“Eyes” of the Counseling Ministry – The presentation will cover two subjects. (1) The core values of the counseling ministry: Bible-based, Gospel-centered, differentiating sin and suffering, not one-size-fits-all, embedded within the church, and transitioning into the general small group ministry. Leaders need to understand how these values are embedded throughout the counseling materials. (2) How to avoid a struggle-based identity when using a struggle-specific curriculum.
“Our deepest problem is that we seek to find our identity outside the story of redemption (p. 27)… In fact, the longer we struggle with a problem, the more likely we are to define ourselves by that problem (divorced, addicted, depressed, co-dependent, ADD). We come to believe that our problem is who we are. But while these labels may describe particular ways we struggle as sinners [or sufferers] in a fallen world, they are not our identity! If we allow them to define us, we will live trapped within their boundaries. This is no way for a child of God to live (p. 260)!” Paul Tripp in Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hand
Session 1.
“What Is a Freedom Group?”
Purpose and Vision of Freedom Groups
Freedom Groups Training – Session 1 from The Summit Church on Vimeo.
Session 2
“What a Freedom Group is Not”
How to Avoid a Struggle-Based Identity
Freedom Groups Training – Session 2 from The Summit Church on Vimeo.
Handout for Night One, Session Two: WHO I AM IN CHRIST_KELLEMEN
Posted 3 months ago at 11:21 am. Add a comment
A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that… There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not (p.112).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
This is a very intriguing proposal. I readily admit that I do not know what the political ramifications would be in light of the modern debates on the definition of marriage. But I am interested in what would happen if their was an “opt in” marriage covenant that could only be annulled if biblical criteria for divorce were met and at least one person was willing to sacrifice expulsion from a primary social community for being unrepentant towards his/her spouse.
- Would there be more Christians “opt out” of this covenant because it was too restrictive or more non-Christians “opt in” because they wanted to declare their love in the most binding way?
- Would the divorce rate between the two be similar; meaning, once someone in the covenant marriage wanted out of a marriage they would be willing to commit the necessary sin to “qualify” or does convenience play a dominant role in modern divorce statistics?
- Would the rate of contentment be higher in covenant marriages if divorce were not a viable option?
- How many churches and which ones would be willing to accept the responsibility of overseeing these covenant marriages in the manner Lewis describes?
- Would those who chose not to “opt in” to a covenant marriage admire or disdain those couples who did chose a covenant marriage?
- Would the presence of a covenant marriage affect the level of insecurity in middle school or high school students in those homes (ages chosen to reflect a time when sons and daughters would clearly understand the significance of their parents’ decision)?
- Would the traumatic effects of divorce be less for those who did not chose a covenant marriage since they chose before marriage not to declare the relationship permanently binding?
- How would the conversations of dating couples change as they moved towards engagement and had to decide which option their suitor wanted to pursue?
I think we all have our theories about these kinds of questions and could add to the list with a bit more reflection. But what would the data reveal if the questions could be studied empirically? What sort of culture shifts would occur if every couple getting married were faced with this choice?
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 11:21 am. Add a comment
Do you want to see your church develop a biblical counseling ministry, but don’t know where to begin? Do you feel like you don’t know what questions you would need to ask or who would need to be in the room as you seek to answer them? Are you worried about the logistics and liabilities that would arise as you sought to launch this kind of ministry initiative?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Dr. Kellemen has put together a book you need to read. Not only does he draw upon his own years of experience as a pastor (both associate of counseling and senior pastor) and as a professor teaching counseling in seminary, he draws upon the best practices from two dozen counselors who have led counseling ministries in the local church or parachurch setting.
Throughout the book these two dozen counselors comment about their experience in creating counseling ministries at each stage of the process. In effect, it’s a little like a recovery group meeting. Dr. Kellemen teaches the main lesson which articulates the key aspects of one leg in the journey. Then each counselor gives a testimony about their successes, failures, and key life lessons on that point.
The result is a robust resource that provides detailed guidance without succumbing to a one-size-fits-all counseling model. Rather than giving a step-by-step process to a predetermined outcome, Dr. Kellemen takes you through a question-by-question process to determine what expressions of a counseling ministry would best fit your church and community.
A Small Word, But a Big Distinction
One of the primary emphases of this book is that it advocates for churches to become “a church of biblical counseling” rather than “a church with a biblical counseling ministry.” The difference is significant. A church with a biblical counseling ministry will see its counseling ministry serve exclusively as an “ER” of crisis cases that remained hidden until they were bursting with complexity.
A church of biblical counseling becomes more equipped and prepared to handle such crisis cases, but the counseling ministry interacts with the rest of the church (as a part of the disciple-making process) so that more individuals and families receive care before their struggles become life-dominating. The honesty and transparency of a counseling relationship begins to trickle into the life of the church to a degree that members are “doing life together” in Christian community.
The 4 E’s
If I were reading this review, I would want to know what the 4 E’s were. In keeping with the power-packed, highly-concentrated nature of the book, Dr. Kellemen was able to squeeze five E’s into his four E strategy: (1) Envisioning God’s Ministry, (2) Enlisting God’s Ministers for Ministry, (3) Equipping Godly Ministers for Ministry, and (4) Empowering/Employing Godly Ministers for Ministry.
If you look at those categories and find yourself thinking, “That seems like a process that could be used for any ministry,” then you are beginning to catch the value of this book. Dr. Kellemen is not spending a large amount of time teaching you a foreign process to develop a counseling ministry. If that were the case, you would have to teach your congregation the process and then begin creating the counseling ministry. However, because the book is built around sound, biblical leadership methods, a church that has launched other effective ministries will have no problem utilizing this resource.
What you will find in each E are the key questions and implications that need to be asked for developing a counseling ministry. For the pastor, elder, or other local church leader this should be very comforting. You will find guidance for what you don’t know within the framework with which you are familiar.
A Sample
Counseling can be intimidating. If you are not slightly over-whelmed at the thought of starting a counseling ministry, you may lack the humility necessary to be a good counselor. With that in mind, one of the most effective ways I can conclude this review is to give you a sample from the book on one of counseling’s most intimidating subjects—legal liability.
On his ministry blog, Dr. Kellemen recently posted a six part series on “The Law and Church Counseling.” If you want to know the quality and type of resource you would be getting in Equipping Counselors for Your Church, I would encourage you to preview these posts.
The Law and Church Counseling: Part One – Caring Carefully
The Law and Church Counseling: Part Two – The Legal History and Climate
The Law and Church Counseling: Part Three – Scope of Care
The Law and Church Counseling: Part Four – Quality of Care
The Law and Church Counseling: Part Five – Building Safeguards Into Your Ministry
The Law and Church Counseling: Part Six – Counting the Cost
Other sample resources include:
Conclusion
This book meets a real need in Biblical Counseling – helping churches cultivate a counseling ministry that is tailored to the needs of their particular congregation and community. Over the last several decades Biblical Counseling has produced a large number of excellent resources, but it has not always been clear what a church was supposed to do with those resources. If you want to begin to explore that possibility with your church, I cannot think of a better book to guide you in that process.
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago at 11:25 am. 4 comments
Most small groups end with a time of shared prayer requests and prayer. This is more than routine and playing nice with spiritual expectations. It is a recognition that information alone (even biblical information) does not change our hearts—God does. It is also a recognition that we were made for relationship with God and that to study God’s Word without consulting the Author is like buying your children battery operated toys for Christmas and not getting batteries.
More can be done during these prayer times to fulfill the model of the church found in Ephesians 4:11-13:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
The following steps are designed to maximize the ability of prayer during small groups to intentionally equip the saints for the work of ministry.
1. When preparing the lesson, identify the core life struggles to which the passage speaks (i.e., suffering, communication, hope, love, forgiveness, etc…). During the Bible study, mention that you would like members to reflect on these areas in preparation for the upcoming prayer time. With this, you are preparing to think about their spiritual growth as something that will be lived out in the community of this small group.
2. When you ask for prayer requests, let the class know they are free to bring any life challenge, but ask that they give special consideration to the subjects raised in the Bible study.
3. Provide the class with a “Prayer Request Journal” [link] page to record prayer requests in the class. This will enhance the expectancy with which requests are given and is very important if members are truly going to minister to “one another” (Gal 6:2).
4. Ask the class to keep the journal in their Bibles and review it as they have their times of personal devotion. This again raises the level of expectancy that prayer requests will be regularly prayed over.
5. Ask the class to write one letter or e-mail that seeks to encourage another member of the class with a portion of the lesson. This repetition increases learning. It also places the class in both the position of student/learner as well as teacher/minister.
6. Ask the class to seek to follow up in one practical way per week to a prayer request given in the class. If an idea comes to mind, as they pray for the request, they can write it on the “Follow Up” line beneath the request. Once they follow through on God’s prompting, there is even a nice box to check.
We hope this serves as an enriching part of your small group experience. One of the marks of good teaching is that it raises up new leaders and creates a context for each person to utilize his/her gifts.
Posted 11 months, 4 weeks ago at 1:33 pm. Add a comment
As the Church, As Christ (5:23, 25)
Too often we attempt to understand this passage backwards. Paul has spent five chapters describing the relationship between Christ and the church so that we could understand these few verses. Yet when we begin our application we just want to know who gets the last say in a disagreement, how often they can/cannot enact this power, and how this is not being a doormat.
There is absolutely no way to make proper application of this passage with that approach. Unless both spouses are coming to this passage with a reverent awe for how sacrificially Christ loves the church and how completely (with joy and protection) the church submits to Christ, each spouse should stop and reread Ephesians 1-5:21. Until this happens you have two people wanting to use God and the Bible to support their agenda and dreams. No marriage will function until you have two servant-minded people in the covenant.
Application: Try to write the wedding vows that would exist between Christ and the church (basic principles of salvation). Imagine what the division of household labor would look like between Christ and the church (how we grow in sanctification by grace). Consider how Scripture teaches the church to make major decisions under the headship of Christ. Reflect on how the church is called to administer discipline to its members (children) under the headship of Christ. After this reflection (based upon Scripture not personal opinion) you are prepared to try to apply Ephesians 5:22-33 to marriage roles.
That He Might Present
(BCH_Eph5C_handout for Printable PDF Handout)
Upon her arrival into heaven, Christ will present His church in the splendor He cultivated in her to Himself (Eph 5:27). As a husband, I am to keep this in mind as I love my wife through this life. The life my wife shares with me and the manner in which I love her is to beautify her body and soul. AND! I am to enjoy the process as I delight in the progress.
Here are some ways we engage with this biblical job description for husbands:
- Model timely, thorough, and healthy repentance for our own sin.
- Lead our family to live within our means with money and time.
- Instruct, discipline, and enjoy the children of our home.
- Be dependable in the things we say we will do.
- Romance our wife in a way that resembles God’s delight for her.
- Share what God teaches us in our personal Bible study.
- Volunteer information about how our wife can pray for us.
- Sacrifice time and energy for her to express her spiritual gifts.
- Engage with other Christian couples with similar passions.
- Like Christ in prayer, listen with concern to the content of her thoughts.
We will never love our wife like Christ does the church without taking seriously our call to be like Christ. I pray (and want to pray more often than I do) that one of the trophies of my life is a wife who reaches the arms of her True Husband “in splendor” with many marks of grace as a result of our journey through life together. If you would also take up this prayer, I would encourage you to read Gary Thomas’ book Sacred Marriage.
Because We Are Members of His Body (5:30)
Usually (at least from my experience) this phrase gets under taught. There is so much to teach in Ephesians 5:22-29 and the summary punch of verses 31-33 that this phrase just gets lost. Why does Christ love us so well? He has taken us as members of His body—the church. How should a husband think of his wife in order to love her as Christ would? We are to think of her as a member of our own body.
When we fail to love our wife well we usually either do not think of her or view her as against us. That would be the equivalent of trying to solve severe hunger by distracting ourselves or solving a headache by banging our head against a wall. That is not what we do with our body. We may over eat or over medicate, but we care for “our body.” The challenge to love our wife well is a challenge to take our “one flesh” relationship seriously.
Application: (Taken too far this becomes codependency) Treat each concern of your wife as if it were your own. Do not merely ask, “What would I do if I were her?” That would be duplicating yourself as your wife. Your call is to “incarnate” yourself in your wife’s experience (as best you can). The new questions are, “How does this affect my wife? When does this become more intense for her? What is most comforting for her? How can I remind her of my concern and protection?” These are the questions we ask of and pray that God would be involved with our concerns, so it is how we should love our wife as “members of our body.”
Introduction to the “Living Our Faith” series.
TOOL: “Using Prayer Time to Cultivate Ministry”
BLOG POST: “Teachers Equipping Ministers Through Prayer Time“
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 12:29 pm. Add a comment
A Prisoner for the Lord (4:1)
Paul did not try to aggrandize his status before Christ when making his appeal to the Ephesians to live out their faith. The appeal of Paul is captured well in the lyrics to Michael Card’s song “God’s Own Fool.” (Great album, by the way.)
Seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind
For even His family said He was mad
And the priest say a demon’s to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
And we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well
So come lose our life for a carpenter’s son
For a man who had died for a dream
And you’ll feel the faith His first followers had
And you’ll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see
Reflection: Do you consider yourself a “prisoner” of Christ? In your mind is your life still your own to follow Christ as/when you please? Do you truly believe that you are no longer your own but that you were “bought with a price” (I Cor 6:20; 7:23)? Do you read the Bible looking for suggestions on how to make your life more of what you would like it to be, or as the divine instructions of your Lord?
To Equip the Saints for the Work of Ministry (4:12)
God did not give the church leaders to do the work of the church. God gave the church leaders to equip the members of the church (“saints”) to carry out His mission. To add to the weight of this point and to borrow from David Platt’s book Radical, God has no Plan B! The only hope that the Gospel will advance to the ends of the earth is “lay people.” Professional clergy will never complete God’s plan.
Often (not always) we get into the sin and disillusionment that we do because we lose sight of this. When we forget that our reason for existing is to make the Gospel more known temptation becomes more appealing to us. It is hard to savor the superficial allurements of sin while actively carrying the burden for men’s eternal souls. Likewise, a burden for the Gospel tends to reframe much of what causes us to experience depression, anxiety, or boredom.
Application: Read David Platt’s book Radical. Begin to keep a running list of people (family, friends, acquaintances, customers, attendants, strangers) you interact with on a regular basis and you do not know if they are genuine Christians. Make this list scroll as your screen saver. Visit my blog daily to view the “unreached people of the day.” Then battle your moments of temptation or discouragement (both of which tend to be self-centered) with prayer for these groups.
Marks of Maturity
(BCH_Eph4A_handout for Printable PDF Handout)
In Ephesians 4:13-16 Paul gives seven marks of what a mature Christian ought to be. As you review these marks ask yourself two questions: (1) How am I doing at growing in each of these seven areas? and (2) Who am I mentoring to grow in these seven areas (Eph 4:11-12)?
Unity of the Faith (v. 13) Dissension is not a mark of maturity; it is an anti-mark. When you are part of a group or relationship does it tend to become more unified or divided?
Knowledge of the Son of God (v. 13) Jesus is the measuring rod of maturity. Any progress in Christian maturity is a step towards Christ’s character and mission. How often do you meditate on the character of Christ?
Discerning False Doctrine (v. 14) The call to unity is not a call to universalism. As Paul would say in 2 Timothy 2:24-26, “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
Not Naïve to Human Cunning (v. 14) No one comes out and says, “I’m a heretic” or “I’m giving bad advice.” Maturity will always be expressed in the context of relationships with fallen people.
Able to Speak the Truth in Love (v. 15) The principles of 2 Timothy 2:24-26 apply here as well. The goal of maturity is never to win an argument but to win a person. When we begin to become competitive in our approach to non-Christian ideas we have missed the heart of our mission.
Submitted to Christ, The Head (v. 15) Maturity is not about us – who we will become. When our effort becomes self-centered it has lost its focus.
Working Cohesively Within the Church (v. 16) Maturity is never achieved in isolation. A Christian apart from the church will never be healthy in the way God intended. The struggle and blessing of working with other Christ-followers is how God intends to shape and encourage us in the process of maturity.
Introduction to the “Living Our Faith” series.
TOOL: “Using Prayer Time to Cultivate Ministry”
BLOG POST: “Teachers Equipping Ministers Through Prayer Time“
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 12:25 pm. 2 comments
Healthy Remembering (2:11-13)
Have you ever been told you should forget your life (i.e., sins) before your conversion? After all, if God has forgiven you, what point is there in remembering your “old life”? Well, Paul gives very different advice to the believers at Ephesus. Paul not only asks the Ephesians to remember, he reminds them of who they were. In this passage we can glean several aspects of “healthy remembering.”
Healthy remembering protects against pride. The Ephesians church was Gentile and there was competition with the Jewish church. Wherever there are “teams” there is pride. Paul calls on remembering as a tool to combat pride.- Healthy remembering highlights God’s power (not our depravity). Being “saved” only makes sense if we were saved “from” something. Unless we remember our previous condition we will diminish the work of God. But notice (and seek to emulate) how Paul highlights what God is doing instead of denigrating what God had to work with.
- Healthy remembering allows us to be a whole person with one story. We spend too much time explaining away our sin by saying, “That really wasn’t me who did/said that.” Our testimony does not need to make it worse. When we fail to remember we begin to speak as if we lived (past tense) and live (present tense) two separate lives and our sin becomes “not me,” so repentance becomes a form of denial.
- Healthy remembering allows God’s church to be one body. Humility is essential to unity. “There but for the grace of God go/went I,” is the thread that binds the unity of the church. Unless we remember our whole story, we will grade, rank, and classify ourselves as Christians and divide what God has brought together.
Christ Himself Is Our Peace
(BCH_Eph2B_handout for Printable PDF Handout)
Too often we think of peace as an emotion or a commodity; either something we feel or something we have. Yet Scripture is consistently calling us to know the Prince of Peace as a person. Ephesians 2:14 begins, “For [Christ] himself is our peace.”
Notice the guiding hand of Paul in Philippians 4 coaxing the church to grasp this as they wrestle with anxiety. In verse 7 he begins where they are (thinking of peace as a commodity), “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” But by verse 9 he is pointing them to a person, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Consider the following differences that emerge when we grasp that “peace” is a person.
- You muster an emotion. You find an object. You get to know a person.
- Emotions are fleeting. You have to protect an object. A person can protect you.
- Emotions are subjective. Objects are without meaning. A person can make himself known.
- Emotions are volatile. Objects are lifeless. A person shares life.
- A person has emotions and presence but (ultimately) is not defined by either.
As you search for peace and reflect on these comparisons, consider the call of Jesus, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).”
Being Built Together (2:22)
Read Ephesians 2:11-22 (especially verse 16), “and [Christ] might reconcile us both [Jew and Gentile] to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility,” in light of Matthew 19:6, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” If there is any relevance to this connection of us not destroying what God brings together, then we should take church unity as seriously as the sanctity of marriage.
Are we as grieved by church strife as we are by domestic violence or divorce? Do we view violence against Christ’s bride as seriously as we view violence against man’s bride? Maybe more to the point, do we see a rise in the frequency of divorce because we have forgotten what it means to enter into a covenant with God and His church? Has the consumerism and selfishness with which we often think of church life bled into our marriages?
Reflection: How seriously do you take your church membership? Have you ever read your church covenant? What are the differences in the “grounds for divorce” with a church as opposed to a marriage (i.e, moving to new city, changing doctrinal beliefs, etc…)? How should we answer if someone says, “This church doesn’t satisfy me anymore. I think God would want me to go somewhere else.”?
Introduction to the “Living Our Faith” series.
TOOL: “Using Prayer Time to Cultivate Ministry”
BLOG POST: “Teachers Equipping Ministers Through Prayer Time“
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 12:33 pm. Add a comment
In Our Affliction (1:4)
I am often struck by one prevailing assumption of Scripture that we often miss (largely because many of us disagree with it) – the people of God knew one another’s business. A large reason we cannot (or do not) apply much of the biblical teaching about overcoming our struggles is because we insist on making application in private. That is the equivalent of trying to perform a “Three Stooges” routine with only one actor.
As Paul talks about receiving comfort for life’s struggles, he assumes these struggles would be shared with the church. This is the only way “those who have received comfort” from God could every share that same comfort with someone who is currently struggling.
To this it is often rebutted, “You do not have to be a part of a church (or open with fellow believers) to be a Christian.” I agree. But I would respond, “You also do not have to have a home to be a human, but I have not met many (any) healthy, homeless humans.” Our goal is not mere survival (getting into Heaven), but living the healthy Christian life God designed as a living testimony to God’s wisdom and goodness so that we can offer that hope (comfort) to others.
Application: Do not wait until you are in a crisis to start being uncomfortably honest with fellow Christians about your life. Whatever self-consciousness or pride that keeps you from accessing the comfort and guidance of God’s people is a tool of Satan in your life; a foothold specially designed for your destruction. In order to correctly apply Scripture, you must believe that private, isolated Christian faith is necessarily anemic and contrary to God’s design.
That We May Comfort
(BCH_2Cor_1_handout for Printable PDF Handout)
II Corinthians 1:3-5 implies that Christians should be excellent at giving comfort. We all suffer in a world that is broken. We have a Father who is full of mercy and comfort. We share the comfort we have received. The problem is that in our impatience, insecurity, or idealism Christians are often not skilled at giving comfort.
Consider the following suggestions as ways to increase your ability to share the comfort we receive from God.
- Listen – you are offering comfort not answers. How often does Scripture ask us to pray? God listens to our struggles. If we are offering God’s comfort to one another, then we should be eager to listen. When we listen we do not merely learn what has happened to our friend, but how our friend is making sense of what happened. If we are going to comfort we need to know both facts and interpretation.
- Incarnate – your presence means as much as your words. How many times does God say “I will be with you”? Suffering makes us feel awkward and alone. Having someone near counter these two emotional lies (awkward “your suffering makes you unacceptable”; alone “no one cares”). God put the Truth in flesh, so should we.
- Identify – you are not comparing suffering but relating stories. This is not saying “I know exactly what you feel. I have been there.” It is saying, “I have had my faith shaken by hardship too. Your questions, fears, or anger are rationale. When the time is right we’ll try to figure out if they’re true.”
- Be Moved – you are not their Rock but their friend. A stoic response does not usually comfort. If you can hear someone’s suffering without being moved you either do not get it or have no heart (from their perspective). Jesus allowed Himself to be moved by the pain of those around Him.
- Speak Biblically, Yet Tentatively – you do not “know” God’s working in their small story but only in The Big Story. Be careful how emphatically you declare that you know what God is doing in this situation. Give general truths about suffering at a pace they can be received. It is possible to kill a patient with the right treatment, before he is ready to receive it.
An Honest Example (1:8)
These are surprising words to hear from the apostle Paul, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” They are even more surprising when you consider they are in the introduction of a letter where Paul is defending the legitimacy of his teaching and ministry against false teachers who were challenging Paul’s authority.
Paul shows us two important things in this verse. First, a teacher must follow his own instruction. If Paul was going to tell the Corinthians to be open and receive comfort in their affliction (v. 3-5), then he must model the same vulnerability. Second, godly human authority should not hide its own weaknesses. Too often we have applied a leader’s qualification to be “above reproach (II Tim 3:2)” as being “most hidden, secretive, or off limits.” This is another Christian paradox “strong” does not mean “without weakness.”
Reflection: Paul was more concerned with following his teaching about how to deal with life’s struggles than he was with putting up a front that he was perfectly keeping the standard of God that he proclaimed (i.e., “do not be anxious about anything” Phil 4:6). Why do you think Paul was more concerned with modeling God’s methods than in hiding his struggle to live up to God’s standards? How do you think this effected (for better or worse) Paul’s defense of the legitimacy of his ministry (II Cor 10)?
Introduction to the “Living Our Faith” series.
TOOL: “Using Prayer Time to Cultivate Ministry”
BLOG POST: “Teachers Equipping Ministers Through Prayer Time“
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 12:31 pm. Add a comment
A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“One of the things that Christians are disagreed about is the importance of their disagreements. When two Christians of different denominations start arguing, it is usually not long before one asks where such-and-such a point ‘really matters’ and the other replies: ‘Matters? Why it’s absolutely essential (p. x)…’ The Historic Christian Faith turns out to be something not only positive but pungent; divided from all non-Christian beliefs by a chasm to which the worst divisions inside Christendom are not really comparable at all (p. xi).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Here C.S. Lewis is clarifying that Mere Christianity was not meant to defend or promote any one denomination within Christendom and grieving the hostility with which many denominational and non-heretical doctrinal debates occurs.
However, I think from his statements we can gain some key principles for conflict resolution that apply beyond Christian academia and clergy. It is not only theologians who can get testy within Christendom. Spouses, friends, co-workers, and fellow church members have their own hot debates that betray the unity that Christ so earnestly prayed for His church (John 17:11).
I would pull three principles from Jack’s (as he preferred to be called) words.
1. Define the importance of the disagreement under dispute.
When you are having a disagreement, try to agree on the importance of the subject before trying to resolve it. This is a way that you can demonstrate a sincere desire to understand your friend, before that understanding would be mistaken for agreement. If there is not enough honor and mutual respect to discuss the importance of the subject, there will not be enough to fairly represent one another in the rest of the conversation.
Even if the two of you cannot agree on the importance of the subject, at least you will have clarified one key reason why there will be disagreement in the following conversation. Often it is this surprise that you disagree with me that creates shock that is expressed in condescending anger or sarcasm. You might try ranking the subject on a scale of 1 to 10 or comparing it to the importance of a mutually agreed upon subject.
2. Remember the comparative importance of what unites you.
We too often immediately assume that if you disagree with me or do not see things the way I do, then you must be against me. Jack points out that this is not true. The differences between Christian groups are nothing compared to our non-Christian neighbors.
It would do us good to remember this with our spouse, kids, and fellow church members. We become blinded by the immediacy of the subject and are blinded to the shared history, affection, beliefs, values, and dreams. If we are to resolve a particular conflict well, it must not skew our vision.
Sin, fear, and pride tend to magnify our differences and shrink our unity. Grace, charity, and the Gospel give patience and the benefit-of-the-doubt until we can rightly compare or unify beliefs with our dissenting beliefs. Consider these words from Ephesians 2:14-22 as you consider both church and home conflict:
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
3. Try to settle the disagreement.
Now, and only now, are you ready to engage in “conflict resolution” proper. Until you know the significance of the disagreement and have considered the common ground you share with the other person, you are not ready to approach the subject.
When we cut corners we often wind up cutting throats (figuratively) and shredding our witness (literally). Once you establish a good history with someone the first two steps can be brief, but when you see the early warning signs of conflict going wrong make sure you take the time to prepare for resolution before you engage in conflict.
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago at 12:04 pm. Add a comment
Good Understanding (8:1-3)
If there is something we know about Paul, we know that Paul was not anti-knowledge. If Paul were anti-knowledge he would not have written so many letters with such penetrating insight. If Paul were anti-knowledge he would not have repeatedly said, “I do not want you to be uninformed brothers (I Cor 12:1 and I Thes 4:13). So as we seek to make application of these verses, we can safely conclude that Paul was not arguing for a simplified faith.
Paul was writing to a very gifted and proud church at Corinth. He is countering their tendency to believe that sound doctrine (well-reasoned and clearly articulated) could supersede brotherly love. Paul agreed with those who were willing to eat meat sacrificed to idols. There was nothing about the meat that would violate any moral or spiritual principle. Yet, Paul disagreed with how individualistically the Corinthians thought about their faith. Paul urges them not to allow their “rights” or “freedoms” to blind them or be an excuse to hamper the walk of their fellow Christians. Paul followed his advice at significant personal sacrifice (I Cor 9:9-12).
Reflection: How often do you think of the possible influence on other Christians when you are weighing out a difficult moral decision? When you do think of others do you resent that they may “inconvenience” your decision? If you do, repent to God for this self-centered mindset and ask God to give you a heart that recognizes that you live as part of the Body of Christ.
Application: Place a picture of your church (building, Sunday School class, church directory) in the locations where you make decisions (dinner table or quiet time location). Having a visual reminder of your church and knowing why you placed it there will help you develop a “corporate conscience.”
Weak Defiled Conscience (8:7)
This passage begs the awkward question, “Can you sin without sinning?” It gives the even more awkward answer, “Yes.” To see why Paul says this, let us begin with defining a weak conscience. A weak conscience is one that feels guilt for something that is not a violation of God’s Word or character. Our modern tendency would be to call this a “strong conscience.” But Paul cautions us against that label. It would insinuate that our new standard is better (strong usually being an adjective with positive connotation) than God’s standard.
Paul has already said eating food sacrificed to idols is morally acceptable. His overall stance seems to infer that it was preferable (it was cheaper since it must be sold quickly in the market to prevent spoiling, hence making it good financial stewardship). Yet to eat without a clear conscience would be sin (Paul make the same point on the same subject in Romans 14:23). The sin is not in the eating, but in the willingness to compromise on what you believe is God’s will. In that light, you can sin (willingly compromise) without sinning (violating a moral principle in the particular action).
Application: When giving advice to a friend or younger Christian, you must not only consider what the Bible says, but also where their conscience is. It is not “faith” to violate one’s conscience. The appropriate order of advice is to abstain from the activity until one’s conscience is free to engage in what God declares permissible. God is patient with us in our humanity and “dim mirror” thinking (I Cor 13:12). We show and model God’s grace to one another when we give advice with and submit to that same patience (see previous heading).
Me to We (Marriage & Church)
(BCH_1Cor_8_handout for Printable PDF Handout)
When you marry, you make a covenant that changes (or at least should change) your personal identity. This change is frequently captured in the phrase, “You move from being a me to being a we.” You begin thinking as a unit rather than an individual. You become a ya’ll.
In I Corinthian 8 Paul is demonstrating that the same thing happens when you become a Christian. You make a covenant that changes (or at least should change) your personal identity. You move from being a body to being part of the Body of Christ. You are no longer your own (I Cor 6:19-20) and the One who bought you calls you to live as member of His people with a corporate identity.
Before reading any of the application points below, pause and put into words why this concept makes you uncomfortable. What are the possible implications that cause you fear?
Consider the following points that demonstrate having a corporate identity.
- At least 10% of my income goes to support my church (Matt 23:23).
- My moral decisions are impacted by the effect on fellow believers (I Cor 8).
- I confess my sins to fellow believers (James5:16).
- My prayers devote significant time to other believers (Heb 13:18).
- I am willing to devote myself to the hardship of others (Gal 6:2).
- My love for fellow believers should be part of my reputation (John 13:35).
- My fellow believers should regularly be in my home (I Pet 4:9).
Having a corporate identity is not just for certain types of Christians (spiritual gift or personality) any more than communication and honesty is for certain types of spouses. If you have lived as if this was optional, repent and pray for God to give you what He intended for all His children.
Introduction to the “Living Our Faith” series.
TOOL: “Using Prayer Time to Cultivate Ministry”
BLOG POST: “Teachers Equipping Ministers Through Prayer Time“
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago at 12:40 pm. Add a comment
