Who Do I Write To and Why

A Point of Clarification…Who Do I Write To

The next - I don’t know how many - posts are principally written to the Church (big “C”). THE Church of Christ, the “One Body.”  

Everyone’s welcome, of course. But the “Frame of Reference” will be for the disciple - of Christ. Maybe you’ll get it. Maybe you won’t. Augustine said, Unless you believe, you will not understand. “Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis.” I don’t know if that’s true or if I am just a poor writer and and even poorer communicator. But I digress.

I am NOT writing to the American Evangelical church, nor the Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Wesleyan, Churches of Christ (non-instrumental), Church of Christ (Disciples), Christian Churches/Churches of Christ/Independent Churches of Christ, Community, Emergent, Post Modern, Anabaptist, Mennonite, Amish, the Society of Friends (Quaker), Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Adventists, Reformed, Charismatic, Neo Charismatic, Pentecostal, Apostolic, Protestant, Catholic, Messianic Jewish, Post Charismatic (Really, Wikipedia?), Liberal, Conservative, the Church of the Brethren, the Church of England and the Anglican Communion (my understanding as of this writing is that the Archbishop of Canterbury has temporarily suspended the Episcopal Church in America (USA) from the Communion, not that it matters - cause I ain’t writing to them either), Orthodoxic, Orthopraxic (the Praxis movement), the Church of the SubGenius (aka the Church of Bob), the Prosperity Gospel (aka Grifters for God), Independent, Purpose Driven, AME, MCC, House (as in churches formed in individual’s houses, not worshippers of Hugh Laurie’s “Gregory House, M.D.” character) Plymouth Congregational, Congregational churches - all small “c”. (And any of the several hundred other sects that exist in North America and worldwide.)

Also: not writing to any of the cults that either claim the name of Christ OR claim that they are rightfully part of THE Church: including but not limited to: the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, the Community of Christ (formerly the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - RLDS), Boston Church of Christ & its spawn, the Church of Christ, Scientist, followers of Bill Gothard and his Basic Youth Conflicts conglomerate, the “One Name”/Oneness Pentecostalism movement (aka, Modalism), any group blasphemously tying national identity and/or race to the purposes of Jesus Christ.

So...who is THE Church (big “C”)?

I, nor anyone, can contest a person’s salvation. Donald Trump swears he’s a Christian, you loser morons! Maybe he is. I can’t say. That is a matter between GOD and Trump or any and everyone else. .

That said, both Jesus in the Gospels and the Holy Spirit through Paul (I Corinthians 13, Galatians 5:22-26) James, Peter, and John attest to the qualities by which not only can disciples know one another but that the world can know who a disciple of Jesus is. These are not subjective “standards,” they are not something that a disciple may hold inside and it not be seen.

“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” - Jesus, Luke 6:45.

They are qualities clearly manifested in the speech and life of the disciple so that we each can recognize the other in the Lord - no jewelry, no bumper stickers, church membership, no special clothing, no particular style of “worship,” just agape Love. They are qualities so that every other person on the earth may know us and our Lord and Master.

The Church is not buildings, institutions, missions, or para-church organizations - despite how it may seem.

It is the individual disciple in submissive fidelity to Jesus the Christ whom we have confessed to be our Lord and our savior. This may be news to a whole lotta people. But the message of Christ in the Gospels and the message of the Holy Spirit through the New Testament writers (despite the epistles generally being addressed to churches) was, is, and always shall be: personal, one on one - God to His slave. It is a message that is manifestly intimate. (As has been said of sex: if you aren’t exhausted and maybe a bit sore afterwards, you aren’t doing it right. Likewise, don’t feel an intimacy, an intense intimacy with God? Maybe you ain’t doin’ it right? Maybe you need to try a little harder? Just sayin’.)

By extension then, the Church is the worldwide group of disciples - the flock of God’s sheep who hear their Master’s voice and obey. It is people, disciples, God’s people, irrespective of any and all sectarian labels; irrespective of any and all titles.

It is one body with many parts and those parts are us.

We all have one goal: to reach oneness and maturity in Christ, to reflect His life, His glory. People see us, they should see Him once we have matured in Him.

We all have one purpose: to Love the LORD our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength; to Love our neighbors as we Love ourselves; and to carry out the Great Commission.

But as individuals, as slaves to God, to righteousness, as ambassadors for Christ to reconcile the world to God, we have many different “missions,” ways of being of use to God that God sets before us and which He knows we can carry out - or fail at - for His glory and honor.

If you’re a disciple of Christ then I am and will be writing to you.   

And Why Do I Write

1. I am a confessed, baptized disciple of Christ. As part of the rights and responsibilities of all disciples, we are charged to make disciples for Jesus, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them all things that Jesus commanded. (Matthew 28:19-20)
   
   This is NOT “salvation by works,” as some sects love to assert - to the eternal damnation of their own disciples. Rather obedience under submission is evidence not only of Faith in our Master but also evidence of Love - both agape and philadelphia or philos - affectionate, tender Love for Him.
   
   No one gets married then only does what is written as rules in some book or magazine article! They desire to please their spouse! Our Master, Christ, GOD, is so much more than a human spouse, is He not?! So why would you not want to serve to please GOD?!
   
2. I have rarely, if ever, written about “it” and have never talked much about it either but I answered a “call” from God (He gets cell service anywhere, no data restrictions ) to be His servant and to preach and to teach and to be of whatever use He required of me. It came way back in 1976.
   
   Never been ashamed of the call but I have never felt the pressing need to share it beyond a few folks. I had a rather close relative at the time who had gone from being a stone cold Methodist to a red hot Charismatic and when I could not tell this relative that my call involved speaking in tongues and being transported to Heaven, rather like the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation, to receive the call the Old Testament way or at least the Road to Damascus way, well, they doubted my calling. And they doubted it hard. I didn’t. I knew. It’s not something that can be ignored - successfully at least. But from that point on, I have been relatively quiet about my calling.  
   
   I have what I refer to as “Jeremiah’s Complaint.” Jeremiah is having a tough time speaking for God and he’s...annoyed. Severely.
   
   But if I say, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.
   
   - Jeremiah 20:9, NIV
   
   March 10, 1996, elders of the congregation formerly known as Country Hills Christian Church in Lenexa, Kansas, laid hands on me, charged me before God and Christ and the congregation with “Timothy’s charge,” and ordained me as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So I am a man of God, a minister & pastor, a preacher, a teacher, an elder and bishop, and a prophet.
   
   During my training (schooling, “internship” and “residency” in life and faith) from 1977 through 1996, I ministered through FM radio: read Scripture to Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. I suffered life and saw others suffer it too. Working in a major medical center for the 1980’s I saw extreme agony and death. I preached from a real pulpit in a real church. But both before 96 and after 96, my “pulpit” was generally “virtual,” via radio, via email then listservs and now this blog, such as it is.  
   
   Beside executing the Great Commission, I also have been charged to pass on the things of God I have learned and received from Faithful men of God and from God to other Faithful men, capable of teaching.
   
   I am committed to the call.

Why I write is to teach, preach, shepherd, make disciples, so that we can all move forward in oneness of the Spirit, mature into Christ and reflect His glory in our lives. And it is not only the duty and responsibility of every disciple of Christ but also and especially the duty and responsibility of those who have been called to minister to people of God.

Work to be done. As Martin Luther famously did not say before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521, at his trial for teaching heresies and refusing to recant his writing and teaching, Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.  

So.

Until next time, may the peace of Christ be with you.

† Scott, VDM, ev

An Open Letter to the Church

Well, the blog has been silent for some time. Not for lack of trying, mind you. My Google Drive is littered with quarter, half, three quarters, and nine tenths completed posts going back to November of 2015. About the time I am ready to pull the trigger, to post. My editor steps in and says, “Wait boy. Take some time to grok it all. Waiting is.”

So. I wait to grok the fullness.

As I was binge watching the TV series “Fringe” on Netflix, in the wee hours of Tuesday (today), I snagged a quote from St. Augustine spoken by mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop that electrified me: “Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis.”

Walter attributed the quote as the English translation of Isaiah 7:9 but it was Augustine who said it. It means, “Unless you believe, you cannot understand.” Or, “If you do not believe, you will not understand.” After a little sleep (45 minutes, give or take) I awoke with the voice of the Editor in my head: “Get up and write, boy.”

And write I did. And to quote Randy Quaid’s character McDougal in “The Paper”: “This is great! This is great! It writes like butter. I mean, there is actual butter coming out of my pen.” (Well, my Chromebook keyboard but you get the drift.)

The following is what I produced and posted to Facebook on Tuesday, 22 March 2016:

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The following came to me around 4:30 this morning. Maybe I forgot the lithium at bedtime. Who knows.

It is what it is. Read it or don’t. Comment or don’t, Share it or don’t.

St. Augustine is believed to have said, “Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis.” Or, “If you do not believe, you will not understand.”  Perhaps it applies here. Understand it or don’t.

My thanks to Messrs. David H. Goodman and Andrew Kreisberg (screenwriters), the greatest, most morally and existentially tortured “mad” scientist, Dr. Walter Bishop, and JJ Abrams, et al, (the creators). Snagged the Augustine quote in Season 1, Episode 21, “Unearthed,” of Fringe while ‘Netflix and chillin’” (alone!) around 2:46 AM, CDT.

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An Open Letter to the Church:

What leads to our unending quarrels and conflicts? Don't they come from our hedonistic desires that fight for control over us?

We’re jealous and we covet what others have and our lusting goes unfulfilled; so we “murder” - whether by thought or word or deed. (Jesus said if we are angry with a brother or sister, if we are insulting, if we are really insulting, contemptuous, we stand in danger of hell itself. My Paraphrase Matt. 5:22)

We envy and when we cannot obtain what we envy, we fight.

Isn’t it true that we don't have what we want because we don't even pray to God? And when we ask, we still don't get what we want because our motivations, our agendas are selfish and unrighteous - we want what we want for our own desires.

It’s mostly an archaic idea in our time: adultery. But God would say that we are all adulteresses!

We flirt with the World, we think we are still part of the Kingdom of man so we deliberately violate our vows of faith and service to God. Apparently we think He doesn’t notice!

Maybe we haven't known or considered it, but loving the things of this World - wealth, “security” in this World, political power, secular matters - makes us friends with the World and enemies of the God we profess to know and love and whom we call our Lord and Savior!

So, whoever chooses to be a friend, a lover of this World is an enemy of God! Period.

Or do you think that Scripture says that, not for nothing, the human spirit God gave us lusts with intense  envy?! But He gives us grace upon grace through the Holy Spirit to tell sin to take a flying leap and allows us to live a submissive and obedient life that reflects both our faith and our incredible gratitude for His priceless gift of our salvation.

So, Scripture says, “God is opposed to the proud and haughty, but continues to cover in grace those who are his disciples who are humble and turn away from the World, repent of our proud self-righteousness.

If we want to be covered in His grace, all the more, we must submit to His sovereign authority. We must resist the devil by standing firm against him and...he flees.

Come close to God with a contrite heart and He will come close to us. Let us wash the sin from our hearts and hands and purify our unfaithful, adulterous heart, all of us who are double minded; who easily straddle the two Kingdoms and think nothing of it: the Kingdom of man and the eternal Kingdom of the LORD of Lords, and the KING of Kings, who was, and is, and ever shall be! World without end! Amen and amen.

It’s time, it is past time, that we recognize the true sin in our hearts and grieve, weep for our station in life that we ourselves have put us in, that we wallow in like pigs. We must stop laughing for a while, quit living in the Kingdom of man with such reckless, thoughtless joy at the man made miracles and the reckless, pointless, lifeless philosophies and teachings of men, of false teachers and prophets in the House of GOD and turn to solemness.

So, we have to humble ourselves. We have to understand what repentance truly is and truly repent! Humbling ourselves before Him the LORD and He will exalt us; He will lift us up and give us a mission to fulfil for Him and not for our own purposes or understanding.

We must stop speaking against one another, stop our so easy slander against our brethren and our neighbors. If we speak self-righteously - that is outside of the Father’s will - against a brother or sister, we judge them hypocritically, speak against the Law and judges the Law. If we judge the Law, we are no longer a doer of the Law but a judge of it and that spells trouble for us.

There is only one Lawgiver and righteous, holy Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy, the One who holds the absolute power over life and death and all of Creation. Who are we then to hypocritically and self-righteously pass judgement on our neighbor? And who is our “neighbor”? Every living, breathing soul on this planet.

So listen up, those of us who are so confident of the future beyond this moment! We don’t have the first clue as to what may happen in our next breath, let alone tomorrow! What is secure in our lives? Our country, our politics, our “way of life,” our cars, our money, our deliberate refusal to grow to reflect the glory of the Christ in our lives? But in the long view, the view of the LORD, we are a puff of smoke, a wisp of vapor that is visible for the blink of an eye then vanishes.

So let us say, “If the LORD wills it, we will live and do this or that, regardless of what may happen in the next moment or tomorrow.” As it is, our pretension and arrogance - our massive hubris at being disobedient to our liege lord -  is vanity, it is self-righteousness and envy and jealousy and all manner of evil that we pretend is unthinkingly, unexamined, ASSUMED  "good," multiplied by 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000 or 10 to the nth power!

Consequently, our attitude is unrepentant; it is evil.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, a Church Father, declared that sin is failure to mature (in Christ, our Master).

So if we know what is right to do but we don’t do it, if we deliberately fail to do what is righteous in His eyes, the LORD of Lords, the LORD of Creation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion, and the God of all comfort, it is to us sin; evil, vile, repugnant.

May the Peace of Christ be with us all.

†The Snarky Prophet

For those of you who have made it all the way to here and who know what an “easter egg” is beside made of chocolate, plastic, or hard boiled egg...there is an easter egg here. Did you see it? ;-) Aye, mateys. There be easter egg here!

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Well, there it is. Test my spirit. Think about it. Are you comfortable in your sin?

Until next time, may the peace of Christ be with you,

† Scott, V.D.M., ev