There is a legend that says Luke was a painter; and that he painted a portrait of Mary the mother of Jesus. Though only a legend, I can understand how it came to be told-- Luke paints such vivid pictures with his words.  He presents Jesus in everyday situations, and shows how His presence makes all the difference.
The Gospel of Luke is the largest book of the New Testament. It contains a remarkable amount of information not found in the other gospels. Luke records events that show Jesus at his most human. Jesus tells parables that vividly speak to the human condition; such as the parable of the prodical son and the parable of the good samaritan. Only Luke tells about Jesus meeting Zacchaeus (Luke 19). He looks up in the sycamore tree where diminutive Zacchaeus has climbed to get a better view. "Come on down, I am going to eat at your house today," says Jesus.  And Zacchaeus promptly shimmies down. 
Over and over again Luke presents us with a real Savior who deals with real people, living life in the real world.
I am excited to have the privilege of preaching through the Gospel of Luke at Central Baptist Church in Henderson, NC, where I am currently serving as interim pastor.  Audio of my sermons will be uploaded each week on the Listen page of this site.

Estimates of the number of Christians in China vary from 16 million to 200 million. Because of the Chinese government's often hostile approach to religion, getting a credible count has been nearly impossible. Now, in a recent First Things article (First Things, May 2011, pp. 14-16), three Baylor sociologists claim they have arrived at a reasonably accurate count, and they place the number at 70 million.

When the Communists came to power in 1949, there were about one million Chinese professing Christians at that time.  Skeptics dismissed them as "rice Christians," i.e. Chinese who cynically claimed to be Christian in order to receive some type of benefit from Westerners.  The Communist government outlawed religion, so the fledgling Christian church was expected to disappear.  However, by the last quarter of the 20th century it was clear that, rather than dissolving, Christianity was growing in China--and growing rapidly.  The difficulty has been in determining the growth.

In 2007, the Horizon Ltd, "one of China's largest and most respected polling firms," conducted a national survey.  Face-to-face interviews were conducted throughout the country with over 7000 respondents.  The article goes into detail about how the survey was conducted, and how the results were assessed.  Special attention is given to the problem of traditional Chinese reticence to participate in surveys in general and the reluctance (for obvious reasons) of Christians in particular.

Several findings are worthy of note.  In terms of demographics, Christianity is spreading rather evenly among their society.  Whether a respondent was from a rural area or urban area made no significant difference.  In addition, professing Christians were well represented among all ages.  But there were some differences.  Women were nearly twice as likely as men to profess Christ.  And those with higher education levels and higher incomes were more likely to be Christian.  A jarring (but unsurprising) exception to that finding was among those who belong to the Communist Party (who generally enjoy higher incomes).  No member of the Communist Party admitted to being a Christian.

What can we conclude about these findings?  On the upside, there is the simple fact that the church in China has grown from one million to 70 million.  A 70-fold increase in 60 years is remarkable by anyone's reckoning.  It also means that in China there are more professing Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.  On the downside, 70 million is only 5% of the total population.  In other words, 95% of China is lost and need to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  The work in mainland China has just begun.  What an exciting day to be a Great Commission Christian!

[A side note: The parents of Dan Heimbach, senior professor of ethics at SEBTS, were missionaries in China when Mao Zedong came to power.  In fact, Dan was born during the Communist revolution.  After a period of house arrest he and his family were deported from the country.]

I just finished reading Rob Bell's Love Wins.  In short, Bell makes the case for a post-mortem opportunity for those who didn't receive the Gospel during their earthly lives.  His gift at turning a phrase helps to hide the weaknesses of his arguments. Take for example his handling of our Lord's denunciation of the cities of Capernaum in Matt 10 ("It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you").  Bell interprets Jesus to be teaching that there still is hope for Sodom and Gomorrah.  Oh come on.  It's hard to take this stuff seriously.

I found myself thinking, "Clark Pinnock did a much better job arguing for all this."

Pinnock, who passed away last August after a struggle with Alzheimer's disease at the age of 73, was by far the most articulate and forceful recent evangelical voice for embracing inclusivism, annihilationism, and the possibility of salvation after death.  In his A Wideness in God's Mercy, Pinnock takes basically the same position as Bell, but with arguments more cogent and well thought out.  When one considers where he was theologically at the end of his life, it's difficult to believe that Pinnock started his theological career as an arch-conservative, inerrancy-affirming, 5-point Calvinist. Pinnock's theological journey was one of the more convoluted odysseys in evangelicalism.

Years ago, when I was a theology student in the doctoral program at Southeastern studying under Paige Patterson, I was digging through Dr Patterson's personal files which were located (at that time) in SEBTS's archives. I stumbled across the class notes he had taken while he was a student at New Orleans Seminary (circa1969).  He took Clark Pinnock's classes often. As Dr Patterson explained to me, the conservative, early Pinnock played a formative role in his theological development; and in ways I am not at liberty to elaborate on a blog, Clark Pinnock rescued Paige Patterson from some very unfair treatment at New Orleans Seminary.

In those days, the liberal element of the New Orleans faculty viewed Paige Patterson as a "fundamentalist troublemaker," but he and other conservative firebrands knew they had an ally on the faculty in Clark Pinnock.  Pinnock had studied under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester, and was recognized by both friend and foe as a brilliant scholar. He presented a clear, logical framework for adhering to the Bible's infallibility and defended the doctrine of the inerrancy in an environment where such views were ridiculed.  Bible believing students loved Pinnock, while many of the other professors considered him a loose cannon.

Perhaps he was a loose cannon; he certainly careened across the theological landscape.  I wish that Dr Pinnock had continued to hold to a consistent doctrine of biblical inerrancy through the remainder of his academic career.  Alas, he did not. His early works, A Defense of Biblical Infallibility (1967) and Biblical Revelation (1971) are classic presentations of the historic doctrines of biblical authority, infallibility, and inerrancy.  However, though the 1970's and 80's Pinnock's view of Scripture shifted, and he argued instead for what might be called an inerrancy of purpose.

Other changes followed.  He moved from Reformed theology to classic Arminianism and eventually to Open Theism.  Pinnock advocated neo-Pentecostalism and third wave theology.  And as I said before, he embraced inclusivism, annihilationism, and post-mortem evangelism. For conservatives within the SBC that he had helped in the early days of the controversy and who had counted him as an ally, Pinnock's theological wanderings were difficult to watch.

I would encourage anyone tempted to take Bell's position to consider the sad twists and turns of Clark Pinnock.

Is it possible to determine the economic benefit a church brings to its local community? A recent First Things article reports that researchers led by a University of Pennsylvania professor attempted to make just such an assessment (First Things: April 2011, p. 67).  They estimated the economic impact of 12 congregations in the greater Philadelphia area.  Some financial benefits could be calculated in a straight-forward fashion: salaries for staff and workers, monies paid for facilities construction and repair, and revenue generated by events such as weddings, funerals and concerts.

The researchers also evaluated the "halo effect" of a congregation, and here is where things really get interesting.  By "halo effect," the article is referring to the less tangible goods that nonetheless have real financial benefits.  For example, they determined that a "divorce diverted by counseling is worth $18,000; a suicide prevented by counseling is worth $19,000."  How they arrived at such figures is not given.  Using such a calculus the study ascertained that First Baptist Church in Center City, Philadelphia alone provided a benefit of $6,090,032.  Other churches and congregations supplied even more.  At the final tally, the 12 congregations were determined to provide an economic benefit of $50, 577,098. 

Perhaps the conclusions of the study are fairly accurate.  Without a doubt there are benefits to the transforming power of the Gospel that are obvious, maybe even measurable.  But there is a difference between economic benefit and value.  And Christians know that the Gospel is priceless.

The argument from design is very intuitive, and most people get its point immediately. Simply put, something appears to be designed when it demonstrates purpose or function and possesses information. We recognize things as simple as a pencil or a dixie cup to be the products of deliberate design, because we can see they were made for the purpose of accomplishing a task. Because they contain organized, complex structure, we say that these objects, as simple as they are, contain information; and the only known source of information is intelligence. As I said, we get this point intuitively, and we especially admire the genius of a truly original and well done work of art or engineering. This, in a nutshell, is the argument made by advocates of Intelligent Design (ID).

Sometimes a Youtube video is worth a thousand words. Here is a clip that runs just a little under four minutes that illustrates the analogy of design beautifully. (It gives new meaning to “This too shall pass.”)  No one would argue that their Rube Goldberg contraption came about by random chance; not without insulting some very bright engineering students.

As complex as the contraption in the video is, it pales in comparison to the simplest living cell.  Michael Denton, in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, describes the complexity of cells this way:  “To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York.  What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design.  On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out.  If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity…”  (pp. 328-29).  At the center of every living cell is the DNA molecule, which provides the instructions for that cell.   The molecule is wrapped up tightly inside the cell, but if it were stretched out it would be over three feet long.  The amount of information contained within DNA is simply stunning--approximately the equivalent to that of a 30-volume encyclopedia.

As I stated above, the only known source of information is intelligence.  And the most densely compact transmitter of information known to us is DNA.  The impression of design by an intelligent Being is overwhelming, don't you think?

Iris Dement is a folk singer/songwriter who frequently appears on The Prairie Home Companion and similar venues.  I first heard her on the radio singing a duet with David Byrne of The Talking Heads, where they were singing a catchy little tune she had written called “Just Let the Mystery Be.”   The song has since been covered by a number of groups, most notably 10,000 Maniacs.  With “Just Let the Mystery Be,” Dement expresses her religious convictions, or lack thereof.  In her younger years Dement professed to be a Pentecostal Christian, but now she describes herself as an agnostic.

An agnostic is not an atheist.  The agnostic doesn’t deny the existence of God; she or he denies our ability to know whether or not there is a God. 

“Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from.
Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go when the whole thing's done.
But no one knows for certain and so it's all the same to me.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.” 
 
This is the typical agnostic argument.  Since so many disagree, all must be incorrect.  Therefore, she contends, she is justified in washing her hands of the whole matter.

“Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.”

The line about coming back as a vegetable lampoons reincarnation pretty well, don’t you think?

“Some say they're goin' to a place called Glory and I ain't saying it ain't a fact.
But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.
Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
But I choose to let the mystery be.”

Like most arguments for agnosticism, the song trips on its own logic.  It claims to renounce all religious assertions, and then proceeds to make assertions anyway.  “But I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory and I don't like the sound of that.”  Not very agnostic about that, are we? 

The truth is I’ve never met an agnostic who truly lets the mystery be, because no one can.  Her song is evidence she can’t let it go.  We are all created in the Divine Image; we all have an awareness of the transcendent, the eternal, and the divine.  We are pursued by the One Who created us.  Jesus Christ is the very revelation of God, before us in human flesh.  Iris, like the rest of humanity, can distort and suppress the divine witness, but—again, just like the rest of us—she can’t just let the mystery be. 

Recently a hyper-Calvinist updated his Facebook status with the following: “If you give money to evangelical missions to reach the unregenerate your heart is veiled and the truth is hidden from you. Stop the giving. STOP THE GIVING. STOP THE GIVING! STOP THE GIVING! Cut off their money flow. Don't finance unbelieving regenerate missionary enterprises.”  No, I’m not making it up; that’s really what he wrote.

What is a hyper-Calvinist?  Historically, hyper-Calvinism has contended that the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect apart from the hearing of the Gospel and that one can be regenerate without believing—perhaps without ever believing.  They argue that Gospel preaching does not result in people getting saved—rather it locates those already born again.  Hyper-Calvinists traditionally have been anti-missions, and as the above quote shows, such sentiments still exist.  Note his hostility to missionary efforts—four times he writes “stop the giving.”  Evidently he believes his mission is to stop those who attempt to obey the Great Commission.

Do not confuse Calvinism with hyper-Calvinism.  Every Calvinist with whom I have a friendship firmly rejects the lunacy expressed in the above quote.  Many great missionaries have been Calvinists—William Carey and Lottie Moon spring to mind.  This Molinist is happy to link arms with his Calvinist brethren for the glorious task of reaching the nations.  And when hyper-Calvinists try to discourage missions we should not remain silent.

Let us do the exact opposite of his admonition.  Let’s give more to missions.  Let’s increase our commitment, increase our sacrifice.  Let’s lead our churches to spend ourselves for the Great Commission.   

I just finished an excellent book by James Le Fanu entitled Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves.  Le Fanu, winner of the Los Angeles Times prize for scientific writing in 2000, gives a readable survey of modern evolutionary theory, genetic research, and scientific explorations of the brain.  He demonstrates that Darwinism fails as an explanatory theory and operates more like a religious creed.  He points out that, for all we have learned through the explorations of the genetic code and the human brain, the human being is as much a mystery to us as ever (and in some ways even more so).  The Human Genome Project and brains scans have not explained why humans are, well, human.  Indeed, these endeavors demonstrate that we will never fully be able to understand or explain ourselves.  Le Fanu says that, after all our research, we still are left with five fundamental mysteries, which I’ll list as brief bullet points. 

·         The Mystery of Subjective Awareness. The brain receives a “barrage of colorless photons and soundless pressure waves” that it is able to organize into a coherent “world” that we perceive.  We don’t understand how it is that we can understand.

·         The Mystery of Free Will. How do non-material thoughts activate the synapses of the motor cortex of the brain, causing a person to act and do in a certain way?  There’s much more going on than mere chemistry.

·         The Mystery of the Richness and Accessibility of Memory. How does the brain capture and store experiences, available (more or less) for recall many years later?  Le Fanu quotes neurobiologist Robert Doty: “The seemingly limitless and enduring capacity of human memory is a deep mystery in itself.  It is this facility to sort with such alacrity and choice among the items of a lifetime, pursue in milliseconds obscure, half forgotten episodes and their cascading associations that presently defies credible clarification.”

·         The Mystery of Human Reason and Imagination. How does our brain create “reasoned thoughts, infused by a powerful moral sensibility?”  What exactly is imagination, and how are we able to use it to create mental images that our senses have never perceived?

·         The Mystery of the Self. What exactly is “that non-material being that seems so convincingly to be located just between and above the eyes, that both looks outwards to the external world yet presides over that inner life of subjective impressions and actions”? We change through the years, and in some ways dramatically, yet it is the same “self” that continues through the changes. 

For science, these remain as mysteries.  Le Fanu shows that the materialist worldview cannot be true.  For all the amazing capabilities of the brain, it does not explain the mind.  Each person really is more than the sum of his or her parts.  In short, humanity is the exquisite creation of God, and the reflector of His image (Gen 1:26).

“Mom, why didn’t you help him?”  Writing those words still fills my heart with regret.  We were driving home from convention last summer, just Allison and me, and had stopped for gas.  We were about to leave when I noticed a young man approaching, looking directly at me with an inquiring but hesitant gaze. He started to tell me a story about why he needed help with getting some gas and asked if I would help him. My response was quick and decisive. “No, I can’t – I’m sorry”.  I shut my door and told Allison to drive away quickly.  As we were pulling away Allison said to me, “Mom, why didn’t you help him?  Did you see his car? I think he was telling the truth.”  Immediately regret and shame filled my heart.  When approached for help my first instinct had been to flee; my daughter instead looked at him, evaluated the situation and saw what I had completely missed – a real opportunity to help my neighbor; to be Jesus to someone. I wish I could say that was the only time in memory that I had missed an opportunity; but sadly I often do.  Usually it is because I live life too fast, always in a hurry – too busy to take time for others.

When I was a girl living at home, my dad was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Ellsinore, Missouri. For many years a large banner hung above the baptistry that said “OTHERS”.  Dad would often quote a little poem to the congregation that said:

Others, Lord, yes Others
Let this my motto be
Help me to live for others
That I might live like thee.

That day at the gas station I was only thinking of myself, not about the person in front of me with a need.  I didn’t look much like Jesus that day – but my prayer for this day and for the rest of my days, is that I will grow to be more like Jesus, and to live with a consciousness of the lost around me and a desire to demonstrate the love of Christ to all who may cross my path.   
pjk

This is how Dale Ahlquist describes G. K. Chesterton’s opinion on the differences between men and women in his book Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton.  He goes on to quote Chesterton as saying that these amazing differences are quite necessary for true romantic love:

"The differences between a man and a woman are at best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the best while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness; for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity."

Well said, don’t you think? The upcoming wedding of my only daughter in a few weeks has me contemplating these facts once again.  Ken and I were very much in love when we married over 30 years ago.  We had many things in common and were on the same page about every subject we had discussed during our dating and courtship. But oh how different we were from each other in EVERY other way!  Ken always sees the big picture – I always look at the details.  He sees the possibilities and I tend to see the hurdles.  He likes to talk aloud about the conflicts in his mind – I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself until they are pried out. Do you see a trend here?  Is it even necessary to say that at times these differences caused enormous conflict between us? 

I thank God that he brought Ken and I together; that He used our love for each other and our commitment to the covenant of marriage to weld together these two stubborn pieces of iron while we were early in our journey of love.  Every conflict – big or small – has been an opportunity for us to choose to allow God to mold us and shape us more like the image of His Son and to allow our love for each other to grow beyond the initial fire, into something deeper and stronger.  

I have been thinking about what advice I would give my children (assuming I were asked) as to what I would do differently if I were starting my married life over again.  Here is my short list:

-          I would be more generous with praise and stingy with criticism.
-          I would give myself and my love more generously and unreservedly.
-          I would prayer more fervently and frequently for my husband and our marriage.

It is my daily prayer that God would work through the obvious, elemental and necessary differences in my children and their spouses to make their marriages a beautiful example of Christ and His church.  A godly marriage and family is spiritual work – but it is the best kind of work that truly counts for eternity.   

pjk