The others centered God

I was reading through the final few chapters of Luke earlier this week and for the first time ever I noticed just how much of the content expresses Jesus’ concern for others. Even here during the final 24 hours of his life, where He is about to undergo such incredible personal suffering, we are reminded of just how others centered He was. While not fully comprehended, it is well documented that Jesus suffering and death in itself were selfless acts done for you and me. In becoming man, the immortal God gained access to death, that He might taste it and overcome it in order that we may have everlasting life in Him. But even beyond that, we see in the events leading up to His actual death and resurrection the constant giving of Himself to others.

Consider some of what we read in the Gospels of John and Luke leading up to His death. Put yourself in His shoes, knowing what He knew how you would have spent your last moments or acted under similar circumstances? Starting in John 13, Jesus and the disciples have gathered to celebrate the Passover meal. After supper He washes their feet, including the feet of Judas whom He knew was about to betray Him (v 11). He then proceeds through the chapters 13 – 16 to warn His disciples about what is about to happen, to prepare them, give them some final instructions and comfort them. In chapter 16 verse 1 He says, “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble”. Chapter 17 is then a prayer which is almost entirely focused on His disciples and those who would later become followers of Christ. In Luke 22:32 Jesus offers a specific prayer for Peter that his faith would not fail.

The scene now moves to the Mount of Olives. Jesus withdraws to go and pray but takes 3 of his disciples with Him; He does not ask them to pray with Him or for Him but to pray for THEMSELVES that THEY would not enter into temptation (Luke 22:40,46)! A few hours pass and Judas, along with a great multitude of troops, officers and priests arrive to seize Him. In John 18:8 we read, “I am the one you are looking for, let these ones go”, which probably saved the lives of those who were with Him. Moments later Peter gets a rush of blood to the head and cuts off the servant of the high priests ear. While any normal person would be in self preservation mode right then, Jesus takes the time to heal the servants ear (Luke 22:51).

Several hours later, Jesus has been unfairly sentenced to death; He has already been severely beaten and is walking toward the place of His crucifixion. Luke 23:27-28 says, “And a great multitude of people followed Him, and woman who also mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for YOURSELVES and YOUR children.” Still further on and we see Jesus now nailed to a cross, slowly and painfully moving towards death, He manages to utter a few short words, seven sentences in total are recorded in the Gospels. One is in Luke 22:34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”. Another is in John 19:25-27 where Jesus basically says to John, “Take care of my mom”. Verse 27 tells us that from that time onward John took Mary into his own home to look after her.  

What kind of a man is this? Sit and consider these verses within the context of what was going on around them. The depths of His love are endless even toward His enemies. May we grow in our love toward others just as He has loved and given Himself for us! I found a verse right at the start of John 13 which really captured the essence of everything else I have shared here. I hope that it gives you a deeper sense of the love that Jesus (and the Father) have toward you and others.

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

The Charleston shooting, Apartheid and learning to be a Peacemaker

America feels a long way away, probably because it is situated on the other side of the world. This afternoon I heard that someone had gone into a church in Charleston and opened fire on some people who had gathered for a bible study. Later on I heard that it was another white on black hate crime, something that seems to be happening more and more regularly on that side of the world. The Ferguson and Eric Garner incidents are only two of a host of highly publicized cases that the media brought to our attention in recent times. And like many others, when I heard of those cases I mourned the tragic loss of human life and said a prayer for the families and communities that would be feeling the effects of these events in the years to come. But it wasn’t until today, not even an hour ago when I saw a picture of Dylann Roof, who is the suspect in the Charleston Church massacre, that things really hit home for me. You see, in the picture which is taken from his Facebook account, Dylann is pictured wearing a jacket with the old South African flag on it.

Here in South Africa, I still see that old flag from time to time, some of the older folk in particular can be quite stubborn and would still prefer to be living in ‘the good old days’. Normally I hold my tongue and walk away; are my words really going to have any major impact on a person who has spent a life time erecting walls of hate, fear and segregation in their hearts? Today I no longer feel like holding my tongue. Jesus did not say blessed are the peaceful, goldfish are peaceful creatures that live their lives in relative obscurity. Soon enough they pass on without ever having impacted anyone or anything. No, Jesus said blessed are the peaceMAKERS. Peace does not come through inaction, it is pursued, it is fostered, and it is obtained not by the blood of ones enemies but by those who are willing to bleed themselves in standing up for what is right.

This country needs peacemakers, America needs peacemakers. The ‘how to’ steps in that process are still a little blurry in all honesty, especially while emotions are still running high. But here are some of my initial thoughts. This is for now, at least where I can see myself starting off in becoming a peacemaker rather than just one who lives at peace with others.

1 – Educate yourself and those around you. Put yourself in the shoes of the oppressed and the ‘other’. It is only in the last year that I have really started to read up a little on my own countries past and it has shocked me, it has helped me to at least begin to see what things were like for those living on the other side of the fence. It has transformed how I view my neighbor.

2 – Speak up. Open up dialogues wherever possible, you don’t need to be confrontational. I find much of the harmful and abusive words that I hear spoken are often said subconsciously by those who speak them. We are to a large extent products of our society. Not everyone breeds hate or hurts others intentionally.

3 – Spend time with people outside of your own color and culture. Every single time that I have gone into black communities for a church or social gathering or for any other reason I have always being welcomed in and accepted with wide open arms. Love brings down the walls of resistance and fear like nothing else.

Unfortunately there will be more cases in the media highlighting racial conflict in the future. They are not going to stop over night. But there are other Dylann Roof’s out there for whom it is not too late. No heart is so hardened that the love of Christ cannot pierce it and make it anew.

House Church 101 - Leadership and Eldership in Organic Churches – Positional or functional?

This is part 9 in a series on the theology behind house churches. To see the other posts in this series you can find a link to them at the bottom of this entry.

When people who are not used to the kind of open-participatory church meetings described in my previous post get exposed to these types of gatherings, there can be confusion at the lack of a clear human leader taking charge of the meetings. Some have urged us to officially appoint elders fearing that our lack of officially ordained oversight might lead us off track. Within the organic/house church movement itself people seem to be divided on the issue of whether leadership and in particular, eldership is functional only or positional in nature. By that I mean, that some believe that those who are ‘elders’ in the church have authority over the rest of the assembly while others reject the idea. Nevertheless it is an important question and below is how I presently see things.

My position

Let me start by stating my own position on these matters. Firstly, I consider leadership to be biblical and I think that pretty much everyone associated with non-institutional forms of church would agree on this. We just think it looks different than what most people do. Secondly, I also recognize at least two levels of hierarchy in church. But instead of the clergy and laity division most espouse my version has God on top and everyone else underneath on the exact same level. Pertaining to believers, I see no hierarchy in scripture whatsoever which we will be elaborated on shortly. Let me lay a foundation for my view by quoting Mark 10:42-45:-

"And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

For me, this verse is enough to contextualize everything else that the New Testament teaches us about the churches' relationship with power, authority, rank and the desire some individuals crave for having the spotlight on themselves in meetings (3 John 9, Matthew 20:21). Jesus Himself claimed that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him (Matthew 28:18); which is fortunate for us considering the abuse of power that we see within the world, whether it be in business, religion, government, race, sex or anywhere else. Power always ends with the oppression of those who do not have it. Having said that, I do believe that the New Testament does indeed make a compelling case for at least two ‘titles’. The first would be ‘priest’, but since the word applies to everyone who has been born into the body of Christ (1 Peter 2:5) one can hardly make a case for hierarchy from it. Then the second word would be ‘elder’, a word which scripture records some people were appointed and officially recognized as (Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5). However, I contend that even elders never carried any positional authority to speak of where, in the event of a disagreement, they could pull rank on others. Elders were simply the older, more mature believers among the brethren who were acknowledged as such by the others.

In case you are wondering about deacons, deacon is simply a Latin word that means 'servant' which has been turned into a title. And prophets, teachers, apostles and evangelists are functional gifts (Ephesians 4:8) meant to equip the rest of the body.

Where problems arise

I believe it is Mark Twain who once said, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”. While the King James Bible is generally a pretty good translation it does have some serious flaws in it, one of which is that it tends to emphasize the authority of the church and state (which was the same thing when it was written) even when it is not really there in the original language. One of the rules laid down to the translators of the King James by the monarch was that “The old Ecclesiastical Words (should) be kept, viz. the Word Church (should) not to be translated Congregation etc.”. Other words like ‘office’ and ‘obey’ pop up regularly where they should never have been used in the first place. Consider 1 Timothy 3:1 which the KJV translates this way, “This is a true saying, if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work”.

Thanks to 1700 years of church tradition and 500 years of biblical proof texts, the clergy/laity or hierarchical thinking about church is so ingrained in us that often newer translations simply import their preconceived ideas onto these texts as well. Consider how the Weymouth New Testament adds the word ‘church’ into 1 Timothy 3:1. The New Living Translation changes ‘good work’ to ‘honorable position’. It pains me to say this, but the NIV probably says it most accurately when it translates it this way, “Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.” To dig deeper on the issue of how translation errors have aided the idea of hierarchy within the church I highly recommend Sean Smith’s book “Are Christians Free Indeed? which has a whole chapter on the subject”. The point is this, that a lot of the confusion caused when we try and reconcile Jesus’ words in Mark 10 with conflicting verses that seem to promote hierarchical structures (like Hebrews 13:17) can often be corrected by looking into the translation issue first.

Objections raised

Some people point to other areas in scripture where authority is spoken of. Romans 13 has been mentioned but considering Jesus’ words in Mark 10, again, I do not think that it is wise to try and make a case for hierarchy in churches based on how the kingdoms of the world (governments) operate. The two are diametrically opposed to one another. One operates by force, coercion or power over people, the other emphasizes mutual submission (Ephesians 5:21), serving others or power under people.

Luke 10:19 is another one; it is where Jesus says that He has given us authority over the enemy and to trample on serpents and snakes. Again, this verse does not apply to our relationships within the body of Christ but to something else, in this case, the seventy chosen by Christ were given authority to heal the sick and cast out demons. Really, it is Christ’s authority imparted on another for a task which is something I will demonstrate using an illustration under the next subheading. But one last point still needs to be addressed which is the hierarchical structure that is taught within families. 1 Corinthians 11:3 is often used to teach that husbands have authority over their wives (see also Ephesians 5:22 and Colossians 3:18). It reads “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God”. There are multiple problems when one understands head to mean authority in this passage or when we sever it from its context. The word head often refers to positional authority in the 21st century, think of titles like ‘head boy’ or ‘head chef’ but that is not how it is meant in 1 Corinthians (or anywhere else that I am aware of in scripture). Head in this context refers not to authority but to one's source. The source of man is Christ, the source of woman is man (Genesis 2:21-24) and the source of Christ is God. Verses 8 and 12 confirm this, “For man is not from woman, but woman is from man”, “For as woman came from man, even so man comes from woman; but all things come from God”. Verse 12 (and 11) actually elaborates to counter the idea that men are superior to woman (as does verse 24 in Genesis 2) and serves to demonstrate their equality. The entire passage is actually dealing with a woman’s authority to pray and prophesy (see v5 and 10)! To really dig into this idea I highly recommend Philip Payne’s essay on head coverings which can be downloaded over here, pages 2 and 3 in his PDF list 14 reasons why 'source' is a better interpretation than 'authority' for the word head.

Obedience and submission is about following Christ’s example rather than about one being inferior to others. Obedience however is never blind, not in marriage, in submission to governmental authority or in church meetings. Some churches teach that you are to blindly obey your husband or the authority of its leaders and that you will be judged by God only in your obedience even if they were wrong. That theology never worked out very well for Sapphira. 1 Corinthians, Galatians and Revelations were all letters addressed to churches with several issues. Nowhere is the leadership held accountable in these texts but rather, the whole church.  As far as possible, we are to submit to everyone in all things (Matthew 5:38-42) but when there is any contention between what man and God says, we are compelled to answer as Peter and John did “Is it right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God?” (Acts 4:19).

Biblical leadership

I mentioned earlier that I do indeed believe in leadership and authority. Let me begin by sharing a story that a friend of mine once shared with me:-

There was once a rich man who had many people working for him in his home. One man tended his garden, another cleaned the house, and there was also an Au Pair as well as a full-time cook all living under his roof.  Before going on a holiday the man left some instruction for all four staff members with the Au Pair. The Au Pair read out each person’s duties to them as she had been instructed so that everyone would know what was required of them while the man was away.

What we learn from this illustration is that the Au Pair, while being of equal status with the other staff, still carried authority in the message that she brought because of its source. This is how I view authority in the church. Paul did not rebuke the Berean’s in Acts 17 for searching the scriptures to see if what he was saying was true, instead he applauded them for doing so.

Similarly, I view leadership as biblical insofar as it is in accordance with Christ and the Holy Spirit working through the ekklesia. Last week I shared about how one of our local gatherings went. There was no one in our midst that we referred to as leader, yet throughout our gathering almost everyone had the opportunity to lead us in songs, in teachings and in prayer as the Spirit worked in all of us.

Leadership in the church is always to be associated with serving others (1 Peter 5:1-3, John 13:12-17). In organizational churches the laity, much like the poor in society are there simply to serve and prop up the higher class citizens in our systems which is the exact antithesis of what Scripture teaches us.

Thoughts on elders

One would be hard pressed to argue against the fact that elders in the church were officially recognized in scripture. As already mentioned, Acts 14:23 and Titus 1:5 both mention the appointing of elders in the local cities. But this does not mean that they wielded absolute authority within the ekklesia. Church authority is never supposed to rest in the hands of one or even the few but on the whole assembly (Acts 15:22). As Del Birkey says in his book The House Church, “There resides in no one an inherent right to control another in Christ’s church. Nowhere in the New Testament are the church leaders instructed to exercise authority over the people of God...Ecclesial authority is never prepackaged according to sex or status, nor is it ever given to any one clergy or federation.”

1 Peter 5:1-2 tells us how elders are supposed to function:-

The elders who are among you I exhort…shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers…not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to who, but being examples to the flock.

The rest of us in turn are not to make their calling any harder, “Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7)”. We are able to do this because elders are not supposed to be hired professionals from outside the church but, biblically speaking, chosen from within the church. This process of appointing elders is something that happened over time and quite naturally. New Testament churches were often planted and then left to themselves to develop. Then months, sometimes even years later elders were selected. Elders were simply the more mature persons within that were recognized as being further along the path than most. Their words were not law but everyone recognized the wisdom that they had. Elders were not selected based on their impressive potential as per their CV’s but recognized for what they were already doing within, for their knowledge and blameless lifestyles. Essentially, when a man is recognized as an elder his function in the body does not change in any way.

Conclusion

To quote from Lance Ford’s book, UnLeader: Reimagining Leadership and Why We Must:-

“The New Testament places the emphasis on the function of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women who are servants of God and his kingdom initiative rather than on titles and offices. Men and women have dug titles and offices out of the trash heap where Jesus tossed them, shined them up, and hung them on church buildings, office doors, and business cards.”

As far as I can tell we are to recognize authority in people when it is Christ’s authority that we see in them. Likewise, we are to imitate the example of those who have proven themselves to be godly and full of the Spirit. Giving extra respect to and heeding the advice of those who are more mature in the faith. This also means that we are to be sensitive to the Spirit's moving within the ekklesia and to the outworking of the gifts within each member. It is certainly not an ‘each one does what is right in their own eyes’ situation that I would embrace. In Revelation 2 Jesus addresses the doctrine of the Nicolaitans (v15), although He does not specifically mention what they taught, the word itself means ‘conquerors of the people’. If it is hierarchy we want, then rather let us insist on being a servant to all, seeking the well-being of others before our own, gaining neither recognition nor reward for our service. Isn’t this what the early church modeled for us?

Other posts in this series

Gathering to Christ
Two kinds of church
the Lords supper
A church without tithing
Temples made by men and the temple built by God
On authority, submission, coverings and accountability
Clergy, laity and the priesthood of all believers
What do organic church gatherings look like?

House Church 101 - What do Organic Church gatherings look like?

This is part 8 in a series on the theology behind house churches. To see the other posts in this series you can find a link to them at the bottom of this entry. I am currently about half way through my series on house churches and thought that it may be a good time to answer this question. It is something that constantly gets asked whenever I share about church and unfortunately, there is no simple answer because the nature of our gatherings is not founded on a specific model to be followed. And what we are doing in Benoni, South Africa probably looks a lot different than what others are doing elsewhere in the world, even though we are being led by the same Spirit. Even our own gatherings never really look the same two weeks in a row. Sometimes we sing and sometimes we don’t, sometimes we pray a lot and other times only one or two people might pray during our time together. There is no list of boxes to tick, just a Person to gather to, for and in.

Nevertheless, last week I decided to make some mental notes during our time together and share it over here. Consider this, not the movie reel but rather a snapshot of what things can look like. So last Sunday, everyone arrived at 3PM as they do every week; on this particular day there were 12 adults as well as what at times sounded like a bus full of children present. We all chatted freely for nearly an hour. There was a lot of celebration over the fact that someone had gotten a new job that we had all being praying about. In one corner someone was speaking about creation and evolution (we have people on both sides of that fence in our family). Someone handed me a book that they thought I would enjoy (and so far they are right). Some visitors in the past have taken exception to the amount of time that we just sit around chatting, calling us a social club. It is something that I make no apologies for as relationships are high up on our list of priorities, Jesus said that people would recognize His disciples by the love that they have for one another. When I call someone ‘brother’, it is because he is close to me, part of my family, it’s not because I don’t know his name.

Anyway, as a group we then gathered the kids and with them, sang a few children’s songs, we let them choose some of their favorite songs and we taught them a few new ones as well. Some songs were in English and some in Afrikaans because we have English and Afrikaans speaking kids with us. One of the ladies then shared the story of Jesus raising Talitha back to life. The kids all loved it; we are blessed to have both good singers and people who are good with children among us. After this, someone suggested that we spend some time in prayer which lasted a few minutes and ended with a song which someone spontaneously started singing. Around about this time my wife and one of the other ladies entertained the younger kids in the corner of the room by making clay animals with them while the older people continued on.

We opened the floor up to anyone who had anything to share with us, one of the brothers spoke about the meaning and significance of leaven in 1 Corinthians 5, one of the ladies, because of a personal situation she found herself in, asked a question about how the church should deal with the issue of homosexuality in light of what the chapter says about sexual immorality. Somewhere along the line the kids had gone outside to play and 2 of the men went and stood outside to keep an eye on them.
From there someone else shared 2 short thoughts with us, one on faith and one on the trinity.

We then prayed again before sharing a meal together which concluded with the breaking of bread and another prayer of thanks.
By this time it was already 7 o’clock and some people had to leave, while a few others remained behind to help clean up. At around 8 only one person remained who had stayed behind because we have been going through a series of audio teachings together which are relevant to him at this point in his life.

Every single person contributed in some way during our time together; we have no worship team but we still sang songs of praise. There was no sermon but we still had teaching and exhorting from the bible. There were no ushers but everyone knew they were welcome. We have no Sunday school but our kids are still learning and being fed and by their 'church family'. This is what Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians 14:26, “When you come together, each one of you has a Psalm, a teaching, a tongue, revelation and interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” It may sound grand (and it is) but it is also risky and sometimes falls flat on us. When people have nothing to bring our meetings don’t flow and rather than having a flawless program cover over our cracks, we are left exposed (as sometimes happens). This is normally a good indication that we need to pause, reflect and pray together. And did I mention that we have 8 children between 1 and 6 years old in our little group? On a cold day like last week when we meet inside the house things can get rather noisy and chaotic from time to time.

This is still a process for us and things are far from perfect, with people coming and going, the dynamics are constantly changing as well. But there is definitely something authentic about it, something organic, something of Christ. It may not be for everyone but I wouldn't change it for the worlds tightest orchestra or most eloquent preaching because there is just, in my opinion, so much more beauty in being small, close and free.

Other posts in this series

Gathering to Christ
Two kinds of church
the Lords supper
A church without tithing
Temples made by men and the temple built by God
On authority, submission, coverings and accountability
Clergy, laity and the priesthood of all believers

A More Christlike God

Someone once said that God made man in His image and then we returned the favor. Meaning that the god we worship usually (and rather conveniently) looks a lot like we ourselves do. He tends to be on our side and hate the same people as us; he most certainly shares our doctrinal views! We even project these perceptions onto the way that we read the bible by highlighting certain verses and skipping over others. So even though we are all reading the same book, some people end up with an image of an angry deity sitting over us with lightning bolts in his hand ready to strike us down at any moment while others see him as being super laid back and chilled out so you can pretty much do whatever you want and he is cool with it. Still there are others who see the disciplinarian who dishes out the rules and is interested in nothing more than our outward conformity to the letter of the law.

 Alarmingly, you can ask almost anyone what God is like or to list some of His attributes and then you can ask them the same question about Jesus and you will end up with two completely different lists describing each of them. Why is that? Jesus once said that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father (John 14:9). Likewise, the author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus is the exact image of the Father. Thankfully, some people have picked up on this and are helping to change our perceptions; men like Greg Boyd, Brian Zahnd, Jeremy Myers and Derek Flood have all being advocating for a God that looks more like Jesus. And while this list is far from complete one would have to add Brad Jersak’s name to it as well. I have being following Brad’s work for a few years now, his essay in Stricken by God? was a real game changer for me. I appreciate how he tackles the tough questions head on and all of the research that he obviously puts into all of his work. These qualities are evident once again in his latest book, A More Christlike God which is the subject of this post.

A More Christlike God makes the case that God does not look like the Greek god Zeus or the Roman god Mars; He is not a police officer who is only concerned with ones outward behavior. Neither is He someone who is indifferent to His creations decisions and the consequences of our actions. And because Jesus did not come as a mighty conqueror like Alexander the Great but as one who would rather lay down His own life for His enemies, it would be inconsistent of us to assume that God looks like a King who rules by force and coercion as well. And Brad does not stop there, building on key passages such as John 14:9 and Philippians 2:6-13 he takes a holistic approach to the question of what God is like and addresses many of the seemingly unChristlike images that we find in the Old Testament. Much attention is given in the second section of the book to the idea of a Cruciform God, that is to say, that the crucifixion of Jesus is the climax of God’s self revelation to us.

When expounded on some very interesting things come up, one of the most powerful insights in the book I believe is in how the Cross reveals how God participates in the world and how it reveals how He responds to suffering and tragedy. One of the toughest questions that people ponder in life is where God is when evil and suffering happen, why doesn’t He stop it? Some would say that even in a world of free-will beings an all-knowing God is still partly responsible if He foresaw everything that would transpire later on. Brad’s response to the charges of control, passivity and responsibility when bad things start to happen is incredibly powerful.      

Some of the other things that stood out for me were the concept of kenosis, God’s self emptying love and an interesting section on ‘unwrathing God’ which I am still chewing on. I also really appreciated looking at the cross from outside of the usual atonement theories and the simplified manner in which the book approached it. Then of course, ‘The Beautiful Gospel’ presentation which is illustrated by using two chairs (which you can also watch on Youtube by clicking here). My only real gripe with ‘A More Christlike God’ is that I wish it had spent more time on the life and character of Jesus. It is probably not a fair comment to make because a good few chapters were devoted to just that and the book had to cover a lot of other ground if it was going to be well rounded and complete. Nevertheless, I would have loved to see some more of the difficult passages like Revelation 2:22-23 addressed as well. So even though I wholeheartedly agree that God looks exactly like Jesus, with those kinds of scriptures in the back of my mind, it is hard for me personally to jump 100 percent behind something like the concept of ‘unwrathing God’ and maybe I am not the only one.  

Yet even with that minor gripe, it is still a fantastic book with plenty of fresh, original, freeing and thought provoking material in it. I am extremely glad that I read it.

                                                   5 out of 5 bacon strips!
                                   


You can find A More Christlike God on Amazon by clicking over here.