Month: August 2017

Morning Musings: Proverbs 20:22

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“Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.”  (ESV)

When we have been affronted by some evil, or when we see someone else who has been affected by it, our natural response is to want to repay it.

Throughout the whole of human history, our natural response has been to repay in kind when we have been dealt an offense.  And this is right, isn’t it?  If something is wrong, we need to act to set it right.  For someone who doesn’t believe in a just god, this is obviously necessary, because who else is going to do it?  But even for those who believe in a God who is perfect in justice this should be something that is good and right, yes?  After all, this would be our participating in His character of justice.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 1 Corinthians 12:4-6

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“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

It takes a lot to make the church work.  There are all kinds of different roles that need to be filled.  Some of them are out front and flashy.  Some of them are entirely behind the scenes and go completely overlooked…unless they’re not being done.

The challenge this presents the church is that we tend to assign value based on external factors only.  If something is visible, we count it as more valuable than something that is invisible.  If something draws our eyes because of its prominence, we count it as more valuable than something which is not as eye-catching.  Read the rest…

Constantly learning and organizing

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So I write…a lot.  And I’m still a learning, work-in-progress when it comes to this whole blogging thing.  Pacing when it comes to managing a blog is a learned skill with a bit of a curve to master.  There’s a balance to it.  If you don’t publish enough, you won’t keep people around long enough to get invested in what you have to say.  But, if you publish too much, you wear people out and overwhelm them to the point that they give up on you.  As your email inbox or Facebook feed may have clued you in, I’m not likely to fall victim to the former challenge.  The latter, however…well…I might possibly lean in that direction from time to time.

With that in mind, I’m going to try something new going forward.  I’m going to dial back posts to just three days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  On each of those days there will be a combination of Morning Musings and Digging in Deeper posts.  But now, instead of having so much pressure to read right away because the next wave is coming, interested readers will have a bit more breathing room before the next set of posts will run.

Prayerfully, this will be a bit better a pace both for you, my faithful readers, and also for me, the verbose writer.  Thank you for coming with me on this journey and learning with me as we together explore how the Christian worldview serves as the nexus for all of life.  If you like what you are finding here, sign up to follow this site at the bottom of the page and share it with your friends.  Together we can build a community here that grows day by day (okay, well, three days a week for now) to not just understand, but live out of the life that is truly life.

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 10:25-29

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“Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience.  For ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.”  If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.  But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience–I do not mean your conscience, but his.  For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience?”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here are Paul’s final thoughts on the issue of eating meat that came from a pagan sacrifice: Eating it doesn’t matter.  If you want to eat it, go ahead.  If you don’t, don’t worry about it.  It’s meat.  Making a mountain out of this molehill is a worthless effort.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Psalm 99:8

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“O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of the things that can be so frustrating about the Scriptures is that over and over they take two ideas which seem to be contradictory, declare them both to be true, and, rather than resolving the tension, simply leave it in place.

Some examples of this would be divine sovereignty and human responsibility, Jesus’ full humanity and full divinity, and the three-persons and one-person nature of the Trinity.  Right here we see another tension.  The psalmist declares God to be both a forgiver of sins, but also an avenger of wrongdoings.   Read the rest…