We’re wrapping up our series on the fruit of the Spirit at The Bridge. This week I’ll be talking about gentleness. The week after that, Phil Tuttle will be speaking on self-control.

On July 15 we’ll begin a series on the Book of Acts. We’re going to try and cover the 28 chapters of Acts in five weeks, so we’ll have time to just hit the highlights — which brings me to today’s post.

What’s the Book of Acts all about? Why is it in the Bible? What are we supposed to learn from it? How would you approach it if you only had five lessons?

I have a leaf in my Bible. I pulled it off a tree Sunday morning before I spoke. It made me wonder how many leaves God has made since he created that first batch for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It made me wonder how many leaves God has made that no one ever even saw. And it made me wonder what might happen if God ever decided to stop making new ones.

That’s the problem with faithfulness: you don’t notice it until it’s absent.

Faithfulness is — by definition — predictable and routine. It is eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts that beat and blood that circulates without us ever having to remind them to. It is the car in your driveway that always starts and the water in your shower that’s always hot. You never have to think about it. You never have to wonder. You just know.

Faithfulness is the most amazing quality, and yet it is also the least captivating. It may be the single character trait that we want most in a person, but it may also be the single character trait that we seek the least. Ask a single adult what they’re looking for in a potential mate. “Faithfulness” is probably not going to be one of the first three words they use.

Faithfulness is boring. It’s dull. It’s not very sexy. But, man, do we notice it when it’s absent.

And maybe that’s the problem with God. His faithfulness is never absent so we never miss it. We’ve come to take it for granted.

I have a leaf in my Bible, and I’m going to keep it there for a while. Every time I look at it, I’m going to remember that God continues to make leaves because he’s faithful.

This Sunday marks the opening of a new season in my life. I will be officially announced as Teaching Pastor for The Bridge — a church near my home. I’ll be preaching about 20 Sundays per year there (so I can still do some travel, consulting and writing).

We’re in the middle of a sermon series about the Fruit of the Spirit, and I’m scheduled to deal with the topic of faithfulness.

Now, my first inclination was to talk about how God wants us to be faithful. I was going to deal with Bible verses like Psalm 15:4 — that’s the verse that talks about people who keep their oaths even when it hurts. And I was going to define faithfulness in various ways. I was going to say that it’s doing what you need to do even when you don’t feel like it — or keeping your word even when it gets hard — or choosing to believe even when you don’t know for sure.

But for the past few days we’ve been talking about a particular kind of moralism — which I consider to be potentially lethal to a Christian’s faith — so I decided to rethink my sermon for this Sunday.

Anyone who has read this blog for very long or sat in one of my classes knows that I believe the first rule of Bible study is that it must be theocentric. In other words, when we read a Bible verse, the first question we should ask is this: What does this verse teach me about the character and nature of God?

So, I went back through all the usual verses one might use in a sermon on faithfulness and asked myself the question. Then I asked, “Why does God prefer faithfulness to infidelity?” Did he just decide one day?

I think the answer is because faithfulness is part of God’s character. That’s why he wants us to show faithfulness — because when we do we’re showing something of him — demonstrating something of a family resemblance.

That also makes sense of why faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit — a byproduct of spending time connected to God. You tend to become like the people you hang out with. So, if you spend time with God, his faithfulness will start to spread through you.

Totally changed my sermon for this Sunday — made it less about us and trying hard — made it more about God. Also made it look more like what I say is my theology.

In looking at little Stephen’s theology in the last post — and reading some of the comments that have followed — I’m concerned about something that I think may be the single greatest threat to American Christianity in our time. It is not atheism. It is not paganism. It is not immorality or even apathy.

It is called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

The phrase was coined by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religions and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. My friend Rick Duncan and I have had this conversation a few times, and I think it’s time I introduced the topic here.

Smith and Denton document some good news. Teenagers, on the whole, actually like church. They admire their parents. They want to do the right thing. The average teenager in America isn’t hopelessly alienated from adult authority figures.

And yet….

When asked to describe the particulars of their faith, Smith and Denton found teenagers to be “incredibly inarticulate”. One teen summed up his beliefs this way: “I believe there is a God and stuff”. One 15-year-old girl was asked what she believed:

“[Pause] I don’t really know how to answer that. ['Are there any beliefs at all that are important to you? Really generally.'] [Pause] I don’t know. ['Take your time if you want.'] I think that you should just if you’re gonna do something wrong then you should always ask for forgiveness and he’s gonna forgive you no matter what, cause he gave up his only Son to take all the sins for you, so….”

That 15-year-old girl said she attends church between four and five times per week! Maybe we could say it’s okay for little Stephen to hold his beliefs; he’s only six-and-a-half. But we’d hope he might grow out of it and into something a little more robust in the next 10 years, right?

According to 3,290 surveys and 267 personal interviews conducted between 2001-2005, the typical child in America doesn’t grow out of that kind of thinking. That’s what they carry with them to college.

Smith and Denton sum up their findings this way:

“We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This has happened in the minds and hearts of many individual believers and, it also appears, within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions. The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith” (p. 171). 

According to the authors, the tenants of this Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are as follows:

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”
2. “This god wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible (and by most world religions).”
3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”
4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”
5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

So, let’s stop talking about a fictional six-and-a-half year old boy, and let’s start talking about the teenagers in our own churches. What’s wrong with their beliefs? What’s wrong with Moralistic Therapeutic Deism?

I’m reading Clyde Edgerton’s novel, Where Trouble Sleeps. I like Edgerton. I like southern fiction in general, but Edgerton has created something like a southern version of Lake Wobegon. It’s called Listre, North Carolina. Without a doubt, my favorite of his novels has been Raney.

One thing I like about Edgerton’s work is that he was raised Southern Baptist. It’s obvious. No one can write about the eccentricities of southern religious people — and do so without being self-conscious — like an insider. He knows the lingo — good and bad.

In Where Trouble Sleeps we’re introduced to a boy named Stephen. He’s not quite seven years old, and his mother is doing her best to make sure he is “Raised Right”. Here’s a great example of his theology:

Stephen was beginning to get some idea about who was going to hell and who was going to heaven. His mama and daddy and aunts and uncles were pretty clear. Terry’s daddy — Mr. Daniels — was pretty clear: He was going to hell for getting drunk and yelling and beating up Mrs. Daniels. Mrs. Daniels was going to hell for drinking wine. He, Stephen, would go to hell if he didn’t accept Jesus, something he was getting old enough to figure out to do. His mother said he was old enough. The preacher did, too. A lot of it — getting saved — had to do with visiting old people and going to church every time you were supposed to, cutting off the Blaine sisters’ toenails, and things like that for old people. And not drinking beer and whiskey. And it had to do with not saying ugly words, not touching stinky, keeping your pants on, keeping quiet when you were supposed to, not running away from your mama, not playing with your doodie, eating what you were supposed to eat, drinking milk, and being quiet, and it definitely had to do with Moses, Jesus, Peter, Mary, Zacchaeus, Isaac, God, Joseph, Abraham, David, Adam, Ezekiel, Miriam, and not playing in the mud. And it had to do with the story about Stephen’s grandmother when she one time whipped his mama for cutting a piece of cloth on the Lord’s Day. And Stephen, the one who got stoned for believing in God. It had to do with him. Somebody got named after him and then went to World War I, and Big Steve was named after that one, and then Big Steve went to World War II, Stephen got named after him.

And it had to do with saying your prayers: closing your eyes and seeing the white that was Jesus and then saying a prayer to it.

Okay, let’s talk about Stephen and his theology. My first reaction is to say: “Well, he’s a little boy, and he can’t be expected to understand the fine points.” But the more I reflect on it, the more I think it’s absolutely terrible that little boys somehow get the impression from grownups that this is what it’s all about.

Maybe we should address first things first: what exactly is wrong with little Stephen’s theology?

One of the frustrating things about Jesus’ teaching is how rarely he gives an outright command. And sometimes when he does it’s outrageous. Does Jesus really want me to pluck out my eye or cut off my hand?

But I was taught that those who would follow Jesus must “trust and obey”. It’s downright confusing.

How do I obey Jesus when he won’t give me a decent command?

I was even told that before I could follow Jesus I had to “obey the gospel”. I thought the gospel was the good news that Jesus came and lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death and rose victorious over death to secure my pardon from sin and purchase for me a new life characterized not by fear and shame but by hope and peace and joy.

If the gospel is an historical event, how do you obey an historical event?

The answer to both questions is the same: You live as if it were true.

How would we live if we believed Jesus’ words to be an accurate depiction of reality? How would we live if we believed the good news was really true?

Maybe that’s what Jesus was getting at in his teaching ministry — not some tutorial offering new and improved rules for living but giving us a better picture of reality, sharing with us what life would be like in this kingdom he was bringing.

And maybe what he desires of us is that we would begin living as if it were true.

Jesus says:

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in their heart, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in their heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:43-45).

I grew up among people who thought that there was a precise way to read the Bible. We were told to look for either a command, an example or what was called a “necessary inference”. As I got older I heard people sometimes refer to this as the “tripartite hermeneutic”.

Of course, this method of Bible reading brings up all kinds of issues. First of all, it’s not a hermeneutic at all. It’s a method of applying the text to our lives; it has nothing to do with interpreting the text or discovering its meaning (that’s what hermeneutics does). Second of all, one person’s “necessary inference” is hardly universal. There are other issues but the most important issue of all is that this method of reading the Bible is ungodly. I mean that last word in a precise way.

It’s ungodly in that it’s completely unconcerned with God.

This is what could be called an “anthropocentric” way to read the Bible. It’s completely concerned with me and what I should do. Or it’s concerned with you and what I think you should do. God’s hardly even a factor.

A theocentric hermeneutic would first ask what this text reveals about the character and nature of God. Then it would be appropriate to ask how I might apply this text to my life in such a way that I become more like him.

Reading the Bible that way takes a lot more work, and that’s probably why some people prefer the tripartite hermeneutic. But these people often have a really hard time trying to figure out what in the world Jesus wants them to do. Take this paragraph out of Luke, for instance. There’s no command. There’s not even an example. And the whole necessary inference thing is confusing for most anyway.

What does Jesus want us to do? Oh, and to ratchet up the tension even farther, he adds:

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

Because you haven’t told us what to do, Jesus!

Obviously, Jesus wants us to do more than produce good fruit. He wants us to become the right kind of tree. So, with that in mind, what do I do with this paragraph from Luke’s Gospel? How do I obey Jesus when there isn’t a command?

Question: What kind of fruit does a fig tree produce?

It’s not a trick question.

Figs! Of course!

The way trees work is like this: What’s going on the inside a tree determines what gets produced on the ouside of a tree. If there’s fig-ness coursing through the tree, figs will come out. If there’s orange-ness inside the tree, that orange-ness will flow through the branches and out to the waiting world.

That’s how trees work.

One time Jesus was talking to his disciples, and he said this:

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers” (Luke 6:43-44).

If I had been one of the disciples, I would have been tempted to say, “Well…duh!” I wouldn’t have been known as “John the Son of Thunder”; I probably would have been known as “John the One with the Smart Mouth”.

Before anyone could say anything, though, Jesus starts talking about people:

“Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in their heart, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in their heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). 

Apparently, people, like trees, simply produce the kind of fruit that reflects that’s going on inside of them. There is, in each and every one of us, a steady stream of thoughts and feelings. Your mind keeps clicking away, one thought after another after another after another.

You’re looking at the computer screen wondering, Where is John going with all of this? Then you notice your hand and you think, My cuticles are on terrible shape. Did I start biting my nails? That’s a gross habit. Nuns wear habits. Is a group of nuns called a coven? Or is that witches? Mmmm…sandwich…. Did I leave the coffee pot on? I hope not, because then the whole house smells like burnt coffee, and the carafe gets that brown film on it that never washes off. Carafe is a funny word. Is it French? It rhymes with giraffe. Carafe. Giraffe. Carafe. Giraffe. Do giraffes make a sound?

That’s what’s going on in your mind all the time. You go through your day having a constant stream of thoughts, feelings, observations, perceptions and ideas. You don’t even remember the vast majority of them, but your mind is never really still.

And those thoughts, feelings, observations, perceptions and ideas take on certain patters. These patterns eventually determine the things you do and say — the fruit that you bear.

Generous people are simply the kind of people who have generous thoughts and feelings.

Angry people are simply the kind of people who have angry thoughts and feelings.

Cranky people are simply the kind of people who have bitter, resentful thoughts and feelings.

Loving people are simply the kind of people who have loving thoughts and feelings.

This is the basis of the single most prevalent form of psychology in America: Cognitive Psychology. It’s built on the premise that the most important thing about you is the way you think and what you think about. That is what determines your emotional state of being and your behavior.

The inside of the tree is what determines that tree’s fruit. The flow of your thoughts and feelings determines your life.

So, if something’s gone wrong with your life, the inside of your tree must be changed, and you’ll have a difficult time doing that without God’s help.

This is one of the major areas where Christianity differs from most other world religions. It’s certainly a major area of difference between Jesus and most other religious leaders. Most of the world’s religions and religious leaders are concerned primarily with behavior modification.

Jesus, on the other hand, was focused on something much deeper. He wanted to know what kind of a tree you are — and what kind of a tree you’re becoming.

See, Jesus understood that if you just focus on avoiding doing the wrong thing and trying to do the right thing — well, that’s setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s also setting the bar kind of low.

According to Jesus, you must aim at becoming the kind of person who actually wants to do the right things because that lifestyle is the only lifestyle that makes sense to you. It’s possible to become the kind of person who doesn’t want to do wrong things because they’re unappealing.

Jesus wants you to become the right kind of tree.

If a church tries to pursuade someone to stop going to one church in order to come to them, I think that would be inappropriate. In other words, if a church intentionally tries to “steal sheep” from a nearby congregation, that’s wrong.

But I don’t think megachurches do that. I’ve not encountered it. Most megachurches are pretty intentional about not trying to attract Christians away from churches but trying to attract non-churched people.

In fact, that “sheep stealing” approach seems to be the thinking of many smaller churches. They’re the only ones I’ve ever encountered who intentionally try to steer someone away from one church towards theirs.

Still, people who are already attending churches end up leaving and finding their way to a nearby megachurch. So, in some way, megachurches are attractive to some Christians.

Thoughts? Is that an okay thing?

I had the opportunity to go and hear Randy Harris speak on Monday night. In my opinion, Randy is the only speaker in the Churches of Christ I’d walk across the street to hear for anything other than a relational reason. He’s funny, personable, brave, and he knows the text. So, he’s not just up there doing a puff piece; he’s actually got substance. But he also keeps his focus and doesn’t give us so much information that we forget it all the moment he stops speaking. Further, you get the sense that he’s not asking you to do anything he’s not willing to do himself.

So, thumbs up on Randy Harris (not that he needs my approval).

I was even more fortunate in that I went with my good friend Hal Runkel who actually knows Randy. Having heard Randy speak on a few occasions, it was great to finally meet him.

When he found out some of the things I do and the kinds of churches I often do them for, he brought up an interesting question that I’d like to bat around here for the next few days. He said that the statistics show how church attendance across the boards in America is flat or slightly declining, but megachurches are growing. There are two ways of looking at those numbers. Either megachurches are the only reason why the number isn’t in a total freefall. Or megachurches are having a Wal-Mart effect, killing smaller churches, in which case they are, to use Randy’s word, “corrosive”.

I have my own thoughts and opinions, and I’ll do my best to imitate the guys from Freakonomics later. For now, I’m interested in your take on megachurches. Are they “corrosive”? Are they helping? Let’s try to remember to be nice during this discussion.