Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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Archives for March 2020

On Mission Like Jesus, Part 2: Submission

March 30, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

We’ve said that Jesus is our example for all things, including our current question: how should we live out our mission of glorifying God? How did he do that?

One of the first things we notice is that Jesus submitted himself to the will and provision of the Father; to put it bluntly, he knew who was boss.

It seems odd to say that, doesn’t it?

Jesus is God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit in all respects. That’s just basic trinitarian doctrine (e.g. Mt 28.19-20). His submission to the Father during his earthly ministry—and perhaps beyond (1Co 15.24)—is a thorny question, as are all questions regarding the Trinity.

Sidebar:

Some people think this is a problem for trinitarian doctrine, but I don’t. I’ll observe that if we had invented God, we would have made him easier to understand, and we certainly wouldn’t have stymied ourselves with a doctrine we confessedly can’t explain. But if God is indeed infinite, and our brains aren’t, then we would expect him to step over our intellectual horizon every so often. Difficult doctrines like the Trinity should strengthen our confidence rather than embarrassing it.

End sidebar.

The Scripture is quite matter of fact about Jesus’ submission to—indeed, his dependence on—the Father, even as it speaks of his equality with him, and it doesn’t seem to feel any need to explain the apparent tension. On the one hand, Jesus says that he can do nothing without the Father (Jn 5.30), and that he does exactly what the Father tells him to do (Jn 14.31; 17.4), even when he doesn’t want to (!) (Mt 26.39, 42), while he also remarks, without hesitation, that he operates on the very same plane with his Father (Jn 5.17) and that he shares the Father’s eternality (Jn 8.58).

And the apostles confirm our understanding of Jesus’ words. Paul writes that Christ was “obedient” to the Father, for which the Father has exalted him (Php 2.8-9). And the author of Hebrews applies to Christ the line from Psalm 40.8 that speaks of the Psalmist’s complete obedience to God: “I have come to do your will, O God.”

Now, there’s a lot of difficulty in understanding how Christ’s subordination to the Father worked. But for our purposes, there shouldn’t be any confusion at all on how we apply it. If even Jesus was submissive to the Father, then we certainly should be as well.

We all know that mission success requires obedience. We learn that during our school days by observing successful classrooms—and successful athletic teams. Success in sports comes when you submit to the coaches during practices, and when you submit to the rules during games. After we finish school, many of us learn it in the military, where knowing your place in the chain of command is an all-consuming lifestyle. Even those of us without military experience admire the effectiveness of highly trained military personnel, effectiveness that is possible only because they submitted themselves to difficult, confrontational, taxing, grueling discipline over an extended period of time.

That means that, like Jesus, we need to know the mission’s objective and then subordinate ourselves completely, trustingly, sacrificially to the sovereign Lord.

One exciting thing about this concept is that our Commander, unlike all human commanders, is all knowing and all powerful. He’s never the victim of a surprise attack, and his great enemy is completely outmatched on this battlefield. His forces are never overwhelmed, or even effectively deflected, and the outcome of the battle is certain from the very beginning of the war.

All coaches eventually lose a game. All generals eventually lose an engagement.

But not ours.

Not the God of heaven, the Creator of heaven and earth, the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We can follow him, safely, to hell and back.

And we can delight in watching the gates of that hell crumble before him, and us, because he is faithful even when we are not, and he is victorious in all his will.

What a delight to submit to the good, wise, and great orders of the God of all.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: goals, strategy, tactics

On Mission Like Jesus, Part 1: Introduction

March 26, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Over the years I’ve had different kinds of jobs: grill cook, retail management, writing, editing, white-collar management, teaching, educational administration. Something I’ve learned in that time is the importance of having a mission, understanding it, and staying focused on it. You can’t just go to work every day and react to whatever happens; to be successful, you need to have a plan for the day and devote your attention and effort to accomplishing it.

We all know that. We buy lots of books, such as Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to tell us what we should have figured out from common sense: have a goal, have a plan, and work it. As Zig Ziglar famously said, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

That applies off the job as well. We all benefit from goal-setting and planning in our personal lives; some families even have a family mission statement, one that all of the kids can recite and explain. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg wears grey T-shirts every day because he’s so focused on the mission that he doesn’t want to “waste” time figuring out what he’s going to wear every day.

Some people take all that more seriously than others. At one extreme we have the people on Hoarders, who seem to do no planning or organization and so can get little accomplished. At the other extreme we have people who are so obsessed with routine and process that they drive everyone around them to distraction by how seriously they take every little thing. In other words, Monk.

We can make a case for thinking through our personal mission and goals and strategizing to raise the likelihood that we’ll achieve them—but doing so in ways that don’t jeopardize other important things, such as family and mental health.

Christians have a mission, whether they realize it or not. It was given them by their Creator, the Owner of all things, the Giver of life, the only Being for whom the mission is appropriate, indeed obvious: we exist, he says, to glorify him.

Everything that exists was created for that purpose:

The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19.1)

O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! (Ps 8.1)

In particular, human beings were created for that purpose:

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is:
fear [reverence] God and keep His commandments,
because this applies to every person (Ec 12.13).

And especially, every one of God’s people, those who call him Father, is created for this purpose—

Israel:

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come before Him;
Worship the Lord in holy array (1Ch 16.29)

And the church:

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of God (1Co 10.31).

The Scripture reminds us often that our example, the one we should strive to imitate, is Christ himself. Since the Father’s plan is to make us like the Son in significant ways (Ro 8.29), we ought to pattern our thinking and behavior after his (Php 2.5-11).

It makes sense, then, that we ought to look to Jesus’ thinking, while he was ministering to and among us, for insights into how we might pursue our great mission in life, to glorify God and to make his name great.

How did Jesus serve his Father? How did Jesus glorify him?

We can read about what he said and did in the Gospels, and we can go to the Epistles to learn what it all means. I’d like to spend a few blog posts investigating the topic. We’ll find a lot of data there to inform our thinking and our service.

Next time.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: goals, strategy, tactics

On Uncertainty

March 23, 2020 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Unusual times.

For the first time in my lifetime, the entire globe is wrapped in complete, and admitted, uncertainty.

I suppose the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962 came close, but that lasted only 13 days, and I suspect that a lot of people in corners of the globe were unaware that it was happening at the time. Here in Greenville, where we lost one of our own, we still memorialize it.

But now we’re dealing with a virus, which isn’t open to dissuasion and is no respecter of persons, and which, for whatever reasons, is pretty much everywhere. Add to that the ubiquity of media information—informed and uninformed—and the fact that suddenly everyone’s an expert in epidemiology, and you have a perfect storm of uncertainty, and all the consequences that it brings.

Different cultures deal with uncertainty in different ways. The Germans and the Swiss are stereotyped as planners, regimented and orderly. (I’ve found that like all stereotypes, this one is far too simplistic.) In various developing countries, I’ve noticed that uncertainty comes with the territory; you live one day at a time, getting up early to carry in the day’s water, and then going to the market to get the day’s food. Whenever the infrastructure is unreliable, the residents get used to the power or water outages, or the torn-up highways, and the culture develops a sort of resignation that often results in considerably better mental health than, say, most Americans would manifest in similar circumstances. In fact, American tourists in those cultures are largely responsible for the “Ugly American” stereotype all too common overseas.

I was once teaching overseas when the power went out, killing my data projector and thus my PowerPoint. The students sprang into action; here came a generator out of nowhere, and within 5 minutes we were back in business, with no one seeming to think that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

Once I took a team of students to a location where the city-supplied water was out, with no word on when it would be restored. For the five weeks we were there, we trucked in water, hauled it to our quarters in 5-gallon plastic buckets, and did our daily ablutions from smaller buckets. One of the male students and I had an informal contest on how little water we needed to get completely lathered and rinsed. I got it down to a liter—but then, having no hair gave me an unfair advantage.

My culture isn’t used to this sort of thing. Here in the early days of “social distancing,” we seem to be responding with creativity, helpfulness, and even amusement, from the looks of the memes—excepting the hoarders, of course. But as the situation drags on—it will drag on, won’t it? Or are we uncertain about that too?—anxiety increases, and it’s not unfounded. Lives are at risk; jobs are at risk; the economy is at risk—and the list could go on.

The situation doesn’t call for platitudes or for Pollyanna—or certainly not the cavalier dismissal of genuine threats. This is a time for us to pay attention, to care for one another, to sacrifice. It’s not a time to make light of other people’s suffering.

But it is a time for reflection on First Things, on Prime Principles. On what is certain. On Truth.

It is True—

  • That there is a God in heaven, who is great and
    good, and whose will is always done.
  • That there is abundant evidence throughout
    history and revelation of the truth of the first point.
  • That we cannot control the forces of nature as
    we would like.
  • That God has given us stewardship of this earth,
    however, and that consequently we should marshal all our knowledge and skills
    to protect life—our own and all others.
  • That in difficulty, with certain outcome or not,
    we must trust the goodness and greatness of our loving Creator: “Man’s steps
    are ordained by the Lord; how then can man understand his way?” (Prov 20.24).
  • That there is much, much more than this life.

And since these things are True, how do we proceed?

With confidence.

With care.

And with attention to the most important things.

Most of us have more time these days than we usually do, since we’re not going to work.

Use it—not for binge-watching whatever, but for loving God, for loving your neighbor, for doing justice, for loving mercy, for walking humbly with your God.

There is a good and wise outcome.

Certainly.

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: faith

On Fellowship, Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

March 19, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are | Part 2: What It’s For | Part 3: Getting There | Part 4: Measuring Success

Biblical fellowship is a two-sided coin, or a two-edged sword, or a two-way street, or something. (The title of this post strongly implies that I don’t know anything at all about baseball.)

I’d like to close this series, and the larger metaseries about the means of grace, by noting that fellowship, our reciprocal care for one another in the body of Christ, is a comprehensive task that involves complex people. It’s not enough to just try to be positive and encouraging.

Biblical Encouragement

Of course it includes encouragement, what the good old King James calls “exhortation.” The Greek word is paraklesis, a term applied to the work of both the Holy Spirit, our “Comforter” (Jn 14.16, 26; 15.26; 16.7), and Jesus himself, our “Advocate” (1Jn 2.1). We’re often “called alongside” to comfort others, perhaps just to be there with a ministry of presence, sitting silently with them in their grief or frustration or rage, or to pray with them and for them, or to encourage them to get back up and keep going, or to step in and do for them what they’re unable to do for themselves at the moment (Jam 5.14-15).

So yes, we ask a lot of questions when we gather, and we listen to the answers, seeking for ways that we can encourage our brothers and sisters through our spiritual gifts, teaching, helping, showing mercy, praying. It’s an obsession with us, or it ought to be.

Biblical Confrontation

But there’s more to fellowship than just that.

This word paraklesis, “exhortation,” is sometimes—indeed, most of the time—used in a stronger, more “negative” sense, one that includes confrontation, rebuke, the image of the coach getting in the player’s face and telling him that he can do better.

Paul exhorted the Corinthians to finish the work that they hadn’t yet completed (2Co 9.5). He exhorted the Thessalonians, without “flattering words,” to hear and respond to the gospel (1Th 2.3-6)—both the offer of salvation and the threat of perdition. Once they believed, he exhorted them to start making progress in obedience to God’s Word (1Th 4.1), and to exhort others in ways that included “warn[ing] the unruly” (1Th 5.14). Later he exhorted the indolent in the same church to get a job and earn their keep (2Th 3.12). He advised his protégé Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” (2Ti 4.2) his hearers. He told Titus to “exhort … those who contradict” (Ti 1.9). Jude exhorts his readers to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1.3).

As a former pastor of mine used to say, these are “stout words.” There is grace here, and patience, but there’s no coddling. Given who we are—in the image of God, but broken and susceptible to the gravitational force of our own sinful nature—we need brothers and sisters who will speak truth to us, lovingly but firmly, and who know us well enough to know when it’s time to jerk the chain. And we need to be that kind of spiritual sibling to those around us in the body as well.

We can’t do that for people we don’t know. We have to talk deeply and trustingly with one another, wisely using gentle support when it’s called for, and turning into the football coach when that’s necessary for the good of the player on the field.

You don’t get to know somebody that well just by saying “Hello” in the hallway or the aisle on Sunday morning. You don’t get that far into someone’s head and heart if you’re refusing to be honest about your own struggles, or worse yet, if you’re gossiping about the things they tell you. You get there over time, with attention and sacrifice, and with lots of prayer, individually and together.

Biblical fellowship is time-consuming hard work. It doesn’t happen without commitment and purpose and focus.

But the payoff is beyond words.

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: church, means of grace, sanctification

On Fellowship, Part 4: Measuring Success

March 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are | Part 2: What It’s For | Part 3: Getting There

Last time we considered a passage from Ephesians 5 that provided some basic principles to underlie our exercise of fellowship. This time I’d like to consider a different Pauline passage, one that helps us recognize when we’re succeeding.

In the opening paragraph of Philippians 2, Paul exhorts the church to live out their unity in Christ in several specific ways—

  • By being united to the core of their being (Php 2.2)—of one mind (what they focus their thinking on), of one love (how they choose to focus their energies and attention), of one spirit (Greek psuche, or self—what their life is all about). (The fourth phrase, “of one purpose,” is essentially a repetition of the first one.)
  • By setting aside their own interests or priorities (Php 2.3a)—not acting selfishly or out of a desire for self-promotion (“empty conceit,” literally “empty glory”; the KJV “vainglory” may be archaic, but it very specifically captures the word’s meaning).
  • By putting the needs and priorities of others ahead of their own (Php 2.3b-4)—which is exactly what love is all about; you demonstrate your love for someone by putting that person’s needs or conveniences ahead of your own inconvenience, without considering future remuneration. As Tertullian argued, the early Romans marveled at how the Christians loved one another.

What Paul is essentially asking is that they think as a team, being united in their purpose.

That’s what our churches should look like, whether assembled or out as ambassadors in the world; we should care for one another, each laboring to make the others better ambassadors for the kingdom. We should be working tactically, maximizing the strengths of every member of the team, using those strengths to support teammates whose skills are somewhere else.

Paul spends much of the rest of the chapter setting forth three examples of this kind of thinking.

  • The first example, to no one’s surprise, is Christ himself. In this famous Christological passage (Php 2.5-11) Paul presents Christ as the paramount example of someone who puts himself at the greatest possible disadvantage—from “equality with God” to “even the death of the cross”—for the greatest possible advantage of those he loves. No sacrifice that any of us could possibly make for the spiritual benefit of a Christian teammate could come close to the example of sacrifice he has already laid down for us.
  • Paul’s second example is his protégé, Timothy (Php 2.19-24). Paul notes that Timothy has a long record of selfless service—likely more than a decade as he writes this epistle—“like a child serving his father” (Php 2.22). From that record Paul concludes that there is “no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare” (Php 2.20). And Timothy’s service to Paul is not without risk; besides the long list of difficulties Paul underwent (2Co 11.23-27), we know that Timothy himself was imprisoned as well (Heb 13.23).
  • The final example is someone most Christians would have trouble identifying. His name is Epaphroditus (Php 2.25-30), and he spent time with Paul when the latter was under house arrest in Rome awaiting his hearing before Caesar (Ac 28.30-31). He was well known to the believers at Philippi; some commentators speculate that he was actually their pastor, but we do know for certain that he was one of the men sent from that church to bring Paul gifts during his house arrest (Php 4.18), and that on that trip he became sick, nearly dying (Php 2.30), but had recovered (Php 2.27-28). This was someone who “risked his life” for the work of the kingdom (Php 2.30).

So how are we doing? How seriously do we take our fellowship? When’s the last time you risked something in order to benefit another member of the body? When’s the last time you even put up with a little inconvenience to do so?

As I write this, the US is in the process of shutting down over COVID-19. The school where I teach, like many others, is sending its students home, where they’ll finish the academic year through online classes. At church we’re not shaking hands, and we’re thinking about the old folks, who are at higher risk.

There are people in our churches that are going to need some help, the sort that will inconvenience us. Next to the examples above, that’s small potatoes, isn’t it?

Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: church, means of grace, sanctification

On Fellowship, Part 3: Getting There

March 12, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are | Part 2: What It’s For

It’s time to look a little more closely at what we’re actually doing as we minister our gifts to one another in the church.

A passage I find helpful in this regard is the opening paragraph of Ephesians 5, which is just one sentence with two main verbs that point us to how we conduct our relationships in the church.

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Loving As God Loves

The first verb tells us to imitate God, who loves us. So, clearly, we’re to love one another—and to do so as God loves.

How does God love?

The Bible gives us a lot of information about that. We can all make that topic a focus of study for the rest of our lives—and we all should.

Here are a few thoughts that come quickly to mind:

  • He loves us despite the fact that we don’t deserve it. He loved Israel not because she was great and mighty (Dt 7.7-8), and even in spite of her constant unfaithfulness (Ezk 33.11). Jesus told us to love those who persecute us (Mt 5.43-44), and he set the example for us in the moment of his most intense crisis (Lk 23.34). We ought to love fellow believers who aren’t attractive (to us) and who can’t do anything for us in return.
  • He loves us in ways that made him vulnerable, as the examples cited above also demonstrate. By the very act of creating humans in his image, God was committing himself to dying, in the nature of his Son, at the hands of his own creatures—and to becoming one of us forever. Cur Deus Homo?, indeed.
  • And so he loves sacrificially as well (Ro 5.8).

We should love another like this. If we did, the lost would indeed notice. And so would our fellow believers.

Living Out That Love

One of the dangers of talking about loving people is that many in our culture take that as no more than an emotion. You feel the little thing in your heart, and you click “Like,” or maybe even “Love!” and then you move on.

Biblical love isn’t like that. Biblical love moves you to act; as the most famous verse in the Bible says, “God so loved … that he gave” (Jn 3.16). And so our passage tells us not just to imitate God by loving, but to “walk in love,” just as Christ gave himself for us because he loved us (Ep 5.2).

In other words, we should love as the Bible directs us to.

Again, we could generate a long list of specific biblical commands and examples on how to love. But let’s start with just a few of the obvious ones:

  • Biblical love finds its source in God himself (1Th 3.12). It’s not something we can work up and then maintain. As we enrich and mature our relationship with God, the Lover of our souls, we find a “deep, sweet well of love” that flows out of us and into the needs of our fellow believers.
  • Biblical love finds its pattern in God himself (1Jn 3.16)—as our jumping-off verse, Ephesians 5.2, has already told us.
  • Biblical love invariably results in action (1Jn 3.18)—and genuine, sincere action at that. We give without reserve and without regret—a response enabled and empowered by God.

Next time, we’ll consider what the outcome of this process of fellowship through active love looks like.

Part 4: Measuring Success | Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: church, means of grace, sanctification

On Fellowship, Part 2: What It’s For

March 9, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Who We Are

Last time we noted that from the beginning we’ve been designed for fellowship, for interpersonal relationships—and that for our time in history, the church is a significant part of God’s plan for that. He even commands us to keep at it.

OK, if God says I’m supposed to fellowship, then I will.

But what’s the point? What am I supposed to be trying to accomplish? I don’t suppose there’s any bigger waste of time than a bunch of people standing around without any understanding of what they’re there for.

Most Christians, I suppose, go through the traditional church activities because, well, that’s what we do.

For as long as this family has been believers, we’ve gone to Sunday school and church on Sunday mornings, where we sit through, first, a Sunday school lesson, and then, a sermon—preceded by a welcome, 2 songs, an offering, another song, special music, and followed by an invitation and a closing hymn—and then we come back Sunday night for a similar but veeeery slightly less formal service, and then a prayer meeting on Wednesday night, where there’s another sermon, and some prayer requests, and then—well, actually, not usually much time left for actual prayer, but we did have a good time of, um, fellowship.

That’s what we do.

But why? What are we trying to accomplish? How will we know if we’ve succeeded?

Church, and the fellowship that comes with it, is God’s provision for accomplishing a greater work—gathering unto himself a people from all nations (Rev 7.9-12), and conforming them, over time, to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ (Rom 8.29). That’s really what all this is about—not just church, but all of history and everything it touches.

So we could say that the ultimate purpose of fellowship is the glory of God—a worship that is appropriate to the magnitude of his person and works.

And how do we accomplish that?

By helping one another become more and more like Christ, a little bit at a time, week by week, over a long period of time (Mt 28.19-20).

To help us with that, God has given every one of his people one or more spiritual gifts, which we can exercise for the benefit of those alongside us in the body. I’ve written a little iconoclastically on spiritual gifts before, and I’ve also written on the importance of our exercising our gifts intentionally whenever we gather. Go take a look at those posts. I’ll wait.

_____

OK.

We gather, then, to help one another become more like Christ by exercising our gifts toward those who need them. As we do that, faithfully, patiently, week after week, we find that those to whom we’re ministering are making progress, being sanctified, becoming a little more like Jesus, even though we’re not all that good an example. And in those interchanges, they’re ministering to us in return, and we find that we’re making progress in sanctification as well.

This doesn’t have to happen “at church.” (Since the church is just the people of God, entwined by mutual agreement, the very expression “at church” is essentially meaningless.) Many churches have set up “small groups” (mine calls them “Grace Groups,” because “Grace” is part of our name) that meet together regularly to discuss the Word, to share prayer requests, to pray together, and frankly just to socialize. You know what happens? As time passes, these little groups get to know one another better, and to develop trust, and before you know it they’re caring for one another in ways that go far beyond the “how you doing?” shallow greetings that so often characterize our exchanges in the hallways of the church building.

Sometimes Christians don’t wait for the church to set up small groups. Sometimes they agree to meet regularly with another believer or two that they trust, and they pursue that same sanctifying work in one another.

Now that’s fellowship.

And you know what happens then?

People start to notice. People in the church who want that kind of relationship in their own lives. And people outside the church, unbelievers, who say—or at least think—“how they love one another!” (Jn 13.35).

And in the end of it all, God is glorified.

That’s why we fellowship.

Part 3: Getting There | Part 4: Measuring Success | Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: church, means of grace, sanctification

On Fellowship, Part 1: It’s Who We Are

March 5, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

As this year began I started a series on spiritual growth, which I called “On Building Spiritual Muscle.” The series focused on the key spiritual exercises that the Bible prescribes for spiritual health, exercises that Christians have generally called “the means of grace”: Scripture, prayer, and fellowship. The next series, “On Devotions,” focused on the first two of those means of grace, and particularly on our private practice of them.

Now I’d like to spend a few posts talking about the third means of grace, fellowship. The first series included a single post on it, but there’s a lot more to say about it, and I’d like to suggest a few things that might help us all pursue fellowship purposefully and effectively.

Let me start by addressing my fellow introverts. (Yes, I’m one too, even if I don’t appear to be.)

Some of us aren’t naturally inclined toward relationships, particularly close ones, and particularly in significant numbers. People wear us out, and when that happens, we get crotchety and impatient and frustrated, and we say things we shouldn’t, and we get irritated by the inexplicable things other people do, and we decide that it’s just simpler to go live in the woods.

Church fellowship? No thanks. Been there, done that. Don’t need the hassle. I’m fine.

I know people who have withdrawn from church for these reasons. I’ve thought about it myself.

But let me suggest a different path.

Somebody made us—designed us. He’s made us to operate in a certain way, and he’s set down some engineering specifications that we really ought to pay attention to if we want to operate at our best.

So what did our designer have in mind for us?

We find that he designed us for the specific purpose of having a relationship with him. That’s clear from the beginning—

  • He made us “in his image,” someone who, unlike the animals, could relate to him (Gen 1.27).
  • He initiated a relationship with the first man, and he defined him in terms of his relationship with him (Gen 2.15-16).
  • He sought to pursue that relationship through time spent together (Gen 3.8-9).

We were made to have a relationship with God, to walk by his side and interact with him regularly. If we don’t do that, we’re going to be screwdrivers trying to drive nails; we’re going to be violating our very purpose.

Did you notice that I skipped over an important part of that passage in Genesis?

God didn’t make just one man. He made the man, and then he gave him a task designed to point up the fact that he was alone. As Adam named the animals (Gen 2.19), he saw the obvious fact that they came in pairs, male and female. And the absence of a female for him was starkly obvious (Gen 2.20); as God had already observed, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2.18). So God made a woman, a partner, a companion for him, and Adam saw immediately that she was someone he needed; he even responded by speaking poetry, apparently right off the top of his head (Gen 2.23).

From the beginning we’ve been designed for fellowship. It’s not good when we don’t have it.

Further, the New Testament makes it clear that the church was designed to play a significant role in meeting that need. Immediately after the church began at Pentecost, the Scripture identifies the four key activities in which they were engaged (Ac 2.42):

  • The apostles’ teaching (i.e. Scripture)
  • Fellowship
  • Breaking of bread (likely the Lord’s Supper)
  • Prayer

We find them gathering regularly throughout those early days (Ac 4.31; 11.26; 12.12; 14.27; 15.4, 30; 18.22; 20.7-8). And lest we think that this gathering was optional, we’re directly commanded “not [to] forsak[e] the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10.25).

This is really important; it’s at the core of who we are.

We need one another, and we have responsibilities toward one another.

So why should we gather? What should we be trying to accomplish?

We’ll look into that next time.

Part 2: What It’s For | Part 3: Getting There | Part 4: Measuring Success | Part 5: Covering Both the Bases

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: church, means of grace, sanctification

On Almost Crashing. In a Plane.

March 2, 2020 by Dan Olinger 4 Comments

Every so often I like to pause my serious blogging and throw in a story, just for fun. (My last one of those was about being in jail.)

Here’s another one.

My Dad was an old-school private pilot, taught by his older brother in a tail-dragger out of Thompson Falls, Montana, back during the Depression. He flew just intermittently—renting an airplane was expensive—but during my early teen years the frequency picked up, as he was able to get a little financial support from his employer when he flew himself around for work-related things. I went along every chance I got, and I became pretty proficient at navigation with the radios (VORs, in the trade) and with take-offs, though I was never really very reliable on landings. My height being what it was, I sat on a small suitcase so I could see over the instrument panel on final approach, and that would occasionally get distracting.

Comments on the above paragraph are completely unnecessary. You know who you are.

We were living in the Boston area at the time, and since Dad and all of us kids had been born in the Pacific Northwest, our family would occasionally fly out to Spokane for family reunions on the Olinger side. For one such trip, Dad rented a Cherokee Six to accommodate the five of us and our luggage, which, since three of us were females, and two of those were teens, was fairly substantial. But the Six could handle it quite nicely.

We flew from Hanscom Field northwest of Boston to Spokane in a couple of days with no problems, Dad doing the flying and I doing the navigating from the right seat. After several days with extended family (Dad was one of 11 kids), we began the return trip, which was to be significantly longer; Dad had a younger sister in Duncan, OK, who hadn’t been able to come to the reunion, and we thought we’d drop by there for a visit. The Six could do that leg in a day, but it would be a long one, and we’d need to refuel twice to be safe.

About a third of the way, we decided, was Worland, WY. (The second stop would be Liberal, KS, which is a whole ‘nother story.)

We landed at Worland, taxied to the ramp, and called for refueling. The Six holds 84 gallons, which weighs, oh, about 500 pounds.

Now, ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem; we’d taken off in Spokane fully fueled, and Dad, as a careful pilot, had done the weight and distribution calculations carefully. So we were fine for takeoff in Spokane.

But Worland is not Spokane. Most importantly, Spokane’s elevation (specifically that of Felts Field) is just under 2000 feet, but Worland’s elevation is more than twice that. And as you may recall from high-school science, atmospheric pressure, and thus air density, drop with increasing altitude. And as the density drops, the amount of lift you can generate drops with it.

And that’s not all. As it happened, that summer day in Worland was hot; Worland routinely hits the high 90s during mid-summer.

What’s air like when it’s hot?

Thinner yet.

Even less lift.

Dad, bless his heart, forgot to factor all that in.

We received clearance for take-off, lined up on Runway 16, and Dad gave the Six full throttle.

Runway 16 is 7000 feet long, which is respectable, a lot more than the Six ought to need. We used all of it, and we were about 2 feet off the ground.

That’s not normal.

Maybe 1500 feet beyond the end of the runway, there was a fence. I remember it as a split-rail fence, maybe 3 feet high, though of course there’s a higher chain-link fence there now. I distinctly recall lifting my feet off the floor in a well-meaning attempt to help us get just a liiiiiittle more altitude.

A bit further out was a set of telephone poles, which experienced pilots know are usually connected by invisible wires, and I honestly didn’t know whether Dad was going to go over or under them.

He went over.

And in the expansive area of relatively flat prairie beyond, we tooled around until we finally got enough altitude to get out of there.

I really thought we were going to have to put it down and maybe even get tangled up in telephone wires.

But Dad knew the fundamental rule of flying: Keep flying. If you can.

And he did.

When we were in stable flight, he looked at me, and with a tone of utter disgust with himself, he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

Dads don’t like to make mistakes that can kill their family.

I learned a lot from that.

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: personal