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“God is interested in our willing participation in his plan for our lives, not in micro-managing helpless automatons.” — Tom
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Thursday, May 21, 2020
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Everything Louder Than Everything Else
Ian Gillan of the seventies metal band Deep Purple reportedly
once asked the sound engineer mixing the band’s live album, “Could we have everything louder than
everything else?”
I’ve always loved that line. It just sounds like a title for the perfect rock and roll anthem.
But when you think about it for half a second, the request is
absurd. If the bass is louder than the high hat, the high hat cannot simultaneously
be louder than the bass. If you mix the snare drum louder than a guitar cranked
up to eleven, you cannot make that guitar louder in the sound mix without reducing
the volume of the snare. It’s absurd.
“Everything” cannot be louder than “everything else”. It
doesn’t work.
Labels:
Money
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Poverty
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Priorities
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Recycling
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Diagnosing the Problem
“Behold, we are slaves this day ... behold, we are slaves.”
“We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.”
You can’t solve a problem unless you know what it is.
John 8:33 records a very strange statement, the second
one I have quoted above. It appears to have been made not specifically by the Pharisees
or Sadducees (though there may have been some of these present, of course), but more generally, by men who had just made a public confession of belief in Christ.
The statement was this: “We have never been enslaved to
anyone.”
Monday, May 18, 2020
Anonymous Asks (93)
“Is it wrong to wish for something?”
There was a time when the Lord Jesus wished for something
with all his heart. Luke says he prayed for it earnestly, in agony, to the
point where “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground”.
Here is what he wished for: “Father ... remove
this cup from me.”
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Prayer
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Lost Light
How does the word of God go missing among God’s people? How
does the plain teaching of scripture get overlooked for months, years and even
centuries, only to be suddenly rediscovered? You would think it impossible if
we didn’t have both historical and biblical evidence that it happens, and
happens with sad regularity.
For example, in the days of King Josiah, the Book of the Law
was found in the house of the Lord and taken to the king and read to him. When
Josiah heard the Law read, he
tore his clothes, humbled and stricken by the degree to which the people of
God had departed from his commandments and the wrath they had incurred because
of it.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Time and Chance (36)
As mentioned in earlier
studies in Ecclesiastes, the Preacher uses the term “vanity” repeatedly. This
is usually read as an expression of disgust, as if Solomon is saying, “Pointless,
pointless ... it’s all futile and pointless,” as if the order God has set
in place since the fall of man — and it is very much evident he believes God
is behind it all — is not worth further investigation.
And yet, on he goes investigating anyway. Can’t be all that pointless, can it?
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Vanity
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Wickedness
Friday, May 15, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Stinkin’ Selfish
In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Megachurch pastor Andy Stanley inadvertently
opened a can of worms with comments he made in a sermon earlier this month:
“When I hear adults say, ‘Well, I don’t like a big church. I like about
two hundred’ or ‘I want to be able to know everybody’, I say,
‘You are so stinkin’ selfish. You care nothing about the next generation. All
you care about is you and your five friends. You don’t care about your
kids or anybody else’s kids.”
Now of course he quickly and abjectly
apologized the moment the predictable blowback started, but Stanley’s not backtracking on his
dislike of traditional-sized churches, just the ill-conceived and insulting way
he expressed it.
Labels:
Andy Stanley
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Megachurches
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Recycling
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Too Hot to Handle
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Youth Work
Thursday, May 14, 2020
What’s Behind Faith?
— Hebrews 11:1
“I consider rationality (in a nutshell) to be: ‘an accurate apportionment of belief in a statement concerning the objective nature of reality, with respect to the available evidence.’ I can think of no better definition of faith than the exact opposite of this: ‘A grossly inaccurate apportionment of belief in a statement concerning the objective nature of reality, with respect to the available evidence.’
However, I invite those who have faith, and profess it as a virtue, to submit their definition of faith.”
— Joseph Dorrell, Ted Talks, 2012
Okay, Joseph. Let’s play.
Labels:
Faith
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Rationalism
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Recycling
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Stating the Obvious
When you make a life-long habit out of reading other people’s
mail, strange things tend to become commonplace.
I should probably unpack that a bit.
I’m enjoying the book of Hebrews once again, as I make
my way through the New Testament in my morning reading. But the problem with
having been acquainted with the scriptures since before I could read them
for myself (and it’s not the worst problem in the world to have) is that
arguments which should puzzle any modern, thinking, Gentile reader seem perfectly normal to me. My familiarity
with the passage makes it difficult for me to be surprised by it, though it should surely surprise me.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Crossing the Gulf
“... with patience, bearing
with one another in love.”
Easily said, isn’t it?
“Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.” So said
Abraham to the rich man suffering the torments of hades. That chasm is not crossable. “They which would pass from
hence to you cannot.”
Speaking naturally, there is also a great gulf fixed between
you and me. Not all of you, of course, but certainly some of you. Cross it we must. Our first step is to recognize it is there.
Labels:
Communication
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Death
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Empathy
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Love
Monday, May 11, 2020
Anonymous Asks (92)
“Are soul mates for real?”
When Jonathan watched David slay Goliath, he recognized a
kindred spirit.
Like David, Jonathan was a brave man who trusted in God almost
to the point of recklessness. Climbing a hill fully exposed to enemy arrows
in order to take it to an enemy whose numbers dwarf your own seems like a crazy
stunt, but if the Lord has given the enemy into your hands, it’s a cinch.
Jonathan and his armor bearer had prevailed against 10:1 odds.
It’s holy conjecture, but I suspect if his father had
allowed it, Jonathan might have taken on Goliath himself. But Jonathan knew
that would never be permitted. Why would the king of Israel risk his own crown
prince in what he believed was an unwinnable duel? It would have been a huge PR
win for the Philistines and a political disaster for Saul.
David was comparatively expendable. Saul couldn’t even put
a name to him when asked.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Relationships
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Soul
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (20)
Of all the books in the Bible, Esther seems to have the
least to do with 21st century Christianity. It is basically a book of
Jewish-centric history which tells how the nation of Israel (for the umpteenth time) survived
extermination at the hands of its enemies. God is not even mentioned in its
pages. The national feast inspired by the events in Esther (Purim)
is nothing like the God-ordained celebrations of Leviticus 23. Purim
commemorates the “days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies”, and is
(or at least originally was) more like today’s secularized Christmas
celebrations than any of the seven
feasts of Jehovah, all of which were rife with rich spiritual symbolism,
speaking to generations about the meaning of the death of Christ
and its consequences for mankind.
So why is Esther in our Bibles?
Labels:
Artaxerxes
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Ezra
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Jealousy
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Semi-Random Musings
Saturday, May 09, 2020
Time and Chance (35)
Let’s back up and remind
ourselves where we were last week in Ecclesiastes 8, because the subject
under discussion in the first five verses continues just a little longer.
The Preacher was considering
the temptations and opportunities that face people under authority in the
performance of their duties; in this case, servants of the king. There are
really only two possibilities: either the servant is doing the will of the
king, or else he is using the king’s authority as cover to promote his personal
agenda, or to advance some ideological position.
Labels:
Decision-Making
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Ecclesiastes
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Government
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Time and Chance
Friday, May 08, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Evaluating Virtual Church [Part 2]
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
Yesterday’s post opened with a little chart that appeared to
indicate that the longer the COVID-19 lockdowns go on, the fewer Christians are interested in playing virtual church — at least, the way we’re
currently doing it. If YouTube views are any sort of legitimate proxy by which
we can measure the interest of believers in the preaching of the word of God by
members of their local congregations, then we’re in trouble.
Tom: So what are
we doing wrong? Well, one possibility we have been speculating about is that
with all those Christian YouTube videos up there, one can always find a more
interesting subject, a more lucid speaker, or something that tickles our
itching ears.
Labels:
Church
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COVID-19
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Too Hot to Handle
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YouTube
Thursday, May 07, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Evaluating Virtual Church [Part 1]
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
If church is a big enough part of your life that you
normally go every Sunday, in all probability it will not have escaped your
notice that your congregation has started meeting online after some fashion or
other. Most churches I have ever been part of are doing it, and because a
bunch of them are posting their virtual Sunday morning services on YouTube,
it’s given me opportunity to check out the ministry of believers I have
not seen personally in years.
Tom: In the process, I noticed something interesting and perhaps worthy of discussion.
Labels:
Church
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COVID-19
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Too Hot to Handle
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YouTube
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Beyond the River
The book of Ezra is written in Hebrew, but one of its most
frequently-used expressions is not Hebrew but Aramaic.
The words `abar nÄ•har are translated “beyond the river” or “this side of the river” in most of our
Bibles. They occur in the sections of Ezra that contain letters written by the
enemies of the returning Jewish exiles in Jerusalem to kings of the Medo-Persian
empire, and by the functionaries of these kings in response, since Aramaic
was the language in which royal edicts were issued. The expression also occurs,
probably for the sake of consistency, in the Hebrew narrative portions of Ezra
which have to do with the contents of the letters.
Basically, “beyond the river”
means the biblical land of Israel and any of the surrounding nations over which
Israel, at the height of its powers, had influence.
Monday, May 04, 2020
Anonymous Asks (91)
Well, they say third time’s the charm. Let’s test that
theory.
This is my third attempt at answering a question which is more than loaded: subtext hangs over the post like giant flapping leather bat wings blotting out the sun. It also doesn’t help that I probably misread it first time round. I took it to mean “In what ways should a Christian child honor an abusive parent?” (a relatively easy one), when the author is far more likely asking “How can anyone possibly expect me to give honor to someone who has mistreated me so egregiously?”
Different question, right? And not so quick and easy.
Labels:
Abuse
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Anonymous Asks
/
Family
Sunday, May 03, 2020
A Nature Like Mine
James says a remarkable and encouraging thing about one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament: a man who had conversations with God; a man who stood for God at a time when the nation of Israel had given up the worship of Jehovah for the worship of Baal and was in a state of moral decrepitude, ruled over by a king who was just about as wicked as they come; a man who ascended to heaven in a chariot rather than dying like the rest of us; and a man who would later appear and talk with the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.
What he says is this: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.”
Saturday, May 02, 2020
Time and Chance (34)
When we try to get some
practical help for daily living from scriptural reflections 3,000 years
old, it is obvious we are going to have to do a little bit of thinking: first,
about whether these things can be applied to our own situation at all; and secondly, assuming they can
be, what reasonable conclusions we might draw from them about our own situation.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Government
/
Time and Chance
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