Search Results for: spiritual gifts

For My Angry Friends, Part 1: Foreword

July 1, 2019 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

As I noted in my
last post here, I’ve taken a 4-week hiatus in order to devote my attention to a daily journal of the BJU Africa Team’s adventures in Tanzania, from which we’ve just returned. It was nice to be there, and it’s nice to be back.

In the interim, I’ve been thinking about the next adventure on this blog. I’d prefer to write about something I care about, of course, and something that might be of some help to people I care about. There are a lot of such things and such people, but I suppose the thing that’s most on my mind these days—at least of the troubling things—is the polarization of our country and the effect of that polarization on my friends.

I see it pretty much every day during my scrolling time on Facebook. I have a number of FB friends—many of them retired folks with long records of Christian service and care for others—whose postings are mostly a concatenation of forwarded stories and memes with recurring themes—

Things that are just not true. I’ve addressed
that here before.
Things designed to stick a finger in the eye of
liberals. Mockery. Disdain. I’ve written
about that, too. “I’m not ashamed to post this MAGA hat. How many of my friends
have the courage to share? Let’s show those stupid liberals!”
Expressions of frustration with the way things
are going. Fear that God’s people are going to lose the battle.

All of these things have a common theme. They read as though there is no God, and if there is, he’s not in his heaven, and all is not right with the world. These dear friends are expressing a godless worldview, one that gives no hope, no offer of grace, no attraction, to those who are actually godless.

That’s a very bad ambassador (2Co 5.18-20) indeed.

I have another group of friends, equally dear to me. I don’t suppose these folks would object to being called “never-Trumpers.” They don’t like President Orange, and they shake their heads at anybody who does, for any reason. “Can’t you people see what you’re doing? You’re destroying evangelical Christianity! You’re undermining our credibility for generations to come!” Tut, tut. The posts of these friends read as though there is no God, and if there is, he’s not in his heaven, and all is not right with the world. These dear friends are expressing a godless worldview, one that is dominated by fear, one that questions the motives and the intelligence—and even the spiritual life—of fellow believers. They, too, fear that God’s people are going to lose the battle.

These two groups of friends have more in common than they might think.

Sometimes they post things that are true and ought to be considered in the political discussion.
But in the main they’re just reflexively forwarding, without checking, anything that confirms their worldview bias.
In being motivated primarily by fear or frustration, they’re demonstrating, as I said earlier, an essentially godless worldview.

God is never inattentive, or hurried, or frustrated, or unconcerned. He’s at work. He raises up kings—both Obama and Trump, most recently—and he sets them down again. All things he does are good and for the ultimate good of his people and, ultimately, his glory.

And if we believe these things—and we must, for they’re true—then we will live in a broken world with a different spirit—a different Spirit—one that brings to the observing enemies of God astonishment and even attraction. One that shouts—yes, that is the right word, as odd as it sounds in context—peace.

Shalom.

Not the peace of the Pollyanna or the Scarlett O’Hara (“I’m not going to think about that right now”), but the peace of the one who knows things that the riotous crowds don’t, who sees the chariots of fire on the hillsides all about, who knows that the chaos is only apparent.

I’d like for all my dear friends to grasp that so firmly that it oozes out of the pores of their every post— not for the sake of my newsfeed, but for the sake of my friends. Calming, conquering peace, way deep down at the core of their souls. And yes, for the sake of the legitimately fearful and frustrated, who have no source of peace, but who know people who do have it, or should have it.

What a difference we could make. What a stark contrast we could demonstrate.

In God’s kind providence, during this hiatus I’ve been studying Paul’s letter to Titus in some depth. I’ve found some things there that have helped clarify what I’ve been thinking about this bunch of troubled hearts. In this series, I’m going to share some of those things.

On to that next time.

Photo by Wes Grant on Unsplash

On Beginning Another Academic Year

August 13, 2018 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Today is the first day back in the office after a summer of activity, rest, and refreshment. Year 24 of teaching. (I was a teaching assistant during my seminary days, and I’ve been teaching fulltime since the fall of 2000.) Every year means refocusing, fine-tuning, tightening both philosophy and technique.

Every faculty member at my institution has expressed a personal philosophy of education, which he includes in his annual portfolio. What follows is mine.

__________

My educational philosophy grows out of two broader, over-arching philosophies: my life mission and the mission of the institution where I serve.

My life mission is to glorify God by edifying His people and helping prepare others to serve Him. It finds its foundation in Paul’s statement to his Corinthian friends: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all things to the glory of God” (1Cor 10.31; my translation). It finds its specific application in Paul’s words to another group of friends, this time in Ephesus: “[Christ] gave [gifted people to the church] … in order to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph 4.12). Like my fellow believers, by God’s good plan and providence, I am where I am, and have the gifts that I have, in order to use those gifts to build up members of the body of Christ. There is no greater mission. And as a fringe benefit, God is a good and gracious Master.

By that same providence, I find myself in the corner of the vineyard that calls itself Bob Jones University. By contracting to teach here, I have agreed to its mission, which is to build Christ-like character in students through the medium of liberal arts higher education. That means that I have a dual focus as I teach: to teach my students the Scripture itself, by which God, over the years ahead, will change them from the inside out, to make them more like Christ (Acts 20.32; 2 Cor 3.18); and to give my students the tools to teach themselves and others the ideas of Scripture (which is my subject area), so that they in turn may present it clearly to those who are seeking and may serve other believers with its truths.

That’s a big job, impossible without divine enablement. Thus I need to begin in reliance on God Himself, nurturing my relationship with Him, praying for direction and empowerment each day, recognizing and embracing each day’s circumstances and challenges as divine appointments. Since I will give account to Him one day for my stewardship (Rom 14.12), I need to prepare myself for each day’s responsibilities, first, and in general, by keeping my academic and spiritual qualifications sharp, and then by evaluating carefully each day’s objectives and planning how best to reach them.

Since the same divine appointment has placed each specific group of students before me, I recognize them as the Bible describes them: made in the image of God (Gen 1.26-27), and therefore worthy of my best effort, regardless of their individual academic abilities or personal character flaws. My goal is to meet each student where he is, and to bring him, by God’s grace, as far as I can down the path of Christ-like character and preparation for skillful service. The Scripture also tells me that my students, like me, are broken images, with sinful natures and evil tendencies (Rom 3.23). That means that I have to encourage them to progress down that path even when they are—often—not inclined in that direction. I may use positive motivation, such as encouragement or praise, or I may need to use what the student may view as a more negative experience, such as exhortation, academic penalty, or even careful criticism. While I never assume that students will naturally do the right thing, I try to approach them positively first, resorting to harder measures only as the softer ones prove insufficient.

My classroom technique is an outgrowth of my own nature. (I believe that had I been born two decades later, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD as a child.) As a student, I needed to be interested in what I was seeing in order to engage it. As I teach I am constantly driven to present material that is both at a reachable level and enjoyable. That means that I first need to couch the material in terms that communicate to the students directly and clearly, and then in a way that is engaging and attractive. I use everyday language, and I define useful jargon as I present it. Since my courses typically need to cover a lot of relatively technical material, I find that I have to use lecture predominantly, but I try to make it engaging by using a lot of humor and demonstrating my own interest in the subject. I’ve learned that a light in the eyes goes a long way.

I find that I cannot reach these goals effectively without at least encouraging my students to interact with me beyond the formal classroom environment. I regularly eat lunch with students in the University Dining Common; I hold scheduled office hours each day; I meet each week with a prayer group in the men’s residence halls; and when I pass students in the hallways or out on the campus, I make a point to catch the eye of each one who will look up, and offer a friendly greeting. (When I’m walking, my cell phone is in my pocket, where it belongs.) When I notice that a student has an uncharacteristic look, I’ll seek an opportunity to take him aside and ask if there’s anything I can help with.

God gifts His people to serve Him, and each one has something he can do well. I find that when I’m in the classroom, I am most at ease; that’s where I fit. (Well, or in Africa with a team of students—but that’s teaching too.) There’s nothing else I would rather do; I don’t talk about “hump day” or yearn for the weekend, and I don’t eagerly count the days until I retire. By God’s grace, I’d like to die with my boots on—teach the last class, deliver the last lecture, turn in my grades, and step through to God’s plan on the other side.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 2

July 16, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

So, here we go. Principles to deliver us from the fear and anger that characterize too many of us.

Number 1: Providence. There is a God in heaven, who directs in the affairs of people and nations.

The lunatics are in fact not running the asylum. All that stuff that’s got you twisted into knots? Well, the stuff that’s actually true—we’ll get back to that idea later—has come to pass through divine intention. That’s just a fancy way of saying that God’s done it.

That’s true of the stuff we like—God sends sunshine, and rain, and crops, and seasons (Psa 104)—but it’s true of the stuff we don’t like as well. God has his way in the whirlwind and the storm, the prophet tells us (Nahum 1.3).

Whirlwinds are nothing to mess with. In 1998 a tornado wiped out Spencer, SD. A week later I was there. The whole town was just gone. The water tank on top of the hill? Gone. The gas station? Gone, though the concrete pads for the pumps were still there. The corn silos? Gone. The telephone poles? Twisted off 2 feet above the ground. No buildings, except for 1 house that was inexplicably spared. And the whole thing lasted just 6 minutes.

At 8.30 pm there was a town, and homes, and businesses, and normal life. By 8.45 it was all gone.

Who did that? The mayor? The governor? The devil?

Not according to Nahum.

God did it. For reasons of his own, which we may or may not ever understand.

But you know what? There’s still a Spencer, SD. By the grace of God, and through the hard work of a lot of remarkable people, life goes on at Karen’s Beauty Shop and Trinity Lutheran Church and the baseball field.

It’s not likely that anything worse than that has happened to you; if it has, I haven’t seen you post about it on Facebook.

And if it has, then take courage in this: God is working his plan, for you and for everybody else.

And here’s the thing. God isn’t impersonal, or arbitrary, or unfeeling in all of this. He doesn’t throw the switch on the train track just to see what will happen, or just to shake things up for some warped form of amusement.

God cares. He loves—personally, individually, intimately, passionately. And with a wisdom you and I could never fathom, he conducts the symphony of your life for your greatest spiritual benefit and for his greatest glory. He knows what he’s doing, and he acts out of wisely directed love—in a way no one else you have ever known ever could.

This God—the creator of heaven and earth; the keeper of covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the one watching over Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps; the lover of our very souls—this God is directing your steps, and mine, and everyone else’s to accomplish his perfect, delightful plan.

No, the lunatics are not running the asylum. God gave us Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. And most recently he has given us Donald Trump. Love them or hate them, they are all—all—gifts from a wise and loving God, perfectly prepared and perfectly directed for the nation that elected them. That doesn’t mean they’re good, or wise, or effective. But it does mean that he is.

So why live in desperation, or rage, or panic, or frustration? Is there not a God in heaven? Do you not trust him? Does he not give peace?

Maybe, if you have no peace, you have no basis for it. Peace comes not from the political process, or health, or leisure, or physical resources. Peace, peace in your soul, comes from above, not from outside. Peace comes from the Prince of Peace (Isa 9.6), by whom we have peace with God (Rom 5.1), and through whom we find peace even with our enemies (Eph 3).

Think on these things. Breathe them into your reading, and listening, and surfing. And see if maybe your perspective, and thus your reactions, come to reflect peace more than panic.

Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash