Today's Devotional Thought

Passage: 1 Corinthians 10
Notes: The overarching principle in relationships in the church is: be considerate of others first, even if you're just not sure of where they stand.
Yet: inanimate objects are not inherently evil, and while you may avoid something for the sake of another Christian, you have the freedom to eat/use when there's no danger of offending another's conscience.
Mind the negative example of those who have gone before us, and live holy lives.

Today's Devotional Thought

Passage: 1 Corinthians 6
Notes: Lord, that we would have the gentleness and courage to create a true Christian community that avoids worldly courts of law among ourselves, and lives pure lives. May we be authentic witnesses to your demands, but even stronger witnesses of your good news. Please give us the courage to not modify your gospel to suit the desires of our culture, yet have the wisdom to not pointlessly drive people away from you with sound bites and decisive speech. 

Today's Devotional Thought

Passage: 1 Corinthians 5
Notes: Accommodation is exactly what the spirit of this day would have us do...and don't we have a lot of leaven leavening the dough of the Church today. Yet, how do we avoid legalism on the other hand? Who has the spiritual wisdom and the guts to correctly lead a congregation so that church discipline heals rather than destroys? How will an entire community have the spiritual discernment to differentiate between a 'wicked person' and the one who is genuinely desiring to follow God, but still battling the fleshly nature (as in progressive sanctification)? How would a pastor even broach this subject in a culture that looks to cultural values ("live and let live") over biblical teaching? Yet, how do we avoid abuse in so fleshly a Church if the church attempts to practice church discipline? On the other hand, in a large and more anonymous church, how many people does it take so that "the Church" is making a decision - or will anonymity shield any but the most obviously wicked person? "Not associate with" - where we're not sure, may we err on the side of love and associate, or will we then just ignore this teaching, not really knowing anyone well enough?

Today's Devotional Thought

Passage: Ephesians 4
Notes: Walking worthy of God's calling - can there be a higher standard?
Humble, gentle, patient, lovingly tolerant, preserving unity diligently, we are to be gifts of Christ to the church, equipping the Body for service (which makes us servants first), goals: unity, knowledge of God, maturity; speak the truth lovingly, dependence on other Body members, replace former behaviors with holiness and righteousness, industriousness to be able to give gifts, speak to edify and bless (give grace), kind, tender-hearted, forgiving.

Today's Devotional Thought

Passage: Ephesians 1
Notes: Truth - we are the recipients of EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING! (3)
Command - we were chosen to be HOLY and BLAMELESS before God. (4)
Truth - we exist (live) for the praise of the glory of his grace. (6) -> how then shall we live to fulfill this charge? That's why He gave us the Holy Spirit! (13-14)
Truth - Wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God come in response to prayer - even intercession from others (Paul). (17) -> what an important charge to us!
Lord, please help me to faithfully fulfill my mission of living in such a manner that you will receive praise, and interceding for others (and myself) that they may increase in the knowledge of you - and give praise for their love for you!

Why Fast?

One of the benefits of fasting is to teach us the discipline and build the habits to be content with and do with less, leaving us with more to give to others.

Why I Am Not Giving Up Facebook for Lent

As a minister, I'm in the people/relationships business. It may not be all I do, but it is a major part. Facebook is one of four major communications platforms for me (face-to-face, phone, and e-mail being the others). If I'm going to be salt and light, shutting off communication is not going to be my first step.

"He is not guilty of any crime."

Jesus' barbarious whipping and torture is sandwiched between two professions from Pilate, "He is not guilty of any crime" (John 18:38 NLT) and "I find him not guilty" (John 19:6 NLT). Earlier, Peter was trying to go down fighting as he attacks the high priest's slave (John 18:10). But when Christ calls us to suffer with him, it is not with swords (or guns) and earthly power, but according to his example: love, forgiveness, and enduring unrighteousness. As we put our allegiance in the king of the universe, we will naturally conflict with the powers of this world, and ultimately Satan. Their verdict will not always be truthful, "he is not guilty of any crime." Regardless of their assessment, we have reason to expect suffering. Yet, we know him through "fellowship in His suffering, being conformed to His death" (Philippians 3:10 NASB).

Do Not Judge, Lest You be Judged

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned."
Luke 6:37 NASB

Therefore, any judging is wrong and to be deplored. Right?

Then why might Jesus say,

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
John 7:18 NASB

Why does Paul tell the church in Corinth

"For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present."
1 Corinthians 5:3 NASB

If I am going to be a witness to others with the goal of them becoming part of the family of God, I will have to come to a conclusion whether I believe they are already Christians or not. Otherwise, I'd have to treat Billy Graham and Michael Newdow the same. Equally, if a church is going to practice the biblical mandate of Church discipline, it will be impossible to treat any action we didn't commit ourselves as morally neutral or beneficial.

We should heed what Jesus taught us in Luke 6, in particular what he says about mercy. Yet, building a nugget theology of "any judgment of what things are like at any time is to be deplored" will not make us more, but less obedient to Scripture. It'll merely make us pander to the Zeitgeist.

Discipleship in Community

If we learn from one another, and God speaks to us through other believers, what if the service involved tables and food, and we'd have a short sermon, half an hour of food and conversation at the tables, and then a wrap-up of some sort, maybe even with people reporting back from the tables? It might even make prayer easier.

Ouch

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Ezekiel 16:49 ESV

Re-Establishment of Relationship

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

The goal of the gospel is the re-establishment of relationship. Forgiveness from sin is the path to the goal.

Shorter Lines in the Emergency Rooms

"Illegal is illegal," said Pearce, a driving force on the issue in Arizona. "We'll have less crime. We'll have lower taxes. We'll have safer neighborhoods. We'll have shorter lines in the emergency rooms. We'll have smaller classrooms."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36735281/ns/politics/

I suppose when Rep. Pearce comes across the man left "half dead by the side of the road" (Luke 10:30-37), he's planning to check whether he's an illegal immigrant ("require anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant to produce identification"), and call the cops instead of get him help. Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, don't call yourself a Christian and refuse emergency medical treatment over immigration matters.

Love Is Kind

kind

to believe, attitude*, think, speak, and act in a manner that is born out of and moves the other closer to shalom. 1 Corinthians 13:4

Thoughts?

*: I am using attitude as a verb here.

Association with Non-Christians; Judging Others

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler - not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13

Random thought: as I re-read this, I couldn't help remembering the case of Ms. Kessmann, until yesterday leader of Germany's protestants, who resigned in the wake of a drunk driving episode. Lots of people were declaring that she alone could make her decision, or that she should not resign. "The drunkard"... "remove the wicked man." Maybe God does think this is a bigger deal than some people would like to believe.

Nonetheless, my real reason for posting this were the themes of, "don't rip [sinners] for acting like [sinners]" (anybody ever read 1 John 3?), and "quit judging others - that's God's job."

Blessed

What do you have that you did not receive? 1 Corinthians 4:7

When pride or self-satisfaction come knocking, remember.

Lord, Save Us From the Knock-out Punches

How often have you received this e-mail?

Christian says...
Muslim says...
Christian says...
Muslim says...
Christian says...
Muslim says...
Christian delivers knock-out punch line...
Muslim has no response.

How I wish we could make these e-mails go away. First off, I doubt many of them ever happened. Maybe more importantly, things don't work that way. Do we really think that very many people will want to get to know the 'God who is love' when their experience with his followers is that of an intellectual argument - which in our e-mail, they lost?

And yet, we keep reading them and forwarding them with gusto. Trust me, if Jesus had e-mail, he'd hit 'delete.' He may click "unsubscribe," too.

W.W.J.D.

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps. 1 Peter 2:21

I have to wonder how many of the fadistos ever thought about that they were committing themselves to suffering, or more specifically, to taking up their cross.

Doing My Best

If the 18 teams of the Bundesliga (top German soccer league) have an average of 25 players on roll, that's 450 pro's. Compared to the 6.3 million members of the Deutscher Fussball-Bund, that's 0.007%. Am I in the top 0.007% in my calling? Am I on my way there? Or do I want to spend my life playing Kreisklasse?

Yes! Yes! Yes! BIG News

Source: Logos (probably originally Zondervan)

I know, most of you probably couldn't care less. But to me, this is just about the biggest news that could have happened - as far as Bible study, pastoral service, etc. is concerned. Zondervan has been one of - if not the - hottest publisher in Christian resources recently. One of their highly acclaimed resources is the NIV Application Commentary. They also publish all the Purpose-Driven materials, as far as I know. Until recently, they used their own software, making all their great resources unavailable to Logos users. But as of Monday last week, Zondervan is going to publish resources in Logos format. That's just plain about the best news on the Bible software front that I could have had. Some of the resources I'm looking forward to:

Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: New Testament
NIV Application Commentary: New Testament
Africa Bible Commentary

There are OT counterparts, too, and plenty of other great stuff - and it'll only get more.