches to do a better job weeding out people like this before being given a place of authority.  (If your church needs help with an issue like this, I have a friend who does some church/ministry consulting who is really good at spotting and figuring out how to deal with such individuals.)

So, what should you look for in a pastor?  In my view (and it is only my view), the best pastors are those who didn't necessarily see themselves as a pastor because they don't particularly like the limelight.  They are aware of their own failings and therefore don't feel comfortable being the spiritual leader of others.  These individuals are generally not charismatic, but have a preaching style that is more like a teacher.  They understand people and have a humility in navigating interpersonal relationships.  These are the people I think we should encourage to go to seminary.  We should encourage them because too often they do not think they would be good pastors.

If we change the model of what a good pastor looks like, then we might avoid more Diophrenes.

Thoughts on II John: What to do with false teachers

In many respects, II John seems like a summary of I John, but with greater emphasis on false teachers.  You have the theme of loving God by obeying His commands.  You have warnings about falling away from the faith.  But the instructions on false teachers seems to be more emphatic.  Perhaps this is simply because it is a shorter letter (a total of 13 verses).

John refers to false teachers in this letter as "antichrists" and advises to not let them into your homes or even to acknowledge them in public.  I've always wondered about about how literally to take this.  Take, for example, Jehoveh's Witnesses.  I think they would qualify under John's descritpion of false teachers.  When they knock on your door, should you refuse to answer it, not allow them to enter the threshold, or something else?  How can we share the truth with them if we cannot acknowledge them in public?  Or was in the case that the false teachers John is talking about had actually infiltrated the established church (rather than creating a new one) and were therefore somehow more insidius?  I don't have answers to these questions, but I do think they are worth asking.

Thoughts on I John 5: the circle of obedience

Chapter 5 is another dense passage and my semi-random thoughts will certainly not do it justice.  The first few verses reiterate one of John's primary themes: We are children of God who can show our love to Him by obeying His commandments.

John then does something I don't think I ever noticed before doing my reading today--he starts using the language of a warfare.  Jesus, who came by "water and blood", conquered the world.  This seems out of place given the overwhelming themes in the rest of the book of love and obedience.  But it does make sense upon further thought.  Not only did Jesus conquer the world, so does our faith in him.  If we go back to chapter 2, we see the world defined as, "...the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions..."  Our faith in Christ can conquer these things. 

So what we seem to have is a circle of faith/obedience that might seem odd.  Christ is God's son.  Those of us who have faith in Christ are God's adopted children.  The faith that makes us adopted children also empowers us to obey the Heavenly Father.  This obedience is one key way to show our love to God.  So God, through the gift of His son, empowered us to join His family and to love Him.  

The rest of the chapter gets into some of the complicated themes that we touched on in chapter 3, but I do not feel adequate to tackle them at this time.  Maybe in future years as I continue my study and think about these things.

Thoughts on I John 4: read it for its deep simplicity

I once heard a Bible teacher refer to I John as "The Book of Love".  Reading chapter 4, it is hard to dispute that description.  This chapter is all about love: God's love for us, and the appropriate response of loving God back as well as our spiritual sisters and brothers.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time right now (perhaps more in future readings through the Bible) going through this rich chapter, because I think this one is clear and stands on its own in its simplicity.  I just want to encourage anyone who might be reading this blog to read I John 4 for yourself, slowly, and let its richness seep into your heart.