This is a blog post from my phone. Carry on.

Wow, I’m worn out.  It’s Sunday afternoon.  I got the opportunity to speak at church today.  We are still working our way through the book of Romans and we are in chapter 14.  I spoke quite forcefully (I think) on not judging others in secondary issues.  I had several comments afterwards, so I know I got people thinking.

It seems like inevitably in this type of church talk, the subject of alcohol comes up.  I brought it up in my sermon as an illustration of something that we can’t judge on.  Drunkenness is a sin and needs to be dealt with, but my abstinence from drink does not equal to more holiness and I can’t judge or condemn you for drinking.

This is polarizing for people.  American church culture is still very anti-drinking (Except the part that is a little too pro-drinking as a reaction to the other side).  An interesting study is the history of the American Temperance Movement and prohibition on the views of today’s church.  I heard several lines of reasoning from congregants today that were identical to reasons why the Temperance movement wanted to ban “the demon drink.”  I will share one.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

The argument goes like this: Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Drinking alcohol will defile the Temple of the Holy Spirit. (Leviticus 10:9 is sometimes thrown in here as well.)  The whole problem with that is that the quoted verses aren’t even a complete thought.  In its immediate context the passage reads,

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Paul is talking in this passage about visiting prostitutes, not having a glass of wine with dinner.  Needless to say, my conversations with several people after church (who totally love Jesus and whose critique I really do appreciate) got me all fired up about this issue.  I did a quick search and came across a good set of posts about alcohol, the Temperance movement and Bible.  This is an issue that I would like to research further.

This subject is sure to continue to pop up in our church.  I get to preach on the back half of Romans 14 next week and it will likely come up again.  What I am continually impressed with from studying the Word and living life is that walking in the Spirit is hard.  It’s hard because you have to listen and discern His voice in everything.  We so badly just want a list of rules to follow that justify us and keep us safe.  We aren’t called to safe.  We are called to follow Jesus.

This morning Charis and I were sitting together on the couch reading our Bibles.  I had my trusty ESV and she had chosen “My First Bedtime Bible” to read.  About half way through our time together, she began to notice that her Bible went from Genesis 9 to Genesis 12 and totally skipped over chapters 10 and 11.  She then found whole sections and whole books missing  from the Bible.  We got her a full text NLT for Christmas.  I think she’s about ready.

Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.  For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. – Mark 4:24-25

So, in my Bible Reading Plan today, I read Psalm 33.  Verse 11 says:

The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.

At the church where I serve as Community Pastor, our primary discipleship method is called a “Community Group.”  It’s a gathering of people, based around relationships and missional living, that meet to hang out, eat together, study the Word, serve their city, and just BE Christians.  We think this is really important, because many of the commands of scripture are just not doable during a once-a-week Sunday service.

Sometimes we get complaints that in addition to our Community Groups, we need mens groups, womens groups, seniors groups, college-aged groups, etc.  We resist this because we feel that we best represent the body of Christ when we ignore those somewhat manufactured distinctions and gather in spite of our differences.  I heard it put recently that when people who naturally get along get together, that’s no big deal.  When Jesus brings different people, who wouldn’t normally hang out together, into relationship with each other, that’s a big deal and one of the glories of the Gospel.

So, God’s Word will last for ever, and the plans of His heart are good for all generations.  We don’t need a separate Gospel for seniors, kids, young adults, men, women, singles, marrieds, and Star Trek fans.  The counsel of the Lord stands forever, and the plans of His heart to all generations.  That also means that the “postmoderns” who need to change the content of the Gospel for people today, are just wrong.  Methods change, the truth of the Word doesn’t. Psalm 33:11.

So, I ran across a new Bible reading plan this year.  It’s put together by a guy named Professor C. Horner.  You can find it here.  Basically, It divides the Bible into 10 sections, and you read a chapter from each section a day (10 chapters a day).  It’s pretty robust, but the way it weaves different sections of scripture prevents monotony (I’m looking at you Numbers) and it’s really interesting how different passages work together.  For instance, I read today in Genesis 34 about the city of Shechem and then I read about the same area hundreds of years later in Judges 9.  Kinda neat.  anyway, the ten sections aren’t even, so you end up repeating some more often than others, which totally changes the relationships between the passages.  Pretty cool.

After three years of not blogging.  I’m gong to blog again.  This will be your only warning.  That is all.