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My Bible Dedications - Arden Autry

In the fall of 2024, our church replaced all of the hymnals and Bibles in the pew racks. We all had an opportunity buy one or the other, or both, and dedicate them in honor or memory of a person. I paid for three Bibles dedicated to the lives of three men who have had a profound impact on my love for the Bible and how I read it. I wanted to write about each of them and how they have been formative influences on me, which I am now posting here in three installments.

I'm posting these chronologically in terms of when I encountered these men in my life as my interactions with them are also part of my journey in Christ.

Post #1 - Jim Lenderman
Post #2 - Lawson Stone

In my journal entry for January 7, 2023, I wrote about my first experience in the Epiphany service at our church. It’s a service that has occurred annually for almost 80 years. The vignette I wrote about was when I overheard someone ask what my role in the service was. The response delighted me to no end. The answerer said, “He’s the new Arden.” I know what she meant. She meant that I was filling a role that had long been that of a dear saint who has been a part of this church for a long time. But, there something of pride stirred in me as I imagined what it would be like to be the kind of person who could truly wear the mantle of “the new Arden.”

The last of these posts is about the person I met most recently. When I arrived at Tulsa First Methodist Church in the summer of 2023 as the Pastor of Discipleship, one of the first things I did was to sit down and get to know all of the Sunday School teachers. One of the surprising things I discovered early on about this church is that it is probably the most biblically literate laity I've ever encountered. The reason for this is largely because of the pattern of Sunday School teaching that the late Dr. L.D. Thomas, pastor of First Methodist from the late 1960s until 1984, set up during his tenure as Senior Pastor. Each class has a rotation of teachers who teach for two month rotations. Over the course of five years, the classes are instructed in the entire New Testament and vast swaths of the Old Testament. It has been a remarkable teaching program for over forty years.

One of the teachers I met in August 2023 was Dr. Arden Autry, retired professor of New Testament at Oral Roberts University. Dr. Autry had my attention from the moment he met with me in my office. He is a humble deep well of wisdom and Scripture. He, like Dr. Stone in the previous post, promotes a careful and deliberate reading of Scripture. As we talked that first time, I did something I don't normally do. My life has been pockmarked by a number of missed opportunities because I was too timid to ask for what I wanted. Because I did not ask, I did not receive. This time, however, I stepped up and asked. I asked him if he'd consider doing an independent study with me during the fall. He said he'd pray about it, and a day or two later he called and said, "Let's read Hebrews together in Greek." I said yes even though I'd been a mediocre Greek student at best in seminary and worse than mediocre in college.

At this writing, we've been at it for almost a year and a half. Slowly, we've translated Hebrews, stopping for more than a few minutes along the way to open a Greek grammar or the New International Greek Testament Commentary by Paul Ellingworth. Not only has the experience been one of rich discovery, it's also been a spiritually enriching endeavor. I've been caught off guard a number of times by my tears as we've translated and talked about passages. Having to slowly reckon with Hebrews 2:14-15 comes to mind. Or a few verses later in 3:1 where the writer takes pains to point out that Jesus is God. The printed out pages of the Greek text littered with my terrible handwritten notes with a Sakura Pigma Micron pen are a treasure to me because they're like flecks of gold panned from river water. Of course, the not infrequent excurses have been some of the most delightful parts of our time together. In our most recent time together, we spent twenty minutes thinking aloud through the meanings of Holy Spirit baptism and a second work of grace and how they developed. Having done a whole project on entire sanctification I thought I’d thought through those topics thoroughly, but clearly I had not. That’s just one example of what Dr. Autry draws out of both the biblical text and out of me. It's been hard work but the treasure has exceeded the difficultly required to extract it. This is all thanks to Dr. Autry's patient and loving guidance through the whole process.

I've written less in this post than the other two but that's owing to the fact that I had decades to ponder and learn from Jim Lenderman and Dr. Stone. If the last eighteen months are any indication of what the future holds, though, Dr. Autry's influence on me and my Bible-reading life will easily rank with Jim and Lawson. I can't wait to see what unfolds in the coming months and years through his friendship and mentoring. That's why it is a joy and a pleasure for me to place a Bible in the pews of Tulsa First Methodist Church. I pray that those who pick up the Bible I dedicated to Dr. Autry will read to find the pure gold in the words printed within it just as I have.

A special thanks to my daughter, Elizabeth, an English student at Trevecca Nazarene University for editing this piece before publishing.

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Matthew Johnson Matthew Johnson

My Bible Dedications - Lawson Stone

In the fall of 2024, our church replaced all of the hymnals and Bibles in the pew racks. We all had an opportunity buy one or the other, or both, and dedicate them in honor or memory of a person. I paid for three Bibles dedicated to the lives of three men who have had a profound impact on my love for the Bible and how I read it. I wanted to write about each of them and how they have been formative influences on me, which I am now posting here in three installments.

I'm posting these chronologically in terms of when I encountered these men in my life as my interactions with them are also part of my journey in Christ.

Post #1 - Jim Lenderman
Post #3 - Arden Autry

My own history with the Bible is full of complicated motivations and emotions. I remember the first one I ever got. My mom went to a Bible bookstore in El Paso, TX to buy me one because it was on the packing list for a church camp in Sacramento, NM. It had a lot of pictures in it and that’s all I remember. I was fascinated by the Bible stories from Noah to Jesus’ miracles. Right before we left El Paso in May of 1985, the church we attended, St. Paul UMC, presented me with my third grade Bible because I wouldn’t be there in the fall to receive it with all of my friends. That Bible was the Bible I read for years. I read passages that I was asked to look at for Sunday School and Wednesday nights, but I didn’t know what to do with it. When I flip through that Bible and look at the things that I highlighted, I see a record of things my pitiful newborn faith thought were important. When I became a Christian at 15, I remember coming home and opening the Bible and trying to read it, feeling frustrated because I didn't know what I was supposed to get out of it. I met Jesus and I wanted to know more about him, but the Bible seemed so inscrutable and almost unapproachable. I did everything that I could with my limited understanding to make something out of it but I never got very far. Then I was called to the ministry at 17 and I knew that I would have to make the Bible a central part of my life and work but I didn't know where to begin. So, I languished scripturally.

In seminary I learned to study the Word but it became more academic than anything else. I remember the warnings not to let my Bible assignments replace my personal time in the Word, but I didn't understand why there was a difference. I was, at times, thrilled by the Word when some of the greatest Bible teachers of the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st would lay out a vision for the story of God. Afterward I would collapse in shame and lament that there was no way this pea brain of mine would ever get an understanding or revelation the way these people had. I wanted the Scriptures not just to excite my desire and need for information but a spark to change something inside of me as a result of reading and studying.

Mixed up in all of this was a competing emotion of fear. Fear that I was going to misunderstand and misapply the Word. Fear that I was going to get a bad grade on an assignment. Fear that I would look like a fool in front of my colleagues who were also training for ministry. That's the way I left seminary. I spent time listening to some of the greatest preachers and teachers I've ever heard, living off of their encounters with the word because I was afraid that I wouldn't see things correctly, or worse, not see anything at all.

There were, however, great moments of illumination during that period for which I'll always be grateful. Most of them happened in one of two classes taught by Lawson Stone at Asbury Theological Seminary. For precision's sake, the first wasn't really a class, but a Supervised Ministry Seminar Dr. Stone led for a group of students who were doing what amounted to internships in local churches and ministries. Sitting through that class was a revelation to me, not so much about the content of the case studies and discussions, but of Dr. Stone and his personality. I would describe it, lovingly, as unashamedly committed to truth even when the truth stung. I loved his manner because there wasn't even a hint of shaming in it, and as someone whose life has been profoundly shaped by shame, Dr. Stone's manner of teaching and communication made me feel like I could actually live and act as a human and a pastor even when my self-loathing argued that I couldn't.

Sitting through that seminar gave me an intense desire to sit under Dr. Stone in a real class so I signed up the following semester for Exegesis of Jeremiah. I had no business taking that class. The little Hebrew I'd learned the previous year wasn't enough to even scratch the surface of what I was being taught in that class. I'm so glad I took it, though, if only because of what Dr. Stone instilled in me during those weeks in the fall of 2002: careful and deliberate reading. That's the key phrase for me when I think of what I've learned in classes, workshops, and Dr. Stone's writings. There is a lot to be said about careful and deliberate reading of the Bible. I've had the pleasure of having a lot of poor assumptions about a biblical story come crashing down through Dr. Stone's teaching and preaching. There have been times I've thought, "no, that can't be right!" only to look at the text and realize I'd read it too fast and too poorly to see what he saw. I still remember accompanying my daughter on a college visit to Asbury University and sneaking across the street to hear him preach in Estes Chapel on the Jordan River crossing from Joshua. I was sitting next to Bill Arnold, another great and careful Bible reader and teacher, rapt with delight as Dr. Stone opened the Scriptures. My jaw was on the floor through the whole thing. You can watch it here if you'd like starting around 21:46.

My personal feelings about Dr. Stone as a person aside (if it's not clear, I hold him in very high regard), the thing I appreciate most about his ministry of teaching is his careful reading. He seems to read texts he's read hundreds or thousands of times like he's reading it for the first time, listening intently to what it's actually saying. It's a practice I fail at more often than not, but I almost always sense his influence as I'm reading the Bible. And it's because of him I've lost most of that sense of "getting it wrong."

The second Bible I have placed in the sanctuary of Tulsa First Methodist is in honor of Lawson Stone, Professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. I pray that those who pick it up and read it during our services read as carefully and deliberately as he's taught thousands of students, including me, to do. And, in doing so, that the reader will meet the Living God as I have a number of times under his teaching.

A special thanks to my daughter, Elizabeth, an English student at Trevecca Nazarene University for editing this piece before publishing.

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My Bible Dedications - Jim Lenderman

In the fall of 2024, our church replaced all of the hymnals and Bibles in the pew racks. We all had an opportunity buy one or the other, or both, and dedicate them in honor or memory of a person. I paid for three Bibles dedicated to the lives of three men who have had a profound impact on my love for the Bible and how I read it. I wanted to write about each of them and how they have been formative influences on me, which I am now posting here in three installments.

I'm posting these chronologically in terms of when I encountered these men in my life as my interactions with them are also part of my journey in Christ.

Post #2 - Lawson Stone
Post #3 - Arden Autry

I can sometimes be overly self-reflective, which means I look back over my life a lot and notice where I could have done things better or where I wish things had been different. One of those seasons of life was when I first came to trust Christ when I was 15. I had always been (and often still am) very guarded about what's going on inside of me, and so when I returned from summer camp in 1992, having prayed to follow Christ, I tried to live as a disciple completely on my own. I didn't tell anyone what had happened which meant that I never got any help. I've often lamented that I didn't have anyone in my life to come alongside me to teach me how to pray, how to read the Bible, and how to live as a Christian. That was almost entirely my fault because I didn't ask for help.

A year later, I moved to Hot Springs, AR in order to finish my last two years of high school at the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences. The day I moved in, there was a group of folks from the community gathered behind the dormitory offering us opportunities to get connected. One of the groups was First United Methodist Church in Hot Springs. The new associate pastor, who was also over the youth program, was there inviting us to connect with that church. Having just come back from a great Sr. High youth camp, I was eager to get connected, and so I did. That was the first time I met Jim Lenderman, a man who had a tremendous impact on my life both in high school and as an adult.

I not only started attending church there, I immediately got involved in the youth group that Jim was leading. Within that first month, I started attending a 6:30 AM Bible study Jim was leading for Sr. High boys. I can't recall there ever being more than five of us there, but having no transport of my own, I would wait for Jim to show up on Tuesday mornings in this great big boat of a car having already stopped by a donut shop, and we would drive down Central Ave. to the church. We had a healthy breakfast of donuts and Coca-Cola from glass bottles as he opened up one of those Serendipity Study Bibles and worked through the Scripture reading for the day. I didn't know anything, but I wanted to. It's funny when I think about how little I knew of the Bible, but I listened intently. I didn't read it on my own very much because I was so wound up about doing it wrongly, but I did try on occasion to read it for myself. I probably read more because of Jim than I would have on my own, which is just one of the reasons I'm so grateful for his life and witness. The following year, when our school required us to "shadow" someone from the profession we were interested in, I shadowed Jim for a day. We did a hospital visit that morning, and he fed me lunch at Applebees. Then we went back to his office to talk about seminary. He had encouraged me several months before to go to Asbury Theological Seminary, advice I rigidly followed to my great benefit and delight. As we talked in his office that day, he told me about the Bible classes he took and even printed out a document of notes from one of those classes with the now late David Thompson. I'll never forget seeing at the top of those notes "CIE - context is everything." I remember smiling broadly six years later when I was sitting in Dr. Thompson's inductive Bible study class on the Pentateuch when he gave us that same nugget, thanking God for Jim for instilling that and other principles for reading Scripture when I was a teenager.

Eighteen years after that class, I got to serve under Jim as his associate pastor. Now in my forties, with an M.Div. and D.Min. from Asbury under my belt, I was a much different person than the goofy teenager he'd met 25 years prior. I was a goofy middle-ager who still looked up to him as the older brother and father figure I always needed. This time it was a little different in some ways. I would often find Jim pouring over his big old New Living Translation Study Bible, which was similar. What was different was a slight insecurity that he carried with him following his treatment for non-follicular lymphoma a few years before that. He had what he called "chemo brain" and was frustrated that he couldn't remember things as well as he used to. Frequently, he'd call me to his office to ask if I remembered where this or that verse or story was in the Bible. I grieved for him that he was having trouble remembering due to side effects of his chemotherapy treatments, but it was such a weighty honor to serve him like that. I cannot describe what it meant to me to serve the man who taught me the Bible, who taught me to love the Bible, like that.

Three years after coming to work for him, he died after a hard fought battle with pancreatic cancer. In his last months, I shared with him something I'd been pondering from John 17:26 - "I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." It was the idea that Jesus prays the Father will love us with the same love with which he loves the Son that floored me. We talked about that for a bit and over the course of the next two and a half months, that's what he was thinking about. He mulled over that verse as he headed toward his death, comforted at the end of his life by these words of Scripture.

Jim loved the Bible because it lived in him. It showed him the way to the Father. It nourished his soul. Out of that flowed a love for God and a love for people. I was one of the many fortunate ones to have experienced that love from Jim, and I'll forever be grateful for it. It's why I've placed a Bible in the pews of Tulsa First Methodist in his memory. I hope whoever picks it up on a Sunday morning and reads experiences the same love with which the Father loves the Son.  

A special thanks to my daughter, Elizabeth, an English student at Trevecca Nazarene University for editing this piece before publishing.

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Thank you, Central

The last two weeks have been blurry. Moving will do that to a person. Between packing, moving, unpacking, I've had little time to reflect on our move or to think of a way to say thank you to a group of people who have been so good to me.

I've had several starts to this piece and every time I start, I end up drifting away from the purpose in writing which is to say thank you. I think I'll do just that.

Thank you, Central UMC Rogers. From my first Sunday with all the trepidation I felt about a new role and a new chapter, you treated me like you loved me. As we got to know each other and grow in a ministry partnership, you surprised me over and over again with your kindness. Also, my first week at Central included a half a pig cooked overnight in a pit and Jim dumping green oatmeal goop all over Hannah and Les. For Jesus, I think. We framed a house in the parking lot which definitely was for Jesus as we loved a family down in Mountainburg whose home had been lost to a tornado. I got to participate in the Fall Festival for Bonnie Grimes Elementary School with you, which was a blast, and I got to frighten the Central Childcare kids on Halloween with my homemade Ron Swanson mustache. I myself got to experience fright during the all-night prayer vigil for the What If? campaign thanks to someone looking for the prayer room at 2am. We prayed together and read the Bible together. We sang and served. We ate at the table together both in Holy Communion in worship and at our Wednesday Night Live meals. We did a lot of fun and soul-satisfying things together.

We also did our share of grieving and lament together. There were moments in hospital rooms, next to hospice beds, and even in offices and hallways where we shed tears together. We endured frightening moments of uncertainty and wondered about our own survival—survival of our own bodies and of The Body—during the Covid period. And, of course, there was the loss of our dear brother, Jim Lenderman. I don't know about you, but as painful as that season beginning in October 2020 was, I'll always remember that we learned from him what a deep trust in Christ is all about, even facing sickness and death. He showed us, all of us, what it looked like to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and to fear no evil because God is with us.

Your support for me and the staff during those months was simultaneously shocking and yet not surprising. It was shocking because I just did what I thought I needed to do with no expectation, and you stepped in lovingly and generously. It wasn't surprising because that's been your character throughout the time I got to serve with you. You are a people of generous grace.

I want to mention that you're also a people with a great staff. The heart and soul I've seen these people pour into every aspect of life in the church is incredible. Day after day they show up wanting to make life better for the church and to see God move. It was a gift to work with you. It was also a gift to work with some really great pastors. Jim, obviously, had been a friend and hero of mine since I was 16. I never would have survived the end of 2020 and all of 2021 without Dawn. Full disclosure, I've been telling her for over two years that whenever I moved, she had to come with me because I'm 1000% a better pastor with her but she has clearly turned that down. Finally, Rob landed here with a great deal of sensitivity and humility, led us all well, and continues to lead well. I'm grateful for the grace, friendship, and generosity he has invested in me.

It would be all too easy to say something about our paths diverging at this point, but I don't believe that. We're on the same path leading the throne room of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. We might have a few miles between us, but in the expanse of God's grace and dwelling, that might as well be a few inches. I know this: our lives are but a vapor and soon we'll be together in that blessed space and I'll still be grateful for who you are and what you've done to make me more faithful, humble, and confident in the love and grace of God.

Thank you, Central UMC Rogers.

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Don't Look Away

Because this blog gets way less attention from me than the newsletter or other writing, from time to time I'll share bits from the newsletter that I wrote (as opposed to the testimonies I share). This is from August 2022.

In about two weeks it will have been 23 years since my first day of school at Asbury Theological Seminary. I was 22 at the time which means more time has passed in my life since that day than there was before that day. On that first morning, I got dressed and went to the cafeteria. I’ve never been what you call brave when it comes to first time interactions. I don’t walk up to people I don’t know regularly. But, on this morning I thought, “this is Asbury and I’m in seminary. Try something new.” I got my tray and walked into the dining area. I saw some people I had already met, but a man older than me caught my eye. I didn’t know him. So I walked over to his table, introduced myself, and asked if I could join him.

The details get fuzzy for me after that, but I recall that he wasn’t a brand new M.Div. student like I was. He’d been a pastor for some time. Like, since I was a baby. I asked him why he decided to come back and do whatever it was he was there to do. He said, “Because after twenty-plus years in ministry I fell in love with Jesus.”

I have a mental dictionary and under the entry for “incredulous” is the image of my face when he said that. How on earth could a person be in ministry for twenty-plus years and not be in love with Jesus?

Twenty-three years later, nineteen of which I’ve spent in full-time ministry, I now know how naive I was in that moment. A person can love a lot of things and do a lot of good things in life and ministry while first love’s lamp is not burning. Believe me. I’ve done it. A good sermon while total focus is on how well I was doing it? Guilty. Thinking my experience and wisdom are why a person was able to turn away from destructive patterns and toward God? Yes. Caring more about getting a church to a stable place and not risking a thing in order to have more of Jesus? Forgive me, but yes.

It’s easier than you might think to give Jesus just a sliver of that pie called “heart’s desire.”

Recently, I’ve been listening over and over to this message I saw on YouTube. The speaker is Steffany Gretzinger who you would probably recognize from the song “Reckless Love” or “King of My Heart” from Bethel Music. She gave one of the most beautiful messages I’ve ever heard. It was a rally cry to turn our attention to Jesus. I’ve transcribed this part because I want you to read it:

The beautiful thing about God, one of the endlessly beautiful things about Jesus is that, as my dear friend Elizabeth said, "Jesus is more humble than we are." He'll come to meet with people in spite of us. We can often think that when he comes into a room while we're doing whatever it is we're doing, that it was because we're here. That's when first love's lamp has gone out--the minute we think we had anything to do with this. When the hungry come they will be fed because he's good, and to the pure all things are pure. It's why the presence of God moves in rooms where even people who have no character are leading worship. That's not a judgment it's just true. Because God won't withhold from someone who comes in with a pure heart to see God. They will see God. The Beatitudes are mind-boggling! He's so kind, but he wants to do it with us, and he wants to do it through us. He's looking for a bride that won't look away, that won't be moved by the crowd.

She’s not wrong. God will not withhold from someone who comes with a pure intention to see him and nothing else. As Samuel Whitefield has written, “discipleship begins with beholding.” Behold!

Friends, get a look at Jesus and don’t look away. Behold.

Let’s keep praying this until it is true in our hearts: “Lord, I delight in you. You are the desire of my heart.”

Jesus is the treasure,
-Matthew

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A Funeral Sermon

My friend and colleague Jim Lenderman died Sunday, May 16, 2021. It was an honor and a privilege to know him, to follow him, and to serve along side him. Among the many gifts he gave me was allowing me to preach his funeral on May 21, 2021 and what follows is the text of that sermon.

In the Spring of 1994, the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences made its students “shadow” a professional in the field they were interested in as a career. I went with several others to shadow some doctors at UAMS because that’s what I’d wanted to do since I was in elementary school. About a month after that, Maundy Thursday of 1994, Jim Lenderman was preaching that service and I had one of the weirdest experiences of my life. As Jim was preaching, I looked up and for a moment saw myself in that pulpit. As it happens God used that moment to lay the groundwork for calling me into ministry at Sr. High Assembly a couple of months after that. The following Spring, in 1995, when shadowing day came around, I spent the day shadowing Jim Lenderman. We spent some time in his office talking about pastoral duties. He printed off some of his notes from an inductive Bible class he had taken at Asbury Theological Seminary and gave them to me—I still remember the acronym CIE, “context is everything” at the top of the page, something he learned from the late David Thompson. I wore a suit that day, I assume because that’s how his senior pastor, David Wilson, expected him to dress as a pastor. We went to the new St. Joseph’s hospital in Hot Springs and visited and prayed with the late John Hays, a pastor in the then Little Rock conference who was dying of cancer. Then we went to Applebees to lunch. When Jim dropped me off at my dorm that day, I was as assured of my calling as the day God dropped it on me. I saw a man doing what I wanted to do. I watched a man that I wanted to be.

I’ve since realized that I have been shadowing Jim ever since he showed up at my school on move in day 28 years ago.

I’ve known Jim since I was sixteen years old. I want you to know that the man Central UMC has gotten to know over the last four years was the exact same person I met in 1993, just a little older and wiser. He was, even then, one of the most obedient and earnest people of faith I’ve ever met. And he was still as in love with his wife here as he was then. He was a brand new father. He was so proud of Hayden and loved him so much and I know that when Jordan came along later he felt the same. That never changed, either. Lots of things never changed about Jim. He was driven. He was a hard worker. He loved Jesus. He adored Beth. He probably never thought so, but he was a person a lot of people looked up to and admired. After he died, when grief sent my mind in a million different directions, I wanted someone from our high school youth group to know and was able to find a phone number of someone I haven’t spoken to in 26 years. Scott recalled how hard Jim worked with not a lot of resources to get us to know and love Christ. He testified that his own son is walking with the Lord with his whole heart and that is a part of Jim’s legacy of faith. Jim’s life and faithfulness left a mark on people.

As I thought about what I wanted to say or preach about to honor Jim, I went to 1 Corinthians 2 instead because it reflects the heart and desire of Jim Lenderman as he followed Christ. To start with, Paul tells the church at Corinth about the manner in which he came to them: not with lofty speech or clever arguments, but with the message of Christ crucified. He says that’s all he wanted to know among them. This is, from a worldly standpoint, an utterly absurd thing to say to a bunch of Gentiles when you show up in the middle of sophisticated and hedonistic Corinth. “May I tell you about a man who was crucified? But is now alive?” People listened because the two do not go together. How could they? Paul acknowledges that he came in weakness and fear and much trembling because what he was saying was not plausible according to the wisdom of the world but in a demonstration of the Spirit so that their faith might not rest in the wisdom of human beings, but in the power of God. 

Paul came in weak. He came in foolishly. It was the cross of Christ to which he pointed which was an absurdity to the world around him, but he wasn’t looking for tips and tricks to get the culture to be open to the Gospel, he wanted the Spirit to demonstrate the truth—that people would hear the folly of the cross and experience the Spirit awakening them and delivering them to new life in the new birth. It’s a blessing to know people who read things like this and make it their life’s mission. Jim is one of those people. His life was shaped by the cross, by the giving of self for the benefit of others. You’ve heard of his sacrificial generosity from Dawn already. One person testified on Facebook this week that Jim, “gave his shoes to one of the men we worked alongside in Jamaica. He walked barefoot all the way back to the bus.” He saw a healing take place in Africa as he washed the feet of a man with diseased feet. When Jim signed his letters, “towels and basin,” it was a reflection of Christ’s service to the disciples. It wasn’t merely words on a page, it was a powerful call to live as Christ. That which the world sees as foolishness made sense to him by the power of the Spirit and he wanted that for all people. Not many of you may know, but Jim used to come in early and sit out by the chapel and as he watched the traffic go by, he prayed. He prayed for an awakening for Rogers that would ripple out into the whole world. I know some might look and think, didn’t he have work to do? He did! He was doing it by acknowledging that he was weak and needed God to answer him if he was going to lead God’s church. He carried a deep desire for us and our city to know the power of God by a gracious demonstration of the Holy Spirit. That was at the heart of his life and ministry in this world, that you and me would know the depths of God’s love and power and that it would upend life in all the right ways for God’s kingdom.

Paul keeps up this theme, that the wisdom of the wise of the age is doomed to pass away, but that which the church and her apostles are delivering to the world is an impartation of God’s wisdom, a wisdom that is so not in line with the way the world currently works, but is, instead, something that we haven’t seen or heard or even imagined. God is preparing something for those who love him and he is revealing them to us through the Holy Spirit. And here’s the amazing thing: we can’t understand God or his thoughts. But the Holy Spirit can. And Paul tells us that we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And what do we imagine that is? What is freely given us by God? That which God has prepared for those who love him, that are revealed to us through the Spirit. 

Himself. That’s what he freely and lovingly gives us. It’s him. The greatest treasure and source of joy and pleasure we could ever hope to know: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Jesus is our only hope for any kind of meaningful joy and peace in this life. He is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. That right there is what Paul was talking about when he came not with plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. The reason we don’t get to the Father except through Jesus is because as the only resurrected one he knows the way. Jesus, crucified and risen is the only way. And he gives himself freely to us! Can I tell you that knowing and following Jesus Christ crucified and risen was Jim’s desire? You could see it in his life and in his words, but also as he approached his last moments. Do you know what he wanted to talk about? Do you know what occupied his mind? It was the things freely given us by God! He was trying to wrap his heart and mind around the love within and between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That’s what he wanted! To be filled with that love since Jesus prayed in John 17:26 that the love with which the Father loves the Son would be in us. Jim had a taste of that and wanted more even as he prepared for the unreal, indescribable experience of existing in God’s presence. A few weeks ago, when he gave me back a book I loaned him called “Our People Die Well: Glorious Accounts of Early Methodists at Death’s Door” I opened it and found a scrap of paper upon which he wrote a quote from a condemned prisoner named John Lancaster that read, “if a foretaste be so sweet, what must the full enjoyment be?” My friend not only enjoyed the foretaste, but he now has the full enjoyment.

Through the Spirit’s revealing work in us, giving Jesus freely to us in our spirits, he gives us the mind of Christ. If we understand anything it’s because of the Holy Spirit and he wants to give us Christ’s mind, his way of seeing things, his way of loving, his way of living. This allows us to put the main thing as the main thing in life. That which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” but that which “God has prepared for those who love him.” That becomes front and center for you when Jesus becomes everything to you. Precious Jesus. 

In the 17th century, a German lawyer named Johann Franck wrote a hymn called Jesus, Priceless Treasure. The last stanza reads:

Banish thoughts of sadness, 

for the Lord of gladness, 

Jesus, enters in; 

though the clouds may gather, 

those who love the Savior 

still have peace within. 

Though I bear much sorrow here, 

still in you lies purest pleasure, 

Jesus, priceless treasure!  

Having the mind of Christ shifts our focus onto the main thing, Jesus, so that when the clouds of life gather, we still have peace. That even when we bear much sorrow, Jesus is still the source of purest pleasure. Paul’s ministry of proclaiming Jesus so that the so-called wisdom of the world was overcome by the demonstration of the Spirit’s power was so that we may ultimately know Jesus as the most important anything of life.

That’s not only truth. That’s not only what Paul desired for us. It’s the main thing of life, and it’s what I’ve learned from Jim for almost thirty years. I remember my senior year of high school, Jim put me on the youth leadership council and we had weekly meetings. Jim told us one night about a death and dying class he took in seminary. One of the assignments was to write your own obituary. I wish we’d been able to find it, partly to see how well my memory stands up, but in general terms I remember it for two things. One, it expressed his desire to be a loving husband and father. Two, it expressed a desire to treasure Jesus above all else. The point of the assignment was to think about this day, about what you’d want people to think and say about you, so that you would start living in such a way that they would actually say those things at your death. Jim, like the Apostle Paul before him, wanted to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen. Mission accomplished.

Years ago I read a book on preaching by a well known Methodist. I was intrigued by the chapter on funeral sermons because one of the questions he would ask families was, “What do you think your loved one would say to you right now if he could?” Paul says “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him,” that has become sight and reality. I think Jim would tell us, “this is better than I could have ever imagined and I’m so glad I gave my life completely for this!” I think he would say that an audacious vision for awakening in Benton County or for raising money to give away 22,000 Bibles in Africa or investing in evangelism and church planting in India was worth pursing. Jim not only had the mind of Christ, but the heart of Christ for you, for me, and for the whole world. He clung to Romans 8:18 and that glory has now been revealed to him and while the sufferings of this present time aren’t worth comparing to it, I have no doubt that Jim has already said to himself that following Jesus was totally worth it as he sees his Savior face to face. It was the testimony of the Spirit, alive in him, that led him into a life of love and obedience. His life serves as a testimony to the power of God in the resurrection that will be ours as well if we, like Jim, follow Jesus with the Spirit’s help to the Father. I’d love for you to consider Jim’s legacy of following obediently and earnestly after Jesus. I’m proud and humbled to be a part of the fruit of that faith and I want to know Jesus like he did. Consider this an invitation to follow Jim as he followed Christ. You won’t be disappointed. He is precious. He is worthy.

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Ash Wednesday and Rush Limbaugh

This morning I awoke to another layer of snow and sub-freezing temperatures which was a good reminder to me that death is inevitable. I like snow for about a day, day and a half tops because here in Arkansas we get snow so infrequently that we mostly just wait for it to melt before we get on with life. We're on day three now of being stuck at home and I'm not as attached to breathing as I was, say, on Saturday.

It's Ash Wednesday, though, the beginning of Lent. That day of the year when in pre-pandemic years I would look people in the eyes and remind them they are going to die. Not this year, though. We've had plenty of reminders as over a half-million people have died since last year's Lent. Nevertheless, I'm thinking about death and mortality today.

I think about death and mortality every Wednesday because that's the day my band meeting meets. The five of us confess our sins to the group one at a time and then one of us prays for the person who has just confessed, pronouncing the forgiveness and cleansing we're promised in 1 John 1:9. Speaking that honestly about the stuff I'm most ashamed of is, in some ways, a death. It's certainly a death of self and pride. One might even say we're killing sin. On some Wednesdays I find it easier to die to myself and confess than others, but today was a very tough time for me. I'm coming to grips with the unhealthy way I deal with grief and woundedness which is through anger. I mean, I don't go around breaking things and yelling at people; I am mostly Scandinavian for crying out loud. But, at times, I do feel it in my guts when someone does something or says something I don't care for. I've been interested in learning how to be angry and yet not sin like Ephesians 4:26 says because I don't want to stop feeling. I do want to refrain from directing my anger toward people lest it become hatred which is murder in the secret place of the heart. I really, really struggled with it this morning and my brothers prayed for me and I was so grateful to be forgiven and cleansed.

Later, I happened to ignore my better angels and looked at the Bird Webpage. I discovered that Rush Limbaugh had died. I never listened to one second of his shows, but I knew what his public personality was. I wasn't a fan, something that had less to do with his politics than his persona. I don't need that type of vitriol in my life. I can't say I was sorry to hear of his passing, though I did take a moment to remember that there are people, family and friends, who loved him and are mourning. May they be comforted. I saw, however, that the phrase "rest in piss" was trending on that Bird Webpage and I clicked on it. Of course, it was Mr. Limbaugh's detractors saying either that they hoped he rested in piss, or "live your life in such a way that 'rest in piss' doesn't start trending on Twitter five minutes after you're dead." That's good advice. I'd like to be so full of goodness and kindness and, well, all the fruits of the Spirit so that people aren't tempted to make that phrase trend when I die. (Also, I'm not kidding myself to think that anything would trend when I die. Just to be clear.) At the same time, I'd also like to live my life in such a way that I wouldn't write "rest in piss" about anyone, no matter how repulsive I find their views.

I've often said that the measure of my own holiness can be determined by how well I pray for and love my enemies. Loving and praying don't absolve a person for their sins. We all have to face the consequences of our sins just like 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." Mr. Limbaugh, like you and me, will have to answer for what he has done on earth, whether good or bad. (Let's not get confused about the doctrine of justification, though. I'm not saying if he or I do more good than bad then we're in. Just that we'll have to own up to what we've done.) Chosing to love and pray for people who are repulsive to me or even hateful toward me isn't something I'll regret having done on that Day. I suspect it won't be for you, either.

To love and pray like that does require a death, though. So go ahead and die already so you can know real life. Rest in Christ.

(I just wrote this without any editing so forgive my mistakes and typos. I'm sure I'll find them later.)

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Reading in 2020

I'm much more of a book hoarder than a reader it seems. This morning, I finished writing down my list of books I read in 2019. Seventeen books were on the list. That took little effort on my part, especially since five or six of them were ones I read on my Kindle as I'm going to bed. I have to do better than that, otherwise I'm being a pretty terrible steward of the riches I've spent over the years on books.

So, I collected a bunch of books and organized them into a box accompanied by a list of which ones I chose. I'm putting the list here in case anyone thinks they might be interested in a particular title. Also, I need to report on my progress at the end of the year so I can either celebrate or hang my head in shame.

A couple of notes, the first three are my every day reads. Devotional material, if you will. One of the books, Preaching in the Spirit by Dennis F. Kinlaw, is one I read every single year. Finally, I'm making a concerted effort to mix in some fiction this year. I've been very, very bad about reading fiction since I graduated from college with a, you know, degree in English. Without further ado, here they are:

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One Year Later

Last year, on this date, I wrote a quick post about the loss of a spiritual giant. Dennis Kinlaw was a mentor, friend, and example for at least three generations of Christians. I labeled the post the first in a series which I never got around to finishing because I was wrapping up final edits and preparing for graduation in the days following. As the one year anniversary of his death looms on my calendar and in my heart, I have been thinking a lot about him and his influence.

One of the most important resources to come out in the year since his death was a compilation of his sermons titled Malchus’ Ear. For a scholar like Kinlaw, whose sharp mind kept him learning and writing until he died1, it might seem odd that a posthumous volume wasn’t a scholarly work or even a Festschrift2. But, to those who knew his evangelist heart and his abandonment to our Triune Creator God3, a volume of sermons is fitting. Particularly these sermons which were carefully chosen and edited by his longtime writing partner and beloved granddaughter.

Dr. Kinlaw was a scholar. He was also a dilettante in the oldest sense of the word. He had an interest in nearly everything. This is the world the LORD has made, and he wanted to know about it all. I chuckle recalling our last conversation, one in which I wanted to delve as deeply as possible into the subject of Christian perfection, but we ended up spending thirty of the ninety minutes talking about quantum mechanics! The man had an interest in his Father’s world, and he wanted to learn how to sing and dance to the “music of the spheres4.” His curiosity was borne out of his love for and experience with our Triune Creator God. He wanted to know everything he could about the lover of his soul, and he wanted to tell other people about this God whose love and holiness are abundant and never-ceasing.

Therefore, we have these sermons. In the preface to this volume, there is a personal testimony about the perfect love of God being shed abroad into the heart of a young Dennis Franklin Kinlaw:

In the years since, I have never found words adequate to describe to anyone what those next few hours were like. It was years before I even tried. Human language just could not do justice to what occurred. It was a profoundly emotional moment. A joy flooded my inner being, a joy of a deeper magnitude and of a different essence than anything I had ever known before. Later, I found myself thinking of it in terms of the promise in Romans 5:5, that the Holy Spirit can shed abroad in the human heart the very love that binds the three persons of the Holy Trinity together in the human believer's heart. There was a marvelous sense of inner cleanness that now seemed to leave my inner spirit as if it had been cleansed from all of the normal defilements that haunt a thirteen-year-old boy's conscience. Yet even this sense of cleansing was not my primary consciousness. That was completely different. It was the sense of a Presence, an Other, who had come to me.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last fifteen years (particularly the last six) thinking about and agonizing over the doctrine of Christian perfection as an experience of God’s great love and holiness that any believer can know - mostly because of Kinlaw’s influence. One of the reasons I think the book is so important is because of this testimony. It was this witness to the holy and perfect love of God “shed abroad in5” his heart that sent him on a lifelong adventure of walking in close relationship to God, of scholarly work in the Old Testament, and of co-founding the Francis Asbury Society with Harold Burgess.

As I’ve been working on and praying for Christian perfection for the past few years, I’ve been toying with a term I made up called “Realized Theology.” I believe realized theology is the place where the truth of God becomes a personal experience. I think this is at the heart of the theology and ministry of John Wesley: Aldersgate was the place where justification became more than a doctrine, it was the experience of a sinner receiving pardon. It was this experience of grace that fueled Wesley’s passion to “spread Scriptural holiness over the land.6” It was the realized theology of Christian perfection Dennis Kinlaw experienced at Indian Springs in 1935. This man of effusive joy flowing out of the love of God gave his whole life to making sure people could have a realized theology of their own.

I have another piece for this blog I’m working on at the moment on the need for a holiness reclamation project within United Methodism, and without wading too deeply into that piece let me say that the life, work, and writing of Dennis F. Kinlaw is essential. Not to that piece of writing, but to the whole world, and particularly the witness of United Methodists in the white fields of the world. We lost a friend, an advocate, and a standard-bearer when he died, but we have a legacy worth carrying forward no matter the cost. I miss him, but mostly I want to carry on the ministry he left behind. I hope you will pray about doing the same.

  1. He was working on a manuscript on anthropology for at least a couple of years before his death. ↩︎
  2. Something Dr. Kinlaw deserves and I hope there is a project in development toward this end. UPDATE - I discovered there was one published in 1982, but I was only 5 at the time, so I was completely unaware. ↩︎
  3. I use this name a lot when writing about God because I want to be specific. I’m deeply indebted to Mary Fisher for her constant usage of this phrase to describe God. Her words have had a lasting impact on me. ↩︎
  4. If you’re not familiar with the quotation, please listen to Babcock’s hymn “This is My Father’s World.” ↩︎
  5. Romans 5:5 KJV ↩︎
  6. 845 vol. 10 of Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley ↩︎
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Keeping Promises

My daughter and her mama before Palm Sunday 2005, the day she was baptized.

My daughter and her mama before Palm Sunday 2005, the day she was baptized.

I do a lot of comparing and contrasting when I read the Bible. For instance, just this morning, I was reading about the people of Israel crossing the Jordan River into Canaan to begin the conquest. The Jordan River stopped and the people passed through on dry ground. There are echoes of the Exodus in this event. Joshua 4 even makes the comparison. There are contrasts as well: a river versus a sea, leaving slavery versus leaving the wilderness, entering the promised land versus entering the wilderness. When the themes are similar, it makes sense to detect those connections because they draw out a depth of meaning and order within the Bible.

13 years have passed since my daughter was baptized. My wife and I were in our late 20s, and our daugther was 5 months old. In 1977, my parents were in their late 20s and I was 5 months old when they brought me to Atwater UMC in Atwater, MN. The same mode of baptism was used in both baptisms. The same liturgy was read by a United Methodist pastor. In both places and at both times, the same promises were made by the parents, the church, and, implicity, by our Triune Creator God.

The contrasts are stark. My path in faith has been markedly different than my daughters. My parents and the church I attended growing up did the best they could as they confirmed me and guided me. But I arrived in adulthood malnourished and somewhat malformed. I was a bit of an autodidact in the ways of the Bible and in theology. That's not to say that I didn't have deeply Christian people around me who loved me and prayed for me. I think, however, they suffered from a century's worth of ecclesial malpractice with respect to discipleship. We weren't told that we were to make disciples much less how to make disciples. Yet the promises were made and the attempts to fulfill them were earnest.

My daughter, however, has been catechized in the home. She's encountered people who had an inkling of what is required of us as disciples, and has grown spiritually in ways that I'm pretty sure outstrip my own spiritual development by the time I reached seminary. I am overjoyed by her heart and soul on a regular basis.

Yes, there are contrasts, but my reminiscence isn't about who did what or kept which promises. All of our spiritual journeys are beset with obstacles, difficulties, and victories. No matter the contrasts, the strongest comparison between those two baptisms is the initiator and sustainer who has been completely faithful in keeping his promise. Too often, we look at baptism as something "I" did or "we" did. However, the Bible and the lived out interpretation of the Bible we call tradition is clear that God is the subject of this means of grace. If baptism were a sentence, God is the subject, we are the direct objects, and the water is the indirect object. We miss the point when we spend too much time comparing and contrasting the objects rather than beholding the steadfastness of the ultimate subject, our Triune Creator God. God is the one who kept his promise to love and keep the both of us. God is the one who has formed us according to his love and mercy, both of which were promised to us. God is the one who daily teaches us to "swim in our baptismal waters," as my friend, Andrew Thompson, so eloquently wrote about in his book on The Means of Grace. 

As I watch her grow, both physically and spiritually, and as I pause to think about and celebrate her 13th "baptiversary," I am overwhelmed by the love and grace of the God who loves her, guides her, and forms her by the promise he made to her in the Bible and in the baptismal liturgy. What a loving Father he is to us.

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