Yesterday I mentioned that I went to Clemson University, and I related an inspiring story about one of our alumni. If you’ve followed the Ewellogy long enough, you know that I write about Clemson football from time to time and their coach Dabo Swinney, a strong believer. It was especially fun when we were winning.

But this year Clemson is not winning. In short, we have no offense. As I write this, Clemson is 2 wins, 2 losses, and ranked 25th (I don’t know why), down from #3 at the beginning of the season. Last Saturday, Clemson lost to NC State. I’ve been looking for Dabo’s response, and I finally found it. Here’s some of what he said as reported by ESPN:

“We have to keep working…It’s easy to be all in when everything’s great, but we’ve got to persevere through all this.” “ALL IN” is one of Dabo’s mantras. “If we’re all “all in,” we can compete for the national championship. What if we can’t? Dozens of college football teams play week after week knowing that they won’t win every game and that they have no chance at a championship.

As believers, we know Jesus wins in the end (read Revelation!), but in the meantime, life can be tough. Churches can be small and struggling. Missionaries can go for years with little apparent fruit. Individuals have major health issues. Have you read Paul’s summary of his ministry?

…with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11.23 – 27, ESV)

Paul was ALL IN, but it didn’t look like one exciting victory after another. I think Paul would have agreed with Isaac Watt’s 1721 hymn “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?”

[Jesus] was sheer weakness and humiliation when he was killed on the Cross, but oh, he’s alive now—in the mighty power of God! 2 Corinthians 13.4, MSG)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16.33, ESV)

It’s amazing how we miss clear Biblical teaching:

Never oppress the poor or pass laws with the motive of crushing the weak. (Proverbs 22.22, TPT)

Yet our country has a sordid history of such laws, many of them passed by people who were in church on Sunday.

I just read the inspiring story of Harvey Gantt, the first black student at Clemson University, my alma mater. Harvey transferred from Iowa State University as an architecture major, starting in January 1963. Why? He was from South Carolina and didn’t like the Iowa cold! Harvey was admitted only after a lawsuit.

I began my freshman year in September 1964. I didn’t need a lawsuit. My application was accepted immediately. So was Harvey’s…until they found out he was black. Because of Harvey’s trail-blazing efforts, my class contained the first black freshman. And the University President told us all on day 1, “There will be no problems at Clemson University.” And there weren’t. But there were difficulties Harvey had to overcome after graduation:

After college, no architectural firms in South Carolina would even interview Gantt, but he had several interviews with Atlanta and Charlotte companies. Charlotte seemed like a good place to settle his growing family. So, the Gantts spent three years in Charlotte while he honed his craft and obtained his license as a professional architect. He then accepted a fellowship to study city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1970 after graduating from MIT, Gantt moved back south and began teaching part-time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while also working with civil rights leader Floyd McKissick on an aspirational program called Soul City, a planned community designed in rural North Carolina (primarily by Black architects and planners). The community focused on attracting residents, businesses, and people of all races and economic levels.

The project was supported by President Richard Nixon at the time but didn’t get the support of North Carolina senators, and McKissick struggled to get funding. On the upside, Gantt says, “It helped me to see what it might take to design the ideal environment.”Great minds often think alike. In 1971, Gantt and Jeffrey Huberman founded Charlotte’s first racially integrated architecture firm — Gantt Huberman Architects. – From A Better Day by Sandra Parker in The Clemson World, September 2021

Harvey ended up in government, serving two terms as mayor of Charlotte, NC. He ran unsuccessfully for Senate against long-time incumbent Jesse Helms.

“I got in the race as an underdog,” Gantt says. “Most people thought it was impossible for me to win against someone as popular as incumbent Jesse Helms because I was a Clemson alumnus, an African American, and a person who was not originally from North Carolina. We took on the challenge.”

Although he lost, the Senate race heightened Gantt’s visibility nationwide, and he was subsequently asked to chair the National Capitol Planning Commission under President Bill Clinton’s administration. The commission provides planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the District of Columbia and surrounding regions where government facilities are located.“

It was quite an honor to be a part of that,” says Gantt, “and do some of the planning necessary for a number of facilities, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Convention Center.” – Sandra Parker

Harvey and I have a lot in common. We’ve been married over 50 years, and we each have four children. The Gantts have nine grandchildren to our eight. We share the same faith:

“Optimism isn’t something you can buy or cash in at the lottery counter,” Gantt explains. “I have been blessed to have had a good life. I have been blessed with a soulmate who has been with me for almost 57 years. I have four great children and nine wonderful grandchildren. What you see from me is an inner glow because I’ve tried to do right. This optimism is not exclusively mine. People find this by a belief in something bigger than themselves. In my case, that would be God and Jesus Christ.” – Sandra Parker

What we don’t have in common is that he has accomplished way more than I have, and he did it against formidable odds. As has been said, “Many white people were born on third base, and we think we’ve hit a triple.” I like that while Harvey was certainly an advocate for civil rights, he worked hard in a challenging profession. The skyline of Charlotte bears witness to his many successful projects. There are buildings named for him at Clemson, the school he had to file a lawsuit to get into.

If you are uniquely gifted in your work, you will rise and be promoted. You won’t be held back—you’ll stand before kings! (Proverbs 22.29, TPT)

We’ve been talking about new versus old, and here’s an example where the old is fine.

It’s a small thing, but I have cable television, and one of the features is voice control. I can hold down a button on the remote and say something like, “Rockies Baseball,” and it will bring up the appropriate channel for me to select.

However, sometimes I know what channel I want. I just punched in “733” to go to ESPN to watch a particular game. What’s somewhere between funny and irritating is that when I do that, a message comes on the screen saying, “To change the channel faster, say ‘ESPN'”

How is that faster or better than punching in a known channel number? And what difference does it make to the cable company whether or not I use their voice remote feature?

Bob, is there a point? I think so…

When something new comes along, are we obligated to use it? Sometimes the old is fine, and sometimes the old is right, and it’s the new that’s wrong. The Apostle Paul certainly experienced this with his churches.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11.1 – 4, ESV)

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1.6 – 9, ESV)

Yesterday we talked about our tendency to evaluate new approaches by the “standard” of the status quo. It’s worth continuing that discussion for at least one more day, especially with respect to how we do church.

We’ve come to understand “church” as coming together on Sunday morning in a large group to sing (“worship”), hear a sermon, and share communion (or the Eucharist with the frequency depending on your tradition). Anything different from that is met with “That’s not church!”

A frequently quoted scripture purporting to mandate weekly church attendance is in Hebrews 10:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is… (Hebrews 10.25, KJV)

But we get a completely different take if we read that whole verse in context:

Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing, because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning. (Hebrews 10.24, 25, TPT)

We are supposed to come together “even more frequently” to “encourage and urge each other onward” – something we’re not allowed to do in the traditional Sunday morning church format.

Jesus and his ministry were judged and rejected by the establishment because it was different from their status quo. Yet Jesus ushered in a whole new (and way better!) era of how we relate to God:

The old system of living under the law presented us with only a faint shadow, a crude outline of the reality of the wonderful blessings to come. Even with its steady stream of sacrifices offered year after year, there still was nothing that could make our hearts perfect before God. (Hebrews 10.1, TPT)

Back to Seth Godin’s original blog, new is not automatically better. The challenge is to evaluate new versus old fairly.

Every scholar of the Scriptures, who is instructed in the ways of heaven’s kingdom realm, is like a wealthy homeowner with his house filled with treasures both new and old. And he knows how and when to bring them out to show others. (Matthew 13.52, TPT)

I read Seth Godin’s blog daily. He’s a marketer, but I am often stimulated to solid ideas about ministry. On September 22 he talked about how we argue for the status quo when comparing something new with what we already have. It ends this way:

Sometimes, we end up simply arguing for or against a given status quo, instead of the issue that’s actually at hand. And the danger is pretending you’re being fair, when you’re not. In this silly article from the Times, the author (and their editors) are wondering if oat milk and pea milk are a “scam.” This is a classic case of defending the status quo. Here’s a simple way to tell if that’s what you’re doing: imagine for a second that milk was a new product, designed to take on existing beverages made from hemp, oats or nuts. Defending oat milk against the incursion of cow milk is pretty easy. The author could point out the often horrific conditions used to create cow milk. “Wait, you’re going to do what to that cow?” They could write about the biological difficulty many people have drinking it. Or they could focus on the significant environmental impact, not to mention how easily it spoils, etc.

Or imagine that solar power was everywhere, and someone invented kerosene, gasoline or whale oil. You get the idea…

There are endless arguments to be had when new ideas arrive. The challenge is in being clear that we’re about to take a side, and to do it on the effects, not on our emotional connection to the change that’s involved. –Seth Godin, September 22, 2021

In the church, new stuff is always compared with old. Music is a classic example. We like what we like and different is, well, different.

If we want to run a Sunday morning church service differently, with interaction, a shorter sermon, and prayer together in small groups, we get a comment like my pastor friend received from one of his elders: “That’s not church.” (This was a blog I wrote way back in back in 2014. It captures this idea perfectly. Check it out!)

Suppose we were used to “church” as coming together in small groups, perhaps in homes, to pray together, share from the word together, even break the bread and drink the wine to remember the Lord, and someone said, “Here’s a better way. We’ll all come together in one big building. I’ll share what I got from the word this week while you all listen. I’ll ‘lead us in prayer’ while you listen. And breaking bread and drinking wine doesn’t count unless I have prayed over it first.” Would we shoot that down as “That’s not church!”?

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43.18, 19 ESV)

This is the last in our series from Isaiah 28: disciple-making according to Isaiah, using a farming metaphor.

He opened with an observation I interpreted to mean: repentance: required, yes; never-ending, no.

Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? (Isaiah 28.23, 24, ESV)

If we want fruit, we must sow seed. It’s not enough just to clear out the ground.

When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border? (Isaiah 28.25, ESV)

Different seeds, individual differences, and this brings us to our final lesson: there are differences in bringing people to maturity, as with sowing seed, and there is an end to the process, as with repentance.

Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod. Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. (Isaiah 28.27, 28, ESV)

Sometimes, we are tempted to treat everyone the same. Everyone takes the same course in the same amount of time. Everyone I disciple goes through my favorite tool. Nope. I don’t do it that way. I have my favorite discipleship tools, but not every tool is a fit. So I change!

A more typical scenario is that everyone stays in training indefinitely. After all, it’s been often said, “Sunday School is the one school from which there is no graduation.”

Really? Why? “He does not thresh it forever” is good counsel. Colleges and trade schools don’t keep students forever, they get them to a level of competence and launch them. Why can’t individual disciple-makers and churches do the same?

These are simple concepts, often ignored. Let’s look one more time at the whole passage:

Isaiah 28:23-29 (ESV)
23 Give ear, and hear my voice;
give attention, and hear my speech.
24 Does he who plows for sowing plow continually?
Does he continually open and harrow his ground?

Repentance is important, but it’s not ongoing.

25 When he has leveled its surface,
does he not scatter dill, sow cumin,
and put in wheat in rows
and barley in its proper place,
and emmer as the border?
26 For he is rightly instructed;
his God teaches him.

We sow different kinds of seed according to individual differences, led by the Holy Spirit.

27 Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but dill is beaten out with a stick,
and cumin with a rod.
28 Does one crush grain for bread?
No, he does not thresh it forever;
when he drives his cart wheel over it
with his horses, he does not crush it.
29 This also comes from the LORD of hosts;
he is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in wisdom.

There are individual differences in bringing people to maturity also, and God is standing by to lead us in this area, too.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1.28, ESV)

Yesterday we began considering Isaiah’s farming metaphor applied to the discipleship process. He opened with an observation I interpreted to mean: repentance: required, yes; never-ending, no.

Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? (Isaiah 28.23, 24, ESV)

If we want fruit, we must sow seed. It’s not enough just to clear out the ground.

When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border? (Isaiah 28.25, ESV)

Different kinds of seed and different methods of sowing:

• Scatter dill
• Sow cumin
• Put wheat in rows

If I’m using this as a metaphor for teaching others, I must recognize individual differences both in what they need, how I teach, and how they respond. (Again, see the parable of the sower, Matthew 13.1 – 23.) Some content can be picked up from a lecture (sermon) or a book. Skills (how to have daily time with God, how to pray, how to do Bible study) need to be demonstrated and practiced one-to-one or in small groups.

People are different: gospel presentations (e.g., the Bridge, the Four Laws, etc.) don’t guarantee results; discipleship tools (e.g., the 2:7 Series) that are effective for some people will not work for others.

This is why Isaiah is clear that we need to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit:

For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him. (Isaiah 28.26, ESV)

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. (John 16.7, 8, ESV)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16.13, ESV)

I’m enjoying my annual reading plan, working my way through Isaiah this month, along with finishing Luke, Hebrews, and Proverbs. Isaiah 28 contains a little section I discovered years ago: relational disciple-making according to Isaiah, cleverly disguised as a discourse about farming. Jesus often talked about seed, most notably in the parable of the sower (see Matthew 13.1 – 23).

Let’s see what Isaiah has to say and how it relates to helping someone move from unbelief, to conversion, to maturity. Here’s the beginning:

Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? (Isaiah 28.23, 24, ESV)

What does plowing do? Plowing prepares the ground to receive seed. In the context of disciple-making, we’re talking about encouraging repentance. Compare Hosea 10.12:

Break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. (ESV)

And here’s my takeaway from Isaiah’s word: I’ve attended churches where pastors majored on repentance. Every week, week after week, “You sinners need to repent!” Plowing is necessary, repentance is necessary, but neither goes on indefinitely. “Does he continually open and harrow his ground?” It’s a rhetorical question, and the answer is NO.

Individuals can drag out the repentance process, too. They attend those “turn or burn” sermons and somehow feel better about themselves for having been yelled at. But they never actually receive the seed of God’s word into their lives. They’ve done the tearing down but not the building up. We’ll talk about that tomorrow – sowing and receiving the seed.

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. (Hebrews 6.1, ESV)

I was struck with a new perspective on this passage in Hebrews 9, which might relate to what I wrote yesterday about the “boat.”

Under the old covenant the blood of bulls, goats, and the ashes of a heifer were sprinkled on those who were defiled and effectively cleansed them outwardly from their ceremonial impurities. Yet how much more will the sacred blood of the Messiah thoroughly cleanse our consciences! For by the power of the eternal Spirit he has offered himself to God as the perfect Sacrifice that now frees us from our dead works to worship and serve the living God. (Hebrews 9.13, 14, TPT)

“Frees us from our dead works to worship and serve the living God.” A lot of our Christian activity is dead works. Church attendance can be a dead work. Even putting on the “church service” that others attend can be a dead work. Believe me – I’ve worked on church staff.

It takes real effort to sustain life (enthusiasm) in any activity. A new activity feels fresh when we begin, but pretty soon, it can become dead. Even daily “time with God” can be a dead activity. Navigator Skip Gray said years ago, “Many people fellowship with a habit, not with God.” 

“You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” (Revelation 3.1, ESV, from the letter to the church at Sardis.) 

I can be dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2.1, 2).

I can participate in dead works (Hebrews 9.14, above).

Returning to the parable of the two sons in Luke 15, of the two sons:

• One was dead in sins

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. (Luke 15.24, ESV)

• The other was involved in dead works

Now his older son was in the field, …(Luke 15.25, ESV)

But he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command…” (Luke 15.29, ESV)

Isaiah tells Israel that their religious fasting is a dead work:

³  ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers.
⁴  Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.
⁵  Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?
⁶  “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
⁷  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58.3 – 7, ESV)

It pleases God more when we demonstrate godliness and justice
than when we merely offer him a sacrifice. (Proverbs 21.3, TPT)

My friend Hanh, a Jesuit priest, told me that a lady called to ask his opinion about her attending a church that still uses the Latin Mass, a practice that was supposed to go away after Vatican II. Changes included:

• The widespread use of common languages in the Mass instead of Latin
• The ability to celebrate the Mass with the officiant facing the congregation. (Previously, the priest faced away from the congregation, and the people were said to “attend” Mass, not “participate” in the Mass, according to Hanh.)

These changes…remain divisive among those identifying as traditionalist Catholics. – Second Vatican Council, Wikipedia

Father Hanh is deeply opposed to the continued practice of the Latin Mass, using a language most people can’t understand, intensifying the divide between clergy and laity, making it difficult for people to actually have a relationship with God. Hanh told the lady who asked his opinion:

Do you know about the Vietnamese Boat People? [Hanh himself escaped South Viet Nam with his family after the fall of Saigon in 1975.] The boats were very important. Very important. However, I don’t use a boat today. I drive around in a car, and when I need to travel a long distance, I use an airplane. Just because the Latin Mass was important in the past doesn’t mean it’s important today. – Father Hanh, SJ

What practices do we hang on to? Practices that might have been useful once, but may not be useful anymore?

• We grew up with the “Sunday Night Evangelistic Service.” This is a practice, I’m told, that originated in the early days of gas lights. The churches had them when few others did. So some churches lit the gas lights and had a Sunday night service, attended by curious onlookers, with whom they shared the gospel. The practice continues in some churches despite the fact that a visitor hasn’t been in a Sunday night service in decades.
• Some folks are still tied to the King James Version, an English translation of the bible that was really effective when it was written in 1611. I grew up with it, and there are parts that have a majestic feel and a flow of language that is truly beautiful. However, like Latin, we don’t speak Elizabethan English anymore. “Quit you like men” (1 Corinthians 16.13) means exactly the opposite today of its original intention. And who knows what “I trow not” (Luke 17.9) means? (To be clear, if you understand the KJV and like to use it, I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with your insisting that everyone else use it, which some folks do.)

These are just two examples of “boats.” I don’t know what your “boat” is. It could be related to music or preaching styles, to certain forms of Sunday morning worship, or to programs in your church that are long past being effective. I’m asking God to make me sensitive to the boats in my life.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13.11, ESV)

So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mathew 15.6 – 9, ESV)