Bye!

Hey everyone.

First I'd like to say thanks to those who read and opined on this blog. Second it was fun, and great practice. That said, I'm not going to be blogging here anymore. I have not given up on blogging but due to some personal changes I felt like I needed a fresh start.

You can now find my stuff at www.yearsofmysojourning.wordpress.com

God bless.

Mike

The New Marcionism?

Over the past few months I have come across posts online referring to the ancient heresy of Marcionism. Not only is Marcionism alive and thriving in America today, it has infected the church. Many ministers have been swept away by a form of this destructive ancient heresy, or so the posts have been saying. After some reflection on the subject I have decided to pen a polemic of sorts and deal with what Marcionism actually is and to see if it is truly alive and well in the church today. Before I go any further a word must be said about heresy. There are different kinds of heresy and not all heresy can be considered “damnable heresy” and may fall within the bounds of heterodoxy (which means: sort of heretical or heresy lite). In light of this we must be cautious when tempted to slap the heresy label on a theological point we either do not know or do not understand. Also it must be noted that the history of the church is vast and, contrary to popular belief in many circles, the church did not suffer a great apostasy. The Holy Spirit has always been present from Pentecost to today. The third person of the Holy Trinity did not disappear after the Apostles died only to pop up again later at Azusa Street.

Firstly it must be asked, “Who can judge if something is heresy or not? By what authority can one make a pronouncement of heresy?” All too often in discourse, especially on the internet, well meaning Christians, rightly concerned about the state of the church in America, throw the term around to anyone who disagrees with their point of view. The Evangelical church has reduced Christianity down to what Dr. Bradley Nassif calls “Christological minimalism.” What is the bare amount someone needs to believe to be saved? This is how Christianity is approached and, depending on what group a person fellowships with, this will be different as is their definition of heresy. For example, Oneness Pentecostals consider the doctrine of the Trinity to be a man made addition not something that the Bible, although not mentioning it by name, teaches.

This leaves us with a few problems here: Oneness Pentecostals would be considered by most confessional Christians as heretics due to their refusal to affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. They themselves would consider themselves as biblical literalists and not as heretics. See the problem? By whose authority can one Christian group consider another heretical? This is exacerbated by the subdivision of Protestantism into thousands of independent splinter groups, each one totally free from, and in many cases eschewing, any sort of authority structure beyond their own interpretation of Scripture. The great gift of the Reformation is also its greatest curse namely that the Bible should be available in the regular languages of every Christian. This great blessing is counterbalanced by the consequences of every Christian making their own pronouncements and interpretations divorced from any sort of history or tradition. This is why Christianity has creeds and why Christians, though they may not know the creeds when they come to faith in Christ, should come to know and affirm the historic boundaries of their faith.

So much more can be said on this subject but I will distill it to this point: Independent churches have no guiding confessions beyond their own theological point of view, which is usually a hodgepodge of different theological influences ranging from the dubious to the historic, so they cannot justify charges of heresy because they have nothing to judge heresy by beyond their own interpretation of Scripture. Many would profess affirmation to some of the creeds but many would actually disagree with the creeds and make their own interpretations the primary guiding factor. However, confessional churches do have guiding theological principles based on history and the creeds, and a charge of heresy from them would carry weight.

Now that the groundwork on heresy has been laid we turn to Marcionism. Marcionism is named for the heretic Marcion. The church usually named heresy based on the primary person responsible for its dissemination like Pelagius, Arius, Nestorius, and Sabellius (you get the idea). Marcion was born to a Christian family; his father was the bishop of Sinope near the Black Sea. He was brought up in orthodox Christianity of that time and became a successful merchant. This allowed him to pursue his various theological interests. He began to preach in Asia Minor and eventually went to Rome. The church there excommunicated him around the year 144 and as a result he set up his own “Christian” church. Christian historian Justo Gonzalez said that Marcion did so possibly in order to differentiate Christianity from Judaism as the Romans had, in his lifetime, put down a serious uprising of apocalyptic Jews. Gonzalez also notes that Marcion may have thought that if he could divorce Christianity from its Jewish roots he could help cease persecution against Christians. Regardless of his intentions he did great damage to the church that lasted a few centuries, but great good came from it as well. Marcion developed a very robust though skewed Pauline theology and rejected completely the writings of what came to be known as the Old Testament. The following is a summary of his theology:

·      The God of Israel is wrathful, evil, vindictive, unforgiving, dictatorial God who, although was responsible for creating the world, is vastly different from the loving Father Jesus professed to be sent from.

·      The Father’s purpose was to have a spiritual world but the Old Testament God, YHWH, corrupted his plans and created a physical world and populated it with humanity.

·      Similar to the Gnostics he saw the created world as a sham and saw Jesus’ Incarnation as an illusion. If the Father wanted a spiritual world and YHWH corrupted that world then Jesus’ Incarnation is an illusion. If Jesus were physically born of the Virgin Mary then he would have been under the control of YHWH. So, for Marcion, Jesus had to be a spirit being that only looked like a grown human man (which was the heresy of docetism that the church, specifically St. Ignatius, had already condemned in the early 100’s).

·      Christians should completely reject what came to be known as the Old Testament since the OT God is not the same as the God Christians worshipped (even though Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures).

·      Since there was no canon at this time Marcion made his own canon comprised of the Gospel of Luke, due to it’s indirect attachment to St. Paul, and the Pauline Epistles except 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. This is problematic as St. Paul’s Epistles refer to Judaism but Marcion justified its presence in the Pauline corpus by accrediting it to later Judaizers.

·      Since the material world is not the ideal world then people must live as free from the material world as possible. Celibacy and extreme asceticism was the order of the day for the Marcionites.

·      Lastly Marcion rejected the Old Testament entirely because of the contrast it created between law and gospel. If the God of the OT was not the true God of love then law itself had to have been evil as well since the law required justice and punishment for infractions.

As a result of these theological aberrations Marcion caused great damage to the still burgeoning church chiefly because he organized his own church complete with hierarchy, liturgy, and a canon of scripture. It was so similar to the Christian church of it’s day that it was difficult to distinguish between the two and bishops had to warn their flock to be on the lookout. So Marcion not only was a polytheist he also had flavors of Gnosticism and docetism in his theology. In his mind the Old Testament should be rejected in its entirety and only a select number of Epistles from St. Paul should be considered binding.

What does the heresy of Marcion then have to do with the church in America today? If some preachers are to be believed then Marcionism is still very present in the church as something to be overcome. But is this assertion true? I think it is true that the effects of Marcionism can still be seen but that Marcionism itself as a belief system is no longer with us in various forms. To be sure there are some Christian denominations that will not preach often from the Old Testament and there are those who have oversimplified the relationship between law and gospel in order to make the idea of a loving God more palatable. The charge though that Marcionism is still in the church is a charge we can discard. Many charges of Marcionism come from Christian groups themselves that may not have an accurate understanding of law and gospel. Some Christian groups believe that the Old Testament is the key to understanding how government should function in the life of the United States of America irrespective of the context of the law, who it was given specifically for, and for what purpose. Those that do not agree with this theological viewpoint are labeled as heretics, or as severely misguided as scripture clearly teaches that the Old Testament law is the standard form of God’s perfect government applicable to all men at all time.

The tension between the law of the Old Testament and the grace of God is something that theologians have been grappling with since the early days of the church itself. Some have even noted that, and I agree, the giving of the law itself IS an act of grace from a loving God. We can reject the charges of popular Marcionism because the Evangelical church as a whole rejects the notion that YHWH is a different God, rejects dualism, rejects the docetic view of Jesus, affirms the goodness of the created world even though it has been marred by sin, affirms the Old Testament as part of God’s written word to us, and affirms that God’s love and his law are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the grace of God actually gives us the ability to follow the moral principles as laid out by the law. As Gonzalez wrote, “Jesus does not abandon the moral law of Israel but helps us grow into people who are more able to live by it.”

So why then have these trumped up charges of Marcionism arisen? Historian Diarmid MacCulloch, commenting on Marcion, wrote something that is also applicable to those who foster the charges of popular Marcionism. He wrote, “… It is clear that he (Marcion) was a literalist who despised any figurative or allegorical interpretation of scripture and rather took the first apparent sense. If that sense clashed with his own sense of true religion, he simply rejected the text.” Unfortunately there is nothing more American, and in most cases heretical, then that.

Sources:

Gonzalez, Catherine & Gonzalez, Justo L. Heretics for Armchair Theologians. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Vol. 1. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

MacCulloch, Diarmid. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. New York: Viking Penguin, 2009.

            

Life, Death, and God's Glory

It has been a very difficult week.

My Grandfather, Marty Fisch, died on Thursday morning, and that same day I found out that my Aunt Karen has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a degenerative neurological disorder that has no treatment or cure and is always fatal. I did not know my grandfather very well but I do have some key memories of him, one of them being he taught me how to swim at the local lake near where we lived in Oklahoma. My aunt on the other hand I have many memories of. Every summer we would drive to her and my Uncle Ron's farm. I would stomp around the fields with the cows trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid their droppings. I would play in the bales of hay inside the barn and scratch the backs of the cows with the cow scratcher, they always seemed to like that. My aunt is my mom's sister and our family has always been closer to my mothers side then my fathers side. Much of that has to do with my father converting to Christianity from Judaism, becoming a minister, and then marrying my mother, a non-Jew. This caused a rift on his side of the family, though in later years the rift was healed between our family, primarily due to my mom having children which, I suppose, is enough to melt even the coldest of hearts. I cannot chalk the lessening of the rift due to that though when I can see how God providentially has moved in my family.

My Nana, my dad's mother, came to faith in Christ before she died as did my Grandpa George, his stepfather. His sister also has come to faith in Christ. God has been good to our family and I revel in the glory that has brought to him. My dad's biological father, the one that just died, is a bit of a tougher situation though. He died and we do not know if he ever had saving faith in Christ. Through the years my mom and dad shared the gospel with him and my mom again shared the great hope we have in Jesus Christ with him a few weeks before he died. When my dad called me to tell me that grandpa had died I prayed with him over the phone, trying my hardest not to break out into tears. As we prayed I started to thank God that even though we did not know if my grandpa professed faith in Christ that we can take comfort that God knows and we can trust in the fact that he knows. I prayed that we can also take comfort in the fact that even though we do not know, God is just and he alone judges fairly, justly, rightly, and compassionately. As I sat down after hanging up the phone I put on a song on my stereo, started to pray and struggled to sing through the tears that had started to form. The song was To You We Bring Our Hymn of Praise by Stuart Townend. The lyrics go like this:

To you we bring our hymn of praise
Glory be to God.
Hearts and hands together raised,
Glory be to God
Who spoke before the dawn of time,
Glory be to God.
Veil of darkness torn by light,
Glory be to God.

And with unceasing voice all heaven sings,
Glory be to God.
The anthem of the Lord's redeemed,
Glory be to God.

You purchased captives for your saints,
Glory be to God.
Opened wide the kingdom gates
Glory be to God.
You overcame the sting of death,
Glory be to God.
Clothed us in Christ's righteousness,
Glory be to God.

And all your children cry with loud acclaim
Glory be to God.
Sing o Church your sweet refrain,
Glory be to God.

Father, Spirit, risen Son,
Glory be to God.
Who was and is and is to come,
Glory be to God.

This song has been unbelievably comforting to me this past week. With everything that is going on, this song was like God dropped an anchor in my heart to keep me focused on what is ultimate, namely himself and what he has done for us in Christ. Yesterday I listened to two sermons by John Piper both were difficult to hear but both were the most God-glorifying, Christ-exalting sermons on the topic of sickness and death I have ever heard. We are praying for a miracle for my aunt, if God performs one then glory be to God. If he does not, then glory be God. I firmly believe now that everything will glorify God, our lives and even our deaths, and that has been the most comforting thing throughout this family ordeal.

Glory be to God.
 
Post script: My Aunt Karen, who was one of the subjects of this post, died Saturday night. In light of this my belief in what I originally posted has deepened. I found a fantastic quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He said, "Oh dear friend, when grief pushes thee to the very dust, worship there!" Amen.

A Contrast in Two Deaths

At the risk of sounding insensitive I wanted to write about something that has been gnawing in the back of my head about the life and death of two Christian leaders. One was Dr. John Stott and the other was Zachary Tims. One was a well-respected theologian, churchman, and author, the other was a mega-church pastor prominently featured on TBN and in circles that many would consider heterodox. One considered celibacy to be his lifelong calling and never wavered in his commitment, the other was disgraced by an affair and a divorce. One was a lifelong evangelist passionate for the gospel, preaching on health, wealth, and personal victory marked the other. Both men were considered heroes to those who followed them, and both men recently died within a few weeks of each other. One died in peace surrounded by his friends and family listening to Handel’s Messiah, the other died alone in a hotel room in New York City with a packet of what has yet to be determined, but was most likely narcotics. The work of one was primarily invisible; the work of the other was broadcast on TV stations all over the world. At the eulogy of Tims, Bishop T.D. Jakes said, “"I thought I was the only one who knew how unhappy Zach was, how broken he was, how afraid he was if anybody was to see any flaw in him. He tried hard to heal himself, to fix himself.” At Stott’s eulogy J.I. Packer said, “John Stott was the most modest of men. If he could have briefed me in advance for this message that I am to give now, he would most certainly have said to me, ‘Focus on Christ. Don’t focus on me.’”

I think these two lives, deaths, and eulogies are important to those of us who live in the aftermath of their deaths. Packer said of Stott, “(he) was a man concerned with every breath he took, that everyone to whom he ministered should enjoy the fullness of the full gospel in its truth and in its power, and should not change any part of it because that would mean exchanging the true gospel for a false one.” For Stott the gospel meant liberation from the curse of sin and death. For him it meant that through the work of Christ we have forgiveness of sins and life in the world to come. For Stott the gospel was something that was to be stated clearly, guarded carefully, and he did those things especially against the rise of theological liberalism. For Tims, “(he) conveys a life changing concept that brings divine reversal in the lives of a people hungry for God and ready for change. It speaks to the heart of man, with a balance of practical principles for living a successful and purpose driven life free of sin, sickness, worry, and debt.” Both men would say that salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ and that the forgiveness of sins is through Christ alone. Both men would preach that Christ is to be proclaimed but the content of that proclamation would be radically different. For Stott the gospel is what God has already done for us in Christ. The gospel is what we cling to, it is what sets us apart from every other religion and self help group. For Tims the gospel was primarily a mechanism by which God gives us the things we can receive without him: financial success, vision, purpose, and worry-free living. If Jakes is right then that means that Tims’ drive to heal and fix himself was an exercise in futility. We all struggle with the sin that still resides in us and we never will be perfectly sinless until the parousia, but the great news of the gospel is not that we try to heal ourselves or fix ourselves but that Christ has already done what is necessary to heal us and what is required of us is to repent and to believe.

If you are reading this then please do not think I am making personal judgments or attacks on them, I am only trying to highlight the differences in their belief systems and how their deaths brought these into sharper focus for me (and also why these distinctions matter). I am not saying that Tims was not a Christian but his gospel was troublesome and it is difficult to see Christ in it apart from Christ as the giver of material goods and services. For Stott, Christ was and is the center of everything, not our divine potential for vision casting and purposeful living. I write this knowing that I may be wrong. I did not know either men so I must work from secondary sources like sermons, books, and websites. I think that two men and their deaths are a microcosm of the state of the church in the United States. We are at war with ourselves for the soul of our faith. We are fighting against what I am increasingly calling “cheap gospel” the gospel that gets us what we want rather then what we need. It's possible that the way they both died is in line with the gospels they preached. The more we preach on what we think God wants to do for us materially rather then what God has already done for us in Christ then we will continue as a church culture to grow increasingly unhappy because we do not realize that what God offers to us will outlast any material possessions or “victorious purposeful living” we strive for in this life. GK Chesterton once said, “Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble." If anyone modeled this, Stott did. All that said, I pray for the families of both men and for the people they influenced. Tims leaves behind an ex-wife and four children and I pray for the Holy Spirit to sustain them in their time of grief. Hopefully through them both God was glorified and that people were brought from death to new life in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reflections of a seminarian

In a few short months I will be coming up on a year of seminary under my belt. My last Spring class will be completed at the end of June followed by two months off with the Fall term beginning in September. I started studying in September 2010 and began with what my advisor claimed would be an easy start: Biblical Hebrew. Personally I believe he was testing me by seeing how I would perform academically and so I threw myself into it and passed Hebrew 1 and 2 with great grades. It has been a fantastic experience and the effect it has had on me, both personally and professionally, has been inestimable. There are several things one needs to keep in mind though about seminary or higher theological education, so I have prepared a list of what I think are helpful pointers for anyone desiring to pursue a higher degree in any ecclesial function.

1) Identify your non-negotiables and stick with them.

Mike Petrow gave me that piece of advice and it has served me well this year. Seminary is a place where, depending on where you go, students can challenge, embrace, or wrestle with the implication of Church history, community, theology and practice of the past two thousand years and how it affects our own context. The Nicene Creed of 381 can be of great benefit here. What do you refuse to compromise on? Find those areas and hold tightly to them. The trick to this is identifying that which is most essential to the core of the Christian faith and not on what is peripheral. Do not make your non-negotiables the belief in a six thousand year old Earth or baptism by immersion. Make sure your non-negotiables are things like the deity of Christ and the resurrection.

2) Learn to deal with and think through tough content you may disagree with.

You will be assigned a variety of books and will need to read them all. Some of the content will not only challenge you but in some areas it may anger you. Last term I had to read a book by a controversial black theologian on black liberation theology. The author made the claim that white people could not accurately interpret scripture. Obviously that is a divisive and unhelpful comment. It angered me and many of my classmates but instead of holding on to that feeling of anger I decided to read deeper and see why it had that effect on me. The theologian made some very good comments on culture, oppression, and theology and if I did not push through my anger I would have been blind to the very helpful things the book discussed.

3) Stay grounded in the Scriptures.

This is probably the area I am weakest in and it is the area I am working towards improving. It is easy to read books about God and it is easy to be familiar with what others say about God, but one needs to be more familiar with Scripture then what John Calvin or Karl Barth says about Scripture. When dealing with theological issues know what Scripture says not how someone else would defend what it says. Dr. D.A. Carson gave a wonderful lecture called The Pastor as Scholar and hit on this topic. It is available online and I recommend that people in ministry and seminary listen to it.

4) Develop friendships with other students.

Make friends with your classmates. We all come from a variety of backgrounds and denominational affiliations and input from your peers is a great blessing. In certain classes I was the go to guy for questions on certain aspects of Pentecostalism due to my former involvement with an offshoot of Pentecostalism called Word of Faith. Interacting with my classmates and answering questions both in class and outside of class not only helped them get a better understanding of the topic but also helped me greatly in identifying what I actually believe on the subject and how I can see those beliefs reflected in the Scriptures. Conversations with them also will help sharpen you theologically so remain open to their input. Also the friendships I have made have helped keep me motivated in class and have aided in keeping me focused. (That and the friends I have made are great people to hang around with too so take a bow Cliff, Jason, Caleb, and Matt).

5) Seminary or higher theological education is not for everyone.

I don’t say this to be arrogant but higher education is not for everyone. Some people may be served better by studying Bible or theology at a Christian college. Seminary cranks that up to the next level. As a student I am continually challenged by the lectures and the readings to try and form theological underpinnings that will guide me through the rest of my life and ministry. Anything that challenges my non-negotiables is not rejected outright but analyzed because it good to know why I don’t hold to a certain view just as much as it is good to know why I do hold a certain view. Seminary is long and expensive, if you are looking to supplement your Bible knowledge or to learn more about God and church history then there are other great resources out there other then seminary. To go deeper in your faith you need to read. A lot. Seminary is not always the answer.

6) Work for a church or ministry while in seminary.

If you do go to seminary try to do so while working for a church or ministry. Seminary will give you a lot of tools, theory, and information. If you do not have a place to use those tools then it may not do you much good. There are students in some of my classes who are hurt and bitter with the church and I think that seminary may not be a good place for them because it can give them tools by which they can dissect the faith to such an extreme that it loses its power. We all have had bad experiences with the church because the people who serve in the church are just as much sinners saved by grace as those who attend the church.

That is all I can think of off the top of my head. My prayer is that it will be helpful and informative to some of you who may read it. Hopefully I will continue to keep these steps in mind as I begin to enter my second year as a seminary student. I am looking forward to the next set of courses and looking forward to interacting with new professors and making new friends. If anyone wants to discuss further anything I have talked about then feel free to email me or hit me up on Facebook. Soli Deo Gloria.

Luther, Zeal, and the Gospel

While reading the Table Talks by Martin Luther one of the sections stood out to me. It was Luther’s description of his journey from Catholicism towards his understanding of justification by faith which culminated with the Protestant Reformation. He starts off with his motivation for entering the monastery, discusses how his beliefs led him to eventually discard the trappings of what he was preaching against, and what those steps meant for him personally. This portion has an almost Pauline flavor at the beginning. He writes (pg. 76), “For in the period of my monk days I served the Pope with such diligence that I out-did all the papists who lived or now live… and I observed the regulations of our order in the strictest manner.” This echoes what Paul wrote in Philippians 3:4-6 (ESV), “Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Luther, like Paul, was more than zealous then many of his contemporaries. Early in the book he mentions how upon his trip to Rome he was repulsed by the mockery of the sacraments and he said that neither sin, God, nor shame were given any notice (pg. 74). Both men were blinded by their zealotry and both men had encounters with God, via scripture in Luther’s case, and a vision in Paul’s case. When this happened the zealotry remained but it was reformed into something better and it was pointed towards a new purpose.

It must have been a terrible shock to the monk who took his religion seriously to see the excesses before him. I heard a pastor say recently that we do not obey God because we want him to love us; rather we obey God because he loves us. This in an apt description to the problems Luther saw and how these problems are still with us in the church today. Many ministers, myself included, have a zeal to help the people in our churches so we invent programs, fancy advertisements, loud music, flashy graphics, and sermons that reduce the transformative power of the Gospel to moral obligations. We do these things to attract people, to appear relevant, to put a good image but this can be just as bad as the belief that relics could take years off of time spent in purgatory. The life of Luther should show us that preaching a Gospel of morality or self-help is just as harmful as the gospel of works and paid-for salvation of the church of that time. In our attempts to contextualize the Gospel we must never dilute the Gospel and understand that the Gospel, while understood in various cultural contexts, is something that calls culture to submit to Christ. If we as ministers do not understand it or disagree with it we run the risk of becoming just as legalistic and bound to ritual and formulae as the church of Martin Luther’s day.

Religious Affections

I recently read a selection from Jonathan Edwards in Devotional Classics. The excerpt in this reading begins with, "The kind of religion God requires… Does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless "wouldlings" - those weak inclinations that lack convictions - that raise us but little above indifference. God insists that we be good earnest, fervent in spirit, and that our hearts be engaged vigorously in our religion." Many years ago I would have been surprised to read a statement like this from a Calvinist or someone from a Reformed tradition. My tradition was one that eschewed all tradition except the one we were making, forging, and practicing for ourselves at that set time and place. We heard scary stories of other denominations that denied the power of the Holy Spirit, denominations that were dry, dead, and dying because they refused the gift of baptism in the Holy Spirit. The problem comes when one reads someone like Jonathan Edwards.

He writes, "When we receive the Spirit of God we receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost who is like fire and along with it the sanctifying and saving influences of God. When this happens… it burns within us." These are not the words of a dried up passionless man. These are the words of a soul hungry for God, a soul thirsty for that which only God can give. I think that many Pentecostals would do well to read Jonathan Edwards because in this portion he highlights one of the primary attributes of the Holy Spirit, namely the convicting work he does in our hearts and his sanctifying power in the lives of Christians. I find it amusing that many in Pentecostal circles would dismiss Edwards because of the Christian tradition he hails from but what I see here is a man just as baptized in the Holy Spirit as anyone from the Pentecostal stream.

Later he mentions what he terms the "spring of action" and how stirred by the Spirit, our affections are also stirred. He also ties in the knowledge of doctrine and theology with religious affection, correctly noting that knowledge of these things are useless without our hearts being stirred first. Reading this passage made me think of the other day when I was teaching a class on water baptism at my church. I read Titus 3:3-7 and as I was reading it, my eyes began to water and my voice began to crack. There is something about this scriptural passage that always stirs me to tears, always stirs my affection, but also my gratitude to God for his love and for saving me. It made me understand that a neglected part of the work of the Holy Spirit in my tradition is conviction. We would highlight the convicting work of the Spirit in regards to conversion but we would focus on the ecstatic experience as a way of sanctification rather then the Holy Spirit stirring our affections for God in such a way that encourages us to keep from sinning as we pursue Him.

Education as Pride

Recently for a seminary assignment I had to read The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Reading Thomas a Kempis was something I had been planning on doing for a very long time. Many years ago, one of my professors in Bible College lent me a copy. I eagerly went to read it but was stymied right away. I did not quite know how to approach it because that copy was divided in to verses, almost like a Bible, and the content varied from chapter to chapter. Thomas writes little snippets of information almost offhandedly as if he is daringly throwing down the gauntlet to his reader to consider what he has written before moving on to the next portion. That approach challenges people to really examine themselves and wrestle with what is being said instead of offering a cursory reading.

The first book reminds me of the book of Ecclesiastes, some of his language reminds me of the arguments in it, the tension between the daily actions of life and futility of it apart from God. On the surface he seems to be anti-learning but upon closer examination something else appears. I didn't get the impression that he was anti-education, but what I did glean from book one was this undercurrent of humility. Thomas puts his finger on a problem very early on; people with education can become arrogant in their knowledge. He claims that it is better to live right before God then to have too much knowledge that it does one no good. I have the propensity for arrogance when I learn or read something new. Often I, consciously or unconsciously, look for opportunities where I can bring up what I have learned in order to appear wise or learned. His comments in book one are an excellent reminder to watch out for pride and to let my pursuit of God be forefront instead of my pursuit of knowledge about God. Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." For me, this is the heart of book one and Thomas says it well when he writes, "Well-ordered learning is not to be belittled, for it is good and comes from God, but a clean conscience and a virtuous life are much better and more to be desired."

A Prayer..

Father,

If the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy you forever, may everything I do bring glory to you oh God. Let all my decisions, all my actions, all my thoughts, all my questions, and all my longings be united in one desire to bring glory to you. May the beauty of Christ and the depths of your love move me towards you in ever increasing increments until I find the totality of myself in you. May I do nothing to bring dishonor to your name or to your person. Oh blessed Holy Spirit, keep me that may I strive through your power to persevere until my last day when I will find myself forever in the presence of the Father, the Son, and Spirit.

Amen.

A theology of suffering

Suffering is a word that we do not like in modern day American mainline and independent churches. Suffering brings to mind the plight of the poor in Africa and the third world. Suffering brings to mind wasting away from terrible diseases. Suffering brings to the forefront intense emotions and questions about ultimate reality and the reasons for suffering. The church in modern America has not helped in the way it deals with suffering. From evangelical to fundamentalist to pentacostal to Baptist, we do not like hearing the word "suffering." The problem is that the Bible talks quite a bit on the subject, and not in the way that modern churches in America have taught it. Pastor Matt Chandler, of The Village Church in Dallas Texas, said in a recent interview for Justin Taylor's blog for The Gospel Coalition (http://tiny.cc/ybrgm), "There was no real understanding of what was going on in suffering. The theology most people had been taught was erroneous. They felt lost and confused." The overall context for this comment is that Matt Chandler is a pastor in Texas who last year was diagnosed with anaplastic oligodendroglioma, which is a malignant brain tumor. A year later by God's grace he is still alive, the tumor seems to be in remission, and he seems to be in recovery, but he is still undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. During this time he has been prayed for by many ministers from multiple denominations for healing but so far none has been forthcoming. God for whatever reason which are his own, did not heal him of the tumor. During the process, and even years before the process Matt taught regularly on the topic of suffering because he saw that teaching on the subject has been incorrect and indeed antithetical to what scripture actually teaches on the subject. Reading the above mentioned blog brought to the forefront of my mind things I have been thinking about for years on the subject and how what I was taught did not match up with what scripture taught and what actually plays out in our daily lives in this regard.

This is a major topic and it is impossible in a blog to summarize the mountains of books and commentaries and teaching on this subject. The main point, the one the church needs to be biblical about, then is this: we will suffer in this life. God does not promise to take suffering away, Jesus did not suffer so we would not have to suffer in this life, and scripture makes no claim to a worry free, stress free, or suffering free life for the followers of Jesus. Anyone who teaches otherwise is either selling something, is ignorant, or is both. That is a hard statement, but it is one I'm willing to stand behind. Now if you're reading this your initial reaction might be to say "Well this minster said, or that author wrote God wants us to live in victory because we are champions that are to be always up in a down world, untouched by the ills and pains of this life" or "Hey suffering might come but stay positive God will deliver you out of it." There is a problem with this though and the problem is Jesus and the apostles. Jesus did not live above the pains and suffering of this life. His friend and cousin was beheaded, his family thought he was crazy, religious leaders sought to kill him, a mob tried to throw him off of a cliff, and he was beaten, tortured and crucified. We have two false images of Jesus. The first is that he sort of sailed through life as if he were floating on a cloud, and that he didn't experience pain or hunger. The other false image of Jesus is that he endured all suffering so we would not have to. Jesus was a flesh and bone human being, just as human as he was divine. He sweated, breathed, went to the bathroom, was hungry, tired, sleepy, and at times grieved. Jesus suffered so we would not have to suffer eternally in hell, he suffered so we could be reconciled to God, he suffered so that we could be justified and righteous in the sight of God, not so we could live a suffering free lifestyle of ease. The beauty of what Jesus did is that we have a God that bleeds and suffers with us. We have a God that loved us so much that he entered into our world and bled with us, suffered with us, and died like us. If we believe in his name we will rise like he did and when this happens then every tear will be wiped away and every pain will be healed. Not now then but soon.

Do not misunderstand me I am not saying that God does not heal. I am not saying that God does not care or that God will not intervene and that somehow our suffering does not affect him. God is good, just, loving, compassionate, abounding in mercy, and rich in grace. He cares deeply for us and as a result of that through Christ he suffers with us. The apostle Paul was mightily used of God. The apostle Peter was mightily used of God. Both died as martyrs. Peter was crucified upside down, and Paul was most likely beheaded. Peter was miraculously freed from prison but he was not delivered from being whipped. Paul escaped a city by being lowered in a basket but he was stoned, whipped, shipwrecked, hungry, in pain, and attacked by a messenger of Satan. Paul suffered greatly. The thing is though Paul had an incredible attitude towards it. He called his suffering light, temporary afflictions. Why? Because he saw that all of his suffering, all of his work, was eternal and was working out an eternal reward not only in him but for the people that came to Jesus through his ministry. God does not afflict but he will use affliction to work his purposes in us. God does not make us sick but he will use sickness to work something in us or through us. God does not hurt us to teach us a lesson but he will use those hurts to highlight that we are utterly reliant on his strength and grace and like Paul we can say in the midst of pain, "Your grace is sufficient for me."

My church background focused so much on material blessings that we expected God to heal everyone and to grant all our requests so we threw out the fact that God, who is not the author of suffering, will use our suffering for his purposes. C.S. Lewis wrote, "If you're approaching Him (God) not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching him at all." Our problem is that we have seen God as the means to happiness, to prosperity, to riches and when we do not gain those things we hate God or disbelieve in him because we equate what he sometimes gives with who he is. Romans 8:28 (ESV) points out, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes." Notice it doesn't say that all things that happen to us are good or that God promises nothing but good, it says that God will work all things together for good. Regardless of our pain, regardless of our suffering, regardless of our pain, God will redeem it and turn our deepest pain into something redemptive and good. Philip Yancey wrote and I agree, "God's goodness does not mean we will not get hurt, not in this fallen world at least. His goodness goes deeper then pleasure and pain, somehow incorporating both."

Surprised by Hope review

I recently wrote a mini-paper about a book I read called Surprised by Hope. I decided to post it here and share it with you all. It's related to doctrine so if you're not into that sort of thing you may find the rest of this very boring:

If N.T. Wright is correct, then for the past few hundred, if not thousands, of years Christian theological development has been wrong concerning the doctrine of heaven, hell, the resurrection and how it relates to our lives and the implications it holds in sway between doctrine, belief, and practice. During a sermon preparation and preaching course at the bible college I attended a student delivered his sermon on the resurrection in the vein of how N. T. Wright presented it and it was one off the more memorable messages delivered in the course because of the discussions it sparked after the sermon was over. That event stuck in my mind, not just because of the discussions, but because it was very theologically sound and the more I thought about it the less fault I could discover with it. That reaction was very close to what I experienced while reading this book: it was well thought out, he presented his ideas clearly and gave a lot of, what should be most important when hammering out doctrine: scriptural evidence balanced out with supporting historical evidence. I agreed with his central thesis but rather than rehash what I liked about the book in the rest of this paper I am going to address several concerns, disagreements, and observations about his thesis and the way it plays out in the local church and in our lives. Before I get into my thoughts on the book and it’s ideology I will recap his thesis. He asserts that the modern church’s theology on the afterlife is incorrect since they teach a disembodied afterlife with God in heaven as a means of leaving behind the world. He says the early church adopted the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the body and that the resurrection of Jesus was historical and efficacious. Historical in the fact it actually happened and efficacious because as Jesus resurrected we will also resurrect at the last day after a period of rest with God. Also as a result of his resurrection and his promise to redeem our own bodies we work to further his kingdom until the fullness of time when God descends and recreates the heavens and the Earth and gives us new resurrected bodies.

The first area of concern is with the church falling into the trap Western liberalism and secular humanism falls into: enacting means of social justice or reform by believing in the inherent goodness of humanity and that humanity will, as technology, our standard of living, and education improve, better themselves and achieve a sort of societal perfection and unity. This, of course, is patently unrealistic, politically naïve, and scripturally untenable as humanity is fallen and in need of redemption and no social justice program or acts of works can cure the condition of our souls. Wright mentions the shortcomings of Western progressive culture wherein science or God would cause all things to work together towards becoming good and whole and rightly points out it’s failures but we must be careful because defining salvation as working on Earth for the good of the kingdom coming can lead to the kind of misguided idealism he has spent previous chapters rejecting. To his credit he does address that issue later in the book but caution must be taken to where we work for the advancement of the kingdom here and know, doing the work of Christ, feeding the hungry, clothing and serving the poor, aiding the widows and orphans and ministering to the spiritual needs of people but neglect the redemption of the soul. John Piper said once in a sermon and his words ring true here, “Works are not the roots of justification, they are the fruit of justification.”

The other concept I have trouble agreeing with is his de-emphasis on hell and inability to succinctly clarify his view of what awaits unrighteous sinners. He did a masterful job describing what awaits those of us that enter into his kingdom upon resurrection and paints a beautiful picture of Gods people aiding in the healing of the world, but has no answers about hell. He rejects the picture of hell, rightly so, that reigns in modern churches as medieval and based on Greek myth and not on scripture. I can see his point but if after we die we are joined with Christ and God the Father in restful bliss awaiting our resurrection then it is not a stretch of the imagination to say that the unsaved dead are in a state of unrest and possible terror awaiting their final judgment. This would also make sense doctrinally given how resurrection works and how life after life after death works. However he also talks about how our resurrection fully humanizes us because it restores us to what we were before the fall. One has to be careful here that salvation and redemption do not get reduced into a sort of super self-actualization where we become our true human selves. This is close to the liberal evolutionary belief in the inherent goodness and development of man. In his view, as I understood it, hell is a separation from God during which the unsaved become further and further dehumanized until they have no knowledge of themselves, lost forever. The problem is that if we are going to take the New Jerusalem descending from heaven as a true and literal event, that the coming of God and heaven to the Earth to redeem and recreate the Earth as a true event then we cannot take away the picture of eternal punishment in the lake of fire as a true and literal event. I find it problematic to explain away the New Jerusalem as something that is going to happen and the lake of fire as just a picture. We need to be consistent in our interpretations and not pick and choose what we want to believe as fact and what we want to be imagery just because it may or may not sit well with our modern sensibilities. We will all be judged, some to death, some to life but Christ will judge us all.

Wright also mentions in the book that if churches believe in a disembodied spirit floating in an ethereal afterlife then they will tend to not be focused on doing the work of the kingdom because if the world is going to be destroyed and God will rapture the church away then why bother with doing anything other than saving souls? In my experience he makes a valid point but there are many churches that hold on to that theology that still do the work of the kingdom. In South Africa I was involved with a large church with a focus on winning souls. They had a very large charitable ministry and worked with drug addicts, AIDS sufferers, the homeless, orphans, and the disenfranchised. At the end of the day many churches will continue to reach ouch to the poor and needy because it is the right thing to do, and because Jesus told us to help those people. However I do agree with his point because for every church that reaches out there are many that only looks inward.

This book has been very challenging to me as I had taken for granted the doctrine of the afterlife I had been taught and saw no need to analyze it in light of scripture mistakenly thinking I had it down correctly. I do believe that right belief produces right action but as a caveat I would add that will only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts. I believe that Wright has hit on something that needs to be examined and he makes a very compelling case. Where do we go from here then? If modern western Christianity has been mistaken how can we address and redress this? How can we begin to stem the tide of incorrect doctrine that comes from Greek and medieval philosophers and not from scripture? I do not have the answers for this but for groups of Christians that believe in, and pride themselves on, Sola Scriptura we may need to reevaluate this doctrine in order to be faithful to the credo of the great reformers and the Holy Spirit of God.

Processing...

As many of you know, or may not know, I am in the process of applying to seminary, Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA to be exact. The reactions I've gotten when I've told people has ranged from "Why would you want to do that?" to "Go for it!" Some have not opined as of yet and honestly I don't quite care to hear everyone's opinion on the matter because it has no sway over my decision. the journey towards this has been a long one and I think I went the roundabout way instead of the straight and narrow way. After I came back from South Africa I didn't quite know what to do with myself. The first few months I took a well deserved rest, but after some time I became a bit stir crazy and tried my hand at various things but did not see them through. Everything I tried to do for myself seemed to not stick. I applied to some schools, attended some classes and even started master's degree program but did not make it past a term. I have always wanted to learn more and to study more but nothing caught my attention and I quickly became bored with it all and stopped. The desire has always been there and the ability, I hope, is there to complete a program but for a few years I've felt listless, but not so much anymore. For about a month now it's been slowly building in the back of my mind that I need to do this that if I don't pursue this then I may not get another opportunity. I heard a pastor once say that God is patient but his patience doesn't last forever. That feeling hasn't left me.

I've been feeling a mixture of regret and excitement. Regret because of all the time I have wasted in finally getting to the point where I've said to God, "Not my will, but your will be done." Excitement because it finally feels like my life has a trajectory again that's not dependent on the mood swings of a fiance or on taking what's around because life has nothing better to offer. I don't think it is wise to be too harsh when judging myself concerning this because everything I've done and seen have all shaped me into who I am. Could I have come to these realizations sooner? Probably. Maybe two months back I blogged about my trip to PA and what it jump-started in my heart. After years of running and trying to live my life for myself I have finally come to understand that my life is not my own, my life belongs to God. When we choose to follow Jesus we give up our lives to his will, not ours. Grace extends salvation to us for free, we cannot do anything to merit it but once it is received we owe God our lives in service to him and to others. As a result I have been immersing myself in the word and in teaching. I've been devouring sermons from Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper. As I have been doing this God has slowly started to open my heart again and I have been remembering things he had previously shown me. The other day I was listening to a sermon on the spiritual gifts and while the speaker was teaching I was struck by what he said because what he was discussing was similar to experiences I had in the past, and I felt God remind me of occasions where I was able to use those gifts. It was a really beautiful experience because I was reminded of what was and was given a glimpse of what could be. Oddly, it was frightening as well because it brought up things that I had thought were either dormant or no longer there. I am being vague on purpose but only because I'm still trying to process everything.

Some of you may read this and think well good for you but not understand. Many won't understand because it is difficult to explain the call especially when I've done my best to either avoid it directly or push it into the background in the hopes it would fade away. One of my professors once said that people blithely pursue ministry not understanding what it entails, what it requires of us, and what God requires of us. The fact that I've spent so long trying to avoid it just reinforces the fact that it is what God is requiring of me. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of it when he said, "But if I say, 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' his word is in my heart like a burning fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot."

Lent and beyond

(I wrote this awhile back but added a lot more to it today)

Lent: the time of year when Christians give up something they desire, want, have, or struggle with for 40 days. (Because that's what Jesus died for: us not being able to eat meat on Fridays, abstinence, and giving up something trivial like chocolate. What happens after the 40 days are up? Is it okay to do again the behaviour we were trying to give up when Lent started?) Okay maybe sarcasm here is not warranted. I actually like Lent a lot and the whole idea behind it. Sometimes it pains me that I grew up in an independent uber-pentecostal denomination which eschewed any sort of liturgical formalism because to do so was being traditional and dry. Such things were frowned upon and our denomination considered itself "full gospel" (whatever that means) because we were free of the shackles of ritualism. But a little ritual and tradition is good, some of us need structure and a degree of formalism. I like Lent because it structures a time when we are to focus on the unselfish act of Christ by giving away a part of our selfish selves to prayer and discipline.

The point of Lent is for us to give to God something we need to give away, whether it be chocolate, sex, swearing, or alcohol. But the focus is not and should not be for us just to try and change our behavior. The Bible is filled with stories of people who tried to fulfill the law and failed miserably. Lent is about aligning our nature with God's nature, to let our will give way to his will, even if its just for 40 days. It's a time where we strive to loosen the bonds of the lust of the flesh and attempt to live a life focused on the spirit. So I may not rub ashes on my forehead, and I may not attend a formalized service, but as a believer I can still celebrate in my own way.
There are some things I have decided to lay down this season which I hope by the end of I will be able to leave behind, hopefully I can. My prayer for myself, and for whoever reads this, is that as my own strength lessens that the strength and will from God will increase, and that I will be able to hear the still whisper of the Father whilst drowning out the cacophony of voices trying to sway my attention away from him. I like a verse in Ecclesiastes which reads something like this," Don't make rash promises to God. When you make a promise to God don't delay in following through for God takes no pleasure in fools." I find that quite sobering. I have also found that the things I've vowed to give up aren't necessarily bad things in and of themselves, but they can be indicative of a greater struggle against something inside.

This year I feel a pressure like never before. It isn't necessarily a bad pressure but I feel something on the horizon taking shape and forming out of a sort of spiritual primordial ooze. Something important is coming and I need to be ready, not just outwardly but inwardly. At the same time though I feel a lethargy trying to sneak in and direct my attention away, combine this with a loneliness that comes and goes and it makes for a potent distraction. That's why Lent is so powerful because like I mentioned earlier it shifts the focus from our needs or wants to Christ who ultimately being the Alpha and the Omega is the salve our searching souls need. I may not keep all my vows this Lent, but I try my hardest and hopefully this year my spiritual discipline will keep me focused past Easter, and like Kara hearing the music that shows her the way to Earth, I'll be able to stay on course to where I need to be regardless of whatever distractions arise.

The psalmist wrote that the sacrifices God accepts and desires are from a contrite heart and a broken spirit, may my heart and soul be broken and contrite before him.

Selah

Selah.

This little word appears throughout the Psalms and Habakkuk and has generated a firestorm of debate on what the word means, its etymology, and it's proper use. Luckily for me there is a general consensus on its proper use and meaning, or else this would be the shortest blog in the history of blogs. An example is found in Psalm 66:4,

"All the Earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing praise to your name." Selah

It's use here can indicate either a break or musical interlude in the Psalm, or it could mean a pause to stop and reflect on what previously said. Regardless of its literal usage both meanings have one idea in common: to pause. More specifically to pause and weigh what has been said. In all probability when this word appears it usually means that something very important has just been said and that the listener needs to think and reflect back on what was said and done. This fits in line with Jewish traditions specifically because when you look at Jewish tradition you see a theme of remembrance and promises running through it. The Psalms are replete with people worshiping God and remembering the things he has done for them in the past with the expectant hope that he will continue to work for their good in the future. The temptation while writing this is to go down the expected path and mention something along the lines of we should all slow down every once in awhile and enjoy life, or listen more often to others, or sit in meditative silence. I am not going to go that route however because everyone else has and I see something different at work.

The more I think about it the more I believe that Selah is more akin to awe then to a mere pause, interlude, or reflection. Think about it, in the scriptures where God is exalted it usually comes after a passage of importance. This happens not because we need to consider if what was said is accurate, or true, or profound because the very fact it appears already means those three things. What it does mean is that the reader should take what was just said and through it become more aware of the character and person of God resulting in awe of who He is, what He has done, and what He will continue to do for His people. Abraham Heschel defined awe as something that is not just an emotion; it is an act of appreciative insight into meaning greater then ourselves, and what higher meaning beyond ourselves is there other than knowing God? Heschel also said that awe is the answer of the heart and the mind to the presence of mystery in all things. Colossians 1:26-27 says,

“This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you.

Christ lives in me. If you believe in Him then Christ lives in you as well. Everything spiritual, mystical, temporal, and eternal all culminates in the person and work of Christ, and he lives in us if we believe in Him and what his sacrifice accomplished for humanity. What else could be our response to something like that except gratitude, humility, and unquenchable awe? Selah indeed.

Motion

One of Sir Isaac Newton's laws, I believe it is his third law of motion, states, "Every object in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." For example if you roll a ball across a floor it will continue to roll unless somethings stops it. In this case that could be divots in the carpet, or friction with the air but it will continue to move until something makes it stop. (If you're reading this then don't worry, there won't be any more science for the rest of the blog so breathe a sigh of relief unless you like that sort of thing). I have noticed that this principle works not only with the physical sciences but also with a myriad of other things we experience even spilling over into our emotional and spiritual lives.

Since it's a blog, and blogs by their very nature are borderline narcissistic anyways, I'm going to use my own experiences as an example to highlight the point I just made. Many times in our live we have goals, dreams, things we strive to do and be. No matter how high a goal we set for ourselves most of us start off with verve and zest and as time passes the verve and zest turns into apathy. God may give us an idea or we may make decisions about our lives and things we want or need to do but then we lay those decisions down or not take steps to implement them. For myself I was just in PA visiting some friends and had some very intense and intelligent conversation about every aspect of my life which led me to a radical re-assessing. I have some decisions to make about a lot of things and it's been weighing on me since I got back into Florida. The point is I have all this going on inside but already there are external or internal forces trying to get my mind and focus away from what I may need to do and focus it back onto what is. Last year I looked at my life and thought to myself that I should just lie back and accept it and that what was going on was as good as it was going to get. Quite a fatalistic attitude I know but I felt like this is it and I need to get used to it because nothing is going to change, this is how it's been so this is what I have to look forward to in the future. Of course that kind of thinking is wrong and the trip I took knocked me out of that loop but it is crazy how life and the things I've grown used to are trying to work their way back into my head. I find it amazing when decisions or realizations are made how quickly outside forces rise up and try to strangle it.

Luckily though we have the ability to defy the laws of physics. We have an agent that helps us knock those external or internal forces out of the way so we can stay in motion towards where we need to be and what we need to do. (Of course science buffs I'm not speaking of defying the laws of physics in the natural world, I'm referring to the spiritual). This agent of change isn't an Obama speech or half baked change platitudes, we have God himself in us and working through us to bring about the change he desires and in many cases inspired. I've found that this process can be broken down into something like this:

1) We identify a need or are inspired to make some sort of change, so we get excited and talk about it and plan for it and begin to make the necessary steps in a particular direction

2) We lose momentum and we allow cares of this world, worries, situations and complications, and apathy to set in and our motion gets slower and slower due to the forces acting upon it

3) We cease pursuing wondering what happened, why are we still at the same place, and why hasn't anything changed? And here its where motion stops.. The good thing though is that it is at this point where God will nudge us and get us back in motion and have us rolling again to where we need to be or what we need to do. We have to be open to that nudging and when we start moving again to keep it going by not paying attention to what's trying to steal or halt our motion. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a poem, 3 different versions appear in the the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, that I think describes this process in a nutshell:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Thirsty

Currently I am in the great state of Pennsylvania. I am fairly mercenary about states though, my favourite one being where I find myself. So right now PA is my fave in spite of the bitter cold. I am here visiting my oldest and closest friend Mike and some other really good friends I've made throughout the years I've been visiting here (One of whom is graciously putting me up for a few days.). Mike's father is a pastor and this morning I went to their service and Mike preached this morning about how God cuts our story out of us and gives us his own story. If you stop and think about it it is really quite profound: God imparts himself to us empowering us to live a life above what we could make for ourselves. The agent of this cutting being the sword of the spirit which the books of Ephesians and Hebrews says is the Word of God, and that Word of God is alive, sharp, and powerful enough to pierce our souls. It is already understood that Jesus is the Word made flesh, incarnated if you prefer, and dwelt among us. There is a lot of teaching on that aspect but not a lot of teaching on the aspect of the Word of God being alive. Today I think that some puzzle pieces clicked together in my mind concerning this and I felt like sharing it.

For the past few months I have been reading more voraciously then normal, and for me normal is quite a lot so for me to say that I'm reading more then my usual is saying something. (You may be wondering what this has to do with my previous paragraph, but if you stick around it will make sense). Needless to say I have been devouring books. While reading I have been feeling sort of like a traveller lost in the Sahara Desert: that almost frantic feeling of fear once the realization hits that I don't know where I am. It’s been like that when I've been reading. Something in me has been yearning for something MORE and none of the books I've been reading have been able to assuage that feeling. True I've read some books and am reading books that are striking emotional resonances within me. I'm currently reading God in Search of Man by Abraham Heschel and it is a profound book of religious Jewish philosophy and his comments on the nature of God are amazing. I'm reading through Encounters with Merton by Henri Nouwen and am gleaning a lot from it and even though it is a slim volume it has a lot of insight. However there is a profound difference between books written about God and the book that contains the Word of God. As I was listening to the sermon this morning I was reading along in my Bible with the scriptural quotations being used and I realized that this was what I was missing and I felt like an idiot because the answer was there in front of my face the whole time. As I was reading it I could feel the disconnect in my soul reconnect with the divine and I realized that I have spent far too little time in the Word and with the Word and spent too much time reading about the Word. As I read scripture the yearning I had inside was satisfied.

One of the Psalms says, "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you Oh God." Thinking about that passage took on deeper significance for me this morning. One thing I love about scripture is that there can be a passage that you've read over and over again, then in one moment it becomes alive in your heart and takes on a meaning it didn't previously have. If Christ is the Word incarnate, made flesh, I do not think it is a stretch to say that as we read the words of God that THE Word of God incarnates in the words we read in scripture piercing our hearts and transforming us more into what we are supposed to be and what it is possible for us to become. Thomas Merton wrote, "By the reading of scripture I am so renewed that all seems to be renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, cooler blue, the trees a deeper green, light is sharper on the outlines of the forest and the hills and the whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music in the earth under my feet." I really like that but I also like the fact that this not only happens to us without, it also happens to us within: truth is illuminated, will is discerned, paths are made straight, chaos gives way to peace, and emotional tumult gives way to wholeness.

If love was a plane..

This one has been a long time in the making. When I mentioned to a friend the subject of what I'm going to write about, he looked at me and said one word, "Why?" I thought for a minute and replied, "Because I need to."

I let go of Candice last year and am back to my usual chipper self but this has been running around in my head for a while. Possibly my compulsion to write about it, to get it out in the open, which is antithetical to my usual desire for privacy, will serve as a final expulsion of anything left in me that cared for her. At the end the whole episode turned out to be fairly brutal and painful and while going through it I did the opposite of what I normally do, I clammed up. I never wrote about it, I put off talking about it after it happened and when I finally did the first person I told lives a few states away. The first few weeks I was numb and it felt like I was living in a state of perpetual fugue. Hurts like this always take time to heal, and hurts on this scale irrevocably leave scars, but such is the peril of love I suppose. Brad Paisley quips that if love were a plane, no one would get on because statistically the chances of love working out is substantially worse then the statistical probability of a plane crash. But we all line up anyway and board a plane that sometimes only has one engine and half a wing that serves terrible food, and is piloted by drunken chimpanzees. Yet we gleefully and with expectant hope line up anyways, boarding passes clutched tightly in our hands eager to get on board and get flying. As cynical as my previous statements sound though I'd gladly grab my ticket and queue with everyone else because eventually I'll board the right flight and survive the trip even if my previous travels never took me where I wanted to go.

I think that I latch on to women too quickly. I don’t know why I’m wired that way. All it takes is a few good dates, a couple of kisses and I’m sold. Combine that with another person who was also searching for love and romance and you get a potent mélange of neediness and codependency. I have to say though when I finally started talking about it my friends really stepped up to the plate. They constantly called, never judged, were always quick to take me out and not leave me alone if I was especially down. I have to say though Silas called it from the very beginning (his predictions about women in my life are surprisingly prescient). Ah well regardless the whole situation left me well aware of a few things:

1) I am supremely unlucky at love

2) I tend to latch on too quickly rather then let things develop slowly

3) I have no idea how to be in a relationship that lasts longer then 6 months

4) I’m getting too old for this crap

Socrates said, “And in knowing that you know nothing, makes you the smartest of all.” By that rationale I should be a pro at this but I still feel like I’m playing in the Little League. Maybe my stats would improve if I didn’t draft from the injured list, but when injuries are internal it’s more difficult to judge. When you consider that along with my very linear approach to problem solving and desire to help whomever I care about creates a situation that may be detrimental but Ill still try anyway because it’s better then being alone. At least my focus is off myself and on someone else. That may be wrong and I’m pretty sure it is, but at the end of the day maybe the philosophical question I should focus on is “know thyself” rather then “give yourself away.”