Before the Time

My father-in-law was an entrepreneur of sorts who earned his living by having his fingers in a variety of business activities. He owned a newsstand business in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, had a wholesale distribution business which serviced small grocery stores and the like, owned some apartments and other rental properties, and seemed to always have a car or two for sale.

More importantly, he served as an elder at Central Christian Church in St. Petersburg, and was the kind of elder every preacher dreams about. Words like support, encourage, and confidant quickly come to mind. His preacher didn’t have to remind him that “the integration of faith into life and work and family” was essential to living out the Christian journey.

All that is set up to my thinking about one of this week’s Lectionary texts: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5. After a lengthy discussion at the beginning of this great epistle about divisiveness, Paul says (in 4:5) “Do not pronounce judgment before the time.” The tired routine that expressed itself in “I am of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or Christ” needs to come to a screeching halt!

Among other reasons, Paul suggests that only God is qualified to pronouncement judgment. After all, only God knows the whole story of any situation (“He will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness”) and only God fully understands motives (“He will disclose the purposes of the heart”). It is such an easy journey to arrive at a place where we convince ourselves we know the whole story and we even understand a person’s motives. But we really never do.

On more than one occasion, I heard my father-in-law express concern about this very issue. A part of his distribution business – potato chips, chewing gum, and the like – involved deliveries in places that many of his fellow churchgoers would have judged to be inappropriate for an elder in the church to frequent. No one who knew him would have ever thought he went to those places to hang out at the bar, but what about those who didn’t know him that well who might see him walking out after having delivered a van load of chips?

While I appreciate the sensitivity he had to this issue, I also find it a little frustrating that so many believers are quick to assume the wrong thing. “He’s an elder in the church and he was there?” Our unwillingness to allow the gospel to transform us at every level means that we will almost always assume the worst. But we do that not knowing the full story and not understanding motives. To that Paul says, “Stop!”

Paul is so convinced that we should not go around making such judgments that he notes that he is not qualified to judge even himself. Apparently, God’s desire to share with us the work of His kingdom does not extend to making such judgments.

One of the lessons I see being lived out every day as I hang out with college students is that it is extraordinarily foolish to jump to conclusions and make judgments. So often, when I’ve learned more of the story (realizing I never know the whole story), I almost always end up amazed at how far a student has come rather than wanting to judge them unworthy.

If people who knew my father-in-law saw him walking out of any kind of business, they would never assume negative things about him. He wasn’t that kind of person. People who knew him well enough to “know his heart” would assume the best not the worst. But even then, Paul would still say, “Stop pronouncing judgment.”

That’s not bad advice for any of us!

What Sort of Welcome Mat?

Have you ever noticed that it appears that the original recipients of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia might have been prime candidates for “member of the year” in lots of conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing churches we know? There’s little hint that they were struggling with the big moral issues of the day and they appear to be so proper when it comes to outwardly looking like followers of Jesus.

Have you ever thought about how difficult some, if not most, of the original readers of Corinthians might have in being assimilated into lots of conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing churches we know about? They have issues galore! There is division, sexual behavior that is offensive even to pagans, intra-church lawsuits, confusion about marriage, the question of meat and idols, should we pay the preacher, a little dose of spiritual pride, confusion about the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit, and even the resurrection. Theologically and sociologically, they are quite a bunch. They don’t look very proper when it comes to looking like followers of Jesus.

It’s possible (in more reflective moments I might say probable) that were a family from each of these churches to visit some churches I’ve known, the cookie brigade would have too many volunteers to visit the Galatian visitors and we might hear “Are we sure we want to go there?” for the Corinthian visitors. The Galatians seems to be so much like “our kind of folks” and the Corinthians seem to struggle so greatly we might be tempted to wonder “what’s the use?”

Oddly, Paul would no doubt wonder a bit about us! After all, when writing the law-keeping, moralistic Galatians, he omits his always present elsewhere “thank God for you” paragraph. While he does occasionally call them “brothers and sisters,” he also calls them “fools.” But to the Corinthians, he writes some of the most beautiful words of thanksgiving to be found in his epistles. “I give thanks to my God always for you . . .” has a ring about it that makes me think Paul is in love with these very challenged believers and believes them to be worth every effort he might offer to help them grow to maturity in Christ. He often calls them “brothers and sisters” – far more frequently than he does in Galatians.

I’m not suggesting he wouldn’t do that for the Galatians, but you don’t get that “pastor’s heart” when reading Galatians that seems to leap off of every page in Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 11, after a reluctant recounting of some of the challenges he has faced in serving Christ, Paul declares, “and even more for me, there is the daily concern for the churches.” (My paraphrase) When Olin Hay taught preaching at Atlanta Christian College he often talked to his students about a “pastor’s heart.” That’s what I think Paul is getting at in 2 Corinthians 11.

I’m amazed (very grateful, but still amazed) that I get paid to hang out on the campus of Atlanta Christian College with college students. We have a few students who would probably fit right in in Galatia – they are morally upright, law abiding, and occasionally judgmental. But what makes me love my job the most is that we probably look more like the church described in Corinthians than we do the church described in Galatians. We don’t have perfect young adults at ACC, and that’s a good thing because if we did, I couldn’t work here! (And don’t know of any other employee who could.)

But what we do have is a collection of young adults who come from all sorts of places in life. Some are well on the way to getting life worked out in fine fashion. Some are struggling with a variety of issues – from the little “I’m more spiritual than you” routine with which Paul begins Corinthians to challenging theological questions that need answering.

I’m grateful to be a part of a Christian college – soon to be Point University – that has the welcome mat out that says, “If you’re willing to be a part of this community and work on your spiritual life, we’re here to help make that happen.”

I want to go to bed tonight thinking like Paul. I’ve got a long “to-do list” for every day. That “to-do list” contains important stuff – teach my classes, manage my budget, attend events, attend meetings, be a husband, be a father, lead chapel, and the list goes on. But if I can’t sleep tonight, I hope it will be because “and beyond all that ‘stuff’ – is the daily concern for the students with whom God has graciously allowed me to share life and faith.”

Testimony

I’ve long since lost count of the number of times I’ve been around the old camp fire, listening to “testimonies.” That can be an interesting experience! Sometimes, to be honest, I’ve felt like my “testimony” – most often understood to mean how you became a Christian – wasn’t nearly as exciting as some of the stories I’ve heard. To be even more honest, sometimes it seemed like as you went around the circle, people started “adding to” the story of the conversion.

A few weeks ago, in the Friday morning Listening Post Group I am a part of, the other two guys and I were talking about Mark, chapters one and two. One of the things that caught my attention as I read in preparation for our meeting was the story of the healing of a leper at the end of chapter one.

Most readers of Mark are aware of what is sometimes referred to as “the Messianic secret” in his telling of the Jesus story. Jesus seems to be rather emphatic about not letting the story get ahead of Him – not unlike John’s occasional “the hour has not yet come” that ultimately gives way to “the hour has come.”

In this particular story Jesus “sternly warns” the man not to say anything. By reading to the end of the paragraph the man apparently didn’t hear Jesus very well and “began to proclaim it freely.” It seems a bit offensive to suggest that Jesus is merely using a kind of pop-psychology that says “don’t” knowing that by saying “don’t” the man “will.”

What Jesus actually says to the man is “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” In other words, perhaps Jesus prefers the testimony of what has happened in the man’s life more than mere words that say what has happened.

It makes me wonder a bit if perhaps we can’t learn a vital kingdom lesson here. Certainly there is a place in life for using words to say what we believe about Jesus and what Jesus has done in our lives. But perhaps the more important issue is that our very lives – lives that demonstrate that we’ve been cleansed from something far more dangerous than leprosy – should be our “testimony.”

In the spirit of “a picture is better than a thousand words” – maybe we would make more headway in bringing the world to repentance if the testimony of our lives reflected that of a person who has repented – walked away from sin.

In Jesus’ description of the younger son in the story we most often call “The Prodigal Son,” the imagery of a young man coming home, hat in hand as it were, with no expectations is powerful visual testimony that he had truly “come to his senses.”

Probably more important around the camp fire testimony moments than answering the “how did I become a Christian?” question is “Why do I remain a Christian?” The best answer to that question is the testimony of a life changed dramatically by Jesus!

It Really Is Happening

In August, 1969 I set up residence in Room 25, Roberts Hall, on the campus of Atlanta Christian College. For the next four years, except for the summer months, Roberts Hall – Room 25 my freshman year, Room 18 sophomore and junior years, and Room 2 my senior – the campus of Atlanta Christian College would be my home.

Graduation from ACC in May, 1973 ended that sense of official home, and I was soon to be married to my favorite ACC alumna, Vicki Kindt. We both headed off to graduate school. We had a great experience in graduate school, but that wasn’t home. Our ACC roots ran deeper than we realized. The graduate school’s alma mater was sung to the same tune as the ACC Alma Mater – but we never once changed the words. ACC was in our blood.

In August, 1976 we were back at ACC – a homecoming of sorts. If I’ve done the math correctly this is 35 years for me teaching at ACC. In those 35 years I’ve seen a lot of changes in my home, and none quite as dramatic as those changes announced in chapel on 2 February 2011. I’ve been involved with ACC – either as a student or faculty member – over half of its existence. You might think a person with those kinds of roots would think “that’s too much change.” But you’d be wrong.

When I was a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, you pretty much had to plan on being a preacher or your diploma didn’t have much value in the job market world. That’s not to say there was no value in the education, but if your focus was on “job training,” then you needed that job to be in vocational ministry of some sort. If you happened to be female, that challenge was even more formidable.

Oddly, there was a lot of criticism of ACC in those days and in the days before the College moved more towards a liberal arts education. The criticism was that if you didn’t want to be a preacher, then there was nothing for you at ACC. Thankfully, under the leadership of presidents like Dr. Jim Donovan and Dr. Eddie Groover, ACC did make that move. The curriculum was broadened, new majors added, accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools was achieved, and, marvel of marvel, today we are graduating more biblical studies/ministry majors than ever, as well as a host of other young men and women who, while not thinking of vocational ministry, will go out and help transform the world! We really take serious the biblical idea of “the priesthood of all believers” – not unlike early leaders in the Stone-Campbell movement did.

How could that be anything but good? Yet, some of the same people who were critical that we only trained preachers now suggest that we don’t train preachers anymore. We do train preachers. As a preacher who went through ACC and who values the education I received here greatly, I would still quickly say that I wish the biblical education and ministry education that our students are receiving these days had been available in the early 1970s. I’m not criticizing my education at all and certainly not the people who taught me, but simply saying that we continue to make great progress in what is offered at ACC in lots of areas, ministry training included! The facts speak for themselves.

We always hear that ACC no longer values our restoration heritage. Somewhere between the time of Alexander Campbell and the present, Christian churches trended towards a kind of isolation from the rest of the religious world that, at least in some contexts, became sectarian. Oddly, Alexander Campbell himself named the college he founded Bethany College, not Bethany Christian College. Located in Bethany, West Virginia, it was given a geographical name that still serves as its identity.

And, speaking of Campbell, my reading about his life and reading more pages of the Millennial Harbinger that I should admit to in public, has taught me that he was extraordinarily interested in sharing his sense of biblical Christianity with any who would listen. He believed that preachers ought to be educated in the same classrooms where doctors, lawyers, and other professionals were educated. Convinced that the trustworthy testimony of Scripture, as it bore witness to Christ, was the foundation of the church, he wasn’t afraid to be surrounded by believers who hadn’t yet reached that point. What I know to be true at ACC is that “the integration of faith in every discipline” is being taught by men and women who truly believe the gospel has power to transform. We aren’t afraid for any and all to hear that. For me, to think of the impact that what is taught at ACC is having in churches of all sorts all over the place is reason enough to spend my life engaged in this ministry. The critics are right – we aren’t sectarian; but they are wrong if they understand that to think we somehow have deserted our conviction that “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.”

The move from East Point to West Point is certainly a decision with great potential for emotional upheaval. I’ve come to work at 2605 Ben Hill Road, East Point, GA for 35 years. I met my wife and asked her to marry me on this campus. Our children grew up hanging out with ACC students (and turned out pretty well despite that fact!) and I’ve encountered the presence of God on this piece of His earth in ways like nowhere else. I’ve got roots here.

But I don’t think God is confined to one place only. The potential of the new place just gives God new places and new people to continue what He’s been doing for decades on this campus. Our mission hasn’t changed. Our commitment to Christ as Lord of the universe hasn’t changed. Our biblical studies faculty isn’t changing. It’s just location and name. And location and name are little more than entry ways to opportunity to do what we’ve always done.

What some seem to have missed in all the news is the fact that the East Point campus isn’t disappearing. At least Old Main, Burns Hall, and the Library will remain a vital part of Point University. We already have more students who will remain in these facilities that we have ever had in the entire student body in the history of our College. Like all students who have been a part of the education offered here, they are being educated to be points of influence in a world desperate for what they have to offer.

So, no doubt there is a little emotional attachment to the name Atlanta Christian College. And sometimes when I’m involved with students on the campus, or when I’m in a chapel worship service, or sitting in my office with a group of students listening to their dreams and plans, I feel like I should “take off my shoes, I’m on holy ground.” I’ve got roots here and those roots run deep within my soul.

But I couldn’t be more excited about what God is doing through this community of believers. It is mind boggling to think that God is positioning Point University to be a major point of influence in places we never would have dreamed about and in ways that we can barely begin to comprehend. Perhaps the apostle Paul was correct when he said, “now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20,21)

I understand the challenge of digesting all of this. I understand that some might ask, “why did you take Christian out of the name?” I understand the roots so many of us have on this piece of earth in East Point. Those concerns can and are being addressed in ways that are open, honest, transparent, and, at least to me, convincing. What I don’t understand is the automatic assumption that change means deserting who we are. When Paul became the aggressive “pointer to the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25 – “we preach Christ, crucified”) he left behind his old religious name Saul, and began to use the more acceptable Gentile name his parents gave him alongside of his Jewish name – Paul. If we can open a fraction of the doors with Point University that the old Saul opened with Paul, then, buckle your seat belts, we’re on for a ride!