Book Review: EP Study Commentary on the Book of Acts

I love commentaries. I read them often and I have certain things I look for when choosing one. I don't always look at the author, although that can be a massive factor if I am familiar with the work. I don't always look at the series, although that could still be huge if there is a consistent and useful format. Mainly I look for the problems that are addressed, the readability, and the application of the text.

Recently I have been spending a lot of time in the Book of Acts (since I am church planting) and I came across a commentary on the book and an opportunity to review it, so I jumped.

The EP Study Commentary on the Book of Acts by Guy Prentiss Waters is a readable length (less than 600 pages). It lends itself to being used as you walk through the Book of Acts with a group or just to sit down and read through (which I did). The commentary has great readability and is accessible to pastors, teachers, and serious students. This is not a technical commentary so just about anyone leading or teaching a group of people will find it helpful and useful.

The commentary deals with many problems but not exhaustively. This is by no means a critical commentary. However, Waters has dealt with many of the modern commentaries that I love and trust, both critical and pastoral. Waters also deals with the narrative unity and flow of the Book of Acts. This can be missed by many commentators that deal critically with the text. There is much more to be dealt with than Waters touches, both critically and literarily, but this commentary does a good job if you are reading through or teaching through Acts.

Finally, the application of the text was hit or miss. There were many applications to the "church" as a gathered reality. Waters doubtlessly serves in the church and is applying it to the congregation. But there is a lack of individual application. Since this is not a critical or literary commentary I was looking for more direct application to the reader. Certainly all of the Book of Acts does not lend itself to individual application but it would have been good to see a balance, especially in texts dealing with issues on both sides like the account of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).

When all is said and done I would recommend this commentary if you are teaching through Acts. It is a bit too expensive ($43 US) for just reading through for my wallet. But it is without a doubt a solid job treating the text and explaining the meaning of key difficulties of the Book of Acts. 

Book Review: The First Time We Saw Him

When I first saw the title and make-up of this book I was intrigued and excited. I have been pursuing the life and teaching of Jesus for a while and I thought that this might offer a new viewpoint or a way that I could share the life and words of Jesus with others differently. At the very least this book held the potential to reconnect with familiar passages in a new way. As far as these are concerned I was not disappointed.

Mikalatos essentially retells the basic story of the Gospels in modern language but also places them in a contemporary setting. He recasts various stories from the Bible and guides the reader through the real emotions that might be present if we encountered Jesus today.

There were many things that I liked about this book. It is easy to read. It does not just tell the stories but Mikalatos interacts with the theology and implications of Jesus on our lives. The book has a fresh and up front way of talking about Jesus and the importance of the interactions told in the Gospels. For the new believer or the person that has grown weary of reading the same passages over and over this may be a good surge to the soul as they see Jesus differently. However, those who are still captivated by Jesus and seek to read in order to obey this book doesn’t really add much value, if any.

This brings me to the things that I did not like about the book. One issue is that the stories were cherry picked. I get that the author was not trying to retell the Bible but it feels like so much was left out. The other thing is that the author tried to harmonize the Gospels. He picked from different Gospel writers without carrying over the unique theological thrust that these stories communicate as they are tied together in a particular way.

All of that being said this is a good book. It may not  be for everybody but it is a well written and certainly creative expression of the life and teaching of Jesus.

Discipleship is Impossible!!!

I admit that for the nearly 10 years that I spent working on a church staff I am not sure if I made one reproducing disciple of Jesus Christ. I am a hard worker. I take pride in my books and teaching. I have worked hard to make sure the Gospel is the center of all I do and teach. Yet, not one reproducing disciple.

Why?

Well, I guess along my journey this is what I learned about discipleship.

DISCIPLESHIP IS NOT EASY

I spent much of my time focused on writing lessons. I tried to make sure that they communicated truth from the Word of God. I sought to make every lesson, every story, every teaching opportunity point to Jesus. I wanted to display to the people that I was teaching the grace of God toward the lost, hurting, and broken. That took a lot of time.

Time is a key to relationship. Relationship is the core of discipleship. That is hard when you are busy.

So, I substituted teaching for relationship. I counted time on a stage or in a classroom or in an office as time that I was engaged in discipleship. It is not discipleship. Discipleship is not easy. You cannot create a curriculum (or buy one), develop a 101-501 class structure, or bring people to your office once a week and call that discipleship. That is easy. But that is not discipleship.

I know why we do it. Well, I know why I did it. I was busy. I was working. I was trying. I cared. But I did not pursue the only thing that Jesus commissioned me to do, "make disciples of those that need to know the real Jesus."

DISCIPLESHIP IS NOT HARD

The truth is that I had a load full of excuses but there was nothing in the way of me forming relationships that centered on the person of Jesus Christ. Discipleship happens in everyday life. It happens as you go out to eat and have a chance to share Christ with the waitress (with someone else watching). It happens as you discuss the Bible and then look at each other and say "okay, let's go do this...right now." It happens when you gather people over at your home from around your neighborhood and love on them (with someone else watching). Discipleship is not hard.

I think that is why it hurt when I graduated seminary, looked at my relationships in the church, asked myself if this is the life Jesus called me to, and began to get honest about the people that I had discipled over a decade of ministry. It hurt. Because it is not hard.

DISCIPLESHIP IS IMPOSSIBLE

I have been discipling reproducing disciples for less than a year. I have already seen Jesus move in mighty ways. I am not very good at this. But that is okay. I am learning. We walk together through the real stuff of real life. We share life on life. We see the people that gather in my home being moved by God and we get excited because we get to share life in community. I have a schedule arranged to reach my neighbors and we get to rejoice with every conversation, game of kickball, or opportunity to share food. We share life on mission.

But life is messy. We take steps backward, We takes steps forward. And we get stuck in the status quo for days and weeks at a time. My heart has rejoiced...my heart has broken. I have tried. I have failed. I have tried again.

One thing that I have learned...Discipleship is Impossible.

For me.

But God's Holy Spirit keeps reaching, keeps moving, and keeps changing our lives.

So keep in mind...Discipleship is not easy...Discipleship is not hard...Discipleship is Impossible.

I see God reach into people's hearts in ways I never could. I see him teaching and using me every now and then to share some helpful truth from his Word. I see him drawing us together by the power of the love of his Son and his Holy Spirit. It encourages me to take risks, to talk to people I might not have before, to share more than I think I can. Because I have found freedom when I venture out into the impossible.

It is the best experience of my life. 

Jesus and Women | The God of Missional Justice

Few stories have flowed over the pulpits of churches all across the world than the one given in John 7:53-8:11. Jesus is spending time teaching in the temple when a woman that has been caught in adultery is brought to him to receive his judgment. The scene is tense and seemingly simple. Here is a woman that has broken the law and she deserves, according to the law, punishment. That punishment should be death by way of stoning.

But this passage reveals much about Jesus Christ. I am afraid that for all of those sermons on this passage far too many of them miss the point of the text: Jesus is the just judge. Period. He is the beginning and end of the law. He wrote it. He will defend his people from those who attempt to usurp his authority. Jesus moves in to display what is true and right in places where deep wrongs are occurring.  In short, Jesus is the face of God's justice.

Let's see a few reasons why this is true.

JESUS KNOWS THE HEARTS OF MEN

There a few key verses in the Gospel of John. One of them is 2:23-25. Here Jesus is declared to keep from trusting himself to the Jewish leaders because he is fully aware of what is in the hearts of men. For an answer to what is in the hearts of men read chapters 3 & 5-12!

This is also a wonderful example of the hearts of these Jewish leaders (called scribes and pharisees). Jesus clearly perceives their intentions. They want to place Jesus in a lose-lose situation. They do this by pitting the Roman law (it was unlawful to put other to death) against the Mosaic law (it was commanded to put one guilty of adultery to death). This is not the first or last time that these leaders try to pull this trick. Their point is to gather a "charge" by which Jesus may be arrested. It seems on the face that this woman is on trial but it is actually Jesus.

A HALF TRIAL IS NO TRIAL

But even though Jesus perceives that he is the one that is on the hook. He addresses the sin of this woman. He cuts to the heart of the issue. He cuts to the heart of the men. He reveals what is in their hearts. 

First, there was a crime of adultery. But adultery takes two. There is only one standing here, the woman.

Second, it was against the law to bring someone to punishment without a trial. They are not searching for justice but rather they are conducting a lynching.

Third, Jesus cut to the issue by calling the bluff. To kill this woman without proper proceedings and having the man present is to break the law. This would make everyone taking place in the lynching guilty. So, Jesus says in essence, "anyone who wants to be guilty of this sin throw the first stone."

Game, set, match.

USING THE LAW TO BREAK THE LAW

This interaction with Jesus and the Jewish leaders is paramount for how we see Jesus. How he reveals the Father's justice. How he deals justly with all of his children, even the lawbreakers! Jesus reveals this amazing truth of the gospel as he comes face to face with a woman, a nameless, faceless woman.

The bigger sin in this passage was not adultery. It was using the law to break the law. Using the justice system to commit injustice. This is still common among us and as the people of Jesus Christ we must still stand with the afflicted. 

Jesus never forgave this woman (at least as far as we know). This passage is not about forgiveness (my apologies to 95% of the sermons preached on this) this passage is about justice. This passage is about the Father's heart and the Son's willingness to stand next to the guilty in the face of injustice.

There are many ways we could take this one simple truth.

Instead of trying to exhaust them I will simply say, the justice system is not our standard of justice.

Jesus alone is our measure of what is just.

Jesus and Women | The God of Missional Grace

The narrative of the Samaritan woman is a story of a broken heart and a broken soul. She represents a broken people living in a broken land. John 4 shares how Jesus makes his way into all of this brokenness and displays one of the millions of reasons why we can say that God is a missional God.
 
In perhaps one of the most well known portions of the Bible Jesus makes his way into a land that was expressly avoided by good Jewish people. He was not afraid to go into places of need, places that other people avoided. Why would he go there? Simply, because God loves Samaritans. Not because they deserve love but because God is a God of grace. How ironic that a people who celebrated God choosing them would try to withhold him from others. How much more ironic that many try to do the same today.

In Samaria, Jesus comes to an interaction with a woman that has come to the well at midday. She comes at a time of low social interaction around the well. She is about to be surprised. The interaction with Jesus displays at least two things: One, this woman is deeply affected by sin and shame. She had been married many times before and she was still not done (she lived with another man). These attempts at "fixing" her deepest needs with these poor substitutes had taken its toll on her life. The second display is the need for a better reality. She needed something more real that what she thought was real. Relationships are real. They cause hurt and pain and longing and despair. Relationship without foundation and purpose becomes a cheap alternative to the real thing. Reconciled relationship with the Father of all things is what makes real, become real. She interacted with Jesus over her sin and shame and water. She found grace that addressed all of these. She found a satisfaction for her real thirst.

The grace of Jesus Christ doesn't stop with this woman. Even the confused disciples needed the missional grace of God. Why? Well, because they did not understand mission...at all. So Jesus explains to them the mission that he is on. They got it. Well, maybe not right away but in the book of Acts we find Peter and John back in Samaria, back among these people, preaching, laying hands on them, and praying for them to know the love of Jesus by grace through faith. They were unaware at the time that they met this Samaritan woman how this missional grace would change their future. But eventually they got it...by God's grace we will too.

Finally, the missional grace of God becomes contagious. Grace is like that. This woman declares that she is known. She calls the people that she purposely avoided to come to know the one that knows her. What good news! You are known. Really known. Known by grace. Known for all of your faults...failures...shame...guilt...and yet...grace. Grace that moves toward you. Grace that steps into your mess. This grace is overwhelming to those that know the depths of their failure. This grace is life-giving to those that have failed at life.

Here, with this woman that is not known by name... not pictured or described... just a nameless, faceless woman, the savior of the world declares his mission of grace, openly, for the first time. The cosmic purposes of God, that have been millennia in the making, collide here...in Samaria...with this woman...such amazing grace.

When Jesus was moved to mission, even mission to people unlike himself, he did not pack up his stuff and move to a new country. He did not buy a house in Samaria. He did not stop doing all that he had been doing in his life before this time to make room for mission. Why do we?

Why do we feel that mission is moving? Or mission is special training? Or that mission is something foreign and forced? Mission is meeting. Meeting people that God is calling and sharing with them cosmic moments of God's amazing grace. They are your neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers...for now. God's grace transforms us all into his adopted children.

We have people all around us that are broken and seeking to quench an unquenchable thirst with water that will never suffice.

Pray that our hearts are ripped by grace.

Pray that we step out of our patterns and see the people that God is calling all around us.

Pray that we equip and encourage one another to offer living water.

Pray we follow Jesus, the face of the God of missional grace.

Book Review :: Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian

There is a shift coming in the conversation about “missional church”. There is a shift away from explaining missional church in negative terms to using positive explanation. More and more voices are no longer talking about what is wrong with traditional forms of church and they are declaring boldly all of the beauty and wonder of church lived outside of the walls. A life of freedom and grace. A life of everyday wonder lived in the shadow of the glory of a savior.

If this is the kind of discussion about the missional church that you are after then Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian by Caesar Kalinowski is a great place to start.

Kalinowski is a founding member of Soma Communities in Tacoma, Washington. The insights that he shares in this book come directly from his experiences there. He shares stories and threads them through the foundation of Soma’s way of expressing church: “A Family of Missionary Servants that are called to be disciples who make disciples.”

This baptismal identity forms the basic outline for the book:

1. Family

2. Servants

3. Missionaries

4. Disciples

Kalinowski drives each of these into the heart of the reader with warm stories and biblical truth. The reader that accepts these to be true, the one that walks in this identity, will be one that feels that they are a dearly loved child of God growing in the compassion to serve and the courage to go to all people.

What next? Kalinowski sets being before doing as he places the identity of the Christian first and the rhythms of a life surrendered to the Gospel next. He sets those rhythms out as:

1. Story-Formed

2. Listen

3. Eat

4. Bless

5. Celebrate

6. Re-Create

Each of these is littered with examples and wonderful ideas to put into practice around your neighborhood right now. This is not difficult or a to-do list of ways to “get people to go to church”. But rather this book offers inspiration and encouragement to be the church right where you are. You can reach people by living in the identity of who God called you to be.

If you are looking for an introduction into missional church for yourself or want a great way to introduce others then you need to buy this book. Read it. Share it.

Jesus and Women: The Missional Face of God

I wanted to introduce a series of blog posts that will be forth coming. Each week I will interact with a passage where Jesus meets and engages with women. These moments can be powerful and instructive to our current way of "doing church" but can also have a great impact on our way of "being church". I have the suspicion that we target the former at the expense of the latter.

I have studied the interactions between Jesus and women in the Bible for some years now. I have been moved by the way that the author shows Jesus reaching into deep areas of need and shifting hardened hearts. Lately, I have been awakened to the way that these interactions display Jesus as missional. I think that there are some vast lessons that we can grasp by leaning in and spending some time with the passages that Jesus engages with women.

One reason I want to wrestle with these passages is because of the view of women by the people of the Bible. I think that we would be wise to keep our chronology in order as we view these passages. There are many implications that Jesus' interactions with women would have had on society in the 1st century and we should remember how "counter-cultural" they would have been.

Another reason is a recent influx of "Jesus Feminist" claims. I want to show the way Jesus' interactions with women point us the the heart of the Gospel. Many claim to be "Jesus Feminist" yet do not understand or proclaim the Gospel. Without the Gospel you are just Feminist not Jesus Feminist. If you proclaim the Gospel then there is no need for a tag like "Jesus Feminist" you are simply a follower of Christ.

Finally I want to wrestle with the missional implications of these passages. Specifically, I would like to apply them to the "missional church". I will use rhythms and missional community as a mechanism of application. At the end of the day, the overall thrust is the way that God is a missional God that breaks through barriers beyond our capacity but we can join him there in his activity.

Some of the books that I will be interacting with are:
Women in the Genesis of Christianity Ben Witherington
Women, Class, and Society in Early Christianity James Arlandson
The Social World of Luke-Acts Jerome Neyrey, Editor

Book Review: Return of the Kosher Pig

Was Jesus who he really said he was? This is a question that has been answered since the time of his ministry on earth. The Gospel writers and his earliest followers wrote to answer this very question. Still today there is a need to discuss this question and present thoughtful answers that quell the doubts of those that would seek to know Jesus Christ.

Rabbi Itzhak Shapira has written to answer this question once more. In his book, The Return of the Kosher Pig: The Divine Messiah in Jewish Thought, Shapira seeks to delve into the teachings of the Jewish rabbinical historical writings to show evidence that the Messiah was expected to be divine and that Jesus was this divine Messiah.

Shapira does this by showing the reader how the Jewish rabbis went about reading the scriptures and each other’s writings. Shapira forms his book by following a legal argument and presenting evidence in a logical and compelling manner. He has five sections to his book and in each he shows the scriptures and the historical Jewish understanding of these scriptures.  His final conclusion is that the Jewish people expected a Messiah and many expected a divine Messiah. Although Jesus broke many expectations as a leader, teacher, and savior the expectation of divinity was not one of them. The divine nature of Jesus should then frame his leadership and teaching.

Shapira has done a marvelous job introducing into the way that the Jewish scholar works through a text and argues logically. He presents a Jewish method of hermeneutics that is enlightening and interesting. He also serves as a reminder that the questions about Jesus have not been answered for the final time but that all believers need to be answering the doubts of those that are seeking to know Jesus more.

The one criticism that I have about this book is that it is not for everyone. There are very difficult readings and a lot of Hebrew to read. Even as someone with multiple years of training in Hebrew it becomes confusing. However, no one should expect that every book appeal to every audience.     

Book Review: "Gospel Assurances and Warnings" by Paul Washer

We live in a time when we must fight to define the terms. Evangelicals hold endearment to presidents that say “God bless America”, feel satisfied if a friend says, “I’ll pray for you”, or believe they have agreement if they both “Go to church.” The truth is that there is little truth in these words alone. They have become empty and there are many more of them within evangelical expression. One of the most significant words that must be redefined is “Gospel”.

There was once an endeavor of getting the Gospel down to irreducible minimums. A 3-step prayer or 4 spiritual laws was all that was needed. Along with this attempt to make believing in Jesus as “easy as 1-2-3” the true truth of Jesus was lost all together. We feel the results. I am not sure we have responded with the answers.

Paul Washer has given us a response.

In his book, Gospel Assurances and Warnings, Washer sets the record straight by both responding to where we have lost clarity of the Gospel by attempting reduction and pointing to where we must go if we are to recover the true truth of the Gospel. Washer writes with a pointed and organized style. He is easy to follow and his chapters break down easily for discussion or personal study.

This book is organized into two major sections. The first section deals with assurances that one may have that he or she is a true believer of the Gospel. Washer walks through the text of 1 John and shows from the plain witness of scripture what a person must expect if they are truly a believer in the Gospel.

The second section is a set of warnings from the Gospels. Here Washer uses Matthew 7 to lay out the “two ways” teaching of Jesus and call his readers to proclaim the Gospel with clarity but also to avoid reducing the truths of the Gospel below what scripture will allow. Washer calls the evangelist to rethink the practices employed according to the harsh warnings of scripture lest these unsuspecting adherents to the “sinner’s prayer” hear “away from me, I never knew you”.

This book by Paul Washer is timely and necessary. There are many within evangelical circles that will cringe at some of the mistakes they have made. We have all made some mistakes in ministry. I have repented of many of my mistakes. This is not a mistake that we can continue to make. We must turn and repent and communicate the true truth of the Gospel.

I am sincerely hoping that Washer’s book along with a few more written recently mark a shift away from the faulty, easy-believism of our past and sets us on a course to recovering the true Gospel for the glory of Christ.