Just read a post by Timothy Reconceiving Faith & Works in Paul.  It’s not a long post but needs some digesting – it is worth it!  He writes:

“The assumption is that any and all human acting gets in the way of God’s saving action in human affairs, minimizing God’s stage presence to whatever extent…There is human action that invites and allows God to act and that puts God on display.  And there is human action that manipulates results, seeks to force God’s hand, and ends up eclipsing God’s presence and action.  Paul is not nearly as allergic to human action as are many evangelicals, shaped as we are by a mixture of our Reformation heritage and divided-up conceptions of the individual.”

I suggest the over-systemising of Scripture (plus other philosophical influences) have diminished the Church’s (and especially some segments of evangelicalism) ability to live with the Scriptural tension of divine and human actions.  And attempts to uphold this tension are sometimes/often(?) met with cries of diminishing God’s glory in His sovereignty.

One of the many wonders of our great God is that He has not created us as robots and yet His sovereignty is never diminished.  And the Apostle Paul’s heart overflows with praise:

^{Rom 11:33} Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
³⁵ “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

I read this book many years ago and have returned to it from time to time.  I have found Deere’s own ‘journey’ somewhat analogous to my own and the book very helpful.

The blog contributor contends:

He concludes,

“Christ’s Body, then, is a community of faith, hope and love. One does not perceive the resurrected Christ apart from faith, and with faith one enters into the resurrected Body of Christ….[there is] a pattern of God as the God of life (not death) in the Scriptures and its Story.”

It was a fantastic privilege to attend the three day Jesus Culture Conference at Nassau Coliseum, Long Island last week.  There were so many special moments throughout the Conference:

• a profound sense of the Lord’s Presence; consistent focus on the holiness and glory of God (and His call for us to be like Him);
• the sheer delight of being loved by Jesus;
• the overflowing love of God for His world (and hence the call for evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit as a natural aspect of our daily lifestyle – “we are here to plunder hell and populate heaven”, “we are healing and catalytic agents for transformation of the earth”); and
• on a very personal level, three words of knowledge that built on each other over the course of the Conference delivered by the guy sitting next to me, who the Lord had arranged for him and myself to buy tickets next to one another!!

The praise worship times were outstanding.  So many highlights.  But a particularly moving experience was the singing of ‘Safe in Your arms’:

Dear Friends:

It is with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I share with you that it appears our friend, brother, and founder will soon be home with the Lord. Chuck’s condition took a decided turn yesterday, and the doctors advised Patty and the family to gather by his bedside.

As you know, Chuck underwent surgery more than two weeks ago to remove a pool of clotted blood on the surface of his brain. And while we had seen some hopeful signs for Chuck’s recovery—including his ability to talk happily with Patty and the kids—it seems that God may be calling him home.

I cannot tell you how much your prayers, cards, and well-wishes have meant to Patty and the family—and to Chuck. He loves you all deeply, and I know that his greatest desire beyond seeing Jesus is that the work he and all of us have been called to will continue. As Chuck would say, ‘Remain at your posts and do your duty—for the glory of God and His kingdom.’

As soon as we have more information, I will be sure to let you know. And as always, keep praying for Chuck and Patty.

Chuck Colson’s life was transformed by the gospel.  His founding and leadership of Prison Fellowship were inspirational.  Check out this news feature on Colson (from about six years ago) and his own testimony at 2min30sec on video:

James Duff preached a challenging message last Sunday from John 1:19-34.  John the Baptist – preparing the way for God to come.  He knew who he was.  He knew who he wasn’t.  He played an extraordinary role – and yet…he could testify:

^{John 1:26} “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

In the context of this passage, I found Bob Hyatt’s article on Out of Ur, The Dangerous Pursuit of Pastoral Fame, pretty challenging.  On the one hand, we are blessed that we live in a era where technology allows pastors to minister (whether through sermon downloads, blogs, books and so on) on a much broader scale than just to the local congregation.  And yet, the flesh is weak and the dangers of self promotion and grandeur are real.  Bob concludes the article with these words:

“Some signs you might be in danger:

You look at the speaker roster for a conference and think, Why did he/she get an invite and not me?

You feel jealous of others because of the size or scope of their ministry.

You begin to dream that somehow “hitting it big” (or even hitting it medium) will free you from ministry, or you begin to resent the small, mundane and unnoticed tasks of local church ministry.

You regularly Google yourself (please, no jokes in the comments.)

Your face appears on the front page of your church’s website.

You become a “friend collector” who racks up the Facebook/Twitter followers with the idea that someday, you’ll be able to leverage that when you write that book you’ve been talking about writing forever.

You find yourself thinking more and more about how you can get your name “out there.”

Please don’t think I’m condemning any pastor who has ever written a book or spoken at a conference. This is a very fuzzy area in which much grace needs to be extended. But if we never talk about the danger zone of self-promotion, we’re doing a disservice to ourselves and those we are called to serve. If we don’t think hard, on a personal level, about our need to be known by people beyond those we are directly in relationship with and service to, we run the risk of becoming men and women who use the people God has given us to serve as a means to our own self-gratifying and glorifying ends.

More and more, I’m trying to lean hard into the credo of John the Baptist: He must increase, and I must decrease. Maybe others can manage the trick of doing this while simultaneously “building their brand.” If so, God bless them. I just know that I can’t. And I’m betting not many of us can.”

Roger Olson is rarely unchallenging or shallow in his writings.  Nor is he in a recent blog post Thank God for Atheists!  His contention is that atheists do Christians a service – unintentionally.  And he sets out multiple reasons to establish his position.  It’s as good read.

Here are two sections that caught my attention:

“…having said all that, I do think that belief in a god, the sole supreme being, the creator and moral governor of the universe, is more rationally satisfying than its denial. I think Mortimer Adler’s wonderful little book How to Think about God is a good example of how that can be demonstrated. Hans Kung’s book Does God Exist? is compelling. Adler uses a form of the cosmological argument to show that without belief in god there is no explanation for the universe. Kung uses a form of the moral argument to show that without belief in god there is no escape from nihilism. These arguments have value when believers in a deity (theists) are up against aggressive atheism (e.g., in some secular schools).”

“So, where should Christians turn to find a true alternative to atheism and theism? Nicholas Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf said “If I did not believe in Jesus, I would not believe in God.” I think this was best interpreted and lived out and proclaimed by his distant spiritual descendent Christoph Blumhardt who cared nothing about a vague God of explanation (theism) or God as security blanket. Blumhardt (who inspired both Barth and Moltmann) preached a God of the future Kingdom who both loves us all AND judges all our ego-centered attempts to use God and religion for our own purposes. Blumhardt’s motto was not “Believe in God” or “Fight atheism” but “Die so that Jesus may live!” In other words, live solely and exclusively for the coming Kingdom of God in the here and now. That’s authentic Christianity and atheism can be one tool that corrects us and turns us in that direction and away from reliance on arguments or proofs or angry denunciations of atheists.”

On 1st January at 6pm we’re going to interact on ‘God and the New Atheism.’  There’ll be a Q&A time before enjoying a Summer night BBQ.

“In 2007, when the interviewer Sean Hannity tried to make the case for an all-seeing God, Mr. Hitchens dismissed the idea with contempt. “It would be like living in North Korea,” he said.”

I stuck by Hitchens’ denial of the reality of Rev 5:6, that Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain to purchase men and women for god for every tribe and language and people and nation, is indeed all seeing (depicted by the “seven eyes”) and is all powerful (depicted by the “seven horns”).

As Michael Bird sums up:

“Any death is sad, more so when a man dedicates so much of his life to heaping scorn and mockery on the one person, Jesus Christ, who could have brought hope, peace, and victory over death for Hitchens.”

And just in time for Summer reading, Craig has authored the two-volume Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.  He recently gave an interview to Christianity Today, It’s Okay to Expect a Miracle.  Craig’s own story of coming to faith is fascinating as is the ministry that he and his wife are involved with.  Here are a few of his responses:

“In your book, you use the phrase “supernatural causation,” but you seem uneasy with it. Is anything not supernaturally caused? What makes a miracle different in terms of God’s involvement in everything else he does, such as sunrises?

I felt I had to use the category of supernatural because, to address the questions as they exist in our culture, I needed to articulate it in terms that were at hand.

But the category of supernatural really isn’t a biblical perspective. It’s using Hume’s paradigm. If we believe that God is the Creator and is sovereign, then he is at work in the whole world around us.

I would make a theological distinction between gifts of healings and the signs and wonders in the Gospels and Acts. Both show God’s compassion. If we prayed for healing (as we are told to in James 5), and somebody experienced it through medical treatment, that’s a gift from God. But that’s not going to convince anybody on the same level as will somebody being raised from the dead.

One is a gift from God and the other is a sign. Is that the right terminology?

In both cases, God is conferring a blessing, but only one is evidentially persuasive, drawing people’s attention to the gospel.

A friend of mine talks about his brother, who had burns all over his body. His father had been praying. My friend looked up to see that his brother’s skin was completely pink. God chose to do it immediately and visibly. But he didn’t have to do it that way for it to be a blessing. When it’s semeion—a sign—it gets people’s attention.

How do the healing and miracle testimonies from the majority world influence the Western church?

We have an explosion of miracles taking place, especially in conjunction with the spread of the gospel. Some things are outside the norm for most Westerners, whatever kind of church we are associated with. It’s probably good for us, to shake us up. Extraordinary things are taking place around the world.”

^{Acts 4:8} Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! ⁹ If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, ¹⁰ then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. ¹¹ Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’

¹² Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”