tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58126603079291513912024-03-13T19:47:51.723-07:00φως| lights onJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-24441540120415866262008-10-30T09:32:00.000-07:002008-10-30T09:33:38.863-07:00barking dawgs.Sound teaching on Phillipians 3:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marshill.org/teaching/download.php?filename=MTAxOTA4Lm1wMw%3D%3D">http://www.marshill.org/teaching/download.php?filename=MTAxOTA4Lm1wMw%3D%3D</a><br /><br />check it.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-2134051660232333442008-09-11T06:46:00.000-07:002008-09-11T07:17:29.148-07:00An ApologyI wrote this blog, in the past, having very little observation of the glory of the Christ.<br /><br />I had very bad teaching regarding truth. <br /><br />I arrived at most of my conclusions on this blog merely on the basis of my own rationality. This in short was entirely prideful and ultimately...sin.<br /><br />I am sorry.<br /><br /> I would like to correct this blog with an amendment...<br /><br />We are a people broken and wounded by sin. Our only hope is in Christ.<br />Christ body extends across this planet to this day; His Body, our Eucharist. His Body, an undivided, holy catholic and apostolic church.<br /><br />Now sure, His society we know as the Church is filled with saints and sinners alike.<br /><br />We the whole people of the human family are a society filled with saints and sinners alike.<br /><br />The unique quality of the Church that distinguishes it from the rest of the human family is God's grace. Together we are redeemed from our sins by faith in one truth. The truth is this:<br /><br />There is one God, The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and Earth.<br />That His one and only Son, Jesus Christ is our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. That at pentacost, He sent his Holy Spirit to the holy Christian church, the communion of saints. And that through all of this, we are forgiven of our sins, our bodies are resurrected and we have eternal life.<br /><br />This is what is true.<br /><br />And as a people in this grace, we are born from above. We are included in the inheritence of God's Eternal Kingdom. We are the new Jerusalem.<br /><br />Transformed by the conversion only possible through baptism.<br /><br />This means we must not judge as men, but see people as God sees men...with mercy.<br /><br />Judgement by suspision is ground for sin against this truth, insofar as it shows contempt for our neighbor.<br /><br />There are two ways we must guard against that are of this condemned type of judgement:<br /><br />1) Judging our neighbor on grounds preconditioned by the perception of our own shortfalls in their actions. (which might I add, we don't even really know our own faults and tendancies. Only God knows our inner most passions. Thus it is impossible for us to see in others that which we can not in all actuallity see in ourselves).<br /><br />2) Judging our neighbor on the basis of our passions or emotions toward them.<br /><br />I apologize for doing either of these things in my writings or actions before I was taught the truth.<br /><br />Please forgive me.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-69856737769941506972008-08-27T10:25:00.000-07:002008-08-27T10:30:26.144-07:00ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE:ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE:<br />A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH<br />IN NORTHERN COLORADO<br /><br />To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:<br /><br /> Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.<br /><br /> Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professionalskills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them. Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:<br />"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't havean impact on the woman's right to choose."<br /><br />Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:<br /><br />"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."<br /><br />Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:<br />"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has<br />bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."<br /><br /> Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.<br /><br />Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.<br />Archbishop of Denver<br />Addresses<br />Denver, CO - Monday, August 25, 2008<br /><br /> Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.<br />Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions<br />employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.<br /><br /> The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.<br />+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.<br />Archbishop of Denver<br />+James D. Conley<br />Auxiliary Bishop of DenverJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-65259694486390984792008-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:002008-08-25T12:54:27.410-07:00Barack Obama is not a messiah!!! A call to sober judgement<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIb4g6I0I/AAAAAAAAAA0/fWax1w1vl-g/s1600-h/1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238540066681922370" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIb4g6I0I/AAAAAAAAAA0/fWax1w1vl-g/s200/1.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIcNWmfEI/AAAAAAAAAA8/pkofBvlgE7Y/s1600-h/2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238540072275835970" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIcNWmfEI/AAAAAAAAAA8/pkofBvlgE7Y/s200/2.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIcMh_wUI/AAAAAAAAABE/oVIsQ6Bz1Ls/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238540072055193922" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j3wKJnMkKvY/SLMIcMh_wUI/AAAAAAAAABE/oVIsQ6Bz1Ls/s200/3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_b5aa5AKEjC8/SJoCetUL_5I/AAAAAAAAAOQ/1wlQgPbk--A/s1600-h/the_new_hope.jpg"></a><div><br />COME ON!!!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b5aa5AKEjC8/SJoCyXYDbyI/AAAAAAAAAOY/sFRW-cF2100/s1600-h/obama+superstar.jpg"></a><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>This post has nothing to do with politics.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>This post has everything to do with how foolish people can be when they are blinded in selfishness.<br /></div><div><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div> </div><div><strong>I.<br /></strong></div><div>wow. Paul wasn't kidding when he cried for three years...</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>just weeping over the false doctrines and blasphemies that would rise up among the Christians. </div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>We may be weeping for four years...or longer.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>Here is one I am really having trouble rapping my brain around...now I agree <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Barack</span> seems like a cool dude <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">btw</span>...</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>but how in the world can he or his Catholic running mate affirm a morality to be more and more like Jesus and in the same conversation affirm a morality that <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">okays</span> aborting children? </div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>That one spins me for a loop.<br /></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>------------------------------------------</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>Today is a great day for the Franciscans and all other Christians for that matter to recall Saint Louis...(the french king <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Louis</span> the 9t<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">h</span>)... </div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>I heard an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">awesome</span> homily this morning about him. A Saint from among the laity</div><div><br /><br /></div><div>...and a king; a politician. </div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>Not only did he take seriously to providing to his kingdom's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">physical</span> needs (caring for the poor and oppressed and underprivileged)...which he did.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>recall saint <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Louis</span></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>...but He was quite intentional on behalf of his kingdom's spiritual needs as well (caring for the poor in spirit and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">nurturing</span> them in the Holy Spirit and in Christ's TRUTH).</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>recall saint <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Louis</span></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>A man and father and king that took seriously his faith in Christ, and the responsibility such faith requires. A man that sought toward unity with God constantly and taught those around him, under his authority to do the same... Recall Saint Louis. </div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>Now contrast this with the men of a generation (me included) that struggle against seeking toward their own wants and needs and ambitions every single hour of every single day rather that toward perfection in Christ.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>recall saint <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Louis</span>.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>Now <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">contrast</span> this with the men that want to lead a nation that struggle with the integrity as men and FATHERS in Christ's Church to stand up for the morality of Christ...the very grace that saves them... to distinguish with moral clarity that which is true and life giving...and that which is false and brings death.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>recall saint <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Louis</span>.</div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>“Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.”- Psalm 119:165</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>--------------------------------------------------</div><div> </div><div><strong>II.</strong></div><div> from <strong>Mark 9:30-37</strong></div><div> </div><div>"They left that place and passed through Galilee. </div><div> </div><div>Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. </div><div> </div><div>He said to them, "<span style="color:#ff0000;">The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise</span>." </div><div> </div><div>But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.<br /></div><div>"Who is Greatest?"</div><div> </div><div> They came to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Capernaum</span>. </div><div> </div><div>When he was in the house, he asked them, "<span style="color:#ff0000;">What were you arguing about on the road</span>?" </div><div> </div><div>But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.<br /> </div><div>Sitting down...</div><div> </div><div>Jesus called the Twelve </div><div> </div><div>...and said, "<span style="color:#ff0000;">If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all</span>."<br /> </div><div>He took a little child and had him stand among them. </div><div> </div><div>Taking him in his arms, </div><div> </div><div>...he said to them, "<span style="color:#ff0000;">Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me</span>."</div><div> </div><div>-----------</div><div> </div><div> So here is a temptation that we all face... EGO</div><div> </div><div>But here is the whisper of truth... "<span style="color:#ff0000;">you can be like God</span>"</div><div> </div><div>----------</div><div> </div><div>The very first heresy among the Christians was a suggestion some had that Jesus only pretended to be human.</div><div> </div><div>That Jesus was in fact...a superman.</div><div> </div><div>But here is the whisper of truth... Jesus did not come to Hide who God really is...that is silly</div><div> </div><div><strong>Jesus came and revealed who God is.</strong></div><div><strong></strong> </div><div>He has real flesh.</div><div> </div><div>real <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">blood</span>.</div><div> </div><div>The cross pierced through real hands and real feet.</div><div> </div><div>He has nervous tissue</div><div> </div><div>real pain.</div><div> </div><div>He lived real life perfecting the law's of moses.</div><div> </div><div>real perfection.</div><div> </div><div>He really died, and really rose from the dead!</div><div> </div><div>REAL SALVATION!!!</div><div> </div><div>--------------------</div><div> </div><div>It is my opinion that every person that has walked the face of this planet has suffered from a messiah complex...</div><div> </div><div>all except for one man...</div><div> </div><div>and he just happened to be the Messiah.</div>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-53204194984108688972008-07-28T08:24:00.000-07:002008-07-28T13:03:55.511-07:00Apostolic successionThe world is in deep need of its savior...<br />not this guy:<br /><a href="http://www.iamlookingforjesus.com/images/jesus.jpg"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.iamlookingforjesus.com/images/jesus.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.iamlookingforjesus.com/images/jesus.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />because at the showdown...this guy is only going to let you down.<br /><br />The other day, after a relaxing morning, I was on the Internet, reading the day's news...<br /><br /><br />One of the articles I was reading featured a story about the pope's journey to The World Youth Conference in Sydney, Australia. He said that a "Spiritual Desert" has been spreading throughout the world.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"spiritual desert"...the world...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />... I couldn't help but agree<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />all that I had been struggling with about the world and people who call themselves Christian...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Jeremiah 6 and 8 times we are in...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So the Pope continued with his thoughts: "...that the young Christians of the world are charged with shedding the greed and cynicism of this present age..."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />greed...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />cynicism...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />gone! kaput!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"...for a new hope for humankind."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />He is calling out to our generation...the next group of adults to battle the spirits of the age...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"hey guys...shed the old stuff...replace it with a new hope."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Hope is new.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Hope has always been new.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />This is radical stuff.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />People have talked about hope for ages...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />but for Christians, what is our hope?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Communion in the Body of Christ.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Do we really get what that means?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Well... during prayer later that day in the shower ...(I always have my best moments of prayer in the shower)...I realized that my prayers from over a year ago are finally being answered.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"Do I really get what it means to be in communion in the Body of Christ?"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"Should I become catholic?"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>"Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings...</em><br /><br /><br /><em></em><br /><br /><br /><em>we do this, I say, by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul...</em><br /><br /><br /><em></em><br /><br /><br /><em>as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolic tradition has been preserved continuously by those who exist everywhere."</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Irenaeus</span></strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em>------------------------------------------------------------</em><br /><br /><br /><em></em><br /><br /><br />Unity in Christ.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Solidarity through Christ.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Faith in Christ.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I want to take communion in the Catholic Church.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Why?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Apostolic succession.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-----------------------------------------<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I am worn down without the Church's authority in my life. I am worn without the guidance of infallible doctrine...solid instruction and unified faith.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The protestant Christian tradition has failed to grab me with any authority in The Spirit. The best it has done is tell me how wonderful The Spirit is...but it fails to preserve any authority in The Spirit.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />For over a year, The Roman Catholic Church has been the instrument by which the Spirit has whispered its authority to me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Through the books I have read from the pope,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />movies I have watched about John Paul II,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />people I know who are catholic,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />contemplative prayer,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />liturgy of the hours,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />books about prayer written by Protestants who learned from catholics,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />books about a vision for the unified body of Christ,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />books about religious orders,<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />and through an intense study of the Book of Acts, The holy Spirit has whispered to me to unite with Catholics in faith and communion.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Then the shout came from the Pope's message to the youth in Australia. The Spirit used Him Authoritatively to grab my attention by speaking directly to what the Spirit has been laying on my heart about the spirit of this age.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The greed and cynicism...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The spiritual desert we endure day after day in this world and culture.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So on that note...I am in pursuit of the truth...Christ...and the authority he gave to His Church with the Holy Fire at <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Pentecost</span> and the laying-on of hands.<br /><br />amen.<br /><br /> Recall that Paul wept constantly over three years warning people about the false teachings and doctrines that would come.<br /><br />wept...<br /><br />for three years...<br />--------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.iamlookingforjesus.com/images/jesus.jpg"></a>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-46229952808817099132008-07-27T11:31:00.000-07:002008-07-27T13:10:42.397-07:00changin'Lots of changes in our life right now.<br /><br />This week, we are moving to Florida.<br /><br />Our daughter is teething and rolling...and fighting sleep...<br /><br />phone interviews...<br /><br />packing...<br /><br />goodbyes a plenty...<br /><br />Yep, lots of changes.<br /><br />----------------------------------<br /><br />It's stressful moving across the expanse of a continent. It's also expensive. I am reminded of Israel's move from Egypt to the Holy land. Only our desert is I-75....and our 40 years is about 24 hours of driving.<br /><br />I am experiencing this kind of anticipation that bears forth an ancy boredom... I am bored...busy but bored.<br /><br />My prayer is that I live in this moment, now. It is so easy to anticipate the future...the move...the life after the move and stop living the current life I still lead in Ohio.<br /><br />I will admit:<br /><br />I probably checked out of my life back in June when we realized our call to move.<br /><br />anticipating...<br /><br />surviving...<br /><br />what a shame...I probably missed a lot because of it.<br /><br />oh the lessons we learn...<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />It's interesting... we were at a church today... a non-denominational church. And I could not help but realize how big my problem really is...<br /><br />I was so hardened to the worship...it seemed such and extreme worship style. But it was not the inspirational kind of extreme worship...it was the seemingly fake kind of extreme worship. I stumbled all the way through it. I survived it; much like I have been surviving my life in Ohio since June.<br /><br />what a shame...I probably missed a lot because of it.<br /><br />oh the lessons we learn...<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />After over four years of prayerful introspection, I have realized the call to pursue law school...law school.<br /><br />Is this my vocational calling?<br /><br /><br />It may be.<br /><br />It also may be another means to another end.<br /><br />Whatever it may be, let it be God's will.<br /><br />I will be taking the LSAT in February and following the admissions process...<br /><br />not done with school yet...<br /><br />good times.<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />After over a year of prayerful introspection, I have realized that I am called to communion with the Roman Catholic Church... The Church.<br /><br />I will be following an adult process of indoctrination known as RCIA (The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults)...<br /><br />I will be using this blog to share my experience in The Church...praying, learning, listening.<br /><br />This is another very large change taking place in our life...<br /><br />I will share more about how I came to this call in a future post.<br /><br />I reflect directly on today's verse of the day in respect to all this change:<br /><br /><strong><em>"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."<br /></em><br />Hebrews 12:1<br /></strong><br /><br />Peace!Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-23254505591042650002008-07-20T08:00:00.000-07:002008-07-20T08:01:35.948-07:00Pope Benedict XVI is my dude!!!Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.Pope Benedict XVI gestures to pilgrims during the Final Mass at World Youth Day in Sydney.<br /> Speaking at a Mass before some 350,000 Roman Catholic pilgrims and a likely television audience of millions more, Benedict wrapped up the church's six-day World Youth Day festival. He urged the young people in his more than 1 billion-strong flock to be agents of change because "the world needs renewal.""In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," the pontiff said.The appeal came as Benedict finished a visit to Australia that touched on the themes that have defined his three-year-old papacy, including the struggle to rejuvenate a crisis-battered Church, reaching out to other faiths and raising global warming as an important issue among his 1.1 billion-strong flock. The 81-year-old pope said it was up to a new generation of Christians to build a world in "which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished -- not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed." Watch as thousands listen to the Pope's speech »They must embrace the power of God "to let it break through the curse of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age," he said.The aim was "a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deadens our souls and poisons our relationships," he said.The Mass came a day after the pope made a forceful apology for the sexual abuse of children by Australia's Roman Catholic clergy, keeping up efforts begun in the United States to publicly atone for what he called evil acts by priests.The Mass was delivered at a horse racetrack filled with pilgrims who had camped out overnight.Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said 350,000 attended Sunday's Mass. Australian organizers surmised a global television audience of up to 500 million during big World Youth Day events.Pope says sorry for 'evil' of clergy sex abuse Pope lauds apology to Aborigines Pope: I'm praying for Anglican church The pope flew over the scene early Sunday in a helicopter -- dubbed "the holy-copter" by bleary-eyed pilgrims below -- to see the assemblage swarmed all over the track in a jumble of sleeping bags, backpacks and other personal items.He later took a slow drive through the crowd, stopping once to plant a kiss on the forehead of a toddler held up to the popemobile's window. Pilgrims from more than 160 countries gave him a rock-star welcome, waving the flags of their nations, cheering and chanting: "Benedicto! Benedicto!" -- the pope's Italian name.The pope was due to leave Australia for the Vatican on Monday. He announced that Madrid, Spain, would host the next World Youth Day in 2011 and told the pilgrims: "I look forward to seeing you again in three years' time."Benedict, who shrugged off the effects of a longer-than 20-hour flight from Rome and kept a hectic schedule during his time in Australia, coughed a couple of times during Sunday's Mass and at one point blew his nose, prompting reporters to ask about his health."It was chilly, and everybody felt it, no?" Lombardi said. "But he is in fine health.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-1578690517514338282008-06-17T07:07:00.000-07:002008-06-17T07:32:17.665-07:00From the HeartMe and my family, we like to church hop. This is not because we dislike any one church, or that we reject community. In fact, what this does; it gives us eyes for a few different things about what's going on with the way people are worshiping Jesus these days.<br /><br /> One of our more recent church visits was one where the pastor's son was teaching the lesson... the prolific words he inspired his lesson? Dr. Seuss..."Oh The Places You'll Go". Profoundly lame? Actually no...it was cute. But the more I discover about today's popular churches is that they are painting a picture of Jesus to their congregations week after week. Cute little images of a Jesus; you're buddy who wants to replace your anti-depressants with his smiling face day after day.<br /><br />However, the more I follow Jesus, the less cute I think He really is. In a letter sent to the churches across asia minor, Jesus was described by the writer John as this:<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;"> "<em>His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance."</em></span></strong><br /><br />Nothing about this description sounds cute to me. In fact, it sounds scary...and it was for the writer John. The next line of his account of seeing Jesus?<br /><br /><strong><em>"When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead."</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br />The writer Paul wrote to early Christian churches is a letter, saying that they should be working out their salvation "with fear and trembling".<br /><br />Now, I do not want to suggest that I think that the Good News is fire and damnation. I am not making that assertion whatsoever. What I am simply suggesting is this: Jesus, though responsible for our salvation, is not our buddy. His is our Messiah...Lord.<br /><br />When He speaks of Himself in his encounter with John, Jesus said,<br /><br /><strong><em><span style="font-size:85%;">"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."</span> </em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br />...the almighty... all mighty...<br /><br />.....................................................................<br /><br />Along with my church hopping habit, I read a lot of Christian blogs. Some of them are inspired like someone is talking about zoloft or prozac when they talk about Jesus...others describe Jesus like an insurance policy or a 401 K...<br /><br />but then there are the Jesus people...<br />the people that talk about experiencing the kind of Jesus that is talked about in scriptures...<br />the all mighty Jesus.<br />these are the blogs I read the most.<br /><br />Here is an entry from one of my favorite ones: he starts it "<em>church was intense on sunday</em>" ...<br />very few churches I have every been to I would describe as intense!<br /><br />"<em>church was intense on sunday. we looked at how much of the bible talks about false teachers. how many of the NT books...how much of the prophets (jeremiah 23)and how appropriate it is for us to discuss the reality that there are many false doctrines out there to "tame" the Jesus whom Scripture describes into something they can use to build movement and preserve attendance and giving. Tonight, I was asked what I do "during a day". I told the dude (you are a very cool dude, btw) that today i dug footers for a deck, but on a normal day I am the pastor of a "Jesus People Church" (which is how I say that). He looked intrigued. I don't know what he was thinking, exactly, but this tends to be one of those "moments of truth", so I laid it out: We are a bunch of folks who've gotten tangled up in the Jesus that the Bible describes, who tends to be a whole lot more incredible and untame than the "Jesus that american churches dictate"... or something like that. I don't know, but lights seemed to go on. The definitely did for me, because upon returning home I realized, "That was the gospel". The good news. The good news for today is that the Jesus whom the Scriptures describe is the way out Way Out. He is the best! He is Wonderful! Counselor! Everlasting Father! Prince of Peace... of His Kingdom there's no end... and we're actually waiting for Him to return... Life begins to feel like the snowdays we used to have in NY, where I was all dressed up and ready for (hell on earth) school and the radio said I could stay home. I had TIME. And freedom. And with the Jesus that the Bible describes, you can get with him and STOP. You can turn from your ways and turn to HIM right Here and Now! No need for a uniform. No need for a pedigree! Anyone who wants OUT can have it. Just turn to Jesus and follow, leaving the old life behind... That isn't confusing when you're in the market for salvation. In the market for comfy cozy, selfish religion? you don't know what to do with the Bible Jesus. Shopping for a self-realization? forget it, Dude'll never make sense to ya! He's answering your questions with questions... but when you're on your face, gripping the edge of his robe, about to get killed with rocks for being an adulterous idiot--the Bible Jesus is the dude. He's not all, "it's okay, we all struggle..." He's like, MERCY: "...neither do i condemn you." and TRUTH: "Go and sin no more." Forgiveness and Holiness... that's the Jesus! There are just too many jesuses around! Don't settle for just any jesus, please (many will. they'll read this and go on ahead and pick a jesus--or create a new one--that suits their shopper-holics)...but please, don't settle for just any jesus. Pick out the One in Scripture... Join with others who have searched Him out. Accept no substitutes! even if that means you have to have coffee in a living room over scripture, rather than enjoy vid-screens and pop-presentations. Try not to die with regrets</em>."<br /><br />How bout dem apples?!?!?Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-86494720088164592932008-04-30T20:09:00.001-07:002008-04-30T20:09:47.218-07:00FIRST DRAFTS OF THE PARABLES OF JESUS...BY <a href="mailto:AJPACKMAN@GMAIL.COM">A.J. PACKMAN</a><br />- - - -<br />Jesus said, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."<br />One of the disciples asked, "What of the man who builds his house inside the house built on the rock? Surely his house will be even less damaged by water and wind. Is this what we should do?"<br />And Jesus said, "No, don't do that."<br />- - - -<br />At that time a man said unto Jesus, "Jesus! I do not understand the nature of the kingdom of heaven."<br />Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them went astray. He left the 99 and looked for the one until he found it. When it was found, he said to the sheep, 'That you went astray is a clear sign that you misunderstand my instructions. You are nothing to me.' And then the shepherd turned the lost sheep into a pillar of salt, because the shepherd is God in this parable, and that's the sort of thing He does when people fail to understand His Word."<br />"Wait, what?" said the man,<br />And the man became a pillar of salt.<br />- - - -<br />Then Jesus said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. Then the one inside answers, 'OK, just gimme a minute,' and he goes to one of his friends, and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of a friend of mine on a journey has come to the friend who's my friend, and that friend has nothing to set before his friend.'"<br />One of the disciples said, "Wait, doesn't the original person's friend need three loaves of bread because a friend of his friend who's on a journey has come to the friend of the original person's friend, and that friend has nothing to set before his first friend? Or is that what you just said?"<br />"It doesn't matter," said Jesus. "The point is that God can get you free bread."<br />- - - -<br />"But what do you think about this?" asked Jesus. "A man with two sons told the older boy, 'Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.' The son answered, 'No, I won't go,' but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, 'You go,' and he said, 'Yes, sir, I will.' But he didn't go. Which of the two was obeying his father?"<br />"The first!" cried some of the disciples.<br />"The second!" cried the rest of the disciples.<br />And Jesus said, "Wait, I messed this one up. Did I mention that when the first son went to work in the vineyard he killed somebody? Because that's important. So, yeah, which of the two was obeying his father?"<br />"Uh ... the first?" said some of the disciples.<br />"The second! The second!" cried the rest of the disciples.<br />And Jesus said, "Oh, cripes, also the father only has one arm. And he is riding a horse the whole time. Was that clear?"<br />One of the disciples said, "Are you sure that's not 'The Parable of the One-Armed Father Who Rode on a Horse'?"<br />And Jesus said, "Maybe you're right. OK, let's change the question: Which of the two sons was the tallest?"<br />The disciples were silent.<br />Jesus shook his head in dismay. "Have I taught you nothing?"Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-33018794041314700682008-04-29T16:28:00.000-07:002008-04-29T18:37:37.425-07:00Home...“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.”- <a title="Job 19:25" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=31&search=Job">Job 19:25</a><br /><br /><br /><br />I've been doing some reflecting these past few weeks...<br /><br /><br /><br />Perhaps as a result of having a real child depending on me and my wife for her every need.<br /><br /><br /><br />Perhaps as a result of having a real career, with real responsibilities.<br /><br /><br /><br />Perhaps as a result of having a real place in a real world in deep need of a reality check.<br /><br /><br /><br />Perhaps...<br /><br /><br /><br />Whatever the reason I have been reflecting these past few weeks, I've been doing some reflecting.<br /><br /><br /><br />....................................................<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />When I was an undergrad, I really thought that life was going to get better...or, as it were, I was going to get much better at getting close to God...closer to home.<br /><br /><br /><br />This seemed like a justifiable train of thought: with age comes wisdom right?<br /><br /><br /><br />This seemed like a true train of thought: every follower of Christ is bound for progression toward perfection right?<br /><br /><br /><br />Thus...this was believable...wisdom and progress in Christ yield growth right?... so I thought that my growth would be measured by some form of getting better at living in the real world.<br /><br /><br /><br />......................................................<br /><br /><br /><br />it was that last disclaimer ( "be measured by some form of getting better at living in the real world.") that is absolutely false. And now, here we are, picking up the pieces and asking two questions:<br /><br /><br /><br />1)why is this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">soooo</span> false?<br /><br /><br /><br />2)what the heck is growth then?<br /><br />.....................................................<br /><br />Q: why is this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">soooo</span> false?<br /><br /><br />I think the big part of my problem is this...I believed that I could make distinctions between what is true and what is false.<br /><br />often times...especially in philosophy, qualifiers like "actually know", "actually true", "really know" or "really true" etc.... presuppose that the person making the statement has the upper hand on making distinctions between what is real is what is not real....what is true and what is false...<br /><br />this normative presupposition is frowned upon, more often than not. especially in philosophy<br /><br />why?<br /><br />because it basically communicates this attitude..."I know more than you do...<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">naaah</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">nahh</span> nah <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">naaah</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">naaah</span>!!!"<br /><br />normally people do not respond well to this kind of insinuation.<br /><br />Well... like I was saying... the big part of my problem is, more often than not, I have no idea what is true and what is false...<br /><br />the basic human response to this situation is...making stuff up.<br /><br />ex. 1<br /><br />"the moon is made of cheese."<br /><br /><br />it turns out that this assertion, believed by many for decades, is entirely false.<br /><br />most evidence suggests that the moon is made of rock, not cheese.<br /><br />However, before we as a people possessed any such evidence, the moon was edible...<br /><br />ex. 2<br /><br />"the world is flat."<br /><br />again, it turns out that this assertion, thought believed by many for centuries, is entirely false.<br /><br />most evidence suggests that the earth is actually a spheroid, not flat.<br /><br />However, before we as a people possessed evidence, the earth was a Frisbee with monsters in the seas...<br /><br />....................................<br /><br />despite the simplistic examples...<br /><br />if we don't have answers, we get creative...<br /><br />Some have suggested that the idea of God is the greatest and most complex example of this human folly.<br /><br />I would like to humbly suggest that the idea of the "real world" is ACTUALLY the greatest and most complex example of this human folly.<br /><br />....................................<br /><br />and here's why<br /><br />"properly speaking, there is no certainty.<br /><br />there are only people who are certain."<br /><br />I will site myself as an example.<br /><br />ask me what I know...I could talk and talk and talk...to the point that I have even convinced myself that I might actually know what I am talking about....but really, deep down, I am simply just piecing what I have experienced together is some way that I would say is coherent.<br /><br />Is coherence truth?<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">hmm</span>... I am going to leave that one open.<br /><br /><br />but when I really do take stock of what I know...or what I think I should know, only one thing really sticks out...<br /><br />Jesus.<br /><br />That's it.<br /><br />Maybe I am just totally off on this one...which wouldn't be anything new for me, but the only thing I really know is Jesus.<br /><br />..........................................<br /><br />For a while this past winter, when life was really just way more stressful and demanding than I could have ever imagined I came to a certain realization under all the pressure:<br /><br />"Jason, Jesus is more real than this....Jason, Jesus is more real than that..."<br /><br />and it just kept going, eventually to the point where I realized that Jesus was more of a vibrant reality than any situation that I faced under the stress of my day.<br /><br />I was in a crowded auditorium in Cleveland and Rob Bell was on stage and he started repeating these words and they broke me down...<br /><br />"you don't have to live like this...you don't have to live like this....you don't have to live like this"<br /><br />................................................................<br /><br />So back to Jesus...<br /><br />The scriptures suggest that He came to earth...and conquered it... even death...<br /><br />and while doing all this, he kept telling everyone, "Truly, truly I tell you...the Kingdom is at hand...receive me."<br /><br />"truly truly you didn't have to <em>go</em> home...home has come to you...receive it."<br /><br />basically, to me, he was saying, "Jason...you don't have to know anything...just receive me."<br /><br />...............................................................<br /><br /><br />The reason why ("be measured by some form of getting better at living in the real world.") is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">soooo</span> false is this...<br /><br />Jesus already beat the idea of measuring up to the "real world".<br /><br />Why try to beat God at what He can only do?<br /><br />real growth...the kind Jesus suggests...the kind God suggests to Israel in Torah is toward living in Him...not in the world.<br /><br />This is why it is so important that the disciples understand that they are going to suffer in world, that they are going to be persecuted, just like Christ himself...<br /><br />because though they are still in the world, they are no longer of the world...their Spirit is set free to a residence outside the limits of human knowledge and laws...set free to go home to the Body of the unsearchable Christ...at home in the Kingdom of God.<br /><br />So what the heck is growth?<br /><br />Real growth is being more and more at Home in Christ...and less and less at home in the world.<br /><br />hmmm...<br /><br />Welcome Home.<br /><br />“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.”- <a title="Job 19:25" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=31&search=Job">Job 19:25</a>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-6308601338947181812008-04-20T00:52:00.000-07:002008-04-20T01:10:43.929-07:00ArtificialI had an awesome conversation with my wife in the car yesterday.<br /><br />We talked about manipulation...<br /><br />How we used to manipulate...how we still have the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">tendency</span> to do so<br /><br />How Jesus calls us to truth.<br /><br />How manipulation is predicated on <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">artificiality</span>..<br /><br />In reflecting on this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">convo</span>, which rocks my socks, I have some thoughts.<br /><br />Manipulation, at its core for me was to get the negative off me to some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">externality</span>, so I look good, despite who it hurts... even if it hurts me in the long run.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Short term fix:Immediate gratification... "Me Get ...NOW"<br /><br />This usually came with some lies...some embellishments on facts...and an academy nominated acting performance.<br /><br />.......................................<br /><br />so my reflection... if getting immediate gratification is linked to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">artificiality</span>...immediate gratification is not linked to the truth Jesus calls us to.<br /><br />Check this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">vid</span>... and really listen... (<a href="http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00044">http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">pid</span>=V00044</a>)<br /><br />.......................................<br /><br />in a logical progression, a logical conclusion to this series is that, insofar as "me get..now" equals false. And insofar as Jesus equals truth... then..."me get...now" and anything linked to it does not equal Jesus...<br /><br />So what does Jesus equal?<br /><br />...you guessed it...<br /><br />self-sacrifice.<br /><br />More and more i think when he said "truly, truly I tell you...", he meant it...<br /><br />excellent.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-16906628163539148742008-04-13T10:26:00.000-07:002008-04-13T10:58:00.720-07:00Be Ye Certain?Once upon a time there was a dude with a french name, in a french place, talking about french things...<br /><br />His name was Charles <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Renouvier</span>, philosopher.<br /><br />As a philosopher, I try to stay away from <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">soundbite</span> wisdom.<br /><br />However, this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">frenchy</span> dude rocked out a quote that shakes the foundations of human understanding...<br /><br />"Properly speaking, there is no certainty; there are only people who are certain."<br /><br /><br />now... the really depressing thing about philosophy is that it is an entirely lonely activity. very few people care about certainty...they live their lives and that's all they need to worry about, talk about.<br /><br />We talk about things people don't talk about...not because it's dirty or a secret...not because we have bigger brains or perceptive abilities... but because we care about knowing...<br /><br />is there more to this life?<br /><br />is there more to this thought?<br /><br />is there more to asking this question than the question itself?<br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />"He starts drawing again.<br /><br />'But what if it went the other way?<br /><br /><br />This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son.<br /><br />Inside that circle is another one<br /><br />... the church...<br /><br />God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world.<br /><br />And inside that is a small circle, which is your self.<br /><br />It's not about the church meeting your needs<br /><br />...it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs...'"<br /><br /><br />I know this may not seem like a big deal.<br /><br />To many people, certainty aside, life is life.<br /><br />For me, our lack of certainty is a deep hope.<br /><br />It reveals that there is more mystery to our time breathing than what we could ever imagine.<br /><br />Think about the bible as a certainty.<br /><br />Now recall <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Renouvier</span>, "Properly speaking, there is no certainty; there are only people who are certain."<br /><br />Do you think anyone has ever figured out the bible to a certainty?<br /><br />Well...some have tried...<br /><br />The most recent <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">demonstration</span> of such attempt ended with a raid on an El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Paso</span> compound filled with people certain that <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">polygamy</span> is God's will.<br /><br />I know for me, the more I read scripture and the more I live and sow in Spiritual things, the more I realize I don't know.<br /><br />...This stuff can not be figured out...<br /><br />This doesn't mean I give up. It means I keep sowing...keep talking...keep thinking... keep interacting.<br /><br />Why?<br />Because in this interaction with uncertainty is an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">infinite</span> space between God and Me .<br /><br />... mystery...<br /><br />but it's a space that grows me fond with the Spirit.<br /><br />In an echo of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Renouvier</span>, the Bells describe it. After launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. "Life in the church had become so small," Kristen says. "It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working." The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—"discovering the Bible as a human product," as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. "The Bible is still in the center for us," Rob says, "but it's a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it."Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-80849413131813556962008-04-11T14:55:00.000-07:002008-04-11T15:22:09.811-07:00business plan: flexSo...<br /><br />after some killer Greek cuisine...<br /><br />Me, my wife, my daughter...<br /><br />on a Friday afternoon decide to stop into a coffee shop in old white church...steeple<br /><br />and everything.<br /><br /><br />We meet Eric, business owner.<br /><br />Our first encounter in a place centered around a stage...a stage centered around a local artist's portrait of Jesus... leather couches everywhere...local art decorating the 20' tall walls, floor to ceiling<br /><br />The whole place was a celebration of pure human expression centered around Jesus.<br /><br />I couldn't help but reflect briefly:<br /><br />art...around couches...around a stage...around Jesus<br /><br />I say to Eric, "Eric, I've been to a lot of coffee shops in my day, but yours really typifies the coffee shop culture to a tee!"<br /><br />Eric: "Thanks, I'd love to take the credit but it kind of evolved on it's own..."<br /><br />Then he defined business in a way the blew my mind: "...A business plan is a declaration of flexibility. You make your plan, then it makes itself as the community evolves in it."<br /><br />His coffee house is named "Espresso Yourself" ...smart...<br /><br /><br /><br />Rewind....<br /><br />This past fall, My wife and I were sitting in a huge auditorium with about 7,000 other people listening to Rob Bell talk about Jesus as a crux, or core of human expression.<br /><br />"Some people paint a picture, some people write a song, some people give their time and affection..."<br /><br /><br />Well... I'd like to personally thank Eric for giving his local community a gift...<br /><br />a business plan, that filled and old church building, that made itself as the community evolved in it , that became what it was on a friday afternoon in April:<br /><br />a celebration centered around a Jesus.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-13553067408520443912008-04-06T06:55:00.000-07:002008-04-06T07:22:58.450-07:00ARRANGEDSo, last night...<br /><br /> Me, My wife, My daughter...<br /><br /><br /> On the couch after some awesome filet mignon wrapped in bacon!<br /><br /> <br /> A movie swoops in from out of nowhere (well...blockbuster)<br /><br /> "Arranged"<br /><br />it's a story that is created like a fine soup...and the stalk is most definately Jesus...in the form of love.<br /><br /> So we are watching this movie, and despite the ignorance of the side characters in the film, and perhaps even a little of our own, a friendship blossoms in the midst of an orthodox jew and muslim who are school teachers together at a NY public school, and who also happened to be in the midst of their traditions' respective arranged marriage processes...(which actually aren't as arranged as they seem) Rocks my socks!<br /><br />Family structure: at one point can be so wonderful and rewarding...at another can be oppressive and against all intuition or spirit of truth.<br /><br />Which brings me to what the tangent thought the film caused in me:<br /><br /> Governemt structure: at one point can be so wonderful and rewarding...at another can be oppressive and against all intuition or spirit of truth.<br /><br /><br />ex.<br /><br /> Often through discussions I had in the midst of my philosophical education, a regular question was posed:<br /><br /> How ought any nation condone something like ...a golden calf ...a profiteering temple structure...a crucifiction...a cival war...a holocaust...a war?<br /><br /> I think this film gives some insight:<br /><br /> How ought any person condone something like...an arranged marriage...a profiteering father...a racist...a failing religious structure...the disowning of family members...violence?Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-7379535900367825352007-11-14T14:47:00.000-08:002007-11-14T16:25:54.790-08:00"Too much" 1 Peter for a weak stomach003| Jason C. Staas<br /><br />So today: Flu-like stuff...you know. Good times.<br /><br />So I started the day, in a steady recovery on my couch, reading Chapter one of "Go in Peace; A Gift of Enduring Love" By John Paul II. Chapter one is on Prayer. Which is awesome...the chapter, prayer, the book. But after that and some deep prayer and thought about my role as a believer in the Communion of Saints, I shifted gears to watch the Mel Gibson production "Apocalypto" which was, at times, very troubling. But it makes you think, like any good cinematic art. Which was good, for me...when that is one of the few things flu-like stuff does not stop you from doing.<br /><br />Anyway, in the credits after the movie I saw the words "In memory of Abel"...<br /><br />I did a double take...<br /><br />Abel?<br /><br />Yep, Abel. Somehow a movie themed in Mayan culture and turmoil was "In memory of Abel"... not real sure how....<br /><br />Abel, the second-born son of Adam, murdered in the fields by his brother Cain...the one's who even after death still speaks through the faithfulness of his sacrifices... the one whose blood cries out in from the earth... somehow a movie about a Mayan guy struggling in some of the worst ways to regain his freedom and rescue his wife and children was in memory of Abel...<br /><br />so then I really started thinking...<br /><br />then I dove into 1 Peter...I mean the bibles were out because I was looking up everything in scripture referencing Abel... so the obvious next step is 1 Peter.<br /><br />So... a lot of background on 1 Peter is in order.<br /><br />Well... first step: who wrote 1 Peter? Was it Peter as in the Disciple and Apostle of Christ?<br /><br />Some say yes. It was Peter. I mean...some really advanced and well-polished Greek especially for a Jewish fisherman. But definitely Peter.<br /><br />Others say partially. It was Peter, but with the scribe talents of Silas (aka Silvanus (see Mark 5:12-13)) at his disposal. Which is possible. I mean...some really advanced pastoral reflections written in some really advanced idiomatic Greek by an advanced Christ-follower and an advanced Greek Scribe that were noted for spending great amounts of time and travel in each other's company. Definitely Peter and Silas.<br /><br />Still, others say no. It was not Peter. Rather, it was someone very familiar with Peter and his ministry and teachings...maybe even one of his disciples... who was also very proficient as a Greek scribe. But Definitely not Peter. (We will talk more about this next when I talk about <span style="font-style: italic;">when</span> 1 Peter was written).<br /><br />So who <span style="font-style: italic;">wrote</span> 1 Peter? Well... Peter, maybe/ sort-of.<br /><br />Next step: When was 1 Peter written?<br /><br />Well...some say that if Peter wrote it, then it was no sooner than 60 CE...<br /><br />Why no sooner than 60 CE? Well, some of the specific cross-references of Paul and Mark and Silvanus specifically 1 Thess 1:1 and Philem 24 happened after 60 CE and could not have been accurately rendered any sooner than there actual happenings.<br /><br /> ... some say that if Peter wrote it, then it was no later than 68 CE...<br /><br />Why no later than 68 CE? Well, Peter died, was martyred, in 68 CE. So if he wrote it, it could not have been after his martyrdom, right?<br /><br />So there we have it? Between 60 and 68 CE?<br /><br />Good enough for green eggs and ham. But for some biblical scholars, green eggs and ham is not on the menu.<br /><br />Yep. There is more debate.<br /><br /> ... those people that I mentioned before that do not believe that Peter wrote it, they are the same people that think that 1 Peter was written in the last decade of the first century CE...<br /><br />so why between 90 and 100 CE? Well, "the situation indirectly described by the letter, however, points to a time after Peter's death. The language, style, content, and thought world seem inappropriate to Peter the Galilean fisherman and missionary to the Jews (Gal 2:9). The excellent and sophisticated Greek, the lack of references to the life and teaching of the earthly Jesus, the christological emphasis on the cosmic Christ, and the address to Gentile Christians who had previously lived a sinful, idolatrous life (1:14,18,21;2:1,9-11,25;4:3) point to a disciple of Peter writing in the name of the revered apostle. Thus most critical scholars interpret the document as a letter from the last decade of the first century CE, written in Peter's name in order to claim that its teaching represented the apostolic faith." (More on that, next, when I talk about where it was written)<br /><br />So <span style="font-style: italic;">when</span> was 1 Peter written? Well..either between 60- 68 CE or 90-100 CE.<br /><br />Third step in getting a lot of background in 1 Peter: Where was it written from?<br /><br /> Well...the same people that believe Peter, or Peter and Silas wrote 1 Peter, they are the same people that think 1 Peter was written from "Babylon" (5:13) as in either:<br /><br /> a) Egyptian Babylon (A small-town, military outpost)<br /> b) Mesopotamian Babylon (actual Babylon)<br /> <br /> Why not Rome? Well...there are a few people in this group that consider it possible that the common cryptogram for Rome from the late first century CE was used but these people fall into some trouble in the debate over who wrote 1 Peter and when it was written. Why? Well...this cryptogram was not a true cryptogram in popular sense until Revelation was written. Revelation was written in the midst of last decade in the first century CE. Peter was a martyr and it was no longer between 60 and 68 CE in the late 1st century CE. That's why.<br /><br /> However, the people that believe that Peter did not write 1 Peter are the people that believe that this cryptogram is exactly what would have been used to say "Rome" late in the first century CE. They suppose that "the letter itself indicates it was written by a presbyter (elder; 5:1) of the Roman church - the "Babylon"of 5:13 was a common cryptogram for Rome at the end of the first century (see, for instance, Rev 17:5,9; 18:2,10,21)."<br /><br />so where was 1 Peter written from? Who knows...He says Babylon. Think what you want.<br /><br />Step four: Who was it written to?<br /><br /> This is the one thing we can all agree on...it is quite specifically described in 1:1-2.<br />So we are left to discuss that it was probably intended as a circulated pastoral letter to be used to encourage, direct and unify Christians living throughout Asia-minor. A people who considered themselves to be "People temporarily residing on earth whose home is in heaven." (1 Peter 1:1, Chr 29:15, Ps 39:12, Heb 13:14)<br /><br />So with all this in mind, we are given some relative lenses with which to understand at different perspectives, as best we can, 1 Peter.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-61663570492317414912007-11-07T15:55:00.000-08:002007-11-07T16:55:28.837-08:00Leaving "well enough"002| The Jason... of the Staas'<br /><br />Yes. Hello. This is my big kid blog. I have been doodling around here for a few months as I arranged some major pieces pertaining to facts 'about my life'. I guess you could say that we all do this ...every day of our lives...you know, change the facts about the life we live...<br /><br />stuff about life?<br /><br />hmm... okay.<br /><br />Well, anyway... this is a place where I should come from time to time to share thoughts about life (mine and others). Some people...well most people...well, all people...(it's a people thing)...will want to fit this blog into a category. Yes. People love categories. I sure do. And I am a person. And yes, this blog too shall be categorized. But don't do that just yet. I will beg you...hold off from stuffing this blog into another category for just a few more lines.<br /><br />First, I will tell you what this blog is not...and maybe after some time...we can shed some light on what this blog actually (dare I use the word?) ...is<br /><br />Today. I will discuss how this blog is not a blog.<br /><br />Okay... so I actually have no idea where the word blog came from. I think that I could find out in a matter of 3 seconds upon google search, however, I frankly just don't care. This is why I can not be creating a blog here. I don't care to blog. I don't even know what a blog is... I know there are things in the world web that people call "blog" but I am not formally certain of what all goes into that.<br />I am formally certain however of what my impulses are as a person (good and bad). One of my most foundational good/bad impulses is an urge and(at times...) ability to create stuff...usually words in the forms of sentences that glued together might fall upon some accidental meaning from time to time. The key word about this..."accidental"<br /><br />Yep...videos, words, links, lighthouses, greek words and catchy color schemes all ...accidental<br /><br />Have you ever heard the term "shotgun" used in relation to constructing meaning? Perhaps you have heard someone use it in relation to an essay test they just took:<br /><br />"dude...seriously, how did you get an 'A' on that freakin' test?"<br />"I don't know, I just kind of 'shotgunned' it"<br /><br />...huh?<br /><br />Okay, "shotgunning" is another term for "bullshitting". I'll be honest. I should be one of the first to know all about that. My whole life, I have been a bullshitter...excuse me...a 'shotgunner'. I majored in it in undergrad. Some call it 'philosophy'. I call it 'managing to talk about random stuff you know nothing about and sound like you have a single clue what you are talking about'.<br /><br />seriously, I'll save you the trouble of going to college and wasting tons of cash on a philosophy degree. Name a thing from the group I just called "random stuff"... you name it...religion, science, even poetry, business, politics ...whatever...you name it and chances are that some people sat around in a room and talked about it calling what they were doing 'legitimate philosophizing'.<br /><br />ha.<br /><br />Well, this is certainly not legitimate. It is a shotgun attempt at accidentally nabing pieces of truth... little bursts of light in a world of darkness.<br /><br />Because I know one thing for sure. The Holy Spirit does not work through the people that take credit for everything they do ...accidentally.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-56927302383653499802007-10-11T16:39:00.000-07:002007-10-11T16:40:13.052-07:00The Emergent Mystique<div class="title"><br /></div> <div class="byline"><span class="text2">001| </span><b>Andy Crouch</b><span class="text2"></span></div><br /><p class="text"><b>O</b>ne spring sunday morning, I was on my way to visit Mars Hill Bible Church, one of the largest and youngest churches in the country, with 10,000 meeting weekly for worship in a converted mall outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. As I took the freeway exit, unsure of the exact directions, I noticed a bumper sticker on the car in front of me. "Love wins," it said, in distressed white type on a black background. In the rear window was a decal with an intricate pattern—half Art Deco, half Goth tattoo—that incorporated a cross and a fish.</p><p class="text">Neither the bumper sticker nor the tattoo-decal alone would have induced me to set aside my hastily scribbled directions and simply follow the car straight to the Mars Hill parking lot. But I knew I'd found my mark when I saw the passenger lower the sun visor, look into the makeup mirror, and meticulously adjust his hair.</p><p class="text">Gentlemen, start your hair dryers—not since the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s has a Christian phenomenon been so closely entangled with the self-conscious cutting edge of U.S. culture. Frequently urban, disproportionately young, overwhelmingly white, and very new—few have been in existence for more than five years—a growing number of churches are joining the ranks of the "emerging church." </p><p class="text">Like all labels, this one conceals as much as it reveals. But the phrase "emerging church" captures several important features of a new generation of churches. They are works in progress, often startlingly improvisational in their approach to everything from worship to leadership to preaching to prayer. Like their own members, they live in the half-future tense of the young, oriented toward their promise rather than their past. But if their own focus is on what they are "emerging" toward, perhaps most surprising are the places they are emerging from.</p><span class="subhead">Weak Is the New Strong</span><br /><p class="text"> Mars Hill's teaching pastor, Rob Bell, hair tousled and reddish brown, hops on stage in the center of what must have been the mall's anchor store. The huge space has been redecorated in utilitarian gray; a wooden cross reaches from floor to ceiling. Communion elements—the broken crackers and grape juice that are standard issue at Bible churches of every generation—are set at its base.</p><p class="text">Bell is almost certainly the only pastor to have begun a megachurch-planting career with a sermon series from the book of Leviticus. Today Bell's text—the story of Jesus rebuking Peter for drawing his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane—is more conventional. Bell has the comic timing, the charisma, and the confidence you'd expect from someone who speaks to thousands every week. And he has a gift for the preacher's memorable phrase. "Swords appear strong," Bell says, "but they're actually quite weak. Jesus appears weak, but he's actually quite strong." Inviting his congregation to embrace weakness, referring to Paul's words about his own infirmity in 2 Corinthians, Bell takes up a refrain: "Weak is the new strong." </p><p class="text">It's a pithy way of describing Jesus' upside-down kingdom, and it's a striking way of introducing a Communion service at the foot of a large cross. But "Weak is the new strong" is also an allusion to fashion-industry dictates like "Gray is the new black." Bell is both echoing and subverting a fashion-driven culture of cool. You could say that he puts the <i>hip</i> in <i>discipleship</i>.</p><p class="text">Clearly cultural relevance was part of the reason for planting a church whose worship team requires a bass player who can play "in the style of Jimmy Eat World and Coldplay." No generation has ever been more alert to such nuances than the media-fed children of the 1980s and '90s, who can sense uncoolness at a thousand paces. As Rob Bell's wife, Kristen, tells CT in a joint interview after the service, "It's a cultural jump for our friends to come to church. It's a cultural jump for us, and we grew up in the church."</p><p class="text">But it quickly becomes clear that these Wheaton College sweethearts have more on their minds than just cultural adaptation. "This is not just the same old message with new methods," Rob says. "We're rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don't deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don't speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God."</p><p class="text">In fact, as the Bells describe it, after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. "Life in the church had become so small," Kristen says. "It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working." The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—"discovering the Bible as a human product," as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. "The Bible is still in the center for us," Rob says, "but it's a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it."</p><p class="text">"I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible," Kristen says, "that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again—like life used to be black and white, and now it's in color."</p><p class="text">The more I talk with the Bells, the more aware I am that they are telling me a conversion narrative—not a story of salvation in the strict sense, but of having been delivered from a small life into a big life. The Bells, who flourished at evangelical institutions from Wheaton to Fuller Theological Seminary to Grand Rapids's Calvary Church before starting Mars Hill, were by their own account happy and successful young evangelicals. Yet that very world, as the Bells tell it, became constricting—in Kristen's phrase, "black and white." </p><p class="text">An earlier generation of evangelicals, forged in battles with 20th-century liberalism, prided themselves on avoiding theological shades of gray, but their children see black, white, and gray as all equally unlifelike. They are looking for a faith that is colorful enough for their culturally savvy friends, deep enough for mystery, big enough for their own doubts. To get there, they are willing to abandon some long-defended battle lines.</p><p class="text">"Weak is the new strong," it turns out, is not just Rob Bell's knowing reference to the world of fashion, nor just his clever reframing of Paul's message of Christlike life. It's a roadmap for a new way of doing church, even a big church. </p><p class="text">And how did the Bells find their way out of the black-and-white world where they had been so successful and so dissatisfied? "Our lifeboat," Kristen says, "was <span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span>." </p><span class="subhead">A Story of Two Friends</span><br /><p class="text"> Brian McLaren is not particularly young—he was born in 1956—and he doesn't have cool hair, if only because he has very little hair at all. With his blue-jeans-and-Birkenstocks dress code and a middle-age paunch, he looks like a suburban, nondenominational pastor who came of age playing the guitar for youth ministry meetings in the 1970s. </p><p class="text">Which is exactly what he is. Yet he is also the de facto spiritual leader for the emerging church, thanks to his indefatigable speaking and writing schedule that produced, among his many books, 2001's <span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span>.</p><p class="text"><span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span> became influential not just because of its content but also its form. McLaren cast the book as a story of two friends, a disillusioned evangelical pastor named Dan Poole and an enigmatic high school science teacher nicknamed Neo. On the brink of despair with his own ministry, Dan is led by Neo—who turns out to be a lapsed pastor himself—through a series of set pieces that introduce the initially skeptical Dan to a "postmodern" approach to Christianity. </p><p class="text">The modern period of history, as Neo tells it, is coming to an end. We are entering "postmodernity," an as-yet ill-defined borderland in which central modern values like objectivity, analysis, and control will become less compelling. They are superseded by postmodern values like mystery and wonder. The controversial implication is that forms of Christianity that have thrived in modernity—including Dan's evangelicalism—are unlikely to survive the transition.</p><p class="text">McLaren managed to connect abstruse concepts of intellectual and social history to a visceral sense of disillusionment among evangelical pastors. Dan's dissatisfaction with ministry, in McLaren's telling, was not primarily a faith problem, a psychological problem, or a sociological problem. It was a philosophical problem—the result of a way of thinking that was no longer adequate. Pastors who would have had a hard time seeing the relevance of postmodernism could suddenly envision it as the key to finding, as the book's jacket put it, "spiritual renewal for those who thought they had given up on church."</p><p class="text">The book generated an outpouring of intensely personal response. To this day McLaren continues to receive grateful e-mails from readers. The book also confirmed the intuitions of many who sensed that major changes were under way in the culture. By offering a fundamentally hopeful, rather than despairing or defensive, reading of those changes, McLaren staked out an attractive position for young people like Rob and Kristen Bell.</p><p class="text">But <span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span> has also attracted plenty of critics. The most persistent question they raise is whether "modern" and "postmodern" can be divided so cleanly. Wheaton College philosopher Mark Talbot points out that skepticism about values like objectivity, analysis, and control was already present in Enlightenment figures like David Hume. Meanwhile, Talbot says, "the great irony is that by giving us these sharp categories of 'modern' and 'postmodern' ways of thinking, McLaren is doing the very sort of categorization he describes, and implicitly condemns, as modern."</p><p class="text">The point Talbot and others make is not just a matter of quibbling over definitions. If a self-avowed postmodern Christian can't differentiate himself from the moderns he is critiquing, perhaps the divide between modernity and postmodernity is less like the San Andreas Fault and more like a crack in the sidewalk. And if there is no massive change under way in the culture, why make a case for a massive change in the church?</p><span class="subhead">Envisioning a Postmodern Church</span><br /><p class="text"> The real significance of <span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span>, though, may be not its answers but its openness to questions that are clearly widespread. </p><p class="text">Even now McLaren resists calling Emergent, the emerging church network that he and several other church planters and pastors lead, a "movement," with that word's connotations of a clear leadership and agenda.</p><p class="text">"Right now Emergent is a conversation, not a movement," he says. "We don't have a program. We don't have a model. I think we must begin as a conversation, then grow as a friendship, and see if a movement comes of it." </p><p class="text">Yet recently McLaren has started to sketch the outlines of his vision of a postmodern church. He sketches a big circle labeled "self," a smaller circle next to it labeled "church," and a tiny circle off to the side labeled "world." </p><p class="text">"This has been evangelicalism's model," he says. "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved'—in old-style evangelicalism—or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs. Once your needs are met, then we think about how you can serve the church. And then, if there's anything left over, we ask how the church might serve the world."</p><p class="text">He starts drawing again. "But what if it went the other way? This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son. Inside that circle is another one, the church, God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world. And inside that is a small circle, which is your self. It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."</p><p class="text">With his circle diagrams, McLaren is popularizing the work of the late British missionary Lesslie Newbigin, who returned from a lifetime in India to spend his last years reflecting on the need for a new theology of mission. "According to Newbigin, the greatest heresy in monotheism is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election," McLaren says. "Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses to be part of his crisis-response team to bring healing to the world."</p><p class="text">McLaren doesn't just want to turn the doctrine of election upside down (or, as Newbigin argued, right side up)—he has questions about other cherished words in the evangelical vocabulary. </p><p class="text">"I don't think we've got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be 'saved'? When I read the Bible, I don't see it meaning, 'I'm going to heaven after I die.' Before modern evangelicalism nobody accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or walked down an aisle, or said the sinner's prayer."</p><p class="text">It's not that McLaren is interested in joining the liberal side of modern Protestantism. "I don't think the liberals have it right. But I don't think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy."</p><p class="text">Comments like these make many evangelicals nervous. It doesn't help that postmodernism, in the popular imagination, often amounts to pure skepticism about getting anything "right" at all. How can a worldview built on critiquing—or in the postmodern argot, deconstructing—concepts like orthodoxy and salvation be faithful to the gospel? What makes the emerging church's dissatisfaction with traditional Christianity any different from that of liberal Protestantism, which embraced the culture's values only to wither as the culture changed a generation later?</p><p class="text">Yet there are real differences between emerging-church leaders like McLaren and those who led the charge for liberal Christianity. Liberalism flourished in a time of Christian cultural dominance, and was championed by leaders eager to keep pace with modern culture. McLaren and his companions tend to be children of notably conservative churches—in McLaren's case, the Plymouth Brethren—who have never enjoyed, nor aspired to, cultural power. They are also evangelists who care passionately about reaching the unchurched.</p><p class="text">McLaren describes his dissatisfaction when he first became a pastor: "My gifts were in evangelism, but I was spending all my time with Christians. Then I encountered Rick Warren and his conviction that the church could be evangelistic. We decided to take 10 months to regroup. Then we reconstituted the church with about 80 Christians—and in a year or so, another hundred previously unchurched people joined us."</p><p class="text">If critics overlook the evangelistic energy of the emerging church, they also often lump together two very different kinds of postmodern thought. The most notorious postmodern thinkers have been the "deconstructionists"—French intellectuals like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who seek to show that the cherished ideals of Western society (and Christian faith) are fatally compromised by internal contradictions.</p><p class="text">But another stream, less well-known outside universities and seminaries, has taken dissatisfaction with modernity in a more constructive direction. It is these thinkers—the late philosopher Michael Polanyi and Notre Dame professor Alasdair MacIntyre, along with theologians like Newbigin—who are gaining the attention of the emerging church's more theologically inclined leaders. </p><p class="text">From Newbigin, McLaren has drawn the idea of the church as "missional"—oriented toward the needs of the world rather than oriented towards its own preservation. From Polanyi and MacIntyre, he concludes that the emerging church must be "monastic"—centered on training disciples who practice, rather than just believe, the faith. </p><p class="text">He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church. None of these thinkers has any inclination to throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of modernity. </p><p class="text">Indeed, these constructive postmodernists have been read and appreciated in many evangelical seminaries for years—but their ideas have been more often appreciated than applied. McLaren's innovation was to ask what it would mean to actually live out their ideas in a local church. Like Rob and Kristen Bell, he is passionate about the Good News. He just wonders if there is more to that Good News than evangelicals have yet imagined.</p><span class="subhead">Cultural Collision</span><br /><p class="text"> At the Emergent Convention in Nashville in April, it becomes clear that McLaren's insistence that "Emergent is not a movement" is not false modesty. </p><p class="text">In the cavernous hall of the Nashville Convention Center, jerky loops of handheld video—an urban streetscape, an artist at work, a cross-country ski trail—play continuously on three separate screens throughout each general session. On one side of the room, the ancient and currently fashionable tradition of a prayer labyrinth has been revived, with the addition of bicycles. </p><p class="text">At the opening session, Youth Specialties president Mark Oestreicher (hair: two-tone wavy locks) urges attendees to come and go at will, cheerfully undermining the credibility of the proceedings: "A lot of what conference speakers say is not really true—they take 20 years of reality and turn it into 90 minutes of unreality." </p><p class="text">Thus prepared, the 800 conference-goers do indeed wander in and out through the videos, poetry, worship music, and plenary speakers, chatting on their cell phones in aimless motion. Like so much of American mass media culture, the overall effect is undeniably cool, but also seemingly designed to aggravate—if not generate—attention deficit disorder.</p><p class="text">At the Emergent Convention, emerging theology and emerging culture don't so much coexist as collide, thanks to the somewhat uneasy partnership between Emergent and Youth Specialties. During one particularly experimental worship session, featuring a well-known British dj (hair: spiked) whose pulsating techno music (complete lyrics: "It's just you and God") builds to a climax that would have played well in pagan Corinth, I find Brian McLaren outside the convention hall. </p><p class="text">"I hate it," he says ruefully of the worship music. Another Emergent leader tells a seminar, "The general sessions are a betrayal of everything Emergent stands for." </p><p class="text">The truth is that the convention makes it difficult to tell what Emergent does stand for. Even the invited guests seem bewildered. Plenary speaker Robert Webber, whose book <span class="citation">The Younger Evangelicals</span> celebrates the emerging church, is clearly taken aback by what he sees: "They claim to be rejecting the last 30 years of evangelicalism—and they're repeating the last 30 years of evangelicalism."</p><p class="text">Twentysomething writer Lauren Winner, dismayed by the video loops playing incessantly behind her during her address, tells me, "I feel so alienated from my generation."</p><span class="subhead">Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow?</span><br /><p class="text">Any movement—or conversation—that can inspire such ambivalence, even among its friends, has an uncertain future. Nor is it easy to quantify the emerging church's present. </p><p class="text">McLaren guesses that "only a few dozen" churches across the country are fully committed to the theological journey he sketched in <span class="citation">A New Kind of Christian</span>. Even Rob Bell did not start that journey until after founding Mars Hill Bible Church. The number of churches whose pastors have cool hair is, of course, much larger—but hardly qualifies as a single movement any more than the number of churches whose pastors wear ties. For the moment, as the Emergent Convention demonstrates, the confusion of style and substance makes for strange bedfellows.</p><p class="text">Meanwhile, McLaren's fellow travelers—whether they are dozens or, as Emergent book sales would suggest, tens of thousands—are not the only Christians responding to the challenges of postmodern culture. Manhattan's Redeemer Presbyterian Church attracts several thousand culturally savvy young people with unapologetically Reformed preaching and worship, and churches inspired by Redeemer are thriving in several cities on both coasts. </p><p class="text">Catholic journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell has documented the rise of "the new faithful," a growing group of young Americans, often drawn from the same locations and vocations as the emerging church, who are embracing orthodoxy without McLaren's qualifiers. </p><p class="text">Implicitly responding to Emergent's disaffection with modern evangelicalism, in March the National Association of Evangelicals attracted more than 200 "young evangelicals" to the inaugural meeting of a network led by Carolyn Haggard, the niece of NAE president Ted Haggard. The 23-year-old Wellesley College graduate says, "The Bible has been relevant for 2,000 years, and popular culture isn't really going to change that. Saying that we're cooler than the generation before, we're more savvy, and we're obviously more intellectual than the generation before—that's not something we'd be at all interested in promoting."</p><p class="text">So Emergent has no lock on the next generation. In this respect it may prove no different from the previous Christian movement characterized by male hair, the Jesus Movement. It coexisted, often uneasily, with more cautious expressions of church, was animated by a combination of beautiful ideals and foolish ideas, and ultimately merged into an evangelical mainstream that had adapted to its presence. </p><p class="text">But the Jesus Movement, largely composed of converts, was generally unconcerned with theology. Emergent, whose leaders are evangelicalism's own sons and daughters, may yet contribute something more profound than one more fleeting form of cultural relevance.</p><p class="text">At least that's what Rob Bell hopes. "People don't get it," he told me. "They think it's about style. But the real question is: What is the gospel?" </p><p class="text">That question, of course, is not new. It was asked by, among others, a devout young German monk named Martin Luther who found church increasingly dissatisfying. His answer, rooted in Scripture, changed the direction of Christian history at a moment of epochal cultural change. </p><p class="text">Is it possible that a compelling new answer could emerge from McLaren's "conversation"? If so, Bell may have a head start, with props to the apostle Paul. </p><p class="text">"Weak is the new strong." The emerging church, and evangelicalism, could do a lot worse.</p>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-21156602453435965822007-09-11T18:18:00.000-07:002007-09-11T19:50:58.049-07:00Moving. I once helped a boss of mine move when I worked at a university. It was a pretty awesome day. I was working for him. It was an awesome day. He treated me like an equal... I liked that. I was "Jason his friend", not "Jason his servant". I liked that.<br /><br />People treating people like they are people.<br /><br />God is in that.<br /><br />That is communion. The eucharist... being one in spirit while in the flesh.<br />Being a companion<br /><br />an equal.<br /><br />a friend.<br /><br />The Church.<br /><br />In the scriptures, Jesus talks all about this. He tells his followers that they should love God first and then love one another as He loves them.<br /><br />I love how Jesus teaches. Just when people think they have what he is saying down, he'll thow in a total zinger. Bam! Kick it up a knotch.<br /><br />You see, he throws his followers for a loop. They expect power and strength, they get weakness. This is not weakness as we think of weakness. Jesus knows exactly what he's doing. There is a weakness that is truly weakness, that has nothing else to it- no depth, no intention, no greater purpose. But Jesus is intentional in what he's doing. His vulnerability is for a purpose. What he is saying and doing is packaged in the deep nature of who God is and who we are as humans...as image bearers of God.<br /><br />There is a weakness that is actually a strength.<br /><br />And there is a strength that is actually a weakness.<br /><br />You want to follow me Jason? Love God, then love other people like I love you.<br /><br />That<br /><br />is<br /><br />that.<br /><br />Now we could spend hours talking about all the creative and awesome ways different churches and congregations (people) have thought to demonstrate in some communal way their devotion, appreciation, laments, care and ultimately- blind love for a god they have never actually seen or heard, touched or tasted...<br /><br />But that is not the end of the story. It's like sitting down at a buffet and just sitting at the table. Smelling. and with all that smelling of all that food, you know it is there...you sense it...you can smell it, is only part of the buffet. If you just sit there...at the table, talking about how good the food smells...you are going to get very hungry, and will never be fed.<br /><br />God is bigger than worship songs, sermons, liturgies and hymnals.<br /><br />God is bigger than talking about how good he smells.<br /><br />I mean, salvation, grace, love, life...it all smells good. don't get me wrong.<br /><br />God is God.<br /><br />This brings us to the second part of what Jesus said... love each other as I have loved you. bam. there is that one again.<br /><br />So wait a second Jason, does this mean that just going to a church gathering for worship is not all there is to this Christian thing? You mean, that all that stuff people do down at church, that takes up all of their free time each week after week, those people don't get what Jesus is saying here?<br /><br />Take, for example, a parent who yells at their children and holds them accountable for all sorts of random tasks they were supposed to have known to do and who allows their mood to dictate the mood of the whole house. This kind of parent dominate their family with manipulative behavior and petty punishments that create chaos and insecurity for those around them. This kind of partent is using their strength, but they are actually weak. They do this because in truth, they're broken, confused, and insecure. They have no idea what they're doing, as a parent or as a person.<br /><br />The same is true for managers and bosses and teachers and anyone who uses their position of authority to coerce or manipulate of bully others- even when the intentions seem good. They can get people to do what they want, but it's only because of the position they hold. Their authority is rooted in nothing larger or stronger ofr higher than the idea of good to the people that put them in charge. And that can be taken away tomorrow. Corporations: good = maximized earnings, Religious places: good = maximized law following, Universitys: good = maximized acclaim, Classrooms: good = maximized test scores. They may appear strong, but they are actually weak.<br /><br />Contrast this with people who appear weak but are actually quite strong. It's when someone says something mean or cutting about us and everything within us wants to one-up them with an even nastier comment in return, thus winning the exchange, but we hold our tongue. We "lose" the round, but what we did took tremendous strength. And it would take even more strength to forgive them and then maybe even love them. It would all appear quite weak to the observer, unless they understood that what they were witnessing was actually strength in action.<br /><br />"love each other as I have loved you."<br /><br />Well, how did Jesus love his followers? This is a good question. Without answering this question, it is difficult to appreciate the hugetasticness of what Jesus teaches.<br /><br />Consider the Jesus story just for the sheer poetry of it. Jesus is born to teenage peasants under questionable circumstances. His mother gets pregnant before marriage. He's born amid the dung and straw of a stable. He's placed in a feeding trough. His brothers and sisters think he's out of his mind, and after his first sermon in his hometown, the people he grew up with form a mob and try to kill him.<br /><br />So who does Jesus identify with? He chooses the outcasts, the people of the land who aren't good enough, clean enough, wealthy enough, and pure enough to be a part of the establishment. He chooses the Jason C. Staas' of the world. He's invited to dine with the elite and the rich, which he does numerous times, but he also eats with the lowest of the low - and he enjoys it. He enjoys <em>them</em>.<br /><br />He touches people with infectious skin diseases, he lets questionable women touch him, he lays his hands on dead bodies, and he engages in conversations with promiscuous women alone in the middle of the day.<br /><br />His entire life is about the stripping way of power and control. Jesus always chooses the path of love, not power.<br /><br />Inclusion, not exclusion.<br /><br />Connection and solidarity rather than rank and hierarchy.<br /><br />Touch rather than distance.<br /><br />Compassion rather than control.<br /><br />He comes on a donkey, not a horse.<br /><br />Weeping and broken, not proud and triumphant.<br /><br />This path Jesus has chosen, which he continues to choose day after day, takes on some ominous overtones. He finds himself at odds with those in power. Partway through the Gospels- the accounts of his life- he states dropping hints that this path he's on is going somewhere. Somewhere that involves suffering and even death. His hints, which start turning into predictions, are about a conflict that he sees as inevitable. A conflict between love and controlling power.<br /><br />As we read the Gospels, we find Jesus' message putting him more and more in conflict with the religious and political leaders of his day. He's threatening their power. This is what love does, it threatens the empires of power and control and wealth and manipulation.<br /><br />He's eventually arrested and put on a sort of trial, at which he's asked to perform miracles. He refuses, knowing that a display of his miraculous abilities would not be true to the path he's on. He's eventually beaten and flogged. When he doesn't fight back, he's mocked, and he doesn't say anything in return. He's hung on a cross and says, "I am thirsty."<br /><br />Naked.<br /><br />Bleeding.<br /><br />Vulnerable.<br /><br />Thirsty.<br /><br />He even quotes a well-known prayer of the day, which includes the haunting line, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"<br /><br />It was explained this way in a poplular first-century hymn, recorded in the book of Philippians: "[Jesus] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equity with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing."<br /><br /><em>anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.<br />40"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. </em>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-48956577985761115032007-09-06T17:09:00.000-07:002007-09-06T17:15:58.537-07:00full contact love: authentic marital spiritualityWhat is marital spirituality? How does the family become authentically spiritual? For John Paul II, the answers to these questions "of the spirit" are revealed in the body... What is marital spirituality? How does the family become authentically spiritual? For John Paul II, the answers to these questions "of the spirit" are revealed in the body. This is what we learn from John Paul II's "theology of the body." In this collection of 129 general audience addresses delivered early in his pontificate, John Paul developed what promises to be one of his most enduring contributions to the Church and the world. Establishing an authentic marital spirituality is essential if we are to restore the family and build a culture of life. How do we do it? According to the Holy Father, "Those who seek the accomplishment of their own human and Christian vocation in marriage are called, first of all, to make this ‘theology of the body' ...the content of their life and behavior" (Apr 2, 1980). More Catholics are hearing about the theology of the body. Still, very few of them know what it actually teaches. The purpose of this article is to introduce some of the themes of John Paul's teaching and outline the foundations for building an authentic marital and family spirituality.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The Body: Revelation of God's Mystery<br /></strong> <br />The Pope's thesis, if we let it sink in, is sure to revolutionize our understanding of the human body, sexuality, and, in turn, marriage and family life. "The body, and it alone," John Paul says, " is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial, and thus to be a sign of it" (Feb 20, 1980). A mouthful of scholarly verbiage, I know. What does it mean? As physical, bodily creatures we simply cannot see God. He's pure Spirit. But God wanted to make his mystery visible to us so he stamped it into our bodies by creating us as male and female in his own image (Gn 1:27). The function of this image is to reflect the Trinity, "an inscrutable divine communion of [three] Persons" (Nov 14, 1979). John Paul thus concludes that "man became the ‘image and likeness' of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning." And, the Pope adds, "On all of this, right from ‘the beginning,' there descended the blessing of fertility linked with human procreation" (ibid). The body has a "nuptial meaning" because it reveals man and woman's call to become a gift for one another, a gift fully realized in their "one flesh" union. The body also has a "generative meaning" that (God willing) brings a "third" into the world through their communion. In this way, marriage constitutes a "primordial sacrament" understood as a sign that truly communicates the mystery of God's Trinitarian life and love to husband and wife, and through them to their children, and through the family to the whole world. This is what marital spirituality is all about: participating in God's life and love and sharing it with the world. While this is certainly a sublime calling, it's not ethereal. It's tangible. God's love is meant to be lived and felt in daily life as a married couple and as a family. How? By living according to the full truth of the body. "In fact, how indispensable," our Holy Father insists, "is thorough knowledge of the meaning of the body, in its masculinity and femininity, along the way of this vocation! How necessary is a precise awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body, of its generative meaning - since all that which forms the content of the life of married couples must constantly find its full and personal dimension in life together, in behavior, in feelings!" (Apr 2, 1980).<br /><br /><strong>Embodied Spirituality</strong><br /><br /> One of the greatest threats facing the Church today is a "spiritualism" in which people disembody their call to holiness. Living a spiritual life never means eschewing our bodies. Authentic spirituality is always an embodied spirituality. This is the very "logic" of Christianity. God communicates his life to us in and through the body; in and through the Word made flesh. The spirit that denies this "incarnational reality" is that of the anti-Christ (see 1 Jn 4:2-3). Think about this for a moment. John Paul teaches us that the human body - in the beauty of sexual difference and our call to nuptial union - possesses a "language" inscribed by God that not only proclaims His eternal mystery, but makes that mystery present to us. If there is an enemy of God who wants to keep us from God's life and love, where, then, would he go to do it? Satan's goal is to scramble the language of our bodies! And look how successful he's been. Because of Satan's scheme, most of us are illiterate when it comes to reading the language of the body. How many of us, for example, think that our bodies are the last place to look for the revelation of God's mystery?<br /><br /><strong>Building an Authentic Spirituality</strong><br /> <br /> In order to build an authentic marital spirituality, then, we must begin by learning to read the true language of the body. We must pray for the eyes to see God's mystery revealed through our bodies and through the marital union itself. Sin is what blinds us: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 Jn 2:16). In talking about the love between man and woman, we must contend primarily with the lust of the flesh. Marriage in no way "legitimizes" lust. Men and women are called by the power of the Holy Spirit to experience a "real and deep" victory over lust. Through the "redemption of our bodies," the Holy Spirit impregnates sexual desire "with everything that is noble and beautiful," with "the supreme value which is love" (Oct 22 & 29, 1980). This is how husbands and wives build an authentic spirituality: by loving one another according to the Holy Spirit in and through their bodies. Marital love is shown in numerous ways, but spouses who are filled with the Spirit realize "among the possible manifestations of affection, the singular, or rather, exceptional significance of [the conjugal] act" (Nov 21, 1984). They come to understand that their sexual union"bears in itself the sign of the great mystery of creation and redemption" (Nov 14, 1984). In a word, they come to understand that their union is "Eucharistic." When we receive the Eucharist worthily, it bears new life in the whole of our lives. When we receive it unworthily, we eat and drink our condemnation (1 Co 11:29). Similarly, when spouses open their union to the Holy Spirit, their whole marriage continually bears new life in the Spirit. However, if spouses close their union to the Spirit, they undermine the whole reality of their marriage and their family life.One of the primary ways we remain open to the Spirit is by remaining open to children. Who is the Holy Spirit but the Lord and Giver of Life? Those couples who close their union to children at the same time close their union to the Holy Spirit. Their union is no longer a sign of God's Trinitarian love but, in fact, becomes a counter-sign of it. This is why John Paul says that "the antithesis of conjugal spirituality is constituted, in a certain sense, by the subjective lack of this understanding [of the dignity of the conjugal act] which is linked to contraceptive practice and mentality" (ibid). For those who are filled with the Holy Spirit, contraception is simply unthinkable. They know it replaces the true language of the body with a lie. And lying within the heart of marital intimacy has a ripple effect, as does speaking the truth. Spouses who strive to speak honestly in the nuptial embrace strive to be open and honest with each in the whole of their married life. As professor Mary Roussseau expresses it, when spouses live an authentic spirituality, "the love that marks their marital bed spreads ...into the kitchen, the yard, the supermarket, the workplace, and beyond. Their love eventually spreads throughout the world, into the realms of politics, work, education, entertainment, health care, and international relations. Such is the exact process by which the civilization of love comes to be" (Chicago Studies, Vol 39:2, p. 175).<br /><br /><strong>In Conclusion<br /></strong> <br /> This is why, according to John Paul, education in the theology of the body "constitutes ...the essential nucleus of conjugal spirituality" (Oct 3, 1984). This education is a clarion call not to become more "spiritual" but to become more incarnational - to allow the Holy Spirit to impregnate our bodies with divine life. This is what happens in the sacraments. The Eucharist and Penance, in particular, are the "infallible and indispensable" means, John Paul says, "for forming the Christian spirituality of married life and family life. With these, that essential and spiritual creative ‘power' of love reaches human hearts and, at the same time, human bodies.... This love, in fact, allows the building of the whole life of the married couple according to that ‘truth of the sign,' by means of which marriage is built up in its sacramental dignity" (Oct 3, 1984).Through this "sacramental dignity" spouses and families participate in the mystery of the Trinity and proclaim that mystery to the world in an "embodied spirituality."Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-51703335909819100132007-09-04T16:59:00.000-07:002007-09-04T17:11:38.693-07:00full contact love: The Book of Hebrews, the Cross, and Discipleship<strong>Hebrews 2:17</strong> <em>Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.</em><br /><br />A superficial reading may give the idea that this idea of "a sacrifice for atonement" is identical with the levitical laws requiring blood for the forgiveness of sins. However this is not the case. The whole rest of the book of Hebrews is dedicated to the theology that Jesus was of a higher order than that blood required by the law. So that the "atonement" mentioned here is transformed and "atonement" is given a new meaning not like the use it has in the levitical law, because Jesus was not a levitical priest.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 7:11</strong> <em>Now if perfection had been attainable through the levitical priesthood--for the people received the law under this priesthood--what further need would there have been to speak of another priest arising according to the order of Melchizedek, rather than one according to the order of Aaron?<br /></em><br />If sacrificial law were best; if the levitical priesthood that kept the law were best and necessary, then why the need to call Jesus "Melchizedek" and not call him from the Levites?<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Hebrews 7:12</strong> <em>For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.<br /></em><br />The change in priesthood to Melchizedek necessarily brings a change in the law…for Melchizidek there was no law; there was no blood sacrifice. So to call Jesus "Melchizedek" is to make him above the system of sacrifice where blood is necessary.<br />The sacrifice Jesus made was not a death as required by the law but "an indestructible life":<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 7:15-16</strong> <em>It is even more obvious when another priest arises, resembling Melchizedek, one who has become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life.<br /></em><br />Here the book of Hebrews goes on to declare Jesus as a "priest" and that he is so much better than those priests under the law. His offering, the "indestructible life," was offered "once for all" (7:27) unlike the levitical priests who offer animal blood every day only for specific Israelites. Jesus' "indestructible life" was offered for "all" making it universal.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 8:1-5</strong> <em>Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one;<br /></em><br />The temple, was not really God's way, but allowed because of the hardness of the hearts f the Israelites. "But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry"; one with universal ramifications; one obtained through his life, not through a death.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 9:22</strong> <em>Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.<br /></em><br />"Under the law" virtually everything was "purified by blood" and "under the law" "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." This blood requirement is a requirement of the levitical priesthood, but Jesus is of the order of Melchizidek, and not a priest according to the law. The law is changed with the change in priesthood. The Levites "purified with blood" but Jesus in the priesthood of Melchizidek offered "the sacrifice of himself" (9:26). This sacrifice has already been described as "an indestructible life" and not a death required by the law.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:1-4 </strong><em>Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.<br /></em><br />The blood the levitical priests offered could never take away the sins from people. They merely kept reminding people of their sins (verse 3). The sacrificial system that required blood to make things right, "could never take away sins," because it had inherent within it a reminder of sin…the requirement of blood, was imperfect. The blood Jesus offered was not something that he killed, it was blood that was murdered.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:5-9</strong> <em>Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'See, God, I have come to do your will, O God' (in the scroll of the book it is written of me)." When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law), then he added, "See, I have come to do your will."<br /></em><br />But Jesus knew that God did not desire or take pleasure in "sacrifices and offerings" in which blood was required for "forgiveness of sins" (9:22). God takes pleasure in the obedient life, "See, I have come to do your will." Jesus offering was not his death but his obedient life. Death was not required "to take away sins" (10:4), but "an indestructible life" in which one did God's will. This obedient life of Jesus is what brings forgiveness of sins. "He abolishes the first in order to establish the second" (10:9). Jesus abolishes the requirement of blood, and establishes the obedient life as a covenant.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:11-12</strong> <em>And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, "he sat down at the right hand of God,"<br /></em><br />The levitical priests offer blood in vain every day, thinking as the world does, that blood spilled can atone for sins. But Jesus' obedient life was offered "for all time" and "for all". So that in Jesus "by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified" (10:14). God has written his law on our hearts (10:16), not the old law of the levitical priesthood requiring blood to right the sins of the world, but the law of the priesthood of "Melchizidek", of Jesus who offered an obedient life. This is the law God has written on our hearts, that we know blood is not required by God and he does not want blood spilled. The law is that we love God and our neighbor.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:17-18</strong> he also adds, "<em>I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more</em>."<br />Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.<br />God has forgiven our sins without requiring the blood of any animal or man. He has forgiven us based upon Jesus' "indestructible life" (Hebrews 7:16) and based upon Jesus doing God's will (Hebrews 10:9). And doing God's will is not fulfilling a blood requirement for God takes no pleasure in this nor does he want it (Hebrews 10:5-9). This doing of God's will is not based upon the levitical priesthood in which blood is thought to take away sins. It is based upon a priesthood of Melchizidek, in which blood was not required, for the law had not been given. What is required is love.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:19</strong> <em>Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,<br /></em><br />We can now approach God through "the blood of Jesus," but this is not blood in the order of the levitical law, blood that people think will atone for their sins or give them some relief, it is the blood of a new priesthood, the blood of one who is obedient even when men kill him, thinking they are doing the will of God, thinking that by spilling this man's blood they could save the whole nation (John 11:50). This blood is murdered blood. This blood is blood offered despite the threat of men to take life. This blood is not offered as a requirement for forgiveness as though god just had to kill somebody, but it is blood offered in completion of an obedient life; it is the result of his obedient life.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:19-20</strong> <em>Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain</em><br /><br />We enter by the "new and living way" Jesus has shown us. It is called a "living way," it is not the way of spilling blood to atone for sins or to met out "justice"; it is not by the way of death, but the way of life that we can approach God.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:24-25</strong> <em>And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.<br /></em><br />This way of life is communal. We are to be together. It is the way of love and goodness. We must be provoked by each other to love and good deeds, so therefore we must meet together. Jesus way is a living way, but it is not an individual way. It is one of "encouraging one another," it is a way of discipleship. Jesus' life established an alternative community to that of the world. The world's community requires blood; Jesus' community does not.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:26-30</strong><em> For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy "on the testimony of two or three witnesses." How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.<br /></em><br />"There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins" if we persist in sin after learning the way of Jesus. Perhaps this should be read in light of Hebrews 10:9: "He abolishes the first in order to establish the second." There is no sacrifice remaining for sins because God has abolished the levitical laws in which it is thought blood will atone for sins. Anyone who broke "the law of Moses died without mercy "on the testimony of two or three witnesses." Life for life was required. However Jesus "abolishes the first in order to establish the second." For those who persist in the killings, a question is asked, "How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God?" There is an indication that the punishment they "deserve" under the levitical law has been abolished. However in continuing in sin those people have left the community established by Jesus to witness to the new Kingdom of God that has broken into this world.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 10:32-36</strong> <em>But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.<br /></em><br />Public persecution and abuse, prison, suffering, these are the outcomes of the obedient life to God. The will of God is not that we suffer, but that we continue to love despite that suffering. Even those who were not thrown into prison or "publicly exposed to abuse and persecution" were "partners with those so treated" so that one members suffering is the whole body's suffering. This is the outcome of being a community of God through Jesus Christ. But the author says we ought to persist despite all sufferings, these were the marks Jesus bore as a result of his "indestructible life" and so they are the marks of his followers. Just as Jesus came to do the will of God, so his disciples are to have "endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." Our discipleship is directly tied to doing "the will of God" as Jesus did, in spite of our suffering. This suffering is an exposure of the world as the world. It is an exposure that the requirement of blood is a lie and it is not God's desire.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 12:1-4</strong> <em>Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.<br /></em><br />After speaking of the great history of faithful believers the author tells us to join with them. Jesus is here said to be an example for us to follow: "looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame . . ." This is the mark of a disciple not belief in an angry God who killed Jesus to aquit the guilty. The mark of a disciple is one who disregards the shame of being made a scapegoat. Though many have "resisted to the point of shedding their blood" we the readers of Hebrews have obviously not resisted to the point of our deaths.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 12:5-11</strong> <em>And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children-- "My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts." Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.<br /></em><br />We have not resisted to the point of shedding our blood because we have forgotten the exhortation that God has addressed to us. The outcome of our life is death by crucifixion. This cleanses us of our desire to war, to retaliate and return hate for hate. The persecution we suffer as a body, (this is addressed to the body not to individuals) "yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Our deaths produce peace. Our deaths witness to God's kingdom.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 12:12-15</strong> <em>Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled.<br /></em><br />We are to pursue peace with everyone even when they pursue war with us. Even when they think that by killing us, persecuting us, or imprisoning us they will save their nation. Without pursuing this peace we will not have holiness to know Jesus. We are not to allow the root of bitterness to spring up and cause us to hate, or to kill. This is the way of the law. And Jesus has established a covenant based not on the myth of redemptive violence, but upon the truth of loving God and neighbor in obedience to God.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 13:1-8</strong> <em>Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.<br /></em><br />Finally we are exhorted to let "mutual love continue" for this is the heart of discipleship. We are to love strangers, and to "Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured" Because when one of us is persecuted we all are persecuted. We are to suffer together,and we are to die together. "Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." The outcome of discipleship is sharing in persecution and crucifixion. But it produces our peace.<br /><br /><strong>Hebrews 13:15-16</strong> <em>Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.<br /></em><br />The very nature of "sacrifice" is transformed from one of killing to one of living. Jesus "atonement" was not one requiring death but one that required life. The sacrifice Jesus offered was to be obedient even unto death. Therefore God did not require Jesus' death in the sense that God killed him, but God required love even to love enemies and not to retaliate with killing in kind. Jesus unmasks the system of redemptive violence in which blood is thought to save as false. "The blood of the new covenant" is not retributive and penal, but it is the blood of the crucified lord, who loved his enemies in obedience to GodJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-36144539578118941202007-09-04T16:55:00.000-07:002007-09-04T16:57:01.329-07:00full contact love: it's not all flowers and butterflys...it's a lifestyle...it's the Holy Spirit in your life"You only love God as much as you love the person you love the least." - Dorothy DayJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-27836821426870817222007-08-31T08:59:00.000-07:002007-08-31T09:00:13.443-07:00Psalm 95Praise to the LORD, and Warning against Unbelief. 1O come, let us (<a title="See cross-reference A" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15456A">A</a>)sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to (<a title="See cross-reference B" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15456B">B</a>)the rock of our salvation. 2Let us (<a title="See cross-reference C" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15457C">C</a>)come before His presence (<a title="See cross-reference D" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15457D">D</a>)with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him (<a title="See cross-reference E" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15457E">E</a>)with psalms. 3For the LORD is a (<a title="See cross-reference F" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15458F">F</a>)great God And a great King (<a title="See cross-reference G" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15458G">G</a>)above all gods, 4In whose hand are the (<a title="See cross-reference H" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15459H">H</a>)depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also. 5The sea is His, for it was He (<a title="See cross-reference I" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15460I">I</a>)who made it, And His hands formed the dry land. 6Come, let us (<a title="See cross-reference J" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15461J">J</a>)worship and bow down, Let us (<a title="See cross-reference K" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15461K">K</a>)kneel before the LORD our (<a title="See cross-reference L" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15461L">L</a>)Maker. 7For He is our God, And (<a title="See cross-reference M" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15462M">M</a>)we are the people of His (<a title="See cross-reference N" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15462N">N</a>)pasture and the sheep of His hand (<a title="See cross-reference O" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15462O">O</a>)Today, if you would hear His voice, 8Do not harden your hearts, as at [<a title="See footnote a" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#fen-NASB-15463a">a</a>](<a title="See cross-reference P" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15463P">P</a>)Meribah, As in the day of [<a title="See footnote b" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#fen-NASB-15463b">b</a>](<a title="See cross-reference Q" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15463Q">Q</a>)Massah in the wilderness, 9"When your fathers (<a title="See cross-reference R" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15464R">R</a>)tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. 10"For (<a title="See cross-reference S" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15465S">S</a>)forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. 11"Therefore I (<a title="See cross-reference T" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15466T">T</a>)swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My (<a title="See cross-reference U" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#cen-NASB-15466U">U</a>)rest."<br />Footnotes:<br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:8" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15463">Psalm 95:8</a> Or place of strife<br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:8" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15463">Psalm 95:8</a> Or temptation Cross references:<br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:1" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15456">Psalm 95:1</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 66:1; 81:1</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:1" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15456">Psalm 95:1</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 89:26</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:2" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15457">Psalm 95:2</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mic" version="'49">Mic 6:6</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:2" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15457">Psalm 95:2</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 100:4; 147:7; Jon 2:9</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:2" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15457">Psalm 95:2</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 81:2; Eph 5:19; James 5:13</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:3" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15458">Psalm 95:3</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 48:1; 135:5; 145:3</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:3" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15458">Psalm 95:3</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 96:4; 97:9</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:4" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15459">Psalm 95:4</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 135:6</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:5" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15460">Psalm 95:5</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen" version="'49">Gen 1:9, 10; Ps 146:6; Jon 1:9</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:6" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15461">Psalm 95:6</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 96:9; 99:5, 9</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:6" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15461">Psalm 95:6</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2" version="'49">2 Chr 6:13; Dan 6:10; Phil 2:10</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:6" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15461">Psalm 95:6</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 100:3; 149:2; Is 17:7; Hos 8:14</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:7" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15462">Psalm 95:7</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 79:13</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:7" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15462">Psalm 95:7</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps" version="'49">Ps 74:1</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:7" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15462">Psalm 95:7</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Heb" version="'49">Heb 3:7-11, 15; 4:7</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:8" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15463">Psalm 95:8</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex" version="'49">Ex 17:2-7; Num 20:13</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:8" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15463">Psalm 95:8</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex" version="'49">Ex 17:7; Deut 6:16</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:9" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15464">Psalm 95:9</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Num" version="'49">Num 14:22; Ps 78:18; 1 Cor 10:9</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:10" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15465">Psalm 95:10</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts" version="'49">Acts 7:36; 13:18; Heb 3:10, 17</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:11" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15466">Psalm 95:11</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Num" version="'49">Num 14:23, 28-30; Deut 1:35; Heb 4:3, 5</a><br /><a title="Go to Psalm 95:11" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095%20;&version=49;#en-NASB-15466">Psalm 95:11</a> : <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deut" version="'49">Deut 12:9</a>Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-25473863581999408232007-08-30T07:20:00.000-07:002007-08-30T07:21:18.107-07:00Ephesians 2<strong>Made Alive in Christ</strong> <br />1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature[<a title="See footnote a" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=56&chapter=2&version=31#fen-NIV-29217a">a</a>] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.<br />One in Christ 11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.<br /> 14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.<br /> 19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.<br />Footnotes:<br /><a title="Go to Ephesians 2:3" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=56&chapter=2&version=31#en-NIV-29217">Ephesians 2:3</a> Or our fleshJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-41886831186086775142007-08-29T05:34:00.000-07:002007-08-29T05:35:20.342-07:00Galatians 3:Faith or Observance of the Law <br />1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?<br /> 6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."[<a title="See footnote a" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29093a">a</a>] 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."[<a title="See footnote b" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29095b">b</a>] 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.<br /> 10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."[<a title="See footnote c" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29097c">c</a>] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."[<a title="See footnote d" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29098d">d</a>] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."[<a title="See footnote e" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29099e">e</a>] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."[<a title="See footnote f" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29100f">f</a>] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.<br />The Law and the Promise 15Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed,"[<a title="See footnote g" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29103g">g</a>] meaning one person, who is Christ. 17What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.<br /> 19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.<br /> 21Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.<br /> 23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ[<a title="See footnote h" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#fen-NIV-29111h">h</a>] that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.<br />Sons of God 26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.<br />Footnotes:<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:6" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29093">Galatians 3:6</a> Gen. 15:6<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:8" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29095">Galatians 3:8</a> Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:10" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29097">Galatians 3:10</a> Deut. 27:26<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:11" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29098">Galatians 3:11</a> Hab. 2:4<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:12" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29099">Galatians 3:12</a> Lev. 18:5<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:13" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29100">Galatians 3:13</a> Deut. 21:23<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:16" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29103">Galatians 3:16</a> Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7<br /><a title="Go to Galatians 3:24" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=55&chapter=3&version=31#en-NIV-29111">Galatians 3:24</a> Or charge until Christ cameJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812660307929151391.post-2338611923964386132007-08-27T12:19:00.000-07:002007-08-27T12:43:10.359-07:00simple one: Can I Get a Witness?by John Wallis<br /><br />Evangelism has always been a problem for me. I have never "witnessed" to anyone before as most evangelicals picture it. My first image of evangelism was a street preacher who occupied a corner at Ball State University. This man who was constantly deflecting insults and abuse would "preach" the word of God to us heathen that wandered by each day. The first time anyone "witnessed" to me directly was in a bar with both of us so drunk we couldn’t sit up straight. It was comical being told about a book called "More Than a Carpenter" by a man more drunk than I was. That encounter added to my already thick contempt for Christians and their God. Later in life after becoming a follower of Christ I was constantly confronted with the question, "how many people have you brought to Jesus." Something about the whole thing made sick. As I journeyed toward God as a new follower it got to the point that I started lying to friends when they asked me that always crouching question. "How many souls had I won?" Stop, I wanted to say, none all right not one. It was high school all over lying about my being a virgin to all my friends who probably were too.<br />During my time at Seminary the question was raised again. During a class the professor asked us how many souls we had won. I raised my hand just to avoid the issue. At that moment I felt shallow and worthless. After that highlight of my journey I started to justify my lack of soul winning by telling myself that it wasn’t my gift. Yeah, that's it, I am more of a teacher for established Christians. That worked for a while. But the question kept coming up in the most unexpected places. Interviews for pastoral positions, conversations with friends and strangers, the 5-6th grade Sunday School class I taught. Once a friend tried to allay my fears by telling me that my children could be my tally. Wow, I have it made, I have 12 of them and they will all become Christians because I am, right!<br />My conversion was quiet, something that crept up on me and then slowly took over who and what I was. I don’t remember anyone praying the prayer with me or telling me the four spiritual laws. I wasn’t sure what those were until a few years ago, and I still am confused about them. Have I failed as a follower because I have no treasure trove of souls in the "book" for my accounting on that fateful day? I have a friend who tells me his conversion rate is 100%. Everyone he witnesses to accepts the Lord as Savior. I can hardly face him any more. Then a godsend, I heard of lifestyle evangelism. Finally I was cured, how simple, my life as evangelism. I could sleep at night, no more cold sweats or heartburn about my failure as a soul harvester. Yet, that train only went so far. My life, when closely examined, is not very pure or righteous. Damn, back to square one! What is the answer, will someone help me?<br />I have taken the tests to identify my spiritual gifts. I have used my life as an outward expression of my faith. I have even shared my faith with a few friends. Aren’t we commanded to tell others about our source of life? Aren’t we compelled to preach the "Word of life" to others who have not or will not hear? After becoming involved with the current state of deconstruction I was getting comfortable with my lack of outwardness. I went on an internal adventure to convince myself that I am not sick or fear-filled, but normal. Yet, as I have more and more conversations with friends and strangers, the inward journey seems to be taking over. Spiritual growth has become very popular. I have heard it said, "our group just isn’t ready for outsiders" or "we are building our core for a new calling and at some point in the future God will call us outward." I understand the importance of personal spiritual formation and growth, but at what cost? If our focus is always inward we will become irrelevant faster than the thing we have just finished critiquing.<br />How many people are we willing to pass by as we prepare ourselves for some perceived future task? We can't afford to ignore our neighbors and their cries for an answer to their pain and hopelessness. I don’t think the answer lies in our 19th and 20th century tradition of conversion based evangelism. But an answer is needed or at least an attempt to get outside ourselves. It still scares me to start telling a stranger or even a friend about what I believe and why. I am not sure if that will ever change. So for me the answer is living with our neighbors in ways that cause them to ask us why. "Why are you paying attention to me?" "Why are you sacrificing your time to help me?" It’s a combination of tradition and creativity. One thing my family is going to do is have several bar-b-ques this summer. We just moved to a new <a href="http://www.cincinnatihome.org/neighborhoods/northavondale/nthavondale_main.asp">neighborhood</a> where there is great opportunity to create new relationships. I feel we are being asked to use our new digs as a place to put together our new neighbors and our old ones and let God do something. Maybe then the kingdom will erupt in our tired and hurting corner of the world.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288207120424453656noreply@blogger.com0