Romans: Grace for Restless Hearts

If you know a college student or young adult  or you are a college student or young adult in Statesboro, GA join us August 21st as we kickoff our fall study of Romans! 

Tom Wright on The Bible part 1

Below is a list of some of my favorite quotes from Wright's book Scripture and The Authority of God.

"Taken as a whole, the church clearly can't live without the Bible, but it doesn't seem to have much idea of how to live with it" (preface).

"Integrity consists not of having no presuppositions but of being aware of what one's presuppositions are and of the obligation to listen to and interact with those who have different ones" (13).

"Scripture itself points--authoritatively, if it does indeed possess authority!--away from itself and to the fact that the final and true authority belongs to God himself, now delegated to Jesus Christ" (22).

"The biblical writers live with the tension of believing both that in one sense God has always been sovereign over the world and that in another sense this sovereignty, this saving rule, is something which must break afresh into the world of corruption, decay, and death, and the human rebellion, idolatry, and sin which are so closely linked with it" (27).

"A fully Christian view of the Bible includes the idea of God's self-revelation but, by setting it in a larger context, transforms it. Precisely because the God who reveals himself is the world's lover and judge, rather than its absentee landlord, that self-revelation is always to be understood within the category of God's mission to the world, God's saving sovereignty let loose through Jesus and the Spirit and aimed at the healing and renewal of all creation" (29).

Ash Wednesday Readings

Joel 2

Locusts Invade like an Army

 ¹ Sound the alarm in Jerusalem^[a]!
      Raise the battle cry on my holy mountain!
   Let everyone tremble in fear
      because the day of the Lord is upon us.
 ² It is a day of darkness and gloom,
      a day of thick clouds and deep blackness.
   Suddenly, like dawn spreading across the mountains,
      a great and mighty army appears.
   Nothing like it has been seen before
      or will ever be seen again. ³ Fire burns in front of them,
      and flames follow after them.
   Ahead of them the land lies
      as beautiful as the Garden of Eden.
   Behind them is nothing but desolation;
      not one thing escapes.
 ⁴ They look like horses;
      they charge forward like warhorses.^[b]
 5 Look at them as they leap along the mountaintops.
      Listen to the noise they make—like the rumbling of chariots,
   like the roar of fire sweeping across a field of stubble,
      or like a mighty army moving into battle.
 ⁶ Fear grips all the people;
      every face grows pale with terror.
 ⁷ The attackers march like warriors
      and scale city walls like soldiers.
   Straight forward they march,
      never breaking rank.
 ⁸ They never jostle each other;
      each moves in exactly the right position.
   They break through defenses
      without missing a step.
 ⁹ They swarm over the city
      and run along its walls.
   They enter all the houses,
      climbing like thieves through the windows.
 ¹⁰ The earth quakes as they advance,
      and the heavens tremble.
   The sun and moon grow dark,
      and the stars no longer shine.
 ¹¹ The Lord is at the head of the column.
      He leads them with a shout.
   This is his mighty army,
      and they follow his orders.
   The day of the Lord is an awesome, terrible thing.
      Who can possibly survive?

A Call to Repentance

 ¹² That is why the Lord says,
      “Turn to me now, while there is time.
   Give me your hearts.
      Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
 ¹³ Don’t tear your clothing in your grief,
      but tear your hearts instead.”
   Return to the Lord your God,
      for he is merciful and compassionate,
   slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
      He is eager to relent and not punish.
 ¹⁴ Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve,
      sending you a blessing instead of this curse.
   Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine
      to the Lord your God as before. ¹⁵ Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem!
      Announce a time of fasting;
   call the people together
      for a solemn meeting.
 ¹⁶ Gather all the people—
      the elders, the children, and even the babies.
   Call the bridegroom from his quarters
      and the bride from her private room.
 ¹⁷ Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence,
      stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar.
   Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord!
      Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery.
   Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say,
      ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”

The Lord’s Promise of Restoration

 ¹⁸ Then the Lord will pity his people
      and jealously guard the honor of his land.
 ¹⁹ The Lord will reply,
   “Look! I am sending you grain and new wine and olive oil,
      enough to satisfy your needs.
   You will no longer be an object of mockery
      among the surrounding nations.
 ²⁰ I will drive away these armies from the north.
      I will send them into the parched wastelands.
   Those in the front will be driven into the Dead Sea,
      and those at the rear into the Mediterranean.^[c]
   The stench of their rotting bodies will rise over the land.”   Surely the Lord has done great things!
    ²¹ Don’t be afraid, my people.
   Be glad now and rejoice,
      for the Lord has done great things

 Thus saith the Lord through the prophet Joel. Thanks be to God.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21
¹⁸ And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” ²¹ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,^[e] so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
The reading of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, thanks be to God.

 Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are repentant: make in me a clean heart, a heart that hates...laments sins and readily acknowledges my wretchedness, grant your perfect cleansing and forgiveness of sin; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Speaking without a Sound

I read Psalm 19 early this morning before the sun even began to peek out of the darkness and it struck me how much the heavens and the earth proclaim God's glory. Proclamation is a buzzword in my vocation. In fact in many ways, it is the essence of what I do as a minister. Proclaiming the gospel, the good news, that even when we hated God, He loved us! Without the proclamation of the gospel everything else that we do as believers, as the church even, lacks meaning and substance. As believers in Christ, we proclaim his salvation for all who will believe, we proclaim his Lordship over all the earth, we proclaim his truth into the culture we are immersed in...ultimately so that His Kingdom purposes will be fulfilled. 

Psalm 19 (New Living Translation)

¹ The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
      The skies display his craftsmanship.
 ² Day after day they continue to speak;
      night after night they make him known.
 ³ They speak without a sound or word;
      their voice is never heard.
 ⁴ Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
      and their words to all the world.

Something else that struck me about this passage is found in verse 3, David is describing how the created order declares God's glory and majesty yet they do it without speaking a word. I have long believed that some of the greatest witnesses that we can offer to the hurt world around us in not in our words but in our deeds. Does your life and my life point others to God without even saying a word about Jesus? Don't get me wrong we still need to speak the truth of God and boldly proclaim the gospel but if all we ever do is pay lip service to our faith what good is that to God or anyone around us? Let us proclaim the gospel and the glory of God with our words but more importantly with our lives!

Proper Utensils

2 Timothy 2:20-22 (New Living Translation)

 ²⁰ In a wealthy home some utensils are made of gold and silver, and some are made of wood and clay. The expensive utensils are used for special occasions, and the cheap ones are for everyday use. ²¹ If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.
 ²² Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.

This was the passage I taught from tonight. I must admit, that I never teach or preach without the passage God has given me doing a number on my heart and life first. I once heard Alistair Begg say that this was a necessary step for any preacher of the gospel. Tonight's text has made me reexamine my own heart and life to see if I am really ready to make the decisions that are necessary for God to be honored in my life, for God to use me to touch people around me in a uniquely God shaped way.

My prayer is that I will even more run from the temptations that surround us as believers and pursue God, pursue love, peace, and righteousness. There is a desperation I sense in Paul's words...like a singer unleash his heart through a song, anticipating a response from his audience. How will you and I respond to God's call of purity and holiness.

James 1:19-27

I am teaching through James this fall on Wednesday nights at The Gathering and thought I would share some of what I am teaching on here too. Here are just some excerpts from this past week: (note: nothing has been reedited from my notes)

James sees the key to being a person who doesn’t just pay lip service to Christ but a person who does what we are called to do as disciples begins with listening. Listening is truly a gift. Not everyone is great at it, but we all must develop a willingness to listen 1^st and restrain our speech, if we do we will find ourselves getting along better with others.

Nobody wants to be around someone who is a hotheaded/temper losing freak all the time. Do things happen in life that make us want to scream and punch the wall, yes, but in those instances we have to remind ourselves that we must listen hard and fast before speaking, because there is the potential that we would say something we don’t really mean, hurt people we love, and sin by allowing our anger to be a stumbling block to others and ourselves.

James commands us to get rid of all the junk, garbage, filth in our lives so that we can live lives of purity and godliness as we strive to follow after him.

You ever been in the shower and the tub starts to drain slow or back up, mine does that sometimes with all the hair that gets caught in the drain! What has to happen in order for you to be able to shower without standing in water? You’ve got to pour some drano or something like that down the drain in order for it to open back up and do what it’s supposed to. The same is true in our lives, if we are going to truly live lives of committed disciples of Jesus Christ, then we must get rid of all the sin in our hearts so that we can truly seek God with our whole heart!

Reread vs. 22-25.

Have you ever been around someone who talked a lot about doing something or doing things a certain way but in reality that never happened for various reasons?

If you and I as Christians read the Bible, here it taught and preached on Sundays and Wednesdays but are never changed and don’t put it into practice then what good is it to us? What good are we to the people around us?

We can’t just be people who encounter the God of the Bible but our lives aren’t changed by that encounter. James says, that’s like looking at your face in the mirror and turning around and forgetting what we look like. Instead of encountering God through the pages of scripture and letting our lives be changed we engage God and walk away as if our lives were exactly the same.

Now I know that many of you guys spend longer than the girls in front of the mirror getting ready and then you walk away from the mirror and find the next mirror you can to stand in front of so that you can check yourself again. What’s that about? Did you forget how you looked over the span of 3 seconds? That’s what James is talking about here.

The contrast is what we need in our lives. We need to look into the perfect law of freedom and be doers of the word and not just hearers. If we hear that God wants us to love our enemies but don’t actually do it we aren’t putting our faith into practice. If we hear that God wants us to show mercy rather than justice but don’t do it then we aren’t putting our faith into practice. If we hear that we need to care for the needs of people around us, especially people who are marginalized (see verse 27, widows and orphans) but don’t do it then we aren’t being doers of the word, only hearers.

If we are going to be serious about living our lives as disciples then we have got to stop just listening to what God tells us to do and actually do it.

The tongue: vs. 26 Controlling our tongues is one of the hardest things in life to do isn’t it?

It may not always be cussing and vulgar language…it may be gossip, or mean/hurtful things that we say to others. We all need to be reminded how powerful our words are! They can build people up or tear them down in a blink of an eye.

Theological Happenings

Interesting news and debate among folks of the Reformed theological persuasion yesterday at http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/04/the-end-of-reformed-old-testam.html. I am not endorsing either side of the debate, but I will say that both of these men are well-respected scholars and men of faith. Not sure I totally agree with McKnight's closing remarks...partly because it seems that everyone you ask has a different definition of what it means to be an "evangelical" a la Rob Bell's recent definition of the topic.

The more intriguing thing to me is the swelling tide of what I consider Neo-Reformed people who I believe will eventually draw the circle so small that there may not be any hope for even the elect:)

Reading The Bible (Again and Again and Again)

I recently finished reading Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again For the First Time and then saw this information from the Barna Group on Bible reading. Admittedly these are two different voices within the Christian community. In fact, there are times when one questions whether or not Borg truly is a person of faith, I will decline from making my judgment call on that and allow God to sort that out with Borg directly. Borg is however a brilliant Biblical scholar, although he is definitely shaded by his own biases and preconcieved notions of faith, religion, and spirituality. He is the type of scholar that conservatives are scared of, liberals don't think he's liberal enough, and he seems to go either way with moderates depending on what side of the bed they woke up on that day. The book is a good read, mostly free of scholar jargon. Borg's intention is to help people who have dismissed the Bible reclaim it, at least on some level.


My biggest concern was the broad brush strokes he paints people and their view of the Bible. He argues that there are two groups, the fundamentalists and people like him. I however would propose a third group, which seems to include most people in ministry and academia that I know who profess faith in Jesus Christ, let's call them informed Christians. These are people who hold steadfastly to the Bible as the word of God, but also acknowledge that their are some things that the Bible has no intention of addressing, because after all it is a book about God's revelation of himself to his chosen people and the ups and downs of that relationship.

All that to say that, Borg's book offers some challenges for people on both sides of the theological debate about the Bible.

Bible Translations

I read this on Internet Monk's blog and thought it was an interesting but true assessment of Bibles and believers.

Scott Mcknight recently came right out and said it: We do translations by tribes:

“NRSV for liberals and Shane Claiborne lovers;
ESV for Reformed complementarian Baptists;
HCSB for LifeWay store buying Southern Baptists;
NIV for complementarian evangelicals;
TNIV for egalitarians;
NASB for those who want straight Bible, forget the English;
NLT for generic brand evangelicals;
Amplified for folks who have no idea what translation is but know that if you try enough words one of them will hit pay dirt;
NKJV and KJV for Byzantine manuscript-tree huggers;
The Message for evangelicals looking for a breath of fresh air and seeker sensitive, never-read-a-commentary evangelists who find Peterson’s prose so catchy.”

Under the Knife

I am working on a sermon from Matthew 5 where Jesus tells us to lover our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Sunday I preached a sermon on turning the other cheek and loving people into the kingdom with how we respond to their violence and aggression. I have been dumbfounded at the way scripture does surgery on my heart and life when I allow it to speak to me rather than trying to strain a nugget of truth out of it. God has reminded me that I have a lot of room for growth in this area of loving my enemies (and my friends)and responding to people out of the overflow of God's love for me rather than the reserve of my human capacity for love. I came across a quote from St. Augustine that challenged me so much I haven't been able to get it out of my head. "Many have learned to offer the other cheek, but do not know how to love him by whom they were struck."

A Word from a Ragamuffin

Brennan Manning, the once Catholic priest, alcoholic, influential author always challenges me to rethink my theology, my concept of God, my understanding of grace and salvation. I ran across a quote again today that reminded me about the understanding of God's grace found in Titus 3.

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Manning writes, "Do you live each day in the blessed assurance that you have been saved by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? After falling flat on your face, are you still firmly convinced that the fundamental structure of reality is not works but grace? Are you moody and melancholy because your are still striving for the perfection that comes from your own efforts and not from faith in Jesus Christ? Are you shocked and horrified when you fail? Are you really aware that you don't have to change, grow, or be good to be loved?" (The Ragamuffin Gospel p. 195)

The Apostle Paul and Brennan Manning seem to be on to something here...grace, God's grace truly is greater than all our sin!