What are interested when it comes to theology? Are those the things you do well or have a passion to do well?
Well, what about your theological disinterests? What do they say about you? Are they areas of growth, are they areas of sin?
What about the communities of which you are apart?
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.–James 3:13-18 (ESV)
Every week I attend a Bible study which is currently going through James. Last night we covered James 3 and a very striking observation came over me: this is a very tightly woven together epistle. James has a very compact work here. continue reading…
(Disclamer – I often spell disclaimer wrong. Also, this might be a bit rambly. I also don’t know how to spell ramble when I use it as modifyer. I also like to screw up the changing of “y” to “i” when you plop a suffix on the end of a word. I also like to draw out jokes several paces past the funny point.)
The local community of Christians that I am apart of does a wonderful job of stressing and acting upon the need for community among Christians (and others). JR and myself have just finished a really good Sunday School series which envisions evangelism as the process by which we invite peregrini into our communities and build up a contextualized identity exchange by means of learning a new conceptual language, experience within a lived gospel, etc culminating with the peregrini choosing to accept Christ and adopt citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
One of the byproducts of this series was the awareness that we are horrible at doing this and that we need to make very specific and targeted changes to the way we live out the gospel. We, as a group, aren’t finished with brainstorming and implementing the ways through which we will accomplish these goals, but we are making real progress.
As we are making a more concerted effort to invite people into our comfortable communal bubble, there have been accompanying stresses upon our individual relationships. People are able to hide in community, divisions cannot be worked out among strangers. In reflecting on our community’s recent experiences and through discussing this with the ever-insightful Meredith, we decided that community and intimacy is a paradox:
Community hinders intimacy, but intimacy can only come through community.
We have decided that in order to be a real gospeling community, we must be constantly inviting, but if we are constantly inviting, we lose those intimate relationships with others in the community.
To use a small-scale example, myself, JR and Scott meet at least once a week to share what is going on in our lives, talk about video games and comics, reflect upon stuff, discuss theology, and pray for one another. We have built a very intimate relationship with one another through this process. On several occasions other friends of ours have stopped by and joined our conversations, whether it be professional acquaintances, personal friends, etcetera. While these people are with us, we are unable to share ourselves fully with one another, we simply don’t have the requisite relationship with the new comers to do so.
This does not just apply to the local assemblies of the body of Christ, Meredith and I have noticed that the same thing happens with us. When we invite friends over, or host communal events, etcetera, we loose opportunities to build and maintain our own intimacy, one of the most precious commodities in a marriage. Our challenge has been to build intimacy first, and when that tank is full, to be as hospitable as our natures allow.
Now, I am not saying all of this for the purpose of disparaging the notion of being an inviting community, I am doing do it precisely because I value such a notion! Only through invitation can we build community, only through invitation can we fulfill Christ’s call on our lives. However, we must confront and overcome the difficulties that arise in such endeavors.
How might we, as a gospeling community, maintain our intimacy while still being an inviting one? I welcome all thoughts and insights, both from members of our own community and others.
When I was in undergrad, my wonderful, snarky exCatholic turned Zen Budhist professor once remarked that his least favorite thing about Mass was the monolouge. He couldn’t understand only having a one-sided conversation on such supposedly important topics. Out of all his criticisms of Christianity, this one was stuck the most. With this in the back of my mind, reading the below was refreshing.
Can you anchor this approach to preaching in history? Are there examples of dialogical preaching in the New Testament?
When you read the Gospels, Jesus asked questions and waited for answers in the context of his own preaching and teaching. In fact, what he addressed next in a sermon or teaching moment was often dependent on the answers he received from the people. He even answered questions that people posed to him in the middle of his teaching. Thats dialogue.
via PastorHacks: Dialogical Preaching pt 1.
I am not a preacher myself, but when I envision preaching, I can’t help but to desire some sort of dialogical component, though I don’t know exactly what that would look like. I know that when I teach, I try to incorporate a dialogical component. It helps me know where my audiance is at, allows them to participate (and therefore retain what they are learning), etcetera. It draws the audience into the lesson and makes them an active part in it, instead of merely a passive reciever of my supposed perfect knowledge. However, when the audience grows beyond a certain point, it quickyl becomes impossible. At larger talks that I have given, such a method was impossible and I reverted to giving a 50 minute speech, so I recognize the initial limitations.
What about you all? Do you feel that dialogical preaching has a place in the Sunday service? If so, how can we creatively break through the present barriers?
Father,
we are children who have been given much. You have blessed us with an abundance of all things: food to fill our stomachs, every kind of entertainment to distract and occupy our minds, and every opportunity to adorn our bodies with things
stuff
the trappings of our culture that we think make us beautiful.
Father,
you teach us that the day will come when we are stripped bare of everything we hold dear, everything that we tell ourselves defines who we are, all the things we tell ourselves make us beautiful. And on that day, all you will see are those things that truly define who we are, those things that truly matter because they are the things that matter to you. And you will determine if, in fact, we are truly beautiful.
Father,
may you find on that day children who care really and truly for our brothers and sisters, your beloved creatures crafted so lovingly in your own image. May you find that we were never guilty of stealing from them those things they need to express that image fully.
Teach us to strip ourselves of the finer things of our culture that we may clothe ourselves with the finer things of your kingdom culture. Give us eyes that see the beauty that your eye beholds, that we may learn how to become beautiful in your eyes.
I love to read reviews. I come by this honestly. Contrary to what some think about grad students, we don’t have all the time in the world to read books. I therefore must reply on the judgement of reviewers to help me select books for consumption and integration into my life and thought processes.
Enter Pagan Christianity. This controversial book by Frank Viola and George Banna suggests that “[m]ost of what present-day Christians do in church each Sunday is rooted not in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles.” A very bold claim to make. I have not read the book (see 1st paragraph), but I have a good friend that has and from talking to him about the book, Pagan Christianity tries to be very careful with the research it utilizes to bolster the bold claims that it makes.
Last week I happened upon an ongoing review of Pagan Christianity by Ben Witherington (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). He is a good biblical scholar who currently teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary, a good school and one at which I am looking for my next stage of studies. Witherington is in a good position to speak on the specific claims made by Pagan Christianity. The manner though which I does this is a different matter entirely.
The strong point of his review is his knowledge of early Christianity and his interpretation of the New Testament on matters of the church as an institution. As I was telling Scott, the weak point is his almost flippant treatment of the book. He will at once give the writers and their ideas credit and at the same time dismiss their research and claims in cursory terms. In addition to this, the very way he refers readers to [his books] is flippant as well. The way he lists himself as an authority through referencing the fact that he wrote a book on it does not do it for me. What I want is actual and dispassionate interaction with the claims. Witherington does this in part, but he often does not and this weakens his review. He comes off as polemical at times – and polemics only serve to whip up the choir. With that said, I am not dismissing this review in the least, only saying that it needs to be read with a critical eye.
Typing of which, Witherington’s reviews should not be the last word on the matter. Jon Zens evaluates and “reviews” Witherington’s review. He has worked up responses to three of Witherington’s posts and is working on a fourth. Anyone who is navigating through this book and it’s reviews should take a moment (ok, 20-30 minutes) and digest what Zens is saying there. There is some healthy criticism of Witherington there.
What this boils down to is not merely looking to see if Pagan Christianity gets a “TRUTH” checkmark or not, but instead an opportunity to navigate the various positions on how to conduct Church and to evaluate the claims of people with obvious stakes in their positions.
With all of the above said, I look forward to reading Pagan Christianity and then revisiting the above reviews later this summer.
When was the last time you describe your relationship with God as a "personal" one?
A recent article I read last week pointed out that when it comes to a personal relationship with Jesus:
As far as the Bible is concerned, this doctrine is simply made up by evangelical Christian theologians.
The article seems to be a response to something Rick Warren wrote. The author then goes on to debunk the doctrine by quoting some Bible verses (I don’t know if the author is quoting Rick Warren or making his own apologia). In any case, the verses used are totally not something I would have thought of using and I don’t know how one would use them to defend the idea of a personal relationship with God.
John 15: 1-13 | John 10:1-16 | Revelation 3:20 | Revelation 19: 7-9 | Revelation 19: 17-21
With that said, I thought it was worth a discussion here at MassTheo.
If you believe in a personal relationship with God, how do you define it? What Bible verses would you use to back up this doctrine or teaching?
p.s. the original article is from an atheist site so I don’t want to link to it from here unless you want me to.
Our very own Hank from Think Wink points us to the missing portion of 1st Corinthians that was recently discovered over at Ecclesiophilist!
If you know other historical facts, leave us a comment.
Resources
Stand To Reason Podcast. Greg Koukl. The Origins of Christmas. December 9 2007.
Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas
Came across this excellent link today via while reading novus lumen :: The Redemption of “I Am Legend”, that listed 10 ways to “deconstruct” your faith. I know some of them are excellent ways to refresh or re-examine the way you orient yourself towards God and fellow humans. I can’t vouch for the readings on the list, but I am sure that they are at they are at least worth reading and considering. I really liked #3, 5, and 10.
Mine is…
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| You scored as Calvin
You are John Calvin. You seek to be faithful to Scripture, and to harmonize difficult sayings. You believe that in the Lord’s Supper those who have faith are united to Christ, who is present spiritually, yet in a real way.
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Is there any reason to not watch this movie?
What should be our standard with movies (culture)?
One of the many books I am reading right now is They like Jesus but not the Church by Dan Kimball. It was recommended to me by Brad Andrews of Missouri Baptist and relevintage. I can’t say enough good things about this book. It acts primarily as a diagnosis of the Church in the eyes of the un- or de-churched. It also recommends how to reach these people outside of the established church. I am reading the on part 2, “What Emerging Generations think about the Church.” I came across this nice passage on politics and the church:
We also need to remember that many of the founding fathers of our “Christian nation” were deists, didn’t believe in the inspiration of the whole Bible, and had slaves. Since some American Christians are vocal about getting back to our “Christian roots” politically, we need to be careful not to forget this. When you examine them, some of our roots turn out not to be that Christian. So making a case for a “Christian America” comes across as the church mixing religion and politics. (P. 78)
A particularly poignant point. Rather than playing Old Testament Prophet, Christians should win over their communities the old fashion way by being good servants of Christ – and as a result being selfless servants of everyone around us. As I read more and more histories of the early Christians, the “pagan” communities were enamored with the Christians moral and selfless behaviors, and no mention is made about the Christians going Jonah on the pagans.
Article Series - Objections to Calvinism
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This is probably not going to be the last post in this series, because I want to address the idea of “divine rape” in God’s effectual call and irresistible grace. This fifth post is going to be on Predestination and Prayer. In Part 4, I argued that Calvinism does not hinder prayer, but that God ordained that his saving, effectual call of his election comes through our preaching of the gospel in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 and 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; and this calling of his elect is the joy of the entire Triune God in Luke 10:21-22–Father, Son, Spirit. In Part 3 I argued that Calvinism does not give license to live however but that it gives the foundation and confidence to live the life of holiness we are called to live for (Hebrews 12:12-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15; Ephesians 1:4; Philippians 2:12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:8-10). In Part 2, I argued that election is unconditional from Romans 9:11 and from 1 Corinthians 1:20-31 that Calvinism’s unconditional election and effectual call is designed to cut human pride out from under itself and give all glory and honor for salvation to God. In Part 1, I argued that many objections against Five-point Calvinism (TULIP) comes from people assuming it is the same as Hyper-Calvinism, it would be the same thing as assuming Arminianism is either Open Theism or Pelagianism; if this confusion would stop, many objections would cease, and so I tried to demonstrate the difference between the biblical Five-point and Hyper-Calvinism. So let us turn to Predestination and Prayer.
This past week was the Southern Baptist National Convention. Dr. Jerry Johnson of Criswell College in Dallas Texas held a discussion on Calvinism, with Dr. Danny Akin and Dr. Mark Coppenger, and on speaking in tongues, with Dr. Russell Moore and Pastor Dwight McKissic. They were very good. Calvinism was more like a discussion of the five points and tongues was a debate. Click here for Calvinism and Tongues. Or you can go to Jerry Johnson’s website.
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