On one side of the debate are the conservatives who prefer a smaller version of government and on the other side are the liberals who prefer a larger form of government. The difference between them is how much presence and how big a role they want government to have in our lives.

The political debate revolves around whether the government should provide positive and/or negative rights for its citizens. Positive rights are benefits provided to people by government, and negative rights are freedoms protected for people by government.

Those who believe government should provide positive rights see bigger government primarily as a welcome influence whereas those who believe government should only protect negative rights see bigger government essentially as an unwelcome interference.

In other words, proponents of big government think that the government should do more for its citizens than just protect their rights. They think the government ought to also provide them beneficial things such as entitlement programs and healthcare.

On the other hand, proponents of small government think that government should only protect the rights of its citizens and stay out of their way. They believe that government should only clear the path by removing obstacles to free enterprise and then leave people alone.

Up until the progressive era that started about 50 years ago, most people preferred a limited view of government. But since then, progressives have pushed for a larger, more expansive form of government in our country. So, the debate over the size and scope of government is as controversial as ever.

Many think, though, that the only reason why the size of government matters is because of the political or fiscal implications. However, I would contend that the issue of the size of government also has significant religious implications too. And, that is something we should be concerned about.

The reason why this issue matters is because of the huge divide that has been manufactured between Church and State. Ever since Thomas Jefferson’s words in a letter about a wall of separation between Church and State have been adopted, and in my view hijacked, government has steadily moved toward becoming “religion free”.

There has been a fundamental shift in government away from viewing religion as something productive that should be included in the public square to viewing religion as something divisive that should be removed from it. As a result, religion has been relegated from the public sphere to the private.

And, over time government’s view of neutrality has changed from not taking sides between different religious traditions to not siding with religion at all. Now, government unfortunately thinks neutrality means keeping government and religion completely separate.

Because of the current separation of Church and State, government has been trying to remove religion from the public square altogether, and that includes public institutions, agencies, schools and universities. Freedoms to pray publicly, to cite Scripture, and to even display religious symbols in those centers have been routinely stripped from public view.

The problem with this kind of growth is that the bigger the government becomes, the more of the public square it absorbs. And, as the government subsumes more of the public square, religious activity gets pushed out of it.

What we end up with is a completely secular square with little or no religious presence that is, in fact, mandated by law. It is scary to think what life would be like in our country should it actually become illegal to speak out about matters of religion at any level in the public square.

Because big government will end up repressing religious freedom in our culture, we should be concerned about it. The bigger the State gets, the smaller the Church and other religious institutions become. As the secular grows, the sacred shrinks, and that is why big government is a problem.

It really has nothing to do with political affiliations or parties. Rather, it has everything to do with religious liberty. The First Amendment guarantees us religious freedom and part of that freedom is the right to practice our faith in public and influence the culture in which we live.

If that religious freedom is suppressed or pushed to the fringe of society, then we will end up with a naked public square, a secular State, and a society without a conscience.

Those who reject the biblical account have to come up with another explanation, and that means the burden of proof is on them to explain how we got something from nothing. The very idea of this happening, though, is perplexing unless an intelligent being is responsible.

Something cannot come from nothing. It just isn’t possible, and it doesn’t make any logical sense. Someone who is intelligent, powerful, and volitional must have brought things into being because things do not come into being on their own.

The question of origins is a critical issue, and naturalism hasn’t come up with a viable explanation for it. Scientific naturalists have advanced theories about how they think things developed over time but have provided very little about how they think things got started.

The best attempt that they’ve come up with is a theory called The Big Bang. Now, Christians usually bristle when they hear about the idea of a big bang because they presume it is in conflict with the biblical account of creation.

However, the concept of a big bang actually aligns quite nicely with the Genesis account, which tells us that the universe came into being in an instant. We read that God spoke things into being, which describes an instantaneous event.

What evolutionists call The Big Bang, we simply call the Creation Event. It’s like looking at the same picture but only from different perspectives. And, what we can agree on is the fact that things got their start in a split second.

In an article published last year, a respected Johns Hopkins physicist Dr. Charles Bennett was quoted about some groundbreaking research that he presented at PrincetonUniversityin which he demonstrated how the universe grew to astounding proportions in less than the blink of an eye.

Dr. Bennett said, “It amazes me that we can say anything at all about what transpired in the first trillionth of a second of the universe.” His research about the instantaneous beginning of the universe aligns with and actually confirms what we read in Genesis.

The universe did, in fact, come into being in a trillionth of a second. The question is, what caused it to happen? Did something cataclysmic just explode on its own and lead to the formation of matter and eventual life? Or, did someone cause it to happen?

Something, or Someone, had to be the first cause, and that agent had to be uncaused. As we have always heard, every effect must have a cause, and if the effect is the universe, then there must be an initial cause that precipitated it.

The most plausible solution is that a free willed, intelligent, powerful being is that cause. It had to be a Designer who had not just the power to create but also the will and the freedom to do so.

My encouragement to those who embrace The Big Bang but reject the biblical account of a Creator is simply to ask themselves, what is the best explanation? Is the best, most simple answer that things exploded without cause or that someone intentionally caused it?

Scientific discovery is all about evidence, and the real scientist will always follow the evidence. And, if the evidence of origins, in fact, leads to a Creator, then why dismiss that? It seems to me that for those who want to do true scientific inquiry, they would base their conclusions not upon biases but upon facts.

All I am suggesting is that empirical students do the research that they claim to do. Look at the evidence and follow it. Apply Ockham’s Razor to the problem, and see for yourself if the simplest and best solution for The Big Bang is not creation.

And, for convinced Christians, we need to stop fearing The Big Bang. The theory isn’t that far off from the truth, and it is a big step in the right direction. Instead of looking for reasons to reject it, why don’t we look for commonalities to share with it?

After all, Paul did this very thing in Acts 17 when he affirmed that the Athenian philosophers were on the right track in worshipping an unknown god. He found common ground with the Athenians, took what was unknown to them, and then graciously explained it.

I liken the debate over The Big Bang in our culture to the unknown god in Athens. The Big Bang isn’t a bad idea; it’s just not a complete idea. That means it needs to be developed and explained, not feared and rejected.

People like the idea of tolerance because it sounds like it is a palatable “live and let live” approach to life. It’s a mentality that sells well in a postmodern world because it seems so inclusive and it sounds so accepting. Everyone wants to be tolerant of everyone else because apparently the worst thing you can be today is intolerant or judgmental.

Tolerance, though, has become a sort of trump card that people use to shut other people down if they have anything to say that they might deem as controversial or unpopular. And, it has often been used to silence religious groups and members of the faith community to keep them from speaking out against immoral behavior or wrong belief.

The truth is that a measure of tolerance isn’t necessarily bad because it does actually stifle violent behavior and hateful words. Of course, people should never attack each other or even demean others no matter how much they disagree with someone else’s behaviors or beliefs. So, in that way, tolerance can do some good.

However, tolerance in our culture is usually not about mutual respect and charity. Tolerance is more often about acceptance of every lifestyle and equality of all ideas. The essence of tolerance today is embracing all belief systems and every individual choice, no matter how selfish or harmful one’s choices may be to oneself or to society.

In our culture, it seems that we would rather let an alcoholic drink herself to death than tell her she has a problem. And, we would prefer to allow an addict to self destruct rather than dare to tell him he is wrong. We would also rather let marriages fall apart and kids crash and burn than risk speaking up about the dangers of foolish choices and false thinking.

In our society, no one has the right to impose their moral convictions on others and no one’s views are more acceptable than any other’s. In a tolerant society, there are no rules or boundaries. There are only preferences and opinions. So, nobody really has the right to speak into the lives of others or has the obligation to listen to others speak into theirs.

In concept, tolerance sounds pretty good. But, in practice it is actually pretty bad. The reason why is because it doesn’t work. A truly tolerant society doesn’t work because it causes people not to care more about their fellow man; it causes them to care less. People start to care less when their efforts to show interest and concern are discouraged.

The truth is that when tolerance is drilled down into our collective minds and hearts, we are actually conditioned by it to have less interest and show less concern for other people. When our attempts to look in on and look after the welfare of others is culturally diminished, then we eventually stop caring altogether.

For this reason, tolerance is actually worse than hate. At least when you hate, you care. You care enough to get worked up about something. You are care enough to speak up and say something. But, when you are indifferent, you don’t even care. And, this is where tolerance leads.

Tolerance is bad because it fosters indifference. And, indifference is the opposite of love. If we love others, then we will look out for them, we will speak into their lives, and we will care enough to tell them the truth. Even if it hurts or offends, real love means telling others when they are heading in the wrong direction or when they are harming themselves or others.

It is as the Jewish-American writer, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once wrote in U.S. News and World Report, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

Tolerance is indifference. It is the opposite of everything good including love, art, faith and life. Indifference destroys cultures and harms people, and that is why it’s bad for us and bad for society.

Now, I know what they are intending when they use this expression. I understand that they mean Christianity is different from other religions because it is not about keeping legalistic rules and performing empty rituals. It’s about trusting in Christ and not about trying to earn God’s approval.

And, I also understand that we may dislike the word “religion” because it has negative associations for people. For some, it has come to be associated with something boring or oppressive, but that is largely defined by one’s own personal experience so it shouldn’t be used to indict religion as a whole.

Just because religion has negative associations for some, does that mean we should all abandon the concept? Do we simply give up on the idea because some people had a bad experience or should we instead reclaim and redeem it? I am of the persuasion that thinks we ought to do the latter.

So, in the sense that religion is not about legalistic duty and that it has some real world negative associations, Christians who use the phrase are right. But, in the sense that they want to reject the word and ditch the concept of religion, they are wrong. When they say that Christianity is not a religion, they are simply mistaken because it is.

The dictionary defines religion as “A set of beliefs concerning cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”

So, according to that definition, Christianity is clearly a religion. The textbook definition is right, which means that we don’t need to get rid of the idea of religion. We simply have to define it or, in many cases, redefine it.

Christianity is a religion because it needs to be. If Christianity is not a religion, then it is in a category all to itself, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. The reason why is because defining Christianity as something else altogether does set us apart, but it also isolates us.

If Christianity is not a religion, then there are two significant issues that arise. First, if Christianity is not considered a religion, then it means that we do not have a place in the religious marketplace of ideas. We only have our own circle in which to talk about “relationship”.

In other words, if Christianity is not also a religion, just as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam are, then how can we expect to be taken seriously in the debate? After all, how can we enter into the forum of world religions if we don’t belong there?

If we want to enter into the religious studies debate, then we need to have a seat at the table of world religion. If we secure a seat, then we can get the opportunity to exhibit the Christian worldview and negotiate its relevance to the religious discussion.

To be taken seriously in the religious milieu today, we shouldn’t be trying to exclude ourselves from the dialogue. We ought not to retreat to our own domain, but we inadvertently end up doing this very thing when we don’t call ourselves a religion.

If we say we’re not about religion but relationship, then we make it sound like Christianity is thin and hollow, not thick and substantial. The Christian faith is something to take seriously, and it belongs in the discussion of religion.

And, second, if Christianity is not a religion, then it also means we are not recognized by the State and are therefore not protected by First Amendment rights. If you recall from your American History class in high school, the First Amendment is what guarantees freedom to practice “religion”.

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Notice that it doesn’t say that Congress shall not respect or prohibit the exercise of “relationship”.

I think people just repeat an expression like “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion” because it sounds nice and people use it a lot. It’s a cliché, and we are notorious for repeating Christian platitudes and clichés. But, platitudes and clichés make us look bad. They make us sound shallow like we’re an inch deep and a mile wide.

Sometimes I fear that we keep coming up with clever ways to say things in order to either side step honest debate with others or to preclude ourselves from any serious scrutiny. In other words, not calling ourselves a religion can be a sort of trump card that we play in order to evade criticism or avoid intelligent interaction.

The truth is that religion does require us to do certain things and do them “religiously”. There is value in “doing” religion and not just in “being” in a relationship. The truth is that the Scriptures talk just as much about doing the right things as they talk about being good people.

In fact, James tells us explicitly in his book that there is such a thing as doing religion, and doing it righteously. James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

James’ command shows that he is not down on religion at all. Rather, he is quite up on it as long as it’s the right kind. He writes that real religion is about doing something (caring for the most vulnerable) and about not doing something (avoiding the temptations of this world). So, religion is about doing and not just about being.

As Christians we need to be thoughtful in the way that we talk about our faith. Though we do want to distinguish our religion from all the others and to make the case that the Christian worldview is the best one, we must first get the opportunity to do so.

When we use Christian clichés like “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion”, we often end up shutting down our chances to gain a hearing with others. The reason why is that it often comes across as dogmatic and even triumphalistic.

The message that this sends is that we are not interested in debate and that we are somehow superior to others. The fact is that people are turned off by those who appear to be closed off or puffed up, so we clearly don’t want to project that kind of image to the world.

Instead of promulgating a message like that, it seems to me that it would be better to try to open the doors of communication with the world rather than close them. And, one of the ways that we can do this is by choosing commonalities and building bridges with others.

We can prop one of those doors open by dropping our resistance to using the term religion and embrace what it provides us in the marketplace of spiritual ideas as well as what it protects us from in a country that guarantees religious freedoms.

So, the bottom line is that Christianity is a relationship, but it is also a religion. It is a religion by definition and by practice, which means that religion is not a bad thing. It is not a word to be avoided or a concept to be ignored.

The Christian religion is unique and offers the best and most holistic view of the world, and we want to get the opportunity to share that with others. But, in order to have that chance to voice our faith, we need to take our seat at the table of religion.

At the same time, I am actually encouraged by those results because it proves that the case is far from closed and shows that there is room for disagreement and healthy debate within the church regarding this issue. Even in a Bible church that is largely conservative theologically there is wide diversity in perspectives, so this clearly is not a liberal/conservative issue.

I grew up in a largely young earth environment and was consistently taught one side of the debate, which led to my presuming that there really was only one biblical view on this issue, at least for those Christians who consider the Scriptures to be inerrant. Like others in my circle, I was fairly dogmatic about this belief because I didn’t know any different.

So, I was genuinely surprised when I later learned that there are actually several other views held by evangelical Christians who maintain a high view of Scripture and are sincerely conservative in their theology. I eventually came to realize that the only difference between them and those in my tradition was the way that they interpret the same infallible Scripture.

This realization led me to look into the other views and read a host of literature from disparate perspectives, and the net result of that investigation for me is a high regard for the different views and deep respect for those who hold them. I now understand more fully that there are legitimate arguments for different views and that they are held by God-fearing, Bible-believing, highly intelligent Christians.

Admittedly, I still favor a young earth view, but my reasons are more theological and exegetical than they are geologic and scientific. I have read equally compelling arguments for and against a young earth based upon geology, but being a pastor and not a geologist I understandably and hopefully appropriately give more weight to special revelation than to natural.

Given that bias, I let Scripture become the ultimate arbiter of the issue. And, for that reason, I actually do prefer the common understanding of “yom” (day) in the Genesis account, which is the 24-hour day. And, I have found that the theological problem of suffering and death in the world before Adam’s sin though not insurmountable is quite difficult to reconcile with the rest of Scripture.

Nevertheless, I hold my personal leanings loosely knowing that I could be wrong. The truth is that the Scripture is not clearly explicit on this issue and there must be room for charitable disagreement in the church. We ought to permit and even encourage healthy dialogue and investigation to occur within the church and be tolerant of and comfortable with a diversity of views.

That being said, I am really concerned about two things regarding this emotionally charged debate in the church today. First, it bothers me how Christians treat each other while fighting over this issue. Young Earth Creationists accuse Old Earth Creationists of being unbiblical compromisers and Old Earth Creationists return the favor by calling Young Earth Creationists narrow-minded simpletons.

When I first read Hugh Ross’s A Matter of Days, I was stunned to hear how alienated and persecuted he felt by the evangelical church for his old earth views. In fact, he laments for several pages the unmitigated anger that was directed his way by pastors and evangelical leaders when he went public with his arguments.

In the same way, I was equally shocked to learn that Ken Hamm was being panned and ridiculed for his young earth views at Answers in Genesis. It seems many in the old earth community actually mock him and his peers for holding what they deem an outdated and narrow minded perspective.

Having grown up among young earth proponents that I respect, I am equally concerned by the childish panning directed their way as I am by the angry condemning that is returned. As a pastor who values diversity in lesser debates, I really am embarrassed by the lack of charity shown by both sides.

The other thing that bothers me about this issue is that I believe the church is fighting the wrong war. Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” as we live and minister in the midst of wolves, and being wise means that we must know where to draw the battle lines. As Christians, we too often draw lines where they shouldn’t be. And, the age of the earth need not be a battle line in the church.

Being wise as a snake is about knowing where the true war is, and the true battlefront is not whether the earth is young or old but whether the earth is created or not. You see, the real war today is whether God created the world or whether it evolved by blind chance. This means that we are fighting in the wrong place and wasting our energy and resources on the wrong things.

While the church is busy bickering about whether the earth is thousands or millions of years old, the culture is more interested in deciding whether there is any need for a Creator in the first place. In case you haven’t noticed, atheism is growing at unprecedented rates in America and around the world because more people think that God is basically unnecessary.

When we divide our forces and fight on the wrong battlefronts, we are spinning our wheels and wasting precious time in the real war over the creation story. People have forgotten that there is a God who created them and has plans for them because evolutionary naturalism tells them something different.

From a young age, we are taught that we are nothing more than an accident in the grand scheme of unfolding evolutionary events. Our culture believes more every day in blind chance as the parent for all things including us, and we lose more ground each year because we aren’t mounting efforts to show them otherwise.

Instead of fighting with each other about WHEN and HOW God created the earth, we ought to be fighting together for the truth THAT God created the earth and the people on it. The when and how are secondary. What is primary is the fact that there is a Creator who made all things, and that Creator is the God of the Bible.

People today need to hear one common message from the Church, and that message is that there is a Creator who made them, loves them, and has plans for them. They need to see that there is undeniable evidence that our world is carefully designed and personally superintended by an all powerful God, and they need to know that they are not an accident and that people have value, dignity and purpose because God gave it to them.

For this reason, I want to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to stop wasting emotional energy and spiritual resources on the when and how of creation and instead start spending it on the “that” of creation. Let’s invest ourselves in one common cause and unite in one shared message that the God of the universe made everything and He made it all for a purpose.

When I was a young child, my family was eating lunch at a restaurant after church one Sunday. At the time, my father was the new pastor at the Baptist church in San Lorenzo Valley, and Dr. Vernon Grounds of Denver Seminary was in town speaking at another church in the area.

He just happened to be dining in the same restaurant as us and noticed our family seated across from him. For some reason, he decided to stand up, walk across the room and introduce himself to my parents. He then looked at the two little boys seated at the table and asked if he could lay his hands on their heads and pray a prayer of blessing on both of them right there in front of a restaurant full of people.

Now, I’m not a mystic, but I’m mystical enough to think that something special was conveyed that day through the hands of a saintly leader to those two little auspicious boys. Whatever occurred that day, I wonder if the experience explains in part the path that my brother and I have both taken in this life.

As a young man, I recall sitting in church and hearing my father tell the church that he believed in his sons and invited them to watch us grow and see for themselves what God would do through us. His affirmation gave us both something to reach for, but more importantly, it gave us the security of having his confidence.

From that day forward, we both took the responsibility seriously of living up to the challenge that our father gave us and endeavored to prove him right. Though we both faltered as all young men do and had to grow up like everyone else, we held onto the affirmation that our father gave to us and it carried us through those years.

As a college student, I worked for a summer on a cruise ship. During the course of that summer experience, I never ran into another professing Christian among my coworkers. I found myself suddenly isolated from my life back in Arizona and my personal commitment to Christ was put to the test as never before.

I had many opportunities to turn away from God and indulge myself in sin, but God supplied me the strength to withstand the temptations. It was during that time of testing that I felt the true call of God on my life to serve Him in vocational ministry, and it was then that I decided that I would go to seminary.

Now, one would think that having the blessing of a spiritual patriarch, the confidence of a father and a clear call from God would be enough for a dynamic and effective ministry. Some would say that I had everything I needed then to be a great minister, but it wasn’t enough. There were some things that I still lacked.

In Paul’s second letter to his protégé Timothy he told the young pastor that his gifts and talents, his sense of calling and even his affirmation from Paul was not enough to be an effective pastor. No, Paul told him that he needed more.

Paul told him that in God’s house there are vessels of gold and silver and then there are vessels of wood and clay. And, the difference between them is how “honorable” they are. In God’s economy there are common and uncommon ministers, and even though God loves and values both of them, He chooses to use the uncommon ones.

Paul’s exhortation to Timothy was that before one can expect to be used by God, he or she must be honorable. So then, how does one become honorable? Paul writes that to be honorable, one must be “set apart as holy”, “useful to the master of the house” and “ready for every good work.”

First, Paul says that to be honorable we must be set apart. The Greek word for set apart is hagiazo, and it means to literally be purified. One can be set apart for anything, but Paul says that one must specifically be set apart “as holy.” This means that we must, in fact, be made holy before we can be considered honorable.

Usually, the word is translated as sanctified, and the thing about sanctification is that it is not an event but a process. Justification is an event, the moment that one is declared righteous through faith in Christ, but sanctification is a process that begins and continues through life.

And, though we are largely sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we are also sanctified through the exhortation of others. In other words, we need other people in our life who are further down the road, more mature and credible than we are who are willing to speak into our lives and show us our blind spots.

We all have blind spots, and we need others who can show us what we cannot see ourselves. In my case, I had a big blind spot when I went to seminary. At my 60 hour review, I received a letter from the faculty informing me that they were largely pleased with my academic work and impressed with my gifts and skills.

However, they also told me that there was one thing they felt would inhibit my ministry and impede my progress in seminary if I didn’t confront it. Collectively, they said there was evidence of pride in my life, and I needed to be purified of it. They knew that God would hold me back until I learned the essence of true humility.

Looking back on that experience, I can honestly say that it was quite painful and embarrassing to have all my professors call me out in a formal way, and I was hurt for a while. But, as time passed I learned that it was quite necessary and was really only the first of several events in my life that God has used to break me of my pride.

So, many years later, I now find myself grateful for the purification I received from the faculty at Phoenix Seminary. I’m glad they cared enough about me to tell me the truth, even if it meant hurting me for a season. Their investment into my life has served me well as it has spared me from just spinning my wheels in ministry.

Second, Paul says that to be honorable we must be useful to the master of the house. The Greek word for useful is euchrestos, and it literally means to be equipped. To be equipped is to have the right tools and skills for the task at hand. In the case of ministry, one must have the tools and skills necessary to read, interpret and apply the Scriptures. They must also have the ability to think theologically and philosophically.

In seminary I gained the tools and skills I could not provide for myself. I learned church history, theology, Bible and the biblical languages. My mind and heart were stretched in profound ways in school as I was taught not only to process but also to integrate all the fields of study into life and ministry.

Now, I have two little boys named Ethan and Christian. Ethan is five and Christian is three, and they both love Thomas the Train. As I have endured watching the many episodes over the last few years with them I have picked up something that struck me. I noticed that all the little trains in the show have one primary goal in life, and that goal is not to be the fastest, the strongest or the smartest, but to be the most useful.

That’s right. Their central goal in their life as a train is to be a “really useful engine.” I was honestly taken by that idea as it accurately describes what our goal ought to be in ministry. We too want to be really useful to the Master, and our usefulness is directly tied to how well equipped we are to serve Him.

Third, Paul says that to be honorable we must be ready for every good work. The Greek word for ready is hetoimazo, which literally means to be prepared. To be prepared is to take the appropriate time to study and practice in order to be qualified and approved for ministry.

There is tremendous value in taking the time to get prepared for doing good work. No lawyer practices law without going to law school and no doctor practices medicine without going to medical school. It is no different for ministers of the gospel as there is no substitute for good preparation.

There is a story told by Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book Grace about two lumberjacks who challenge each other to an all day wood chopping contest. One chopped wood all day long and noticed that the other took many breaks and enjoyed a leisurely lunch. At the end of the day, the one who chopped all day long was upset to find that the other had chopped more wood than he had. The man who took all the breaks told him that what he had failed to notice is that while he rested he was sharpening his axe.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” Seminary training is about sharpening our axe. It is about taking the time to get prepared so we can be more effective in our ministries and always ready for good works.

In my case, I gladly spent four years of my life in seminary knowing that it would prepare me for all the good works that God has prepared for me the rest of my life. If I didn’t take the time to prepare, I know that I would likely not be ready for all the good opportunities when they came my way.

So, as we can see, there is more to being an effective minister than having the blessing of a leader, the affirmation of others and even the sense of a personal call. According to Paul, being an honorable vessel is about being set apart, useful and ready. It’s about being purified, equipped and prepared for the ministry that God gives us.

We must resist the urge to coast on our own abilities and gifts, on our own confidence in a personal calling, and on the affirmation of others. The truth is that we can have all those things and still just be a common or dishonorable vessel that is unused by God.

To be an uncommon and honorable vessel that is used by God, there must be more. We must give him what He desires from us. That is, we must be purified of our pride, we must be equipped with the right tools and skills, and we must be prepared with instruction and training. If we want for God to use us, then we must, in turn, give Him something that He can use!

This is why we need Phoenix Seminary. We need a graduate school that turns common vessels into uncommon vessels, ignoble instruments into noble ones, and what is dishonorable into what is honorable. This seminary is turning the wood and clay into gold and silver, ensuring that the next generation of pastors, teachers, leaders, missionaries, chaplains and everyday ministers are really ready for the great work that lies ahead.

It’s not that I don’t believe in the 9^th commandment. I do. I believe that God does command us to tell the truth and that it is wrong to lie. However, I came to a profound understanding after reflecting on the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that telling the truth is more than just not telling lies.

That simple reflection has deeply challenged my conviction about what it really means to tell the truth. Telling the truth is not just about what we don’t do. It is also very much about what we do. In other words, speaking the truth is not just about avoiding saying anything untrue. It is also about purposely saying what is true.

This was the conviction of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who spoke the truth about Hitler and the Third Reich in Nazi Germany during World War II and paid for it with his life. Though some argue that he went to the gallows not for speaking the truth but for lying about his participation in the plot to assassinate Hitler, I would suggest that his “lie” may have actually been perhaps more about truth than deceit.

What I mean by that is his choice to involve himself in the attempt to rid the world of evil incarnate in order to spare the lives of Jewish victims was a very bold statement about what is right and true. His choice to affirm and defend the dignity of human life actually reveals a deep conviction about and firm commitment to the truth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt compelled by his faith to not only speak but also to act, and though we don’t have a fully orbed understanding of why he acted the way he did, we do know that he had a strong conviction to do so. At some point in his ministry he obviously felt obligated to take action and felt it so strongly that he never second-guessed himself.

Though it is perplexing to some that he would choose to participate in a plot to murder another human being, he believed that Hitler wasn’t just another human being. He believed the fuehrer to be the devil on earth, the mortal enemy of God and humanity. For this reason, he was compelled to act and stop him.

It should be noted that Bonhoeffer never asked anyone to bear his burden with him or to follow in his steps. He saw that his action was something only he could take. His was an assignment given to him by God himself and was not a mandate or example for anyone else to follow.

Even though his decision to deceive is complex and confusing to others, I can see after reading this book that it wasn’t confusing to him at all. I am confident that he thought long and hard about his choice before he made it and that he was fully aware of the consequences that came with it.

Bonhoeffer preached that real faith must lead to action and that action is sometimes costly.  That’s why he famously wrote: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” And in that statement we see everything we need to know about why he felt compelled to act.

Some will argue that lying is never justified even if it means that evil prevails. Those who believe this typically have a hard time balancing the letter of the law with the spirit of the law. What I mean by that is in Scripture there is both law and intent, and many struggle to see both.

Jesus had to come and parse the intent for all those who could only see law. There were many in his day, especially the most religious, who memorized every letter but missed every point, and that is why Jesus had to explain everything to them all over again.

You see, there is a spirit within Scripture, an intent that reveals what God really desires from us. And, if we get too consumed just with the words, then we could easily miss it. The spirit will never undermine the words, but the spirit will always qualify them. Recognizing the spirit of Scripture is a more delicate and difficult task than just reading the words, but it is no less important.

Clearly, Bonhoeffer was able to discern the spirit of Scripture. He could see that there were gradations of evil and degrees of wrong, and he could tell that some were more acceptable than others. In his case, Bonhoeffer believed that practicing deception was better than letting other people die.

When it comes to Scripture, I think a very relevant passage is in Acts 5 where Peter and the apostles are told by the council not to teach about Jesus, but they resist human authority arguing that “We must obey God rather than men.”

In their predicament the apostles had to make a choice between two wrongs. They either had to sin by disobeying governing authorities or sin by disobeying God. Obviously, they chose not to disobey God as that would have been the greater evil. It didn’t make their disobedience to the council right, but it did make it justifiable.

Then, of course, there is the case of the Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1 who lied to Pharaoh about the Hebrew children that he had ordered them to execute. When Pharaoh asked them why they defied him and let the children live, they made up a bogus story about being too slow to kill them.

God’s response to the midwives was to “deal well with them because they feared God.” In fact, God was so pleased with what the midwives did that He blessed them all with families of their own. The favor that God showed all of these women suggests that their lie was justified.

Likewise, the prostitute Rahab lied to the King of Jericho in Joshua 2 in order to protect the spies she was harboring on her roof. As a result of her action, they promised to “deal kindly and faithfully” with her and her family when they conquered the city.

More than that, Rahab is conspicuously included in the genealogy of Jesus and also counted among the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. Although it doesn’t say she was actually commended for her lie, she certainly wasn’t condemned for it. Instead, Rahab was not only saved for her action but was also honored and immortalized in Scripture.

Taking all of this into account, it seems to me that telling the truth is as much an art as it is a science. Knowing what to do in a given situation requires wisdom and discernment, and it is often not quite as simple as just telling it like it is. It is usually more complex than that, and we would be naïve to suggest that it’s just a matter of not telling lies.

I am not suggesting that lying is ever right. What I am proposing is that it might be justified if a greater good or a significant truth is in jeopardy. Deception is always wrong, but it is sometimes less wrong than something else. When this happens, choosing the lesser evil would be the better thing to do.

That being said, I would suggest that the guiding principle for telling the truth ought to be not what is morally expedient for us but what would be the most pleasing to God. In other words, if saving the life of another human being is more important to God than my having a clean moral conscience, then acting in the interest of others is exactly how we tell the truth.

For most birthdays, I usually have some clearly defined goals for the following year and high expectations for what I would set out to accomplish. You see, I have always been a fairly ambitious person.

I have been ambitious personally and professionally, setting high goals for personal achievement and for professional success. Growing up, I carried my keys around on a chain with the word that pretty much summed up my philosophy…excellence.

Yes, I have always been committed to doing things excellently, and that has usually translated into achievement and success. For this reason, I have usually met my goals and have always reached for my dreams.

However, something has changed for me. It’s not that I don’t have goals or dreams. It’s just that they’ve become fewer and smaller. Up until this past year, I’ve had many things I’ve wanted to pursue personally and have had big visions of reward and recognition professionally.

But, most of that has really subsided. I used to enthusiastically say that I wanted to “blow a hole in history” but now am actually quite content just to scratch it. And, by scratch, I mean that I just want to be faithful to what God has asked me to do.

I’m quite sure that God wants me to be a devoted husband and father, and that He wants me to teach the Bible. I think he may want me to write about it too. But, that’s about it.

I’m not sure God wants me to be the president or a senator, a mega church pastor or national speaker, a Pulitzer prize writer or best selling author. I’m not even sure God wants me to alter history in any way.

I’m just sure that God wants me to have integrity, love my family and serve the church. That being said, I think my goals are now simply to accomplish those things.

When Stephanie asked me what my hopes and dreams are for this year, I told her that I wanted my boys to be healthy, for her to find healing, and for the church to grow deeply. Yes, I’d be happy with those goals.

I’d be quite satisfied if the cyst in my son’s neck would finally heal, if my wife would find peace after her third miscarriage, and if the church would grow deeper in their love for God and each other.

Some would say those are meager goals. But, I think they are rather ideal. Sooner or later, we all learn to let go of our ambition. Not the holy ambition to serve God and make a difference in the world but the self-centered ambition to be something.

Everybody today seems to want to be somebody. They want to be a rock star, an actor, an athlete or an entertainer. They want to be some kind of celebrity and it’s usually not because they just like the craft. No, they like the fame, the money, and the fun that comes with it.

The truth is that we’re foolish if we think that we’re something. And, we’re all so very shortsighted if we believe that striking success in this world makes any difference in eternity.

Solomon told us that fame and success are short-lived and that the world will forget us as soon as we’re gone. So, why should we care what the world thinks of us anyway?

I once heard a missionary say that we’re all a bunch of nobodies just trying to make much of somebody. And, that Somebody, of course, is God. After all, He is the only Somebody.

When people tried to make much of John the Baptist, he deflected their adoration saying that Jesus must increase and that he must decrease. By decrease, he meant that he must become a nobody.

This past year, I have been thinking about that. I’ve been wondering why we say that we have an audience of One but in reality play to everyone else. If we really believed that we have just One to please, then shouldn’t this bear out in our lives?

Pleasing God, and God alone, is something we can do very quietly and discreetly. It’s something that can be accomplished while living completely off the radar screen of this world.

It’s something that can be done without any notable achievement, any renowned victory or any special merit. It can be fulfilled without any title, trophy or talent.

That means we can bring pleasure to God and accomplish everything that He desires of us in this life as nobodies. We don’t need anyone to notice us, to admire us, or to reward us to be enormously successful in God’s economy.

For most of us, this presents a radical recalibration of our view of success. It is an enormous shift away from the self-centered priorities of this world, which tell us that we have to be something or do something to have value.

Instead, it is a significant shift towards the priorities of God, which tell us that we don’t have to do or be anything in this world to bring pleasure to the only Somebody who matters.

Of course, the person asking him the question expected him to say the Bible, since he believed Chesterton to be a professed Christian. After all, most Christians would likely mention the Bible if they were asked the same question.

But the question isn’t which book is the most important to you but rather which book would you most want to have with you? There is a critical difference between them because it really all depends on the situation under consideration.

The Bible is absolutely sufficient for matters of faith and life, and it is essential for knowing God’s will and plan for humanity. But, the Bible is not a “How To” manual for building ships. Nor is it a recipe for cooking food, a guide for mapping travels or a prescription for treating illnesses.

No, the Bible is not intended to be an exhaustive instruction book for life on earth. God left much out of his inspired letter that doesn’t necessarily pertain to sin, morality and judgment. The reality is a book like that would be way too big to print or even to carry.

Now, this might seem obvious to you, but you might be surprised at how many people consider any reading outside of the Bible or books related to the Bible to be a grand waste of time or even a contemptible practice.

Reading widely among the classics, even among psychology and philosophy, is regarded by some to be sinful and even some pastors forbid their people from doing so for fear that their faith might be compromised by “worldly knowledge”.

Those who feel this way ordinarily reject the notion that all truth is God’s truth no matter where it is found and jettison the idea that God would have something to say to His people through mediums other than the written Word.

The problem with such thinking is that even the Bible itself borrows wisdom from books outside the Bible such as the Book of Enoch (Jude) and the Greek poets (Acts 17). The question is if there is no truth outside Scripture, then why are works like these cited within Scripture?

Furthermore, the Bible testifies that there is truth revealed about God through nature and through the human conscience (Romans 1-2). Paul wrote in his Roman letter that the invisible attributes of God such as His power and glory are evident to people in creation and that the inward consciences of people point them toward an established morality.

As well, we read in the Bible that God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, to Balaam through a donkey and to Elijah through a whisper. So, clearly God speaks to people not just through written words but also through His creation.

As Martin Luther once wrote, “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” And, if God reveals Himself through nature, then it makes sense that He would also reveal Himself through music, poetry and liberal arts.

In light of this, it would be profitable for us to look for the revelation of God wherever we may find it, and that includes looking for God’s wisdom in literature, languages, philosophy and history as well as in science and mathematics.

This appeal should not by any means undermine the sufficiency of God’s special revelation to us. It simply acknowledges that there is general revelation in the world around us that is complementary to the Scriptures.

For this reason, we would be wise to read widely, study broadly, and drink deeply from the various disciplines, especially from philosophy and literature so that we are well equipped not just to understand God’s Word but to contextualize it in real time.

In a biography about the life of Oswald Chambers called Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God, the author David McCasland, writes about an exchange that Chambers had with a friend who only read the Bible and books related to it.

Oswald Chambers’ recommendation to his friend was to say, “My strong advice to you is to soak, soak, soak in philosophy and psychology, until you know more of these subjects than ever you need consciously to think. It is ignorance of these subjects on the part of ministers and workers that has brought our evangelical theology to such a sorry plight.”

Interestingly, Chambers goes on in his response to say that the ignorance of these subjects actually hinders the study and understanding of the Scriptures writing, “The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life.”

So, according to this well respected evangelical pastor and author, Christians and their pastors should absolutely read works outside of the Bible. The reason why is that reading and studying widely provides the context for the content of Scripture.

In other words, if we don’t know how to relate the content of the Bible to the context of the world around us, then our theology will become inept and irrelevant. As Chambers said, without knowledge of subjects outside of Scripture, we can’t really understand or appreciate either the Bible or life.

So, what should we do to become competent Christians? We ought to read. We ought to educate ourselves. We ought to study subjects beyond the Bible. And, we ought to do all these things not because the Bible isn’t the most important book to us, but because someday, after all, we just might need to build a ship.

So, in a word, the answer to the question is yes. However, it’s important to note that satisfaction does not imply celebration. What we don’t see is Jesus condoning us performing the happy dance on the graves of the wicked. Rather, we see a somber promise to satiate our hunger and thirst for God’s justice exacted upon evil.

This past week as the news proliferated about the demise of Osama Bin Laden, there have been conflicting reactions among Christians about how we ought to respond to it. Some caution us to lament the taking of a human life and denounce the assassination while others encourage us to throw a party and sing about it.

The problem with both of those perspectives is that neither one is really appropriate. When we look at God’s purposes as revealed in Scripture against evil, we find that God reluctantly punishes the wicked because He passionately prefers their repentance.

In the prophetic book of Ezekiel God says, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” The operative word in this verse is “pleasure” as God says that He derives no happiness from the destruction of evil people.

Rather, the Scripture says God desires that the wicked would turn from their wicked ways and live. So, God’s preference is not that the wicked would perish but that they would repent and live to tell the story.

And, by implication, if God wants this, then we should too. If we truly want to reflect the heart of our God, then we will refuse to celebrate the demise of any person, even one as wicked as Bin Laden, and we will instead desire for those like him to repent and be forgiven.

In the same way Jesus told us to “love” and “pray for” our enemies, which obviously precludes loving the idea of or praying for their death. Jesus meant for us to care about the wicked and pray for their repentance, so we are neglecting His command when we do just the opposite.

My primary concern in voicing anything other than somber and measured satisfaction about the death of Bin Laden, or any other wicked person for that matter, is that we would likely add to the debilitating stereotypes of Christians being either bloodthirsty zealots or pantywaist patriots.

Too many people already have the wrong conception of Christianity around the world and we contribute to their negative impressions when we under or overreact to events and circumstances like this one.

Unfortunately, often the most outspoken are also the most opinionated, and their hasty and often foolish responses smudge or even smear the reputation of our faith and inevitably further imperil the mission of the gospel.

Repeatedly in Scripture we are admonished to measure our words and emotions so that we can win the ear of our culture with winsome words and gracious actions. And, we have the opportunity in situations like these to spread some honey rather than some vinegar.

It’s been said that a virtue is the balance between two vices, and I would agree that we would be wise as Christians to avoid the extremes of jubilance or defiance in response to the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Instead, I would encourage my brothers and sisters to express some sadness that another wicked person has perished in their sin while at the same time express some satisfaction for the fact that God’s justice over evil has once again prevailed.