Author: pastorjonathan

Christian,Husband, Dad, Pastor, Mentor, Volunteer.

7 Reasons I Ask Students to Evaluate My Messages

On By pastorjonathanIn discipleship, leadership, Ministry, student ministryLeave a comment

I meet with a group of young men and women on Friday’s to evaluate the previous weeks message and to help prepare the message for the coming week. It’s a tedious process in that it takes more time preparing an element of the message with this group than it would in isolation. But I’m convinced that this practice is good for the students on the team as well as for me.

seven reasons

I’ve run into a little bit of push-back on the first element of what we do, which is evaluate the previous week. Some folks in ministry are of the mindset that sermons are not to be evaluated. I disagree, but I understand the sentiment. To be clear, I do not ask the students to judge the content of the scripture, but the content of the entire message and how effective the message was at explaining the scripture. I don’t ask them to judge the movement of the Holy Spirit, but I do ask them to judge me. I ask them things like, “Was I knowledgeable about what was being presented?” “Was the message biblical?” “What was the main point of the message?” etc. This evaluation is really helpful. Here are seven reasons why.

It demonstrates to the students what to look for in a well presented biblical message. Most of the students who gather with me are there to learn how to prepare messages. By evaluating me, through a template of questions they learn what area’s of preparation are important and where they are exhibited in the delivery of a message. These questions then become a preparation guide for when they are ready to deliver their own biblical message.

It prepares the students to be evaluated. The students that evaluate me will also be sharing biblical messages at some point and will themselves be evaluated. By having a standard evaluation process in place they are prepared to be graded on the human aspect of delivery in the same way that I expect to be graded. I can truly evaluate them without having to maneuver on a scale of positives and negatives. They will stand or fall in each category according to their presentation, not my over-sensitivity to their feelings.

It keeps me accountable. I picked or allowed the questions on the weekly evaluation based on aspects of human delivery that every speaker needs to be accountable for. Who tells the pastor that his message wasn’t biblical, or that he filled 3/4 of his time with personal stories, or that he skipped application, or that he missed the gospel? If he doesn’t train his people to expect the right things and gives them a structure and freedom to approach him it will never happen. In the last few weeks I’ve heard sermons/ podcasts where the pastor labored over “extra-biblical” points and preached from word’s not really present in the passage. Those pastors would have benefited from genuine feedback earlier in their ministry to keep them on point, as it was they seemed smooth enough in their delivery that most folks didn’t notice that what they heard was just an opinion passed off as biblical knowledge.

It helps me see how my student leaders think. On the evaluations they share tons of relevant information. I find out which illustrations were clarifying and which ones were confusing. I learned through this process that my students really benefited from hearing my personal stories of struggle and victory in Jesus as I had been applying these truths to my life. Putting a greater value on these illustrations where applicable has made me a better communicator and more approachable by the entire group. I noticed after a shift in my teaching style that students began approaching me anonymously after each message about issues in their life. My ability to pastor students through the struggles they were facing dramatically increased because they saw me as someone who had flaws, but found the solution.

It Creates Better Message Hearers. When students on my team evaluate a message they begin to re-process the message over again. They think through the entirety of the message a few days after the fact and review the specific applications, challenges, etc. By this time they have had an opportunity to react to the message. This raises the bar of expectation. If the message was clear and there was a response needed, how have they responded? This creates an accountability loop for them. They now have to think about the message longer than the original 30 minutes in which they heard it and the Holy Spirit often takes what was said on a Wednesday and replays it in their hearts on a Friday so that the effect of dwelling on the message is greater than if they had not given it a thought beyond Wednesday.

It Demonstrates That I Have Room to Improve. I think it is fair to say that I want to offer God my best. If he has called me to be a communicator then I want to be the best communicator that I can possibly be. I want people to understand His Word. So I diligently study the scriptures, I diligently study those I present to, and I diligently study the effect of God’s word on their life through my preaching. The Holy Spirit can always take the worst sermon and make something great out of it, I would also like to think that He will work on me too through His word and His people.

It Teaches Students to Work. Far too many ministers rely on the Holy Spirit to bail them out of a lack of preparation. This overly mystical view of God misses the point that He calls and equips people for the work of ministry. That ministry, especially in the case of teaching and preaching requires prayer and preparation. Again, I’m not asking students to evaluate God’s Word, or the Work of the Holy Spirit, I’m asking them to evaluate my preparation and presentation. I’m modeling part of the work of ministry.

In our model students evaluate messages I teach. We work together on messages that I will teach. We work together on messages the student will teach. The students teach messages and are evaluated by the group. They get more practical hands on training on how to present a message than I ever got in any of my seminary classes on sermon preparation.

How to Build a Bridge Between the Text and Context

On By pastorjonathanIn discipleship, leadership, Uncategorized1 Comment

As I teach younger men and women how to relay biblical messages one of the key things we focus on is building a bridge between the text and context. By that I mean we hold in tension the Truth of the scripture along with a keen awareness of the people in the audience. The natural tendency is to default to one or the other. You will either be so immersed in the text that you ignore the people you are presenting to or you will be so immersed in cultural context that you will ignore the depth of biblical truth in front of you. The two must relate because at the end of the day you are hoping to impress the truth of scripture into the lives of individuals and groups in modern context. Make no mistake, the scripture is the source of Truth and the audience is in need of Truth.

How to Build a Bridge Between the Text and Context

In the preparation process, after I have done some study and feel like I have the basic understanding of the text, I like to build the bridge by asking myself a simple question: “What is the problem to solve?” 

When my son was going to preschool we used to tell each other stories on the way to school. I’ll be honest, his stories stunk. Mostly because there wasn’t anything WRONG. The whole story was a happily ever after kind of deal. So I started coaching him on how to tell a story. I told him that every good story has a “problem to solve.” It could be a relationship to heal, an enemy to fight, a fear to overcome, etc… but there needed to be a problem otherwise there was NO story, just information. 

I think some people sit bored in their chairs because the speaker hasn’t presented them with a problem. I know that if you are speaking out of the Bible that there will always be a problem to solve, if not immediately in the context of a story (such as getting God’s people out of bondage in Egypt), it will be in the overarching theological theme of a passage (Your sin separates you from God, you can’t overcome that on your own, you need a mediator… I can’t leave this hanging, his name is JESUS).

I know it sounds simplistic right? But it really does help me to set up how I will bridge between the text and the culture or the culture and the text. When coming from the text, “Sin” will always seem to be that problem to solve. But sin looks like a lot of different things and each text will highlight a different aspect of sin, or how it causes a separation from God, or how we are incapable of dealing with it on our own, or how people have tried to deal with sin and failed, etc. So while it may be simplistic to answer, “sin,” it is helpful to explore that element a moments and use it to build tension at the beginning of your message.

Sometimes I will begin with a personal story, “there was a time in my life that I couldn’t forgive this guy…” and let it go from there into the text, “But listen to what Jesus says about forgiveness”

Sometimes I will share a more general statement like, “What do you do when everyone around you is screaming at you to do something like, ‘fight! fight! fight!’? You know that if you fight, you have given into the crowd and if you don’t, everyone is going to call you a ‘chicken’ and laugh at you.” Then I move into the text from there: “Today I want to look at a similar situation in the scripture where Jesus encountered a crowd who was pressing in and trying to trick him, instead of saying ‘fight! fight! fight!, they threw a woman out into the way and said they had caught her in the very act of…”

By putting the problem to solve at the forefront of your presentation you are showing the audience right off the bat that what you have to say matters to them, it applies to their life, they are a part of this now and in the end when you call for some sort of response to the preaching or teaching of God’s Word… It will make sense to either accept or reject what you have said. There is a huge difference between sharing information and showing a man his problem and providing the solution.

 

Five Basic Questions to Help You Study the Bible

On By pastorjonathanIn discipleship, leadership, Uncategorized3 Comments

I’m coaching several young men and women on how to explore the bible for themselves as well as how to share biblical messages. It’s really part of discipleship. One of the key things we do is use are these five basic questions to help us understand the text we are studying. I call them diagnostic questions because they help us to diagnose the spiritual meaning behind the text. It’s important to note that these questions are not original with me, and I don’t know the original source.  (If you do know a quotable source, I’d like to know, so please comment below so I can give proper credit).

5 questions

Generally I’ll have someone read the passage out loud to the group. We will follow along in our own bibles. Then I’ll begin by asking these questions one at a time. We pause long enough after each question to answer. Our answers come from the scripture itself and if someone wants to know more about an individual’s answer they can ask, “Which verse did you pull that from?” This helps to keep the conversation on track and thoroughly centered on the scripture.

So here are the questions we ask:

  1. What does this passage teach about God?
  2. What does this passage teach about man?
  3. Is there a command to obey, an example to follow, or a promise to claim?
  4. Is there a sin to confess or avoid?
  5. How do I need to specifically apply this to my life?

The last question becomes a spring board into personal application. It’s where we move from the generalities to specific areas of application. When sharing in a group setting it is important that your group is comfortable enough with one another that they can share person struggles and desire to see God have victory in different areas of their life.

These five questions are helpful on most biblical passages. They are a great way to communicate about what the passage actually teaches and to come to some conclusions about personal application. I like that it is easy to model and easy to reproduce. I’ve had leaders pick up this model and use if for bible studies. Indeed, I picked it up along the way from someone else, whom I am sure picked it up from someone else, etc. There is no telling where it began (seriously, if you know tell me).

Who Are You Really Worshiping?

On By pastorjonathanIn Just Thinking, worshipLeave a comment

Dear Christian Brother or Sister,

We live in an highly individualistic and consumer culture. As Americans we celebrate ourselves to a fault. The perceived upside is we tend to get our way and even when we don’t, we vent about it on social media like toddlers who were just told they had to share their toys.

who

That’s the culture… it shouldn’t be you. Your first allegiance isn’t to yourself, it’s to the one who created you, sought you, and paid for your sins… You belong to Jesus (I Corinthians 6:19-20). If you pray as Jesus taught his disciples in the Model Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), you don’t ask for “My” will to be done, you ask God for HIS will to be done. That includes being willing for God’s will to be done in every aspect of your life. It’s a submission phrase. You are submitting yourself to God. It’s not about YOU, it’s about HIM.

What disturbs me is that there is talk going around  these days that says, “I can worship God anywhere, I don’t need the church.” On the surface it sounds good. Our culture of individuality and consumerism would confirm this… But would JESUS? 

Like all heresy there is a hint of truth to it. You CAN worship God anywhere. Jesus implied as much when talking to the Samaritan Woman (John 4:25). Paul and Silas sang songs and worshiped from prison (Acts 16:25). So there is plenty of precedent to say that the place of worship doesn’t matter as much as WHO you worship and maybe HOW you worship. Though to be clear in these instances it is not the consumer driven preference of the worshiper that determines the place of worship…  It is the ability of the object of worship, GOD Himself, to transcend space  (theologians call this omnipresence).

But would Jesus say, “YOU don’t need the church”? That is totally different than saying “GOD can be worshiped any where.” You see the real question is has he given you the freedom to choose to worship in isolation when there is a church available?

To be sure the church is the people, not the building. Perhaps that is where the hangup is for most people. If you were just saying you don’t need a building to worship, I totally agree. However, If you mean to say that you don’t need an accountable community of other believers to worship God the way He intends… I disagree. We were designed to come together in an accountable community known as the church.

I’m having a hard time finding an example of where we called to separate ourselves completely from the church according to our personal preference in the scripture. Christianity was never meant to be practiced in isolation. Even the early church sent missionaries out TWO at a time to establish churches. It is really difficult to honor the great commission in isolation (Matthew 28: 19-20). How do you exercise your spiritual gifts or function as part of the body of Christ without other believers present (Romans 12, I Corinthians 12)? Finally if you are a true believer, why would you not want to be part of something that Christ loves so deeply (Ephesians 5:25-31)?

This talk about worshiping God apart from the church really has me confused as to who you are actually worshiping? You might actually be worshiping nature instead of God, or travel ball, or TV, or Family, or a host of other things. I get it. I like those things too, but not enough to separate me from worshiping God with my local church. I need those people and according to 1 Corinthians 12 they need me too.

So if you’ve been using the excuse that “I can worship God from anywhere” as an opportunity to hit up the golf-course, the tree stand, or just sit in your undies and watch football on TV,  you might want to ask yourself,  “what god am I worshiping?”

3 Things To Avoid When Speaking In Public

On By pastorjonathanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

So I’m working with a few young guys and girls and encouraging them to pursue speaking in public, mostly in a ministry setting. I wish I had one really good book to hand to them, but I have a library, so I’m trying to condense my thoughts and share them here. This is a list of 3things I wish someone had shared with me when I was younger and just starting to speak in public. I believe it would have helped me find my own speaking voice a lot sooner.

  1. Don’t assume everyone in the audience is just like you. Our tendency is to think that everyone else also has our secret struggles so we tend to speak primarily about our struggle. You can be closet nose picker and it will come out in your speaking if you are not careful. You will accuse everyone in the room of picking their nose. Sure you might do it in a humorous way but it’s going to get tired if we continue to hear you speak about picking your nose. The three other people that pick their noses will reinforce that you picked the right message (pun intended), but the other ninety nine will wonder why you talk about it all the time. It’s better to think carefully about your audience and craft a message for them, not a self-help message for you. There will be times where you can confess your nose picking, but it should be as an illustration rather than the meat of a message.
  2. Don’t use your personal experience as an authority, at best it’s a witness to an authority, but it is not an authority in and of itself. It is how you processed or failed to process an event. If all you have to go on is what you’ve been through, you can’t help anyone who isn’t going through it, much less your own future. You’ll be limited by your experience rather than bolstered by it. Here is the difference. Begin with Truth of God’s Word, then use your experience as a testimony if you want, but never use your testimony as the authority and throw in a few scripture passages. I like to use a personal story as an invitation to listen and transition into how the Scripture was a solution to my problem. The difference is subtle, but life changing. I didn’t find A way to solve my problem, scripture has always been true. I found THE way.
  3. Don’t use an audience to unpack your emotions. One of the greatest trends I see among novice speakers is the idea that they use an audience to unpack their emotional response to something. They may share something like, “My dog died, I often wonder what I might have done to prevent his death. could he still be happy and alive if I had stopped him from eating that chicken bone?” Such an emotional share is rooted in only two places. One, you are still processing your grief (See Point 1). Two, You want to compel people to respond emotionally to what you have to share. The second reason is really good when it comes to short term gain. Everyone knows that if you want to raise money for the Christmas shoe fund all you have to do is get a little child to sing the Christmas shoe song… It’s short lived though!!!  It doesn’t move people to long term action. You will feel like you hit a home run, but you won’t have cultivated any patterns for long term discipleship. That’s the problem with emotionalism, you will feel good, but you won’t have accomplished much.

 

 

“I’m Not Getting Fed”:Confronting the voice of Consumer Christianity

On By pastorjonathanIn discipleship, Uncategorized4 Comments

As an American I live in a consumer culture. Just check out the cereal isle of your local grocery store and take note of how many options there are for corn flakes and that is just corn flakes! We’ve coined phrases like, “The customer is always right,” “the customer is king,” and my favorite slogan from days gone by, “Your way, right away.” We’re used to paying for things and getting what we want. Almost every industry has someone else competing to offer a better or alternative product so we are never without a choice in the matter. You have tons of options when it comes to car insurance, cell phone coverage, or even what kind of pick-up you want to drive.

i'm not getting fed

To be fair, that’s probably healthy for our economy… but when we carry consumerism into other area’s of our life it can be deadly. We’re so used to getting upgrades, new leases, and trading in the old model when something new, better, more convenient that we have let that mindset creep into our relationships. Can you imagine cutting ties with a friend because a better friend came along? Or how about filing for divorce in order to get a newer younger model? (unfortunately those phrases have been used). Consumerism can trick us into thinking we have options in places where we should have commitments.

I see it in the church too. Folks send their children to one church for it’s children’s ministry, their students go to another church for student ministry, and the parents attend a different church’s community group and maybe they all show us on a Sunday morning where they have opinions about the musical style or the preaching. Folks talk about a pastor or church and say something like, “I wasn’t getting fed” and “My needs weren’t being met,” and “they didn’t have anything for me.” (All phrases that remind me of when my children were infants by the way) And that’s the rub, Christianity for these folks is just a product to be consumed. It’s about getting their needs wants met.

While that may work for corn flakes, it doesn’t work in real relationships like marriage. Consumers quit on marriages because they are consumed with their own needs instead of the needs of their partner. They would soon discover that there is actually real joy in focusing on meeting the needs of your partner and marriages can flourish that way, but that takes commitment. It’s the same way with raising children. As a society, we remove children from the homes of parents who can’t see past their own needs to meet the needs of their children. If you’re a parent, you know that there is a real joy that comes in meeting the needs of your child and even providing some of their wants along the way (despite everything their selfishness may put you through).

That is how church is supposed to work. We are to look out for one another (Philippians 2:4) and work together (1 Corinthians 12:12-31) and meet regularly for encouragement (Hebrews 10:25) and in doing so train our children to be those who commit in relationships, not those who consume. The church is the people, not the program, not the building… the people, and that implies a relationship one to another.

If you really want to grow, do more than just absorb the programming. Get involved, be invested, participate in the life of the church by volunteering. If you have children and you think the children’s ministry could up it’s game, don’t send your kids to another church, volunteer for the children’s ministry team! If you don’t/ can’t volunteer… provide snacks, offer to help financially if you are able, find a way to invest. Find the church the Lord leads you too and get plugged in and serve. You will find there is more joy in the commitment than in consuming because church really has more to do with relationships than it does with products and programs. Ultimately it is about a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I get how God might call you to serve another church. He does this sort of thing all the time. He certainly called my family from one church to serve another, but be sure you are following God’s call and not your own consumer impulses. And as much as possible worship together with one congregation.

 

Why Your Parents Care About What Kind of Friends You Have

On By pastorjonathanIn Family, Uncategorized1 Comment

Nobody wants to be rejected. When I was in middle school, it was cool to have jeans with holes in the knees. You could actually buy jeans with holes already in the knees! Some manufacturers also sold jeans with reinforced knees that were more difficult to rip. Guess which kind of jeans my mom bought?… I had to work extra hard to put holes in the knees of those jeans.

So tearing up a pair of jeans to fit in and making your mom mad is one thing, but what if something larger is at stake? What if in the process of looking for the acceptance by others, you lose a part of yourself? What if you give up more than you gain? What if next year you don’t know those people anymore but you still carry scars from the stuff you’ve done?

You see I’ve lived through that. I’ve been the new guy at school desperate to make new friends. I’ve felt isolated like everyone was staring at me and been in social situations where I was just praying for someone to rescue me from my isolation. Just someone to talk to so I didn’t feel so…. weird.

Finally someone walks over and asks you a few questions. Part of you is relieved that you are at least talking, another part of you wonders if this isn’t part of some cruel joke? Then they say something you know you should disagree with like “let’s all go murder a bunch of helpless kittens.” And the one thing you swore you would always be against, you find yourself invited into. You have a choice to make: do you violate your conscience and join them in murdering kittens or do you risk another hour of social awkwardness?

Your friends probably aren’t tempting you to murder kittens. It’s more like gossip. Maybe its drug related or pressure to do sexual things to fit in. It could be looking at dirty pictures or watching movies that you know you’re not supposed to watch. Hanging out in places your parents told you not to go. Some of you “feel” this need to be accepted so deeply that something that you were normally against you would now go and watch, observe, participate in just so you would not feel awkward.

The irony is that even though you feel it so intensely, the moment of social isolation will pass and may even be forgotten, but you will carry the scars left by the destructive things you have done with your friends.

That’s how it happened for me. It wasn’t murdering kittens, it was underage drinking. I knew my grandfather was an alcoholic. But when a friend said, “let’s go get drunk.” I caved under the pressure. Then one night they put a fifth of vodka in my hand and said, “drink this.” I downed it faster than it takes most people to drink a soda at their favorite fast food restaurant. That was probably enough alcohol to kill me. If I had been a smaller person I would have died that night. As it was, I threw up and they threw me in the back of a pickup without my clothes. When I passed out and they couldn’t wake me up, they propped me up against a dirty toilet in a filthy bathroom with a space heater. It’s a miracle that I woke up at all the next day.

I don’t have those friends anymore, but I do carry the scars around from what did while I was with them. That day I realized I needed to make a change in my life, I needed better friends. I didn’t realize it then, but I realize now I was learning Proverbs 13:20 the hard way.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. (Proverbs 13:20 ESV)

Have you ever felt pressure to fit in? There are somethings worse than being socially awkward. Your parent’s care about what kind of friendships you have because they know that your friends have the capacity to pull you up or pull you down. They also know that you most likely won’t keep your friendships, but you will keep the scars (or trophies) from what ever you and your friends did together. If you don’t have good friends now consider praying and asking God to bring some incredible people into your life.

 

Rescuing the Blessing

On By pastorjonathanIn Devotional, Just Thinking, Prayer, Uncategorized1 Comment

I grew up in a Christian home and so we always had a blessing before our meals. Somewhere along the line I became a bit antagonistic towards the blessing. I thought for sure that it was just a cruel and unusual way for our parents to delay a much anticipated meal for a few more moments. In those days I was hitting growth spurts and consequently was experiencing what I thought was “hunger” in a whole new way.

REscuing-1

Part of me wondered why we brought out this tired old ritual three times a day. We thanked God for food that I had seen my mother purchase at the grocery store. We often said the same tired prayers weather rhyming or just very short like, “Thank you God for our food, Amen.” We went for short whenever we could get by with it… After all we didn’t want our food to get cold.

When I was on my own I admit, I let the blessing slide, except for a few occasional pious moments in the college cafeteria, but that was mostly for show or obligation. In my coldness I never could really wrap my head around why we were thanking God for food that I picked up off a shelf or out of a cafeteria canister. And maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe calloused blessings come from those who don’t really know about their food.

In my mid-twenties things began to change. I was awakened to the reality that food doesn’t magically appear on a grocery or pantry shelf. While reading Genesis I came to the realization that God was the inventor of some pretty cool stuff… like taste buds. Not only had he invented taste buds but all the stuff that they can taste. I really enjoy coffee now (an aquired taste I know). Part of me chuckled at God hiding the coffee bean inside of berries like a well hidden Easter egg… can’t wait till they figure this out. Then there are things like tree nuts, peanuts (which aren’t true nuts), strawberries, and other fruit, not to mention bacon, steak, bacon, fish, bacon, etc. (oops almost forgot… bacon).

Not only did God invent all of these flavors that we can mix and match creatively in our dishes, but he also sustains them. Do you know how difficult it is to grow some of these things? I got into gardening back when I thought it would be easy… you almost need a chemistry degree if you want to get your soil PH just right. Then there are bugs you have to worry about and if not bugs, disease (my squash plants were almost wiped out because my neighbor’s squash had a disease… It was a sad year).

Even though fruit literally grows on trees, trees are complex systems in and of themselves that often require diligent provision and maintenance. If the frost hits middle Florida at the wrong time of year the Wall Street Journal will report it and your orange juice will cost you more. When hail falls from the sky, pro-longed droughts occur, and other “acts of nature” we see it reflected on the super market shelves both in cost and volume (supply and demand I guess). You stop eating your sandwich with tomatoes because Wendy’s can no longer sell it to you at a decent price with a tomatoes slice on it. 

But does that register when we pray? Do we see all of these things as in the hands of God? Do we thank him for the taste of bacon (because I don’t know if it’s really that smart to ask him to bless it to your body). Do we thank him for inventing this really weird beast with four stomachs that makes really tasty meals like steak and brisket (sorry if you’re a vegetarian)? Do we thank him for the ability to work and provide for those we love? Do we thank him for those who have provided for us, when we were too young or unable? Do we thank him for the ability to taste?

Recently I read Psalm 104 as part of my devotional reading plan. Part of it stuck out to me and reminded me to rescue the blessing from becoming a hurdle to get past to a divine moment to be savored:

	You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
		and plants for man to cultivate,
	that he may bring forth food from the earth
		and wine to gladden the heart of man,
	oil to make his face shine
		and bread to strengthen man's heart.
(Psalm 104:14-15 ESV)

 

The Good News of the Virgin Birth

On By pastorjonathanIn Christmas, Devotional, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The gospels of Matthew (1:18-25) and Luke (1:26-38) make no apology for mentioning that Jesus was born of a virgin (to be sure John emphasizes it as well in John 3:16,”only begotten son” and Mark goes out of his way stylistically to leave it open). Indeed Luke, whose primary source for his birth narrative was most likely Mary herself (Luke 2:19), records Mary asking the angel Gabriel about how this birth announcement will come to pass, since she is a virgin (Luke 1:34).

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Yet many who read these accounts, struggle to grasp how this could be. Modern science has enlightened our thinking and we know that virgins don’t get pregnant… ahem, well actually modern science has proven it is possible for a virgin TO get pregnant. In fact Mary’s claim to a virgin birth would be more readily believed today than in her own time. Modern sex ed warns young girls, that while very rare, it is possible to get pregnant without loosing your virginity, all it takes is a little highly motivated sperm in the right place at the right time (indeed whole industries have been established around procreation outside of sexual intercourse…. sperm banks, IVF, etc.)

You see, “I’m a virgin, I’m pregnant… and Joseph is the dad” would be palatable given our modern understanding of biology and how things CAN occur. Mary would be the poster child for sex-ed. It’s the claim that GOD is the father that confounds everyone.

This claim is so amazing that many are quick to dismiss it as a legend. After all history is full of “virgin birth’s” associated with the gods right?

Maybe that is good enough for the bar stool or the comment section of a blog somewhere, but let’s adjust our language to be a bit more honest. History is full of “mythical birth legends.” In other words there are several great men throughout history (or mythical men of legend) who have been assigned some sort of deity after their death by claiming that their birth was “special” in some way. It was said of Cesar and it was said of Buddha, to name a few. But in each of those scenarios it could hardly be said that their mother was a “virgin” after conception. They would NOT be considered “virgin births.” So Christianity really does have a unique claim here. 

It is very difficult to really believe in those other miraculous births because it is obvious that they are myths.  Many were written hundreds of years after the birth they are supposed to be recording. Or they were living in a society that almost always ascribed godhood to its king or emperor.

Since most ancient religious history is like this, I see how it would be easy to think the books of the bible and Christianity are the same way, but look into it again. Specifically, Luke wrote his account based on eye witness testimony to verify the information that was going around about Jesus (Luke 1:1-4). He interviewed first person resources like Mary (Luke 2:19). You see the New Testament has an extraordinary track record for being written very close to the events that it describes.

We also have to take into account the witness of early church fathers who were just one generation removed from the events of the New Testament, who hold to the virgin birth as right doctrine. These are second hand sources that are closer to the time of the birth than many other sources for many other miraculous births. Many of the Early Church Fathers also had an established “chain of custody” so to speak, of which apostle/ brother of Jesus, etc. shared this information.

It’s not like the virgin birth of Jesus just popped up out of the blue either.  There is plenty of groundwork for it in the Old Testament.  Indeed the very first book of the Old Testament God speaks right after the Fall (Genesis 3:15) and we see a picture of where the “seed” of a woman (this was generally thought of as the man’s contribution) will crush the head of the serpent (representing Satan). Jeremiah 31:22 also indicated to many Rabbi’s that the messiah’s birth would be miraculous in nature. The gospel of Matthew also points out Isaiah 7:14 that explicitly uses a Hebrew  word for “virgin” (a term that has always been translated virgin by biblical scholars until more recently by liberal scholars).

The virgin birth of Jesus is just not easily dismissed for those who are willing to look into it. As compelling as the evidence is though it’s just the beginning. There is a lot more to the story and it is worth investigating.

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BLACK COUNT (A Review of one of the most compelling biographies I have ever read)

On By pastorjonathanIn books, Uncategorized1 Comment

black countHis father was a failed French aristocrat, his mother a stolen plantation slave from Haiti. The real life of Alex Dumas (the father of Alexandre Dumas, the author of the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO) was full of suspense and action. He grew to his teen years on the island of Haiti. When he was fourteen he witnessed his father sell his mother and siblings into slavery and later witnessed himself being sold into slavery to book his father’s passage back to France. Yet through a miraculous turn of events his father redeems his son and gives him the life of a French aristocrat in Paris. The young Alex Dumas learns the arts of fencing and horseback riding…

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This is the beginning but certainly not the end of the life of a man who lived between the two worlds of being a French nobleman and being a French slave. Throughout his life he would win the honor and respect of other men for his daring deeds on the battle field only to be rejected by others simply because of the color of his skin. He would fight in a revolution that sought equality for all men only to be forgotten by those whom he had helped the most.

This is a great book and well worth the read. It is a balanced biography that not only tells the tale of the man, but of the times in which he lived. I highly recommend it. I get my books from Amazon.com. Amazon has this book on sale right now for less than $19 for a Hardback and less than $12 in Paperback.

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