Sunday, November 10, 2013

Dallas Willard on Transforming the Will

Bonhoeffer and Christology

"Teaching about Christ begins in silence. 'Be still, for that is the absolute', writes Kierkegaard. That has nothing to do with the silence of the mystics, who in their dumbness chatter away secretly in their soul by themselves. The silence of the church is silence before the Word. In so far as the Church proclaims the Word, it falls down silently in truth before the inexpressible: In silence I worship the unutterable' (Cyril of Alexandria). The spoken Word is the inexpressible; this unutterable is the Word. 'It must become spoken, it is the great battle cry' (Luther). Although it is cried out by the Church in the world, it remains the inexpressible. To speak of Christ means to keep silent; to keep silent about Christ means to speak. When the Church speaks rightly out of a proper silence, then Christ is proclaimed." 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 "Christ the Center" 


This is the opening paragraph from the Introduction of Bonhoeffer's christology lectures. I had that tiny but incredibly important book running through my mind as I sat in church this morning. It was not so much the book, as it was the subject of the book: Christology...that was running through my mind. As I thought about why I went to church in a place where I could understand so little of the sermon and all the songs were simply melody without meaning to me because of my lack of knowing the language....the reason came to me: because of Christ, because this is his body and it is good to come and join the body. That alone, is worth it. (However, I do plan to learn the language  to get over the language barrier and be able to communicate better with the body that I meet with every sunday!)

Friday, November 8, 2013

Bible Study Resource: ISBE online

I just found this website which has the whole ISB encyclopedia online: http://www.internationalstandardbible.com/.
I knew this was used on some other sites, but there is just something nice about having it's own site. I like the ISBE and use it from time to time as a basic Bible encyclopedia, I prefer to read the new "IVP Dictionaries" but those aren't free online right now :)

hopefully this could be a good resource for some people!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

"Forced to Choose"




I have posted a video from the collossian forum website before, and I really like how they handle the questions of science and faith. Here is another short clip from them about the integration of science and faith...it makes me wonder about how I am presenting the issue to my students in SBS when I teach Genesis.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Weekly Talk- Andy Crouch on Power

Andy crouch on power at Qideas

This is a 17 minute talk by Andy Crouch entitled "when Christians have power". Thats not really what he talks about though, he just talks about "jussive power"...they "let it be" power in Gen.1-3, power and idolatry and some interesting stories at the end about Steve Jobs and a "hero/idol" of Crouch's.

I really like it because it is just an appetizer to crouch's new book Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. A book that looks really good, this is just a small appetizer of that new book.

Augustine on Youthful Lust and Marriage

I really enjoyed these thoughts by Augustine from the confessions on youthful lust and marriage. I am blessed to have "found the shore of marriage".

"I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind to mind- the bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh, and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection from unholy desire. Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged my unstable youth down over the cliffs of unchaste desires and plunged me into a gulf of infamy....I was tossed to and fro, and wasted, and poured out, and I boiled over in my fornications...If only there had been some one to regulate my disorder and turn to my profit the fleeting beauties of the things around me, and to fix a bound to their sweetness, so that the tides of my youth might have spent themselves upon the shore of marriage! Then they might have been tranquilized and satisfied with having children, as they law prescribes, O Lord..."

I love the contrast between the "hot imagination of puberty" and the solid real shores of marriage! I read this from a book called "Readings in Christian Thought" by Hugh T, Kerr. It compiles snippets of writings from throughout church history, and I believe this one is compiled from both the confessions and "enchiridion". The ending paragraph is also worth quoting...a biting revelation of the disgustingness of sin:

"Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart- which thou didst pity even in that bottomless pit. Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error- not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself."