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Month: April 2009
This is a great post by Chris Tilling (there are lots of silly reader comments following the post, but the post is excellent). Chris’ concluding points:
- If we struggle with tensions in the bible, we may need to examine our expectations in light of the eschatological nature of truth. We may need to reframe our concerns according to the relational nature of truth. Put this way, we can perhaps avoid the scissors approach to the bible, one which early church heretic Marcion attempted, as he sought to exorcise all Jewish elements from the bible (talk about a doomed project!)
- If truth is a complex beast, one not easily pinned down, we may need to move beyond a simple treatment and comparison of ‘biblical propositions’ to an appreciation of the living complexity of truth.
- Perhaps our struggles with biblical tensions can help us to reformulate our thinking about the nature of the bible, one that takes more seriously our commitment to the practice of bible reading.
- The longing for the bible to make sense, for tensions to be explained away, is entirely legitimate, perhaps reflecting something of our longing for the coming of the Lord when we will ‘know fully’. Yet we must guard against an over-realised eschatology, one which thinks the things that will happen at Christ’s return have already happened. Acceptance of an over-realised eschatology will tend to end in discouragement, and Paul had therefore to combat it occasionally (2 Thessalonians).
- Thinking of the inspiration of scripture in light of the secretaries letter may help us to embrace a fully human and occasionally contradicting text while at the same time fully embracing the text as written under the authority of God.
And Chris’ concluding prayer:
“Father, there is so much that we do not understand, so much that confuses us in the Bible. We surely only know in part. So we pray for wisdom, for a closer walk with you, for deeper maturity in our faith, that we would be passionate
lovers of truth. Protect, strengthen and develop our faith, that it may bear fruit in our lives, that we truly play our part in the evangelisation of the nations and the transformation of society, remembering always that it is you who carries us; you are our foundation, not we ourselves, not our understanding of biblical tensions nor the strength of our often failing faith. We give you gloryfor hearing our prayer for the sake of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen”
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He is Risen!
He is risen indeed!
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Good Friday Song
One of the songs we’ll play tonight.
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The Greatest of these is Love
At my home church, the pastors have been preaching through 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter.” What a great series, on one of the most profound texts in all of literature. The first three sermons in the series are here, here, and here.
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Letting Go
Though we Protestants talk about justification by faith (versus by works), we often act as if the key to the spiritual life is adding all the active virtues, doing great things for God, sharing the gospel with others, and the like. [Medieval mystic Meister] Eckhart said, no, it’s a matter of subtraction. How much can you let go of? It’s not a matter of anxiously having to prove yourself to your teachers, to your parents, or to God so as to finally make yourself acceptable. It’s a matter of letting go of all those compulsive needs for approval and recognizing htat only after you abandon those compulsions will you be able to accpet God’s utterly free grace that comes in the gospel, in Jesus.
— Belden Lane, commenting on the spirituality of the Desert Fathers.
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Where are the Monasteries?
Reading early church history, it’s interesting how important monasteries always were to the life and mission of the church in all its different forms. Local churches administered sacraments and tended to the daily needs of the community, Bishops adjudicated disputes and sometimes produced substantial theological work, and monasteries sustained the overall enterprise through prayer, charitable work, and often substantial intellectual reflection. I often wonder if we would benefit from a monastic movement in the evangelical world. Yes, I know of the new monasticism, but that seems to be a sort of social activism — maybe a good thing, but it doesn’t seem to be what I have in mind.
It seems to me that our seminaries and Christian liberal arts colleges are the closest thing we have to filling this bill. But often, with some notable exceptions, these institutions seem insulated from the broader world of learning, and mostly concerned about protecting a particular denominational / doctrinal identity. Those that dare step out of the box often seem to get hammered.
Even when there is a robust institutional commitment to real engagement with constituent support — I think of places like my college alma mater, Gordon College, or Fuller Seminary or Regent College — it’s difficult to maintain a fluid connection between those institutions and the local church.
I would love to see networks of broadly evangelical academic institutions and study centers that understand their mission in some ways like the monasteries of the middle ages — taking in the best of “Greek” learning, preserving the best of the Tradition, practicing hospitality towards lay people, scholars and others who might visit and reflect for a while, and facilitating the flow of that quieter and more humble way of practice and thought back into local churches and from there into the world.
On Jesus Creed, “RJS” — a frequent Jesus Creed poster who is a scientist at a major research university — offers some good thoughts on campus ministry. This seems to me to be a vital question for us today: how can we help young adults who have grown up in the church develop a mature faith that can thrive outside the safe walls of the home and church?
Chris Seiple of the Institute for Global Engagement, a Christian think tank on foreign policy issues, offers these excellent guidelines for how we should speak of engagement with Muslims throughout the world. Over and over again, IGE shows itself to be one of the most thoughtful Christian voices on U.S. foreign relations to be found anywhere.
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Google Launches GMail Autopilot
Once again, Google launches an astonishing new feature in time for April 1. What will they think of next?