Summer reading list

The semester is almost over, and I'm grateful that so far I have gotten through it with little distress besides a couple late nights. I only have a couple minor assignments due before finals begin on the 12th and run through the 18th. Then it's a short trip to Alabama to see Lauren's family and my summer begins, hopefully with a steady source of income! When not working or looking for work, I imagine I will be filling my time with some summer reading. Here is what I have so far on my reading list:

Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different
Tullian Tchividjian's Unfashionable. I don't even know how to spell this guy's last name, but he's got a great heritage in being the grandson of Billy Graham. This book is supposed to be all about how Christianity impacts the world not by fitting in but by standing out.
















The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion
Tim Challies' The Next Story. I've been reading Challies' blog, challies.com for a while and he generally has a lot of awesome things to say. Everybody has been raving about his book. It promises to be a biblical examination and caution about using technology in a way that glorifies God and makes the best use of our time.
















Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God
I am thinking about taking a one week class in the summer called "The Ministry of Worship." It is basically an overview of how music and theology come together, both in doctrine and practice. Part of the assignments are to write a sermon outline on one of the 'standard' worship texts, prepare a couple order of worship outlines, and even compose a hymn! Part of the prerequisite reading is this book on the theology of worship by Bob Kauflin, who is the head of a major praise and worship organization, "Sovereign Grace."
















A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer
Here's another book that's part of that worship class. My general experience with John Piper is that once you've read one by him, you've read all John Piper, but it's difficult not to come away from Piper without feeling both encouraged and challenged in your faith.
















Since I am a pretty slow reader when it comes to books, and tend to get distracted by much shorter articles and essays that I come across, I have a feeling even if my job situation is less than steady, I will still take the whole summer just to get through these. Do you have any suggestions for books I can add? Especially things that are maybe not in the heavily theological/religious practice, which is a predominant theme of what I have already selected.

Hope you enjoy your summers and take advantage of any breaks to be strengthened and renewed!

Memory Verses, Part 1: Journey to Learning

I wrote earlier about how, since I was barely a teenager, God blessed me with a large and every growing appreciation for Scripture and its power in my life. When I was probably in about 9th grade, basically the same time as my first (almost literal) run through the whole Bible, our church youth group also embarked on a short season of guided devotionals and encouraged journaling. We used a little booklet that accompanied DNow-type materials that I have even taught out of a couple times as a college leader at DNows. In the middle of the booklet of daily snippets and challenges was a page of perforated Bible verses, one for each week of the study. It had blank places for us to add more verses, and even had a little carrying case that would slip easily into pants pockets or be kept in my wallet, which I eagerly did for many years. 

Being a nerd and at times intellectually pretty smart, I made great haste at memorizing the whole set and a few subsequent sets that we did over the course of my high school years. I happily testify that many of the verses I took to heart were great encouragers, ranging from great promises of faith like 2 Chron 7:14 (but if my people!), meditation starters like Ps 46:10 ("be still and know I am God") and Ps 42:2 ("when can I meet with God?"), and exhortations to steadfastness like Galatians 1:10 ("if I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ!"). I will likely always remember the very first week's verse in our cards, and I still think it is possibly the most succinct while practical summary of our response to the gospel, Ephesians 4:32, in the grand NIV which all conservative youth curriculum use, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you."

Certainly in our youth group we were given much motivation and opportunity to know and treasure God's Word as Psalm 119:11 tells us (another in the list!). Yet all this memorization seems so run-and-gun now. Maybe this would be more an indictment of a lack of 'biblical theology' and instruction in salvation history from our teachers and leaders at the church, or more perhaps (very likely, indeed) that I simply was not paying attention most of the time, but as I aged I became increasingly frustrated in my biblical study that I did not have any kind of functional literacy in my Bible reading. I had all these cool sounding phrases in my head, and yes most of them were great truths and had both good doctrinal concepts and good personal application, but when I read three verses in front of and after Ephesians 4:32 I could not really tell you what was going on. In fact I was frustrated that I had no idea what was going on in any of the epistles at all, just that they were these great collections of exhortations and Christ exaltations with all these personal references to Epaphrodites, Timothy, and Junia mixed in. When I read the Gospels I recognized the familiar parables and narratives of Jesus, but I could 5 chapters in a row and probably could not tell you if what I read was from the pen of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. The Old Testament was a little easier since all the VBS stories were pretty much distinct in their own eras, and a psalm was definitely different than a proverb was different than a prophet.

In spite of my discouragement, I did get ambitious a few times. 1 John was a letter that, probably because it was very repetitious, I did study and memorize at least all the individual verses one summer, though not all together at one time; I also noticed once that Matt 5-7 was the most red letters in a row with no stops, and it seemed to be a great section of Jesus' teachings, so I went through the Sermon on the Mount another summer as well, though again not retaining all of it at once. However, it was not until my first year in college, with the help of a front and back 1 page laminated copy, that I studied and became intimately familiar with Paul's letter to the Philippians, the first extended book "study" I had done and my first major experience with connecting and applying the context within a book to gain greater understanding of it and its application to our faith today.

Next time I will hope to discuss maybe some principles for memorization in the Church. For now, a simple word of praise and prayer: May God continue to show how His Word has infinite depth and infinite resource into knowing His character, and may we pursue the Holy Spirit deeply to make it real in our lives, proclaiming God's good news to the world.

Technological distractions

John Piper is famous for, among other things, not owning a TV. He's written a little bit on it, and the trend seems to be catching on. One of the Cathy brothers, bringers of the Chick-Fil-A, aka heaven on earth, wrote a nice post that is probably better said than anything I could ever hope to say: 


http://www.cathyfamily.com/BlogPost.aspx?post=746


"We have all been given the same amount of time in every day: 24 hours. That's 168 hours each week. Nobody gets more or less. The only difference we all have is how we choose to use it. Ephesians 5:15-17 states: "Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of your time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

I would never try to tell anyone what God's will for their life is, but I have to believe that our potential to impact the world for Him greatly increases when we're not being couch potatoes!"

I did a short study on that phrase Ephesians uses "making the best use." It turns out what the ESV turns into a phrase (and probably rightly so) is a single word in Greek, ex-agorazw. You probably heard about the Greek Agora in history class, it was just the marketplace in the city, where you bought things. So to "ex"-buy something is literally to buy back; someone took it from you and you are going to go and re-buy it. 

You may already see where this word study is going: the normal word to express physical or spiritual redemption has to do with a loosening or an untying (Jeremiah 15:20 tells us that God will loose/redeem Israel from the grasp of the ruthless); however, in Galatians 3 and 4 Paul instead uses this word ex-agorazw of Jesus' taking us out from the curse of the law. When the law was given, the Hebrews were trapped in it, serving the law. Jesus came and bought us out from the law; instead of being mastered by the rituals, we are now adopted as sons, heirs to God's throne (Galatians 4:3-5).

Ephesians 5 turns a similar phrase to how we as believers and sons of God should operate with time. The days are evil, the devil still has dominion over nearly everything around us (Eph 2:1-3), but we have been bought out from this world into God's kingdom and we are now on His time. We should be focusing on giving light to the world, not becoming partners with the darkness.

Does this mean we are sinning when we watch TV, when we daddle on blogs (even blogs that talk about the Bible!), or when we just lounge around? I don't think so, but it does mean I am going to aim to be much more intentional with my time, to buy it back from the world's desires and instead seek to use it for good and God's glory. Even while in seminary, where it seems most of my free time (if I want to pass my courses and move on) is devoted to theological education that I know is so good for me, I realize it is still so easy to waste the precious resources I have been given. Time is a very valuable gift from God - may I always make the best use of it as the Lord wills.

A Revolution

My soul clings to dust; give me life according to your word! ... Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. Psalm 119:25,27

I apparently wrote this in a private email with a friend in 2007, referring to the time in my life when I was first getting serious about becoming a disciple of Christ:

Oh you mean 1 Corinthians 7? Yeah there's some intense stuff in there.
Basically what Paul is saying is that there's a lot of distractions
that come with being married and growing a family and whatnot. I think
the general principle to get out of that is that you're not ready to
date or anything until you're willing to stay single. On the side, I
remember that verse pretty well from the first time I read through the
Bible [in 2002, between 8th and 9th grades],
because I pointed it out to [other friend] as this revolutionary verse that
could change the way people think about relationships.

Who knew God's Word had such amazing advice? As a 14/15 naive, nerdy kid I hoped for such, but I had no idea the riches contained in the Bible. Now 8 years later, and it still amazes me every time I open it.

Parallel structure in Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2:1-10 had long been a nice "power" passage for me, but it wasn't until about the 95th read through/study of it a few months ago that I noticed a nice parallelism in Paul's writing (also, I have a hard time remembering how to spell words with a mix match of single and double consonants. parralel? paralell? parrallell? accomodate? accooomadayteee?).

In verses 1-3, we have these indictments of we used to be before Christ:

• Dead through trespasses and sins. The word for dead is νεκρος - you are spiritually without a pulse. Grammatically I like to point out that this verse still applies even if you throw out half the Bible and don't believe in original sin; it's because of our individual sins we are dead, not because we are dead, therefore we sin. The law indicts us all.
• Following the course of this world, the prince of the air, ie, the devil. Notice Paul says this is an indictment of "all", even himself.
• Children of wrath. This is pretty intense, we were born dead, and into the family of wrath.

But then in one of Paul's usual epic, divine contrasts, "but God" steps in verse 4 and flips everything:

• Even while we were dead, God made us alive. I call grace the "spiritual defibrillator." You can't yell "clear" and throw on the pads yourself when your heart's stopped, God did that for you.
• Raised up with Christ and seated in the heavenlies - this is an interesting phrase which we can ponder the meaning of, but it stands directly opposite our previous position; instead of following this world and the prince of the "air," we now follow Christ who is in the heavenly places.
• We will be shown the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness, no longer bearing God's wrath. Praise Him who gives such grace to those who do not deserve it!

After a transitional statement about our workmanship and our purpose in God (v8-10), Paul presents another amazing study in contrast about the Gentiles place in Christ. He does not the inclusive "we" in this section since he was born into Judaism, but I think it's safe in most theological circles to assume that Jews post-Christ, unless they make a personal decision for Jesus, are no longer in the family (even if the Israelite nation is one day brought back to prominence in God's kingdom, its members will all be Christian), so this passage now applies equally well to all present day men and women.

We start with the before, v11-12:

• Separated from Christ.
• Alienated from the nation of Israel (God's chosen kingdom), strangers to the covenant.
• Having no hope, without God (literally, atheist).

And, the amazing after, v13 and following:

• Brought near. What brought us near? (Singing) "Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
• In peace, made us all one; the "dividing wall" is referring to the inability of Gentiles to enter the sacred parts of the temple in Jerusalem. We are now fellow citizens and saints in the household/body/building/temple of God.
• We have access now in one Spirit to the Father, through Jesus. What an amazing work of the Trinity!

Meanwhile, religiosity in the Middle East

http://www.barnabasfund.org/Said-Musas-handwritten-letter.html


Yesterday I wrote about a teenager who stood up for his faith and his conscience (though there is debate among Christians about the wisdom and actual piety of his decision) and his biggest consequence, outside of the bad PR? He had to forfeit a high school match. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world we see stories about men like Said Musa, a convert to Christianity in (still US-occupied, mind you) Afghanistan. He is a physician for the local Red Cross and has a family, but for months now he has been stuck in prison, without a lawyer and with much torture from his fellow inmates and prison guards. He stands to be executed in the near future, all because he will not renounce his stance that Jesus Christ is Lord and Son of God.


His response, in a letter sent to the US: "I also agree with the sacrifice [of] my life in public, I will tell the faith ... and other believers will take courage and be strong in their faith."


What a Pauline response! I desire to be touched by the gospel as this man, who can so strongly echo Philippians 1:12-14 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Religiosity in (post)Modern Times

"Wrestling with Conviction" is the title of a new editorial on Espn by blogger/magazine columnist extraordinaire Rick Reilly. He talks about the story of a high school wrestler who, out of his family's deep religious conviction for treating women with respect, decides not to compete against a girl in his Iowa state tournament. Reilly touts back: 


"Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don't we know better?"


This is an interesting argument coming from ESPN, not exactly an organization known for its great philosophical repartee. The whole of Reilly's article does little more than energize the typical pro-feminist position: Let the women take on any man, any time; it's no matter that the girl in question actually did lose her next two matches handily.


Going back to Reilly's rhetorical questions, the answer to the second is easy: no we don't, actually we generally assume the opposite. The battle cry of this generation is "Do what's right for you and I'll do what's right for me and we'll both be better for it." On the other hand, the message of orthodox Christianity has always been "Do my decisions line up not with my personal feelings and motivations, but with the authority and commands of God's Holy Word?"