Once when my wife and I returned from a trip, we allowed plenty of time to make the trek from hotel to airport—more than three hours, in fact.
However, a series of unforeseen events conspired against us, making our schedule tighter and tighter with each progressive twist.
As each delay transpired, it became less likely that we would make our flight. I kept telling myself, “We will either make our flight or we will not; there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Therefore, I might as well just relax and watch events unfold.
My sage advice, however, was easier to say than to do; it is more viable in theory than in practice. As the clock ticked down, I became more unnerved and on edge.
Fortunately, airport security went smoothly and was efficient—despite me forgetting to discard the bottle of water from my carry on. (It was intended to enjoy with the breakfast that we had to skip.)
We arrived at the gate, breathless, haggard, and hungry, mere seconds before the call for final boarding.
As we settled into our seats, I tried to calm my frayed nerves. I was reminded of the fact that while we can’t control the things that happen to us, we can control our reaction to them.
In fact, it is the only thing that we can control—and I have done a poor job of it.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Jesus calls us to change and become like little children
Matthew tells the story about Jesus asking his disciples, “Who’s the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The disciples don’t answer. Either they don’t know or they’re afraid to attempt an answer, for fear they might be wrong.
Jesus takes a child and places this youngster before his followers. Then he tells them, “You won’t get into the kingdom of heaven unless you change and become like a kid.”
Change
The first requirement to enter God’s kingdom is to change. Another word for this is repent. Think of this as making a U-turn. To turn our lives around and follow Jesus.
This change may involve our attitude, our priorities, or our actions. Maybe all three. We need to change and follow Jesus.
Become Like Children
Once we change, Jesus tells us to become like children. What does this mean? I don’t think Jesus is giving us permission to act childish. That would be an excuse for irresponsibility.
Instead it may be a call for a childlike faith. Little children are so trusting.
They believe in their parents unconditionally, who they know will take care of them. These parents want the best for their kids and will do anything for them.
These kids know that. Jesus wants us to look at him the same way, as children with unwavering trust.
Consider the kingdom of heaven as both a present reality and a future hope, an eternal destination. When we repent and follow Jesus like a child, the kingdom of heaven is the inevitable result.
2. Become Great
When we assume this lowly position as a child, Jesus says we will become the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
3. Welcome Jesus
Furthermore, if we welcome a child in Jesus’s name, we welcome him. Think of the things we would do for Jesus if he were suddenly standing in front of us. Now we need to go do that for his kids.
As adults we sometimes take ourselves too seriously. Perhaps we do this most of the time.
Jesus’s call to change and become like children may be a call for us to loosen up and love him with unabashed passion, just as small kids love their parents.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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Though We Cite Scripture When We Take Communion, We Don’t Do it in a Biblical Way
Most Christian churches celebrate communion in some form in their worship practices. Though they do this in different ways and with varied frequencies, the central process is similar.
As a basis for their practice of communion—also called The Lord’s Supper or the Holy Eucharist—they cite biblical explanations of when Jesus instituted this practice.
These passages are often part of our modern practice of communion, either formally as part of a liturgy or informally in explaining the practice or as the elements are in your introduced.
Because we invoke Scripture when we take communion, we assume we’re doing it in a biblical way. Unfortunately we aren’t.
Though we crouch the experience in Scripture, we have veered far from what it should be, from what Jesus expected us to encounter.
To understand communion we need to look at the occasion when Jesus introduced this to his disciples. It happens as they celebrate the Passover meal.
Exploring this situation lets us know the meaning behind communion and informs us how we can rightly experience it today.
The Context of Communion
First we must note that both Passover and the setting when Jesus introduced communion happened during a meal. When is the last time you took communion as part of a meal?
I suspect your answer is seldom or never. And that’s the point. By separating the sacrament of communion from a meal diminishes its true meaning and turns a celebration into a ritual.
If we are to enjoy communion the way God intended, we need to make it part of a meal, not as a separate ceremony.
The Setting of Communion
Next consider the setting of where Passover and the first communion were celebrated. Passover occurred in the family home, with friends gathered and possibly some neighbors invited over.
It didn’t happen at a religious service or during some large gathering. Instead it was in a private setting, an intimate gathering with people close to you.
Jesus followed this when he celebrated his final Passover meal with his disciples. They met in the upper room of a home, and Jesus surrounded himself with his closest friends here on Earth.
They shared a meal and during that meal he introduced the symbol of the bread to represent his body and the wine to represent his spilt blood.
If we are to enjoy communion the way God intended, we need to do it in our homes with our family and friends, not in church.
The Frequency of Communion
Some Churches take communion every week, others once a month, and some quarterly. A few churches do communion at random times without any prescribed schedule.
So how often should we take communion? The answer will surprise you. It’s not weekly, monthly, quarterly, or randomly. There are two possible answers, which we can glean from the four accounts in the Bible about the first communion.
In these accounts Jesus tells us to do this in remembrance of him (Luke 22:19), and Paul adds the phrase, “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup” (1 Corinthians 11:26, NKJV). Well how often is that?
If you want to disassociate the phrase “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup” from the annual practice of Passover, then the only interpretation indicates every time you have a meal.
That means we should practice communion each time we sit down to eat.
That’s three times a day. And if we practice communion that often, we run the risk of it becoming a meaningless ritual much like the obligatory prayers we say before we eat.
However, since the setting was Passover and Passover is an annual event, it’s likely that Jesus intended for us to celebrate communion once a year, an annual holiday like Christmas or Easter.
Celebrate Communion
If we are to enjoy communion the way God intended, we need to do it once a year as an annual celebration, not more often.
This gives us three principles to follow if we are to rightly celebrate communion: It is part of a meal, enjoyed in the intimate setting of our homes surrounded by family and friends, and done as an annual event.
Noticed that a church building and a church service are nowhere in this understanding. Instead of celebrating communion at church, church should teach us how to celebrate this with our family in our homes.
When we do this, we will reclaim the celebration of communion as it was originally intended, how Jesus practiced it, and as the Bible describes it.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
A friend in a Master’s program recently took a pass/fail class designed to weed out weaker and mismatched students from the program.
After spending less than 10 minutes in one-on-one communication, the professor deemed him to be ill suited for the program and its associated profession.
He was summarily failed. Although discouraged, he repeated the class with another instructor, who declared him to be functioning at the PhD level!
Another friend was wrapping up her last semester of college, doing her student teaching. Things were going well and the mid-semester report was glowing.
Imagine her dismay when her mentor’s final assessment asserted that she was not fit to be an educator.
It took quite a while for her to rebound from the shock and disappointment; she selected a different career and never taught again.
Anytime someone has authority over another, their words carry a great deal of weight—so much so that career choices can be unnecessarily abandoned and self-esteem destroyed.
If you find that you have to deliver disheartening news, make sure the recipient knows why; explain your reasons; salt it with something positive; and never abandon them when they are at their weakest.
It is far better to use your position of authority to encourage others, to build them up, and to strengthen them.
Imagine my friend and how hard he will work and how far he will go, now that he is secure in the knowledge that he is functioning at the Ph.D. level.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Like yeast in a lump of dough, a little bit makes a big difference
In the thirteenth chapter of the book of Matthew, we read many parables of Jesus.
This includes the parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds, the parable of the hidden treasure, the parable of the pearl, the parable of the net, the parable of the mustard seed, and the parable of yeast.
The parable of the yeast is the shortest of them all, only one verse long. In comparison it seems insignificant and the point, easy to miss.
Part of the problem is that few people today know much about making bread. To make bread we mix several ingredients together. A key component in the recipe is yeast, sometimes called leaven.
Without yeast, the dough wouldn’t rise, the result would be more like a crunchy cracker then a fluffy piece of bread. A little bit of yeast makes all the difference.
Jesus wants us to remember this. We may see ourselves as yeast, perhaps small and seemingly insignificant, yet powerful in how we influence the world around us.
When we have Jesus in us, a little bit goes a long way.
Yet does it?
When we follow Jesus, he lives in us and Holy Spirit power is available to us. But do we use that to help others and impact our world? That’s what happens when the yeast of our lives is worked through the dough that surrounds us.
May we remember that we are yeast and our purpose is to affect the world for Jesus.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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In matters of faith, it’s not what we believe, it’s what we do
One of the promises during the modern era was that through the Age of Enlightenment (Age of Reason) we could pursue truth and it would eventually converge on a single understanding of reality. This didn’t happen.
Instead of converging to reach consensus, we diverged to produce disagreement.
Though this is true in all facets of our life, it is perhaps most pronounced in the area of spirituality. Protestantism is a prime example, with our 42,000 denominations disagreeing with one another.
We fight about theology. Then we separate ourselves from those who don’t agree with us.
The sad thing about pursuing a right theology is the inevitable conclusion that everyone who doesn’t agree with us is wrong and headed down a misguided path. Then we separate ourselves and cause more division.
At a most basic level, theology is the study of God. I think about him a great deal. I contemplate my relationship with him. I wonder how that should inform the way I interact with others.
Yes, I think a lot about theology (God), not as an intellectual pursuit but as a matter of spiritual imperative.
To be painfully honest, I must admit a sense of pleasure over the results of my spiritual musings. I hope a degree of humility can replace this hint of pride.
Although I think my deliberations in spirituality are correct and produce meaningful insights, I hold my views loosely. After all I could be wrong.
The reality is that the details of how we understand God don’t matter as much as how this understanding affects the way we live. God doesn’t care about our theology nearly as much as he does our actions.
We need to produce fruit. Jesus says that bearing fruit glorifies God (John 15:8).
This means we need to put our faith in action. The Bible tells us to. James discusses this (James 2:14-26). He ends this passage by saying faith without action is dead (James 2:14, CEB).
What we believe doesn’t matter nearly as much as what we do. May we never forget that.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
Regular readers may recall my post about mourning three bird eggs that had been knocked to the ground when a severe storm destroyed their next. I had compassion for their death, but there was nothing I could do.
When I was out moving sprinklers in my yard I was horrified to see three too-young baby birds on the ground. They couldn’t fly and one couldn’t even hop; as I approached, they opened their mouths in hope of some needed sustenance.
Again, I had compassion but was frozen in a state of inaction. A myriad of thoughts rushed through my mind:
I don’t know what to do.
They’re going to die anyway.
I’m too busy.
What if they carry disease?
I should let nature take its course?
I would periodically check on them with each move of the sprinklers. I continued to feel compassion and tried to justify my inaction.
A couple of times I saw an adult bird on the ground near them. I convinced myself that their parents were tending to them.
Yet each time I approached, they turned in my direction and opened their mouths.
By the next day, the weakest of the three wasn’t looking too good and he later died. Would I likewise be witness to his siblings’ demise?
On the third day, one of them was clinging to the side of a tree and later he was gone. I never saw him again and assume he was able to fly away.
On the fourth day, the remaining bird was hopping with a bit more vigor and for the first time was instinctively flapping his wings. An hour later, he too was gone.
I should be happy that two out of three made it, but I wonder if I should have tried to help their weaker brother.
What I do know is that compassion without action is worthless.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
We should show our gratitude to Jesus for all he has done for us
The Bible records many things Jesus did when he was here on earth. A reoccurring action is Jesus healing people from their physical and spiritual maladies.
Matthew 8 records several of these instances, and we will focus on one of them: Peter’s mother-in-law.
Jesus goes to Peter’s house; his mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. (Note the reference to Peter’s mother-in-law. This tells us Peter was married.)
Though we may not think too much about a fever today, this illness was bad enough to keep this woman in bed.
She wasn’t merely resting, waiting to get better. She was incapacitated and not able to do anything. The situation was serious.
Jesus walks up to the bed and touches her hand. When he does her fever leaves her body. The next phrase is curious. It says she gets up to wait on him.
The cynic might say that Jesus healed her with selfish intentions, that he made her well only so she could take care of him, likely preparing some food for him to eat.
Though this is a humorous thought and one many women likely nod their head in agreement with and might make men snicker, this misses the point.
Peter’s Mother-in-Law Responds to Jesus
Instead, I see Peter’s mother-in-law taking care of Jesus as a response to show her gratitude to him for what he did to make her better. Her example is one for us to follow.
Jesus has done so much for us. What do we do to show our gratitude to him?
It’s too easy for us to move from day-to-day and take Jesus’s work in our lives for granted, to not bother to show him our appreciation.
Jesus saved us, forgave us, and restored us to right relationship with his father. Plus, Jesus loves us, teaches us about God, and shows us how to live.
For all Jesus has done, what should our response be? What can we do to show Jesus how much we appreciate him?
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
Each week a free paper is delivered to our home. Each week I walk it from the paper-box to the trash can.
When my dad was alive, he would recycle these papers, but with shorter hours at the recycling center and higher gas prices, I often wondered if his efforts were worth it.
Now the papers become instant garbage.
I’ve received this paper for years. I never wanted it, read it, or used it (except as a fire-starter or for those projects whose cleanup benefited from the liberal use of newspaper).
“Enough of this madness,” I said one day. Instead of feeling guilty about not recycling, I decided to skirt the issue by not receiving the paper in the first place.
To be expedient, I removed the paper-box (and threw it away). Not to be deterred, the carrier merely put the paper in a different box.
Next, I called the publisher; to my surprise, they cheerfully “canceled” my subscription. Two weeks have gone by and no more paper. Refusing the paper is much easier than recycling it.
Encouraged by this, I next tackled all the free magazines I received that I don’t want or read. Most of them I never even requested; they just started showing up—and kept showing up.
Another area of refusal—that I’ve been doing for years—is bags for the merchandise I buy. It perplexes me that even when I buy only one item, it’s automatically bagged.
Checkers are shocked when I decline their bag or stunned when I remove my purchase from the bag, leaving it there for the next customer.
I do the same thing with two or three items, though I don’t recommend more than six. I tried that once and the result wasn’t good. Sometimes you need a bag.
Refusing trumps recycling every time. It may not be much, but if everyone does a little, it can really mean a lot.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
For all their differences, both creation and the theory of evolution require an element of faith
In school I learned about evolution. In church I learned about creation.
Creation marks the beginning of the Bible and forms the foundation of my worldview, which started as a child from my parents and became an informed decision as an adult.
I’m not sure if creation versus evolution is an either/or consideration, or if there’s a way for them to peaceably coexist. It could happen. But I do know is that either perspective requires an element of faith.
Obviously, it requires faith to believe in an unseen God who created the universe and has an interest in us as his creation.
However, when I look at the theory of evolution in follow its path back to the beginning, I reach a point where something had to come out of nothing.
That requires a great deal of faith, too, even more then is needed to accept that God made us and the world we live in.
To me it’s easier to, by faith, except a superior entity who exists outside our time-space reality.
In fact, since time and space exist on a continuum, if you perceive God as the creator of space, then he’s also the creator of time. That means he exists outside our time-space reality, which he created as our playground.
On a simple scale, it’s much like you or I constructing an ant farm. We would exist outside our creation, and the ants would live inside it. The ant farm would be the ant’s world, their reality.
We would be an entity external to them and beyond their comprehension.
The issue of creation versus evolution boils down to faith. Which is easier to accept in faith? At its basic core evolution requires we accept that something came out of nothing.
Conversely, creation requires we have faith of an entity who lives outside our time-space reality.
Given this, I need less faith to believe in creation than I do to accept the theory of evolution.
Yes, there’s a middle ground, that God created our reality using the process of evolution.
To me it doesn’t matter how God created us and our world. I see myself as a created being and desire to worship the God who made me.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
