Here’s a video of Francis Chan describing the silliness of the term “radical” obedience. What we think is “radical” is actually normal. Something to think about.
[HT: the Resurgence]
Mark Driscoll, in an editorial section of The Washington Post, gives a very succinct historical overview of how today’s culture came to such divergent views of sex. The following are the three views that he identifies:
For those in Ekklesia521, take this opportunity to read through the whole article and see where you land in one of these three categories currently. And then prayerfully, with a spirit of repentance, consider where it is that God wants you to be.
Again, click here for the entire article.
… I have found myself longing for a sense of discipline.
Not longing for some kind of a rules-based relationship with God so I can have a measuring stick for whether I’m doing a good job at being a Christian, but discipline. Discipline that honors God and lives in the middle of grace. Discipline that focuses my mind and heart. That’s what I want. So that’s what I’m going after, by God’s grace. Here are some steps to doing so I’m trying to implement in my life:
1. Whatever you do, do it in faith. The temptation when you engage in spiritual discipline is to emphasize the will. But it doesn’t have to be that way; in fact, if it is that way, our efforts are doomed to fail because our best efforts will run out of steam. Instead, we should focus on faith. We should swing our legs out of bed in belief that God wants to meet with us. We should fast in faith that Jesus is better. We should make the conscious effort to refocus on belief, rather than exclusively the will.
2. Accompany spiritual discipline with physical exercise. The gospel engages the whole person – mental, spiritual, and even physical. For me I know, when I am exercising physically it helps me tremendously in spiritual exercise, if for no other reason than it wakes me up and gets the blood pumping.
3. Set yourself up for success. If I’m going to try and read the Bible in the morning, I need to set it out and get it ready the night before. I may need to set the automatic timer on the coffee maker. I definitely need to go to bed early enough the night before in order. I need to do anything I can in advance to make it as easy and convenient as possible for me to be disciplined.
4. Be consistent. I’ve tried to set my alarm at a different time each day, according to what I had going on in the day. I would set the alarm for an hour or so before I needed to be somewhere or do something, and each day it was either a little earlier or a little later than the day before. It doesn’t work. When you choose to set your alarm for the same time, you establish a rythm in your body and it gets a little easier every day.
5. Be realistic. For me, that means scheduling a day a week for a break. If I know I can sleep a little later on Saturday or Sunday, it helps me on those difficult mornings.
A while back, my friend Mike Wittmer, author of Heaven is a Place on Earth and Don’t Stop Believing, blogged about how postmodern innovators in the church (”emergents”) are challenging the age old assumption that people are born broken, crippled by the guilt and pollution of original sin. He deals with emergent leader Doug Pagitt’s book A Christianity Worth Believing where Doug “devotes fifty pages to debunking the myth of total depravity and the Reformed standards, such as the Westminster Confession, which teach it. He says that original sin implies that people ’suck’, and if there is one thing we know from watching a newborn child, it is that people ‘don’t suck.’”
Mike offers a corrective to Doug’s radical misunderstanding by writing:
As with most of the issues raised by postmodern innovators, the solution is not to opt for one side or the other but to embrace both. We must follow Augustine, who learned from his battles with Manicheism on one extreme and Pelagianism on the other, to say that people are created but fallen, and fallen but created. People are created in the image of God, and so they have enormous value and, through common grace, the ability to do good to others. But people are also born rebels. We may often be good to each other, but none of us is good toward God. Adam and Eve bit the fruit in a futile bid to be like God, and their children have not stopped chasing the dream.
Mike is saying the same thing that Cornelius Plantinga wrote in his book Beyond Doubt:
People tend to make two mistakes when they think about the redeemed life. The first is to underestimate the sin that remains in us; it’s still there and it can still hurt us. The second is to underestimate the strength of God’s grace; God is determined to make us new. As a result, all Christians need to say two things. We admit that we are redeemed sinners. But we also say boldly and joyously that we are redeemed sinners.
Read the rest of Mike’s insightful post here.
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