Howard Hendricks – Practical Theology Today

Best Prof Ever…

As you may know, I took the looong route to obtaining my bachelor’s degree in Structural Engineering. I call it “The Nine-Year” plan. I started my higher ed journey quite traditionally, attending a reputable engineering school. But after the first quarter of my junior year, I dropped out, precipitated by various circumstances related to finances, lack of a sense of purpose, the Vietnam War, etc. I took a position with a local company with whom I had been employed in the engineering department (drafting) since my junior year of high school.

Within a few months of leaving school, I continued my pursuit of a degree in engineering. I commuted an hour after work to the University of Minnesota, taking many degree-fulfilling courses available through the extension program. Unfortunately, some of the required courses were unavailable through the extension program.

So, to complete the final 30 credits toward a degree, I took a two-quarter leave of absence. One of the required courses unavailable via the extension program was engineering physics. Physics proved to be a larger challenge than I had anticipated. I was several years removed from using calculus and the metric system. The pace was break-neck with a rhythm of 1-2 chapters/topics per week and an exam every two weeks. I knew the key to surviving and thriving in college-level math and engineering classes was to work problems – as many as possible, especially via a study group. Amazingly, I knew a couple guys in the class of 150 and we formed such a group.

My physics professor proved to be one of the best professors I ever had. I don’t remember his name, but I surely remember him. He knew his physics, but more importantly, he knew his audience. I remember him dedicating class the day before an exam to address questions we had. We were free to ask about the practice problems from the book that stumped us (“we,” of course, meaning all 150 of us).

He was brilliant in his approach. He would merely set up a problem, then casually remark, “You will be able to take it from here.” His approach allowed him to address 15-20 different problems – exactly what we needed. We didn’t need him to work a problem out to completion. We only needed him to get us started, sketch out the problem, and point us in the right direction. He set us up to “get it.” He didn’t do the work for us – he merely pointed us in the right direction.

How good of a professor was he? He made dreaded physics enjoyable. I learned! I started to “get it.” My presuppositions of engineering physics faded. He set me up to get an “A” in the class, a grade that didn’t come easy for me in college.

Two of my favorite authors, Dallas Willard and Howard Hendricks, both reminded readers that Jesus is the smartest person in the universe and that we would do well to learn from him. He was the best prof (rabbi) ever. He knew his material (the Hebrew Scriptures) and his audience (his apprentices, the religious leaders, and the general populous). He also stayed true to his purpose as a teacher—the proclamation and explanation of the nature of the kingdom of God which had arrived with his appearance.

The kingdom of God is an elusive concept lost on most of us for various reasons. Two-thirds of Jesus’ parables and most of his main discourses (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount) focused on the good news (gospel) of the kingdom’s arrival. Unfortunately, the kingdom of God has become equated to simply “heaven,” a place we go after we die. Such reduction of the gospel does injustice to the kingdom Jesus ushered in. Reading scripture through this narrow lens hinders our ability to fully grasp the true nature of God’s kingdom.

The same was true for the first-century adherents of Judaism. The people were familiar with a coming kingdom but didn’t fully grasp its true nature. They were aware, through less than stellar professors (the religious leaders), that God’s kingdom would arrive someday, but it would arrive in power and glory, overthrowing the pagan kingdoms. The kingdom of God had been reduced to a form of nationalism. Jesus’ teaching aimed to dismantle and challenge their false presuppositions.

For 30-40 years, I found it challenging to reconcile Jesus’ central message about the arrival of God’s kingdom with the teaching I often heard, which emphasized getting to heaven. Closely following the means to heaven attainment were sets of ethics to follow until we finally get to depart this earth. There was no kingdom. There was no explanation of the kingdom’s nature. Most of Jesus’ kingdom teaching was reduced to moralism—behavior modification. There was no transformation. There was no life.

In his recent posthumously written book, The Scandal of the Kingdom, Dallas Willard offers a conceptual understanding of a kingdom…

A kingdom is a society of people with a structure in which there is one person, a king or queen, to whom all the citizens offer loyalty, service and respect. The sovereign’s part of this relationship is to provide care, protection, and service for the good of the people.

The Hebrew Scriptures contain the story of God and his people, warts and all. Threaded through the narrative are stories that point people to an understanding of a King who provided care, protection, and service for the good of the people (think righteousness, justice, love, and faithfulness—see It’s Foundational). We know this story—the people struggled to embrace God as their king.

The foundational story was highjacked in favor of sets of ethical rules to ensure correct behavior. The professors became moral guardians. No transformation and certainly not life-giving. Jesus’ task was to wrestle the false concept of God’s kingdom away from the highjackers and help the people understand the nature of what was really at hand. Wrestle away? It appears Jesus suggested that’s exactly what he needed to do…

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of [God] has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. (Matthew 11:12, NIV)

How was Jesus a stellar professor? He brought people back to the story of God and his people. He pointed people to the intent and nature of the Torah, not just the letter of the law, as the highjackers had done. He pointed people to an understanding of a kingdom where the King offered a covenant loyalty and asked the people to respond accordingly.

His stories and discourses wrestled a moralistic and ethical kingdom concept from the moral guardians and gave the people a different kingdom concept. He didn’t provide people with exacting instructions on how to live. Instead, he told stories of what life in the kingdom could look like and invited hearers to become subjects. He told stories that reversed the moralistic view of the kingdom and pointed to a different “ethic.” Oh, and his stories indicated that the kingdom was for anyone and everyone. All were invited.

Like my physics professor, Jesus didn’t work out all the details. He told stories that described the nature of God’s kingdom. He sketched out the concept of the presence of God’s kingdom and let them “take it from there.” And many “got it”—those who had ears to hear. He simply pointed people in the right direction and then said…

“Follow me.”

Thinkin’

Circa mid-1970s. We started every Young Life club with the same song – Thinkin‘, page 90 in the old brown Young Life Songbook. We would sing the first verse (see below), then allow the kids to yell out what they might be thinking about and then we’d insert that instead of “Thinkin‘” in subsequent verses. Without much thought, they would yell out things like, “Hockey, girls, fun, basketball, boys,” etc. Not much depth, but we sure had fun!

I fear that we live in a time in which deep thinking has waned to a dangerous point. Several years ago, James J. Howard III, the CEO of NSP (now Xcel Energy) was speaking to a group of engineers, applauding their creativity and depth of thought. He wrapped up his speech with: “And if [this information age] seems overwhelming, there are a number of spin doctors eager to package the information for us. Our political candidates talk in sound bites, interpreted by political pundits.” He went on to name some of the pundits (both political and non-political) as “whoever’s putting the latest twist on the story.” He closed with a powerful and telling statement – “We don’t ever have to come up with an original thought.” It reminds me of something I heard the late Howard Hendricks say several years ago…

Hendricks was known for his famous comment that 70% of Americans don’t think, 20% think they think but merely rearrange their prejudices, with only 10% of us actually thinking. (He ‘claimed’ it was a study – I’m guessing he was speaking from personal observation.) The day I heard this adage (about 20 years ago), I determined that I wanted to be part of the 10% that actually thought. I still aspire to that (maybe someday 😊).

All his life Hendricks challenged people (mostly seminary students) to become deep thinkers, to not simply buy into the company or party lines (speaking mostly from a religious perspective). One of Hendricks’ favorite scripture passages was Romans 12:2 – Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing or your mind. One of the claims-to-fame of modern Christians is an ability to name and push back against the “patterns of this world.” However, we then settle for and conform to another set of patterns, which is not what the Apostle Paul was suggesting!

In this passage and throughout his writings , Paul encouraged people to become deep thinkers – to think through what they believed and why they believed – leading to renewed minds and thus transformation. Jesus walked into a religious world where the leaders quit thinking and simply focused on conforming to the party line. Jesus challenged them with hard questions to which they had no response except to repeat the party line. They were 1st Century pundits! Jesus didn’t have much patience with people that focused on conformity (I think, for example, of the sevens woes he leveled on the religious leaders – Matthew 23:13-33).

Jesus wanted thinkers, not regurgitators and conformers. So did Paul. I encourage all of us to become thinkers – its transformative. And directional. This is the second half of Romans 12:2 – As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever God finds good, pleasing, and complete.

Can you imagine what our world might look like if Christians became deep thinkers?

Pondertude

About 20 years ago, I was introduced to the Franciscan retreat center, Pacem in Terris. It was founded and developed to provide Christ-followers a place to retreat in silence and solitude. Located near the community which I served as a Young Life Area Director, I couldn’t wait to “try it out.” After my first experience, scheduling a couple 2-day retreats per year at Pacem in Terris became a staple of the last 20 years of my ministry.

I am a fan and a proponent of the concept of blocking out regular times for silence and solitude, times for pondering scripture and encountering God, times for discovering what he is up to in my life, ministry, and the world at large. Though not a guided silent retreat, we were directed by Pacem in Terris staff to arrive with only our Bible and journal, allowing God to speak directly into our life by encountering him in scripture.

Something Jesus modeled (and I assume wanted his followers to emulate) was the practice of solitude. A couple well-known examples are found in the Gospel of Luke: Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God (Luke 6:12-13) and Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed (Luke 5:16). When we read passages like this, we tend to agree with the concept, agree that we should do likewise, and THEN DON’T! Guilt sets in so we steer clear of similar passages.

Several years ago, while mentoring a Young Life staff trainee, he and I discovered that an expectation of a staff person was to schedule one day a month for solitude – a withdrawal from normal stuff to be with God. I gave the trainee the assignment of interviewing a couple senior staff persons to discover how they took advantage of their monthly day of solitude. He couldn’t find anyone who regularly scheduled times of solitude with God. Why was that? Jesus modeled it, then strongly suggested we follow suit (“In the same way the Father sent Me, I am now sending you” – John 20:21). Why do we not do it? Over the years, I have discovered a variety of reasons we give for not emulating Jesus’ example:

We think we are too busy to take chunks of time for solitude and reflection. People in ministry are as bad at this as anyone, if not worse. I often wonder how much of this is connected to an exaggerated view of one’s importance.
Fear seems to be a powerful justification for not spending time alone with God. “What if I ‘hear’ him speak into my life and I don’t like it?” I have heard this more than once from people reasoning why they shy away from solitude.
Many people speak of not knowing what to do or how to spend time alone with God. This is the brilliance of Pacem in Terris’ suggestion – simply reading scripture and reflecting. The late Howard Hendricks suggested reading for a 20-30 minutes, then reflecting for 20-30 minutes. And if I fall asleep? Then I fall asleep reflecting on scripture and God. How can that be a bad thing?
A common justification of us “doers” for not engaging in solitude: “I can’t shut my brain off.” Then don’t. Let your brain loose to reflect and ponder the scripture you are engaged with.

This is where the late Dallas Willard’s description of prayer is helpful – talking to God about what we are doing together, pondering together what’s going on my life. Picture Jesus’ times with God as exactly that. Picture Jesus pondering, “I really like Peter, though I know he’s a hothead. I wonder if he is someone I should develop as a follower?” (Or, more likely, “Peter? Seriously, Father? One of the Twelve?”) I can picture Jesus pondering with God, looking for ways to help his followers understand the reversal of the kingdom he was inaugurating. Maybe it was through times of pondering and talking with God about what they were doing together that he landed on the idea of passing through Samaria instead of around it as they traveled from Jerusalem to Galilee (see John 4).

Out of my experiences of solitude and pondering, plus a desire to make the experience less mystical for others, I coined the term pondertude. It describes the reality of my times with God – alone with him (solitude), pondering what we are doing together. Pondering what we are doing together in all my roles in His kingdom – as a husband, a dad, a grandpa, an engineer, a supervisor, a ministry leader, a math tutor, etc. Though I love Pacem in Terris, pondertude is a frame of mind more than a place. It’s a choice to regularly be with the One who knows us better than we know ourselves, who has our best interests in mind. Why wouldn’t we want to block out times for pondertude?