Tag: disciple

CAN I GET A WITNESS? (AND A BOOK RECOMMENDATION)

george gaffga5 Comments

By God’s grace in Christ I am a follower of Jesus. The Lord is central to my life here and for all eternity. And as weak a follower as I might be, I trust that I belong to my God.

I want to be a witness for Christ. I want my life to reflect the goodness of God to all God’s creation. The word ‘witness’ originally meant ‘martyr’ and though I have not given my life (literally,) I do want to shed my ego, my selfishness, pride and such to be a more loving example of what following Christ means.

The church as the body of Christ, made up of people wanting to be like Christ in loving and just ways, is a witness too. Like Jesus we want to be loving, compassionate, and just as we care deeply for all people especially the brokenhearted. We want to be fair. We’d like our next generations to grow up with a sense of goodness and love. And we want them to be provided for. I understand all of that.

But something has happened. We have lost our way. We want to be #1. We want our nation to be #1. We want to be strong and make America great. And in the process we have dealt unfairly with the poor, the people of color and the immigrants at our border. Oh, I understand we don’t want too many of ‘them’ coming to America but my own great grandparents came here for the same reasons as others have for coming.

And what grieves me deeply is that we are losing our witness for Christ. Riots in the streets. Lawlessness. Violence. And the example that we are following as Christians is a leader who is lacking in Christian virtue. He is speaking to the basest qualities of our natures. He is a man without a moral compass. His arsenal contains vitriol and incendiary language for those who oppose to him. He is selfish and causes many Christians to take up the sword against those opposed to him and against each other. This can’t be.

Our leader is pharisaical. He aligns himself with religious purposes but inside is full of selfishness. He claims to be pro life but only so he can win the evangelical vote. That is a tarnished witness on the part of evangelicals who side with him on that issue. I am pro life too but pro life for everyone affected by poverty and hunger, oppression and racism and I am pro life for people in other countries that our leader calls ‘shitholes’. That’s not right. It’s not what Christ would do or say.

Some call our leader a ‘Cyrus’ after a pagan that instituted policies on behalf of the Israelites. But as a Christian I cannot be racist, unjust, unloving, and claim that being pro life aligns me with God’s will.

In the world, in our neighborhoods and even inside ourselves our witness is being erased to the point that we even begin to think that what our leaders are doing is all good.  When Germany rose to power in the 30’s the churches for the most part sided with Hitler for strengthening the economy and making Germany a world power to the extreme of rationalizing a take over of the neighboring world at that time. We cannot go in that direction.

We are disciples of Jesus, not of any political leader. We take our cues from Jesus. We are not some kind of exclusive club that determines its membership by allegiance to the current leader. As Christians we don’t make policies. We live by what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments; loving God and loving our neighbor. We are not doing that. We are hating each other, mocking, marginalizing and making it very difficult for others to see Christ in who we are or what we do.

There are serious problems within our country. The prophets of the Old Testament were not afraid to point them out in Israel and ask for forgiveness from God. Jesus saw how law and order along with a lack of love had replaced God and he pointed it out and called for repentance and love. His first words were, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.’

And no we don’t condone the violence we see in the streets but we don’t condone the injustice that leads to such violence and we don’t condone the language and actions that come from the leader of this country.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said that when Christ calls someone, he bids that person to come and die. Not make others suffer and die.

The greatest witness we have for Christ is to love one another, to love the least. Even within our churches today there is such a lack of love and respect as evidenced by churches splitting over politics. This can’t be. Let us speak our minds but let us speak the truth in love.

And finally I need to point out a remedy I see for people on the conservative side. Listen, the Democrats are not going to destroy America in four years. So I say, with a degree of seriousness, get rid of the current leader and then in four years choose someone who reflects the goodness of this land, who represents the best of who we are and not the worst. I know that these words won’t please my democrat friends but it’s my practical solution. And then in 2024 let there be a good contest for the soul of this nation.  

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

And finally, the content of this blog in no way reflects the opinion of the leadership of Eagle Bend Community Church in Colorado.


SOME THOUGHTS ON BAPTISM

george gaffga2 Comments

I am of the reformed tradition where as part of covenant theology we baptize children of believers. Sometimes it’s call ‘paedobaptism’.

I believe that children are a part of the new covenant in Christ as much as the children of Abraham are part of that original covenant of identifying God’s people. And even though some turned their back on the Abrahamic Covenant the children were all baptized.

I realized there is little if any evidence in the New Testament of a child being baptized. The faith of the first century was an adult faith amidst an adult society and there is no particular reason for children being mentioned. Or is there?

Jesus took the children into his arms and blessed them conveying I believe God’s particular grace upon and within that child.

Jesus told people that unless they had faith like a child they would not enter the Kingdom of God.

When we see John the Baptist graced by God (filled with the Holy Spirit) (Luke 1:15), while still in the womb I would say he is part of the new covenant in Christ Jesus.

When Paul writes that the children of believers are holy, separated to God (1Cor. 7) I believe they are part of the covenant.

See if God’s covenant is a covenant of grace and not works and none of us deserves it then children most of all are the trusting recipients of God’s love and thus candidates of baptism.

As far as faith, confession, belief are concerned they are all part of the process of the new covenant, covenant theology. No one is saved without grace through faith. Children at birth are forgiven, not innocent. They too can come under the understanding of dying and rising with Christ through baptism and then faith.

And I love the passage in Psalm 139:

You are the one who created my innermost parts;
    you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
    Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
15 My bones weren’t hidden from you
    when I was being put together in a secret place,
    when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my embryo,
    and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me,[b]
    before any one of them had yet happened.[c]
17 God, your plans are incomprehensible to me!
    Their total number is countless!
18 If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand!
    If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you” (CEB in Gateway)

If this is how God’s grace impacts and surrounds the unborn then it is my humble opinion these little ones should be baptized as a was of showing they belong to Christ.

Children in the early church were part of the family’s interaction of faith and community. Most likely in the first century at least they would grow up to be believers. The problem today is that we practice ‘cheap grace’ willy nilly baptizing anything that moves. Parents who are not faithful have their children ‘done’. I had one woman tell me that her child’s baptism had to be on a certain date because the great grandmother’s dress would not fit otherwise. I have been guilty of that cheap grace, God forgive me. There should be strenuous testing of the faith and fruits of parents who want their children to be baptized.

Some ask ‘Why not baptize all children into the covenant?’ It’s a good question that could be answered in the affirmative if we sought to disciple people. Jesus said go and baptize all nations and ‘disciple’ them.

Well, I expect to hear from some folks and that’s good. I can always learn.

Grace and peace

george