Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Because Government Money Means More Freedom

    Why do these folks want the government to pay for their convictions?

  • All You Need is Love

    Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21

    While I confess to be a love teacher, I am often puzzled by the way Christians speak about love as though it is the easier way.  It is as though they might try following some rules, but that would be too hard, so they’ll try love instead.

    But a love that is an easier way is not very likely real love.  Love is something that is easy to sing about, to proclaim, to discuss, to affirm, or even to pretend.  But not everything that is called love is truly love.

    The fact is that Christian love is much more difficult than legalism.  Legalism has different effects on different people, but I think one can generally suggest two major categories.  There is a group of people who are discouraged by legalistic requirements and thus driven away.  They don’t understand the requirements, they find them too difficult to fulfill, and so they lose out in the end.  But there is an opposite group, those who find legalistic requirements very comforting because you can check off all the proper boxes and then know you’ve made it.  These folks are glad for tithing not because it tells them how much they must give, but because that becomes the limit.  For them, tithing allows them to say, “I already gave my tithe to the church budget.  Don’t solicit me for money for a special project.”

    But love is not an easier way.  It is, to quote Paul, a “more excellent” way.  If you combine 1 Corinthians 13 with our passage for today, I believe you’ll see what I mean.  Paul tells us of the demanding nature of love, one that “endures all things.”  John, on the other hand, lets us know that we can’t get by with a proclamation of love for God, who is conveniently not visible, whilst ignoring our neighbors.  Our love has to be active.

    We don’t get to proclaim that our feeling for God, our love for God, is sufficient, whilst ignoring his children here.  What we do to our brothers and sisters will tell how much we actually love God.

    “Endures all things” sounds so much better regarding God than it does regarding my immediate neighbor.  My neighbor might make real, visible demands that others know about.  They’ll know whether I responded.

    John isn’t speaking about an easy way out.  He’s speaking about a higher demand than we find anywhere else!

     

  • Pete Enns Reviews Inerrant Wisdom

    This is a very worthwhile review to read.  I haven’t yet read the book, but the key points noted are interesting in themselves.

  • Are Sermons a Waste?

    It’s a day for questions! Ben Myers has a guest post by Aaron Ghiloni titled On sermons: a rant. Basically, he doesn’t like sermons. Really doesn’t like them.

    So as I sometimes do I brought this up with my wife as I was driving her to work. (Since I work at home we live with one car, and I do the grocery shopping on Fridays.) We started to list preachers whose preaching we liked.

    Now these preachers don’t demonstrate all the nasty characteristics listed in this post. In fact, in each case, we could name sermons by them that we really liked, and could definitely remember.

    When I say “really liked” I don’t necessarily mean that they made us feel warm and fuzzy. Very often, my favorite sermons when considered from a time well after, are sermons that annoyed me and more importantly convicted me when I first heard them.

    As we listed preachers and sermons, we noticed that there were very few things we could say these preachers had in common. I’m not going to list names, but we mentioned names of people with no graduate degrees and folks with doctorates, charismatics, liberals, and evangelicals, fiery exhorters and classroom lecturers.

    While my time in seminary was spent studying things like Akkadian and Middle Egyptian, not homiletics, I can gauage a sermon pretty well, and would say we included sermons that would have garnered seminary grades from A to C.

    So what did the good sermons and preachers have in common? The people preaching them are transparent and real. They are expressing things that God has convicted them of first. What you see is what you get.

    It’s interesting that I read two preachers this week who were open and transparent. This is so important. The notion that the preacher must be somehow spiritually above everyone else is destructive both to the congregation and to the pastor. When people who are acknowledged as leaders demonstrate transparency, it encourages others to do so as well.

    So my thanks to C. Michael Patton and David Alan Black (search for April 30 and then 8:27 AM) for being transparent. I share many of the difficulties they list.

    But then read this quote from Dave Black (May 1):

    … I have tried to live up to that example and have failed again and again. Listen, Dave, to the message of Mark’s Gospel. Hear it above the mockery that surrounds your failures. Hear it louder than your screaming fears about the impossible task. Hear it over and above your weaknesses and inadequacies. Jesus, at your word, I will follow you! At your word I will let down my net. At your word I will love as you love. At your word I will run again with your message. At your word I will dare to be your disciple. At your word I will keep on climbing!

    (If you want the full context, you’ll have to go read it on Dave Black’s blog.)
    While we’re transparent about our weaknesses, when we’re weak, he is strong.

  • When is the Gospel the Answer?

    I had this question called to my mind a couple of times this week, and I want to pose it to you. Before I do that, however, let me tell you how it was called to my mind.

    The first item was a comment on my post on civil liberties. Dave Black comment on that post, saying:

    Yes, but…

    Spes mea in Deo est.

    (If you can’t translate the Latin, put it in Google and you’ll get a usable translation.)

    Then I attended the mid-week Bible study taught by the associate pastor at my church, Geoffrey Lentz. I love attending that study, because I first met Geoffrey when he was 14 and was a student in a class I offered for his church’s youth. Now I get to learn from him, and that’s a very special blessing.

    As we discussed a political point right after the class, and had quoted Lincoln’s “last best hope” comment, Geoffrey suddenly told us he didn’t really like that quote. “What about the gospel of Jesus Christ?” he asked.

    So that’s my question. This is really for my Christian readers, particularly those involved in Christian ministry. (We’ll leave aside the question of whether one can be “Christian” and not be involved in Christian ministry for the moment.)

    How often, when confronted with a problem in society, is you answer “the gospel of Jesus Christ”?

    I’m going to leave it at that without doing any more defining. I feel some posts coming on about some specifics. Yes, I know I still haven’t finished my series on “obvious” Biblical interpretation, but I will do that as well.

    Really.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival #41 Posted

    … at Exploring our Matrix, and an exceptional carnival it is, even by the rather high standards of the Biblical Studies Carnival.

    For those who may not follow it, the Biblical Studies Carnival is posted monthly, and its hosts have tended to make it very creative, rather than just listing the posts. Thus it requires extra work to rate “exceptional” in carnival terms.

    Oh, and I’m not just saying this because I had a post included, one I didn’t even submit. I have to be honest and say that while I read the carnival every month, and follow many links from it, I have never actually submitted anything. I rarely regard what I write here and elsewhere as Biblical scholarship–it’s more popularization. But I have definitely gotten much information through the carnival.

    Thanks to James McGrath for the excellent hosting work.

  • Ordination Humor

    Ten reason why men shouldn’t be ordained … from a Salvation Army cadet.

  • Chuck Baldwin on Assaults on Personal Liberties

    I frequently disagree with Chuck Baldwin, and am disturbed when I see the forest of American flags that appear frequently around his church. I live near enough that I drive by that church frequently. But in this article he is absolutely on target.

    One of my great hopes for the Obama administration was an improvement in our foreign policy, less dependence on the use of force overseas (especially an end to the Iraq war), and greater support for certain civil liberties. The Republicans always seem to be after one set of our liberties, while the Democrats go after another. I hoped that perhaps we would improve just by shifting the sets. Of course we’re in real trouble when some liberty becomes the target of both parties, as is too frequently the case.

    In particular, I would mention warrantless wiretapping, on which then Senator Obama himself flipped during the campaign, and which should be blamed both on the Republican administration for proposing and carrying it out, and on the Democrats in congress for failing to blow the whistle and work effectively against it.

    The people who can truly call a Republican administration to task are the conservatives; those who can call a Democratic administration to task are the liberals, and libertarians can get in there in both cases. We’d better get to it!

  • A Calvinist Complementarian defines Arminian and Egalitarian

    … and does so very well. Not surprisingly (to me, at least), this is from C. Michael Patton on Parchment and Pen. To quote his definitions of “complementarian” and “egalitarian”:

    Complementarianism: Belief in essential equality, but functional hierarchy in the sexes. This hierarchy is by God’s design and is not due to the fall. Man is to be the leader in the church and home. Women are not to be in positions of authority over man in the church or home, but are honored due to their role in the same way as men.

    Egalitarianism: Belief in the essential and functional equality of the sexes. All role distinctions which imply leadership belonging to the man is due to the fall, not by God’s design. Therefore, women can serve in positions of authority over man in both the church and the home. Role is assigned by individual giftedness, not gender.

    While I would say that many in each group take things a bit further, for paragraph length definitions, I would describe those as fair, balanced, and even accurate. The same goes for the definitions of “Arminian” and “Calvinist.”

    The whole post is worth reading, especially as he discusses how a church can show, and not just teach, grace.

  • Best Sermon on the Bible

    … that I’ve heard, at least, and in my opinion!

    It’s by Dr. Wesley Wachob. Let me give you the link first: The Strange New World within the Bible. Those of you who are acquainted with Karl Barth will recognize the title. (You can subscribe to the First UMC Pensacola podcast here, or via iTunes.) As Dr. Wachob takes some jabs at seminary professors remember that he himself is no slouch in the academic sense. One could note, for example, his book The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series), though I suggest you learn Greek first!

    One of the great difficulties of my life comes from the distinction between my devotional reading and study that is aimed at data. I’m quite fond of both activities, but I believe they are very different. It’s very nice to know the history and background of a text as I read. To do so, I must have looked for data at some time. But if I stop with the data, while I get intellectual satisfaction, I don’t truly experience the scriptures as the word of God.

    Perhaps not surprisingly, my morning Bible study time is both an essential of my life, one that I will notice both mentally and physically should I neglect it, and also my greatest temptation toward neglect. It’s so easy to tell myself that I will be reading a very good spiritual book today as an editor, and thus I will be doing my Bible study. But searching a book for stylistic problems is not the same as letting God speak to you directly from the scriptures.

    It is difficult for me to describe the experience of reading the scriptures in such a way that prayer, worship, reading, listening, and enjoying God’s presence merge. I suppose there are spiritual disciplines involved, though I’m not that good at those things. I think it truly is a gift of grace brought by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Wachob described what I feel.