Bible Survives Deadly New York City Blast

The deadly explosion that leveled two New York City apartment buildings in East Harlem last week left a decades-old Bible unscathed. Workers found the treasured antique in the rubble.

Several members of the 80-year-old Spanish Christian Church expressed shock and joy when they learned the Bible miraculously didn't go up in flames.

"I thank God. It was wonderful. I really didn't think that anything that was paper would survive," Carmen Vargas-Rosa, the church's financial secretary, said.

Rev. Thomas Perez was so overwhelmed when they found the holy book he had to be taken to the hospital because he was having chest pains.

"When he saw this Bible, that's when he had the palpitations," Letitia James, the city's public advocate, said. "Through all of the rubble, through all of the destruction, his Book survived.

Five church members are among the eight people who died in Wednesday's blast.

Nigerian Churches: We Will Not Stay Silent Amid Persecution

Nigeria’s largest church network is calling on the country’s president for more protection from Boko Haram attacks.

The president, meanwhile, is calling for more prayer.

“We will not keep silence amidst persecution Christians are facing,” the Rev. Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told World Watch Monitor on March 7.

“The killings in Northern Nigeria are condemnable and act of wickedness to humanity,” Oritsejafor said. “It is unfortunate that worshippers are being killed in their homes and places of worship. We are not happy with this trend and will continue to pray to God to bring an end to this excruciating situation we are going through in Northern Nigeria.”

Deadly attacks have been carried out on an almost daily basis in central and northern-eastern States of Nigeria. On Saturday night, three churches were burnt down to ashes in an attack attributed to Boko Haram in Fota town, in the Gombi Local Government area of Adamawa state.

The attackers, suspected to be from the militant Islamic Boko Haram insurgency, also burnt down a police station and killed seven police men before moving to the churches, said the Rev. Lawrence Dim, a Catholic priest in the area.

“Many of the people have fled the area, but [the attackers] burnt down three churches: there is EYN and LCCN Churches and one other church. They also injured some people and killed some,” Dim told World Watch Monitor, though he did not estimate the number of victims.

On Feb. 26, at least 14 people were killed in coordinated attacks by heavily armed Boko Haram fighters on Kirchinga, Michika and Shuwa villages in Adamawa State. Many properties including three Catholic churches were set on fire. More than 400 were killed in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states in February.

In Central Nigeria, widely called the Middle belt, the predominantly Christian Berom community has sustained heavy lost following increasing attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

Eighteen people, most of them women and children, were killed on March 4 and 5 in four villages—Dorok, Gwon, Gwarama, and Gwarim; all in the Riyom Local Government area of Plateau State. Among the victims were eight people of the same family. The assailants, wearing military-style uniforms and armed with sophisticated weapons, burnt more than 200 houses, churches and other places of prayer.

According to one survivor, who identified himself as Peter Daniel, the attackers vowed to annihilate residents who returned back to their villages.

Across Plateau state, at least 163 people have been killed in attacks by suspected Fulanis since the beginning of the year. Each wave of violence brings renewed criticism, from the Christian Association of Nigeria and other quarters, that Nigerian security forces are not doing enough to stop the killings.

Of Nigeria’s estimated 160 million people, about 70 million are Christians. The CAN is their most representative umbrella group, comprising notably five major denominational groups: the Catholic Church in Nigeria, the Christian Council of Nigeria, the Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, the Organization of African Instituted Churches, and the Evangelical Church Winning All.

Rev. Oritsejafor, the CAN president, appealed to government and security agencies to be proactive towards protecting lives and properties, and to prosecute the perpetrators.

On Feb. 5, Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan sacked his army chiefs, replacing them with new generals with orders to crush Boko Haram. More recently, a presidential spokesman acknowledged the conflict with Boko Haram is a “war situation” and that the army is dealing with a “serious enemy.”

On March 9, President Goodluck Jonathan called for more prayer to defeat the insurgency. 

“We need more prayers to end terrorism. With prayers and the measures put in place, we will surmount the challenges”, the president said in a speech at the opening session of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, in Abuja, the federal capital.

The government’s inability to put down the Islamist surge has raised widespread criticism from religious and political leaders. Violence is expected only to increase as federal elections scheduled for February 2015 approach.

The 2011 election Jonathan, a Christian from Nigeria’s south, prompted unprecedented violence across the largely Muslim north in which at least 170 Christians were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands displaced, and more than 350 churches were burned or destroyed by mobs.

When Two Lesbians Walk Into a Church Looking to Provoke Christians

“Let’s just go for fun! We’ll see how much we can push their buttons,” Amy teased her girlfriend, who didn’t like the idea of hanging around a bunch of Christians.

“Come on,” Amy insisted. “I hear their motto is ‘Come as you are.’ I just want to prove that they’re ‘come as you are ... unless you’re gay.'”

Amy had been in a nine-year lesbian relationship that had broken up, leaving her wondering why her deepest longings could never be satisfied. She and Rachel had just started hanging out when they decided to attend one Sunday morning.

“I came on a mission to shock people,” Amy admits. “Rachel and I would hold hands in front of people, but instead of the disgusted looks of contempt we expected, people met eyes with us and treated us like real people. So we started coming to church weekly. We kept moving closer to the front each week, trying to get a reaction so that we’d be rejected sooner rather than later. When we couldn’t shock people, we stopped trying and started learning."

“Not long after that, Rachel and I stopped seeing each other, but I kept coming to church because I was searching for something,” Amy admits. “I definitely wasn’t looking to change. It wasn’t my lesbian lifestyle that I was bringing to God, but I wondered if God had answers to my deeper longings. Problem was, I didn’t trust God at all!

“The more I listened and learned about the teachings of Jesus, the more I started to actually believe that God really did love me. I heard more and more about being His masterpiece, and in time, I actually started to believe it. The more I believed God actually could see something of value in me, the more I trusted Him.”

Over time, Amy slowly opened her heart and struggles to Christ.

“It took several years, but as I moved closer and closer to Christ, He gently took me on a very surprising journey," she says. "First, I found out my father had nine affairs while I was growing up—a secret that rocked my world. Jesus began to show me how the roots of my sexual issues tie together with my dad’s—I was just like him, using people to find comfort, life and love outside of God.”

Amy continued to grow in her knowledge of the Scriptures, falling more and more in love with the Lord. The following year, God had another surprise for her: “I went to the seminar called ‘To Be Told,’ hosted at Gateway. I wanted to see how God could put closure to my brokenness, but what He showed me shocked me.” 

“As Dan Allender was telling a story of a bully," Amy recalls, "I suddenly had a flashback of getting off the school bus. I lived down the street from Jimmy, a boy who had bullied me all year. But this particular day, Jimmy acted nice to me as I got off the bus.

“He apologized for being so mean, and he invited me to come to his house.”

That day in the seminar, all else faded to black as this vivid nightmare crept back to life. Amy saw herself walking through Jimmy’s front door, noticing all the shades pulled down. Startled, she spied two teenage boys eyeing her with a ravenous look as the door slammed shut. Her screams never escaped the evil darkness that enveloped that house. They pinned her down and raped her.

She was only 9!

Amy swam in a pool of tears as the seminar continued. Others were oblivious to her divine epiphany. She realized the Lord had been drawing her near to strengthen her for this revelation—to show her the source of so much sexual struggle hidden for years beneath layers of protective mud.

“After that, I realized God knows more about me than I know about myself,” Amy recalls, “and He wants to bring healing to these wounds, so I fully gave Him my heart and body—everything. As I continued to seek intimacy with Him, the lesbian struggles fell away. I’m not saying that’s how God works with everyone, but it’s how He’s healing me. The more I focus on God’s intimate love for me and try to see His masterpiece emerge, the less I want anything to get in the way of His work in me.”

Seven years later, Amy leads our ministry to help people find healing and wholeness from all kinds of sexual and relational struggles. She’s helping others become God’s restored masterpiece.

Jesus Is Never Shocked

Do you realize that Jesus is not shocked by the shocking things people do? Jesus knew Zacchaeus had robbed people blind and profited off much unethical behavior, yet Jesus was not shocked. He did not offer Zach correction, but relationship: “Come down, Zacchaeus. I’m staying at your house tonight.” (See Luke 19:5.) That shocked everyone! Yet relationship changed Zacchaeus.

Jesus knew that the Samaritan woman at the well had been married and divorced five times. He knew about her current “hookup” and how sexually entangled she was with the guy she was living with. (See John 4.) Jesus was not repulsed. (Samaritans of Jesus’ day were treated by the religious community like gay people often get treated by some of today’s Christian community.) None of this kept Jesus away or kept Him from offering her living water. Maybe Jesus wants Christ-followers who will be less like the Pharisees and more like Him—unshockable.

Luke tells of a time Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner. Jesus and His disciples went and “reclined at the table” (Luke 7:36) along with Simon’s religious friends, who were skeptical about Jesus’ true identity—mainly because He showed more love for “sinners” than love for the Law of Moses. (Jesus had just made it clear this wasn’t true; He came to fulfill the intent of the Law of Moses.) They invited Jesus there to judge Him, not learn from Him.

Middle Eastern dining style consisted of a 1-foot-high table with pillows on the floor for seating, with people sitting usually with feet stretched out to the side or behind them. As the meal proceeded, an immoral woman crashed the party. She sheepishly made her way over to stand behind Jesus. Luke makes sure we know she had “lived a sinful life” (v. 37). She did not just have a few slip-ups, but rather had made a life out of her sexual deviancies, and everyone knew it! Her mud was public knowledge. Her whole life, she had felt judged and condemned by the religious establishment, so to go into the house of her tormentors took enormous courage.

Yet there she stood ... because Jesus was there! Somehow word on the street had traveled to her through the crowd she hung out with—there’s hope in Jesus for the muddiest human. Hearing He had come near, an unstoppable force welling up from within had drawn her to His feet. As she stood in His presence, hope burst through the dam of all that pain that had driven her mudslinging behavior—she started to cry. Her tears accidentally landed on Jesus’ dirty feet (that His host had not shown the common courtesy to wash).

The tension in the room mounted; everyone’s shoulders tightened as she fell to her knees behind Jesus, bent down and wiped His wet, dirty feet with her hair. She took out a bottle of oil mixed with perfume, took the oil in her hands and gently stroked His feet with the oil—kissing them as she anointed Him with the perfume.

Jesus just sat there, never flinching, eyes fixed on the Pharisees, watching them react in shock and disbelief—flames of contempt shooting out of their merciless eyes.

Simon could stand it no more. This outrageous scene had proven his point. He muttered to himself and his “more respectable” guests, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” (v. 39).

In other words, if Jesus were truly a prophet, He would know about her scandalous sexual sin, and He would be shocked. But Jesus did know and was not shocked!

Now, you have to realize this was a controversial situation. Imagine a known prostitute coming up to your pastor, kissing his feet and rubbing oil on them after the Sunday service. It would be his last Sunday at most churches if he didn’t put an end to it fast! What was Jesus thinking? Why didn’t this shock Jesus like it would all of us?

Jesus looks at the heart. It’s about the heart. Jesus confronted the unloving hearts of His host and friends while this woman demonstrated a heart overflowing with love. Jesus said, “Simon, I have something to tell you” (v. 40).

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii [a whole lot of money], and the other fifty [one tenth as much]. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (The only thing Simon had judged correctly that day!)

Then He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:41–47)

It’s all about love! Don’t miss this very critical point Jesus makes to us all: If you truly recognize how much it cost God to forgive you, it will flood your heart with love for God and others who need more of the same.

It’s all about love! Not a love that ignores the mud and the damage that destroys God’s Masterpiece, but a love that recognizes how much loving mercy God has given a messed-up person like me!

That great love brings grace and truth together to give hope to a broken world in need of forgiveness and restoration.

Note: The previous article was excerpted from Mud and the Masterpiece: Seeing Yourself and Others Through the Eyes of Jesus by John Burke.

John Burke is lead pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, and author of No Perfect People Allowed (Zondervan). Click here for more from John Burke or visit John at johnburkonline.com.

Bill O'Reilly and Piers Morgan Seek to Reinvent Christian Morality

What do Bill O’Reilly and Piers Morgan have in common? They have their own shows on cable TV, they are professing Catholics, and they recently made statements that, in effect, seek to redefine Christian moral standards (this was in response to the comments of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson).

On his December 20th broadcast, Morgan opined that certain parts of the Bible are “utterly ridiculous” and “offensive.” He added: “I can still understand people say, well, you know, it's my religious belief that homosexuality is a sin. I think it's a load of absolute fooey in the modern age, to be so bigoted, but if that's what people want to do, that's fine.”

He then said to me (as a member of the discussion panel):

I'm a Christian. I'm a Catholic. And I can look at the Bible and say parts of it are obviously utterly ridiculous. There is a part of the Bible that says, if you as a woman are not a virgin on your wedding night, you should be stoned to death. Clearly, that is not what Mr. Robertson is espousing today because he would know that is ridiculous. There are lots of offensive things in the Bible. But let me ask you this sir, as a Christian man, can you point to a single public utterance by Jesus Christ—the Christ in Christianity—about gay people or about a gay lifestyle? Can you name one single thing, derogatory or otherwise?

This, of course, was easy to respond to, and I actually gave him three relevant passages where Jesus made clear that: 1) He didn’t come to abolish God’s Law but rather to fulfill it, which included taking the moral and sexual standards to a higher level (see Matthew 5:17-48); 2) all sexual acts outside of marriage (which, quite obviously, meant male-female unions only) defiled people and made them unclean from the inside out (Matthew 15:15-20); and 3) marriage as God intended it from the beginning was the union of one man and one woman for life (Matthew 19:1-16). There’s not much wiggle room there!

I also pointed out that a first century Jewish teacher wouldn’t need to speak against homosexual practice, since it was universally rejected at that time among religious Jews.

The obvious questions for Piers Morgan are: Since you reject the authority of the Scriptures and the teaching of the Catholic Church, what do you mean when you say that you’re a Catholic Christian? And how do you determine what parts of the Bible are relevant for us today? By what standard or method of interpretation do you come to those conclusions?

Interestingly, Bill O’Reilly, a far more conservative Catholic than Morgan, had this to say about Robertson’s remarks on his December 20th show:

“Talking Points” believes Mr. Robertson has a constitutional right to define his religious beliefs but is misguided by targeting specific groups of people for damnation. If you adhere to the Christian philosophy you know that Jesus was quite clear, all judgments about the consequences of sin are to be made by God and God alone. We're all sinners, and because of that the Gospel of Luke 6:37, mandates -- mandates that Christian human beings refrain from judging others. Again, that is God's prerogative.

. . . HAVING WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT JESUS, I KNOW THIS MUCH: he was adamantly against bad behavior that injures other people but he would not condemn a woman in his presence who was an adulteress.

And time and time the Nazarene persuaded folks that his way of living was worthy because it was so compassionate. Homosexual Americans should not be demonized just like devout Christians should not be demonized and people who have strong beliefs should understand the big picture. Portraying gay Americans as sinners gives license to harm them. It's insulting and demeaning.

To be sure, O’Reilly did a far better job of honoring the Scriptures and pointing to wonderful truths about the teaching and example of Jesus. And without a doubt, he rightly emphasized that Jesus is an equal opportunity Savior – we are all sinners in need of his mercy and he offers forgiveness equally to all. Kudos to Bill for pointing to Christ’s compassion.

But Jesus did not only leave final judgment to God. He also made very clear the kinds of things that God would judge.

And so, rather than “targeting specific groups of people for damnation” he grouped all of us together in the condemned column because of the universality of our sin, coming into the world to offer us salvation. (See John 3:16-21; for the record, Jesus also called us to make judgments, as long as they were not hypocritical or superficial: see Matthew 7:1-5; John 7:24. Paul also called us to judge the behavior of others who claimed to be followers of Jesus; see 1 Corinthians 5:1-13).

And while Jesus did not condemn the adulterous woman to be stoned to death, he also ordered her not to repeat her actions (John 8:11: “Go and sin no more”). And, in his most famous sermon, he stated that a man who looked at another woman lustfully had committed adultery in his heart and was worthy of the judgment of hell (Matthew 5:27-30).

That’s why Jesus died on the cross: to give all of us a way of salvation.

O’Reilly also overstates his case when he says that, “Portraying gay Americans as sinners gives license to harm them.”

Not so. The New Testament categorically and consistently speaks against homosexual practice, along with many other sins, but that doesn’t give anyone a license to harm the sinner. In fact, the New Testament constantly calls for compassionate love to be expressed to all.

So, the same Scriptures that speak against homosexual practice (and other sins) speak even more emphatically against doing harm to others. Why not preach both parts of the message: the sinfulness of homosexual practice (and other forbidden practices) and our calling to do no harm to our neighbor?

As many have noted, one of the most offensive things that Phil Robertson said – putting aside the coarseness of some of his language – was his statement that “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God,” but in saying this, he was simply quoting the words of Paul (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Does O’Reilly then reject the moral standards put forth by Paul as well as use the teachings of Jesus selectively?

It’s one thing to question whether Phil Robertson should be the new face of evangelical Christianity in America (in my book he should not, with all respect to him for holding his ground on these sexual-moral issues).

It’s another thing to rewrite the Bible and reinvent Christian morality in an attempt to make it more palatable to the world. That’s exactly what Piers Morgan and (to a lesser extent) Bill O’Reilly have done.