A Psalm of Jack Shephard

I love Lost. One of the main characters, Jack Shephard, has been identified with the number "23". Psalm 23 is called the "Shepherd's Psalm." This got me thinking...

Psalm 4, 8 , 15, 16, 23, 42

Jack is my Shephard, I shall not be in charge. He makes me lie down in green pastures to deliver my baby. He leads me to find clean drinking water. He can fix everything. He guides me on paths to the Black Rock for dynamite's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the statue, I will fear no Smoke Monster, for Jack is with me. Your "Flame" and your "Swan", they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the hatch of my enemies. You anoint my head with Dharma shampoo. My cup overflows with Dharma beer. Hurley, Kate, and Sawyer will follow me all the days of my life, and I will live forever on the island...or die alone.

(Lynn and Ruthie and Bowen all helped me with the preceding piece of heresy. Thanks!)

Book Review: Will The World End In 2012?

Doomsday. Armageddon. 2012. Fear. Chaos. I currently have R.E.M.'s "It's The End of the World As We Know It" running through my head.

Because...we are careening with breakneck speed towards the end of the world. No one may be able to guarantee when the earth will see her final days, but there is one thing that we can all agree on: we are closer now to the end than we've ever been.

The 2012 doomsday scenario is the most recent end-of-the-world phenomena to catch some semi-serious traction in our culture. I recently read the book "Will The World End In 2012?" by Raymond C. Hundley, subtitled "A Christian Guide To The Question Everyone's Asking." In this book, Hundley answers questions about the ten most popular predictions about how the world may end in 2012. The claims come from a much more diverse group of perspectives than I had previously thought, everything from the pseudo-religious (Nostradomus predictions, Mayan calendar) to the pseudo-scientific (Earth's alignment with the galactic plane) to very legitimate science (super volcanoes, NASA solar scientists predicting major solar activity in 2012). The chapter on the CERN experiments with sub-atomic particles was particularly eye-opening to me.

Overall, this book was mildly interesting at best. While the writer did a fairly good job of organizing the book into a memorable "top ten list" format, the material itself was as dry as a British soap opera. The fictionalized introductions to each chapter didn't help, either; they felt forced, out of place, and juvenile. While I appreciated the author's attempt to appeal to a secular audience, I think this book may be best suited to Christian high school students who want to have a more intelligent response to their overly dramatic peers. You know, the ones panicking about the world ending before they graduate...

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. Thomas Nelson gave me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

3 Common Church Phrases I Want To Change

I am not an English major. I am not a poet. I am not a scholar. I am, however, a bit of a word nerd. I believe that there is importance in the words that we use. There are messages, both explicit and implicit, in how we use our words. As a Christian, there are many phrases that are unique to our faith, that only make sense within the framework of Christianity and the Bible. Most of our peculiar phrases have some basis in the scripture, and, while being confusing or obscure to our increasingly secular culture, are generally good and helpful to us as followers of Jesus. There are, however, a few phrases that are commonly used in modern American Christianity that I have come to really dislike. I dislike these phrases because I find them to be a bit...watered down...or misguided. I also find them to be distracting from the reality that the Bible teaches. I am going to explore my current "top 3" phrases that I am having to consistently correct myself on. In this post, I will offer a phrase, some possible variations on the same theme, and possible replacements for the above.

Phrase I don't like: "Going to church"

- variant: "Stop by the church"

This is a phrase that has been around for quite some time, and most likely won't go away any time soon. The problem that I have with this phrase is that it either too closely identifies the "church" as either the building or as the meeting time. Biblically speaking, the church (the ekklesia or "called out ones") is the group of people who follow Jesus. The church is people, not a building or a meeting time.

Replacement phrase: "Church gathering"

- Replacement variant: "Stop by the church building"

Phrase I don't like: "Time to worship"

- variants: "worship pastor", "the worship was powerful today"

In the modern Evangelical church, the word "worship" has become synonymous with "singing." This is an incredibly narrow definition of what it means to worship God. Romans 12 teaches us that the way that we truly worship God is to continually submit our selfish desires to His perfect will. The act of worshipping God should never cease. We can worship God in the way we treat our spouse, how honest we are in our business practices, even in how we drive. While I LOVE, LOVE singing and music as a way to express my heart towards God and as a way to experience His presence, I am trying very much to do away with the term "worship" as an exclusive term to music.

Replacement phrase: "time to sing"

- variants: "music pastor", "the singing was powerful today"

Phrase I don't like: "When I get to heaven"

Oh, man! The complications of this...let me try to sum this up in a few short sentences. After we die, the Bible does teach that there is a positive afterlife of comfort, rest, and peace. This is referred to as "Abraham's bosom/side" or "paradise" in the New Testament. It is never referred to as "heaven." "Heaven", throughout the Bible refers to the place where God's presence is fully manifest. It also refers to the atmosphere, or to the sky/planets/stars, so it can get a little confusing. At the time of King Solomon, the Jewish people believed that all the dead went to Sheol, which means "the grave," and that it was mostly a place of silence. Only later did they begin to clarify that within Sheol was a "positive" afterlife (Abraham's bosom or paradise) and a "negative" one. In addition, we as Christians believe that at the end of this age, Christ will return and all who have ever lived will bodily resurrect. Throughout the eschatological literature of the Bible, there is a consistency of teaching that we don't float off into some cloudy, harp-playing, ethereal eternity, but that God restores the entirety of physical creation into a state of perfection. Jesus will literally join heaven and earth together for eternity. As Christians, we don't just believe in life-after-death, we believe in a physical resurrection and restoration and life-AFTER-life-after-death. Someday, heaven will crash into earth, resulting in...new creation.

Replacement phrase: "After the resurrection" or "In the New Creation"

I know that a post like this has the potential to ruffle some feathers. Please believe me when I say that the desire of my heart is to simply be more clear as to the meaning that can be lost or obscured by the cliche phrases we've come to adopt in English-speaking churches. My intention is not to deride anyone for using these phrases, but to challenge everyone to think more critically about the meanings behind the phrases we may take for granted. I desire to strive for clarity in my speech, so I can more accurately represent and communicate the ideas that are set forth in the scriptures.

What other phrases do we use that are:

a) Not truly Biblical?

b) Misunderstood or possibly misleading?

c) Cliche, and stripped of their effectiveness?

Some final, unexplored possibles..."ask Jesus in your heart"..."God helps those who help themselves"..."the safest place to be is in God's will"..."taking the Lord's name in vain"...

Thanks for reading this and and I hope that you would be challenged to be more intentional with your words. May this discussion lead to greater clarity and truth.