1Thes 5.22 [KJV]
Abstain from all appearance of evil.
It is amazing how one little word can change a meaning so much. I bet a lot of puritanical church rules were generated by a concern to avoid even the “appearance” of evil. Matthew Henry’s commentary (from 1706) says:
We should therefore abstain from evil, and all appearances of evil, from sin, and that which looks like sin, leads to it, and borders upon it. He who is not shy of the appearances of sin, who shuns not the occasions of sin, and who avoids not the temptations and approaches to sin, will not long abstain from the actual commission of sin.
When we first started kingdomready.org we developed a static website which combined ministry related content with web resources primarily focused on evangelism. Our motto was and continue to be “helping people to get ready for the kingdom.” However, once people had sufficiently explored the website (usually after about a week) we noticed that for many there was not a need or desire to continue visiting the site (other than once a week to download the Sunday sermon or watch the web-cast). At this point I asked JohnnyO what we could do to increase traffic and bring more people in. He suggested that what people are looking for is not merely static content but a changing website where people could interact through conversation. We discussed the various ways that this was done (message boards, guest books, blogs, podcasts, etc.) and decided that the mechanism that best suited our needs was to have a blog. The original conception was simple: we wanted to have a section of kingdomready that was alive and changing on a regular basis. It was (and still is) our desire to have a new blog post every other day. Beyond this, we did not really have guidelines in place for what the blog posts should contain.
eschatology = related to the end of the age (i.e. kingdom of God, return of Christ, resurrection, etc.)
I thought the following quote summarized a good way of thinking about ethics in light of the kingdom.
Yet the existence of this strong tradition of intensified Jewish ethics may indicate the preresurrection source of a realized eschatology in Jesus’ own preaching. Why would Jesus make such demands of his followers? Why would they listen to him? Because, as authoritative spokesman of the Kingdom, Jesus created around himself a community of those who would live, prolepticly, according to the “new” Torah written upon their hearts. the Torah according to which Israel would live when the Kingdom came: [Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)]
I recently received a link to a video (see it here) in which a “Reverend” spouted off about how evil President Obama is, and saying that “white folks are going to rise up” the way black folks did in reaction to the Rodney King incident - and this was from a black minister. Moreover, this man practically foamed at the mouth with his hatred for Obama, repeatedly calling him a “long-legged Mac-daddy” (whatever that means) and worse. No matter what you may think of the president’s politics and policies, we are told to honor and pray for our governmental leaders, not spout off such strife-gendering rhetoric.
Saw this recently and thought it was very good. We live in an evil age and we would do well to consider the following. Let me know your thoughts.
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Now that the video of the Q&A at Advance 09 is available, I can look at it and feel bad all over again. Here’s what I regret, indeed what I have apologized for to the person who asked the question.
The first question to me and Mark Driscoll was, “Piper says get rid of my TV, and Driscoll says buy extra DVRs. How do you reconcile this difference?”
I responded, “Get your sources right. . . . I never said that in my life.”
What do you think? What are the traits of a humble person? How do you know that you’re being humble? We know Jesus wants us to be humble, but how can we know when we truly are there? Do you agree with Mark Driscoll that we are prideful people working on being humble?
First of all, here is a video which contains a section of a sermon by John Piper given around the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision and seems to be a direct response to some of President Obama’s statements made at that time. I thought it was very powerful and was very blessed to view it.
Second, a bit of very interesting news, is that there was some sort of decision made recently in Sweden where you cannot forbid abortions based on Gender selection. I know I’m operating outside my worldview, but why would it matter if someone used gender as apposed to any other reason as a reason to abort? Click here to read the article.
They’re talking about love at Inhabitatio Dei, from Bonhoeffer. I have a great of respect for Bonhoeffer, living as he did, through dark times, admitting that darkness was there and offering a faithful alternative to overcoming it through Christ. I admit that I have not spent a lot of time in more purely theological or philosophical pursuits. I mostly deal with historical and biblical questions. But this I could not pass up, I found it extremely moving and relevant in my own life and relationships.
Thought I’d take a break from the WWYD series this week. Hope it has been thought provoking and helpful for your own journey. I recently stumbled across a website which has been both hilarious and educational. I wanted to share a recent post from this blog which I really enjoyed. It is from the website “Stuff Christians Like.” The blog author has been compiling a list of “stuff Christians like” over the years to communicate the good, bad and comical of the modern church. (Here are numbers 1-500). Let me know your thoughts of the post below.
Recently while working in his office, a pastor in a small Christian church was startled by a knock on the church door. To his surprise a young man was at the door looking through the window to see if anyone was in the church. It was odd for a knock to be heard on the door on a Monday afternoon by someone the pastor was not expecting. With a mix of curiosity and joy, the pastor greeted the young man and invited him back to his office. The young man asked if there was someone here who he could talk to about more information about the church. It seemed from the look of the man that he was in his early 30’s. As they walk back to the pastor’s office, the young man tells the pastor that he had driven by the church many times on his way to work and for some reason he knew to stop in today.
When we first started 