Detecting The Aroma Of Christ (June 25, 2006)

"You must be believers!"

It was a bold guess on the part of my friend and colleague, Haitian minister Franco Valdemar. He had been eating lunch in a Chinese buffet when he walked up to a booth of four gentleman and told them that he figured they had to be Christians. I asked Franco if it was because he had overheard them talking about the Lord, and he said no. It was just the way they interacted with each other.

It turns out he was right, of course. One of the men was a minister, and he eventually invited Franco to his church to talk about his work in Haiti.

Franco's good guess reminded me of the time I walked into a barber shop and the barber immediately asked me (kind of loudly), "Are you a minister?" I said yes, and asked how he knew. He said, "Felt the Spirit!"

Of course there are natural explanations for ESPOCP (Extra Sensory Perception Of Christian Presence). Maybe Franco actually had heard the four lunch-eaters mention Jesus but did not consciously realize it. Maybe that barber asked every stranger with a tie who walked into his shop during work hours the same question he asked me.

But I suspect you could cull enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that there really exists a spiritually detectable "fragrance of Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). I asked Franco if strangers ever pegged him as a Christian, and he said "All the time." A colleague of mine in Florida, who wears no ministerial dress whatsoever, once asked, "Do I wear a sign around my neck that says 'Pastor' or something? How do they know?"

My favorite of these stories involves a friend of a friend who walked into a cabin in Alaska where a motley crew were gathered. A man there said to him, "As you came through that door I perceived that you had no pretensions or guile. That means one of two things. Either you've done a lot of acid or you're a born-again Christian." He had not done any acid.

The other day I saw a bust of Lenin. Look at any picture of him and you can't miss the "frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command" that Shelley's traveler saw in Ozymandias. If I had never heard of Lenin, I think I could just look at his face and say, "Whoever that is, I'll bet you he doesn't love Jesus."

Here's praying that your love for Jesus creates within you a holy joy that practically oozes out your pores, and provokes the occasional question, "Are you a Christian or something?"

“Unconditional Love” Is Unbiblical Nonsense (June 11, 2006)

An article in Sunday's Chicago Tribune says that Jane Adams' philosophy of social engagement "was rooted in her commitment to the message of unconditional love in the teachings of Jesus."

What message of unconditional love in the teachings of Jesus?

I can't find "unconditional love" in the words of Jesus or anywhere
else in the Bible. But that phrase has become so entrenched in
religious vocabulary that just about everyone, Christian and
non-Christian alike, assumes it is biblical. It isn't. Jesus taught
that God's love is conditional, and he himself exemplified conditional
love in his dealings with men.

In John 16:27 he said to his disciples, "The Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God." If the Father's love were unconditional, this statement would be meaningless or false. The doctrine of unconditional love would have to remove the "because" from that verse and make it read, "The Father himself loves you whether or not you have loved me and have believed that I came from God."

In John 15:10 Jesus said, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love." This is straightforward. Remaining in the love of Christ is conditioned on obedience to his commands. That's what the word "if" means! The word "if" introduces a condition. If (now there's a condition for you) our Lord's love were unconditional, he would have said "Whether or not you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.

In John 14:21 Jesus said, "He who loves me will be loved by my Father." If God's love were unconditional, that statement would read, "He who loves/hates/ignores/whatevers me will be loved by my Father." Again, the words of Jesus, as given, are as transparently conditional as they can be.

Jesus said, "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:33). I cannot see how being disowned by Jesus is consistent with being loved by him. If someone were to say, "But this too is love! When Jesus banishes eternally from the presence of God those who disown him, that too - if we could only understand it - is just one more tender act of his unconditional love," I would answer with C. S. Lewis' memorable line, "Don't talk damn nonsense."

When Jesus calls Herod a fox (I.e., "rat", "weasel" - Luke 13:32), when he calls hypocrites children of the devil (John 8:44), when he denounces the Pharisees with scathing woes (Matthew 23:13-33), when he blows off his own family(!) - Luke 8:19-21 - he is not loving them. Love is when he calls his obedient disciples his friends (John 15:15). Love is when he washes their feet (John 13:5).

More than once I have received kind comments from people who thanked me for preaching God's unconditional love, and I don't know how to respond. I don't correct them. They're being nice. In fact, they probably understood me just fine - the problem really lies in the fact that they don't know what the word "unconditional" means.

So why do I make such a fuss about the dictionary definition of this word? Don't I have better things to do than play semantic games, and insist on the proper usage of the word "unconditional"?

I'll tell you why I fret about this word. Words condition thoughts. Careless words distort truth. Words that are used imprecisely by one generation are taken literally and at face value by the next, with devastating consequences.

I believe one possible result of this relentless jabbering about God's "unconditional love" will be more sin - and hence, less of God's love. Already I'm getting tired of sinners who defy God's commands but who still believe that he loves them anyway. Given today's homiletic unclarity, why shouldn't they believe that? They have been absorbing that sound-bite about God's unconditional love into their bloodstream like a nicotine patch. It has taken the edge off their natural craving
to be loved by him. Why yearn for that? Why adjust behavior in order to obtain it? The preachers have been telling them that God's love is already theirs, in abundance, and nothing they can do or fail to do will add to or detract from it.

I would rather they hear again and again the fearsome but biblical admonition, "Stop sinning, or God won't love you."

Brag About Your Kids (June 4, 2006)

I like it when people brag about their kids.

I know that such bragging provokes rolled eyes and bitter backlash from those who find it unseemly. I wouldn't say that they're jealous, but I do think that they are too sophisticated for their own (or anybody's) good. If people consider you insufferable for going on about what a great thing your kid did, nuts to them. When Johnny gets sent to a juvenile detention center, share it quietly at prayer meeting - but when he wins the city-wide violin contest, tell everybody! I'll be happy for you.

I got an email from a friend saying that his teenage son "hit his fifth out-of-the-park home run on Saturday, in addition to nailing two base stealers at second and third (while playing catcher) AND he was the game-saving pitcher who set up an unassisted double-play to end the contest." Wow! Wish I could have been there. That must have been great.

I bragged back about my son Peter, who hasn't a single athletic accomplishment lurking anywhere in his body, but who can read upside down. When he was in first grade I noticed that when he read, it did not seem to matter at all to him how the page was situated. I tested him on this ability the other day, handing him (upside down) some unfamiliar reading material with big words in it. He read it fast and clean and without a pause. Dang! (Now if they only gave out college scholarships for that.)

St. Paul bragged about his "son" Timothy ("I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare" - Philippians 2:20), and God bragged about Job ("Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil" - Job 1:8). The best thing to brag about concerning your children or protégés is their righteousness. Hopefully they'll give you lots of opportunities to talk them up that way. Then, when my friend's son attracts the attention of professional baseball scouts, and my son blows the lid off the SAT, you will be able to trump us both by saying, "My son is kind." That wins.