What I'm Reading, Want to Read, Have Read

Usually, when I read a book, I end up reading several books together. Maybe I have trouble finishing what I start when it comes to books; maybe the book starts out boring and I don't want to have to endure it if I don't have to. Somehow, though, I still read a good deal, even after graduating from seminary, when many people would like to take a few years off from reading.

One book I'm reading is The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel. The subtitle reveals the gist of the book: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist. It's not deep, but it hits right where many (most?) Christians are at.

One book I've barely started but am interested in digging through is the Calvinist classic The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Lorraine Boettner. This work is a classic presentation of Reformed theology (5-point Calvinism). Why am I, a non-Calvinist, reading it? A quote I heard long ago comes to mind: before you can say, "I disagree," you need to say, "I understand." There are some things about Reformed theology I don't understand.

I have recently read Glenn Sunshine's Why You Think the Way You Do: the Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home. I reviewed this book for the Stone-Campbell Journal, which will come out in the spring. Sunshine traces major ideas from the Roman Empire through modern times and how those ideas affect our ethics, actions, priorities, etc. In short I thought it was too big of a task for a popular-level book of less than 250 pages, and I would refer the reader to the works of Rodney Stark for better stuff in this area.

Then there are many books to which I turn when preparing for lessons, sermons, and answering general inquiries. These books are read a chapter here, a chapter there. Recent shelf pulls include The Kingdom of the Cults, The Quran, The Book of Mormon, The Faith Once for All, Heaven, What the Bible Teaches About Spiritual Warfare, Pagan Christianity?, The Apostolic Fathers, BAGD, NIDNTT, TDNT, NIDOTTE, A Reader's Greek New Testament.

Oh yeah, and The Bible. :)

Quote for Today

"Grace is not permission to sin without limits, but permission to pursue God without limits in spite of our sin."

This was a key statement in a sermon I preached last Sunday. The sermon was about Romans 1:16-17 and about how the good news about Jesus is the reason for, the motivation for, and the substance of our message to the world. I ended the sermon with a call for Christians to understand their identity in Christ: they are children of God, not employees of God. The difference is remarkable: people who think they have to be a perfect parent/spouse/friend/etc. in order for God to love them are thinking like employees. They think that performance earns God's love. But that thinking misunderstands grace. Grace has multiple sides to it: on the one hand, grace is God withholding from us what we deserve while giving us what we don't deserve, and on the other hand, grace is margin for error in our lives as Christians. God loves us not because we've earned it, not because we're perfect, but because we are his children.

Quote for Today

"Now faith will totter if the authority of Scripture begins to shake. And then, if faith totter, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also fall from love; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist."

- Augustine, On Christian Instruction, book 1, ch. 35

Quote for Today

“Jesus asked us to love our enemies. Part of loving is learning to understand. Too few Christians today seek to understand why their enemies think in ways that we find abhorrent. Too many of us are too busy bashing feminists, secular humanists, gay activists, and political liberals to consider why they believe what they do. It’s difficult to sympathize with people we see as threats to our children and our neighborhoods. It’s hard to weep over those whom we have declared enemies.”

John Fischer, “Learning to Cry for the Culture,” Christianity Today, April 2007, p. 41.

On Good Friday

“Henri Nouwen tells the story of an old man who used to meditate early every morning under a big tree on the bank of the Ganges river. One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that branched out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain.

At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: ‘Hey, stupid old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?’

The old man turned his head. Looking into the stranger’s eyes he said calmly, ‘My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.’”

- Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, p. 157

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

- Romans 5:6-8

Links to Hot Topic Studies for RECC

I have finally found a way to create links to the notes for the series of Hot Topics lessons I taught (and will be teaching on the first Sunday of each month in 2010). Here are the links to the lessons (so far):

Homosexuality and Gay Marriage

Missions Issues

Missions Issues Handout

Baptism



Hope this works.

Quote for Today

"It makes no sense to pray about God's will for our future if we are ignoring God's will for our present."
- Thomas Hale, On Being a Missionary, 21

That statement has always resonated with me, has always convicted me. Too often I worry about the future without worrying about the present.* Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which I take to mean seek to recognize and really live like God is your king; seek the kingship of God before you even seek out clothes and food and shelter.

Paul says it this way: "offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will" (Rom. 12:1-2). Knowing God's will comes through us letting go of ourselves as the ones in charge, seeking to remember and live like God is our king, and getting our minds right with the help of the Holy Spirit, moving toward him and away from the way the world does things.

We Christians ought to be subverting American culture: seeking to serve instead of to have authority over; finding peace through contentment, discipline, and devotion, instead of through power, money, and looking out for Number One; loving instead of ignoring or abusing; forgiving instead of "if you get hit, hit back harder," sharing our burdens instead of unionizing our social life ("that's HIS problem; I don't have to do that"), and many other things you can find in that wonderful collection of books called the New Testament.

As for me, I know that seeking God's will for my present isn't always easy. I don't see the point in me working where I work, but I have to trust that, somehow, this will make sense when I finally am working where I want to work. This is preparing me for something later on in life. Following what you believe God wants for you (whether that's some specific, detailed plan for your life or, as I believe, a desire for you to be virtuous and wise as you choose from several good options) does not necessarily mean that you will know what is going to happen. If you did, what room is there for faith, for trust, for appreciation of God's goodness and wisdom?

Moving toward Him in our daily lives is how we learn the will of God for the future.




*"Worry" in the sense of "put emphasis on," not in the sense of "stress about."