Indestructible Logic

I have had a few experiences lately the resemble what you are about to see.  I have been trying to figure out how any of these experiences could be considered sensible.

1. Bad things deserve reprimand.
   Employee A is a good worker.
   Employee A derserves reprimand.
   
2. One should stay away from bad influences.
   Situation A is a good influence.
   One should stay away from situation A.
   
3. Bad ideas should be refuted and abandoned.
   Idea A is a good idea.
   Idea A should be refuted and abandoned.
   

I have tried for months now to figure out why certain decisions have been made and this has been the logic nearly every time.  For a little while I thought that I was perhaps missing a fact, some other puzzle piece to build upon the major premise before the conclusion was reached.  Perhaps, I mused, I was missing some aspect of the overall nature of goodness.  I may have even missed something like, "There is no knowledge of what to do with good things."  Which may lead one, not to research a possible fate for good things, but mistakenly treat them as bad things, for which the fate was determined explicitly.  But then I realized something, every one of these situations operates on one shared assumption

"Good things are actually bad."

10 Ten Books I Read in 2009

1. Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek by David Alan Black - This should be first semester reading for all seminary level Greek Students, it takes 3 hours to read and it is worth every second.
2. Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross by Michael Gorman - Luther and Moltmann were right, the cross of Jesus changes everything about God, and Gorman tells us how that works in Paul's writings.
3. Life Together in the Way of Jesus Christ by Dan Stiver - An excellent example of theology done for the church.
4. Revelation and Reason by Emil Brunner - Is revelation knowledge?  Brunner says yes and explains how and why.
5. Works of Love by Kierkegaard - Romance is for sissies, love is for disciples of Jesus.
6. The New International Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Corinthians by Gordon Fee - Any commentary over 400 pages that can be read straight through is a must.
7. The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann - Helpful and challenging to the last page.
8. New Testament Rhetoric by Ben Witherington III - This book takes about 3 hours to read and it worth the time because BWIII shows where to find ancient rhetoric in the New Testament and what this means for exegesis.  A must read for beginning exegesis courses in my estimation.
9. Dogmatics Vol. 1-3 by Emil Brunner - Why this is not required reading in theology courses is beyond me.
10. Body by Science by Doug McGuff - Doug tells you how to get incredibly strong and lean efficiently and safely.  The sad thing is that nobody will actually do anything his book says.

Nick Norelli = "The Man"

He reviewed a boatload of books!

If only they'd actually read this guy instead of wearing his t-shirts. (Jonathan Edwards

When Jonanthan Edwards says that we are saved by faith, he means faith in Jesus (that relationship whereby persons receiving grace from God trust God for that grace), not technically accurate opinion.

How far a wonderful and mysterious agency of God’s Spirit may so influence some men’s hearts, that their practice in this regard may be contrary to their own principles, so that they shall not trust in their own righteousness, though they profess that men are justified by their own righteousness—or how far they may believe the doctrine of justification by men’s own righteousness in general, and yet not believe it in a particular application of it to themselves—or how far that error which they may have been led into by education, or cunning sophistry of others, may yet be indeed contrary to the prevailing disposition of their hearts, and contrary to their practice—or how far some may seem to maintain a doctrine contrary to this gospel-doctrine of justification, that really do not, but only express themselves differently from others; or seem to oppose it through their misunderstanding of our expressions, or we of theirs, when indeed our real sentiments are the same in the main—or may seem to differ more than they do, by using terms that are without a precisely fixed and determinate meaning—or to be wide in their sentiments from this doctrine, for want of a distinct understanding of it; whose hearts, at the same time, entirely agree with it, and if once it was clearly explained to their understandings, would immediately close with it, and embrace it:—how far these things may be, I will not determine; but am fully persuaded that great allowances are to be made on these and such like accounts, in innumerable instances; though it is manifest, from what has been said, that the teaching and propagating contrary doctrines and schemes, is of a pernicious and fatal tendency. (Discourse of Justification by Faith, last paragraph)

Many people read this guy and emulate his tightly reasoned ideas, but forget to emulate his [the New Testament authors'] understanding of who the gospel works for, people who believe it, not dogmatic theologians only.  Particularly not only the wanna be reformed type who claim to be Calvinists because they read a little Piper and forgot to learn Greek and read what other exegetes say.  Anyhow, for the Edwards worshipers out there who think Tom Wright outside of the elect because he disagrees with Piper, read some Edwards...or John Owen...or Luther...or the Bible.

The Modern Caesar Cult

Instead of worshiping Lord Caesar or some bizarre demi-god, which would be way cooler, many people actually have changed their religion to football.  Think about it, it requires the memorization of scripture (stupid statistics of boys playing with balls), it does have an ethic (watch the game at all costs), and an ethos (base self-image and treatment of others on the successes of my favorite team). 

Football causes a great deal of mental instability amongst its adherents: fans will decry the government for spending money on the poor, as they watch this sport on television and in person, giving enough advertisement and ticket revenue to pay millions a year to people who play for a job.  They will balk at their bosses for not giving them raises and then cheer when a rival player or coach is fired, and they will tell their children not to cuss or have premarital sex while holding up football players with criminal records as role models.  I am seriously confused about this state of affairs. 

Christians who will insult other Christians of differing political parties who are bought by the blood of the same Lord will gladly join into the worship of football players with people who purposefully misuse the gospel for personal gain.  Missions minded pastors can get fired for going over in sermon time on Sunday morning because people want to go worship their other god.

Does anybody else find this disturbing?

Stuff I've been up to.

I have been working on learning German and improving my Hebrew, hence the lower quantity of posts for all of my zero readers.  I'm still preaching through the Pastoral Epistles.  I love that immensely, seeing Paul's heart for the churches is always a pleasure when one reads these letters closely, especially in 2Timothy.  And Paul did write them by the way.  Who else would write these sorts of things:

Μνημόνευε Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐγηγερμένον ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυείδ, κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου·  ἐν ᾧ κακοπαθῶ μέχρι δεσμῶν ὡς κακοῦργος, ἀλλὰ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ οὐ δέδεται. διὰ τοῦτο πάντα ὑπομένω διὰ τοὺς ἐκλεκτούς, ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ σωτηρίας τύχωσιν τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ μετὰ δόξης αἰωνίου

or

Σὺ δὲ παρηκολούθησάς μου τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, τῇ ἀγωγῇ, τῇ προθέσει, τῇ πίστει, τῇ μακροθυμίᾳ, τῇ ἀγάπῃ, τῇ ὑπομονῇ, τοῖς διωγμοῖς, τοῖς παθήμασιν, οἷά μοι ἐγένετο ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ, ἐν Ἰκονίῳ, ἐν Λύστροις· οἵους διωγμοὺς ὑπήνεγκα, καὶ ἐκ πάντων με ἐρύσατο ὁ κύριος. καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ θέλοντες ζῆν εὐσεβῶς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ διωχθήσονται.

These just sound way too much like the author of 1Corinthians 11:1, "μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε, καθὼς κἀγὼ Χριστοῦ."

I have read N.T. Wright's new book on virtue ethics and Christian character, "After You Believe."  I will post a review in the next week.  I've also been reading about Thomas Cranmer, he is oft left unstudied, but preachers who find an extra two hours and twelve dollars should read through Bromiley's introduction. 

I read through Michael Gorman's texts, "Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross" and "Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul's Narrative Soteriology."  Reviews are forthcoming, though they may be quite short.  Nevertheless, I do highly recommend these books, but I'm still questioning whether or not Paul was conciously seeking to frame justification in a manner opposite of Phineas, or if that's just incidental, Gorman may have convinced me. 

Also, the concept of every member ministry has been weighing heavily on my mind as of late.  More in the future.