summer camp.

I got to speak for a youth group last Thursday night. It was their last night of camp. You know how interesting those are. Actually, it was pretty sweet.

One reason I loved it is that it was a really small group. There were only 20 kids. Here's the best part... Four black kids. Four metal-heads. A few good ol boys and girls. A few Christian school kids. And everybody else was in between.

I gave them a quick running commentary on Rom 3.19-26. We talked about the pervasiveness of human guilt in the courtroom of God [3.19-20], the wrath that belongs to each of us ["propitiation" in 3.25], and how God is the Just and the Justifier [3.26] for everyone who is trusting Jesus. Then I explained how all of these collide in the cross of Jesus. Luther said that 3.21-26 is the center of the whole Bible. It sure feels like it sometimes.

After this, I talked about right and wrong ways to live the Christian life. We normally think that we have to have God in the story of our lives to make it better, to make us feel more spiritual, or to be psychologically satiated. We tend to think we need more of Him in our lives as well. Some of those thoughts might be close to right, but the reality is that God has called us into His story. We are now a part of what He is doing to redeem humanity and creation.

Lastly, I told them that the key that unlocks both becoming His and living as His is the same. The cross.

At the cross, Jesus became our substitute, our example, our wrath-bearer, our victory, our healing, and much more.

I genuinely felt the Holy Spirit there. He was working, moving, and making Jesus look good. God is faithful, ya know.

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, starvation, and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Can you imagine a world without hypothetical situations?

Prepositions are terrible things to end a sentence with. Avoid cliches like the plague. Actually, comparisons are as bad as cliches. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. And most importantly....

Always avoid alliteration.

BUNYAN ON SiN

There are many attempts to define what sin is. Rom 3.23, Rom 14.23, I Jn 3.4, and other texts help to biblically define what sin is. There are philosophical arguments within theology that say that sin is more the absence of something than the presence of something. This is a good line of reasoning to think about. However, the following is the most convicting and soul-penerating thing I've ever read in regards to defining sin. It is from John Bunyan.

Sin is the dare of God's justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.

where i wish i went to church

AN ARMiNiAN, CHARLES FINNEYiAN APPROACH ON HOW NOT TO PREACH THE GOSPEL

Here.

a prayer of Aquinas

REVELATiON 1.1

[a small running commentary if you will]

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John....

This revelation [apokalupsis] is "about" Jesus rather than "from" Jesus. The genitive in the Greek hints at this. Also, I think it should be noted that John uses both His earthly name and His title name. This likely encapsulates His humanity and divinity and who He is and what He's done.

John uses "bond-servants" [doulos] or "slaves" to remind those in the seven churches that the way they live in the last days should be as contrite servants and not prideful heirs, especially in the midst of persecution [1.9].

"Must" [dei] is small, but significant. It is a reminder of God's absolute control over future events before the return of His Son.

The words "to show" [deiknumi] and "communicated" [semaino] are both words that imply more than mere description. They suggest demonstration, indication, and the use of pictures and/or symbols [even in 1.20 John begins to explain some of his imagery]. No one should take this and interpret Revelation to mean whatever was on CNN last night, but should seek to understand why OT prophets/writers used the symbols they did and further, why John picks up on them here in the Apocalypse.

this is theologically chuckle-worthy

My wife's uncle [who went to Bob Jones and is now a Catholic priest] rips Dispensationalism. Not really, but still fun to read from a Roman Catholic.

Here.

the ontological reasons i want JESUS to come back

Being and doing are a package deal. You can't have one without the other. However, one necessarily precedes the other. The pure existence of a thing is the most logical starting point to that thing fulfilling its role.

Examples:

Jesus is not the Savior of the world because He died on the cross. He is the Savior of the world; SO He died on the cross.

You don't breathe, eat, poop, sleep in order to be a human. Because you are human, you breathe, eat, poop, sleep. This is also what would qualify us as human beings.

In Exodus 3, this is why God reveals Himself to Moses as the "I AM" and not the "I DO" or the "I WILL" [more here].

I just feel that our 742 TV channels, 26 drive-thru restaurants down the road, 9 remote controls per living room, damning materialism, and iThis and iThat are all uniting to subtly betray the purity of this paradigm: being always births doing. I feel like the culture I live in daily whispers to me, "Do A, B, and C and then you can be X, Y, and Z." I guess these feelings come from the fact that I'm not home yet.

Maranatha.

this is awful, hilarious, and clever

[i love my wife and i love stealing from my wife's blog]

"ON AFFLiCTiON" [puritan excerpts]

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me [Psalm 119.67, 75].

• A sanctified person, like a silver bell, the harder he is smitten, the better he sounds [George Swinnock].
• Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride [Richard Sibbes].
• We often learn more of God under the rod that strikes us, than under the staff that comforts us [Stephen Charnock].
• When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines [Samuel Rutherford].
• It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there [John Bunyan].

O people in Zion, inhabitants in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. Although the Lord has given you the bread of affliction and the water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold Your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you saying, "This is the way. Walk in it." [Isaiah 30.19-21]

before I go to be with Jesus, I'd love to

1. Go to Montana.
2. Go to Seattle.
3. Go to Europe.
4. Live to see my grandkids.
5. Give a Waffle House waitress a $100 bill for a tip.
6. Take Sara to the Grand Canyon.
7. Write a book.
8. Make a record.
9. Buy a tandem bicycle for me and Sara.
10. Take Charlie Boyd to Waffle House [he's never been and that hurts me very deeply].

watch

Stephen Colbert is a sarcastic Catholic from South Carolina who sticks his neck into politics and social odds and ends. He has his own show on Comedy Central. He just interviewed Tom Wright. It's fun to watch their wits interact.

balance doesn't eliminate passion

I often see the following paradigm applied all over the place. When it was first said, I believe it was strictly a spiritual analysis, but I think it can be pressed further.

Empty souls tend toward extreme opinion

You know, like guys flying planes into the sides of buildings and saying that they did it for God. Or people who will bet their whole soul that Jesus will come back on this or that date.

I might be stupid, but I feel like I also see this in the way people eat, vote, treat their family, and spend their money. I know it's not the case for everyone, but I promise you that I see it everywhere.

I guess I just really want to be balanced and not culturally knuckle-headed. I only want to see rigid allegiance and integrity in the way I live. This will have to be by grace. Holy Spirit, please help.

predestination ponderings

• If you're a Christian and believe the Bible, you believe in predestination. Actually, you get to believe it. It's in the Bible. God has revealed it. However, what you believe about it is another story altogether.
• As far as how the NT readers and writers understood it, it was never an issue of contention or debate.
• In the NT, the doctrine of predestination is grounds for praise. Ephesians 1.3-14 is one huge sentence in Greek that praises/blesses God for his electing love and grace.
• In the NT, the doctrine of predestination was a comfort for Christians. When Paul gets to the height of his discourse in Romans 5-8, he explains that present suffering and tribulation bow in comparison to future glory. He then says that this future glory is based on God's predestinating love. Cherishing this brought peace to Christians, not ignorant anger or arrogant apathy.
• Obviously it leaves us now with tons of unanswered and unaswerable questions [the two are different you know]. We seem to collapse because we can't have every conclusion served on a simple, silver, intellectual platter. This is partially due to the fact that you are a product of Western post-Enlightenment thought. Why can't we just accept that the parts of this we don't understand that are intended by God to grant us great humility. This is of course easier said than done.
• Lastly, the doctrine of predestination is not fair. Not a single one of us who are His deserve to be His. Our pride is so thick, our lusts are so strong, our minds are so bent, our passions are so misplaced. We all deserve terrible judgment, which He would be just and holy to give. Why He chooses to love anyone is not fair. We are pretty rotten, but He is rich in mercy.

CLiVE STAPLES QUOTES OF THE DAY

"If you can't communicate something in a way anyone can understand, either you don't understand it or you don't believe it."

"He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart."

"Course he isn't safe, " the Beaver replies. "But he's good."

the sacrificial softball version of RUDY

I didn't cry, but I was emotionally moved. It's five minutes well-spent. Go ahead, hit play and feel cheesy that you actually did.

ZEKE

I have begun. I've started Ezekiel. I've read it before, but I feel like I've got a better grip on naked Isaiah and imprisoned Jeremiah. But our friend Ezekiel who cooks his food over cow dung, he has eluded me. I'm in chapter 8 or 9 and already I know I'm in over my head, but I see consistencies that prod my spirit and give me more hope for understanding what in the heck he is saying.

Here are several things I've noticed so far.

Ezekiel says often that he sees or experiences the glory of God. This is likely the glory related to the Temple. This seems to be a helpful reference point. Also, God tells him to go to an obstinate and stubborn people and tell them, "Thus says the Lord." I love the authority behind that. Another repeated phrase is God explaining that he does things so that a certain person or persons "will know that He is YHWH."

I'm trying to see how all of this ties together to the post-exilic people of God longing for their Messiah's kingship. I know the New Covenant and Ezekiel's Temple-theology are pretty important to keep in mind as well. If you have any Ezekiel pointers, I'm all ears.

GREENViLLE SUMMER GOODNESS

Aside from the blazing average heat index of about 103 recently, G-ville is quite a nice place in the summer. Go see more pretty pictures here. The Silver Chair is cool too.