By the Wicket Gate

Daily Bible Reading 1/2/2012

2012-01-02T23:14:00.002-05:00

Some friends and I are trying to read through the Bible this year. I'll be posting comments I make on the passages I'm reading as I read them. I'm following the One Year Bible Reading Plan where you jump around and get a passage of OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs.

Gen. 3 always catches me.

1) Eve makes up her own religion in Gen. 3:3. She add's a prohibition of touching to God's command in Gen. 2:16-17 not to eat. We are the same way, at least I am. I produce new rules to relate to God in an effort to 'protect' myself from wrong doing. When I add to God's law, I change what He, in His perfection, has laid forth, and it leads me to eventual ruin like it did Eve.

2) Eve sort of works her way up to the sin in Gen. 3:6. She sees its good for food, that it looks good, and that it will make her wise, and then she dives in. Aren't we the same way? Don't we see a sin and justify it to ourselves slowly but surly to assuage the pain of the sin we our flesh desires us to commit?

3) Adam does nothing to defend his Wife from sin in Gen 3:6. Do I do anything to help my wife? I mean I try to set a good example, but it's not that great. And how do I defend her without being over-bearing and nagging? We don't do any Bible study together or pray together. I'm sure I drop the ball in many other relationships as well in helping to protect my loved ones from sin.

4) God is so merciful to them in Gen. 3:9-24. God promised in Gen. 2, that He would kill them if they ate of the tree. And yet he mercifully doesn't kill them, and instead talks to them. He of course lays out consequences for their actions, but even in the laying of consequences He provides the 'proto-evangelion', the first prophecy of Christ. There is an implied slaying of an animal in Gen 3:21 to make skins to cover their nakedness which does a much better job than the fig leaves they had made for themselves in Gen. 3:7. Another fore-taste of Christ's infinitely better covering of our sins. And He prevents us from living forever in a tainted sinful flesh. I couldn't bear permanent life associated with Sin. He is so kind to us despite ours and our forebears complete lack of deserving. (english major's toss some help to a nerd's poor english on that last phrase...)

Matt. 3:1-6 is a striking display of the call to repent and its affect on people. Such that the call would drive them into the wilderness to be cleansed. Do I have the strength to call people to repent, and help lead them to Christ?

Psalm 2 is such a scary warning of false belief. I pray those who have made new years resolutions have not resolved to oppose God. It will not go well with them.

Prov. 1:7. Being in Afghanistan was a big maturation change for me. I realized while I was there, that if I wanted to become a leader it was time to pick up that mantle and stop messing around. Actually it was John Snow who taught me to 'put the boy aside'. Given that charge, I want to be a wise leader. And to do so, I must fear the Lord above all.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 8

2011-06-14T22:00:00.002-04:00

1 Peter 1: 22 - 25 -- Lastly as a result of the Gospel and our salvation, we are to serve others. Why? Because if the point of salvation was merely to redeem us, then God would take us home as soon as we are saved. Instead it is our role to share the gospel with others who don’t know Him. How do we get ourselves heard? By serving them. Just as our Lord did. He did miracles and served even those who were outside of His normal community, so that their hearts would be softened to His message of grace. We shouldn’t be serving out of a desire merely to elevate someone’s socioeconomic status. Our goal in service is to preach the good news of new birth. We must tell people that they, like us, are sinners and desperately need the blood of Christ to pay off the debt that we owe to God as a result of that sin. We must tell them that they not only have to intellectually understand this information, but they must repent and believe it so that they can be born again. This is the good news. This is the greatest news ever heard by man. Praise to our Lord for providing this amazing news to us.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 7

2011-06-14T21:57:00.001-04:00

1 Peter 1:20 - 21 -- We are believers in Christ because not only did He die for us, but His sacrifice was ruled acceptable to the Father. How do we know it was acceptable? That it was an effective payment for the debt owed? Because Christ was raised from the dead. Death could not hold Him! What amazing wonderful good news. We can inherit that same perpetual life, raised from the dead as it were, ourselves because of the work of Christ. Look at the evidence of the empty tomb. Believe that it’s barren status is the receipt that proves Christ’s redeeming work was and still is effective. And the best part is that we get to give glory to God as a result of His work. We don’t have to have any focus on ourselves, but instead get to spend eternity praising Him and lifting Him up. What a privilege that the creator God of time and space would permit our eternal praise to Him. What great glorious news!!!

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 6

2011-06-14T21:55:00.001-04:00

1 Peter 1:17 - 19 -- Remember to fear the Lord God who knows what you have done. It’s not like you can hide your sin from Him. Seek Him and His forgiveness. If you are already saved, don’t forget that your salvation applies to your sins even after your conversion. It’s so common to forget who we are and our new lives and to turn back to our works-righteous ways. Remember that we were redeemed with something so much more precious than mere silver or gold. We were redeemed or bought back to the Lord’s family by the most precious blood of Christ Himself. We are not redeemed by the futile way of works righteousness that our man- made religion has set before us as supposedly effective. Don’t turn back to that old way. Don’t just follow your fathers’ ways blindly. Don’t return to that body of death. Remember it was with
precious blood. From the lamb, unblemished and spotless. The perfect God-Man sacrifice that perfectly represents us and propitiates the Father’s wrath. This blood of the ever living Christ.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 5

2011-06-14T21:51:00.002-04:00

1 Peter 1:13-16 -- Holiness is the call for those who have been saved. This is part of our response to the offer of grace. This is the repentance part of ‘repent and believe’ that Christ calls us to in response to His offer of His Lordship and the gospel. We are not to try and be perfect prior to our salvation. Nor are we to work our way into His good graces. Instead, after we are saved we are to be Holy as He is Holy. This is a great test to see if you are saved/born again or not. If you don’t have a desire to be Holy because of the Spirit’s residence in you, then you probably don’t have the Spirit and are not born again. If you’re not born again, then please today seek the Lord and believe in the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice for your sins, which you have committed in treason against God who rightly judges you guilty of those sins.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 4

2011-06-14T21:45:00.002-04:00

1 Peter 1:10 - 12 -- Even the prophets in the Old Testament prophesied of the grace that was to come to us. This grace is unmerited favor, or put another way it’s a free gift. I mean we’re talking about the most precious substance in the universe, the blood of Jesus, poured out for us. Just think the 5 liters of blood in Christ’s human body was sufficient to cover over the sins of all who have been saved before and after His death. What a small volume to cover such a large number of people. This blood that God set out to spend on us for the propitiation of His wrath has to be supremely valuable and powerful to satiate the terrible wrath of the Father that we all have earned. And yet for all its power and value, we get the benefits of it for free!!!

But a free gift doesn’t do anything for the one who would receive it if he never gets it. This is why Peter goes out of his way to mention that his audience heard of the gospel from others. This is our responsibility, if we have already learned the gospel. We must share it with others. Not because we are required to, though we are, but because it should burst out of us because of how good the news is.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 3

2011-06-14T21:40:00.002-04:00

1 Peter 1:8 & 9 -- We rejoice with inexpressible joy and are filled with glory for God because of our faith in Christ, this despite never seeing Him with our own eyes. Why do we rejoice? Because we have obtained the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls!! Again this is fantastic, wonderful news that we should share with all. God’s nature requires that He judge sin. That sin is part and parcel of all human beings as a result of the Fall. But merely placing faith in Christ grants us salvation of our very souls. The part of us that will live forever, either in torment or glory. As the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 2: “how can we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?!” So this day, if you’re unsure of whether you will be in Heaven, seek Him and join with the saints in greatly rejoicing!

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment

2011-06-09T22:19:00.001-04:00

1 Peter 1:3-5 -- God receives all blessing and honor for causing us to be born again. What does it mean to be born again? It means to be born spiritually, not just physically as we did on our exit from the womb. If we are not born again, then we are not saved. We must be made completely new as a result of Christ’s work. This requires us to repent and believe in His ability to make us new. If we don’t repent and try to somehow take a little Jesus and a little of our own works then we are not saved. If we don’t turn away from our old selves then its proof that we haven’t trusted in a new Lord. It’s not that we have to ‘clean ourselves up’ prior to faith, but that as part of faith we commit to turn away from our old selves.

This passage also points to the hope we have in God to secure our salvation to the end of time and beyond. It is He who protects our salvation and ensures that our salvation is imperishable and will not fade away. This is fantastic news!! Its the greatest news of all that God is ensuring our salvation and not us.

1 Peter 1 Gospel moment

2011-06-06T16:00:00.004-04:00

I was looking through 1 Peter 1 for opportunities to preach the gospel and came up with a few. I'll post them once a day for the next few days.

1 Peter 1:1-2 -- Peter points out the Trinitarian function of our salvation. The Father chooses, The Spirit sanctifies, and The Christ spent His blood on our behalf. As a result of this we have grace and peace in the fullest measure. Now who is this grace and peace between? Is it between the believers and the ‘world’? No because Peter is going to refer soon to his readers (and our) impending trials. This grace and peace are between us and God as a result of our salvation through Jesus. This is the good news!! The bad news is that God has a just right to destroy us for our sin, and yet because of His great, unending, amazing mercy, He created a perfect way to both judge our sin on His son and also bring Him the greatest glory imaginable by redeeming His sinful creation. This is the news we should shout from the roof tops and share with everyone we meet. This peace and grace is available, if we but obey Christ and repent and believe that He is capable to save.

Functional Universalism

2011-04-25T21:02:00.003-04:00

Do We Really Believe What We're Saying? from The Church at Brook Hills on Vimeo.

This video is convicting to me. Very convicting. Do I spend all of my energy to partner with the Spirit to save the lost? Do I actually care about them? and prove it by my actions & words?

I have so much to grow in to and learn. I must pursue courage. And honor my Lord.

How do we comfort ourselves after we sin, when we know better?

2011-04-19T21:22:00.003-04:00

A friend asked me: How do we comfort ourselves after we sin, when we know better? Especially in the context of 2 Peter 2:20-22

It is good to feel remorse for our sin, b/c it does pain the Father and our sin is what caused Him to sacrifice His Son on our behalf (Isaiah 53). However we should not dwell on it after we have sought forgiveness b/c He removes our iniquity as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103). If we dwell in our sin afterwards it is temptation by the Evil one to try and make us forget who we have been changed into. It's like Satan is trying to pull us back to the corpse and dead body that we have left behind.

It's times like this that helps me to remember: 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This couldn't be any clearer. If we confess our sins, He will forgive us and cleanse us. Don't forget these words. Memorize them. That's what I've had to do.

It also helps me to read through Psalm 51. This is the Psalm David wrote confessing his sin and seeking God's forgiveness after he had committed adultery and murder. Remember David did these terrible things long after he was king and had served the Lord for many years. He also went on after this to continue to serve the Lord and remain in fellowship with Him. Over the years, different parts of the psalm have grown on me. Lately the vs 13 & 14: "¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. ¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness" have gathered more of my attention. Not that my sin should be a positive excuse, but that by seeing my sin it forces me to come running back to my Lord, seeking His favor and then propelling me to tell others of how great He is to forgive even me, the lowliest of repeated sinners. And thus I can see God putting to good use even my sin. Not that He wants me to sin, but that He can even use my ungodliness to His purpose.

If you want to look for examples of patience with sin, Psalm 103, mentioned above, is a great one. But also just look at the whole context of the Old Testament. God could have, and probably should have, left the Israelites for forgetting Him throughout their entire history. And yet He always remains consistent. He always maintains a remnant of followers. He always returns to them to bring them to Him.

Does that hit what you were asking about?

Read/Listen to Romans!!

2011-04-12T21:24:00.002-04:00

You should read Romans all the way through. It will answer a lot of your questions. I would also recommend a sermon series to go along with it. Sermon series are perfect for commuting. You're in the car/train any way might as well redeem the time.

A few good ones would be:

-- Phil Smuland from my church in College: http://www.cov-pres.org/teaching/Romans.php This was really the sermon series that awakened my love for the word and the Lord. Downside is it's like 96 sermons.

-- Tommy Nelson from a church called Denton Bible in Texas. I really like Tommy's teaching style: http://dbcmedia.org/sermons/romans-complete-mp3-series/ This one is only 49 messages

-- R.C. Sproul is pretty big/famous theologian: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/sermons/?scripture=5 I like R.C. A lot too. This is about 60 sermons give or take.

Seriously. Listen to sermons, read Romans. Know who God is. You won't be disappointed.

Can Christians be Warriors?

2011-03-28T21:51:00.002-04:00

A friend asked me: Is it ok for Christians to use weapons? And what do these passages mean?

[Luke 22:36] Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

[Mat 26:51] And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

[Mat 26:52] Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the swordshall perish with the sword.

Good questions.

When interpreting scripture you always want to understand the context in which it was written. Since the books of the Bible were written to a specific intended audience we need to understand that audience a little and try and hear as they would have heard. As an illustration, if I was trying to understand what a particular function did in a larget code block, I can't do that unless I understand the functions called before it and after it from the main().

So first thing is that Luke in general is written to gentiles (non-jews). In particular this part of the book is when Jesus is in the Upper Room, where He is celebrating the passover with His disciples right before He is captured by the Jewish religious ruling council. It's His last night, and He has a lot of rapid-fire issues He wants to bring up with them to prepare them for life without Him in the flesh. Among those issues is the state that they will find themselves while carrying out their lives in service to Him.

Reading back just a bit we see in Luke 22:35-38 that Jesus is comparing their preparedness when He sent them out on a little missions trip earlier in their service to Him, to how they will need to be prepared after He is ' numbered with the transgressors' i.e. punished and killed.

So catching up to 22:36 there are probably a couple of ways to look at this. In general Jesus was never against defending oneself, though He was willing to take condemnation if it meant expansion of His mission. Therefore this passage could mean that Jesus was warning His disciples that soon they would need to prepare for hardship by guarding their money and their light-weight possessions (enough to fit in a backpack, not extravagant living) and get a sword for defense. A verse later the disciples say they have 2. If Jesus thought swords were a problem, He would have prohibited the sword long before they got to the upper room, since they likely carried them all the way from home in Galilee. Jesus says they are enough. It could be that even though 2 swords for 13 men is no where near enough, it is enough given that they have Jesus.

On the other hand it could be that Jesus was suggesting that they metaphorically have the sword of the spirit (Eph. 6:10-17) and later when they say they have 2 physical swords His word: "Enough" could be a rebuke.

Of the two ways to look at it, I'd probably lean towards the first one. Seems like He's giving them a lot of 'going away' advice so why not warn them to defend themselves. In the ultimate sense, God will protect and bring us to heaven if we believe that His Son died on the cross for the sins that we committed against Him. So we don't really need to worry about being killed in the line of duty to Him.

Matt. 26:51,52 == Again we need to look at the context of the book and the original audience, so we know how to understand what the author wrote. Matt 26:47-56. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. So everything that Matthew writes should be interpreted in that context. He often doesn't explain Jewish mindset or customs, b/c he assumes that the reader gets them by default. This understanding applies here b/c the Jews were expecting the Messiah to come back in strength and overthrow the oppressors. God had been silent between the last Prophet Malachi and Jesus for about 400 years or so. The Hebrews that welcomed Him into Jerusalem on 'Palm Sunday', 4 days earlier, waved palms b/c those were symbols of kingship in Hebrew culture. So with all that expectation of overthrow of the current power over them (the Romans), the Jews had a really tough time understanding that Jesus was not leading a political rebellion. Even His own followers didn't really get it until after He was dead.

We can see this understanding carried out b/c Peter uses his sword to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus immediately rebukes Peter and heals the servant's ear. Jesus makes the point that (a) He must suffer at the hands of the high priest so that He can die and pay the penalty of our sins. (b) Jesus makes the point that He didn't come to take a political kingdom, but to inaugurate a spiritual one.

This is the explanation of Mat. 26:52. Jesus is saying that if you try to take the world by force to convert them to my kingship then you're going about it the wrong way. If Jesus wanted to do things by force He could call down legions of angels. But He didn't. The father was calling Him to suffer.

So what's our responsibility in all this? Do we have the right to defend ourselves? Yes. Do we have the requirement to do so? No. If it will advance the kingdom to be humble before someone's attack, then it is worth it to suffer for Jesus. All of this applies to our personal lives and behavior.

The state on the other hand is not a person. What applies to the person and His life does not apply to the state. Even though the state is an amalgamation of lots of individuals. It cannot behave like the individual in all areas because it doesn't make sense. The state has to act in the best interests of it's people which may not always favor the individual.

-- Luke 3:12-14 Jesus approves of soldering. Just not abuse of their power as individuals.

-- Romans 13:1-4 Paul discusses how we are to submit to the governing authorities b/c they've been appointed by God and have the right of the sword to carry out God's judgement on both internal matters and external matters.

-- 1 Peter 2:13-14 Peter tells us to submit to authorities again who have the right to punish evil-doers. Again they have that right to punish internal to their country and externally against other countries.

I could go on with other examples of warriors whom God approves of:

-- David. He was a warrior King who defended his people and attacked those who sought to oppress Him. He even expanded the nation of Israel to new, wider boarders.

-- Joshua. He led the people into the promised land and conquered many of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

-- Gideon. Led the people in the time of the Judges. With the Lord's help they vanquished the enemies of God.

And more and more. In all of the examples though, they are leaders of the state and are approved by God to make war, and more than that they are helped/protected by God to ensure that they win.

Pastor Bell vs. MSNBC

2011-03-20T12:04:00.004-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If the video doesn't work here's the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/42098348#42098348

I don't know if Mr. Bashir is a Christian or not. He seems to be interviewing as a normal journalist would, seeking the truth and logically applying statements to understand their conclusions.

I appreciated this interview b/c it focused on logic and formal debate. There was no emotionalism that I could detect on the part of Mr. Bashir. And since we don't know if he is a Christian or not, it makes it easier to accept that he probably doesn't have a horse in the fight of whether Pastor Bell is orthodox or not.

Pastor Bell's chief argument against Mr. Bashir appears to me to be reducible to: "It's ok to believe whatever you want about Heaven and Hell as long as you can find someone in the history of Christianity who has believed it too." This seems terribly irresponsible for a pastor to tell his followers that truth and falsehood don't matter when it comes to understanding who God is. Isn't that the whole point of the second commandment? By not being clear, he is in effect suggesting to his parishioners that it's ok to worship a false god.

I also wanted to address a tweet I read about this interview earlier in the week:
"Not sure why everyone is claiming victory based on @realrobbell 's interview with Martin Bashir. Truth isn't based on who can argue better."
Sure a particular position (truth) can be correct, regardless of whether someone can argue well on its behalf. If my 4 year old can't put together a cogent argument to defend the pythagorean theorem, that doesn't make the theorem false. But if a particular truth is valid, there should be a logical defense of that truth. In our math example, a college math teacher (aka an expert in the field of math) could easily make the argument.

In this case we're not talking about a 4 year old being out of their depth, but we're talking to an expert in the field, a pastor talking about doctrine. In fact it's not just any doctrine, but it's a doctrine that the pastor in question seems to have studied well enough to write a book about it. If he can't argue his point cogently against a journalist who likely hasn't been to seminary and hasn't been studying the topic for the last x months, then how can we say that the 'truth' being defended by the pastor is valid? He of all people should be able to make logical arguments to defend it.

So no, truth isn't based on who can argue better. But if a qualified agent can't argue for a position they have established, then the veracity of that position is certainly questionable. Especially if their opponent argues better for their contrary position.

Where does that leave me? It challenges me to 1 Peter 3:15: "¹⁵but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect," I need to: (1) Honor Christ as Holy (2) be prepared by studying and thinking about what the Bible says about who Christ is so that I can honor Him as Holy (3) Join with the Spirit, and be able to cogently dialogue with others about the truths in the Bible, in order to lead them to the truth the Bible proclaims. (4) be gentle and respectful.

Anyone want to guess which of those 4 steps are the hardest for me?

1 John 1:1-4

2011-03-14T21:57:00.003-04:00

Ever since my friend pointed out that Jesus makes His power known through His humility, I have been so challenged to follow His example. Especially at work where I don't always get along with people above me. So instead of dwelling on that, I'm going to turn to scripture and focus on Jesus and who He is, and how He revealed Himself.

1 John 1:1-4:

"¹ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ² The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to make our joy complete."

John always puts Jesus in the preeminent position. He says that Jesus was from the beginning. John then says that "we" not just John, but some group of people, heard, saw, and touched Jesus. Sounds like pretty strong evidence to His existence to me. John says he and his compatriots saw Jesus and proclaim eternal life as a result of that experience. Eternal life seems to be a person in this context. The person of Jesus. John says he and his compatriots proclaim what they have learned. They don't just chit-chat about it, they don't merely talk about it. They proclaim it, they teach it. And they do it so that others may join them in fellowship with the Lord. Not so that John and his friends can rule over others, but that their Joy may be complete. Complete! Finished joy because they tell others about Jesus.

That is what I should focus on, not being annoyed at people lessoning my contributions at work.

Jesus, make my Joy complete by giving me the courage and opportunity to tell others what you have done for me. Saved me, a wretched sinner from the hell I so justly earned. Even today you died for the sin of anger and 'murder in my heart' that I committed. You save not just what I've done, but what I will do.

You are eternal life.

Reviews from Bell's book

2011-03-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

Pastor Bell's publisher for "Love Wins" has released review copies of the book to various reviewers. I've found two reviews so far.

The first is from Greg Boyd:

http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/rob-bell-is-not-a-universalist-and-i-actually-read-love-wins/

The tricky part of this review is that Mr. Boyd doesn't use any scripture to defend Pastor Bell. Instead he focuses on four factors of why it's ok for Pastor Bell to raise the questions he does without actually answering them fully. It seems that if you're going to argue that someone is correct, then using scripture would be the right way to do it. But I guess not everyone holds scripture in as high regard as Jesus did.

You can guess from my analytical, and I hope mostly logical, postings that I prefer a linear argument. Excusing a pastor's questioning of what should be rock-solid truth, because the questioner is an artist doesn't sound like a reasonable defense to me. If draw pictures on my calculus exams and illude or call into question the pythagorean theorem, the math teacher is going to fail me, any defense of artist not withstanding...

The second review is from Tim Challies:

http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book

This review is much easier for me to understand because Mr. Challies uses scripture throughout his review to rebut and point out the problems in Mr. Bell's implications and arguments. I appreciate where Mr. Challies points out where orthodox evangelicals would agree with Pastor Bell. It feels like he tried to be fair in his review, even though Mr. Challies clearly doesn't agree with Pastor Bell's conclusions.

Where do you stand in this debate?

Psalm 119:33 - 40

2011-03-10T21:58:00.003-05:00

I don't know if you've ever read Psalm 119 before. It's one of my favorites. It's the longest Psalm at 176 verses. I love it because the author is praising God for His word, the Bible. The author revels in the ability to know the mind of God through the Bible. I cherish this ability too. Of course the complete totality of all that God is, is not revealed in the Bible. But the key points of His character and purpose are made clear. No matter how old or young a believer is, you can read the Bible and understand it. Of course you may not understand all of it right away, but the central themes are clear. If you don't make it a habit to read the Bible, I would strongly encourage you to consider it. You will probably be surprised by what you discover.

Today I read the section 119:33-40. A couple of key verses for me were:

³⁴Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law
And keep it with all my heart.

This is my prayer too. I want to know God better. I want to understand what I read. I want to follow His commands and example, because I want to be like Him. He saved me! How could I not want to follow in His footsteps. And I want to understand Him to the core of my being. I want to keep Him in all of my life, not just a part here or there. And of course He is the one who provides the desire and then fulfills it. It's such a pleasure to serve an all powerful sovereign king!

³⁷Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity,
And revive me in Your ways.

I am so caught up in how great I am. I am relatively successful and respected at work. My wife and kids are great, and I have a comfortable house. It is so tempting to focus on how great I am to have brought all of this to bear. In reality God has provided it all. He has done so with a purpose. I want to be in His ways and purpose, not mine. I was dead before He saved me. And yet I am so tempted to throw away His plan and pursue my own pleasure.

A discipleship partner of mine this week said: "Jesus shows His power by His Humility." These words have been ringing in my ears all week. Lord help me to be humble and not vain! Revive me to know your word and to conform to your ways.

4-part gospel strikes again

2011-03-06T22:20:00.002-05:00

You've probably read/heard me rail against the "Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration" new gospel that has been floating around lately. Here's the latest salvo: http://www.jameschoung.net/big-story-training.pdf I'm sure Mr. Choung is a very nice guy. But what he teaches in the linked PDF is dangerously close to heretical teaching.

Please don't get taken in by this strange new formation of the Gospel. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He calls us to make disciples. He came to be a propitiating (wrath averting) sacrifice for us before God. He came to make peace between us and God. Not because we asked for it, but because of His mercy and kindness. It's all about God and not about the world.

Some positives about the pdf:

- "Would you like to hear the core message Jesus came to teach, or the basic message of the Bible?"

--- I agree that creation,fall, redemption,restoration is a pretty good summary of the Bible, it just isn't a very good summary of the gospel

- "If it’s new, it’s probably heretical."

--- Totally agree with that.

Some concerns about the pdf:

- "our universal ache for a better world means that such a world either once existed or will one day exist."

--- Seems kind of a jump of logic to me...

- "we damaged creation. We drain her for her oil, and fill the air with pollutants so we can have a comfortable lifestyle. And it fights back in hurricanes and tsunamis."

--- Huh? "her" that sounds a lot like 'mother earth' which is pagan as the day is long. He then shifts to 'it' but, the earth doesn't fight back because we take oil. It is subject to the fall of course, but it is not reacting to us. The earth has been suffering from the fall since long before we could harvest oil out of it....

- "God came to the planet as Jesus 2,000 years ago and started a new thing. He started a resistance movement against evil, though not with military revolt, or communal escapism. Instead, he taught us a better way to live, and wants to give us the power to overcome evil in us and around us. "

-- Wow it's getting worse. Jesus didn't just start a 'new thing'. He didn't come to teach us a 'better way to live'. He came to redeem us from the wrath of the Father! This actually makes Jesus out to be just like any other sage/teacher who teaches us a way to live. Yikes!!!

- "he restored creation so that all of it could be used in their good ways. All of the world’s systems " the environment, corporations, governments, schools, etc. " can now be used to usher in God’s values of love, peace and justice. Oppression & injustice can cease"

--- I never understand this point in the C,F,R,R 'gospel' I just don't see the scriptural basis for it at all. I don't see any of the disciples or apostles using the world's systems to fix things on earth. I do see them spending their lives and their treasures to bring people to faith though. The two verses included as references: Eph. 2:11-22 and Col. 1:15-20 are much better at presenting the gospel than this story/illustration thing. And they do nothing to support the point that the author is making.

- "Lastly, God restored our relationships with himself."

--- Really? Lastly God restores our relationship with Him? Isn't that the most important thing? Isn't He the one we've grossly offended? I would think we would all want Him to restore that relationship first!!

- "Jesus wants us to join this resistance movement against evil, to go out and heal the world. With these resources,Jesus is asking us to be sent together to heal the planet"

--- HUH?!?! what part of "Make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything I have taught you" is caught up in 'heal the planet'? All the verses he cites are all Old Testament verses about serving the poor and not being unjust. While of course those are things we should pursue, if he was going to argue that Jesus wanted this to be our focus after we were saved, then why didn't he pick any verses from the NT?

- "By trusting him, and giving him leadership over our lives, we can become the kind of good we want to see

around us."

--- But this isn't what really matters. People fat, dumb, and happy on earth is not the ultimate goal! Saving them from the tortures of hell for eternity is what really matters. At least the author does point out that we are to have a response to this message. Normally I don't see any response called for.

- "Would you like to let Jesus be the leader of your life and join his movement to heal the planet? Will you trust him with your life?"

--- Again, I'm pleased to see a call to response. But it's this strange mission to 'heal the planet' again. This is like a green movement with some Jesus sprinkled in.

- "Also, looking at Colossians 1:20, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t just come to save individuals, but “to reconcile to himself all things"

--- This is really pretty terrible eisegesis. Reading the passage in context you can see that Paul is making the point that Jesus is reconciling all people, who are elect, to God and making peace with the Lord of Judgement. It has nothing to do with systems of government or other things. Paul's not making that point at all. If he was he would have elaborated on it more. Instead Paul is making the point that Jesus is God and that He has saved us from the Father's wrath. What a glorious, merciful, mighty gift.

- "But all of this old truth is often locked behind the Bible’s many pages or in theological tomes, and so seems inaccessible to the normal Christian."

--- Huh? I'm a pretty normal Christian and the truth was revealed to me without someone having to dumb it down and warp it like this presentation does. The Bible really isn't that complicated. If this whole presentation had just exegeted Eph 1 or Col 1, it would have been easy to show to anyone what the Bible says.

- "The penal substitution theory we know arose in the 11th century by Anselm"

--- This is very dangerous. It slyly insinuates that Jesus's wrath averting sacrifice was something made up later in history. Instead it was written very clearly in Romans 3:23-26 mere decades after Jesus' death and resurrection.

- "What if someone just wants to jump to the fourth circle, and ignore the third? Why do we need Jesus to heal the planet? Ultimately, we need to become the kind of good that we want to see in the world."

---- What?!?! I'm not saying in the slightest that we should abandon the world once we're saved, we have to obey the great commission and make disciples. But this author instead says we have to make the world a better place, as if that is far more important. That mere social justice is the only purpose for Christians on the planet, and that one day the whole world will be restored through our efforts. That is complete hogwash. Revelations is pretty clear that the world will be reformed by God and not by us!

- Pointing readers to Dallas Willard and N.T. Wright

--- Yikes those are some very shady authors now-a-days. They both deny the necessity of penal substitution and justification by faith.

Not really surprised...

2011-02-27T21:12:00.002-05:00

Looks like Rob Bell has jumped the shark. Not that I am really surprised by his jump. And it does make me thankful in some senses since he makes it clearer now what he preaches instead of hiding as much and confusing people.

At the same time, I'm sad. Sad for Rob, sad for the thousands who follow him, saddest most for those who have followed and been condemned to hell for their belief in falsehood. I hope and pray that Rob can see the error of his belief and come to true faith.

What a great miracle of God would it be for Him to correct Rob and bring him publicly to the truth. Oh that He would show mercy.

Oswald Nails It

2010-11-09T22:49:00.002-05:00

Don't know if you've ever read "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers before or not. It's a great devotional. Recently I discovered that someone has put up a site hosting all the days of the book. They even have an RSS feed.

Today's entry is: Sacred Service.

The line that jumps out and grabs me is:

"If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen."

What a rebuke to the arrogant parts of my life that want to point out how great my life is, and how people should follow Jesus so they can be like me. Equally this is a warning to me, not to preach a 'self-help' religion where I hear that people are suffering and I offer them the Savior as a solution to that suffering. Of course, I'm not saying that Jesus doesn't help in our time of need. But what I am saying is that He came and died for so much more. He came to save us from the wrath of the Father that we had earned. And besides, He may not think it's best to remove some affliction from us in a particular season.

Instead I should focus on the supremacy of Christ. His matchless splendor. His amazing grace. His unending kindness. And let that kindness lead to repentance.

Talk about Bad Theology

2010-09-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

Below is an excerpt from a post from Dallas Willard. The italics in the quote are directly from the post, but the bold part is my addition.

""But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I'm not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?"

I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger."

What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that? I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say "he can't save them." I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: "There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.""

This kind of thinking is amazingly dangerous and I would say even borders on heresy.

1) If someone comes to you and says: What about my buddhist/muslim/atheist friend who is really good, won't they go to heaven? Your answer is very scripturally: Unless they repent and believe (Mark 1:15, Acts 19:4, Romans 10:9-10) they shall not be saved. There is absolutely only one sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:12), not multiple. In fact this is the entire point of Romans 1-3. In particular Romans 1:18-32 labors the point that God is knowable and that those who reject the God of the Bible do so knowingly and purposely. What kind of god is God who rejects those who are nice but reject Him? A righteous, holy, perfect, and just God. He is the ultimate one deserving of worship. It is Him alone who made the universe and everything in it. He alone holds the universe together even now. Worshiping any other, including ourselves, is the height of idolatry. In fact, God is infinitely merciful to allow all of us who previously worshiped other than He to live long enough to accept His Lordship.

2) Willard's whole point that people can be super good and just not know Jesus and therefore be hosed out of getting into heaven by an unfair God completely ignores the entire contents of Romans 1-3. Paul is making the point as strongly as possible that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none. NOT EVEN ONE!! who is perfect enough to get into heaven. That is except for Jesus of course. Remember that even a single sin separates us from God because is perfect. Once we're less than perfect we cannot be in His presence, and He can't stand to have us in His presence. Imagine if you said/did one dumb thing to the CEO of your company or to the President. You would be forever removed from his presence for your incompetence. Those at the top don't want to have you there to taint them. God of course is thousand, billion times more holy then mere men and cannot have sinners near Him. The only way we get to be in the presence of the Father is through His amazing mercy, shown through the willingness of God to kill His Son on our behalf to bear our burden in our place. Then we have the righteousness of Christ instead of our own, and suddenly we're adopted into the Family and made to be His children.

3) He says Christians get anxious about this point. No we don't. We get saddened for those who don't know the Lord and are too stubborn to look at the sin in their life and repent. We long for those we love to realize that their works are not sufficient to save them, and that only Jesus can do so. We long to tell them the truth that they may be saved instead of languish in false hope.

4) His strange laundering statement at the end that anyone who is going to be saved will be saved by Jesus regardless of their knowledge of Him is completely and totally ridiculous double-talk. Now at this point if he tried to bring up Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and their lack of knowledge of who Jesus is, I'd at least give him some credit that he was trying to argue from the Bible. Thankfully God doesn't leave us hanging with His Theology. Romans 4 makes it clear that Abraham was saved by faith in the Promise of the Messiah. And Jesus makes clear in Matthew 5 that Moses wrote about Him. But to say that anyone today who doesn't hear about Jesus is excused, but will still be saved by Jesus is nonsense and confusing.

If you don't know Jesus, Please, Please, Please read the Bible and pursue whether the claims of Christ are true. Talk to me about them, talk to someone else. Just find out if it's true or not. Because if you're thinking that somehow you are going to deal with your sin/guilt problem on your own or through some mechanism other than Jesus' death on the cross, you will have a very, very painful realization when you die.

Resources to follow up Sunday Sermon

2010-09-07T22:16:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. Don't know if you had a chance to catch Hopper's sermon from last week (9/5/2010). He may not agree, but I think his main point was: We need to be ready to share the gospel in one of 3 venues even if we lean towards only one of those venues. His three venues were: (1) Intellectual discussion (2) Miraculous conversion (3) Service opening I personally lean towards (1) b/c that's the way the Lord has gifted me. I can do the other two, but I'm weaker at them. Not saying of course that I'm perfect, far from it (just ask my wife and close friends ;).

One of the neat things about Acts 16, that Hopper referenced, is that in both of the examples of people who were recorded as specifically believing, Lydia & Jailer, they were able to come to faith because Paul was able to explain to them what they needed to do to be saved and provided other details of the gospel that they could understand. Do you or your community group members know how to share the gospel and what some basic tenants of the faith are so that they can 'give an answer'?

Below is a list of resources I've used to help me do that. (This list is not an all encompassing list. Just meant to get you started.) Feel free to try them out or comment below as to whether they or other resources have been useful to you. Some at BACC may not even like some of these resources. That's ok too. Again feel free to post other options.

Basic Systematic Theology

Essential Truths of the Christian Faith - by R.C. Sproul (Book has 2 to 3 page explanations of a doctrine and the verses to support it. Great for first timers)
Christian Beliefs: 20 basics every Christian should know - by Wayne Grudem (this is the short-short book, not the short-long or the long-long book ;)
Systematic Theology - by Tommy Nelson (sermon series from mid 90s from a favorite pastor of mine at Denton Bible Church)
Drive By Theology - by Todd Friel (short 15 min lessons made for commutes)

Basic Gospel presentation

What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert (Great little 100 page book on the gospel)
Terrified - by Todd Friel (20 some Audio examples of witnessing encounters teaching you the right and wrong way to get into conversations with people)

Solo Deo Gloria --doug ><>

Jesus is more than a teacher

2010-07-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered that someone has put up a site with daily updated "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers devotionals. This is one of my all time favorite devotionals, as Oswald constantly calls me back to humility in Christ. When I submitted myself to the full Lordship of Christ in college, this devotional was one of the key growing things that the Lord put in my life to teach me about Him.

Today's devotional was called: The Doorway to the Kingdom.

Basically the devo says that if we look at Jesus, merely as a teacher, then He commands too high of a standard for us to follow. Without submitting to His will and taking on the Spirit to help us, we cannot achieve what He requires and will be hopelessly frustrated. He ends the devo beautifully by pointing out the gospel and our need to believe that we are wretched, hopeless sinners in need of the free grace offered in Christ's wrath-averting sacrifice for our sins.

As a teacher of the Lord I need to be always aware and careful not to put burdens on my students. I need to not add box cars to their train without providing the engine of the gospel for them to rely on for pulling the demands of holiness. As Oswald says:

"He came to make me what He teaches I should be"

Hebrews 1:10-15 Jesus still better than Angels

2010-07-02T07:53:00.001-04:00

Hebrews 1:10-14 ¹⁰And, "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;¹¹they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment,¹²like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end."¹³And to which of the angels has he ever said, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"? ¹⁴Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Observation/Interpretation

Jesus created the earth and heavens. Therefore He is greater than angels b/c they don't create things. I'd also like to point out how powerful this makes Jesus. I mean imagine all the intricate details of life and the universe. He set up all the rules of physics, chemistry, biology. And He did it in a way that was intrinsically beautiful. What an amazing God we serve.
The current physical parts of creation will eventually break down and be destroyed (2nd law of thermodynamics), but Jesus will remain.
Jesus is immutable. He never changes in His Godhood. He doesn't come up with new crazy ideas, He doesn't forget us. Jesus never changes, therefore He is better than angels.
Jesus is now and will live forever. His years do not end like physical beings.
Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father where His enemies are laid bare. He is the conqueror and enjoys the fruits of His labor. What a cool word picture by the way. To so utterly crush your enemies that they are your footstool.
Angels after all are merely sent out to serve those who are Christians. Jesus' role was much greater than mere service alone.

Application

I must worship Jesus. He is so powerful and awe inspiring. He never changes and yet created change in the universe. Amazing.
I can trust in Jesus' unchangeability and therefore rest, knowing that my salvation is secure.
I can hope in Jesus' future destruction of sin and the devil and look forward to a day when I don't have to be tempted to sin any more
I should read more scripture and use it to teach others and improve my understanding of who God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are.

Email Apologetics 5 (gospel illustrations in Genesis)

2010-06-20T22:56:00.000-04:00

This is another post in the series of emails between my friend and his dad. In one of my friend's dad's emails he says the following sentence:

"I hope that God sees me fit for mercy and on the appointed day welcomes me into the Holy Presence."

How can God see him as fit? If its by works, not by grace, of which he would have some part in, then he's not going to get in. (Eph. 2:1-10). How do we teach him how often in scripture God points to His salvation of the people instead of their work? How about showing him these examples?
Genesis 3 (in particular vs 7 & 21): Man tries to cover his sin ineffectively with a fig leaf. God instead covers it effectively with an animal skin. God kills the animal and makes the clothes, not man!
Genesis 7 (in particular vs 16): God destroys the world b/c of people's sin, but saves Noah. He tells Noah how to build the ark, and then when Noah is inside, God shuts the door for him. The ark is an illustration of Jesus that protects us from God's wrath. And God was the source of all of it.
Genesis 22 (in particular vs 13-14 ): Abraham is to kill his son Issac. Abe logically believes that God will raise him from the dead. Instead God provides a ram to be sacrificed instead. God provides, not man. And the son of the promise is effectively slain but raised from the dead. I know this one is a little harder to see.
Genesis 28 (in particular vs 12): Jacob (soon to be renamed Israel) sees a ladder between heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending. This ladder is Jesus. He connects earth and heaven as only God can. Man doesn't create this ladder. Jesus even refers t this incident in John 1:50-51.
Genesis 37,41-45: Joseph is the son of promise who is hated by his brothers and sold into slavery, aka death. The son rises out of prison and rules all of Egypt and is able to provide for his family. Just like Jesus who was hated by His Jewish brothers, slain, and who raised on the 3rd day and now provides mediation and salvation to us who repent and believe in Him. And by the way in both cases man does nothing. God makes it all happen.

I can keep going to include Moses leading the people across the red sea, something in possible that man couldn't do. Or Joshua who rolls back the Jordan to a town called Adam so that we can clearly see that sin is rolled back to Adam in Christ. Or Ruth, a foreigner, who is granted a kinsman redeemer and welcomed into the true people of God. All of these happen b/c God does the work not man. God won't see us fit on the final judgment day. Only by claiming Christ and His work will we get in.

By the way if you think he's struggling with the veracity of the Bible and he'd listen to a lecture on it. This is my favorite one. If you haven't listened to this before, its well worth your time.

Hebrews 1:7-9 Jesus saves better than angels

2010-06-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

Hebrews 1:7-9 ⁷Of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire." ⁸But of the Son he says,"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.⁹You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

Observation/Interpretation:

Jesus is better than angels because He is more permanent than they are.
Angels are temporary compared to winds and fire, but Jesus (aka God) is forever and ever.
Jesus is God by the way. Yup that's right God is Triune. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God and are distinct persons at the same time. Yup its also a mystery. I kind of like this mystery frankly b/c it means God is more than I can completely grasp. Which is a good quality of a real God. If I could grasp Him completely then I might as well be God.
Jesus' kingdom is ruled in righteousness. Not like kings on earth where we know they have all used some amount of 'greasing the palms' to get into power.
Jesus is in heaven and accepted by God b/c He hates wickedness and loved righteousness. He alone was able to completely represent man and still be deity. Thereby offering up a perfect representative sacrifice for us.
Note too that God & Jesus hate wickedness. This means that those who do wickedness are included in that hate. Later on in Hebrews we'll see that its a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Jesus is more highly anointed than His companions b/c He alone is perfectly righteous.

Applications:

I must worship Jesus and not angels
I must trust in Jesus b/c He lasts forever unlike other things/people
I want to be like Jesus and hate wickedness in my life, and love righteousness instead
I want to share how great Jesus is with others b/c I want them to know of their danger, and know that God has a solution for them

Just as P.S. I want to point out that its people's individual sins that they have knowingly committed as an affront to God that He is angry with. Its not just the general sin of humanity. But it is everyone's individual treasonous rebellion that has earned His hatred.

Email Apologetics 4

2010-06-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

I wrote this response:

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 08:59 PM, Doug wrote:

Friend's dad,
This is a very good question: "What then would allow me, a sinner, to think that I have a "complete" picture?"

The short answer is that the Holy Spirit makes the picture complete for you, and me. He is the one that draws us to Him and helps us understand the scriptures.

Just some examples to illustrate my point.
1) You're completely right that the disciples didn't understand half (maybe 3/4's ;) of what Jesus said to them while He was alive. The main reason for which was because they hadn't been given the Holy Spirit yet. Once God was living in them and through them in the Spirit, they could recall all that Jesus had taught them and apply it.

2) John 6 and 10 (and Romans 8, Ephesians 1, etc...) teach that the Spirit draws us and changes our hearts to understand. Ezekiel 36:24-27 is a great OT passage that describes how the Lord changes our hearts and makes it possible for us to understand the mercy of God that we can attain if we confess our sins via repentance and believe in Him.

I don't quite get your meaning when you say: "Our perception(revelation) Of the Old Testament is different than the New." Are you saying that the OT and the NT teach different stories or represent different concepts of God? If so, I think this is a common misconception. One that my own uncle and I were discussing just this weekend as a matter of fact.

There are lots of ways to address this concern. Perhaps the easiest is when Jesus says in John 5 that '...Moses wrote about me...'. Jesus is making clear here that the intent of the OT was to be the womb or the incubator to explain the death and resurrection of Jesus. When Moses wrote the law, including the sacrificial system, he did it to illustrate Jesus because the ancient Hebrews (and us for that matter) wouldn't have understood Jesus' sacrifice without a picture of animal sacrifices to set the stage. The passover lamb is the best example of this. The lamb was without blemish and was sacrificed to protect the people, Just like Jesus 1500 years later. Romans 3 clarifies that God never intended for sins to be absolved by the lamb, but that its death pointed to Jesus.

So anyway, long story short, the best way to find out if what the Bible says is true, is it test it. I do this every day. I look at my life and I see the sin and desire to be selfish within me. I know that this causes a problem with me and God because it shows my betrayal of His rightful kingship. The Bible teaches me that the only solution to that sin problem is Jesus' death and my acceptance of it's power to save me, not through my efforts to get right with God.

Can I challenge you to read through the book of Romans and shoot some questions out to this email group as you go? I think it will cover many of your questions and perhaps raise some new ones.

Its a pleasure talking with you. I am continuing to pray for you.

--doug ><>

Email Apologetics 3

2010-06-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

My friend's dad sent this one.

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Friend's Dad wrote:
Doug,
It is good to see that my son has friends in the “Spirit”. Since your study is in Hebrews, my question is, I think, fitting. I believe that Our God is unchanging and that God exists outside the boundary of time, but we are not. The latter I know. Therefore, it must be our perception of God that is subject to change. Our perception(revelation) Of the Old Testament is different than the New. God came to us in person. Jesus is the only Son. He clearly new his mission. However, even with Jesus as personal teacher, His disciples still misinterpreted His meaning. What then would allow me, a sinner, to think that I have a “complete” picture? This is what my reason compels me to think. My faith must do the rest.

Friend's Dad

Email Apologetics 2

2010-06-14T01:55:00.000-04:00

Email number two is from me.

On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 10:55 PM, Doug wrote:

I haven't heard of open theism before.

I'm in Hebrews right now, so a lot of my thinking about who God is, is affected by that book at the moment. Heb. 1:1-4 is the author's way to grab our attention and get us to see that Jesus, not only is God, but that He is also the provider of purification for our sins. And let me tell you, I need that.

See for me, a lot of who God is, makes sense to me in the context of His promises to save us from our sins if we repent and believe in Him. God repeatedly promises to save us to the uttermost, to be the anchor of our soul, to never leave us nor forsake us, etc... He can only make those promises if He is completely in control and has full knowledge of the past, present, and future.

One way its been explained to me is that God is outside of time. He exists in eternity, which means that finite time is like a filmstrip that He is standing back and looking at. He can see all points on the time line all at once. And this is no problem for Him because He is infinite. Our little minds would just be blown by the thought of such an experience. But being the creator of all, even time, it's no big deal for Him.

Anyway all that to illustrate that when God makes a promise, He's actually able to keep it because He has existed before, during and after time. And since God cannot lie, then I can trust His promises and know that He will save me forever.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense.
--doug ><>

Email Apologetics 1

2010-06-13T23:33:00.000-04:00

This starts a series of posts where I'm interacting with a friend of mine's dad. Its a great exchange. I hope you can benefit from this exchange as I have. I'll post the emails one at a time. I'm sanitizing the names. The first is from my friend.

From: Doug's Friend
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 8:33:40 PM
 Subject: new question from Dad
Hi Doug (and Dad),

Just spoke with Dad on his way home from a weekend down the shore. I let him know that he has some e-mail waiting in his inbox. Dad asked another question:

"Does God know the future?"

This is clearly the leading question that an open theist (like Greg Boyd) would ask. My Dad remarked that if God does not know the future then "it gets Him off the hook" for alot of stuff.

I'll say this now: it's absolutely unorthodox. It is aberrant teaching in my opinion.

Hebrews 1:4-6 Jesus is greater than the angels

2010-06-06T15:30:00.000-04:00

Hebrews 1:4-6 "⁴having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. ⁵For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"? ⁶And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God’s angels worship him.""

Observation/Interpretation:

Jesus is greater than all others. The author of Hebrews will start comparing/contrasting Jesus with Angels, and then move on to Moses and the Law.
In this passage Jesus is better than angels because:
1. Jesus has a better name. His name means "the Lord saves" This is a better name than Angel which is the word for messenger. If you're in deep trouble, wouldn't you rather have someone who can actually save you than someone who just tells you a message about it?
2. Jesus is God's son. That's way better than an angel. Angels are not in the family of God, but are mere servants. Jesus is both God and the Son in the Trinity. This position is far higher than the angels
3. Lastly Jesus is worshiped by the angels. Clearly the greater is worshiped by the lesser.

Application:

Jesus is the greatest! I must worship Him.
Jesus saves! I want to tell others about Him, and I want to know that I am saved. By the way what am I needing saving from? The wrath of God that I've earned by treasonously sinning against God the King (Luke 13). I can attain that salvation by repenting and believing. (Rom 10)

Hebrews 1:1-3

2010-05-31T12:42:00.000-04:00

These are some cross posts from another blog I'm trying to get started with some friends of mine. We're trying to study Hebrews (or any scripture for that matter) in a blog format instead of email. Its not exactly taking off yet...

Hebrews 1:1-3: ¹Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.He is the radiance of the glory of God and After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Observations/Interpretations:

The main point of the book of Hebrews is to tell us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish Old Testament prophets and law. The book starts out by saying we heard about God other ways in the past, but now we know about Him directly via Jesus.
Jesus is the creative force that created the world. Similar to John 1:1-3.
Jesus is God
Jesus upholds every atom as it spins. He keeps the ratios between the strong and weak nuclear forces just right so that atoms don't fly apart and the universe collapses. He literally holds everything together.
Jesus purified us from our sins, those who believe as we'll see later in the book, and now sits down next to the Father in heaven. This means that His work is finished once for all time.

Application:

I must worship Jesus for His power, His Godhood, and His accomplishment of saving me
I should take comfort in knowing that my salvation is complete and finished. That Jesus did it for me and I can rest in Him. I need to remember that every time I sin, and feel the temptation to redeem myself through petty acts of service

Is this supposed to be a Gospel message?

2010-04-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

Rob Bell has put another winner out on youtube:

Overall I don't care if he uses visual tricks, pumping music, and cool clothes. I don't particularly identify with it, but I lump that in with the "all things to all people that some might hear the Gospel". Similar to how I think we should translate the Bible to other languages, and dress appropriately to the culture so as not to offend.

That said here are a few of the things that most disturbed me. I'm trying hard to stick to the issues he brings up in the video. If any hint of distaste for Rob himself is interpreted, please know that I bear him personally no animosity. BUT I do carry much resentment for the concepts that he espouses and then tries to label as Christianity.

-- "If Death is all we have to look forward to, then Despair is our only hope." Before I get to the stuff I didn't like, I did want to point out that the beginning of his piece is pretty right on. I completely agree that without Christ despair is our only expectation. I would probably add that there's something more dangerous than despair though, and that's the judgment of God against sinners. It's not just this world we must fear, but the next. I may have a slightly different methodology so I don't mean to throw very hard stones at the 'despair' approach. However I don't know of any examples where Jesus started a witnessing encounter with a discussion of their despair. I know of many where He began by discussing their sin.

-- "This world matters to God, this world that God is restoring and Redeeming." This particular concept is rampant nowadays. Frankly the scripture support for this concept is very slim. In fact can anyone site an example where God says He's even going to keep this world? I thought He was going to create a new heavens and a new earth and destroy this one. In contrast to 'restoration' as the church's mission, the scriptural support for the church's mission as a disciple making body is much stronger. As far as I can tell, the main reason many churches have been pushing this 'restore the planet' agenda is because its much more appealing to the rest of the world than hearing a message about man's sin and need for a savior. Can anyone point to any examples in scripture where Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, or John recommended that we redeem the world politically or socioeconomically, apart from an out-growth of our desire and ability to share the gospel? Sure they took care of the poor, but they did it either for people who were already in the body, or as a gateway to share the gospel with them.

-- "Every act of good matters and will go on" This doesn't have any scriptural basis that I can think of. If anyone has any examples I'd be interested to hear it. On the other hand there are many verses that talk about how our works are nothing more than filthy rags. I think this message, like most of Rob's messages, are meant to be out-reach messages. Hearing this is very confusing if you don't know that your works can't contribute to your salvation. In fact i'd go so far as to say the confusion is dangerous. Because if you think you can earn your way to God's good side, then you are on the 'broad road leading to destruction'

-- "Everything that elevates the soul is a taste of what will be." This sparks very much of universalism. To me, I hear him implying: "Believe whatever makes you feel good and elevates you." On the other hand, Jesus was pretty clear that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And that no one could come to the Father but through Him. If Rob is serious about presenting the gospel, why wouldn't he be clear about it? Why would he twist it to try and be more 'encompassing'. The gospel is quite narrow. Paul is pretty clear about this in most of his epistles because people kept trying to broaden it. The Galatians tried to add Judaism, the Corinthians tried to add pagan practices, the Greeks tried to add philosophy. Our current culture tries to add "everything" so that no one is left out. Instead we should be pointing to the scriptures which proclaim that there is only way to heaven, and that is via the propitiating sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.

Is the Gospel worth fighting for?

2010-03-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

So the question my friend posed to me today was: "Is it worth staying at a church that has things mostly right doctrinally, since there are not perfect churches."

My answer was, we should get along and stay in our church if we have slight, minor disagreements. But if your church has a core problem, like with whether grace is free or supplemented by works, then that is something worth fighting for and leaving for if the leadership of the church won't adhere to the Bible.

More follow up on my discussions on google reader

2010-03-07T15:14:00.001-05:00

Here's the latest in my google-reader thread with a gentleman.

-- Person that's not me --
I'm back. Been busy the past month. /UGH. I should have more time to continue our discussions (if you like) now.

WRT this statement of yours: "By pointing back to the Bible at every opportunity we minimize the opportunity for a human to get in the way and mess up what God is trying to communicate. We actually believe that the Holy Spirit is real, and that He can directly lead someone to a correct interpretation of His word."

The problem with that is twofold. One, you're not reading the bible in a vacuum. Your friends have interpretations, your pastor has interpretations, the guys on the Christian radio station have interpretations &ct. You're awash in a sea of interpretations. The ESV is just another interpretation of an interpretation of a scribe's work copied umpteen times about the mythology of a smallish group of people who lived 2K years ago. It's a common joke amongst atheists that there are twice as many denominations of Christianity as there are Christians.

By pointing back to the Bible at every opportunity, you're just reinforcing a B.C.E. moral code into a modern setting. Just 100 years ago, people pointed back to the bible at every opportunity to justify slavery. They certainly didn't feel that they were 'interpreting' the bible, just like you don't. Just 50 years ago, people pointed back to the bible at every opportunity to justify racism. Today, people point back to the bible at every opportunity to justify homophobia. How is your interpretation qualitatively different than theirs? It isn't and is just as morally suspect - /even if it gives mostly good results/.

Morality is a contract with your society and it's always up for debate.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Oh, as for the Centurion: there's a rather large difference between a) The Centurion went to see Jesus and b) The Town Elders went to see Jesus for the Centurion. At that point, a judge would seriously start to question the motives of any eyewitnesses at all if their stories diverged THAT much. Feb 15, 2010

-- Me --
Hi (person who is not me). Welcome back. I hope busy is a good thing financially for you. But I hope it hasn't taken you away from your family too much.

I see what you mean about the problem of interpreting the Bible in a 'current' context and therefore deriving a meaning that is unintended. I think your examples of the justification of slavery, or the poor treatment of black people underscore that point well. Those reasons are key to why we strive to interpret the Bible in the context in which it was written.

As with any document, one must interpret it in light of the intended audience. Just as a simple example, if I said "You're the baddest thrasher I've ever seen." to a skate boarder in the mid 1980's he'd take that statement as a big compliment. If I tried to interpret the same sentence in a 19th century context, they probably wouldn't understand me at all, but might understand me as saying something negative. All that to say we must interpret scripture to the best of our ability in the light in which it was written.

You're right that I don't interpret the scripture completely in a vacuum. I have a couple simple rules I follow when I read it: (1) All scripture is God Breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in Righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). (2) Scripture interprets scripture or put another way the explicit always interprets the implicit. (3) Pray that Holy Spirit will help me to interpret the scripture accurately.

I have a respectful fear of God and don't want to mishandle His word, or say "thus sayeth the Lord" when He didn't say or mean something. I'm not saying that good intentions are enough. We have to have backstop, and that's why its healthy to have other people occasionally comment or correct my interpretation of scripture. I'm not saying those people have more authority than the Bible, but that I recognize my weakness and sinfulness, and propensity to be selfish given the opportunity. So I submit myself to the Lord and to other believers who have a pattern for glorifying God above all things and place scripture above man's will or intellect.

I know this is an awfully long response that may be meandering a bit. But I want to cover a couple other points you bring up:

"Morality is a contract with your society and its always up for debate" I don't think that's really the case and neither do you. Murder, rape, stealing, lying, etc are objectively wrong. Doesn't matter what culture or what century. Those things are just wrong. There may be some more subtle cultural things that fade in and out of 'wrongness' but there are also clear moral absolutes. It's a common proof of God in fact (put forward famously by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity which I recommend if you haven't read it), that universal moral law would only have come from a moral law giver, and therefore God must be providing the law.

"The ESV is just another interpretation of an interpretation of a scribe's work copied umpteen times about the mythology of a smallish group of people who lived 2k years ago" Unfortunately you just don't have the facts in this case. Since we're talking about the ESV here's a link that describes the sources they used: http://www.esv.org/translation/manuscripts In general we have a wealth of manuscript copies very close to the originals. So we're able to get very accurate translations of the greek and hebrew into 21st century english. Again I'd challenge you to listen to this lecture: http://dbcmedia.org/sermons/is-what-we-have-now-what-they-wrote-then/ if you're interested in correcting your information gaps.

I enjoy our discussion. But I don't want to waste your time either. Have you considered any of the points on sin I made in the other thread we shared? Do you see that you (just like me) are guilty before God for violating His Law and are basically not a good person, but a bad person? Even just a little badness separates us from God permanently (as you so eloquently pointed out in the other thread). This separation can only be bridged if God's rightful wrath can be propitiated. He sent His Son to be that propitiation so that He can be perfectly merciful and gracious and still justly punish sin. To apprehend that gracious, kind, mercy you must repent (which means turn from your sin) and trust that Jesus' death and resurrection is effective in saving you.

I know that presentation of the gospel (good news) may seem strange. But know that I believe this b/c I know that I'm a sinner even though I may look 'fine' to others. I know that my conscience accuses me of that sin and I agree with the accusation. I see the beautiful, intricate creation and know that I am not an accident. Since believing in Jesus when I was 12, and realizing God's sovereignty when I was 19, my life has never been the same. I have a God to worship and dedicate my life to. A purpose and never ending well to plumb for new insights to myself and a God that never ceases to amaze.

I hope and pray you could share this understanding. You describe hell so well. Its so scary. Please investigate the claims of Christ and the Bible seriously. Read the Bible. The Spirit works through those who read it. Feb 21, 2010

I am Convicted

2010-01-22T23:21:00.001-05:00

I imagine that you all are familiar with Penn and Teller. They're a couple of funny magicians who headline in Vegas. They're well known atheists and quite proud of that status. They even have a show on Showtime where they talk about various philosophical topics including their Atheism. (Beware the show title includes a curse word)

All that setup to include this youtube video from Penn Gillette where he discusses the Christian responsibility to share the Gospel. By the way, even after this clip was filmed, Penn has repeatedly confirmed that he has not 'converted' and is still very firmly an atheist.

I gotta be dead honest. I am a coward about sharing the Gospel, especially with those I actually care about. The people I don't know, I'm easy with the Gospel, b/c I have nothing to loose. But with my family and friends, I don't want to risk loosing my friendship with them, if they reject the Gospel.

How dare I wimp out when they are in mortal danger? Penn's words in the clip: "How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them about it...", cut me to the core.

What about you?

Nooma 23

2009-12-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

here's a youtube link to this embeded video:

its got what looks like Portuguese sub titles but audio is in English.

What bugs me most about nooma videos is the imprecision of the language. The statements sort of thrown out there to be 'provocative' instead of informative. Just some examples from my notes after watching this movie. I took the notes fast so I might not have quoted perfectly:

"its my field. why should I let them on to take my stuff? its not fair" this is true its not fair and it shouldn't be extrapolated in how to run a government or your office or some other secular organization. However the church is not the government, nor is my family the government. We should be generous. Not to those who are lazy. The scriptures quoted from Deut. 24:19-22 are very clear that its to be left for widows, orphans, and aliens. These are people who are incapable of providing for themselves. Someone could easily hear what Rob says and think that the government should be providing health care, social security, and other benefits for people who haven't earned them.

"liberation is unfair, freedom is unfair, redemption is unfair, grace is unfair, God isn't fair." This is quite a dangerous statement. To say that God isn't fair means He isn't just. Saying He isn't just is a violation of scripture and the nature of God. He is fair. He punished sin! He also provided mercy through His Son's atoning death on the Cross. Now I don't think He has to be fair in His distribution of Grace its up to Him. But just saying God's not fair without some caviots and clarifications can be horribly confusing to people.

"when you empower others in their oppression, whatever that looks like. we find out out about God's power to us" That's fruit-cake. If you're a Christian you might being doing God's will and therefor feel empowered to further serve. But if you're not then just being nice to someone will make you feel better and that's it. In fact it will damn you worse because you'll think that you're doing good things and assuaging the guilt you've earned for cheating on your wife or taxes. Its a very very dangerous thing to say and do just to be nice.

"ultimately life is about a larger truth to find suffering. do something about it or we'll be miserable. our education time and money will turn on us if we don't give it away" I don't even have the slightest idea what he's trying to say here. "Turn on us" what does that mean? Millions of people are just happy thank you very much to do whatever makes them feel good. Being nice for nice's sake or even other people's sake doesn't mean or do anything if its not done for God. In fact as I said in the one above it hoses you even more because it tricks you into thinking you're doing something of benefit to yourself.

"our lives are either about us, or about a different path. this is why Jesus taught about serving" What??!?! our lives are about us or a different path? Why not tell us what the path is? How does this distinguish Christians from PETA followers? Jesus didn't teach about serving as an end to itself. He took pity on others and taught compassion as a way to reach them for the Gospel. How many times did He use a miracle just to point out to the pharisees that their good work in serving others was totally meaningless b/c they did it for the wrong reasons!

"extend unfairness to others. your overflow to someone else's necessity. find someone who needs what you have, only to discover they have what you needed all along." Huh? I guess in a sense he's talking about capitalism. If I find someone with a need that I can fill, I can sell it to them and get money back which is something I need to procure other goods and services that will help me. Oh wait, that's not the point of this talk I guess... Other Humans have nothing, nothing that I need in an ultimate sense. I sure appreciate nice words occasionally and thanksgiving for shoveling the walk from snow. But JESUS has what I need. He is the one offering salvation and grace and wonder and joy and wisdom and completeness. Serving someone else doesn't offer those things.

Discussion from Google Reader

2009-11-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

I've been having a discussion on a google shared item for the last few days. I'm reprinting here for posterity... I've changed the name of the person I'm discussing with, and added the horizontal rules to make the sides of the conversation clear... The not-me starts out next:

-------------------------------------------------

Not-me:

Haha! Now only if God hadn't written Leviticus...

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I'm disappointed that the author didn't point out that the atheist's resulting judgment was to be punished by God for all eternity for not repenting and believing before dying. Of course God is loving and merciful, but He's also just, and therefore He must punish law-breakers, just like an earthly judge punishes law breakers no matter what they say or do to try and worm out of it. If they didn't punish they wouldn't be just, and neither would God.

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not-me:

Don't kid yourself, the Christian god isn't just or merciful. Ask the children of the ruler Sihon:

Deut (2:33-34) And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.

And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.

-------------------------------------------------

fascinating. you're saying God wasn't just in destroying a people who had rejected Him as God? Sounds like good grounds to me. In fact we all have rejected Him since the Garden. Its amazing mercy that He lets any of us live and breathe. Its His air after all, not ours.

-------------------------------------------------

Not-Me:

That's exactly what I'm saying. God is imaginary, and justifying genocide in his name is a horrendous abuse of power. But, let's assume that god really exists for a second. All of those destroyed people went to hell, yes? How is an ETERNITY of punishment a morally acceptable form of 'justice' to any possible crime here on earth? Pol Pot doesn't deserve eternal punishment for what he did in Cambodia.

The argument that the Christian god is just is false prima facie.

-------------------------------------------------

Ahh, so this is where your understanding is not accurate as to the nature of God. You're right that eternity of punishment for crimes committed here on earth isn't warranted. But those crimes aren't just committed here on earth. They're also committed against the Creator of the Universe. You'd be right that the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime if the person to whom the crime was committed was an equivalent human agent such as ourselves. But that's just it God isn't equivalent to us. He is infinitely above us and therefore sins committed against Him are infinitely worse than those of ours committed against each other.

As a weak illustration, imagine I threatened to kill you, at worst I might get some civil suit with a restraining order or an attempted murder charge which would only put me in prison for a few months or a couple of years. If instead I threatened or was able to kill a United States President, I would be jailed for life, or put in the electric chair. See the punishment changes based on who the offense is committed against, with the more stringent punishment applied to the one offending the greater person.

Even the "little sin" of Adam disobeying in the garden was enough to get him and Eve booted out forever. Because it wasn't so much that they did what God told them not to, it was that they choose to be their own gods in their defiance of His will. This is the ultimate blasphemy and a perfect and Holy God must elevate Himself above all others. Therefore their elevation of themselves above Him, deserved death. A death that God delayed until it could be carried out on His Son. In fact this death was foretold twice right in chapter 3 of Genesis. Once when God says "he will strike your heel, but he will crush his head". This is God pointing out that Satan will nip Jesus by contributing to His death, but that Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection was the death blow for Satan. Secondly God kills an animal and makes a skin covering for Adam and Eve to replace the insufficient fig-leave covering they had made for themselves. This was the first death ever. A tremendous thing. God took sin so seriously that He killed the first ever animal as a symbol of the payment necessary that His Son would come to provide for Adam and Eve later. Sin is so serious to God that only blood can pay for it. The most precious substance we have. And the debt we have incurred so great that only the most valuable blood would be acceptable to a perfect God. That blood is the shed blood of the perfect God-man sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

God isn't imaginary. The empty tomb proves it, the creation around us proves it, yours and my conscience proves it. But none of those proofs will work for you until you realize that your sin is way worse than you currently think it is. Reflect for a little on how much sin you've committed (the thousands of lies you've told, the repeated blasphemies declaring that God isn't real or just, the disobedience to your parents, the lustful thoughts, the things you've stolen, etc, etc..). The Bible says that God hates sin, and that He will in no-ways leave sins committed un-punished.

Please think about how bad your sin is, and then repent and believe that Jesus' death is sufficient to cover your sins. Repenting means recognizing your sin's depths and confessing them to God and then turning away from them, and by God's grace and help stopping them. If you truly repent and believe then you will see your life change as the Holy Spirit begins to drive you to want to be more like Jesus.

Cool Bible Resource

2009-11-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Just found this site while looking up a question for a friend. http://www.openbible.info/. I don't know that I would trust a lot of the topics yet since there's a lot of opportunity for skewing. But the part I liked the best was the google-earth kmz files for locations mentioned in the Bible. I don't think they're all exactly right, but they give you a good general idea.

Neat site.

Terrified!

2009-11-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine suggested I listen to Todd Friel's Wretched Radio. He's a Christian evangelist that preaches the gospel by giving law to the proud and grace to the humble. His premise is that, this combination worked great for Jesus, so why shouldn't we use it.

The first thing I listened to was Terrified! (only costs $6!!) An MP3 CD with 20 some odd witness encounters all designed to teach how to share the Law with people to get them to realize how desperately they (and I) need Jesus, instead of their (and my) own filthy works. I started listening to the encounters, and after the first couple I was so convicted about how proud I am, and how I always seek to be served by my law keeping instead of falling on the Grace of our Lord. I'm not saying I was re-converted, just reminded that I am desperate for grace too.

Now I can't stop listening to Todd. All the encounters are encouraging and challenging and convicting to get me to witness too. I know all the answers that Todd gives to the questions people ask and I have the big Ace, the Holy Spirit, so its not like I'm not qualified. Its just that I'm scared plain and simple. Where is my courage?

Oh Lord please give me courage to talk of you to others. And not just strangers, but the people I actually care about.

The Count

2009-10-19T21:16:00.000-04:00

So I spent the last few months, July - Oct, reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Google books|Project Guttenburg) by Alexandre Dumas. It was an amazing story. I used to think that Tom Clancy had invented the literary style of bringing a lot of different story lines that seem unrelated finally together in a climactic ending, but really Dumas had been doing it 150 years earlier. The plot lines and characters swing out of nowhere and surprise you. Dumas even tries to throw off the reader a few times as you think you know who is doing what.

The Count, Edmond Dantes, is wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit and basically 'dies' in prison. He eventually escapes 14 years later and spends the great wealth he is gifted with while in prison to carry out justice against those who put him into prison. Despite the justice of his cause, he is conflicted with whether or not he is acting on behalf of Providence.

I had lots of favorite parts, but I wanted to quote this one passage from chapter 84: "The Hand of God" The Count, playing an abbe, is speaking with Caderousse, a thief and a liar, who is dying from a knife wound (not inflicted by the Count) and the two go back and forth discussing the existence of Providence. We'll pick up with Caderousse speaking:

"I do not believe there is a God!" howled Caderousse; "you do not believe it: you lie -- you lie!"
"Silence!" said the abbe; "you will force the last drop of blood from your veins. What! you do not believe in God when he is striking you dead? -- You will not believe in him, who requires but a a prayer, a word, a tear, and He will forgive -- God, who might have directed the assassin's dagger so as to end your career in a moment, has given you this quarter of an hour for repentance. Reflect, then, wretched man, and repent."
"No," said Caderousse, "no; I will not repent. There is no God, there is no Providence -- all comes by chance."
"There is a Providence, there is a God," said Monte Cristo, "of which you are a striking proof, as you lie in utter despair, denying him; while I stand before you, rich, happy, safe, and entreating that God, in whom you endeavor not to believe, while in your heart you still believe in him."

I don't know if he was a Christian or not, but I believe Dumas has it right. Man knows in his heart that God is real. Man may deny it, he may fight it, he may loose himself in great or small debauchery to get away from the knowledge of Providence. But man cannot shake loose His Creator's touch. We all know that we are on this world for more than just living and dying. We are here to 'love God and enjoy Him forever.' But to do that we must repent as the Count says above. God grants mercy continually by allowing us while we're still sinners to continue to live that we might be given opportunity to repent and come to Christ.

If you are denying the existence of God, think about why you don't want Him to exist. Is it because you prefer to go your own way instead of His? Come to His mercy. Repent of your unbelief and submit to Him as Lord. You will be saved. Come today. Don't be lost. The gifts He offers are greater than the things you will give up in response to His Lordship. Please come, your danger is great. His mercy could be at an end even tonight. Don't risk it.

Loved this video

2009-10-18T21:35:00.000-04:00

As I said in the last post I had sort of a rough summer. One of the things that God used to snap me out of it was this video. It's a little long (9 min), but it is very very worth your time.

The key point in the video is around 4:24-4:32 where the 'God' character says to the 'me' character "I made you good, so be good."

This is so true. I always want like a 5 step plan to get back to God. Or some special event that I should be doing to get Him to love me again. Really it comes down to repenting and obeying. Again at 4:52-5:05 the 'me' character confesses that he is always letting God down. The 'God' character says, "no its not you holding me. I hold you up. I'm the one that holds this relationship together" Amen.

Its hearing this that makes me want to give over to Him my anxiety and weakness. This is why I want to worship God. This is why I want to give my life to Him. Because He condescends to love and lift me up. I can't understand why He is so great and kind to me. I just want to praise Him in response.

p.s.
Time 3:47 is great too. That's where the Gospel is first laid out. I'm sort of tearing up as I watch the video again so that I can write this post.

Blog what blog?

2009-10-04T14:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been lazy around here lately. Honestly, my walk with the Lord has been a bit weak throughout the summer, and I was sort of limping along. The Lord has brought me back, as He does so well, and I feel better and closer to Him. I've been studying Luke and I'm up to chapter 3. My plan is to start tracking my Luke study in this blog, so hopefully that comes to be.

I've also started listening to the Matthew sermon series by Tommy Nelson and Denton Bible Church. Its great! Its about a year old now, so you'll have to get it off of their website instead of the podcast. If you're not subscribed to that podcast you're missing out.

I'm excited to be starting Starting Point again this semester. We've got a great group of people who are honest and hungry. I pray that I would be the same as I join them in this journey.

The Pauline Model for Church Plants

2009-08-12T21:45:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick video (9 minutes) from Mark Driscoll, (of Mars Hill). His main points are:
1) A healthy church plant will have a lead man who is well qualified, and really more soldierly than pastoral in the early stages of his church.
2) A healthy church plant will have a mission to turn men into leaders in the church by discipling and training them how to be men of God, who care for their families and lead others to Christ.
3) A healthy church plant is all about the message: sharing about a man, Jesus, who was on a mission, to die for mankind, and redeem them from judgement.

I pray that my church would watch this video change to emulate Driscoll's teaching.

I pray that I could watch this video and change to reflect its truth.

JQA sets the standard for faithful service

2009-08-05T21:34:00.000-04:00

"On the integrity of my Intentions, and on the aid of that Gracious Heaven which never has deserted me, I must rely. I pray for clearness of intellectual vision to see the right path - for the necessary courage to pursue it; and for the Fortitude and the Temperance to bear with equanimity the vicissitudes of its Fortunes, whether adverse or propitious. Grant, O God, that I may do good to my Country and to Mankind! And deal with me, and mine, if it be thy gracious will, in Mercy."
John Quincy Adams 11 July 1809 Quoted from: the MHS beehive blog.

I pray the same for me in my service to my family and my job. I know our early country had a lot of issues to deal with. But hearing the Godly way that the Adams family trusted in the Lord for sustenance and success, makes me long that our current leaders would be able to openly express their trust in He who is able as well.

I look forward to meeting the Adams family and praising the Lord for eternity with them.

Overcome People's Assumptions (even my own)

2009-08-03T23:08:00.000-04:00

Just finished watching GATTACA again. I've always liked this movie for its portrayal of Vincent and his desire to overcome what everyone in his life thought he was incapable of. It encourages me to work hard, to not give up, to be remembered for the people I've impacted and how they have changed the world, not to be remembered just for myself.

May God fulfill His plans by using me. I want my life to count for something. I want to reflect something greater than myself. In fact, not just some personless thing, but the Person. I know God is the ultimate expression of perfection and glory. I want to hitch my cars to His train. I want to submit to Jesus' leading. To go where He calls, no matter the cost.

Oh Lord, give me the strength to abandon my grip on my life.

Its yours anyway....

Return to Passion

2009-08-02T22:31:00.000-04:00

I'll spare you the locational details but this morning in church I heard and was impacted by an amazing sermon. Some may say that preaching has no effect and that we should minimize its place in our services. THEY ARE WRONG!!!

The preacher, was a young man, probably the same age as me (early 30's). He has the same problem that everyone my age has: We're caught between being young enough to be a radical thinker with great ideas, but fearful of delivering them b/c the audience is mostly older than us and probably doesn't believe anything us young punks think or say.

He preached about Acts 8, where the church is dispersed from Jerusalem b/c of the persecution that breaks out after Stephen is stoned. Phillip goes to Samaria and people get saved. (Incidentally, I bet Phil was surprised. These were Samaritans after all... ;). One of those saved is Simon the Great. He's a local magician and these apostles who show up are showing power that blows the doors off his 'tricks'. When the Holy Spirit starts coming to people, as a result of John & Peter's prayers, Simon tries to buy the ability to share the Holy Spirit with others. Peter blasts him for it. But is a little soft in the end, giving Simon a chance to repent. Simon realizes what he's done and asks for them (John and Peter) to pray for him.

The preacher used this story as a launchpad to show us that we are lacking in passion for Christ which drives us to do/say foolish things like Simon did. Simon didn't have brokenness and recognition of personal sin, which led to his foolishness. Like Simon, when we see real power, we realize that we long for more than just weekly Sunday attendance and avoidance of 'big sins'.

I know that's the cry of my heart.

The preacher than said that people in any given church service can be categorized in 4 categories.
1) Unbelief - This is people who are in the service but don't actually believe that they are sinners, and that that sin separates them from a wrathful, righteously judging God, who through His mercy provided His Son as a sacrifice to satisfy his justice and provide a way for us to commune with him. (By the way if this is you, please come to Christ. Suffering God's punishment for eternity is going to suck worse than you know)

2) Belief without heart - People who believe in God but don't follow Jesus with their whole heart. Its funny how most of us who grew up in church, heard over and over that we needed to follow the rules, but really Jesus spends most of His time in the Gospels pursuing people's hearts. The preacher didn't say these people weren't Christians, but I don't know if they really are or not. Remember in James 2, James says that even the demons believe.

3) Denial - (this is where I float around in a lot) We do stuff like lead Bible study and attend church and think that that makes us passionate for God. Its based on our desire to be in control and safe. It shows up in our lives where we are confident in our 401k plans and our ability to raise our kids or love our wives. We often realize that "gee if I just stopped believing in God, my life would be pretty much the same, since He doesn't make me do anything crazy". ---- This is so me lately. I'm happy and safe in my home and with my wife and kids. All around me people are literally dying and loosing jobs and getting cancer. I tell myself I'll help them until their life gets too 'real' and then I retreat back to my shell. After all, "I don't want to get any on me, then I'd have to feel their pain too." It makes my life so much more boring. It makes my passion for Christ so much less b/c I don't need Him for anything. I don't feel my need of His help with situations that I have no control over, since I don't allow myself to be in those situations.

4) Passion - This is where I want to be. I want to give everything I do to God. I want my work to be not just earning a paycheck or an opportunity to move up the ladder. I want God to be honored with what I spend my time doing from 9 - 5. I want to be someone who cares more about the kingdom of God than shielding myself from pain.

Join me in being Passionate. Respond to the Glorious God who has saved you, with devotion and freedom to worship.

Quick Bibliology...

2009-07-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Here's the text of the 'worksheet' I prepared for home group (aka Bible study this week). The idea is that the attenders would read Psalm 19 in addition to answering the open-ended questions at the beginning of the study. I then answered the rest of the questions because I wanted this to be more of a resource than a pure question/answer session.

My list of references is as follows:

Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul
Now that's a Good Question by R.C. Sproul
A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell
Starting Point by North Point Church
Is what we have now what they had then? By Dr. Dan Wallace.

Proving that the Bible we have today is the authentic word of God.

What was your exposure to the Bible growing up?

How would you describe your current perspective on the Bible?

What role does the Bible play in your daily life?

Psalm 19 describes Scripture as perfect, trustworthy, right, beautiful, etc.. Are these descriptions overstated? Why or why not?

Why do people struggle so much with believing that the Bible is really the word of God?

How does God communicate with man?

Revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2, Psalm 19) -- Idle speculation about God is foolish. If we wish to know who God is, we must rely on what he says about Himself.
-- General - That which is expressed to all men through creation and internal conscience
-- Specific - That which is expressed in His Scripture or direct immediate 'voice of God'
The Bible contains Paradoxes and Mysteries, but no Contradictions:
-- Paradox -- an apparent contradiction that under closer scrutiny yields resolution.
-- Mystery (Romans 16:25-27) -- something unknown to us now, but which may be resolved in the future.
-- Contradiction (1 Corinthians 14:33) -- a statement that claims something both is and is not in the same time and context. These are not understandable.

If the Bible was written by man, how can it be the Word of God?

-- Its the word of God because, the Bible itself claims to be so. 2 Timothy 3:16 "For all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."
-- God inspired the authors to write the words of God through their direct human experience. 2 Peter 1:19-20

Who wrote the Bible?

-- Kings, shepherds, outcasts, scholars, laborers.
-- 3 Continents (Africa, Asia, & Europe)
-- 3 Languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek)
-- 40 different authors
-- Covers more than a thousand years of authorship, yet covers one theme: A loving God working to draw people to Himself via redemption.

How were the books in the Bible decided on as the authentic word of God?

-- Important to note that the church did not decide what books should be included. That would put the church above the Scripture. Instead they recognized the books that were inspired from their inception, and 'received' them from God.
-- The cannon of scripture means the standard of scripture.
-- The Old Testament cannon decided well before Christ by the Jews. A.D. 70 they codify the list to distinguish the Jewish texts from the rising Christian ones.
-- The cannon list published as early as 367 A.D. by Athanasius (church leader of the time) Repeated again at the Synod of Hippo 393 A.D.
-- New Testament books were recognized based on three criteria:
(1) They must have apostolic authorship or endorsement.
(2) They must be received as authoritative by the early church.
(3) They must be in harmony with the books about which there is no doubt.
-- No argument between Catholic and Protestant on NT. Some disagreement on apocryphal books. Those that fell between the Old and New Testament time periods. Most evidence points to a Jewish exclusion of those books in their OT. Also some things in those books contradict things stated in the New Testament. Council of Trent in 1546, the Roman Catholic church officially recognizes apocryphal books as cannon. A bit late if you ask me....

How do we measure the authenticity of any ancient text?

(1) How many copies do we have of the original and how close are they to when we think the original was written?
(2) Are the texts internally consistent and truthful?
(3) Is there external archeological evidence to support claims in the ancient text?

What are some facts and figures to support the authenticity of the document we have today is the same document they had back then?
Old Testament
-- Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947 & 1956 are dated around 100 B.C.
-- Talmudists (A.D. 100 - 500) Followed a strict 17 rules about copying the OT books, including rules like not copying anything from memory, or only using new skins etc.
-- Massoretics (A.D. 500 - 900) Followed additional word counts and calculations to ensure that nothing was out of place in a copy. For instance they calculated teh middle word and middle letter of each page geographically and made sure that each copy matched the original.
New Testament
-- More than 5,700 copies in Greek; 10,000 in Latin; another 10 - 15,000 copies in other languages and more than 1,000,000 quotations of early patristic writings that cover the entire NT except for eleven verses.
-- Earliest NT fragments are from 100 A.D. that's within decades of when the authors probably wrote. Its well assumed that Book of John was written between 70 and 90 A.D., 1 Revelations, around 95 A.D.
-- Of the supposed translation differences, 90% of them are actually untranslatable as differences in English. E.g. 500 different ways to say Jesus loves Paul in Greek.
-- Less than 1% of variants are both meaningful and viable. They concern no important doctrinal issues. E.g. The number of the beast is either 666 or 616.

How do we interpret the Bible? (2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:14-18; 2 Tim 2:14-15)

-- Scripture always interprets scripture. Meaning that we understand a passage by understanding both its local context, and all of scripture's perspective on a particular topic.
-- Scripture must be interpreted with respect to the original audience and their intended understanding of the words spoken to them.
-- Scripture's genres must be interpreted as those genres would be in non-scripture. I.e. poetry as poetry, history as history, hyperbole as hyperbole etc...
-- The explicit scriptures always interpret the implicit verses.
-- The rules of logic apply to interpreting scripture.
-- A particular passage can only have one correct meaning. It is our responsibility to do our best to seek that singular correct interpretation.

What about those "contradictions" like the seemingly different accounts of Christ's death?

Matt. 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."
Luke 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he breathed his last."
John 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up His spirit."

At first glance these may appear to be contradictions, but they actually represent different degrees of emphasis. And even more so they lend credibility to different eye-witnesses remembering their encounters with the actual experience. If all of the accounts were in lock-step it would lend less credibility b/c it would seem as if only one person saw things and the others merely parroted him.

Bottom line:
The Bible is the word of God because the Holy Spirit testifies that it is. When a believer, or even a non-believer sometimes, reads the text he or she can feel the weight and reality of the text. If God is truly the God of the universe and capable of all things, then He's also capable of making sure the words that He wants communicated about Himself are actually communicated in an authentic way.

Devotion for Vacation

2009-07-14T06:49:00.001-04:00

I'm heading out for vacation this next week and I'll be accompanied by a portion of my home group. I'm excited to get to know each other better and to worship the Lord together. It won't be exactly a 'retreat' but there's no reason why we can't be united in the Lord during our time.

To that end I've been searching for a passage to study that would talk of God's mercy from the Old Testament as well as be an encouragement for getting through our busy lives, while trying to submit to the Lord. I think I've settled on Psalm 25. Here's verses 6 & 7 talking about God's mercy to us, not for our sake, but for His. What an amazing God He is.

6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your asteadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

God actually does help when I ask for it

2009-07-05T22:48:00.000-04:00

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 5:6-7

Been a pretty anxious last couple of weeks. I had some absolutely huge presentations to give.

The first was a chance to bring some organizations at work together to achieve something they couldn't have gotten to work without working together. Someone a few layers above should have had this meeting, but he didn't. Myself and another guy at the office knew they were headed for certain defeat so we put together a brief to convince them all to work together. I was quite nervous b/c I wasn't quite sure that the high level guy really hadn't coordinated the different efforts, and I could be stepping out on a limb. I prayed like crazy and God answered my prayers. The presentation went great and the offices agreed to work together.

The second was a brief to the president of my company. I've been working on a research project with 16 other people at work for the last 3 months and this was our chance to sell the most important audience in the company that what we had discovered was worth continuing. I was nervous, but didn't know what to do. I prayed to God for help and He led me to practice the presentation from 2200 - 2400 the night before. As a result of the practice, He was able to keep me calm and deliver a knock out presentation.

The third was the most important. I've been struggling for 18 months with my church leadership. I come from a very high view of preaching. Meaning that I believe it is the spoken word of the Gospel that calls men's hearts to saving faith. I felt that our leadership wasn't properly warning their hearers that they were in danger without saving faith. I struggled for a long time and finally wrote a letter to one of the leaders. I then prayed to God for weeks seeking patience and humility waiting for his response. I finally had a chance to speak with the leader today and my fears were much relieved. Praise be to God. The leader was equally concerned. He heard my thoughts and revealed that the Lord had been nudging him similarly to point to Jesus more in the various opportunities the church has to speak to an audience.

I was so worried in each one of these situations, that my spoken word wouldn't be enough to convince my hearers of issues or concerns that I felt were important. Praying to Jesus really has brought me peace in each of those circumstances. I really give Him the credit for the successes not me. Now the tricky part will be trusting in Christ when God chooses to lead me to Him through 'negative' experiences. I pray that I can remember this day as a testimony to His faithfulness in those possible dark days to come.

Confronting for the Gospel

2009-07-01T23:09:00.001-04:00

How do you convince someone in your church leadership the importance of sharing the Gospel at every available opportunity? I'm not saying that we have to end every paragraph with the Gospel, but no matter the environment the Gospel should be paramount.: Sunday sermon, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, Service projects, Mission trips, Youth lock-ins, etc. Each provides an opportunity to point to the Glory of Christ and His amazing sacrifice. Its not an afterthought to those activities, its the entire reason for the activities.

The Gospel is the foundational, bedrock, in fact the entire point of being a Christian and being with other Christians. The Gospel is even in our name: Christian -> Christ -> Messiah -> One who was to be slain that others might be restored to God.

God loved us so much, but retained his full justice and therefore there had to be payment for sin. God understands how horrible hell is. He knows that we're going to be so much more miserable than we think we will be. So He provided His Son to pay our penalty, that if we believe in the effectiveness in that payment, we'll be with Him in Eternity, enjoying the total bliss and amazement of finally understanding how truly great and awesome He really is.

So if we have even the slightest inkling of the Gospel, wouldn't we want our church leaders to lead us to Christ and the Gospel at all times and in all venues? The Gospel beautifully applies to the saved and the unsaved. It points us to worship and recognize our own lack of self worth. I don't know how to convince the leader I'm talking with tomorrow of the desperate need I have for the Gospel, let alone the unbeliever. I'm praying that the Spirit will intercede for me.

Please join me as I pray for my church leaders, you pray for yours, that they would remember the Gospel and its centrality to everything a church should be involved in. Please honor and confront your church leaders with love and humility and call them to the Gospel. Remind them that their attendees are perishing without the Gospel.

Got a chance to share the Gospel this weekend

2009-06-14T21:29:00.001-04:00

I was at a family get together in north-Philadelphia. It was cold and rainy, but there was some excellent Belgian wheat beer and the discussion got really interesting. It's all my wife's family so I'm not related to any of them, but they're great people and mostly catholic, since they're of Polish decent from Long Island. We were talking about interpreting the constitution, and I mentioned that I'm an originalist because I view the Bible in the same terms.

Basically I believe that the Bible should be interpreted based on what the original authors intent was in communicating to their original audience. Then the challenge left to us is understanding how that intent applies to 21st century people. This of course led us to a discussion of textual-criticism. I summarized the key points of the discussion to: (1) A real God who was really powerful would ensure that the words He wanted to communicate, would be. (2) We have so many copies that are so close to when the original manuscripts were written, that to say we don't have accurate translations today is ridiculous.

Then my wife's 15 year-old 2nd cousin pointed out that 'all religions are really the same thing' as he's learning in his world history class that recently covered Islam, & Hinduism. I mentioned in response that those other world religions may appear in the externals to be similar, but on the internals are radically different. I then asked him to describe the 'heaven entry requirements' for those faiths and Christianity. When he got to Christianity, he said following the 10 commandments was how you got in.

I then got to share that, actually the Bible teaches that all men, including us, had sinned against God and that He was righteously angry as a result, and that the only way His wrath could be averted was via the sacrifice of His Son on the cross to pay for our sins. Our response is merely faith in that effective salvation and not a list of works. This is what separates a relationship with Christ from all other 'faiths.' We do nothing to come to God, He graciously does it all. In all other systems, the human has to do all the work.

Sadly we weren't able to get to any other conclusions during the evening as the hour was so late. But I thank God that He used me to share His amazing truth, and I pray that the seed planted in the hearers would grow to full-blown faith.

To Him be the Glory!

Caught my bad Exegesis

2009-06-11T21:43:00.000-04:00

Tonight in Bible study we were looking at Isaiah 5:1-4. The fourth verse in NKJV reads:
4 Without Me they shall bow down among the prisoners, And they shall fall among the slain.
For all this His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still.

My gut reaction to anything in the Bible that says 'But' is to assume that God is being merciful to someone, even me (Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor 2:10, 10:13; Gal. 3:18; Eph. 2:4, Phil. 2:27, etc..). I assumed the verse was saying that God was holding back His full hand of wrath. So the group talked for a few minutes about God's mercy to sinners even though they deserve worse. And that is very true doctrine.

But in the middle of Bible study, I felt the Spirit nudge me and say "that isn't right read it again." Reading vs 4 again and looking at some of the cross-references, its clear that the verse is not about mercy but is actually a warning: Unrighteous - wealthy people, who think they've gotten away with oppressing the poor and wasting money, are still under God's righteous wrath. They think they've escaped 'But' God's hand is still raised above them and is about to fall, like smashing a fly on the table.

We all scurried through our cross-references together and read the verse in a couple different translations that people had, and came to the proper interpretation. It was a cool moment in the study to teach how to properly interpret a scripture. God was gracious to turn my mistake into something positive. Isn't He cool?

Here's the verse rendered this time by the ESV. Its a little clearer:
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain.
For all this His anger has not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still.

Just a reminder to myself and to the other journy-men exegetes out there. When you're interpreting the Word, don't be afraid to fix your mistakes mid-teaching. Especially if you're prompted to by the Spirit.

Fasting changes attitudes

2009-06-03T21:22:00.000-04:00

I'm struggling with how to deal with someone lately. I dearly want to communicate my concern with this person and I have a tendency to get bitter about their lack of response to my concerns. I decided to fast today to help clarify my next steps in pursuing a resolution.

At the beginning of the day my prayers mostly sounded like: "God, how can I change this person's mind?" By about mid-day the Spirit had moved my prayers more towards: "God, help this brother in his vocation to glorify you."

Its amazing how the Spirit can slowly change my heart. Its one of the things that 'proves' to me that I have authentic faith when I'm doubting it. Praise to the Lord for His great mercies.

Proud or Broken?

2009-05-20T21:57:00.000-04:00

Got this from a sermon by Phil Smuland I think he says that he got this from someplace else.

Which do you identify with? I started bold-ing the ones that I feel most guilty of and realized I'd bolded three-fourths of the list. If you don't have time to read the whole list read the first 4 pairs and the last 4 pairs.

Praise the Lord He is able to sanctify me and move me closer to the broken. I know I'm not capable to move myself....

proud - focus on the failures of others
broken - overwhelmed by their own spiritual need
proud - self righteous they have critical spirit. look at own faults with telescope, others' faults with microscope
broken - forgiving spirit. they look for good in others.
proud - look down on others
broken - esteem all others above themselves
proud - independent. self sufficient
broken - dependent. recognize and seek needs of others.
proud - seek to maintain control, must have agenda their own way
broken - surrender control
proud - prove they are right, need to be right
broken - willing to yield the right to be right.
proud - claim their rights.
broken - yield their rights
proud - demanding spirit
broken - giving spirit.
proud - self protective of time, rights, reputation
broken - self denied
proud - desire to be served
broken - motivated to serve others.
proud - long to be successful
broken - desire to be faithful, to make others a success
proud - desire self-advancement
broken - long to promote others
proud - driven to be recognized and appreciated.
broken - sense of unworthiness, thrilled to be used at all.
proud - wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked
broken - rejoice when others are lifted up.
proud - think the ministry is privileged to have them.
broken - think they don't deserve to serve in this ministry
proud - think what they can do for God
broken - know they have nothing to give to God
proud - confident in how much they know
broken - humble at how much they have to learn
proud - self-conscience
broken - no concern for self view
proud - keep others at arms length
broken - risk getting close to others. willing to take risk to know others.
proud - quick to blame.
broken - accept personal responsibility
proud - unapproachable
broken - easily approached
proud - defensive when criticized
broken - receive criticism with humble, open heart
proud - concerned with being respectable.
broken - concerned with being real
proud - concerned with what others think.
broken - know that all that matters is what God thinks.
proud - work to maintain an image and protect their reputation
broken - die to their own reputation
proud - find it difficult to share their own spiritual needs.
broken - willing to be transparent
proud - want to be sure no one finds out about their sin
broken - willing to be exposed, and realize after confession have nothing to loose
proud - hard to say "I was wrong, will you forgive me"
broken - quick to admit their faults and seek forgiveness
proud - concerned about consequences of sin.
broken - grieved over the root of their sin
proud - remorseful for being caught
broken - repent over sin
proud - wait for other party to come to resolve a conflict
broken - take initiative to be reconciled. They get their first and apologize
proud - compare with others and feel they deserve honor.
broken - compare with Holy God and feel desperate for mercy
proud - blind to true condition
broken - walk in the light.
proud - don't think they have anything to repent of
broken - never stop repenting the deeds of the flesh
proud - think they don't need revival, though they think everyone else does
broken - continually sense their need for a fresh encounter with God

Life is short, Come to Christ

2009-05-12T22:10:00.000-04:00

Another friend of mine has died.

I'm sad. I'm sad for my friend's wife. He wasn't a believer. Or at least I don't think he was. He didn't claim to be. In fact he claimed the opposite. My friend's wife is a baby Christian. I'm praying that this tragedy drives her to the Lord, to rely on His strength, and not on her own. I hope I can respond to the Spirit's prompting and help her in any way I can.

I visited my friend in the hospital a couple of times. The last time, I shared the Gospel with him. I tried to call him to believe in Christ and not in his own efforts. I am sad that I did not try harder to convince him that he needed Jesus now, because he might not make it through the next series of surgeries. Instead I joined him in his assumption that he would return from surgery and have more opportunity to study Christianity and make a decision later.

We were both wrong, and now he's gone.

Since I found out about his passing I've been pleading with the Lord in hopes that He saved my friend before he died. But thus far I have no expectation of an 11th hour reprieve. I'm not God so I don't know for sure though.

Please, if you're reading this post, come to Christ. Don't depend on your good works to earn your way into heaven. Its not what you do that pays your debt. It's the blood of Jesus who died for our sins that is the only acceptable currency to God. Of course true faith will result in "..Good works that God has prepared for us." But these works testify to your love of Jesus. They don't make Him love you.

Please, don't wait. Time is slipping away every moment. This night of sleep could be your last. Don't risk your eternity.

Re-Energized

2009-05-04T22:51:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm not attending the right church. And maybe just that sentence is enough to point out the problem. Church isn't just some building I show up at on Sunday mornings. Church should be something I live out every day through fellowship with believers in my community. Church should be sharing Jesus' love through serving others that can't return my service. Church should be about discipling others. Church should be loving and caring for my family.

Its so easy for me to be critical of the Sunday service. I feel like its in my gift to point out where people can improve. (Of course I rarely point that gift at myself ;). I've been feeling pretty negative about the sermons in particular for the last year or so, and I've realized that I'm even getting bitter about them. I know Jesus is not interested in me being bitter towards my brothers who are working hard to preach.

God kicked me in the pants this week when an old friend of mine preached at my church. He spoke about Matthew 28:19,20, aka "The Great Commission." He said we should be studying Jesus' life and learning how He discipled His followers with stories, miracles, and formal doctrinal instruction. I need to be intentional to share stories of my life that witness to God's Grace. I want to serve others who can't repay my service as a demonstration of the miracle of the Spirit's leading and prompting in my life. I want to teach others the amazing depth and glory of the Theology of God.

I feel excited to get back in the game and disciple people, and to give up being bitter. God has called me where I am, and I will serve Him.

Spurgeon: Morning and Evening April 28

2009-04-28T06:58:00.000-04:00

"Remember the word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope."—Psalm 119:49.

HATEVER your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the Bible suited to it. Are you faint and feeble because your way is rough and you are weary? Here is the promise—"He giveth power to the faint." When you read such a promise, take it back to the great Promiser, and ask Him to fulfil His own word. Are you seeking after Christ, and thirsting for closer communion with Him? This promise shines like a star upon you—"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Take that promise to the throne continually; do not plead anything else, but go to God over and over again with this—"Lord, Thou hast said it, do as Thou hast said." Are you distressed because of sin, and burdened with the heavy load of your iniquities? Listen to these words—"I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will no more remember thy sins." You have no merit of your own to plead why He should pardon you, but plead His written engagements and He will perform them. Are you afraid lest you should not be able to hold on to the end, lest, after having thought yourself a child of God, you should prove a castaway? If that is your state, take this word of grace to the throne and plead it: "The mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed, but the covenant of My love shall not depart from thee." If you have lost the sweet sense of the Saviour's presence, and are seeking Him with a sorrowful heart, remember the promises: "Return unto Me, and I will return unto you;" "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee." Banquet your faith upon God's own word, and whatever your fears or wants, repair to the Bank of Faith with your Father's note of hand, saying, "Remember the word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope."

Taken lock, stock, and barrel from: A Daily Dose of Spurgeon. Which is just a reprint from Spurgeon's daily devotional "Morning and Evening" I love the illustrations and practical advice Spurgeon always gives. The last one picturing me coming to the Father's bank with a note of exchange that is the Father's catches my heart.

Pursue Kindness Instead of Honor

2009-04-12T22:50:00.000-04:00

Proverbs 21:21
"Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor."

In the business world, this verse seems backwards. It would appear that if I pursue strength of position, knowledge of my craft, and wisdom of how to move up the ladder, that I will move up well. Instead this verse clearly says to pursue righteousness and kindness, and life and honor will be supplied.

How can I pursue righteousness and kindness at work? If I can deliver what I say I will deliver, when I say I'll do it, that will be righteous. If I make extra sure that I'm not defrauding the company by wasting time, that will be righteous. If I can take extra time with people who frustrate me, that will be kind. If I sacrifice for others that will be kind.

I want life and honor. I will be righteous and kind to get them.

Finding the Right Spouse is Tricky

2009-04-12T22:33:00.000-04:00

Proverbs 21:9,19
⁹It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
¹⁹It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.

I remember reading these verses before I was married and thinking they were just funny. After seven years of marriage, I realize they are essential! Looking back on my decision process for selecting my wife, I never would have considered all the attributes that she brings to the table. Don't get me wrong, the attributes of a great spouse (kindness, wisdom, forgiveness, gentleness, financial strength, parenting love, etc...) were in her at the time, I just didn't know to look for them. Despite my poor calculations, the Grace of God led us together in marriage.

In particular, these 2 verses warn of a quarrelsome spouse. Sharing your life with someone, includes daily sharing physical things, parenting schemes, and emotional burdens. Quarreling about those topics would make life unlivable. As unlivable as if you lived on a tiny corner of your roof exposed to the hot summer sun, and freezing winter rains. Or if you lived in a miserable dry-land with no water to feed your crops or your parched throat.

If your perspective spouse is always trying to stir up quarrels or induce more stress through stubbornness, then run fleeing for the hills and seek the Lord for someone else.

Praise the Lord my wife is humble and Christ-minded. She is a model of Godliness that my children and I can follow as we pursue Jesus together.

Don't always believe what you read in Newsweek...

2009-04-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen this Newsweek article yet, it might be of interest to you. What is not surprising though is the mis-characterization of the central tenants of the Christian Faith. Here is a paragraph from the article:

"Roughly put, the Christian narrative is the story of humankind as chronicled in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—the drama of creation, fall and redemption. The orthodox tend to try to live their lives in accordance with the general behavioral principles of the Bible (or at least the principles they find there of which they approve) and anticipate the ultimate judgment of God—a judgment that could well determine whether they spend eternity in heaven or in hell."

Lets take a look at this paragraph phrase by phrase:

"Christian narrative is the story of humankind as chronicled in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament" Actually the Bible is much more about God and his reaching out to us, then it is about human experience itself. It just so happens that the best way to show the glory and grace of our Lord is to set it in contrast to the misery and selfishness that humans manifest, and that Jesus ultimately rescues us from.
"the drama of creation, fall and redemption" I actually do agree with this statement. The traversal of humanity across this chain is truly dramatic. Not just flippantly dramatic. It is a story that we can all identify with. In fact that drama is one of the reasons why I love the Bible show much. It clearly shows me who I am.
"The orthodox tend to try to live their lives in accordance with the general behavioral principles of the Bible" This sentence makes me chuckle, and then feel really sorry for the author. He has it exactly backwards. It turns out that the truly orthodox are actually living their lives in worship of God the Father for His great mercy, God the Son for His sacrifice, and God the Spirit for His comfort and support. It just so happens that in response to our worship of the Lord we desire to love Him by obeying His commandments. The former drives the latter, not the other way around.
"(or at least the principles they find there of which they approve)" Again this saddens me, that the author would betray his own understanding of orthodoxy as that which the people get to decide on, instead of that which is ultimately, and objectively true. The Bible is the truth, and when read in context, there is only one proper interpretation of any given scripture. The interpretation that God and the original author intended. Scripture doesn't depend on my ability to understand or interpret. It is for me to seek the truth held within, not to place my opinions on top of.
"and anticipate the ultimate judgment of God" This is a strange way to think of things. I'm not saying that God doesn't Judge. He does. I'm glad that He does. I want their to be justice for wrongs done on this Earth. But I don't sit around waiting for His Judgment. I actively work, to prepare for His second Coming!
"a judgment that could well determine whether they spend eternity in heaven or in hell." The truly orthodox, have no fear of judgment. They know exactly where they are going. If they trust in Jesus' propitiating sacrifice on the cross, then God has demonstrated His willingness to accept that sacrifice through His rising of Christ's from the Dead. That's why Easter is such a big deal. It proves that God accepted the sacrifice. It secures for us that same resurrected body that Jesus displayed to the disciples and now has at the right hand of the Father.

I pray that this Easter finds you secure in the knowledge of your salvation if you know the Lord, and if you don't that you would seek Him while He may yet be found.

God Tests Abraham

2009-03-25T22:14:00.000-04:00

We're studying James in my home group right now. The author's main point is to point out what real faith is as opposed to fake faith. James, as the brother of Jesus is uniquely able to teach on this topic, since he lived and watched Jesus for 30 years or so before finally believing in his big brother's message. In James 2, James points out that real faith is demonstrated by actions. He points to Abraham's near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Gen. 22. Here's just a couple thoughts on this amazing display of God caring about His child Abraham.

Gen 22:2 "...your son, your only son, whom you love..." God knew that Abe had put his faith almost in his son instead of in God. That for God to take the one thing/person that was the total joy and center of Abe's life would be such a personal test of faith for Abraham. God is such a personal God who is so interested in us and our personal development

Gen 22:6,9: Isaac carries the wood, and allows himself to be tied down. Isaac is no idiot, he knows whats going on, yet he submits to his father and to the Lord. We don't hear anything about Isaac's faith in this episode but it must have been super strong too. Can you imagine being Isaac and hearing for your whole life that you're the child of promise? Talk about pressure and expectations...

Gen 22:11,12 The Angel of the Lord stops Abraham. The Angel of the Lord is a Christophany, a glimpse of the pre-incarnate Christ. It's so Jesus to intercede directly in the Human experience and make sure that Abraham is cared for. Not that God the Father doesn't love us, but I just feel closer to Jesus, and I love to see Him acting in His intercessory, caring role. It makes my view of Him feel so consistent.

The whole story is a picture of the Gospel, with the father sacrificing the son, who willingly goes to his death, with the expectation of being raised from the dead. Praise God that He loves us enough to send His Son, who willingly came to die for our sins, and then to intercede for us before God.

Brothers in Adversity (Proverbs 17:17)

2009-03-09T21:57:00.000-04:00

¹⁷ A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Have you ever known someone that you could go to anything with, that they would tell you the right and wrong of it, and still be there to stand by you. Had friends that were closer than your family? Known fellowship in a way that allowed your mates to drop by unannounced at any time day or night. Trusted somebody that would hold you up in your darkest times to come, because you and they'd been there before. Isn't it freeing to be in relationships like that?

I have had the privilege of such closeness when I was in college, and since then in my marriage. I long for relationships like that again. I feel like it was a glimpse of what Heaven will be like where we can fellowship with our Lord and each other forever.

I pray that I would seek to know Christ as that loving friend and brother in adversity. I pray that I can be Christ to others in this way.

Proverbs 17: 14 Breaching the Dam

2009-03-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

¹⁴ Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.

Do you remember that scene in the first Superman movie when the earthquake causes the damn to burst and the water rushes out on the town below? Or in Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers when the Ents break down the dam that Saruman had constructed and the rush of water destroys all of Isengard?
How many times have I started a small argument just to enjoy the debate and instead opened up a flood that I couldn't stop. Or when I'm a little tired or hungry I'm short with my wife or a friend and realize that I've just smashed the toothpaste out of the tube and can't put it back. I need to be wary of the destruction that a quarrel can cause and seek to smooth over the peccadilloes to save energy for the calm, well-reasoned debates that are worth having.

I must protect my marriage and my growing relationship with my children to ensure that they are not swept away in a torrent of angry, useless words.

Proverbs 16:33 No Such thing as Chance

2009-03-09T21:30:00.000-04:00

³³ The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Its amazing how many people believe in chance. Even I catch myself saying things like "good luck". R.C. Sproul explains an exchange he had once where he asks his debate opponent if chance is a thing. His opponent says of course not, its not a thing. Not a thing said faster is nothing. So why do we put so much faith in a concept that is nothing? This verse really silences the argument, and shows that God is totally sovereign, even over things that seem like random chance. Imagine His limitless power to adjust the air-currents, the resistance of the edges of the dice, even the density of the air to cause a seemingly random thing like a dice roll to happen exactly according to His plan.

This verse and its implications bring me great comfort that my life and everything involved in it (good or bad), is ordained in advance from the Lord who is powerful enough to control everything, even 'chance'.

Proverbs 15:6 - A Loving Kindness Atones

2009-03-02T23:18:00.000-05:00

⁶By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, And by the fear of the LORD one keeps away from evil.

With unimaginable kindness, mercy, and perfect truth, God accepted Christ's atonement for our sin. To be fair, God should have destroyed Adam in the garden. Yet God showed mercy on Adam, and all of us, by providing a solution, even from the very beginning, to fulfill His justice and still provide mercy. The word lovingkindness is an older word, but I love the way it sort of personifies kindness and presents it as actively loving. How like the Father who is actively loving. He is a God continually involved in the lives of His creation.

As a result of fearing God's power to judge and execute, the saved one departs from evil. Evil here can be construed to be the ultimate evil of eternal death. But I see hope for myself to avoid practicing evil on earth by remembering the righteous wrath of God.

Proverbs 16:5 - The punishment of the Proud

2009-03-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

⁵Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.
I know whenever someone rejects my kindness I get grossly offended. I'm not saying I'm God of course, just trying to connect with why He would feel this way. I know I don't ever want to be intensely averse to or loathed and detested by God. Especially since people in that category are sure to be punished according to this verse. I feel quite sad for those who's pride gets the better of them, and pray that they would be turned around.

This verse tells me to get humble about my sin problem quick, and come to the One who has solved the problem, instead of trying to solve it myself over and over. I also see this as a warning to those in the 'intellectual elite' that make it their business to arrogantly assume there is no God. Praise to Him that I, who struggles with arrogance constantly, have been saved despite myself.

Proverbs 15

2009-03-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

³³The fear of the LORD is the instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility.

How do you learn wisdom? Fear the Lord. Being wise means being able to discern which of the multitude of options available, is the right one to pick to achieve the best outcome. In the narrow sense of salvation, discerning the option of Christ as the way to achieve the best outcome of actually surviving judgment and enjoying eternity, comes from knowing that God is worthy of fear. Within that context being humble before God and knowing that He is doing the saving, not me will lead me to honor with Him in glory.

Aside from the salvation aspects that this verse conjures up, I also see my desire for honor professionally and ecclesiastically. This verse is pointing out that I need to pursue humility before I can expect to receive honor. Instead of longing for honor, which I spend a lot of time doing, I should be longing for humility.

Proverbs 14

2009-02-23T22:17:00.000-05:00

⁴Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.
Sometimes its a bit messy to include the help you need to be successful. I love the word picture this creates. I once had to muck out a horse-barn that hadn't been mucked all summer. It was a back-breaking, stinky, stifling, messy job. But we couldn't have enjoyed the summer to that point without the horses to carry us through the mountain trails. Same goes for my efforts now. Its hard work to involve other people in Ministry. I have to spend time with them, pray, and care for them. Be involved in their lives when they suffer trial and temptation. Yet the benefit is obvious: more people called to Christ through multiplying the hands that serve. Working with people can get messy. Heck even when I'm the source of the mess ;). But the gain to be had is worth it.

²⁰The poor is hated even by his neighbor, But those who love the rich are many. ²¹He who despises his neighbor sins, But happy is he who is gracious to the poor.
Alright be honest, haven't you looked down a little on those less fortunate than you. I know I have. I know these verses are clearly discussing monetary wealth, but I can't help thinking of spiritual poverty in this context too. I know I often want to be with the spiritually mature instead of the immature. Its less work, and more interesting. I can feed off them and be lifted up, or at least that's what I try to convince myself of. Instead by withholding Christ from my spiritually impoverished neighbor, I show my hate of him. Look at Jesus, He came to Earth and surrounded Himself with the spiritually poor. He even lowered Himself to talk to wretched me. How can I expect to be happy/fulfilled without reaching out to those who don't know Him.

²⁶In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, And his children will have refuge. ²⁷The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death.
It is good to have a fear of the Lord. The God of the Bible is a God of Justice. He will come again to punish those who rejected Him, and reward those who followed Him. Having a healthy fear of God, knowing what He is capable of, should drive us to avoiding His wrath. Death is a snare trying to trip up and capture us. Instead we can have strong confidence in knowing God and knowing what He is going to do. We can be confident that just as He will judge sinners, He will also forever protect His children.

If you doubt at all that God has brought you into His protection, through the atoning sacrifice of His Son, please I beg of you, recognize that your Sin is real. You are at War with God by pursuing your way through life. Call on Christ to be the perfect peace offering between you and God, and commit yourself to following Him.

Proverbs 13

2009-02-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

⁴The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,But the soul of the diligent is made fat.
I frequently see myself in the first part of this couplet, and only by God's grace do I occasionally find myself in the latter. My life is always moving in cycles. I'm currently at an upswing in productivity, this blog is a result, but just a few weeks ago I lazily craved more involvement with my mind, faith, and family and yet those desires didn't produce action. It wasn't until I was diligent that I got what I wanted. Its such a cultural lie that we all buy into, that kicking back to go the easy route is the way to gain. Look how many game shows and lotteries we have. I pray that I would stay on the second half of this verse and not cycle back to the first half.

¹³The one who despises the word will be in debt to it, But the one who fears the commandment will be rewarded. ¹⁴The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, To turn aside from the snares of death.
It seems so plain that if I would come to the wise word I would have the abundance that I seek. I would have a fountain that constantly replenishes itself rewarding me for obediently listening. I would avoid pain, even death if I would consult the teaching of the wise. To do these things I have to find where the wise is. I must read the Scriptures since they are glimpse of God's wisdom. I should pursue books, both contemporary and ancient, that describe the human condition and Christ's role of redemption. I must heed the warnings to break out of the cycle of laziness.

²⁰He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm.
My mother would often warn me that the company I kept would be a reflection of who I am. I know there were times in my life, even my dating life, where I thought I could bring change to someone just by hanging around with them and talking with them. That change rarely if ever happened. Usually because I was too busy trying to be liked by them to represent something different and worth emulating. Eventually their lifestyle and thoughts would rub off on me like those old ditto papers did in elementary school. Instead I need to obey this word and find wise company, from Godly men and women, both living and dead. I should listen to their ways and words to emulate them, as they emulate Christ.

A friend of mine died last week

2009-02-12T22:31:00.001-05:00

I found out about it two days ago, and I've been pretty sad. I was sad partly because I dearly love my friend's parents. He was a cool guy, but I was and am much closer to them. They are strong believers and set an example for my wife and I of what a Godly marriage and family should look like.

I was sad because I didn't know whether my friend was a believer or not. How horrible it is to be a parent, who loves the Lord, and has worked hard for years to love and teach your children the Truth, and yet loose your child without knowing his eternal state. We went to the funeral today thinking that my friends parents were suffering under this despicable burden. I was even questioning God's goodness. Trying to understand why He would take such faithful people through this gutter of pain.

Praise God that their son was a believer, and they are confident in his eternal destination. My friend had been struggling for a while with depression and though its very sad to loose him, He's with his Maker now who has delivered him from this often painful earthly existence. I'm also thankful that I'm studying James 1 right now. I was crying out for wisdom to understand this trial, and the Lord provided it. The trial still hurts. My friend is gone, and I can't help feel a little responsible, maybe if I'd reached out a little more... But God has proven yet again that His word is trustworthy. He will provide wisdom to help us get through the trials.

One of the songs that was sang at the service was: "All my Tears" by Julie Miller. Its a mournful song, but the lyrics are hopeful. Once hearing the good news about my friend, I felt like the song communicated how I felt, and how I hope people will feel when I leave this current world.

When I go don't cry for me
In my fathers arms I'll be
The wounds this world left on my soul
Will all be healed and I'll be whole

Sun and moon will be replaced
With the light of Jesus' face
And I will not be ashamed
For my savior knows my name

It don't matter where you bury me
I'll be home and I'll be free
It don't matter where I lay
All my tears be washed away

Gold and silver blind the eye
Temporary riches lie
Come and eat from heaven's store
Come and drink and thirst no more

So weep not for me my friend
When my time below does end
For my life belongs to him
Who will raise the dead again

If you are reading this and don't know for sure whether or not God would let you into His Heaven, then please right now tell God that you know your sin is evil and that you're ready to accept His merciful sacrifice of His son to forgive your sin. Ask Him to be Lord over your life instead of yourself. If there's any chance that you are relying on your own good works, or your lineage, or just being American, know that these things don't save you. Only God's great Mercy can do it.

What is the Wicket Gate?

2009-02-10T23:09:00.000-05:00

The Wicket Gate is the entrance to the straight and narrow path that Christian follows on his way to the Celestial City in Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress.

Christian knows he has a heavy burden of Sin and he doesn't exactly know how to get rid of it. He initially tries to come to Christ by way of Mt. Sinai and the Law. He also tries to climb the wall separating the City of Destruction from the land of the King, but its not until he passes through the Wicket Gate with the help of Good Will (aka Jesus) that he finds release from his heavy sin burden.

I hope this blog is a place where I can come to Jesus by His means and not by my own. That I may stay on the straight and narrow and eventually hear "...well done, my good and faithful servant..." from my Master and Lord.

Proverbs 12

2009-02-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

Some really great verses in this chapter. I mean I know the whole Bible is great verses. But this week these few really jumped out at me.

4 A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.
It is so key to get the right wife. the imagery is so true too. The right woman you want to display so everyone can see her. A crown has different jewels, different facets that you want to show off. I want to show people the different things about my wife that are so great. A crown is the last thing you put on. It is the completing feature. The right woman completes a man. The wrong one rots you from within. She breaks down your infrastructure as she leads you astray, sapping the strength and stability that your bones should be providing.

15 The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
This verse really shouts at me, especially this week its calling to me to consider and follow. I know when I'm in a rut either spiritually, at work, or at home, that I'm convinced that I'm right. The wise man listens to advice. He first of all is in a position to hear it. I'm usually not. My ears are stuffed up with my own voice instead of someone else's. Or what about when I'm about to commit a sin, and I get that little reminder that it would be better not to do that thing. That's the Spirit providing wise advice. I should listen and avoid the trouble.

28 In the way of righteousness is life, And in its pathway there is no death.
In righteousness is life. Not death. This makes me think of Christ. His perfect righteousness eliminated death. Think of it. The very thing we mortals fear most. Destroyed eliminated by someone else's righteousness. Oh how this verse could condemn me if it was my righteousness. Praise God for His Son, that its He who earned it perfectly instead of me working myself to the bone to possibly have enough, and never attaining...

Proverbs 9

2009-02-05T19:47:00.000-05:00

I want to think more. I think the best way for me to practice thinking more is to do some writing. I don't know for sure where to start writing. So for now I'm going to be posting my reflections on the scripture that I'm reading. At the moment, I'm reading through Proverbs with a friend of mine, so I'll pick up where I am with him in Proverbs 9.

Wisdom is personified as a woman calling out to those who don't know her.
"3..she calls From the tops of the heights of the city: 4 Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!" This verse is particularly eye-catching for me. I can really picture wisdom calling out, setting up a billboard on the top of a hill so that everyone can hear her messages. Actually if we read back a bit in the chapter to verse 1, we see that its more than just a flimsy billboard, she builds a house with seven columns. Usually anything with seven is associated with perfection. So she builds the perfect house designed to be eye-catching and attractive. She does it so that the whole city can hear her. She makes herself as available as she can so that everyone has a chance to hear and come to her. She sends out her maidens to draw citizens into her house. Citizens who don't know what they're missing. They're naive, they think they're OK but they're not. They don't realize what amazing things are available for them inside the house.

I think this passage is pretty clearly pointing to Christ. Just like wisdom, Christ has built a perfect house for us in heaven. Its a place full of provision that will fill us completely. He calls out to everyone that they would be saved. That they would be able to avoid the destruction that they're falling naively towards. He sends His servants out to draw those who are on the fringe into His presence.

Oh that I would hear Christ's call to His house.

By the Wicket Gate

Daily Bible Reading 1/2/2012

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 8

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 7

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 6

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 5

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 4

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 3

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment

1 Peter 1 Gospel moment

Functional Universalism

How do we comfort ourselves after we sin, when we know better?

Read/Listen to Romans!!

Can Christians be Warriors?

Pastor Bell vs. MSNBC

1 John 1:1-4

Reviews from Bell's book

Psalm 119:33 - 40

4-part gospel strikes again

Not really surprised...

Oswald Nails It

Talk about Bad Theology

Resources to follow up Sunday Sermon

Jesus is more than a teacher

Hebrews 1:10-15 Jesus still better than Angels

Email Apologetics 5 (gospel illustrations in Genesis)

Hebrews 1:7-9 Jesus saves better than angels

Email Apologetics 4

Email Apologetics 3

Email Apologetics 2

Email Apologetics 1

Hebrews 1:4-6 Jesus is greater than the angels

Hebrews 1:1-3

Is this supposed to be a Gospel message?

Is the Gospel worth fighting for?

More follow up on my discussions on google reader

I am Convicted

Nooma 23

More google reader discussion

Discussion from Google Reader

Cool Bible Resource

Terrified!

The Count

Loved this video

Blog what blog?

The Pauline Model for Church Plants

JQA sets the standard for faithful service

Overcome People's Assumptions (even my own)

Return to Passion

Quick Bibliology...

Devotion for Vacation

God actually does help when I ask for it

Confronting for the Gospel

Got a chance to share the Gospel this weekend

Caught my bad Exegesis

Fasting changes attitudes

Proud or Broken?

Life is short, Come to Christ

Re-Energized

Spurgeon: Morning and Evening April 28

Pursue Kindness Instead of Honor

Finding the Right Spouse is Tricky

Don't always believe what you read in Newsweek...

God Tests Abraham

Brothers in Adversity (Proverbs 17:17)

Proverbs 17: 14 Breaching the Dam

Proverbs 16:33 No Such thing as Chance

Proverbs 15:6 - A Loving Kindness Atones

Proverbs 16:5 - The punishment of the Proud

Proverbs 15

Proverbs 14

Proverbs 13

A friend of mine died last week

What is the Wicket Gate?

Proverbs 12

Proverbs 9