Is there a time to use deception to get God's blessing?
As I read Ben’s post earlier this month, What is the Point of Genesis?, I began thinking a lot about my own Genesis Bible studies. I have studied all 50 chapters of Genesis four times. But Ben’s thinking challenged me to rethink what I had learned. Do I really know Genesis well? I found that I really have just learned the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what Genesis has to teach.
I remembered a question that came up once during Bible study on Genesis 27: Is there a time to use deception to get God’s blessing? I don’t recall how anyone at the study answered the question. This sounds like an odd question, especially when asked of Christians. Why would a Godly person lie or use deception to get a blessing or to glorify God?
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End The Endless Self-Pruning…
…And Instead Dwell In Christ.
Admin note: Reading Kevin’s testimony, I immediately resonated with what he shared below. I know that the Christian life should be full of love, joy and peace (Gal 5:22), as well an overflowing and abundant life (Jn 10:10b). But after a quarter of a century as a Christian, I was experiencing anger, joylessness and anything but peace–perhaps like Kevin after 26 years of “endless self-pruning” as a Christian, as he vividly shares in Part 2: Lost in my human efforts to love God. The Christian life felt to me very much like such a torturous unbearable drag. At that time I didn’t quite know why. But I knew that I needed to seriously re-evaluate my life as a Christ-follower…and make major drastic changes if I were to restore my joy of intimacy with my Lord. See if you can relate to Kevin pouring out his heart in what he shares below.
Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (NIV).
Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (NIV).
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The Blessed Life
Because I have found myself in the unofficial, unsanctioned exit counselor role for ubf, people from ubf have contacted me for help at the rate of once per month. From January 2014 until now, exactly 17 people have reached out to me for some sort of assistance in processing their ubf lifestyle. One of the most comon themes is that ubf shepherds tell them that leaving ubf will bring about God’s curse, or at least will mean not having God’s blessing. The teaching is that if you stay you will be blessed, if you leave you lose that blessing. This is such a traumatic issue to deal with that many have been distraught. One young woman who contacted me last year was so depressed over this issue that she had thoughts of suicide and was seeking professional psychology help. She is much better now thanks to the mercy of many people. So today I want to share how blessed my life is after leaving ubf. I share these things not to brag, but to demonstrate my life as living proof that leaving ubf does not equate to losing God’s blessing. If anything, the norm I have seen from those who reach out to me is that after an initial period of turmoil, their lives become notably more blessed.
A Response to Joe’s Open Letter
As one who has been participating in University Bible Fellowship for many years, I’d like to offer my thoughts on some of the points in Joe’s recent open letter to the President of UBF. Continue reading →
A 2nd Gen Story
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. –John 3:20,21
The darkness of UBF is overwhelming. Secrets hide behind nearly every smiling face that offers you so much as a plate of bulgoki. Growing up, every Sunday I went to CBF at the “center.” Even as I child, I always felt like there was something off about UBF people. I never quite felt like I was at home, or that this was my family.
Upon leaving UBF at age 8 with my family, we went to an unnamed evangelical church in the area. It was there that I entered life and finally learned to be a normal human being. For the first time in my young life, I felt like I could fit in with the other boys, the other children, and I learned about God, who Jesus was, and accepted him into my heart as my Lord and savior.
My First Few Days in Chicago
Last Friday Chicago held a campus mission night. I traveled from St. Louis to Chicago for the event. My pastor had the missionary meeting so he was not present. To be truthful I was not entirely sure why I went. It is prohibitively expensive to travel there, since I currently only make $100 dollars a week as a graduate student. I found that I could take a bus there for only $20 and my spring break started the following week so there was no homework to worry about. I left Thursday around 2pm and arrived late. I will try to be protracted in parts I think readers will want to hear, and brief in other parts. I encourage any reader to leave any questions in the comments, a lot can happen in three days after all.
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Vox Populi Vox Dei
In times of trouble and conflict we are accustomed to call upon the practical man. Unfortunately the opposite is needed. For the practical man can only do the things he knows and when conflict and trouble arise he has neither the means nor the aim to fix an unexpected conflict. The impractical man is what is needed. Some may tell us that the impractical man fiddles while Rome burns. We are told that he ought to go put out the fire, but what we really need is the impractical man who invents the firehose. Then we can quell the flames forever.
This is your Church
So for anyone at UBF, here is what your leaders think. This is your church in a nutshell. Why do you put up with such things?
2 Corinthians – Section 1
N.T. Wright’s study guide is remarkably easy to understand and yet opens doors of deep thought. Section 1 is entitled “The God of all Comfort”. Clearly the first major theme Paul introduces is that of comfort. God is the God of all comfort. I’ve been thinking about that one word the past couple weeks–comfort. Comfort means “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint; the easing or alleviation of a person’s feelings of grief or distress.” Here are my thoughts on this first study guide and on 2 Corinthians 1:1-2:4.
Six Stages of Training
Ben’s excellent article, “Good Teachers Make Themselves Unneeded“, which was inspired by a friend’s C.S. Lewis quotes, inspired me to expound on a topic I wrote about in my second book. That topic is the ubf discipleship training cycle. In stark contrast to C.S. Lewis’ thoughts, the ubf model of teaching is a system designed to make people co-dependent on one another. The ubf sheep is trained to depend on the ubf shepherd for spiritual direction and life decision guidance. And the ubf shepherd then becomes dependent on the ubf sheep for affirmation of their spiritual value before God. Can you imagine the condition of a sheepless shepherd at ubf? In short, the ubf model of training is to make the teachers needed.
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