Conversations at the Ranch with Dudley Hall

While surveying the current landscape of voices telling us what we can do to move God in our direction, I was confused and appalled. I wasn’t sure if I should send money to the speaker, fast more, pray harder (whatever that means), denounce my citizenship, lobby for Israel, or go to the mission field. One thing was evident: the subject of interest was about moving God to act on our behalf. Individuals want God to act in liberating them from debt, depression, sickness, and poverty. As a nation, we want God to move on our behalf and save us from foreign enemies, internal decay, and certain judgment. The answer to what it takes to move God is certainly not a consensus among Christian voices.

We haven’t lost the desire to know the times and seasons of God’s calendar. Books flood the marketplace, offering clues to the end of time and the meaning of certain political decisions and astronomical occurrences in the heavens. It has been true since the first couple ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We still clutch to the notion that if we knew everything God knows, we would be fine. So, we speculate.

As the book of Acts opens, Jesus has spent 40 days since his resurrection appearing to various groups of disciples. His topic during that period was the kingdom of God. As he approached his ascension, his disciples asked a calendar question. “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Jesus answered, but not with a simple “yes” or “no.” He answered the question they needed to ask and gave them the information they needed for the season they were in. He had earlier demonstrated that mankind does not need to know the specific dates on God’s calendar when he said that even he (as man) didn’t know. (See Matthew 24:36.) In his answer, he redefined the concepts of Israel, the kingdom, and restoration. They had pictures in their minds regarding all of these things that needed to be replaced by greater and clearer pictures.

We continue to get confusing definitions of what a Christian is. It is not uncommon to hear some person make an off-the-wall statement and then back it up with, “because I am a Christian.” Dr. J. I. Packer has long been a trusted voice for evangelical Christianity. He says that a Christian is one who has God as Father. In his classic standard, Knowing God, he goes on to say that Father is the Christian name for God.

2 Timothy 3:17 - All Christians are aware that we are called to be disciples of Jesus. Many of us don’t know what that means. We have gotten lost in trying to plant and grow local churches, seeking to influence our culture, and holding civil leaders accountable to their callings. We have tried to apply the industrial revolution’s assembly line approach to our own demise. We have often settled to have church attenders who think more like the secular culture than Bible-based believers.

2 Timothy 3:17 - All Christians are aware that we are called to be disciples of Jesus. Many of us don’t know what that means. We have gotten lost in trying to plant and grow local churches, seeking to influence our culture, and holding civil leaders accountable to their callings. We have tried to apply the industrial revolution’s assembly line approach to our own demise. We have often settled to have church attenders who think more like the secular culture than Bible-based believers.

1 CORINTHIANS 10 - How does the story of Israel’s journey from Egypt to the promised land relate to us? In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 10, he uses their experiences in the wilderness as a warning for Christians to reject idolatry, moral impurity, and grumbling. But there is much more that we miss if we only value their journey as a lesson in morality. God isn’t just saying, “They really messed up in these areas, and the consequences were dire. You had better learn from their mistakes, or you will end up with people being bitten by snakes and worse.” Of course, warnings against disobedience are there in that text, but Paul is making the point that THAT story is OUR story.

2 CORINTHIANS 6:14–18 - Cultures clash over the narrative that defines them. Every culture has its story, and those whose story coincides with reality as God defines it in the Scripture have the potential to flourish. Those who neglect or contradict God’s story are doomed to failure. We in western civilization are increasingly being influenced by secularism and its God-denying narrative. The dominant theme of secularism is that there is no overarching narrative—that there are many stories with each one having more or less the same claim on reality. We are called to live in our culture with allegiance to the story that culminates with the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. As we do, there is a clash. We should try to have dialogue, but we can never mix the stories for the sake of peace.

TITUS 2:11–14 - One of the participants in an event at the ranch confessed, “I have read your books and listened to other teachers saying what you’ve said, and I know it is right. But I’m telling you, grace is hard.” I chuckled at the irony of that statement but had to agree. When we have been programmed to live with guilt and shame, grace is hard. It is both counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. As many have said, “It is too good to be true.” Why is it so hard?

PSALM 2, HEBREWS 8:6-12 - We live in a day of a self-proclaimed identity crisis. It seems that the whole society is trying to figure out how we decide who we are. It is true that authenticity requires that we act out of who we are. No one can find their destiny trying to be another species. No matter how much a dog tries to improve in its meowing, it will never be a good cat. We have obsessed with our own identity markers. Without dismissing the importance of knowing who we are, I suggest that there is a more important question.

Who among us values prayer so much that we make daily ethical decisions based on how it affects our prayers? This seems to be what the apostle Peter is suggesting—and even instructing us to do. In his discussion of the husband’s attitude toward his wife, he adds, “ . . . so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). In writing about living a blessed life, Peter emphasizes the eyes and the ears of the Lord being open to our prayers as we consider what we say and how we behave (1 Peter 3:10–12). Even later in the letter, he states how our eschatology (concept of last things) affects our prayers (1 Peter 4:7). For Peter, the privilege and power of prayer is so important that it should be considered as a primary goal of life. We are God’s partners on earth, and our part is first of all prayer.