ALWAYS REFORMING: A sinner saved by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone adhering to Scripture alone to bring about reform personally, for his family, church, and world to the glory of God alone.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I mean, that thing is good. I wanna be friends with it.
I previously mentioned the concept of being an expository listener when I recommended the book, What Is a Healthy Church Member?
"With a wealth of biblical insight and practical instruction, Anyabwile calls Christians to do more than just attend church, but to be the kind of faithful, engaged church members that God intends. Given the state of so many of our churches today, this book arrives not a moment too soon." ~ R. Albert Mohler Jr. (President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
N.B. For the Providence Church book club, this is the book we'll be discussing at our June meeting.
To help explain in terms that should show financial irresponsibility, I submit the following ...
US Tax revenue ....... $2,170,000,000,000 Federal budget ........ $3,820,000,000,000 New Debt .............. $1,650,000,000,000 National Debt ........ $14,271,000,000,000 New budget cuts .......... $38,500,000,000
Remove 8 zeros and pretend this is a family's situation.
Family income ........ $21,700 Money spent .......... $38,200 New CC Debt .......... $16,500 New CC Balance ..... $142,710 Budget cuts ............... $385
I heartily recommend Thabiti Anyabwile's book, What Is a Healthy Church Member?
One of the things rarely mentioned in Christian literature is guidance for the church member with regard to his/her role in the preaching process. Thabiti addresses that topic in a chapter entitled, "A Healthy Church Member Is an Expositional Listener."
A few highlights:
"Expositional listening is listening for the meaning of a passage of Scripture and accepting that meaning as the main idea to be grasped for our personal and corporate lives as Christians."
What Are the Benefits of Expositional Listening?
It cultivates a hunger for God's Word.
It helps us to focus on God's will and to follow Him.
It protects the gospel and our lives from corruption.
It encourages faithful pastors.
It benefits the gathered congregation.
How Can Church Members Cultivate the Habit of Expositional Listening?
Meditate on the sermon passage during your quiet time.
Invest in a good set of commentaries.
Talk and pray with friends about the sermon after church.
Listen to and act on the sermon throughout the week.
Develop the habit of addressing any questions about the text itself.
Since the first time I heard it, I've taken umbrage with the assertion that Jesus "says it's the same" when a person looks with lust as committing adultery.
Then and now, I say, that's NOT what the text says, nor what it means.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28, ESV)
What it says and means is that external obedience is not enough, God is concerned with the heart of a person. So, while a person may look okay on the outside, the inside of the cup is dirty and there's culpability to God. The context and Jesus many dealings with the Pharisees bears that out.
In other words, "You're not off the hook; you've committed a sin of the heart."
Some may think I'm quibbling, but a growing trend has me concerned about the practical ramifications of equating lust and adultery.
Some see adultery as a legitimate reason for a spouse to divorce and then remarry another. With the preponderance of opportunities for a man to lust (commercials, billboards, scantily clad waitresses, etc.) it's highly unlikely a husband will go the length of his marriage without ever lusting after a woman not his wife.
So, does that mean his wife may divorce him? If you equate lust & adultery and you allow divorce in that scenario, then I don't see why not.
Crazy you say, but I heard of real life examples of wives using this as their way out of a marriage. That's not my primary reason for objecting to equating lust & adultery, but it certainly gives pause for consideration.
My response, however, in such a scenario would be to go back to the text and show that Jesus does not say that lust and adultery are "the same thing," even though both actions put one in the category of guilty before God who sees even the intents of the heart.
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, "Night of Broken Glass."
73 years ago tonight, November 9th, 1938, many Jews were murdered in Nazi Germany, with some 30,000 sent to concentration camps, and hundreds of synagogues were destroyed.
"Kristallnacht" provided the Nazi government with an opportunity at last to totally remove Jews from German public life. It was the culminating event in a series of anti-Semitic policies set in place since Hitler took power in 1933. (source)
It may have been a culminating event, yet it was also the beginning of Die Endlösung ("The Final Solution") with regard to the Jews in Europe and their extermination, what has come to be called, "The Holocaust."
AND on this day in 1989, East Germany opened the "Berlin wall," the destruction of which soon followed at the hands of the people.
November 9th ... a day marking first German oppression and then later German liberation.
Check out this offering from Evangelicals for Perry, outlining Rick Perry as the clear pro-2nd Amendment candidate: You Don't Bring Mittens to a Gun Fight.
Read about more and more parents delaying or refusing vaccines.
Check out these pictures of spooky deep sea creatures.
Check out Thabiti Anyabwile's contention that multi-site churches are from the devil.
Read about the "Aggie Effect," or why Gov. Perry is the way he is after his time at Texas A&M University.
Check out Charles Krauthammer's contention that the governance phase of Obama's presidency is over as he's focused on the 2012 election.
Check out President Obama's declaration that people are not better off than they were 4 years ago, "And that's why it's so critical for us to make sure that we are taking every action we can take to put people back to work."
"Building model airplanes," says the little fairy. Well, we're not buying it.
Eerily prophetic words from Ronald Reagan, befitting our present situation, reminding us we don't have to settle for a second-rate America:
"They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that. And, I don't believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world."
~Ronald Reagan, presidential candidate (13 November 1979)
Check out the new rules for job hunting in the Internet age.
Check out this bad bull story wherein the groom is killed on his wedding day by his drunk driving brother.
Read about the Florida family awarded $4.5 million because the doctor's office didn't warn them about their baby being born without arms and only one leg, because they would have aborted him had they known.
Check out things you should know about the US Postal Service before it goes bankrupt.
Check out Daryl Wingerd's thoughts on "How to Find a Wife."
Check out Stacy Swimp's 3 part series, Walking off the Democrat Plantation: Read Part 1 - The Providence of Change. Read Part 2 - The Democrat Party's Shameful Past. Read Part 3 - Where Black Americans Are Today.
Check out federal AIDS money being spent at the strip joint.
Check out Razor's ideas to improve the experience of watching hockey on television.
Check out Herman Cain taking on the entire MSNBC post-debate roundtable.
Check out this article about women's worth in Islam.
Check out this query as to why we still give aide to China.
Never apologize and never explain -- it's a sign of weakness.
Here we have an Illinois congressman, Mike Quigley of the 5th District, apologizing "on behalf of this country" to the American Islamic College Conference in Chicago.
I've grown weary of this and others that remind me of the "blame America first" mentality that was so prevalent in the late 70s that weakened the United States internationally.
They know that Ronald Reagan and the United States didn't cause Marxist dictatorship in Nicaragua, or the repression in Poland, or the brutal new offensives in Afghanistan, or the destruction of the Korean airliner, or the new attacks on religious and ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, or the jamming of western broadcasts, or the denial of Jewish emigration, or the brutal imprisonment of Anatoly Shcharansky and Ida Nudel, or the obscene treatment of Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner, or the re-Stalinization of the Soviet Union.
The American people know that it's dangerous to blame ourselves for terrible problems that we did not cause.
They understand just as the distinguished French writer, Jean Francois Revel, understands the dangers of endless self- criticism and self-denigration.
He wrote: 'Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.'
With the election of Ronald Reagan, the American people declared to the world that we have the necessary energy and conviction to defend ourselves, and that we have as well a deep commitment to peace."
I previously mentioned the concept of being an expository listener when I recommended the book, What Is a Healthy Church Member?
