Drive-By Preaching

I had a list of names, but I decided to remove them.  You know who they are.  My point is not to target people, but dangerous practices.  My point is not to bash your favorite messengers, but to warn you of the dangerous road they pave.

Dripping with sarcasm, Micah spoke of the popular preachers of his day:

If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!  (Micah 2:11)

Prophets are not generally popular.  Genuine mouthpieces of God are often speaking what the masses do not want to hear.  In fact, some of their sharpest indictments are for “religious” people.  It would be foolish, of course, to suggest that the more people you anger, the more accurately you are speaking for God, but generally speaking truth will keep a healthy percentage of listeners at least a bit agitated.

Today’s feel-good prophets have preached the gospel of Rodney King:  Can’t we all just get along?  Peace at any cost is the gospel of today.

Remember what Jesus said?

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.  Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  (Matthew 10:34-39)

I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!  I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!  Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.  For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.  They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.  (Luke 12:49-53)

The good news of Jesus Christ is, by its nature, divisive (seems odd, doesn’t it?).  This is because things are not as they should be.  Sin and Satan’s powerful persuasions have perverted power structures and minds.  It is like Soren Kierkegaard’s parable about the thieves who switched the price tags on everything in a jewelry store.  In such an environment the perceived reality is inversely proportional to the actual reality, but as time passes the perceived reality becomes more and more impervious to attack.  The prophets of the actual reality become maligned and viewed as out of whack.

Anyway, back to my rant.  Many of today’s prophets are verbal masseurs.  Got a kink in your heart due to a possessions obsession?  Give the masseur a few minutes and he will soothe the ache.  Have a strained conscience because of moral indiscretion?  Let the master work you over until your stresses are melted and you love yourself for just being who you are.

The drive-by preachers are a syncretism birthed in the age of tolerance and microwave wisdom.  So they do a drive-by of the word of God and drive-by just long enough to lob sound bytes into your ears with a slick smile.

They drive by the text with a passing glance, paying little attention to the context of the passage, let alone the context of the Bible as a whole.  They drive by the text so quickly that even a superficial reading by a novice of the passages referenced would reveal the “prophet” slept through most of his sermon preparation.

They drive by the audience, flinging happy thoughts, little recognizing the hell to which they are leading their listeners.

Random, “feel-good” messages with Scriptures inserted like paper slivers in a fortune cookie are fired from the pulpits of our religious celebrities.  You are guaranteed to hear Romans 8:28, Philippians 4:13 and Jeremiah 29:11 quoted.  And you can bet that the context will be ignored.

Bottom Line:  Drive-by preaching is man-centered, not God-centered.  It wraps its slimy claws around what I want, what I like, what I need.  It is obsessed with making a better you, as opposed to honoring Christ, glorifying God and building the Kingdom.  It is rarely sacrificial, and when it manages to be, is for the sake of personal long-term gain.

As I said, it is not my intent to:

• Bash popular preachers
• Shame fans of said preachers
• Deify fire and brimstone preachers of yesteryear or any time
• Suggest that solid Biblical preaching should consistently tick people off

My concern is the weakness of disciples and churches due to the weakness of preaching.  Shabby scholarship and ear-tickling seem to be in vogue.  It is frightening how many times I hear people who have been church shopping and profess their inability to find a church where the “Bible” is preached, or where Christ is the center of the message.

Preachers, renew your call to be prophets, hired by God, not men.

Disciples, grow up, graduate from milk, and hunger for the meat of the Word.

Church, stand apart from the world no matter the cost.

We can do this without prideful belligerence.  Grace and truth live simultaneously in Christ and can/should in us as well.

Past Updated

An oxymoron with a purpose.  I have completed the thankless task of transferring all of my old posts from my former blog to this one (sans comments, few though they were).

If you have absolutely nothing else to do sometime, wade through the archives.

Thinking God’s Thoughts

A friend recently asked for some help in transforming harmful thoughts.  I feel as though I was of little help.  I had three suggestions:

• Spend some time in study of Romans 12:1-2 and its context.
• Locate and memorize Scriptures pertaining to the area of struggle.
• Find a partner for accountability and prayer.

I’ve continued to think and pray about this issue and though no tremendous insights have come (please share ones you may have), I have become more interested in solving another puzzle.  Why has this struggle rarely been raised by others I have known?

The reality is that our thought life is perhaps the most relentless and most pervasive influence which surges against us.  It batters the shores of our lives every time we make an instant judgment, every time we are exposed to images and content in media, every time we face a crisis, a decision, or a opportunity whether good or bad.  The mind becomes the source of action.  The words of Jesus present a principle consistent with almost all behavior:

out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Matthew 12:34b-35

You’ve heard it said of some brash sap, “He speaks without thinking.”  Perhaps that is true of some people on a conscious level, but the mind is constantly molding our impressions, attitudes, emotions, reactions, words, and behaviors.  Almost everything that we say or do comes from the reservoir of our thoughts.  Only involuntary physiological functions bypass our thought life (though even those emerge from brain activity).

If this is true, then one of our great obsessions should be designing a healthy diet for our gray matter.  The reservoir from which our life flows should be closely monitored so that what is produced is good, pleasing and right.

The church in Colossae faced a relentless barrage of assaults on the mind from false teachings posing as elite philosophies.  Paul warned:

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Colossians 2:8

The word “captive” carries with it the idea of kidnapping and robbery.  It is a forcible act, moving possession of the thing captured from one domain to another.  This is Satan’s plan for our minds.  If our thoughts can become commanded by him, can be in possession of him, he wins in controlling our actions and our influences.  This is no mere free exchange of ideas.  It is a battle for the soul.  Without a formidable defense, we will fall into enemy hands.

Much the same struggle pounded the saints in Corinth.  In his instruction to the church there, Paul is more descriptive.

though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.  For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

2 Corinthians 10:3-6

The warlike nature of the spiritual contest is evident in daily impact and eventual judgment.  Each side is playing for keeps.

The assumption in both of these passages is that our flesh is so easily duped, that we must cling to Christ in order to guard our minds from hostile capture.  We are weak and nearly powerless when trying to simply control our own thoughts.  We need the mind of Christ.  And the best place to lay hold of His mind is by consuming Scripture.  In fact, Christ Himself found this a necessary discipline as He stepping into ministry in this world.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:4

Consumption of the Word was an essential discipline for the Messiah as He faced the wiles of Satan and the demands of ministry ahead.  This reveals that Scripture is no mere commentary on God, or even “Deep Thoughts” by the Father in digestible sound bytes.  It is His heart and mind opened to us, supplying us a radiant power which permeates the deepest recesses of the soul.  It is practical for every life situation and dynamic in every moment of weakness.  Listening intensely to His voice connects us to sustaining life-power.  It is a huge part of Jesus’ counsel in John 15 concerning remaining in Him.

I am not sure we can ever overestimate the power of memorizing and meditating on Scripture.  And my pairing of those disciplines is vital.  We cannot merely be Bible academics, having the words of the Bible committed to memory so that we have bragging rights in regard to Biblical knowledge.  We must have it hidden in our hearts so that it begins to invade and transform us (see Psalm 1 and Psalm 119:9-11).

The problem is that there is nothing glamorous in this.  Men can produce nifty gimmicks (books, cards, software, handheld devices, etc.) for Scripture memory, but the bottom line is unchangeable:  extensive time must be spent in Bible attention, memorizing and chewing on the words until they saturate the soul.  There can be no replacement for this.

This will be a powerful tool for transforming the thoughts of man into the mind of Christ.

Now back to my original concern:  Why has this struggle for the mind not been expressed more by all disciples of Jesus?  IF it is a universal struggle, and IF it is so foundational to our behavior, should my e-mail and voice mail and ear not be filled with requests for help in this area?

Let me answer for everyone.  YES.  Instead, we limp along, impotent to the warfare of Satan, compromising so often, because we either assume that marginally holy minds is all that can be expected, or because we are too lazy to do what needs to be done to reverse the tide.

Let me also answer this way.  NO.  This understanding of the captive mind and the strategies for combat should have become so basic to Kingdom people that to ask about it would be as absurd as an adult asking someone else to tie his/her shoe.  We (the Church and her leaders) have failed in passing along one of the most elementary and dynamic principles for Christian discipleship.

It is time to declare war on ignorance and neglect.  More on this in the coming months.