Sleeping Giant & The Glorious Unseen Veil Arms Tour Highlights
Two different sounds same goal.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
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.
"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.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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....?
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....?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
sorry I wanted the bonus entry...
Bible Study Magazine and Mars Hill are giving away 20 copies of Mark Driscoll’s new book, Vintage Church. Not only that, but they are also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! Enter to win on the Bible Study Magazine Mark Driscoll page, then take a look at all the cool tools they have to take your Bible study to the next level!
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.
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.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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