I am not what I do,
I am not the house I live in,
I am not my dead end job,
I’m not real, I’m just beginning,
I am not the words I speak,
I am not the clothes I wear,
I’m not war and I’m not peace,
My advice you shouldn’t care

But there’s a mountain range that runs
from Alaska to Mexico,
During the hottest days of summer,
its peaks are blessed with snow
Repeat after me,
in the words of Abraham,
those mountains are a part of who I am.

I still like the idea of the song. The idea of self-identification, of claiming separation from certain things and declaring an affinity for others is an idea I can identify with, but in the end, they go too far. There is a kernel of Manicheanism in the song, an over-separation of the physical and the spiritual. If you are not any of these things, if I cannot begin to know you by anything I observe about you, then who are you? Are you anything at all?

If the song has accomplished anything, it has encouraged me to think about my actual identity, as a man, a husband, a father, a Christian. It has encouraged me to ask who I tell myself and others that I am, by the millions of decisions I make each and every day. And since I have been thinking about these things, I thought I would ask you as well.

Who are you? Have you stopped and asked the question lately?

As always, comments are appreciated.

• Christian American culture worships youth
• Christian American culture does not respect parents and elders
• Our attitude is in conflict with Scripture

Scripture has very little that is positive to say about being young.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
(Proverbs 22:15)

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
(1 Corinthians 13:11)

It says quite the opposite about elders.

Thou shalt rise up before the hoary* head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
(Leviticus 19:32) *hoary, white

The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.
(Proverbs 16:31)

They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
(Lamentations 5:11-13)

I have sat in too many church services and heard messages preached about how young people shape the world, about how the young must stand up and lead, about how desirable it is to be young. In these services, the message that comes across to everyone else is, “Don’t you wish you were young again? But you’re not. Maybe you can still serve God by getting a young person saved so he can do great things. Unless you’re really old. Then you can just mumble humorously and play Bingo.”

My understanding of youth ministry is very straightforward. It’s found in Titus 2:

But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
(Titus 2:1-8)

You minister to the young by telling them to be like adults, and you make sure that the adults are the leaders of your church. You preach that parents are to raise their children and to teach them the Word of God. And you don’t separate the children from their parents every single time you get the chance. In fact, you want the young people to be around the older people as much as possible.

What do you say? Have I gone crazy? I seriously want to know what you think.

I think it is important to affirm that there is no system of religion that exalts women higher than biblical Christianity. That is quite a claim, I realize, but one that can be easily proven by examining Scripture and comparing what Scripture says about women to the way they are treated by other religions or by those who adhere to no religion. Those who think the Bible is unfair to women and somehow feel they need to raise the status of women always end up damaging women. The result of decades of feminism testifies to this truth for womanhood has suffered terribly in our society.

Intrigued? Click here to check it out.

As I thought of the idea of ridding myself of unlawful media (most), it made me concerned – could I live w/o it? I think it brings up something else in my life – my dependency on media vs God. Media fills up the majority of my life (TV, PC, ipod, DVD). I wonder how many are like me.

This really resonated with me. I myself have at times been convicted of the place that all these things have in my (and my family’s) life and have considered chucking them all, only to be confronted by the question: But how would I spend my time? What would my family do for fun.

The idea of getting rid of all the pesky worldliness in my life reminds me of when there is a power outage for any significant period of time. Initially, everyone in the house is frustrated, they walk into rooms and toggle light switches out of habit, they sit down at the computer and stare morosely at the dead screen, they complain to one another about the outage.

Slowly though, they begin to adjust, they play board games, they nap, they read by candlelight, they tell stories, they (gasp) talk to one another. At some point, someone invariably says something to the effect of, “I wish the power would go out more often” or “we never do these things anymore.” In short, people begin enjoying themselves, sometimes immensely so. But the instant that the power is restored, the party is over. Everyone goes back to their own room, to the computer or to the television set, and conversation and books are set aside for a future outage.

Does this seem familiar to anyone else? Are there days that you wish you had spent your time talking to your wife and friends instead of watching a movie? Are movies and television and the internet an almost irresistable temptation for you? I’m certainly thinking about it. Feel free to leave your thoughts as well.

One thing that I’ll add here that didn’t make it into my original comment is that a professional fully supported clergy also results in a situation similar to that of institutional academia, in that you can frequently end up with people who have no experience in the real world. Early church elder’s had to be competent men; they were not fully supported by the church, they had families and therefore were required to have productive incomes and they also had to have time to tend to the church and to study the Word. Today, in certain circles, the ministry can be a lucrative and cushy career path.

It was sometime after midnight as I was leaving his room, that the doctor that was proctoring me at the hospital stopped me and said quite simply, “Charles, I would not, at any time, turn your back on that man. You don’t know anything about him, and he may be quite dangerous.” And I did what any young, naive fool would do: I said, “Yes sir” and “Thank you” and immediately forgot what he had said.

It was maybe an hour later that he called me over and warned me a second time, and though I cannot remember his exact words, the idea of what he said has stayed with me to this day, and is the core thought that I want to leave you with. He said, in effect, “Charles, I was serious when I warned you before to not turn your back on that man. When you look at him, you think that because he is smiling, he is smiling at the sort of things that you might smile at. But he is not sane, and you have no idea what might make him smile and laugh.”

I still think about those words. Lately, when I am with my wife and children at the mall, it is no hard task for me to remember that we live in a world gone mad. The man that I nod to as he holds the door for me and my family, the man who is wearing the Chicago Bulls sweatshirt and who is smiling at me as we pass, he may very well be smiling at the thought of the pornography that he will watch tonight. The cashier at the fast food place, who may be stealing from his boss or his parents, wears, often enough, a smile on his face as well. The woman who almost runs into me, her arms loaded down with bags and boxes, she may be smiling about the affair that she is having, her face brought alive at the thought of the pleasure that sin provides for but a season.

And the man who is at the mall with his family, the one who holds his wife’s hand tightly and who holds her with his eyes, the one who looks at his children and wonders what they will become, and who prays for them all, the same one who even now is typing this very post: why is he smiling? We live in a world gone mad. A world where every man has deep within him, a darkened heart that is full of wicked things. Most days, we can scarcely afford to forget it.

Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.
(Mark 12:19-27)

Then read this:

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
(Galatians 3:15-17)

In these passages, Jesus and then Paul expound on doctrine based on what would (at first) seem to be insignificant details. In the first example, Jesus establishes the fact (before the unbelieving Sadducees) that there is a resurrection by pointing out that God said to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. Then, in the second example, Paul reveals that in Genesis 22:18, God was referring to Jesus Christ and not to Isaac and his descendants because the singular Hebrew word for seed was used and not the plural.

So think about this the next time you hear someone questioning the precision of the Word of God. And also tell your children that, yes, grammar is important.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
[this part of the Shema is from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, you can read the full text here]

The name “Shema Yisrael” comes from the first words of the prayer, “Hear O Israel”. So when in Mark 12:29, Jesus says: The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord, every Jew that heard this, knew he was referencing the Shema. This is the first commandment, and a great deal of it is concerning the evangelism of the home.

Before I go any further, let me say this: I am not a good man. I struggle to do the things that the Word of God teaches. They do not come naturally or easily to me. And so, what I say next, I say to myself as much as anyone:

If you are not teaching your wife and your children and discipling them daily in the Word of God, you are not keeping the first commandment of God. If you are not teaching your wife and your children, you have no business going out and knocking on the door of strangers.

This is the core of my frustration with modern evangelism. And I believe the church’s failure in the first type of evangelism has affected the second type (Mark 12:31 – love your neighbor), in that because we believe the salvation and mentoring of our children can be so easily achieved (I take them to church and Sunday School), we have also trivialized the salvation of the world: Here’s a cartoon tract about God, pray this prayer and Jesus has no choice but to be your Savior. Next steps? Beats me… Discipleship? I have no idea what that means.

That’s it for now. There is more to be said about this, but personally, I’m guilty of enough without saying another word or reading another reference. Here’s my question: How do we fix this? How do we turn the boat around? How do we redefine the word evangelism, so that when we hear it, the first people we think of, are those that God has given us the greatest responsibility for?

Every story that has inner beauty,
That strikes a note and holds it
In our hearts and minds,
Is an echo of the one Story—
Wild and frightening and wonderful.

As a writer there can be nothing more depressing than slaving over words and putting them out for the world to see and then hearing nothing in return. So do him this kindness: go there and read the poem and then leave him a comment. It doesn’t have to be long, in fact, it can even be disagreement. You should also bookmark his site while your there. It’s a great read.