Category Archives: Christian

Links I liked…

Posted on September 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

racial stereotypes

 

I’m currently in Helsinki at the UNU WIDER conference on “Inclusive Growth in Africa” – I presented my paper which combines access to education and the quality of education. Helsinki is a pretty cool city although not particularly exciting or historically important. Tallinn, which is just a 2.5 hour ferry-ride away, is much more interesting and quaint.

  • Conceptual map of learning theories in education – helpful mind-map of all the different learning theories with links to their Wikipedia pages.
  • Also using CMAP technology, check out the Grade 4 – 6 Life Sciences and Natural Sciences concept maps developed by Megan Beckett at Siyavula. On the Thunderbolt Kids website you can also download posters and textbooks for Grades 4-6.
  • The 1861 infographic that Abraham Lincoln used to see the reach of slavery in the US – here. (via FarnamStreetBlog).
  • Wonderful lecture by Eugene Peterson titled “Teach us to Care and Teach us Not to Care” (PDF)
  • The Institute of Education Sciences’ “What Works Clearinghouse” is a really interesting concept. Essentially like a meta-analysis tool to give end-users (like teachers) an overview of what the research says on a particular topic. Very interesting. I want one!
  • Great repository of CS Lewis articles – here
  • ChronoZoom – looks pretty cool 🙂

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Posted in Christian, Education

Abolition of Slavery: morality > economy ?

Posted on April 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

“A deep stain on Christian history is the African slave trade. Since Christianity was dominant in the nations that bought and sold slaves during that time, the churches must bear responsibility along with their societies for what happened. Even though slavery in some form was virtually universal in every human culture over the centuries, it was Christians who first came to the conclusion that it was wrong. The social historian Rodney Stark writes:

“Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome and were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe. When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently ‘lost’ from history until recently. Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists.”

Christians began to work for abolition not because of some general understanding of human rights, but because they saw it as violating the will of God. Older forms of indentured servanthood and the bond-service of biblical times had often been harsh, but Christian abolitionists concluded that race-based, life-long chattel slavery, established through kidnapping, could not be squared with biblical teaching in either the Old Testament or the New. Christian activists such as William Wilberforce in Great Britain, John Woolman in America, and many, many others devoted their entire lives, in the name of Christ, to ending slavery. The slave trade was so tremendously lucrative that there was enormous incentive within the church to justify it. Many church leaders defended the institution. The battle for self-correction was titanic.

When the abolitionists finally had British society poised to abolish slavery in their empire, planters in the colonies foretold that emancipation would cost investors enormous sums and the prices of commodities would skyrocket catastrophically. This did not deter the abolitionists in the House of Commons. They agreed to compensate the planters for all freed slaves, an astounding sum up to half the British government’s annual budget. The Act of Emancipation was pased in 1833, and the costs were so high to the British people that one historian called the British abolition of slavery ‘voluntary econocide.’

Rodney Stark notes how historians have been desperately trying to figure out why the abolitionists were willing to sacrifice so much to end slavery. He quote the historian Howard Temperley, who says that the history of abolition is puzzling because most historians believe all political behaviour is self-interested. Yet despite the fact that hundreds of scholars over the last fifty years have looked for ways to explain it, Temperley says, ‘no one has succeeded in showing who campaigned for the end of the slave trade…stood to gain in any tangible way…or that these measures were other than economically costly to the country‘. Slavery was abolished because it was wrong, and the Christians were the leaders in saying so. Christianity’s self-correcting apparatus, its critique of religiously supported acts of injustice, had asserted itself.”

From Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God“

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Creation / Evolution?

Posted on January 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

“How do we correlate the data of science with the teaching of Scripture?” Read Tim Keller’s “Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople” (PDF)

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Posted in Christian, Ongoing education, Wisdom

Book review: The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom

Posted on January 15, 2012 | 4 comments

File:Hidinh place book.jpg

I’ve just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom and what a wonderful book it has been. Corrie was a Dutch watchmaker during the second world war. The biography of this incredible woman reads like a conversation you might have with your grandfather or some other old, insightful person who seems to ooze wisdom and life experience. The story centers on the the Ten Boom family and its involvement in the Dutch underground movement which aimed to help Jews and those being persecuted by the Germans, with the second half of the book about her time in concentration camps and her rehabilitation work after the war was over.

The book canvases everything from heart-break, poverty and oppression to hope, forgiveness and new beginnings. To read the conversations and thought-life of this remarkable woman opened my eyes to what it must be like to be a person of deep faith in troubling times. And yet what I found most endearing about the book is that she is so honest and human – complete with insecurities and failures. When she is filled with anger towards the Germans and her sister starts praying for them she simply prays: “Oh Lord,” I whispered, “listen to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for those men at all.”

I would recommend this book to any Christian who needs to regain perspective on their world. On numerous occasions I was tangibly moved by their Christian responses to unspeakable horrors. Sharing what little they had in concentration camps, praying for their oppressors, and (after the war) rehabilitating prisoners and German soldiers by providing opportunities for forgiveness and healing.

Some quotes from the book:

When she was in solitary confinement:

“And I was not alone much longer: into my solitary cell came a small, busy black ant. I had almost put my foot where he was one morning as I carried my bucket to the door when I realized the honor being done me. I crouched down and admired the marvelous design of legs and body. I apologized for my size and promised I would not so thoughtlessly stride about again. “

When she was being interrogated by a German lieutenant in the concentration camp and was explaining her pre-war Bible study with mentally handicapped people:

“The lieutenant’s eyebrows rose higher and higher. “What a waste of time and energy!” he exploded at last. “If you want converts, surely one normal person is worth all the half-wits in the world!” I stared into the man’s intelligent blue-gray eyes: true National-Socialist philosophy, I thought, tulip bed or no. And then to my astonishment I heard my own voice saying boldly, “May I tell you the truth, Lieutenant Rahms?” I knew it was madness to talk this way to a Nazi officer. But he said nothing so I plunged ahead. “In the Bible I learned that God values us not for our strength or our brains but simply because He has made us. Who knows, in His eyes a half-wit may be worth more than a watchmaker. Or-a lieutenant.”

When Corrie’s family is unexpectedly brought into the concentration camp for the reading of her late father’s will (a requirement of Dutch law that the Nazi’s were oddly unwilling to break), her sister smuggles a package into the prison and surreptitiously gives it to her in the midst of an embrace. When Corrie generously gave away her last Gospel to a fellow inmate the day before, she had no idea that she would be briefly seeing her family the following day and that they would smuggle in an entire Bible for her:

“Swiftly I opened the package that Nollie had pressed into my hand with the first embrace. It was what my leaping heart had told me: a Bible, the entire Book in a compact volume, tucked inside a small pouch with a string for wearing around the neck as we had once carried our identity cards. I dropped it quickly over my head and down my back beneath my blouse. I couldn’t even find words with which to thank her: the day before, in the shower line, I had given away my last remaining Gospel.”

and some other quotes:

“More time passed. I kept my eyes on the ant hole, hoping for a last visit from my small friends, but they did not appear. Probably I had frightened them by my early dashing about. I reached into the pillowcase, took one of the crackers, and crumbled it about the little crack. No ants. They were staying safely hidden. And suddenly I realized that this too was a message, a last wordless communication among neighbors. For I, too, had a hiding place when things were bad. Jesus was this place, the Rock cleft for me. I pressed a finger to the tiny crevice.”

“Perhaps a long, long time. Perhaps many years. But what better way could there be to spend our lives?” I turned to stare at her. “Whatever are you talking about?” “These young women. That girl back at the bunkers. Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes….”

“They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28. A single meeting might include a recital of the Magnificat in Latin by a group of Roman Catholics, a whispered hymn by some Lutherans, and a sotto-voce chant by Eastern Orthodox women. With each moment the crowd around us would swell, packing the nearby platforms, hanging over the edges, until the high structures groaned and swayed. At last either Betsie or I would open the Bible. Because only the Hollanders could understand the Dutch text, we would translate aloud in German. And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the lightbulb. I would think of Haarlem, each substantial church set behind its wrought-iron fence and its barrier of doctrine. And I would know again that in darkness God’s truth shines most clear.”

“There are no ‘ifs’ in God’s kingdom. I could hear her soft voice saying it. His timing is perfect. His will is our hiding place. Lord Jesus, keep me in Your will! Don’t let me go mad by poking about outside it.”

“When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. “

Years after she has left the concentration camp and started her rehabilitation centers, Corrie goes back to visit Ravensbruck and finds out something amazing:

“Corrie learned that her own release had been part of a clerical error; one week later all women her age were taken to the gas chamber.”

“What feeds the soul matters as much as what feeds the body.”

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Seeing through a glass dimly

Posted on January 13, 2012 | 1 comment

“The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision’s greatest enemy:
Thine has a great hook nose like thine,
Mine has a snub nose like to mine….
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read’st black where I read white”
-William Blake
Phillip Yancey quotes this poem in his book “The Jesus I Never Knew” which I’m reading at the moment. It strikes at something that is so blatant, and yet I forget it all the time: we do not see things as they are, but as we are (cf Anais Nin). We walk around with lenses on our eyes and filters on our ears. We may hear the same words as each other but interpret them differently, or better yet, remember them differently (on that note, see this TED talk by Daniel Kahneman). This is surely what David meant when he said:26“To the faithful you show yourself faithful,to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

27to the pure you show yourself pure,

but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.

Is God different to different people? Or do we see the same God differently? I think we do not see God, or the Bible, or each other objectively. Since we are a product of all that we have experienced, we see and interact with everything in light of that fact. You are the product of the people you meet, the books you read, the movies you watch, the courses you study – like a traveler learning new phrases and acquiring new mannerisms, we are far less ‘individual’ than we think we are.

Importantly, this is not just an interesting fact – a little thought experiment to brighten a dreary day, it really is of utmost importance. If I read the Bible differently to you, if I hear the same words of God differently to you, this is a problem. I’m not talking about the legitimate variety of expressions and ways we respond to God, I’m talking about deciding who God is, what his priorities are, and thus what ours should be. These should not be open to wide interpretation. Either God is something or He is not.

I wonder to what extent the Gospel writers were influenced by their own experiences? Their Jewishness, or their medicalness, or simply their personality type. Perhaps some degree of variation is actually what God wants, after all it was Him who chose 4 gospels and not one.

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Posted in Christian, Quotes, Uncategorized

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The ships’s wake

Posted on January 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

“More than 1900 years later,” said H.G.Wells, ” a historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man…The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is ‘what did he leave to grow?’ Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him? By this test Jesus stands first.” You can gauge the size of a ship that has passed out of sight by the huge wake it leaves behind.”

– Phillip Yancey in “The Jesus I Never Knew” (p19)

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Peace for the wicked?

Posted on August 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Alec Motyer on Isaiah 

“The rewritten brief of the Servant (49:1-6) arose out of the recognition (48:22) that there is no peace for the wicked. Consequently, there can be no unconditional call into blessing. Wickedness, objectively considered, has been dealt with by the Servant’s death; wickedness subjectively considered, calls for repentance. If we may say that chapter 54 details the objective, God-given benefits of the Servant’s work, chapter 55 answers to its subjectivity in emphasizing the response which brings those benefits into personal experience. There is free entrance into life (1-5) through the moral and spiritual response of turning to God (6-11).

‘…we come to the Lord as we are, but not to stay as we are…’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Christian, Quotes

A real ingredient in the divine happiness

Posted on August 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

“To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

C.S. Lewis, ‘The Weight of Glory”

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‘Nuclear Man’

Posted on August 8, 2011 | 1 comment

“From time to time a man enters into your life who, by his appearance, his behavious and his words, intimates in a dramatic way the condition of modern man. Such a man was Peter for me. He came to ask for help, but at the same time he offered a new understanding of my own world! Peter is twenty-six years old. His body is fragile; his face, framed in long blond hair, is thin with a city pallor. His eyes are tender and radiate a longing melancholy. His lips are sensual, and his smile evokes an atmosphere of intimacy. When he shakes hands he breaks through the formal ritual in such a way that you feel his body as really present. When he speaks, his voice assumes tones that ask to be listend to with careful attention.

As we talk, it becomes clear that Peter feels as if the many boundaries that give structure to life are becoming increasingly vague. His life seems a drifting over which he has no control, a life determined by many known and unknown factors in his surroundings. The clear distinction between himself and his milieu is gone and he feels that his ideas and feelings are not really his; rather, they are brought upon him. Sometimes he wonders: “What is fantasy and what is reality?” Often he has the strange feeling that small devils enter his head and create painful and anxious confusion. He also does not know whom he can trust and whom not, what he shall do and what not, why to say “yes” to one and “no” to another. The many distinctions between good and bad, ugly and beautiful, attractive and repulsive, are losing meaning for him. Even to the most bizarre suggestions he says: “Why not? Why not try something I have never tried? “Why not have a new experience, good or bad?”

In the absence of clear boundaries between himself and his milieu, between fantasy and reality, between what to do and what to avoid, it seems that Peter has become a prisoner of the now, caught in the present without meaningful connections with his past or future. When he goes home he feels that he enters a world that has become alien to him. The words his parents use, their questions and concerns, their aspirations and worries, seem to belong to another world, with another language and another mood. When he looks into his future everything becomes one big blur, an impenetrable cloud. He finds no answers to why he lives and where he is heading. Peter is not working hard to reach a goal, he does not look forward to the fulfillment of a great desire, nor does he expect that something great or important is going to happen. He looks into empty space and is sure of only one thing: If there is anything worthwhile in life it must be here and now.

I did not paint this portrait of Peter to show you a picture of a sick man in need of psychiatric help. No, I think Peter’s situation is in many ways typical of the condition of modern men and women. Perhaps Peter needs help, but his experiences and feelings cannot be understood merely in terms of individual psychopathology. They are part of the historical context in which we all live, a context which makes it possible to see in Peter’s life the signs of the times, which we too recognise in our own life experiences, What we see in Peter is a painful expression of the situation of what I call ‘nuclear man.’

…Nuclear man is a man who has lost naive faith in the possibilities of technology and is painfully aware that the same powers that enable man to create new lifestyles carry the potential for self-destruction…

…Only when man feels himself responsible for the future can he have hope or despair, but when he thinks of himself as the passive victim of an extremely complex technological bureaucracy, his motivation falters and he starts drifting from one moment to the next, making life a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents.

When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost its liberating power for nuclear man, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that man sees himself as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future.

…A preaching and teaching still based on the assumption that man is on his way to a new land filled with promises, and that his creative activities in this world are the first signs of what he will see in the hereafter, cannot find a sounding board in a man whose mind is brooding on the suicidal potentials of his own world…Obviously the level of awareness and visibility is different in different people, but I hope you will recognize in your own experiences and the experiences of your friends some of the traits which are so visible in Peter’s life style. And this recognition might also help you to realize that Christianity is not just challenged to adapt itself to a modern age, but is also challenged to ask itself whether its unarticulated suppositions can still form the basis of its redemptive pretensions.”

– Henri Nouwen ‘The Wounded Healer”

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Posted in Christian, Intense, Psychology, Quotes

A Mighty Fortress is Our God

Posted on June 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

A Mighty Fortress is our God

-Martin Luther

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

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Sunday best

Posted on June 10, 2011 | 1 comment

Something that struck me this morning is the hypocrisy in much of the current charismatic church. We ridicule traditional churches who dress up in suits and ties – ‘Sunday best’ – to impress everyone, yet we have our own brand of ‘Sunday best’ – the caricatures of our lives. We paint these wonderful pictures of strength, success and happiness for everyone to see, but whether or not they are true is immaterial. This seemingly small flaw in our churches is so nefarious that we should be repenting ad nauseum. God help us!

I include three things: the first is an excerpt from ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?’ and the second and third are lyrics from two profound songs:

1-

“A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter – two years old!- to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable – I’m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she creid. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

*From Phillip Yancey’s excellent book ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?‘

2-

CASTING CROWNS
“Stained Glass Masquerade”

Is there anyone that fails
Is there anyone that falls
Am I the only one in church today feelin’ so small

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they’ll soon discover
That I don’t belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything’s okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I’ll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation’s open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who’s been there
Are there any hands to raise
Am I the only one who’s traded
In the altar for a stage

The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart

But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be

Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay

3- 

Jason Gray – The Golden Boy And The Prodigal Lyrics

 There are two sides to every person

Like the two sides of a dime
Heads or tails it depends upon
Who’s watching at the time
Though I hate to say it
Mine is no exception
One part is the prodigal
The other part: deception

Like the prince and the pauper
Like Jacob and his brother
Each hide a different heart
Each a shadow of the other
Me and my doppelganger
Both share the same blood
One I have hated
The other have I loved

One of them’s the Golden Boy
The man I’d like to be I show him off in the parades
For all the world to see
The other is much weaker
He stumbles all the time
The source of my embarrassment
He’s the one I try to hide

The Golden boy is made of straw
His finest suit will surely burn
His vice is the virtue
That he never had to earn
The prodigal’s been broken
And emptied at the wishing well
But he’s stronger for the breaking
With a story to tell

I’m not easy with confessions
It’s hard to tell the truth
But I have favored the golden boy
While the other I’ve abused
And he takes it like a man
Though he’s longing like a child
To be loved and forgiven
And share the burden for awhile

So take a good look in the mirror
Tell me who you see
The one who Jesus died for
Or the one you’d rather be
Can you find it in your heart
To show mercy to the one
The Father loved so much
That he gave his only son…

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Posted in Christian, Intense

Vulnerability

Posted on May 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

The last 30 days in my life have been very eventful. I am beginning to gain intellectual momentum and starting to understand how to learn. Notwithstanding the above, I think that this video is one of the top three most significant things I’ve read or seen this year. Brene Brown, a ‘vulnerability researcher’ explains her findings in 20 minutes on TEDx. The truth contained in her talk has the power to transform the way we live and how we evaluate what is happening to us. Highly, highly recommended!!

A brief overview from Brain Pickings

“Brené Brown‘s fantastic talk from TEDxHouston deconstructs vulnerability to reveal what she calls “wholeheartedness”: The capacity to engage in our lives with authenticity, cultivate courage and compassion, and embrace — not in that self-help-book, motivational-seminar way, but really, deeply, profoundly embrace — the imperfections of who we really are”

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Posted in Christian, Psychology

Why can’t I hear God?

Posted on May 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

A very cool interview with Eugene Peterson – perhaps the wisest Christian alive today.

Interview with Eugene Peterson
Why Can’t I Hear God?
By Nancy Lovell

Readers of the best selling Bible, The Message, find themselves holding onto lines from his fog-slicing Bible paraphrase and many other works.

Recently, we asked the man himself: What are devotions and why do they matter in our daily work?

Why do so few people who believe in God bother to know Him?

The most obvious answer is that we’re in a hurry and not used to listening. We’re trained to use our minds to get information and complete assignments; but the God revealed to us in Jesus and our Scriptures is infinitely personal and relational. Unless we take the time to be quiet, in a listening way, in the presence of God, we never get to know him. The same question is why so few married couples really know their spouses. People get divorced after 20 years of marriage, and the rejected spouse says, “I never knew this was coming. I thought everything was fine.” But there was not much listening in those 20 years.

Devotions are the discipline of being quiet and listening for what we don’t hear in the streets, in the media, in the workplace.

What about people who sincerely set apart time, read the Bible, stay still, and hear nothing? They ask themselves whether God’s voice is anything more than their own thoughts.

We’re not good at this. We’ve had no practice doing it. No wonder we only hear our own thoughts. This is why the church is so insistent that we do this whether anything happens or not. Supported by 2000 years of history, we know that God does commune with us in our listening. But because we’re so unused to this way of communion, we don’t hear it. So it takes time.

How would you direct someone trying to start?

I would say: Get your Bible and find a place. If you can’t do this daily (some people can’t because of their life circumstances; mothers with young children are obvious instances), try for at least 20-30 minutes, two or three times a week, or four. Don’t make demands on yourself too high. Don’t ask questions about, “How long is this going to take?” Believe that something does happen in that silence—usually through Scripture, but not always—in prayerful, attentive listening, knowing that you’re in the presence of God. I ask for a commitment of six months; don’t come back in three weeks and say nothing’s happened.

I’ve never had anyone who’s done this at least six months who came back to me and said, “I did it and nothing happened; I’m going on to something else.” Not many who give this a fair test ever say that nothing happens.

Also, when I’ve asked people to do this as their pastor, I also ask them to worship regularly. This is a place where the whole community is gathered and listening and being in the presence of God.

Is that how you started?

I was lucky. In the family I grew up in, I started when I was about 14 …mostly with the Psalms, but all the Scriptures become part of it.

In your writing and speaking, you must have seen moments when a person realizes, “Yes, I want more and I want God.” What turns on the light for people?

Often the motivation is that people are tired of the way they’re living. They think there’s got to be more than just the motions they’re going through and the work they’re doing. There’s a craving and hunger that they identify with God. There’s enough pain or boredom or something to motivate them to do something that the culture’s not telling them to do.

I got a letter recently from a friend of 40 years. She had been a parishioner of mine for a long time. Then she was ill, and divorced; and she quit, just gave up. She quit reading the Bible, quit going to church. Six months ago she wrote me a lovely letter that she was sitting with a group of friends and, in her words, “a rooster crowed”—it all came back and she was a Christian again and aware of the presence of God. Isn’t that a wonderful phrase? A rooster crowed.

Who knows what went into that statement of hers? Twenty years of unhappiness, pain, suffering, disillusionment …but still there was the need. She would have said during that time she didn’t believe in God. But the rooster crowed. That’s why we use the term the Holy Spirit to explain times like this.

Given that it’s hard to discipline ourselves to silence, listening—and to daily time in quiet—tell us about your devotions on this website.

I wrote those in the early morning for 20 years, maybe 25 years. And what I was trying to do was be present to the Scripture, listen to God, and to write as honestly as I could. I wasn’t thinking about anybody else but me. It’s really hard to be honest as a writer. You get these wonderful ideas, and you love to manipulate words and see if you can make it sound good. It’s hard to be honest, especially working for God. That was the thing I was most aware of. “Eugene: Don’t say anything that is not relational, immediate, honest; stay present to the text and be honest before God.” I believed if I could be honest, I could draw some other people to honesty, too.

In one of your early devotions, you point out that Cain wasn’t listed as one of the descendants of Adam, and you ask why. But you never bring it up again, much less offer an answer.

That’s part of this life: You ask God questions and you go without a lot of answers …you learn to live with the mystery of a God who doesn’t tell us all the details. Kids ask their parents a lot of questions. And sometimes parents say to their kids, “Just trust me. You don’t know enough to understand the answer. So just live awhile.” Being a Christian and reading the Bible is not a way to get all your questions answered. There are few answers in the Bible. God is wanting to draw us into a relationship of faith, intimacy, and love. That doesn’t come through information alone. It comes through trust, obedience, and the willingness to be present in the mystery of God. It comes through letting Him reveal himself to us as we’re able to receive the revelation. If God just dumped all the answers on us at once, we probably couldn’t handle it. We’d misuse it. We’d think we had control of it now.

© 2001 – 2011 H. E. Butt Foundation. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Laity Lodge and TheHighCalling.org. 

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Counterfeit Gods

Posted on April 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

“When people say, ‘I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,’ they mean they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God’s. Idols function like gods in our lives, and so if we make career or parental approval our god and we fail it, then the idol curses us in our hearts for the rest of our lives. We can’t shake the sense of failure”

“The idols that drive us are complex, many-layered, and largely hidden from us”

-Tim Keller in ‘Counterfeit Gods‘ – PROFOUND!!

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Good thing –> ultimate thing = idol {& it’s EASTER!}

Posted on April 24, 2011 | 1 comment

“In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about the elders of Israel, ‘These men have set up their idols in their hearts.’ Like us, the elders must have responded to this charge, ‘Idols? What Idols? I don’t see any idols.’ God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.”

I’m reading Tim Keller’s ‘Counterfeit Gods‘ at the moment (Intro chapter free here). What a brilliant book (and what a brilliant man!). There is a section on Jonah (pg 133) which is truly insightful and heart-wrenching. The story of Jonah, and Keller’s skillful application in applying it to the human condition has cut me to the heart. If you’ve got the book, re-read pages 133-153. If I scan it sometime in the future I’ll put it up here.

On a different note, it’s raining today here in Stellenbosch. I really don’t mind the rain. I often actually enjoy it. It has many benefits: it forces me to read/work, it stops the neighbors dogs barking, and the screaming-crying kids now scream and cry inside not in the freaking garden (which is wonderful).

AND more importantly than all of the above (#best4last) it’s EASTER SUNDAY! When Jesus rose from death – “He has risen! He is not here” the angel told the two Mary’s. Jesus had conquered sin. As He says in Revelation 1:18:

“I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

Praise God!! Thank-you Jesus!

Sometimes people get confused about what happened when, and don’t know why Good Friday and Easter Sunday are so special. See below for a brief chronology, (found here).

– Good Friday 

In the early hours before sunup, Jesus is betrayed by the “Judas Kiss” and arrested. At sunrise, he is disowned by Peter. When brought before Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest, and his Council, he is condemned. He says that he will rise from death after three days.

They hand him over to the Roman authority, Pontius Pilate, who sends him to Herod (Antipas, the son of Herod the Great). Then Pilate asks the crowd who he is to pardon: a murderer, or Jesus? The crowd betrays Jesus and he is sentenced to death.

Jesus is brought to Calvary, where on the “third hour” (9 am) he is crucified. He is mocked as he hangs between the Bad Thief and the Good Thief, whom he blesses. On the “sixth hour” (noon), darkness covers the land. Jesus cries out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

After drinking sour wine, he commits his spirit to his Father and dies. Matthew (27:51-52) reports an earthquake that destroys the Temple. Many understand now that Jesus was the Son of God. His body is taken down and anointed. He is buried in a cave. This is the first day of death.

– Holy Saturday 

The Jewish Council remembers his vow to return and has the tomb guarded and sealed with a heavy stone. His followers stay in the “Easter Vigil”. Second day of death.

– Easter Sunday

On the third day of death, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary see an angel roll away the stone in front of the tomb. The angel tells them Jesus is already resurrected and is on his way to Galilee. On their way to tell the others, Jesus appears to them.

Easter Sunday marks the beginning of Eastertide or the Easter Season of 7 weeks, ending with Pentecost.

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Spiritual Audit

Posted on April 23, 2011 | 1 comment

During a recent preach my mind started to wander onto a different wavelength. Usually I force myself to stay focussed or (if it’s really bad) start some Scripture reading, but this time I let my thoughts get some speed. I did this because it felt right, it felt important, and the questions which I wrote down (see below) seemed penetrating and revealing – things I try not to brush off easily.

Basically, it occurred to me  that companies have their books audited once a year, but we Christians hardly ever audit our spiritual lives with the same rigor, and that is if we audit them at all! A financial audit is defined as ‘An unbiased examination and evaluation of the financial statements of an organization’. Similarly, I would define a spiritual audit as ‘An unbiased examination and evaluation of your spiritual life’. I hate airy-fairy terms, which invite confusion and speculation, so let me define what I mean by the terms ‘spiritual life’. My spiritual life consists of all those factors that affect me spiritually. When I ask how my spiritual life is doing I’m asking if I am spiritually healthy now (the present), and if the way that I am living my life now is setting me up for future success (the future). Because the physical and the spiritual cannot be separated (for example it would be impossible to split my spirit from my body) – we must necessarily include physical things in the spiritual audit. How I use and manage my time and money have direct implications on my spiritual health. It’s debatable whether that link is causal or if, instead, the way that I use my time and money is simply symptomatic of my existing state of spiritual health. Something to think about but I won’t elaborate on it here.

So I thought of a bunch of questions. The answers to these questions, and the way we answer them (how long it takes, if we get defensive, if we think of excuses etc.) is an indication of the state of our spiritual lives. I wrote this list for myself first and foremost (although I’ve included some questions that obviously don’t apply to me (like for husbands and wives). This is for now, but also for the future. The questions (and the realities they reveal) do not have an expiry date – the factors that affect our spiritual lives may change slightly in shape or form, but their broad outline remains unchanged. So here is my list…if you also want to answer them, take a minute and commit yourself to answering in total truth. I solemnly swear to tell myself the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God! {and on that note, please do help me God!}

Spiritual Audit

GENERAL

  •  Are there any serious disappointments (personal, professional, and spiritual/church) in your life that you have not dealt with?
    • What are they?
    • Why haven’t you dealt with them?
  • Do you prioritise your health? Especially in terms of exercise and diet?

Some statements: (1=strongly disagree, 10=100% agree)

  • I am where I thought I would be at ___ (insert current age)
  • If all areas of my life (especially private) where made public I would not feel ashamed.
  • I am quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry (James 1).
  • I willingly submit to my church leaders with joy.
  • I regularly take time out to see the bigger picture.
  • Unbelievers have a big influence on me
  • I have a big influence on unbelievers
  • (for wives) I willingly submit to my husband with joy
    • I understand and support my husband in ways that show my support for Christ (Msg)
  • (for husbands) I willingly lay down my life for my wife, and do it with joy
    • I go all out in my love for my wife (Msg)
  • (If married) I regularly affirm my spouse verbally (in private and in public)
  • (If married) I regularly take time out to spend with my spouse and see the bigger picture
  • (If married) I encourage, uplift and invest in my spouse
  • (If married) I am sometimes harsh with my spouse
  • (If married) I often pray with my spouse

 RELATIONSHIPS/PEOPLE

  •  Are there any unresolved relationship issues that you have with anyone? (believers or unbelievers)
    • If so, have you done everything in your power to rectify that relationship?
    • If you haven’t, why not?
  • How many meaningful and deep relationships do you have with people in your church?
    • Are you making new meaningful and deep relationships?
  • How many meaningful and deep relationships do you have with people outside your church? (especially unsaved).
    • Are you making new meaningful and deep relationships?

Some statements: (1=strongly disagree, 10=100% agree)

  • I often tell my friends how much I appreciate them, and what I appreciate about them.
  • I often tell my family how much I appreciate them, and what I appreciate about them.
  • I make an effort to be friends with people even if I don’t naturally ‘click’ with them.
  • I really care that unbelievers become saved.
  • I prioritize people above everything else in my life (except God)

 TIME

  • What are the three most time-consuming activities in your week?
    • Are they legitimate uses of your time?

Some statements: (1=strongly disagree, 10=100% agree)

  •  I am very disciplined with the way I spend my time.
  • I sleep too much.
  • I am happy with how much dedicated time I spend with God each day.
  • I have a routine that I stick to each week/day.
  • I often make time to spend with people.
  • If someone judged my priorities based on how I spend my time, I think that would be an accurate reflection.

FINANCIAL

  • CS Lewis said ‘If we live at the same level of affluence as others who have our level of income, we are probably giving away too little’. Am I living at the same level of affluence as others (unbelievers) who have my level of income? Am I giving away enough? (what is enough??)
  • Are you currently in debt (other than for a car or house)?
  • Do you spend money before you earn it?
  • Would you say that you are financially responsible?
  • Have all your financial dealings in the past year been entirely above reproach?

Some statements: (1=strongly disagree, 10=100% agree)

  • I believe God would approve of the way I spend my money.
  • I never envy rich people.
  • I feel less attached to money than I did a year ago.
  • I often give more respect to rich people than poor people.
  • Sometimes I think that my problems would go away if I had more money.
  • I think God will bless me financially if I sin less.
  • I often give money to the poor.
  • I am disciplined with my money.
  • I think the poor are poor because they are lazy or don’t have a good work ethic.
  • I think the poor is more the church’s responsibility rather than my responsibility.
  • I am very generous.
  • If someone judged my priorities based on how I spend my money, I think that would be an accurate reflection.

SPIRITUAL STUFF

  • What are your spiritual gifts? (1 Cor 12:1 & Rom 12:6-8)
  • Do you exercise your spiritual gifts? Are you blessing the Church by exercising your gifts?
  • Do you serve in some way in your local church?

Some statements: (1=strongly disagree, 10=100% agree)

  • I think my dreams are important because God can speak to me through dreams.
  •  I can feel (in my spirit) the presence of the Holy Spirit.
  • I frequently doubt my spiritual giftings.
  •  I am completely satisfied with my spiritual progress in the last year
  •  I am definitely less proud / arrogant / greedy / selfish / lustful / insecure / angry / depressed  than I was last year. (go through each one)
  •  I am definitely more patient / generous / loving / joyful / kind / gentle / self-controlled / humble / grateful / than I was last year. (go through each one)
  • I have a healthy prayer life.
On a scale of 1-10 (where 10 is excellent and 1 is dismal) how would you rate your spiritual life on the whole?
***THE END***
I think I might ask Oli if we can do this at Lifegroup sometime so any suggestions about questions to add or delete are welcome!

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Posted in Christian, Intense, Me

Same tune, different key…

Posted on April 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Our Father, Chief Executive and Architect of heaven, may Your righteous name be held in highest honour everywhere. Come and rule here, change things to the way you desire them to be, on earth as You do in Heaven. Give us this day what we need for today; tomorrow is in Your hands. Please forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. When we’re tempted, rescue us or remove us from temptation. And in all things we give You the credit, because you are God and we are not.

A prayer from a friend of mine who was reflecting on the Lord’s prayer. So revealing to hear the truth in different words, like the same tune but in a different key.

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Why were there 2 tablets of stone?

Posted on March 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

“The first question is: why two tablets of stone? Surely, God could have written it all on one tablet, especially since the tablets were written on both sides (Exod 32:15). Personally I like the following explanation, which offends so many people that it must be politically correct:
“After having written the commandments, God wonders what to do with them. He first turns to the British, who look at the commandments and say: ‘Ah, we are not allowed to lie? This is not for us’. Next, he turns to the Germans, who say ‘Ach, no killing? Sorry, but no’. Then, he tries the French: ‘Oh we can’t sleep with other women?’ Finally, God turns to the people of Israel, who ask: ‘What does it cost?’ ‘Nothing’, says God. ‘Then give us two!’

-Magnus, in reply to Kennedy’s “Sinning in the Basement: What are the Rules? The Ten Commandments of Applied Econometrics”

I had a good laugh when I read this 🙂


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Series of little deaths…

Posted on March 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

“My deep desire to be united with God through Jesus did not spring from disdain for human relationships, but from an acute awareness of the truth that dying in Christ can be, indeed, my greatest gift to others. In this perspective, life is a long journey of preparation – of preparing oneself to truly die for others. It is a series of little deaths in which we are asked to release many forms of clinging and to move increasingly from needing others to living for them. The many passages we have to make as we grow from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood, and from adulthood to old age offer ever-new opportunities to choose for ourselves or to choose for others. Questions keep coming up during these passages and confront us with hard choices: Do I desire power or service; do I want to be visible or remain hidden; do I strive for a successful career or do I keep following my vocation? In this sense we can speak about life as a long process of dying to self, so that we will be able to live in the joy of God and give our lives completely to others”

“I know now that the words spoken to Jesus when he was baptized are words spoken to me and to all who are brothers and sisters of Jesus. My tendencies towards self-rejection and self-deprecation make it hard to truly hear these words and let them descend into the center of my heart. But once I have received these words fully, I am set free from my compulsion to prove myself to the world and can live in it without belonging to it. Once I have accepted the truth that I am God’s beloved child, unconditionally loved, I can be sent into the world to speak and to act as Jesus did. The great spiritual task facing me is to so fully trust that I belong to God that I can be free in the world – free to speak even when my words are not received; free to act even when my actions are criticized, ridiculed or considered useless; free also to receive love from people and to be grateful for all the signs of God’s presence in the world. I am convinced that I will truly be able to love the world when I fully believe that I am loved far beyond its boundaries.”

-Henri Nouwen – “Reaching Out” (Ch5 – Recovery)

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The God-breathed Book…

Posted on February 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

 

“If God has inspired a Book as the foundation of the Christian faith, there is a massive impulse unleashed in the world to teach people how to read. And if God ordained for some of that precious, God-breathed Book to be hard to understand, then God also unleashed an impulse to teach people how to think about what they read—how to read hard things and understand them, and how to use the mind in a rigorous way. Therefore, we endeavor in all of our intellectual inquiry to love God with our minds by thinking deeply and humbly about his word and his works.”

-From the Bethlehem College and Seminary Mission Statement

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