A Touch of Steak

Well, it looks like I will not be giving an in-depth update on what I am doing here.  I do apologize for that, but I feel my time is better spent posting about the spiritual details.  Fast food is good if you are in a rush, but steak is better in every way, shape, and form, as long as you have time to enjoy it and the tools to cut it.

As a Christian here on earth, what is our purpose?  Are we just here to make it to heaven?  Are we just here to ensure our salvation?  Or are we here to do more than that?  Are we here to glorify God?  Is “ensuring our salvation” a stepping stone to achieve glorifying God?

I WILL NOT say that you are wrong if you look at the bible and ask, “is this a salvation question” to determine whether you do exactly what the bible says or fudge just a bit.  I don’t have that authority, I don’t want that authority, and I will never have that authority.  That lies in God’s hands.

But I do want you to think about it.  I feel like I have made a breakthrough in beginning to understand some of those that are more liberal in their interpretation of the bible.  I am here in the Czech Republic at a retreat for missionaries in central Europe.  It is a beautiful thing.  We sing a lot, with songs in Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and English.  We study, we fellowship, and we encourage one another.  And we talk.  A lot.  The other night, a group of us talked about Christianity, and the way culture affects it.  American culture and experience has molded American Christianity.  We draw lines in the sand, and treat them as scriptural lines.  Not everyone draws the same lines, but they are drawn.  And they aren’t always a problem, as long as we keep them in America.  For example- how many say that alcohol, in any quantity, is bad?  How many churches actually use wine for communion?  In America, using grape juice is normal.  We have a fear of becoming alcoholics (at least I hope that is the reason we are so against alcohol.  I have never seen or heard of the scripture that condemns alcohol.  Drunkenness is mentioned time and again, but drinking alcohol in moderation is certainly not condemned.), and so we make sure we don’t touch alcohol.  It is hard to be an alcoholic if you don’t drink.  Personally, I am one of the ones a bit wary of alcohol, for many cultural reasons.  And that is fine, until I go to a foreign country and condemn them for drinking alcohol on occasion and using real wine for communion. We cannot condemn others for not following the line in the sand that we drew and that we hold ourselves to.  On the other hand, when we know people have lines drawn, we need to respect them, and not jump over them just because we don’t think the lines need to be drawn.  That is not the way to treat anyone, Christian brother or not.

The appetizer is over, let’s bring on the entrée.  Here is my problem-

How do we want to live our lives?  Do we want to live them in a way that we are just saved?  Or do we want to glorify God?  I do not feel comfortable asking, “What must I do to be saved?”  Does that glorify God?  I don’t think it does…  I don’t think that we can ask our creator and councilor, who also happened to give His life to become our savior, “If I do this, but not this, will you still save me?”

I am not perfect.  God doesn’t require perfection for salvation.  Otherwise, no one would be saved.  But he does tell us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”).  So do we strive for perfection, or do we settle for stopping short, because no one but Jesus has actually achieved perfection?  Personally, that mentality scares me.  I don’t want God to look at me and say, “You did okay…”  I want Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  (Writing that scares me.  I don’t know that it makes a difference to God.  I don’t know exactly what God’s response to us will be.  Maybe it is the same for everyone that is saved, regardless of our actions or mentality.  I just don’t know.  I do know that I would rather strive and struggle to be the best I can be than to settle.  Settling just doesn’t work for me.)

Anywho, the question came up about communion.  If I had to, would I be okay with using an Oreo instead of bread?  The bread is a symbol of Jesus’s body, but it is only a symbol.  Could I use an Oreo, in the right mindset, to also symbolize Christ’s body?

Let’s look at the bigger picture as I see it- interpretation of the commands of the bible.  When God tells us how to do something, do we look at the reasoning behind it, and then find the means to get it done within our human perspective?  Or do we humble ourselves, realize that He knows best, and do as He says?  (Classic example- baptism.  We are told to immerse [that’s what baptize means in Greek], but that is not always “convenient”, so some settle for sprinkling.  Is there a problem with that?  Should you have a problem with that?)

Personally, I have a problem with that.  Maybe I am stupid, but I don’t feel comfortable with that.  I don’t think that we, as mortal, created human beings have the right to look at what our creator and savior has told us and say, “You told me to do it this way, but I can do the same thing this other way, and so I will.  Thanks though!”  I am conservative, and saying such things does scare me.  Some may say that is because I am weaker in my faith, as in Romans 14, or maybe that I just don’t understand scripture.  Maybe you are right.  I would prefer to see it as me being humble enough to see my place in the grand scheme of things.  I would not feel right about going up to my king, creator, and savior, and telling Him that I know a better way of accomplishing what He wants accomplished.  I just don’t feel like that is a good idea.

Maybe God will not condemn someone for using an Oreo as a symbol of Jesus’s body in a pinch.  I just don’t know.  Some don’t think that is a “salvation issue”.  Okay.  Fine.  But I don’t think that tweaking God’s commands in such a way glorifies God.  I do want to get to heaven, and I do want to serve as a missionary to help spread God’s word to the lost.  But I also want more than that- I want to glorify God with my life.  And so, personally, I am going to be conservative in my interpretation of God’s commands, and I am going to strive to follow them to the letter.  I may slip up, but I am going to try not to.  I hope that glorifies God. 

This is a lot of my personal opinion.  I know people, quite a few of them actually, that have different opinions.  I don’t want you to just agree with me.  I want you to consider yourself more than anything.  I could be completely wrong and off base, and if so, feel free to correct me.

With love, and God bless,

John Coffey

Fast Food

Ai karumba!  

You know those days when you just run and gun, getting as much stuff done as possible?  When you start working after breakfast, you work straight through lunch, and keep working until after supper?  Then, when you do have time to stop and stare, you just eat some fast food to tide you over, because you either need to go to bed or get back to work.  Have you had those days?

Luckily, things haven't been that bad.  But things have been a little busy these past couple weeks.  I meant to do an update this past monday, and I wrote down some stuff, but never posted it.  Now it is Thursday, and I still haven't gotten to it, nor will I post an in-depth update right now.  Maybe I will this weekend.  We are headed to a retreat for missionaries in this part of Europe.  It should be pretty good.  I know everyone could use a break from english camp preparations.  Mostly we have been hard at work doing that, but we have found time to keep up with most of the activities the team here does throughout the week- church, teaching english, frisbee with the teens, English Evenings, etc.  It has been busy, but fun, and I will try my best to get you a more in-depth view of what we do here.

But for now, I will leave you with a little bit of food...

Sunday I got to do the Communion thoughts/ lesson for church.  I want to share with you the condensed version, to leave you to contemplate for the week.

Romans 6:15-18

            “What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  By no means!  Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” 

I Corinthians 6:19-20

            “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body.”

Genesis 3:14-15

            “So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’””

Matthew 27:50

            “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”

Spiritually speaking, we are slaves to either sin or obedience.  We have a choice- we can either obey God or we can sin.  We cannot get away from that.  Unfortunately, the first time we sinned we became slaves to sin.  But that is not what God created us to be.  He created us to be with Him, to have a relationship with Him, to serve Him.  He loves us!  So He bought us, each and every one.  He paid the price so that we were not forced to be slaves to sin, we could willingly become slaves to obedience.

            And this has always been the plan.  Look at Genesis- right after Adam and Eve sin, God talks to them and the serpent.  Right after the very first sin, God tells the serpent, Satan, that the offspring of Eve, Jesus, would crush his head.  Jesus would conquer Satan.  We would be freed from our bondage.  From then on, from Genesis 3:16 to Matthew 27:49, God is building up to Matthew 27:50- Jesus dying.  Jesus died, paying the price so that we may become, not just slaves to obedience, but sons of God, children of God. 

            I think that our worth as people, as spiritual commodities, is based on how much God or Satan is willing to pay for us.  God thinks we are worth His own life.  He is so sure that we are worth His life, that He gave His life.  No matter what happens in this life, no matter how many times we are beaten down by others, no matter how many times we are rejected, unsuccessful, or unloved by our peers, we are still worth the life of God.  Nothing can take that away from us, and nothing ever will.

Jesus died so that we could be free from sin, so we might spend eternity with Him and our Father in heaven.  This week, I would encourage you to remember how much you mean to God, and what that means for the way you live your life.

God bless,

John Coffey

Cliff Diving

Every year the Razorbacks for Christ go on a fall retreat to Burnt Cabin, right off Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma.  On Saturday afternoon, some of the braver and/or more stupid souls go cliff diving.  It is an interesting experience, to say the least.  Once you do it, it is pretty much cemented in your mind.  The long walk there, trying to focus on anything other than jumping off the cliff so you don’t psyc yourself out before you even get there.  Standing on the edge looking down, trying to see the rocks and where it would be best to jump from.  The short run, getting enough momentum to clear the edge of the cliff and any rocks right at the base.  The jump, the point of no return, the moment you actually reject the safety of the cliff for the thrill of the fall and the unknown landing to follow.  The fall, a bit of preparation for the landing.  And then you hit.  Complete immersion, then struggling to the surface.  Swim back to the shore, recuperate, then get back to the cliff and do it all again.

Coming to the Czech Republic has been remarkably similar to jumping off a cliff.  In the days leading up to coming here, I was trying my best to not thing too much about leaving home for a full 2 months without an adult there with me the entire time.  Eventually, the time came to leave home, and I was running like crazy.  Volleyball with the RFC’s Tuesday night, then packing, sleeping a few hours, chores Wednesday morning, then to Glen Rose/Hot Springs for FFA state convention Wednesday afternoon, off to Pocahontas Wednesday night/Thursday morning, sleep a few hours, then to Memphis airport Thursday afternoon.  I can’t quite decide which point is the jump- stepping foot on the plane in Memphis to start our flights, or stepping on at Minneapolis with the next stop being across the great pond at Amsterdam.  Regardless, somewhere along the line I jumped and began flying through the air, with the inevitable immersion into the Czech culture at the end.  I think landing in Prague was getting the feet wet, and the subsequent talking to David, riding on a train (it was quite nice), riding on a tram, getting settled into the dorm (home for the next 2 months), eating supper (sandwiches in the girls room with flat Kofola to drink and Milka for dessert), and then making my bed (traditional Czech bed, comforter with dubet(?) cover) put me about up to my waist.  Saturday, meeting with the team for lunch (at Opera off the main square in Olomouc- Italian, but good food) and then the tour around Olomouc (due to the festivities on the square, we missed quite a bit, plus we were tired, but we did see a couple of cathedrals and had time for grocery shopping) dunked me under.  Sunday, with intern’s orientation (just a little bit of information, ha ha ha!), then church (a small, rather informal, but very good, service with several Czech students and other locals attending), and running around Olomouc with a couple of the Czech students, I hit bottom about 10 feet under the surface, and started fighting back up.  It has been a crazy couple days! 

A few things about cliff diving/entering a foreign culture- 

Make sure you jump, and then focus on where you are going.  It does you no good to look back at the cliff as you are falling, wishing you were back there.  You aren’t going to make it.  Focus on the landing, on how you enter into the culture you are falling towards.

Be careful how you land.  Too far forward and all the air is knocked out of you.  You end up 10 feet below the surface looking up, knowing that when you surface you won’t be able to breathe for quite a while.  Not fun.  If you try to make a big splash, or you aren’t careful, you land doing a cannonball and break your tailbone.  Remember, you aren’t in Kansas anymore- the same rules do not apply.  Let go of your preconceptions and assumptions, try to accept and embrace as much of the culture as you can.  Sure, you go deeper into the water, but you don’t get everyone wet and you don’t get hurt.  Just because you accept and enjoy their culture doesn’t mean you are losing yourself.  Unless you are made of sugar and melt in water, in which case jumping off an 80 foot cliff isn’t a good idea to begin with.  Luckily(?) I don’t have that problem…

I hope this finds everyone well.  We are all safe and healthy here, and certainly enjoying our time.  It is hard not to fall in love with the Czech culture!  Just today, on one tram ride, three different Czech people, from low teens to mid twenties, offered to give up their seat to older people.  It warms the heart to see such kindness and respect.

As for entering into other cultures, I am reminded of Paul’s assertion to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 9:19-23, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.  To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

God bless!

John Coffey