Five Question Method (Question 2)

Posted by Matt Sharpe

I seems like a long time since I have been able to contribute to this blog.  The turn of the year brings many retreats and other events.  February is well under way, the normal rhythms of life are beginning to return.  So back to work.

Our world is messed up. 

So far, I have yet to encounter any religion or belief system practiced today that denies the simple reality that our world is messed up.   Just turning on the news, the images and stories confirm that even if our lives are going well, there is suffering in many places of the world.  In fact, any belief system that comes along and says “this world is problem free” will probably be laughed out of the room.  We all have to acknowledge that there is some degree of suffering in the world around us and we have to explain how it got there.

Question number two of the five question method deals with this reality.  Simply put, the question is “why is the world the way it is?” and it ultimately asks the question of condition.  Every belief system in the world has to account for the condition of the world and, perhaps even more importantly, how the world became the way it is.  We all agree that this world is messed up and we all have to come to some sort of explanation as to why. 

Posing the Question:

In our conversations with people of different faiths, we need to ask this question.  “What do you believe about the condition of the world?” is one starting point.   Although a clearer way to ask the question might simply be “How does your belief system address the issue of suffering in this world?” 

Once the question is asked, just listen and ask questions to clarify.  Everyone has a belief about this. 

Listening for contradictions:

At this point in a conversation, its important that you start systematizing their beliefs.  If someone believes one truth about the origins of the universe, but holds a contradictory belief about the condition of the world, ask questions about it. 

For example, someone listening to our faith could take our stories of origin and condition as contradictory.  If we say that God made created the world to be perfect and that the condition of our world is the result of sin, then those beliefs can seem contradictory.  After how can God make a perfect world that has sin?  For us, it usually means we clarify and say that God made the world perfectly, but it was our capacity to sin that messed things up. 

So as you listen to their answer, listen for things that seem contradictory.  Ask questions to clarify.  It is important for you and for them to have a clear understanding of what they believe about the condition of the world. 

Once you have their answer, you are ready for the next question. . .

“Daddy, that’s yours!”

Posted by Matt Sharpe

Today, as I was finishing up my blog entry for the Five Question Method, my bride was folding laundry.  After our recent Christmas trip to Iowa, it happened that she was folding my laundry.  My daughter, Makayla, was sitting on the couch watching.  Every time (and I do mean every time) my wife folded a piece of my clothing, Makayla would say “Daddy!”  If I didn’t pay attention fast enough, she followed up with “DADDY!”  When I turned to look at her, she would point at whatever Becky was folding and say “that’s your shirt!” or “that’s your pants!”

Her simple proclamation of my laundry made me realize something.  She was stating something that was very obvious.  My clothes (unsurprisingly) are the biggest clothes in the house.  The whole basket was full of nothing but my clothes and yet she felt the need to point out each and every article that was folded.  She felt the need to say “Daddy, that’s yours!”

As a dad, I couldn’t help but realize my daughter knows me.  She knows me and she loves proclaiming her knowledge of her daddy.   My child knows me, loves me, and is proclaiming her love by pointing out what she knew to be mine.  It made my heart swell with joy.

In Psalm 24 we read “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”  In Romans 8:15 we read that God is our heavenly daddy.  As I go through this day, I believe I give my heavenly Father great joy by simply pointing out “Daddy, that’s yours!”  As I point to the beauty of creation or the wonder of the world and identify it as the workings of my Father God, I must recognize how magnificent He is.  The scope and grandeur of what is his is staggering.

In this day before the new year, take a moment and give your Heavenly Father great joy!  Look at the world, recognize it is his, and proclaim your love for its Creator.

Five Question Method (Question 1)

Posted by Matt Sharpe

“Where did everything come from?”

Last time, I began to share how we can engage with any belief system by asking five questions.  Since this is a blog, I won’t spend a ton of time recapping what was said in the last post.  To find out what the last post said, scroll down.  (p.s. welcome to the wonderful world of blogging).  Sarcasm aside, lets dive in.

The first question that every belief system starts with is “Where did everything come from?”  This is the the question of Origination.  Every belief system starts with this question.  You can’t escape it.  We all wonder about it and every valid belief system in the world tries to answer that question.

Posing the Question:

Probably the best place to start is by posing the question.  I usually start quite simply by asking “What do you believe about Origins?”  or  ”What do you believe about the beginning of all things?”

This gets them thinking and talking

Starting in The Unkown

As we move into the answers to this question, it will probably help to point out a couple things.  To begin with, I have only encountered two basic viewpoints on the origin of all things.  First, God (or some other intelligent being) made it.  Second, everything happened by chance.  Those who believe in chance generally believe in evolution. To engage in conversation with them can feel intimidating since their main foundation is that their beliefs are “scientific” and, therefore, ours are not.  Automatically, this can put us on the defensive. However, there is a critical truth that they overlook.  Simply put, every belief system starts with an assumption that can not be proven.

For us as Believers, the unknown is whatever happened on the other side of “In the Beginning”.  The Bible gives us some clues here and there, but generally speaking, we have no idea.  Yet, for the evolutionist, they begin in the unknown as well, though they don’t like to admit it.  They say the world began with a point of matter (called the singularity) exploding.  They have evidence to support the idea of the explosion, however, they can not scientifically explain where the point of matter came from.  All we can know is from the moment of creation until the present.  Everything else is an assumption.

This approach brings everyone, even the atheist, to the point where they can acknowledge that all of us have faith in order to answer the question of origin.

Your Role:

Here are some helpful things to remember.  Your job at this point in not to defend your beliefs or attack theirs.  You simply need to listen to their beliefs and ask some questions.  One question I like to ask evolutionists is “So, scientifically speaking, what happened before the big bang and what caused the big bang?”  Just to clarify what they believe.

Your goal at this point, however, is to hear their answers to all five questions, so keep moving.  You will have time to question their beliefs after you get through all five.  To that end, next time we will cover question 2.

Five Question Method (Introduction)

Posted by Matt Sharpe

Before we get started, I must give credit where credit is due.  What you are about to read is the adaption of something I learned from books written by Ravi Zacharias.  While I have never read of him using this method exactly the way I use it here, the concept is his.  I added to it slightly, but creative genius is his and the Holy Spirit’s. 

Every person in the world has a belief system. 

   Simply put, every person has a collection of beliefs that answer life’s most important questions and ultimately gives meaning to each person’s life.  Every person has one. However, each person must also come to grips with a haunting question: “Am I right?”

   As a Believer in Jesus Christ I am gambling my life and my eternity on the promises of scripture.  As a pastor, I want you and every person in the world to do the same.  However, the same question remains for us: “Are we right?”

   The five question method I will be sharing with you over the next few posts, will serve as a tool in your life and ministry.  It will be a way for you to answer the questions of ultimate belief in your own life and it will give you a way to begin the process of Godly conversations with anyone, from any faith. 

Starting Point:

   The starting point for us needs to be the same as everyone else.  Here are our basic premises. 

In order for a belief system to be trustworthy, it must answer life’s greatest questions

AND

Each the answers each belief system provides must be reasonable and consistent 

If every person, Christian and otherwise, starts with this premise then we have a basis for discovering the Truth. 

The Benefit:

   Now, when I sit with someone who believes in something completely different, say Islam, we have a common starting point.  We want to find the Truth.  I, as a pastor, then cannot verbally club someone with scripture.  I must first listen to what they believe.  When I begin with that “Apologetic of Love” then I hear them and begin to know them.  I have also earned the right to share my answers to those questions.  For us, as Believers in Jesus, there is no way I can answer life’s greatest questions with out sharing my faith in Jesus. 

The Questions:

   Over the next few weeks I will spend time unpacking each of these five ideas.  But in general, each belief system must answer the questions of

Origination, Condition, Salvation, Destination, Revelation

Atheist Pastors

Posted by Matt Sharpe
I saw something on the news today that really saddened me.  That statement in and of itself, unfortunately, is not too unusual.

Anyway, I happened to catch a segment on ABC that was talking about pastors that had lost their faith.  Both of the pastors that they interviewed said basically the same thing.  They were both pastors.  They both believed in Jesus and the Bible and all of the things that Believers in Jesus should believe in.  And through different turns of events, they gave up their faith.  Both of them said that they don’t believe that God exists or that His Word is true.

And both of them continue to pastor.

This saddens and angers me for two reasons. Surprisingly, I don’t feel these emotions towards the pastors.  They have lost their faith.  They are content to view ministry as a “job” and therefore be hypocrites leading the people of Jesus astray.  Jesus made it abundantly clear what happens to people who do that.  Check out Matthew 18:6

What truly saddens and angers me are the churches these men serve and those like them.  First, their pastors apparently “lost their faith” years ago and no one noticed!! How blind and self-centered are we as believers that a pastor can stop preaching the word in a Holy Spirit anointed way and NO ONE notices?  We as believers should hang our heads with deep regret that so many of us are so blind to leading of the Holy Spirit that we can’t tell if our pastors are Spirit-Filled or not.

Second, each of these pastors said that they went through a period of questioning in their own faith and they had . . . wait for it. . . NO ONE that they could confide in.  Not one person in their church, their family, or their respective denominations was safe enough to share their doubts with.  They were afraid that they would lose their job and since they are pastors they have no other marketable skills.  So they told NO ONE of their doubts.  Now they are hypocrites, leading the flock astray.

Again, we as believers should hang our heads in deep regret.  No pastor, myself included, should be put on the pedestal that says we have it all figured out.  We are sinful.  We have periods of doubt.  We have times when we need the people of our churches to hold us up, just as we hold them up.  Shame on us when we treat our pastors as anything more than a beloved brother who teaches the word and shares life with us.  When we put pastors on pedestals, we only set our selves up to experience deep regret.

Atheist Pastors are the result of churches worshiping their pastor more than Jesus.  If we worship our pastor, we will be sadly shocked when he turns out not to be Jesus.  Let’s keep Jesus where he belongs.  All of us, especially pastors, will fare much better.

Jesus in a Box

Posted by Matt Sharpe

Sadly, my wife and I recently attended the funeral for her uncle Dennis.  Dennis had fought a brave battle with cancer and finally won the battle.  In human terms, we would say his cancer triumphed because he passed away.  However, Dennis was a believer in Jesus Christ.  So, even though he died, he experienced victory.  He now stands  in glory and is 100% cancer free.  That’s a victory!

Still, while at the funeral, Becky and I again received confirmation that small children and reverant settings do not mix well.  While the service was going on, I took Logan (our fussing 6 month old) and walked in the lobby of the church. 

As I walked in the lobby I looked up and saw that there was a row of Jesus dolls.  To be honest, I had never seen this in a church before.  As I walked up and down the row of Jesus dolls I noticed several things.  While they were depicting various scenes from Jesus’ life (the picture I included above is “Jesus Ascends into Heaven”), I believe they were also depicting what is wrong with many Christians today. 

I have no doubt that the people who constructed this display obviously loved Jesus.  Otherwise they would not have expended the effort to produce the project.  I can only imagine the time it took.  Each doll was about a foot tall.  Each was posed in a different scene from Jesus’ life.  Then they were put in plexiglass boxes, given a brass placard, and put up on shelves near the ceiling of their lobby.  Someone had to buy, dress, and pose each one.  Someone custom made the boxes and then built individual shelves and bolt the to the wall.  So obviously they love Jesus. 

Yet, I still see this as a sign of what’s wrong with many churches and many Christians.  Simply put, all of us as Believers in Jesus have a great tendency to make Jesus in our own image, then put him in a high place where no one can touch him and where, ultimately, he can’t touch us either.  If we are honest, we have a tendency to live like we have Jesus in a box.  He is held in high regard, but ultimately, he is not active in our lives. 

Jesus in a box is clean and comfortable.  Jesus in a box is a nice life enhancement that gives spiritual depth when it is convienent for us.  Jesus in a box gives us meaningful rituals to engage in at weddings, funerals, baptisms, Christmas, and Easter.  Jesus in a box is available when needed and content to remain uninvolved when he is not needed. 

While we may be quick to see the theological flaws in what I just wrote, how often do we live just as I described?  How often do live with Jesus functionally in a box somewhere?

The problem is, of course, that as I read of Jesus in the New Testament, I don’t see him being content in a box.  As I was preparing this post, I randomly opened my Bible to a chapter in Matthew.  While this is not my normal method for Bible study, it proved my point.  I happened to open to Matthew 9.  Here is an example of how Jesus wants to interact with us.

Jesus was teaching and answering some questions (9:14-17) when a desperate father comes to him and asks Jesus to heal his daughter (vs 18-19).  Jesus walks with the man to his daughter and as they are walking and talking, a woman touches Jesus’ robe.  The woman is healed (vs 20-22). 

Jesus came to the world for the purpose of giving people new life.  Yet, rather than merely dispensing eternal life and a set of religious truths from high above us, Jesus embodied that truth as he shared life with us.  Jesus walked with us.   He cried with us.  He ate with us.  He brought his transforming truth through a relationship that touched every part of his followers lives.  

This same Jesus is alive and wants to be in an active relationship with you.  He wants to walk with you through halls of your school.  He wants to join you in your job.  He wants to sit at your dinner table.  He wants to pray with you for your kids.  He wants to engage in every part of your life.  He is living and active and wants to bring healing to your heart, transformation to your mind, and joy to your soul. 

Identify the ways you put Jesus in a box.  Go to where you left him and let him walk through every part of your life.

Out of or In to (Signs of a Godly Church, part 1)

Posted by Matt Sharpe

What makes a church a good church to be a part of?  I’ve been asking that question since I became a believer in my teens.  If you would have asked me that question at seventeen, I would have said a healthy church is one with an exciting emotional component to its worship.  In college, I would have added a healthy church is one that helps the hurting.  While those answers are good, what should we look for first? 

For your consideration, I think the first sign of a healthy church is in the preaching.  In the book of Acts 20:27, Paul says “for i did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (NKJV).  Sadly, many preachers can’t say what Paul says.  Many of us shrink from preaching God’s word.  At best, we shrink from preaching the whole counsel of God by only preaching the parts we like.  At worst, we twist God’s word to make it say what we want. 

So for you, how can you tell the difference?  How can you tell if a church is preaching God’s word accurately? 

Step one is to evaluate the preaching.  In general, all preaching falls into two categories; exegesis or eisegesis.  Both are Greek words, so let me explain.

Exegesis literally means to draw out.  Messages with good Exegesis are drawn from the Bible.  The pastor explains what the Bible meant to its original hearers (some 2,000 years ago), then he shows how the timeless principles of the Bible apply to today.  In general, a pastor using good exegesis will draw the message from the Bible and apply it to our lives. 

Eisegesis on the other hand, means to draw in.  Pastors who use eisegesis decide what they want to say, and then find Bible passages to agree with what they say.  In other words, these pastors draw the Bible into their  message, rather than draw God’s message out of the Bible and apply it to our lives.  Pastors who do eisegesis are concerned about people hearing what they have to say.  Pastors who do exegesis are concerned about people hearing what God has to say.

I’m sure you can tell that hold a high view of exegesis.  If we truly believe that the Bible is God’s word, than my most important job is to help people hear what God has to say. 

Look for a church that teaches God’s Word.  Look for a church that uses Exegesis and draws the message out of God’s word and into your life.