One Final Word from God!

Alternative music great for Advent.

One of the things that has occured to me as I get ready to celebrate the most joyous season of the Christian Year, is that there is some incredible music out there that we may not think of as “Christmas” music but in terms of the uniqueness and finality of the Incarnation is just perfect. Here’s just one example from Michael Card-

“You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.

He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.

And so the Father’s fondest thought took on flesh and bone.
He spoke the living luminous Word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard
Took place in God the Father as He spoke that final Word.”   (One final Word from the album “Joy in the Journey”)

The song captures the essence of the event and is indeed most fitting for Advent. Michael is a very talented artist not only in writing verse but in the music as well . His songs are laced with Biblical themes and characters such as Mary and Joseph. His well known Immanuel is another song perfect for Advent. These songs for me capture the true spirit of the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Listen to the title song from JOY in the JOURNEY.

 

Advent Can’t Come Soon Enough

Planning Ahead for the Advent Season 

If you’ve paid attention to recent posts, perhaps you’ve noticed that I have been in “Advent” mode for almost a month and its just the middle of November. I can’t explain it- maybe it is due to the year we’ve witnessed since last Advent and the urgency I feel to witness to the Incarnation Event to all who will give an ear, pointing to that event as the most signifcant of all events in this present world. 

The Coming of the Promised Deliverer

Once again this year, I am going to post about the resources over at The General Board of Disciplehip of the UMC. Here is a little teaser along with the link for planning for Advent, including the Scripture texts and the themes of worship:

“Advent places us into the sweep of the Eternal One breaking into history, awakens us to the radical disjuncture between God’s dream for creation and the mess we have made of it, and challenges us to join God’s mission to make all things new.Especially after this year of so much economic upheaval, it may be the ancient call of the Advent message, rather than the ephemeral call to recreate the “perfect Christmastime,” that the church and the people around us most need to hear and heed.

“The days are surely coming,” Jeremiah reminds. “Even so, come Lord Jesus,” the church in Revelation replies. May our reply this season join that of all the saints, here and now and in the age to come.

ADVENT PLANNING 2009 - I encourage you to check out the resources and the orientation unless you already have found your own. At the beginning of the Christian year (for most) is a great time to actively participate with Christians the world over in celebrating the Gift of the Son of God, Jesus the promised Christ.

 

A Catholic word to Evangelicals

The Blessed Virgin Mary in Catholic Faith and Life. 

What can happen when members of different Christian communities determine honestly to “engage differences between our communities, recognizing that the only unity pleasing to God, and therefore the only unity we may seek, is the unity in the truth” ? 

Since their first joint statement issued in 1994, a group calling themselves simply, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” have been meeting in a serious effort to listen, question, and speak to oneanother from their divided Christian traditions. They have been able to demonstrate remarkable agreement on the Christian faith and practice that love for oneanother the Head of the Church gave them to do as the New Commandment.

As we approach the Advent season, I want to post about the amazing openness and directness these unofficial representatives of the two groups  have been able to achieve in dealing with even the most difficult of themes that divide the Christian communions. The most recent statement from the ECT group deals with one of those difficult themes: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Christian Faith and Life. I want to say upfront that Evangelicals have much to benefit from this frank discussion, especially as we prepare to celebrate once again the birth of the Christ child. We can and must do a better job of giving Mary her proper place in the Biblical narrative and thus in the life of the churches. Stated here, is only the Catholic part of the conversation(and that in part). I don’t need to say anything about the Protestant position, and the points of disagreements. I am thankful for such a clear and forthright confession of the Catholic dogma on these points.

” We believe that Catholic teaching with respect to the Blessed Virgin Mary safeguards the fullness of revelation and deepens our understanding of God’s plan of salvation.”

“We here address, all too briefly, four aspects of that doctrine: the perpetual virginity of Mary, her Immaculate conception, her bodily Assumption into heaven, and her role, along with all the saints, in the communion of the Church. We do so in fidelity to ‘ the relation between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred Tradition as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God’ (Ut Unum Sint 79).

” The Bible is the foundation of all Catholic teaching. Catholics also believe, in accordance with Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to teach the Church all things (John 14:6), that, under the influence of the Spirit, the gospel of grace is more fully and completely understood. Thus the Catholic Church believes that in its listening to, praying with, and reflecting on the truth of Holy Scripture, the Spirit is active as a divine guide, leading to a rich and comprehensive consideration of God’s Word. The Spirit leads the Church to see the full implications of the gospel through the teaching of early Fathers, through ecumenical councils, through prayer and litergy, through the lives of saints, and through the study of theologians. All of these help the Church to see more clearly the profound meaning of Christ’s message and the extraordinary role of his mother, Mary, in the history of salvation.” ( from Do whatever he tells you, in First Things, Nov 2009, issue, p.51)

There is much, much more to this recent statement of Evangelicals and Catholics Together for your careful study, complete statement at FIRST THINGS.

Listen to Mary’s own confession of faith in the BIBLICAL MAGNIFICAT

 

The Day Mormonism Ended.

Don’t believe all you read in the newspaper!

I’ve commented to various people about my respect for some of the contributions of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and suggested that Christians should inform themselves by asking a simple question. “Is God trying to tell the rest of us some things by way of this faith tradition?” For one thing, how about their missionary zeal which has resulted in incredible world-wide growth. Ask Him yourself to open your eyes to some of the other fairly obvious lessons in this video.

 

The Redemption of Billy Cannon

Billy Cannon runs for an 89 yard LSU touch-down

On October 31, 1959, one of college footballs premier teams, the LSU Tigers, won a closely contested game with an amazing punt return by a Heisman trophy winner named Billy Cannon.

I was introduced to the Louisiana culture as a child, since my mother and her family for five generations were a part of it. This story over at ESPN is pure Louisiana culture if it is anything. But it is much more: it is the culture of the South and the place sports, especially football, plays in that culture. The folk heroes are more often than not, the football stars.

But Billy Cannon’s story-about a young married football star who seemed to have it all, after spending eleven years in the NFL, returned home to take up his life as a Dentist, and fell from grace. He was found guilty of counterfeiting $100 bills and sent to prison.

The Redemption of Billy Cannon is an excellent article that fully explains every factor in this story to the depth of infamy after the pinnacle of fame and the long road back to finding a place of honor in the State of Louisiana and beyond at age 72. No, you won’t find any mention of religion or religious faith in this story- it’s not that kind of redemption. I would rather call it a great example of redemption American vintage cultural style.

Be sure to read the whole story and watch the video of Cannon’s famous punt return at The Redemption of Billy Cannon. Thank you Wright Thompson and ESPN for the memory and the lesson on the American football culture.

 

Do Americans have Idols?

An interview with author Tim Keller.

Do Christians have blind spots when it comes to false gods?

An idol is something you rely on instead of God for your salvation. One of the religious idols is your moral record: “God accepts me because I’m living a good life.” I’m a Presbyterian, so I’m all for right doctrine. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the right doctrine. The right doctrine and one’s moral record are forms of power. Another is ministry success, similar to the idol of achievement. There are religious versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.

How does someone identify their idols?

Look at your daydreams. When you don’t have to think about something, like when you are waiting for the bus, where does your mind love to rest? Or, look at where you spend your money most effortlessly. Also, if you take your most uncontrolled emotions or the guilt that you can’t get rid of, you’ll find your idols at the bottom. Whenever I hear someone say, “I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,” it means that person has something that is more important than God, because God forgives them. If you look at your greatest nightmare—if something were to happen that would make you feel you had no reason to live—that’s a god.

How do we get rid of idols?

I confess that I don’t say much about that. Practicing spiritual disciplines is another book. I do say that analyzing and recognizing an idol is a step away from its power over you. You also have to have a heck of a prayer life. That prayer life can’t just be petitioning. There has to be encounter, experience, and genuine joy. You have to have Jesus Christ increasingly capture your affections.

Is it necessary to suffer disappointment before seeing that idols don’t satisfy?

I fear you may be right. I don’t want that to be true. Very often it’s much stronger than disappointment. It’s hard for me to look at a young person and know what their idols are, because usually something has to happen in their life to frustrate them for them to see that something has inordinate power over them. No one learned about their idols by being told about them.

Go to full-interview at Christianity Today by Sarah Bailey. I found this very significant that Keller puts his finger on exactly what others have suggested is especially true of conservative Presbyterians: The relentless pursuit of ”Right Doctrine”  worship.

 

The Forgotten Empire: Ancient Persia

Largely unknown in the west, the Ancient Persian empire which pre-dates the Islamic State of Iran by thousands of years, is crucial for understanding the proud heritage of Iranians. I was fortunate enough early in this blog, to discover a blogging mate from Iran who would remind me of this Persian heritage. Tragically, the armed assault on political resistance of large numbers of Iranians this summer has delayed that profitable inter-change.

After observing the veneration on Persia1 blog of Cyrus the Great, I was able to share my own admiration for the one in the Hebrew Bible who is referred to as “Anointed of God”. Now, there is an exposition of Ancient Persia in the British Museum and much available on the internet for all in the west to learn of this heritage and give it the respect that it deserves.

 

The Way that seems Right

What did the wise man of Proverbs have in mind?

Yours truly, E4Unity

I’m going to have another birthday in a few days so I guess that explains why I’m doing a little more cogitating than usual, thinking about life and how to live in a manner pleasing to the Creator and Sustainer of all life.

This phrase which comes from the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament,

caught my eye and off I went looking for just what the wise man meant.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death”. (14:12 and 16:25)

 

If you have a couple of minutes I’ll try to tell you the gist of my thoughts and then tell you what I discovered, from all people, Charles G. Finney, who seems to have come to the same answer.

 

I always took it for granted that in keeping with so many of the wise sayings about life by the wise man of Proverbs, that this “right way” of living was in stark contrast to all those he labels as “foolish”, “wicked”, “sinner”, “scoffer”, or even “backslider”, etc. It just made sense that this expression also referred to a specific, observable class of individuals who seemed to be radically different (by observation) than these others. And yet it struck me that he says these folks, living a way that seems to them to be the right way to life, ended up instead coming to the same end- death.

 

So I thought about other parts of the Biblical narrative, wondering if the answer was not clearly revealed in other places both in the New as well as the Old Testaments. Could it be, I mused to myself, that this has reference to the “religious” folks- those that not only believe this is the right way to live, but actually practice a specific codified system of rules of an organized religious order? In the context of the Old Testament, the keepers of the Old Covenant-those who lived by the rule of law?

 

Now I’ve speant a lot of time in Paul’s letter to the Romans over the last forty years or so, and I remember that part of Paul’s thesis in that letter is that there is something that the law, as perfect as it is, just can’t produce: the right way of living before God (righteous living). So to make a long time of meditating as simple as I can, that is exactly the conclusion I came to, not only reflecting upon one book of the Bible, but reflecting on the entire story-line. The reason why the announcement to the Shepherds that Jesus had been born was such good news, “tidings of great JOY to all peoples” makes sense to me now as I prepare for Advent season. Read the following Scripture and see if you see what I see:

“2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you [1] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [2] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:2-4)

To see what Finney said about

this in July, 1859, Go Here! (approaching his 67th birthday)

 

Getting to know our Teachers

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Dr. Kenn Gangel (1935-2009)

 

The year was 1966, I was twenty-four, happily married with three great kids. In June I left a job with Cessna Aircraft in Hutchinson, Kansas, and moved back to the Kansas City area to return to College. One of my professors that first year was Kenn Gangel. I never considered him the most important teacher I was to have in preparing for a vocation in the Christian ministry. That honor would be a toss-up between my Theology professor and my missions teacher. But still, I always knew that I owed something special to the one I would have three classes with in the field of Christian education; Introduction to the philosophy and history of CEd, Visual arts and methods, and in my senior year, Educational psychology.

Still, though I respected Kenn as a teacher, and even attended the same church that Kenn attended during my first year, I never really knew this man. Once out in ministry, I would learn from another Christian educator just how critical the “with-relationship” is between teacher and students. You know, the kind of relationship that Jesus had with his twelve disciples.

The funny thing is, that it wasn’t the age difference that kept me as a student from any kind of relationship- Kenn was only seven years older. When he first came to the College in 1960, he was about the same age that I was when I showed up at the same college six years later. I did follow Kenn’s own ministry trajectory off and on- I graduated in 1969 and he moved on tobigger and better schools in 1970. When the books started to come out, I would always say with a certain amount of pride, “This guy was my Christian education prof in college”.

Only now, as I read his on-line biography at Talbot, in a colection of twenty leaders in the field of Christian education, do I get a fuller picture of who this man was, where he came from, and how much influence he had on evangelical Christian education begining in 1970 when he went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity school to build their Christian education faculty. I hope you will read his bio, but I will list some of the more interesting details:

• Kenn was a first generation American, son of immigrants from Austria and Switzerland.
• At age 10, his father divorced his mother and abandoned the family; his godly working mother placed Kenn in a boarding school, the famous Stony Brook school of legendary Frank Gaebelein, for two years. Then after she obtained a job as a cook at Wheaton Academy, Kenn went to high school as a benefit of his mother’s employment. (someone was looking out for this lady and her son)
• Kenn had a dramatic spiritual turn-around that gave him the high motivation in Academics, leadership, and the Christian family.
• Kenneth Gangel authored or co-authored some 50 books on a wide range of topics including education, leadership/administration, family, and the Bible.

Begining with the College where I met Kenn in 1966, Kenn went on to serve on the faculty of four other Christian schools including Miami Christian College where he served as President, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Toccoa Falls College, where he spent his retirement years.

Dr. Kenneth Gangel Biography at Talbot School of Theology

 

A Night to Remember

A small, insignificant meeting in Madison County, Kentucky.

Sunday evening, a small group of us met together with a special guest, Dr.John H. Armstrong, President of ACT3 Ministries.( see previous post- Equipping Leaders for Unity). It was a very informal time of admittance into an intimate and personal audience with our guest who spoke to us about many experiences in the past as well as his forthcoming book. As if to highlight what we experienced, one of those present closed with a prayer of thanksgiving and intercession for this servant of God, after reading from this text of Holy Scripture:

8 ”Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.” (Zechariah 4)

John has written at least twelve books over the years; all about his three passions: Christ, Holy Scripture, and Christ’s Church. He has made significant contributions to the churches, advocating the celebration of unity and the relentless pursuit for greater understanding of Christians for traditions other than their own . 

John Armstrong's new book (Zondervan- March 2010)

 Among John’s greatest gifts to the church at large, are the books in which he served as the general editor:” The Compromised Church” (1998),”The Glory of Christ” (2002), “Understanding Four Views on Baptism” (2007), and “Understanding Four Views on The Lord’s Supper” (2007). In each of these books, John brings his own wealth of knowledge of the historical churches and their doctrines as the context for authors presenting particular views on key issues of the Christian Church. His introduction serves to set the purpose and focus of the dialogue and introduce the featured contributors. Then following the presentations, John has a concluding chapter, summarizing the theme and suggesting lessons for all to be edified. Then he adds a bibliography of resources for further study. I realize that not all Christians and even leaders are ready to benefit from such contributions, but some of us are indebted to John for greatly enhancing our understanding of the family of Christ in all of her diversity.

Sometimes, the greatest gems for me personally have come from the “appendix” where additional quotes are included. In his book on the Lord’s Supper, I am finding some real treasures. I conclude with one from Emil Brunner:

“Why did Jesus command the observation of this rite? He did not give his disciples any other similiar instructions about divine worship. Why this? Is it not sufficient to preach and believe his gospel, the gospel of his atoning death? Why this ceremony in our churches?

For a long time I asked myself this question. . .without finding the right answer, until the answer sprang to my mind form this text (I Corinthians 10:16-17): we must note the dual meaning of the phrase ‘body of Christ’. On the one hand it refers to the body broken for us on the cross of Golgotha; this is symbolized or figuratively expressed in the broken bread, just as the outpoured wine represents the blood of Christ outpoured for us on the cross. That is the usual interpretation which we are familiar with from our confirmation instruction. It is correct insofar as it goes, but it is incomplete. For the body of Christ means in the New Testament something else: the church. The latter is the body of Christ because Christians are incorporated into the eternal Christ by faith and the Holy Spirit. Thus our text says: ‘ We who are many, are one body’. There arises from us, who are a multiplicity of individuals, a unity, something whole and cohesive, kneeded together.”

Brunner goes on to say what I firmly believe is the missing function in most celebrations of the Lord’s Table: “What is effected through the common participation in the atoning death of Jesus Christ is the unity of the church. . . a miracle does take place in that those individuals who formerly were their own lord and master now are ruled by the one Lord, and to form a manifold of separate individuals, each living and caring for themselves, there arises a unity, one body, of which each believer is a member and Jesus Christ the Head, controlling and guiding all.”

Can anything be more central than this when we come together to eat the bread and drink the wine? Of course Jesus the Christ, the Head of the Body himself, is in our midst reminding us all that He is the New Humanity and we are participants by virtue of His work in us constituting the unity which He controls and directs-we are celebrating the fruit and travail of His sacrifice on the cross which is the Body of Christ. And we will faithfully do this until He returns with the future consumation and glorification of what is now still under construction.

Thank you John for taking the time to share yourself and your passions and vision with us. It truly will be a night to remember for all of us present.