Review: Billy Graham in Quotes

In Billy Graham in Quotes, Franklin Graham and Donna Lee Toney have compiled a number of his famed father’s statements on a diversity of subjects.  These have been culled from sermons and books.  Billy Graham, the most influential evangelist of the 20^th century, gives his opinion on many topics, including: abortion, addiction, angels, anger, anxiety, children, conversion, the devil, the end times, heaven, hell, money, peace, preaching, war and many more.  Each heading begins with a Scripture quotation that, in Graham’s mind, has shaped his thinking about the topic at hand, followed by a half dozen or so quotations.

Billy Graham in Quotes is an intriguing and useful resource, especially for Christian leaders and speakers.  Stringing together quotations can be risk, however, as the words lose their original context, although Billy Graham is usually straightforward enough that the reader is not left wondering what he thinks (though his reasoning for his opinion, other than a  Bible verse, is opaque).  I was surprised that some topics were not included, such as sexuality.  Perhaps that was deemed to controversial, but if that’s the case, then it’s a strange reasoning for a book that includes sections on hell, abortion and war.  Finally, I did not like the layout of the ebook version.  The “Table of Contents” was easy to navigate but the quotations were centered, which means in an ebook that they were jumbled and unattractive.  I hope the publisher fixes this!

Overall, it’s a worthwhile little book worth perusing and having on one’s shelf.

* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 

Review: 24 Hours That Changed the World

Each of the four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - dramatically slow down during the last week and day of Jesus' life.  Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, traveled to the Holy Land while studying the final day of Jesus' mortal life to uncover why.  The result is this readable, informative and inspirational account of "24 hours that changed the world."


This book will add few new insights to pastors and others familiar with an academic study of the historical Jesus, but this is an excellent resource for most lay people.  It also makes a great devotional guide for reflection during the season of Lent (which is when this book first appeared as a sermon series at Hamilton's church).  Daily devotionals and group studies of this material are also available.


The audio narration of the audiobook version is adequate, neither riveting nor tedious.  I would prefer if Hamiton himself had read his text, but this narration is suitable.


In sum, 24 Hours That Changed the World is a great resource for deepening both  your understanding and appreciation of the death of Jesus.




* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from christianaudio.com as part of their book review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 

Review: December 1941

I had high hopes for December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World (D41) that were, unfortunately, not met.  Even though I’ve watched plenty of WWII fare – Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Bridge on the River Kwai, biographies of Churchill and Roosevelt – I’ve never read a book exclusively devoted to the events of that war.  D41 doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive WWII account; it intends to be an extremely limited period, the days leading up and immediately following the surprise attack of Pearl Harbor.

Craig Shirley gives each day of 1941 its own chapter.  He delves into numerous newspaper accounts from December 1941, which gives an authentic firsthand feel to narrative.  However, in his attempts to give the reader a feel of real life in pre-war 1941, the story often feels like a string of anecdotes without an overarching narrative that provides cohesion.  These details often spill out beyond the featured day of that chapter (example: an event on December 6 might connect with something from December 26, and so we move ahead to Dec 26 on Dec 6).  Perhaps these sketches are important in understanding how America changed from prewar to postwar, but Shirley’s use of them gave me whiplash and distracted from the significant event of December 1941: the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The “one day at a time” concept is unique but not delivered well.  The same material and focus – December 1941 – could have been reshaped thematically and provided a better display of Shirley’s fine research.  I like the base material but can’t recommend the execution.


* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 

New Horizons: First Half

I've been preaching through the first part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 in a message series called New Horizons.  You can check out this series so far below:

New Horizons 1: REAL HAPPINESS

New Horizons 2: LIFE PURPOSE

New Horizons 3: ANGER & FORGIVENESS

New Horizons 4: LUST, LOVE, SEX

Join Us in Rehab

I have the privilege of meeting a diverse group of people as a pastor.  Of course I meet with regular church-goers but I also get to meet with skeptics, spiritual seekers and people who simply wonder if the Church has anything worth offering them.  Some in that last category also wonder if they will be welcomed in a local church because they're too messed up with mistakes and moral failures.  Some also wonder if the Church can really improve their life.  Maybe you're thinking about checking out a church in the new year.

Does the Church have anything to offer?  Are sinners welcome in your church?

Believe it or not, Jesus rubbed religious people the wrong way.  Religious experts, leaders and teachers were shocked and scandalized that Jesus intentionally spent time with "sinners."  Jesus ate with Jews who collaborated with the Roman occupation (tax collectors) and prostitutes.  Of course, Jesus also spent some of his time with the religious leaders, sometimes eating in their homes or answering their questions.

Jesus confronted the smug self-satisfaction of religious people who think they have it all together.  The gospel writer Mark tells this story in Mark 2:13-17:

Jesus went out beside the lake again. The whole crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.  As he continued along, he saw Levi, Alphaeus’ son, sitting at a kiosk for collecting taxes. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Levi got up and followed him.

Jesus sat down to eat at Levi’s house. Many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples. Indeed, many of them had become his followers. When some of the legal experts from among the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why is he eating with sinners and tax collectors?”

When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

Did you catch that?  Jesus' mission was not to gather the religious elite or the people who have it all together.  Jesus was sent to messed up people.  People with moral failures, a history of mistakes, a trail of broken relationships and people with addictions.  Jesus calls them "sick people."  If you DO NOT have it all together, Jesus wants you.

And if you think you have it all together?  Well the irony is that Jesus wants you to.  Thinking you have all the answers and everything is roses is a special kind of sickness - the worst, in fact, because you don't even know you're sick, locked in a debilitating self-centeredness that usually only looks at other people to look down at them.  It's called pride.  The reason Jesus said that the "tax collectors and prostitutes" would enter the kingdom of God before the religious experts was because the "sinners" knew they needed help and were asking for it.  The experts didn't.

There's an old saying: "the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints."  The church is a sin rehab center.  DO NOT go to a church expecting to find got-it-together saints.  You might find some who are more spiritually mature than you are, but you might also find some who are right where you are, or even some who, sadly, think they have it all together and who "go to church" just to remind everyone else how great they are.  I'm not at all surprised when I hear about church's that grow because they intentionally welcome people who need rehab from substance abuse because those churches speak the language of rehabilitation for sin-sick people.

But if you're interested in Jesus, you should learn right now one of his favorite sayings: "Do unto others as you'd have done unto you."  Show the other messed up people the same grace you'd like to be shown.  But do join us.

The Vulnerability of Love

Reading and thinking about the love of God (cf. 1 John 4), I came upon these words from C.S. Lewis:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least ot the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”¹

1C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Fontana Books: London, 1960): 111-112.

"Complete Revelation of Empathic Love"

This third Sunday of Advent I will continue to explore the Christian teaching of the Incarnation, the embodiment of God the Son as Jesus Christ. I focus on Jesus as the embodiment not only of God the Son (as if that weren't enough!) but also as the embodiment of God's love. My Scripture text will be 1 John 4:7-21, the opening of which reads (from the Common English Bible):

“Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.”

When you think of love, what comes to mind? A grandparent, memories of whom brings to mind warmth and unconditional acceptance? Your mom or dad? A dear friend who is always ready to listen when life's stuff hits the fan? Does Jesus Christ ever come to mind?

In his lovely and enlightening book, ClassicChristianity: A Systematic Theology, Methodist theologian Thomas Oden says:

“No more complete revelation of empathic love is possible than this: that God almighty shares our human frame, participates in our human limitations, enters into our human sphere (Tertullian, Apology 2; Oden, KC 2–3). The empathic divine Physician is willing to come into the toxic sphere of the epidemic to share personally the diseased human condition (Oden, 270)."

What Social Holiness Really Means

What did John Wesley mean when he said:


“Holy solitaries' is a phrase no more consistent with the Gospel than holy adulterers. The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness.” 


Many people only know the phrase "social holiness" and think it refers to what is commonly called "social justice," i.e. laboring for the rights of the poor, correcting systemic injustice, etc.  But as my friend and Wesley scholar at Memphis Theological Seminary, Andrew Thompson, argues, that is not what John Wesley meant!  


You can read Andrew's entire article about this here (free login is required to download the article).

Missionary Pastors, Missionary People

People sometimes ask me, "What makes United Methodists different from other churches?"  Thomas E. Frank gives a good answer:

“By tradition and polity [the UMC] is set up to invite people to Christian faith and life, to provide them the disciplines of Christian discipleship, and to send them into their communities as catalysts of a loving and just society. United Methodist clergy intinerate as missionaries in local places, and local churches are organized as mission outposts.”¹

United Methodist churches are to be gatherings of people who have responded to the good news of Jesus Christ and are being equipped to themselves be missionaries by the pastors.  United Methodist pastors are missionary pastors, equipping United Methodist Christians to do their work of inviting, discipling and creative cultural transformation.  This is the ideal, to be sure, but one we aspire to.

1Thomas E. Frank, Polity, Practice and the Mission of the United Methodist Church: 34

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Based on message entitled "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus."

Preached 27 November 2011

Advent is a season of intense desires. Not all of them are good desires, mind you, but they are strong. Often they're desires to acquire. Temptation comes in the form of Thanksgiving Day sales, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc. As a kid, one of my favorite Christmas activities was simply building the anticipation of what I might get at Christmas. Those 500pg JC Penny catalogs my grandma would get was a ticket to heaven. A classic example of childish desire for that one perfect gift is A Christmas Story: Ralphie just wants his Red-Rider BB gun. We're not that much different as we age; we just want things we assume are more mature things to desire (cf. The old proverb, “The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys).

Of course, so much of what we want leaves us unsatisfied. Somehow we still convince ourselves that the next thing (or person!) will finally meet that unquenchable thirst for something more: “If I get this thing, life will be better. If I can snag that person, I'll have all I ever wanted. If I can just have kids, I'll have everything I ever wanted.” And when these things don't satisfy, we deaden the emptiness and pain with other things that don't satisfy either: sex, alcohol, drug abuse, shopping, violence. We have a sense that there is something more, something missing, something that might make sense of our lives, give them new purpose and give us real joy.

In the Old Testament, Israel had a sense that their was something more. There's a sense in those First Testament stories that the Story wasn't finished, their collective destiny was unfulfilled, their God-given purpose in the world was incomplete. So God sent prophets to Israel. On the one hand, the prophets often said what Isaiah says in Isaiah 55:1-3 (CEB):

“All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat! Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk! Why spend money for what isn’t food, and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?

Listen carefully to me and eat what is good; enjoy the richest of feasts. Listen and come to me; listen, and you will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful loyalty to David.”

In other words, “Why are you wasting your time on what will never satisfy?” But the prophets rarely arrive just to beat people up (there is a ridiculously incorrect idea that God in the Old Testament was forever pissed off); the prophets inflict sometimes painful surgical wounds to then speak a message that offers healing and hope. In this case, the prophet seems to say, “There is hope! God promises to make things right, to send Someone who really will give you the greatest joy imaginable!” There was a hunger for the advent – the coming – of Jesus, even if Israel didn't have name for that hope.

During Advent we listen to these sketches of some future hope given by the Old Testament prophets. They weren't detailed roadmaps that could lead you directly to a manger in Bethlehem, but they were profiles (or outlines) waiting to be filled in, to be fleshed out. These shadowy sketches of promised hope were fleshed out when God the Son took on human flesh in Jesus Christ.

So much doesn't satisfy, but Jesus offers something so profound we can't ignore his invitation. In John's gospel Jesus says, “Come to me. I'm the joy you've been looking for. I'm what you've really been craving.” Jesus promises living water from within. This is not Jesus-style self-help. No, Jesus promises a personal connection to God the Father through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Scripture ends with the Holy Spirit and the Church taking up this cry. In Revelation, the Spirit and Bride call out to Jesus to “come” again and cry out to the world, “Come! Come get filled up with real life, real joy!”

In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis famously said, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

During Advent, we hear ancient Israel crying out for hope and joy. It turns our attention to Jesus. It encourages us to prepare for a celebration of Christ's birth, but it should also turn our attention to his return, his second advent.

What are you hungry for? Are you hungry for Jesus? Are you hungry to see him face to face? Are you ready to stand before his holy gaze of love? Or are you fooling around with toys, avoiding the One who can give you everything you ever wanted, and everything you need?