WiFi …

When I was a child, I crawled on the Internet, thanks to SBC who will not provide DSL for quite some time. Now that I am a man, thanks to David C. intorducing me to Sam C., I fly on the Internet at home.

Surely this will lead to some late night posts after reading some great stuff.

Enjoy.

Words …

Transitions often create “word game” climates. For example, this morning I was listening to Fox News and they were discussing the DNC and Edwards speech from last night. Today both a Democrat and a Republican commented that it was a note from a Mario Cuomo speech from 1984. The idea to divide America so that they speaker may rush in to unite.

America divided? The context was a divided America between the “have’s” and “have nots.” Are there not a number of places/issue in/on which we find division?

When it comes to following Christ and understanding the righteousness of God, we too find words at issue. NT Wright suggests we might do better to translate righteousness in Romans, at least in certain contextual situations, as justice and that it might help us unpack Paul’s “exoneration/pronouncement” of the faithfulness of God in Jesus, the Christ.

We have some work to do to wrestle with the words justice and righteousness and what they mean in this context - Romans 1-3 (at the very least).

So far so good …

I took Kimberly back to the surgeon yesterday and we recieved a good word. If things remain clear for about the next ten days we can declare things successful. Keep her in your prayers.

Does the suit make a person …

The Washingon Post ran an article about a recent photo taken of Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry. Seems some have made this photo taken at NASA an “image” to coincide with Kerry’s assumed far left positions.

I have been watching some of the Democratic National Convention, though a Republican, to see what issues are presented as important. Reading and hearing the scuttle over the use of this picture by those opposed to Kerry and reading and hearing responses by those who support Kerry, leave me wondering who really believes the “suit makes a person.”

We tell our children clothes do not make a person. Hairstyles do not make a person. Body art and piercing do not make a person. Yet, when it comes to adult politics opponents and supporters treat this “suit” as though it makes a statement about the person.

Seems time to grow up. If supporters and opponents cannot get this right. Maybe we need someone else to lead. Otherwise, we will simply be voting for “suits.”

Witness is …

In his book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, Darrell Guder suggests “witness” should be a key image for understanding the mission of the church. He writes,

…
If we understand mission as witness and seek to be guided by the biblical language of witness, the missiologically structured theology of evangelism will have to include these emphases:

Witness is theocentric … Christocentric … pneumatological … historical … eschatological … ecclesiological … multicultural and ecumenical. (p.62)

He offers a brief descriptor of each of these and then expands them in the following pages.

Connecting mission with witness keeps us cerntered on that which we have experienced, heard, seen , touched, tasted, shared …

Could the church rethink itself in these categories? Should the church rethink itself in these categories?

Thankful …

For the last eight months we Kimbelry has wrestled with a medical issue. She had her third surgery last Friday. Sunday we got a bit of a scare when it seemed the symptoms returned signalling yet another failure. After a visit to the surgeon yesterday, it appears things were successful and what she experienced was part of the healing process. Continue to pray for Kimberly. She visits the surgeon again on Wednesday.

Ironies …

Our Bible Study today centered around Habakuk’s wrestling with the apparent lack of action on the part of God to descipline his people. As Lyle taught, he did a great job, I was struck by the irony of Habakuk 1:5. God replied to Habakuk that he was goint to do something he wouldn’t believe were he told.

He then, God, proceeds to outline his agenda for reproving the people of God. He will use the idolatrous Chaldeans/Babylonians to chasties the people of God for their own idolatry and then he will judge the Chaldeans/Babylonians for their idolatry.

God acts consistently with people. Those he loves he chastens. Interesting how he chastens with those who do the very thing the people of God are doing. Irony. Surely if you had told the people of God they were going to be subject to a band of idol worshippers they would have gasped in disbelief convinced God would never let that kind of people ruile the day. Surely when it happens they may have learned that God is not a respecter of persons when it comes to sin. Idolatry is idolatry regardless of who is participating.

The end of the conversation between Habakuk and God leaves us with the clear sense that the faithfulness of God, even in judgment and chastening, will result in faithfulness on the part of the repentant.

Good stuff. We must be on the lookout. For when we least expect it, in our own sin, God may choose to use those we would think he would never use to accomplish the brining of us back to himself.

Any contemporary political illustrations?

Sometimes a story makes the point … we must be a blessing to the world …

Rick at Aintsobad relayed a story. Pay attention to the end of the story and the phrase, “Sometimes I remember to be like Him.”

Here is the story - grab a kleenex.

LaraBeth
The first time I saw Larabeth she sat straddle the rail of the overpass bridge. In truth I feared she planned to jump.

I pulled over as best I could on the bridge and started to get out of the car. She swung one painfully thin leg over the bridge rail and came limping toward me.

“Did you stop for me?” she asked. When I said yes, she slowly opened the door to the passenger side and fell into the seat.

She had that smell of the road on her; equal parts sweat and despair. The temperature outside had passed ninety in mid-morning while she stood on the concrete surface of the road.

Larabeth was probably a lovely woman once. Now, time, obvious drug addiction and injuries had exacted their price. Barely forty, she looked not old but used and used hard.

Larabeth told one of those road stories. A man she met with a friend left her by the side of the road in the middle of the night. The police picked her up after dawn, ran her identity, found no warrants and gave her a ride just past their jurisdiction. Larabeth, alone, crippled, weighing barely ninety pounds, was unlikely to backtrack to their town.

She told me about her son in college somewhere, she thought. She proclaimed me an answer to her prayer.

“You must be a Christian,” she said.

When I answered yes, she told me of her prayers for world peace.

“How can people hurt each other?” she wondered. “There is just so much pain in this world.”

At that moment I felt like most of the pain in the world rode in the passenger seat of my old car. Someone held her once, like I hold my grandchildren, and bounced her on their knee. Somewhere she went to school once upon a time and dreamed of being the homecoming queen or the president of the senior class.

We stopped to get her food to go at a roadside eatery. I gave her the money as we went in so the people behind the counter would not take immediate offence at her sight and smell. She asked me if she could keep the three dollars change. I supposed it would go for a bottle of cheap something or a pill she does not need but could not say no.

We drove past my exit on the freeway, where I turn to go to my safe, comfortable office. She directed me to the County Health Office where she said she needed to see her doctor. I pulled up to the front door.

“You have been a life saver,” Larabeth said. “I wish we could do something after my doctor sees me but you’re married.”

The sadness got deeper then. The poor woman thought I had picked her up for sex instead of just fear she was going to die by the roadside.

“Larabeth,” I said the only thing I could think to say, “once or twice in a lifetime we need to meet someone who does something for us without wanting anything back for it. God did that for me. Sometimes I remember to act like Him.”

She closed the door. Her painful limp toward the building made my heart hurt all over again.

I hope, dear God, that she was an angel I met unawares. No one should have to hurt like Larabeth.

What it will be like …

We shared a good yet disturbing week around the house. Good in that Patty and I spent some time hanging out, working on a project or two and gathering tomatos. Disturbing in that we realized that one day the week we enjoyed will be the staple for our future. Kimberly now married and Tommie away on a mission trip left us to experience what life will be like when the “nest is empty.” Talk about weird. We are ready for Tommie to be home - just a few hours away.

I was reminded that while there will be some great adventures for us, the longing for the “empty nest” is another way of wishing our lives away; a tragic decision to many make. So, we look forward to enjoying our next few years with Tommie - what a beauty!

Role reversal … “comment-or” becomes “post-or” …

Lyle offered a very insightful comment to a recent post. Many do not read the comments. There are times when I am glad for this. Like when someone gets on who intends to use the site for personal advertisement - other websites offering interesting assistance. I try to monitor these closely. In my recent reading through the comments to recent posts, I found the following and thought it excellent.

What do you think about Wright’s statements on Biblical authority?

Beginning, though, with explicit scriptural evidence about authority itself, we find soon enough–this is obvious but is often ignored–that all authority does indeed belong to God.
What is he doing? He is not simply organizing the world. He is, as we see and know in Christ and by the Spirit, judging and remaking his world. What he does authoritatively he dots with this intent. God is
not a celestial information service to whom you can apply for answers on difficult questions. Nor is he a heavenly ticket agency to whom you can go for moral or doctrinal permits or passports to salvation. He does not stand outside the human process and merely comment on it or merely issue
you with certain tickets that you might need. Those views would imply either a deist’s God or a legalist’s God, not the God who is revealed in
Jesus Christ and the Spirit. And it must be said that a great many views of biblical authority imply one or other of those sub-Christian alternatives.

How does God exercise that authority? Again and again, in the biblical story itself we see that he does so through human agents anointed and equipped by the Holy Spirit. And this is itself an expression of his love; because he does not will, simply to come into the world in a blinding flash of
light and obliterate all opposition. He wants to reveal himself meaningfully within the space/time universe not just passing it by tangentially; to reveal himself in judgement and in mercy in a way which will save people.
-N.T. Wright

He states on his website that “biblical authority” should probably not be used due to it’s misuse. Which I believe is what you were stating as well. All authority is God’s authority and by us standing on biblical authority we put ourselves as the authority too often.

Thanks Lyle for the input. Keep commenting and keep posting over on “Divine Conspirator.”

Next Page »