<idle musing>
This is an important book that anyone interested in the ancient world should read. I'll be excerpting from it for the next week or two.
The saddest thing is that the locals who do the looting usually are only given a fraction of what the brokers get for the item. So the locals lose twice: once by not getting any significant cash. Second by making their history poorer. All for the sake of money...sad.
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<idle musing>
Lord deliver us from such short-sightedness! May the Holy Spirit break down the barriers and open our eyes to see new things and catch a new vision of you!
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To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:14-19 TNIV)
<idle musing>
How many curses do you see there? Look again! How many curses do you see? Count carefully, because the results have huge ramifications for your theology of God.
OK, how many of you counted 3 or 4? Let's see those hands? That's what I thought, most of you. And so, you have a view that God cursed the woman and the man. And, consequently, you think God is mad at you and hates you. Admit it. God is an ogre looking over your shoulder, ready to bash you over the head at the least provocation.
But, how many times does the word "curse" actually appear? Twice. Yes, twice: once about the serpent and once about the ground.
Is the woman cursed?
Nope.
Is the man cursed?
Nope.
Does God hate us?
Nope.
Is God mad at us?
Nope.
If he hated us, then why does scripture tell us that he loves us? Why would he come in the form of humanity? As Michael Card said it so well, "His love would have held him there." The nails weren't necessary.
Isn't that freeing? God LOVES you. Go and rejoice in his love. Respond to his love in return. Love God and you will love life—no matter what the circumstances. Ask Valentine as he lost his head over his love for Christ...
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<idle musing>
Appropriate for a Valentine's day, eh?
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<idle musing>
Amen! Transformation is the outgrowth of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts. May his tribe increase.
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<idle musing>
Amen! Without the Holy Spirit, nothing is effective, no matter how persuasive, emotional, or reasonable. It doesn't matter what scripture, reason, experience, or tradition endorse unless the Spirit breathes life into them.
Come, Holy Spirit, and breathe life into your people!
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
Amen! Too many read the Bible looking for proof texts instead of transformation via the Holy Spirit.
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<idle musing>
The first leads to confessionalism, which easily degenerates to the church being nothing more than a social, do-good club instead of the redeemed people of God.
</idle musing>
Today's experiment was with 50% oat flour. I used my standard wheat recipe:
1 cup starter
3 cups flour
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 cups water
But, I halved the flour, splitting it between oat and wheat. I was going to do a 2/3 loaf, but we grind our own flour and I guessed wrong on the oat groats; I ended up with 1.5 cups : ) Oh well; life is tough! Anyway, I let that proof overnight.
It rose fine. But, when I went to punch it down...well, let's just say it collapsed at the first touch. It only has 1/2 the gluten, so it is pretty fragile. I stirred it down and let it sit in the bowl; there was no way I would be able to form a loaf, so I poured it into the loaf pan and let it rise.
After 2 hours, it hadn't risen much, if at all. So, I waited...after 3 hours, it had risen slightly, so I put it in the oven. Normally, you get what is called "oven spring" when a loaf bakes. That's where the loaf rises in the heat of the oven before the yeast dies. This loaf just stayed flat until over halfway through the baking, then the spring started developing. It wasn't done after 60 minutes, so I gave it another five.
The bread was definitely moist; oatmeal is a secret ingredient in some breads to make them moister. It wasn't too heavy, either. But the flavor was a bit strange while it was still warm. Once it cooled down, it had a nice flavor. I think I'll make it again; at first I didn't think I would.
As I mentioned in the first post, I used the instructions here for the first week. At the end of the week, I opted to thin my starter out; it is now the thickness of a relatively thick pancake batter. I've had better success with it as a thinner starter.
I still feed it twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. I was feeding it a 1/2 cup of home-ground whole wheat flour, thinning it with water to get the desired pancake batter consistency. Then, one day while I was experimenting with rye bread, I ran out of ground wheat flour; I was too lazy to grind some more, so I used the rye flour instead. Wow! Did it ever grow! I would say it grew twice as fast. I cut back to 1/3 cup of rye flour and it still is growing like crazy.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do long-term. I might move it back to whole wheat flour; that's what I bake with most of the time. But, it sure is fun to watch the bubbles from the rye starter!
I don't think it matters much to the bread, although the rye might give a tarter flavor. I might fork the starter and have two going for a while and do a taste test. That sounds like a fun project. But, I think I'll wait for the starter to get a bit older first. They say that the starter keeps maturing for about 30 days. After that, the flavor has stabilized.
Anyway, I let it sit on the board for 20 minutes, formed it, slashed it deeper than before—the slashes have been working, but just aren't deep enough to be pretty—and let it rise. After 2.5 hours, it was doubled and ready to bake.
I baked it at 350° for 60 minutes, starting with a cold oven, same as usual. It was wonderful! I can't believe the difference from trying it with yeast! This one's going in my regular rotation of breads to make.
The results here got me thinking...how about oat flour? Oat flour is heavy and doesn't rise well because it has no gluten; at least rye has some gluten. I think I'll try it, starting at 50% oat flour. Stay tuned!
The Eerdmans blog has a post (that finishes yesterday's) on abortion. Here's a brief excerpt, but do read the whole thing (and yesterday's as well):
We need better customs and laws enforcing male sexual and paternal responsibility. But still, the brute facts direct us to the particular life circumstances of women. We need to know what is happening in so many women’s lives, and in our culture more broadly, that leads to so many unwanted pregnancies for women. We do know a few things.Note especially that last line: "women disproportionately pay the price." As Christians we are called to defend the helpless; that includes the unborn, but also the mothers of the unborn...We know that far too many people are having sex outside of a context in which a resulting pregnancy can be handled without resort to abortion. Our culture lacks an ethic of sexual responsibility, and women disproportionately pay the price.
Alan Knox has a good note about finding church:
It’s true that many, many people expect to find “church” in a specially set aside building, and outside of that building they do not expect to find fellowship. Yes, this is a problem of expectations. But, this same problem of expectations based on location can affect Christians who do not gather in specially designated buildings.<idle musing>What? That sounds crazy, at first. But, in reality, it’s all the same. You see, it IS possible to find fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ in “church buildings,” and it is possible to find fellowship with other believers in homes, and it is possible to find fellowship with other Christians in parks and beaches and pubs and any other location.
Expectations get in the way when we ONLY expect to find fellowship in a specific location (whatever that location), and expectations also get in the way when we NEVER expect to find fellowship in certain locations (whatever those locations).
God wants us always aware of his presence—talking about him and what he is doing in our life, as well as living that out. It doesn't matter whether you are a part of a house church, a traditional Sunday morning church, or a "seeker-friendly" church
; God wants all of us, all the time. Anything less is idolatry. Think about that for a minute...
</idle musing>
At that point I had finished the original loaf, so I had a very dense rye, a very chewy whole wheat, and the cinnamon raisin. I sliced up some of each for everyone to try. As expected, the rye bread wasn't appreciated—by me either! But, the kids liked both the whole wheat and the cinnamon raisin bread. I gave Renee some starter for her to experiment and I gave her my revised recipe.
That night, I decided to try rye again, but using my own ideas. I took a cup of starter, 1.5 cups of whole wheat, 1.5 cups of rye flour, and 1.5 cups of water. In addition, I used 2 teaspoons of molasses, 1 tablespoon of caraway, and 1.5 teaspoons of salt. I mixed that whole thing together and let it proof overnight. The next morning, I poured it out onto the counter; it was very moist, almost too moist to work with. I put it into a parchment paper lined glass loaf pan, let it rise 3 hours, and baked it at 350°F for 60 minutes (no preheating of the oven). I lowered the temperature to 350° this time (from 375°) because of the glass pan...
Again, the parchment paper fell off the loaf when I removed the loaf from the pan. That's great for reusing; usually you have to peel it off the bread after it sits for about 5-15 minutes (Renee lets hers cool completely before removing it—I'm not that patient!). I let the loaf cool for an hour, sliced it, and tasted it. Delicious!
But, that got me thinking. With normal yeast breads, rye bread doesn't rise very well. I've talked about my experiments with rye bread before. But, this loaf rose so well, I figured I'd try a denser loaf. So, I went with 2 cups of rye and 1 cup of whole wheat. I left out the molasses, to see if the sugar had anything to do with the rising, otherwise I left it all the same. Plus, I used all the rest of the molasses in the baked beans that afternoon!
I didn't grind enough wheat flour, so I fed the starter with rye flour. The next morning, I fed it rye flour again. Let me tell you, I think sourdough starter loves rye flour! It was about ready to overflow the bowl after only 5 hours. I've read people who say that they can't get starter to grow except on unbleached flour; they should try rye!
Anyway, I let the bread rise overnight, poured it out the next morning, and made a loaf. I didn't notice any less rise than with a 50/50% mixture. I let it rise in the loaf pan; after 2.5 hours, it was ready to bake! It actually rose better with more rye flour! I baked it as usual and let it cool for about an hour. The flavor was intense! You can taste the sour of the sourdough more.
I think I'm going to go with 100% rye this time, add the molasses back in, and see what happens...stay tuned!
<idle musing>
Excellent insight. Who wants to be totally independent? That would be a lonely life!
</idle musing>
They say not to use it until it is a week old, so I didn't. But, the day it was a week old, I attempted to make a loaf. I followed a recipe that says to only let it rise 1.5 hours. It didn't move, so I let it rise another 3. It still wasn't very risen, but I baked it anyway...I didn't slash the top of the loaf, either.
The results were edible, but dense. Because I hadn't slashed the loaf, it tore along the sides. Oh well, at least it was edible! That night, I tried again. This time, I used a different recipe. Actually, I tried two; one was a rye bread and the other a whole wheat bread. The rye recipe called for 2 cups of rye, 2 cups of whole wheat, 1/2 cup starter, and only 1 cup of water. That was way too dense to even work with, so I added another 1/2 cup of water and let it sit overnight.
The other recipe called for 1 cup of starter, 3 cups of whole wheat, and 1.5 cups of water (plus 1.5 teaspoons of salt). I just mixed up the ingredients and let them sit, covered, overnight. The next morning, I poured the dough out on a floured surface, let it rest about 20 minutes before forming it into a loaf; I didn't grease the glass loaf pan. I then let it rise for about 3 hours and baked it in a cool oven at 375°F for 70 minutes.
At the same time, I was attempting to make the rye bread. It had barely risen; it was way too dense to rise much. Well, I figured it was worth a try, so I kneaded it some, formed it into two loaves, using lightly greased stainless steel loaf pans, and let it rise for 3 hours before popping it into a preheated 450°F oven.
I ended up with a very chewy whole wheat bread and 2 dense, barely edible rye loaves. The ungreased pan stuck, but I used a paring knife around the outside edge; the greased pans made the crust tough. Not too bad for the second try. Good enough to try again, anyway.
That night I made a cinnamon raisin dough. I used the same recipe as the whole wheat, but added 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, a tablespoon of unrefined sugar, and 1/2 cup raisins. It rose nicely overnight. I formed it into a loaf, used parchment paper to line the glass loaf pan, and let it rise about 3 hours. I popped it into a cool oven and baked it for 60 minutes at 375°F. The parchment paper almost fell off the loaf when I took it out of the pan. I let the loaf cool for about 1/2 hour (they say to let it stand for an hour—yeah, right!) It was delicious!
<idle musing>
Amen and amen! I am not against intellectual knowledge—how could I be with all the years of schooling?—but without the Spirit of God quickening that knowledge, it is worthless ("knowledge puffs up while love builds up").
</idle musing>
But taking Christ's yoke as it really is, it becomes in their view an iron collar. Doing the will of Christ, instead of their own, is a hard business. Now if doing Christ's will is religion, (and who can doubt it?) then they only need enough of it; and in their state of mind they will be supremely wretched. Let me ask those who groan under the idea that they must be religious—who deem it awful hard—but they must—how much religion of this kind would it take to make hell? Surely not much! When it gives you no joy to do God's pleasure, and yet you are shut up to the doing of His pleasure is the only way to be saved, and are thereby perpetually dragooned into the doing of what you hate, as the only means of escaping hell, would not this be itself a hell? Can you not see that in this state of mind you are not saved and cannot be?—Charles Finney
<idle musing>
That seems to be the attitude of far too many seeker-friendly churches...God deliver us from ourselves!
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
"Salvation is thus centred on a whole-hearted passion for God rather than perfect conformity to rules and regulations." Amen & amen!
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And, indeed it is...
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<idle musing>
I'll take the high road. What about you? Which will you choose? You don't know? Well, your daily actions are saying what your choice is already...
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
Jesus himself says that they will know we are his by our love not by our doctrine—not to minimize correct doctrine! But, the emphasis must be on love and an ongoing encounter with the living, resurrected, victorious Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
Amen! We always stand in need of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Any heart holiness we have is strictly Him, not us. But, heart holiness is possible!
</idle musing>
"The posture isn't standing with our hands up high or arms outstretched. The posture is the lowest possible position in which we can put ourselves with empty hands and eager hearts. In other words, communicating with our intentions, our attitudes, and even our body language that we are willing to deny ourselves."— Made to Crave, pages 59-60
<idle musing>
I like that. So much of what is written about Christian growth concentrates on purification—which easily turns into striving and works. This is a refreshing emphasis on desiring to be filled. I read a comparison of the Christian life with the oak tree. Oak leaves don't all fall off in the fall; they are pushed out in the spring by the new growth (if you have oak trees you know what I'm talking about! You rake leaves 3 seasons of the year). Same with the Christian; the new life of Christ drives out the old life of self.
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
True holiness manifests itself from the heart, as Wesley knew. The love that pours out of us is a direct result of the Holy Spirit pouring his love into and through us. May we all be unobstructed conduits!
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
But we try to put it the other way around, don't we? We obey and perform in a vain attempt to gain what we already have and become what we already are. We think if we just perform a little bit better, God will love us more. If we could just do this or that...all the while God is already loving us and telling us we are already sons and daughters through Christ—just love and trust. Obedience will follow out of his enabling power, not our struggles and strivings.
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<idle musing>
Indeed. This is the key issue. If sin is a failure to deliver due to being human beings, then Adam and Eve were sinners before the fall, as was Jesus after the incarnation! Don't want to go there, do we?
But, if sin is a willful act, then there is hope for all of us in Christ. The Holy Spirit can cleanse us from all of the junk in the old man—after all, Romans (and other places) says we are DEAD! And a dead person doesn't have life in itself. All a corpse can do is stink...
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
May others come to that realization as well!
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
And without that trust, there was no transformation and no power. He was where so many are today: intellectual assent to the gospel, but no embracing of what it means for life on a daily basis.
</idle musing>
Let me be clear and say that I’m glad not very many will escalate the devaluing and meanness that is so common into physical murder. Most of us will just give tit for tat. We’ll just Insult for insult. Most of us will merely reap divorces, estrangement from family and friends, and a background noise of woundedness and shame. But in so doing we will continue to maintain a garden in which violence and murder will continue to bloom.<idle musing>As Christ’s church we are called to believe this seeming stretch of a connection between insult (which we routinely accept and sometimes proudly practice) and murder (which we roundly condemn and mourn). Further, we are called to model and live a different Way. We are called to bless even those who curse us. We are called to cultivate a fruit different from murder. Rather, we are to cultivate reconciliation, forgiveness, patience, gentleness and love. As we look at this most recent tragedy and rightly ask what we can do to move in the opposite direction, we need to hear and heed the warning of Jesus: murder begins with anger getting control of the tongue.
That's the way with words. We start out "innocently" enough, but it doesn't stop, it escalates like a water fight. Eventually we're shooting not just words, but bullets. It all starts with the heart. And only Jesus can clean the heart.
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
"Because of intention, the essential nature of sin was seen as a deliberate and willful choice to harm the relationship." That's the core, right there. Sin is not so much activity, but the intention behind it. The intention is what causes the action.
I've heard some people define sin in such a way that humanity was sinful even before the fall! I wonder about their understanding of the incarnation in those cases. If existing as a physical being is sinful, then the incarnation didn't really happen—they call the docetism (Jesus just appears to be human, from Greek δοκέω/dokew, to seem) and the church denounced it as a heresy many a long year ago...
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
Hmmm...sounds like a logical conclusion—but one that I am probably guilty of neglecting. I read a lot, but how much of what I read do I allow to affect how I behave? Head knowledge without heart knowledge simply puffs up.
</idle musing>
and
For Wesley, doctrines were not ends in themselves but guidelines to help his people know how to tell the gospel story and live it with integrity. The goal of the life of faith was holiness, with his understanding of Christian perfection as the “most distinctive single element".—Wesley as a Pastoral Theologian, pages 31-32
<idle musing>
Empowering Christian living and holiness. What a radical thought! I keep asking what happened to heart holiness. I usually get blank, uncomprehending stares : (
</idle musing>
For Wesley, faith was always in God himself and not in our experience of God. This allowed our subjective experience of God to become objective knowledge of God and of our salvation.&mdashWesley as a Pastoral Theologian, page 18<idle musing>
<idle musing>
A breath of fresh air! "Wesley believes that it is God himself who is the only source and authority for theologising and he communicates with us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit..." That's a statement I can support unconditionally!
</idle musing>
<idle musing>
Amen! I'm a philologist first and foremost. I never understood the late dating; if we date the Greek classics by the logic of some of these biblical scholars, the Odyssey would have been composed sometime in the Hellenistic period or later...crazy!
<idle musing>
<idle musing>
Indeed. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it's true even of English. Every day I'm learning a new nuance to a word or an entirely new word. If that is true of English, how much truer it is of a second/acquired language!
</idle musing>
From Jesus Creed, the day after Thanksgiving:
Only 3.5 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 do the minimum amount of physical activity recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services: 150 minutes a week of moderate activity. Among those over age 60, the percentage is even lower: 2.5 percent.
<idle musing>
The previous figures had been based on self-reporting. Guess what—they were wildly inaccurate. What a surprise—NOT! Nobody wants to admit they sit around all day and play video games or surf the Internet or watch TV...sure, you're tired when you get home from a long day at work. That's the best possible time to get out and move! When you move, you feel more energetic afterwards.
Of course, diet plays a part, too. The standard American diet (called SAD in many nutrition books!) leaves you lethargic and not desiring to move. Studies on lab rats have shown that a whole-foods, plant-based diet causes them to voluntarily exercise around 20% more frequently than rats on a standard diet. On the other hand, a diet high in sugars, whether high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, unrefined sugar, or honey, causes less activity and more lethargy.
</idle musing>
About two months ago, Alan Knox did a good three-part series on mutual edification. Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.
And, for those of you who are starting you study of the Septuagint, here's a good little primer on using the Göttingen LXX.
Finally, I saw this yesterday on Ben Myers' blog:
A says, “My sins cry out against me!” God replies, “What sins?”<idle musing>
God says, “Your sins cry out against me!” B replies, “What sins?”
That’s the difference between costly grace and cheap grace.
<idle musing>
Ironic, isn't it? To focus on winning will almost always mean losing in the real war for the hearts of people. Focus instead on winning them to Jesus via love and people want to know how you can forgive and love the unloveable...
</idle musing>
When I started my first professional job at a local alternative newsweekly, lo, so many years ago when we still pasted up the paper, the first lesson my editor taught me was that our responsibility was to the reader. While the ad department was around to keep the lights on, without the reader, the whole shebang wouldn’t exist. I hang onto this belief and all that it implies—respect the readers’ intelligence, give them an engaging reading experience, recognize them as a community—with a fervor that borders on the religious.And, here's the formula that is the all too common alternative:
1. Make a blatantly ridiculous statement.<idle musing>
2. Watch your buzz grow as your intended audience works itself into a lather about it, generating a lot of web traffic (fired especially by social media).
3. When asked to defend your blatantly ridiculous statement, point to the less ridiculous arguments in your writing, and/or take a superior attitude and act as if your detractor isn’t smart enough to understand hyperbole.
But has familiarity bred blindness? This “voice” in Judges has been buried under convention and easy cliché, most notably, that the book presents an unaltering, cyclical pattern, and secondly, that the book is consistently derivative from, and imitative of, Deuteronomy (i.e. deuteronomistic). Both are actually imprecise to the point of being mistaken. Contrary to most interpretations, Judges does not present the reader with an unaltering “cycle” or pattern. First of all, elements appear in the stories that do not appear in the introduction, and vice versa. Thus, the introduction tells us that Yahweh “raised up” deliverers, but only Othniel and Ehud are explicitly said to be “raised up” by Yahweh. Other means of manifestation appear for subsequent judges, raising the intriguing question of how directly they express the saving action of God. Likewise, the semantics of the verb za‘aq (to cry out) orient more toward an intense, emotion-laden cry of anguish or even accusation, but with no inherent connotations of repentance. The pattern in Judges (if there is one) is not “sin-punishment/ repentance-deliverance” but simply punishment followed by mercy. Yahweh, it seems, delivers his people out of his compassion and grace, to show his power and to claim Israel’s allegiance. Only in 10:6-16 does the outcry find expression in confession and remorse, and that passage is fraught with conflict and ambivalence. The omission of the outcry from the programmatic introduction of 2:6–3:6 and from the Samson story reinforces the fact that Yahweh’s action derives not from Israel’s meeting some condition (repentance), but from Yahweh’s simple compassion for them. Additionally, the Spirit of Yahweh—and, less frequently, the angel of Yahweh—plays a role in the stories that has no place in the introduction or the frameworks, and ironically, the Spirit plays no role in the Ehud story or the Deborah story, the two judges with the most unreserved praise from the author. By contrast, the Spirit’s involvement with Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson raises more questions than it answers. So we do not have a pattern that is mechanically repeated but rather a collection of features and formulas that are deployed variously to direct our attention to other factors in the stories.<idle musing>
From Grace Works
There is a vast chasm of difference between receiving God’s grace and trying to activate it. One involves human effort and striving. The other involves surrender, transparency and accepting oneself in their own brokenness. One leads to shame instead of wholeness, self-denial instead of true maturity, and ultimately fruitlessness instead of abundant life.Amen! I couldn't have expressed it better—scripture says that love is the fulfilling of the law. First John says that perfect love casts out all fear. Love is indeed the true essence of holiness. Which leads to the next item...How does one tell the difference between striving and surrendering? Someone who is striving is trying to live up to a standard and needs God’s help to do it. Someone who has surrendered knows they will never live up to the standard and is actually strengthened by knowing they are loved anyway. The true essence of holiness is love. One doesn’t love until they know love. Knowing how much God loves you also changes how you view others. Everyone becomes worthy, everyone. The love of God lives inside you and now the “righteous requirement of the law” is fulfilled because you don’t need rules to guide your conduct, your love guides you.
...from Alan Knox's blog, way back in May!:
Scripture cannot produce love. We do not love because we read Scripture, memorize Scripture, or meditate on Scripture. We only love because of the power of God working through us as we yield ourselves to his will.And the opposite:However, Scripture can help us recognize whether or not we are loving – that is, whether or not we are yielding ourselves to the will of God and allowing the power of God to be demonstrated through love. If we approach Scripture as a mirror, God can use those writing to show us how we are currently living compared to how we live when we are submitting to him.
If something is missing in people’s spiritual growth, instead of changing current activities, the church organizations simply add another program. Eventually, every night of the week is filled with different programs, meetings, committees, etc.As always, please read the complete post to get the whole context...
If worship is truly a gift, we ought to relax somewhat and allow space for the Holy Spirit to show up and do the unexpected and we should strictly avoid saying or doing anything that would put the spotlight of attention and applause on a human being (other than Jesus, of course). If worship is truly our task as well, we ought prayerfully to plan the worship service and see that everything is done decently and in order and avoid chaos and distractions.—from Roger OlsonBe sure to read the whole thing; you're sure to be challenged by it.
And, from Alan Knox:
I wonder what would happen if Christians stopped seeing a certain time at a certain place as “worship” and understood that every step they took (in their “walk”) is or is not worship. It can be worship… it may not be worship.And, to get the mind thinking a bit, there's this piece from Out of Ur:I wonder what would happen if Christians began to realize that God is probably more concerned with how they live at other times than what they do when they enter a “church building” (or a home church, for that matter).
It’s about our walk… not about a special time of “worship.”
Through the influence of our consumer culture we’ve come to believe that transformation is attained through external experiences. We’ve come to regard our church buildings, with their multimedia theatrical equipment, as mountaintops where God’s glory may be encountered. Many of us ascend this mountain every Sunday morning wanting to have an experience with God, and many of us leave with a degree of genuine transformation. We feel “pumped up,” “fed,” or “on fire for the Lord.”Can you say, "Ouch!"? All three posts can be summed up in that last statement: "an internal communion with God through the Spirit cannot be packaged, commoditized, and marketed to religious consumers. It is far easier for us to create mountains than shepherd people toward the inner life of divine communion."The problem with these mountaintop experiences, whether legitimate (like Moses’) or fabricated, is that the transformation does not last. In a few days time, or maybe as early as lunchtime, the glory begins to fade. The mountaintop experience with God, the event we were certain would change our lives forever, turns out to be another fleeting spiritual high. And to hide the lack of genuine transformation, we mask the inglorious truth of our lives behind a veil, a façade of Christian merchandise or busyness, until we can ascend the mountain again and be recharged.
Why then are we so tempted to abandon the new covenant, inside-out model of transformation for the inferior old covenant, outside-in strategy? The reason is simple--an internal communion with God through the Spirit cannot be packaged, commoditized, and marketed to religious consumers. It is far easier for us to create mountains than shepherd people toward the inner life of divine communion.
Before Saturday, I had only managed to get into the hoop houses once, and that was at night when the temperature was in the the teens. Needless to say, it was a disheartening experience. All the plants looked dead. Very dead.
I figured Saturday would be a clean-up and pulling of dead plants. Oh well, another experiment that failed. No biggie. It certainly wouldn't be the first time! And it certainly wouldn't be the last.
Imagine my surprise, then, on opening the door to the second hoop house and seeing green plants! Wow! Of course, I should have known better. Eliot Coleman warns about it; he says that on occasion he has entered a cold greenhouse before the sun has a chance to warm it and despaired. Everything looks dead. What insanity to try to grow things in such a climate. But, come back in a few hours and a marvelous change has taken place. Everything perks up and looks alive. That's exactly what happened to me.
Sure, the carrots took a major hit and won't grow anymore. But, they are still very edible. Everything else looks good. Some of it isn't far enough along to harvest; it will sit dormant now until early March.
We did decide to take down one of the hoop houses; I hadn't replanted much in it and the kids wanted to slide down the hill. So, I disassembled it, using the clips to reinforce the other house.
So, how does the garden grow? Surprisingly well!
Update: I went over there yesterday afternoon after posting this. Amazingly, the carrots are recovering as well! The ground they are in is barely above freezing, but the greens are all perked up and lively. God certainly made vegetation amazingly resilient!
| a "method" for holy living | -the holy life of Jesus that indwells the believer |
"I don't look at someone and think, 'I'm going to make a sale.' I look at them and think, 'I know a book you're going to love.'"<idle musing>
<idle musing>
That's the final excerpt. I fitting conclusion, I would say. The difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism is eliding; many don't see any difference. I no longer can self-identify as evangelical—unless you qualify it so much as to be meaningless. As long as the heresy-hunters are allowed to dominate the conversation—and I would argue they have ever since Lindsell published The Battle for the Bible—there will be a continued slide toward fundamentalism.
</idle musing>
I see a round clock face with the long hand on the 5 and the short hand on the 10. But, I was raised before digital clocks. I remember the first “digital” clocks; they were simply metal plates with numbers painted on them. Each minute, a new plate would fall over the preceding one. Later, when I was in college, I remember my dad getting a digital wristwatch; it was an LED one. You had to push a button to get the time; the LEDs would have drained the battery too quickly otherwise. It wasn't very shock proof either; I don't think it even lasted a year.
Now, though, digital is everywhere—even in the schools! So, what do you see when someone tells you it is 10:25? I suspect it is very age dependent...
<idle musing>
In other words, justification is the gift, our life is the outflowing of the Spirit as a result of that gift...
</idle musing>
Joseph smiled, and replied that was the reason he answered none of them...we both believed the same thing, but we said it in opposite ways.
Language! It can be so confusing sometimes without dialogue. If we had stopped at the first statement that we each made, we would have thought that there was a major disagreement. Dialoguing revealed we both were using the same presuppositions, just expressing it in different ways.
How often does that happen in our everyday lives? Just some food for thought before assuming the worst...
<idle musing>
Personally, I'll stick with Pauline language. The abstractness of imputation doesn't bring home the necessity of a changed life. I still say, no transformation, no salvation.
</idle musing>
Why, then, do I find teachers who freely confess they don't believe the doctrinal statements they are required to sign? Why then do I hear people freely confessing—even bragging!—that they bribe guards to get into places they aren't supposed to? Or they bribe them to take photographs that aren't allowed? Why then do I hear teachers cussing and “damning” others with whom they disagree or who attack their position?
Where has holiness gone? That's all I want to know...I'm not saying we need more rules! Heaven knows that isn't the answer! I'm just curious why heart holiness doesn't appear to be important.
