Beebe&nbsp;&#8203;<br />&#8203;Church of Christ
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Leadership
    • Beliefs
  • Resources
    • Sermons
    • Articles
  • Youth
  • Belize

The Good of Scripture

9/10/2018

0 Comments

 
“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another).”
Miss Maudie, To Kill a Mockingbird


    Imagine you are out and about and someone sees you carrying a Bible and asks, “Is that a good book?” We, as good Christian people, would answer an emphatic “Yes!” without even having to stop to think it through. The Bible is a good book because the story within it is good, it was given to humans for good purposes, and because its Author is very good. The Bible is good. Who would dare to call it otherwise?

    Once when I was in Ghana I had the privilege to go to Cape Coast and Elmina castles. These are old stone forts built on the sea by European powers in the heyday of Colonialism. They are now known notoriously as “slave castles”. On a tour of the grounds we descended into the dungeon where slaves were kept: dark and small stone rooms with low ceilings, damp odors, and floors mercifully sloped for the sake of draining excrement. We walked through the “Door of No Return” which opens out onto a rocky beach where boats docked to acquire their purchase and set sail for a New World. 

    When we had ascended from those chambers and our eyes had readjusted to the midday sun, we saw in the center of the grounds a Christian church sitting directly on top of the dungeon we had just left. The irony was not lost on our group. To this day I wonder what the men and women of those dungeons knew of the Europeans’ God. I wonder if they ever heard through their stone ceiling the faint tunes of a strange worship taking place on a Sunday morning. And I wonder if we could ask them if the Bible is a good book what they would say. 

    The Bible has been used to support injustice, to justify sin, to increase hatred for the infidel, and to decrease concern for this life out of concern for the next. Not only has the Bible been used for evil, but, more frequently, it has not been used at all, and the good it was intended to do has often died in the womb. Sure, these are perversions of something inherently good, but what sin is not?

    So, is the Bible good? The answer I have given to this question since I was a child is still my answer. But today my answer contains more nuance: I contest that the Bible is not a good book—or not fully good, at least—until it has done good. If, after years of handling the Bible, your heart is not filled with good, and if the lives of the people around you have not been filled with good through you, then perhaps in your particular case the Bible is not a good book.
0 Comments

Enough

8/22/2018

4 Comments

 
​“Those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward even in sleep.”
Brother Lawrence

       It often takes great faith to say at the end of a job, “That’s enough.” Sure, there are jobs that we are ready to quit before we start, and others that weary us to a breaking point—these may not require great faith. But there are some jobs that we simply do not have enough hours in our lifetimes to finish. These are jobs like learning to use a day well, rearing children, and growing in holiness. We can reach a level of excellence in these duties but we can never perfect them. There comes a point when we simply have to abandon them to God.

       The spirit of our age tells us that we can control outcomes. All we must do is wake up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, work through our lunch breaks, and read one more book on time management. But every time I set one task upon my workbench to master, I knock another two to the floor. My frail hands can only hold so much for so long.

       What I believe is called for is faithful living. By this I mean living a life full of faith. But faith in what exactly? Faith in a God who is able to take our work and make it enough. 

       This means two things. It means our first duty is to work, “to act, that each to-morrow find us farther than to-day,” as Longfellow put it. We must work because God must have something of ours to work with. But it also means that we must rest, because our work alone will never be enough. Only in the hands of an infinite God could it ever be.
4 Comments

The Empty Tomb Changes Nothing.

5/18/2017

3 Comments

 
       I recently saw a church marquee that read "Because the tomb is empty, the church should be full." At first glance I get it, and I appreciate the clever play on words. I also can sympathize with the Marquee Changers of the world who struggle to express coherent and quality thoughts in such limited space. (If you thought tweeting was hard, try that!) Although this quip earns points for catchiness, it's nonetheless false.
 
      As I've dug into the resurrection over the last several weeks preparing for my sermon series on this topic, I'm more than ever convinced that "the empty tomb" is not at the heart of our faith. On the one hand, I understand the sentiment being expressed here without being a jerk literalist. But on the other hand, I think that something crucial is missing from an empty tomb.
 
      A closer look at the Gospels reveals just how little the discovery of an empty tomb changes. At best (even with the messengers explaining that Jesus had risen!) the women and the disciples leave there with a little excitement and a lot of bewilderment concerning what these things meant; at worst, they leave in sadness and fear (Mark 16:8; John 20:11). The scenes following depict the disciples struggling to believe this news (Mark 16:14) and hiding behind locked doors (John 20:19). Little is changed.
 
      If the empty tomb changes nothing, then what does? The answer: meeting the resurrected Lord. It's only then in the Gospels that the disciples' lives are transformed. Doubt persists (Matt. 28:17), but without encountering the risen Christ there is no transformation. It makes me wonder: Perhaps the skeptics of the resurrection of the last few centuries are on to something when they mull over the empty tomb and are left with speculation and bewilderment. That just so happens to be what an empty tomb left the earliest disciples with, too.
 
      The issue today is not whether one knows the tomb is empty, but whether one has met the resurrected Lord. The resurrection is not solely about the absence of death found in the empty tomb, but the presence of life. The empty tomb simply leaves space for this living Lord. A similar critique might be leveled at Christians today: Christianity is not about a mere lack of death, but the presence of life to the full.
 
      In sum, then, it's fair to ask where one is most likely to meet this risen Jesus. Many answers might be given, but one will suffice. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that Jesus has a body still present on the earth, and his body continues to live and serve today. That body is the church, and if one seeks an encounter with the living Lord, then being in community with his people is a good place to start.
3 Comments

What I Miss When I Miss

5/2/2016

1 Comment

 
"We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."
Romans 12:5
 
            God has designed us for community, and there is no community more essential to our lives than our Christian family, the church. God's design for Christians is that our lives would be intimately intertwined into one.
 
            A body needs all its members and all its members need the body. For a body to thrive to its potential, it needs its members. For the members to thrive to their potentials, they need the body. It's a two-way street. Most of us easily buy into how this plays out in one direction, namely, that for the body to be its best, all the members need to be doing their parts. The church can only be all we can be when everyone joins together and does his/her role.
 
            But this works in the other direction too. For the members to be the best they can be, they need the body. We can only be all we can be when we are serving in our rightful roles in the church. God has designed you for community, and therefore, in order for you to find your true identity and purpose in life, in order for you to realize your fullest potential, and in order for you to be the best you possible, you need to be intimately intertwined into a body of believers.
 
            So, what does "intimately intertwined into a body of believers" look like in real life? It looks like being here to hold the communion tray for the mother trying to wrangle kids in the pew with you. It looks like showing up on workdays to do the pedantic tasks of preparation and repair that our facilities need. It looks like giving a call or dropping a note to the elderly man who isn't in his usual spot this morning. It looks like showers, and Bible classes, small groups, and informal get-togethers. It looks like family, and we want you to be part of it.
1 Comment

Wounds that Heal

3/29/2016

0 Comments

 
"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."
Isaiah 53:5
 
            Bumps, bruises, and bangs, scratches, scrapes, and sprains—all our bodies have been battered to varying degrees. We stub our toes, nick our knuckles, bite our tongues, and throw our backs out of place. For all this, our bodies remain incredibly resilient to the damage done them. Our scars are proofs that we've recovered from many hurts along the way.
 
            My hurts are my hurts, and your hurts are yours. If you break an arm I can "feel your pain" in many metaphorical ways, but my arm will remain unbroken. In like manner, your ability to heal from that fracture will be your own. As healthy and unbroken as my arm is, I cannot transfer any of its wellbeing to you.
 
            As fixed of realities as these are, God chose to get around them one time—not in his favor, but in ours. God chose to reverse the pronouns, so that what was ours is his and what was his is ours. Jesus took upon himself the wounds that we deserve and gave to us the blessings he deserved. His scars are proofs of our healing, as the song says,
 
"Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom."
0 Comments

O you of little faith.

3/1/2016

0 Comments

 
​            Jesus seems to come down pretty hard on his disciples for their lack of faith: "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" I wonder what tone of voice Jesus used when he asked this question. Was he scolding them? Scoffing at them? Encouraging them?
 
            There were numerous occasions in the Gospels when the disciples doubted and when I would have doubted too: "Why did I doubt?  I doubted because the storm was out of control and we are in a tiny boat! I doubted because there is no food in this wasteland and we have thousands of people to feed!  I doubted because I began to drown! I doubted because they killed John the Baptist! I doubted because your teachings are hard to understand!" I would not have been short on answers to his question. In fact, reflecting on all those terrifying situations, I think my answers are better than Jesus's question. Why would he even ask such a thing?
 
            Yet, the question lingers. And as I think about it some more, I realize that what I really meant to say was, "I doubted because I don't know you yet, Jesus, and I don't trust you." Isn't this the very response of the disciples? "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"
 
            Suddenly, the focus shifts from the storm and the fear to the identity of this man with them in the boat. And this is where faith is found: By turning our attention from our hopeless situations and our horrible insufficiencies to the One who is with us in it all.
0 Comments
Forward>>

    Bulletin Articles

    ​Written by Matthew Love

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    September 2022
    June 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    December 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Location

Worship Times

​            Sunday Morning:  9:00am  Bible classes for all ages;  10:00am Worship

            ​Sunday Evening:  Small Groups meet 1st & 3rd Sundays of each month

            Wednesday Evening:  7:00pm devotional & classes for all ages

Contact Us

1906 W Center St.
Beebe, AR 72012

(501) 882-3539

​beebecoc@gmail.com