Are You Seeking to Become a Disciple?

For some time now I have been slowly following the Emerging Church Movement. Time and space are not sufficient here to give a thorough evaluation of what it is, and the whole movement is based on being “vague” so they hate being defined. A man by the name of Brian McLaren really is the top spokesman for this movement (whether he or anyone else would admit it).

McLaren has created lots of disciples from people who have grown up around and/or been associated with the churches of Christ. McLaren has become a keynote speaker at many of our universities and lectureships that are ran by men saying the church has to “change.” How fitting that McLaren wrote a book called, “Everything Must Change.”

I don’t believe I could do justice in explaining the wide impact that McLaren and the Emerging Church Movement have had on the Lord’s church. But there is one area that I want to address. Notice this quote from a blogger who was commenting on a lecture he heard by Brian McLaren:

“Now, notice that [McLaren’s] not calling for isolation from the ‘denominations,’ but engagement. Rather than pull up our tents, we go out into the wider Christian world and call not for a restoration of the forms of the first century church, but for a restoration of a community of people who are seeking to become disciples of Christ.” (http://jphilwilson.blogspot.com/2007/10/brian-mclaren-churches-of-christ-and.html)

The area I really want to emphasis is this, “people who are seeking to become disciples of Christ.” Phrases like we are just “seeking to become disciples of Christ,” or “we are seeking to understand the Kingdom of God” are commonly heard by the emerging church folks.

The question is where in Scripture does it ever speak of “seeking to become a disciple?” You either become a disciple of Christ or you don’t. Jesus told His disciples (were they disciples or just seeking to become them?) to go and “make disciples.” Where did he ever go and tell His disciples (were they disciples?) to go and make people to be seekers of becoming disciples of Christ? Jesus says: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26-27). Did Jesus say to try and carry your own cross? Did Jesus say to seek to come after me? Did Jesus say to seek to become a disciple? What nonsense. You either are a self-denying, cross carrying, disciple of Jesus Christ or you are not.

Add to that Matthew 13:52, “And Jesus said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven.’” Did Jesus say every scribe who is seeking to become a disciple, or every scribe who HAS become a disciple of the kingdom! This rhetoric about seeking to understand the kingdom and seeking to become a disciple just shows the shallow depths of this movement. How much further away from the teaching of Christ can you get? All this movement is is another excuse to be your own Lord and be a disciple of self!

Let me summarize it for you like this. This is the gospel according to McLaren, “Go therefore until all the world and tell the Buddhist, Muslim, and devote Pagan, to seek to become a disciple of Jesus while truly just being devout in whatever else you believe.” McLaren says, “If any Buddhist, Muslim, or Devout Pagan wishes to come after me let me seek to deny himself when we wants, take up the cross he thinks he wants to bear, when he wants to bear it, and come after me if you feel like it and to the degree you want to understand it.”

I have more respect for the Buddhist who flat out denies the deity and Lordship of Christ, than I do for these men who claim Jesus and then say that they are just “seeking to become His disciple.” It’s time to get real about this and address it. It’s time for people to stop being disciples of McLaren while trying to become disciples of Jesus, and just make the commitment and be a disciple of Jesus!

Sow the Seed,
Caleb

Homeless

Well I’m homeless! It’s a long story but we are trying to buy a house and we are facing the nightmare of trying to buy a foreclosure. It’s too complicated to explain here but the main idea is that it is a big mess. Just a couple quick updates:

(1) Go to http://www.focuspress.org/ignite/index.html and subscribe to the new magazine for teens published by Focus Press.
(2) My friend Luis Camacho and I came up with an idea for a new commercial. There is a guy standing behind a pulpit and he says he is going to preach an expository sermon. A member says “Wow, are you an exegete. The man replies, “No but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!”

Sow the Seed,
Caleb O’Hara

They Want to Run Your Life!

We have exactly one week to be moved out of our rental. Life is crazy. One thing I had to do was give a copy of my social security card to the lender in order to get our loan. Just one small problem... apparently we already packed it! Last night I got on the Social Security Administrations website and you will not believe what I saw. First look at this screen shot of the website and no I did not make this up!

Look closely at the center of the page near the bottom. Yes, you are reading that correctly "Special Instructions for Users Who Are Blind."

So I needed to locate the closest office to me. So I entered my zip cope and clicked that little locate button and this is what popped up:

Yes you are reading that correctly! The web service that tells you where the closest office takes time off too!
So after finally getting the web server to come back to work I found my local office in Manteca, California. I made my way down there. When I got there I got my number and sat down in a crowded room. There were three windows and only two of them had people working at them. My number was A119 and they were currently servicing A116. The wait can't be too long - I thought. While sitting there I listened to one guy scream to another about high gas prices. I also watch a lady slap a girl across the face, a boy spill a milk shake, middle age ladies without teeth complain about the government not taking care of them, and a lady let her kid play with the log in computer which messed up the entire system. It was exciting let me tell you. After an hour and half I finally made my way to the counter. In an hour and a half I watched them only help six people. Six people in an hour and a half!
Yes, this is what happens when you allow a government agency to take over your retirement system. In fact, this is what happens when government takes over anything. As Ronald Reagan said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" How true is that?
This little exercise was a shaking reminder of the devastation that is sure to take place if members of congress get their way. They want to take over the oil refinaries (which they have blocked from allowing companies to build for thirty years). As the congressman from California says in this clip below, they want to socialize oil.

If you think $4.50 a gallon for gas is expensive it will look like a liquidation close out deal when the governement takes over the oil industry. Back to packing.

Caleb

My Roots, My State, My Sadness

This is a picture of ushers at the European Parliament trying to stop the Irish voice. One thing is for sure, we Irish don't like to be told that we can't be heard. OK enough of that.

So I'm way behind on my blog. Life is CRAZY! I will spare the details and just say that we are leaving for Yosemite Bible Camp next weekend and we have to be moved out of our rental before we leave for camp. And, the closing on our house has been delayed until possibly August 4th. What that means is we have to be moved out next week at which time we will be homeless until possibly August 4th.

On Tuesday nights I have begun a "Digging Deeper" course. It's been going well and I'm really excited about it. We lost a few students after they saw the workload :), but all in all not bad.

The last couple days I have been thinking a lot about all of the homosexual marriage in California issue. As of yesterday California began issuing marriage licenses to people who by the very definition of the word marriage cannot marry. The cultural decay is going downhill rapidly. I really don't know how much more God will tolerate. It saddens me greatly that our society is accepting this. I heard a DJ talking about how “cute” this story was of a homosexual couple in their eighties getting married after 50+ years.

It ought to be no surprise as a biblical view of marriage has been under attack for a long time. God's institution of marriage has been neglected for a long time and the church has even accepted it to a large degree. God's institution that binds a man and a woman together for life, to which Jesus went back to in Matthew 19, is the same one that makes a marriage between two men or two women ungodly. The church has set herself up for this fall by accepting men and women who have been divorced and remarried for a reason other than adultery (God's standard). If we take the position that it's ok because they weren't Christians when they did it what moral standing does the church have to stand against homosexual marriages of nonchristians? They aren't Christians right? So God doesn't hold them accountable. Not only that, all they have to do is be baptized and they can remain in a homosexual relationship because their sin was washed away. I'm reminded of the words of a preacher who means a lot to me, Dan Owen, who once said something like, "The church is in open rebellion against God's laws of marriage." Sad, but true.

OK that's all for now. When I get settled I will blog more regularly.

Caleb