A Fresh Perspective

The late Ken Chafin, who was a Baptist minister and professor and something of a statesman, tells about a friend in college who use to preach a lot in some of the small country churches not far from campus. Chafin would get a card from his friend saying something like: 35 saved in rival at the Mossy Bottom Baptist Church. Chafin thought that was pretty good since they only had about 25 members. This pricked his curiosity a little bit, so one evening he drove out to hear him preach. It was a Friday night and his friend’s sermon that evening was on the Great White Throne Judgment. His text came out of the book of Revelation. The preacher was in a white suit, white tie, white shirt, white belt, and even white shoes. He thundered from the pulpit that if you didn’t become white as snow through the blood of the lamb you would find yourself literally in one hell of a predicament, a hell of fire and brimstone. Chafin said that he didn’t think he was going to get home that night until the pre...

  The fifteenth chapter of Luke has been called “the gospel within the gospel.” With the exception of the elder son, that which is lost is found. The lost sheep is returned to the flock, the lost coin is recovered by its owner, the lost son is restored to the father, and so there is good news all way around. We could say that God is better at finding than we are at getting lost and that is very good news, because we are pretty good at getting lost. Robert Fulghum in his book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten tells about playing hide and seek in his neighborhood growing up. He says there was one kid who always hid too good. After a while they would give up trying to find him. Later, after they had quit the game he would show up and he would be upset. Fulghum writes, “There’s hiding and there’s finding, we’d say. And he’d say it was hide and seek not hide and give up, and we’d all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wou...

Well, here we go again. Another group of shocking sayings from Jesus. I should have took off this Sunday and let Dr. Bailey preach this text. Now, it should be obvious that when Jesus talks about hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself, he doesn’t really mean what we mean when we employ the word “hate” in reference to an emotional or psychological state of being. But we, too, use the word in different ways. When I hear some “not so” good news, like when a marriage breaks up, or a job opportunity falls through, or I hear about someone being sick, I will say, “O, I hate that” meaning, “I wish it wasn’t so.” Scholars tell us that in the ancient Semitic context “hate” was frequently used figuratively the way Jesus uses it here, to speak of a decisive, radical kind of renouncement or subordination or detachment. Jesus is talking about a kind of commitment here that take precedence over all other commitments – even family. This is not the...