Category Archive

John Stackhouse writes an article on The Reality of Sex which is great.

Have a read.

I don’t consider myself a humble person.  Too many times I know I have suffered from intellectual pride and hurt people by seeming to know it all.

This week I have been asked to take on a new unit for next semester and was told the textbooks involved.  I am happy for both and one of them is by a blogger I read, Steve Taylor.  Now Steve and I have had differences of opinion on occasion.  I am used to working with larger groups than what he addresses but the heart of what he says I fairly much agree with.  Now I have to digest it well.

This is where I am being humbled and views I think I know, I now have to check I really do know.

Wait and see what the outcome is practically, I am sure I will blog more about this but regardless I am reminded that our views can come back to haunt us and to be a little more humble in what we blog, say and do.

Jesus, in the gospels, talks about the fact that people are known by their fruit. I came across on someone’s blog (http://mark-bymaswell.blogspot.com) a graphic that looked like:

I liked this so much I clicked on the graphic and got my own which you see above.

Now I am not a big fan of personality tests and I am not convinced I am that extraverted, though I do think I am more extraverted than introverted. Yet this one in describing potential jobs (I have done these) and other aspects does for once describe me.

I don’t propose we all know each other by our personality type test results but these do give ourselves a feel for what is happening internally.

Jesus’ command still resonates though. We are to be known by our fruit, what we reproduce and what we give away.

So how do you know people?

I was pleased to see the following in a Christianity Today article:

“Whereas postmillennialists were habitually optimistic about the course of events, believing that the Almighty was overruling human affairs to establish his kingdom on earth, premillennialists were characteristically pessimistic, supposing that the only remedy for the evils of the day was the return of the king,” historian David Bebbington wrote in The Dominance of Evangelicalism. “Despite their confidence in the power of the gospel to save souls, they put no faith in the secular world around them. The newer school of opinion dropped the earlier evangelical confidence in the steady advance of civilization, replacing it with belief that the present was bad and the future was worse.”

These days many evangelicals talk like premillennialists but act like postmillennialists. They expect the world to get worse and worse but preach the gospel, lobby politicians, and fight for social justice in order to make it a better place. Jim Wallis laments poverty and Jim Dobson worries about homosexuality, but they combat these problems nonetheless. Theology often shapes the way Christians engage their world, but sometimes the world shapes how Christians form their theology. If the trends identified by Wehner and Levin continue, it’s possible evangelicals will see another paradigm shift in their eschatology.

We are living Christian lives that can not decide what the deal is with the future.  Pentecostals are particularly adept at “[talk ing] like premillennialists but [acting] like postmillennialists”.  We believe the church will be victorious but we believe we must make the world a better place.  At some level we can not have it both ways with our current theology.

The recent election shows that our dependence must be on God not on the politicians we like.  Ultimately both the left and the right hold issues that Christians think should be important.  Jim Wallis supports the left (not in an unthinking way).  Jim Dobson supports the right (I am not sure to what degree) as both believe the party they support supports certain Christian values.  As Christians at election times the issue is not between bad and good but either bad and bad or good and good depending on how cynical you are about politicians.

Will the world come to an end because a certain politician gets into power?  The answer is obviously no but we sometimes live our lives as if that is the truth.  Will the devil have a great victory because a certain politician gets into power?  In my years of watching politicians in Australia, USA and UK all sides make a mess somewhere and show the devil victorious either in private lives or public decisions.  This means no party is better than another we are just choosing between politicians.

In the end we are called to pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”  God shows up at unexpected times, and Jesus will return at an unexpected time. We need to be faithful, ready and obedient in the interim.

In my blogroll I have the Kruse Kronicle by Michael Kruse.

I do not read Michael’s work because I always like it.  Many times I do not.  I read it because he makes me think. He is very different to me, far more pro capitalism than I am. Then I come across articles like yesterday’s Economic Fallacies: “New Creation Now”

That sort of article makes it all worthwhile.

So do you just read those that you like or those that differ from you?

Like usual Scot McKnight has raised an interesting issue by responding to a Letter from an Inquirer.

The issue is how students should use their time? I know my own experiences are mixed. I completed my MDiv on a part time basis. I studied my PhD on a full time basis with a little work on the side and completed it while in full-time work.

Some of the replies understand that the issue does not stop when people stop being students. This is where I want to start the discussion.

Ultimately the issue is to me one of the Lordship of Christ. Is all our time used for Him? What are the things He would have you do? Scripture makes it quite clear that we have responsibilities to love God and our neighbour, to meet together with Christians (in Church), to witness, to work for food and for those where it is relevant to look after our spouses and family. This does not change when someone is or is not a student nor is the question one of having only 24 hours a day but one of ethics - what choices must I make between the good?

Missionally the important stuff is family, church, worship, devotional life and then study/work for the sake of being in contact with those who need Jesus. If we drop the important to focus on the study/work so we can witness then what happens is we have nothing to witness from or to. If we drop work then we have no-one to witness to.  If we drop study then those we are called to minister to will not be calling us.

We need a balance to work out that is not about either work/study or family but how to do both. If we do not do both, and after all I had my only child conceived, born and growing up during a PhD, then at the end we have nothing. We have gained the world but lost out soul.

Life does not consist of university degrees but our relationships. If the relationships get severed then our lives are diminished and so is our witness to the Kingdom. At the same time if our university degrees prepare us to be better witnesses then they should be applauded. My work is in Pentecostal Ecclesiology and part of it looks at how some church practices actually are bad witnesses to the Kingdom neither helping us bear witness or discipling believers. At the end I feel my research has made me love God more and His church more even if that means I am in conflict with expressions of it in my own tradition.

My students then say but we need to eat and be involved in leading a small group and study and … and … and … The issue is again to me where are you using your time? If you are spending so much effort on these things and still not having enough time what is the essentials that define you? Maybe study is not one of them and you need to drop to part time. This semester some of them have decided to do that for next semester so they can be a witness where they work. As a theology class we prayed for them yesterday.

Other students do not have that luxury to drop subjects because of legal conditions on visas, what do they do? I recommend they budget their time well but do not do more than the essentials. Most people I find overcommit to everything in the guise of faithfulness rather than facing their own issues of insecurity and concern of not being wanted or feeling loved. Being busy fills up holes of insecurity rather than facing the darkness within.

The third extreme is realising that if God is not providing financially while studying that it may be time to go home. Full time work done for God is as honourable as the pastorate. Both at one level are jobs. The calling for us all is to minister and what our job titles, descriptions and places of employment are all that should really make us different.

So what are the essentials? God, Church, worship, relationships, food, shelter,

Do you think there are other conflicts I should consider about the use of our time?

I had some hits on the blog yesterday through a comment I made on Earl Creps blog.

I raised the issue that it is great that Earl is trying to have the Pentecostal church, in his case Assemblies of God USA, have an emerging church expression and we need to have a conversation about the whole process.  In the process of considering planting an emerging church Earl has copped abuse.

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