Are We Haunted?

With Halloween being today and people dressing up as the things we envision haunting large old houses or abandoned factories, it seems like an important question to ask, "Are we haunted? Are hauntings real?"

Hauntings are an interesting concept that humans have come up with. The idea that sometimes when a person dies, though their body is dead, their spirit lives on in our world because they either have some "unfinished business" or they just don't want to leave. These spirits stick around, and sometimes they make their presence known to those of us still living. Some are content to live in our world, while creating very little disturbance. But others, the ones we most hear about, live in our world to torment and induce fear, and sometimes cause death. These are the ones that are angry about something and want to make someone pay for it.

Of course, there are some who find comfort in the idea of ghosts because that means there's a possibility of communicating with the people we care about after they die. The relationship doesn't have to dissolve with death if ghosts are real.

Then there are those who get a thrill out of the idea of encountering a ghost. Countless TV shows are dedicated to showing people hunting ghosts in some of the world's most haunted places. While there's always something clearly weird going on, no one ever seems to catch the tiniest glimpse of a ghost on camera. Yet there have been so many eye witnesses throughout history who claim to have seen a ghost that the evidence would seem to point to something close to what humanity has come up with to describe ghosts.

We're All Haunted, But Not By What You Think

We don't need ghosts to be haunted. People who are very much alive do the things that ghosts are said to do all the time. People that torment you and tear you down. Who needs ghosts when we have real living human beings, some who unmercilessly make the world a miserable place to live in for some people?

Do people really get to stick around to do the things they've always done, including haunting people? Is that really an option?

Jesus tells us a story in Luke 16:19-31 about two men who died-a nameless rich man and a homeless beggar named Lazarus. The interesting thing about the rich man is that he was desperate for the concept of the dead returning to earth to be true. He's tormented in the eternal place where he'll never have God, and he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers. Abraham doesn't say it's impossible. Anything is possible with God, and there is one isolated instance in the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 23 when God did send the spirit of a dead man back. The result was terrifying to the people who experienced it, which is much what we would expect. But in this instance with the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham seems to say that it would serve no purpose to send a man back, so God isn't going to do it. The rich man doesn't ask for the ability to go back himself, but you have to think that he could only desperately wish that sticking around earth as a spirit after death was an option. But Lazarus' spirit is carried away to heaven after death, and the rich man's spirit was carried to hell immediately upon death. It doesn't say who carried the rich man. He didn't get the option to stick around. Surely he had some unfinished business, but it would remain unfinished.

Another interesting element of the story is that Lazarus, in life, was a beggar outside of the rich man's home, begging for food daily. The rich man could have made Lazarus' life better, but instead he gave him nothing. The rich man was the one haunting Lazarus in life by his neglect. But once death occurred, the haunting stopped.

God holds the power over the human spirit, and he doesn't seem to leave any room for the belief that he allows spirits to stick around after death.

But what about all the evidence? It seems like something's haunting places all over the world. It's not too hard to imagine a race of spirit beings that the Bible talks about impersonating the spirits of human beings. Who knows why they do it, but it seems like the most likely answer for the hauntings that are legitimately real. That's really another post for another time, though.

We're haunted by things that are a little more close to home. For human beings, haunting happens during life, and sometimes we're the ones doing the haunting. Nobody wants to be haunted.

Life is better spent creating hope rather than creating fear. Human beings were never meant to haunt other human beings.

What kind of activities do you have going on for Halloween?

A Bible Translation for a Story-Driven Culture: A Review of The Voice New Testament

The writers of the New Testament were men who chose carefully the words they wanted to use to convey the story of God that they were caught up in. Their audiences were unique, and each writer would communicate in a way that made the most sense of the message to the people they were talking to. These were men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit in what they wrote, and the preservation of what they wrote was fiercely fought for. These men were writers and storytellers as much as they were anything else, and their giftedness with words bled through every page.

There have been some great English translations that have tried to capture the word-for-word meaning of what these men wrote into our own language (the ESV and the NKJV are two of my personal favorites). Thomas Nelson Publishing and the Ecclesia Bible Society led by innovative pastor Chris Seay teamed up to produce a new type of translation, one that takes a translation approach described as "contextual equivalence."

This new translation is called THE VOICE, and the whole Bible, including the Old Testament, will be released in 2012. THE VOICE translators realized that context determines the meaning of words and that there are many unique nuances to the original text that need to be translated into English in such a way that the force of impact, as well as understanding, is communicated accurately to a modern English audience, especially one that is immersed in a story-driven culture.

THE VOICE seeks to capture not only the original words, but the original meaning and experience as well, with the goal that God's voice would be heard clearly through the reading of his Word.

I love that the translation team of THE VOICE was composed of several well-known biblical scholars and a team of writers and artists who specialize in the communication of important ideas through well-placed words. This approach resonated with me because, in this way, I see THE VOICE as a Bible that will appeal especially to writers, artists, and other creative types. It will also appeal well to a culture stories through a variety of different mediums.

Some of the other great features of THE VOICE NEW TESTAMENT are:

• dialogue attributions in screenplay format for easy recognition of who is speaking

• words in italics indicate words that aren't in the original text, but serve as helpful explanatory notes and transitional phrases that carry the story forward smoothly and clearly

• using the words Eternal One instead of Lord when translating God's name and Anointed One instead of Christ to properly convey what the word Christ means, and the addition of "Liberating King" where the idea is called for

• brief commentary notes throughout the text to aid in understanding

• informative book introductions

With THE VOICE NEW TESTAMENT, people are getting an accurate translation that is both visually and linguistically appealing by a team of people committed to creating a way for people to experience God's voice unhindered.

Look for THE VOICE NEW TESTAMENT available in November and the THE VOICE BIBLE in 2012.

I received this book for free for review from BookSneeze.com.

What features do you love the most about your English translation of choice?

Redemption Reflected in Harry Potter: A Review of THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY POTTER by Connie Neal

Someone unfamiliar with the Bible's main plot points might read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and think it's a really compelling fantasy story with a cast of memorable characters and an unforgettable storyline about an epic battle between good versus evil. And that would be the end of it. But someone with a familiarity with the Bible's main plot points is likely to read through the books and think, "Wow. These stories remind me a lot of the story elements of redemptive history."

It is the second group of people who will appreciate a book by Connie Neal called THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY POTTER. Neal takes us on an in-depth journey and exploration through all seven books in the series, revealing what she calls "glimmers of the gospel" throughout. The result for me was further confirmation of my belief that the story of redemption has been intricately woven into the fabric of our human existence. The greatest stories, the ones that impact us the most profoundly, are always a reflection of the greater story found in redemptive history.

Neal breaks the book up into seven sections, a section focused on each book. Each section has a summary of the book in the series the section is focused on. The summaries are really helpful because it can be hard to remember all the many intricate story threads that J.K. Rowling wove into each book. Neal then takes some of the most pivotal story elements from each book and shows how they compare and illuminate some of the most pivotal story elements in the Bible's redemptive story.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY POTTER is first a book exploring one of the most memorable and profound fictional stories of our time, but it also takes readers on a deeper journey into the story God is telling through Scripture. Readers will walk away knowing the Bible more.

This would be a great book for Harry Potter fans, regardless if they're followers of Jesus or not. It's at least a way to introduce someone to God's heart as revealed in Scripture while looking at the story of Harry Potter.

It would also make a great resource to Christians who struggle with the witchcraft story context of Harry Potter, who want to know if there is any redemptive quality to the stories. Neal does a fantastic job of showing us that there is, and that the most profound story elements reflect the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ for the sake of others in a compelling way.

Having read and loved all the Harry Potter books, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY POTTER was a fun read and a profound journey back into both the story of Harry Potter and the story of redemption through Jesus Christ.

I received this book for free for review from Westminster John Knox Press.

How much do you think the Bible had an influence on J.K. Rowling's writing from what you've read in the story?

The Weight of Words: Winning the Internal Struggle With Temptation

I think my favorite word in the English language might be "daddy." Not really when just anyone says it. Just when my children say it. Of course, anyone could call me daddy, but I'd be a little worried if just anyone came up to me and called me daddy. It's just simple word, yet in different contexts, it can take on different meanings and bring about different emotional responses in people.

Like Puff Daddy, for example. What kind of an emotional response does hearing the name Puff Daddy bring about in me? Not much of one, really.

But when Lucy or Kalel call me daddy, it's one of the greatest things in the world to hear. I don't think I'll ever get enough of it. When my wife tells me she loves me or that she's proud of something I've done, it means something much different to me than if a complete stranger said it to me.

Words can have a pretty profound impact on people, especially when they're strung together into sentences and paragraphs that communicate something important. They can even have a strong influence on the actions we take.

Several years ago, I saw a horror movie called The Grudge. Words from a script were translated into a terrifying scene where a guy goes up into an attic at night and gets attacked by a ghost girl with a sickly pale complexion. I have an attic. To this day, I hate to go up into my attic at night.

Everyone knows what it's like to be impacted by the words of someone they deeply care about. When someone says something harmful, doesn't it sting just a little bit more when it's from someone you love? When someone you love expresses their love for you, doesn't it somehow make the world stop spinning, as if that moment between the two of you is all that matters?



On a seemingly unrelated note, we also know what it is to do things we wish we hadn't. Things that may hurt us and others, yet we don't understand why we do them. Things that cause us to wonder if God still listens to us because somehow we know we've betrayed him, so why would he care about anything we ask of him?

It only makes sense that if we're doing things that only harm us and drive a wedge between us and God, then we should just stop. But Scripture tells us about something called temptation. Temptation to do things that betray God and others. Temptation itself is often brought about by the invisible evil presence in our world known as the devil and his demons, and it's personal. Temptations come in different forms for different people. What evil you're prone to commit may be completely different than what your spouse is prone to. But in yesterday's post, we learned that there is someone who wants you to do the things that separate you from God. The devil wants to make sure you're tempted where you are most likely to fail.

In Matthew 4, Jesus walks into temptation much weaker than we ever do, yet he walks out of the desert, having not sinned. How did he do it?

Jesus countered each of the temptations with a commitment to something God had said in Scripture. Jesus let God's words influence him more than the temptations. Because God was so important to him, God's words held a lot of weight in his life. Given who Jesus was and what giving in to the temptations meant for us, the Bible was actually the difference between life and death in temptation. We learn from Jesus to let God's words shape us and influence us to do good instead of evil. That means we have to work on cultivating a profoundly intimate relationship with God for his words to impact us. My wife's words mean so much to me because I love her. My children calling me daddy holds so much weight with me because I love them. If your affections aren't drawn toward God, his words won't mean much. Jesus saw God's words as something he desperately needed and longed for. Giving in to temptation distorts our affections.

There is something else that is crucial to know about temptation: Bad choices often lead to more bad choices, and good choices can lead to more good choices. Our choices shape our character, for good or bad. A person doesn't just wake up one day, deciding to commit the most heinous act of sin if something didn't shape their character to do that up to that point. Someone may start with a few small lies, then move on to bigger ones. This may lead to a simple act of stealing, then maybe violence the next time because someone tried to stop them from stealing, then maybe murder the next time. But it didn't begin at murder. A character was shaped that made murder more likely than it was before the small sins. We can make choices that severely hinder our freedom, and we can undergo a process I call progressive depravity, when our character is shaped by the evil choices we continue to make. How much more likely are you to give in to a temptation a second time of you've already given in to it once?

"For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness,..." (Rom 6:19)

But we can also make choices on a consistent basis that shape good character. This is the part where we're trusting God's words more than the voice of temptation whispering in our minds. We make a choice to trust God once, and we can allow that to build our courage or faith to trust God the next time. Soon, we've built a new habit into our lives that counteracts the sin we may have once given in to.

"...so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification." (Rom 6:19)

Jesus faced temptation head-on in the desert to show us the way to defeat sin. It all comes down to making a choice to run as far away from temptation as we can, which is in the presence of Jesus.

What choices have been integral in shaping who you are today?

Photo Credit: Harpagornis ~away~ on Flickr Creative Commons

Jesus' Showdown in the Desert: Why His Temptations Were Life-Threatening

An obscure man from a small town who's been whispered to be someone very powerful walks into a desert wasteland, completely alone except for one very angry and powerful being who wants to hurt him. The man walks into the desert equivalent of a haunted house to enter a struggle with the most vile and ruthless spiritual being who has ever haunted the world we inhabit.



The man is someone very powerful, but not from a human perspective. In fact, he has been in this desert wasteland for forty days, and he hasn't eaten anything since the day he entered. For forty days his body has been wasting away, and he is the weakest he could be. And this has been his preparation to face the spirit in the desert. The fight won't be won with human ability because human ability has always lost against this spirit.

The spirit is the devil, and he has been tempting humanity to be stripped of what makes them human, created in the image of God, and to surrender to his destructive will for their lives. He's been doing this since the first couple in the Garden of Eden.

The man? His name is Jesus, and he's on a mission to face and defeat temptation on our account, so that we too can walk away from it unscathed. He will do this as a man dependent solely upon the power of God.

People often love scary stories at Halloween, but they probably don't think of Jesus' temptations in the desert as a scary story. But what if Jesus would have said yes to any one of the devil's temptations? What if he had just said yes to the request to bow to the devil just once? He could have avoided the pain of the cross. Power and authority would be his.

Or would it?

If God bows to the devil, then suddenly the devil is God. Do we think for a moment that the devil wouldn't have destroyed Jesus before he even lifted his head again? Imagine a world ruled by the devil. Hard to imagine because it's pretty unlikely that humans would still exist.

Matthew 4 records a pivotal moment in human history. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance as Jesus and the devil have their showdown in the desert. If Jesus had surrendered, all hope would be lost. But Jesus, who walked into this thing so physically weak he was probably nearly dead, walks away the hero. In that moment, he has just rescued the whole universe from a hopeless devil-ruled existence. Because he was the hero in that moment, he could go on to be the hero in the moment of redeeming the world through his death on the cross.

Jesus also showed us the way out of temptation, but more on that tomorrow.

What do you see as some of the most pivital moments in Jesus' life that we often overlook?

Photo Credit: Simon Rooke on Flickr Creative Commons

Writing as Spiritual Discipline

I can't remember the first time I wrote something creative, but I know I've always wanted to write. During my sophomore year of high school, I took my first creative writing class. I was obsessed with horror movies at the time, and I cared nothing for Jesus. Naturally, horror stories were my genre of choice because I loved the darkness more than the light. Then, into the darkness shined a powerful and intoxicating light known as Jesus, and writing took a completely different direction for me. Suddenly, writing became a way to process my thoughts about the world in light of my new faith.

• Journaling as I studied the Bible became integral to my spiritual growth as I worked through what God was trying to communicate to me.

• I began creating stories to make some of the abstract concepts in Scripture more concrete in my mind like Jesus did with the parables.

• When I began teaching the Bible to students in church on a weekly basis, I worked through what I was going to teach from the Bible through writing.

• Throughout the course of our relationship, I've written letters to my wife Lindsey to capture and express exactly how I feel about her.

• Soon, I'll begin writing children's stories for my children just to capture their imagination with who Jesus is and why knowing him should move them to pursue him relentlessly.

Writing gives me hope because it intensively refocuses my attention and, by extension, my heart's affections back on Jesus as he truly is, and I see how his story is written on the hearts of humanity, waiting to be revealed and given the space to transform the hearts of the people who genuinely see it.

Ted Dekker is a New York Times best-selling author and my favorite writer. He has written nearly thirty stories that explore the nature of good and evil, as well as illustrate through creative storytelling the ultimate triumph of Jesus to win over human hearts. In his novel Showdown, Dekker outlines four very profound writing rules:
1. Write to discover
2. There is no greater discovery than love
3. All love comes from the Creator
4. Write what you will

Paul tells believers to be "renewed in the spirit of your minds," (Eph 4:23) and to "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness" (Rom 6:13).

Paul is describing a general practice that followers of Jesus are to take to keep themselves in a position of continuing to grow closer to the heart of God. People have often prescribed practices known as spiritual disciplines that help an individual to influence their own hearts toward Jesus. It is specific acts in which we present our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. Examples include meditation on Scripture, prayer, and fasting, among others.

But there's a specific practice that many in the Bible used to both draw closer to the heart of God through intentional thought and emotion processing and to help others to draw close to God's heart as well. David wrote psalms that spanned the emotional spectrum as they sought to express a man's thoughts in light of pursuing God. Solomon wrote thoughts of wisdom to relate to his children on how to live a life that finds its satisfaction in God alone. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote to process who Jesus was and the implications of his life and teachings on the entire world. Paul wrote letters in which he processed what it would mean to live life as a follower of Jesus.

Finally, there's Jesus. He wasn't a writer in the traditional sense of the word, yet he did create stories and the gospel writers wrote down those stories, as well as his teachings. In this way, I think Jesus qualifies as a write. Jesus wrote stories to describe by comparison what living with God in his eternal kingdom would be like.

Writing as spiritual discipline produced the Bible that reveals the heart of God to us. Of course, we can't write anything inspired like the Bible, but we can write to process who Jesus is and the implications of his life and teachings and his death and resurrection have on our lives.

As Ted Dekker outlines, we write to discover, and there is no greater discovery than love, which is bound up in who Jesus. John, who spent three years walking with Jesus, tells us that God is love. This progression should lead us to write freely what is trying to burst out of our hearts because of Jesus.

For me, writing acts as a spiritual discipline that helps me to draw closer to God, but it can only do so if I have some of the most important spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and prayer already part of my day.

Even if you're not a writer, keeping a journal is a great practice to help process what you're studying in Scripture, as well as keep prayer requests and answers recorded for future reference.

How has writing impacted your spiritual journey?

Photo Credit: gregoryhogan at Flickr Creative Commons

On VCRs and Remembering Smallville

Once upon a time if you wanted to watch a television show later than the time it was scheduled to air, then you would have to inject a thin black box into a really loud machine called a VCR and press record.

Forget trying to have a conversation with someone while the tape is rewinding. You practically have to yell over the loud screeching noise of the VCR trying to find its way to the beginning of the tape.

In the name of efficiency and innovation, the technological world has introduced us to DVR, so that the ancient machine known as the VCR can truly be a thing of the past. Unless, of course, you still have one. And it's still your primary method of recording a TV show. I hate that the VCR is time-consuming, and I hate the lines across the screen when we're watching something on it, but we haven't entered the world of DVR just yet.



Lindsey and I record the shows we want to watch every Thursday and Friday night to watch after our children go to sleep. Every week at about ten minutes until 7:00 is an adventure of trying to figure out where our one-and-a-half-year-old son Kalel has hidden the VCR remote this time. Then comes the rewinding of the one tape we use over and over, week in and week out. The one that has had the series finale episode of Smallville on it for five months because it was so brilliant I can't get myself to record over it. My ritual every week is to rewind the tape to start recording after Smallville, but I always go a little too far. And every week we end up watching the final scene of Smallville when Clark Kent steps out onto the roof of the Daily Planet and opens his button-down shirt to reveal the famous Superman S on his chest.

We watched all ten seasons of Smallville, and along with LOST, it was one of our favorite shows. Some seasons were great. Some were a creative nightmare that caused me to think, "What were the writers thinking?"

It was a very innovative and fresh take on the journey of Clark Kent to Superman, and it was fun to see each week how the creators were going to reframe key elements of the Superman mythology. Most of the time, the way they told the story was compelling and well-executed. But sometimes, with some of the key elements, you wish they would have done things differently. Season four was particularly a disaster with Lana possessed by a witch and the whole search for the stones that could've easily taken one episode, instead of a whole season. Lionel Luthor's journey toward redemption was one of my favorite parts of the story. The death of Jonathan Kent was a heart-breaking, but unfortunately necessary, progression of the story. Ultimately, it was all about the hero's journey, and when Clark Kent finally donned the suit and cape and took flight in the final episode, it was incredible. I didn't think they could pull off a satisfying final episode, but they did it, and it sits on my ancient VCR tape still because of it.

Why did Smallville resonate with so many people? I think it was for a couple reasons. First, the desperate longing for a savior seems to be written into the fabric of our human existence. We're messed up. We're the cause of much of our own problems, and we need somebody clearly not from here, yet somehow one of us, to rescue us out of the darkness.

It's interesting that the Superman mythology is all about a father sending his only son to earth to become one of them to rescue them. Very similar to the story of Jesus. Of course, Clark Kent isn't Jesus, yet the hero he represents can be a reminder of our desperate need for a savior. Jesus is that savior. Yet, just like in Smallville, the savior isn't always loved by everyone. For some, he's seen as a threat, someone who is in the way. Some love the darkness more than the light and run as far away from rescue as they can. But Jesus still pursues the ones who see him as the villain, and some eventually see him as the hero he is.

The second reason I think Smallville resonated with people is because we all long to leave a mark on the world, to make a difference in people's lives. Before the natural corruption settles in from living among so many people already versed in living in darkness, a child would choose to be the hero rather than the villain. Clark Kent, though he was gifted with so many extraordinary abilities that we would all love to have, was a person who genuinely cared about people. Abilities or no abilities, he would always choose to be the hero and help people. Though it was just a story, it was a moving story that once again points us to a man with extraordinary abilities that Paul tells us in Philippians 2 is truly good and will always choose to be the hero and help people.

Jesus invites us to love people, to create courage, to rescue people out of darkness. We can make a difference in our world, but just like with Clark Kent and with Jesus, it won't always be appreciated. People won't always understand it. Some people will even hate us for it. Yet if we're truly good, truly moved by the hero Jesus who has rescued us, then we'll always choose to be the hero, loved or hated, because the story isn't primarily about us. It's about the hero, and the hero is about rescuing people in darkness. Jesus invites us to be heroes, but not for fame or recognition, but because we genuinely care for the people we're trying to rescue by drawing their hearts to Jesus.

Smallville was a brilliantly told story. Its popularity tells me that people hunger for the story of Jesus to invade their lives, even if they don't recognize it. From a creative standpoint, it tells me that we need to do a great job of creatively and compellingly contextualizing and telling the story of Jesus so that people are inspired by the story of our hero and moved to be rescued by him and to rescue with him.

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." - Jesus in Matthew 4:19

What do you have sitting on your DVR or an ancient VHS tape that you can't seem to get rid of?

Photo Credit: Anderson Mendes on Flickr Creative Commons