Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Choosing Bible Reading

    I was reading an excellent post by Martin LaBar (Sun and Shield) today about our reading choices.  He’s commenting on a study that shows that we tend to select reading that confirms our already existing views.

    Now I suspect there’s nothing terribly surprising about that.  At least most of us assume that other people only read to support their own prejudices.  We, of course, just choose to read only the truth!

    This idea connected with some current reading.  My daughter and her family, who obviously know me well, sent me a gift card for Barnes and Noble for my birthday, and I used it to get a commentary I’ve been wanting, Frank J. Matera’s commentary on II Corinthians.  I’ve been reading it for part of my devotional time.

    In the exceptional introduction to the book, Matera finds a common theme for the book that connects the gospel to apostolic ministry. To summarize and paraphrase (a fuller explanation of this is on page 14), Paul preaches God who raises the dead, but to participate in this resurrection, one must participate in Christ’s suffering and affliction.  Paul becomes part of Christ’s suffering through his suffering in his ministry to the church.

    Thus the book presents a picture of ministry that is almost entirely the opposite of the waythe world–and often the modern church–see it.  We like to think of great leaders, strong and capable people, called to carry their natural gifts into service, for which they get due reward.  That is not New Testament, Christ-like service, however.

    While we quote a text or two in 2 Corinthians, on topics like new creation, imputation, and cheerful giving, that is only a tiny portion of the theme–the theme of the book is a defense of Paul’s apostolic minsitry as a fragile, weak vessel used by God.

    So what does this have to do with reading choices?

    Ask yourself how much time we spend studying various books of the Bible.  I recall, for example, that books like Romans and Galatians were pretty popular in the seminary where I studied.  Second Corinthians?  Not so much.

    Indeed, we didn’t really get the whole books of Galatians and Romans.  I took a class titles Exegesis of Romans in Greek in my undergraduate program, and we never got past chapter 8.  Chapters 9-16?  The professor mentioned them a few times, but I had to work on those on my own later.

    In graduate school I took a course in Galatians.  With effort we got through chapter 4.  We missed chapters 5 & 6.

    But one of the things 2 Corinthians does is provide us with the application of salvation by faith to ministry–ministry by faith.

    Perhaps we ought to spend some serious time on the portions of the Bible that are a bit less popular.

  • Dave Black on Christians and Nationalism

    He posted an excellent article on his web site titled A Lesson from Ethiopia. Further comment at Mt. Tirzah Baptist Church.

  • Ministry Mistakes (or not)

    The Internet Monk has a list of his most bone-headed ministry mistakes. It’s worth a read. Some of them aren’t really mistakes, in my view. For example, #4:

    4. Two of my deacons made a big deal about me taking the a.m. service ten minutes too long two weeks in a row, and they humiliated me in front of the rest of the deacons over it. No affirmation of my preaching at all. Just p.o.-ed that I had gotten them to the restaurants a bit late. I was angry; really angry. The next week I preached for 12 minutes total and dismissed the service at 15 minutes till noon. The reaction was predictable. I actually consider that one of my finer moments. If your view of preaching is “How soon do I get to dinner?” you deserve to be accommodated.

    Enjoy!

  • Mistakes, Love, and Parenting

    … or any other human relationship, for that matter.

    I got back yesterday from displaying books at Methodist annual conference for Alabama/Northwest Florida. We had the joy of having our daughter Janet join us there to help out, and we got to chat a bit. We were talking about raising children–she has two–and I mentioned how I used to regard myself as completely ignorant of child raising when I was a bachelor, unlike some singles I know, who are pretty certain their children wouldn’t behave “that way!” I noted that when I married Jody, and acquired a ready-made family, I discovered that “completely ignorant” was not an adequate description of the depth of my ignorance!

    One observation survived the passage from bachelor to married with children–I had always observed that the particular child-raising theories expressed by the parents seemed not to be reflected in the children. There were disciplinarians with behavioral disasters and seemingly permissive parents with well-behaved, polite children. The one thing I always noticed was that the children of involved parents seemed to do well, while the children of distant or absent parents tended to do, well, not-so-well.

    Today I found this wonderful article on Inside Higher Ed. Rosemarie Emanuele, Mama PhD, talks very personally about the mistakes one makes, and the love that is still there–and works.

    I loved it! I hope you will too.

  • A Thought on Leviticus 16:13

    I was struck by the wording of Leviticus 16:13 tody. There is a long list of instructions, followed by the clause “that he may not die.” It’s just 2 words in Hebrew.

    It seems to me that the Israelites approached the issue of God’s judgment against them very differently than we do. Rather than seeing contact with God as essentially safe activity and death or harmful results as requiring explanation, approaching God is seen as deadly. It’s survival that requires explanation.

    This is hardly a new thought, and one should note some other differences, for example that the word “judgment” can be misleading in this context.

    I’m posting from my Palm Centro, so I’ll be brief and probably miss a large number of nuances!

    Tags: Leviticus

  • New Methodist Blogger – Rev. Geoffrey Lentz

    I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but it’s been busy, as you can tell from my low level of blogging. Geoffrey Lentz is the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, and a former student of mine. In fact, I met Geoffrey in the first class I taught for youth in a United Methodist church when he was just 14 and I had been a Methodist less than a year.

    No, I’m not going to go into all the embarrassing youth stories. Suffice it to say that everyone realized then that Geoffrey was going to be a minister, and that never changed. I now attend his Wednesday Bible study on the Lectionary passages and really enjoy learning from him. He has become quite conversant with church history and especially early church fathers, and makes extensive use of that knowledge in teaching. Since my training and inclination starts from the opposite perspective, i.e. I tend to study the Bible as a piece of ancient near eastern literature, I find his study to be a nice complement to my own.


    Luke Study Guide

    I have long tried to persuade Geoffrey to start blogging, and finally he has. His blog is at GeoffreyLentz.com, and I’d call attention to his thoughtful first post, What is a Preacher to Do?

    He also just wrote a study guide for the Participatory Study Series published by my company, Energion Publications. You can find out more about this excellent new guide to the Gospel According to St. Luke on its catalog page.

  • Christian Carnival CCLXIX – Summer Vacation Edition

    I planned to get this posted early this morning, but my job–you know, my paying work–intervened.  Advance copies of one book arrived from the printer yesterday, and then the first release copies of two more showed up today.  For a small publisher, that’s a heavy couple of days!

    In any case, even though it’s not for me, summer vacation is here, so I’m going to organize today’s carnival around various types of vacations.  Don’t read too much into the vacation spot under which I list your post.  It’s intended as fun!

    To the Beach!

    First let’s head out to the beach for some fun.  There we will find:

    Fiona Veitch Smith presents Christian Speculative Fiction – a ‘lost’ genre? posted at The Crafty Writer, saying, “Writers of Christian speculative fiction (ie fantasy and science fiction from a Christian world view) struggle to find publishers for their work. This interview with a Christian publisher explores the reasons for this as well as the problematic area of depicting sex and violence for a Christian readership.”
    Oh no!  That’s not the actual fiction.  That’s talking about how to publish it.  Well, it sounded like fun to me!

    The Sites of the Reformation

    Perhaps a trip through Europe, visiting some of the major sites from the reformation.  Here the scenery will help us discuss some of the major reformation themes.

    Sue Roth presents The unforgivable sin? Or the unanswerable question? posted at IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING, asking a few hard questions about forgiveness.

    andriel discusses an important and basic Christian concept in The Basis for Salvation: Man is Sinful posted at ReturningKing.com.

    JLS presents Meditating on Justification posted at Pastoral Musings, a meditation on justification by faith that emphasizes our freedom in the grace of God.

    For His Glory presents Smorgasbord Tuesday: The Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE posted at For His Glory.  The Holy Spirit brings freedom in our lives; all we have to do is go to the source to have life.

    Danny at Boston Bible Geeks asks the question “why does God choose to pour His Spirit out on Pentecost?” and looks for some OT connections to help us answer the question in The Spirit, the Law & Pentecost

    Rey presents The Non-Violated Law of Romans 4:15 posted at The Bible Archive, in which he addresses the use of Law in Romans 4:15 and how it remains non-violated.

    Weekend Fisher presents The abomination that causes desolation v. the cross of Christ posted at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength, considering the Abomination that Causes Desolation, the absence of God from the Holy Place, and the cross of Christ.”

    Quiet Hiking

    Then how about some time out hiking and camping in nature alone, with plenty of time to meditate and hear from the creator?

    Glowing Face Man presents Declarative vs. Supplicative Prayer posted at Glowing Face Man: Awaken the Badass Within, in which he discusses prayer, and some of the pitfalls we fall into when we pray.

    NCSue presents a reflection on Pentecost, on the Holy Spirit, and on our response as children of God in Thoughts on Pentecost posted at IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING.

    Visiting a Financial Center

    I never really got into it, but in college we went on a trip to New York City.  I have nothing against the city, except that everything moves and happens too fast for me.  But there we will find the stock market and those who trade on it, all doubtless thinking and moving very fast!

    FMF reviews a Christian based investment web site: Review: Sound Mind Investing Website posted at Free Money Finance.

    The Sabbatical

    What scholar doesn’t like the idea of a sabbatical?  On sabbatical we find:

    Robert Minto presents Emerson’s “American Scholar” & Christian Thinking posted at The Veil Away, discussing what it means to be a Christian scholar, which refers back to his previous day’s post, Does the Gospel Explain Life?. I decided to treat them as one long post and include both.

    Shannon Christman presents The Life of O’Reilly: An Argument for God? posted at The Minority Thinker, asking, “Does a successful career offer proof that God exists?”

    The postmdoern Christian wants us to believe he or she is very authentic and tolerant.  But are they really? Diane R. discusses this in “Authentic” and “Tolerant?” Hmmmmm…. posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet.

    Jeremy Pierce says, “There’s a tension between the tendency among some Christian pacifists to call a lot of non-physically-violent things violent and the tendency among some of the same people to say that there’s no violence in the atonement.” He expands on this in Leithart on Christian Pacifism and the Atonement posted at Parableman.

    Douglas Manning presents Does The Law Of Attraction Contradict The Bible? (Part 1) posted at SuccessHound.com.  This is Part One of a two part article that takes a comprehensive look at whether or not the law of attraction, as explained in the move, The Secret, is in conflict with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

    The Family Vacation

    In which we take the family, well, anywhere!

    When I was growing up, we had family worship every evening.  That can be hard to do.  Keith Tusing presents some good advice in How to Lead a Family Worship Time posted at CM Buzz.

    Can you picture God as the amused parent of a three year old?  Susan can, and she presents How angry are we? posted at Abooklook. She wonders if many people are secretly angry with God?

    Are you ready to catch a whiff of …  Allen Scott presents Grandma’s Apple Pie posted at Journey Across the Sky.  He says:  “I loved my grandma’s apple pies. To me there was nothing better than a fresh hot apple pie straight from the oven, covered with vanilla ice cream and eaten while it was still warm. Mmm Mmm good!”

    Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians, right? Maybe not. Chris Brooks challenges this common idea in The Myth of Christian Divorce posted at Homeward Bound.

    Himalayan Mission

    OK, I admit it’s a stretch, but where better to meditate on the nature of God?

    What would God be like as a fashion designer? Mark Tenniswood searches for a Biblical answer in God and Fashion posted at until we are home….

    Rounding out our post discussing how God might view certain things we have Sinful Certainty from James McGrath, in which he suggests that certainty may well be God’s prerogative.  So then certainty could be a sin, no?

    michelle presents Ephesians 6:12 posted at Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus….  Could a strange encounter have a cause in the spiritual realm?

    Wickle presents What kind of music does God like? posted at A True Believer’s Weblog.  Have you ever wondered about God’s taste in music?

    Staying Home

    OK, some of us skip the vacation.

    Ken Brown tackles a difficult current issue, in Tough Questions About George Tiller?s Murder posted at C. Orthodoxy.

    Bruce Alderman looks at the same issue from a different angle in Does “pro-life” mean anything at all?

    That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of christian carnival ii using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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  • Way to Go Omaha 1st UMC

    I really like this:

    Why do I like it? Because besides collecting some help for folks in need, this gives kids a taste of the experience of others. Hopefully it will stimulate their thinking and result in many new ideas as the years go by. We need to harness the imagination and energy of the young!

  • Christian Carnival #CCLXXIX Coming Here

    I will be posting Christian Carnival #CCLXXIX some time tomorrow.  In the meantime you have some time yet to submit your best work from the past week.

    If you are new to the carnival, Jeremy Pierce has an excellent plug for it here.

  • Advance/Review Copies of The Jesus Paradigm

    My company, Energion Publications, is about to send out free advance copies of The Jesus Paradigm, a new book from Dr. David Alan Black. If you’re interested in reviewing an advance copy and are a blogger or write for a print publication, please see this post and let me know.