Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, March 6, 2009 10:53 pm

The other day I was reading through Genesis 3 and something stood out to me. Genesis 3 opens with the introduction of a new character: the Serpent. Adam and Eve are living in the garden, naked and unaware. The Serpent convinces them to eat of the tree in the middle of the Garden (the only one they were told not to) and they realized they were naked. Familiar story. I hadn’t previously noticed, at least not in this way, what takes place in verses 9-11.

The LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked?” (ESV)

God seems almost unaware of their naked state. He asks, “who told you that you were naked?” Why?

Is the God of Genesis 3 limited in knowledge? A God who can’t even keep track of the actions of the only two people on earth seems inconsistent with the God of Genesis 1 & 2. I’m sure some scholars would say this is further evidence of multi-author redaction of the text. Besides the fact that I am not inclined toward those types of theories, this would seem to be so blatant that even the most daft of editors would not allow these texts to co-exist. Not to mention that it seems an unnatural understanding of the text. So did God know or not.

It seems obvious, at least to me, that the author believed, and expected us to as well, that God did know that Adam and Eve were hiding because of their nudity and that the Serpent was involved in their education. So why does an aware God ask the question?

Is it possible that God wanted Adam to think about why he was hiding and discover for himself what was wrong? Did God want Adam to do a little reflecting? Was God concerned with Adam’s self-awareness? How about mine?

In any theology, Genesis predates Descartes, Locke, and Frued. I have always felt that the typical modern western Christian (myself included), tends to over emphasize self. Our faith has become deeply, and almost exclusively a personal experience. The problem is that the ancient Mediterranean (the time/land from where both Jesus and the Bible hail) seems far less interested with the self and much more interested with the community/group.

So I am left wondering, to what extent is God concerned with my self-awareness?

Comments (2)

By Richard Hamilton, March 3, 2009 10:39 pm

Texting requires more attention than talking. Unless of course you are 8-14 years old; for the rest of us, it can be a consuming task. Thanks to the prolific twittering of @zaibatsu, @DannyTRS, @OneLuvGurl, @holycowcreative, and @espn (to name a few), my LG is experiencing a higher text volume these days.

This caused me to experiment with something recently. I began following @prayingpsalms. @prayingpsalms tweets a verse from a Psalm every hour. I’ve been following for a few weeks and here are my thoughts.

1-I like the regularity. I have started taking the time out to stop, read and pray every hour. I have always gotten a lot out of praying through the Bible. This is a consistent way for me experience this.

2-I enjoy the spiritual distraction. Let me explain. My days tend to get busy. A lot of things are vying for my attention. These tweets catch my attention and give me an excuse to take a break and do something kind of spiritual for a few seconds.

3-They can be redundant. I’m not sure if they recycle the Psalms or if they just tend to sounds alike, but there seems to be a lot of repetition.

4-This is only a small glimpse of what tech-spirituality could be.

Here’s my job for you. Let your brains go crazy. What does the future hold for spirituality?

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, November 25, 2008 3:18 pm

June 19th, 2007, I posted a blog titled, “The Secret Lives of Men & Women: How Post Secret Helps Americans Veil Their Faces & Find Their Voices” about Post Secret and the trend of anonymous confession.

Since then, I have become aware of Christian versions of this, like mysecret.tv (from LifeChurch.tv) and ivescrewedup.com (of Flamingo Road Church). I’m sure there are more out there, but these are among the more popular.

I still have a nagging question. “Have we traded transparency for anonymity?” Maybe it’s too late. Maybe that ship has sailed.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, September 19, 2008 3:32 pm

There is an article on nytimes.com today titled, “In Japan, Buddhism May Be Dying Out”. According to Norimitsu Onishi, Buddhism is loosing its appeal to the Japanese because it is seem as a religion of the dead, not the living.

While the message of Christianity should be one of life and resurrection, I wonder if we aren’t running the same risk sometimes.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, July 9, 2008 3:14 pm

I was the dean of a Jr High week of camp in southern Ohio last week. Tuesday Night, we set aside some time for the 36 Jr High students to go through 9 prayer stations based on the teachings of Jesus from Matthew 5:1-16. Much to our surprise, this took about 5 hours. Not because it was set up poorly or not run well or overly complicated (I’m sure those things could be said about this prayer experience, but that is not what lengthened the event). It took so long because the students really got into it. Jr Highers. Praying. 5 hours. It was awesome.
I thought this experience was important enough to include in the week, but I was not expecting the response we got.

Prayer is undervalued by a lot of Christians. This seems to be even more the case among teen Christians. I don’t know if this is because they don’t see prayer being lived by the Christians they encounter or if the way prayer is portrayed to them is limiting and unappealing. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Who knows. What I do know, is many of these teens prayed. They read Jesus’ words, they looked beyond themselves, they tasted, they touched, they reflected, they prayed. And it wasn’t just the girls; the [Jr High] guys got into it too. They were asking questions and spending time with each experience. It was interesting to be there for it all.

This left me with one big question. Do we expect too little of young Christians?
I believe it is altogether possible that teens can set the pace for other Christians.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, December 8, 2007 2:56 pm

Christmas is fast approaching and it is easy to lose sight of what is important over the holiday season. It seems to be that more and more people are spending more and more money earlier and earlier in the year. I heard on the radio the other week that Americans spent 8% more this year on “Black Friday” then they did last year. It seems some people even go into debt to give the “perfect” gift. I wonder what our world would be like if people decided to spend less money on Christmas gifts and invest more time in the people around them.

I was in San Diego for the National Outreach Convention in November and got a chance to hear Rick McKinley from the Imago Dei Community speak. One thing he mentioned was the Advent Conspiracy. The basic idea is people spend less on Christmas, give relational gifts, and give their money to a good cause (in this case, making clean water available to those in need around the world).

Maybe instead of giving useless junk, no one needs as gifts this year; we can be a little more thoughtful and come up with meaningful ways to give.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, May 2, 2007 2:35 pm

I was preparing a Bible lesson for a high school group recently and wondered about the integrity of the typical approach to Bible study. The passage was Nehemiah 7 and the theme was “A Leader Actively Administrates.” No one is taking a pot shot at a certain publishing company; most sermons, talks, and lessons from Nehemiah focus on leadership. 2 Timothy 3:16,17 is as trademark verse for those who say that every verse has an application in everyday life. So we take a passage of Scripture and dissect it into “application bites.” Often teachers look so closely for nuggets of wisdom in the text that one misses the big picture.

If a person going to teach the Bible with any integrity, it is important to understand what the text meant to the original reader. I cannot tell you for sure how the original reader understood the text of Nehemiah. But it must be asked: do you think they naturally thought, “Leadership is influence (John Maxwell was re-writing that one book back then), and every person has influence over at least one person, so I am a leader and like Nehemiah I should administrate, equip, and motivate those I influence in the same manner?” In my mind this could be what we call in the industry “a stretch.” This approach lacks the common sense we use when reading any other book, fiction or non-fiction.
Imagine you approached a children’s book in the exact same manner. Perhaps I will open the Chronicles of Narnia and read about a talking Beaver rescuing children from talking wolves. Would a couple of pages gives us a clue as to what is going on in the bigger story? Can we draw conclusions from a segment of the story? Of course not. So we should not look closely at each verse if it means we miss how each narrative fits into an overarching story.

When one opens the book of Nehemiah or any other book of the Bible, the focus should be massaging the bigger questions out of those we teach. Why was the wall broken down? Why was Nehemiah in Persia? Why did God allow his people to go into exile? Does God always deal with sin in this manner? How does he give man freewill and still control the destiny of nations? How does God redeem His people?

There are overarching themes woven throughout Scripture-how mankind is designed to interact with their Creator, the power of sin, how God punishes, redeems and calls out of chosen people; teachers should consider showing how each story is a piece in a larger puzzle.

Perhaps the only books in the Bible where we dare even attempt pull specific commands straight out of the text into everyday life is the epistles, but even then we need to be aware of cultural considerations.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, March 22, 2007 10:38 pm

Because most people do not feel up to entering the debate arena, many Christians retreated to what I call “hit and run” evangelism. Christian bookstores are full of products to help these endeavors. My favorite product: the “Testamints.” Maybe you have seen them. Admittedly, I have even eaten a few. They are the mints, usually located by the register, that are wrapped with a Bible verse. Christians who do not feel qualified or prepared to debate can simply leave a punily named mint with a morsel of God’s Word for their unsuspecting friend or coworker to discover. This type of evangelism, although well intended, lacks the genuine connection many people are seeking. A church I once worked with decided to get groups together on a weekday evening to go visit people in the community. As a gesture of goodwill and with the intention of being friendly, they made sand-art cookie jars. Attached to the jars were usually a Bible verse and the contact info for the church. I thought it was a great idea. This small southern community was still very open to people coming to their homes and the combination of cookies and art was genius. The first night I showed up, we grabbed a few cookie jars and headed on our way. When I read the tags, I was stunned. A few of the jars had something like “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. -Luke 13:3″ written on the card. With some tweaking, the visits proved to be very successful for that church, but it makes me wonder what these well-intentioned people were hoping to accomplish. I think we hope that if we leave tidbits of faith around, we will not have to win over our friends with eloquent arguments and we will have still done our evangelistic duty.

Evangelism does not have to be like this. In fact, these approaches usually are not very effective because they do not take into account what people really need.

Comments (0)

By Richard Hamilton, March 21, 2007 10:37 pm

I often wonder what thoughts enter people’s minds when they hear the word “evangelism.” Often, evangelism is a thing of dread and terror. It causes many Christians to break out into cold sweats. To feel nauseous. To get all tongue-tied. Maybe a more important question is what thoughts enter the minds of those on the receiving end of Christian evangelist efforts. It’s quite likely they have been on the receiving end of a failed evangelistic attempt more than once. Often, the very thought of someone talking to them about Jesus makes them want to run for the hills.

Why is this? Why has evangelism become such a negative idea for so many people?

I believe it is partly because of what we [Christians] have made evangelism. Usually when churches “teach” evangelism, they teach how to debate and argue their points. “Be sure and cover this list.” “Argue this point.” “Throw in this Bible verse here.” “And never admit you don’t know or you were wrong.” Even the language we use brings to mind Court TV (”apologetics” and “evidence that demands a verdict”). Do not misunderstand me. There are times to defend Christian faith. There are times to discuss and even debate, but in many cases, debate is the only evangelism people know. I see two problems with this. First, a debate is a win-lose situation. When we enter a debate over faith and religion, it is with the unspoken understanding that someone will lose. Evangelism should be win-win. Second, debating takes a certain set of skills and a lot of prep-time. In High School I was on the debate team for a year. My event was called “Congress.” Each student submitted their legislation in advance and we came together to debate each document’s merit at competitions. At my first debate match, I came with a printout of each bill neatly tucked in a file folder, assured I was well prepared. As I passed through the classroom door, into the room where the debate was to be held, I noticed that everyone there had boxes upon boxes of material. Newspaper clippings. Computer printouts. Books. Magazines. Statistics. Analysis. Boxes and boxes of debate prep. Then, the debates started. High School students would stand behind a podium and rattle off quotes and statistics a mile a minute, all the while judges as stern as Simon Cowell (although luckily for me their criticisms were written not verbalized) critiqued your every word. I learned something that day: formal debate is for a select few. This is may be why many Christians leave evangelism to the “professionals”: paid church staff.