The word theodicy was coined by the 17^th century German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. It describes the process of seeking to logically vindicate the goodness, power, and justice of God in spite of the fact that he created a world in which evil exists.

The Bible nowhere offers humanity a true theodicy. However, Revelation offers insight into the problem. According to the text, God has made an escape for human beings in the midst of this evil world. Escape from the power of evil is provided through the loving grace and forgiveness of God which, in turn, is provided for by his eternal plan of salvation that culminated in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The theodicy of Revelation approaches its climax in 12:1 – 14:20 as it sets its focus upon the Lamb of God and the crushing defeat of evil. Following his defeat, Satan turns to wage war on the messianic community on earth. Disciples conquer the same way Jesus conquered: by faithfully testifying to God’s plan even if it requires death.

The final judgment scene of Revelation 20:11-15 serves as a fitting closing statement about God’s authority over evil, a final dropping of the curtain. In this section John also brings his theodicy to a conclusion. Evil is finally and permanently destroyed, God is vindicated, and those who choose to serve him are declared victorious.

Revelation offers a hope like no other New Testament writing. God is in control of history guiding it to a predetermined conclusion. Human beings of all ages are commanded to reject the values of their culture, to trust God, and to obey God as he works his redemptive plan out in history. Such loyalty to God may cost disciples their lives; however, the resurrection assures us that even though we may be martyred in this world we are still more than conquerors.

This theodicy may not satisfy everyone but it is the biblical answer to the problem of evil. Jesus has conquered and now reigns. To conquer with him we must give up being earth dwellers and, instead, become loyal citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven—no matter the consequences.

Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, was released on February 25, 2004 amid much ado. After five years the hoopla has subsided but the film remains very popular. In fact, it is the highest grossing non-English language film and the most successful R-rated film ever released  in the United States. And it is, in my opinion, a film well worth seeing.

The movie focuses almost exclusively on the final 12 hours of Christ’s life. This is, after all, a film about the passion (suffering) of Christ, not a film about his life, teaching, or even his resurrection.

The screenplay is inspired by the four canonical Gospels and draws heavily from the 14 Stations of the Cross as explained primarily within the tradition of the Catholic Church. Anyone familiar with the Catholic Church will be familiar with the stops along the way. Every Friday night during Lent practicing Catholics are encouraged to meditate on Christ’s suffering as they pass through the 14 Stations. Many Catholics know the chants by heart and have vivid memories of the priest leading the way from one station to another: At the Cross, her station keeping … Stood the mournful Mother weeping … Close to Jesus to the last.

Many people object to the film. Some people object that it is anti-Semitic. Other people object to the graphic violence, claiming that it is entirely overdone. Still others object to the film’s use of Catholic traditions and artistic license rather than remaining a documentary based strictly upon the written texts of the four Gospels.

In spite of these objections, it is my opinion that the film is well worth seeing. It may not be or do everything that everyone would want it to be or do; however, for what the film is and for what the film intends to do it does better than any film ever made about the Passion of the Christ.

As I’ve said, this isn’t a movie about the birth of Jesus, the parables of Jesus, or even about his resurrection. It is a film about an idea—an idea that it is necessary to fully comprehend the Passion (suffering) of Christ if Christianity is to make any sense at all. Gibson has communicated his idea with a single-minded urgency. Many will disagree. Some will agree, yet be horrified by the graphic treatment of the subject matter.

But make no mistake, if you see the film you will be profoundly affected. You will be, perhaps for the first time, fully confronted with what Jesus really went through in order to achieve human redemption. That alone, in my opinion, makes the film well worth seeing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.” (“The Note-Books,” The Crack-Up, 1945).

In mythology a hero is usually a male of great strength and courage, favored by the gods, partly descended from them, often regarded as part god himself, and is worshiped after his death. Other ideas:

• A hero is any person, especially a male, who is admired for his courage, nobility, or exploits, especially in war;
• A hero is any person, especially a male, who is admired for his qualities or achievements and who is regarded as an ideal or a model for others to follow;
• A hero is the central figure in any event or period who is honored for his outstanding qualities.

No matter which definition you use, Jesus is clearly a hero. He became a man, demonstrated great strength and courage, and was passionately loved by the Father God from whom he had descended. He is revealed to be deity in human form and was worshiped during his lifetime as well as now.

His greatest achievement is his military victory over the forces of evil. He stormed the gates of Hell, threw down the strong man, and set the captives free. May he be forever praised!

What a tragedy that he was rejected and destroyed by his own creation. “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” (John 1:10, NIV).

What a tragedy that, although he died for every human being that has ever lived or will ever live, very few see him as an ideal. And even fewer choose to model their lives after him.

What a tragedy so few choose to obey him and follow him. What a tragedy so many are still held captive by a world already destroyed.

The Greek word used in the Bible for gospel (euangelion) is best translated into English as Good News. (Glad Tidings would work equally well). In the Christian context it refers to what God has done, is doing, and will do in order to rescue a human race that has lost its way. The focus is always on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Nazarene and the goal is always the establishment of His Kingdom, His Reign, His Sovereignty on earth.

The Good News has two angles, both of which must remain razor sharp or the Good News is in danger of becoming something else (a human-devised religious system, for instance). See Paul’s discussion of this phenomenon in his letter to the Galatian Churches. He does not like it when arrogant human beings begin to tinker with the Master’s Plan.

First, it must be recognized that human beings are now less than they were designed to be. To draw upon biblical terminology and metaphors, humans are lost, ruined, undone, broken, enslaved, sinful, and so on. Second, it must also be recognized that human beings are now incapable of remedying their dire situation. Again to draw upon biblical usage, human beings are helplessly lost, irreparably broken, permanently enslaved, and so on.

Again, both of these edges of the Good News must remain razor sharp or the message loses its power. Is it any wonder that God’s Archenemy attacks the Good News from precisely these two angles: either the power of the gospel is insufficient to save sinful humans or sinful humans are capable of pulling themselves out of the mire and really don’t need God’s Grace after all. Let’s consider these lines of attack more carefully.

As in all things, under the Enemy’s lies God’s Perfect Word comes under attack and our feeble minds slip into doubt. God assures His People that obedient faith to His plan of redemption securely places them into Christ where all past sins are forgiven and all future sins are forgotten. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1). However, no matter how many times we allow the Word of God to assure us of the Good News, our flesh simply will not allow us to fully trust. “Surely there has to be more to it than that,” says our incessant, doubting inner voice.

Into these nagging doubts enters the Master of all lies. He assures us that God will never accept a loser such as us. We believe his lie and become another victim. The Spirit of God is dismissed and in His place the Spirit of Doubt takes up residence.

At the other end of the spectrum, a spiritual elitism arises. The Enemy assures us that what God is really after is perfect human performance in human beings. And, the lie of all lies, the Enemy convinces us that God is getting exactly what He seeks—in us and in us alone. Our system of religion is now being driven by spiritual arrogance.

In both cases the Enemy’s plan succeeds in undermining the Good News and preventing the establishment of the Kingdom of God among broken human beings. Instead of nurturing relationships that welcome brokenness and broken people into humble community, the Spirit of the Antichrist ruptures relationships. No person is quite right, no teaching is precisely correct, and no viewpoint is entirely acceptable. No one can live up to the ever-rising standard of perfection, not even us—the victims. We become deeply neurotic in our religiosity and highly toxic in our outreach.

The truth is that fear preying upon doubt caused by unbelief in God’s Good News is what nurtures this spirit. The tragedy is that God’s people often cannot recognize this spirit for what it is: a messenger of Satan. We mistakenly identify this spirit as a human personality. We forget Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 6:12 and enter into this spiritual warfare with human implements—words. Our approach results in fleshly solutions: anger, avoidance, discouragement and, ultimately, manipulated compliance on the part of a struggling church. The Spirit of Doubt, servant of the Evil One, has won the battle.

Beloved, let us sustain this spiritual warfare with implements of the Spirit of God—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let us recognize the Spirit of Doubt for what it is and meet this impostor with the power of the Spirit of God.

May God give us the courage to fully trust Him. May we have the faith to believe the Good News. May we always “stand firm . . . and not let ourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” May we, as God’s people, fully trust the Good News, allow it to remedy the sin dilemma in us and in those around us, and then may we establish churches that share God’s Reign with other broken human beings in communities of loving relationship centered on the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry. According to the ADL, throughout history dramatizations of the passion of Jesus Christ have provoked violence against Jewish people as being “Christ killers.” It came as no surprise then that the ADL was seriously concerned immediately prior to the release of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ.

The ADL was concerned that people viewing the film woukd leave the theater with highly stimulated emotions. That raw emotion can become the breeding ground for the rationalized hatred of or violence against Jewish people. We cannot dismiss these concerns as irrational. They are very much grounded in reality and in history. ADL representatives made it clear that these potential consequences could become reality even though completely unintended by the filmmaker.

Of course it is true that some Jews killed Jesus—2,000 years ago. But so did some Romans. To accuse all the Jews of that generation (or all the Romans) of being responsible for the death of Jesus is preposterous. And in order to hold anyone (Jew, Greek, or other) not living during that generation responsible for the death of Jesus we must move out of the realm of history and into the field of theology.

The theological truth is that we are all responsible for the death of Jesus. He took upon Himself the sins of all human beings—that includes you and it includes me. A related truth is that the evil powers and principalities at work in the spiritual realm also played a role in the death of Jesus.

Therefore, assigning blame for the death of Jesus on one particular race of human beings is an error of the gravest magnitude. Using His crucifixion as a justification for hatred and violence against anyone is in complete violation of what His death means and is as sinful as any human behavior can get.

Some argue that the total membership within Churches of Christ in the United States is declining. With no denominational structure to keep the data it is very difficult to say for certain; however, Mac Lynn keeps good records on us and he says, “The numbers are so close, that it is almost too close to call. I think we’re at least safe in saying that the numbers are plateaued.” (Christian Chronicle, June 3, 2002). Whether we’re declining or at a plateau may be debatable; what is crystal clear is that we are no longer growing.

Between 1945 and 1965 the number of congregations of Churches of Christ in the United States nearly doubled. Between 1965 and 1990 our growth slowed considerably. Since 1990 we have experienced the plateau that Lynn talks about.

In the 1980’s the Southern Baptist Convention set a goal of planting 3 new congregations per day worldwide during the decade of the 90’s. They completely revamped their missions approach and set to work. At the end of the decade they discovered that they had actually planted 5 new congregations per day for a total of some 18,000 new congregations worldwide. An estimate for Churches of Christ during that same period reveals that we planted 300 new congregations in the United States with 2 out of every 3 of those being the result of church splits rather than a design for intentionally planting new churches.

Theories abound as to why we have stopped growing. Mine is that we have lost our sense of identity. We no longer attack the denominations because we don’t want the terrible reputation and un-Christ-like disposition that goes along with that. But, we’ve also stopped presenting the distinctive nature of the church to the world. And, we’ve raised up an entire generation that does not know how to make disciples of Jesus Christ (or even think that it’s an integral part of faithful discipleship).

I pray that this generation can recapture the zeal for presenting Christ to a dying world without resurrecting the mean-spirited attitude that came with attacking denominational Christianity. As a fellowship, our survival is at stake.

More important, the lives of human beings are at stake.

Learning how to love is not only essential for spiritual maturity, it is central to overcoming deep-seated psychological problems as well. Dr. Larry Crabb argues that every psychological and emotional problem experienced by human beings ultimately results from violations of the commandment to love (Inside Out, 1988, 43).

The problem is that most of our modern solutions to ancient human problems all come down to the same bottom line: TRY HARDER. This strategy is easier for us to get our hands around because, after all, it is about us and we understand that subject a lot better than we understand much of anything else.

For this reason, most Bible teaching follows the same pattern: instruction about the content of the Bible followed by exhortations (and pulpit pounding) about living consistently with that teaching. Knowledge followed by obedience. Learn more and do right. The trouble with this approach is that while it might manipulate some into external conformity it fails to draw us more deeply into loving relationship. Shame, guilt, and manipulation are very poor motivators. 

The key to our redemption is rooted in our utter dependence upon God. Jesus makes it abundantly clear that doing right in his eyes requires much more than merely performing certain external behaviors. The goal of the cross is not individual or even communal compliance with a set of behavioral regulations; the goal of the cross is to provoke human beings to love God and to love others.

But before we can love God we must learn to trust God. In order to trust God we must believe God. In order to believe God we must experience God. Try living for Him and see if His ways are true or not. Repudiate your self-centeredness, put your ego to death, and try loving Him. Give yourself in sacrificial, loving service to others and see what happens to your life—“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” 

The key to a successful and fulfilling life does not require more white-knuckled effort on your part. It requires more surrender. It involves more dependence upon the love of God.

Yesterday was a great day in the church. The brother leading us at the Lord’s Table did an excellent job remindng us of the historical background and theological purpose of our communion together.

We consistently refer to it as “The Lord’s Table.” I’m afraid we just as consistently treat it as the Lord’s altar. The truth is that, as far as we can tell from the witness of Scripture, individualistic receipt of forgiveness is never the emphasis of the Lord’s Supper. Communal participation in the grace of God is always the focus.  

In the Old Testament, the altar witnessed the blood ritual. On it God’s act of atonement took place. It was indeed a necessary step in human redemption and one that we must never trivialize. But it was never an occasion for celebration. The sin offering is never referred to as “a sweet savor.” When the final sin offering was made, the Creator turned His back, the sun hid its light, and our Savior worked His miracle. Hallelujah!

 Now that the once-for-all-time sin offering has been made, the table plays host to the purpose for the altar. The altar enables the table. Without the sacrifice there could be no fellowship (koinonia)—the goal of atonement.

The fellowship offering, in contrast to the sin offering and always observed after the sin offering, was a time for rejoicing and for celebrating the community of God’s people. The Lord’s Supper should be too because I am convinced that the Lord’s Supper is more closely analogous to the fellowship offering than it is to the sin offering.

God intends to commune with a people He calls his own. Each of us has been baptized into fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That new-found relationship is only possible because of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of that every time we partake.

At the Lord’s Table the Lord’s people commune with the risen Lord and with each other—by faith. As we partake each week, I think we ought to ask ourselves these questions:

• Are we simply receiving our token of forgiveness in a silent, solemn, individualistic eating of bread and drinking of wine? Or are we a people sitting at the table with each other?
• Are we sharing our food and our lives with one another?
• Are we embracing gospel values together as His community?
• Are we filled with joy as we patiently and expectantly await that final banquet when all things we enjoy now by faith will finally be transformed into reality?

In other words, The Lord’s Supper: is it a table or is it an altar?

“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”

“… as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

I’ve never understood how we, self-designated followers of Christ, can be so blind. By Holy Decree He sends us into the world. The reason is obvious—the world is loath to come to us.

And yet, even after all the preaching on the Great Commission (“Go into all the world …”) that goes on within the four walls of the Church House, we still stubbornly cling to our modus operandi: “invite them to come to church.”

What if we did church Jesus’ way? What if instead of welcoming believers to sit on pews as spectators of religious ceremony, we sent them out into the world? No coats, no money, no plans—just a mission and a message. And our assembling together was not about us but, rather, about God’s work in the world through us?

What if we trained people for ministry in similar fashion? Instead of pulling them out of the world and sending them away from the church to learn about God from a book, what if we sent them into the world out of the church to learn about God from firsthand experience?

Instead of spending days in classrooms they could spend nights on the streets. The clear message would be that God does not live in Seminaries or churches; God lives in the world. The church exists so that people have a place to try and make sense of their experience of the divine in the world, as well as a community to support them while they are learning.

What if people were invited to church in order to tell of what they already know about God rather than to learn what they are supposed to believe about God? What if they were honored for what they were already doing in the world for God rather than chastised for what they are not doing within the church? What if the church saw its role as moving people out the door instead of trying to keep them in? What if sermons were designed to convince people that God needed them more out in the world than He does inside the four walls of a church building?

What if all this (and perhaps more) happened? Well, then I believe we would be doing church Jesus’ way.

This Post was inspired by, and some of the thoughts were adapted from, the book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor (New York: Harper San Francisco, 2006).

We all love to see our children grow. Some people make charts on their walls in order to carefully observe and document the growth of every neighborhood child. Growth is a good thing—to a point.

Imagine a child that never stopped growing. Not only would that be unnatural, that would be grotesque. As much as we desire and expect our children to grow, we also desire and expect that one day they will stop growing.

Thankfully, God has placed in every living organism a limit beyond which it will not grow. We see this principle in every living thing we observe. To force an organism to grow beyond its God-designed growth limit is unnatural and flies in the face of God’s design for His creation.

However, many times we fail to see God’s obvious wisdom. A child is designed to grow until reaching adulthood. Once adulthood is reached the human being is supposed to stop growing and MULTIPLY. This is God’s design; this is God’s wisdom.

God designed the church to be a living organism as well. There is a limit at which a church will naturally stop growing. Programs designed to circumvent this natural law, efforts that are aimed at growing a “Mega Church” and cramming every member into one inadequate facility, impede multiplication, expend massive amounts of energy and waste untold Kingdom resources. Why? Because such efforts violate God’s natural design for all living organisms.

In churches, as with children, growth is a good thing. In order to comply with God’s design, however, there is a point at which every living organism, including churches, must stop growing and begin to MULTIPLY.

May God give us the wisdom to know when we have reached our natural growth limit, the courage to refuse to force further growth and the faith to step out and multiply.