Rant of the Exiles

Understanding the Christian’s present relationship with the law is the subject of this series. If Christianity is centrally about grace - God’s unmerited favor and unconditional love - how then should a believer interact with rules and regulations (aka “the law”)? Since so much of our culture is driven by performance and moral judgment, this is a crucial principle to both understand and live out in a gospel-centered way. This post seeks to define “law” in its usage in the New Testament, particularly Paul’s epistles. Based on the English Standard Version, there are 231 New Testament verses that reference the term “law” (some variant of the Greek root “nomos”). 57% (130) of those occurrences are located in Paul’s epistles and 46% (60) of Paul’s references come from his epistle to church in Rome. Paul’s usage of “law" in Romans accounts for over 25% of the total occurrences and because of the systematic and comprehensive nature of Romans, I would argue also govern usage for th...

Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under  law  but under grace. In Christian circles, one of the worst labels you can be tagged with is “legalist” or have a behavior you advocate called “legalistic”. It means you emphasize externals rather than the heart. It means you’re Pharisee - keeping the outside clean but enabling corruption on the inside. Christian doctrine explains we are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Works are opposed to faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Therefore, you cannot be made righteous on the basis of your good deeds, performance, or behavior.  And yet the Bible is full of injunctions regarding outward behavior - good deeds and religious works. In fact, the list of biblical imperatives drastically outnumber the faith-identity passages. Imagine you took a cursory glance at both the Old and New Testament and segregated scripture passages in two categories: imperatives governing behavior vs. faith-identi...

LAS VEGAS - CES - February 11th, 2016 - LifeHacker Church, a leader in the spiritual fitness market, today unveiled SinWin, a behavior tracking app, which together with the wearable technology in the SinWinSkin bracelet, make up a comprehensive sin management solution. Never before has behavior tracking been easier or more accurate. Instead of journals, logs, accountability partners, and the "leading" of the Holy Spirit, SinWin wearable technology allows you to monitor works of the flesh in real-time. When you fail to take a thought captive, SinWin will know and so will everyone else. SinWin technology incorporates sensors monitoring heart rate, speech, core temperature, perspiration level, ergonomic state, and electromagnetic radiation to derive your SinScale - a rating for your depravity. The technology is complex but the result is simple. And effective. Here's how it works: Each day your SinScale starts with a score of 10,000 points. Every sin de...

Here's the  link  to the best Christian response I've found to the Supreme Court's 5-4 vote to legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states.   The Background:  I first heard about about the decision through Facebook. A number of my friends and youth in our church celebrated the ruling through social media posting, with the most popular expression being rainbow-filtered profile pics.   The conservative Christian response could not provide a starker contrast. There's a sense of loss and tragedy. There's a sense of hiding out and starting a commune. There's a sense of panic and consternation. There's a lot of fear, especially for our children. A friend of mine half-jokingly said we should move our families run off to a European country where laws follow traditional Christian sexual ethics. Like many in this camp, I too was initially saddened when I heard about the court decision. But here's my conundrum: I have ...

A response to this well-written  article . I am unlucky. In the lottery of life, I came up empty. I lost because I have college educated parents who placed achievement over athletics, were Asian, not very tall, and not very good at sports. I live in a safe neighborhood and was unfortunate enough to have attended a local high school that had a nationally ranked speech and debate team but a very crappy basketball team. Due to the lack of diversity in my student population, I am not playing in the National Basketball Association. That's why I support affirmative action for the NBA. I was shocked after attending a Golden State Warriors game recently. Most of the players were black. This does not reflect the demographic of California. Upon further research, I discovered the NBA is 78% black. I could not believe this lack of diversity. Clearly, blacks are overrepresented in the NBA whereas Asians are an underrepresented minority. We must begin reversing this trend today. 1) Th...

An addiction is a form of security. It provides comfort, stability, and a refuge. Recently I have wondered if Christianity is an addiction. Can theology enslave? Can the desire for certainty be addictive? It's not the object of the addiction that characterizes an addict, it's the addictive behavior itself. An addict is unreflective, emotionally reactive, and has out of control behavior.  Addiction to certainty is refusing to be less than 100% sure about anything God-related. It is the desire for the well-defined. It is the world in black and white. It makes rules more important than people. It reeks of pride and arrogance. It is a methodically constructed fortress of faith that sees every visitor as a potential threat. It runs each person through a careful screening process to determine whether friend or foe.  I've met parents who get extremely defensive when topics such as evolution, popular music, and gay marriage are broached. I watched a couple tense ...

My friend Scott Chiang wrote an excellent paper about whether the Ten Commandments are a necessary supplement to the New Covenant. They are not. I hope he posts it sometime to share with everyone. In any case, he uses a wonderful metaphor concerning the law: The law is like training wheels. They help you learn how to ride a bike but they limit your freedom, you can't go as far or as fast as you were meant to, and most of all, they were meant to come off. I shared that metaphor on Sunday when I preached on the Sabbath commandment. The Sabbath is a faith endeavor. Israel rested to remember God's work of creation. As Christians, we rest to remember Christ's work of redemption and our new creation as his children. I emphasized Jesus, as Lord of the Sabbath, is less interested in how we celebrate the Sabbath (what day and and what our rest looks like) than our attitude towards the Sabbath (faith and freedom from the factory mentality). After the service, I asked a ...