7 months

Just a few weeks late…

 

 

I weighed in at 21 lbs and 28.5″ long

Here’s my new trick I just learned…

ethics in the limelight

If you haven’t yet heard of the hubbub about the 100 – 0 basketball game between two dallas-based private Christian schools, just go to any news webpage and you’re sure to find a link on the homepage. I’ll spare repeating the details here, and I am NOT commenting on what should be done in these situations, or if the coach of the winning team was in the wrong, or whatever.

What I find interesting is the raging debate about the ethics of the situation…specifically because it involves two schools that are Christian, which writers and commenters alike keep at the front of the matter. See, a final score of 100 -0 would be applauded in the NBA (read: professional sports arena) and probably even in NCAA (read: non-professional sports arena but rankings & $$ still matter). And so it seems that the public at large is in some sort of agreement that there should be a difference in behavior…in operating standards…in ethics for those who claim the Christian label. (Hmmm…some nagging thought like I’ve heard this before…maybe I’ve read it somewhere…)

I read one comment to an editorial that I found quite humurous. The gist of the commenter’s view is this: the business world operates under the very principle that seems to have been exercised and is being criticized – dominate your opponent…even crush him…and extend your earnings to the maximum every chance you get, and this is applauded.

The means is unfortunate. The ensuing discussion concerning ethics, specifically realizing that being “Christian” means an expectation to live/act/think differently, is great!

Book Review – The Church

From the Ground Up: New Testament Foundations for the 21^st Century Church. By J. Scott Horrell.

 

First, my disclaimer: this is a brief book review and is not meant to be a formal endeavor, hence I depart from the “scholarly” format.

 

Dr. Horrell is a theology professor at DTS, but his credentials are bolstered more by the fact that he has pastored 5 churches and taught in seminaries around the world. The majority of his time has been spent in Brazil.

 

This short book, just over 100 pages, suggests that local churches in the 21^st century need evaluate all programs and organizing principles according to the model given in the New Testament. Horrel does not, however, call for a return to the “New Testament church.” Instead, his call is “to conceiving and to living out the doctrine of the church in harmony with the life of the Spirit of Christ within.” (9)

swirling

thoughts swirling…I leap to grab one, bring it close, twist it this way then that, chew on it a bit, let it slip back into the rushing madness…repeat

my head is expanding and my nose drippy…why…oh, yeah, a 45 degree swing in temperature today…

Return the Cross to Golgotha

By: George MacLeod

 

I simply argue that the cross be raised again

at the center of the marketplace

as well as on the steeple of the church.

 

I am recovering the claim that

Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral

between two candles:

 

But on a cross between two thieves;

on a town garbage heap;

at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan

that they had to write His title

in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek.

 

And at the kind of place where cynics talk smut,

and thieves curse and soldiers gamble.

 

Because that is where He died,

and that is what He died about.

And that is where Christ’s men out to be,

and what the Church people ought to be about.

 

fellowship of the saints

I have been encouraged, motivated, and blessed by shared time with a few brothers these days. What I find remarkable is that the fellowship has not necessarily been times of explicit sharing of struggles and exhorting one another to these specific points. In fact, one time would easily be labeled “secular,” far from the category of “christian fellowship,” as we often define it. Yet, the fact remains that christian brothers communed together, and our spirits…well, my spirit, was encouraged and blessed by the time, even without explicit “christian talk”!! Isn’t that something?!? Perhaps it is because during these times our perspective, though not verbally stated, was firmly rooted in a world where Christ is Lord, thus everything we as christian brothers think, say, and do comes into alignment with this reality. It is the paradigm through which we must think, speak, and act! Okay, I digress. My intent is simply to praise the Father who allows me to be encouraged by times when I was not thinking I would be encouraged in a “christian” way…and to praise Him for the christian brothers (and biological) who I am blessed to be surrounded by!

Today begins a new semester of fellowshipping with the saints as we strive to learn to think christianly about God through the study the Word…may it be only and fully to His glory!

picture update

finally got around to posting some pictures from Christmas and Luke at 6 months

Luke 6 month album

Christmas album

Spring Lineup

Wooohooo!!!!! You will notice in the classes listed below that I am not taking Greek. That is because I am DONE with Greek!! Tangible signs of the grace of God…

Bible Exposition — The Gospels (we’re gonna learn about Jesus!)
Hebrew 4 (I think I can, I think I can…)
Preaching 2 (I couldn’t put it off any longer)
Systematic Theology – Soteriology (I will now have theological definitions and terms as to why you are not saved…hah!)
Systematic Theology – Theology & World Religions (I’m pumped about this class!)

plodding on through

Geez…it sounds so methodical and lifeless…”plodding on through.” On any given day this is my outlook on seminary. On the other (non-given?) days my perspective is more along the lines of excited fervor or ignited passion. Oh how I swing like a pendulum!

I feel the strain, the tension of two passions with equal ardour: intellectual pursuit and ministry entanglement. The pull is fierce, consuming minutes and energy, leaving me comatose. If asked, I would strenuously deny the exclusivity of these passions, but in practice (my own limited experience), they are just as described.

What shall I do, then? Plunge myself into feeding my gray goo leaving ministry by the wayside (only for a short time…I promise!)? I fear I would return only to find ministry dead, icy cold. Okay, then I should entangle myself in the mess of ministry. Would this not rebel against the very place God has brought me, the journey He has led me on? Yes, yes.

So I am back to my starting block. Can I hold them, one in each hand, bending towards training and increasing knowledge, leaning towards ministry as they both tug and pull? That is how it must be! Alas, I feel the wind of life driving the passion of gray goo as my sails of intellectualism billow. Ministry energy and passion fades, there is simply nothing left to give. Oh! Opportunity to minister! Run along, be involved…wait! There is a test…a paper…!

What to do?!?

I stare down the road of another semester…class exams & papers & assignments dotting the edge like mile markers…and I anticipate my roles in my local church, excited at the growth pains being endured…and I pray for GRACE and MERCY to my Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit.

brief thoughts on suffering

So, I am breaking the rules…in my mind of order and process, I cannot write these thoughts today prior to writing previous thoughts from Christmas and New Years, or posting the photo albums that I have planned. I know, sounds absurd, but it is completely logical in my gray matter…but I am breaking the rules, HAH!

I have no designs to write (at least here) a treatise on suffering and the Christian life, though I think the generally unbiblical understanding today of the Christian life warrants it. Instead, I just want to share a thought or two from a few verses that I read today in 2 Corinthians. There is a movement, albeit small, in the Church today striving for a biblical understanding of the Christian life, realizing that suffering is a part of life, a reality that will persist until Christ returns. It seems that suffering is part of the Believer’s spiritual growth and maturation process. But guess what; Paul teaches that it is not so individualized a matter!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  (2 Cor 1:3-6, NIV)

…suffering for the growth of the body of Christ…WOW