Well, well, well. It seems silence does not become this blog and for that I am sorry. As I type this, my computer doesn’t believe that blog is a word and is desperately trying to make me understand with a squiggly red line.

Agree to disagree.

I do have such high hopes for this blog because of all the wonderful things that pass between my ears during the day that need to be heard by the masses or at least the few of you who read this (or used to). Seriously though, at least a few times a day I will think of something and then think to myself that I need to write about this but then I get home and either forgotten my striking insights or just don’t care and here my blog sits silently or if your lucky I’ll post some hip video, a video that I most likely didn’t even find by myself. So this year I would very much like to keep this blog going and keep it filled with some real stuff. 2010 at least a blog a week sounds fare, don’t you think?

Well, I do.

I flew into Los Angeles last night after a few weeks in Knoxville at my parent’s home for Christmas. It was good to be home. Usually when I first get home I am struck with mass thankfulness that I live on my own and I have an immediate desire to return to my independence but it doesn’t take long to slip into the comfort of being home. I know I am always sad to leave.

While I am sad to leave I am always ready to run into the next ____. I don’t really know what’s next. I mean the rest of my year is practically laid out in front of me so I do sort of know what is coming my way but I am more interested in the next____. Like I said I don’t know what it is.

I never really know what to think of New Year. Leading up to 2003 when I was 17 a man named Dave who was always trying to get to join the NRA, of whom I learned later was never without a loaded gun in his boot, prayed for me at a new years church service. He told me or prophesied over me and said that God told him that the upcoming year was going to be one of the greatest of my life. I guess on first hearing this most people would be pleased and excited. I on the other hand immediately worried about all the other years that weren’t going to be so good. 2003 really was a great year. Maybe God really did speak to him and then again maybe not. I am just glad he never shot anybody.

happy new year friends. may it be one of the best years of your life.

Something is wrong and there is more than this.

No book has been such a pleasant surprise to me as Stanley Hauerwas' and William H. Willimon's Resident Aliens. I was not excited or interested in reading it all but as soon as I found my way into the first chapter I knew that I was in for a serious ride. This is a book simply for people who know something is wrong in our world and it is a wake up call for those who have ignored the problems. I get to see Hauerwas tonight at APU.

"A Church that had ceased to ask the right questions as it went about congratulating itself for transforming the world, not noticing that in fact the world had tamed the church... we would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God's kingdom transcends those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price."

a message heard by few.

With God on Our Side - Bob Dylan

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
With God on Our side - Bob Dylan

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
And if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Watch the video here@ http://gotellthatfox.tumblr.com/
(I got a tumblr so I wouldn't feel bad about posting so many videos on this my main blog. Maybe it will make me write more.)

so funny...

I'll let this speak for itself

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
Psalm 42:7 (NIV)

Adoption

Ephesians 1:3-10 (ESV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,according to the purpose of his will,to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.




How Glorious

space.

I really want to write something amazing for you to read but really I have nothing amazing to say at the moment, which seems to be the norm. Sorry. I have stories to tell I am sure but when I make my way to write them down they float away and leave me with nothing but a mediocre youtube video to post. My mind is full these days. Mostly due to the Greek intensive that I am taking. I am squeezing a years worth of Koine Greek into a 10 week quarter. I am learning though.

I am sitting listening to a Christmas band called The choir at your door. It is doing things to my insides, as good music combined with good weather and a lonely heart often does. Good music for me always intensifies the longings in my life. I remember friends that I have not been able to see in a long time. and how much i miss them. i would love to sit with them so very badly. I remember family and how our time here is so limited and that I am so far away. It is hard to be away from those you love the most. I think of the things to come. excited. scared. All the feelings of life.

Its a gift to feel. it really is. even when it hurts. I spend most of my time trying to feel and not be so numb to the blessings and gifts that have so graciously flooded my life. I want to feel it all. To simply experience the moments of now. Looking ahead is good but if it is our only focus we miss out on so much. I am pretty good at that. I am always wanting the next step and not embracing the current. Its a flaw. I'm working on it.

my mind/experiences this week:
love
and how its so hard
cross country bike rides
Cornel West
custom drum kits
cute girl
(trying to make this low on my list of priorities... not working)
idolatry
Pasadena Acts 29 church plant
third declensions
those on the underside of power
and my apathy
hell and how I hate it
my church interview this week
john piper and eschatology
doughnuts
backstage at David Crowder/Francis Chan
building a fixed gear
Jones coffee roasters
starting a band
peace
my apathy
sailing

Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

dork disco

the fox

I love the creature called the fox. I have desperately wanted one ever since I saw the movie Grizzly Man. A documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived and became friends with bears and foxes in the Alaskan wilderness. There is a family of Foxes that live on my parent mountain however I was unable to befriend them due to fear of rabies. One day I will have a domesticated fox. Anyway all this said because I love the new Brand New Album cover.

Use Somebody

ζωή

I got the chance to go see Donnald Miller speak last night in Hollywood at Ecclesia. It was good. I needed to be reminded of humanity. Miller helps me remember why. I love to listen to stories. He tells them so well. His stories remind me of how broken humanity is while at the same time how simply beautiful it is. It is encouraging to watch someone move from great doubt to a great trust in the soverienty of God even in the midst of conflict. All stories have conflict. It just depends what we decide to do with it.

He ended with a reading out of Victor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning
Reminded me of a quote I love
“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”

Courage

No one like to talk about this part of his message.

"And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of police man of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore."

-King, Martin Luther. "Where do we go from here?" Speech, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Georgia, Atlanta, August 16, 1967:

Do not judge the cover

I literally just finished my last paper for the spring quarter at Fuller Seminary. I am pleased. I have been think over all the stuff that I have learned in the past three months. It is actually pretty staggering. While you are in school you never really feel like you are learning but when you stop and think about it you realize that your tuition dollars are not being wasted. Mom will be pleased.

One of the best things that happened to me this quarter was being forced to read a book I didn't want to read. They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover but I take a completely different approach to the matter. Two things that I enjoy most in life are books and art and those two things come together for me on the book cover. For me the title and cover tell me whether or not I should read the book. My immediate assumption of Resident Aliens was that it was another cookie cutter Christian book but as soon as I opened it I knew that I was completely mistaken. It is written by two professors from Duke University, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. I got the chance to see Willimon speak this quarter at a conference on preaching and it was great. The books sub-title is 'A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong". It is one of the best Christian books I have ever read. It was one of those reads where I was constantly highlighting and desperate to talk to someone about it. The whole time I read it I was reminded of Lee C. Camps 'Mere Discipleship'. It turns out that they are friends. Well anyway on to the content.

They make an amazing connection here:

"On August 6,1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on a Japanese city. Turning to a group of sailors with him on the battle cruiser Augusta, President Truman said, "This is the greatest thing in history." Truman, once described as "an outstanding Baptist layman," was supported by the majority of American Christians, who expressed few misgivings about the bomb. The bomb, however, was the sign of our moral incapacitation, an open admission that we had lost the will and resources to resist vast evil... Obliteration bombing of civilian populations had come to be seen as military necessity. A terrible evil had been defended as a way to a greater good. After the bomb, all sorts of moral compromises were easier - nearly two million abortions a year seemed a mere matter of freedom of choice, and the plight of the poor in the world's richest nation was a matter of economic necessity."

This is huge!- "We had lost the theological resources to resist, lost the resources even to see that there was something worth resisting."

Some other good quotes:

"In short, there is nothing wrong with America that a good war cannot cure."

"We Christians have given atheists less and less in which to disbelieve! A flaccid church has robbed atheism of its earlier pretensions of adventure."

"A church that had ceased to ask the right questions as it went about congratulating itself for transforming the world, not noticing, that in fact the world had tamed the church."

"Dying for this state, as Alasdair MacIntyre has said, is "like being asked to die for the telephone company."

I end with this:

"The theologians job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world,but to make the world credible to the gospel."


Enjoy and goodnight!

Still one of my all time favorite bands.

Dave Emmert

So my friend Dave Emmert is in a band called Mr.Lendingworth and Friends and they just finished their new album. I love this guy. GO LISTEN. I am really proud of him.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC.

Ecclesia. Sign me up.

Sometimes I’m not so sure why I want to be a pastor. I mean lets just break it down: bad pay, long hours, high stress, and I have to deal with weird church people. So why do I want to spend my life this way?

Every once and a while, they are becoming more frequent, I have these moments of clarity. These moments of clarity allow me to see exactly why I want to be a pastor, why I want to be a part of the Church. Today at church I had one of those moments. Today was my church’s fourth anniversary of being planted and we had a baptism service. They gave each of the candidates a chance to address the congregation and give a few words of why they were being baptized. One of ladies who was being baptized said that she had been a Christian for over a decade now and was instrumental in planting Ecclesia and had been heavily involved in starting ministries. For a long time she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t willing to be baptized. Then she said she really did know but it was hard to say out loud. She went on to tell us that she was afraid that she would leave, leave the faith and the Church. She said that it had been easy for most of her time as a Christian but she was worried that when times got hard that she would just give up. She continued to tell us how this past year had been the hardest year of her life, the loss of her parents, the long fight against sickness and death of her husband, and now being a single parent. The reason that she didn’t leave she said was because of the church. At this point the pastors on stage and anybody who knew the woman and her story were crying and fighting back tears. She said the reason she didn’t leave was because of the people in the church who paid her bills when her husband was sick, the people who constantly stayed with her in the hospital overnight, and the love and support that the community gave. She said she hadn’t walked away and it was time to go public with her faith because she knew she was never walking away. The pastor chocked out through tears you were dead in sin and dunked her into the water and when she came up he said you are now alive in Christ. In that moment I knew that this church, this community and others like it around the world was what I wanted to spend my life for.

Intelligentsia

So not to belabor the point about Portland being better than Los Angeles but when I moved out here I was really disappointed. Portland has an amazing coffee culture and it was hard to leave. There are some descent coffee shops around me but nothing really that good. No one knew how to make a pretty cappuccino. You would think that LA, being the hipster/yuppie capital of the world, would have serious coffee drinkers. Up until last week I didn’t think so. My friend Drew (not a coffee drinker but works at Starbucks) asked me, “have you ever been to Intelligentsia Coffee?” I hadn’t but I wasn’t really expecting too much but he said he had heard good things! Since I don’t have much of a life, checking out Intelligentsia was immediately on the top of my important things to do list. So I went and I discovered serious coffee! Their baristas have to go to school for a few months to brew their coffee. Ever cup is freshly ground and brewed. Not to mention one of their baristas just won third place in the world barista competition! Needless to say I was pleased with what I found. I sat down and had a seriously good cappuccino.

Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea here.

Owen

Owen takes me there. I am not sure where "there" is but we go there. sad news its usually alone. working on it.

I love this video. Relax. Breath deep. Watch.

Port-land.

Thought about Portland a lot today. Someone was asking me what I thought about the city, my friend Chad is coming to visit LA from Portland, and the New York times did a story on Sunday on how affordable/perfect Portland is. So of course it was time to think about all the ways Portland is better than Los Angeles. That's how I do things... grass is always greener.

Here for the full article.

Espresso Book Machine

"What Gutenberg’s press did for Europe in the 15th century digitization and the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world tomorrow."

The Espresso Book Machine is the newest technology in printing, it prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes on demand. The sad reality of out of print books is a thing of the past. These machines are small enough to fit into a retail shop or library (or my bed room - Christmas wish 2012) and can potentially change the way people buy books forever. The customer can choose from a web based catalog of books or bring in their own file or flash drive in PDF format.

I am just thinking about the possibilities and implications of this machine. self publishing. Seriously amazing.

On demand books here.

Its Suburbs Without the Car

I read an article in the New York times today that has been plaguing my imagination all day.

In Vauban, Germany they are creating communities without cars. If a resident owns a car they have to park at the edge of the community in super expensive parking lots ($40,000 per space). 70% of Vauban residents do not own automobile.

This is my dream world… except that its in Germany. Not that I don’t like Germany, I just don’t speak German/ I think it’s really cold.


To read the full article: click here

Saturday nights in Seminary...

So I am writing a Paper on synod of Dort for my systematic theology class. It's a 15 page paper and I'm on page 6 and it is due Monday at 1pm. So needless to say I am on a time crunch. Mid-term week is really crazy and you honestly don't have very much time to get done everything that has to be done. It is really frustrating because I am in the place where I am not satisfied with average work but when time is short you do the best you can. The gift of studying theology is that when I am sitting in a coffee shop on a Saturday night feeling quite desperate, God can really speak and move through what I am reading and researching. My paper's tentative title is, I grew up an Armenian and didn’t know it: Discovering Biblical truth within Calvinism. So I am having a good time even though it is pretty heavy material. I am currently writing on the fist article of the Synod which is Predestination and Unconditional election. One thing I am realizing is that the Bible is filled with really hard truths and they are often not easy to swallow. What has been amazing is God gently guiding me into a fruitful theology. I have struggled and had doubts but I am thankful for the men that have come before and labered and worked to help me have a greater understanding of God and His word.Bastian Kruithof tells a story in The High Points of Calvinism a story that really encouraged my soul:

"Some day ago I talked to a man who can be considered a refugee from Hungary where Russian totalitarianism is grinding the people down. One of the first words he spoke to me was: "Predestination." He told me of the several million Hungarian Calvinists who are by no means defeated. He said to me that whenever a brother appears on the verge of despair, the invariable retort is: "are you a man?" That sentence has tremendous significance when it comes from those who are not stoics but Christians who know that God is with them, and that they are in God's unshakable plan and under his lasting grace. I was interested to read this sentence in Hasting's Encyclepedia of Religion and Ethics: "The Calvinistic 'fate' is the incentive to heroic effort, a challenge to play the man."

Samual 10:9-12
When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the best men of Israel and arrayed them against the Syrians. The rest of his men he put in the charge of Abishai his brother, and he arrayed them against the Ammonites. And he said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and blet us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.”

Encouragement for my spirit.

A great way to view differences within the Church:

Theological National Boundaries

Indeed, there are theological national borders that need to be retained, such as Scripture as God’s Word; God as Trinitarian community; humanity as sinful; Jesus as God and man; the virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus; and the necessity of Jesus alone for salvation from sin, hell, and the wrath of God.

State Boundaries

Beyond these sorts of national borders are state borders. State borders include spiritual gifts, baptism, communion, worship styles, Bible translations, sense of humor, and the like. Various states can have their own proverbial borders on these issues. Nonetheless, like states we must be able to live as a loving and unified nation. We cannot turn our state borders into national borders and refuse to live at peace in unity and love with those who live in other proverbial states. Simply, the state borders should not be battle lines where personal and theological wars are fought because bigger things are at stake, such as the evangelizing of lost people and the planting of missional churches.

My prayer today is this

“Thank you Sovereign God for an opportunity to influence the nations for good. May you please give us your Spirit to keep our minds learning, hearts loving, ears listening, hands serving, and humility growing for your glory and our joy. We ask this for your fame by the Spirit’s power in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

-Mark Driscoll @http://theresurgence.com/time_magazine_new_reformed

New Music refreshing my ears...

1) Manchester Orchestra - Mean everything to nothing
2) As Cities Burn - Hell or High water
3) TV on the radio - Return to cookie mountain / Dear Science
4) M. Ward - Hold Time
5) The Devil Wears Prada - With roots above and branches below
6) Niel Yong - Fork in the road
7) Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
8) Leona Naess - Thirteens
9) Kari Jobe - I'm singing
10) Gavin Degraw -Free
11) The Decemberists - The hazard of Love
12) Jon Foreman - Winter ep
13) Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
14) Animal Collective - Merriweather post pavilion
15) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

More from the great emergence

"The new Christianity of the great emergence must discover some authority base or delivery system and/or governing agency of its own. It must formulate – and soon – something other than Luther’s sola scriptura which, although used so well by the Great Reformation originally, is now seen as hopelessly outmoded or insufficient, even after it is, as here, spurred up and re-couched in more current sensibilities.”







My Response:

"The Bible will stand. No critic will." -John Piper

the great emergence

I am reading Phyllis Tickle's 'the great emergence' and I don't like it. I think she is confusing and writes in circles. She spends half of her book "considering... a few of the major cultural shifts in the twentieth century that have determined the religious and ecclesial perspectives out of which emergents are working" leaving the reader grasping for an understanding or working definition of what the Great Emergence actually is. There is no doubt an emergence is happening but she does no more than to point to 500 year hinge periods that she defines as rummage sales. She seems quite content to leave the reader lost with a bucket of knowledge filled with interconnected historical events.

"The reformation's understanding of scripture as it had been taught by Protestantism for almost five centuries will be dead. That is not to say that Scripture as the base of authority is dead. What the protestant tradition has taught about the nature of the authority will be either dead or in mortal need of reconfiguration. And that kind of summation is agonizing for the surrounding culture in general. In particular, it is agonizing for the individual lives that have been built upon it." Pg. 101

I think there may be some truth in this statement but not in the way she intends it.

The ever true hymn from Edward Mote:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

wolfgang amedeus phoenix

Thanks Chris! This is my album of summer 2009.

The Sound. are you apart of it?

Sleeping Giant & The Glorious Unseen Veil Arms Tour Highlights





Two different sounds same goal.

he go above of my head to live with your father

Nothing seems to make me laugh quite as hard as cat videos on youtube and David Sedaris! I was in my bedroom the other night and I was reading this story out of Me Talk Pretty One Day and I started laughing so hard I was crying! Sedaris writes about living with his boyfriend in France and this particular story is from a French class that he attended in Paris. The students have to try to explain Easter to a Muslim student in French! So in honor of Lent and the preparation for Easter enjoy!



"And what does one do on Easter? Would anyone like to tell us?"

The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, "Excuse me, but what's an Easter?"

Despite her having grown up in a Muslim country, it seemed she might have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. "I mean it," she said. "I have no idea what you people are talking about."

The teacher then called upon the rest of us to explain.

The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. "It is," said one, "a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and . . . oh, shit."

She faltered, and her fellow countryman came to her aid.

"He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber."

The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.

"He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father."

"He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."

"He nice, the Jesus."

"He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today."

Part of the problem had to do with grammar. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as "To give of yourself your only begotten son." Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.

"Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb," the Italian nanny explained. "One, too, may eat of the chocolate."

"And who brings the chocolate?" the teacher asked.

I knew the word, and so I raised my hand, saying, "The Rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate."

My classmates reacted as though I'd attributed the delivery to the Antichrist. They were mortified.

"A rabbit?" The teacher, assuming I'd used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wiggling them as though they were ears. "You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?"

"Well, sure," I said. "He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have the basket and foods."

The teacher sadly shook her head, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. "No, no," she said. "Here in France the chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome."

I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?"

"Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"

It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That's a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth--and they can't even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character; he's someone you'd like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It's like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they've got more bells than they know what to do with right here in Paris? That's the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there's no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell's dog--and even then he'd need papers. It just didn't add up.

Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate. Confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder. I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the countless miracles--my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though, that's f#@*%! up.

Engaging and disagreeing with people smarter than me.

So I am going to a lecture by N.T. Wright tonight and needless to say I am very excited. He is currently at my Seminary teaching some doctoral classes. N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and he is one of the foremost New Testament Scholars. He’s a huge voice in Church at large and a positive one most of the time. His current most popular book is Surprised by Hope where he has a lot of engaging and helpful insights into the reality of Heaven and Hell. Increasingly I am growing more cautious and critical of what I accept and believe. (A positive thing I think) What I mean to say is, that a few years ago if I were to pick up a Christian book I would have most likely assumed that what was written was truth and thus biblically sound. Maybe this was just ignorance or the lacking of knowledge or skill to dissent with, what I consider in some cases, superior minds. I am not saying I would have swallowed any normal Jacks writings but those of legitimate scholarly and pastoral writers.

I guess it hit me last year when I was in Cambridge and I was rereading Mere Christianity for a course on Lewis. A little background, I have loved C.S. Lewis from before I could read! Once I rediscovered his writings in high school I realized he wrote more than stories about Lions and mice. I pretty much spent two years of high school reading Lewis’ apologetic and theological works. The thought had honestly never occurred to me that I could disagree with what he was writing. The last year while reading Mere Christianity (a beautiful book – that came out of a serious of broadcasts from WWII) I realized that I didn’t agree with a lot of what Lewis was writing. I guess had two great shocks that day while sitting in a coffee shop. The first was that it was ok for me to disagree with somebody, no matter how much I respected them. The second shock was that I was capable of dissenting on a scholarly level. It was scary and encouraging to realize that I was capable to be and have my own mind. I guess that is when I started taking my potential as a student and teacher (in a broad sense).

Anyway I say all this because I am really excited about going to see N.T. Wright tonight. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him; I mean I have been using some of his books for recourses for my earliest writings in undergrad. It’s really refreshing to use resources of people who aren’t dead sometimes. The point of this entry is to state that I know I may not agree with everything Wright says tonight but I thank God that he has granted me the ability to go tonight and have an open mind and take in what he says and weigh it against the knowledge that has been granted to me from above (not in a Gnostic sense but a Holy Spirit/Biblical sense).

John Piper, as the three people who read this blog know, is somewhat my pastoral hero! Not many people have the chops/bravery to write like he does, let alone to write a book disagreeing with someone as notable as N.T. Wright. Piper wrote a book called, The future of Justification: a response to N.T. Wright. Piper mostly takes issue with Wright’s stance on Justification. In an interview Piper responded with this:

"N.T. Wright says things like we will be justified in the last day on the basis of the whole life lived. Now he may not mean what that sounds like it means. But it sounds like it means, and will be taken to mean, what Roman Catholicism really says it means, namely that justification is our becoming righteous ourselves, so that our acts of obedience are part of the ground by which God accepts us.

What I want to say is that at the moment when we put our childlike faith in Jesus Christ, he became our punishment and our obedience. That is, at that moment he became the obedience required for God to be totally for us.
Therefore, the very thing that N.T. Wright and others are wanting to accomplish, namely an engaged, bold, loving, sacrificial, mission-oriented church will cease to be that, just like the mainline churches have ceased to be dynamic forces in the world, because they threw away the essence of certain crucial doctrines. You don’t see it now, because N.T. Wright himself is such a good embodiment of engagement, but I’m saying that some of the things he says have the trajectory that if they’re followed out, are going to in fact undermine the very thing he wants to accomplish, namely, a sacrificially loving church.

So that’s what’s at stake. It’s a huge issue for me, and I hope the book will have some influence on him to get him to say some things better and more clearly. And I hope it will have influence on those who are reading him, so that they are not as inclined to follow his way of thinking about justification as they might have been."

I am excited about tonight!

rough draft of my intro and thesis for NT1

THE IMPOSSIBILITY FOR MAN, THE POSSIBILITY FOR GOD: THE SALVATION OF A RICH MAN: LUKE 19:1-10


1He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."6So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.7All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." 8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." 9Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." (NRSV)

Introduction

When one reads through the Gospel of Luke it is easy to see that the Third Evangelist is greatly concerned with the outcasts and marginalized of his community. It becomes evident, in his writings to Theophilus, his goal is to present a Jesus who is interested in the inclusion and salvation of all. This is made clear in the narrative of Zacchaeus. As we read through Luke 19:1-10 it is hard not to be drawn to similar accounts found in the Gospel of Luke, especially within the preceding chapter. In chapter eighteen we are introduced to similar characters such as a widow, a toll collector, a child, and a blind beggar. We find the most striking similarities in the account of the rich ruler (18:18-30). In the narrative of the rich ruler we are introduced to a man who has kept the law from his youth and is seeking eternal life from Jesus. Jesus goes on to instruct the rich ruler to sell all of his possessions and give to the poor and then he will have treasure in heaven. This was too much to ask of the rich ruler and he went away sad. Jesus then explains how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom:

Jesus looking at him said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

Though these two accounts are parallel in many ways they drastically differ in result. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that the Third Evangelist used the account of Zacchaeus to substantiate Jesus’ statement, in 18:27, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." In this unique account of Zacchaeus in Luke we are shown a beautiful example of present salvation in the life of a rich man. Let us keep in mind the radical grace of God as we dig deeper into the narrative of Zacchaeus.





Thoughts....?

sorry I wanted the bonus entry...

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A new look

Tough day today. Hope is still alive though. The tomb is empty and Jesus is alive sitting at the right hand of the Father. 41 days till Easter. In this Lent season let us remember to hold everything we have with open hands. Our life is not our own.

lamentations 3:31-33
For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

happy valentines day.

Alive -

myspace.com/girlsgrowfasterthanbooks

Sir, do you have Pigeons in your pants?

The 23-year-old man was stopped at Melbourne International Airport Sunday after arriving on a flight from Dubai with two live pigeons stuffed in his tights.

The service alleges that two eggs were found inside a multivitamin container carried by the passenger, who comes from Melbourne.

A further search revealed that he was wearing tights -- with a live bird stashed down each leg.

Photographs show the birds appear to have been rolled in newspaper and polythene with only their heads showing.

The images indicate that one bird was attached to each of the alleged smuggler's lower legs. -CNN

Hail, gladdening Light

Phos Hilaron (Φῶς Ἱλαρόν) is the earliest known Christian hymn recorded outside of the Bible that is still being used today. Phos literally translated means anything emitting light and Hilaros literally translated is cheerful and joyous. This is a modern translation from John Keble:

Hail, gladdening Light, of His pure glory poured
Who is th’immortal Father, heavenly, blest,
Holiest of Holies–Jesus Christ our Lord!

Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest;
The lights of evening round us shine;
We hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine!

Worthiest art thou at all times to be sung
With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, giver of life, alone:
Therefore in all the world thy glories, Lord, thy own. Amen.

hidden treasure in my bookshelf.

My book collection is not anywhere close where I want it to be. I had to leave a lot of books behind in Tennessee when I moved out west. I had to make a lot of tough decisions so the one hundred books or so that did make it are somewhat important. Even though I haven’t read all of them I know them pretty well. Lets just say I know what I have on my shelves. Last night before going to sleep and saving the life of a mouse from an angry Latino I was looking at my books. This is something I do quite often but last night I picked up a book that I have seen plenty of times but I never really knew what it was. Once I started reading about the author and the topic I realized that I had just found a treasure hidden with in my collection.

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church is a collection of essays arguing for the relevance of Christian doctrine. Sayers was a member of the famous “Inklings,” a group that met in a pub called the Eagle and Child in Oxford, England. This group’s members included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. I was shocked and excited to learn that a woman was in the “Inklings”. As I started to read through the first chapter before bead I realized I was going to really enjoy her writing.

“Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as a bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine-dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man-and the dogma is the drama… The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: What think ye of Christ?” – Dorothy L. Sayers

May we never be bored but constantly amazed by the supremacy of Christ and the story that we find ourselves in.

I put doors in your trees

If you are searching for a natural way to combat acid reflux all you need is a gallon of Aloe Vera juice! Don’t worry it only tastes like battery acid and bear urine!

So today I am thinking about the Bible as symbolic poetry?
I am mostly thinking about it with a profound since of disappointment.

I just got done reading and writing a book review for, In the Shadow of the Galilean by Gerd Theissen. Theissen goal in writing this book is to create a fictional narrative in which the reader will gain a better understanding of the historical context of Jesus’ life and ministry. He tells the story through the eyes of a Jewish upper class merchant who finds himself in the middle of Rome and the Jewish Zealots and meets Jesus somewhere in the middle. Gerd Theissen is a well respected New Testament scholar and I guess writing a fictional story about someone in the time of Jesus isn’t necessarily a career builder. So he is very careful to differentiate between historical fact and fiction. Which he does well and I respect. What disappointed me was the way he diminished the divinity and miraculous nature of Jesus and the events surrounding Him. For instance there is a scene in the book where Andreas is watching the crucifixion of Christ from afar and his servant says this,
“If the sun could see and feel as we do, it would go dark for grief. If the earth could feel, it would quake with anger.”

And then Theissen goes on to say,
“But the sun did not go dark, and the earth remained at rest. It was a normal day and the darkness was only in me. Only in me did the foundations of life shake.”

The Gospel of Matthew puts it this way:

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"… At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”

Do we loose anything if this only poetical symbolism?

Maybe we don’t loose anything or maybe we loose everything.
I’m certainly not content with this being symbolic.

Theissen said that it was just a normal day. Maybe it was but I doubt it.

Little did they know that it was anything but a normal day. It was the day that was sealed before the foundation of the world. Jesus was never plan B. He was always the way.

“Even more astonishing and confirming of the truth of this is that in the Jewish Scriptures 700 years before the crucifixion of Jesus, the death of Jesus is described like this: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6). His death was punishment for sin. But not his own. The crucifixion of Jesus is precious to those who believe, because by that death we are ransomed from sin and guilt and condemnation and hell, and given eternal life. This is what Jesus came to accomplish: eternal life for all who believe. This is why he was crucified. It was public, painful, planned, punishment (for us!) and precious.” –John Piper

I choose to believe that these things happened the way the writers of the Gospels said they happened. I am sure to be thought a fool for taking the scripture so literal. All I can do is trust in the supremacy of Christ and His Holy Word.

I am currently reading Water ship down by Richard Adams. It seriously has potential to be my new favorite book. Lets just say that I am excited to see the 1978 movie:

Land of no return

It’s raining here in Los Angeles. That doesn’t happen to often around these parts. I find myself once again in the middle of a transition. Transitions are hard and as far as I am concerned they certainly aren’t fun. Though I have a pretty strong feeling that I am not alone on this one and that someone is behind it all. I started by writing about my experiences out here so far; a page or two into I decided to delete it. I am note sure why but I didn’t like what I was writing. I am beginning to establish a life here and it’s strange. I am often tempted to compare it with my old life but then I have to stop and remind myself that these new experiences are not going to be like my old ones. It doesn’t mean that they will be any better or worse but they will be different.

I no longer live with two of my best friends in a house on Gary Street in Tennessee with my two other best friends down the road. Now I live with a Latino guy from Chicago named Marcos, a black brother named Brycen, and a Guatemalan who doesn’t speak English named Boanettus! I am now affectionately referred to as the white brother.

I have been offered two student pastor positions at churches but have turned them both down for no other reason than I didn’t feel like that is where God wanted me. Those were hard decisions but the ones that had to be made.

I am starting to feel more grown up but at the same time I am beginning to feel young again.

2008 was a very strange year.
I started it by moving to Cambridge, England. In those three months I discovered out quite a bit about myself. I spent most of my time there thinking about a girl.

I came back to Tennessee only to fall for that girl and then to have my heart broken again, my fault of course. I took a class on the spirit and then I graduated college.

I moved to Portland, Oregon with my new friend from Cambridge. I started graduate school where I soon discovered I don’t care much for physcology. I got to journey with my roommate through some difficult questions. Mine were answered. He is still waiting.
I met and loved many people in Oregon but in the end I needed to leave.

I moved to Los Angeles where I am now studying Theology. My roommate moved to Ireland where he is now gardening.

Things I learned in 2008:
God is in control. Sovereign. good.
I am not as strong as I thought.
I am much stronger than I thought.
I love my Family.
I miss my friends.
I want to be a pastor more than ever.
I do not want to be a counselor.
And its ok to doubt and worry about it all.

I dreamed a lot this year. More than usual. I have strange scary dreams, dreams that make my heart hurt in a good way, dreams about my grandfather, reoccurring dreams about a girl named Sarah. I barely know her and I dream about at least once every other week.

Important Music of 2008:
Ray Lamontagne
Wild Sweet Orange
James Taylor
The weepies
The Fleet Foxes
Bon Iver
Jon Foreman
Denison Witmer
Kings of Leon

Important voices in my life in 2008:
Mom and Dad
John Piper
Rob Bell
Mark Driscoll
Kay Bruce
Gerry Breshears
Jonathan Davenport
Brandon Brown
Chris Sloan
Chris Morris
Brian haitz

I don’t know what the next year has in store. No idea. Scars me like nothing else. But I know that’s ok now. I trust in the God who is in control of everything and everybody.

Lamentations 3:25
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Grace and Peace,
Jesse P.