In 1 Kings 3 Solomon, the newly annointed King of Israel, is given a blank check from God. "Ask what I shall give you" is the charge given by God to Solomon. With such an unbelievable offer, from one who had infinite resources to deliver, what would Solomon request. Before he answers he reflects. He remembers the faithfulness of God to his father. He remembers that David's uprightness in heart before God. He acknowledges that he sat that day as King of Israel becaue of God's promises to his father. He realizes that this task of ruling a great multitude of people is beyond his abilities and answers with profound humilty "Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?" Solomon's plea for wisdom to serve and govern God's people pleased God. Solomon is granted his request and even more. The Lord knew that it would be easy for a mere man to ask for long life, riches, the life of enemies, etc. - but since Solomon asked for none of these, he grants them anyway.
What would you ask for if the Lord of the Universe literally gave you a blank check? What would I ask for?
Jesus gives us counsel here as well: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.Matt 6:33
What is this kingdom we should first seek? Love, Joy, Peace in the Holy Spirit - to Love God first and foremost and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. To care for the poor and the oppressed and preach the liberating gospel to those who walk in darkness...to acknowledge the rule and reign of the Word of God in our lives...such things are worth more than gold, more than anything conceived in the hearts of men - Seek these first!!!! The rest is gravy, yet gravy by itself makes for a very poor meal.
Yours for loving the true banquet of God, bone dry if he so calls...and if he chooses to add some gravy, well, that will be gravy.
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POC Blog
The random technotheolosophical blogging of Reid S. Monaghan
Kind of Ironic
I am beginning to read the Book "Lost Christianities - The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" by Bart Ehrman Phd (UNC Chapel Hill Religion Professor). The book is a look at the world of the early church, the religious sects existing at the time, and the texts which reflected beliefs which were "suppressed, discarded, and lost" when orthodox teaching was established in the first three centuries of the church. The author, a critical scholar has a tact to his work that is profoundly at odds with church tradition. I expected this and picked the book up for precisely this reason. I wanted to see how he presents the canonization of the New Testament documents in the complex world of the early church. I expect his position to be rather unnerving, but I did not expect to see such sloppy thinking like I ran across in Part 1 - Forgeries and Discoveries
In this section he introduces the discoveries of ancient texts as well as the universal agreement that all the non-canonical materials found are agreed to be forgeries by all scholars "liberal, conservative, fundamentalist, and atheist" -- What he continues with is the familiar claim that these forged (or pseudepigraphal) books are no different than some of the NT writings...in other words, the New Testament contains books which claim to be written by one author but this is not actually the case...2 Peter, and the Pastorals (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) are claimed to be of this ilk. This is nothing new to "critical biblical scholarship." What is shocking is what he claims next; I quote:
How could forgeries make it into the New Testament? Possibly it is better to reverse the question: Why shouldn't forgeries have made it into the New Testament? Who was collecting the books? When did they do so? And how would they have known whether a book that claims to be written by Peter was actually written by Peter or that a book allegedly written by Paul was actually by Paul? So far as we know, none of these letters was included in a canon of sacred texts until decades after they were written, and the New Testament canon as a whole still had not reached final form for another two centuries after that. How would someone hundreds of years later know who had written these books?
Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities (New York: NY, Oxford University Press, 2003) 11.
Now the irony of the last sentence was evident to me right away and also to my brilliant, clear thinking wife :). Basically the author's argument is this:
1) The documents were written long before the people who selected the canon were doing their work.
2) This distance of time, some hundreds of years, would have made their knowledge of the authorship of books somewhat impossible.
3) Therefore, they included books which they may have thought to have apostolic authorship, but they really did not know.
The problem with this reasoning is evident. This very same author (see Ehrman, New Testament, 377-79.) makes the claim to know who the author of these books was not. In other words, critical scholars, tell us that Paul did not write the Pastoral epistles and that we should believe them about this "fact". But yet his own argument from long distances of time, which prevented those involved from an earlier era from knowing anything of the sort. Now if we apply this "time rubric" to the authors own claims, what do we find? Somehow "modern critical scholars" - writing close to 2000 years after the events, can know what those 200 years out could not. This seems rather arrogant to me. Especially when the Christians who met in council to recognize the canon, authentic writings which would become the rule of faith for the church, were dealing with their own tradition. In other words, it seems to me, that the early believers, followers of Christ and the apostolic witness were in an infinitely better position to judge such issues of authorship and authority. This unless one writes off these early believers (by theory alone) as ignorant, zealous, propagandists who are not as wise, objective and intelligent as the modern scholars viewing the Christian world through the lens of a few poorly attested, archaeologically unverified, fragmented texts (the so called "lost books") - Texts, mind you, that were thoroughly rejected by the early Christians as being false witnesses to Christ and a scourge to the Christian movement.
It seems to me quite easy to trust God's church to have done the right thing in recognizing the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament and rejecting the erroneous gospels of that day. Any good Pastor would do the same today - protect his flock from the flurries of false teachings abounding in the world. I think we should continue to follow the example set by the early councils and trust the Spirit inspired text.
Let not your hearts be troubled by the axes that "biased critical scholars" seem to continually want to grind with the Word of God.
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Power of Change...
Too good not to share...
I know this feeling fills our epoch, and I think it freezes our epoch. For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.
GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: NY, Image books, 1959) 71
Yours for getting it on...The Revolution of the Crucified One continues
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Young and full out for the gospel
I am working today quite a bit on Czech Project applications and I am just amazed at the young people applying for our summer adventure. It is so encouraging to see young people thirsting for the truth of the gospel, desiring to be effective and passionate witnesses in our world, and laying down their time, talents and treasures for him. I feel it such an enormous privilege to love, lead, teach and serve these students for 5 weeks this summer. It also is a bit satisfying to see what God is doing with some of our Czech Project alumni:
- One is currently in Czech doing missions
- Another heads over for a year there this spring
- Three on our AIA staff (Princeton, Ohio State, and AIA Headquarters
- One is studying at the Trinity Forum with Os Guinness
- One engaged in religious and philosophical studies at Princeton
- Another is starting new Bible studies at Harvard
- Another leading volunteer AIA ministry on her campus
- One more is a track coach and MDiv student at Liberty University
The Passion Movie and The Gospel Truth
From Newsweek...So why was the Gospel story, the story Gibson has drawn on told in a way that makes "the Jews" look worse than the Romans? The Bible did not descend from heaven fully formed and edged in gilt. The writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John shaped their narratives several decades after Jesus' death to attract converts and make their young religion understood by many Christians to be a faction of Judaism attractive to as broad an audience as possible. See article here - Who Killed Jesus? Newsweek Magazine Feb 8, 2004
A book by a "Jesus Scholar"...
Who Killed Jesus? is a study of the gospel accounts of the arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is both a popularization of Crossan's earlier work The Cross That Spoke and a response to Raymond Brown's The Death of the Messiah. As motivation, Crossan argues that the anti-Jewish core of the passion narrative and its use in subsequent history make careful study of its historicity more than just an academic exercise. (He doesn't mention that the faith of many conservative Christians depends on the historicity of the passion narrative -- but then perhaps he doesn't expect them to be reading his book.) A book review by Danny Yee - © 1996 http://dannyreviews.com/
As the day approaches to the release of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ there will be a considerable buzz surrounding the film. Just last week the cover story of Newsweek Magazine featured a look at the question "Who Killed Jesus?" with a discussion of the history of the gospels upon which this film is based. Monday night, Mel Gibson's interview on ABC with Diane Sawyer, featured additional questioning about the "history and facts" of the gospel depictions as well as the usual parade of "scholars" that question the gospels as political fabrications by 2nd or 3rd century Christians. ABC seems to be rolling out several other dramatic works as well, two I have noticed coming are about "Judas" and one about "St. Paul" - perhaps they will be very Biblical, perhaps not. The fact that the script of The Passion is based on the canonical gospels will have biblical critics and "experts" singing throughout the mainstream media. As these things occur I have found that students and others to whom I minister will have questions. Even mature believers and leaders may not have been exposed to some of the arguments they may hear on television interviews or in a religion class on campus. I thought it wise that we be prepared to intelligently discuss the issues, state our side of things effectively, and strengthen other believers confidence in the gospel accounts. By no means can one do this effectively in a short blog posting, but I thought I would point us towards some basic arguments in the debate and then some further reading. Most of all we should be in vigilant prayer, ready to give a reason for our hope in Jesus, and trusting God to be God and use his self-attesting word for his purposes in his world.
A preliminary remark - members of the so called and self-anointed "Jesus Seminar" may be raising their heads in these days, for a quick sketch of this group see the following: Jesus Seminar Under Fire
The question which I have already heard aired in public is one somewhat like this - Are the gospel accounts reliable depictions of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus? The main arguments against the gospels is usually some sort of concocted conspiracy theory of latter disciples making up parts of the story to fit their own political agendas in the situations they were writing. The disciples were writing "religious propaganda" full of legendary development so to speak, to promote a cause and a Jesus they probably knew very little about. To answer this charge we can go several directions, I will just do a brief sketch here as an example of what evangelicals have said:
1) We know that the text we have is as it was written (within a reasonable limit) based on number of manuscript copies we have in Greek, Syriac, the Latin Vulgate, and quotations of close to the entire NT in the writings/sermons of the church fathers. Much of this is well established prior to 400AD.
2) We establish the early dates of the NT books and argue for the traditional authorship. The gospel tradition (our tradition) holds that authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote down either their own eyewitness accounts or carefully recorded the accounts of eyewitnesses (in the case of Mark - Peter's account, and Luke recording the results of his investigation with "who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word" - I have a paper on the Gospel Tradition drop me a note at monaghan@powerofchange.org if interested)...early dates for the gospels rules out the long periods of time needed for legendary developments in church tradition. Legends take a long time to grow and usually don't do to well when the actual people involved are still alive and could correct the story.
3) There is no good reason not to believe the testimony of these witnesses if - 1) they were able to tell the truth and desired to do so 2) their testimony was accurately reported and 3) there is external corroboration of the testimony.
The following is suggested for your own investigation:
Reference Materials on the Web
- This one is a bit lengthy - A thorough treatment and defense of the NT accounts is found here: Bias
- Josh McDowell's work on the NT reliability is still helpful and found here - Ready Defense
- Gary Habermas has great paper on the topic - NT Reliability
- A summary of the extra biblical corroboration of the biblical history
- The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is a good popular level treatment
- The works of Craig Blomberg (The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Jesus and the Gospels), Gary Habermas (Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ), JP Moreland (Jesus under Fire, Scaling the Secular City) and FF Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? are excellent resources.
- Can I trust the Bible - A short yet excellent booklet by Darrel Bock - Part of the RZIM critical question series.
- No Lost Books of the Bible?
- Lost books This has actual links to the texts of some of these writings.
- An article about the Davinci Code from Christianity Today Magazine.
- A DTS Dialogue - Dallas Seminary Professors Discuss the DaVinci Code
- Breaking the DaVinci Code by Darrell Bock
- The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper. Great deal for purchasing by the case for give away
- Experiencing the Passion of Jesus A Discussion Guide on History's Most Important Event by Lee Stobel and Gary Poole
- Breakpoint's Passion Viewers Guide-A useful guide for questions about the film and a great list of resources - downloadable PDF available.
Classic Showdown...
1 Kings 18:21: "And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."
Such is the reality in the hearts of all men. Will God be God in the lives of his people? Or will other god(s) reign in his place. Such an offense is at the heart of spiritual unfaithfulness. We allow many other things have such a high place in our lives while we give only a nod, if any at all, the Creator of all things. In 1 Kings 18 we see the classic showdown between the prophets of Baal and the lone prophet of God, Elijah. Many times the man of God stands alone against the flooding torrents of popular opinions, and the currents of his time. Speaking from eternity, to souls bound to the earth, the man of God must speak. Here Elijah brings his challenge to God's own people Israel - make a choice, make the right choice...acknowledge the LORD as God and then follow. Such is a reasonable exhortation. Think for a minute. IF the LORD is God...IF he is the Sovereign of the world...IF he is the Creator of all things...IF he is the judge of the motives, intentions and thoughts of our hearts...IF he is the gracious, merciful, saving one...IF he possesses all wisdom, knowledge and is the fountain and essence of truth...if such things be true, IF the LORD is God, then only fools will not follow. How many times am I a fool, let not it be today Lord, not today, you are God.
This passage is followed by a unique display of the power of God, manifesting in real space and time - a divine exhibition to settle this showdown between the false and the true. Although this type of event is unique in redemptive history (such is the case with all miracles) authenticating the message of Elijah, how often do we ignore the ever present speech and language of God in our midst. The Heavens declare!!! the Psalmist (Psalm 19) tells us. How often we ignore what even Kant declared he could not resist (Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the
starry heavens above and the moral law within. 1788 - THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON by Immanuel Kant translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott) - The beauty of the created order of our world and the moral law written on our hearts demonstrates to all the reality of the divine author. Such witnesses, suppressed as they are by many, still beckon us, yes even puzzle us. In nature and conscience God does speak, yet only in Christ does he awaken. The imprint of God, lived out in space in time, incarnate glory, revealing to us God...He completes the picture and is the who, the what, the why of what we see each day. Only that our hearts would be captured, our wills submitted, and our loves awakened to the one who IS. After all, there is a showdown, there is a victor and the outcome is certain...If the Lord is God, follow Him.
Out.
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Thoughts on 1 Kings 11 - What makes us turn from the Lord
The account of King Solomon, the Son of David, is an intriguing story of a man tremendously blessed by God, yet has his heart sucked away towards the idolatry gods of the surrounding nations. A man with such a promising start has such an unsuccessful ending. How does it happen? In 1 KINGS 11; we find the answer...his heart was led astray by conflicting passions.
Solomon, in all his wisdom, wealth, and blessings from God, did not keep his passions intact and let them wander until they eroded his commitment to the commandments of his God. What was his weakness...it was women. With wisdom, wealth, and prestige, Solomon could have anything he wanted. And he wanted wives, princesses, and concubines. Despite the fact that God had already offered him anything he desired, and had given him all things, Solomon felt he needed more. Despite the fact that God had clearly forbidden Israel from mingling with foreign wives, Solomon felt he needed more. The results were inevitable - his wives captured his heart, and in order to please them, he built alters to their idols.
The ordering of our passions is so important to our fidelity to Christ, it seems that the road to idolatry is familiar.
- Our hearts are enticed to love things that are not worthy of our affections
- Some worldly thing (material wealth, power, position, sex, fame, other people, a certain man or woman) captures the affections.
- Our love for these unworthy things rises higher than our love for Christ
- We either consciously or subconsciously begin to worship and serve this idol rather than God
- Sin, which has already bound the heart, consumes our lives
Retreat Blessings...
We had an awesome weekend at the AIA MidAtlantic Retreat. 206 athletes and staff gathered for a time of worship, fellowship, teaching, and encouragement. Our speaker for the weekend,Derwin Gray, encouraged us to understand who we are in Jesus so that we might be free to live for him fully. It was a blessing to hear from a brother who is passionate about the Lord. Several VT students made commitments to Jesus Christ for the first time - for that we thank the Lord. Derwin and I taught an "optional" apologetics session in which almost all of the students took the "option" to attend. What a refreshing time to teach an important discipline as well as to field questions from hearts eager for truth. All the messages from the weekend, mine and Derwin's sections, are available for download here - MP3 Messages
Such a great opportunity to use our time, talents, and treasures for the Kingdom - may these young people be set aflame for the light of the gospel of the glory of God, revealed in the face of Christ Jesus...
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Advice from AW Tozer...
Tozer's Insight for Leaders - 2-6-04: "If you could increase the attendance of your church until there is no more room, if you could provide everything they have in churches that men want and love and value, and yet you didn't have the Holy Spirit, you might as well have nothing at all. For it is ''Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord Almighty' (Zechariah 4:6). Not by the eloquence of a man, not by good music, not by good preaching, but it is by the Spirit that God works His mighty works. The Counselor, 38-39. "
As we work this weekend on our conference for college athletes - may it truly be the Spirit of God at work, transforming hearts and lives. May excellence, dillegence, and perseverance, mark our labors, but may our labors not be in vain...may God's work blow stronger and be the source of all life transformation that takes place.
Praying that the Lord of Hosts meets afresh with our staff and students this weekend...
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AIA MidAtlantic Reteat
AIA MidAtlantic Reteat is ramping up. Looks like we will be a bit larger than expected...around 215 athletes and staff will be in attendance this weekend. With our numbers swelling, we are sure to be a headache for the conf center - I pray they are patient with us. The Hokies look to bring about 70 athletes - a huge turnout for us if it holds. We had a good time creating a fun recruiting video this year at VT - my NonLinear Video Editing skills still have much to desire, but I am making slow progress with that arena.
With the e-mails and phone calls a flyin, things around here will be on the slowdown until next week.
I'm off to confirm the retreat commitments of some Hokie footballers.
Out
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Great Meeting Tonight
Tonight's AIA meeting was a blessing...former VTAIAer and football standout Andre Davis blessed us with a message about the centrality of faith. It is good to see Andre, now married and playing with the NFL's Cleveland Browns, walking with the Lord and being an influence on these younger Hokies.
We roll out Friday for the AIA MidAtlantic Retreat - we may take as many as 70 students from VT. We'll join others from schools all over VA for a time of encouragement, teaching, and fellowship. We are praying that many students will come to Christ this weekend.
Thanking God for His Faithfulnes...hittin the rack.
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More Crazy Behavior...
More evidence that Western Popular Culture is heading towards savagery. Last night we simply shut down the Super Bowl half-time show and missed quite a show. It seems that entertainers will go to no ends to shock people and push envelopes. It seems there is quite an outrage because of the vulgarity of the show - but is it not a bit ironic that the very next show on CBS last night was "Survivor" - featuring a fully naked man with a small fuzzed out screen area. A few more quotes from Chesterton:
- Before one takes down a fence, one should ask why it was there in the first place...
- Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure
His Divine Power...
Many a skeptic has brought up questions about the faith dealing with the question of God's omnipotence. It is thought that God's omnipotence brings forth all sorts of logical conundrums. For instance if God is a being of unlimited power - he can do absolutely anything. It will be surprising, even to some believers, that there are some things that God simply cannot do. Now before one thinks I've left the camp, think for a moment with me about some basic questions.
- First - Can God Lie? No, he cannot lie, not even by his omnipotence (Heb 6:18). If God is truth, then he cannot think of intentional falsification.
- Second - Can God Change? No, he cannot change (Mal 3:6, Heb 13:8), not even using his own great power. With a second thought, God is also perfect and therefore has no need to change for the better, and could not change for the worst. So the idea of God's omnipotence being used to cause change in himself proves absurd right out the gate when considering God's perfections.
Grace, Glory, and the Empathy of the Son of God
Last night brought some news to our lives that we will be wrestling with in prayer for some days to come. It is well known that the world we inhabit is well worn with the brokenness of sickness, hardship, and pain. Yet again and again, as such things confront each of our lives we realize that something is very wrong with the world. As GK Chesterton put "This world is like a shipwreck, where we still see and sense the goods that survived the wreck" Our world is good, really good, but wrecked, really wrecked. As we think about how we sense the pieces which are at once good and glorious, yet falling apart I think of the goodness and grace of God and the promise of eternity. Does He care of our plight? Of our pain? Such is the question that each soul asks at the dark hour of midnight. Only in the incarnate Christ do we see a beautiful answer...The God who created all things good has entered the wreckage of this world - into our pain, distress and disease - to show us compassion and empathy. The dual nature of Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man - the only unique combination of divinity and humanity, wept in the flesh at the death of a friend. I believe the weeping Son of Man illustrates to us profoundly the utter certainty that the creator God of the Universe will again make all things good and new. Infinitely aware of the shipwreck at hand, he sees things as they will be - as they truly are. As finite creatures, we see now for a little while - a world of hardship, a world of pain...yet we must let the overarching background radiation of the goodness, grace and eternal decrees of God resonate as we face into our current struggles. Wait my bride, behold, a new day is coming...or as CS Lewis beautifully puts it "Aslan is on the move"
A heavy yet rejoicing heart today, He is on the move, yet there are hard days ahead. Come Lord Jesus.
I'm Out...
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Loyalty...
Thinking about loyalty today. In the book of 2 Samuel there is a man by the name of Ittai the Gittite who shows a great deal of loyalty to King David. David has been alerted that his son Absalom is leading an rebellion and is fleeing the city of Jerusalem. While leaving, Ittai, a foreigner in the land of Israel, declares that he will go with David although he had just arrived the day before. His reasoning was this "As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be." Ittai and his people had found refuge with David and would not just turn and run because things were getting a little messy. He and his people left with David and later were influential in the military campaign to defeat Absalom.
I am thinking a lot these days of how loyalty should be expressed in our context today. By His grace I pray that I am loyal to my God, his church, and my family - but how far out should loyalty go. There is a proverbial saying that we can become loyal to a fault - the question is where that line lies. Someone with no loyalties most likely has no spine, and we know that loyalty can at times be a great virtue. So what do we mean to when one is loyal to a fault. I think what we mean is that sometimes loyalty can be a blinding factor to higher principles of the moral law. If our loyalty to a person, an organization, institution, party, tribe etc. begins to hinder our ability to see what is good, right and true, our loyalty is leading us towards the enemy's ground.
So it seems to me that the highest loyalty must find itself in God and his Word. This fountain of truth and goodness, the nature of God and the Word of God must be our eyes to see past even our loyalties...when God is honored, high loyalty between men is a high virtue, when the moral law of God is neglected, we can become loyal to a fault.
Story in 2 Sam 15-18
Bible Gateway : 2SAM 15;
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Be Thou My Vision...
Be Thou My Vision - a beautiful Irish hymn that causes the soul to shudder. O for the vision and comtemplation of God to be so grand in my heart. I struggle with longing for such a hymn to be true of my soul, yet ever aware of how short I fall. That He would dwell in my heart by faith, that He would supersede all thoughts of success, the praise of men, earthly comforts and prestige. The true joy that shakes us to the soul is found in none of these things, only in the one who will always be our best thought. Be in tears, or in triumph, in victory or in pause - may his presence be our light.
Thinking about my prayer life this morning has me a bit malcontent. A few striking quote for those of us who are "working hard" in ministry:
When we depend on organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend on education, we get what education can do; when we depend on man, we get what man can do; but when we depend on prayer, we get what God can do -- A.C. Dixon
This perpetual hury of business and company ruins me in soul if not the body. More solitude and earlier hours! Isuspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too later hours, and hence have had but a hurried half-hour in the morining to myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through prayer -- almighty prayer, I am ready to say--and why not? For that it is almight is only through the gracious ordination of the God of loving truth. On then, pray, pray, pray!-- William Wilberforce - Early 19th century English Politician
We need hearts that are captive to His Grace, enthralled by His Beauty, nourished by His Truth, overflowing with His Goodness, so that we might be a fragrance worthy of Christ in the World.
Praying that I might pray today in the midst of my distracted world
Out.
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Thoughts while shoveling snow
Yesterday Blacksburg, VA witnessed almost a foot of snow. Kayla Joy had her first taste of
snowcream (which I am convinced is made and eaten only by those with roots in the south, anyone know different, drop me a note) and was quite thrilled.
Danny White and I rose early to lift weights only to find the weightroom locked tight. A long walk in the snow never hurt anyone. I spent about 30 min shoveling snow around my court, trying to get folks ready to try and pull the cars out...good replacement for weight lifting...During my shoveling session I was thinking about a bumper sticker which I always felt had something missing - you know it Practice Random acts of Kindness and Senseless acts of Beauty It seems kindness and beauty have always been stand up guys for me, but sensless and random always seemed out of place. Would it not be better to practice targeted and purposeful acts of kindness in order to help someone? And is beauty ever senseless? Its seems to me that if something is truly beautiful, aethestically valuable, then it will probably be united with the good and the true. A friend of mine who has read much from a 20th century theologian (Hans von Balthasar of Basel) would probably agree that where you find the beautiful you will find there also something good and in someway true.
Anyway, enough of that. On to read what the Lord of Heaven and earth (the beautiful, good and true one - oops I did that again) has to say in 2 Samuel 18
Speaking to the Soccer team this morning as well, pray that goes well as we introduce the new guys to VTAIA
I'm out...
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Track Meet, Tennis Match and thoughts on Chesterton
This morning I wanted to reference an author I have been reading in the last week or two...GK Chesterton. Chesterton, a devout Catholic Journalist in England who stradled the 19th and 20th centuries. Chesterton was known for his wit, creativity, and keen understanding of the issues confronting his day. In many ways he saw coming what has happened in the west. The web site of The American Chesterton Society has a good subtitle that represents Chesterton well "Common Sense for the World's Uncommon Nonsense". Chesterton's writing is full of playful and wonderfully creative prose. He was also known to have a laugh that was utterly captivating. Chesterton understood the place that God rightly occupied in ones intellectual life...that without God, man's reason was unguided and would not lead anywhere at all. Why should one trust their reason to come up with things like "truth" or "beauty" or "goodness" if all of life was a morbid bumping of materials together. He saw that the understanding of our world would quickly disintegrate into all sorts of madness and all manner of obscurity once man rejected belief in God. In his book Orthodoxy he compares God to the Sun...you cannot look directly at it, yet without it one cannot look at anything. In prayerful submission that God might help us to see...by the light of his grace, with reason set aflame by the revealed knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Off to a track meet and tennis match with Kayla and my good ole AIA buddy Danny "D" White...
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Going Tribal?
USATODAY.com - Dean scream gaining cult-like status on Web For those of you who may follow political rantings, this one may just take the cake. Howard Dean, after his third place finish in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, let out a bizarre screech while pumping up supporters.
It sound so strange it is almost tribal. Indeed our society, largely having rejected categories such as truth, goodness and beauty (what were long known in the West as the transcendentals) may be heading back into tribal behavior. Unguided, unbridled expression is almost a virtue today, while thoughts towards true virtue and goodness are quickly evaporating. We may again see a return to all sorts of savagery in the future of Western Civilization - lest the Lord of truth, goodness, and beauty may yet powerfully visit us once more. Such is my prayer...that believers, wherever they find their geographical or cultural domicile, may live lives of love reflecting the grace and glory of God found in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let our lights so shine in these strange and weary times.
Soli Deo Gloria...
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The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ coming soon to theaters. From all I have heard from friends and Christian leaders this could be a film that could shake many to their core, reliving the passion of Christ in 2004. I hope this has a great impact on the conversation of people around the world.
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