For the Joy of the Master

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For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more."

His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant.You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more."

His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."

But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." - Matthew 25:14-30

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This parable used to really bother me as a kid. I was always upset that the master gave the servants different amounts to work with. What bothered me even more was the fact that the master, upon his return, seemed to add talents and rewards proportionate to the gain that the servant made on the money, regardless of the fact that they didn't start with the same amount (Don't believe me? See the parallel passage in Luke 19).

Now I don't consider myself a financial guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know that it's easier to make five of something back if you start with five rather than two. So when the master seemingly rewards in proportion to the profit, that seemed extremely unjust.

I say "seemingly" because I noticed something recently I had not noticed before. I had been confusing exactly what the reward was.

I realized that when the master rewards the servant with the pronouncement "I will set you over much" (in the Luke passage this is authority over cities), he is not giving the servant a reward. He is adding to his responsibility. The master is not giving money to the servant for making him money. The money, the cities, the "much" all still belongs to the master.

What then is the reward for the servant? "The joy of your master". With this short phrase, all of my materialistic categories of life are crushed.

I am guilty of using the gifts and abilities that God has given me for the motive of gaining more. I want more stuff, status, prestige, in this life and the next. How foolish! How could I have missed for so long that it all belongs to the master!

Nothing that is given to me belongs to me. Nothing that I add to what has been given to me belongs to me. And nothing that is placed under my care because I have been productive in the past belongs to me.

If I am working for anything but the joy of the master, I am working foolishly. So to those of you who are constantly jealous of the gifts or possessions or status that someone else has, consider what you have and work for the joy of the master. To those of you who have said gifts and possessions and status, work for the joy of the master. And remember, to whom much is given, much is required.

And above all, work for the joy of the master.

The Imputation of Adam's Sin: A Theory

I was challenged recently that the idea of original sin and Adam's fall as our Representative Head was an unfair and antiquated idea. Nobody still believes that today, do they?

The push-back was not on universal sin, a cursory read of the Bible (or the newspaper for that matter) will settle that one. We're all sinners, no son of Adam (save one) has ever lived a sinless life. "But this idea that we are sinners because Adam sinned, that's so archaic!"

As I considered an answer, I was reminded of a similar complaint. Why did God make humans so we could sin at all?! Why not create us so that we would always choose to love and worship God?The answer is that this sort of love and worship would not be real, would not be genuine. In order for our love and worship to be real, it must be free.

So God created the first two humans with genuine moral freedom (a freedom we don't possess or fully understand). God made them this way not because he wanted humans who would sin, but because it must be so in order to have free God-worshippers.

The nature of God-worshipping freedom requires it.

And I think this may illuminate our question of the imputation (or the passing down) of sin. Just as the nature of freedom played a role in the sort of humanity God made, I think the nature of worship played a role in the sort of humanity God made.

Remember, sin is not just disobeying God, it is the love and worship of something other than God. The devotion, allegiance, obediance, and affection that should be God's is turned to something (or someone) else. So while God did not make us sinners (nor did he create sin), sin happens when we put anything else in God's place. We remove God from the throne in our hearts and place ourselves there.

So perhaps God did not make us linked to Adam in our sinfulness just because he wanted it that way. Perhaps God made us this way because it must be so in order to have the sort of worshippers he desired. The nature of freedom required the potential for a fall, and the nature of worship required the potential for slavery to sin that is transferred from parent to child. Perhaps the nature of our relationship to sin is the way it is because that's the way God desired our relationship with him to be. At least that's my theory right now.

Vacuum Salesmen and Hell: A Parable

Last summer my wife and I went to the Nebraska State Fair so I could eat my first deep-fried Twinkie. It was worth the price of admission, price of Twinkie, and all future heart problems. While we were there we made our way to the exhibitors hall, where all the cool gadgets are peddled. These are the sorts of products that are cool enough that people will buy them at first glance, but not reliable enough that Wal-Mart or Target would stand behind them. I believe the strategy is make a good sell then flee town before your product falls apart.

While we were there, we were drawn in by an air purifier/humidifier that was free if we agreed to let a vacuum salesman come to our house and give us a 45 minute demonstration of his product. So after he came and gave us his 90 minute demonstration, I was still unconvinced. He tried every angle: need ("look at all these germs and allergens your breathing and living in"), benefit ("this will save you money in the long run over carpet and upholstery cleanings, allergy medicines, etc."), and guilt ("I've got a family, I'm just trying to provide for them. Don't waste my time"). He almost parted me with $4,000 when he showed my wife a thin, black cloth with a pile of what he vacuumed out of our couch. He should have been ashamed for playing on the fears of an already-neurotic, pregnant woman.

I was reminded of our vacuum salesman incident (as we now call it) today while reading Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Don't worry, this is not a post on the emergent church. However, this did jog my memory: "On the emergent end I think people are afraid that Christians are using hell as a sales tool to get people to buy into Christianity, and I think that should be avoided". It got me thinking of the salesman. While I agreed with his premise that we needed to be free of all the dust mites, dead skin cells, allergens, and germs in our life, I just couldn't get over the cost. When he asked for references of others he could pitch to, I certainly did not want to be the one responsible for afflicting anyone else with what I just went through. Not only that, but his approach colored my opinion of other salesmen.

Hell is a reality just like dust mites, dead skin cells, allergens, and germs (my wife would probably suggest they are synonymous). Certainly not equal in magnitude and severity, but roll with my analogy. Even if people agree with our premise that hell exists and should be avoided, many of them just can't get over the cost. When this happens, our approach and conduct up to this point will determine largely how they think of Christianity afterwards. Will they feel that we had a genuine concern for them or that we just wanted to "seal the deal"? Will they want to spend more time around Christians or less? Will they come and seek you out when their life gets too messy dirty or will they go to someone else?

I am not suggesting that our Gospel presentation should just be "hell avoidance". Indeed, the Gospel, in its essentials, need not include hell at all. But when we do talk about hell, how is it handled? Are we presenting the Gospel like our vacuum salesman, just using the idea of hell to scare, coerce and intimidate? Are people being scared away from Christianity for fear that they will have to adopt similar tactics in being Gospel salesmen if they buy in? Is my impersonal and calloused approach coloring their opinion of not only me but other Christians and even Christ? The Gospel is offensive enough without us adding offense to it.

Book Review: True For You but Not For Me by Paul Copan

Ten years ago Paul Copan addressed and challenged the post-modernity of our culture in his book True For You but Not For Me. Somehow that book had slipped under my radar and it was only upon the release of the new revised and expanded edition that I discovered it.

Thank goodness for revised and expanded editions.

This short and smart book reads like a practical field-guide for dealing with the challenges of moral relativism and religious pluralism that face Christianity today. While each chapter builds on the foundation laid by previous chapters, each is easily referenced by type and specific challege for a brush-up if one is in need of a quick response. As a philosopher, Copan is well equipped to both understand and deconstruct the false assumptions and faulty logic of some of the more extreme forms of postmodernism. At the end of every chapter is a summary in a few bullet points for easy review and a list of recommended books for further study.

This is, in short, the most concise handbook for addressing our culture's postmodern-influenced relativism that I have read. The information contained in this book should not just be read. It should be memorized if we are to present Christianity in a way that is clear, rational, reasonable, and winsome.

Book Review: Satan and His Kingdom by Dennis McCallum

As embarrassed as I am to admit this, my thinking on Satan and demons has almost solely been shaped by Lewis' Screwtape Letters and Peretti's This Present Darkness. Until now. Dennis McCallum has written a much needed work for Christian literature in Satan and His Kingdom. It is well studied, biblically balanced, and very readable.

While it may not be at the top of my list of recommended reads for the new Christian, it most certainly is for anyone in church leadership. Dennis McCallum is frank about spiritual warfare being fought around us and the tendency of most Christians to fall into a "peacetime mentality". While he is not seeing demons around every corner and behind every temptation, McCallum is honest and strongly biblical about the existence and activity of spiritual beings opposed to God and his children.

Many Christians are too quick to attribute every temptation and conflict to Satan and his minions ("The devil made me do it" type of people) rather than our own sinful tendencies and the system of the world. Others ignore their reality to the point of verging on naturalism. Dennis McCallum is a fresh voice bringing balance and biblical insight into the all too real battle going on around us.

If I have one criticism, it is that after a couple chapters of such subject matter, I felt like I needed to cleanse my palate, put the book down, and read the Bible. But I think McCallum would be happy with that.

Book Review: The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

While the gospel of social justice is a popular topic today, it is refreshing to read a presentation of the Gospel that gives both spiritual transformation and social justice its biblical due. Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, has written a compelling book that pulls the blinders off of our comfortable, American Christianity. While social justice was given the bulk of the attention here, this is due to Stearns' sense of it's utter neglect in the Gospel of many evangelicals.

This book read like a half autobiography/half World Vision sponsor video script, neither of which I particularly enjoy but both of which I found compelling. And certainly, when there is such abject poverty and suffering in our world, and when we live in such opulence by comparison, we do not deserve to enjoy everything we read.

I was not convinced by some of Stearns' arguments from the Bible. I am still of the mind that Jesus' proclamation of good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and release of the oppressed was primarily (though not solely) referring to the spiritually poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed. Case in point: how many prisoners did Jesus free? Not even John the Baptist was freed by Jesus.

However, much of Stearns' offering was well-reasoned and biblically supported. World Vision's founder, Bob Pierce, famously prayed, "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God." How will this ever be true if we blind ourselves to the things that break the heart of God?

In defense of religion?!!

It is refreshing to hear a couple well-spoken guys defending religion in the public arena. I have personally voiced my opinion on the pariah that the word "religion" has become. Now Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck are doing the same, not only through Christian publishers (see Why We Love the Church), but through the mainstream media as well.

From the Washington Post: "Here's what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won't tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel's Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36)."