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Apparently you can hide out at a Walmart for over three days before anyone begins to notice your presence. This is of course one of the primary reasons we tend to shop at our local “Fareway” grocery store…no one would ever be able to hide out in one of their tiny stores for very long. I simply hate having to walk a half mile, all the way to the back corner of the WalMart, just to pick up a gallon of milk.
Interesting posting going on about innerrancy on the Chrisendom blog. I especially like the thought about “theological errors,” though I would rather use the word inconsistency:
It’s writers often supported theological errors, and the biblical tradition later corrects and contradicts itself. It makes theological statements that are such that one or other is true, not both. Many tend to call this phenomenon a ‘tension’. But aren’t many simply contradictions, thus making the contrary theological assertion an error? This is the essence of ‘sublation’ I mentioned first here.
a) The righteous will get along dandy thanks (Proverbs), or perhaps in real life things are not so simple (Ecclesiastes). Cf. Childs OT work on this.
b) Will all be saved in the end?
c) Will God punish the children for the father sin or not?
d) Can God be seen? Yes or no?
e) Does God change? Do a bible study.
f) Matthew 5:19 ‘Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’ But isn’t this exactly what the early church went on to do?
In preparing my sermon for this week, I’m studying John 9. Folks ask Jesus “Who sinned this man or his parents that this man was born blind?” Plenty of evidence in the OT suggests that suffering is a result of sin and that the consequences of sin are passed on from generation. Jesus of course challenges that very ‘biblical’ notion.
I’ve posted another entry on the lenten discussion blog on Miroslav Volf’s book Free of Charge. It’s entitled True Acknowledgment. It has been a real challenging but excellent read for lent.
The other day my wife and I were sharing our morning devotional. Reading Psalm 149 we were struck by these verses:
Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, to execute on them the judgment decreed.
Immediately, I was reminded of the thoughts of Hal Lindsey (an end times prophet) on moderate Muslims recently summarized by The Revealer:
{most of them} aren’t violent because they don’t actually read their Qurans; and it’s not until Muslims begin to study their holy book and its 109 “war verses” that they are transformed into violent radicals who need to convert people by force.
But as I read that Psalm from our own scriptures, I couldn’t help but think that those verses could very well incite Christians to pick up their own arms to execute God’s vengeance.
You see, it’s easy to point our fingers and say this or that religion is so violent. But, we do so forgetting our own scriptures of violence, our own history of violence, and our own support of violence. In short it’s a matter of religious hypocrisy.
Our story for today from John 7:53-8:11 is about the sin of hypocrisy. It begins with Jesus teaching in the temple with the crowds gathered around him.
Sometimes the best way to get a point across is with a bit of satire and humour. Maggi Dawn posts a top-ten list why men should not be ordained. Enjoy.
In an effort to encourage my wife to start blogging, I’ve set her up as an author on this blog. From time to time you may notice a post or two authored by Lori. So please, give her a hearty welcome. My hope is that someday I will be helping her set up her own site!
Being a Vandy grad, I’m not all that inclined to root for the LSU Tigers, but since they played Duke last night I had no problem. Congrats to the Tigers for knocking off #1 ranked Duke and for making the SEC look good!
I’ve been doing a bit of investigation into the emergent church lately. Based on some of my reading, I wonder if the story of the woman at the well might offer an “emergent†of evangelism? (While I didn’t specifically use the terms “emergent evangelism” when I preached, the thoughts and core of my sermon remain as I originally expressed them. I hope to further develop these thoughts on this text and their relationship to emergent evangelism.) The text for this sermon snippet is John 4.
At noon, as Jesus rests at a well in Samaria, a woman approaches. She comes alone during the hottest part of the day. She must be a social outcast.
She is also a Samaritan, one despised by the Jews of Jesus’ day. Samaritans had ties back to Moses and the ancient Hebrew faith, but Jews avoided associating with them, because they had intermarried with the Assyrians when they were conquered by them. Even worse, they worshipped on Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem.
Despite this, Jesus speaks to her and says, “Give me a drink.†She is startled by this because no good Jewish man would ever initiate a conversation with a woman he didn’t know. Especially not a Samaritan woman.
They have a significant conversation anyway. They talk about matters of great spiritual importance. They discuss religious differences. They even get into significant issues of concern in her personal life.
Check out fellow Presbyterian minister Bruce Reyes-Chow’s post on Top 10 Signs You’re Post-modern. Today I went on a quest to discover other PC(USA) bloggers. I think his blog will become one of my favorites.
You may want to check out my recent post on “How much is too much?” on the Free of Charge discussion webblog.
I generally like rooting for the little guy in the NCAA tourney especially when it comes to the likes of Duke or Connecticut.
Finding myself living in Cedar Rapids, IA I was of course rooting for my recently (and somewhat reluctantly) adopted team the Iowa Hawkeyes. This years team had much worth pulling for…a great core of senior players who finally were able to pull off a remarkable year.
Even though I like rooting for the little guy, it was a sad thing to see the Hawks collapse this weekend in their game against Northwestern State. As IU coach Steve Alford said that game winning shot will be shown over and over again each March for years to come.
Despite the loss, I think it’s great that the little guy gets a moment to bask in some fame and glory.
But what’s truly embarrasing is when the team that beats you goes on and gets blown out in its next tourney game. You begin thinking foolish things like “Geesh, we would have put on a better showing if we hadn’t lost that game to NwSt.” But we’ll never know now will we?
Sermon Text: The Wedding at Cana - John 2: 1-13
Did you ever think that maybe Jesus knew how to celebrate? Now, there are all sorts of things that the story of the Wedding at Cana is about. One of them is celebration.
Admittedly, the first miracle or ‘sign’ story in John is a bit odd. Jesus has gathered together with a bunch of his buddies to enjoy a weeklong wedding celebration. Everyone’s having a good time until the wine starts to run dry.
Then, Jesus performs his first mirace and what’s the result? About 150 gallons of water turned into the very best wine that money can buy.
What’s going on here? Jesus having a good time at a party? Turning water into wine? This is not what most of us think of when we think of Jesus. In fact some of us find this story about as unsettling as this picture:
Jesus laughing…it blows most of our conceptions of Jesus right out of the water, but it’s right here in the gospel of John. Jesus having a good time. Enjoying a bit of a celebration. And keeping the party going by turning water into wine.
Some people think Jesus did it just to keep his mother happy…but I doubt it. It’s more likely he did it to ensure the bridegroom would not suffer embarrassment. Running out of wine would have meant a failure of hospitality; a total disgrace for the bridegroom.
Well folks, I’m finally calling it finished. At last you can see my new layout and design for my weblog.
Now, before you go “oh ah, isn’t he a creative fella…” The actual design is a template available for Word Press designed by Frederick Falstad with a few personal adaptations on my part. More changes will be made over time, but for now what you see is what you get.
Special thanks also go to my friend Mark Hershberger who set up the files and is hosting (for a nominal and reasonable monthly fee) my new website on his servers.
Now that I’m done with all this set-up work, hopefully I can get back to writting some entries.
Glad you found my new home on the web! We’ll be putting a fresh coat of paint and new window dressings on this new site over the next couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy!!
Usually when someone asks me “What is faith?” two scriptures immediately come to mind:
The first one tells me that faith is a gift:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8)
The second tells me that faith is trust:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1)
After reading the first chapter of Miroslav Volf’s new book Free of Charge, I wonder if I have had it all wrong; especially my reading of Ephesians 2:8. Volf writes:
“God’s gifts oblige us, first, to a posture of receptivity. Rather than wanting to earn God’s gifts (if we imagine God as a hard negotiator whose demands we have to satisfy) or receive them in return for some favor (if we imagine God as a patron on whose generosity we depend), we should see ourselves as who we truly are, namely receivers and receivers only. We do that by relating to God in faith. The first thing to which God’s gifts oblige us is faith.”
When I first read the italicized sentence it stopped me in my tracks. Since then, I keep going over and over it in my mind. I’ve always thought of faith as the gift we receive from God. Volf tells me, “No!” All things are a gift from God. Faith is simply the appropriate response to all that God has given. Faith is how we receive God’s gifts.
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