How Great is Our God

Psalm 8:1  "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"


Last night I heard a local trio sing "How Great Is Our God" at a church-related meeting.  I first encountered this Chris Tomlin song during Friday night large group meetings at the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship in the early '90s.  We would sing it over and over with fervor and joy, as I have heard it sung many times since.  As I listened to these three women singing last night, thoroughly enjoying the music that was washing over me, I found myself realizing the key to the song's appeal -- it's simplicity.  Sure, we can talk on and on about theology and come up with limitless things to discuss and debate regarding God, but only rarely can theology be translated well into music.  The Wesleys could do it, for instance, but many songwriters have tried and failed.  The reality is that God is so complex that limited beings like us can only hope to understand him  by seeing him in the simplest possible terms.  That's what this song does. It is theologically sound, but also recognizes that God is best described in terms of majesty, since we cannot comprehend him fully in any other way:

The splendor of a King
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice

I've been thinking over the past several months about the question of how to "prove" God.  I've known many atheists and agnostics who have said, basically, sure I would believe in a God if his existence could be proven.  I thought for years that it would be the ultimate breakthrough to come up with that "proof" and have the final argument explaining that yes, there is a God.  In the 11th century St. Anselm developed a proof of God that is known as the Ontological Argument: "God is that being than which no greater can be conceived."  Convinced?  Probably not.  Anselm tried to say that since the idea of God exists in our minds as the greatest of all possible things, and obviously nothing greater than this exists in reality since the concept of God is already the concept of the greatest of all things, then God must exist.  Or at least that is my butchering of Anselm's argument.  The point though is that Anselm's argument will not -- cannot -- convince an unbeliever that there is a God.  But what could?

The more I have pondered this the more convinced I am of this answer: God cannot be proven.  Not in an earthly or scientific manner. I may say I am convinced there is a God, but others could say my certainty was merely a psychological quirk, as if I were convinced I was Napoleon.  The reason we cannot prove God through worldly means is this: a God that can be proven isn't big enough to be God.  Really, wouldn't you be disappointed if God could be measured by an instrument or described by a mathematical equation?  He is beyond proof, as we normally describe proof. 

Is that a cop-out?  Not in the least.  I think it's just being truthful.  I recently read a new book by Dinesh D'Souza titled Forsaken, in which he tries to show that not only does God exist, but also that despite the horrors we see in this world, God is good and caring.  D'Souza seems to bend over backwards to do this.  For instance, he points out that earthquakes and volcanoes may have taken many innocent lives throughout the centuries, but they are produced by tectonic plates, which are a fundamental part of what allows life to exist on this earth, due to their job in creating carbon dioxide that plants need to live.  D'Souza has built his arguments around counter-arguments he has heard many times in debates with atheists, and indeed sometimes you can imagine him and his interlocutor coming to a stalemate.  But that hardly means he has convinced anyone of God's existence, let alone proven God. 

Because really, how does anyone prove this?:

He wraps Himself in light
And darkness tries to hide
It trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice

My point is that God, as Christians see God, cannot be explained, but only experienced.  Unbelievers who come to have belief do so not because they worked it out in their head or were convinced by an argument; they do so because in some way or another they experienced God, and therefore know God to exist.

I feel for people who are trying to figure out if God is real through the means of science and logic and reason.  They will never find the answer this way.  If a God exists who is indeed creator and lord of all, it is ludicrous to believe that we can explain his existence in human terms.  Belief comes from accepting that which is offered, not by exploring for an answer and discovering it on one's own.  That is in fact why this song is so moving, because it does not attempt to explain God but only to describe his majesty and character, as that being who is so above us and beyond us, yet also so close to us, as to belie any attempt at expression aside from mere awe.  Really, how else do you approach this?:

Age to age, He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the end
Beginning and the end

From Anselm to D'Souza, and so many in between, we too often have forgetten that God cannot be shared intellectually, only experientially.  So do you want someone to believe in God?  Help them experience him.  Be his ambassador on earth, and that will be more of a proof than all the books in the world.

Water and Fire

Ephesians 4:5  "...one Lord, one faith, one baptism..."

Late January always reminds me of my baptism.  That event occurred on January 31, 1988, nearly a quarter century ago.  I was 15 at the time.  I had started attending church about two years earlier with my grandmother, who had herself only attended for maybe a year before that.  It was a small church in a small town, and Sunday mornings brought out 25 to 35 people.  It was part of a three-point Methodist charge and during my few years there went through four ministers – Revs. Beckwith, Swann, Hogue, and Dunaway.  I still remember their names.  As a teenager, and one who attended willingly, I was an anomaly and the congregation simply didn’t know what to do with me. 

           

Rev. Swann decided at one point to hold confirmation classes for anyone interested.  My grandmother and I took part as did a couple of adults from another church on the charge.  I still remember sitting in the parsonage one evening per week, looking through an oversimplified booklet with cartoonish characters, meant to explain the most basic tenets of faith.  Finally, we set a date for our baptisms and confirmations.  Though my grandmother’s own grandfather had been a minister, there was no memory of her having been baptized, so she took part in that ritual as did I.

Baptisms at that church were exceedingly rare, and Rev. Swann was so young these might have been his first ones for all I knew.  It was an important day for me.  I had been soaking up what I could learn at the church and this moment of initiation meant a great deal.  It was a time of anticipation and pride -- of the good kind.  We had gone over the short ceremony in detail and I was ready. I had been instructed to kneel for the baptism (which, at most, could have been described as a light sprinkling), but my grandmother could not do so due to a bad hip.  But when the moment came, with a bunch of much older folks looking on, my 15-year old self felt a bit embarrassed and I didn’t kneel, but instead stood there as the pastor baptized me.  I’m sure no one thought about or even noticed this, but I had a sudden sense of guilt for failing to follow through on this one, simple action of kneeling at the altar. 

As the years went by, whenever I considered my baptism, this guilt would always crop up.  It was a small thing, yet it seemed big to me.  But now I realize that even this taught me a lesson in grace.  The very imperfections of our humanity that caused me to hesitate that day are what Jesus came to address.  The very act of baptism both cleanses us from sin and welcomes us into a lifetime of improving who we are through an on-going relationship with Christ.  Sure, I was weak that day, but it was alright.  To say the least, I had a lot left to learn. I still do.

The Year of the Lord's Favor

Isaiah 61:1-2  "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me...to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor."

[Adapted from my New Year's Day sermon]

There has been a fair amount of hubbub about 2012 already, maybe more than for any year I can recall since 2000, what with all the talk about the end of the world and all. But let's place all that aside and focus on something productive. What will this new year hold for us?  It may seem to be a question every new year brings, but what can we do about the answer?  What can we do to make 2012 better than 2011?  How can we make our lives more meaningful and productive, how can we grow and help others to grow, in this coming year?

I think we can start by looking at a short passage from the Prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor.

As we read these words, we need to remember that they are not really the words of Isaiah.  Instead, he is prophesying a future message of the Messiah. Did the words sound familiar? If so, that might be because they show up again in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 4.  Jesus arrives in his hometown of Nazareth and goes to the synagogue, where he stands up to read from the scroll of Isaiah.  He automatically find this text to read, and after reading the first few lines explains to the people, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  To say the least, the people were not convinced.  It would not be the last time that Jesus' promises would be ignored.

In this passage out of Isaiah, five kinds of people are being addressed: the poor, the brokenhearted, captives, prisoners, and those who mourn.  Are we poor in spirit?  Are our hearts broken in some way?  Are we captive to sin?  Are we bound by the darkness and snares of this crazy world?  Do we mourn lost dreams?  If so, then this message applies to us. The good news is that Jesus is anointed to address these issues.  He brings good news to the poor, binds up broken hearts, releases prisoners from darkness, proclaims the year of the Lord's favor...

The year of the Lord's favor?  What does that mean?

"The year of the Lord's favor" simply denotes a new era of blessing.  It is not confined to a specific time in history or even a specific period of time.  It is available to all people, at all times.  Jesus speaks it into being, literally, by proclaiming it, both in Isaiah's prophecy and through his promise at Nazareth that the scripture is fulfilled.  The year of the Lord's favor is there for the taking.  The question is whether we will accept it. 

The human race has a terrible tendency to rely upon the self, and not upon the maker. Our churches are great examples of this.  In Asia, Africa, and in many other places, despite adversities such as poverty, oppression, and poor infrastructure, churches are booming due to trust in God.  It is no great news for a church to triple in size in a year, or spawn new churches in nearby communities.  And yet in the seemingly "Christian" West, with wealth, freedom, and established buildings, leadership structures, and everything else we might think necessary, it is usually an accomplishment if church growth outpaces deaths and drop-outs at the end of each year.  Why?  Because far too often our established churches and their denominations rely on programs and committees to do what God does best -- change lives. 

Every time the ancient Hebrews believed in God's blessings, blessings were showered upon them.  Every time they tried to succeed on their own, they met with utter failure.  There are no exceptions in the whole of the Old Testament to this simple fact.  What's more, they never, as a whole, learned the lesson.  Perhaps more amazingly, neither do we. Where is our faith?  Where is our common sense, even?  If we can call upon the creator of the universe and judge of the world for aid, why on earth do we try to do things on our own?  Why rely on our own fragile and finite selves when we can rely on God Most High?

So here we are, in 2012.  As we think back upon all God has brought us through, look ahead at all He can still do.  Remember that He wants to bless us, to change us, to redeem us, to refine us.  Let us make the decision that this will be the year; that starting today, we will heed the promise of Jesus and accept the year of the Lord's favor.  Jesus has proclaimed it, so let it come, let it be as he has promised.  Let this be the year that you open your heart, your mind, your soul, your life to God, to be changed forever.

And Advent Begins

Hebrews 1:2  "In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe."

Place yourself back in time.  Imagine, no books have been written about Jesus yet, and in fact the thing we know of as the New Testament isn't even a remote thought in anyone's mind. A few copies of letters about The Way are floating around, back and forth among the church leaders in the towns and cities of the empire.  There's also a copy of Jesus' sayings, though you have no idea that someday people named Matthew and Luke will use this as a source for their own gospels.  Those classic accounts have yet to be written. There is no liturgy, no hymnal, no church hierarchy, in fact, no solid body of teachings…in your world there’s just you, your group of believers, and a few itinerant preachers, wandering the Mediterranean.

You’re Jewish.  You’ve given up everything to follow this idea of Jesus the Christ.  Your parents disowned you.  Your synagogue made it clear they don’t want to see your face again.  People who used to do business with you now actively ignore and malign you. 

The Roman occupiers don’t see a big difference between Jews and the new Christians, but they don’t trust your movement anyway.  Something about it seems seditious to them.  So you worship underground, sometimes literally so.  And given the circumstances some days come when you wonder if you’re just a fool for believing in this man who said he was coming back again someday.

And then, one day, you hear a sermon at one of your gatherings.  This is a special sermon, one circulated among the church leaders and written by some great preacher, though already people are unsure of who wrote it.  You hear some people guess it was Apollos.  You've never met him but you know he has a reputation for eloquence.  A few people wonder if it was written by Paul.  You've never met him either but you've heard he is a learned man.  Either way, it's largely unimportant to your fellow Christians who wrote this message, you all just know it is something special.  And moreover, though there are already a lot of gentile Christians, this sermon is meant for you, a Jew.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

You feel a chill to hear the speaker just come out and talk like this.  He is explaining exactly what makes this faith different, and why it cannot be reconciled with Judaism as you grew up knowing it.  He explains, right here, why everyone who you know and love has turned against you.  These are the words of a spiritual revolution.  To truly believe them is an act of rebellion against all you have ever known.

But the preacher is bold.  He has this gift you’ve been hearing about called the Holy Spirit. You’re a Jew, so you know of the ruach, the spirit of God, but this is something more personal, more real, more immediate.  You don’t really understand it but you certainly know it is real.  Its power cannot be denied.  And is shivers in the bold voice of the speaker as he declares the divinity of this man:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

You were raised in a mad, mad world, full of violence and oppression. Growing up, you weren't a brilliant scholar of the Torah, but you learned a lot of it, and certainly enough to know the history of your people, where they had been, what they had been, and what had become of them over time. Many times in your youth, and now as well, you were dogged by questions.  If God’s people had sinned so badly that they were now in this sad predicament, how could they ever get out of it?  How could the people ever atone and win God’s favor back?  Was it even possible?  Did God even care anymore?  Was He simply tired of Israel?  Had He turned His back on His nation?

So when you had first heard about Jesus you were skeptical, but your interest was piqued.  You're reminded now of that first flush of hope but also of amazement; aamazement, that a man could provide purification for sins, and then go to Heaven and be there to speak for us.  The preacher mentions it as a matter of fact, but it still awes you.

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

And he keeps saying things that rock the foundations of your world.  Things your parents would curse at you for saying:

So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father”?  Or again, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”?

The preacher uses bits of scripture to point to Jesus, and it makes a lot of sense to you, but to so many outside the walls of your little house church it just sounds like heresy and blasphemy.  The very Psalms themselves are used to prove the speaker’s point, and you shudder to think that the Lord the psalmist spoke of would have been this man who was executed on a cross.

Yes, step back in time and hear these words as they once were heard. Your world has been shaken, your past ripped from you and transformed into mere prelude; all your faith changed, energized, and challenged...and the sermon has only just begun.  By the end of the hour you will be in tears and your limbs shivering, because you are accepting the unacceptable; believing the unbelievable.  God became man, and died for your sins, and waits for you in heaven.  

These are not mere words on a page. These are not mere pages in a book.  This is the spoken message about the Word, the Logos, the very breath of God Almighty.  This is the first flush of hearing the message and believing it.  If you want to comprehend Advent, you have to understand that.  You have to live it, or re-live it.  You have to go back in time, put yourself in that frightening, exciting place, and believe.

Two or Three...or One

Matthew 18:20  "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

Oddly enough, I've never been particularly comfortable with this verse, as benign as it appears.  Whenever I have heard it I have wondered, What about when I am alone?  It may seen naive or nitpicky to think that but really, is Jesus saying here that he is only present with us when we are in community?

Considering it though, I find my comfort in the word, "with."  When I consider my relationship with Jesus, I don't think of him being "with" me so much as "in" me.  We may say things like, "He walks with us," but when it comes right down to it I carry Jesus in my heart -- he's not sitting in the chair over there or something.  He abides in me, not in the next room.  So perhaps that's all there is to it -- Christ is "in" me, and yet when I am with other believers, he is "with" us.

I've read that the Mishnah, a set of ancient rabbinic teachings and expositions, tells us that, "If two sit together and there are words of the Torah between them, the Shekhinah [the presence of God] rests between them." Jesus obviously knew this saying from the oral traditions that eventually made up the Mishnah, and here gives it new meaning and a new dynamic by essentially proclaiming himself to be that presence of God.  Seen in that way, we realize that this simple sentence would have been earth-shaking to his original audience.

One concrete example of this concept comes to mind immediately, and that comes from the Prophet Daniel.  In Chapter Three of Daniel, we are told about how members of the court basically tricked King Nebuchadnezzar into having three talented young Hebrew men executed -- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  They were thrown into a blazing furnace despite absolute innocence, but they placed their trust in God, saying:

“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” 

Once they were in the fire the king was amazed to see, not only that they did not burn, but that a fourth person was in the midst of the furnace with them. Convinced that an angel, a god -- or The God -- was in the furnace protecting the three young men, Nebuchadnezzar had the men brought out and he praised the God of Israel. 

In much more mundane situations we can have the confidence of knowing that when we are together in God's name, Jesus is indeed there amongst us, protecting us and guiding us.  He is as present with us as he was with his disciples two millennia ago.  If we don't hear his voice or see his face, that is not his fault, but our own.

Getting Priorities Straight

Luke 12:15b  "One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Recently we drove to a church in a nearby town for a meeting.  Over one hundred years old, that building is one of the grand structures that harken back to a time when many churches were spacious, ornate, and majestic. It was a symbol of the heyday of the old Mainline churches.  Inside, we were struck by the soaring ceilings, lustrous woodwork, intricate stained glass, and numerous "extras," such as giant wooden pocket doors which could be lowered from the ceiling as dividers.  A towering pipe organ took center stage behind the pulpit, and everywhere were paintings and other artwork.


And yet a placard ff to the side bore witness to the reality of this beautiful place.  "Last Sunday Attendance: 56"  This grand structure, with a balcony big enough to accommodate entire congregations, was simply limping along as a shadow of its former self. 


Don't get me wrong, art and architecture have an important role to play in the life of the church.   I am no iconoclast.  It is important for churches to display art and utilize architecture that instructs and inspires, and I can be just as awestruck as the next person by the grandeur of such a church.  Nevertheless, standing in this place, one imagines a time when the emphasis was on the edifice, not on the spirit within it.  Small town money was poured into this project during the Gilded Age, while not nearly as much was invested in the building and upkeep of souls.  Along one wall the original blueprints of the church, laminated and carefully hung in layers, are on display.  It's as if to say herein lies our solid footing -- in a cold, unyielding architect's draft.


Isn't it easy for us to treat our own lives in the same way?  We measure success and stability on the basis of material gain, something that can easily be lost, destroyed, or left behind.  Almost all of us fall into the trap, forgetting that Jesus and his disciples had nothing to speak of in terms of money or possessions.  Yet the pull is a heavy one and the temptation to think this way comes from every corner.


After Jesus states in Luke, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,” he follows up with a parable:

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” 

Jesus' point is that the rich man was foolish to rely on his abundant wealth alone.  When death comes, possessions are entirely unimportant, and priorities are switched.  When his death came all the man's savings had done no good.  He would not be judged by his acquisitions but by his life.  Jesus isn't saying that saving resources for the future is bad, but he is pointing out that all our goods have a finite purpose.  It is spiritual richness that should be our priority.


It should be instructive for us that the most vital churches in our world are in fact our poorest.  Suburban megachurches may attract a lot of people, but the truest spirit of Pentecost is found in half-built structures without chairs or running water, found in parts of the world where "want" and "need" take on different meanings than we normally experience in America.  There, people walk miles to church, stand for hours, and give of meager resources all because of a fiery love of God.


There is no doubt that the beautiful church we saw has produced and nurtured some true saints over time.  Yet I almost feel sorry for those who worship there week by week.  They are distracted by man-made beauty which far too often obscures the true, more perfect beauty of the Savior.
 

The Error of Their Ways

Matthew 22:29  "Jesus replied, 'You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.'"

I always say that the Church is its own worst enemy.  With all of the tasks left undone in this world, with all the lost people walking the streets and all the evil rampant across the globe, the Church too often spends its time and energy wrapped up in the silliest, most ignorant issues and arguments.  Sometimes the only possible explanation to what we see happening is that Satan himself is moving the in-fighting along, and accentuating piddling details that are almost designed to divide.


Not that church people -- and especially church leaders -- are free of guilt in these instances.  Far from it, if people had a sufficient focus upon the true Gospel message, then these issues would not ruin our work.  We must be a true exasperation to God when we bicker with each other over fine points of doctrine and praxis [how we go about things].  But even worse, we must surely enrage him when we stymie others by imposing our own silly laws upon them, judge them by Pharisaical standards, and all-in-all pretend to play God.


During Bible study a couple of weeks ago conversation turned to a time in the Nazarene denomination when legalism had crept into the church and become a defining mark of its character.  Open-toed shoes, television sets, and going to the prom were sinful things that God apparently forgot to mention when handing Moses the tablets.  In diving into the minutiae of people's outward appearance and  in declaring them too susceptible to the devil's snares to dare exposure to the culture around them, the church floundered about while the moral compass of the world most needed its vision.  Entire congregations awoke in the '80s to a new world where everything they believed was challenged, and where Americans by the millions were utterly uninformed about the love of God.  Why?  Because Satan had blinded them to their real work in this world.  This was the reality for most of the so-called evangelical churches of the United States.  They experienced incubated evangelism at best.


But there's nothing new about all this.  Think back to these Sadducees, wise and learned, asking Jesus a theoretical question about a woman whose husband dies, and then the next husband, and then the next, until she goes through seven altogether (all of whom are brothers, which is creepy enough, but that's a different subject).  So in the time of the resurrection, they ask, whose wife will she be?


Jesus dismisses their question and dismisses them as well.  "You are in error," he says, "because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."  They spent their time on asking questions that only showed a lack of imagination about God.  In heaven, and in the resurrection, things will be perfect, and so these humanly issues will not exist.  How they will be handled is not our business.  God knows, and that should be sufficient for us.  


We still have such thinkers today, heading up our churches, asking questions about things that are below God.  They forget that they are not called to argue over fine points and silly questions, they are called to spread the Gospel. For instance, they forget that the Great Commission says, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;" it doesn't also say to bicker over what Jesus means by "baptize," nor does it say to fidget over whether making disciples of all nations is a form of colonialism.  No, Jesus is more straightforward than that.


Worse though are those insular church leaders -- clergy or laity -- who feel so secure in their place at God's table that they think they can make the rules for who gets to eat there with them.  Though we are of course called to discern right from wrong, we are not called to burden other believers with our personal judgements at every turn.  We can become so obsessed by the perceived peccadilloes of our brothers and sisters that we forget the overarching needs of this world.  As Thoreau put it, "Men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up."  And so it is with the church leader who lacks the pastoral graces.  His fruit is acidic, and he works not for God, but against him.  He is one of a type that pushes people away from God's grace instead of drawing them inwards.  The Gospel is bigger than them -- so much so that it will consume them in the final refining fire, for they are the chaff of this world.


"If anyone causes any of these little ones who believe in me to sin," Jesus says in Mark 9, "it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck."  Indeed, how many young Christians have been turned away by a hypocrite who saw the speck in their eye but not the plank in their own, and would have rather seen their soul condemned than to see them sitting in their church?  Thankfully, this is the exception, not the rule, but for those who have faced the church at its ugliest, where is the direction?  It is in knowing that the Church is bigger than a building or a single set of people.  It stretches across time and space and at its best it exists in the heart of Christ himself, to whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.  He is the only person, in the end, we really need to answer to, and his judgement can already be conveyed by the Spirit.  Jesus is God of the living, not of the dead.  So where we encounter dead Christians, who are no longer stirred by the Gospel but instead by gossip, let us leave them to their own devices.  God has work for us to do.  Let's arise and move forward.