Here’s My New Phone

Home sick

I have been at home for the last two and half days sick as a dog. Here are some things that have helped me pass the time:

(1) Arrested Development Season 2

(2) iTunes

(3) Picking a new cell phone network and plan

(4) 7up

(5) Sportscenter

I think the worst thing I have realized about myself as I have been home is that even with long periods of time to study, meditate, and pray with God, I still choose to consume myself with mindless things. I am in need of some repentance at this point.

The Bishop of Durham Has Done it Again

I have just finished N.T. Wright’s The Last Word, and I must say, the man impresses me every time he writes a book. A couple of friends from OKC came to visit me this past weekend and we got to discuss the Bishop, his books, and his theology. One of the reasons I am impressed by Dr. Wright is that he lives in tension. What I mean by this is that Wright lives between the world of the church and the world of academia, and is respected by both and challenges both to listen to the other’s side. He does not usually accept the standard claims of either one but seeks to find a way in which both can be in constant dialogue and live with integrity.

Another reason I appreciate him is becuase he makes his points with allegorical stories that illustrate his ideas coherantly. Not since C.S. Lewis have I read someone who can develop and explain theological and philosophical theories and correlate it with little stories that help the reader understand them. Here is an excerpt from his last book concerning the contemporary bible wars:

“The phrase ‘authority of scripture’ is shorthand for the ‘authority of the triune God, excercised through scripture’….Shorthands, in other words, are useful in the same way that suitcases are. They enable us to pick up lots of complicated things and carry them around all together. But we should never forget that the point of doing so, like the point of carrying belongings in a suitcase, is that what has been packed away can then be unpacked and put to use in the new location. Too much debate about scriptural authority has had the form of people hitting one another with locked suitcases.” (Wright, pgs. 23-25)

Do you see what I mean? Fantastic.

Happy New Year (early)

Here are two reasons why I am already anticipating 2006:

In late January/ early February, I am going with some good friends to the Twin Cities to attend John Piper’s Desiring God conference! From what Steve has said, I will most likely be in the bookstore the whole time. We will be going to Piper’s church on a Sunday morning and then we are going to Solomon’s Porch that night. I think this will be a great trip, but it will be very, very, very cold!

Then, on February 27th, Heather and I will be heading to OKC to see Fiona Apple and Coldplay! I’m not as much of a Fiona Apple fan as Heather is, but I must see Coldplay before I die, and even though I don’t expect that anytime soon, I must take proper action when I am faced with an opportunity such as this!

What are you aniticipating in 2006?

Love is Watching Someone Die

“Love is watching someone die, so who’s gonna watch you die?”

- Death Cab for Cutie, ‘What Sara Said?’

At Rivendell this past Sunday, we juxtaposed the Great Commission text with that of the Greatest Commandment that Jesus articulates in Matthew 22. Part of our discussion led to the issue of baptism and its importance to discipleship. Steve, Rivendell co-pastor, asked the question of how the church is to be different from the religious consumers that seem so prominant in the American church. I contributed by saying that somehow consumerism, in its secular and religious forms respectively, always seeks to enhance the individual self and fill the void that one sees in their own life. The church should be the alternative and somehow be a place that embodies the practice of “Come here and die”. What does this death mean? I think that is means that our agendas and dreams, what we thought made our lives true, must change to that of Christ’s. Mark Riddle said that participating in the kingdom of God was practicing God’s dreams for the world. I believe this is where baptism has its most vital role.

What if our message was really to “take up your cross and follow Christ”, essentially, die to your own agenda and follow God’s. Then baptism, the induction of the believer to the believing community, would thus be to let others participate in your funeral. It would be letting other people visually and physically participate in your death and realize that this death will lead to a wedding, a union with Christ and his bride. How odd is that? So maybe love is watching someone die, watching someone symbolically state that this life is futile without God in the way of Jesus. Maybe the church really loves people when it states that all must come before God and partipate in the imitation of the death of God’ s son and that only in his death and resurrection we find life. Death leads to life, not the other way around. Once again, Jesus turns all of our logic on its head.