Tag: Christian living

Digging in Deeper: Philippians 3:17-20

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“Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross  of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory  is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Films and series about villains don’t typically do very well. There are a handful of exceptions to this, but not many. Sony’s attempting at creating their own Spiderverse (mostly) separate and apart from the MCU is a great example. They took a bunch of villains, removed the hero who gave them substance, and tried to sanitize them by making them complicated antiheroes. And most of them bombed. Badly. The Joker 2 is another good example. By all accounts it was unbelievably awful. A villain-based series from HBO Max, though, seems like it could be an exception. I’m only three episodes in, but the story is pretty good, if frustratingly depressing. Let’s talk about The Penguin.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 2:13-16

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“For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. So, when Gentiles, who do not by nature have the law, do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and then you hear about a judge getting arrested for violating the law in some way. Those always feel like rather scandalous stories because judges are supposed to be the ones who know the law best as well as what the consequences for violating the law are. They are the ones who set the consequences for violating the law. They should know better than anyone else not only what not to do, but why not to do it from at least the consequences side of things. And yet knowing the law and doing the law are two different things. One does not necessarily or naturally lead to the other. As Paul continues to challenge the Jewish background believers in his audience, this is what he seeks to help them understand next. Let’s unpack this with him.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 2:2-4

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“Now we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. Do you think — anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same — that you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Self-righteousness is not a good look. What exactly is self-righteousness, though? Oxford says it is having an unfounded certainty of one’s moral superiority. Essentially, it’s the feeling that you are better than the people around you. Of course, you don’t feel that, but I’ll bet you know a bunch of other folks who seem to as far as you are concerned. In somewhat more robust theological terms, self-righteousness is the mindset that you have made yourself right with God. If our culture generally condemns the Oxford sort of self-righteousness, it ranges from being more ambivalent to openly encouraging of this second sort. Paul doesn’t agree. Let’s talk about why.

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Morning Musing: Romans 2:1

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“Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture that hates judgment. Well, at least we profess and make a mean case of such a thing. But the truth is that we love judgment. We simply don’t like people judging us or people we count as our people. We’re very content to cast judgment on those who don’t meet with our standards whatever they are. This state of affairs makes the oft-lobbed criticism that Christians are too judgmental of a lot most ironic. Yet accusing followers of Jesus of being judgmental isn’t something the culture has the corner market on. Paul does it right here. Let’s talk about why and what he means.

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Love God First

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Marriage is something that affects all of our lives in one way or another. Most people are going to be married at some point in their lives. And, the various authors of the Scriptures have some things to say about marriage. This all means that as a church, it’s something we need to talk about from time to time. For the next four weeks, that’s exactly what we are going to do in a brand-new series called Back to the Basics. We are going to talk about four adjustments we can make in our marriages at a very fundamental level that will help put us on a track toward the relationships we want most. Let’s get start with today with a conversation about getting our priorities right.

Love God First

We do a lot of building in my house. The exact thing being built varies, but the building itself is consistent. Perhaps the most common building that happens is with Legos. Now, of course, you can build anything you want with Legos if you have the right bricks. The sky really is the limit in terms of the creative potential of that particular medium. Most of the Lego building that goes on in my house, though, is with pre-designed sets. These sets come with all the pieces you need to build whatever it is, packaged neatly in numbered bags, and with a set of instructions that walks you step-by-step through the process of building. Pro-tip, though: Don’t open all the bags at once. That makes the building a lot more tedious. Depending on the complexity of the build, the instructions range from fairly short to book length. But however long they happen to be, the most important thing is that you follow them carefully. If you use the wrong piece or put the right piece in the wrong place, that’s going to cause trouble later on in your building process. I can remember some sets I got mostly built only to discover that I had placed a piece incorrectly dozens of pages before. I had to go back and systematically take things apart in order to get it straightened out the right way. It was not very much fun. 

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