confession

For the past decade or so I have been drifting away from my CofC roots into something else. Theologically, my exodus from the Churches of Christ was initially sparked by two books by C. Leonard Allen: The Worldly Church and The Cruciform Church (ACU Press) way back in 1991. Practically, my exodus started with a book by Francis Schaeffer: The God Who Is There. By the time I finished his complete works I was in the wilderness, in between two worlds.

It’s a long and boring story, but here are the stages (so far):

First, I started thinking “worldviewishly” because I wanted to understand the “universe next door” through the lens of divine revelation.

Second, I became more evangelical and less sectarian. God opened the eyes of my heart to the gospel of grace and showed me that Christ alone–not the “Church of Christ” or any other church for that matter–is the only true identity and boundary marker.

Third, I started reading the Bible differently. I went from reading semi-scriptura (NT only) to reading tota scriptura (OT + NT). “All Scripture is God-breathed” (not just selected sections of the Book of Acts, Romans 1-8, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 3). In a nutshell, I have shifted to a redemptive-historical reading and covenantal understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

Fourth, I embraced the basic tenets of Reformed Theology. It was a process that happened over a period of time, but it started with the truth of monergistic regeneration (God works alone to cause new birth without our permission, decision, or participation). Also, the confessions, creeds, and catechisms of the historic Christian church have helped immensely in my spiritual formation. (Yes, I see Calvin as my friend, not my foe.)

Fifth, I believe that Reformed Theology provides an accurate, coherent, and robust description of the Christian faith, but I do not believe Reformed Theology is enough. It is not the end, but a means to an end which is the glorify of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Life, the universe, and everything is Christogenic (from Christ), Christocentric (on Christ), and Christotelic (for Christ). “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Finally, like many others, I am walking through the wasteland and find myself somewhere between exile and paradise. The manna is good and the water is refreshing.

viva la reformacion

farewell

thorinside flickr

i started blogging with blogspot towards the end of july 2005. i switch to wordress towards the beginning of february 2007. so i have been blogging for about three and half years.

now it’s time to publish one final post.

thinking out loud and writing it down has been therapuetic and formative for me. the process of blogging my thoughts, ideas, and opinions – and then reasoning, debating, and conversing with others — has helped me work out some important things.

so for all that and much more i am grateful.

what will i do instead of blogging? two things – flee technolatry, and pursue theology.

farewell

Vintage Jesus

session four | WHY DID JESUS’ MOM NEED TO BE A VIRGIN?

Wednesday @ 7ish PM
Map to New Hope

“Mary is a wonderful example for all Christians, particularly women, and especially young women. She obviously loved God, and, while not sinless like her son, she did live in holiness as marked out by her virginity until marriage. She is an inspiring example that our sexually promiscuous culture desperately needs to have modeled through women like her. We all need to follow her example of humble faith that fully trusted God’s will for her life. Martin Luther deftly commented that while the virgin conception was God’s greatest miracle in Mary’s life, the fact of her faith in God was perhaps her greatest miracle of all.” (Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Vintage Jesus, p.100)

a noble task

All christian men need a spiritual goal. Whether or not they aspire to serve as elders, every christian man should aspire to be the kind of man described in 1 Timothy 3 – a godly man, a godly husband, a godly father, a godly brother, and a godly neighbor of strangers and outsiders. If all christian men would stretch out and strive for this noble task, the world would be transformed. Just imagine how our marriages, children, families, churches, and communities would thrive if we aspired to live according to the Word of God. Sermon notes on 1 Timothy 3:1-7

cafea et scriptura

The Lord Jesus Christ gave baptism and communion as the outward and visible signs of the new covenant; and he gave the Holy Spirit as the inward and invisible seal of the new covenant.

JAVA RANCH
THURSDAYS @ 7PM

Come join us at Java Ranch as we explore the meaning of the signs and seal of new covenant grace.

ephesians 4 remix (1)

Here are a few basic notes for Ephesians 4:1-12.

TRINITARIAN COMMUNITY – 4:1-7

As the Lord’s prisoner, Paul expressed things we must believe in order to be saved and things we must do as saved people. In the first half of this letter Paul teaches us the meaning of the trinitarian covenant of salvation. In the second half of the letter he shifts gears to teach us what it means to live in the trininitarian community (aka, the church).

We now turn to see how the doctrinal and theological truths of the gospel shapes the moral and practical life of the church. The community is the household of God. It is ethnically (and economically) diverse, and it is evangelically one.

The Ephesians letter opens with a eulogy for the triune savior, and there are many trinitarian statements sprinkled throughout the letter. Here the trinity provides a model and basis for our life and doctrine. One God-three persons is the ultimate expression of unity in diversity, the one and the many. From the triune God we learn how to live together as a family in community. 

The trinitarian community is multicultural, being composed of Jews and Gentiles who were chosen by grace in eternity past. Our common unity is not based on race, skin color, or anything else. It is based on the grace of the triune God alone. The church is a diverse community of saved people shaped by the One-in-Three, Three-in-One God. 

vintage jesus

VINTAGE JESUS
WEDNESDAYS @ 7 PM
NEW HOPE CHURCH

session three | HOW DID THE PEOPLE KNOW JESUS WAS COMING?

“Usually a good story has a cliffhanger, but for this [session] we will spare the suspense and answer the question right up front. How did the people know Jesus was coming? They read the Old Testament Bible.”

Augustine: The Old is in the New revealed and the New is in the Old concealed. 

(Mark Driscoll, Vintage Jesus, p55)

on eucharist

We believe and confess that our Savior Jesus Christ has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper to nourish and sustain those who are already born again and ingrafted into his family: his church.

Now those who are born again have two lives in them. The one is physical and temporal– they have it from the moment of their first birth, and it is common to all. The other is spiritual and heavenly, and is given them in their second birth; it comes through the Word of the gospel in the communion of the body of Christ; and this life is common to God’s elect only. Thus, to support the physical and earthly life God has prescribed for us an appropriate earthly and material bread, which is as common to all as life itself also is. But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life that belongs to believers he has sent a living bread that came down from heaven: namely Jesus Christ, who nourishes and maintains the spiritual life of believers when eaten– that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith. To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.

Now it is certain that Jesus Christ did not prescribe his sacraments for us in vain, since he works in us all he represents by these holy signs, although the manner in which he does it goes beyond our understanding and is uncomprehensible to us, just as the operation of God’s Spirit is hidden and incomprehensible. Yet we do not go wrong when we say that what is eaten is Christ’s own natural body and what is drunk is his own blood– but the manner in which we eat it is not by the mouth but by the Spirit, through faith. In that way Jesus Christ remains always seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven– but he never refrains on that account to communicate himself to us through faith.

This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself to us with all his benefits. At that table he makes us enjoy himself as much as the merits of his suffering and death, as he nourishes, strengthens, and comforts our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh, and relieves and renews them by the drinking of his blood. Moreover, though the sacraments and thing signified are joined together, not all receive both of them. The wicked person certainly takes the sacrament, to his condemnation, but does not receive the truth of the sacrament, just as Judas and Simon the Sorcerer both indeed received the sacrament, but not Christ, who was signified by it. He is communicated only to believers.

Finally, with humility and reverence we receive the holy sacrament in the gathering of God’s people, as we engage together, with thanksgiving, in a holy remembrance of the death of Christ our Savior, and as we thus confess our faith and Christian religion. Therefore no one should come to this table without examining himself carefully, lest “by eating this bread and drinking this cup he eat and drink to his own judgment.”[78] In short, by the use of this holy sacrament we are moved to a fervent love of God and our neighbors. Therefore we reject as desecrations of the sacraments all the muddled ideas and damnable inventions that men have added and mixed in with them. And we say that we should be content with the procedure that Christ and the apostles have taught us and speak of these things as they have spoken of them.

– Article 34, Belgic Confession (1561)