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Not a Tame Lion...

Posted by Chris Freeland on Friday, December 23, 2005 

"He is not a tame lion" Thomnas says.

Simple, forthright, and intensely theological. Five Things Every Christian Should Know - Number 5

Posted by Chris Freeland on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 One of the most anticipated Summer events for members of my youth group as a kid was Super Summer. Every year during the hottest part of the summer, we would load up an jalopy church van and make the two-hour journey to Kansas City so we could cram into an undersized (also unairconditioned) auditorium with a few thousand of our closest friends. We rocked out to loud music, chanted "We love Jesus yes we do, we love Jesus how 'bout you?" until it reached a fevered pitch, and listened to a motivational speaker get us fired up for the obligatory two-week life change that every camper is bound to produce. Good times.

One year at Super Summer (isn't that the way all good stories are supposed to start?), the theme was "Evangelism." Throughout the week, we were taught a modified version of the "Roman Road" to salvation and pointed questions that were intended to help us turn any conversation to a conversation about spiritual things. It was supposed to go something like this:

Friend: "Hey man, did you watch the Cowboys on Sunday?"
Me: "Yea. Hey, do you believe in God?"
Friend: "I guess. The Cowboys were pretty awful huh?"
Me: "Yea they were. Who is Jesus to you?"
Friend: "I don't know, I was hoping you could tell me."
Me: "I'd love to. Take out your Bible and turn to Romans 3:23"
Friend: "Okay. I happen to have the KJV and NIV in my bookbag, which would you prefer?"
Me: "Whichever you would like. Romans 3:23 says we're all sinners."
Friend: "No doubt about that."
Me: "Romans 6:23 says we owe God death, but God sent His Son as our gift. Is there anything keeping you from trusting in Christ right now?"
Friend: "I can't think of any."
Me: "Great. Let's pray and thank God for your salvation right now."

After learning this method, they turned us loose on fellow campers so we could practice evangelizing each other. I'm not going to lie; I was a master evangelist that week. I led more fake people to fake professions of faith in Christ than Billy Graham could shake a stick at. People were swarming to the fake altar after my presentations. This was easy.

By the end of the week I was ready to take on my entire high school. I reasoned that with three years left in high school, I could average ten conversions a week no problem. Ten conversions times fifty weeks (one off for Christmas and Spring Break each... I planned to keep going during the Summer) all of Rock Bridge High School would be won over before I graduated. After all, how hard could it be?

The church bus rolled back into Columbia, Missouri and I hit the pavement looking for my first opportunity, which came the next day. I worked on swinging a conversation that started on the topic of baseball. Somehow it seemed easier at camp, but I wasn't dissuaded. Then I worked through the Roman Road, which had developed potholes over the 24-hour period since I had last traveled it, in part because the guy I was sharing with hadn't remembered to bring his Bible to our conversation. But we made it down the road, and I was ready to "close the deal."

"Is there anything keeping you from trusting Christ right now?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied.

The silence that followed lasted at least 45 minutes.

Finally, I got the courage to squeak out, "What would that be?"

"Well, I just can't believe that there's a God out there who loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us, but who doesn't love us enough to keep bad stuff from happening to us here." He said.

That certainly hadn't happened at camp. So I did what any right-minded, sane, Christian evangelist would do:

I changed the conversation back to baseball.

Every Christian needs to learn basic apologetics - a basic defense of the Christian faith (1 Peter 3:15). It isn't a faith based on blind leaps and uncertain guesses; it's a faith based on Truth, and rooted in fact. But that doesn't mean that there aren't tough questions out there. And many of our unbelieving friends and neighbors are asking those questions.

How can a loving God send people to hell? Why doesn't a good God stop the evil in the world? Are miracles really possible? These are all good questions that we as Christians don't need to be scared of. Furthermore, if truth is on our side (and it is), we should be eager to seek answers to difficult questions because they will always lead us back to the God in whom we believe.

There's a degree to which all Christians should be comfortable with the unknowable: to accept that there is an unfathomable God in heaven Who is bigger than us is to accept that there are certain things we will never know. But that shouldn't ever be an excuse for not searching for the answers to questions we are able to know.

Many of the questions unbelievers are asking are questions that believers should have asked a long time ago because the answers give us glimpses into the character and nature of God. The question of evil in contrast to a good God is a question about the character of God. We should be ready to defend that character when the question comes up.

There are several good books out there to get you started. The most popular are by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell. My favorite, however, is a book by Kenneth Boa and Larry Moody called "I'm Glad You Asked." These authors have determined that there are only 12 questions that skeptics ask, although these questions show up in a variety of different forms. This book attempts to answer these questions from a Biblical perspective. Some of the chapters are a little heady, especially when the authors tackle issues dealing with science, but the information is solid and worth reading.

I truly believe that if you don't know why you believe what you believe, you really don't know what you believe. Five Things Every Christian Should Know - Number 4

Posted by Chris Freeland on Thursday, December 08, 2005 Several years ago, on something of a whim, I decided to get my pilots license. I was always fascinated by flight, and like to get places fast, so flying was a good fit for me.

One of the weird things about flying that might surprise some of you, is that there aren't road signs in the sky. Rather than street signs, pilots rely on landmarks to navigate their way around. Instead of looking for the intersection of Live Oak and Boardwalk, they'll draw their route on a map, and look for sections of a lake, or small towns they know they should cross en route to their destination. They stay oriented by knowing that a major highway runs on their right and a river on their left. If you don't know your landmarks, bad things happen.

Case in point: Shortly after I received my private pilot's license, I decided to fly from Stillwater, OK (my home at the time) to Columbia, MO (my parents' home at the time). It was about a four hour flight, which was a big deal for me. The flight to Columbia was a success. I arrived when I thought I should, and didn't have any problems. I had the use of GPS (global positioning satellite) in the plane, which meant I didn't have to rely on landmarks at all - it automatically helped me stay on course, and allowed me more time to look out the window and enjoy the scenery.

On the way home, I threw my maps in the back of the plane since I hadn't used them on the first leg of the trip. They're big and cumbersome, and you have to contort your legs in weird ways to keep them spread out on your lap and prevent them from falling to your feet. I left the airport without a hitch and made my final contacts with Air Traffic Control in Missouri. I didn't expect any more communication from them until about the time I would fly out of their communication zone, where they would transfer me to a different channel that would follow me the rest of the way back to Oklahoma.

That call never came.

About 45 minutes into the flight, I realized the scenery was unfamiliar. I looked down at the GPS to make sure I was still on track, and realized it was off. Knowing this was weird, I attempted to turn it back on. Nothing. Its fuse had blown.

Not knowing how long it had been off, or where exactly I was, I attempted to call back to Columbia Air Traffic Control to get some information from them. Nothing. I had been blown so far off course I had escaped their communication area before they had intended. The wind had shifted direction, so all the readings on my instruments were wrong - they weren't calibrated correctly.

I frantically searched the horizon for a landmark I recognized - a lake, river, big city, anything, but couldn't find one. To make matters worse, it was starting to get dark, which meant more than half of the landmarks would be disappearing. Finally, I saw a watertower in the distance and headed toward it. I descended to the point I could read it, and fortunately it was a town I recognized. I scanned the radio for another pilot's voice and asked what the nearest airport was. Fortunately, they had their maps with them and pointed me toward Springfield directly to the West. I pointed toward the sun, and made an emergency landing at an airport nearly 90 miles from where I should have been. All because I decided to enjoy the flight over doing the necessary work to ensure I covered all my bases.

It's a long story to make my point, but the point is this: Far too many Christians are flying the Christian life today without the necessary landmarks. We rely on pastors, Sunday School teachers, books, tapes, and radio programs to keep us on track, but when one of those goes haywire we don't have the knowledge to be able to fix the problem until it's too late.

Every Christian needs to have a basic understanding of every book in the Bible so that they're able to orient themselves no matter the situation.

What is the point of the book of James? Why did Mark write his Gospel? What does Malachi say about God? Why is Exodus important? Is there a point to all the names in 1 Chronicles?

Will you ever need to know why the book of Hebrews was written? Maybe not. The GPS you're using may function for the rest of your life. But it may not, and it's unsafe to fly without knowing your landmarks.

Not long ago I read an article that started with the words, "Micah was written to talk about the sins of the church against God." So I threw the article in the trash. Why? Because I happened to remember my landmarks - the church didn't even exist when Micah wrote. So I made a decision to use my maps instead of rely on that author's GPS.

It's more common than you think - blatant errors in thinking by some of today's most popular preachers. They rifle through the Scriptures and cherry-pick verses that make their point without bothering to thing about the point the verses were intended to make. That's dangerous flying - you'll need to have your maps handy. Five Things Every Christian Should Know - Number 3

Posted by Chris Freeland on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 Five Things Every Christian Should Know - Number 2

Posted by Chris Freeland on Friday, December 02, 2005 Chris Freeland
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