B(ack)log

It's been a while. I feel like blogging, but not putting much effort into it. Perhaps that will turn out for the best.

Louis and I were talking tonight and it got to the point in the conversation where we fell back to the root issue of our young Christian lives of needing to let Christ take charge and be living for Him. It's something that's been on my mind a lot of late - whether or not I'm going forward with my life in Christ and taking courage in that or if I'm going forward with my life simply because I want to prove to myself that I can do it and that I don't need to rely on anyone else, be it man or God.

I am still fairly unScriptured, but ever since an odd night in 2008 I've flown under the flag of the 23rd Psalm.

A Psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
² He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³ He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD
Forever.

Then on Sunday down at BV the conversation at the table I was sitting at wandered to the subject of journaling - something I've been doing infrequently for a long time. So I popped an entry in last night and in the process flipped back over some past entries at how often the theme for me seems to be that I am not exalting the fact that the Lord is my shepherd. That I am very much taking center stage of my life and not wanting to give anyone else the floor even though I have no real story to tell and no part devised - simply the desire to be seen and admired and beloved. And one entry, likely written shortly after flipping through a certain section of Mere Christianity, shows me starting to state that "even though I haven't given Him center stage, at least He's in the theatre" and then sharply disagreeing with myself. There's always a point where we can no longer dilude ourselves and if I felt that Christ had walked out of my metaphorical theatre it would be much more dramatic and I would certainly go rushing after Him shouting, "Okay, fine, you can have the stage, just come back in!" But as long as He's sitting near the back and I know that He's there and waiting for me to invite Him to take the stage so that He can tell me His story it's so easy to just keep delaying it for want of those things that are not good for me and those things that I cannot obtain. I scream as a child for the food I want but haven't the teeth to chew.

"The Lord is my shepherd." Heavens be praised. It's so much easier that way. Didn't proof read. Deal with it.

Epiclogue - 03/07/2010

Today Jamie lead us in an inductive study of Acts 8:26-40. It's the story of Phillip and his encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch. I'll do a quick re-cap & comment some of my thoughts. If you have any thoughts, comment your own. Quick links:
>> ACTS 8:26-40 <<
>> ISAIAH 53 << (the passage the eunuch was reading)

So first off there was a lot of "What??" going on about this Ethiopian dude. He was on his way back to Ethiopia from Jerusalem, sittin' in his chariot, reading Isaiah. So there's a lot of odd stuff there. He was in Jerusalem to worship, so he's Jewish...?...but he's from Ethiopia...and an eunuch (shaky Mohel?)...and the accountant to the queen of Ethiopia....and he's reading Isaiah-which means he apparently has a scroll. These are a lot of weird things to read these days, but it's not unrealistic.

Ethiopia was a huge powerhouse around the turn of the age, up there with Rome, Persia, and China, so if he was the accountant to the queen, he's up there. The passage reads that he was traveling in a chariot, but that's gotta be a poor translation. He's not just standing there on an little platform being pulled by two horses. First off, he's traveling to Ethiopia from Jerusalem. That' a long way to stand. Second off "v38 - and he gave orders to stop the chariot." If it was just him, he's just stop the chariot. If it were a fancy coach, he's order it stopped. If it were a caravan, which we suspected it to be, he would have to give orders to servants to go tell all the different wagons and coaches to stop. But it's not like Phillip was standing on the side of the desert road and happened upon this lone Ethiopian traveler.

"How can I unless someone explains it to me." After looking it over more closely, I'm fairly convinced that his man was a Jewish convert - or at least a would-be Jewish convert. Obviously with all the possible translation issues it's possible I'm reading into this instead of reading it (I'll have to bug Brock about this), but the passage says that the man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, not that he had been worshiping in Jerusalem. This man was the treasurer for the queen of a powerful state, which means he dealt in commerce, which means there were merchants, which means there would naturally be an exchange of customs and beliefs along side those physical commodities. Perhaps at some point he met a Jewish man or learned about Judaism and felt a glimmer of the truth and beauty of the Lord, perhaps even fully converted. It would be easy for him to arrange to travel to Jerusalem so that he could worship the Lord. And after reading all the rebuking that Jesus had to do towards the leaders of the temples, I can very easily see the Rabbi's, Pharisees, and Sadducees of the time taking one look at him and dismissing him. How could he make his convenant with the Lord if the Ethiopian king had already removed his member. How could he perform the rights if he couldn't read the Hebrew passages?

So I kinda read an un-fulfilled longing into that statement. And as always when talking about the Jewish leaders of Jesus's time, a parallel can be drawn to Christianity today where the Church focuses legalistically on a list of check-boxed "Do's" and "Don't's" and thereby turn people away from God when we should simply offer our love to them. I'm incredibly grateful that I can say that EPIC has not problem with that. But the Church as a whole does.

Anyways, that's me on "the Ethiopian dude."

The parts we focused on most were Phillip and his interactions and relationship with the Holy Spirit. We thought it was odd that at the first part of the passage it was an angel that told Phillip to go the the road, and then it was the Spirit that told him to go stay near the chariot. We've been reading through different passages about the Holy Spirit. Two weeks ago we read and discussed Pentecost (Acts 2). Last week we discussed Acts 4 where, after being on trial before the Jewish leaders, the disciples many followers prayed for boldness and then their place was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and went forth and shared Christ boldly.

This week, we read about Phillip. Phillip was a man who had a relationship with the Holy Spirit. He was a man who was able to discern what the Lord wanted him to do. We all have things we'd like to do and we all have ways that's we'd like to serve the Lord, but until we want what God want's we're not going to want to do what God wants us to do. We're just going to want God to want us to do what we want to do. And we are sinful - corrupt. We inherently desire that which isn't good for our souls.

We can't go from being a seed to producing fruit in a Snap. We have to grow in the Spirit. And once we're no longer seeds, we'll be BURSTING! to produce fruit, but even then if we try to produce fruit when we're just a sappling we can do ourselves damage. If we just seek the Lord, if we dig deep roots in the Holy Spirit, we will naturally grow strong branches and pour forth fruit. But the fruit is a byproduct of deep roots. If we just try to produce fruit (which is the sexier, cooler sounding thing to do) without growing in the spirit, we're not actually trying to be a plant, and we will fail to produce fruit, and we will not deceive the Lord (you know, 'cause He's God).

Once we love the Lord, we will be able to hear Him and we'll want to obey. But until then we'll just be like children saying "I want to help by testing the cookies!" and the Lord will just laugh and ruffle our hair and make us childishly angry at Him. Until we actually want to help we won't be told how we can help. I know some of you disagree, but that's what I believe, and I'm the one writing the post. : p

Blog Attack p2...and 3 now

The way we all operate these days makes it seems as though there's nothing left for Christ to do except make our existence more comfortable.

Several weeks ago I mentioned the book Unchristian. Several of those who have been in Epic and at Hillcrest for a few years said that Pastor Mark did a sermon series on the book. So, some are familiar with the book and some are not. For those not I will briefly summarize the book by saying that it deals with the very negative perceptions that people outside the church (and even many who are within the church) have of Christianity because of the drastic and damnable gaps that has grown first between what we as disciples of Christ are called to be and what we as American Christians claim to be, and secondly between what we claim to be and what we do. Christ calls us to humble ourselves, ask forgiveness, and love. Christianity has, in many ways, become little more than a moral code (and, for those our age, a philosophical mindset). Very few self-identified Christians adhere to that moral code.

We are seen as posers of extreme proportion.

That being said, the part part of the book that has stuck with me the most was a brief section that discussed Matthew 5: 13-16, the verses that call us as disciples to be

• the salt of the earth
• the light of the world
• a city on a hill

Here is a passage from the book.

Being salt and light demands two things: we practice purity in the midst of a fallen world and yet we live in proximity to this fallen world. If you don't hold up both truths in tension, you invariably become useless and separated from the world God loves. For example, if you only practice purity apart from proximity to the culture, you inevitably become pietistic, separatist, and conceited. If you live in close proximity to the culture without also living in a holy manner, you become indistinguishable from the fallen culture and useless in God's kingdom.

And I think that it's very easy to practice neither one. It's very easy to separate ourselves from the world and still not practice the purity. I actually think that it's more likely that if we section ourselves off and just hone in on Epic and Epic time and that it can become a simple social group where we are not out among the world nor calling ourselves to purity and Christ-like-ness. I feel like spreading God's love isn't a responsibility, a requirement for salvation, but a necessity for growing into a Christlike person. It's a pressure we put upon ourselves so that the pressure might shape and harden us. Most of us would never study if we didn't have a test coming up. If I hadn't volunteered to lead a week on Christ I never would have done the reading I did. I would guess that the same is true for Louis, Kelly, and Paul to extents.

The group has spoken of it several times, but in '10 I'll be pushing for it: that Epic gets involved in the community. Probably gonna be Harvesters or something. It's been mentioned that a great way to tie it in would be to do some volunteering right before a retreat, which will hopefully get lined up for early '10. I'll be pushing for that too. But involvement doesn't have to be as a group. It's might be more fun, but much harder to organize. Get out there if you can.

Blog Attack p1

Here is a link to the powerpoint for the Biblical Interpretation talk that Kelly lead a few weeks ago.

>> THE LINK <<

I wasn't there, but share thoughts or highlights if you recall them.

Questions Stemming from Romans Ch. 7

I feel like we had some really good discussion last week and I'm going to try to reiterate those that I can remember here in the blog so that it will be available to us later on in times of distress, confusion, or curiosity. I'm pretty late in the week, though, please hop in with some comments to fill in the inevitable gaps I will create.

Romans Ch. 7 - Reflection & Intentions

A great breakdown and explanation of the chapter is found >> HERE <<. They do a great job of going over everything so I won't bother with what would be a poor job. PLEASE READ IT if you're still going in circles in your head. Instead I'll move on to one of the questions that is hinted at.

Why did God send the law if He would ultimately have to come down and die for us? That seems to be one of the big questions that hangs over this discussion. The most apparent theme throughout the chapter seems to be this constant dismissal of the Law of the Old Testament as junk.

• v.4 "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another-"
• v.10 "And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death."
• v.14 "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."

Isn't God supposed to be omnipotent? Isn't He supposed to be outside of time, or beside time, or some confusing thing where there is no past and present and the realm of Time is completely laid out before him? Why, then, would he send the Law if He knows that it wasn't going to work? Why not come down straight away and become flesh and die for the sins of humanity instead of waiting thousands of years and letting thousands of souls perish, many at the direct hand of the OT-styled God of Wrath?

Of course you could go back all the way and get back to the question of "Why create humanity if He saw it was destined to separate itself from Him?" but I won't because that's a fairly basic, albeit fundamental question, the short-answer to which I understand as being that God created us that we might grow into being with whom He can share eternity.

Now--minus the paragraph above--while I seem to have digressed I don't really think I have. They are connected questions that all lead in to or out of one another and there isn't really a way to properly answer one and still have confusion on another. Some of it I'm going to try to touch on tomorrow (Oct. 25th) since it's my day to lead and I'm talking about Jesus, and since I still have some preparing to do I'm not going to be nearly as in-depth as I would like to be or as insightful as I need to be (though I doubt all the time in the world would change my level of insightfulness).

So, why did God bother with the Law first? The main imagery, and the actual theme behind Romans Ch. 7 is that the Law is the mirror that shows us how unclean we are; how dirty, retched, and filthy we are in the eyes of God. We have removed ourselves and our race from God's presence and as much as we might try we can't clean ourselves of the sin that resides in us. So God came down and became flesh and blood so that he might conquer sin within Time and therefore affect (effect?) sin's hold on humanity thoughout Time. Not just from 33 B.C. forward. And the Law came first so that we might know how unsightly we are before God's eyes because until we realize how truely hopelessly apart from God we are won't fully realize the grace and beauty of the salvation that is offered through Jesus Christ. And until we fully realize the grace offered we won't fully comprehend the need to go through the "over-demanding ordeal" of painfully putting our human nature to death and coming into true-life through Christ. And until we comprehend the actual need there's no chance of us actually doing it. We will, instead, simply "keep the faith" in a moralist way with academic discussions interspersed on Sundays.

Please comment, specifically if you disagree. This is me saying what I think, albeit strongly. But certainly not what I know for certain. I haven't done nearly enough reading and my conclusions are laid on unknown foundations.