Here’s a quick round-up of posts from around the web that have piqued my interest this week.
18 March 2008
War is Boring - A quick gloss as to the issues facing the replacement of our current fleet and getting the US Navy up to the planned 313 ships.
The Blazing Center - We’ve all sat there, thinking about box scores when we should be paying attention to the sermon… Stephen Altrogge gives some good and clear tactics when approaching this coming message on the Lord’s Day. I find it very hard to listen with humility and listen critically at the same time, I appreciate his comments
19 January 2008
Ben Witherington - He brings an excellent and trained eye to Deepak Chopra’s new book, The Third Jesus, he has said all I wanted to say and in a manner far better than I could say it!
Jesus did not, and does not come to take us to a higher spiritual plane, so that we might better get in touch with the little bit of God that is in us all or our own God-consciousness. Indeed, he seeks to lead us to have a relationship with the God he called Abba who is wholly other, and who urges us to recognize the Creator Creature distinction. We are not God, nor is God inherently in us or a part of our being. The end result of navel gazing is that we may well get more in touch with ‘our inner child’, but we do not get more in touch with the ‘outer’ God who created the universe and all that is in it. The former sort of spirituality is a form of narcissism, or at its worse, self- worship. The latter form of spirituality reinforces the Creator/creature distinction and leads to worship of the one true God.
Thank you brother Ben, ἀμήν!
20 March 2008
The Thomas Watson Blog - Highlights events surrounding the discussion of covenant children
21 March 2008
The Riddleblog - Kim posts an excellent meditation for today, Good Friday (in the western church), and is well worth looking at a couple of times throughout the day if you are so inclined.
Also, this is my first time attending a church that does not change its worship to reflect the liturgical year. I’m still trying to figure out what I think of it… perhaps I’ll try and address it in a post when I can do so thoughtfully.
edit: Ecto seems to have mangled this every time I post it, hopefully I’ve gotten the kinks out. Apologies if you saw it and it looked mangled, it was!
For those who are celebrating Holy Week - a wonderful poem from a seventeenth century Anglican rector, George Herbert. You can find a collection of his works for free at Google Books.
The Agony
Philosophers have measured mountains,
Fathomed the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walked with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things
The which to measure it doth more behoove:
Yet few there are that sound them: Sin and Love.
Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice, that forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through every vein.
Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.
George Herbert (1639)
Many thanks to the Mere Comments Blog over at Touchstone Magazine for this in their original post.
In a real and decisive sense, therefore, he is the miracle, the miracle of all miracles! Whoever takes up the subject of theology finds himself inevitably confronted with this miracle. Christ is that infinitely wondrous event which compels a person, so far as he experiences and comprehends this even, to be necessarily, profoundly, wholly, and irrevocably astonished. -Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology
—- A thousand pardons, I am swamped at school.
“…but contrary to the rest of men, enlist on your behalf an army without weapons, without war, without bloodshed, without anger, without stain, an army of God-fearing old men, of God-beloved orphans, of widows armed with gentleness, of men adorned with love.”
Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Man’s Salvation (or, more literally, “Who is the rich man that is being saved?”), 150-216,17 AD, date of writing unknown.
He it was who changed the setting into a rising, and crucified death into life; who having snatched man out of the jaws of destruction raised him to the sky, transplanting corruption to the soil of incorruption, and transforming earth to heaven. […] Let us obey God when He exhorts us; let us learn about Him, that He may be gracious; let us render Him (though he is in need of nothing) a recompense of gratitude for His blessings, as a kind of rent paid to God for our dwelling here below.
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks (LCL vol. 92, p. 245.)
The Japanese culture has an inner group and outer group. “Many Japanese Christians are finding ways through the Alpha Course and through cell groups and through other ministries to expand their inner group — to make room in their lives for meaningful relationships with non-Christians. And in those relationships, the Lord is doing a great work.”
There are other issues preventing massive church growth, however. Clark says, “People are very committed to their traditions. Even though many Japanese people are not actively spiritual, they are not willing to step outside of their family’s commitment to Buddhist and Shinto traditions.”
Well worth the read, I hope someday to contribute to the work of the Gospel there.
Oh, the sweet exchange! Oh, the inexpressible creation! Oh, the unexpected acts of beneficence! That the lawless deeds of many should be hidden by the one who was upright, and the righteousness of one should make upright the many who were lawless! Since he clearly demonstrated in the former time that we could not possibly, by our very nature, obtain life, and since he now revealed the savior who has the power to save even what is powerless-for both reasons he wanted us to believe in his kindness, to consider him our nurse, father, teacher, counselor, physician, mind, light, honor, glory, strength, and life, and to have no concern over what to wear or eat.
Here’s a quick round-up of posts from around the web that have piqued my interest this week.