I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.

~Matthew 21:21

Good people… have been tempted to tempt the Lord their God upon the strength of this saying… Happily for such, the assurance to which they would give the name of faith generally fails them in time. Faith is that which, knowing the Lord’s will, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stand and waits…

But to put God to the question in any other way than by saying, “What will though have me to do?” is an attempt to compel God to declare Himself, or to hasten His work… The man is therein dissociating himself from God so far that, instead of acting by the divine will from within, he acts in God’s face, as it were, to see what He will do. Man’s first business is, “What does God want me to do?”, not “What will God do if I do so and so?”

~George MacDonald, Presumption

• 
  George MacDonald
  Author: C. S. Lewis

Categories: Presumption, Arrogance, Admonishment, George MacDonald, Bible Study, Books
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It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice. It is spiritual murder, the worst, to have, to brood over the feeling that excludes, that, in our microcosm, kills the image, the idea of the hated.

~George MacDonald, Spiritual Murder

• 
  George MacDonald
  Author: C. S. Lewis

22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a]will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,[b]’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

~Matthew 5:22

I have read that “Raca” roughly translated from the Aramaic means “You fool”, “Dummy”, or “Stupid”.

Apparently intellectual condescension is on par with murder, or at least it shares the same initial footing.

Categories: Murder, Hatred, Forgiveness, George MacDonald, Bible Study, Books
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Heaven, are you really
Waiting outside the door?
Never though I’d hear
The words before the road

Sever, it’s the simple things
That are so hard to grasp
Can’t find myself in all
The days that passed

But I can feel it when it shines
Never mind I’m falling in love with you
Can’t find the road that runs though
Falling love with you

Heaven, are you really
Waiting outside the door
Never thought I’d hear
The words before the road

Sever, it’s the simple things
That are so hard to grasp
Can’t find myself in all
These days that pass

But I can find feel it when it shines
Never mind the way they shy
Turning around along the trail
My whole world is falling in love with you

Can’t find the road that runs through
Falling in love with you
Can’t find the road that gets through

~Heaven, The Fire Theft

• 
  Fire Theft
  Artist: Fireft

Is heaven a place you find or a reality you desire?

Do all who earnestly seek arrive?

1″Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

~John 14:1-14

Categories: Kingdom of God, Heaven, Bible Study, Music
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I have not read a page of Ayn Rand and I could hardly present what her philosophy of Objectivism is or means, other than to say that she believed that reality existed and it did not depend on our minds to do so.

Regardless, the title of her book Atlas Shrugged was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw this image in a recent article on the Architecture of Saint Patrick’s cathedral in New York City.

Curiously, in the same public square, directly across Fifth Avenue and in his own confined enclosure, crouches one of the most aggressively pagan responses to the Christian faith ever promulgated by the arts. In direct alignment with the cathedral’s great western doors, long center aisle, and high altar of sacrifice, the long-shelved Titan Atlas struggles in obsolescent effort to carry creation. We thank Atlas, for his constant vigil lends unintended richness to the Christian tradition of penitential veneration.

~James McCrery; First Things, A Proper Place

Is the story of Atlas a response to the Christian faith or just another precursor that is reasonably aligned with it?

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

~Romans, 8:22

The story of Atlas may have appeared as early as the 6th century BC, placing it well before the birth of Christ and Christianity.

I was recently amazed to learn of the nature of Augustine’s conversion being built upon the pre-Christian writings of Plato. When he read the theology presented in the gospels he saw immediate congruence with the wisdom of Plato, it made sense… it was rational. He was not trying to bend his mind into another dimension, he could just be honest about what he knew to be true already…

As a preliminary way of showing me how ‘the proud you rebuff, while favoring the lowly,’ and how great is the pity you show to humans on the lowly Path of your ‘Word made flesh in order to live with men,’ you brought to me a man, himself inflated with raging winds of pride, to acquaint me with certain books of the Platonists, translated into Latin from the Greek. What I found in reading them no precisely in these words, but saying the same thing in varied and very convincing ways, was this:’At the origin was the Word, and the Word was in God’s presence, and the Word was God. This was at the origin with God, and all things were made through it, and nothing was made without it. In it, life was made, and the life was men’s light, and the light shone in the darkness, and darkness could not control it.’ Further, that the human soul, however it may bear testimony to the light, is not itself the light. God’s word is ‘the true light that gives light to every man who arrives in this world’ Further, that ‘He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not recognize Him.’

but this I did not read there: ‘He came among His own, and His own did not accept Him, but to all who accepted Him, who believed in this title, He gave the right to become God’s sons.’

~St. Augustine, The Confessions

• 
  Confessions (Penguin Classics)
  Author: Augustine

It sounds familiar and it should, it’s basically John 1…

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

~John 1:1-5

Anyone who is conscious knows that there is a struggle going on in this world; externally and internally, its nothing new but it bears down fresh on every generation of humanity… “the weight of the world.” This is something every human can attest to, even with a pagan polytheistic cultural environment. But there is more, and this is what Augustine admits to as well…

but this I did not read there: ‘He came among His own, and His own did not accept Him, but to all who accepted Him, who believed in this title, He gave the right to become God’s sons.’

~St. Augustine

The scriptures brought him Christ. And in some way this photographic perspective of looking through the hollow atlas at the Church with a small yet centered cross is our continual testimony, mission, and commission. It is what the Church can do that mere philosophical or scientific speculation can not…

28″Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

~Matthew 11:28-30

Go ahead and try to hold up the world, try to fix everything in your own power… and when the banks fail, the ecology gets plundered, the noise is unbearable, and the loneliness is palpable even with 500 million friends… when you are truly weary and burdened… perhaps then you can shrug, drop the world, kneel even, and crawl across the street and into Communion…

18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

~Romans 8:18-27

Categories: Christianity, Plato, Architecture, Church, First Things, Bible Study, Philosophy, Books
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Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant

~Mark 10:43

Jesus tied all authority in the community to service, one to another. Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the service of listening, helping, forbearing, and proclaiming is carried out. Every personality cult that bears the mark of distinguished qualities, outstanding abilities, powers, and talents of another, even if these are of a thoroughly spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community of faith; indeed it poisons that community. The longing we so often hear expressed today for “episcopal figures”, “priestly people,” “authoritative personalities” often enough stems from a spiritually sick need to admire human beings and to establish visible human authority because the genuine authority of service appears to be too insignificant. nothing contradicts such a desire more sharply than the New Testament itself in its description of a bishop (1 timothy 3:1). None of the magic of human talents or the brilliant qualities of a spiritual personality is to be found there. bishops are those unpretentious persons who are sound and loyal in faith and life and who properly carry out their ministry to the community of faith. The authority of bishops lies in accomplishing the tasks of the their service. There is nothing to admire about the person himself.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

• 
  Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 5)
  Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Categories: Service, Authority, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Community, Bible Study, General Smatering
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…every year yet another bestseller claims that Jesus was an Egyptian Freemason, a Gnostic proto-Rosicrucian, or an Essene who married, had children, got divorced and wrote John’s gospel. Or something…

…Perhaps this is part of the vocation of the historian in the postmodern world: to be a sign of contradiction, a reminder that there is such a thing as truth, even though we all see it through our own eyes; that there is such a thing as love, which becomes more truly itself when in respectful relationship with the other. And perhaps that is a way of saying what maybe, deep down, those surprising audiences wanted to hear: There is such a person as Jesus, and he does matter; but how we speak about him says more, in the last analysis, than what we say.

~N.T. Wright

• 
  The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (Plus)
  Author: N. T. Wright

As a Bible Church raised evangelical white boy from the mid west, much of this historical debate about Jesus is something that I all but missed growing up. The quest for the “Historical Jesus” was not something I knew about, much less was personally intrigued to enter into. Even now, it does not seem to be that big of an issue to me and I tend to side with the critics of the effort who maintain that looking down the well of history to find the “Historical Jesus”, even brainiac powered well intentioned scholars end up mistaking their own reflection for a newly defined, “more accurate” picture of Christ.

A surprise controversy that I have recently been introduced to is one that pits the Apostle Paul against Christ, I like them both and until recently I was not aware that I had to choose one over the other.

F.C. Bauer, for example, speculated in the nineteenth century that Paul was in conflict with the disciples. Nietzsche and others latched onto the idea, boldly declaring that Paul had “invented Christianity” and thereby betrayed the real Jesus.

In fact, in the Jesus-against-Christianity game, it’s usually the inauthentic Paul who gets played off against the authentic Jesus. You can see it from Ernest Renan’s nineteenth century “The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology,” to George Bernard Shaw’s “No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.” to the Episcopal Bishop John S. Spong’s “Paul’s words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul–a vast difference.”

The frisson of blasphemy has grown too thin in all this stuff; it’s worn down to nothing. Nothing, except the author’s self-congratulations at his own bravery. The slow, patient work of scholars has undone this goofy storyline so many times, and still it comes creeping back every twenty years or so.

~Joseph Bottum; First Things, Pullman Sleeper

It would seem that everything that has a fashionable cycle based on modern culture runs in a 20 year circuit; from mesh trucker hats to the divinity of Christ.

Categories: Blasphemy, N.T. Wright, First Things, Bible Study, Theology
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Jesus was a bachelor and never lived with a woman. Surely living with a woman is one of the most difficult things a man has to do, and he never did it.

~Frank Budgen, friend of James Joyce

• 
  ULYSSES by James Joyce
  Author: James Joyce

This little bit of character analysis is revealed in the forward to James Joyce’s modern epic Ulysses. Apparently Jesus was grounds for inspiration on the gentleness front, but came up short on the overall search for an archetype hero. I have barely scratched the surface of Ulysses, but I have already received the fair warning of it being a lengthy drudge through filth. In fact, it was a literary work initially rejected all together and earned the nefarious recognition of being a “banned book”.

Ulysses is a spider’s web of allegories and mythological reminiscences… it is a dung-heap swarming with worms, photographed by a movie-camera through a microscope.

~Karl Radek, 1934 US book ban

Regardless, this book is now honored by many literary scholars as being the greatest work of the last century. I don’t know if I will ever finish reading it, but I will certainly nod to those who praise its intricate plot structure intertwining mythic lore with common experience. I still have not seen Pulp Fiction, but enough people have told me how amazingly clever it is… that I guess I believe them now. So Joyce and Tarantino are super geniuses, I concede. But they still may miss the obvious while shaping masterpieces out of refuse.

I have to admit that I found the aforementioned quote about Jesus’ lack of human experience via bachelorhood interesting all over again. A good portion of Christian Theology is focused on the assertion and defense of Jesus’ humanity. He was fully human and he experienced every temptation and trial that is common to man. This is the quick apologetic that comes with handy scriptural support.

15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

~Hebrews 4:15

So there it is Joyce, look the B.I.B.L.E says so! And if that is not good enough for you, then you can turn to Dan Brown and the gnostic gospels and read all about Jesus and his wonderful marriage to Mary Magdalene! Well, maybe hold off on the later.

So yes, I do get the accusation and observed discrepancy with the orthodox view of Jesus, His life, and His humanity. An orthodox Christian response to this grievance with Jesus and his unsympathetic bachelorhood life probably falls along the lines of Jesus being presented in scripture as the bride groom of the Church.

22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

~Ephesians 5:22-24

And this is where the “spiritual” allegorizing of Christianity can get dicey. What does it actually mean for Jesus (as a man) to be married to the church while he was here walking around on earth?

Well, I do believe that if that question is explored at any depth (the gospels would be a decent place to start) one does begin to see the embodied acts of love and commitment that would constitute a healthy marriage with all of the joy, friendship, love, pain, and suffering that comes with such a relationship.

Categories: Bachelorhood, Marriage, Literature, Church, Books, Bible Study, Criticisms
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The medium is the message.

The medium is the massage.

~Marshall McLuhan

• 
  The Medium is the Massage
  Author: Quentin Fiore

McLuhan makes a couple of observations about communication that appear to be both ironic and insidious. But his critique of modern communications seems to be less a condemnation of the medium forms and more a rebuke to our lack of awareness and our belief that content and delivery mediums could somehow be separated without changing the message in the process.

The message is inextricable from the medium and the medium will change (massage) you in the process of receiving the message, regardless of what you do with the message. There are no messages devoid of mediums.

Shane Hipps takes on the challenge of working out some of McLuhan’s insights in regards to modern Christian faith in his book, Flickering Pixels.

• 
  Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith
  Author: Shane Hipps

If we are going take so much volition and control over the delivery of our messages in the modern world we should at least be aware of the natural bend of each mode of communication.

It would seem that all of humanity has a split that runs directly down the center of our brains, no joke but maybe a pun, left and right brain hemispheres. In some sort of strange patterning, life itself seems to continue this extension of division in most every form culture and practice.

The East and West divide would appear to take all comers; religious, political, economic, educational, etc… and split them up into two big buckets of propensity.


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Categories: Words, Images, Communication, Church, Bible Study, Books
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You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find your self is in the fires of sorrow..

…You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.

~Oswald Chambers, Receiving One’s Self in the Fires of Sorrow, June 25th

• 
  My Utmost For His Highest: Limited PB Edition
  Author: Oswald Chambers

4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

~Matthew 5:4 NIV

4″You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

~Matthew 5:4 The Message

Or perhaps this beatitude could be translated to describe the grounds for empathy;

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be able to comfort others.”

Categories: Suffering, Empathy, My Utmost for His Highest, Bible Study, Books
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Jesus’ instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.

There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5 ). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24 ). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, June 17th The Uncritical Temper

• 
  My Utmost For His Highest: Limited PB Edition
  Author: Oswald Chambers

Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people…

For sure, the faculty of critical discernment is something very special that makes us human. We do it unconsciously and purposefully all day as a natural operation of existence. To be conscious is to be judging. This ability allows us to do and create. But that’s all the basics, Mr. Chambers is getting at the habit of critiquing someone’s spiritual life, their soul even..


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Categories: Judgement, Massage, Therapy, N.T. Wright, Community, Books, Bible Study, My Utmost for His Highest, Criticisms
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Post-modernity is announcing the doctrine of the fall to arrogant modernity.

~N.T. Wright

Categories: Modernity, N.T. Wright, Quotes, Post Modern, Bible Study, Theology
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