Tag Archives: truth

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 5–The Body

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Faith may be immaterial, but it is bounded up with the material. Not only did Jesus sum up all things within himself by taking on a human body, but his doing so codified the very essence of faith itself: it is the meeting place of Heaven (the immaterial) and Earth (the material). The Story of God did not happen merely in people’s imaginations, but rather in recorded eye-witnessed history. The Holy Spirit does not merely repair immaterial wounds, but by His life animates the solid and tangible to life in a mystery still being unravelled by the ever-out-stretching rubber band of science. And the direction of the Christian’s life is not merely a gnostic prizing of the immaterial over the material, but the bringing of the material to its end, and making something new and alive in a material sense by the imperishable immortal power of His Life. The Christian faith is not a disembodied faith, but rather it is embodied.

In one sense, it is practical: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26) One might say not only that the body is meeting place of Heaven and earth, like a temple, but it is the very home in which the glory of the invisible is made visible. The body is where the image of God is stamped just as much as the immaterial parts of us. Therefore, it is in our physical presence, our physical touch, our physical actions that the glory of God impacts the tangible world around us. This gives us the borrowed power to bodily impact the world for His glory that His life and goodness can flourish.

In another sense, it is archetypal. The body is not only a mystery in itself in how God in His Heavenly power makes the material come to life and grow and by its departure brings about death, but also a revelation of His intention for all reality. He intends that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. This is seen in a group of people functioning so in sync with one another that the best metaphor to describe them is a body. Is it just a metaphor?

Faith without a body is an idea, but with a body, it is a power to effect real change in the world. The presence of God in us gives life to our mortal bodies on the other side of death, and a repurposing of every broken thing in our bodies on this side of death. And the body of this death, though sin has reigned and wreaked all sorts of havoc, has been transformed into something new: a temple of the Holy Ghost. See 1 Corinthians 6.

Let our bodies be the instruments of righteousness to God that they were created to be, (Romans 6:13) and so demonstrate how Heaven and earth are indeed going to be one again, beginning with the Holy Sprit’s abiding presence in us.

He who has ears let him hear.

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 2– The Story

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And for those still listening, where to after “Listen to Jesus”?

How to make sense of all the lies, the doubts, the ruined way of things? How to sort through the ruins of religious beliefs that were once glorious temples to the familiar and the sacred?

Well, the for starters, the building materials were probably not all bad. It was just put together in a certain way that eventually left the Holy Spirit out. T. Austin-Sparks talks about how once Christianity becoming crystalized: turned into an institution that fits the times and pleasures of the people who founded it. In my words, it is like taking a living tree and making it into a dresser drawer. To put it cleverly: to “crystalize” Christianity is to un-Christ-alize it.

Christianity can become like every other religion of the world, if it crystalizes, even if it crystalizes around a person. To guard against this, the story of the person, like a crown situating a diamond, situates the truth of Jesus, but it must never situate it so rigidly that the many facets of the diamond cannot shine His variegated light. The story gives plenty of room for the whole Gospel to swallow a person up the way the ocean swallows up a diver.

Christianity is not a set of rules that helps a person become better if he follows them, otherwise it would be like any other religion. It is situated in a real-life story interpreted in the framework of relationship between God and Humans. It’s a story that invites us to interpret our lives by it, and invites us to become a part of it. For the Christian, Israel’s history, interpreted by the prophets is our history.

What gave a prophet the right to interpret Scripture? How can I trust these so-called prophets to tell me the story in a way that won’t mess me up? Who is to say that as soon as Prophets wrote the Scriptures down, it was just “crystalizing” it again?

That’s a great question. From my own personal experience with the Bible, the more I’ve read it and learned the layers of meaning accessible at any level to which a seeker may dig, the more I see a living intelligence behind the intelligence of the authors. There is plenty of fascinating connection between the whole Library of the Bible which tells an intricate and thoroughly rounded out story, which leaves room for its readers to take part. The treasures of these layers are suited to the hearts that seek them, as if the Scriptures itself could talk directly to each person who is honest and listening.

If a person is going to reconstruct their faith, one has to start with and never leave the person, and the second place to start building is the Book. The Book has guidelines for how it must be read–culturally aware, on its own terms, multiple times, with a group of people. All of these ensure a more rich and correct way of reading it. And not just reading it, but hearing it read to you, and not just listening to it, but chewing on it. The Bible is thoroughly interesting, with many different flavors: emotional, matter of fact, narrative, art, poetry, song, numbers, records, visions, history and more.

In short, “Chew Bible-Gum!” You’re going to get that bad post-flavor taste in your mouth chewing Hallmark movies, news stories, pop-novels, blog posts, and even classic literature runs out of flavor eventually. You will experience only ever increasing flavors, and the flavors will also . . . how do I put this delicately . . . reveal what you’ve got in your insides. It will paint pictures of the most glorious and disgusting parts of you. It takes courage to give the Bible the authority to examine you.

Start in the Gospels, reading about Jesus, then go into the Old Testament and see Jesus’s rich cultural heritage in which it is not too hard to find each of us, nor to find One very persistent Hero who will fight the hardest battles to win back the heart of His beloved.

And not to make this too self-focused, but His beloved means you.

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 1: The Person

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A volcano–pagan-rooted name for a mountain of fire–the ultimate natural agent for reconstruction at least at the outset.

All of earth is not solid, but sustains life floating above a sea of fire, which regularly resurfaces this terrestrial home.

Is the truth really that different?

Historical, evident, specific, general, absolute, situational–you may smash a rock to atoms, but the Truth? Can you build it on a shifting foundation of fire?

No. The Truth may have been viscous and immaterial at first, but it has become material. It upholds all things by its existence. Things that really exist, are because the Truth is. But Truth is become material, and when it did, it did not become a rock, or a planet, or any element. It became Human. Jesus Christ revealed that deeper than objective reality there is a personal reality.

Now this has led many to question the solidity of truth. Perhaps it is merely whatever melts the heart into whatever shape I would take according to myself. But no. There may be a strain of the pattern of true humanity recognizable in us, but equally recognizable is that our humanity is so thoroughly misshapen. It takes fire to melt, but it takes a mold to be recast. And the fire of the Word of God became real in a person: Jesus Christ.

This is the basis of so called “Christianity”: not objective truths which philosophy arranges per cultural speculation, but a Person living today in relationship with others. The bedrock of our faith is a real person.

Could it be that many who are, as some put it, “deconstructing their faith” do so because they are missing the Person? Or that Christianity has been an egg shell with no living creature inside it? Having been taught Truth as if it were an impersonal thing, for fear that the personal would cause a person to drift away from what is not in keeping with their own caprice, have we merely traded an “all consuming fire” for a ideological idol of invisible stone? What is the alternative?

The beginning point of reconstruction is Jesus, anointed by God. “Listen to Him!” Not in the sense of hear what he has to say, but chew on it, do it, and become it. You’ll have a house built on the rock. He is the foundation. See 1 Corinthians 3.

We seek so many proofs before we trust, but really it is faith which is the decision to obey before all the proofs are given. This is the real terror that drives many deconstructionists away from the faith. They would rather be their own master, lost in a room with only the voices to which they would rather listen to, than the One who is proven to be the supreme Person by his rising from the dead. Do not seek to dodge His call. He is the “Truth.” He Himself calls himself that. Get to know him and see that he calls you to walk a narrow path.

Many on the “Christian” road today are lost. There is a broad path and a narrow path of what is culturally called “Christianity.” I say truly, there is a broad path of by-name Christianity that still leads to destruction. The difference between a Christian on the narrow road that leads to life and one on the broad path that leads to destruction is this: one is out to gain life for himself. The other is out to . . . oh why is it so hard to even articulate this? It’s like the twisted weakness of sin in me refuses to let it out. Lord grant me the grace to even say it. The second has already lost his life and seeks now only to live for the One who is truly worthy of all blessing, honor, glory, and power. Can I say it more clearly? The narrow path of Christianity is the path walked by the Prophets leading to Christ, and the Apostles leading from Christ. The narrow path of Christianity is the way of the Cross, which Jesus called people to carry, not around their necks, but upon their backs. The narrow path of Christianity expends the self for Jesus with joy. The broad path seeks to expend Jesus for self with pride and avarice.

Reconstruction is not chaos. It is willingness to be lost, so that you can be found, or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 3– “to become a fool that one may become wise.” But if one in search of wisdom references all according to his own heart, he is just as much a fool as he was at first. After all “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Prov 28:26) even if the divine fire warms his chest.

So then how does one go about it? This is the starting point of how to find the truth about what real Christianity is: “Meet Jesus.” Talk with Jesus like He is there, and you’ll discover that He is, or you are not oriented toward Him. In encountering Jesus, you will find the answer to that which your faith questions.

Where does one meet Jesus? With someone who has been changed by Jesus. Next time you meet someone who calls themselves a Christian, ask them, “Would you say you’ve been changed by Jesus, and if so, how?”

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

Parable: Two Temples

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Once upon a time in a great kingdom far away, there was at the center of the realm, a Temple. This temple was immense, and it was also a garden. Fruit trees, cherry blossoms–a self-sustaining eco-system where the animals and plants all produced and flourished with life. It was tended and kept by watchful guardians, and it was perfect.

Then one day, someone came and dumped a ton of trash in the center of the garden. The keepers of the garden were devastated and since they didn’t know how to deal with the trash, they left it there. And the trash started to mess with the ecosystem and make it fester. It started to pollute the whole garden until it overran it. People abandoned their care of the garden, and they abandoned visiting the temple, but their hearts still hungered for the beauty of the temple.

So they started building temples of dead things, and started to put up artificial fruit trees. The people there were all very friendly, but they had only one rule: you had to call the artificial trees, “real fruit trees.”

One day a visitor from a neighboring kingdom came and visited the realm, and went to the temple they had constructed, and he remarked to them all, “What is with all the fake trees?” The people politely corrected him since he was a stranger, “They aren’t fake, they are real.” And he said, “No they’re not. In my kingdom, our fruit trees bear real fruit and you can eat them. This is not a real fruit tree.” Impatiently, they said, “Well, when you are in our kingdom, you will call these real fruit trees. If you don’t like it you can leave.” And he said, “What about the garden at the center of your kingdom? Don’t you have real fruit trees there?” At this they grabbed him and kicked him out of their temple and said, “Don’t come back here again, if you’re going to treat us so disrespectfully!”

Scratching his head, the visitor went to the center and saw all the trash littered there, and he started to call people in the kingdom to help him clean it up. A handful of them worked together until at least a small part of the Garden looked like it did before. Then he brought to them the fruit from the center of the Kingdom, and offered it to the people in the “Artificial Temple.” Of course they had some type of fruit, but it was imported and borrowed and as artificial as the trees, but not nutritious. He offered the fruit to anyone who would take it, and when he handed the fruit to someone who accepted it, he called the fruit a word which they did not understand at first.

Sacred.

To the President: from your boss

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Dear President Trump,

 – – Hi, I’m Luke Ferguson. I’m your boss. My boss has some thoughts that he’s given me, and I want to pass them on to you.

 – – The Truth is being suppressed. Your power is limited, but you can help. The Freedom of the Press and the Freedom of Speech apply to you just as much as it does to every American. Find a window where the Truth can be spoken that no media outlet can touch. Offer verifiable information, and so win the trust of your people. Call the nation, government, people, and culture to Justice. And let yourself be the first casualty of the movement. You know of whom I speak, when I reference this.

 – – I hope and pray that our boss will be glad that He hired you. Show the world His love and power, the way Jesus did.

Your servant,

Luke Ferguson

The Bible: Embrace

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The Bible is a rare book which embraces its reader’s heart with love. It knows its reader and it receives its reader with the same knowing love Jesus had when he spoke in parables. Our heart’s deepest questions are not just answered, but they are loving accepted and left unanswered until our fears are laid to rest by the testimony of God’s faithfulness, and then we find that the answer isn’t just in the Bible, but the answer is out there seeking the questioner. The book is like its author: loving, truthful, humble, and wise. Through the book, the reader comes to know what the Author knows about the reader, and then invites and excites gratitude to the Author for how well the Author understands, searches out, and resolutely stretches out its arms and his hands to bring the willing heart into right relationship with Himself. When reading it, one wonders, is it a book or is it a person? The Bible is obviously a book of books, but the Author’s love and truth so saturate every page that the Word– the message, the thought, the meaning– of the book come alive in the heart– as alive in the heart as the Author of both the heart of the reader and of life itself. O that every student of the Bible would learn the Bible’s ways of embracing the heart of the reader with all its questions, doubts, and fears, and of showing them knowing love that invites them to be saved!

Fire and Stone

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Is the earth rock solid?
Scientists know
There is fluid flame
In deep places below.

The rock is so good
It does not move
The world stands fast
Until rock breaks

The fire is so good
It only moves
The World expands
And shatters the rock

But lo the mystery:
Fire takes good stone
And forges it anew
As one solid piece

And from that solid piece
New life grows
And foundations are laid
For the time it is given

What is stone does not last
Unless fire melt it
What is fire cannot settle
What ignites if fire touches it

God is good: true and living
His word settles the future.
His word is ever breathing
Right now in your hearing.

Inside the Drum

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Pum, Pum, Pum
Came the beat of the drum
Thick, full echoes shaken, quaken

Bum, Bum, Bum
All through the enclosed room
The air reverberated and faded

True, True, True
All is in clear view
Nothing is hidden, naught is forbidden

Bole, Bole, Bole
Hear His thunder roll
There is only sound all around

Thwack, Thwack, Thwack
The wall inside, I stifled the whack
Now two partitions split the transmissions

Pap, Pap, Pap,
The stick went slap
The words were broken, a dream half-woken

Still, Still, Still
Eerie restlessnesses fill
The empty recesses of my newfound trusses

“Pum,” “Pum,” “Pum”
My noises sound dumb
The echoes malformed are not warmed

“Bole! Bole! Bole!”
My voice is droll
The echoes die; it is I

Lies, Lies, Lies
My mimicking cries
The room I split, a dark pit

“No! No! No!”
With all my might I throw
The walls collapse with a crash

“Bum, Bum, Bum”
I shout in the drum,
It rings soundness, and profoundness

Ring, Ring, Ring,
I listen for something
Anything to be known, and blown again

Bow, Bow, Bow
The sound returns now
Tear wells are open at new words spoken

Boom, Boom, Boom
The presence in the room
All fullness no dullness

Broll, Broll, Broll,
Welcome thunders roll
The instrument is His

The Sun of God’s Love

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How bright the Sun is shining always!
It keeps the earth alive, renewed.
That even when the storms are raging,
And thunder rolls like hammers crude,

Still constant burns life-giving love
To sift the seasons of our souls,
And storms that rage against our surface,
Cannot deny this central truth:

He is mighty in the open sky
The heavens round him circle,
That when it’s gone, small evidence’s fly
And dazzle the eye with new emotion.

The weight of glory bends all time
To circle us around his globe
That we being pulled in the vortex of God’s love
May sustainably run across the empty universe.

The planets wobble and shatter to asteroids,
Still the Sun remains.
Though the world fall to pieces and all life crash down,
Still God’s love will keep us in orbit.

The darkness of night, and the shadows of storms
Beat against the surface with its bitter cold,
Still there is a love beyond our own making
Which holds the life for a thousand worlds.

How majestic and radiant the love of God!
It changes the very nature of the heavens,
It casts its generous heat all around,
And only a fraction reaches this planet.

Eclipses cannot Eclipse the weight of his glory,
And the Sun is but a shape.
In contrast God’s love takes all shapes
And makes them good according to his purpose.

O love of God, all life is in you,
How can I but rejoice in your light.
Apart from you I die,
I cannot see, nor can I feel.

But all this I rejoice that You, O God,
Have given me many ways to see it.
Forgive my stubbornness to be blind
And my fear which does not trust how good You are.

Opinions and Truth

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Everyone has an opinion.
Few hold the truth.
I know where to find it,
But it’s very hard to get there.
Mainly because it’s where I have no power
Only accountability
Only a glaring ugliness of all the lies I love

Opinions muck up the works
The Truth brings simplicity
Few know it when they hear it
But it’s very hard to ignore
Mainly because of it’s quiet immovable power
It is only submitted to His authority
He who loves me and hates my proud Babylons

I am tired of opinions
My heart aches for truth
Where can I find it?
It’s worth the difficult search
Mainly because it can give me the power
To face my accountability
For the problems in my life that are really my own fault.

Oh God, I submit my opinions
I yearn to be shaped by Your truth
Can you find me?
Am I worth the search
Mainly because You have given me the power
To be accountable for your Truth
To the one who loves me more than all my failures.