Linear Progression

Headed to Bean Town

2008-06-16T15:30:00.004-05:00

I, along with a few other people from my church, are leaving tomorrow morning for Boston. We will be there for the next week, helping a local church minister to the community. We will be helping set up some community events for the locals.

Be praying for the people of Boston, that we will be a true example of Christ to them. Also pray for our group, that we will bond and be united together for the common goal of glorifying our Lord. Finally for safety in all our travels and during the week.

(Sidenote) On Friday night, a few of us are going to a the Red Sox v. St. Louis Cardinals game at Fenway! Being a huge baseball fan, this has been a dream of mine for a while. Also, we will hopefully get to see a lot of sites around the city. (Maybe a NBA championship parade, if the Celtics win the title!)

I will try to post on here throughout the week, and will take some pictures.

-Later

A Shift to the Sports World- Shout-Out to Chipper

2008-06-06T12:36:00.006-05:00

I haven't talked much about sports on this blog, which is kind of rare, because I am a pretty big fan.

Anyway, last night, my favorite baseball player, Chipper Jones, became the third switch hitter (hits left and right-handed) to hit 400 homeruns in his career. He went 4-5 last night, and raised his average to .418!!! (and its almost halfway through the season).

The great thing about Chipper is that he has been on the same team (Atlanta Braves) and has played for the same manager (Bobby Cox) his entire major league career. That is extremely rare this day in age. And another reason to appreciate him is that he has never been linked to or accused of using steroids. (which is also rare these days.)

All that being said... Hats off to Chipper Jones!

Prosperity Gospel (Cont.)

2008-05-28T17:58:00.004-05:00

So, a couple months ago I started writing about the what is known in Christian circles as the "Prosperity Gospel". Lately I have been thinking more about this topic and want to share some things.

I think the problem of this prosperity movement is that the proponents of this ideology have the wrong view of what "prosperity" actually means. (At least according to the Bible) Grant it, they understand the idea of earthly prosperity. They understand what our culture views as prosperous. (such as, a profitable fiscal return on an investment, cars, lots of money.) I'll give you an example.

The other night I was watching the Daystar Network, (it is one of those channels where all kinds of televangelists say all kinds of things) and a prominent prosperity guy was on there. He kept talking about "sowing your 1,000 dollar seed". He would say, "if you give this money, God will surely bless you." (This is just speculation on my part... but by saying people will be "richly blessed" by what/how much they give is an easy way to get alot of money for your ministry... its makes you wonder...) Another guy that was with him, was talking about how God will change your financial situation. He kept saying how God will bless your financial investments, real estate purchases, and things like that. One of (the many) funny things that I heard on the show, was the title of this guy's book. It was entitled, "God, Please Don't Repo My House" He said, in this book, he talks about how God transformed his investments. From what I gathered of his explanation of the book, by trusting in the power of God, he was able to have unbelievable returns on his money.

(Now I am not saying that God doesn't want us to make good profitable investments. But it seems these guys are using God as a means to their own end of being of rich. I think I mentioned this before, but it seems, they are making God kind of like a genie that grants their wishes of earthly wealth.)

Is this how Jesus and scripture view prosperity? I would have to disagree. In my opinion, this is a short-sided and perverted view of what the Bible views as true prosperity.

If you look at the life and ministry of Jesus, He was all about being "counter-cultural."

First of all, he lowered himself to nothing when he came to earth. He was GOD and he chose to be born to a peasant family that lived in one of the poorest regions of the Israel (Nazareth). I mean, this is huge! He was the Creator of the World (Colossians 1:15-17, John 3:3). He could have been born and lived in the finest palace on earth, but he chose not to be. He never even owned his own home (Matt. 8:20). Check out what Paul says about this (Philippians 2:6-8).

Now think about this... What would our culture tell us to do if we had all the power in universe to do whatever, live wherever, and buy whatever we wanted? (Being fully God on earth, Jesus certainly had the power to do this.) Looking at the common theme of America, (and human nature for that matter) you gotta get all you can. What's the American dream?... to live in the nicest house, drive the nicest car, and make the most money. If this is the true meaning of prosperity, why wasn't this the method Christ used when he came to the earth? If we are suppose to have the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5), then should we be craving what our culture views as prosperity... Or, should we be "counter-cultural"?

Think about it.

More to come...

Time to Breathe

2008-05-11T12:24:00.002-05:00

One year of seminary in the books. It was long and busy, but so worth it. I have learned a lot about the bible, theology, and the things that come with being in seminary. Not only that, but about life, and more of how to try and think through issues. The Lord has been very gracious to me, to say the least.

This summer is going to hopefully be a little more relaxed. Maybe I will actually get to read some leisure books, play basketball, and possibly write on this blog. There are a lot of things to write about, so this summer may be a good time.

Don't forget about Leviticus

2008-04-20T23:33:00.002-05:00

What is the first thing you hear when you hear Leviticus?... Boring... what is that?... is that in the Bible?... In my OT history class I am writing a paper about the Israelite sacrificial system, specifically the burnt offering found in the chapter one While it is certainly true that we are in no way tied to the required sacrifices and rituals found in the book, I am finding that their is a lot many of us as gentile (non jewish), modern-day believers can learn from it.

Quickly... the burnt offering required that the offerer bring a one year old male animal. Most commonly a lamb, but a bull or goat was accepted and also a pigeon (for the poor). This animal had to be perfect, without defect whatsoever. Also, the entire animal had to be given. In some of the sacrifices, the priest would get the "leftovers" from certain parts of the animal, or it would be returned to the one offering it. This offering required that the entire animal be given to God. I think this is hard for us Westerners to understand. For the Israelites meat was a rare commodity. It's not like us, where we eat steak like its our job (obviously I am painting a broad picture here... sorry vegans, vegetarians and such) Anyway, meat was something of high regard to these people. Needless to say, this was quite a sacrifice for them.

Furthermore, the crazy thing about this offering was that the offerer had to kill the animal themselves. They skinned it, dismembered it and such (sorry for the graphic mental picture). Most of the time, the priest was responsible for this. So, needless to say, they were taking an active role in their worship to God. Wow, not only did they have to give all of the best animal they had (which were not many), they had to personal slaughter it. Also, this was the most common of required sacrifices, in that they had to be performed most often. All this was done for the primary result of pleasing the Lord. It was seen as a "pleasing aroma to the Lord" (1:4). This was done as a reparation for sin, and also for thanking God for what he had done i.e. (childbirth, healing) (Lev. 12-13).

(Sidenote: I wanna say that this passage brings me to my knees, in that I am unspeakably thankful for the Son of God becoming the perfect and permanent sacrifice for every sin, and also making it possible for us to commune with our Lord without the medium of a sacrifice.)

As I started thinking about what lessons I can learn from this, it made me realize how little (or not all) I sacrifice in my worship to God. These offerings were seriously significant to these people. They really had to understand what the word "sacrifice" truly meant. I thought about all the times I give God "second-rate" offerings. I, many times, read my Bible or pray after I have already done all the other stuff I want to do. I give God my "leftovers", when I should be giving him my "first fruits" (see Numbers 18:13). Or what about giving money or talents, gifts etc. to the Lord. What if we had the mindset of these people, in that we gave from the top of our proverbial cup, instead of the drops that fall out when we are done indulging ourselves.

So, who says Leviticus can't mean something to Christians today? You won't hear that from me!

So, what i thought might happen... has happened

2008-04-13T13:35:00.003-05:00

When I decided to do this few part series on the prosperity gospel, I had a feeling school might get in the way. And, in order to truly put the kind of time into researching this subject as I would like, it will take more time than i have right now. So I am going to put this topic "on hold" until the semester ends. (like it hasn't already been like this for three weeks now) I will try to post some random thoughts here and there. Anyway, i pray for all of you who have many school assignments to finish, and i would humbly ask for the same prayer. God Bless.

A deadly falsehood in America and throughout the World! (Part 1)

2008-03-29T22:00:00.005-05:00

As promised, I am going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. Some of you may know that I believe my God-given calling is to one day be a pastor. So, what I will be saying is not only important to me, but to many pastors and followers of Christ. (At least the ones that have high reverence and admiration for the Word of God!) There is a lot to be said about this topic, so I am going to split it into a few chunks. I hope to be able to do this in a timely manner, but with school and everything... well you know the story...

I am going to discuss what is known as the Prosperity Gospel (aka health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, "name-it-claim-it" theology, "Word of Faith"...those are the primary names for it) For this entry, I am going to try and spell out how this terminology is defined, and touch on the danger of it. For the next piece (or more), I will look more into the serious implications of this school of thought and biblical responses and refutations. The final installment will discuss the history of this movement, some of the key players, and some closing remarks. All along the way, I will try and post some links and sources for further (and better) insight on this subject. Well... here goes.

An issue of Time Magazine released in September of 2006 had a title on the cover with quite a loaded question. "Does God Want You to be Rich?" This is a question that has been a hot issue in mainstream culture today, and is the basis for this topic. With that in mind, I see the basic definition of the Prosperity Gospel to be the idea that devoted belief and trust in God will yield material wealth or prosperity for the believer. It works kind of like the recipe for grandma's famous apple pie... if you put in the right ingredients (in this case faith, love, devotion to God) you will get a delicious desert (or in this case a 5000 square foot house, a Bentley and a Rolls!). External and material earthly blessings are seen as a sign that God has shown favor toward you.

One of the mantras of a prominent leader in this movement (who may be mentioned in the final segment) is that one of God's top priorities is to graciously bless Christians in this lifetime. He may continue by saying that such a great a mighty God would not want anything less than the best for his children (By "best" this guy usually means giving more money, power etc...)

Well, there may be more to include about the definition of this movement, but this is pretty much the essence of the message it is trying to communicate.

So, what's wrong with this ideology? (Upon reading the title you see I don't really agree with it, to say the least) This is what we are going to talk about mostly in the second and third entries, but let me "whet your whistle" briefly.

John Piper, who is one of best examples of a Godly and biblical pastor and leader in recent years, uses a simple statement in one of his messages that speaks volumes to the disaster of this movement. He says (and I paraphrase), when you focus and trust God in hope to gain some sort of earthly prosperity, "you put the gift above the giver." Which, simply put, is idolatry. With this ideology, you are attempting to make God a means to your own end. You want him to be that "genie in a bottle" that can grant your every wish, or like some Tinkerbell "pixy (sp) dust" that can help you "fly" to reach your wildest dreams and ambitions (I know this analogy is kind of a stretch, but i wanted to use the words "Tinkerbell" and "pixy (sp) dust" from the classic Disney movie Peter Pan).

Just to mention, this falsehood is obviously being promulgated in the US, but is also being exported overseas. In most cases, it being preached to the poorest of the poor in third world countries. (I have posted a youtube video featuring John Piper of a piece of a sermon he gave in Birmingham, AL.)

This topic is so scary to think about because this is such a breeding ground for spawning a throng of people that neither know or care about the true character of our beloved, amazing triune God and his TRUE purpose for their lives. This being because they are wearing "BMW colored glasses"... or are denouncing God when they don't get what they want from their "god-genie".

Well, in this chunk I have set forth a little bit about what the prosperity gospel is, and a brief response to it. The next installment will actually have some real authority (the Holy Word of God). So you can consider this the appetizer with the "meat and potatoes" forthcoming.

Below I have put some links to a couple things we talked about, that I suggest would be good to take a look at.

LINKS

John Piper piece/video on the prosperity gospel
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=john+piper+prosperity+&search_type=

Time Magazine article ("Does God Want You to be Rich") pretty interesting read
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html

There will be more outside info/sources as this thing proceeds.

Please, feel free to respond to what I having been talking about. Also, if you know of any good info/links to share, please do so.

Can't wait to share more...

Busyness is taking its toll

2008-03-28T12:12:00.002-05:00

As some of you may know, I am in my first year of seminary at Dallas Theological in Dallas, TX. It starting to get to "crunch time" in the semester. Tests are approaching, all kinds of papers are due. So, I guess blogging isn't getting too much attention at the moment. But, I do have something I want to talk about that is very near and dear to my heart and will be posting very soon.... so stay tuned....

Exploring South East Texas

2008-03-22T12:46:00.000-05:00

What do downtown Houston, Galveston, the Johnson Space Center, and College Station, TX have in common? They are all places my friend Chris and I visited on our 30 hour adventure from Dallas on Thursday/Friday. While the trip was really short in length, it felt like we were gone for many days.

I must say that Houston is a pretty nice place to be. (Maybe I wouldn't say that if I was there in July when it's 110 degree with 110 percent humidity.) Downtown was really clean, many of the historic buildings were well restored. On our way to town, Chris and I had the crazy idea of parking our car at one of those park and ride places and riding the bus into downtown. After about 10 minutes of deciphering the mass transit mapping system, we boarded one of the buses that went into downtown.

Upon arriving downtown, we switched over to the monorail that went through town like an an ground-level subway system. We took the tram about as far as it could go to Reliant Stadium (the Houston Texans football stadium). Beside it was the old Astrodome. I must say it was one of the nastiest things I have ever seen. It was almost like they thought about tearing it down... say twenty years ago, decided against it, and then refused to maintain the premises for the last two decades. We then returned downtown and walked by Minute Maid Park (the Astros baseball stadium). (If you can't tell we are pretty big sports fans.) After eating dinner, we jumped on a bus and returned to our park and ride lot outside of town.

On the way back, we thought "why not go by College Station on the way back to Dallas?" So we headed down the back roads that led from greater Houston to College Station. Talk about "the back-side of nowhere!" One thing to note from this portion of the trip was that there were actually regular-sized trees. Unlike Dallas and westward, where the trees might get 30 ft. tall, there were actually some regular-sized trees, and I saw the first evergreen I have seen in probably 8 months. It felt like I was back in my home state of North Carolina.

Well, we got to college station about 8:30. We parked by Kyle Field (the fourth sports venue we had seen that day). The campus was pretty cool, and really big. I decided it was like a "Texas-sized" version of NC State (my alma mater), which makes sense considering they are both "aggie" schools.

Well, I have rambled far too long about our trip, so I will stop with the closing remarks being... I am glad I was able to get away, even if it was for only a short time. It was good to see some sites, and have a little a break before finishing out the rest of this grueling semester.

Glad to be a part of the "blogging" community, and look forward to posting sometime soon.

Feel free to comment.

I guess I am one of "those people"

2008-03-21T01:17:00.001-05:00

The word "blog" (n) and "blogging" (v) weren't in the modern vocabulary a few years ago. Now it seems like anybody whose anybody has a blog.... does this mean that i have "arrived"??