What Energizes You?

One night in our weekly gathering of friends we discussed the question "What exactly is the resurrection, and what kind of bodies will we have?"

From roughly the time of the Exile through the destruction of Jerusalem and beyond, many groups within the Jewish and Judeo-Christian worldviews expected a resurrection "at the end of the age", along with judgment from God.

Of course, the New Testament clearly claims that Jesus was physically resurrected after his crucifixion. According to the accounts, he spent time with his disciples after the event, and then left the planet with the promise that he'd return.

We picked up the story in I Corinthians, where Paul is dealing with the same question our Tuesday night group was dealing with. In chapter 2 verses 14-15 he writes:

"But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one."

Now that's the New American Standard translation. Here's the interesting thing: that word the NAS renders "natural" is psychikon in the original language. And the word the NAS renders "spiritual" is pneumatikon in Greek.

The root of psychikon is psyche - typically translated "the soul, or the emotional, feeling and thinking part of a person". We get our word "psychology" from psyche.

Of course, the root of pneumatikon is pnuema - for "breath or spirit".

And the -ikon endings translate to "pertaining to or associated with". Tom Wright, in The Resurrection of the Son of God says, and he persuades me to agree, that in the context of chapter 2, the -ikon endings for those words would be best translated "animated by".

And in the verses just before this passage, Paul had been comparing the wisdom of "this age" with the "hidden wisdom" that came from God, wisdom regarding the age to come.

So perhaps a better rendering of the Greek would be:

"But a man animated and energized by the current order of things and by the common wisdom or psychology of this age does not accept the things of the Spirit of God ... But he who is animated and energized by the Spirit and by the wisdom of the age to come appraises all things...".

Then Paul discusses the resurrection directly in chapter 15, and Wright points out that Paul uses these same words in 15:44 and onwards:

"it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."

The phrase "natural body" = soma psychikon and "spiritual body" = soma pneumatikon in the Greek text.

So a better translation of 15:44 might be:

"it is sown a body animated by the soul, by the psychology and by the wisdom of this age, it is raised a body animated by the Spirit and by the wisdom of the age to come."

See that? The resurrection produces a soma, a body that is...a body! It has real, concrete physicality. We don't become Casper the Friendly Ghost in some disembodied existence.

Nope - we get a new physical body that is powered, energized or animated by the Spirit of God. Connect this with Revelation 19 through 22 and what do you get? It's truly awesome!

Now the tricky part comes when we remember that in 1 Corinthians 2 - Paul is expecting us today, right here, right now - to live as anthropos pneumatikon (people animated by the Spirit and by the wisdom of the age to come). Did you get that?

We are to be energized every day and every moment by the reality of the resurrection and the kingdom to come.

Of course, the "now/not yet" tension that runs all through the New Testament is hugely present here. So this is tough to do when we've still got these old "corruptible" bodies. But God's Spirit inside us does the trick.

We've just gotta pay a lot more attention to him.

Father, give me the sense to be pneumatikon rather than psuchikon. Help me to be energized by, animated by and consumed with the wisdom of the kingdom to come. Give me the will and the strength to live now, as best I can, as if I were soma pneumatikon - until that great day when Messiah returns and makes everything new.

What do you see?

Maybe these images will only appeal to those like me that love wandering through vast and wild places. If so, I apologize in advance!

I dropped a thousand feet off the Continental Divide the other day and shuffled precariously along this shifting shale slope on a serpentine trail cut by our trusty Expedition guides.

Though I'd seen (and posted!) pictures of this place taken by others - whatever breath I had left from the sketchy descent was abruptly taken away when I first spotted this little lake with my own eyes.

Yes, the sheer vastness and rugged beauty of this place is almost incomprehensible. The colors are so very vivid - it's a spectacle for sure.

The pictures simply do not do justice - but they're all I've got.

Now a certain friend of mine that loves such places would say, "Mike, you look at nature and see the hand of God. I look at nature and see Chance."

Then he'd add, "You know what your problem is? You just don't understand the law of large numbers."

Interesting.

We both seek such places - and love them - but for vastly different reasons. And I respect his right to hold on to that law of large numbers, I really do.

Of course, my worldview suggests:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." - Romans 1:20

But I fully recognize the fact that there are about as many worldviews as there are people on the planet.

So I wonder, according to your view of the world - what do you see when you look at nature's awesome beauty?

Time to go...

It's time to go into this picture - to walk 10 miles or so back into those snowy peaks, then around to the right, then to spin south for 40 miles.

I'll be away from technology for the next week or thereabouts, so this'll be the last post for awhile.

I'm looking for cool Expedition destinations for next year. And like I said in my last post, I'm really looking for time alone with our Creator.

Father, thank you for the extravagant beauty you painted into your creation. Thank you for the opportunity to experience it firsthand. And most of all, thank you for the privilege of fresh meetings with you in the middle of it.

The Power of Being Alone

K-Colorado's summer of 2009 is all but over.

I see it in the Warming Hut - the shelves are empty.

I hear it outside my office - the quiet periods of mountain stillness are lengthening.
Most of all, I sense it in the faces and in the conversations of our gifted staff - they're all going off to far-flung places where they'll continue to seek and to find more exactly what God is making them to be.

Camp is emptying out.
And closer still to my heart, my own family's gone back to Missouri to kick off the school year while I stay for awhile in Durango. Yes, the summer of 2009 is in the bag.

And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there's a certain loneliness about it all. There's a vague feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity that I've found to always accompany moments like these.

But several years ago I stumbled upon a time-honored way to make lonely times into perhaps the most productive times in my life.
For me, being alone puts me in position to seek God for real, to ponder the biggest and hardest questions that nag my consciousness and to process mentally, physically and spiritually what I believe God is revealing to me about his story and my part in it.
I wrote about one such time in this post. On that week-long 40+ mile solo hike into perhaps the most pristine, wild and remote mountains left in the lower 48 - I recognized what I believe to be God's plan for the world, and my little part in it, with a clarity that I've not experienced before nor since.

That journey changed my life in ways that are still bearing fruit today. And I'm excited tonight because my current lonely time has provided the opportunity for another such journey.

In a week or so I'll once again be solo-backpacking, this time through the largest single chunk of wilderness left in Colorado. I will be utterly alone smack in the middle of pristine Creation.

I'm looking so forward to being alone with God and to being immersed in what I believe he is revealing to me. Ultimately, I look forward to being changed.

Even in the alone-ness of the last few days I've experienced a fresh dose of that in my elongated times of prayer - deep and long times of contemplation and meditation that just never happen in my frenzied normal-life.

I guess I'm encouraging you to find a way to make this kind of thing happen in your life. And so I'll be writing more about the whys and hows of this kind of journey in the future.

My brother Dean has significant insight into deep times of prayer as well. He's spent the last several years pursuing a daily prayer life that has revolutionized his entire outlook. Check out his blog at www.deanboyher.com. Maybe we can get him to write some fresh stuff on this from his very unique perspective.

And in the meantime, why don't you consider how you might make a way to be utterly alone with God?

Father, thank you for meeting us in the alone-times - for meeting us so powerfully as to change the trajectory of our lives. Help us to understand, to embrace and to ultimately seek out times where we can be alone with you and with the revelation of your kingdom to come.

Join Camp Kivu for The Expedition

I'm so stoked about the changes we're making to The Expedition.

You know, we've run The Expedition out here for the last several years. Backpacking and rock climbing for 7 days in some of the most rugged and beautiful real estate known to mankind.

But in the past, if you wanted to explore the mountains with us on The Expedition - you always had to attend the 2-week camp experience first, and then schedule an additional week to go on The Expedition.

Of course our 2-week camp experience is AWESOME. It's everything you expect from a top-quality camping experience and way more!

But requiring a three week commitment was, for many, a hardship of both time and finances.

The great news is - WE'RE CHANGING ALL THAT FOR 2010!

Now, you can come out just for a week of The Expedition. If you want to spend a week learning rock climbing or backpacking skills along with strong Christian worldview teaching - you can sign up just for that.

You wanna do two weeks? No problem - sign up for two! And it's all very reasonably priced.

So consider joining us in 2010 for The Expedition. You can register at the Parents section of www.campkivu.com.

Don't miss it - The Expedition for 2010 is going to be excellent!

Having (and not having) Stuff

Had a great conversation with great friends last night.

We discussed two passages with two (apparently) conflicting messages. In the first, Paul is instructing Timothy regarding possessions. In the second, Jesus is discussing possessions with his disciples.

"But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." - 1 Timothy 6:6-10

And then:

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last; and the last, first." - Matthew 19:29-30

And let's assume the givens of the over-arching story of Judeo-Christianity (a literal, physical resurrection at the end of the age into a literal, physical kingdom with real physical bodies that eat food and can be touched but cannot get sick or die).

So is Paul basically saying that the material world is evil and that we should merely seek to scrape by in "this life" in order to have a blissful, disembodied "spiritual" existence in the next? If so, does he contradict Jesus' statement that those who've given up things now will receive many more things plus a body that won't get sick and die?

Are Jesus and Paul at odds here or is there a way to reconcile both statements?