Visioneering

It's been a long time since I've updated my reading reviews. Mostly because after finishing three books in 2 weeks, I haven't really finished any others yet, though I have still been adding to the reading list. A little backwards, I know. Regardless, the most recent book that I have picked up is one written by Andy Stanley entitled Visioneering. I haven't come across any of Stanley's work that I haven't like so far, and Visioneering was no different. Here he walks through the story of Nehemiah and shares some insights regarding vision. Here are some of the quotes that popped out to me:

• "Visioneering is the course one follows to make dreams a reality. It is the process whereby ideas and convictions take on substance" (8).
• "Looking for something doesn't necessarily mean you will find it. But it sure increases the odds of seeing it if it is there to be seen.... Our tendency is to pray for miracles. But in most situations, it is more appropriate to pray for opportunities. More than likely you need an opportunity rather than something supernatural" (31).
• "And to focus on what's around you diminishes your ability to focus on what's before you" (48).
• "You will know what God has put in your heart to do before you know how he intends to bring it about. Often, you will know what long before you understand how" (55).
• "The vision calls us to imagine what could be. The reason behind what could be moves us to believe that it should be" (99).
• "A vision is what could and should be. A plan is a guess as t the best way to accomplish the vision" (156).
• "To accomplish the important things you must learn to say no to some good things. More often than not, it is good things that have the greatest potential to distract you from the best things, the vision things" (203).
• "Don't sacrifice your relationships for the sake of a business or a ministry or, for that matter, for any other vision" (228).

I have way more than the above underlined throughout the book. In fact, I doubt that I could go more than three pages without underlining something. The above is just a sampling. As always, Stanley's book has something significant upon which to reflect on nearly every page.

I started reading The Habits of Highly Effective Churches by George Barna now. I may be able to get through this in about a week, maybe sooner. I have a long list that I'm trying to get through right now, and the most dangerous thing is when my extreme case of literary ADD kicks in. I try to read 4 books at the same time, and usually, I don't get through one of them.

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth: Review and Reflections

I had never heard of this work before this week.  It is apparently the work of Thomas Jefferson, and it is his take on the New Testament, without all of those pesky supernatural things to get in the way.  Yeah....  Here are a few of my thoughts as I read it, followed by my conclusions

• - 1:55-59 - This brief excerpt makes no sense apart from the miracle that is performed by Jesus.  It is found in Mark 3, where Jesus enters a synagogue on the Sabbath and heals a man with a withered hand.  The Pharisees consider it work and that Jesus is breaking the Sabbath; however, in the Jefferson version, it seems like the Pharisees are ticked off because Jesus asked them a simple question.  It wasn't just the question, it was the act of healing a man with a "whithered" hand that set off the Pharisees.
  
• - 2:20-21 - Comes from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5).  "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.  For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."  Now think about this for a minute.  Jesus says that he is there to fulfill the Law and the Prophets - the very ones who talk about his resurrection, which is left out of Jefferson's version because of its supernatural nature.  To conclude, it also says that nothing should be removed from the Law (which is the OT for us), but Jefferson does the equivalent by chopping off large portions of the gospels.
• - 3:48-50 - The discussion of the narrow and the wide gate.  By chopping off the supernatural, Jefferson makes the way much wider, and is, in fact, doing the very thing that this passage warns against in the first place.  And the "beware of false prophets" part?  Sure, the Jefferson edition may make more sense to those who are inexplicably offended by the supernatural, but it is an incomplete and, therefore, false message.
• - 3:63-64 - The people were amazed at Jesus' teaching because he taught as one with authority.  So, why would somebody take away from his teaching?  If Jesus taught with authority that had never been seen before, why would we disregard his teachings?  Jesus himself talked about his resurrection.  Why ignore it if he taught with such authority?
• - 4:26 - Why would we be afraid of one who can throw us into hell is the natural world is all that there is?  If all we see is all there is, then talking about hell is pointless.
• - 4:52-56 - Retells the story of those waiting on their lord to return.  The point of this parable is the need to be prepared when Christ returns.  Again, no supernatural, no return of Christ.  Jefferson is proving to be very inconsistent.
• - 7:57 - "Jesus answered and said to them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel."  "One work"?  What could that possibly mean if not a miracle that Jesus performed?  Jesus admits to doing the miraculous, but Jefferson denies it.
• - 12:61-70 - Story of the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus with a question about the resurrection that the Jews believed in.  It would be interesting to hear why this wasn't cut out as well.
• - 13:50-52 - Relates Jesus' telling of the flood story found in Genesis; something that Jefferson certainly wouldn't have believed.
• - 15:49-58 - Leaves out the part about Jesus sweating blood as he prays, which is an actual medical condition called hematidrosis.  It is rare, but happens in circumstances when a subject is under extreme stress.  Da Vinci mentions soldiers sweating blood prior to battle.
• - 16:13 - Mentions that one of the disciples cut off a person's ear, but fails to mention that Jesus heals the person.  If we want to focus on Jesus' teachings and love and forgiveness, perhaps healing an ear that was cut off would show his compassion and love and capacity to forgive.  Of course, such a thing cannot possibly happen, right?
• - 16:37 - Mentions Jesus' saying that if "this temple" is destroyed, he will build another that is made without hands.  John 2 clearly tells us that he is talking about his body and the resurrection when he says this.  The Jefferson Bible makes no mention of John's report of Jesus' words, but he mentions the false witnesses saying it at Jesus' trial.
• - 16:41 - The high priest asks Jesus if he is the Son of God, and in response to Jesus' answer cries out that Jesus has committed blasphemy.  It is only blasphemy if Jesus' answer is something that would have equated himself with God... like saying that he is the Son of God.  Jesus undeniably says that he is the Son of God here; not just a normal man, as the version is trying to show him to be.
• -17:37 - the above two points are again discussed here.
• - Inconsistency in Jefferson's thought that is found throughout: if he wants to get rid of anything that is considered supernatural, then he should take out any reference whatsoever to God, who by His very nature is far beyond anything that is found in the natural world.

I have to say that I am very disappointed in this rendition of the gospels by one of America's most well-known figures.  Now, the content itself, I can't really complain about.  It is straight out of the gospels; however the editing is horrible and inconsistent (as you can see above), as it chops out significant portions of the Gospels (there are 89 chapters in the four gospels; there are only 45 pages and 17 chapters in the edition that I read from the internet).  It may be offensive to some that stories of the miracles fill the verses of the gospels, but these miracles point to Jesus as something more than just a regular guy like ourselves.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that somebody has tried to edit the New Testament in such a way that it is better for their personal beliefs.  It's always easier to change the text than to change one's life, isn't it?  Marcion is one figure in church history who tried to do this.  He wanted to have a Burger King Scripture as well ("have it your way").  But what this ignores is the fact that the Scriptures aren't about our preferences.

Scripture was written and handed down to us by those who were a part of the story.  1 John talks about how they were there, they saw, they touched, they heard the story of Jesus.  I'm going to take their word on what happened over some political figure 1700 years after the events took place.

Jesus is who Scripture tells us he is.  Whether or not we want to believe it, we have been handed down the stories by those who were there.  We can't chalk it up to first century ignorance, because that is nothing more than 21st century ignorance.  People knew the difference between a person who was dead and a person who was alive.  People didn't survive crucifixion in the first century.  They weren't proclaiming that Jesus survived the crucifixion; they didn't say that he lives on in the memory of his teachings.

Jesus is about so much more than love and peace.  He is about redemption and reconciliation as well.  He is the one who came so that we would know what it means to live in full relationship and fellowship with the Almighty Father.  If you are offended by the miracle stories and refuse to believe simply because they sound like fairy tales, then get over it.  

If I told you at the beginning of last season that the Rays would go from a 66 win team to the AL champs, you would have thought that it was impossible; but it happened (okay, it wouldn't be me if there wasn't a post about sports).  There is a medical phenomenon called "spontaneous remission" in which there is no medical reason for a person to heal, but they do anyway.  The unbelieveable still happens, so why would we rule out the idea that it happened back then as well.

When you look at what happened after the resurrection, the only thing that make sense in light of all the evidence is that Jesus rose from the dead.  That's it.  No other explanation takes into account all the other details of what happened after that first Easter.  The question is not "is this true?" but "what are you going to do with the truth?"  We can ignore it and come up with excuses or we can recognize that something extraordinary and unbelieveable happened and allow ourselves to learn more about it.  Don't chop off the parts that don't make sense.  Read them, over and over again if necessary.  Allow your life to be changed by the truth contained in those words.

The Disciple Making Church

Well, this one took a little longer to read.  It has roughly the same number of pages as the previous two books combined, add that to the fact that it is not nearly as interesting, and you've got yourself a slow read.  The biggest problem that I had with this book is that it was around 250 pages, but it could have easily said what it needed to say in about half of that.  There are a lot of ancedotes and stories that are interesting, but really just fill up the space.

Here are some of the things that I thought popped out to me as I read through it:

• - "It's safe to say that a large majority of Protestant congregations have made attendance, building and cash - as opposed to Christ's Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 to be and to make disciples - their organizational bottom line" (4).
  
• - "When Jesus says that his followers must be spiritually reborn, he's saying that we have no realistic chance of participating in his vision for the future unless we start over again with a new vision, new capabilities, new motivation and an entirely new nature that is capable of responding positively to God" (40).
  
• - "[Jesus' invitation to follow him] means that we aren't helplessly imprisoned by who we have already become" (60).
• - "The church is the only organization that exists for its nonmembers" (73).
• - "Discipling is relational.  People learn how to better love and follow Jesus in the context of a focused friendship" (81).
• - "(1) The task of developing new leaders cannot be set aside, except at our peril, and (2) God is ultimately responsible for calling members of the Body into new expressions of doing ministry - and God will certainly do so" (101).
• - "Surrendering leadership in every area of life is not a 'been there, done that' scenario" (137).
• - "Our aim [in reading the Bible] is not complete mastery.  Few people in history have mastered the Bible's contents.  The issue isn't knowledge as much as transformation - the recasting of our minds according to a perspective that is consistent with the mind of God" (148).
• - "The call of Jesus, however, is that we make disciples, not decisions" (208).
• - "In the disciple-making church, stewardship is a spiritual issue - a heartfelt abandonment of the whole self to God" (233).
• - "Authentic discipleship comes down to imitation of the whole character of Christ, not mastery of a few culturally approved Christian behaviors" (242).

Some good thoughts are scattered around this book.  It is one that I would recommend skimming more than sitting down with pen and paper.  Up next on the book tour: Pastoral Ministry According to Paul, James W. Thompson