Learning to walk in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount
Next semester I am teaching a freshman college course on Old Testament. It’s a survey class. One of the exercises I am toying with is having passages of Scripture to memorize.
If you had about six passages to assign, what Old Testament passages would you assign… and why?
Let me hear from you!
New Year’s resolutions are tough. Yet, there are some spiritual exercises I want to increase in my life.
1. Increase in prayer.
We will open the new year with a week of prayer. We will have a silent retreat in February. The Lord is challenging me in fasting and prayer. I need to call out on God in a more intense way this next year.
2. Preaching and study.
It’s tough, but I am going to try to stick to one translation. The HCSB hasn’t been a favorite. Despite not liking how they handle the gender issue, I am going to give it a go and see if I can use it on a regular basis. At church, I will be preaching through Thessalonians, and then possibly the Gospel of John. I long for a return to expository preaching and keeping at that discipline for a time.
There are so many more areas, but I want to be RESOLVED in my walk with the Lord. This past semester as I have taught Ephesians, I have had a deeper desire to grab hold of the vast riches of the Kingdom of God. It takes intentionality! Be resolved!
I am wrapping up a semester of teaching basic theology to students. I am taking them through an exercise where they are developing their own statement of faith. Interestingly enough, I have come across posts about essential theology.
T.C. links to Pen and Parchment for the discussion. There are some good thoughts.
One thing to be reminded of is this: It’s not a set of beliefs that SAVES you. It’s Jesus that saves. But there is RIGHT THINKING. Paul talks about how we learn Christ in Ephesians. There are essentials to the faith. Quite honestly, I think the essentials are FEW. We can get long-winded on a lot of things, but those are secondary issues. What is primary in your faith? What is essential theology in your belief system?
I like the list compiled as essential:
The orthodox belief goes further in many areas, but these are good essentials.
Ben Witherington posts a great piece on the fear caused by emails. We get so many warnings, we’re just flat-out afraid to do anything!
So, make sure you read this and send it on to 10 people you love, and then email me back… Oh… never mind. Got carried away!
A recent post over at ScriptureZealot stirred my thinking. Some of the more incendiary comments have since been edited out, but it stirs me nonetheless.
It raised the specter of hard-line Calvinism simply saying, “If you don’t believe in TULIP (and some very specific tenets of Calvinism) then you are preaching another gospel.” That’s the subtle undertone of the piece by Horton. I do not accuse Jeff on his blog of raising such a division!
But when I read of our postmodern “emergent” (or whatever they’re calling it these days) struggles with the uniqueness of Christ, I think, “Why do we have to split hairs between Calvinism and Arminianism? We have bigger problems!”
A recent posting on Christianity Today demonstrates this issue. This new working out of theology and evangelism is scary. When the author of the article tried to bring the leaders of the seminar to a point of demonstrating the uniqueness of Christ and the proposition of Christ, they just wouldn’t declare what Jesus himself declared: He IS the way, the truth and the life!
Consider this disturbing passage:
On the last day, the discussion focused on Christian engagement with other religions. I resonated with much of what was said: the need for respectful dialogue, the willingness to listen and learn, and the intent to promote peace and understanding. But I also experienced a growing sense of unease. As my concern crystallized, I asked our distinguished guests: As those who self-identified with the Christian tradition, how did they understand the uniqueness of Jesus Christ?
Their response was that of course Jesus is unique. But, they continued, so are the leaders of the other world religions. While it was certainly true that Jesus is unique and different from other religious leaders, they said, it is also true that they are unique in relation to him. The uniqueness of Jesus was no different from that of any other important religious figure. Only in this way, they suggested, is equality among religions established as a basis for interreligious dialogue.
Those last two sentences should raise flags, set off alarms, and cause us to fall to our knees in repentance. To me, this isn’t laid at the feet of Calvin or Arminius. And it’s far beyond the problem of holding to some TULIP formula.
We have problems, friends. And it goes FAR beyond some debate between J.I. Packer and N.T. Wright. Neither of those men is preaching another gospel. (Horton, it seems, or maybe Packer, or both, seem to think Wright is proclaiming another gospel.) My contention is Wright is down-right ORTHODOX compared to the horrible theology presented in the last two lines of the quoted passage above.
Jesus is the Savior. Not just MY Savior. He is THE Savior. THE way. THE truth. THE life. No one… NO ONE… comes to the Father except by him.
Eph. 4:20 — “That is not the way you learned Christ.”
There IS a way to learn Christ. We are taught in him. As I am reflecting over this passage for a class I am teaching, I am reminded of many people who taught me in Christ. Some were personal. Others through books and other media.
My parents taught me serving Christ and giving. My pastor, John Skinner, taught me about prayer. Doug Lowenberg taught me about ministry. Don Meyer discipled me in Bible study. Deborah Gill discipled me in Greek and ministry. Lois Malcolm discipled me in theology. Walter Sundberg discipled me in history. Larry Hale discipled me in ministry.
Richard Foster and Dallas Willard teach me spiritual formation.
I have learned Christ. I am being taught in him. I am deeply grateful for those who have helped me learn Christ!
I have no idea how to do this, so it may just flop. In my post on Icons, I mentioned our own Protestant “icons.” Bitsy invited me to start a “meme” on your five favorite Protestant Icons.
So, I will tag Bitsy, Brian, Jeff, Gary and TC. Your turn. Who are your Protestant icons?
So… how do these people know they are “tagged?” Is this fun yet? 
I am working through Acts 20 for the class I am teaching. As usual, I am so humbled by Paul’s incredible heart for the church. He pours out his heart to the Ephesian elders and lets them know the high price of pastoring.
My question is this: In today’s church environment are we training church leaders or pastors? Have we moved so far to the position of teaching leadership skills, we have neglected the necessity of pastoring people? Are we more focused on skills and less focused on truly LOVING the Church? Just some thoughts.
Philip Yancey will usually make me mad and glad all in one column. He does it again in his last CT column. (He says he’s taking a break.)
He adds some thoughts and cautions we REALLY need to hear! (I don’t think we will, but I can only echo his strong voice.)
Although I admire the innovation, I would caution that mimicking cultural trends has a downside. At a recent youth workers conference I attended, worship meant a DJ playing techno music at jet-engine volume while a sweaty audience crowded the stage, jumping up and down while shouting spiritual one-liners. At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I couldn’t help questioning the depth of worship. Seminaries now recommend 15-minute sermons in light of shorter attention spans. Publishers want slimmer books, with simpler words and concepts. Will we soon have a 140-character Twitter gospel?
I truly get upset when some church does something like playing music at jet-engine volume and calling themselves cutting edge. Somehow equating volume or other mimicks of this world with true spirituality or “real gospel” misses the point. What are we doing? We’re reduced to bumper sticker Christianity without the bumper stickers.
We have SO MUCH NOISE! Why not have something that offered silence?
We already buy too much stuff, why do we keep marketing CDs and T-shirts? We want to confront consumerism, so we’ll make a radical T-shirt and sell it? What’s that all about?
In the name of all that is holy, will someone please stand up and say that being “counter-cultural” doesn’t mean looking like the prevailing culture? Will someone finally confront these goofy ideas and say, “The only thing ‘counter-cultural’ about you is it’s not like some other CHURCH SERVICE… BIG DEAL!!!!” Could we please get some guts back in our Christianity?
We need to hear a clear call concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trouble is, we get into arguments about WHAT the gospel really is! Which is probably what makes us evangelical. Too bad.
Recent blog activity has been caught up in a discussion over the Manhattan Declaration. This is a statement coming from Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals concerning three major points about our current culture in America. The debate is over whether this is just some right wing political move or it’s legitimate.
Some of the disagreement comes down to theology. How can an evangelical stand alongside a Catholic? Some objections (like from John MacArthur) raise up old lines of division that show the Body of Christ really has a hard time standing together for just about ANYTHING without an argument breaking out. (There’s a reason it’s called the “family” of God, I suppose.)
Some objections raised would be Catholics and Orthodox theology. Perhaps it’s also the veneration of saints and icons. There are fundamentalists and Evangelicals who have a serious problem with the saints and icons of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
This stirred my thoughts. In my own sordid sense of humor, I would present the idea that while we don’t have “icons” in the sense of the Orthodox Church, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Reformed and other Protestants do have our own versions. We take the “high” road and say it’s not worship. But I would argue there are times we fall into celebrity cults in the Church.
It’s a serious issue I’ve seen raised since the days of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Now, it’s even hit the Reformed movement. The likes of Mark Driscoll and others raise serious questions about our tendency to celebrate certain people. I am NOT saying Driscoll and others seek worship! I am saying we tend to set these guys up in places they do not belong.
I would offer (in a sense of humor kind of way) some of our Protestant “icons” through the centuries.
Luther
Calvin
Graham
Hinn
Driscoll
Piper
