Tried With Fire

"But Mr. Weston is almost an old man . Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty ." from Emma by Jane Austen, chapter 4. As the year is drawing to a close, I have been thinking about growing older, because I turned 48 this year. In Jane Austen's time, 40-50 years was the average life span, and she only lived to 42. Therefore, the above comment may not be as harsh as we would think. But today, 50 is not old given our 21st century life expectancy. In fact, I have heard some people refer to it as the new 30. So if 50 is the new 30, I'm still in my theoretical 20's. Then why am I still sometimes reluctant to admit my age? Conversely, why am I flattered on the rare times I get carded at the grocery store? Maybe our culture encourages our infatuation with youth. Media has inundated us with the myth/lie which says "youth + beauty = happiness" or at least a reasonable fac simile. It's also interesting to note that the standard is different for women than ...

(Sorry for the following rant, but I had first-hand contact with some postmodern pathogens today.) Most people are probably familiar with the Pharisee version 1.0 stereotype. These people examine everyone around them with a microscope to see if others live up to a standard of behavior. The standard can be, "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with women who do" and others rules of the same ilk. But it seems Pharisee version 2.0 is available as well. Today, there is overwhelming pressure to not take a stand on anything for fear of offending anyone. The bywords are, "Don't judge me. God accepts me just the way I am and you should, too". Therefore, no one can say anything negative about anything. Even in our language we dance around the word sin by calling things issues . "So-and-so has an issue with authority." Maybe So-and-so really has the sin of rebellion, but God forbid that we would dare say that. I'm not tal...

Because Easter is tomorrow, many folks in the blogsphere are posting hymns and scripture relating to Christ's death on the cross and resurrection. It has been very edifying for me to meditate on Christ's death and atoning work. The flip side is that there are people who take on the name of "Christian" and don't believe in the penal substitutionary death of Christ at all. That boggles my mind, and I can't wrap my brain around that one. This may be completely obvious, but I wonder if the belief that man is inherently and totally sinful goes hand in hand with believing that God is a just and holy God. It seems you can't have one without the other. If God is just, holy, and righteous as well as loving, He would not be God if He did not demand punishment for sin. He is the judge. He is the standard maker and that standard has been violated. In that case and given His absolute perfection, there is no question that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of G...

Is this the title for a previously unknown book by Mrs. John Owen? What does knitting have to do with the mortification of sin? Absolutely nothing. Well, why bring it up? Because I am still ruminating over the whole issue of fellowship and if we need to talk explicitly about Christ to make it true fellowship. I'm still not satisfied with what I wrote yesterday. Maybe the question needs to be reworded from "Is it fellowship if we don't talk about Christ?" to "Should it be normal for believers to be together and not talk of Christ?" I am not saying that we shouldn't get together for picnics to fly kites, or go skiing, or participate in soft ball. But if we are together and love the Lord, why would we not speak of Him even in our every day conversation? I'm talking about more than just giving thanks for the food. It reminds me of a line from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: "Brandon is just the kind of man," said Willoughby one day, when ...

We had a church meeting last night to discuss future small groups. We're using Why Small Groups by C.J. Mahaney, et al as the springboard. It was interesting that there wasn't a consensus to what fellowship is. The author of the second chapter does not believe that a social activity even among Christians is fellowship. There was talk about whether one needed to have explicit Christian conversation for it to be fellowship or not and reasons why it is hard to have fellowship. (I don't want to give the impression that folks were only interested in the social aspect of getting together at all.) I thought Pastor Ryan made some good observations, the first being that our naturally bent is to not go to the "deep end of the pool". This is where the more heavy duty stuff like confrontation of sin and correction takes place. That needs to be the goal even though there is a journey to get there. Also, he mentioned that even a shared history together is not the basis for fe...