What a day of rejoicing that will be!

Today has been a sad day. Nicole and I said goodbye to our dear friends, Levi and Katie Holland, who are moving to Syracuse, NY to minister to the youth of upstate New York. While we're thrilled that God is moving them to this new place in their journey, its difficult to say goodbye knowing that our paths may not cross again in the near future. Levi was my college roommate all four years, we traveled together in a PR group, went through our degree programs together, and have been through seminary together. I befriended Katie within the first month or so at Olivet, and I introduced the two. Nicole and Katie have become quite good friends too.

We've all said goodbye before--when we went away from school for summers, when we graduated, and at our weddings. But this time is different. New York and the midwest are far away from each other.

And yet this time is the same. One thing the great relationships in my life have taught me is that the finest moments we share with each other are the treasures we store up in heaven with Christ. I am thankful for my friends and what they mean to me and Nicole. Lots of people have some pipe dream of heaven where they can indulge themselves till they are blue in the face and then keep going. I anticipate the peace of the lamb who was slain filling the new heaven and new earth, where we selflessly serve and enjoy each other's presence. It will be a day of rejoicing when we all see Jesus, because it is He who unites us, makes us capable of love (both giving and receiving), and who saves us. Though today I am sad, I know joy is ahead both in this life and the life to come. Amen!

Sweet Hour of Prayer

A good hymn:

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share,
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight:
This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise
To seize the everlasting prize;
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”

I have great interest in these words in this season of life. I some ways it is hard for me to agree with this hymn writer. I haven't always thought of an hour of prayer as "sweet." More appropriate ways of describing an hour of prayer for me has been frustrating, trying, boring, and wandering. Rewarding? Sometimes. Hard? Every time.

When I was in junior high/high school I was a part of a praying youth group. The two youth pastor I had always had in pray for extended periods of time on retreats and mission trips. I remember these times more than the games/activities we participated in. These were hard times were from an early age we were challenged to be disciplined to pray.

It's still hard. I struggle with the getting into a good prayer routine; finding a voice to praise, confess, and bring petition before God.

This semester I enrolled in a course were we have to pray for a whole hour a day six days of the week! My peers and I have just completed our first week of this discipline and there are many things I have learned through the course of the week. First, setting aside a whole hour to be in prayer and scripture changes the priorities of your day. Everyday I have to think about how I am going to spent 1/24th of it in prayer, and how I have to plan the rest of my day around it. Hopefully these things will eventually become habit. The second thing I have learned is that the time spent with God at the beginning of the day reminds me of his presence throughout the entire day. It is incredibly convicting. Already I have had to submit to a spirit of confession as I see my sinfulness in light of the Lord as He is with me through the day.

So, while I might not have always thought of an hour of prayer as sweet, I am trying to put myself in place where I will "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8). I suppose we would be at fault to separate our prayer life from the other aspects of the Via Salutis. Part the struggle of figuring out how to pray is a means by which God sanctifies us. The sweetness is the joy of the journey.

The Living Word, Written and Spoken

I believe in God's word.

I believe it is living and active. Sharper than a double edge sword. The author of Hebrews could not have described better how the word pierces the convictions of the heart.

I'm thinking lately...what is God's word? Pretty simple, right? The scriptures. Easy answer, but what makes the scriptures God's word? Is God's word solely the scriptures?

As I have thought about this over the last year of studying I cannot but help to conclude that when we read the scriptures what makes them authoritative is not by virtue of its tradition, but by the unique way that God continues to unravel salvation history through them. The history of the Israelites, the Jews, and early Christians has become my history. God still speaks through the scriptures not because an oracle simply wrote down ancient Hebrew and Greek words thousands of years ago, but because God still reveals his purposes through his scriptures today. I now find a literal interpretation of the text problematic because of the tendency to place more trust in the scriptures themselves than the Lord who speaks through the scriptures. Our reading of the scriptures must be regarded as sacramental.

And this is half of the story

More than anything lately I have begun to pay careful attention to the messages that I've heard on sunday mornings. I have realized something very important: the difference between preaching and teaching. Perry Downs is right. One of the things that I learned from Dr. Franklin at Olivet is that the Kerygma really is one of the unofficial sacraments of the post-reformation church. So now I regard preaching as important as the reading of the word, because God speaks through preaching. Whereas teaching may be instructive and useful, preaching is different because it calls for change, sacrifice, comfort, and repentance. Understanding this simple distinction now will be very foundational for me as someday I'll have to preach God's word. I think Brian Kay really hits it on the head when he question, "did Jesus Christ have to die on the Cross in order for this message to be preached?"

Praise be to God for all the ways he still reveals his purposes!

School's out

School is over, and it never felt so good.

This was one of the most difficult semesters I have had throughout my scholastic career. Even at Olivet, the graduate level is significantly more strenuous than the undergraduate. Multiple factors play in: getting married, three jobs, paying bills, and making time for people around me. Not to mention I didn't hardly exercise or eat right, this semester took a toll on my "gauges" as Prof. Wine would say.

Regardless of how difficult it may have been, I learned a whole heck of a lot.

1. The Bible (specifically the New Testament, even more specifically Paul, and even more than that the letters that we actually know without question that Paul wrote) greatly utilizes the various inventions of rhetoric. I had a class with Troy Martin, who I am convinced knows just about everything there is to know about Paul and his letters, on the uses of rhetoric in Paul's letters. By seeing his different usages of rhetorical proofs (logos, ethos, pathos) and other various rhetorical devices in Paul's letters, I will never read them the same again. Also, I am now aware of the variegated rhetorical situations we face daily. People are very good at using rhetoric, and they can also be very manipulative.

2. I am not an open theist. It seemed appealing at first, but the evidence I've found leads me to believe that open theism's nature is reactionary to a specific strand of the Christian faith, and I just don't know that I need to "go there" in order to have a proper understanding of God. I do not, however, think that it is necessarily outside of the trajectory of faith. It is based more off a philosophical presupposition (God's relation to time and the created order) than a theological assertion (God has to be x in order to do y). This does not mean that I am closed to learning more about or investigating more fully the concept of open theism--just right now I am content with being a good old fashion Arminian.

3. Studying ethics is interesting. I still am unsure of how I would even define ethics; where they come from and how they derive I still have no conclusion. It was interesting this semester, however, to see the changes and different forms of ethics throughout the 20th century. What I have found to be the defining era of the 20th century was WW2. I'm sure few would disagree with that. How the incredibly diverse aspects of that war play into the different views of ethics is astounding. Even still, the best metaphor to describe the ethics throughout the 20th century would be a pendulum. It is easy to see how one ethicist reacted against another ethicist, and then back again, and so forth. Really interesting.

This is just a tip of the iceberg of things I learned. I hope the process continues where I am able to continue to build on the different things I know.

Now I just might watch some TV for a while.

Cavity

Today I got my first cavity filling. Dagum. 22 years strong without one. Now that day has come and gone. Though it is probably common knowledge that I don't take care of my teeth that well, they have always been strong and haven't let me down when I go to the doctor. This time was not the case. I gave the 'ole "yeah, yeah, I know" when they told me to floss more, but to my surprise they said, "uh oh, we gotta fill this one in the back".

Cavities are quite the remarkable little phenomenon. I heard a long time ago that the teeth are the strongest bones in the body. Well, all that sugar, bacteria, and rotting food that just sits in our teeth and wears through the enamel and then all the way to the root. You're really sorry out of luck if your nerve gets exposed. Ouch! I'd rather get the shot of novacain. Amazing that food can do that. It just makes me wonder what kind of dental problems Jesus had. They didn't have any fluoride in the water and had few means of taking care of their teeth. He probably had a tooth ache or two. Simple things like this remind me of his humanity even though he is the fullness of God.

Anyway, novocain is an interesting thing. It pinches when they shoot you with it. Then slowly my face felt fatter, and fatter, and fatter. You have to kill time while it takes effect. While it was settling in I got to tell the doctor how the Nazarene Church came out of the Methodist movement, and that it follows the theology of John Wesley. He just basically wanted to know what I am in school for. After I ran it down for him, I realized the whole left side of my face was gone. Couldn't move it if you paid me. He then started drilling.

The whole thing wasn't that bad of a process. I used to fear the doctor with all of my being. Now, I say, "bring it on doc!" Let's see if that hold up if I get a kidney stone next...

Maybe I'll start flossing more.

Adventures in the OT

When's the last time you've seriously read parts of the Old Testament?

I've been thinking a lot about the Old Testament for the last couple of days. Let me just premise this post by saying that I have spent almost all of my Bible reading time so far this year in the Old Testament, and this mostly is a result of the fact that I set a goal of reading the entire Word in one year. So far, I've found it pretty interesting. Here are a few of the things I've been going over.

1. If we don't believe that Israel is the beacon for the world, then we are sorely mistaken. I've found through reading the different accounts of the history of Israel that almost every mistake that the Israelites made is continually repeated through the course of history. So, as God ordained Israel as the nation for all the world to know him through the promise of Abraham, so to all the world realizes their shortcomings through the example of Israel as well. Pretty interesting.

2. I've been reading through "The Bible Jesus Read" by Philip Yancey (shout out to Levi here for an excellent groomsman gift) and finding that it is in the OT where we learn how to live. The NT is great for instruction, but even Paul says that all scripture is useful for teaching, correction and rebuking (2 Timothy 3:16), he is referring not to his own words but the different accounts of the poetry and narrative found in the OT. In other words, it is the OT where narrative theology is developed--an invitation to join into the story of salvation. (For great reading about this particular topic, check out Brian Walsh, J. Richard Middleton, and Lesslie Newbigin)

3. It's just plain interesting. Some of its weird, but like Kierkagaard says, "just act on what you understand". I'm finding it to be an amazing adventure I get myself wrapped into.

I'm getting through the Proverbs right now. I've learned some good words of wisdom such as gluttony being equated with drunkenness, but I shall save that for another post.

I enjoy reading responses!

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Speak no evil

Lately I've learned the power of the spoken word.

I live in a place where it seems that gossip is all people care about. I know this is true for the whole world--just look at the magazine rack when checking out at the local grocery store. It's all about "Britney's in rehab again", "Paris only got arrested four times last month", "Lindsey found in a dark alley wearing a toga", and "Tom impregnated Kate with an alien through the power of scientology". Ok, so the last one may be a bit of an embellishment, but I wouldn't put it past them. I even have a friend who at his work they have "fantasy US weekly" that is managed just like a fantasy football league, where each person gets a certain amount of points for guessing who is on the cover and who gets the spotlight stories. A bit over the top for those who get really into it.

My point with all this said is that our culture is obsessed with the actions of other people, especially when the actions have no direct effect on the persons not involved. Lack of involvement makes it better! To seperate oneself and be able to say, "wow, i'm glad my life isn't that crappy" and then move one with their day apathetically is the best case senario!

This is bad.

What makes this worse is that we cannot escape the "personal interest" people take in others. It is not something that the common folk only look into Hollywood for, it happens everywhere.

I had facebook for a while, and it was pretty fun to have. I was able to catch up with old friends, see different people that I hadn't seen in ages from places I had lived, and post funny things on my friends "walls". I found that after a while though that facebook was becoming big brother. At any point, I could see my friends last actions when they were online, and it would even tell me when they were sitting at their computer. A bit out of hand if you ask me. Within an instant you can know who's dating who, when people break up, and other little things that only reveal to the heart gossip, not a cause for deep concern. (I don't want to judge those who use facebook still, I just am stating for myself it got out of hand).

I am ashamed of how many times I have indulged myself in what I shall call this "impersonal interest". When speaking about people, it is often to know the dirt. I feel like Aunt Bea and Miss Clara gossiping with the ladies at the Mayberry drug store. This "impersonal interest" has also vexed the campus I live on. It isn't long before people have nothing more insightful to ask than to immediately move on to talking about other people. It is strange how this can come along with good intentions as well. For instance:
"man you really got to pray for Jack and Audrey"
"oh gosh what happened?"
"wellllllll, i really shouldn't go into it but..."
And so forth.

Crazy how sin can intrude on the most innocent of things! How can I change my "impersonal interest" to authentic "personal interest"?

The scriptures have shed some light on this thing we as a culture struggle with so much. It seems that the audience of the epistle writers dealt with the same issues. James gets kinda harsh speaking about the tongue: "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell" (3:6). Woah. Another way the scriptures reveal to us what we are really made of. It is another way of seeing how hurtful our words can be. They have the potential to build high, but also to bury deep.

I guess the only way to live within the truth of this text is to simply shut up. When we decide to listen and engage rather than long hear and speak for fulfullment, we just might be able to take "personal interest". I'm gonna try to do so, and there's a long road ahead. Anyone wanna go with me? We might learn something about each other.