So, this week has been a really wild and crazy week for me. I have been prepping to go out of town next week. Something that in my job is never that much fun, especially when you get back and get to deal with and hear....Oh nevermind. The point is I am excited about taking a vacation, a real vacation. This will be the first vacation we have taken since we moved to Mobile over three years ago. When Susan and I were growing up our families idea of a vacation was going and working in granny's yard for four days and stopping at the lake on the drive home, sounds like a mission trip to me. Anyway, I want Hayden to experience a real vacation (wow, do I sound like a big consumeristic whiner or what?!) I mean don't get me wrong, I am better for those experiences but I think a balance would have been healthier for our family.
So, we leave tomorrow afteroon to hang out with our friend
Walt, Hayden is going to like him, she's never met him before.
So a side Disney funny:
Hayden has gotten really into a bunch of the Disney princesses, while we are at disney we will attend a couple of events with princesses. Her two favorite right now are Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. I think they are cool too, the only problem is, well, she's two and has a great vocabulary and pronunciation for many words but these are two names we just can't get down. Typically, this is what we end up with: Snow White = "No Wipe," Sleeping Beauty = "Stinky Booty." It's true. So she walks arouund the house saying, "Daddy Ina see no wipe stinky booty."
The first time Susan and I heard this we nearly fell over, I am sorry that's just funny!
Take that where you want...The beauty and innocence of two.
As some of you may or may not know, I am taking classes. I will always be taking classes, it probably will never end. I have many desires and educational goals, but who knows if I will ever reach them all, I probably will.
Anyway, I am enrolled in Liberty Universities Distance Program, I like it, it's really challenging, it is making me think about what I believe - outside of what I learned at
FU or
HCU. Mainly because, well
Liberty is a school with a Baptist heritage, I am really enjoying the classes in a way like never before and I actually feel challenged, not that I haven't before, but this is just well...Different.
Right now I am in a Theology class and we are in the opening stages and reviewing some things about soteriology - the study of salvation. Calvinism and Arminianism are challenging theories, especially for someone who has a CoC education and background, it just doesn't seem like we talked about these much in the restoration college settings. Anyway, this week I had to read an article by a man named Terrance Tiessen, the article was about Divine Justice and Universal Grace. The concept was to review/critique the article and then type up a conclusion - all of which is to be shared with an entire work group. The critique was easy, let's face it, I come from a critics background. For some reason though, I had a harder time with the conclusion, you know sharing my concluding thoughts about the article. I know you don't have the whole article in front of you, but I want to share my conclusion here, it's a bit off the wall maybe. Maybe my professor isn't going to be overly impressed, maybe it wasn't exactly what he was looking for, but in my heart and in all honesty it's all that I could muster, see what you think...
As I review the Article, “Divine Justice and Universal Grace: A Calvinistic Proposal by Terrence Tiessen" I am asked to think about what I believe regarding God’s calling to man. Will God overlook those who have not “heard” the gospel, and accept them as “saved” based on his own willingness that “not one should perish?” I am not sure. In this answer, I know it sounds much like someone who doesn’t have all of the answers or like someone who hasn’t studied the issue. Well, that isn’t true. My response is not one of not knowing the facts, I could argue about God’s grace and willingness to save all men, I could share that I believe God will not allow those who don’t know of Him to make it in to heaven. But to me, this is not an issue of the right answers or knowing God’s judgment, which we know, none of us can. It is a question of being comfortable with God’s sovereignty. Am I comfortable to accept that I don’t know all of the answers but God does? The answer is yes. I realize this is a study in an attempt to find concrete reasons to believe one way or another, but I can’t say that I do. Some would say that is wishy washy, others might say that this an irresponsible response to God’s truths and that it is even too propositional in nature. I believe that this is me responsibly accepting that God is God and I am not, and that I was not put here to be a theological answering machine, but that I am to give an account of my willingness to seek God’s commands, and live them out in the context of daily life and be ever willing to share the hope and good news that is Jesus to all that I come in to contact with. Over the last six months I have spent much time along the gulf coast region of our country, and through that time I have come to see that God’s commands to me rest more clearly in places like Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus shares the account of allowing the Kingdom of God to break in to this plane in an incarnational way. I have seen the brokenness of people in pain over tragedy and heartache and I know that my God has mercy upon them. May we all as followers of Christ seek to realize that God’s grace is sufficient for all of our shortcomings and weaknesses and may we realize that this is the ministry of the cross.
Have a great weekend, would you?
Added 2.11.06 - I just got news from my instructor, he gave me a 100 on the work. That's pretty neat.
I recently got this note from one of the teens in our youth group...
"hey chris, i just wanted to tell you that coming to
pc is the best thing that has ever happened to my life, and becoming a christian is awesome..."
There is this sense that I have always gotten, that somehow Christianity is about what you did to get where you got. In other words, once you become a Christian, through baptism, then there you were. You had it, nothing else to do...
Over the few years, I have had my world rocked! It's been rocked by a passion that has been our Church "battle cry."
It's this one:
Matthew 28:19 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I have been turning that baby around in my head for a very long time. Up and down I have gone, just over and over. I guess the reason it's gotten me going is because of what it says...
You know, "go and (1) make disciples" and (2)" baptizing them."
Now this issue in my mind, is not my own personal theological debate about the specificity of the text. My issue is one of ordering.
1 - The order in which Jesus shares this thought:
1 - make disciples
2 - Baptizing them
If what Jesus is saying is what he really meant, then I have to think two things:
(The disclaimer is: this might rock your world a little bit ;-))
1 - Discipleship is the process that starts well before we are "baptized" or to take it one step further, "become Christians" this is hard to believe, I know. Not to mention that discipleship is an art of becoming and ultimately the journey never ends, I know most folks (I'd like to think...) would agree with that statement.
And...
2 - You actually can know Jesus before you are ever "baptized." Or even baptism in itself holds more for our own personal benefit than it did for Jesus, a ceremonial cleansing if you will. (OK, for some folks who read my blog, this is a big deal because, in my tradition, that is not a widely held sentiment.)
Keep in mind, I am not trying to stir a debate on whether or not baptism is an essential part of becoming a disciple, I'll let the text speak for itself. I guess I, like so many others, continue on a journey of what it is Jesus is trying to accomplish through words and statements like this one.
As I finish out this text, Jesus shares that each disciple might learn the commands, that He has already taught his followers.
Commands like:
Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Commands that I feel are made less important because of the rituals and traditions we sometimes cling to. As a matter of fact I would venture to say that many would even view these as secondary teachings of Jesus, (although maybe not intentionally) less important than certain scriptural examples or acts more specific to the time and culture.
As I read the note I was sent by one of our teens, that sentence struck me, and it resonated in my mind because, to me these are the elementary teachings of Jesus. These are the basics.
Yet they are so full of challenge and truly are "deep" to me. The note that was sent to me, while part of it may have been grammatically incorrect, I think it hits the point right on, "becoming a christian is awesome!"
I am "becoming" what God wants me to be. I am not there yet, but I pray that "becoming" more like Jesus is what happens for me. I also pray that God will continue to help the guy who shared this with me, to continue to "become" the "christian" that God wants him to be. Sometimes I am afraid that in our becoming we have already become what we want and maybe have become less interested in what God wants us to become...
I am not one to send out e-mail forwards, actually I pretty much don't like them at all! I got this FW today, and since I don't forward e-mails, I thought I would post this here. It's interesting, maybe it will bring you a laugh, a sarcastic laugh, but a laugh either way....
(1) Zero GravityWhen NASA started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered thatball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASAscientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes inzero gravity, upside-down, on almost any surface including glass and attemperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C.The Russians used a pencil. Your taxes are due again--enjoy paying them.
(2) Our Constitution"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we justgive them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, and it'sworked for over 200 years.And, we're not using it anymore."
(3) Ten CommandmentsThe real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse isthat you cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not CommitAdultery" and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges andpoliticians .It creates a hostile work environment.
