Tag Archives: Christianity

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The Road Less Traveled

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This photo was taken "way up north" - north of Marquette, the first trip I took as an "NMU Mom."

Tom was at orientation for 2 days and I was up there just hanging out.  I took the "waterfalls" map and my GPS and took off.

That's the day I learned that my GPS unit took the short way.  Even when the short way was a 2 (or one) track "truck trail" - a sort of path for logging trucks.  I turned back when the "bridge" across a creek was a set of 2x4's in the water.

I turned around in a clearing/meadow and went back to the road in the photo. It was really foggy!

Apply to real life:

When the road ahead is foggy and unclear...this is not the time for a short cut!

(note:  I followed the dirt road a little while more, found pavement and entered the GPS coordinates again.  I found a delightful little waterfall, just as the sky cleared and the sun came out!

When you stay the course, you might just end up in the right place!

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Decalogue

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This was taken at Art Prize 2010. I had a chance to talk to the artist ( Romanian artist Liviu Mocan)

the name of the piece is "Invitation/Decalogue" and was sculpted in honor of John Calvin's 500th birthday.

Decalogue
• The Decalogue is an ancient code for moral and spiritual development, commonly known as the Ten Commandments.
• John Calvin saw the Decalogue as the centre of God’s law in the Bible; Jesus Christ summarised it as to love God with all your heart, and love others as yourself. Calvin used this to guide the reformation of Genevan church and society in the 16th century.
• Liviu Mocan sub-titles the sculpture “God’s hands”. The ten giant fingers correspond to the Ten Commandments, and the sculptor tries to illustrate the peace, justice and security that God’s law was intended to create.

Invitation
• Hands – an invitation to relationship: the Decalogue is not just an impersonal set of laws, but is an expression of God’s love and desire for good and right relationships
• Contrasting faces – an invitation to ethical reflection: the two sides of each pillar reflect the dual consequences of God’s law: it generally goes well for us when we respect the law; but negative consequences follow when the law is disregarded.
• Circle – an invitation to freedom: the Decalogue creates a space of freedom to do good and live at peace with others.
• Massive columns – an invitation to hope: throughout history the Decalogue has helped shape societies that are characterised by freedom, justice and peace, and can still do the same in today’s troubled world.

As I talked to the artist, he took me by the hand and walked me around the sculpture.

"See," he said, "Inside God's hands, it is safe.  Can you feel the safety in being enclosed.  I made this round, gentle.  Feel the metal, how strong, how it hold you."

He led me outside of the circle.  "But look at how sharp the outside edges are."  He took my hand and had me feel the metal...warm in the October sun.  "How rough...how dangerous.  Outside the hands of God...there is danger."

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This is from Reclaiming the Mind - I'd rather comment there, but for whatever reason, my browser doesn't want to show me the combox...

This interaction was interesting.

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@MzEllen:

(I asked)Why does one fear Him and another does not? Intelligence? Random Chance?

(another answered)Have you had children? Have you examined your body and how incredibly it is made? Have you gazed at the starry host and wondered at the vastness of what God has created? Have you considered the amount of energy within a single atom and how it holds itself together? How about the energy present within the fabric we call space and often thing of as a vast expanse of nothing? I have watched the BBC Earth series and my jaw literally drops to the floor when I consider the incredible creation of God.

We have more information today than we have in the past, but all the big stuff is easily within reach. And you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to recognize the obvious about God.

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yes.  I have children.  Yes, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

This is a wonderful answer...but I have no clue what the question was.

The answer given has ZERO to do with the question that I asked.

If our salvation depends on our decision to choose to accept Christ, why did I choose, and why didn't the person next to me in the pew choose?

What makes me so smart?  spiritual?  special?

If the answer to that was "because God chooses those who fear Him" - why do some fear Him, and others not?

If the answer lies with the person, what is the answer?

If the answer lies with God - isn't that "election"?

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The paragraph from "Church Planter"

“One of the common errors of young men who surrender to ministry is to simply adopt the model of a church Macthat they have experienced or idolized. A similar mistake is to blindly accept the ministry philosophy and practice of a ministry hero. The man who is experiencing head confirmation is thoughtful about his own philosophy of ministry, his own ministry style, his own theological beliefs, his own unique gifts, abilities, and desires. In short, there is uniqueness to the way he wants to do ministry.”

John MacArthur's take:

Notice that Darrin Patrick himself summarizes and restates the point he is making, and it is about “uniqueness” in “the way he wants to do ministry.” He seems to suggest that everything about one’s ministry (Patrick expressly includes “his own theological beliefs“) needs to be self-styled and individualistic.

Is that really what Patrick is saying?

He could simply have been saying that when a man is called to ministry, everything he considers should be with thoughtfulness.

Is being thoughtful about my own theology mean that I'm being "self-styled and individualistic?  No - it means that the more thoughtful I am about my study, the more I work out my salvation, the more time and care I put into it, the more I make the faith of my fathers...my own.

As the White Horse Inn guys say:

Know what you believe...and why.

A while ago, I read an interview with Rob Bell.  He - as a pastor - embraced the mystery.  He wasn't sure what he believed and he was okay with that.

My thought at the time was something to the effect of - If HE doesn't even know what he believes, why on EARTH would I trust him to teach me what I should believe?

God BLESS His men who are willing to be thoughtful (Patrick's word) about their own theology.

Repeating MacArthur:

He seems to suggest that everything about one’s ministry...needs to be self-styled and individualistic.

No.  I'm going to go further than MacArthur did in his quote.

In short, there is uniqueness to the way he wants to do ministry.  Unlike many young men who know much about what they are against and little about what they are for, the man who is experiencing head confirmation things through very carefully and deliberately, what am I for with my life and ministry?  What are my specific burdens for the church?  How can I best serve the church in these areas?

If you read in context, the uniqueness that Patrick is writing about is not 'make it up as you go along' theology...

Patrick is urging men who feel called to the ministry to thoughtfully discover their own path, their own gifts, their own burdens, their own service...all of these given to them by God.

I doubt that MacArthur would really urge young men to jump into ministry without being thoughtful about their own theology - at least I hope not.

Or is it "preach the way I preach, believe all the minutia that I believe, do it the way I do it" and it'll all be good.

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She was sitting in her chair when he got home, settled in to watch a rented move...a "chick flick"

"Why can't you be more like him?" she asked her husband. He shook his head and thought...I'm not him. I'm me and I want to be wanted for who I am.

He nuzzled her neck and whispered..."let's head for bed."

She lifted her shoulder and gently pushed him away, "No, I'm in the middle of this movie. I don't feel like it tonight."

He backed away from her "cold shoulder" and walked to the home computer. Click.

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Using porn is the choice of the person viewing it. But within a marriage, there is another person involved. If it's the husband using, the wife is also involved.

I will never say that a husband's choice to use porn is the sin of the wife.

I will say that the sin of the wife of denying her husband could (and sometimes does) lead to the temptation of the husband to use porn.

We have a responsibility to help one another avoid temptation. When we don't help, we often hurt.

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Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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A Biblical Case for an Old Earth by David Snoke

Previous chapters here.

Chapter 2.

One of the complaints about the book in the Amazon reviews is that the book is supposed to be about the Biblical case, yet he starts with the scientific case.

The first sentence of this chapter says,

My goal is to build a biblical case, not primarily a scientific one, but I want to first review some of the scientific facts so that we can see the stakes involved.

This seems fair to me.  How can we build a Biblical case for an old earth unless we know what "old earth" entails?

The first topic is measuring the age of the universe by the distance of the stars

  • First, one could argue that the above (read the book) measurement process is wrong, and that actually the stars are much nearer.
  • Second, one could argue that the speed of light used to be much faster
  • Third, one could argue that the light we see did not actually come from stars, but was created "en route.

The problem with the first argument is that (if the universe is no more than 10,000 years old, then all of the stars would have to be within 10,000 light years of the view point (earth).  There are billions of stars and to have them all within 20,000 light years of each other (with earth at the center) would create gravitational chaos.

The second argument (the slowing down of the speed of light) is more interesting...but...

One of the books I'm reading now is "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. On page 140 (a wild paraphrase) he writes that two physicists from Los Alamos Laboratory have discovered the remains on a natural nuclear reactor in West Africa that had a "melt down" 2 billion years ago.  There is a "constant particle" called an "alpha particle" that is inversely related to the speed of light and by examining isotopes connected with these particles, the slowing of the alphas implies that the speed of light has INCREASED. This is a minuscule change - 4.5 parts per 10 to the 38th power (no clue how to do exponents in wordpress).

The third argument (that light was created en route) is - according to Snoke - the most viable of the three.  But if we work under the assumption that things are as they appear, then the starts appear to be very far away.

This "apparent age" theory eliminates any possibility of a scientific discussion about the age of the world.

That's it for the "speed of light changing" and there's more in chapter 1...but I wanted to get this posted today... 

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(this post is "recycled" while I update categories)

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (Romans 5:12 ESV)

This is not a "Federal Headship" post. This verse does not say because one man sinned, we are all guilty of his sin...it says "all sinned"

We are all touched by death; all of us have known somebody who has died. Some of us have had a very close loved one leave this earth. For some of us, we have the comfort of knowing that we will see them again. Others of us do not have that comfort.

It is not "life" that gives us death.

It is SIN that gives us death

"and, you know, we all will probably die with something sooner or later..." (former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders)

Yes...we all will "probably" die. All of us that are walking on this earth right now are mortal...we will die

That is the "T". The Total Depravity that touches all of our lives.

The "T" is important because it makes the problem crystal clear. All have sinned.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in< his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26 ESV)

Without the "T", the need for a Saviour is not so clear. Without the Saviour, the "T" brings hopelessness.

But we do have the "T", we do need a Saviour and we do HAVE a Saviour.

We have hope...

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8-9 ESV)

The "T" makes us understand that we are so steeped in sin that there is nothing we can do to merit our salvation.

The hope is in Christ and in Christ alone. It is by grace, through faith, not of works.

We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.(ISA 64: 6-7 ESV)

It is only in our understanding of our need for the Saviour that we are able to reach out for salvation.

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On another site, a while ago so I don't have the link, somebody was saying that a couple was getting married and one of them had been divorced - she was having a problem with that because there was no way that she could be sure (as part of the congregation) that the couple could Biblically marry.

And did not trust the church leadership to have the discernment to make that call.  I think what the person wanted was for the divorced person to stand up in front of the congregation and explain why they were divorced and make a justification (in front of the congregation) to remarry.

My feeling at the time (and still is) -

  • if that person had sinned and repented, it's none of my business, it's between them and God.  If the church leadership knows the story, that's good enough for me.
  • If the person had NOT sinned, it's none of my business, it's between them and God.  If the church leadership knows the story, that's good enough for me.
  • If I don't trust my church leadership to make the call, it's time to look for another church.

If I NEED to know the "back story" about a couple who is getting married, I need to check my own heart for the potential of gossip and holding repented of sin against a person that isn't even liable to me to start with.

That said:

I also thought at the time that if there was a process within a denomination (somewhat like annulment, but realistically looking at the cause of the divorce)...and issuing a certificate by the church board stating that they had worked with this person through the divorce and found them to be free to remarry, it would (I think) leave a lot fewer headaches and heartaches for a divorced person who wants to carry on with their life.

There is seldom only one "guilty party" in a divorce - and a discerning church board would know this.  If a person has committed "porneia" and repented - wanting to stay married and is committed to faithfulness from that point forward...and the spouse refuses to forgive...

that puts the unforgiving spouse in the position of being the "guilty party."  A repentant person is then held hostage by the sin of their spouse who is divorcing them.

Many divorces are so confused and convoluted that it would truly take a mature and discerning board to sort things out.

I'm not suggesting a "divorce sacrament" - but rather a system by which a board or church leader (trained in counseling) could work through the repentance process (since there is rarely only one guilty party) or the divorce process (if truly innocent) and issue a certificate or letter that the person could carry to their next church (if there is a next church) that verifies to the pastor that church leadership has overseen the situation or process and found the person Biblically able to remarry (and that would vary by denomination.)

We stand before the church and say "we are getting married in the eyes of the Lord."

Why not stand before the church and say, "this union is Biblically dissolved?"

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I was listening to Issues, etc. (podcast from last week) and the guest (a very regular guest) Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse reacted in horror when host Todd Wilken talked about the Episcopal Church having a ceremony to "celebrate" divorce.

One of the things I've contemplated when studying divorce and remarriage in the church has been how to communicate to the congregation that a member who is (or in the process of becoming) divorced has been before the elders and is deemed by the church to have the right to remarry?

  1. the Episcopal Church does not call it a "sacrament"
  2. there is a point at which this sort of ceremony would be useful
  3. there is an emotional healing that takes place when a person can stand before a church congregation and have them know that the church leadership is standing with them.

The Roman Catholic Church has the annulment process, by which a marriage (no matter how long it has lasted or how many children it has brought into this world) is declared "not a marriage" to the church.  It does not deny that the marriage existed legally, but rather that - even if a priest presided over and blessed the vows - the marriage never existed in the eyes of the church because - in the hearts of the couple, or one or the other of the couple - it was not a sacramental marriage.

I disagree with this because one (or both) of the people involved may have very much made the covenant vows before God and man, and the heart was very much in line with what God intended marriage to be.   People sin.  I can come up with a couple of examples of how "annulment"  may not be fair to one party.

Just one...a man enters a marriage with the intent to stand before God and man and love her as Christ loves the church until they day one of them breathes no more.  She decides that she'd rather not be married and leaves...and then gets an annulment so she can get married in her parents' church.  The husband is left - after taking vows that meant the world to him and that HE kept...and knowing that those vows meant nothing in the eyes of the church, since the church just told him that marriage never existed in their eyes.

To tell a person who wanted to stay married that their vows were not sacramental, leaves them at the mercy of the spiritual life of their ex-spouse.

Where Rome gets it right:  The certificate of annulment comes with an assumption that the parties of the divorce have the Biblical right to remarry.

more in another post...

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I don't like this bumper sticker.

Not because I'm opposed to love...

This bumper sticker comes to us from Mars Hill, courtesy of Rob Bell.  The number of these things that I see on the road is an indication of how many followers Bell has.  That I don't like.

The other reason..."Love wins" (the bumper sticker) is misunderstood.  It was put out after Bell preached a sermon on the cross - "Love Wins" (although from what I've read about Bell, I think I'll look up what his version of the cross is).

If you ask most people about the sticker, they'll stand on 1 Corinthians 13 - "love wins, you know."

No, that's a mistranslation.  Love never fails.  Love lasts forever.  Love perseveres.

But it doesn't always win.  Love, once given, lasts.  If it doesn't, maybe it wasn't really love in the first place.

But love does last forever.

I was reading Thomas Watson yesterday and he noted that love is the only grace that will last with us forever in heaven.

There will have no need of forgiveness, since there will be no sin.

There will be no need for baptism, since all there have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

There will be no need for holy communion, since the Lord's Supper proclaims His death and resurrection until His return...and we will be looking at Him face to face.

Love lasts forever.