Some days you take your faith to the scales. You wonder…is it up to mustard?
Today is one of those days–and it’s epitomized in the not-so-scenic view from my front porch.
Will you pray for me?
What do you need faith for today?
Some days you take your faith to the scales. You wonder…is it up to mustard?
Today is one of those days–and it’s epitomized in the not-so-scenic view from my front porch.
Will you pray for me?
What do you need faith for today?
Posted in Christianity, Community, fear, God's will, hope, Humor, Jesus, Life As Prayer, Prayer, Prayer Follies, Scriptures, Spiritual growth, Spiritual practices, Story as Life, Theology, Walking with God
Tagged anxiety, bad neighborhood, Bible, Christian theology, Christianity, faith, fear, hope, Jesus, Life As Prayer, move mountains, mustard seed, parable, petition, Prayer, Schuylkill County, Theology, throw mountains, Walking with God
(from the online Book of Common Prayer)
Third Sunday of Advent
Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come
among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins,
let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver
us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and
the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end.
Amen.
160 Collect: Traditional
O God, who hast caused this holy night to shine with the
illumination of the true Light: Grant us, we beseech thee,
that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon earth,
so may we also perfectly enjoy him in heaven; where with
thee and the Holy Spirit he liveth and reigneth, one God, in
glory everlasting. Amen.
Do you have any reflections for this Sunday?
Posted in Christianity, Christians, devotions, Holidays, hope, Life As Prayer, ministry, Prayer, Theology, Walking with God
Tagged Advent, advent prayer, awe, Christ, Christianity, Christmas, devotion, God, Gode, Holy Spirit, hope, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Life As Prayer, Liturgy, Prayer, reading, reflection, sunday, sunday meditation, Theology, Worship
Here is a response to a difficult subject: Evil and human suffering. Your comments are valuable here. Thanks for reading.
The following are comments from a former classmate Marty Schoffstall as placed within the comment section on blog site of Theology Professor Ken Miller.
From Marty:
Dr. Dorsey [professor of Old Testament Studies] says that the story of the prophets (a rather large portion of the canon) looks like this:
(1) God Is Allowing Wickedness…
For a season…. and the wicked to succeed in their opposition to Him to temporarily triumph over Him (and over those loyal to Him). He may allow them to spurn Him, mock Him, humiliate him, or persecute those who remain loyal to Him.(2) God is redirecting their evil….
to accomplish his own good purposes. The deeds of the wicked play into God’s hands and are used by God to further his own semi-secret agenda. [During this time when evil appears to prevail], God’s children are encouraged to: (a) Trust God, (b) Wait patiently for the time when God will intervene and right all wrongs, (c) Remain loyal and obedient to him.(3) Finally, God dramatically intervenes…
to defeat his enemies. God is vindicated the wicked are punished; and those loyal to God are rewarded.Now as my old friend friend Dr. Cunningham from UVA who was a very competent Roman Catholic Theologian on the side used to say:
“…mercy and justice are always in tension. We want mercy for ourselves, and justice for the other…”
Eventually we grow a little wiser and want some mercy for the other as well; however, we can never give up the concept of justice completely. Some decisions are so revolting (like genocide) that they must rigorously opposed, some people are so broken (like serial killers, serial kidnappers, etc) that we invest enormous time and money in the criminal justice system to stop them, they are horribly corrosive to society, they must be stopped.
How do you respond?
Posted in Bible, Christianity, Christians, evil, God's will, grief, hope, pain, Prayer, Scriptures, Social justice, Spirituality, stress, suffering, Theology, warfare, worldviews
Tagged atheism, atheist, Bible, Christ, Christian theology, Christianity, Criminal justice, criminals, death, evil, Existence of God, genocide, God, good God, Jesus, Religion and Spirituality, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, suffering, theodicy, wickedness
Which one sounds wrong?
A. Do you have the guts?
B. Put your heart into it.
C. Make up your heart.
What is the heart?
The answer might surprise you.
In modern times, the “heart” has been called, “the feeling mind”. That sounds pretty good to me. What do you think?
A recent visitor responded to my post Is Chocolate Filling my God-shaped Hole? with the comment below (edited down). I think it would help to respond through a post, also. Now we can open up the whole thing to dialogue a bit more. Thanks for your contribution on this topic.
Visitor Response to Post–Submitted: on 2010/12/03 at 3:10 pm
The way I look at it, viewing the heart and mind as separate is extrabiblical; thus, in fact, “that thing that ‘falls in love’ or gets sentimental” *is* the mind. So the modern “follow your heart” does not connote the *opposite* of the biblical “heart,” but rather only *part* of it. Bottom line, I can’t trust my mind or my heart, or even my own spirit completely… only God is 100% trustworthy. As for filling our “voids” with things “besides” God, I try to remember that God gets the credit for all good things anyway…My response:
I should have also pointed out [within that post] that the Hebrew equivalent of the emotions or passions (what many now consider the “heart”) were also referred to differently than the mind (i.e. set a different category, if you will–the bowels or “guts”). The “guts” implied connection with those qualities of emotion, and so forth.To sum up: In the Bible, (most especially in the Old Testament)…
1. What is translated as “heart” (in the KJV and others) is closer to what we now term as “the mind”. More specifically, the individual’s command center, or the place where decisions are made– which includes the will.
2. What we may think of as “the heart” that is, passions, desires, emotions, in the Hebrew language is connected with “the guts” or “bowels” of a person. For instance, “In his guts he loved her”. Yes, it sounds awkward, at best.
Even more controversy:
THE SOULThere is a big dissimilarity in the Hebrew vs. English renditions of the word often translated in English as “soul”. In Hebrew, it refers to the whole being. The whole person (So, no. It does not mean a ghosty thing that floats to the clouds like in Warner Brother cartoons). We can understand it in our context more this way when we say, “30 souls were lost [died] in the shipwreck.”
Hey, everyone, please, weigh in.
This post is open to opinions, thoughts, comments, or if you’re of the particular stripe…exegesis.
(Yes. That’s the BIG word of the day.)
Tomorrow’s post–
“Does your Breakfast (and your deity) make you AWESOME?”
Posted in Bible, Christianity, Christians, Food, Jesus, Quotes, Response to Reader, Scriptures, Spiritual growth, Theology
Tagged Bible, bowels, cheese, Christianity, decisions, desires, eggs, emotion, exegesis, feelings, Food, food for thought, foodie, free will, French, ghost, ghosty, guts, heart, Hebrew language, hermanutics, Humor, Jesus, language, Linguistics, lost in translation, mind, Old Testament, passions, reason, snacks, soul, translation, will
Hi. Welcome.
If you’re here to get your Wednesday funny fix, because Jon Acuff is serious on Wednesdays, thank you for stopping by. Everybody else, I think you’re pretty great too.
hint. I’m now plugging shame-free for this entire paragraph. If you click the Alluring Button (on the top left) you won’t miss anything funny on Wednesday–when you need it most. No funny from Jon on Wednesdays threw me into early onset seasonal depression this year. You too? I feel your pain. So, these Wednesday posts are really just my way to survive. Enjoy.
EXHIBIT A: The Faith Tones.
Bad girls of 1960s Christian Music. Y or N? You decide.
10 Things I LOVE about this album cover:
1. Big 60s hair. The higher the groovier, baby!
2. Healthy (I guess) round faces, like the Campbell’s Soup Kids.
3. Prophetic sense of bowling shirt fashion (as seen below with Lavern and Shirley). (Also could be hairdressing attire. Your guess?).
4. Subtle use of colorful, patterned or floral fashion, 60s hip blouses (under the matching uniform shirt) that says to the cool kids, “We know how to have fun…the way Jesus wants us to.”
5. Good vintage example of how you could be a Christian singer and still have crooked or subpar teeth. (Seriously. I defy you to spot a Christian album cover with an unattractive or crooked-toothed girl on it now, or for the last 20 years.)
6. Almost daring use of the album title, “Jesus Use Me,” and maybe just a hint of double entendré to spice it up for the Christian male audience. The 1960s were a time of sexual experimentation. Not so much in the Christian sphere, but a “clever” or edgy title couldn’t hurt sales. (Remember Stryper, “To Hell with the Devil”?) What do you think, was it purposeful, or just piety shinning through?
7. Girls use high tech (for the time) Stereo enhancement for our listening pleasure. Rock it, out, ladies.
8. The middle girl looks like she knows how to party. Whoot.
9. A vintage reminder that Aqua Net (not flower children) is what held the 1960s together.
10. This shows us that 50 years ago, much like today, music ministry tries too hard, but–sometimes–in a lovable sort of way.
Do you dig this photo?
ANYBODY have audio sample of the faith tones? Please, please, hook me up!
I’d like to hear them.
Golly, I sense some boss three-part harmony a-comin’!
Posted in #fail, Christianity, Christians, church, Community, evangelism, Humor, ministry, Modesty, Photography
Tagged #fail, 1960s, bowling league, bowling team, campbells Soup kids, Christ, Christian, Christianity, comedy, comedy writing, faith, faith tones, Fashion, funny, funny photos, God, Humor, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus Use Me, Jon Acuff, Lavern and Shirley, Lisa Colón DeLay, lol, music, Other Stuff Christians Like, photo, Religion and Spirituality, SCL, Serious Wednesday, singers, Stuff Christians Like, whacky wednesday
About 500 years ago there was this spat. At the time, having your sins forgiven was a sort of pay as you go thing. It was a bit like a toll road.
The toll booth worker was the Priest. If you bought “indulgences” the Priest could better settle up your debt with God.
Handy little business model, especially when folks hope to avoid damnation, right?
This became rather upsetting. So these Reformer types started protesting. It was not so much to split from the Church, but to transform it–at first.
Of course, men can get pretty riled up about their new fantastic ideas (ever seen that?), and before anyone realized it, a huge split…others might say a heresy or rebellion… was cemented into place in history–forever changing the landscape of Christianity.
Spiritually speaking, some good was gained (and Catholics adjusted to these grievances by the 1960s with Vatican II), but as more and more people are beginning to realizing now, some very good and important things were lost because of going this route.
So, what is the real purpose of a priest, or priest-like figure? Is it necessary? Can absolution of sin come from a man in a white collar? What about a teenager in a crew neck? Or a lady with a scarf?
Drum roll, please…..
Oh! Wait! Before, you start gathering firewood and a sturdy stake for my conflagration, please hear me out the entire way. (Then have at it; I’d like to hear from you.)
The I Timothy 2:5 “one mediator” verse is often used to underscore that Christ alone can forgive sins and be our mediator to God. It’s true. This was the mission of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.
But Protestants have, by the over-reactive trailblazing of the Reformers, missed quite a bit of the spiritual benefits of what Jesus’ brother James talks about:
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
What is James saying…that confession and other believers’ prayers are powerful and effective against sin? Yes.
GASP.
Okay, not a total gasp. But how does this play out? You may wonder…
This confessing to each other is not the same as be able to actually take Jesus’ place (obviously). James shows us that confession to each other works. It does something important. God wants it to be done this way.
It absolves us (because God absolves us). So, it is true that we personally experience the relief of our guilt being removed. We experience, in real terms, the agency of God’s forgiveness of our guilt. Someone is there beside us, standing in the gap for us, so we can be reconciled more thoroughly, more completely than we can experience it otherwise. It is God’s work; and we are agents of his ministry.
These confessors to whom we confess become a flesh and blood representation of God’s love that promotes gracious forgiveness and offers wholeness. It offers us freedom from guilt (felt guilt, and feeling or thinking as if Christ‘s work is not complete). It puts flesh on our spiritual justification.
We are sinful, and it’s not a private matter.
Just confessing to God, and keeping our mistakes and sin to ourselves, is not the recommendation and requirement of Christ’s disciples.
The Community of God (i.e. the Church; our brothers and sisters in the Lord) plays a vital role in our spiritual growth and growth in grace. Confession ushers in that felt healing of the sin and guilt which weigh us down, and disables us.
Our sin is a rejection of community (aka The Bride of Christ) and an act of selfishness.
Our sin is a destructive thing. Socially and spiritually destructive.
Confession and absolution, (the kind you might say/declare out loud to another person) restore us at a core level. To ourselves, to God, and to community (aka The Bride of Christ).
In this way, we act not as God, but on God’s behalf. We minister.
It is simply true that he forgives us. We concur and offer social restoration, and remind the confessing one of God’s gracious work and love for us.
We minister to each other, on equal footing, and we may offer God’s grace to a brother or sister who cannot yet properly apprehend it. We can accept their confession and offer forgiveness, so we speak the Truth of God’s Kingdom into their life. We help set the captives free. (Not because God can’t do it without us, but because he wishes to use us this way.)
YES. We may say, “You have confessed, and you are forgiven. God absolves you. I, too, forgive you. Go in peace, and rest in his love.”
Please offer this to others. Ask for it on your behalf, too.
Posted in Christ, Christianity, Christians, church, Community, forgiveness, God's will, Gratitude, grief, hope, Jesus, Life As Prayer, ministry, Practicing the presence of God, Prayer, Quotes, Recommendations, Scriptures, Spiritual growth, Spiritual practices, Spirituality, stress, suffering, temptation, Theology, Walking with God, worldviews, Worship
Tagged absolution, atonement, Bible, Christ, Christianity, confession, confession booth, confessional, forgiveness, God, grace, healing, James, Jesus, Life As Prayer, love, ministry, Practicing the presence of God, Prayer, priest, Protestant Reformation, religion, Religion and Spirituality, sin, spiritual formation, Spiritual practices, Theology, Thoughts on God