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Archives For November 2011

Fornicating on the Battlefield

November 30, 2011 — Leave a comment

Just imagine for a moment that this is reality: You’re on a battlefield. It’s dark. Chaotic. Cold wind is whipping your face. The stench of death fills the air. Corpses of demons lie all around you and the field is soaked in blood. You can hear the sounds of armor and weapons colliding while sparks are flying. Screams pierce your ears.

You see chiseled, powerful beings radiating in white and they’re destroying shadows, gripping the throats of principalities and slitting them with iridescent blades. But you’re without armor. You wonder how you got to this place and why you came unprepared.

Men that you recognize are rushing the opposite direction—spears aligned, ready to throw. Swords sharpened, shields fixed, helmets lowered they’re ready for battle. They’re calling for you to join them. They’re rushing for the the front lines—they’re unafraid. They know they’ve been given victory.

But not you. You’ve got your pants down around your ankles. You’re roaming in circles looking for the seductress that’s calling you by name. You can’t wait to fornicate on the battlefield.

And all the while, the kingdom is coming. The lost are being found. The sick are being healed. Demonic assignments are being cancelled. The veil is being lifted off of false religion and the persecuted church is exponentially growing in the face of opposition. Jesus is authoritatively mediating a covenant—the Spirit is interceding for the children of God, breathing life into dry bones.

You? You want an orgasm.

 

Read the rest of Tony Anderson’s article here.

 

 

In Evangelism, Marriage Bed
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Ritual is for Revolutionaries

November 29, 2011 — Leave a comment

Ritual is simultaneously conservative and revolutionary in the way carpentry is. Once you have mastered the technique of driving a nail, there is no reason to experiment with new ways of doing it; but you learn to drive nails because you want to build new things.

Far from yearning for a golden, changeless past, “ritualists” are the most progressive of men, fearlessly facing the unknown future so long as they can take along their prayer books and water, their wafers and their wine.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 78.

In Against Christianity, Theology - Sacraments, Worship
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The Gray Twilight

November 29, 2011 — Leave a comment

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt, cited in The Christian Almanac, 698.

In Wisdom
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First Sunday of Advent: Seeing the City: Gen. 22:1-17, Heb. 11:8-22, Mk. 12:39-13:13

November 28, 2011 — 2 Comments

Introduction
Advent means “coming,” and Advent celebrates God as the God who comes near to His people. This year we are using Heb. 11:10 as the thematic touchstone for the season: “For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

Summary of the texts: Hebrews describes the faith of Abraham in terms of cities and homelands. By faith he obeyed when he was called to go out to a foreign land (11:8-9). He and all his descendents died in faith, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, seeking a homeland (11:13-14). Had they thought about it, they may have wished to go back to where they came from (11:15). Instead, they were looking for a heavenly city, and that’s exactly what God was preparing for them (11:16). Wound through this city/homeland language are specific instances of faith particularly tied to Sarah conceiving and bearing a son (11:11) and Abraham offering up Isaac and receiving him back (11:17-19). In other words, the kind of city/homeland he was seeking is one characterized by obedience and the powerful working of God. This is faith.

In Genesis 22, Abraham is commended by God particularly because he obeyed the voice of the Lord (Gen. 22:18). As Hebrews has noted, Abraham obeys in confidence believing that God will provide one way or another (Gen. 22:5, 8). Abraham was no stoic; when God provides the substitute ram, Abraham’s worship is shaped by God’s provision (Gen. 22:14). The other thing to note is that Abraham’s test takes place on Mt. Moriah, the later site of the temple (Gen. 22:2, 2 Chr. 3:1). Continue Reading…

In Advent, Bible - Genesis, Bible - Hebrews, Bible - Mark, Church Calendar, Sermon Outlines
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Advent Prayers

November 28, 2011 — Leave a comment

Occasionally people have asked what my family does for Advent.

I’ve posted a summary of our weekly tree-decorating antics here.

We’re also doing the Advent wreath/candle custom this year, and I found these simple prayers that I’m using with the kids. These are so short and simple that they are easy for me (or mom) to say a line and the rest of the family just repeats.

 

Daily Prayers for Lighting the Advent Wreath
First Week 

O Emmanuel, Jesus Christ,
desire of every nation,
Savior of all peoples,
come and dwell among us.

 Second Week 

O King of all nations, Jesus Christ,
only joy of every heart,
come and save your people.
 

Third Week

O Key of David, Jesus Christ,
the gates of heaven open at your command,
come and show us the way to salvation.

  

Fourth Week

O Wisdom, holy Word of God, Jesus Christ,
all things are in your hands,
come and show us the way to salvation.

 

I found these prayers here.

In Advent, Church Calendar, Prayer
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Campaigns, Seasons, and Advent

November 22, 2011 — Leave a comment

The good people over at Mars Hill have a nifty little PDF e-book called “Campaigns,” and I heartily recommend it to you.

It struck me reading through it that this strategy for uniting a church around a particular mission and coordinating all teaching, preaching, small groups, music and arts around it is actually an incredibly ancient concept rooted in the Old Testament and transformed and renewed in the New Covenant and history of the Church.

Traditionally, the Christian Church has held “campaigns” that we call seasons:  Advent-Christmas, Epiphany, Lent-Easter, Pentecost/Trinity Season. When the law was given at Sinai, God told Moses to organize the people around weekly meetings (which became the synagogue meeting every Sabbath), and then scattered through the year were larger feasts and festivals where the people of God were required to gather together (for usually a week), worship and feast together, and invite all their friends and neighbors and the poor and needy. In modern parlance, God required His people to go to three major conferences a year. But within that requirement lay the seed for the idea of “seasons.” While Israel hardly ever actually kept God’s requirements in this regard (e.g. it had been hundreds of years since Israel had celebrated Passover by the time of Josiah), it would have taken a goodish bit preparation to pull off these three major feasts. Continue Reading…

In Advent, Church Calendar, Evangelism, Preaching, Worship
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Equipment for Relating to Others

November 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

As God is one and three, as God’s being is being in communion, so human being is being in communion. Made in the image of the triune God, we are always embedded in networks of relationship, long before we are conscious of that fact. Before we could talk or “make up our own mind,” we were addressed, talked to, kissed, smiled at. The only “individuals” in the Bible are idols and their worshipers, who have all the equipment for relating to others and the world but cannot make use of it (cf. Ps. 115). Because of our individualistic bias, we cannot recognize that the “sacraments” are rituals of a new society, public festivals of a new civic order.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 77.

In Against Christianity, Theology - Sacraments
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How Sabbath Builds Culture

November 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

I have an article up over at the Credenda website today. Check it.

In Culture, Sabbath, Theology - Sacraments, Worship
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Bring Sabbath With You

November 21, 2011 — 1 Comment

This coming week many of us will be gathering together with friends and relatives to celebrate Thanksgiving. As we do so, we need to remember this meal, this Thanksgiving. This is where God is teaching us how to celebrate Thanksgiving. This is where God is teaching us how to eat together and live together in true community. The only way for there to be true communion, true fellowship, sharing a meal together with joy is through the cross. This is because the cross of Christ truly deals with sin, and this means that the past can be dealt with. The past can be forgiven, and not only may you have a new beginning with God but also with one another. At this table, God gives us Sabbath. He forgives past failures and He receives our feeble efforts: all the fruit of His own Spirit in our lives. And He strengthens us for the future, for tomorrow. He promises to give us His Spirit to comfort us and help us for the coming week. Sabbath is a safe place between the past and the future. Sabbath is a safe place between the past that frequently haunts us and the future that frequently terrifies us. And God invites us to imitate Him and His Sabbath as we go out into the world, being Sabbath to and for one another and the world. This means forgiving those who have wronged you and offering them a new start, forgetting their past and offering to walk with them into the future. This is particularly challenging when it’s your own parents, your own children, or brothers or sisters or aunts and uncles and grandparents. It’s easy to imagine being merciful and gracious to faceless people in the abstract. But those closest to us are usually the most challenging to love and forgive. The point isn’t merely that you should be nice to people and give them second chances. Don’t the pagans down you street try to do the same? Won’t they have Thanksgiving dinners too? No, the point is that our meals, our Thanksgivings must in some way come to share the same Sabbath that God grants us here. So as you prepare for Thanksgiving and as you prepare for every meal with your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, whoever, bring Sabbath with you. Come ready to forgive, ready to read the past with love so that you can walk into the future together in the Spirit.

 

In Eucharistic Meditations, Sabbath
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Last Sunday of Trinity Season: Fourth Commandment 3

November 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

Introduction
Previously, we have seen that Sabbath pushes us outside of ourselves, commanding us to remember the people around us, guarding them, giving them life and rest, making a holy people. Last week, we focused primarily on the Sabbath building project. Sabbath is for giving ourselves and our resources to the building of God’s house. This week we look at the kind of culture over generations the Sabbath ought to create.

Holy Convocations
When sin entered the world dislocations and tensions entered the world in three areas: God and man, man and man, man and the world (Gen. 3:13-24). Sin, guilt, and death make this world a threatening place to be, and fear reigns over all of it: fear of betrayal, fear of loss, fear of death. But Jesus came “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14-15). In the Old Covenant, the Exodus and the building of the tabernacle are types of Jesus to come: God freed His people from bondage to Pharaoh and brought them to Sinai to build His house. All of this testifies of God’s intention to reconcile all things: God and man (Passover/Sinai), people with one another (Sabbath, Manna, convocations), humanity with creation (Red Sea crossing, life in the wilderness). The Ten Words are the pattern of living that would mark this reconciled humanity, and the Sabbath command in particular is a bridge between our love for God and our neighbor. God knows that even a redeemed people will still fight and bicker and have different ideas and values. So He commanded them to have a weekly meeting (Lev. 23:3) and throughout the year have extended retreats full of meetings (e.g. Lev. 23:7, 21, 24, 35). All successful leaders and organizations know that central to accomplishing goals is regular, clear communication. And when the goal is the salvation of the world, this is even more important. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Ephesians, Bible - Exodus, Bible - Leviticus, Bible - Mark, Culture, Sabbath, Sermon Outlines
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