Having Been With Jesus

The Sum of our Salvation in Christ

2012-01-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

"When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that he possesses it; if we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, we shall find them in his unction; strength in his government; purity in his conception; indulgence in his nativity, in which he was made like us in all respects, in order that he might learn to sympathize with us: if we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross; satisfaction in his sacrifice; purification in his blood; reconciliation in his descent to hell; mortification of the flesh in his sepulchre; newness of life in his resurrection; immortality also in his resurrection; the inheritance of a celestial kingdom in his entrance into heaven; protection, security, and the abundant supply of all blessings, in his kingdom; secure anticipation of judgment in the power of judging committed to him. In fine, since in him all kinds of blessings are treasured up, let us draw a full supply from him, and none from any other quarter. Those who, not satisfied with him alone, entertain various hopes from others, though they may continue to look to him chiefly, deviate from the right path by the simple fact, that some portion of their thought takes a different direction. No distrust of this description can arise when once the abundance of his blessings is properly known." - John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Section 19.

Father, forgive us for so quickly losing sight of the One from whom all blessings flow. You have given us all we need and more in Christ. Even if we lose everything we have, we lack nothing in him. May we delight in in Him and Him alone!

Teens and Porn: The Sobering Truth

2012-01-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

I found these stats from Covenant Eyes on teens and porn over at http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/. For anyone working with students, this is a trend we can't afford to ignore.

"Watch me."

2012-01-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

Discipleship has been on my mind a lot lately and this article from the Gospel Coalition's blog couldn't have come at a better time. Too often when we think about influencing younger believers, we focus simply on the download of information. We walk them through biblical texts, discuss books, explore myriad curriculum, but, as D.A. Carson asks, how often do we challenge people to imitate us insofar as we imitate Christ? This is not to say that addressing the intellect is not important (it is!), only that alone it is incomplete. As Carson puts it, "Do you ever say to a young Christian, 'Do you know what Christianity is like? Watch me!' If you never do, you are unbiblical."

To be honest, his challenge disturbs me a bit. When I think about inviting another believer to watch my life, that opens the doors wide. That means viewing me not only in my moments of strength but also in my moments of weakness. It means watching me fail. It means watching me sin. It means watching me actually have to confess that I'm a broken man who desperately needs God's grace. Inviting someone into my life in this manner means exposure and that scares me because it crucifies my pride and forces me to acknowledge that I'm not the Savior and Jesus is. When you ask somebody to watch you, you can only put on an act for so long. It demands you confess your own inability and lean into Christ's work on your behalf. And, truthfully, what better thing could a young Christian see? They don't need to see the mask; they need to see the sinner behind it. They need to see that Christianity isn't about you or me or them or what we do; it's about Jesus, what he's done on our behalf, and how that changes people. They need to see God's power at work in our weakness (2 Corinthians 10:9-10). And that is something worth watching.

Can we trust him?

2012-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

Good quote from a really good book:

"Martin Luther noted that 'the sin underneath all our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and that we must take matters into our own hands.'"
- From Tullian Tchividjian's book, "Jesus + Nothing = Everything"

"The Shame of the Cross"

2012-01-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

I gave this sermon on Mark 8:31-38 last fall at South City Church.

Sermon on Luke 1:68-75

2012-01-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a sermon I gave at the Vine Community Church on Luke 1:68-75.

Election is Missional

2009-10-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Since arriving at seminary, the readings for Covenant Theology have consistently challenged me and today's was no different. While what the author said was not new, it was refreshing and something of which I desperately need to be reminded. It's so easy for me to forget that the gospel is all about God and to start believing instead that it's all about me. Michael Williams, channeling Christopher Wright's The Mission of God, demolishes that belief in his article, "Theology as Witness: Reading Scripture in a New Era of Evangelical Thought", writing:

"Here is the primary point for Wright: election is missional. God's election of Abraham was not an end in itself. It is not just soteriological, but also missional. God's purpose in the election of Abraham was to bring blessing to the nations through Abraham as his missionary. Election then, is not only about our being saved, but also our being tasked with a mission.

Every now and then I will ask someone in a classroom of first year seminarians to lay out the doctrine of election in nice simple terms. As Reformed and evangelical students of Scripture, they do a pretty good job of channeling the "he chose us in him before the creation of the world" of Ephesians 1:4, but that is all I hear. The missional goal of election - "to bring of all things in heaven and on earth under one head, even Christ" (Ephesians 1:10) - is simply foreign to the vast majority of my students. Election is about my getting saved. The Bible is about my salvation. The work of Christ is about my going to heaven. As good Americans, we have made ourselves the very point of it all. I am the destination, the end point of divine intention. What Wright is suggesting is that God elected Abraham, and you and me, not only that we would be saved, but also and crucially, that we might be instruments of his blessing. Abraham was elected for a mission. The people of God becoming redemptive agents in God's world answers the "why", even the "so what" of election." (9) (Emphasis added)

Faith that endures in the world...

2009-09-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

For fun, I've been reading through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Love Letters from Cell 92, a collection of letters he exchanged with his fiance while imprisoned in Nazi Germany. I thought this excerpt was particularly good.

"I'm under God's special guidance here, I feel sure. To me, the way in which we found each other such a short time before my arrest seems a definite indication of that. Once again, things went "hominum confusione et dei providentia." (according to man's confusion and God's providence) It amazes me anew every day how little I have deserved such happiness, just as it daily and deeply moves me that God should have put you through such an ordeal this past year, and that he so clearly meant to me to bring you grief and sorrow, so soon after we got to know each other, to endow our love with the proper foundation and the proper strength. Moreover, when I consider the state of the world, the total obscurity enshrouding our personal destiny, and my present imprisonment, our union - if it wasn't frivolity, which it certainly wasn't - can only be at token of God's grace and goodness, which summons us to believe in him. We should have to blind not to see that. When Jeremiah said, in his people's hour of direst need, that "houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land," it was a token of confidence in the future. That requires faith, and may God grant it to us daily. I don't mean the faith that flees the world, but the faith that endures in the world and loves and remains true to that world in spite of all the hardships it brings us. Our marriage must be a "yes" to God's earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too." (p.63-64)

Let God Be God

2009-09-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

When I first read through Os Guinness’ The Call in college, what struck me was how aptly he nailed the Catholic and Protestant distortions of calling. However, this past week, as I read through it a second time, I found myself lingering on Chapter 8, Let God Be God. In it, Guinness brings us face to face with the God who declared, “I am who I am,” the God who allows for no concessions. He does not see us as we are and then adapt himself to us; rather, he demands we adapt to him. He is the standard. When he calls us, it is not give and take. He does not say, “Keep your idols, but take my name. Go to church, but continue to live as you did before.” No! When Jesus called the disciples, there was no waffling sentiment; he said simply, “Follow me.” This is the good, perfect, holy, majestic God who when he calls a man, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said so succinctly, bids him come and die. When this God speaks, men fall to their knees in awe of his glory. When he calls their name, fishermen, doctors, lawyers, and shepherds alike leave lives and livelihoods in response. He does not brook apathy or casualness. It is a call that is unrelenting, challenging, and all consuming. Martin Luther heard it and trembled. Oswald Chambers heard it and feared. The question Guinness leaves with us is this: have we heard that call? Or have we settled for the kind of apathetic living that has for so long passed as Christianity?

As I read this, I found myself reluctantly agreeing with Guinness’ diagnosis. I say reluctantly, because I’ve ignored that call too many times. When God calls men, he does not call them so that they would remain in their sin. He calls them to be transformed into the image of his Son, to die with him and be raised into new life. You see it over and over in the words of Paul. In Acts 20:24, he said, “For I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course, and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus Christ, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” In Acts 21:13, he went still further, asking the Christians at Caesarea, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” For Paul, the call was total. When God called him, there was nothing to do but believe and obey no matter what the cost, something Paul did joyously because he knew the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. (Philippians 3:7-8) Yet when I look at our culture, I don’t see this same faith. I see many Christians, but far too few crucified ones. (Galatians 2:20) I include myself in that indictment. We’re so allured by the siren song of this world that we miss the incredible beauty and grace of the cross of Christ. Even here in seminary, I find the comfort of studying and working far more desirable than the risk involved in opening my life up to those around me. I hear God’s call to go and make disciples, yet, at times, I tremble to answer it for fear of the consequences.

I’ve seen how God has moved when I’ve obeyed his call, how he works even in the midst of weakness, and so, as I go forward, I pray that God would reveal his true character to me more and more and that, as seminary progresses, he would make his call so real, so powerful, so challenging, that I could not but answer it. If I walk away from Guinness having learned anything, it is this: the call to follow Jesus is a radical call, but it is also a gracious one. It is the call of the Most High to his people to follow him, to fear him above all else. It is to love him more than comfort, to love him more than worldly applause, to love him more than safety, to love him more than the pleasure of being liked. It is to stand upon Christ and say with Luther, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”

Quotes on Preaching

2009-08-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

"Great gifts do not necessarily make for great preaching. The technical excellence of a message may rest on your skills, but the spiritual efficacy of your message resides with God." -Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p. 33

"Preaching's earthly glory may be eloquence, but its eternal heartbeat is faithfulness." -Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p. 35

The Expository Sermon

2009-08-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

"Long ago, Augustine simply summarized, 'When the Bible speaks, God speaks.' Thus, the expository preaching task is to communicate what God committed to Scripture in order to give God's people his truth for their time." - Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p. 31

Great Article from Kevin DeYoung

2009-08-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

"[T]he secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us." -Kevin DeYoung...http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/08/on-mission-changing-world-and-not-being.html

Reaction to Michael Jackson's Passing

2009-07-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

At this point, I don't think any of us could have missed that Michael Jackson passed away. His passing has dominated the news outlets for the past few weeks and the steady barrage has been almost inescapable. You'd have to live in a hole not to have heard. The question though, is how should we as Christians react to it? Sojourn Music posted an interesting piece on this that I thought I'd pass on. The link is here.

P.S. If you haven't listened to Sojourn Music's indie rock take on hymns yet, you've been missing out. It's really good stuff.

"Giving As Any Had Need"

2009-07-07T19:21:00.001-07:00

Here's the sermon I preached July 5 on Acts 2:44-45 at The Vine Community Church. If you want to listen, go to this link.

Orphan Living

2009-06-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

"Faith and presumption look alike because both qualities are characterized by confidence, but faith begins in the recognition and acceptance of our total human weakness...Presumption...is a reliance on human moral abilities and religious accomplishments...A mix of presumption and faith produced a personal instability that surfaces in crises and major life transitions...Presumptive faith must have positive circumstances and feelings of success based on visible accomplishments. So when God wants to reach us, he must take away those favorable circumstances and accomplishments. He hits hard at our false trusts. [false 'righteousness,' things that we get our strength from looking at]...Like the orphan we cry, 'I am abandoned' when in fact God's grace is pursuing us ever more intensely...[In sum], presumptive self-trust prevails [in so many lives]. You can detect this attitude in yourself by your response to life when it goes out of control. If you handle it by blaming others, refusing to learn from God, becoming defensive and angry, you have the self-trust of an orphan, not the faith of a son or daughter." - Rose M. Miller, From Fear to Freedom, quoted from Tim Keller's The Luther Project

If there is an area where I need serious growth, it's in this one. It is extremely difficult for me to grasp my adoption in Christ, that God has totally accepted in him and that I need never fear his rejection. Yet that is the reality of the gospel. As 1 John says, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are..." (1 John 3:1) God chose his people for adoption. (Ephesians 1) Through Jesus, he gave us full rights as sons and has made us heirs to his kingdom. (Galatians 4:1-7)

If God adopted me, if he called me to himself, if he loves me as he loves Jesus, why am I ever afraid? Why do adverse circumstances cause me to wither away with worry and doubt? Why do trials give birth to anxiety? If adoption is true, which Scripture clearly says it is, then I can count it all joy because I know that testing produces perseverance and perseverance, maturity and completeness. (James 1:2-4) No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the trial, no matter what the obstacle, I can rest in the hand of my eternal and perfect Father. If I am a child of the sovereign God, every trial becomes a means of grace, a sign of his love, as he grows me into his likeness and teaches me more of his mercy and compassion.

This is the kind of thing that changes lives. The question is do I believe it?

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but a Spirit of sonship, and by him we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8:15)

It's all Greek to me...

2009-06-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Since I'm leaving for seminary in the next couple months, I figured I'd get a leg up on my studies and try to learn some Greek on my own. I've been at it for about a week now and I'm surprised to say I'm enjoying it. When I envisioned studying Greek, I had flashbacks to five years of worthless Spanish classes at four different schools with four different curriculum, a five year endeavour that ended with me speaking absolutely zero Spanish. I remember liking fiestas and hating the language.

So, I just assumed languages wouldn't be for me. Greek's been different though. There's something about piecing together a word for the first time and realizing that you just spoke a dead language that's exciting, even fun. I've been trying to put in 45 minutes to an hour a day and I think I'm getting the hang of the basics. We'll see how it goes, but, as it stands now, I like it.

Real Encouragement

2009-06-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

This is from Paul Tripp and Tim Lane's book, Relationships: A Mess Worth Making. It's an excellent book on relationships, one that's been eating my lunch for the past few weeks. Read and be encouraged:

"Real encouragement is more about sightedness than it is about explanation. When I talk about sightedness, I am not talking about physical eyes, but the eyes of the heart. God has given us the capacity to "see" unseen spiritual realities that are as real and vital as any physical thing we can see or touch. Spiritual sightedness is a precious gift and an essential life skill. The reason we get overwhelmed and discouraged in relationships is not because we don't understand what is going on. We are discouraged because we don't see Christ.

In our own strength, we see the husband who barely communicates. We see the friend who has been consistently disloyal. We see the child who rebels against every command. We see the boss who is unrelentingly critical. We see the relative who breaks every promise she makes. We see the wife who is bitter and angry. We see the small group frozen in casual relationships. We see neighbors more concerned about boundaries than community. Our relationship problems can loom so large that they obstruct our view of the one thing that can give us the hope and courage to go on. That one thing is Christ. Encouragement is not just about making people feel and think better; it's about stimulating spiritual imagination. Encouragement gives struggling people the eyes to see the unseen Christ. He is the only reliable hope when the call of relationship has taken me away from my own wisdom, strength, and character.

As we live with each other in the middle of the already and the not yet, we need more than elevated emotion and accurate understanding. We need eyes to see this one amazing reality: we are Christ's and he is ours. We need to see that it is spiritually impossible for us to ever be alone. His amazing resources of grace are constantly at our disposal. In him we find wisdom, strength, and reason for hope that we have been lacking. Far more than happy feelings and accurate understanding, Christ gives me reason to continue in something that would long ago have defeated me." (p. 113)

Gospel-Fueled Community

2009-06-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

Acts 2:44-45...And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

In a culture fueled by a drive for comfort, self-service, and self-satisfaction, this passage is jarring. It’s an inconvenient, uncomfortable, convicting picture of what a community transformed by the gospel looks like. The truth is we will only give ourselves and our possession away for those in need insofar as we have grasped the reality that Jesus saw us in our need and gave away his life, his comfort, his relationship with his Father to meet it. When we see and believe that, then we’ll begin to be a community like this one. It is one where instead of crying out “Mine!”, we declare that it is God’s. Instead of living in isolation, we live in the community Christ purchased for us by being torn from his own with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Instead of holding fast to our goods and possessions as though they are our hope and salvation, we give them away, trusting in the one who gave himself away. Instead of looking to our needs and our wants, we see others needs even as Christ saw ours. Instead of being content to bat at the symptoms, we genuinely desire to bring healing through the gospel just as Christ did not simply heal our external needs, but met our internal ones as well. This is not communism. It is not an enforced compiling of goods and services; rather, it is what happens when individuals see the gospel of grace for what it truly is and are drawn into a community of worship.

Thoughts on Sin

2009-05-27T06:14:00.001-07:00

If the healer of the blind, the lame, and the crippled thought such infirmities were preferable to sin, that should tell us something about the nature of sin. It's far more destructive and devastating than we ever dared believe. The good news of the gospel is that, on the cross, Jesus took the devastation upon himself and healed sinners too. (Matthew 18:5-9)

Collision Sneak Preview

2009-05-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

COLLISION - 13 min VIMEO Exclusive Sneak Peek from Collision Movie on Vimeo.

Compassionate Apologetics - Tim Keller's "The Reason For God"

2009-05-04T06:39:00.000-07:00

For the past year, everyone's been buzzing about the greatness of Tim Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. My friends have been pressing me to read it, but, for some reason (probably pride), I've avoided it till now. I picked it up last week and I'm now firmly on the bandwagon. It may be the best apologetics book I've read in several years. Here's why.

First, Keller clearly and succinctly states his argument. While that may not sound like high praise, there are a lot of books out there that are equally intelligent, but fail to carry their readers along with them. You read some of them and walk out feeling like someone spun your brain in the clothes dryer. You're rattled and you're not sure what you read. Keller's book doesn't do that. You don't get lost in the intellectual mumbo jumbo. Instead, you walk away feeling as though you learned something you can actually apply.

Second, his approach to apologetics is compassionate! Where a lot of apologetic books demonize the opposition, Keller's lovingly disagrees. He's comfortable enough with his own beliefs that he doesn't feel the need to denigrate the other side to prove his point. Instead of painting authors like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, and Sam Harris as fools, he respectfully and graciously engages with their arguments. You get the impression that Keller genuinely loves these guys, something that is missing far too often from other books.

Third, the gospel is everywhere. As those who listen to his sermons can attest, Keller has a unique gift for making the gospel startlingly beautiful. His work in The Reason for God is no exception. The gospel seems to rise from every page. For example, after describing examples of human self-sacrifice in the film, Angels with Dirty Faces, and Charles Dickens' classic, A Tale of Two Cities, he writes:

"The gospel, however, is not just a moving fictional story about someone else. It is a true story about us. We are actually in it. We are those delinquent boys, and to save us Jesus gave up something infinitely greater than human celebrity. Also, Jesus has come to us in our prison and despite our unwillingness to be saved has taken our place. How much more can we be empowered by the discovery that Jesus himself has given himself for us, has changed places with us?

I can only say that observing these stories from the outside stirred me, but when I realized I was actually inside Jesus' story (and he inside mine) it changed me. The fear and pride that captured my heart was finally dislodged. The fact that Jesus had to die for me humbled me out of my pride. The fact that Jesus was glad to die for me assured me out of my fear." (p. 200)

Overall, this is a fantastic book. It is a worthy addition to anyone's library and a great book to give to anyone with doubts. Keller's humility, intellect, and grasp of the gospel make it a must read for believers and non-believers alike.

"Unfashionable" by Tullian Tchividjian

2009-04-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

Just finished Tullian Tchividjian's new book, Unfashionable, and I recommend it highly. It's a great challenge to the American church to evaluate what it truly means to be salt and light in our culture and to not only proclaim the gospel but live it, to be against the world for the world. Here's an excerpt:

"Most of us don't have to fear being put to death or placed in prison for our faith in Jesus. but we face danger of another, more toxic sort. Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of that which can kill the body but be afraid of that which can kill the soul" (see Matthew 10:28). While we must never forget the physical suffering of our Christian brothers and sisters in places like Southeast Asia, Africa, and China, we must keep in mind that the greatest threat to a thriving, God-saturated, world-transforming faith is not physical danger but worldliness.

Worldliness, as I described earlier, is a sleepiness of the soul in which status, pleasures, comforts, and cares of the world appear solid, stunning, and affecting, while the truths of Scripture become abstractions - unable to grip the heart or guide our everyday activities. This means that the greatest challenge facing most Christians is not persecution but seduction.

Becoming "all things to all people" (1 Corinthians 9:22) does not mean fitting in with the fallen patterns of this world so that there's no distinguishable difference between Christians and non-Christians. When this world's sin patterns start seeming normal and God's ways start to seem strange, we know we've been seduced. When this happens, Christians become miserably ineffective.

The point I've made repeatedly in this book is that we transform this world by being distinct from it, living against the world for the world. That means, of course, that the opposite is true too - we fail to make a difference in the world when we fail to be different from the world." (p. 162-163)

Here's Justin Taylor's blurb about Unfashionable on his blog at "Between Two Worlds".

Book Review: "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung

2009-04-17T09:28:00.001-07:00

I originally picked this book up for someone else and read it on a whim, thinking it might be a good idea to know what I was giving them. Two hours, numerous prayers, and several tears later, I closed the last page. Short and to the point, Kevin DeYoung's book, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impression, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc., is phenomenal. He clearly and articulately lays out the problem of our age: we have too many wanderers and not enough doers, too many people looking for God's will and not enough people looking for God's wisdom, too many young men and women holding out on big decisions out of fear and not enough young men and women walking by faith in the Son of God who loved them and gave himself for them. He nailed me. He nailed my friends. He nailed my generation. The words, "I just don't know what God's will is for me in (insert the situation here)", have escaped my lips too many times and stepping out in faith has been too infrequent.

DeYoung engagingly points out that while God does have a master plan for our lives and does desire that we live in His will, He never promises to tell us what that plan is (at least, not in the step-by-step, here is what I should do with every second of every minute of every hour of every day kind of way we so often want) and His will is not some path we have to work hard to discover but is simply to live as Christ has called us! Here is what we know: "In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) We know that. We can walk in that. We can rest assured in that. We can boldly step out, having sought wisdom from God's word, desiring sanctification, hungering for God's righteousness, and know that God is with us and for us. Writing on the wall, wet and dry fleeces, visions of angels are exceptions, not rules. Instead, according to DeYoung, God's will for us is this: "Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you'll be walking in the will of God." (p. 122)

Amen.

Driscoll vs. Chopra: Does Satan Exist?

2009-03-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

ABC Nightline had Mark Driscoll and Deepak Chopra debate the existence of Satan a few nights ago and put the videos up on their website. It's pretty interesting. Here's the link.

Is Transparency the New Legalism?

2009-03-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

There's been a huge movement of late towards transparency in the church. Lately, it seems every book I pick up extols it and values it. I hear it in messages and in common speech and it seems particularly popular on blogs. Personally, I'm all for it. In so many ways, it's a wonderful thing. We should be transparent. We should be open. Even Paul talked about how he boasted in his weaknesses that he would know the power of Christ. (2 Corinthians 12:9) There are few things more freeing than admitting our weaknesses and reveling in the Father's great love for us.

But here's where the danger lies: transparency for transparency's sake. As we have done with every good thing since the fall, we latch onto it and apply our own human spin. In this case, it's the race to see who can be more transparent, who can spill their guts the most in a talk or on a blog or in a book. It often feels as though transparency is less a product of grace than it is a basis for justification. In so many cases, it simply becomes a new law. The message we convey is: be transparent and be saved. The more transparent you are the more righteous you become.

Transparency that does not spring from a heart consumed by the grace of God, but comes instead with the hope of impressing or swaying others is not humility. It's not the boasting Paul talked about. It's pride and I am so guilty of it. I've caught myself telling personal stories in talks to the youth, not out of humility and brokenness, but out of a desire to impress others with my rooted-ness in the gospel. It's as though I'm saying, "Hey, look at me. I can admit this because I know the gospel better than you. See my humility. See how good I am."

When the Pharisees asked Jesus what work they must do to be saved, he didn't tell them to start talking about their sins more or to do charitable work on the weekends. His reply was disarmingly simple: "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom he has sent." (John 6:29) There is nothing more crucifying to our flesh than to admit that our salvation depends solely on God. It does not lean on how open we can be or how humble we can appear, but it stands or falls entirely upon God's grace in Jesus Christ.

Transparency that springs from belief in Christ is a beautiful thing. Transparency that comes from a prideful heart is just another adornment on a white-washed tomb.

A good reminder for those who preach...

2009-03-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

"Christ, like his forerunner John, not only said, 'Repent' [Matthew 3:2;4:17]. but added the word of faith, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' We are not to preach only one of these words of God, but both; we are to bring forth out of our treasure things new and old, the voice of the law as well as the word of grace [Matthew 13:52]. We must bring forth the voice of the law that men may be made to fear and come to a knowledge of their sins and so be converted to repentance and a better life But we must not stop with that, for that would only amount to wounding and not binding up, smiting and not healing, killing and not making alive, leading down into hell and not bringing back again, humbling and not exalting. Therefore we must also preach the word of grace and the promise of forgiveness by which faith is taught and aroused. Without this word of grace the works of the law, contrition, penitence, and all the rest are done and taught in vain." -Martin Luther, "The Freedom of a Christian", Three Treatises, p. 300-301

More from Driscoll on the New Calvinism

2009-03-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

Driscoll had a few more thoughts on Time's article:

The fourth distinction is incredibly important.

Sadly, Cruel Calvinists are a small but loud bunch. Thus, now more than ever, it is vital that all Christians in general, and Reformed Christians in particular, demonstrate the kind of love and humility that our theology requires. The cruel, flame-thrown half-truths and misquotes between Christians do not speak well to the watching world of the love we are supposed to share. Therefore, it is vital that we distinguish between what I will call state and national theological borders.

Theological National Boundaries

Indeed, there are theological national borders that need to be retained, such as Scripture as God’s Word; God as Trinitarian community; humanity as sinful; Jesus as God and man; the virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; and the necessity of Jesus alone for salvation from sin, hell, and the wrath of God.

State Boundaries

Beyond these sorts of national borders are state borders. State borders include spiritual gifts, baptism, communion, worship styles, Bible translations, sense of humor, and the like. Various states can have their own proverbial borders on these issues. Nonetheless, like states we must be able to live as a loving and unified nation. We cannot turn our state borders into national borders and refuse to live at peace in unity and love with those who live in other proverbial states. Simply, the state borders should not be battle lines where personal and theological wars are fought because bigger things are at stake, such as the evangelizing of lost people and the planting of missional churches.

My prayer today is this

“Thank you Sovereign God for an opportunity to influence the nations for good. May you please give us your Spirit to keep our minds learning, hearts loving, ears listening, hands serving, and humility growing for your glory and our joy. We ask this for your fame by the Spirit’s power in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Time Magazine and New Calvinism

2009-03-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

Time Magazine named "New Calvinism" the third biggest idea changing the world right now. On his blog at Resurgence, Mark Driscoll posted four reasons why:

Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.
Old Calvinism fled from the cities. New Calvinism is flooding into cities.
Old Calvinism was cessationistic and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.

As We Forgive Those: The Story of Rwanda's Redemption

2009-03-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

This is the first I've heard of this film, but the trailer alone makes me want to see it.

Ash Wednesday Talk

2009-03-05T13:28:00.001-08:00

Here's the talk I gave at our church's "Ash Wednesday" service this past week. You can find it at this link.

Luther on Prayer

2009-03-02T07:10:00.000-08:00

"We know that our defense lies in prayer alone...For we know that when a Christian prays in this way: 'Dear Father, Your will be done,' God replies to him, 'Dear child, yes, it shall be done in spite of the devil and world.'" - Martin Luther

Silence and Evangelism

2009-02-27T06:59:00.000-08:00

Randy Newman makes a great point in his excellent book, Questioning Evangelism, that we as Christians are far too eager to talk when truly we should listen. Listening, he writes, primes the pump of thoughtful dialogue, opens hearts to accept conviction of sin, establishes common ground for further dialogue, or gives insight to felt needs. (p. 240, paraphrased by me) He quotes Dallas Willard as saying,

"In witnessing, the role of talking is frequently overemphasized. Does this sound strange? It's true. Silence and especially true listening are often the strongest testimony of our faith. A major problem for Christian evangelism is not getting people to talk, but to silence those who through their continuous chatter reveal a loveless heart devoid of confidence in God."

In our silence, we declare a firm conviction that it is God who changes hearts and not our words. With our ears, we empathize with our neighbors, hear them, and love them as Christ did.

New Sufjan Steven's Song - "You Are The Blood"

2009-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Gary Haugen's "Good News About Injustice"

2009-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Good News about Injustice and, so far, it's phenomenal. I recommend it highly. Here's a little taste:

I remember looking up from my newspaper during my bus ride one morning in the fall of 1994 and finding everything oddly in place. The AT4 bus was proceeding apace at 8:17 a.m. in the car-pool zone. I was comfortably settled in my usual seat one row from the center double doors. My good-natured but nameless neighbors were sitting where they ought and respectively sleeping, reading or talking too loud, according to schedule. The low morning sun was where it should be, creating the glare that always forced me to look up from my paper at that point in the route. In that moment, pausing and looking around at all that American commuter normalcy, something inside me wanted to say, "Excuse me, friends, but did you know that less than forty-eight hours ago I was standing in the middle of several thousand corpses in a muddy mass grace in a tiny African country called Rwanda?"

Ascension: Coming Back From Hell on Earth
The Scriptures do not tell us very much about Jesus' ascension, his sudden transport from earth to heaven. But there have been moments in my life where I wish they did. All we know is that he was standing with his rather earthy friends on an earthen hill trying as ever to explain something, when "he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19). That is all there is to it: one minute earth, the next minute heaven.

The very suddenness of it has always seemed to me something to ponder. What was it like for Jesus, as a man, to be transported in an instant from a horrifically fallen earth of darkness and death to a heavenly country of light and life - to a city that "does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light" (Revelation 21:23)? What sort of mental adjustment, if we may call it that, was required to move so suddenly from the nightmarish world of the cross - a world of betrayal and torture, of blood lust and wailing women - to paradise? What was it like for the divine Man in heaven to exchange in a moment the stench of death and his own encrusted grave clothes for the very fragrance of life, a white robe, a golden sash and a seat at the right hand of the throne of God - to be home at last with his Father, where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (Revelation 21:4)?

These may be idle questions, but they have come to me with particular force as I have struggled with the unreality of my own ascension experiences - moments when I have been transported with almost ethereal speed from a hell on earth to a heaven on earth. In a matter of hours I have traveled from the slippery mud and corpses of mass graves in Rwanda to my usual seat at the right hand of my neighbor on our dependably boring and climate-controlled bus ride to my office in Washington, D.C. I remember reclining on a comfortable living-room couch, among friend and family in California, talking about soaring real estate values in orange County when only days before I had been exhuming the remains of a woman raped and butchered by soldiers in the Philippines. Similarly, I recall watching from my train window as a low summer sun cast a Norman Rockwell glow across Little League fields in Connecticut when only days before I had been in a country where boys of a similar age but of a different color were being beaten like animals by the South African police.

I don't know whether Jesus experienced dreams while he was here on earth or whether he felt as if he had awakened from a particularly bad one when he found himself back in heaven after his ascension from the earth. But I have certainly felt that dreamlike separation from reality when I have returned from these hellish places around the world. In no time at all it begins to feel as if the nightmare I came from in Rwanda or the Philippines or South Africa has taken place not in another country but on another planet. Back home, it simply does not feel real anymore. (p.21-23)

Freedom in Christ

2009-01-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

With the upcoming HBO documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, looming on the horizon, news agencies have been awash with articles detailing former-evangelical leader Ted Haggard's dramatic rise and fall. Since allegations surfaced in 2006 that Haggard solicited a gay prostitute and purchased methamphetamines, his name has become almost synonymous with disgraced pastors everywhere, a warning to any minister who thinks himself immune from a fall. My heart breaks for him and his family every time I read something about it. He made a comment in a recent article in Christianity Today that I thought was quite interesting. The article says this,

"[T]hrough all of this, Haggard sees the working of Providence. He may never regain the things he once had: career, respect, national prominence, good salary, friends. But something internal has changed through his trials, his therapy, his insights into himself, and his reliance on God: "I'd still [rather] be the way I am now, and broke, and a man of ill-repute, than the way I was and have that horrific internal struggle that I had."

What struck me was that it was in weakness and in brokenness that Haggard found freedom, not in power. It was through pain and suffering that God obliterated his self-reliance and forced him into dependence upon him. I'm not saying that Haggard has it all together or that the road to recovery that lies ahead of him is not long and arduous, but it's encouraging to hear how God uses even the most trying of circumstances, even the exposure of our sins, to draw us nearer to him and to make us more aware of his steadfast love and grace.

It reminds me of 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, where God tells Paul that his grace is sufficient for him for his power is made perfect in weakness and Paul responds, "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." I want to boast in my weakness. I want to be purged of my self-sufficiency and be consumed by Christ's total sufficiency. I want to know the freedom that comes from confession, from humbly recognizing our own depravity, and then seeing the glorious beauty of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for a gospel that sets us free from approval seeking, that destroys the bondage of legalism, that takes away our chains and frees us to fail. I am thankful that where I am weak and broken, I have a Savior in Jesus Christ who holds me safely in his arms and who will never leave me nor forsake me. (Isaiah 40:11; John 10:27-30; 1 Samuel 12:22; Romans 8:28-39)

Nate Larkin's video at www.iamsecond.com summarizes this perfectly.

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" - Romans 11:33

"They should throw acid on them..."

2009-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

That stuff like this goes on in the world is heartbreaking. For those of us who take for granted the privilege of going to school, read this story from CNN. Just reading it makes me angry. I don't see how men justify doing these kind of things to young girls. It's sick. We need to remember to pray for the women of Afghanistan. For all the advances in the past few years, there's still a long way to go.

Constant in Prayer

2009-01-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." - Romans 12:12

This is an especially challenging word in our culture. We are so busy, so consumed with activity, always rushing from one place to another, that we often leave prayer by the wayside. To be constant in prayer, to be devoted to it, implies that we value it highly and would not dream of life without it. As believers in Jesus Christ and children of God, prayer should interweave the entire fabric of our day. Prayer is not something to be left for quiet moments of solitude - though we should seek them - but should arise as naturally and as constantly from the Christian as breathing. The man who is not constant in prayer is a man who depends more on himself than on God. He is a man who has not submitted his whole will and life to God, but is still striving to do it on his own. It is when God humbles our spirit, when trials and tribulations have purged us our self-sufficiency, when our hope in Jesus has assumed its proper place as our heart's sole desire, that prayer becomes constant. For such a man is ever aware of his need and of his Savior. Inconstant prayer reveals much about the state of man's faith.

That said, it breaks my heart to realize that I pray constantly when I am under duress, but not when times are good. There should be no distinction, because by creating one I am saying by my actions that I need God only when I can't handle things myself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer used to talk about how so many believers view God as the deus ex machina, a sort of fail safe for hard times. He is there when things make no sense, when life feels out of control, when we have come to the end of ourselves, but, when it comes to the center of our lives, he has no place. We've pushed him to the fringes, grasping tightly at the reins of our own lives and refusing him lordship in all of life. When we do this, we cause the world to stumble, even to blaspheme God, for what they see is a gospel that places man at the center and God on the edge. While we may proclaim to the world our own insufficiency, our lives cry out to the contrary.

The truth is I am always in need. There is not a minute that goes by that I am not solely dependent upon the grace of God, that I should not walk by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He is the center. He is life. He is joy. He is hope. He is comfort. He is everything. As it says in Ephesians 1:20-23, God has seated Christ at his right hand, "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." He rules all, good times and bad, times of plenty and times of want, times of joy and times of sadness, times of laughter and times of tears. In all things and at all times, I am in need and, in all things and at all times, I can do nothing except through Christ who strengthens me. (John 15:5; Philippians 4:13) So let us pray constantly, always aware of our poverty, of our brokenness, and of our weakness, trusting confidently that Christ our Savior is all in all and that he alone is our strength.

Driscoll Article

2009-01-10T15:25:00.001-08:00

The NY Times just published an interesting profile of Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll called, "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?" While the author Molly Worthen's take on Driscoll is fairly even-handed (though not perfect), I couldn't help but be slightly bothered at how she painted Calvin, Luther, and reformed theology. It's frustrating to see two men who accomplished so much reduced to such stale stereotypes and to see reformed theology, which I believe celebrates the sovereignty and majesty and grace of God and encourages rather than discourages evangelism, reduced to little more than theistic fatalism. I don't want to disparage the writer of the article - it's hard to distill reformed theology into a short news article or to discuss two such enormous historical figures as Calvin and Luther without resorting to some generalizations, especially when it's not your focus - but, being a history and theology nerd, it bothers me a bit.

For instance, in the Driscoll article, the author describes Luther as "the vulgar, beer-swilling theological rebel who sparked the Reformation" and depicts Calvin as an authoritarian, power-hungry dictator, writing, "John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness." Now, there are elements of truth in both statements. Luther did drink, he was sometimes vulgar, and he was a theological rebel. Calvin's Geneva did burn a heretic and Calvin was sometimes overbearing. But here is where fact melds with fiction. There is no evidence that Luther was anything approaching an alcoholic (which the author seems to suggest) and, while Luther was rough around the edges, he was no more so than his contemporaries. Look at some of the cartoons and articles that the Catholic church published about him in the 1500s and you'll see what I mean. As for Calvin, yes, one man was burned as a heretic during his tenure at Geneva. That is true. But, while Calvin did denounce him as a heretic, Calvin didn't burn him. A council did. Calvin didn't rule Geneva. A council did. Calvin didn't have the authority to condemn a heretic. The council did. And it was the council, and not Calvin, who ordered the execution of Michael Servetus, a Spaniard who denied the Trinity. Calvin actually fought to have his sentence commuted to beheading, thinking that burning was inhumane. He even spent the night praying with Servetus, begging him to renounce his heresy so that he might be saved.

The distortions regarding Calvinism would take even longer to address and there are people more qualified than me to address them. In response to the writer's comment that Reformed theology undermines evangelism, I'd point you towards J.I. Packer's Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. He masterfully handles it there and illustrates beautifully how reformed theology, properly understood, encourages rather than discourages evangelism. Or, if you just don't know much about reformed theology, check out John Piper's website for a brief overview.

Don't get me wrong; I still recommend Worthen's article. It's better than anything I could write and it's got some great stuff in it. And, frankly, it's cool to see a Christian leader like Mark Driscoll profiled in a major secular publication. That means he's having an impact and that excites me. So read it, but read it like you would my blog, knowing that it is neither unbiased nor perfect.

Difference between the liberty of slaves and sons...

2009-01-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

More John Owen goodness:

Hence you may see the difference between the liberty that slaves assume, and the liberty which are due to children:

Slaves take liberty from duty; children have liberty in duty. There is not a greater mistake in the world, that that the liberty of sons in the house of God consists in this - they can perform duties, or take the freedom to omit them; they can serve in the family of God (that is, they think they may if they will), and they can choose whether they will or no. This is a liberty stolen by slaves, not a liberty given by the Spirit unto sons.

The liberty of sons is in the inward spiritual freedom of their hearts, naturally and kindly going out in all ways and worship of God. When they find themselves straitened and shut up in them, they wrestle with God for enlargement, and are never contented with the doing of a duty, unless it be done as in Christ, with free, genuine, and enlarged hearts. The liberty that servants have is from duty; the liberty given to sons is in duty.

The liberty of slaves or servants is from mistaken, deceiving conclusions; the liberty of sons is from the power of the indwelling Spirit of grace. Or, the liberty of servants is from outward, dead conclusions; the liberty of sons, from an inward, living principle. (From Communion with the Triune God, p. 343-344)

Interesting stuff about church giving...

2009-01-05T10:55:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine posted this on his blog and I thought it was interesting, so I'm re-posting it in part here. This is an excerpt from Tony Stiff's summary of Rodney Stark's What American's Really Believe.

12 Giving: The rich, the poor, and the widow’s mite

This chapter opens with a brief survey of the tithing issue in scripture and quickly shifts to researching what happens in churches that do believe in tithing. Here’s the questions they posed: 1) who gives money to the church?; 2) how much do they give?; and who tithes? Get ready for some sobering statistics;

10,000 or less income, 11.4%
10-20,000 income, 6.2%
20-35,000 income, 4.6%
35-50,000 income, 3.3%
50-100,000 income, 2.7%
100-150,000 income, 2.2%
150,000 or more income, 2.7%

“Clearly…it is the “poor” who give the largest percentage of their incomes to the church.” (pg. 97) But that’s not the only factor, those who attend church more frequently also give more, actually if they attend several times a week they give upwards of 29.9%.

But what about the widow’s mite, are widows still giving? “Overall, 17.6 of widowed people tithe, while only 8.6 percent of the nonwidowed population tithes.” (pgs. 98-99) And here’s a bit of news that’s old to us on the inside but may be new to those on the outside, “In all, not very many regular church-goers actually give a tithe to their churches - which is not news to most pastors and church business administrators.” (pg. 100)

The horror of pain...

2009-01-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

"This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and...if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life." - Malcolm Muggeridge

Christ and the Needy

2008-12-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

I got Martin Luther's Complete Sermons for Christmas and read this in one of his Christmas sermons on Luke 2:1-14:

"Now let every one examine himself in the light of the Gospel and see how far he is from Christ, what is the character of his faith and love. There are many who are enkindled with dreamy devotion, when they hear of such poverty of Christ, are almost angry with the citizens of Bethlehem, denounce their blindness and ingratitude, and think, if they had been there, they would have shown the Lord and his mother a more becoming service, and would not have permitted them to be treated so miserably. But they do not look by their side to see how many of their fellow men need their help, and which they let go on in their misery unaided. Who is there upon earth that has no poor, miserable, sick, erring ones, or sinful people around him? Why does he not exercise his love to those? Why does he not do to them as Christ has done to him?

It is altogether false to think that you have done much for Christ, if you do nothing for those needy ones. Had you been at Bethlehem you would have paid as little attention to Christ as they did; but since it is now made known who Christ is, you profess to serve him. Should he come now and lay himself in a manger, and would send you word that it was he, of whom you now know so much, you might do something for him, but you would not have done it before. Had it been positively made known to the rich man in the Gospel, to what high position Lazarus would be exalted, and he would have been convinced of the fact, he would not have left him lie and perish as he did.

Therefore, if your neighbor were now what he shall be in the future, and lay before you, you would surely give him attention. But now, since it is not so, you beat the air and do not recognize the Lord in your neighbor, you do not do to him as he has done to you." (p. 155, Volume 1)

God and the Poor

2008-12-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

I've been reading through Proverbs and came across a couple verses that really challenged me and my thinking on how a Christian should relate to the poor. Here's a sampling:

Proverbs 14:31...Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.
Proverbs 17:5...Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 21:12-13...The Righteous One observes the house of the wicked; he throws the wicked down to ruin. Whoever closes his heart to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.

2nd Annual Academic BCS Standings

2008-12-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

I just want everyone to note that Georgia, while not ranked highly on this list, is way above Florida and, gasp, Georgia Tech. Our athlete graduation rate is 12 percent higher than Tech's. We may lose the games but we win here.

Here's the link.

Favorite Albums of 2008

2008-12-15T06:12:00.000-08:00

Alright, not all of these came out in '08, they just happened to my favorites this year. While not new to the year, they were new to me. Oh, and, just a heads up, unless otherwise stated, these are not necessarily Christian artists.

Most Fun (i.e. if I'm dancing in my car or drumming wildly, it's probably this one): The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely.

You probably won't see this on a lot of best of 2008 lists, but I can't think of another album this year that I had this much fun listening too. From the first guitar chords of the title track to the final words of "Carolina Drama", you feel almost compelled to nod your head and perfect your air guitar. I'm a huge Jack White fan and I've enjoyed pretty much everything in his catalogue, be it with the White Stripes, the Cold Mountain soundtrack, his collaboration with Loretta Lynn, and, now, his stuff with the Raconteurs. This one's no exception. While not the deepest album ever, on a scale of pure fun, this one's a 10.

Most Beautiful (i.e. the one that'll have you crying in your room): Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago.

I caught wind of this one through one of Paste Magazine's sampler cds and fell in love almost instantly. Recorded almost entirely in a mountain cabin, Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is a hauntingly, beautiful ode to lost love. It's heartbreakingly good.

"If you're in a foreign country riding on a train and need a soundtrack": Sigur Ros, Takk

Weird, but ohhh so good. Iceland never sounded this interesting.

Most Lyrically Intriguing: The Hold Steady, Stay Positive and Separation Sunday

Christianity Today posted an article on this band a few months ago and I've been listening to them ever since. A bar band that spins tales of addiction, pain, and redemption, The Hold Steady manages to craft stories that wouldn't be out of place in a Flannery O'Connor book.

Most Played: Romantica, America.

I've heard little or no buzz about this band, but I love their second album, America. It's been on steady rotation since March and it still hasn't gotten old. Think country-alt by way of Ireland. My favorite song is "Drink the Night Away", which starts out like the drinking song the title suggests, but takes a cool turn near the end. It took my breath away the first time.

Favorite Worship Album(s): Anything by Red Mountain Church.

Old hymns; new music. Just gorgeous.

Constant...

2008-12-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

"And this is the soul's entrance into conjugal relations with Jesus Christ as to personal grace - the constant preferring him above all pretenders to its affections, counting all loss and dung in comparison of him. Beloved peace, beloved natural relations, beloved wisdom and learning, beloved righteousness, beloved duties [are] all loss, compared with Christ...This is choice communion with the Son Jesus Christ. Let us receive him in all his excellencies, as he bestows himself upon us - be frequent in thoughts of faith, comparing him with other beloveds, sin, world, legal righteousness; and preferring him before them, counting them all loss and dung in comparison of him. And let our souls be persuaded of his sincerity and willingness in giving himself, in all that he is, as mediator unto us, to be ours; and let our hearts give up themselves unto him. Let us tell him that we will be for him, and not for another: let him know it from us; he delights to heart it, yea, he says, "Sweet is our voice, and our countenance is comely" [Song 2:14] - and we shall not fail in the issue of sweet refreshment with him." - John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, p. 158

Owen's a pain to read, but he never ceases to convict me. And what he asks here is is no exception: do I constantly prefer Christ over all other things? Not from time to time, not when I feel like it, not when the season is right, not when a specific group of people is around, but always? With every second of every minute of every hour of every day am I looking to him, yearning for him, resting in him or am I chasing something else entirely? I wish I could say yes, but it's just not true. Inconstant, not constant, would be a far better description of my walk. I chase the good things over the best thing too often and that's probably why I don't always feel the rest that Christ promises his people. God may love me, but I still struggle to receive that love. He may have united me with himself, but often I refuse to communicate with him and live in the light of it. It's like getting married and then refusing to see your spouse or constantly preferring others over her; of course, you're going to be miserable!

What's encouraging is knowing that where I am faithless, God is faithful. (2 Timothy 2:13) I may act like an idiot kid, but his love is constant and never failing. He loved me before I ever loved him and will continue to do so no matter how often I fall. (1 John 4) Like Hosea, he keeps running me down and loving me back to health, and, like Gomer, I keep forgetting who I am. God's desire is that I would live in the light of the gospel and commune with him always, that, like Paul, I would declare "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20) He wants me to cry with David, "Whom have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing desire besides you? My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:25-26) Owen's point is that communion with God, fellowship with the one who purchased our lives with the blood of his Son, is found in the constant preference of Christ above all other things. It does not change our position before God - that was already secured in eternity past and displayed in full upon the cross - but it does effect our enjoyment of the life he has purchased us.

Run To Him

2008-12-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Kelly M. Kapic's introduction to John Owen's Communion with the Triune God, p. 31:

Because Owen was familiar with common Christian struggles, he knew all too well that believers often view the Father in a negative light. Instead of worshipping a compassionate God, they envision him as distant, lacking sweetness, "always angry, yea, implacable," a consuming fire with "everlasting burnings" and thus inapproachable. Owen notes that some believers "are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it a boldness to eye God as good, gracious, tender, kind, loving...And [they] think herein they do well." Such a misunderstanding can quickly sap the life out of God's people. While such distortions may delight Satan, "it is exceeding[ly] grievous to the Spirit of God to be so slandered in the hearts of those whom he dearly loves." Elsewhere when talking about the believer's struggles with sin, Owen powerfully reminds his readers of the great difference between their sad expectations and the Father's reality: "I mourn in secret under the power of my lusts and sin, where no eyes see me; but the Father sees me, and is full of compassion." We need not run from the Father, but rather to his open arms of love, for by his Son and Spirit he can renew and strengthen us. He stands not over us in judgmental silence, but he sends his Word and Wisdom, that we might know the power and degree of his redeeming love. Run from him? That is the last thing he desires. Run to him - this is to understand the glory of the gospel.: "Assure thyself, then, there is nothing more acceptable unto the Father, than for us to keep up our hearts unto him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus."

The God Who Hides Himself

2008-11-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

584

That God has willed to hide Himself. - If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case, if there were no martyrs but in our religion.
God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden, is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason of it, is not instructive. Our religion does this: Vere tu es Deus absconditus.

587

Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned, and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is not all this which makes us belong to it. this makes us indeed condemn those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in those who do belong to it. It is the cross that makes them believe, ne evacuata sit crux. And so Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs, says that he has come neither with wisdom and signs; for he came to convert. But those who come only to convince, can say that they come with wisdom and with signs.

- From Blaise Pascal's Pensees, p. 191-192

Church Persecution in Orissa, India

2008-11-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to the video.

Luther on the Gospel

2008-11-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

"The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine...Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually." -Martin Luther

Return to Luther's "Commentary on Galatians"

2008-11-12T14:17:00.001-08:00

Reading J.I. Packer and Mark Dever's In My Place, He Stood Condemned convinced me of a couple things. First, the gospel is beautiful. Second, it's time to re-read Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians. Luther just gets the gospel and nowhere does he proclaim it more clearly than in that commentary. I don't think I fully appreciated it the first time through, so I'm going in for another pass and I figured I'd post the results on here. I'm planning on posting quotes and musings throughout, so stay tuned.

Some Martin Luther Goodness...

2008-11-11T06:01:00.000-08:00

"All the prophets did forsee in spirit, that Christ should become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, blasphemer, etc., that ever was . . . for he being made a sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world, is not now an innocent person and without sins . . . Our most merciful Father . . . sent his only Son into the world and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying: Be thou Peter that denier; Paul that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor; David that adulterer; that sinner which did eat the apple in Paradise; that thief which hanged upon the cross; and, briefly, be thou the person which hath committed the sins of all men; see therefore that thou pay and satisfy for them. Here now cometh the law and saith I find him a sinner . . . therefore let him die upon the cross." - Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians 3:13

If only...

2008-11-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

I'd vote for Calrissian-Chewbacca any day.

Steve Cohen (D) Compares Obama to Jesus and Palin to Pontius Pilate

2008-10-23T12:16:00.001-07:00

Um, wow. I'm kinda speechless on this one. Does this even make sense? This campaign has gotten ridiculous on both sides.

"YouTube Gets Religion" Time Magazine Article

2008-10-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

Time Magazine put out an article on the use of YouTube by various religious groups. It looks at how Christians, Muslims, and Jews are using the site to reach a broader audience. It's pretty interesting.

Looking for Home: Muslim-background believers in the U.S. struggle to find Christian community

2008-09-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Christianity Today has an interesting article on the difficulties facing a Muslim--background Christian trying to find community.

Some Pascal...

2008-09-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

"(273) If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous."

"(275) Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted."

- Blaise Pascal, Pensees, p. 94

Totally Random, but Funny

2008-09-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from a movie review of "My Best Friend's Girl":

"Tracing patterns in the carpet is more interesting. In fact, instead of seeing this base, unfunny comedy, it's recommended." - Bangor Daily News

Stott on the Church and Urban Evangelism

2008-09-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Reading through John Stott's The Message of Acts: The Bible Speaks Today and thought these quotes worth posting:

"This process of urbanization, as a significant new fact of this century, constitutes a great challenge to the Christian church. On the one hand, there is an urgent need for Christian planners and architects, local government politicians, urban specialists, developers, and community social workers, who will work for justice, peace, freedom, and beauty in the city. On the other, Christians need to move into the cities, and experience the pains and pressures of living there, in order to win city-dwellers for Christ. Commuter Christianity (living in salubrious suburbia and commuting to an urban church) is no substitute for incarnational involvement." (292-293)
On Priscilla and Aquila taking Apollos aside and pointing him towards correct doctrine: "Their ministry was timely and discreet. As Professor Bruce remarks, 'how much better is it to give such private help to a preacher whose ministry is defective than to correct or denounce him publicly!'" (302)
"In our day we still have to evangelize the religious. The equivalent to the synagogue in our culture is the church. It is here that the Scriptures are read, prayer is offered, and 'God-fearers' congregate, people on the fringe who are attracted but not committed. The gospel must be proclaimed to them. But we must not limit our evangelism to the religious and neglect the irreligious. If religious people can be reached in religious buildings, secular people have to be reached in secular buildings. Perhaps the equivalent to Paul's use of the house of Titius Justus is home evangelism, and the equivalent to his use of the hall of Tyrannus is lecture evangelism. People will come to a home, to listen to an informal talk and engage in free discussion, who would never darken the door of a church, and there is an important place for apologetic and/or explanatory Christian lectures in the local college or university or in some other neutral, public place." (312)
"When we contrast much contemporary evangelism with Paul's, its shallowness is immediately shown up. Our evangelism tends to be too ecclesiastical (inviting people to church), whereas Paul also took the gospel out into the secular world; too emotional (appeals for decision without an adequate basis of understanding), whereas Paul taught, reasoned and tried to persuade; and too superficial (making brief encounters and expecting quick results), whereas Paul stayed in Corinth and Ephesus for five yeas, faithfully sowing gospel seed and in due time reaping a harvest." (314)

His spirit was provoked within him...

2008-09-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Acts 17:16-17
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

When I read this a couple days ago I had a few thoughts. First, is my heart so in tune with God's that my spirit is provoked when I see idolatry? Is my spirit provoked when I see a culture that has placed money, power, and sports in the place of God? Is my spirit provoked when I find myself guilty of the same? And, when it is provoked, does it spur me to action? Is it reflective of a godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret or is it a worldly grief that leaves me feeling bad for a bit, but changing little? (2 Corinthians 7:10) And, am I so consumed with a passion for God's glory that I could not wait for others to arrive on the scene, but would throw myself without inhibition into ministry in any and every place that will have me? Or is my love so dim and my hunger for God so meager that I am content simply to wait for others?

Did Knowshon just hurdle that guy?

2008-09-07T11:32:00.001-07:00

Knowshon is amazing.

Salt before light...

2008-09-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

I came across this excerpt in D. Martyn Lloyd Jones' Studies in the Sermon on the Mount and thought it worth posting. He begins by asking why Jesus first declares his followers 'the salt of the earth' before declaring them the light of the wold? (Matthew 5:13-16) Why that order and not another? Why not 'light' first, 'salt' later? Here is his explanation:

"Scripture, in dealing with the Christian always emphasizes first what he is, before it begins to speak of what he does. As a Christian, I should always have this general effect upon men before I have this specific effect. Wherever I may find myself, immediately that 'something different' about me should have its effect; and that in turn ought to lead men and women to look at me and to say, 'There is something unusual about that man.' Then, as they watch my conduct and behaviour, they begin to ask me questions. Here, the element of 'light' comes out; I am able to speak and to teach them. Far too often we Christians tend to reverse the order. We have spoken in a very enlightened manner, but we have not always lived as the salt of the earth. Whether we like it or not, our lives should always be the first thing to speak; and if our lips speak more than our lives it will avail very little. So often the tragedy has been that people proclaim the gospel in words, but their whole life and demeanour has been a denial of it. The world does not pay much attention to them. Let us never forget this order deliberately chosen by our Lord; 'the salt of the earth' before 'the light of the world'. We are something before we begin to act as something. The two things should always go together, but the order and sequence should be the one which He sets down here." p. 164-165

An Easy Yoke...

2008-09-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

I was reading through Acts 15 this morning when a terrible thought struck me: I model before other people what I deny with my words. The problem is not so much what I'm teaching verbally as what I'm teaching silently. I speak grace, yet live legalism. I proclaim the need for a broken heart, but mine is far from it.

Why else does my soul flare up at any criticism - even positive criticism? Why else is it that I react so harshly to correction? Why else but that my heart remains stubbornly fixed upon the vain belief that what I do is what ultimately matters. It's as though I can't tolerate any weakness in myself, any perceived imperfection.

Yet that's the entire point of grace! That I'm not perfect, that I'm a broken, weak man, in desperate need of God's healing hand. But, while I speak grace, I'm not living in it. I'm more often dissatisfied with the talks that I give, not because they dishonor God, but because I'm afraid they dishonor me. For all my words, I'm still as self-centered as ever. I'm still living as though I have to prove myself, to others and to God. Fear, not love, motivates me. The reason I rarely post on this blog anything other than brief snippets is that I'm afraid of allowing a chink in the armor. I'm afraid of someone discovering I'm not as smart as I think I should be, that I'm not as confident or secure as I want to appear. I'm afraid I'm not going to live up to people's expectations. I'm afraid of speaking in front of others and falling short of perfection.

But, if I lived in the truth of the gospel, I wouldn't be. As John wrote, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear for fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us." (1 John 4:18-19) God's love wasn't based on me achieving some set line of performance; rather, it came in the very midst of human depravity, at the point where I deserved His grace least of all. He loved me before I cared an inkling for Him. He loved me when I still hated Him!

If that's true, if God's love is so great that Christ would die for me when I was still in open rebellion against Him, then fear of failure, of not being good enough, of not meeting expectations is ridiculous. Of course I'm not going to meet expectations. I can't! But God loves me nonetheless and His love is perfect and unconditional. It is all I thought to gain by works and more, but it is freely given and totally undeserved. The entire point of Acts 15 is not merely that circumcision should not be a barrier to salvation, but that nothing should be. The gospel was, and is, and always will be, totally free! There are no extra burdens, no tacked on requirements, only the gracious love of our mighty Savior, who paid it all.

I repent for not living in grace. I repent for allowing my flesh to continue to rule where grace should reign. I repent for not resting in the arms of the Lord I proclaim. My earnest prayer is that for once, I would not only know of the gospel, but that I would abide in it and learn the true meaning of Jesus' beautiful words in Matthew 11:28-30, where he declares: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The Veritas Forum: Belief in an Age of Skepticism?

2008-09-02T10:14:00.001-07:00

Another Keller talk, this time at UC-Berkeley.

Tim Keller at Google

2008-09-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

I saw this on the Resurgence blog and figured it was worth reposting. This is a video of Tim Keller speaking at Google on his book, "The Reason for God," and answering questions afterwards.

Cold War Kids - Second Album Teaser

2008-08-31T13:47:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite bands has a new album coming out September 23. If this teaser doesn't make you excited, I don't know what will. Their first album "Robbers and Cowards" has been one of my steady favorites over the past year and, if they have anything on par with the stream of consciousness brilliance of "We Used to Vacation" or the bluesy funk of "Hospital Beds", September 23 will be a great day indeed.

If you check the Cold War Kids out, listen closely to the lyrics. Things are not always as they seem and the mixture of fallen people and gospel redemption that permeate their songs can, at times, be mesmerizing. Here's a link to the video for "Hospital Beds" and "We Used to Vacation".

www.coldwarkids.com

Jean Claude Van Damme as...Jean Claude Van Damme

2008-08-22T15:51:00.001-07:00

Apparently, Van Damme is making a mockumentary about himself...starring himself. Suprisingly, it looks pretty funny.

2008 National Conference Trailer-The Power of Words

2008-08-21T10:56:00.001-07:00

Just seeing this promo makes me wish I could physically go to this conference. I hope they podcast it or put the sermons up for purchase.

Solzhenitsyn Dies

2008-08-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Literary legend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday at the age of 89. He is best remembered as the writer of the fictional One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and the historical work, The Gulag Archipelago. Both are considered classics and Solzhenitsyn himself received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970. The New York Times story can be found here.

Movie to See: Sophie School - The Final Days

2008-07-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

For "Depressing Movie Tuesday" this week, some buddies and I checked out Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. It was German and had a Nazi flag on the front, so we figured it fit the criteria.

But what we checked out in jest turned out to be a fantastic movie. From the opening credits till the final heartbreaking minutes, it riveted us. It's easily one of the best movies I've seen all year. The true story of a 21-year old Nazi resistance fighter, Sophie Scholl documents the arrest, trial, and eventual execution of 21-year old Sophie Scholl. The film follows the transcripts of her interrogation and trial very closely, so what you see is an enthralling re-enactment of one individual's defiant non-conformity to Hitler's Nazi regime, a story made all the more horrific by the fact that it's 100% true.

The acting is phenomenal, the story is compelling, and the direction is impeccable. They even broke the Hollywood mold and presented a Christian hero in an extremely positive manner. Jesus is spoken of with reverence and respect and the gospel comes through in Sophie's frequent prayers and her final parting words to her mother. Honestly, my only complaint with this movie (and it's a small one) is that the camera quality was not quite up to snuff with American cinema.

I strongly recommend Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. 4.5 out of 5 stars. Rotten Tomatoes seems to agree with me; they gave it an 87 out of 100.

Recommended Book: Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

2008-07-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

I picked this one up at the recommendation of my friend Trey Adams and it's been eating my lunch for the past few days. Here's a quote:

"Either Jesus and his kingdom matter so much that we are ready to sacrifice everything else, including our possessions, or we are not serious about Jesus." - Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

A Brief Review of Eberhard Bethge's "Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography"

2008-06-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

If you are a hard-core Dietrich Bonhoeffer fan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography is a must read. However, if all you want is a short sketch of the man, avoid this like the plague! When I ordered it, I envisioned a 500-600 page book, long, but not overly so. What I got was a 1,048 page monstrosity with small print. It was so imposing I almost didn't start.

Though I opened it hesitantly, what I found inside was a fascinating study of one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable figures. Written by Bonhoeffer's close friend, Eberhard Bethge - the same Bethge Bonhoeffer addressed man of his letters from prison to - it explores the life and thought of the theologian in depth, carrying the reader through the early days of his youth to his untimely execution as a conspirator in the plot to assassinate Hitler. Bethge's personal involvement in the struggle against the Nazis and his close contact with Bonhoeffer during that period make the closing chapters particularly insightful.

While I enjoyed this book as a whole, I have two main complaints. First, Bethge's closeness to his subject make it difficult for him to be truly objective. You hear much of Bonhoeffer the hero and little of Bonhoeffer the flawed man. At times, it seems that Bethge is less a biographer of Bonhoeffer than an apologist for him. Second, the portions on Bonhoeffer's theological work can be overly long and confusing for the uninitiated. While any biography of Bonhoeffer must deal with his thoughts on theology, sometimes Bethge does so at the expense of his life. His discussions also assume the reader has an extensive knowledge of the early twentieth-century German theological scene and he often rattles off names and terms as though they should be common knowledge. Frankly, he lost me a couple times.

Despite the flaws, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book. It brilliantly captures the life of a man whose words translated into action and who sacrificed his all for the sake of what is right. But, if what you want is a brief overview of Bonhoeffer's life, look elsewhere. The Bonhoeffer obsessed will love it, but, to anyone else, it probably isn't worth the effort. 4 out of 5 stars.

World's first moving building

2008-06-26T07:15:00.001-07:00

This tower is absolutely insane. I might visit this place, but I don't think you could pay me enough to live in it. The idea of living in a constantly shifting tower just doesn't sound safe.

Tim Keller: Marketing Christianity versus Christianity as Truth

2008-06-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

I love Tim Keller. In this case, he nails the problem of marketing Christianity versus proclaiming Christianity as truth. They are two very different animals.

"Marketing is about felt needs. You find the need and then you say Christianity will meet that need. You have to adapt to people's questions. And if people are asking a question, you want to show how Jesus is the answer. But at a certain point, you have to go past their question to the other things that Christianity says. Otherwise you're just scratching where they itch. So marketing is showing how Christianity meets the need, and I think the gospel is showing how Christianity is the truth.
C. S. Lewis says somewhere not to believe in Christianity because it's relevant or exciting or personally satisfying. Believe it because it's true. And if it's true, it eventually will be relevant, exciting, and personally satisfying. But there will be many times when it's not relevant, exciting, and personally satisfying. To be a Christian is going to be very, very hard. So unless you come to it simply because it's really the truth, you really won't live the Christian life, and you won't get to the excitement and to the relevance and all that other stuff." - From a Christianity Today interview.

The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square

2008-06-21T09:35:00.001-07:00

Heroes - The Tank Man

2008-06-21T09:21:00.001-07:00

Tiananmen Square Massacre

2008-06-20T11:48:00.001-07:00

There's something about that man standing in front of the tank that haunts me.

Secret Disciples

2008-06-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

"[Joseph of Arimathea]...who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews..." John 19:38b

Joseph of Arimathea was not unusual. Many in Jerusalem shared his fear of the Jews and so stayed silent. (John 7:13) They yearned for the coming redemption and believed Jesus spoke the truth, but trembled at the consequences of following. To follow meant risking the wrath of the Pharisees, being thrown from their synagogues, and being mocked by their peers. Following meant suffering and these men and women were not yet ready to count the cost. They were secret disciples, eager to believe yet hesitant to speak. Jesus' words in Matthew 10:27-33 seem spoken directly to them:

"What you hear in the dark speak in the light and what you hear whispered proclaim it on housetops. Do not fear him who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell....[E]veryone who acknowledges me before man, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."

These secret disciples feared men more than God, their silence giving tacit consent to the actions of the crucifixion mob. Yet when the dust of the crucifixion settled and the gravity of Jesus' death began to set in, it was a secret disciple - and not boisterous Peter who claimed not even death itself could tear him from Jesus - who had the courage to bury the body of the condemned. When the cost became death itself and when all the public disciples had fled into hiding, the hidden one walked out into the light and stood when no one else would. He who before lived in secret now lived in the public eye whereas those who had once lived publicly now chose to dwell in the shadows.

What changed? How did the death of Jesus, which brought such despair to the remaining eleven disciples who lived with him, who ate and drank and worked with him, inspire such hope in a disciple who before had lived timidly apart from him? What in Jesus' death gave Joseph the courage that he lacked in Jesus' life? Was it seeing in the eyes of Jesus the truth that the kingdom of God could only come at a cost? Was it seeing Jesus pay the ultimate price for his sake that motivated him to pay a lesser one for his? Why him and not Peter? Was it the fact that he knew his weakness, while Peter did not? I can't help but think yes to both. Yes, seeing Jesus die had an impact and, yes, it was because of his weakness that God used him. Surely his understanding of what was happening was incomplete, as was that of the other disciples, but at this moment the grace of God is clearly evident upon him for when the cost became great he was there to meet it. Who can so transform a man, but God himself? For here is one who, though he was weak, trusted in Jesus even as the Messiah's body cooled in the grave. If God met him in his weakness, can he not also meet me in mine?

I fear that I too am often a secret disciple. My life is characterized by hesitancy, by a deep fear of others' opinions, and a terror of what they might think. I believe the name of Christ yet do not always proclaim him from housetops. Instead, I hide him on Sunday mornings or in my quiet times. I hide him in church activities and in Christian fellowship and sometimes when I step out into the world, my faith recedes and a mask arises. What I call fear is, in fact, shame, shame of the gospel, shame of Jesus. The fire that fills the words of Paul, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation, to the Jew first but also the Greek", is at these times absent from my life. (Romans 1:16) In the dark, I love him, but in the heat of day, I find my heart conflicted and caught up in turmoil within me. I then live in secret and wonder why I do not enjoy the abundant life of which Christ spoke. Yet, in the life of Joseph, I see hope. I see the grace of a Father who strengthens the weak and emboldens the frightened, who reaches out his hand and grants to us what we have not in ourselves. I see him who calls me to himself and will never leave me nor forsake me. In the life of the secret disciple, I see Jesus.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourself, it is the gift of God - not by works so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

Blessed are the poor in spirit...

2008-06-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Privation is the lot of the disciples in every sphere of their lives. They are the 'poor' tout court (Luke 6:20). They have no security, no possessions to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Nay more, they have no spiritual power, experience, or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor - so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them. Jesus knows all about the others too, the representatives and preachers of national religion, who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are firmly planted on the earth, who are deeply rooted in the culture and piety of the people and molded by the spirit of the age. Yet it is not they, but the disciples who are called blessed - theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom dawns on them, the little ban who lived who for the sake of Jesus live a life of absolute renunciation and poverty. And in that very poverty they are heirs of the kingdom. They have their treasure in secret, they find it on the cross. And they have the promise that they will one day visibly enjoy the glory of the kingdom, which in principle is already realized in the utter poverty of the cross.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 107-108.

New Eyes Through the Cross - Dallas Willard's "Spirit of the Disciplines"

2008-06-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

"Our problem is not primarily with how we see the poor, but with how we see ourselves. If we still think and convey by our behavior that in some way we are fundamentally different and better as persons from the man sleeping in discarded boxes in the alley, we have not been brought with clear eyes to the foot of the cross, seeing our own neediness in the light of it. We have not looked closely at the lengths to which God had to go to reach us. We have not learned to live always and thankfully in the cross's shadow. From that vantage point alone is our solidarity with the destitute to be realized.

How do we respond to that man sleeping in those discarded boxes? Does it take great and awkward effort even to acknowledge his presence, or to speak to him if need be, or to take his hand or help him with his few possessions? Are we frightened of him though the circumstances are perfectly safe? Do we shrink from being seen near him or dealing with him? Is his smell and dirtiness alone enough to repel us from him? Or, how about others not in such extreme condition? Does the fact that a person is without work or an apartment or an automobile make us treat him or her as if he or she were "different"? If so, then we have not truly beheld our own ruined condition, and because of this we cannot heartily love that person." - Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, p. 211

I read this book in combination with Letters and Papers from Prison and the cumulative effect was a renewed passion and yearning to follow Jesus, not just in word, but in action and in truth. While I'm hesitant to give any book five stars for fear of the stars losing their value, to deny this book that honor would be unjust. Though not perfect, Willard's book clearly and powerfully explores the necessity for the individual Christian to take seriously Christ's call to come and follow, focusing especially on the idea of practical theology, "the manner in which our actions interact with God to accomplish his ends in human life." While it is very easy for such teaching to slip into moralism, The Spirit of the Disciplines manages to strike a near perfect balance, keeping in tension the overwhelming grace of God in Christ Jesus and man's responsibility. As he notes in the closing chapter,

"The new life begun in us at the touch of God's gracious word upon the depths of our soul is experienced by us as the love of Jesus and his Kingdom. The spirit of the disciplines - that which moves us to them and moves us through them to prevent them from becoming a new bondage and to deepened constantly our union with the heart and mind of God - is this love of Jesus, with its steadfast longing and resolute will to be like him. At his last meal with his closest friends he taught them and comforted them about his going away by saying: 'The one who obeys me is the one who loves me; and because he loves me, my Father will love him, and I will too, and I will reveal myself to him.' (John 14:21) Obedience would be the sign of love, as love was the sign of discipleship. (John 13:35) Not because obedience produces love or even proves it. We know it does not...Instead, [Jesus] is teaching that obedience and love go together because love alone stays to find a way to obey." (251)

I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a book that illuminates the spiritual disciplines while still remaining firmly rooted in the grace of gospel. Dallas Willard's book is truly remarkable.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Christian Action

2008-05-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

Written from his prison cell, here are Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thoughts on action and indecisiveness.

"There are always reasons for not doing something; the question is whether one does them nevertheless. If one only wants to do something that has everything in its favour, one will never get round to doing anything, or rather, the action will no longer be necessary because other people will already have anticipated one in it. Every real action of such a kind that no one other than oneself can do it." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: New Greatly Enlarged Edition, p. 325

Nietzsche: The Absence of God and Christian Morality

2008-05-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

"When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. For the latter is absolutely not self-evident...Christianity is a system, a consistently thought out and complete view of things. If one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces...Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him and what is evil: he believes in God, who alone knows. Christian morality is a command: its origin is transcendental; it is beyond criticism, all right to criticize; it possesses truth only if God is truth - it stands or falls with the belief in God." -Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of Idols, p. 80-81

While philosophically speaking Nietzsche and I are about as far removed from each other as two men can be, here at least we agree. For a man most famous for his statement that "God is dead", I thought this was an insightful reflection on the state of morality in God's absence.

Prince Caspian Review

2008-05-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

I went and saw the first showing of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian last night and walked away somewhat disappointed. While the production and direction have markedly improved from the last installment, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the story suffered. The merest thread of C.S. Lewis's storyline remains and the clash and clamor on-screen almost muffle it entirely.

Now, I should preface my comments by pointing out that I'm a purist when it comes to books and I was already apprehensive when I heard that they had added a romance between Caspian and Susan. That alone was enough to frighten me. However, the real tragedy is not the additions, but the subtractions. Adamson has already shown a willingness to stray from the source material and what was in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe vaguely apparent is glaringly obvious here. Instead of grousing Susan, we have rebellious Peter. In place of Lewis's rich exploration of faith, we have a romance thinner than anything in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Where magic once ruled, chaos now reigns. To hear them tell the story, you'd think Aslan was a mere side character tacked on to maintain some semblance of narrative cohesion. They stripped the story of the elements that made it great - the magic of the Pevensie children rediscovering a changed Narnia, the bewilderment and confusion that follows Lucy's spotting of Aslan and the older children's 'rational' refusal to believe her, the strict materialism of Trumpkin the dwarf who refuses to believe in anything he can't see, touch, and feel, and even Aslan's magisterial return - and replaced them with a cringe-worthy romance and battle scenes that - with the exception of the dramatic appearance of the river god at the end - Peter Jackson would have left on the cutting room floor. Someone should teach Adamson that filming a fight at night does not imbue it with more gravitas and that more is rarely better. There is no climax, but fights that seem to carry on as though on a plateau, never really slowing but never reaching heart-stopping heights either.

I read some interviews with Adamson where he defended his alterations, saying that he felt some of the book's content was outmoded (like the lack of romance) and that the book was weaker than the previous one and so needed some sprucing up. First, anyone that makes the argument that newer understandings of morality are necessarily better than old ones hasn't read much C.S. Lewis. One of Lewis's big beefs was with people who assume that just because something is newer or more 'progressive' it is necessarily better than what is old. In fact, Lewis pointed out, it is quite often the opposite. We can decry the Dark Ages, but even they pale before the atrocities of the twentieth century. For all our 'improvement', things haven't gotten better. Now, while I agree with Adamson's assertion that this is one of the weakest Narnia books (if not the weakest one), you have to remember what you are comparing them to. These are the Chronicles of Narnia, not one of the Goosebumps serials! Even the weakest one is stronger than most of the literature put out today, so to presume to alter the structure of the story and to root your narrative in something other than Lewis's magical prose is just foolish.

Even though they try to string together the key events of the book in the final moments, cramming the actual meat of the book into a stilted, rushed speech at the end, the damage is done. Where the book carried you along and left you breathless before Aslan's furious love, the movie leaves you confused as to why he even bothered showing up.

Despite all of this, the film is enjoyable and will likely match - if not surpass - its predecessor at the box office. The thread of Lewis's story that remains still manages to enchant and that this film has even a whiff of Lewis's bewitching universe is a testament to the brilliance of his work. Even when virtually neutered by heavy-handed editing and leaden directing, glimmers of what make it great still filter through. Yet, for me, it is those glimmers that make it all the harder to bear, for in them we can see all that could have been and sadly was lost.

While it lacks the power of Lewis's work and, in my opinion, is a mediocre tribute to his legacy, I'd give it a 6.5 out of ten as a movie and a 4 out of ten as an adaptation of Lewis's classic. If you're entertained more by the clash of the battlefield than by the magic and wonder of fantasy, you'll feel right at home. If not, here's hoping Michael Apted does a great job on The Dawn Treader.

Fear and Foreboding in the Land of Narnia...

2008-05-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

To all who love Lewis and the world of Narnia,

As a huge fan of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, I'm waiting with bated breath for the newest addition to the Lewis' film canon. That said, I can't shake a strong sense of foreboding. While the early reviews have all been overwhelmingly positive (Metacritic has it listed at a solid 80% right now and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 83%), what I've picked up about the plot has not been.

Now, before I get started, I need to point out that while I enjoyed the first film, I didn't love it. When one watches the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one can tell that Peter Jackson loved the source material. The atmosphere is rich with the texture and the aroma of a man who drenched himself in Tolkien's Middle Earth. The same can't be said for Andrew Adamson (the director of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and now Prince Caspian) and Narnia. The love for Tolkien and the attention to the minutest detail that Jackson brought to the Lord of the Rings is conspicuously absent from the Narnia movies thus far.

While I'm going to withhold judgment till I see the film, the reviews have brought several plot points to light that seem to indicate more of the same. Where they strayed from the plot in the first film, they did so more in degrees than in dramatic changes of the story arc. In this film, it seems they've stepped beyond mere degrees and presumed to pick up the author's pen itself. So far, two of the reviews I've read mentioned a romance between Caspian and Susan, something completely absent from any of Lewis' Chronicles. I have no problem with romance in films; I do have a problem with inserting one into a beloved children's classic where the point is not romance, but redemption in a world fallen into decay. It is not only an unnecessary addition, done more to attract moviegoers than to honor the spirit of Lewis' story, but a distraction from the book's central themes.

I have several other worries, but it's probably best I keep them unspoken until I've actually seen Adamson's film. Whatever the reviews, whatever the deviant plot turns, I'll still be among the thousands who file into theaters this weekend to see this movie, albeit with an anxious and conflicted heart. Despite my concerns, that small child within me that no amount of growing up can ever silence will rejoice if the film delivers even a fraction of the wonder and magic that Lewis' books do. Here's hoping my fears are baseless.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Narnia Lover

Apologetics and Story

2008-05-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm reading through Alan Jacob's The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis and thought this passage explaining Lewis's views on apologetics and story worth mentioning.

"Objections to Christianity - so we may extend the lesson of this story - are phrased in words, but that does not mean that they are really a matter of language and analysis and argument. Words are tokens of the will. If something stronger than language were available, then we would use it. But if by the same token, words in defense of Christianity miss the mark as well: they are a translation into the dispassionate language of argument of something that resides far deeper in the caverns of volition, of commitment. Perhaps this is why Saint Francis, so the story goes, instructed his followers to "preach the Gospel always, use words if necessary." It is not simply and straightforwardly wrong to make arguments in defense of the Christian faith, but it is a relatively superficial activity: it fails to address the core issues. A Christian who participates in a Socratic "debate" about Christianity - one conducted at the level of argument and counterargument, as though what is at stake is simply figuring out what propositions to assent to - could be said to be falsifying the spiritual situation, or allowing it to be falsified. After all, an apologist for Christianity, to some degree at least, commits himself or herself to answering questions that Jesus himself consistently refused to answer. Here again we should recall Lewis's frequent emphasis on the problems that arise when, as I put in the previous chapter, our curiosity exceeds our faithfulness; here again we should remember Jesus's reply to Peter's question about the fate of another disciple: "What is that to thee? Follow thou me" (John 21:22).

But strange to say, there is a kind of language that, if it does not avoid such superficiality, nevertheless shows an awareness of that danger and in a sense can point beyond itself. I refer to the language of stories - perhaps especially the language of fantasy and fairy tale. Sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said." - Alan Jacobs, The Narnian, p. 242.

Steven Delopoulos / The Ruin of the Beast

2008-04-30T13:33:00.001-07:00

I've been listening to this album for a couple months now and it still hasn't gotten old. Check out his MySpace to hear more from his album Straightjacket.

A Quote From Flannery O'Conner

2008-04-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

"Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood that it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought of himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him to despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise." From a short story in A Good Man is Hard to Find, p. 126

Another Chesterton Quote...

2008-04-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

I know I keep posting these quotes from Chesterton, but he's just so quotable. Here's his take on atheism:

[A]theism is abnormality. It is nor merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is meaning and a direction in the world it sees. – G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, p. 162

The Fall of Paganism and the Rise of the Early Church

2008-04-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

The life of the great civilization went on with dreary industry and even with dreary festivity. It was the end of the world, and the worst of it was that it need never end. A convenient compromise had been made between all the multitudinous myths and religions of the Empire; that each group should worship freely and merely give a sort of official flourish of thanks to the tolerant Emperor, by tossing a little incense to him under his official title of Divus. Naturally there was no difficulty about that; or rather it was a long time before the world realized that there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere. The members of some Eastern set or secret society or other seemed to have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine why. The incident occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance. It was not exactly what these provincials said; though of course it sounded queer enough. They seemed to be saying that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him die. This might be on of the many manias produced by the despair of the age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. They seemed quite unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the reason that the death of God had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood. According to other accounts God was not exactly dead after all; there trailed through the bewildered imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun. But it was no the strange story to which anybody paid any particular attention; people in that world had seen queer religions enough to fill a madhouse. It was something in the tone of the madmen and their type of formation. They were a scratch company of barbarians and slaves and poor and unimportant people; but their formation was military; they moved together and were very absolute about who and what was really a part of their little system; and about what they said, however mildly, there was a ring like iron. Men used to many mythologies and moralities could make no analysis of the mystery, except the curious conjecture that they meant what they said. All attempts to make them see reason in the perfectly simple matter of the Emperor’s statue seemed to be spoken to deaf men. It as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the earth; it was a difference of substance to the touch. Those who touched their foundation fancied they had struck a rock.

With a strange rapidity, like the changes of a dream, the proportions of things seemed to change in their presence. Before most men knew what had happened, these few men were palpably present. They were important enough to be ignored. People became suddenly silent about them and walked stiffly past them we see a new scene, in which the world has drawn its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in the center of a great space like lepers. The scene changes again and the great space where they stand is overhung on every side with a cloud of witnesses, interminable terraces full of faces looking down towards them intently; for strange things are happening to them. New tortures have been invented for the madmen who have brought good news. That sad and weary society seems almost to find a new energy in establishing its first religious persecution. Nobody yet knows very clearly why that level world has thus lost its balance about the people in its midst; but they stand unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to revolve around them. And there shone on them in that dark hour a light that has never been darkened; a white fire clinging to that group like an unearthly phosphorescence, blazing its track through the twilights of history and confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of mythology and theory; that shaft of light or lightning by which the world itself has struck and isolated and crowned it; by which its own enemies have made it more illustrious and its own critics have made it more inexplicable; the halo of hatred around the Church of God.
– G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, p. 163-165

Empty...

2008-04-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

As a middle school youth minister in a fairly affluent part of Georgia, I can't say that I was particularly surprised by Madeline Levine's findings in her book The Price of Privilege, but that doesn't make them any easier to swallow. Frankly, what she finds is disturbing, both because I can see it in the kids and I can see it in myself. A practicing psychologist in Marion County with over 25 years of experience, Levine writes against the commonly held notion that parental "involvement, opportunity, and money help safeguard the emotional health of children." (Levine 7) If anything, she says, these things actually may be serious disadvantages. Instead of flourishing, Levine describes these children as increasingly devoid of substance. In short, they're empty. Recalling an encounter she had counseling an affluent teenage cutter, Levine writes:

In what therapists are fond of referring to as an "aha moment," I realized that I had been profoundly affected by my cutter, with her oozing, desperate message, because with the single, raw word EMPTY she had captured the dilemma of many of my teenage patients. "Empty" in what way? Many of my patients had teachers, coaches, and, most of all, parents who had actively poured enormous amounts of attention and resources into these children. Paradoxically, the more they pour, they less full many of my patients seem to be. indulged, coddled, pressured, and micromanaged on the outside, my young patients appeared to be inadvertently deprived of the opportunity to develop an inside. Parents who persistently fall on the side of intervening for their child, as opposed to supporting their child's attempts to problem solve, interfere with the most important task of childhood and adolescence: the development of a sense of self. (Levine 8)

What we have, says Levine, is an epidemic of broken children whose parents are overinvolved in the wrong places and underinvolved in the right ones, leaving the teens empty and without any firm foundation on which to anchor their lives. Valued more for what they can accomplish than for who they are, these children forgo developing an internal life in favor of an external one - a superficial "false self," one crafted to garner approval but missing any sense of autonomy. They may produce and appear well-adjusted, but, in truth, they are anything but and have little to no idea who they are. (Levine, 3-33)

The result is, that "in spite of their economic and social advantages, [these children of privilege] experience among the highest rates of depression, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, somatic complaints, and unhappiness of any group of children in this country." (Levine 17) Research has now shown that depression among affluent adolescent girls is three times the national average, that boys from well-to-do families report extremely high rates of anxiety and depression, and that, "in addition to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, rule breaking, and psychosomatic disorders are all elevated among affluent teens", teens who may also be prone to eating disorders and cutting. (Levine 19) Add to that the staggering 30-40% of affluent teens who are "experiencing troubling psychological symptoms" and the picture is ugly indeed. (Levine 21) In every category children of privilege are "exhibiting rates of emotional problems significantly higher than the average," rates that are comparable to, if not greater than, children living in dire poverty. (Levine 21) These are children so consumed by a culture that encourages them to perform, perform, perform, one that so stresses the superficial and material that their false self has become inseparable from their real one. More tragic still is that behind their facade there is no other self. They are quite literally empty. (Levine 41-45)

I'm not finished with the book yet, but the more I read, the more and more convinced I am that these are kids in desperate need of prayer and of the gospel. If we are looking for the harassed and helpless, for the poor and the heavy laden, we don't need to look further than our kids.

The Temptation of Christ

2008-04-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned from
the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the
wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil... And the devil took him up
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to
him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered
to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you be then will worship me, it will all be
yours." And Jesus answered him, "it is written, You shall worship the Lord your
God and him only shall you serve"

When I read the story of Christ's temptation I am typically unable to connect with the temptations that he was dealt. I have never fasted for forty days, and then been tempted with worship form the entire earth. A typical temptation of mine is getting frustrated when I haven't had my morning coffee and I have to deal with a mile of trafﬁc on the way to work. Even in the midst of much greater temptation, I have never been offered the world in exchange for worship. But I refuse to remove the ability for us to connect with our Christ in this story. I have realized that He is being offered something we have all been offered and taken.

In suburbia time takes a toll on our soul. While sitting in Starbucks, relaxing in front of our T.V.s, working in our cubicles, reading our books, and talking to our friends, our lives take a toll on us and tempt us to build up walls. Our constant temptation is to put up walls to remove all vulnerability and to become our own god. We desire the power that comes from being God, we desire the worship, the love, the acceptance, and the knowledge. Our temptation is the same as Adam and Eve's was in the Garden. Christ was being offered the same thing in exchange for not going through with the rejection, hatred, betrayal and pain of the Cross. He rejected the qualities and temptation of being God to being murdered as a sinner.

One thing I have learned by working in ministry is that there is temptation to put up walls of a puffed up resume, stories of successful ministry, theological knowledge, and efﬁciency. I have been tempted to become someone I am not. The reason it is so enticing is because if that version of myself gets rejected, it doesn't hurt as bad as if it was myself. If I was completely vulnerable and didn't hold my acceptance to how other's respond to me I could very easily hear and become acquainted with the voice of God. I could experience what Christ experienced right before his temptation. I could be completed by being under the blessing of God's love and companionship. In Matthew 3, right before Christ goes into the desert he receives what every follower longs for. A visitation of God's Spirit, singing a melody of love over him, as he brings all of himself to the Jordan river, He lifts His eyes to the maker of the world that He will redeem, and His father says "This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased." If we can let the walls down, show up to God with all of ourselves, we can be completed and we can tolerate
the temptations of the Devil himself.

These walls, this false self that we all develop comes from multiple places, just like Christ's temptation, it comes from an ultimatum of "If you prove yourself to me I will accept you." In my life it has come from every angle, as I suspect it has in your life. From my parents, my bosses, my wife, and one day it will probably come from my children. It is an inherent command that we all make on others, and continue to have made on our own lives. These commands spiritually bankrupt us, there is no way that we can fulﬁll everyone's expectations and neither can we fulﬁll God's expectation. Our hearts react in two different ways; pride and fear. When we examine our fears in the presence of the gospel, our heart is thawed out of its frozen state by the realization of God's grace in the midst of our misguided intentions and actions. When we examine our pride through the lens of complete depravity and irresistible grace, we are quickly humbled by the love we receive free of demand. The presence of Christ, the presence of the Spirit, and the presence of a loving Father is all too close for us to not seek it out. They are fervently pursuing our hearts, and a supernatural experience is only minutes of
meditation away. We can experience what Christ did at his baptism. We can lift our eyes to the maker of our pain and our pleasure, and be told, "This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased." This knowledge is what will bring us through the temptation of building walls around us that prevent vulnerability and true self experience.

The Holy Inefficiency of My Hero Henri Nouwen

2008-04-16T08:00:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone,
I encourage you to read this article when you get a chance. This is an amazing story about a man who's writings have changed my life. The article is written by Phillip Yancey the lead editor of Christianity Today.

-James
______________
Once when I was dining with a group of writers, the conversation turned to letters we get from readers. Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson mentioned an intense young man who had been seeking spiritual direction from both of them. They responded as best they could, answering questions by mail and recommending books on spirituality. Foster had just learned that the same inquirer had also contacted Henri Nouwen. "You won't believe what Nouwen did," he said. "He invited this stranger to live with him for a month so he could mentor him in person."

Most writers jealously protect their schedules and privacy. Nouwen, who died of a heart attack this past September, broke down such barriers of professionalism. His entire life, in fact, displayed a "holy inefficiency."

Trained in Holland as a psychologist and a theologian, Nouwen spent his early years achieving. He taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, averaged more than a book a year, and traveled widely as a conference speaker. He had a résumé to die for-which was the problem, exactly. The pressing schedule and relentless competition were suffocating his own spiritual life.

Nouwen went to South America for six months, scouting a new role for himself as a missionary in the Third World. A hectic speaking schedule on his return to the United States only made things worse. Finally, Nouwen fell into the arms of the L'Arche community in France, a home for the seriously disabled. He felt so nourished by them that he agreed to become priest in residence at a similar home in Toronto called Daybreak. There, Nouwen spent his last ten years, still writing and traveling to speak here and there, but always returning to the haven of Daybreak.

I once visited Nouwen, sharing lunch with him in his small room. It had a single bed, one bookshelf, and a few pieces of Shaker-style furniture. The walls were unadorned except for a print of a Van Gogh painting and a few religious symbols. A Daybreak staff person served us a bowl of Caesar salad and a loaf of bread. No fax machine, no computer, no Daytimer calendar posted on the wall-in this room, at least, Nouwen had found serenity. The church "industry" seemed very far away.

After lunch we celebrated a special Eucharist for Adam, the young man Nouwen looked after. With solemnity, but also a twinkle in his eye, Nouwen led the liturgy in honor of Adam's twenty-sixth birthday. Unable to talk, walk, or dress himself, profoundly retarded, Adam gave no sign of comprehension. He seemed to recognize, at least, that his family had come. He drooled throughout the ceremony and grunted loudly a few times.

Later Nouwen told me it took him nearly two hours to prepare Adam each day. Bathing and shaving him, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, guiding his hand as he tried to eat breakfast-these simple, repetitive acts had become for him almost like an hour of meditation.

I must admit I had a fleeting doubt as to whether this was the best use of the busy priest's time. Could not someone else take over the manual chores? When I cautiously broached the subject with Nouwen himself, he informed me that I had completely misinterpreted him. "I am not giving up anything," he insisted. "It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship."

All day Nouwen kept circling back to my question, bringing up various ways he had benefitted from his relationship with Adam. It had been difficult for him at first, he said. Physical touch, affection, and the messiness of caring for an uncoordinated person did not come easily. But he had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us-spiritually uncoordinated, retarded, able to respond with what must seem to God like inarticulate grunts and groans. Indeed, working with Adam had taught him the humility and "emptiness" achieved by desert monks only after much discipline.

Nouwen has said that all his life two voices competed inside him. One encouraged him to succeed and achieve, while the other called him simply to rest in the comfort that he was "the beloved" of God. Only in the last decade of his life did he truly listen to that second voice.

Ultimately Nouwen concluded that "the goal of education and formation for the ministry is continually to recognize the Lord's voice, his face, and his touch in every person we meet." Reading that description in his book ¡Gracias!, I understand why he did not think it a waste of time to invite a seeking stranger to live with him for a month, or to devote two hours a day to the menial care of Adam.

I will miss Henri Nouwen. For some, his legacy consists of his many books, for others his role as a bridge between Catholics and Protestants, for others his distinguished career at Ivy League universities. For me, though, a single image captures him best: the energetic priest, hair in disarray, using his restless hands as if to fashion a homily out of thin air, celebrating an eloquent birthday Eucharist for an unresponsive child-man so damaged that many parents would have had him aborted. A better symbol of the Incarnation, I can hardly imagine.

Chesterton on the Martyr and the Suicide

2008-04-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

Paganism declared that virtue was in balance; Christianity declared it was in conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors and mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by his enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seeks his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is the disdain of life. -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.84-85.

What I'm Listening To and Reading...

2008-04-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

First, the books:

The Canon of Scripture, by F.F. Bruce - A solid look at the history of the canon of the New and Old Testament. A bit dry, but I'm enjoying it. I've read a couple of his books and so far haven't been disappointed.
Atonement, by Ian McEwan - Saw the movie, loved it, and picked up the book, hoping I'd love it too. The fact that Time Magazine and The Observer both picked it as one of the best 100 novels ever written didn't hurt either. I'm only half-way through, but I can already say the writing and characterization are exceptional.
Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre - This one is taking me a bit because, even though it's relatively short, every time I pick it up, I read ten pages and want to go claw at my own face. Great writing, interesting ideas, but it is depressing as heck and I don't have the emotional collateral to wade through it right now.

And the listening...

Josh Ritter, Hello Starling - Sort of Dylan-esque. Great songwriting.
Joseph Arthur, Nuclear Daydream - Another singer-songwriter, but he has more in common with Elliot Smith and the Verve than Dylan. Some of the songs are drop-dead gorgeous ("Black Lexus," "Electrical Storm," "You are Free").
M. Ward, Transistor Radio - A collection of short, carefully crafted songs that seem to slip effortlessly through the static. Post-modernity meets Johnny Cash minus the deep vocals.

P.S. Just because I list these does NOT imply that they are Christian. As with everything else I post on this blog, the fact that I am reading it or listening to it does not mean I'm suggesting you do too. So please use discretion.

New Dune Movie...with Peter Berg?

2008-03-24T12:35:00.001-07:00

Ok, this will place me squarely in the nerd category, but when I was in middle school and even some of high school I had a soft spot - ok, an obsession - with science fiction. I ate and drank the stuff. And for anyone who's ever shared this passion, you've no doubt heard of Frank Herbert's Dune. It's to science fiction nerds what Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is to fantasy freaks, a sort of sci fi magnum opus. Anyways, I'm digressing. The point is this: a third attempt is being made at turning this very trippy book into a movie. Paste Magazine reported today that Peter Berg, the director of Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom, will direct this adaption. The rest of the cast is still unknown. How Berg's choppy camera style will fit into a sci fi world is beyond me but whatever: it's a new Dune movie. The link is here. All I know is that I'm more than moderately excited and I'm itching to dig up my old copy and read it again.

More Chesterton...

2008-03-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to see why C.S. Lewis liked Chesterton so much.

Everyone who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probably that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by things that go with good jdugement. He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity or by dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 11.

A Brief Review of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot"

2008-03-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Like Dostoevsky's other works, this is a brilliant piece of cultural criticism, engaging and wrestling with the ideas that would eventually devour his beloved country. Considering the later rise of Red Russia and Stalin's crafting of atheistic religion centered around himself, Dostoevksy's insight that "Russians do not merely become atheists, but they invariably believe in atheism, as though it were a new religion without noticing that they are putting faith in a negation," becomes almost frighteningly prophetic. However, whereas Crime and Punishment crescendos to its dramatic conclusion, The Idiot loses steam and the last scenes lack the emotional depth of the former work. Despite this, it still deserves the title of classic and I heartily recommend it.

****(4/5 stars)

G.K. Chesterton on Poetry and Reason

2008-03-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

"Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 9-10.

"A flippant person has asked why we say, 'As mad as a hatter.' A more flippant person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 10.

A truth I need to remember...

2008-03-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I remembered this more often:

Martin Luther once read the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in his family devotions. When he had finished his wife Katie said simply, "I do not believe it. God would not have treated his son like that."

"But Katie," Luther answered. "He did." (From Os Guinness' God in the Dark, p. 186)

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

BBC NEWS: Christians besieged in Iraq

2008-03-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

BBC News just posted an article on the persecution of Christians in Iraq. Here are some excerpts:

"The Barnabas Fund, a charity in the UK that has tried to help Iraqi Christians, says there have been some very nasty cases of Christians being abducted, tortured and then killed and it says many Christians in Iraq are now deadened to the violence."
"In January, bombs exploded outside three Chaldean and Assyrian churches in Mosul, two churches in Kirkuk and four in Baghdad. The attacks seem to have been co-ordinated all over the country to occur at roughly the same time. And this was not the first time violence had come close to Archbishop Rahho."
"In the university of Mosul, there are reports of Christian students being targeted - with notices being put up warning the girls to wear a hijab and giving Christians a choice between dying, converting to Islam or leaving the town."
"The charity Barnabas says one of its partners in Iraq conducted research into 250 Iraqi Christians displaced to the north of the country a year ago and found nearly half had witnessed attacks on churches or Christians, or been personally targeted by violence."
"Nobody knows how many of Iraq's Christians have now fled. Before the war there were estimated to be about 800,000 and Chaldeans were the largest Christian community in Iraq. It is thought about half the Christian population of Iraq has moved - the majority to Syria, fewer to Jordan and some to northern Iraq."

Thoughts? The rest of the article is here.