William Petruzzo

You know the old song:

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

By today’s standards, song is definitely on the cheesier side of things, but the sentiment is unmistakably good. “They”, the unbelievers in the world, “will know”, without a doubt, “we are Christians”, our primary defining trait, “by our love”. Good, yes? Nearly all Christian churches acknowledge this. Most contemporary churches make extra efforts and go way out of the way to be loving toward outsiders. This is a good thing, don’t get me wrong.

However, while the sentiment in the song makes no mistake, for most communities, most of the point seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

The main thrust of the song comes from John 13:34-35:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When Jesus says that people will know we are Christians by our love, there is no ambiguity in his meaning. He means that people of all kinds, will know a believer when they see one because of the love they show for other believers.

We hear many teachings about being the salt of the earth, not hiding our lights under a basket, and being a light set on a hill. Often, this idea is equated to loving unbelievers unashamedly—that’s good, and part of it. But Jesus makes clear that the real tell is in our love for each other. How does the church love its own? Do we betray, backstab, gossip, and abandon? Or, do you encourage, uphold, strengthen and support each other?

It seems that more often than not our communities are the former, rather than the latter. I think that I would like to see us become that change. That in our communities, the world would know we are disciples of Christ, not just because we pay for the cheeseburger or offer a ride home, because of the deep and unmistakable love we have for each other.

The message delivered at Church tonight served as a much needed reminder for me. A reminder I should have been able to, and should have been, giving myself.

Back when I was leading a small group, there were a number of things that were constantly repeated. One of them was the idea of stepping out in faith. Kids in the group would say things like, “I just don’t feel like doing such and such” or maybe “I don’t feel passionate”, or “I’m having trouble stopping such and such sin”. My response was almost universally the same—What are you doing?

What I meant by that was, what are the actions being taken—in faith—to a cultivate a ground for God to bring change. Sometimes the action is as simple as developing a discipline to read first thing in the morning. Wake up every morning, whether your hungry, distracted or late, and in faith, make scripture the very first thing you do. Then, see what the Lord does with that faith, then take another step in faith. In my own life, and in the lives of many of the kids in the small group, I saw it work. Over and over.

Tonight’s message was preached from Hebrews 11. The author spends the entire chapter basically recounting all the great super-heroes of faith and how they all had to step out onto it.

I was pretty immediately taken back. You see, life has been less than steady these past few months. Uncertainty about church and relationships have set me in a kind of locked-down-bunker-spirituality. It seems that after spending several months in the bunker, I’ve forgotten that’s where I am.

When the preacher tonight brought up Hebrews 11, it hit me. What I preached to my own small group week in and week out, I’ve failed to do myself. Just sitting in the bunker waiting for something to happen, to change, or for some new motivation or perseverance to come about, isn’t getting anywhere. Not that God isn’t sovereign and couldn’t do those things if he chose to. But, for whatever reason, he isn’t choosing to and the correct course would be exercise faith and step out.

I’m reminded of a powerful verse in scripture that’s gone unquoted in my mind for some time. 2 Corinthians 12:9:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…”

The bunker is safe, and in it I can feel strong. But, that is not where God wishes to display his power. So, steps in faith to exercise weakness are necessary. God’s grace is more than sufficient and in times like these, it shines brightly.

I can’t remember where I first saw this video. I imagine I was probably directed to it by a friend. I don’t expect most of you will make all the way it through this video, it’s about 30 minutes long. But, if you will, I think you’ll be moved—probably to emotion, but hopefully to prayer.

Admittedly, this video is not so much contemporary as much as it is kind of cheesy in its production. But, the preachers are speaking of true, God breathed, prayer charged, revival. Something we should all be hoping and praying for.

It’s worth watching.

In Piper’s The Pleasures of God, he quotes Patrick Johnstone. The quotation is profound. I absolutely had to share it. Piper quotes:

“We are being compelled to return to a more biblical and radical position—that of being a minority in the world not of it… The church deprived of political power is free from the burden of trying to use human power to dominate and influence the world… Our reference point is not territorial or church growth aggrandizement, but building a kingdom that is not of this world, yet which will fill the earth as a contrasting alternative society. We need to return to the concept of a pilgrim Church, the church that will be hated, rejected, despised, persecuted, yet be an incisive, decisive, victorious minority which one day soon, will be ready for its heavenly Bridegroom as the perfected Bride.”

Holy crap. Seriously. “The church deprived of political power is free from the burden of trying to use human power to dominate and influence the world” . Lets take a minute and digest that one. I’m not even sure I fully understand the ramification of that idea, however, it’s compelling and attractive and at the same time frightening.

I suppose that should God deem fit to give us political power, it would be a grace that we ought to steward properly. But, it seems that perhaps we haven’t and that grace is being removed.

My friend Ric sent me an email pointing me to this video. It’s every bit as brilliant as he said it was. While I suspect that I have some pretty deep running disagreements with the organization that put it together, it is really poignant, nonetheless. I hope I’m not stealing valuable blog-fodder from you, Ric.

It helps to read their brief intro to the video to get the point they’re making.

“Have you ever tried really hard to make a point and when people say they get it, you are just not sure they do? Sometimes it takes us seeing our world through new eyes–something that it is hard to do as believers. Sometimes a little bit of juxtaposition does the trick.

We made this video because we sometimes struggle in helping churches to truly understand the disconnection between how we do things and the people we’re trying to reach. Our thought was to showcase the visitor experience in a completely different context and in doing so, we might help churches realize how they might actually comes across to the world we are called to reach.

Sometimes it takes seeing something in a different light to really get it. With this thought, my team and I made a little video called “What if Starbucks Marketed Like the Church? A Parable.”

Again, I’m not in total agreement here, but the video should make you think. If nothing else, it’s certainly is good for a laugh.

I was reading on the Desiring God blog about the differences between Dispensational, Covenant and New Covenant Theology. It’s a conversation I’m familiar with, but not well read on and totally undecided on my own stance. I thought it might be helpful to know the viewpoint of some of the people I respect.

As I was reading, something occurred to me. People seem to see strong theological convictions as creating strong divisions in the body of Christ. I think that I disagree.

Strong theological convictions do not create strong divisions, it simply shows you all the opportunities you have to be divided. For example, when I sit in a church on a Sunday morning, having a theological belief on a given topic will cause me to know when I disagree with the person speaking. However, what I do with that disagreement is still on the table.

So perhaps the question is not so much about unity, as it is about humility. Can we humbly disagree with one another? Humbly disagree without subverting our theological beliefs?

I think so. But I’m finding that to be a major challenge as I study and learn. A good challenge, I think a challenge that is absolutely crucial for all of us, as we begin to move into decidedly more theological times in the church.

I think we’ll need to be intentional about this one.

Just two pages into the introduction to Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and he’s already stimulating my mind. I can’t wait to get into the real meat of the book.

In his introduction, Keller is recounting his early years as a college student battling over the questions of moral relativity and social justice. In the church he saw two “camps”. The liberals, who seemed to have a looser, amorphous sense of morality, but had a burning passion for the oppressed all over the world. And on the other side, the conservatives, who seemed to have less concern for social justice, but a strong moral foundation.

Keller explains:

I was emotionally drawn to the [liberal] path—what young person wouldn’t be? Liberate the oppressed and sleep with who you wanted! But I kept asking the question, “if morality is relative, why isn’t social justice as well?”

Keller’s question, I think, is just one of the many logical problems that faces the church today. I don’t say that only because I occupy a more conservative position, but because it really is illogical. There isn’t a satisfying way around the question.

If the church is going to stretch God’s word to demand less of us, why can we not stretch our social standards to demand less of us? In fact, if we believe the bible loosely, then couldn’t we also believe life loosely? For example, if God produced a person into a dreadful situation, perhaps he wants them to be there? After all, if God creates homosexuals, then he must want them to be homosexuals and therefore the lifestyle is okay, right?

So Keller’s question is poignant, I think. If our morality is relative, so our justice should also be relative. Maybe even more so.

Years ago when I was leading a small group I can remember several debates in which someone would say, “God can’t… something, something”. It doesn’t really matter what was said. Maybe, “God can’t lie,” or “God can’t be in the presence of sin”. It was irrelevant. What bothered me was the idea that God can’t something. I saw in it people placing restrictions on God.

Who are we to say what God can or can’t do? I preferred to say, “God won’t”.

Today, I understand things quite a bit differently; more correctly. What I was seeing was a box. A structure around God that dictated what he could or couldn’t do. It would be wrong for us to create such walls around him. It’s not our place, and frankly, even if we wanted to, it wouldn’t work. So, in that sense of the phrase, I still agree. We cannot put a box around God.

But still, I always cringe a little bit when someone says “I don’t want to put God in a box”. Because when someone says this, they’re usually saying, in a subtle way they they don’t want to believe in any kind of concrete theology.

But I see now in hind sight that this reveals something about our faith in God. When someone says, “I don’t want to put God in a box”, what they’re often revealing is that they don’t truly trust God’s word. That’s what the Bible is. God’s word. If God has said he “cannot be tempted” (James 1:13), then he can’t be tempted. If my theology then says, “God can’t be tempted”, I haven’t placed God in a box, God has place God in a box (so to speak) and he will not leave that box.

If you see theology as a box man places around God, then there is a good chance you don’t trust that God’s word is his word. And if that’s true, then there’s a good chance you won’t experience the benefits therein.

A subtle, but popular trend in Christian evangelism today is the idea that prosperity is the means by which we can communicate the genuineness of our religion to unbelievers. I only know this because of my stint in youth ministry. It’s never said like that, but it’s communicated between the lines.

I can remember long discussions about the importance of dressing hip. Being strong, assertive, confident yet still "humble". We’d make no big deal about spending money frivolously on things that just weren’t all that important, like interior decorations, late night fast food and gas. Tons and tons of gas. All because in a covert way, it said one thing:

"I have it all together. God has (I have) it all taken care of. And, if you believe this, this is how orderly and nice you’re life will be too."

I’ve often had conversations with people about the absurdity of that idea. Historically, it’s just not effective. In fact, I’m betting it’s more destructive than anything else. I mean, when our behavior ultimately causes people to focus on us and not on God, all we do is create our own little religions that quickly die out. In fact, when was the last time you can think of that getting a new car really really caused your heart to flutter and your mind to move to worship?

Probably never. I mean, I’m sure you’ve been thankful. As have I. But realistically, it’s not generally prosperity in our lives that really moves us to worship. So, if prosperity in our lives barely moves us to worship God, why the heck would prosperity in our lives move anyone else to worship?

I’ve always argued from the point of the martyrs. How so often hardened soldiers and opponents of Christianity would be melted and converted at the sight of a martyred disciple. But tonight, something else dawned on me.

Jesus himself gives a great example of this very thinking:

Luke 23:47-48, immediately following Jesus’ death on the cross, while is body still hung there:

Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, "Certainly this man was innocent!" And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.

It strikes me that people are hardly ever, if ever, moved and changed at the sight of a Christian’s prosperity. But almost always, at least, impacted at the sight of a Christian’s love and faith, in spite of disparity.

In more ways that one, Jesus’ proved that to us.

Proverbs 25:16:

If you have found honey, eat only enough for you,
   lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.

I suppose this is kind of a continuation from yesterday.

With all that the bible says about money and the way we ought to think of it and use it, it’s amazing that the American church seems to just ignore it.  Most of the church would never ignore a pastor slipping into sexual sin, when they were aware of it. But there’s thousands of churches with pastors driving $60,000 cars, flying first class to their summer vacation home and wearing $3000 suits, and no one bats an eye.

I just don’t get it.

I’d like to see it change, in me and in the rest of the church, but admittedly, I’m not sure exactly where to begin. Or, if it’s even my place.