The game went pretty well. We got basically all the questions right. So did the other team. It was actually so close that we had to go to a sudden death, best of 10 question format. Ten people from each team had to be asked a question individually.  I was one of the ten for our team. I did the humble pastor thing and let everyone go first. A couple of questions were missed on each side and…you guessed it, the whole game came down to the final question asked to me. If I get the question right, we go into the next round. If I miss the question, out team suffers agonizing defeat.

The game show host, Jon Estes, drew the next card from the pile and asked me the final question. I will never forget it…at least not after all this! The question was “Jesus tells us that Satan is a ‘what’?” All eyes looked at me, I looked at Jon and calmly said “Satan is a liar.” The other team let out a collective sigh of despair, Jon nodded his head at me and flipped the card over and said “Oh, nooooooo! Actually, according to John 8:44, Satan is a ‘murderer!’” The place erupted in laughter, and dare I say even mockery (it was high school all over again!). I knew we should have played Pictionary.

I have never since forgotten that Jesus said that Satan is a killer. I know he is bad. I know he is mean. I know he lies. But Jesus said he murders – been doing it for a long time, and evidently he is pretty good at it.

I have been thinking about how Satan wants to kill us. I have been thinking about what Satan wants to kill. I have been thinking about the methods Satan wants to use to kill us.

And I have been praying about that.

I am praying that Satan will not kill you. That he won’t kill your home, your marriage, your dreams, your ministry. Please remember that Satan is very good at this. That is why I Peter 5:8 tells us to be self-controlled and alert, because “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Be alert. Control yourself. Resist Satan. Stand firm in your faith. Trust God.

We all have stuff going on all around us. Life happens. But Satan doesn’t have to win, no matter how bad he wants to kill you.

So here is my random thought God has been rattling through my head this week.

I have been working through an article (actually, the lecture material of an oral presentation) by Robert Plummer, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The article is called "Luther's Instructions for Studying Theology as a Biblical Hermeneutical Method" and is a very interesting breakdown of Martin Luther's approach to.....well doing what the title of the article says - the study of the Bible.

Luther's thought was based on his observations of how the Word of God is presented in Psalm 119. That Psalm of David has the distinction of being the longest Psalm (and chapter) in the Bible. It also has the beautiful distinction of having some direct reference to the Bible in every single verse (using words like "ways", "law", "precepts", "decrees", "word", "commands", "statutes"). Luther's observation was that David repeatedly referred to three things:

That is an amazing observation. It is not hard to see this for yourself - go check it out, it's right there in the Psalm. David's greatest statement celebrating the Word of God (indeed the greatest, most repeatedly statement on Scripture in all of the Bible) and Luther says you can break all of the teaching down into one of these three categories. The point of all of this is that Luther says that if you want to study the Bible rightly, any time you approach Scripture, you must do so with prayer (before, during and after - this is an acknowledgment of our need for illumination by the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised - look at John 14 & 16). But the proper study of Scripture also requires meditation on the truths - no quick grabs and then off to "more important things"). This is all good so far, but not surprising. Prayer and Meditation. It is the last one that kind of surprised me. The last step in proper Bible study, according to Luther's assessment of Psalm 119 is trials. I didn't see that one coming!

I know trials are par for the course in life. I know trials are promised in Scripture. I know trials are explained in Scripture. I know Scripture teaches us to endure, learn from, be strengthened by, and demonstrate Christ to others in our trials. I just hadn't thought of trials being a means of Scripture to teach me about Scripture. Now that's a thought.

Prayer ensures I learn from God about God. Meditation ensures that what I learn sticks. But trials mean that I actually use what I now know. As it turns out, knowing the Bible is not actually that hard - it's using the Bible that is the tough part. Learning I need to forgive is not a hard task - it says it right there in black and white. Actually enduring the trial of having to forgive that jerk at work...or on the road...or at home - well, that's the final step that makes the Bible study actually worth knowing. The Bible says resist lust, endure persecution, don't be greedy - I can see that...but doing it...it's using what we know that is the trick.

David teaches us that trials take the mere academics out of the prayer and meditation of Scripture and plops it right smack in the middle of the living of life.

That Luther. He still has some good things to say for a guy who has been dead for 450 years. Shoot! - how hard can it be since David has been doing it for 3000 years after he died!

I have prayed for wisdom from the Lord in the presentation and use of our church website. The way I see it, the base-level use of a website is to announce or advertise your presence. That's not a bad use but that is not nearly enough in effectively using a website. The next level up would be to give helpful information to and about functions and philosophies of our church. That is a much more effective use of a website, but my desire is to see our website used for so much more.

Advertisement and information is just not enough when it comes to God's plan for a church. Which brings us to the discussion we have been having as a church lately. God's end purpose for a church is certainly not aesthetics. His end purpose is not even the effective dissemination of information (though this is important, to stop at good education is to commit the sin of the Pharisees). God's end purpose for His people is mission - the advancement of the Kingdom of God (the free rule of God) in this world. I want to see that expectation extended to every aspect of the ministry of C3: the nursery, the children's ministry, the music teams, the preaching, the community involvement......and the website.

A while ago I saw Leonard Sweet, in his book SoulTsunami, call the internet the new cathedral of a community. His thought was that in the middle ages (even all the way up to the beginning of the last century in Europe and America), towns were literally built around church buildings and cathedrals. The courtyard or town square in the center of a city was at the doorstep of the church buildings. The church was the center of, among many other things, the social activity and community contact of the city. It was the gathering place. It was the place of celebrations and festivals. It was the place for meetings and forums. The modernization and secularization of society has made it so that the community no longer meets at the church. Sweet's idea is that the internet has taken that place. People "gather" around the internet for information, ideas, entertainment and, increasingly, for education.

I guess the reason that has stuck with me is that I have always dreamed of website for our church that could function as a kind of "cathedral" site for our us and our community. I would love for our C3 website to be more than just announcements and information but also a place of education, encouragement, connection and worship. So what does that actually look like? I have some ideas, but I think it will be fun, and much more effective (and in keeping with God's design for the function of a church) to dream and implement these things as a church.

What an amazing and exciting time to live and minister. I love being a part of the information age. I love the tools and resources we have available to us. And I don't want to squander anything we have within our reach that could be used for the mission God has called us to. 

Blessings