15 Saturday Nov 2014
Posted in Christianity, Personal, Theology
Tags
emotions, experience, friendship, Gospel, homosexuality, loneliness, Romans, Scripture, sexual sin, sexuality, sin, temptation, witnessing
A couple of days ago, one of my classmates sent me a PM through Twitter, asking me my thoughts about Andrew Wilson’s recent piece for ThinkTheology. We PMed back and forth on the subject, but as I was at work (sorry, boss), I couldn’t think it through as it deserved. Now seemed like a good time.
04 Thursday Jul 2013
Posted in Christianity, Personal
I’m house-sitting for a few days, watching dogs and eating the owners’ food. Well, sort of. I ordered out for Chinese last night.
I got two phone calls yesterday which affected me greatly. The first was from a ministry director whom I’ve never met. I’ve applied to work with the organization he represents and I filled out an application. It had many questions on it, but one of them was something like this:
Have you done anything in the last ten years which could be considered worthy of reproach in your conduct?
01 Sunday Jul 2012
Posted in Christianity, Politics, Theology
Tags
Alan Chambers, Gospel, homosexuality, repentance, Robert Gagnon, Scripture, sexual sin, sexuality, temptation, theology
Something for your consideration. I’ll have up an analysis by Tuesday, but I thought I’d let my readers hit the ground running.
Alan Chambers’ interview in The Atlantic
Robert Gagnon’s lengthy response
At the present time, I have only read the first link of the two. Gagnon’s article is on my slate for this afternoon since I’m leading worship this morning and need to get going.
03 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Book Discussion
Tags
Christopher Yuan
A review of Christopher Yuan‘s book. A copy of this book was graciously provided by Christopher for the purposes of this review. Thanks, Christopher!
Christopher’s book is certainly a page-turner. Co-written with his mother Angela, it details Christopher’s journey of repentance from rebellion against God to being reconciled to Christ by faith, orchestrated by difficult life experiences and a mother who spent her energies praying for Christopher and learning to love the Gospel. The format itself keeps the pages turning because Christopher and Angela speak in alternating chapters while on the same timeline, which creates a great deal of interest and forward motion to the story.
Christopher does an excellent job walking through the various time frames in which his story is set. When he’s describing the club scene, you can hear the bump of the music deafening you and see the people around. And you can feel the desperation of Angela as she prays for her son to know Christ as his sole sufficiency.
13 Wednesday Jul 2011
Posted in Personal
One of the promises of the Gospel is that we will be conformed to the image of Christ. This is our sanctification and ordinarily looks like our disliking our sin progressively and loving the fact that we are being made holy by the Spirit of Christ. We look progressively like Him. It’s a little more complicated (read: a LOT more complicated) than getting better every day, but that’s sort of a general thrust of the thing.
Last night, I visited a bar and realized I wasn’t very happy while I was there. I was conscious of my inadequacies and my lust. I wanted almost nothing to do with homosexuality, while at the same time wanting everything to do with it. And, as we know, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. So there was a lot of tension last night between what I wanted and didn’t want, all at the same time.
03 Friday Jun 2011
Posted in Personal
Disclaimer: I don’t know about other strugglers’ personal space, and I’m certain that some folks are uncomfortable with hugs and physical touch. In writing this post, I’m simply conveying my own desires and how they help and hurt my own walk with Christ.
Last night, I went with some seminary folks to a brewery here in town where they serve $2 pitchers on Thursday nights. It’s becoming tradition to sit and talk about one’s week over a glass or two of beer and relax with friends. The conversation is always animated and a lot of fun.
Two guys who are friends but whom I haven’t seen in a while were there. We got caught up on each others’ lives and laughed a little, talked seriously a little. At the end of the night, the two of them hugged me goodbye. Reader, that may seem like a small gesture to you, but it isn’t insignificant to me.
15 Wednesday Dec 2010
Posted in Book Discussion, Theology
Tags
books, confession, Gospel, Law, leadership, purity, Randy Alcorn, repentance, Scripture, sexual sin, theology
What should pastors do to keep their noses clean…or, as we say in the Christian world, themselves pure? Randy Alcorn has an article which has been highly distributed over the years which I would like to comment on.
In 1989, the book Sins of the Body was published in The Leadership Library, edited by Terry Muck. It featured articles written by a wide variety of Christian authors. The article which shares the same name as this blog post, was written by Randy Alcorn. Christianity Today has the article available on its website here. Recently, some folks asked me what I thought of Randy Alcorn. It’s been a significant amount of time since I’ve read a book by him, but I wanted to sketch out the apprehension I have for Alcorn using this article as a foil.
My operating assumption is that Randy Alcorn doesn’t understand law and gospel properly and therefore gives rather toxic advice. Alcorn offers himself as the example instead of Christ and in doing so, contributes to the problem.
08 Monday Nov 2010
Posted in Book Discussion, Personal, Theology
Tags
Gerhard Forde, Gospel, justification, Lutheranism, Reformed Theology, repentance, sanctification, Scripture, sexual sin, theology
For my Spiritual and Ministry Formation class, we’re assigned blog summaries in which we interact with material assigned the previous week. This week’s assignment was to read the Lutheran view of Sanctification as discussed in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, edited by Donald Alexander, published by IVP. The Lutheran view was articulated by Gerhard Forde. I figured I’d share my assignment on my blog.
Dr. Forde begins his discussion of sanctification as “the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace of God for Jesus’ sake. It is what happens when we are grasped by the fact that God alone justifies.” In other words, Dr. Forde asserts that sanctification is the natural byproduct of justification and thus, all of it is indeed brought about by none other than the Christ who bought us. Many people view sanctification as the “getting down to business” of the Christian life. It’s what we bring to the table after Christ saves us and is (so it is thought, anyway) the way we stay in God’s good graces. This is, Dr. Forde asserts, “entirely false. According to Scripture, God is always the acting subject, even in sanctification. ”
Repeatedly, Dr. Forde calls attention to the dangers of speaking of sanctification. All the discussion appeals to the old man, he says, becoming a verbal exercise which sounds very impressive, but lacking the necessary foundation of love which the old man is completely incapable of laying himself.
Sanctification, as well as justification, is rooted in the unconditional promise of God. This is something the old man does not know how to handle because “as old beings, we simply cannot understand or cope with the unconditional promise of justification pronounced in the name of Jesus. What we don’t see is that what the unconditional promose is calling forth is a new being. The justification of God promised in Jesus is not an ‘offer’ made to us as old beings; [instead,] it is our end, our death.”
Are you putting YOUR old man to death?
19 Tuesday Oct 2010
Tags
insecurity, loneliness, prayer, preaching, psalms, relationships, Scripture, sexual sin, worship
Psalm 88
I Cry Out Day and Night Before You
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
1O LORD, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
2Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
Psalm 88 has long been one of my two favorite psalms of lament. The other, a close second, is Psalm 13.
Today’s lament really started in earnest yesterday afternoon. I was driving away from school and there was a runner with an amazing body standing at the intersection that I didn’t just lust over…I was full-on envious.
Then this morning, I saw two or three guys who I find myself being very intimidated by at chapel. They seem very articulate and talented and like they’ll be good pastors. And they’re all really attractive on top of all of that. And they wear that attractiveness like it doesn’t really matter to them…they could take or leave it.
Oh, to be that bold. To have the security to hold one’s looks loosely in one’s hand like they seem to…it’s a pretty impossible task. How many idols have I just rattled off? Probably five or six.
I just feel very alone; I couldn’t really concentrate in Sermon Preparation & Delivery today…I sort of phased in and out on what the sub would say (though he had excellent things to say, and the stuff I did hear seemed very insightful). If there’s one class I never check out of, it’s Prep and Del. But I just couldn’t focus.
I unfriended someone on Facebook this morning. The past few times I’ve gone to his page to see what he’s up to, he and his cute boyfriend are all over the place. The guy himself looks like a model. I get that life isn’t fair…but like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), I ask, “but why can’t it ever be unfair in my favor?”
15 Tuesday Jun 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
The words of the title still echo in my ears. I’d been called to my previous pastor’s office over the contents of my December 1st blog post, simply because a couple of people had forwarded the post to him. These individuals hadn’t understood fully what I meant in my post and were not, according to my pastor, seeking to accuse me of any sin.
