If a twelve-year-old makes A’s in school and generally makes wise choices, how would you help her apply this verse to herself?
Never be wise in your own sight. (Romans 12:16)
You might say:
1. It means that you gladly admit that all true wisdom is from God. It is his, and not finally ours.
2. It means that you recognize that any sense of superiority comes from comparing yourself only with your inferiors. But the most important person to compare yourself with is God, and he is infinitely wiser than you. Not only that, there are a lot of people in the world wiser than you.
3. It means that you feel humbled by the fact that you are a sinner deserving of God’s wrath, and that you are amazed at the grace that gives you eternal life. This humility and amazement swallows up a sense of pride.
4. It means that you do not count yourself worthy of being served, but rather “empty yourself” and become obedient and serve others, both the wise and the foolish.
5. It means that you are mainly not thinking about yourself at all but taken up with how admirable Jesus is and how wonderful his works are and how interesting and needy others are.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Knowledge Without Wisdom = Bad News Bears
I really needed to read this today...(Thank you Desiring God blog!)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
According to the Times: C.H. Spurgeon 1857
I thought that it would be a fun project to see how Christianity has been documented over the past hundred years or so, and somehow ended up at the NY Times website. They have archived articles that go all the way back to 1851 and they are basically scanned copies of the originals. Thus begins my new series: According to the Times. This will be a kind of on again, off again series, and hopefully over time I can develop a "Times Timeline of Christian People & Events" that will be both fun and educational...Seriously though, I'm excited. So without further ado, I give you series post #1, "C.H. Spurgeon 1857". (Keep in mind, Spurgeon was only 23 years old in 1857.)
March 16th, 1857: Personals
March 28th, 1857: Books of the Week
July 16th, 1857: Moral and Religious Intelligence
August 8th, 1857: Moral and Religious Intelligence (This article sounds like it was written about Mark Driscoll!)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
T4G: Still Recuperating...
T4G was in a word...incredible. On one hand I was incredibly edified, on the other hand it almost killed me. To anyone who went to T4G and survived, I salute you. The schedule was simply relentless, and I do mean RELENTLESS. The two hour time change only added to the exhaustion, but again it was all worth it.
So here I am, a week later, still sick. Whatever I had before I left is still having fun with me in various ways that I can't explain in detail. The above picture pretty much covers it.
For those of you who were not able to attend the conference this year, here are the links to the various talks that were given:
T4G Conference Messages: Audio
Also, the BlackCalvinist posted some great video clips from the conference as well. I am so glad that he captured the singing, because it was one of the highlights of the conference for me. There is really nothing like 5,000 men singing at the top of their lungs. Check out the clip to see what I'm talking about.
Finally, you can always go to Challies blog to see a more detailed overview of the conference. I may not blog for a few days, so for the five of you that read this, sorry. Believe it or not, it is hard to blog when you don't feel well. In the meantime, enjoy the conference highlights!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Together for the Gospel - Day 1
After arriving in Louisville at 12 am this morning, I quickly fell asleep at my friend Eric's house only to wake up 7 hours later for Old Testament at 8:30am. The bed was more than adequate, although I seem to have an issue with causing every air mattress have ever slept on to deflate...It was a good night's sleep regardless, and I am very thankful for my hosts' generosity. Eric still had classes to go to down here at Southern, so I thought I would tag along and get my money's worth while I'm out here. Thankfully, it was a beautiful morning.
Good morning Louisville!
After Old Testament we went to chapel, where Mark Dever gave a terrific exposition of Ezekiel 37. Through the word of God dry bones become like a mighty army, and I like those bones was once dead and became alive by the word of Christ! Amen! I would highly recommend downloading the audio for this from Southern's website.
Here is a picture of Eric and I in chapel. I am actually really happy to be here, but I could not get my camera to focus so....the result was less than perfect.
Following chapel I sat in on Eric's last class for the day, Intro to Spiritual Disciplines taught by Don Whitney. The lecture was about family worship and it was not only convicting but incredibly motivating. We will definitely be more worship minded as a family when I get back to Colorado!
After that it was straight to the conference. Here are some more pictures from Day 1. Enjoy!
Old Testament Classroom at Southern
The T4G Bookstore (This was absolutely huge. Almost ridiculous...almost.
Everyone waiting to get into the actual conference room. There are about 5,000 people here.
The Stage
John Piper Sat Here...
The crowd
Me and C.J. Mahaney (I know, I'm absolutely shameless...) Oh and thanks to Tony Reinke from Shepherd's Scrapbook for taking the picture for me!
Here is Joshua Harris with a typical Sovereign Grace smile on his face. Incredibly nice guy.
And here is Eric giving his approval of a day well spent. I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow night (hopefully less blurry). Take care all, and keep praying for me as I'm still not feeling to well. Thanks!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Heading to T4G!
Well, around 4pm today I will be driving to the airport to hitch a ride to Louisville, Kentucky. I will be arriving at 12:01 am, no doubt exhausted, but it's worth it. Funny thing is, about halfway through my day yesterday I started to feel absolutely terrible, and actually thought about cancelling my flight. My muscles were sore, my throat was sore, I had chills but no fever, and I was mentally out of commission. Needless to say, I was stuggling in faith and trust in God, and I was feeling a little frustrated. After all, I have been looking forward to this conference for months and all of sudden I have to wonder if it is even wise to go!
After taking some Tylenol PM and lying in bed for a few hours I finally fell asleep. Thankfully, I feel a little better today, but definitely not 100%. My muscles are still sore, and my throat is sore as well, but the dizziness and fatigue are starting to go away. I still get random chills, but they are becoming less frequent. I decided that since things are on the up I would still go, but I definitely need your prayers.
I will try to post updates during the conference(hopefully with pictures), but I'll leave most of the live blogging to Mr. Challies.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Together for the Gospel: Free Book Predictions
In light of the upcoming Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference (4 days!), I thought it would be fun to make some predictions on what books they will be giving away this year. This is the list that I have from the conference in '06 courtesy of Challies.com:
Just to put this in persepctive, that is roughly $200 worth of free books!
Here are my predictions for this year:
I already have some of these, and I highly doubt that some of these titles would be given away, but here's hoping anyway!
Now it's your turn! What books do you think will be given away this year?
Willow Creek Overhaul
This was taken from an article on the site Our of Ur:
Read the rest here.
Still, I can't help but notice that it is still all about what the people want. What happens when they want something else? I'm just thankful that the flavor of the month for them is scripture and theology. I say that tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully, once they see the fruit from this, they'll never go back.
Today, Greg Hawkins, executive pastor at Willow, recapped the study and then shared some changes that the church is now making in response to the research. He said they’re making the biggest changes to the church in over 30 years. For three decades Willow has been focused on making the church appealing to seekers. But the research shows that it’s the mature believers that drive everything in the church—including evangelism.
Hawkins says, “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.” He spoke about the high levels of dissatisfaction mature believer have with churches. Drawing from the 200 churches and the 57,000 people that have taken the survey, he said that most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough.
Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”
One major implementation of this shift will occur in June when Willow ends their mid-week worship services that had been geared toward believers. Instead the church will morph these mid-week events into classes for people at different stages of growth. There will be theological and bible classes full of “hard-hitting stuff.” Hawkins said most people are very enthusiastic about the change.
On the seeker end of the spectrum, Willow is also changing how they produce their weekend services. For years the value people appreciated most about the seeker-oriented weekend services was anonymity. This is what all their research showed. People didn’t want to be identified, approached, confronted, or asked to do anything. But those days are over.
“Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore,” says Hawkins. “We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.” In the past Willow believed that seekers didn’t want large doses of the Bible or deep worship music. They didn’t want to be challenged. Now their seeker-sensitive services are loaded with worship music, prayer, Scripture readings, and more challenging teaching from the Bible.
Willow has been wrestling with the research from REVEAL since 2004. Hawkins said, “We’ve tried incremental changes for four years, but now we know we have to overhaul our whole strategy.” Small steps are no longer the method; Willow is revamping everything. “It would be malpractice for us to not do something with what we’re learning.”
In the larger REVEAL survey taken by 200 churches, people were asked what they want most from their church. Three of the top four responses were:
1. Help me understand the Bible in greater depth
2. Help me develop a closer personal relationship with Christ
3. Challenge me to grow and take the next step in my faith
Read the rest here.
Still, I can't help but notice that it is still all about what the people want. What happens when they want something else? I'm just thankful that the flavor of the month for them is scripture and theology. I say that tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully, once they see the fruit from this, they'll never go back.
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