St. John Studies

“All in God’s timing.”

“God has perfect timing; never early, never late.”

“Learn to wait on God’s Timing.”

“Trust in God’s Timing”

Type “God’s timing” into your browser and search for images and you will see a lot of posters with expressions about timing. I guess we all question the timing of things that happen in our lives.  I do too.  As we leave Chapter 7 where Pastor Hamilton in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White discussed Christian denominations, you wonder where he is going next.   He has just taken two Christian denominations and tried to show a dichotomy and how Christian denominations should be able to overcome their differences.  Now he turns to opposing views about how Christians view the Bible.

I just finished the Bible this morning, from Old to New Testament. I have had a hunger to read it since blogging about Dallas Willard’s book Hearing God.  Maybe a chapter on “The Battle over the Bible” is good for me right now.  God’s impeccable timing.

Let’s start with why do people read the Bible? Pastor Hamilton states that some see it as just a collection of ancient writings that describe the faith of the Israelites and then the first followers of Jesus.   Maybe they read it as a history book.  For many years I saw the Bible just like that, a book on the shelf, just like any other history book.  Others see the Bible as the Word of God, every word chosen by God with the writers of the book serving as scribes or secretaries. There are no errors; there are no real inconsistencies.  They declare that the Bible is totally true and trustworthy. This is the “inerrant posture” and people who think this way just don’t believe that there could ever be any error in Scripture.  They see the Bible as a Perfect Sacred Book.  Some see the Bible as a collection of “timeless truth”, with advice that transcends cultures.  Maybe these folks see the Bible as a self-help guide.  Of course there are those who see the Bible as a collection of documents written by human beings who are fallible, capable of erring in their use of facts and their use of interpretations.  They see the Bible as a story book, probably fictional in nature.

We could go on and on, expressing all the views that people have about the Bible but the fact of the matter is this: it is the most owned book in the world; the average American home has 4 Bibles. It is also the most read book in the world, a whopping 3.9 billion copies sold over the last 50 years.*

However, is it the most understood book in the world?

That is hard to pin down but probably not. I have been in so many Bible studies where people seem to struggle coming up with answers.  I have read so many passages that baffle me and others.  I have had so many discussions with people who are all over the place regarding their views about God’s word.  In my own personal study, as I have matured, the Bible is maybe more meaningful today than it was years ago in earlier readings. Maybe I am beginning to understand the Bible more; some would say I am a maturing reader of God’s word.  It is not for me to say.

In the next few days, Pastor Hamilton will describe how people feel about the Bible as a battle. The two warring camps are the modernists [more liberal in their approach to Scripture] and the fundamentalists [more conservative in their approach to Scripture].

As I did with opposing ideas regarding Christian denominations, I will comment on opposing ideas about approaches to the Bible.

Let me give you a hint before we begin our discussion. Pastor Hamilton will be searching for a middle ground regarding Scripture. He knows that there is some value in the modernist approach and there is some value in the conservative approach.  Can we find a way to bridge the gap between the two?  Can we see some gray in this world of black and white?

As I opened this post with the tip of my hat to God’s timing, I guess I am a little qualified to thrash out how I feel about God’s word; I have just finished reading it in 134 days. But what did I read?  Why did I read it?  What does it mean to me now?

More importantly, what does the Bible mean for you? Are you actively reading it today?  If you are, why are you reading it today?  What are you seeking from the Bible?  Are you not reading it today?  If not, why are you not reading the Bible?

Remember, it is the most purchased book in the world. The Business Insider statistic I used put the total at billions of copies but purchasing the Bible and reading the Bible are two different things.  Reading the Bible and understanding the Bible are two different things.

Maybe your Bible is opened and read daily and that is great or maybe it looks like the image I placed at the top of this post.

*From The Business Insider, 2012

In the chapter entitled “Being Pentecostal without Losing Your Mind,” Pastor Hamilton sets up two ideas that some see as opposed: a concern for the heart and a concern for the head. Said another way, emotion and intellect.  For the purposes of argument, he proposes that there is a middle way.  He states that two denominations of Christian churches illustrate the opposite ideas:  the Pentecostal Church [the heart] and the United Methodist Church [the head].

Of course, he uses generalizations and we all know when we do that, it causes problems. Generalizations never seem to cover all the experiences we have.   However, he is trying to make a point with his argument and the point is this:  Christian churches do not need to be in the business of critiquing each other.   We are better off cooperating.  We are better off making disciples in this world.  There is plenty of work to go around.  We need to work together and get to it.

But what can we do when we seem to be so different in our approach to worship?

Hamilton says we need to evaluate what we offer and then see if there is something the other church is doing that could improve our worship experience. As I have posted earlier, I have attended several Pentecostal worship services and I have been a member of the United Methodist Church for nineteen years.  Hamilton was a member of the Pentecostal Church for five years and he left that church to pastor in the United Methodist Church.

Again, where is the middle way?

Hamilton states “Today in many conservative churches pastors are not required to have any theological training at all. One can be ordained by another pastor in a worship service even if the candidate has had no training, no education, and the church has conducted no background check.”

Training may benefit a pastor, especially if he offers little more to his congregation than a strong ability to speak. Again Hamilton says knowing about the history of the church, how the Bible was formed and some answers for the difficult questions of faith can be so beneficial for people of faith who need some solid guidance.

Can a pastor from a conservative church train on their own? Of course they can.  Study on an individual basis can yield much fruit as well as a mentor relationship with a more experienced pastor.

In contrast, in the United Methodist Church the focus can be on such a reserved worship experience that the soul is left “empty, dry and devoid of the Spirit’s power” [Hamilton, 55].   The United Methodist church comes out of the tradition that the most educated person in the community was the pastor.  He was seminary trained and people looked up to him for wise counsel and solid theological answers to faith problems.

Where’s the problem? Many Methodist churches just don’t seem to have the capacity to help people experience the presence of God.  Also many members don’t encourage an emotional response to worship due to their very reverent attitude toward behavior in the pew.  “Amens” or other exhortations are often discouraged.  I have rarely ever seen a Methodist service where worshippers held their hands up in praise.  I even heard not long ago that a Methodist church in our community was upset because the congregation applauded a musical performance by the choir.  Applause was deemed undignified.

Hamilton states it best when he says “Too often, the challenge for mainline pastors, and one of the reasons church began to be cautious about an educated clergy, is allowing our education to diminish our passion. When you focus on the intellect, and you devote yourself to study, there is a tendency to become a bit more broadminded, but often this comes at the expense of conviction and passion.”

Ok, where is the middle way?

Conservative churches could seek out more training for their pastors while still emphasizing the Holy Spirit experience in the worship service. A little education never hurt anyone.  I was serving on a district Methodist committee and an aspiring pastor came before us, saying God had called him to preach.  Our committee said “Great, but you have to have some training.”  He said but “God has called me to preach!”  As was our duty, we asked him some basic doctrinal questions that any Methodist pastor should know and he did not do well in his answers.  Our committee did not pass him on to be a pastor.

Were we wrong?

He had the passion.

What did he lack? The knowledge.

Adam Hamilton says so well, “We cannot afford to have a reasonless Christianity, but neither can we afford a passionless one.”

We have to find the middle way.

The title of Pastor Adam Hamilton’s book is Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White.  As we think about that title, it becomes clear that he is trying to comment on how we love to polarize our world.  It is so easy to see clear cut choices between black and white, right and wrong, and good and bad.  Polarization is about opposites or poles and it makes life easier and almost thoughtless at times.  There is nothing wrong with that, I guess.  Our minds just go to the pole that feels right.

It’s that gray area between the poles that is troublesome. That gray area makes us think.  That gray area makes us consider the view we have of opposing opinions before we make our choice.  We begin to think of why other people feel the way they do.

Heart ……… and Head

In yesterday’s post I shared my personal experience in visiting the Pentecostal Church and to be honest, I am “at home” there. The worship service is different from my usual service but as the old saying goes sometimes “different is good.”

Today we are going to try to illustrate a polarization with the Methodist worship style as a polar opposite to the Pentecostal worship style. Some may think this big difference does not exist.  I apologize for generalizations in advance.  I don’t intend to represent every Methodist Church.  I can’t.  But for purposes of discussion, let’s look at what the Methodist Church offers to a worshipper and since I have been a member of a Methodist Church for 19 years, I have become pretty familiar with the “method”.

While a Pentecostal believer emphasizes the Holy Spirit in worship, the Methodist believes that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and manifests itself in a believer’s daily life as they try to grow closer to the Lord. The Methodist worship service would be described as “reserved” compared to the Pentecostal service.  Pastor Hamilton was a Pentecostal before he became a Methodist Pastor and he says:  “The Pentecostal church had sermons preached with fervor, that aroused the soul but which at times, lacked substance, while the United Methodist Church I attended had sermons of lower decibel levels, but which I would remember and reflect on following worship.”

Why is this?

One factor is the founder of the Methodist Church was John Wesley, a well-educated Oxford University seminary student.   As the Methodist Church began to grow, Wesley felt a need to make sure that all pastors were trained in Christian doctrine and he insisted on meetings called conferences where pastors could be connected to other pastors and pastors could receive as much training as possible.

In short, his concern was about the head, the intellect.

Pastor Hamilton comments on the state of the intellect in churches today: “Many Christians seem to think that proper training is not important, and that it may even be a detriment to ministry.  No one would go to a heart surgeon who had never been to medical school, or a lawyer who hadn’t been to law school.  Many feel like pastors just need charisma to carry them through.”

Before you go too far, I am not pointing fingers at any particular church or any particular pastor. I know pastors who have very little formal education but they know the Bible inside and out and up and down.  I also have experienced the “intellect” effect and I know first-hand that it is not all good all the time.

An example of this effect can be seen in my love for history. I grew up very fascinated by the American Civil War.  When I enrolled in college, I just had to study the Civil War so I majored in history.  The more history classes I took, the more the professors made me think about the Civil War from a “big picture” view and I found myself far away from the battlefield, the soldiers, the cannons and the commanders riding their big horses.  I had intellect, but I lost passion for my subject matter.  I was educated in causes, generals, massive troop movements but not the real action on the battlefield.

Another example is a friend I have who literally was “on fire” for Jesus and to stoke the flames, he enrolled in seminary. He told me one day that he could not complete his seminary degree.  The more courses he took and the more professors he encountered, the more he felt distant from the feelings he had that caused him to enroll in seminary.  He dropped out.

What does the United Methodist Church offer that the Pentecostal Church does not? Many people feel the Methodist Church offers worshippers an appreciation for Christian traditions, a concern for social justice and a church experience that is less heart-driven.

However, maybe we need to be aware of the need for passion regarding our faith.  What can the Methodist Church do to get The Holy Spirit to come forth?  What can the Pentecostal church do to appeal more to the intellect?

The middle ground of our “polarization” will be in tomorrow’s post.

One of the most disappointing things I ever hear about is a Christian of one denomination running down another denomination.   I don’t know why this happens but it does.  People think their way of worship is better for some reason and they pass judgment on another style of worship or a variation of Christian doctrine that another denomination emphasizes.

Adam Hamilton in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White has a varied theological past.  He joined the Pentecostal Church at the age of 14 and was a member from 1978 until 1983.  In 1983, he joined the Methodist Church.

In his chapter entitled “Being Pentecostal Without Losing Your Mind” he finds a way to explain what each denomination brings to the table. Both denominations provide effective ministries to people who want certain things.  Both denominations believe in Jesus Christ.

Yet both denominations often do not see eye to eye.

I can use gross generalizations to describe a denomination but I don’t want to do that. As a way around that, I will describe my own Pentecostal worship experience which may be a valid way to open up a discussion.

I too have personal experience with both denominations. When I was “born again” in 1998, I was influenced a lot by Pentecostal pastors who counseled me.  I was also counseled by a Methodist pastor and Methodist church members.  I attended both worship services and grew to love both types of worship.

The Pentecostal worship service was thrilling. The preaching was exciting as the pastor pounded home his message using an impromptu speaking style.  It seemed he was “spirit-led” and in fact he was.  I remember his revealing to me that God had given him his message.  What I think he meant was the Holy Spirit came upon him and he was given his words from God [a basic Pentecostal idea based on Scriptures like Acts 1:8].

The music was upbeat and joyous. You could clap, stomp your feet and many people in the audience sang along and raised their hands as they sang.  There was a band with several musical instruments; they had a drum and guitars.  It was fun and truly uplifting.  I enjoyed myself in a way that was truly amazing.

Prayer in the worship service was in a word “fervent.” It was heartfelt as people poured out their concerns to each other and when the pastor asked if anyone would like to come to the altar, many people came forward, kneeling down for a long period of time.  People from the congregation stepped up and put their hands on the prayerful.  Often I could hear some words being used that I did not understand.  Later, someone explained that as “speaking in tongues”.   I was told to look up First Corinthians 14:2 where it says “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.”  I then knew it was prayer directed from a worshipper’s heart straight to God.

I had been to many different worship services by 1998. I was 47 at the time.  I had attended Catholic Mass, a Unitarian service, several Baptist worship services, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ and on and on.

The Pentecostal service was something new and for me, it was something welcome.

Would some feel “out of their comfort zone?”

Yes of course.

But I did not.   I saw positives in this worship that other people may not see.  I had conversations with  devout Christians in other denominations that lacked fire and passion about their faith.  I am not being critical but more than once in my life I talked to a woman like Frances [cited in Hamilton’s book].

Frances was a saint of the church. She would do anything for her Lord or her church.  She was involved with outreach projects that Pastor Hamilton had in one of the Methodist churches he pastored.  “One week Frances had surgery.  When I went to see her in the convalescent center, we began to talk about our faith.  She told me, with tears in her eyes, that in all her life as a Christian she had never once actually felt God’s presence.”

We can’t make too much of Frances, but she longed for an experience with God. She longed for God to touch her heart.  She longed for a word from Him.  Hamilton describes her as a “tree in the forest, dry from drought.”

She longed for an outpouring from the Holy Spirit…Pentecost.

Tomorrow [What the Methodist worship experience can offer].

This expression seems to be outdated. What does it really mean?  It means a Venn diagram like the one above.

Ok, I guess I need to elaborate.

Pastor Hamilton, in Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White, says in today’s warring culture, we are so polarized that we are unwilling to listen to others.  We don’t want to acknowledge that other people have something worthwhile to say.  “We talk past one another, but seldom really attempt to learn from one another or to see if there is any place where despite our difference, we might come to find common ground.”

The common ground is represented by the red area in the diagram above. Common ground does exist; we just have forgotten that it does.

I don’t care how much we differ in our society today; there are interests we all hold dear that supersede our differences. We could call them core values.  Let’s look at a sampling of these values for America.

Individualism: we cherish our right to be unique in our world today; the right to be who we are rather than a carbon copy of everyone else.

Equality: we cherish the effort we make to treat everyone the same, no matter what their station in life.

Material wealth: we feel that a goal in our society is to work to make ourselves physically comfortable and well off.

In recent years, there is an increasing respect for Science and Technology; Americans are pretty obsessive about their gadgets.

Progress and change: the idea that change is good and progress is good is a sign that we are accomplishing something.  This is a widely accepted ideal.

Most Americans feel Competition is a good thing. We want to be number one and are willing to work hard to be in first place.

We value Mobility, both physical mobility and social mobility. We like being on the move.

We are a Volunteering society; when people have needs, we step up to help them meet those needs.

Americans are Action and Achievement Oriented with an emphasis on getting things done. We like to plan and set goals, come up with practical solutions; we are a pragmatic people and we admire results.

How many of you feel like these core values represent you? If they do seem important, we need to recognize that these ideas bind us together as Americans. They may even be our common ground.

In recent years, politics and political rhetoric have emphasized the great divide between warring political views but it was not always that way. Democrats and Republicans could work together in the past and get something done.  They treated each other with respect and thought of each other as colleagues and they put the country first, instead of focusing on their own narrow self-interests.

They emphasized the idea that they were Americans first, Democrat and Republican second.

After speaking of common ground in politics, let’s change our focus to church. Recently, I heard two church members make comments about worship style.  One member talked about another church in our town whose members expressed concern about applause in church.  What was the problem?  The applause was deemed disrespectful by some in the church because it interrupted some of the reverence they felt in their pew.  My prayer is that this church overcomes this problem because it seems to be a small matter.  Some want to show appreciation and others do not.

Another church member expressed concern about church members saying “amen” in worship service. The idea is the amen disturbs their reverence in their pew.  Maybe the person who was saying amen was sincerely expressing heart of worship, not merely trying to draw attention to themselves.  My attitude is who knows a person’s heart?  Often I assume that something like this is genuine and maybe it is their Holy Spirit telling them to participate by encouraging the pastor with a little exhortation.

These are both hopefully minor matters; people can get past them. If people seek common ground.

What can help people do that? Emphasize that we are all followers of God and his Son Jesus Christ and that holds us all together.  We are a family: 1 Timothy 3:15, “I want you to know how people who are members of God’s family must live. God’s family is the church”. “You will all be joined together, and you will give glory to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ accepted you, so you should accept each other, which will bring glory to God” (Romans 15:6-7).

What do we have in common that will make these differences go away? We are Christians; we are followers of God and His Son Jesus Christ.

This is important common ground, the idea that we all belong to the body of Christ.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55

May 3^rd at 10:00 p.m. Mr. Chuck Dickerson passed away.  Today this post is a reblog from May 4, 2015.

“I wish I could do more.

I wish this blog was read by lots of folks because the man I am going to write about today deserves to be acknowledged.

He’s no longer at St. John. He knows what acts of service means.  That is his life.

This past couple of years he has had some serious health scares and his family thought it better to take him to an assisted living facility in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Chuck is many miles away from me

But not in my heart.

Let me tell you about Chuck.

Staunch supporter of St. John. Retired career Air Force.  Long-time maintenance supervisor at a local plant.

The man could do anything with his hands.

When I got close to him as a cherished friend, it was at Hopkinsville Community College. Chuck was taking a basic public speaking class and I was his professor.  I recognized him from church on the first day of class and it was a little intimidating to have him there but I knew this guy was not an ordinary student.

He was a humble man and at times seemed to lack confidence at the podium.

Still, he made all his speeches and got better throughout the semester. I still remember a speech he made on “The Castle on the Cumberland.”  He made Eddyville State Penitentiary an interesting topic.

I wondered why this senior citizen was taking a college speech class so late in life?

Then I found out more about him as our relationship grew. He shared a lot of details about his life [his world travels, his life with his wife Martha and his kids].  He got to know me.  I got to know him.

Believe it or not, we started writing letters to each other and he cherished the letters. It was such an honor to send a letter to this wonderful man and know that he cherished it.  He actually kept my letters.  He showed me that he did.

One thing he did not talk a lot about was the many things he did for his church and his community. The more I got to know him the more I saw that this retired man was not retired at all.  He kept himself busy performing acts of service for others, acts of love inspired by his love for God, acts of service with no payment required.

You see Chuck was not content to let others do the work.   As long as he could help, he did help.

He took me out of my comfort zone many times.   Slowly but surely he made me see that helping others is a good thing and it is what God intends us to do with our skills and abilities.

The thing that he encouraged me to do that I never could do is go on a prison ministry trip. He and his other friends would go to prison and witness to those incarcerated.

Maybe one day Chuck.

He encouraged me to go on the Emmaus Walk and I finally went. Like most people on this retreat, I had no idea what to expect.  I just lived moment by moment as the weekend began.  I found out that the Emmaus Walk could be seen as a class in Christianity 101.  Speakers would come in and talk to us about various topics, topics of great concern to all of us.

As we went into the room where the talks were to be held, I was a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect and then the first speaker arrived—Chuck.

I will never forget his talk.

I knew how hard it was for him to give it. He had worked hard in my speech class overcoming the fear of stage fright to give that talk but he did it.

I doubt that anyone in the room had more feeling than I did as I watched him. I was overcome with emotion as I saw this man of God providing another service.

Today, Chuck is far from me physically, but as I said before, he lives within my heart.

To Chuck, with love for all your acts of service.”

Mr. Dickerson will be returning to Hopkinsville next week. I will be at his memorial service celebrating his life.

Chapter 6 in Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White is about a subject that I used to love to teach.

The problem is, I had a hard time practicing what I taught.   Sounds hypocritical doesn’t it?

Listening.   The chapter is entitled “Shhh! Just Listen!”

Some would say that listening has become a lost communication skill. Instead of listening, people just speak.  They won’t be quiet and consider the other person’s message.   Today in our era of heated political rhetoric, we are often over-heated by the words that others use and we want to respond in anger or passion.

But what is missing?

Listening.

Adam Hamilton says “One of the reasons for today’s culture wars is the unwillingness of people on either the left or the right to listen to those with whom they disagree. They are quick to speak, and quick to anger, but slow to listen.

Hamilton uses an old expression that communications teachers are aware of: “God give us two ears and only one mouth in direct proportion to how much he intends us to use them.” He cites scripture from James “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

He does not get into the details of the problematic nature of human listening which I will attempt to do in a small number of words. First of all, the main barrier to effective listening is attention span and everyone knows that we are experiencing very shrinking attention spans in our world today.  At the Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, everyone remembers the famous address by Abraham Lincoln but few know of the 13,000 word oration delivered by Edward Everett that lasted two hours.  That was very common length for a speech in the 1860’s; people expected messages to last a long time and they were prepared to concentrate.

Today, the normal person barely can train their mind to concentrate on a message for 15 to 20 seconds before they get distracted by some environmental distraction or some personal mental distraction. Good listening requires us to fight distractions and more and more of us fail in this area.

If a speaker is expressing something we dislike, we may really stop listening.   It is very common for “listeners” to quit listening and start “loading the mental ammunition” that we will fire back at the speaker.

Listening experts relate that the media world we live in effects listening. We want instant answers.  We watch one hour shows that conclude in 50 minutes.  We text, snap, chat and tweet.  We are quick to communicate and today, it seems that everyone has an important thought that must be expressed.  Television encourages online voting, text responses to the show, and websites are urging us all to respond.  Facebook encourages us to share the details of our lives with all our friends.  When we are quickly expressing ourselves, we forget to listen to the responses of others.  When we think our voice really counts, we emphasize expression over listening to others.

Let me share with you a secret that underlies Pastor Hamilton’s comments; the most admired characteristic of a wonderful friend is a listening ear.

My wife, who does not like for me to write about her, is a splendid example of this. Every day I see her put her concerns aside and listen to the concerns of others.  She is a humble person [she will not like that I just wrote that and will ask me to delete it].  She has things that are on her mind like all of us but she will not express her ideas if she is in a listening situation with a friend.  People say she is quiet.   That is true.  It is true because she spends a lot of time listening.

I on the other hand am one of those people who express. I can learn a lot from her example.  Instead of talking, I know I should be listening.  Instead of expounding, I should be listening.  Instead of arguing, I should be listening.

I know that so much of today’s problems would be eliminated if people would just listen. They could actually think about what the other person is saying.  They could consider their point of view and maybe begin to understand why they have it.   They could build a bridge instead of a wall.

It is so hard but the title of Chapter 6 is so apt… “Shhh! Just Listen!”

Paul and James were the golf pros of the Bible.

I mean no sacrilege. Last week I began the week with comments on Adam Hamilton’s concept of the sweet spot in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White.  I even explained what a sweet spot means in the context of the game of golf.  As we get to the end of comments on Chapter 5 [“Finding the Sweet Spot”] maybe you will be forgiving of extending this metaphor a little further.

I think I know why Hamilton devotes a chapter on this topic. Like a golfer knows, finding the sweet spot on a golf club is so hard.  You have to practice hitting a golf ball many times in order to do it consistently.  Golf pros spend their days on the practice range hitting shot after shot until they find a consistent swing that hits the ball perfectly.  Maybe in a similar fashion, finding the perfect balance between living a life of legalism [too many rules] and libertinism [no rules] is hard for all of us Christians.  What is the problem?

A life of too many rules is so inhibiting, so crushing; the loosening of the rules and the abuse of the rules of the Jewish law is one reason Jesus came to be with us on earth. A life of no rules is too free, with no aim and no good purpose except selfishness and the satisfaction of base desires.  Paul calls libertines “enemies of the cross of Christ….Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things” [from Philippians 3:18-19].

Maybe as Christians we should all be in the work of finding the “sweet spot” between these two extremes.

Hamilton cites the disagreements that Paul had with the church of Galatia. He founded a church in Galatia but these good-minded folks began to see the need of requiring new Christian male converts to undergo circumcision according to the Law of Moses.

Paul was not happy. He accused them of deserting the idea of grace, and turning their church into a church that follows a different gospel. He repeatedly said that faith in Jesus Christ was enough to qualify a person as Christian.  With that faith comes the Holy Spirit.   He even accused them of putting on the yoke of slavery with this return to a legalistic concept.

Pastor Hamilton suggests we read Paul’s letter to the Galatians because in it you will see a man who is struggling to navigate between legalism and libertinism. He does not want the Galatians to be tempted to throw all boundaries away and live a life without some guide.

What does he want?

He wants them to live by the Spirit.

He provides examples of what “works of the flesh” look like and as he does, he comes perilously close to setting up his own rules but he stops short. He says “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.”

In my opinion, it is the vague language of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

What can come from a command like that?

James uses the same command in his book. In fact,  Hamilton states that James calls this the “royal law.”

Love God first and then love your neighbor. Those two “commands” summarize the main message of Jesus Christ.

Finding the “sweet spot” between legalism and libertinism is hard.   It requires constant vigilance.  It requires a lot of practice.  To be honest, to do this well, a person will have errors as they fail to love God 24/7 and they fail to help their fellow man in time of need.  We all lapse into being too rigid.  We all get “off the tracks” and say and do things that are inappropriate.

It is hard to hit that old golf ball right every time. It takes lots of practice. Shots spray right and left and we can get frustrated.  It is not an easy game.

But let me tell you, when you hit a beautiful golf shot, it is a thing that is sublime.

There is an old saying among golfers when you hit the ball right: “that is the shot in this golf round that will bring you back to the golf course.”

When you know you are following your Holy Spirit and you see the fruit that He has produced through you, you want to do it again, and again and again.

You are being a Spirit-led Christian…

You have found the sweet spot.

Conundrum: a confusing and difficult problem or question.

How do we understand this desire to live a life dedicated to God? For many Christians this is Christianity 101, basic stuff that is not hard to understand at all.

For others, it is the great stumbling block to acceptance of Christ in one’s life.

What is this New Covenant and how is it supposed to work? Why did the Jewish people not buy into this idea, still clinging to the Old Covenant of Laws, Rules and Regulations [e.g. The Laws of Moses]?  Why does Pastor Hamilton spend a whole chapter talking about this in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White?

Nowhere in the Bible can you find a greater advocate for the New Covenant than the Apostle Paul. He preached that God had placed His Spirit in the hearts of all who believe.  Why is this significant?   That spirit is our guide to living a life dedicated to God.

For the Christian who wants to do the right thing, that Holy Spirit is our Guide, not a set of laws. For the Christian who wants to honor God, the Holy Spirit is our Guide.  For the Christian who wants to please God, the Holy Spirit is our Guide.

This may be super simple. I have had several conversations with a man at church.  He and I have talked about this Holy Spirit quite a lot.  He is retired and instead of spending his retirement years doing nothing, he tells me that he lets the Spirit guide him throughout his day and when he can do this, the day goes well.

For me, I sense the Holy Spirit the most when I am working in the yard.   I love gardening and maintaining a landscape and with the seasons, the temperature and the moisture conditions, things change.  I often have a sense that I have to do what is most important at the time based on the conditions that are there.  Often I pray for direction and believe it or not, I feel the Spirit tells me what to do.

What we are talking about here is being “led by the Spirit.” “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” says Paul in Romans 8:14.  This is the same Spirit Jesus describes to His Disciples in the words “But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.…” [Matthew 10: 19-20].

When you add the freedom of forgiveness to this newfound direction, you come to see Christians as having a freedom to fulfill the “greatest” commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Did some take this newfound direction as a ticket to do anything they wanted?

Of course they did, misinterpreting the New Covenant as a pass to absolute freedom. All they had to do was profess a faith in Christ. They did not feel they had to do anything.

If you are a student of the Bible, read the Book of James where he states it simply: “faith without works is dead” [James 2:20]. Do we need to elaborate further?

Do people today live the life of absolute freedom, putting on a veneer of the Christian but living any way they want? They do.

But that is not what Jesus intended for His followers to do.

It is a conundrum because Jesus came so we could experience the forgiveness of our sins if we profess that we accept the gift of salvation. That sounds so easy…too easy some say.

The biggest question is how do we live in response to our acceptance of God’s offer? It is a commitment, a commitment to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, follow what the Holy Spirit says to do and get ready to do stuff.

As my friend has told me, if you ask Him “what do I need to do now”, He will tell you where to go, what to do and how to do it…