Tag Archives: Christ

Apr 23 2013

The Gospel of John – The Essentials of Christianity


Recently I received preacher Al Maxey’s “Reflections” in my email inbox. A section of this issue caught my attention and caused me to consider some facts about the Gospel of John in the Bible, and it’s importance. These observations did not originate with Al Maxey but I am very thankful that  he chose to include this in the most recent “Reflections”. I quote Al Maxey:

  • The following thoughts come from Virgil Fiske, who lives in the northern part of New Mexico. He says, “I came out of the Church of Christ a few years ago and do house churches now. I preached for theChurch of Christ for over 30 years, but fought the legalism and the arrogance all the way.” I can certainly identify with this frustration. The following is an article he shared with me that he wrote over a year ago, but which came to his mind when he read my last Reflections. I’m pleased to be able to pass it along to each of you.

First principles, the essentials, the basics of Christianity have dominated my mind lately. I was asked which denomination is right, what rules are required to be saved. I had just started a study in John, and it suddenly yelled at me. Since John’s Gospel was written that we might believe and have eternal life (John 20:31), then it can be accepted that the Gospel of John contains everything we need to know and believe. It must also contain every behavior required to gain salvation. Therefore, it could be understood that the rest of the information presented in the NT comes as an illustration of how the basics presented by John play out in the life of the first century church. Should one agree with many scholars that John’s Gospel was the last text written before the canonization of Scripture, then it can be assumed that any emphasis on doctrinal concepts not mentioned is excessive. Since John’s Gospel contains little regarding baptism, Communion, church leadership and attendance, the contribution, worship styles, women’s roles in the church, etc., how can these issues be areas over which we bicker and divide?! If we can recognize the basic principles of love and forgiveness demonstrated by Christ’s sacrifice as the foundation of our faith, then all the other behavior of Christ-like people should not divide us. Jews worshiped one way, Gentiles worshiped another, and though the discussion in Acts 15 was heated, the conclusion was that both groups were accepted by God, though radically different.

Many years after the discussion on how to deal with Gentiles, the apostle John penned the Gospel and the letters that carry his name. 1 John 5:13 says that he wrote this small letter to those who believe so that they might know they have eternal life. How much should we add to what John wrote if we really want to know we have eternal life?!

John wrote as a very old Christian who happened to be the last living apostle. He must have felt that the letters written by others over 30 years earlier were important, yet he does not mention them. I started studying John’s Gospel and his letters as if I was living at the end of the first century and they were all that I had. What would my saving faith and my worship actually look like? You might want to try the same. It has really changed my view of all those who believe in Jesus.

Finally, I heard John say that we should be careful not to listen to the other teachers, but instead focus on the “anointing” we have all received (1 John 2:26-27). I have seen firsthand the damage done by following our emotions, but we may have more damage by following only that which is written. For me personally now, the NT is the tool that I use to verify what I sense in my heart as I am led by the Spirit.

At a minimum Virgil Fiske makes some compelling points about the importance of John’s writings, especially the Gospel of John and 1 John. Both were written that we might believe in Jesus Christ and that by believing we should have eternal life.

Most Bible scholars agree that the Gospel of John was probably written between 85 and 95 a.d.. And, there is also general consensus that John was written from the city of Ephesus where John was a leader. There is some disagreement about his title, (elder, bishop, presbyter, etc…) but not that he was an important figure in the Ephesian church.

In my view it is without question that John had read all of the earlier writings that are now the New Testament. It is especially important, and worthy of consideration, that the elderly John was very familiar with the writings of Luke (the Gospel of Luke and Acts), and the letters of Paul, especially Romans and Ephesians.

Considering the fact that John was “the disciple Jesus loved“, one of the disciples of Jesus in the very inner circle during Jesus’ ministry, and having read the writings mentioned above, the Gospel of John does not emphasize some of the things one must do to have eternal life that many people today do.

I have long thought that of all the Bible, the Gospel of John is the principal book on Christology. John has no equal in regard to the person and work of Jesus, his deity, and that salvation is by believing on Him.

I am thankful that Mr. Fiske shared his thoughts on the Gospel of John with Al Maxey and that Al shared it with the readers of his Reflections. By the way, if you are not receiving “Reflections” by Al Maxey you can easily subscribe here  maxey@zianet.com . Send an email and ask for Reflections and you will be blessed by this good man’s common sense approach to Scripture and wonderful ability to communicate the truths he finds there.

I am especially interested in your thoughts on this post.

Royce Ogle
Monroe, LA

Mar 31 2013

An empty life needs an empty tomb


Over 2200 people swarmed into the auditorium of White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ for Easter Sunday morning. There was great singing by the praise team and the congregation and songs with solo parts by elder Gordon Dasher and  Missy Robertson of Duck Dynasty. My heart was full to the point of tears as we sang about the One the tomb could not hold.

Jase Robertson gave a wonderful communion meditation and together we remembered the body and blood of the Lord Jesus who died for our sins. We gave our gifts and then Alan Robertson and Mike Kellett gave a wonderful message about Jesus and his work for sinners like us. An empty life can only be filled with the one the tomb was emptied of. The whole service focused on the good news about Jesus and what he accomplished by living and dying and then living again “for us”.

When the invitation was given many walked to the front (no one ever goes forward at the invitation alone) for prayers for sick family members, problems with marriages, and personal failures. And there was the usual love and forgiveness sealed with hugs and tender words of encouragement, and of course sincere prayers asking God to intervene as He wills.

Among those who came forward was a man whose beard and long hair resembled Jase Robertson. He and his wife had driven in from Indiana. Jase explained that this morning he had shared the good news with this man and then asked him what he had to say to the congregation. His words were brief and to the point. “I have lived a very rough life for the past 41 years and I want to give myself to Christ”. Soon Jase baptized this 41-year-old, a 13-year-old girl, and an African-American family of five, dad, mom, and three teens. Seven people who were helpless and hopeless have decided to follow Jesus and now the one who is the resurrection lives in them and they are assured they will live forever because of Him alone.

After sharing a delicious meal with my daughter, son-in-law, and our three grandsons, I am home and I can say that Easter this year was God blessed and couldn’t have been better.

If you read these words, somebody you, whose life is a mess, with no hope for a future with God, Jesus Christ is the answer! I hope you will consider him and his claims.

Royce Ogle

Easter 2013

Mar 11 2013

Why are churches of Christ in decline?


statistics
First, let me be quick to say that churches of Christ are not the only brand
that is in steady decline. The largest evangelical denomination, Southern Baptists, are too in decline with a several year drop in baptisms year after year. However, there is little comfort in the fact we are not alone. I doubt that a person just diagnosed with cancer is comforted when he finds that several others have it too.

In the past several months there have been dozens of blogs and other articles addressing the decline of evangelical church membership and several have been particularly focused on churches of Christ. So I’ll add one more voice to the chorus of voices concerning the downward spiral of our churches and the people who attend them.

The volume of blog posts, magazine articles, books and lectures that suggest reasons and solutions is huge. Should our churches be more user-friendly? Is allowing parishioners to “dress down” on Sunday morning one of the pieces of the puzzle. Maybe a better, more attractive website will help. Will a praise team, or even a band position us to better appeal to young people? Is our lack of community service the missing link? If we begin in earnest to “serve” our community, will that attract more members? And of course, a slick Power Point presentation must accompany every Sunday sermon. Everyone knows that! Maybe we should find what unchurched people find appealing and provide that. After all isn’t our mission to address their needs?

In the last few weeks I have surveyed hundreds of church websites to try to get a feel for what Sunday sermons are focused on. And, just last night I scanned perhaps two hundred sermon topics listed in various church “Gospel Meeting” announcements and past meetings. And guess what I learned? Of all the “Gospel Meeting” lesson topics, of scores and scores, I found 4 or 5 that might have been focused on the good news about Jesus and what he accomplished for sinners. Oh, there were good things to be sure. Most were lessons on marriage, rearing children, the importance of the Bible, the church, and much about ethics and morality. Unity, elders, Restoration history, and others also got a lot of coverage.

Sunday sermons covered most of those same topics but primarily focused on personal disciplines like prayer, Bible study, loving others, community service, giving, and many other noble and worthwhile subjects.

We have a gospel deficit

I was both shocked and saddened when a few weeks ago I asked this question in a thread of comments on the popular One in Jesus blog, “What is the gospel?” Some of the answers were “The life and teachings of Jesus”, “The New Testament”, and at least one that in essence said, “If you are baptized and live good enough you will be accepted by God”.

There is only one reason why long time members of churches of Christ don’t know what the “gospel” is, they have not been taught it. A cursory mention of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, or getting agreement that Jesus was the son of God cannot be passed off as gospel teaching. In my view a person who almost never preaches the gospel should not allow people to call him a “gospel” preacher.

Much of our history has been trying to get denominational people to accept our view of baptism and they way we do church on Sunday morning. A long time coc missionary once told me that our historic mission had been “correctional” rather than redemptive. I later learned that he did not coin that statement but nonetheless it was very true. What people everywhere need is not to be reformed but reborn.

Theistic moralism is not good news.

Many of us have the flawed idea that if we can get people to attend church regularly and improve their morals they and others will be helped. Maybe so, but they might still perish having never known Jesus. Yet, most of our teaching is don’t do these things but do these things. Pray more, study your Bible more, give more, love your wife more, spend quality time with your children, teach your children to love God and to be obedient, do acts of kindness, etc., etc. All of these are good but not best. A dead man does not need a better suit of clothes, or a better hair do, he needs life and there is only one place to get it.

You don’t sell Jesus like a vacuum cleaner

I have had many sales jobs and was not very good at most of them. The ones where I did best were the ones with the best training. I once sold Bibles door to door in the hills and hollers of rural Western North Carolina. When I knocked on a door I knew exactly what to say and when to say it. After my 3 or 4 minute presentation the person bought my Bible or likely felt guilty for not loving God and his Word. It was a slick presentation that highlighted the features of the Bible and then put a guilt trip on the person as motivation to buy. I don’t feel very good about that chapter of my young life but I did it.

A few years ago a church in a distant city (without being invited by anyone) decided that they would conduct a door knocking campaign in a small town to help the new coc there grow. In discussions with the leader of that group I learned quickly that the goal was to establish a church of Christ in the community. They did knock on doors and after a few days baptized I think 16 people. They were elated! Of those 16 people who were baptized I think perhaps about three of them ever attended a church service and even those didn’t stick around long. They were no more saved than a goose.

I was once asked to speak to a young man who wanted to be baptized. I asked him “Why do you want to be baptized?”. He replied “I want a better life”. I explained to him that baptism would not give him that result. I carefully told him the good news about Jesus, why Jesus died for him and that He alone was the answer to his two greatest problems, sin and death. He was uninterested and did not want to be baptized after all. Another time I spoke with a young couple who wanted to be baptized. When I asked them why they gave puzzling and rambling answers. I told them the good news the best I knew how and they seemed unaffected but still wanted to be baptized. Against my better judgement I baptized them and soon they were fighting like to angry cats, sleeping around, doing drugs and in general acting like sinners do.

We can’t beat the biblical model

Read Acts chapter 2 and following. Peter and the others were not preaching the church of Christ, or moral improvement, or water baptism, they were preaching the good news about what Jesus by his living, dying, and resurrection had accomplished for sinners. After Peter’s great gospel message the hearers cried out with convicted hearts “What must we do?” Do we do that? We should. We should preach Christ, explaining how he paid for our sins by offering himself as a sacrifice and absorbing God’s wrath against sin. We must not only preach the facts of the gospel of Christ but what those facts mean! In my view we should teach people the gospel and then shut up. If God grips their hearts and opens the eyes of their understanding they too will ask “What must we do?”. Then is the time to tell them about baptism and the disciplines of following Jesus. I’m not saying we should never mention baptism to a lost person but it should not be presented as the Savior instead of Jesus.

Why are some churches growing?

There are a variety of reasons why some congregations are increasing in numbers. Churches in large metro areas like Dallas or Charlotte of some other large population center will have many families because they are simply there. Let me ask another way. Why are there scores of transformed lives in some churches? Why are addicts and convicts and unfaithful husbands and all sorts of former sinners now happily following Jesus and telling others about what He has done in their lives? I promise you it is not because the music is better, or guests are greeted with coffee and doughnuts and …..you get the picture don’t you?

Churches that never get far from the gospel are very likely to grow.

Our purpose should be to preach and teach Christ, to make him known far and wide. Our ministry to our members should be to help one another to know him more, to love him more deeply, and to delight in Him as our only hope of a future. Our music should be gospel saturated, Christ centered. The cross of Christ should get far more press than the church of Christ. Men and women are not reconciled to God by what they do but by the blood of Jesus alone. Our members should know these things and know them well.

Paul said of the gospel that it is the “power” of God. The telling of what Jesus has done for sinners is it’s self the dynamite of God to blast into the most rebellious hearts. And he said the gospel of Jesus is of “first importance”. That means that every other thing in church life, no matter how good is is not as important and as necessary as the gospel. We must keep the most important thing the most important thing!

I suggest you preachers do a series on Jesus! Teach the gospel for several months, every Sunday. Better presentations, better programs, better books, and better looks are no substitute for the story of Jesus loving sinners so that he died for them. The gospel is just as important for our sanctification as for our initial salvation and it is because of the gospel that we will one grand day know glorification. Don’t neglect the good news about Jesus!

Churches that do not keep the gospel of Jesus first should not expect to be a church that grows.

Royce Ogle
Monroe, LA

 

 

Mar 6 2013

Thinking out loud about prayer


 

 

                                                                                                      family-praying
The dustiest place in the home of most Christians is the prayer closet. It’s that special place of solitude where you can get away from the phone, computer, TV, and other distractions to talk to God. I’ll be first to raise my hand and say that my prayer life is wanting. What about you?

Of all the benefits the Lord gives to those who trust him is the invitation and encouragement to pray. So why don’t we do it more? I think it’s symptomatic of our lack of inherent good and shows our failure to trust God as we should.

So far as I know, prayer (asking God) is the primary way we creatures are to get what we need from the Creator. There are some very big promises given to those who pray! The best one is that God will answer! I have often said “Only those who pray get their prayers answered”, and it’s very true. If you develop the habit of going to God to ask for what you need, and even want, you are very likely to see results. Of course we don’t always get what we request in prayer for a variety of reasons, the most common is that we ask for the wrong things for the wrong motives. And, one thing is certain, if you don’t ask you will not receive an answer.

I believe that regular answers to specific prayers should be the usual experience of Christians, and not unusual. I am keenly aware of my spiritual limitations and the distance between where I am as a follower of Jesus and where I ought to be. I am far from being the best example. But you know what? God often answers my humble prayers. I could write a book about the many, many specific answers to specific prayers in my long life. I also had the privilege to observe my mother’s prayer life over many, many years. Her prayers were child like in that they were simply a child asking her father for what she needed.

My father died in the late spring of 2003. After dad’s death my blind mother lived alone for several years. Her remarkable prayer life seemed to become even more remarkable after dad was gone. When mamma needed a gallon of milk on a snowy night it never occurred to her that she should call a neighbor or one of her nephews or nieces,  not mamma, she simply said to God “Lord, I need a gallon of milk for the morning”. Perhaps 10 minutes later there was a knock on the back door. When mamma opened the door a neighbor (at about 10:00 p.m. in a snow storm) said to her, “I’m going to the store and thought I’d see if you needed a gallon of milk or anything”. Coincidence? No, there were far too many such answers to her prayers. It always seemed to me that the only reason she shared so many of those stories was that it was her opportunity to brag on her God!

The failure to pray is a first indication of a lack of faith. When you read the Bible it defies logic that a child of God would need something and not ask God for it. By the way, if you study the prayers of the Bible and all of the teaching about prayer in the Bible you will find that prayer is simply asking. If there is no asking there is no prayer. Many books and seminars, and even sermon series on prayer, often are not much more that a bunch of reasons why you should not expect clear answer to your prayers. Meditation on God and his word are good but not prayer. Thanksgiving often goes along with prayer but is not itself prayer. Confessing of sins is good and we ought to do it but it isn’t prayer.

Will you pray? As my friend  Dr. Keith Roberts titled his book, “God Waits for you to Pray“, and He does. There are many disciplines associated with Christian growth and moving toward maturity in Christ but in my opinion, most of them are futile exercises if you are not regularly praying.

Here are some suggestions.

  • God’s isn’t impressed with King James English. Just use your normal manner of speaking and vocabulary and simply ask God for what you need and want.
  • Regular and focused prayer will resolve many other issues such as personal sin, broken relationships, and allowing Jesus to be solely Lord of your life.
  • Pray the moment you think of something you should bring before God. Often when someone approaches me about praying for something I’ll do it right on the spot. I’ll either silently pray or more likely say, “Let’s do that now so I wont forget” and I’ll begin to pray.
  • There is nothing that expresses your utter dependence on God as well as praying.
  • God has everything you need, he loves you, so ask!
  • I admit, I don’t do this but keeping a prayer journal could be very helpful. Logging prayers and then seeing how God has answered is a faith building exercise.
  • Glorify God when he grants your request! Tell someone about his faithfulness!
  • Don’t pray to be heard by others. Be very careful, especially in public prayers, to be brief, to be specific and only pray to God. He doesn’t need to be taught a Bible lesson or preached to. He just needs to hear you ask for what you need.

Prayerfully,

Royce