Monthly Archives: April 2017

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Six Ways to Make the Bible Make Sense

No theologians were harmed in the writing of this column

There’s no point in hinting around. Studying the Bible isn’t optional, but most Christians find it taxing to establish a routine. Consequently, they either restrict their time in God’s Word to some little promise book, or they just put it off altogether. Naturally, the promise book is good, but it no more substitutes for serious reading than a donut and coffee take the place of a balanced meal. How can the Holy Spirit guide us into “all truth” if we just consider truth a snack food?

We’re a generation that has grown up on websites, magazines, tv, movies and 12-minute YouTube shows, so we find it difficult to read more than a chapter or two in a sitting … or a week … or a month. Frankly, a lot of us just won’t read anything unless it’s published twelve times a year in color or easy to find on Google. But don’t be depressed. There are understandable reasons why you don’t read your Bible like you should. If you’re the typical Christian:

  • You read the Scriptures for “spiritual guidance” rather than practical instruction.
  • No matter how much you read, you just don’t understand a lot of it.
  • You have no idea how much Bible knowledge is “enough,” so you’re defeated right out of the gate.

The important thing is to get into Scripture as a manual for living, not just to find “proof-texts” for defending your faith. So, to that end here are six rules—I don’t really like the word “rules,” but we’ll use it—that will help you to see the Scriptures as the practical guide it was meant to be.

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The Electoral College

Or would you rather have mob rule?

Imagine a neighborhood of 10 homes where a vote is held on whether certain services should be provided by the neighborhood’s association (meaning a hike in home owners’ dues). 9 homes hold from 1 to 4 residents each, with a total of 24 people, while one home is crammed with 25. (I remember immigrant homes in Orange County, California’s Little Saigon back in the 1970s where this was often the case.)

The home of 25 votes for the new provisions while the other 9 homes vote against them.

If each home’s vote counts equally (like the Electoral College and U.S. Senate), then it’s a 9 to 1 win for keeping said services optional at each owner’s expense.

If the popular vote counts, then the one crowded home calls the shots for the whole neighborhood. Everyone’s dues rise.

It’s your neighborhood. Whose vote should prevail?

Before you answer, consider this: If the USA did away with the Electoral College, the voters in a handful of crammed enclaves like Los Angeles County and New York City would decide every election. And you’d be paying for whatever they wanted for the rest of your life.

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Hero Series #2: Jon

A hero in black and white

On the first Saturday in June, 2007, one of my heroes, Jon Karner, was laid to rest in a verdant cemetery outside tiny Milaca, Minnesota. I met Jon in 1980, on a street corner in the USSR. He was Jaanus Karner back then, a leader in the underground church in the Soviet republic of Estonia. We were there to deliver some sorely needed supplies from supporters in the West.

Jaanus was a semi-anonymous legend in the West, and I had seen his black and white photograph hundreds of times. Now, standing there in the flesh, tall and strong with a coal black beard Samson might have envied, I somehow saw him still in black and white. Mind you, contrast was good in the USSR, a lifeless land whose grayness of spirit seemed to drain even the natural world of every shade in the spectrum.

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Who are these Guys?

Meet the authors and hosts of The Worldview Course

(A post in which James toots his own horn, and thereby blows it)

Polar opposites in virtually every way except their common consecration to God and his Word, Mark Nauroth and James Gilbert, aka The Worldview Guys, are as unlikely a combination as waffles and fried chicken. In other words, bring these two together and things just work, especially when they’re writing, podcasting or hosting their brand new venture, The Worldview Course.

Ask the young millennial from California and the…uh, “older gentleman” from Florida why they’ve joined forces to become the “Guys” and you’ll get a single answer: “We’re out to win the culture, not the culture war.”

“The Worldview Course is a 13-session video series we wrote and cohosted for a target audience that includes both small groups and families,” explains Mark. We purposely staged it like a giant Apple commercial, and gave the whole project a fun and slightly irreverent tone.”

The course includes both DVD and online video, a sleek 145-page study guide with wide margins for journaling, online testing and more. “We’re both communicators: a writer and a web designer,” says James, “and we share a passion to connect the dots between God’s word and John Q. Public’s world.”

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On Christ’s Passion

The more I know, the less I understand

All around the world, there are tens of thousands of Passion-themed blog posts have been published this week, some showing more profound insight than others, but nearly all of them written from hearts and minds wanting to honor Jesus’ unthinkable suffering for our sins. I wish I could write one too, but…

It’s not that I have nothing to say. After 48 years in ministry, I doubtless do have insights worth sharing. Yet, right now, for some reason, they seem worth less—worthless—rather than worth more. I suppose the easiest way to explain is to quote the late Corrie ten Boom:

“The more I get to know God, the less I understand Him, but the more I trust Him.”

I was privileged to meet and host Corrie ten Boom a couple of years before she passed away at age 91. It didn’t take long to see that there was no pretense about her. When this stoop-shouldered, tiny giant of the faith said something that wowed us all, she wasn’t attempting to be profound; she was just being honest. Likewise, I just want to write something honest here.

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Auld Angst Signs

Advice from a missionary who doesn't believe in "witnessing"

Guilt for not praying and studying the Bible is only one of the spooks haunting the hallways of Christians’ minds. This unfriendly ghost has cousins–co-conspirators that work to keep you quiet and defeated. Every time the prospect of giving voice to your faith in Christ presents itself, the ghosts of Failure, Inadequacy, and Hypocrisy flit past your ear, whispering the lines that have worked so well ever since Saint Peter chickened out by a campfire near Calvary.

The ghost of Failure leads off with a whisper, dredging up memories of the few attempts you made right after you became a Christian:

  • You got completely tongued-tied.
  • He brought up questions you couldn’t answer.
  • She got mad and has avoided you ever since.
  • You hate knocking on doors.

The sound of forty pounds of wood slamming in your face is still fresh in your mind, when Inadequacy steps up to tell you you’re just not cut out for this, pointing out very good reasons for you to keep quiet:

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How the U.S. can Defeat ISIS

Nine steps our government can take right now

In “Unmasking ISIS,” Terry law and I recommend nine steps the U.S. Government can take right now. (In a separate post, I’ll list nine steps that YOU can take).

1. Admit that America is at war with radical Islamist jihadists.
2. Destroy ISIS militarily in Iraq and Syria, and take away their caliphate.
3. Secure America’s borders (including enhanced security screening with extra layers of interviews for anyone visiting or emigrating from a Muslim nation).
4. Bolster friendly Middle East alliances and punish hypocrites.
5. Break with Iran and push for a truly independent Federated Iraq.
6. Wage all-out cyber-warfare against ISIS.
7. Wage a massive counter-propaganda campaign against ISIS.
8. Encourage Muslim reformers.
9. Educate and assist Muslim communities in combatting ISIS’ recruiting efforts.

Each of these steps is explained in detail, and thank goodness, some key folks on Capitol Hill are reading it and taking notice. To order your copy, or one for your congressman or senator, click on the book’s photo.

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The Price is Life

I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin...

Names changed for safety’s sake..

In 2006, the year after Iraq had adopted a new Constitution guaranteeing greater freedoms, an Arabic friend of mine, “Ali,” traveled to Baghdad, taking with him several Children’s Bibles that present the story of creation, the Old Testament fathers, and the Gospel in Arabic. Commissioned by my writing colleague, Dr. Terry Law, thousands of them had been distributed throughout Baghdad with the permission of—no kidding—The Ayatollah of Baghdad.

When Ali entered the Customs department at the Baghdad airport, the agent inspecting his bags held up one of the Bibles and asked what it was. “A children’s Bible in Arabic,” Ali replied forthrightly.

“Come with me,” said the agent, leading him down a hallway to a nearby room.

After checking the hallway for other personnel, the agent closed the door and spoke freely. He said he had lost his previous job, and had taken the very dangerous position of working at the airport—considered collusion by Al Qaeda because it involved working with Americans—in order to support his family.

“We live in a poor neighborhood,” the man told Ali. One day my son came home with some food, and when I asked him where he got it, he told me the Catholic church down the street.” Ali remembered the church because he and Dr. Law had left a supply of Bibles there.