morestill

coop eye

2009-08-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

2009-08-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

piper's zephaniah sermon

2009-06-13T10:53:00.001-07:00

with gladness.

I think the main point of the book is 2:3, "Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility." The rest of the book is mainly made up of warnings that judgment is coming upon the proud, and promises that the humble and righteous who seek refuge in the Lord will be saved (3:12, 13). So there are three things: commands, warnings, and promises. Obedience to the command in 2:3 is Zephaniah's main goal, and the warnings and promises are incentives for the people to repent and obey.

Sin and the Coming Day of Judgment

That's the general outline and structure of the book. Now let's go back to the beginning and listen more closely as each section has its say. Chapter 1 announces coming judgment on Judah and Jerusalem. Just like in Joel, the coming judgment is called the "day of the Lord." Verse 7: "Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is at hand." Verses 14 and 15 describe the judgment in words almost identical to Joel (cf. Joel 2:2):

The great day of the Lord is near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

But unlike the book of Joel, Zephaniah not only warns of judgment, but in doing so, exposes the sins which kindle God's wrath. We can see these both in chapter 1 and in 3:1–7. The list begins in 1:4, "I will cut off the remnant of Baal." Manasseh had built altars and high places to this foreign god, even in the temple of Yahweh himself (2 Kings 21:3, 5, 7). Josiah had torn them down during his reform effort. But there remained a remnant of Baal worshipers. These God will cut off in the day of the Lord.

Verse 5 describes two other forms of idolatry. There are people in Judah "who bow down on the roofs to the hosts of heaven," that is, sun and moon and stars. As Paul said six centuries later, they exchanged the glory of God for the derived glory of created things. Then there was another group who tried to serve two masters: "those who bow down and swear to the Lord, and yet swear by Milcom." Milcom is another name for Molech, the national god of the Ammonites. But (as we saw in Joel) God's purpose is to show that he alone is God, and there is none else (2:27), and that, therefore, the people should return to him with all their heart (2:12). If you try to serve two masters (to give God 50% or 95% of your heart, but not all), you will be swept away into judgment at the day of the Lord.

In chapter 3, verse 2, the problem with the people in Jerusalem is stated most simply: "[Jerusalem] listens to no voice, she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord, she does not draw near to her God." The essence of the sin against which the Lord is coming is self-sufficiency. They won't listen to anybody. They won't accept correction from anybody, not even God. They do not need God. So they don't trust him nor even draw near to him. This may seem like an inconsistency: a self-sufficient rejection of Yahweh on the one hand (3:2), and a dabbling in idolatry on the other hand (1:5). But it's not. There is in every human, I think, a deep longing to worship something great—to have a god or a hero or some beautiful or powerful thing to admire. But there is also in every human the sinful and insatiable longing, too, for self-determination and autonomy—we will do our own thing and get our own glory. Therefore, man does not cease to be a worshipping creature when he rejects the true God. Rather he searches out a god in his own image who will give him all the leeway he craves and exert on him no moral constraints of which he does not approve. There may be no more arrogant man on the face of the earth than the man bowing humbly before the god he has created in his own image. So the day of the Lord is coming upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their arrogant refusal to seek the Lord and take refuge in him.

But chapter 1 also stresses that God's wrath is against those who love money and rely on their gold and silver. Verse 18 warns: "Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord." Verse 9 describes servants of the rich who fill their master's houses through violence and fraud. Verse 11 says, "All who weigh out silver will be cut off." And verse 12 refers to those who are "thickening upon their lees," which means those who have grown hard and calloused in their abundance and say, "The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill." In other words, the love of money is not a separate problem from the arrogance and self-sufficiency and idolatry we saw earlier. They are all of a piece. In their race toward self-reliance, they do not reckon with God's reward or punishment. They are thickening upon the dregs of their self-wrought security. And, as verse 18 says, "In the fire of his jealous wrath [they] shall be consumed."

Call to Repentance and Humility

The second section of the book (2:1–3) is a call to repentance. Just like Joel, Zephaniah holds out the hope that the guilty can be yet spared from wrath if they turn and seek the Lord. It shouldn't surprise us, after what we have seen in chapters 1 and 3:1–7, that the specific things Zephaniah calls for are righteousness and humility. Verse 3: "Seek the Lord all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the Lord." I'm not sure why Zephaniah calls for the "humble of the land" to seek humility and righteousness when it is the arrogant idolaters, who love unrighteous mammon, that need to repent. Probably what he is saying is this: anyone in the land who is humble enough to submit to God's commands, here is what you should do and keep on doing—stay humble, seek the Lord, and do righteousness. These are the very three conditions laid down by God in 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land." And if this summons applies to the humble of the land, how much more to the arrogant, the idolaters and the lovers of money! So the main point of Zephaniah's prophecy is to call everyone who reads it to a deep humility, which frees a person to seek refuge in God, which in turn produces a righteous life.

Motivations for Obedience

The third section of the book, 2:4–15, is introduced by the word "for" (in v. 4), which suggests that this unit is the ground of Zephaniah's call to repentance. It gives reasons why we should listen and obey the summons of 2:3. I see three ways that 2:4–15 motivates us to obey 2:3. First, it warns us that there is no escape when the day of the Lord comes. If we flee to the west, we will find the wrath of God falling on the Philistines (vv. 4–7). If we flee to the east, we find that Moab and Ammon are famished under the wrath of God (vv. 8–11). If we flee to the south, the Ethiopians are being slain by his sword (v. 12). And if we flee to the north, Assyria is destroyed and its great city Nineveh is a desolation. In other words, there is no escape on the day of the Lord. Every staff on which we try to lean in our pride will snap and pierce us through. One refuge will be secure: God. Therefore, humble yourselves, seek his face, and do righteousness.

The second way that 2:4–15 motivates us to obey 2:3 is by promising that there will indeed be a faithful remnant who survives the day of the Lord. When it says in 2:3, "Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord," it does not mean that God's saving work is uncertain. It means that our being a part of it depends on each individual's conversion to humility and faith and righteousness; and of that Zephaniah is not certain. But he gives us strong encouragement to repent and seek God while there is time, because he assures us there will be a saved remnant. The last part of verse 9: "The remnant of my people shall plunder them, and the survivors of my nation shall possess them." Again in verse 7: "The seacoast shall become the possession of the remnant of the house of Judah, on which they shall pasture."

Do you see the implication of this promise? How could God be sure some would humble themselves and seek him and thus survive his judgment? He could be sure because he is the one who performs the conversion which guarantees salvation. When the catastrophe fell several decades later, God spoke to his beleaguered people in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you . . . I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances." God can require conversion for salvation in Zephaniah 2:3 and yet speak with absolute certainty that there will be a saved remnant in 2:7–9, because in his mercy he will sovereignly perform the conversion and thus secure the remnant. This is a great incentive to obey Zephaniah 2:3 because now we know we are not left to ourselves to overcome the obstacles to our salvation, but rather we work out our salvation for God himself is at work in us to will and to do for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12, 13).

The third way that 2:4–15 motivates us to obey the command to be humble in 2:3 is by showing that the reason the surrounding nations are being judged is because of their pride and arrogance. Verse 8: "I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites, how they have taunted my people and made boasts against their territory." Verse 10: "This shall be their lot in return for their pride, because they scoffed and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts." Verse 15 pronounces judgment on Nineveh, the capital of Assyria: "This is the exultant city that dwelt secure, and said to herself, 'I am and there is none else.' What a desolation she has become!" When we hear why the nations are being judged, then surely we will feel strongly moved to obey when Zephaniah commands, "Seek the Lord, . . . seek righteousness, seek humility." The way of escape in the day of wrath is godly humility.

The Glorious Future of the Godly

The third section of the book is Zephaniah 3:1–7, but we already looked at this together with chapter 1 concerning God's accusations against Jerusalem. That brings us to the final unit: 3:8–20 which describes the glorious future of the godly. The first thing to notice here is that even though the amazing promises of this section relate most directly to the converted and restored people of Israel (v. 10), nevertheless it is a necessary implication of the prophecy that the blessings promised flow out beyond the bounds of Israel and include us who through faith in Christ become Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29). Verse 9 shows that God intends to save more than just Jews: "Yea, at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord."

What is it, then, that will characterize all the redeemed who will enjoy the promises of this section? Verses 11–13 describe them:

On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst the proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, those who are left in Israel; they shall do no wrong and utter no lies.

In other words, the people who will experience the fulfillment of the promises of 3:14–17 are the ones who obeyed the threefold call back in 2:3: "Seek the Lord, . . . seek righteousness, seek humility." Therefore, humility which takes refuge in God (or as we should say today, humility which takes refuge in the death of Jesus Christ for our sins) is not only the way of escape from divine wrath, it is even more the way of entrance into divine joy.

Verse 14: "Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!" This is what the humble and lowly will do for all eternity. And verses 15–20 give the reasons why they can rejoice. The judgment that had been directed against them is turned away—no more condemnation (v. 15). Every enemy and opponent and hindrance to joy is cast out (v. 15). The king of Israel, the Lord, is in their midst, mighty in strength, and there can be no more fear (vv. 15–17).

But the most amazing promise of all is in verse 17: "The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love (or better: he will be silent, i.e., make no accusations, in his love), he will exult over you with loud singing (or: a shout of joy)." Jesus said, "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." And Zephaniah tells us that when all those repentant, humble, lowly sinners gather before God—what will he do? Will he look down with disapproval, and glower at our guilt, and frown with malevolence? Will he ignore us and look over our heads in sublime indifference? Will he grieve that his flock is so shabby? NO! "He will rejoice over you with gladness . . . He will exult over you with a shout of joy." "As a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:5).

Will God Really Exult over Us?

We must banish from our minds forever any thought that God admits us begrudgingly into his kingdom, as though Christ found a loophole in the law, did some fancy plea-bargaining, and squeaked us by the Judge. No way! God himself, the Judge, put Christ forward as our substitutionary sacrifice, and when we trust him, God welcomes us with bells on. He puts a ring on our finger, kills the fatted calf, throws a party, shouts a shout that shakes the ends of creation, and leads in the festal dance.

Someone may ask: Isn't that a bit unseemly and undignified of God to get so excited and shout and carry on this way? But I answer: Remember David's wife, Michal. When David danced with joy before the Lord with all his might, Michal despised this immoderate display of emotion. And the Lord struck her barren for the rest of her life! For he intends to be mightily enjoyed, and one day he will show us how to rejoice with all his might.

Another may ask: But doesn't it belittle God to have him rejoicing over us? Not necessarily. It would be unrighteous if he made us his god—if we and not he himself were the ultimate spring of his joy. But we aren't. We are not his god. He is his own God. And when we stand before him redeemed in Christ Jesus, he will behold his own handiwork. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." According to 3:12 it is God himself who will see to it that there is in the midst of Zion a humble and lowly people who take refuge in his name. Does it belittle the designer of the IDS tower to exult over the beauty of that building at dawn in September? Does it belittle Michelangelo to rejoice with tears as he looks at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Nor does it belittle God when the divine work of your redemption is done and all the millions are gathered before his throne, the humble and lowly, that God should break forth in singing and rejoice over you with all his heart and with all his soul.

Therefore, while the day of the Lord waits, "seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, . . . seek righteousness, seek humility . . . Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem" (2:3; 3:14). Amen.

Acts 22

2006-06-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Stott quotes

It was tantamount to saying that Jews and Gentiles
were equal, for they both needed to come to God through Christ,
and that on identical terms.

Looking back over Paul's defence, we may perhaps say that he
made two major points. The first was that he himself was a loyal
Jew, not only by birth and education but still. True, he was now a
witness where before he had been a persecutor. But the God of his
fathers was his God still. He had not broken away from his
ancestral faith, still less apostatized; he stood in direct
continuity with it. Jesus of Nazareth was `the Righteous One' in
whom prophecy had been fulfilled. And Paul's second point was that
those features of his faith which had changed, especially his
acknowledgment of Jesus and his Gentile mission, were not his own
eccentric ideas. They had been directly revealed to him from
heaven, the one truth in Damascus and the other in Jerusalem.
Indeed, nothing but such a heavenly intervention could have so
completely transformed him.

Acts 22 early verses

2006-06-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

What we learn from the language of the speech.

The Gospel empowers:

forgiveness

love

generosity

“I was...just as zealous for God as any of you are today”. (v.3) Look how far Paul is going to be generous. He is describing their mob action as being “zealous for God”.

I don’t think Paul is blowing smoke here. He believes that they are sincerely zealous for God. And Paul believes they are wrong, need to repent, and should believe what he believes.
How thick is it in our world that this is THE MOST horrible position you or I could hold.
Summarizing, Paul’s position is that the Asian Jews are:

Sincere in their faith

Wrong

Headed to hell (estranged from God)

Only going to be safe if they believe what he believes.

identification

everything about the early part of the testimony serves to show the crowd how much Paul is “one of them”.

personal experience

Paul’s defense does not consist of a reasoned discourse or even a general sermon--it is a very vivid personal testimony.

respect, even of their idols

Aramaic was the vernacular of Jews in Palestine, and therefore it showed deference to Jewish culture. By using it, he was essentially hiding the conversation from the Romans and foreigners present. Here he was addressing a group of Jews who felt that they were being culturally violated and overrun by unclean outsiders, and so his choice of their language was a sign of great respect.

If you come in blazing against people’s main thing, they can’t hear you. Too much of their emotional security and identity are wrapped up in being (white, wealthy, black, homosexual, intelligent, educated, residents of that n’hood, parents, grandparents, Americans, Canadians, etc

TESTIMONY First, Paul’s defense does not consist of a reasoned discourse or even a general sermon--it is a very vivid personal testimony.

ARAMAIC Second, Aramaic was the vernacular of Jews in Palestine, and therefore it showed deference to Jewish culture. By using it, he was essentially hiding the conversation from the Romans and foreigners present. Here he was addressing a group of Jews who felt that they were being culturally violated and overrun by unclean outsiders, and so his choice of their language was a sign of great respect.

interesting dallison

2006-05-28T03:28:00.000-07:00

SermonAudio.com - Search Results

it is all in the hyphens

2006-05-14T03:13:00.000-07:00

read this later rob Together for the Gospel

how much of gospel do you know?

2006-05-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

“How much of the gospel do you know?” I started a quick calculation;
a mental pie chart began to fill up with my education, training, and my multiple accomplishments. In moments, I had shaded in 85%
of the pie! I knew the speaker was going somewhere with this question, and I thought I had positioned myself with humility—leaving 15%!

more at whm.org
clyde godwin

Up With Grups - The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood -- New York Magazine

2006-04-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Up With Grups - The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood -- New York Magazine

what i wish notes

2006-04-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

What I wish I had known about ChurchPlanting
Shari Thomas
GCA 2/06

1. I wish someone would have told us, that we both would need a support system greater than just each other.

...that we would need coaches and mentors, and we should plan at more than one stage in the journey on getting counseling....and when we didn’t have this support system it would be up to us to seek it out!

2. I would have greatly benefited knowing that we needed to come to a mutual understanding and commitment about what my invovlement in the church plant would be.

...that we would often neeed to review this involvement through out the stages of church planting and seasons of life...that when the children were young, my husband and childxren would require and need most of my time. I wish he’d known how much I would need his support in stickiing to these commitments rather than both of us rescuing ministries when they floundered.

3. I longed for someone to gently come alongside me and remind me again and again that what my husband needs from me most is love and respect.

He can find coaches, teachers, nags and critics in countless palces. He already has one mother. And when it’s late at night and we are falling into bed that this is not the time or place to hear one more idea on how to make the church successful!

4. If I had known that my heart as well as his would be hurt, angry, and almost torn in two by this ministry we might not have planted a church.

....but we also may never have learned the delight and satisfaction of pointing each other to Jesus, to the hope that only the gospel brings, and the deep joy of leading others to this hope..

5. We would have benefited from being told that the question “should we stay in this church?” will be one that will haunt us through out our ministry lives.

I was not prepared for him rolling over in bed doubting his call. I didn’t know we would question if God had brought us here...that when my husband’s passion and energy for the church plant was waxing, mine might be waning and vice versa.

It would have been helpful to know this was normative.

6. I am thankful that someone told us we would have to work harder for a marriage where there is spiritual, emotional, and phsyical intimacy than we would have to work at planting the church.

...that this would involv sacrifice on both of our parts, and it would be well worth it.

7. I am glad he learned early on that church planting gave him great freedom to creatively mold his schedule to fit the needs of both his family and the church.

I am grateful he takes time from church ministry to pour into the lives of our kids: working on school projects, creating feasts in the kitchen, taking vacations, catching the latest block buster,filling their lives with music, asking them the tough questions, drawing out their hearts, repenting openly before them....I love watching their eyes fill with pride when they introduce their friends to their dad.

Nothing draws my heart to him more than that he loves our children so well.
8. But I am most grateful that my husband keeps learning that no one can pursue, strongly lead and cherish me the way he can.

...that when I’m withdrawn and discouraged, his gentle wooing speaks volumes...when I’m masking deep hurt with anger, his strong, consistent pursuit melts me like nothing else

...when darkness has masked Jesus face, I have felt another strong hand leading me home

....and when it’s all said and done, and we are at The great marriage feast I will recognize the tastes and sounds and smells. The dance will be vaguely familiar. For hints of the realm unknown have drifted across the border land. And I have caught glimpses of what is yet to come. My husband has shown me the way.

fascinated by the cross, need more

2006-03-31T13:34:00.000-08:00

to get catechized/discipled in the love of God in Christ:
John Stott, The Cross of Christ
Charles Spurgeon, Morning & Evening
World Harvest Mission, Gospel Transformation course (whm.org)
CJ Mahaney, Christ Our Mediator
Tim Keller sermons redeemer.com

the easter STORY

2006-03-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

“I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?”
—J. R . R . Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I had always felt life first as a story—
and if there is a story there is a story teller.
—G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton had it right when he said “with every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.”

things are not what they seem...

there's a villian...

there's a conflict . . .

there's a euchatastrophe ...

there's a response . . .

pensacola institute archives

2006-03-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

Achives Menu

mole what?

2006-02-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

Putting Pen to Paper Anew
List-Makers, Note-Takers, Engineers and Playwrights Discover Contentment and Community Using Moleskines

By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 20, 2006; B01

Sitting in a coffee shop, Eric Henning, an occasional but aspiring cook, asked himself: What dishes do I want to learn to make over the next year?

It was the kind of welcoming thought that can drift into the mind of someone leading a hectic life. Before it drifted out, Henning had two options to record his answer.

One was a hand-held digital assistant, rigged with an extra 128-megabyte memory card. The other, a little black notebook called a Moleskine, the style similar to those used by Hemingway, van Gogh and others who hung out in Paris cafes.

The 44-year-old Laurel businessman didn't hesitate. He opened the Moleskine to two fresh pages. He jotted down 20 dishes: oyster stew . . . grilled fish tacos with dill-lime sauce . . . Maryland red crab soup . . . pecan pie.

That urge -- to take command over a tidy, small expanse of paper, to quickly write in your own hand -- has turned the smartly marketed literary throwback into one of the odder trends of the instant-information age. Moleskine use has erupted in Washington and elsewhere, driven in part by a subculture of tech-savvy people otherwise electronically gadgeted to the hilt.

They bond online about Moleskines, often sharing their need for order. "I know some of you, like me, are multiple-Moleskine nerds," wrote one, setting off a chain of 118 responses. "It's sad, but this is how God's made us." He offered a way to keep them all straight: label the spines with an icon for each Moleskine style.

Another person, with computing and engineering degrees, touted the Moleskines filled with graph paper: "A godsend to tech/engg guys!"

When talking about their notebooks, users employ different pronunciations and joke that there are several: Mole-skin . . . Mole-skeen . . . Mole-skin-ee. But Moleskineus, an online retailer, calls it a mol-a-SKEEN-a.

Discussions on which pen to use can go on and on. "At the moment I have three pens in my jacket along with my Mole," an Internet systems engineer wrote. "Pigma Micron 01 . . . Uniball Vision Exact . . . Bueche-Girod ball-point."

The notebooks have their fetishistic qualities: stitched bindings that allow fully flat opening, thick paper that savors ink. At $10 to $15 apiece, they are what Henning, a vice president and director at Cornerstone Asset Management, describes as a low-entry luxury good. Like a pint of Haagen-Dazs.

"If you really want to stand out, you can't do it with technology," said Henning, who has hardly forsaken his hand-held digital assistant, which tracks his appointments and houses a digitized copy of the Bible. "This is something else," he said of Moleskines. "It's retro. It's making a statement."

And one that Moleskine devotees constantly make online. They've posted more than 2,400 photographs of Moleskines. Even Henning's wife, Betsy Mitchell Henning, the liturgical arts director at a local church, uploaded two images with a caption: "Eric's Moleskine contains the notes and chapter headings for his next book . . . and, as you can see, the list of dishes he will be learning to cook."

More recently, Mitchell Henning, 43, was reading a friend's Internet blog about Moleskine and was inspired to buy one herself. She wrote a blog about the purchase, describing how she struggled over the idea of spending so much money on a notebook. In the end, she said, writing on paper can memorialize what's important in life. Inside her new Moleskine, she is writing a detailed account of the day two months ago when she gave birth to her first child, Ian.

Americans are expected to purchase 2.2 million Moleskines this year, up from 970,000 in 2004, according to Modo & Modo, the notebook's Milan-based designer. The national bookstore chain Barnes & Noble counts Washington as its third-largest Moleskine selling ground, trailing New York and Philadelphia. In all, Washingtonians are expected to buy nearly 70,000 Moleskines this year.

"It is a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem," said Rockville's Ken Britz, 34, an engineer with Dynamic Animation Systems who develops software for training simulators used by the U.S. Navy.

He explains why: At work, things come so fast that the best way to note something important often is to write it down. Britz keeps a 5-by-8-inch Moleskine at hand; it doubles as a mouse pad. Should he need to take notes during a call or sketch out a flow diagram of a graphical user interface, he slides off the mouse and grabs a pen.

Britz keeps two other Moleskines for personal use. In these he writes scenes for his screenplay, which involves manipulated human genetics and King Arthur living in modern times.

A strong literary bent has always motivated journal users, of course, and the Moleskine is no exception. Those at the farthest end of this spectrum don't necessarily consider Moleskines an addendum to technology; they consider them a shelter from it.

Online Moleskine postings started popping up about 2004. One early reader: Jerry Brito, 29, a policy analyst at the Mercatus Center, an Arlington think tank.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," he said of Moleskines, "but I really think they're beautiful."

A former Web site designer, Brito has blogged about dividing Moleskines into color-coded, tabulated sections. That struck a chord with Omar Shahine, 29, a Microsoft project manager. Inside his office, Shahine keeps a PC, two 19-inch flat-screen monitors, a laptop, a webcam, a wireless weather forecaster, a hand-held e-mail device -- and his Moleskine. The Moleskine allows him to think on paper.

"It's kind of like a gadget in itself. It's just an analog gadget," he said.

In a blog titled "How the Moleskine Rocked My World," Shahine recommends Brito's blog.

Brito has written on such heady topics as domestic eavesdropping, Iraq and Internet copyright issues. But his Moleskine advice gets the most hits. At least 20 sites link to it, including ones in Spanish, Portuguese and German. "I'm going to go down as the Moleskine guy," Brito said.

A more recent convert is Annie White, 25, an economic consultant for the International Food Policy Research Institute, which works to cut hunger and malnutrition worldwide. She carried a 5-by-8-inch Moleskine (there's also a 3.5-by-5.5-inch version) while studying in Europe last year. She visited one of Hemingway's Paris haunts, Cafe de Flore , while reading "A Moveable Feast," his memoir of 1920s Paris. She ordered an espresso, as evidenced by the keepsake receipt glued inside her Moleskine: 4.40 Euro.

Among the contents of her current Moleskine are 20 things she wanted to knock off over Christmas break. No. 10: Learn to bake pie with Mom. Check.

"I am a compulsive list-maker," White said. "For me, I feel better when things are out of my head. I make lists constantly. Things to do. Things to buy. Things to worry about."

White checks the Moleskine blogs every few days, seeing what others are up to. But she's drawing the line at $40 extras. "I am not," she vowed, "about to buy these pens that they talk about."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

2006-02-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.faithtacoma.org/sermons/Acts/acts34.html
http://www.christreformed.org/resources/sermons_lectures/00000040.shtml?main

Between Two Worlds: Christ and His People in the Book of Isaiah

2006-01-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

Between Two Worlds: Christ and His People in the Book of Isaiah

Middle School Mid-Winter Retreat feb 10-12

2006-01-15T01:45:00.000-08:00

Middle School Mid-Winter Retreat

How the Kingdom Comes - Christianity Today Magazine

2006-01-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

How the Kingdom Comes - Christianity Today Magazine: "We begin with an essay by Michael S. Horton, professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California and one of the leading voices in the contemporary revitalization of the Reformed tradition in America. He is editor of Modern Reformation magazine, host of a nationally syndicated radio broadcast, and author of a number of books, including the forthcoming Too Good to Be True (Zondervan) and God of Promise (Baker).
It was confusing to grow up singing both 'This World Is Not My Home' and 'This Is My Father's World.' Those hymns embody two common and seemingly contradictory Christian responses to culture. One sees this world as a wasteland of godlessness, with which the Christian should have as little as possible to do. The other regards cultural transformation as virtually identical to 'kingdom activity.'
Certainly the answer does not lie in any intrinsic opposition of heaven and earth. After all, Jesus taught us to pray, 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Rather, the answer is to be sought in understanding the particular moment in redemptive history where God has placed us. We are not yet in the Promised Land, where the kingdom of God may be directly identified with earthly kingdoms and cultural pursuits. Yet we are no longer in Egypt. We are pilgrims in between, on the way.
In Babylon, God commanded the exiles to 'build houses and settle down,' pursuing the good of their conquering neighbors (Jer. 29). At the same time, he prophesied a new city, an everlasting empire, as the true homeland that would surpass anything Israel had experienced in Canaan.
So both of my childhood hymns tell the truth in their own way: We are pilgrims and strangers in this age, but we 'pass through' to the age to come (not some eth"

The Movement - Redeemer Urban Church Planting Center e-Newsletter

2006-01-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

OUT OF ORDER I KNOW.... here are c,d,e and f
or 3 thru 6
The Movement - Redeemer Urban Church Planting Center e-Newsletter

c) The ethical straitjacket. In Christianity the Bible and the church dictate everything that a Christian must believe, feel, and do. Christians are not encouraged to make their own moral decisions, or to think out their beliefs or patterns of life for themselves. In a fiercely pluralistic society there are too many options, too many cultures, too many personality differences for this approach. We must be free to choose for ourselves how to live — this is the only truly authentic life. We should only feel guilty if we are not being true to ourselves — to our own chosen beliefs and practices and values and vision for life.

Brief response: Individual creation of truth removes the right to moral outrage. 1) Aren't there any people in the world who are doing things you believe are wrong that they should stop doing no matter what they believe inside about right and wrong? Then you do believe that there is some kind of moral obligation that people should abide by and which stands in judgment over their internal choices and convictions. So what is wrong with Christians doing that? 2) No one is really free anyway. We all have to live for something, and whatever our ultimate meaning in life is (whether approval, achievement, a love relationship, our work) it is basically our 'lord' and master. Everyone is ultimately in a spiritual straitjacket. Even the most independent people are dependent on their independence and so can't commit. Christianity gives you a lord and master who forgives and dies for you.

d) The record of Christians. Every religion will have its hypocrites of course. But it seems that the most fervent Christians are the most condemning, exclusive, and intolerant. The church has a history of supporting injustices, of destroying culture, of oppression. And there are so many people who are not Christian (or not religious at all) who appear to be much more kind, caring, and indeed moral than so many Christians. If Christianity is the true religion — then why can this be? Why would so much oppression have been carried out over the centuries in the name of Christ and with the support of the church?

Brief response: The solution to injustices is not less but deeper Christianity. 1) There have been terrible abuses. 2) But in the prophets and the gospels we are given tools for a devastating critique of moralistic religion. Scholars have shown that Marx and Nietzsche's critique of religion relied on the ideas of the prophets. So despite its abuses, Christianity provides perhaps greater tools than the other religions do for its own critique. 3) When Martin Luther King, Jr. confronted terrible abuses by the white church he did not call them to loosen their Christian commitments. He used the Bible's provision for church self-critique and called them to truer, firmer, deeper Christianity.

e) The angry God. Christianity seems to be built around the concept of a condemning, judgmental deity. For example, there's the cross — the teaching that the murder of one man (Jesus) leads to the forgiveness of others. But why can't God just forgive us? The God of Christianity seems a left-over from primitive religions where peevish gods demanded blood in order to assuage their wrath.

Brief response: On the cross God does not demand our blood but offers his own. 1) All forgiveness of any deep wrong and injustice entails suffering on the forgiver's part. If someone truly wrongs you, because of our deep sense of justice, we can't just shrug it off. We sense there's a 'debt.' We can then either a) make the perpetrator pay down the debt you feel (as you take it out of his hide in vengeance!) in which case evil spreads into us and hardens us b) or you can forgive – but that is enormously difficult. But that is the only way to stop the evil from hardening us as well. 2) If we can't forgive without suffering (because of our sense of justice) its not surprising to learn that God couldn't forgive us without suffering — coming in the person of Christ and dying on the cross.

f) The unreliable Bible. It seems impossible any longer to take the Bible as completely authoritative in the light of modern science, history, and culture. Also we can't be sure what in the Bible's accounts of events is legendary and what really happened. Finally, much of the Bible's social teaching (for example, about women) is socially regressive. So how can we trust it scientifically, historically, and socially?

Brief response: The gospels' form precludes their being legends. The Biblical gospels are not legends but historically reliable accounts about Jesus' life. Why? 1) Their timing is far too early for them to be legends. The gospels, however, were written 30-60 years after Jesus' death – and Paul's letters, which support all the accounts, came just 20 years after the events. 2) Their content is far too counter-productive to be legends. The accounts of Jesus crying out that God had abandoned him, or the resurrection where all the witnesses were women — did not help Christianity in the eyes of first century readers. The only historically plausible reason that these incidents are recorded is that they happened. The 'offensiveness' of the Bible is culturally relative. Texts you find difficult and offensive are 'common sense' to people in other cultures. And many of the things you find offensive because of your beliefs and convictions, many will seem silly to your grandchildren just as many of your grandparents' beliefs offend you. Therefore, to simply reject any Scripture is to assume your culture (and worse yet, your time in history) is superior to all others. It is narrow-minded in the extreme.

The Movement - Redeemer Urban Church Planting Center e-Newsletter

2006-01-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Movement - Redeemer Urban Church Planting Center e-Newsletter

2. Deconstructing the implausibility structure
What are the dominant defeaters in contemporary Western civilization? These are the dominant defeaters discovered in a recent survey I did of young under 25 year olds in NYC who are not Christian. Below six 'defeaters' are stated and answered in a nutshell. Why Christianity can't be true – because of:

a) The other religions. Christians seem to greatly over-play the differences between their faith and all the other ones. Though millions of people in other religions say they have encountered God, have built marvelous civilizations and cultures, and have had their lives and characters changed by their experience of faith, Christians insist that only they go to heaven — that their religion is the only one that is 'right' and true. The exclusivity of this is breath taking. It also appears to many to be a threat to international peace.

Brief response: Inclusivism is really covert exclusivism. It is common to hear people say: "No one should insist their view of God better than all the rest. Every religion is equally valid." But what you just said could only be true if: First, there is no God at all, or second, God is an impersonal force that doesn't care what your doctrinal beliefs about him are. So as you speak you are assuming (by faith!) a very particular view of God and you are pushing it as better than the rest! That is at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical, since you are doing the very thing you are forbidding. To say "all religions are equally valid" is itself a very white, Western view based in the European enlightenment's idea of knowledge and values. Why should that view be privileged over anyone else's?

b) Evil and suffering. Christianity teaches the existence of an all-powerful, all-good and loving God. But how can that belief be reconciled with the horrors that occur daily? If there is a God, he must be either all-powerful but not good enough to want an end to evil and suffering, or he's all-good but not powerful enough to bring an end to evil and suffering. Either way the God of the Bible couldn't exist. For many people, this is not only an intellectual conundrum but also an intensely personal problem. Their own personal lives are marred by tragedy, abuse, and injustice.

Brief response: If God himself has suffered our suffering isn't senseless. First, if you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have to (at the same moment) have a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can't know. (You can't have it both ways.) Second, though we don't know the reasons why he allows it to continue, he can't be indifferent or un-caring, because the Christian God (unlike the gods of all the other religions) takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he is willing to get involved with it himself. On the cross, Jesus suffered with us.

When Marriage Brings Suffering

2006-01-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

When Marriage Brings Suffering
The meaning of marital covenants in bleak seasons.
By David P. Gushee

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one.
—Three Dog Night

Marriage was designed by God in creation to meet certain fundamental needs of the human being. When those needs are richly met, we flourish. Covenant is the structural principle of marriage, holding weak and fickle human beings to the promises they have made. When the marriage covenant is sturdy, it provides a stable and enduring context for the pursuit of the creational blessings of companionship, sex, and family partnership. Strong skill and virtue development in meeting creation-related needs and fidelity to covenant promises can lead to genuinely joyful marital partnerships. Such relationships reach near the pinnacle of what God created humans to be.

But as we all know, the story does not always go this way. In fact, it seems that it does not often go this way. Marriage becomes not a context of joy but of misery. A husband or wife wakes up each morning with heaviness of heart, saddened by the perception that the marriage is not working, perhaps even terrified by the oppression they experience. They are suffering. In some marriages, suffering is a daily and enduring reality. In almost all marriages, there are episodes or seasons of suffering.

Nobody tells the engaged or newly married couple to expect that marriage will bring suffering. Instead, what I call the "Love Incorporated" marriage technique books usually offer 1001 ways to achieve marital bliss. This leaves couples poorly prepared for the suffering that will almost inevitably come. And so, when suffering hits, the couple is bewildered. If the suffering lasts for very long or feels very intense, they may be tempted to abandon the marriage to relieve their pain. But abandoning a marriage brings its own form of suffering, and creates new suffering. Yet is such abandonment in every case wrong?

Experiences in ministry and personal life persuade me that this question—how to understand and deal with suffering—may be the most significant issue to be considered in thinking about marriage today.

Simone Weil made the striking observation that besides the physical element of suffering, and what she called the psychological element of suffering, there is a third element: the social.1 This is the experience of social degradation, ostracism, abandonment, or exclusion from community. German theologian Dorothee Soelle, reflecting on these themes, notes that most biblical accounts of suffering involve a confluence of all three themes. The psalmist (for example, Psalm 22, 73, 81, 116) laments the coming of illness into his life, bringing great pain. He feels a growing sense of psychological or spiritual suffering. And he feels abandoned by friends and intimates, excluded from the community of which he is a part.2 For Weil, affliction is the best term to use for the combination of these three dimensions of human suffering. Marital suffering certainly takes this particularly potent form at times: extreme spiritual anguish, physical distress, and social isolation.

Because suffering is a subjective and personal experience, it is often the case that the spouses do not experience the exact same level or type of suffering, even though they are enduring the same marriage. Harsh words may hurt one spouse more than the other. Chronic lack of communication, or lack of sexual intimacy, or lack of spiritual partnership, could be experienced as deeply painful by one spouse and not by the other. An act of sexual infidelity or violence may be experienced as creating an unbearable suffering, or it may not, depending on the way individual spouses interpret and react to these particular painful events.

This reminds us that the suffering evoked by spiritual pain is particularly subjective and profoundly affected by social factors. Imagine a culture in which extramarital sex is a routine and expected behavior, as in some contexts it has been. The discovery that one's spouse had an extramarital sexual relationship would likely evoke far less suffering than if the same event occurred in our own society. Suffering has a social dimension. The early medieval philosopher Boethius said, "nothing is miserable unless you think it so." Where we learn to "think it so" is in society.

Contemporary western societies are particularly averse to pain. We have developed the most advanced painkilling drugs in human history, and use them constantly. We are, in Elizabeth Wurtzel's famous phrase,

the "Prozac Nation." Some push for legalized euthanasia because of the exaggerated fear that even the best painkillers will be insufficient at the end of life. It is not too pessimistic to say that we are by now a soft people. The generation that survived the Depression and triumphed over the Nazis gave birth to children and

grandchildren who often think they need narcotics or antidepressants to get through the day. In such a society, our pain tolerance is low indeed.

Less dramatically, the experience of marital suffering is linked to marital expectations or desires.3 Short of objective physical or emotional violence, we suffer in marriage when the experience we are having falls short of our expectations. The question then that must be asked is this: what kinds of expectations of marriage are appropriate to the covenant promises actually exchanged? Excessive desires set the spouses up for the perception of suffering, in situations that would not have been perceived this way in earlier eras.

As any physician or psychiatrist could tell us, the suffering person seeks relief. Whether the pain is physical, spiritual, or both, when we suffer we want it to end as soon as possible. If the pain is bad enough, we will consider nearly any path that can bring relief. If the suffering experienced in marriage is bad enough, people will seek relief as well. This is part of what it means to be a sentient creature, and especially a human. It also speaks to the compelling nature of the needs we seek to meet in marriage. The mistake many people make, however, is in concluding that divorce is the best way to bring suffering to an end—when it may not be the best way, and it may not bring suffering to an end at all.

Sources of Suffering in Marriage
When Jesus taught that divorce is to be a very rare exception, and that illicit remarriages are adulterous, his disciples said: "If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry" (Mt. 19:10)—and Jesus never disagreed, only responding with a description of the various ways that people become "eunuchs." When Paul reflected on marriage, he wrote: "Those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this" (1 Cor. 7:28b). These are not especially romantic declarations about marriage.

People need to be taught, as they were in more sober times, that a measure of suffering is an inevitable feature of marriage. Swept away by the candlelight-and-roses vision of marriage promoted by every bride's magazine on the newsstand, we have misplaced this homely truth. Even Christians, whose doctrine of sin ought to help us know better, have forgotten to teach that marriage will not just fail to prevent suffering but actually bring suffering our way. "Not only does marriage fail to mitigate the struggles of life … it actually deepens them, rendering them even more poignant, because more personal."4

Suffering can enter a marriage through several channels. I break down these sources of suffering into two main categories: causes external to the marriage itself, and those that are internal to the marriage.

The traditional wedding vows reflect the awareness that every marriage is threatened by external enemies. Two types of enemies are named in the vows: poverty and illness. When the couple says "for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health," they are promising to remain loyal to their marriage covenant regardless of the trials created by poverty or illness. These particular concerns reflect the conditions of an earlier, more agrarian era. The worst thing likely to happen to the medieval farmer's family is either a bad crop (threatening starvation), or illness (threatening loss of help in family labor and loss of life).

Unemployment and financial pressures remain a major source of difficulty in marriage even today. Illness or incapacitation of a spouse or child likewise creates one of the major forms of marital suffering. Most readers will know of a marriage that did not prove capable of enduring such afflictions.

Numerous other factors extraneous to the marriage itself can create marital suffering. These can include illness or bereavement in the family or extended family. Job stresses that threaten to grind up the human spirit of one of the spouses are a major issue. A move demanded by school or work can be quite stressful. This list could be extended. Suffice it to say that most marriages will face such external sources of suffering at one time or another.

But improved economic and physical conditions in contemporary society mean that the internal sources of marital suffering are by now more significant. This is not a coincidence. Little irritations in the marital relationship don't matter when the Nazis might land on Long Island any day, or when we're not sure where the next meal is coming from. Lacking such pressures and fears, we have the tragic liberty to turn on each other or self-destruct.

Internal sources of suffering in marriage come in three primary forms. They may have to do with my partner, with me, or with the dynamics of our relationship.

Many marriages fail because of the moral, psychological, or spiritual problems of just one of the spouses. It is extraordinarily tragic, but all too common—a promising marriage between two people who love each other deeply is brought down not by any external stress but by the immoral or sick behavior of one of the partners.

A cousin of mine suffered the failure of her marriage due to her husband's unshakable addiction to child pornography. Another marriage was brought down by a cocaine habit. A family member married a man who stole from her and opened credit cards in her name without her consent, ultimately bankrupting her. Drugs, alcohol, pornography, and gambling are among the major addictions that cause marital suffering, and are leading causes of divorce.

Psychological maladies of other types cause great suffering. I once counseled with a couple whose marriage was threatened by one partner's chronic anxiety, anger, and simple inability to live peaceably. Here was a man whose wife, while not perfect, was more than adequate. However, quite tragically, he was unable to be happy; he could not receive the joyful partnership that was possible. He simply was not capable of living in peace with anyone, beginning with himself.

Another friend was heading toward marriage. However, her boyfriend lost his job and seemed not particularly energetic in pursuing another one. Month stretched into month, and it became clear that he was not so much lazy as incapable of functioning at a level required for minimal success in a competitive society. In this case, marriage was averted, but if this couple had been married his inability to function fully would have created considerable suffering that might have destroyed their marriage.

It is often falsely claimed that "it takes two" to bring down a marriage. It is truer to say that it takes two functional and sound people to create the possibility of marital success. All it takes is one addicted, or mentally ill, or poorly functioning, or morally bankrupt person to make marriage a living hell. That person might be my partner, or it might just be me.

The other internal source of marital suffering can be found in the inner workings of the marriage itself. Two morally and psychologically sound people can run into trouble in managing the marital relationship, which is its own entity with its own dynamics. One way to organize our thinking about this kind of suffering is to relate it back to the creation goods and covenant structure of marriage.

Suffering comes in marriage when aspects of companionship, sex, or family partnership fall far enough short of expectations as to create the experience of pain. Perhaps there is a failure to share adequately in the labor of running a household or meeting its expenses. Maybe there is a lack of time spent together in leisure. Perhaps the sexual relationship lacks passion or mutual satisfaction. The friendship dimension of marriage may have eroded. Or maybe chronic conflicts arise over how the children should be disciplined or educated. Marriage was created to meet very basic human needs in these areas, and such failures will elicit suffering.

Violations of the meaning of the marriage covenant itself will also create suffering. Any crossing of boundary lines related to sexual fidelity will be painful, even if it does not involve the act of adultery. Threats of walking out or loose talk of divorce can challenge the covenant promise of permanence. Failure to care compassionately for a spouse in time of illness or bereavement, or to work together in partnership during times of extra financial stress, can also cause great suffering. Mistreatment of children by one spouse can threaten the marital covenant itself. Most profoundly, failure to create an overall environment of love, honor, and respect undermines the relational spirit that brings the letter of the marital covenant to life.

The success of any marriage depends on meeting the creation-based needs of the spouse in at least a minimally satisfactory fashion and on maintaining faithfulness to the marriage covenant. These basics of marriage are not merely cultural but "natural," that is, they relate to our humanity as created yet fallen beings. We are not talking here about the relational possibilities that marriage holds when every aspect of creation and covenant is maximally fulfilled. That's the ceiling; here we are talking about the floor. If the basic minimum is not met, either or both spouses will suffer—and will probably look for some way to find relief.

What Shall We Do with Our Suffering?
Many Christians have joined their societal compatriots in seeking relief from suffering through divorce. Sometimes they offer little evidence that they have considered what the Bible really says about suffering itself. This is a great tragedy. It has led to the unnecessary destruction of many marriages and the collapse of Christian credibility on this issue.

The Bible is an infinitely realistic book. Coursing through its pages are dozens of references to suffering: its various types and sources, its costs, its meanings, its possibilities, and how a faithful people of God are to interpret and respond to it. Few themes receive more attention in Scripture. Let's linger over the biblical witness and see if it can speak helpfully to seasons of suffering in marriage—without in any way underwriting victimization or oppression in marriage and family life.

In God's good and perfect creation before the fall there was no suffering. But human disobedience introduced suffering into God's good world. Sin and suffering have been linked, from the very beginning of both.

In the Genesis account, sin introduces suffering into creation as a form of divine punishment. The serpent is punished with a lifetime of crawling, eating dust, and being feared and hated by human beings (Gen. 3:14–15). The woman is punished with great pain in childbearing and subordination to her husband (Gen. 3:16). The man is punished with uncooperative soil and arduous labor (Gen. 3:17–19). All are punished with mortality (Gen. 3:19). Adam and Eve are punished with exile from the garden, symbolizing their broken relationship with God (Gen. 3:21–24).

So in biblical terms there is an inextricable connection between suffering and sin. Sin causes suffering; suffering exists because of sin; if there had been no sin there would be no suffering. Sin often brings judgment that causes suffering (Num. 14:33, Lam. 1:12). And yet, as Pope John Paul II has noted, "it is not true that all suffering is a consequence of a fault and has the nature of a punishment."5

A proper biblical understanding of sin identifies it not just with particular acts or our propensity to do wrong but with a broader degradation of the human condition. Sin is not just violation of God's moral order but also the disordered state of the human heart, human relationships, and human society. This disorder is the context in which we all live. It affects not just human beings but the entire creation, which also has become disordered and fallen into corruption as a consequence of human wrongdoing. As Paul put it, "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (Rom. 8:21–22).

With the entire human and global order in such spiritual travail, it is inevitable that each particular human being, and the human family as a whole, will experience suffering. Sometimes this suffering will clearly be linked to particular sinful acts, our own or someone else's; other times it is impossible and inappropriate to draw such a connection (see John 9).6

Whenever we are tempted to forget this point, we would do well to return to the book of Job. For Job is the story of an innocent man's suffering. Afflicted with the loss of his family, all his animals and property, and finally his health, Job protests bitterly to God at the injustice of his fate. For thirty chapters his three friends try to help Job make sense of his suffering by attributing it to some wrong that Job has done. Appropriately, Job denies this. He has done nothing wrong, but suffering has come upon him anyway. In misery, he seeks an explanation from God—as most of us do when suffering comes.

God finally makes his appearance in chapters 38-41. He never gives Job an explanation of his suffering; and yet the point of the passage is not so much what God says but that he responds at all. God recounts for Job the glories and complexities of the universe that he has made and challenges Job's right to "correct" him (Job 40:2). Job ends his questioning with a kind of submissive gratitude for God appearing to him at all: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5–6).

God has shown up and has been with Job in his suffering. After days of questioning and challenging God, it is God's presence that finally satisfies his need, or at least ends his struggle by overwhelming him with the view from God's perspective.7 The epilogue, in which Job's family and properties are restored, is not the heart of the story. God's response to Job's innocent suffering is not so much to make all things right again, but simply to be present to Job in his despair.

This is the next main strand of the biblical witness about human suffering: God is present to and with his suffering people. God hears the cries of the afflicted. At times, though not always, God in his grace acts to rescue those who suffer, as in the Exodus (Ex. 3:7) or the healing acts of Jesus toward the suffering (Mt. 4:24, 8:6, 15:22, 17:15). Other times God's activity is limited to comforting his afflicted ones (2 Cor. 1:3). God is present with sufferers as they suffer, offering care and love. This is not deliverance from the situation of suffering but merciful divine presence in the midst of suffering. Scripture is honest in recording times when God's presence seems very elusive, when God's comfort is not found. And yet believers are called to turn to God and ask for his presence in times of suffering, with the promise that God is faithful, just, and loving.

The New Testament witness about Jesus clearly teaches that part of his mission was to suffer for the sake of the world: "From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life" (Mt. 16:21; cf. Mk 9:12; Lk. 24:26). That Jesus must suffer to fulfill his mission was clearly a part of the apostolic proclamation (Acts 3:18, 17:3, 26:23).

The primary Old Testament text that informed this concept was Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the famous "Suffering Servant" passage. Here the servant is "despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (53:3). This suffering is not an end in itself, however, but is undertaken for the sake of redemption. By enduring suffering as an innocent and without resistance on behalf of the sins and wrongs of others, the suffering servant has won salvation for his people. "For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isa 53:12). Jesus the Son of God takes human suffering upon himself and therefore into the very heart of the Deity.

New Testament writers were transfixed by the vision of Jesus as the suffering servant, whose torture and death atoned vicariously for the sins of the world, and whose glorious resurrection vindicated his identity as God's Son and the world's Savior. Identifying deeply with him, they promoted to their readers and faith communities a cruciform vision of discipleship in which Christians would follow the path of their master. They would, if necessary, suffer for the cause for which Jesus suffered and for the name of Jesus, even rejoicing and counting themselves blessed to have the privilege of doing so (Acts 5:41; Phil. 1:29; 1 Pt. 4:13).

As suffering came amidst various persecutions, the early Christians further developed a profound practical theology of what might be called the discipleship value of suffering. John Paul II finds in the entire biblical witness, in fact, the same theme: suffering "creates the possibility of rebuilding goodness in the subject who suffers."8 Because suffering hurts we naturally flee from it, but New Testament writers teach that it is precisely through suffering that growth in discipleship occurs.

This is articulated in a rich variety of ways. Paul says that in suffering we experience God's comfort, which we can then share with others who also suffer. As we plunge into levels of suffering we could never have imagined, and find God's comfort and presence there, we grow profoundly in patient endurance and dependent trust in God (2 Cor 1:3–11). Suffering also produces virtues such as perseverance, character, and hope (Rom. 5:3), which cannot be produced under conditions of comfort and ease.

The entire first epistle of Peter is essentially a meditation on suffering for Christ. Written to Christians under severe persecution, this letter reflected deeply on the trials these communities in Asia Minor were experiencing and the meaning that could be drawn from them. Peter finds in trials an occasion for purification. Like a refiner's fire, trials test the believer's faith, showing its real quality and at the same time strengthening and toughening it (cf. 1:7).

Peter finds in suffering a morally purging power. "He who has suffered in his body is done with sin" (4:1b). The persecutor's lash, in a sense, brings people to their senses, leading them to put sin behind them with ever more decisiveness and to die to the world and its enticements (4:2-6). They now live for God rather than themselves. It is interesting that the writer of Hebrews claims that "the author of their salvation," Christ himself, was "made perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10).

Rather than succumbing to instincts for violence or retaliation, unjustly persecuted Christians are called to identify all the more closely with Jesus, who suffered without retaliation and died vicariously in our place (1 Peter 2:20–25). Out of gratitude for him, in obedience to his command, and in imitation of his pattern, Christians are called to "follow in his steps" (2:21), patiently enduring all persecution and awaiting a future hope that no one can ever take away because believers are "shielded by God's power" (1:5). Suffering creates a deep sense of solidarity and connection between the believer and Jesus, as many Christians have attested through the centuries.9

Peter, like other New Testament writers, is entranced by the glory that is coming when God will bring about his ultimate triumph in Jesus Christ. That inheritance awaits those who persevere, who don't give up or give in, who cling tightly to the suffering Savior even as they themselves suffer greatly. An inheritance is coming that can never "perish, spoil, or fade" (1:4). The "Chief Shepherd" will appear and we will receive a "crown of glory" that can never fade (5:4).

At the heart of this vision of suffering is hopeful trust in a faithful God. The psalmist had written "My comfort in my suffering is this; your promise preserves my life" (Ps. 119:50). Peter calls his readers to trust the one who "entrusted himself to him who judges justly" (1 Pt. 2:23). God will triumph. His enemies will be defeated and his promises will be fulfilled (2 Th. 1:5). Current trials can be endured because God is trustworthy and ultimately will do what he has promised, just as he has done in the past.10 Don't be among those who collapse under persecution and ultimately must be counted among the faithless who disown Christ (2 Tim. 2:12-13). Instead, "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Rev. 2:10).

When suffering comes in marriage, the person seeking to be formed by the biblical witness has rich resources for redeeming his or her suffering, or for at least making sense of it. These convictions do not resolve all issues related to particular decisions Christians must make, but they do help set the context in which they should be considered.

Suffering is inescapable in a sinful world. Therefore, I will not imagine the possibility of creating a life for myself in which there will be no suffering. I will be realistic about the boundaries the human condition sets on all human aspirations. I will consider the suffering faced in my current situation over against the suffering I would face in realistic alternative situations.

God is present to his suffering people. Therefore, I will cry out to him in my times of frustration, sadness, and despair. I will not attempt to endure my suffering apart from the presence of God. With confidence, I will turn to God and draw comfort from his presence. I will not necessarily expect to get all my questions answered, or even to be delivered from all my suffering, but I will be comforted by his presence.

Jesus was a Savior whose innocent suffering brought redemption to the world. Therefore, I will be alert to the redemptive possibilities of the suffering I am now experiencing. Perhaps I can be an example to my children of patient endurance in times of trial, and thus help build character in them that will strengthen them for their future marriages. Perhaps my steadfast love amidst suffering will have a transforming impact on my spouse, or can serve as a good example to friends who know the situation. This does not mean I will endure mistreatment indefinitely. But I will assess the situation with Jesus' example in mind.

Suffering has discipleship value for the follower of Christ. Therefore, I will look for ways in which my current suffering can deepen my faithfulness to him and enable me to grow both spiritually and morally. My focus will shift from whether I am happy, as Gary Thomas has written, to how this situation can help me become more holy.11

When Is It Permissible to End a Marital Covenant?
The aggrieved and suffering spouse who is loyal to the marriage covenant will not lightly end a marriage under any circumstances. Many steadfast men and women have endured the acute suffering caused by episodes of infidelity, acts of violence, and desertion and worked hard for change and for reconciliation. In some cases, hearts and lives have been changed and marriages saved. This indeed, is grace and mercy.

But still we must ask the question of whether, and when, it is morally permissible to end a marital covenant. Divorce is never formally introduced in the Old Testament. It simply makes its appearance as an existing practice, most significantly in Deuteronomy 24:1–4. This text assumes the practice of divorce, describes it and its grounds in passing, and then offers a case law application related to remarriage. This text became foundational for the Jewish rabbinic tradition, which debated the grounds for divorce based on Deut. 24:1a: "If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her … " Two poles of interpretation emerged, a conservative school limiting the grounds for divorce to "indecency," and a more liberal school permitting (a man to) divorce for nearly any reason based on the language of "becomes displeasing to him."

Jesus is recorded as teaching about marriage in two primary texts that parallel each other with subtle differences. These texts are Matthew 19:2-12 and Mark 10:2–12. Small, slightly varied fragments of the teaching recorded in these texts are found in Matthew 5:31–32 and Luke 16:18.

Let's take the Mark 10 passage as our base, working from that to compare with Matthew 19 where significant differences emerge. Mark 10:2–12 has Jesus teaching about marriage in the context of being questioned by the Pharisees about divorce. The narrator tells us that they question him about divorce to "test" him; their goal was to trap Jesus in his own words rather than to gain knowledge about God's will. This must be kept firmly in mind or we too will ask Jesus the wrong questions.

The Pharisees want to know whether it is "lawful" for a man to divorce his wife (Mk. 10:2). It was lawful in Jewish society for a man to divorce his wife; in fact, it was apparently quite common. The rabbis debated what were the lawful grounds for divorce, not whether divorce was permissible. It is this sense of the question that Matthew's version picks up (19:3).

They want to ask Jesus about the legalities of divorce. In Mark, Jesus responds in the way they might have expected, asking about the dictates of Jewish law by referencing the "command" of Moses. In response, they cite Deuteronomy 24:1.

Jesus then surprises his listeners by moving the discussion to the book of Genesis. He acknowledges that the permission to divorce is (implicitly) found in Deuteronomy 24:1 but that this was because their "hearts were hard." At the "beginning of creation God made them male and female" (Mk. 10:6, quoting Gen. 1:27). Thus man and woman leave father and mother and cleave to each other. "The two will become one flesh" (Mk. 10:8, quoting Gen. 2:24); "they are no longer two, but one." Therefore, "what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Mk. 10:9).

Jesus reclaims marriage from the divorce lawyers. He demands that the discussion of God's will for marriage return to the original intent of the Creator. He explicitly locates marriage as an institution existing "from the beginning of creation," and describes the one-flesh union that exists in marriage. He intensifies the "one-fleshness" of marriage by saying that the couple is "no longer two but one," making clear that one-flesh means more than occasional marital sexual union. Then he asserts that God has joined together each husband and wife and demands that "man" not sunder what God has joined.

The creation origins and nature of marriage are thus reaffirmed. But so is a strong emphasis on the covenantal structure of marriage, especially the promise of permanence. This point is only emphasized in the next section of the teaching, where Jesus declares that "anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her" (Mk 10:11), and that the same would hold true for the woman who divorces her husband. The Jewish listener would not have needed to be reminded that adultery was a crime officially punishable by execution in Jewish law.

It has been noticed that the Mark and Matthew texts diverge here. Matthew has no reference to the woman initiating divorce, perhaps because if women ever initiated divorce in first-century Palestinian Jewish life, it was very rare. There was certainly no explicit provision for it in Old Testament law.

The other divergence is the famous exception clause in Matthew. Matthew's Jesus modifies the apparent "no divorce, no remarriage" stance with an exception in cases of sexual immorality (NIV: "marital unfaithfulness"; Greek: porneia). This exception clause, and the fact that it is found only in Matthew, has bedeviled and distracted Christian interpreters for centuries, and remains a vexing interpretive problem today.

The main point that needs to be made about the entire passage, whether in Matthew or in Mark, is that Jesus responds to a question about the legality of divorce by pushing past it to reaffirm both the creation purposes of marriage and the covenant structure of marriage. His teaching about marriage itself is best interpreted as offering an authoritative endorsement of God's will as revealed in Scripture, with a measure of intensification and a decisive shift in focus away from how we might finagle exceptions. His teaching about remarriage is best interpreted as a forceful prophetic rejection of legally sanctioned adultery; that is, the abandonment of the "wife of one's youth" in order to be with another woman. It may be legal, but it's still adultery. It was true then, and it's true now. Malachi had made the same point.

Paul's largest section on marriage and divorce is found in 1 Corinthians 7. Apparently responding to a comment from this troubled Christian community disparaging marriage (7:1), he affirms that (most) believers should be married (7:2). He grounds this declaration in the creation need for sex (7:3–5, 9, 36-38) and the fear of sexual immorality. He articulates his own preference for celibate singleness (7:6–7), but notes that people are gifted in different ways. This section offers a helpful affirmation of the creation purposes of marriage related to sexuality, though what has often been interpreted as a grudging spirit here has darkened the Christian vision of sex in damaging ways.

In dealing with the issue of divorce, Paul reaffirms an oral tradition of the teaching of Jesus that corresponds rather closely with the passages in Mark and Matthew. Believers are not supposed to divorce one another. If they separate, they should abstain from marrying someone else and instead be reconciled (7:10–11). Here Paul is reaffirming the covenant permanence of marriage, with the extra note emphasizing the central Christian focus on reconciliation.

Then Paul deals with a situation apparently arising with some frequency in Corinth—the religiously mixed marriage. A Christian is married, apparently unhappily, to an unbeliever. Should she initiate divorce, perhaps in order to remain pure of the taint of being joined with an unbeliever, even a worshipper of pagan gods?

Paul says no. The covenant of marriage is sufficiently binding, in the view of this rabbinically trained Jewish Christian, that even marriage to an unbeliever is not enough to justify ending it (7:10–14). Contrary to the decision for mass divorce of pagan partners mandated in the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, Paul has hope that the unbelievers (and their children) will be changed by the believers, not the other way around.

However, in a final twist, Paul does open the door to divorce (and, apparently, the morally justifiable prospect of remarriage) if the unbeliever "leaves" (7:15). In such cases the believer is not "bound" to the marriage (7:15, 27-28). Though the believer cannot initiate a divorce, he or she may be forced to accept it as a fact if initiated by their uncooperative and hostile partner. Why? "God has called us to live in peace" (7:15) and "How do you know … whether you will save your [spouse]?" (7:15–16).

How shall we interpret these cryptic comments? Paul is doing three things here. First, he is acknowledging that "peace" in marriage has significance. This is a way of saying that the creation good of companionship matters, and that its opposite, constant conflict, is a dismal way to live. Second, in view of his earlier comments about marriage as a context for safe and sanctioned expression of the sexual drive, permanent separation without possibility of divorce or remarriage would also violate the creation good of sexual fulfillment (and open both people to the likelihood of sexual immorality). Finally, in noting that it is not always possible to win over a spouse to faith in Christ, Paul is recognizing that the covenant of marriage is deeply threatened by conflicting "religious" covenants on the part of the spouses. All three of these issues have surfaced in historic Christian treatments of divorce.

These texts have been relentlessly parsed for legalistic justification for and against divorce and remarriage for Christians. But that misses the point. Neither Jesus nor Paul wanted to emphasize when it might be permissible to divorce or remarry. Instead, they wanted to call believers to keep their marriage covenants and fulfill God's creation purposes in marriage.

Combing through both the texts and the history of their interpretation leaves me convinced that the best summary of a moral standard related to divorce is this: the covenantal structure of marriage is so binding that only a fundamental and irreparable breach of the marriage covenant can morally justify divorce.

Jesus, at least in Matthew, notes that sexual infidelity in marriage is a sufficiently grave violation of covenant that divorce might be permissible. Paul adds another possibility, desertion—by an unbelieving spouse. This text can be interpreted somewhat more broadly to encompass other covenant violations, and it has been read that way in Christian history. The church father John Chrysostom, for example, interpreted "desertion" in 1 Corinthians 7:15 to include situations in which an unbelieving spouse demands that a believer participate in pagan religious rituals or else part ways. He interprets the reference to "living in peace" in the same verse as speaking to the issue of violence: "If day by day he buffet thee and keep up combats on this account, it is better to separate."12 We have already seen that grave violation of the parental covenant in relation to a couple's children raises the serious possibility that covenant obligations to children may override covenant obligations to a covenant-breaking spouse. In short, it is impossible to offer any definitive list of covenant-destroying marriage misdeeds.

As for remarriage, here the history of legalism has had especially devastating consequences. Jesus linked remarriage and adultery in order to warn men that legal niceties do not cover over the reality of adulterous covenant-violating. If a man leaves his perfectly faithful and well-intentioned wife to go sleep with and eventually marry his secretary, he is adulterating his covenant with his wife (and his children), regardless of whether he can get a judge to give him a divorce decree. This is the point of the remarriage/adultery teaching, and it makes sense. Close reading of Paul's treatment of divorce in 1 Corinthians 7 helps us see that Jesus did not intend to bar all remarriage or classify all remarried persons as adulterers. He did intend to stop his hearers from finding false comfort in legal procedures that enable covenant breaking.

Philip Turner has pointed out that the root metaphor of a marital language of covenant is "relation." The Catholic tradition has employed a root metaphor of "substance" or "being."13 For historic Catholic thought, marriage is indissoluble because a metaphysical entity has supernaturally come into existence that literally cannot be destroyed. In shifting to the biblical language of covenant, the Protestant Reformers changed metaphors. For them, marriage is a human relationship with particular ends and particular obligations. Though the marriage covenant is solemn and binding, it is still relation-based—that is, it can be destroyed by the misdeeds of those human beings who participate in it. Divorce under such circumstances can be understood as the legal acknowledgment that the marriage covenant has been irreparably broken.

Does this mean that the marriage covenant was conditional, rather than unconditional? If so, how can it be said to be a covenant? If not, how can it be ended? This vexing question cannot easily be settled with reference to the Bible, because Old Testament covenant language is at times both unconditional ("I am making between me and you and every living creature a covenant for all generations to come"—Gen. 9:12) and conditional ("If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession"—Ex. 19:5).

Margaret Farley has proposed a very wise answer to this dilemma. God's covenant promise is unconditional in that "it cannot be undone or withdrawn." Especially in light of the decisive act God undertook on the Cross, it is clear that "God's love is not pledged conditionally." But on the other hand, the nature of human response to God's unconditional love does matter, because the goal of God's covenant efforts is to establish and maintain relationships with people, and there can be no relationship that is not mutual, not two-sided. God reaches out to people in love and implores them to love him wholeheartedly in return (Mt. 22:36-40). God's goal in doing this cannot be reached unless people freely respond in love. And this God will not compel, indeed cannot compel, if he would respect their freedom as persons.14

The same thing is true in marriage. The covenant promises made on the wedding day are unconditional in that they are not revocable at will. They cannot simply be withdrawn. However, the nature of the covenant partner's response does matter. If you eventually respond to my covenant love with rejection, hatred, and infidelity, it does not affect the nature of my promises to you. But it does break my heart, because it annihilates the possibility of achieving the very goals to which we both once promised to give our lives. And if it becomes clear that the relationship the covenant was intended to establish, the goals we both committed to, the sacred vows we took, and the rules that were stipulated to achieve those goals, all stand in ruins, then even the most faithful covenant partner may have to acknowledge that the covenant is damaged beyond repair.

One puzzle remains: whether frustration in getting creation-based needs met might also constitute grounds for divorce. The case of fundamental covenant violations directly addressed by Scripture, like adultery and desertion, is fairly clear. But what about problems that go to the heart of the creation purposes of marriage: companionship in labor, life, and love, sexual relations, and family partnership?

My response remains a covenantal one. Part of what spouses promise to each other is to devote themselves to meeting one another's God-given sexual needs, bringing new life into the world together and raising that new life responsibly, sharing in the labors necessary to support a family, and providing for one another a measure of good-willed companionship. In other words, a good faith effort to meet one another's creational needs is itself part of the marital covenant.

Because human beings are imperfect sinners, we all fall short of fulfilling such promises in all their potential. Falling short in a way that can be expected of normal sinful human beings is not grounds for divorce. However, situations emerge in which a pattern develops of willful and repeated violations of both the letter and the spirit of such promises. Remember that covenants don't just stipulate behavior but they also establish a kind of marital community. This covenant-formed community hinges on a good-faith effort on the part of both parties to live out the relationship promised at its inception.

It is obvious that a pattern of physical and emotional abuse, the steady refusal of conjugal relations, the willful mistreatment or abuse of the couple's children, the refusal to contribute any effort to shared family labors either paid or unpaid, and the creation of an environment of unremitting hostility or hatred are all examples of violations of the covenant promises made on the wedding day. The circumstances in which such promise-breaking could create sufficient suffering to morally justify divorce cannot be determined by way of a general statement, but certainly such circumstances exist.

Covenants protect valuable relationships from harm. In Margaret Farley's words, "They take their meaning from the love they are designed to serve. They are relative in meaning and in value to the substance they help to frame."15 Biblical prohibitions against divorce support marital covenants and are aimed at protecting the innocent, especially women and children, from abandonment and harm. A certain measure of suffering is a reasonable price to pay to preserve a marriage covenant. But when a marriage relationship itself becomes fundamentally and irreparably harmful and oppressive, then it is probably the case that the marriage, rather than a divorce, poses the greater threat to the well-being of the most vulnerable.

The spouse suffering in such a marriage will likely consider divorce. But the Christian spouse in such a situation should not attempt to determine alone whether the state of affairs in his or her marriage constitutes a fundamental and irreparable breach of the covenant. One key role of the Christian community is to stand in the gap with suffering spouses and help them discern the nature of their moral obligations in times of great suffering—rather than turn away from them in their sorrow. In so doing, the community must take seriously both the marriage covenant and the current suffering. Mike Mason says that the marriage vows ask this question: "How dark a night are you prepared to pass through" with this person?16 In the middle of such a dark night—in the midst of a marital nightmare—no believer should find herself alone.

A Personal Word
This reflection on suffering in marriage could not have been written by a blissfully happy young newlywed. Neither, however, could it have been written by an unhappily married cynic. It is instead the product of a man whose own marriage has experienced a couple of very difficult seasons of suffering, primarily of my own making, before coming out in a healthier place on the other side each time.

While originally drafting this essay I discovered a fragment that I wrote at perhaps the worst moment that my wife Jeanie and I have ever faced. I was in great anguish, and was trying to think my way through it.

At the top of the page I wrote "Status of a Marriage." Under this heading I listed eight options:

1. Ecstatic Union

2. Intimate Partnership

3. Cordial Friendship

4. Peaceful coexistence

5. Tense silence

6. Active hostility

7. Full-scale belligerence

8. Irreconcilable brokenness

Finally, at the bottom of the page, I jotted these thoughts: "A marriage's status can vary over time. What to make of our swings between ecstatic union and active hostility? Should I seek to narrow the range (say, options 3-4) so the swings are not so intense? Right now I just want to move from 7 to 5 and perhaps to 4 for a goal."

I record these words publicly because they teach better than anything else a very important truth. Suffering comes in marriage, but if we endure, if we hold true, it does not necessarily stay. Darkness may come with the night, but joy comes in the morning.

As I write these words, I would place the "status of our marriage" at a 1. For several years now, we once again have had the joyful experience of consistently living at 1 or 2. Of course, these numbers are symbols and approximations. But they symbolize and approximate something very important. Seasons of suffering in marriage push individuals and couples to levels of endurance they may never have imagined having to reach. Such seasons test the strength of the marital covenant beyond what the blushing bride and groom could ever have envisioned on the day they took their vows. Those who have not (yet) gone through this vale of tears have no idea what it is like. Those who have been there know exactly what I am talking about.

Mike Mason was right in saying that we don't keep vows; the vows keep us. When covenant structures our marriage relationship, that covenant sometimes is the only thing that holds us. When my spouse for a time becomes my enemy, and none of those lovely creation-needs are getting met, still we have our covenant. Unless that covenant has been irreparably breached by my spouse, I have no moral right to breach it either, despite a time of misery. That remains my best statement of an ethic for divorce. Our covenant held, the crisis passed, and today we enjoy an immensely joyful marriage. What about you?

David P. Gushee is Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy and senior fellow of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Christian Leadership at Union University. This article is excerpted from his book Getting Marriage Right: Realistic Counsel for Saving and Strengthening Relationships (Baker Books). Copyright 2004 by David P. Gushee. Used by permission of Baker Book House.

1. Simone Weil, "The Love of God and Affliction," Waiting for God (Putnam, 1951), p. 119.

2. Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (Fortress, 1975), p. 16.

3. On the connection between suffering and desire, see Jamie Mayerfeld, Suffering and Moral Responsibility (Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 19–22.

4. Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage (Multnomah, 1985), p. 171.

5. Pope John Paul II, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering (Pauline Books and Media, 1984), p. 16.

6. For a strong discussion of this issue, see Daniel Harrington, S.J., Why Do We Suffer? (Sheed and Ward, 2000), ch. 2.

7. Ibid., pp. 46-47.

8. John Paul II, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, p. 17.

9. Ibid., p. 44.

10. Margaret Farley, Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing (HarperCollins, 1990), p. 122.

11. Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan, 1998).

12. Chrysostom, Homily XIX, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. XII, 4. Accessed at.

13. Philip Turner, "The Marriage Canons of the Episcopal Church: Scripture and Tradition," Anglican Theological Review, Vol. 65, p. 387.

14. Farley, Personal Commitments, pp. 118–120.

15. Farley, Personal Commitments, pp. 127.

16. Mason, The Mystery of Marriage, p. 117.
Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Books & Culture magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
September/October 2004, Vol. 10, No. 5, Page 22

His Name--The Everlasting Father

2005-12-16T01:58:00.000-08:00

His Name--The Everlasting Father

Concordia Publishing House: Category: Libros Arco - Spanish Arch Books (5-9)

2005-12-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

Concordia Publishing House: Category: Libros Arco - Spanish Arch Books (5-9)

Good Theology: Books

2005-12-11T02:57:00.000-08:00

Restoring Broken Things
What Happens When We Catch a Vision for the New World Jesus Is Creating
By: Steven Curtis Chapman, Scotty Smith

home products

2005-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

home products

see the ESV and Greek Side-by-side at Zhubert.com

2005-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

ESV Bible Blog � Blog Archive � See the ESV and Greek Side-by-side at Zhubert.com

Think Christ: Piper on Cessationism

2005-11-07T04:04:00.000-08:00

Think Christ: Piper on Cessationism

:: cawleyblog :: : "If I move, do I still get to go to your church?"

2005-10-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

:: cawleyblog :: : "If I move, do I still get to go to your church?"

A Stunted Ecclesiology? by J. I. Packer

2005-10-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

A Stunted Ecclesiology? by J. I. Packer

chapter excerpt HEAVEN TO EARTH

2005-10-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Four Corners Community Church

2005-10-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.4cornerschurch.com/index.php

Michelle Malkin: STORIES OF SURVIVAL

2005-09-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

The New Monasticism - Christianity Today Magazine

2005-09-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

The New Monasticism - Christianity Today Magazine
also check...

TRANSFORMED INTO HIS LIKENESS WITH EVER-INCREASING GLORY

2005-08-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

TRANSFORMED INTO HIS LIKENESS WITH EVER-INCREASING GLORY

boot camp

2005-08-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.acts29network.org/media/audio/bootcamp2005/feb2005.htm

Lecture Calendar

2005-07-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Lecture Calendar

Ransom Reprints

2005-07-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Ransom Reprints
You have to sift thru to find the BABYLON SERIES by DENIS HAACK
I think a small group discussing these articles would be groovy.

Bono's American Prayer - Christianity Today Magazine

2005-07-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

Bono's American Prayer - Christianity Today Magazine

Slide 1

2005-06-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Slide 1

50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod (kottke.org)

2005-06-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod (kottke.org)

Congregational meeting Sunday June 5 at 11:25am

2005-05-30T04:57:00.000-07:00

Below are pictures of the house and property located just south of our current church property. The price is $264,900. The 2091 square foot home is located on 3.86 acres.

2005-05-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

standing just inside front door & in front of fire place, looking EAST on the property and into great room and fla room

2005-05-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

front of house

2005-05-25T08:33:00.001-07:00

back of house

2005-05-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

south side of property

2005-05-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

you can see family church in distance from this property

2005-05-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

standing in great room looking into kitchen, extreme left is opening to florida room

2005-05-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

pics

Marathon Weekend - Event Info

2005-05-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Marathon Weekend - Event Info

CaringBridge.org - susiek

2005-05-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

CaringBridge.org - susiek

2005-05-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Olmsteds. Tom, Sylvia, Lanya, Wesley

stott on 11:19-30 gentile mission

2005-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Luke ended his previous section with the words `then to the
Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life' (18), RSV). It
was an epoch-making declaration by the conservative Jewish leaders
of the Jerusalem church. As Peter had become convinced by
circumstantial evidence that God intended Gentiles to be welcomed
into the redeemed community, so Peter's critics had been convinced
by his rehearsal of the evidence. God himself had put the matter
beyond dispute by bestowing his Spirit on a Gentile household.
The inclusion of the Gentiles is to be Luke's main theme in
the remainder of Acts, and with chapter 13 he begins to chronicle
Paul's missionary exploits. Before this, however, he gives his
readers two vignettes, which form a transition between the
conversion of the first Gentile (through Peter) and the systematic
evangelization of the Gentiles (by Paul).

The first (11:19-30) depicts the expansion of the church northwards, as a result of
evangelistic activity by anonymous missionaries. The scene is
Antioch, and Paul figures in the story, although Barnabas is more
prominent.

The second (12:1-25) depicts opposition to the church by King Herod Agrippa 1,
who concentrates his attack on members of
the apostolic circle. The scene is Jerusalem, and Peter occupies
the centre of the stage. In fact, this is Luke's final Peter-story
before his leadership role is taken over by Paul, and Jerusalem is
eclipsed by the goal of Rome.

1). Expansion: the church in Antioch (11:19-30).
The key expression at the end of the last paragraph was `to
the Gentiles also' (18, RSV); the key expression of this paragraph
is `to the Greeks also' (20, RSV) The addition in both verses of
`also' (*kai*) is important. It is not that the evangelization of
the Jews must stop, but that the evangelization of the Gentiles
must begin. As Paul was later to write (it was almost a refrain in
the early chapters of Romans, the gospel was intended `first for
the Jew, then for the Gentile' (Rom. 1:16; 2:9-10; cf. 3:29; 9:24;
10:12; 1Cor.1:24; Col.3:11.).
-----------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow. Acts 11:19-21. a). The Greek mission is initiated by
unnamed evangelists. =
February 8th,2000

THE MESSAGE OF ACTS.

A Commentary by John Stott.

Acts 11:19-21.

a). The Greek mission is initiated by unnamed evangelists.
Luke has written in 8:1 that, as a result of the persecution
which broke out after Stephen's martyrdom, `all except the
apostles were scattered [*diesparesan*] throughout Judea and
Samaria'. He now resumes his narrative: *Now those who had been
scattered (diasparentes) by the persecution in connection with
Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch* (19a).
In both cases he represents this fanning out of believers as a
Christian `diaspora' or dispersion. In both cases the result was
the same, namely that `those who had been scattered preached the
word wherever they went' (8:4), *telling the message* (19b). And
in both cases he leaves the evangelists unnamed, except for
stating that they were not apostles (8:1) and mentioning Philip
(8:5ff).
Luke now shows how the outward movement of the gospel
expanded in two ways, geographical and cultural. Geographically,
the mission spread north beyond `Judea and Samaria' (8:1b) *as far
as Phoenicia*, corresponding to Lebanon today, the island of
*Cyprus* and the city of Syrian *Antioch* (19). Culturally, the
mission spread beyond Jews to Gentiles. Most of the missionaries
were *telling the message only to Jews*, `to Jews only and to no
others' (19c,NEB). *Some of them, however, men* who came *from
Cyprus* (which incidentally was Barnabas's home, 4:36) *and
Cyrene* on the North African coast (did they perhaps include
`Lucius of Cyrene' mentioned in 13:1)? *went to Antioch and began
to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord
Jesus* (20), proclaiming Jesus, that is, not now as `the Christ',
but as `the Lord'. Moreover their bold innovation was richly
blessed by God, for *the Lord's hand was with them* (his power
confirming his word), so that *a great number of people believed
and turned to the Lord* (21) in that combination of repentance
and faith which is commonly called `conversion'. Some speculate
that Luke himself was one of these converts, because the Western
text introduces verse 28 with the words `when *we* were gathered
together', indicating that Luke was present, and because a
tradition can be traced back to the end of the second century that
Luke was a native of Antioch.
Is it certain, however, that these `daring spirits, did
evangelize Greeks in Antioch, and not just Hellenists, that is,
Greek-speaking Jews? This question has long occupied scholars. The
slightly better attested reading of verse 20 is not *Hellenas*,
`Greeks, but *Hellenistas*, `Hellenists'.
So who were they? The word itself (*Hellenistes*) does not
tell us, for it `is found nowhere in previous Greek literature or
in Hellenistic-Jewish literature', writes Dr Bruce Metzger, and
`in the New Testament it occurs only here and in 6:1 and 9:29'.
All that can be affirmed with confidence is that it `appears to be
a new formation from *hellenizein*, "to speak Greek" or "to
practise Greek ways"'; it thus indicates the culture of the people
in question, but not their nationality.
If, then, the meaning of the word is in itself uncertain,
the context must decide. Yet even this is to a degree ambiguous.
Some argue that the contrast between `only to Jews' (19) and `to
Greeks also' (20) settles the matter. There would have been
nothing remarkable about preaching to Greek-speaking Jews, for it
had been going on from the beginning. It would not have called for
a special investigation from Jerusalem. So, they conclude, the
context requires us (like most of the church fathers) to take
*Hellenistas* as a synonym for *Hellenas* and to translate it
`Greeks', `Gentiles', or (NEB, 1961 edition) `pagans'.
Others point out, however, that, even if the narrower
context is clear (the contrast in verses 18-20 between `only Jews'
and `also Greeks'), the wider context is not. There would, in
fact, be an anachronism in representing the full-scale Gentile
mission as having been pioneered by anonymous evangelists in
Antioch, since Luke reserves this innovation to Paul on his first
missionary journey (Acts 13). He could hardly have intended to
anticipate it here (Acts 11).
Since there is ambiguity in both word and context, it seems
wise to look for a compromise solution between Greek-speaking Jews
on the one hand and complete pagans on the other. Linguistically,
we can be sure only that *Hellenistas* denotes people whose
language and culture are Greek; the word does not indicate their
ethnic origin, whether `the person be a Jew or a Roman or any
other non-Greek'. It certainly does not require that the person is
a Jew. Contextually, Richard Longenecker suggests that the
*Hellenistas* were indeed Gentiles, but Gentiles `who had some
kind of relationship with Judaism', perhaps `God-fearers'. His
conclusion is `that Luke did not look on the Greeks in verse 20 as
simply Gentiles unaffected by the influence of Judaism and that he
did not view the Hellenistic Christians' approach to them as
pre-empting the uniqueness of Paul's later Gentile policy'.
Instead *Hellenistas* `is to be understood in the broad sense of
"Greek-speaking persons", meaning thereby the mixed population of
Antioch in contrast to the *Joudaioi* of verse 19'. It is clear
from both Acts 15:1 and Galatians 2:11ff, that in the church of
Antioch Jews and Gentiles, the circumcised and the uncircumcised,
were at the time enjoying table fellowship with one another.
This new outreach took place in *Antioch*, Luke tells us
(20), and no more appropriate place could be imagined, either as
the venue for the first international church or as the springboard
for the world-wide Christian mission. The city was founded in 300
BC by Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals. He
named it `Antioch' after his father Antiochus, and its port,
fifteen miles west along the navigable river Orontes, `Seleucia'
after himself. Over years it became known as `Antioch the
Beautiful' because of its fine buildings, and by Luke's day was
famous for its long, paved boulevard, which ran from north to
south and was flanked by a double colonnade with trees and
fountains. Although it was a Greek city by foundation, its
population, estimated as at least 500,000, was extremely
cosmopolitan. It had a large colony of Jews, attracted by
Seleucus' offer of equal citizenship, and Orientals too from
Persia, India and even China, earning it another of its names,
`the Queen of the East'. Since it was absorbed into the Roman
empire by Pompey in 64BC, and became the capital of the imperial
province of Syria (to which Cilicia was later added), its
inhabitants included Latins as well. Thus Greeks, Jews, Orientals
and Romans formed the mixed multitude of what Josephus called `the
third city of the empire', after Rome and Alexandria.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow. Acts 11:22-24. b). The Greek mission is endorsed by
Barnabas.
February 9th,2000

THE MESSAGE OF ACTS.

A Commentary by John Stott.

Acts 11:22-24. The Greek mission is endorsed by Barnabas.

News of this fresh development *reached the ears of the
church at Jerusalem*, much as they had previously heard `that
Samaria had accepted the word of God' (8:14) and `that the
Gentiles [sc. Cornelius and his household] also had received the
word of God' (11:1). Luke seems to be hinting that they felt the
need to assure themselves that all was well, in addition to
helping to nurture this young, multi-cultural church. This time
they did not send an apostle, however. Instead *they sent Barnabas
to Antioch* (22), whom Barclay called `the man with the biggest
heart in the church', and who was known to be true to his name
`Son of Encouragement' (4:36). *When he arrived* in Antioch, he
immediately *saw* for himself *the evidence of the grace of God*
in the converts' changed lives and new international community,
and in consequence he both *was glad*, presumably expressing his
joy in praise, *and encouraged them all* (`encouraged' being
perhaps a deliberate play on his name) to *remain true to the Lord
with all their hearts* (23). It was an exhortation both to
perseverance and to whole-heartedness. Luke was obviously
impressed with Barnabas' Christian character, and attributed his
ministry to it: for (it is a pity that NIV does not translate this
connecting particle *hoti*) *he was a good man, full of the Holy
Spirit and faith*. It is no wonder that *a great number of people
were brought* (literally `added', as RSV) *to the Lord* (24).
The verb for `added' in verse 24 (*prostithemi*) has become
for Luke an almost technical word for church growth. He used it
twice in relation to the Day of Pentecost, first of the three
thousand who were added that day (2:41) and then of the daily
additions which followed (2:47). Later he wrote of `more and more
men and women' believing in the Lord and being added to the church
(5:14), while in Syrian Antioch `a great number of people' were
added (11:24). This use of the verb *prostithemi* led the famous
Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper to propose the word `prosthetics'
to define missiology (although today it applies to the surgical
replacement of limbs and organs), since it should be concerned
with expansion of the church by additions to its membership.
Hermann Bavinch responded that it would not be an appropriate
term, however, because in the New Testament it is the Lord who
does the adding (2:47), not human missionaries. We might also
comment that the additions are not just to the church but to the
Lord (11:24). When we see `the Lord adding to the Lord', so that
he is both subject and object, source and goal, of evangelism, we
have to repent of all self-centred, self-confident concepts of the
Christian mission.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow. Acts 11:25-26. c). The Greek mission is consolidated by
Saul.
February 10th,2000

THE MESSAGE OF ACTS.

A Commentary by John Stott.

Acts 11:25-26. The Greek mission is consolidated by Saul.

Barnabas' next action was to go *to Tarsus to look for Saul*
(25), for Tarsus was Saul's home town to which the Jerusalem
believers had sent him, when his life was threatened (9:28-30).
That was seven or eight years previously. What he had been doing
meanwhile we do not know, although in his letter to the Galatians
he seems to indicate that he was preaching in Syria and Cilicia
(Gal.1:21ff). Some commentators have suggested that it was during
this period that he suffered some of the physical persecutions to
which he later referred (2 Cor.11:23ff), and was disinherited by
his family (Phil.3:8).
We cannot help admiring Barnabas' humility in wanting to
share the ministry with Saul, and his sense of strategy also. He
must have known of Saul's calling to be the apostle to the
Gentiles (9:15,27), and it may well have been the Gentile
conversions in Antioch which made him think of Saul. At all events
*when* Barnabas *found him, he brought him to Antioch*, and then
*for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church*, most of
whose members were young and uninstructed believers, *and taught
great numbers of people* (26a).
They must have taught about Christ, making sure that the
converts knew both the facts and the significance of his life,
death, resurrection, exaltation, Spirit-gift, present reign and
future coming. It was because the word `Christ' was constantly on
their lips that *the disciples were called Christians first in
Antioch* (26b)? Luke has so far referred to them as `disciples'
(6:1), `saints' (9:13), `brethren' (1:16; 9:30), `believers'
(10:45), those being `saved' (2:47) and the people `of the Way'
(9:2). Now it seems to have been the unbelieving public of
Antioch, famed for their wit and nicknaming skill, who, supposing
that `Christ' was a proper name rather than a title (the Christ or
Messiah), coined the epithet *Christianoi*. It was probably more
familiar and jocular than derisory. Although it does not seem to
have caught on initially, since elsewhere it appears only twice in
the New Testament (Acts 26:28 and 1 Pet.4:16), it at least
emphazied the Christ-centred nature of discipleship. For the
word's formation was parallel to *Herodianoi* (Herodians) and
*Kaisarianoi* (Caesar's people); it marked out the disciples as
being above all the people, the followers, the servants of Christ.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow. Acts 11:27-30. d). The Greek mission is authenticated by
good works.
February 11th,2000

THE MESSAGE OF ACTS.

A Commentary by John Stott.

Acts 11:27-30. The Greek mission is authenticated by good works.

It was *during this time* Luke continues, that *some
prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch* (27). *One of them ,
named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted a severe
famine would spread over the entire Roman world* (the *oikoumene*
or `inhabited earth' being regarded as more or less coterminous
with the empire). Luke adds in parenthesis that this predicted
famine *happened during the reign of Claudius* (28). Claudius
ruled from AD 41 to 54, but historians do not record `a severe and
world-wide famine' (NEB) during this period. F.F.Bruce therefore
proposes the more general expression `great dearth' (AV), adding
that this period `was indeed marked by a succession of bad
harvests and serious famines in various parts of the empire'. For
example, Josephus wrote of a great famine which during the reign
of Claudius oppressed the people of Judea, so that `many people
died for want of what was necessary to produce food withal',
although Queen Helena bought and distributed large quantities of
corn and figs.
Luke's concern, however, is not so much with the fulfilment
of Agabus' prophecy as with the generous response of Antioch's
church. For *the disciples, each according to his ability, decided
to provide help for the brothers living in Judea* (29). Moreover,
their decision led to action. They were soon *sending their gift
to the elders by Barnabas and Saul* (30), who, having ministered
as evangelists and teachers, were glad now to minister as social
workers also. This second visit of Saul's to Jerusalem, which Luke
here records, seems (although not all scholars agree with this) to
be the same as the second visit which Paul himself mentions in
Galatians 2:1-10. The Parallels are striking. He writes there that
he travelled `with Barnabas', that he went `in response to a
revelation' (i.e. Agabus' prophecy), and that the leaders urged
him to `continue to remember the poor', which was `the very thing'
he was `eager to do', namely in bringing the famine relief.
One naturally wonders why, apart from the famine, the
Jerusalem church was now so poor as to need this relief, and
whether perhaps their extreme generosity which Luke has described
in Acts 2 and 4 was a contributing factor. At all events, it was
now the turn of the Antiochene believers to be generous. They gave
*each according to their ability* (cf. 2Cor.8:3), just as the
Jerusalem believers had previously distributed `to anyone as he
had need' (2:45; 4:35). I have often wondered if Marx knew these
two passages and bracketed them in his mind. For in his famous
`Critique of the Gotha Programme' (1875), that is, of the united
policy of the two wings of German socialism, he called for
something much more radical than they proposed, when society can
`inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs!'
Whatever our political and economic convictions may be,
these are plainly biblical principles, that is, ability on the one
hand, need on the other, and how to relate them to each other.
These principles should characterize the family of God. It is not
an accident that the Jerusalem recipients of Antiochene relief are
called `brothers' (29). More important still, this brotherhood or
family included both Jewish and Gentile believers, and the
fellowship between them was illustrated in the relations between
the two churches. The church of Jerusalem had sent Barnabas to
Antioch; now the church of Antioch sent Barnabas, with Saul, back
to Jerusalem. This famine relief anticipated the collection which
Paul was later to organise, in which the affluent Greek churches
of Macedonia and Achaia contributed to the needs of the
impoverished churches of Judea. Its importance to Paul was that it
was a symbol of Gentile-Jewish solidarity in Christ, `for if the
Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings', he wrote.
`they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material
blessings' (Rom.15:27).

Warning: This will change you...

2005-04-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

and is a message which is foundational for Christ Community...

Born of the Gospel MP3 High MP3 Low

Growing Up with Your Teenager

2005-03-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

Like Dew Your Youth : Eugene H. Peterson

2004 Reflections

2004-12-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

Below I’ve detailed the more evident blessings of 2004 within the five basic functions of our church. Please join me in recognizing and praising God for his goodness.

Worship:
Along with giving our church record attendance and record offerings, God has blessed us with two gifted, committed individuals who have contributed selflessly to heighten our Sunday morning worship. Kelly MacGregor provided outstanding leadership and guidance for the worship team this year. For her diligent week-after-week preparation we are most grateful. The huge amount of time and energy she put forth every week helped foster a Christ-centered worship environment essential for our congregation. We were blessed to have Richard Horner provide good oversight for the worship service during the first half of the year. And while these members have been an exceptional blessing for us lately, may I take this time to again thank and appreciate the growing number of volunteers (musicians, technicians, ushers, etc.) who make our Sunday mornings happen. Kelly will be focusing on other areas in the life of Christ Community this semester, so she’ll be easier to find in the congregation and thanks for her leadership in 2004.

Education:
We experienced our best year in Christian Education.

Children Rebecca Schackow is beginning her second year as our part-time Director of Children’s Ministries. Her giftedness has been an asset to the children’s department. We’ve had 7 births this year bringing the total number of children at CCC to 43!

Wonderful teachers…
It takes about 50 individuals to provide both childcare and teaching for our children. A BIG thanks to all those who have given of their time and faithfulness to teach our children.

Perhaps no better testimony could be given about the work of God in our children’s lives than was given at our December 26th service. For those of you who were there, I’m sure it will be etched in your memory for years. For those of you who missed it, ask someone about it!

Youth: During 2004 the youth group had another Beach Retreat at Crescent Beach. Many one-to-one relationships between youth and volunteer leaders grew and provided much-needed encouragement for both. Lorraine Martin and Margaret Thaler deserve great thanks for their efforts to create an atmosphere in which youth can grow in God’s grace.

We hope the new year will bring more presence to this ministry. February 25-27 is our Middle School Retreat with a dozen other churches in Florida. It will be held at Southwind, a Young Life facility near Ocala.

Adult Class While the kids are doing quite well, the more stunning success story within education is our 9AM Adult Sunday School Class. In the first half of 2004, we held classes on the topics of Friendship Evangelism, Spiritual Gifts and A Purpose-Driven Life. More recently, we spent 10 weeks going through the very practical topic of Biblical Conflict & Resolution and ended the year with a short theological series on the Incarnation. Sunday School attendance among adults is up an estimated 600% (6 adults in January to now 40 in December) to our highest level of participation ever!

We want to especially recognize Billy Crow who is chairing the Education committee that is doing such excellent work and Steve Lammers who is providing needed elder oversight and leadership in this area.

Fellowship
From 1 John: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother… How can you say you love God who you cannot see when you don’t love your neighbor?

§ Lunch on the grounds
§ Summer Get-togethers
§ People hanging around after events, particularly the evening ones at Hope Church
§ Women’s activities
§ Children’s Easter Egg Event

At the end of 2003 our membership was at 40. Now at the conclusion of 2004 we have 72 members!

Evangelism
Christ Community has always been a place longing to be used of God to bring His people home. We had several people join our church this year upon profession of faith in Christ. Many of you were favored to hear their stories in various venues. It is always sweet to see God creating new life in Christ. May He do more in 2005! As one of our members challenged us in our “open mike” time during the December 26th service, “Let’s go out there and find those lost sheep and bring them home.”

Mercy
God has made abundantly clear that for His kingdom to come and His will to be done means for His people to help people in need. I am continually reminded that God has put a number of people in Christ Community who love to be of help. From involvement in meals-on-wheels to personal ministry with single-mother families, much good was done in the name of Christ this year.

There are three other things to be discussed…
I. Leadership:

1. How God has provided
Larry Eubanks, Richard Horner, and Steve Lammers are our first session of elders at Christ Community. Their shepherding leadership has been of great value and service.

Success of broadened leadership

Prior to my sabbatical this summer, a team of individuals came together to form a Lay Leadership Council. The (LLC) did not fail when it dissolved in October. Rather, it completed its purpose. I want to take time to acknowledge their efforts (leadership during summer, new directions for staff, shaping our strategic vision, summer fellowship, education committee, first missions committee, first-ever budget, being a voice for the congregation, etc.). The end of the LLC is a victory. We have reached the next stage in our growth and are closer to our long term goals (Elders, Land, and diversified leadership). We should all remember that through their efforts we experienced and extended the Grace of Jesus Christ.

2. How to pray
The vision for Christ Community, and a key to her long-term health, is the raising
up of elders from within the congregation. Please pray that the efforts of the current elders would result in the ordination of other lay elders for our church family.

II. Land
After being sorely disappointed that the land we tried to buy on Newberry Road was not God’s plan, we are excited to be on the verge of acquiring a 5 acre site on Parker Road. You will hear more about this at our Sunday evening meeting on January 9th. Ronnie Neder leads a hard-working Land Team.

III. Commitment to Impact Gainesville and Beyond
Feels like a Buzz Lightyear statement, “To infinity and beyond!” Anyway, it is a reality that God has strategically used Christ Community to do His larger Church a lot of good. This was brought back home to me as I received Christmas cards from people who have moved away and expressed that Christ Community was the place where God did a major work in their lives, either of conversion or growth in grace. In other examples of our expanding impact, this year we specifically saw:
a.) A rise in our influence among undergraduate students. Several hundred students passed through our doors this semester, many of whom have found us through the campus ministries of RUF, Campus Crusade, Young Life, FCA, and others.

b.) The welcoming of our first pastoral intern, Ray Treadwell. Having volunteered during the Fall on a part-time basis, this January – due to a generous scholarship from an out of state friend of Christ Community – Ray will be full-time with the church until July. His functions will include general office support, assisting me in and out of worship, teaching class occasionally, and discipling younger men in the church. His exposure to pastoral ministry we hope will enable God to extend the grace of Jesus through him for years to come.

Budget process:
Last of all, in May I asked Jason MacGregor to guide us through a budget process for 2005. We can’t thank him and all the players in this process enough for all the planning and hard work they put in. The results of that task are enclosed with this letter. Our completed 2005 Budget is one more benchmark of God’s hand in our steady, stable growth.

This by no means exhausts all the great things God has done for us in 2004. No letter could. Some of you had a deep renewal in the gospel this year. Marriages were strengthened, relationships healed. Joy was restored; sin lost its power, etc. Those things don’t show up on a spreadsheet and yet they are key elements of a gospel-driven church.

www.robpendley.blogspot.com
A good place to visit weekly, if not daily, to stay up on life in this church family

Was Simon Mangus a Christian?

2004-12-05T05:53:00.000-08:00

Forgive the formatting, this is from Tim Keller and John Stott:

Verse 13 says that “Simon believed and was baptized”, yet Peter says later that his heart is
“not right with God” (v.21), which means that he is not a Christian. Some would say that Simon
had been converted, but had fallen away from grace, had lost his salvation. But Peter’s words in
verse 23, “For I see you are (lit.) in the gall of bitterness and captive to sin” has the sense of
“now I perceive your true state”. The best way, then to read v.13, is the Simon intellectually was
convinced of the truth of Christ, but there was no real change of heart, no new birth.

Why? Verse 19 shows that his interest was “this ability”. He saw the power to heal people
physically and spiritually, and he wanted that power for himself. He had been a magician, and the
work of a magician is to have power. Now in the gospel he saw a greater power, and he just
wanted this for himself, too. In other words, Simon’s fundamental and basic heart attitude had not
changed at all. He had just gotten into Christianity because he hoped to use it as a more effective
way to rise up and get power over people. He was still, in a sense, trying to save himself and keep
control of his life. The way he had always done that was through gaining power over people. Now
he wanted to do this through this new religion.
This is subtle and a great warning to us all. Some of us feel that we need approval in order to have
happiness and value. So we may appear to “convert”, but we may be getting into Christianity just
to get this nice group of people to love and approve of us. So our real “salvation” is not Christ, but
the approval of other Christians. There has been no real heart change, no real abandoning of our
good works for faith in Christ’s work for us. We are just doing the old self-salvation in a new
way. Or, here’s another example, closer to Simon’s pattern. Some of us feel that we need power
over others in order to have happiness and value. We may always feel that we need to be running
things, be telling others what to do. So we may appear to “convert”, but we may be getting into
Christianity just because we see a new place where we can run things and pontificate and tell
people how they ought to live. So our real “salvation” is not Christ, but power over others. There
has been no real heart change, no real abandoning of our good works for faith in Christ’s work for
us. We are just doing the old self-salvation in a new way.
So this mistake of Simon is much easier to do than you think! It is being done in the church all the
time!
Did he repent? We cannot be sure, from his reply in v.24, but John Stott does not think his reply
indicates that he did.
“Simon’s response to Peter’s rebuke is not encouraging. He showed no sign of
repentance....Instead of praying for forgiveness...What really concerned him was
not that he might receive God’s pardon, but only that he might escape God’s
judgment...Simon’s tears [may] have been tears of remorse or rage, but not of
repentance.” Stott, The Message of Acts, p.151.
In other words, Simon seems only concerned that he might be hurt, not that he has hurt God. That
is not a good sign!

Dr. G's Blog

2004-10-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Dr. G's Blog

ianmurray

2004-10-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

SermonAudio.com - Search Results

Letter went out USPS today

2004-09-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have an important meeting Sunday. 6:00-7:15 at Hope Community Church. Childcare will be available. We’ll gather to inform you about some important elements of our life together. On the agenda:

#1. Land
#2. Ministry to Families
#3. Money (Regular Giving and Site to Serve)
#4 Our Key Result Areas for the October through May.
#5. Leadership Development

#1. Land
Buying the piece of property on Newberry Road has been a comedy of errors. It was the desire of everyone in leadership to stand before you Sunday night and say, “We have final news, good or bad.” Sadly, we can’t do that. The meeting that was scheduled between seller and attorney was postponed by Hurricane Jeanne until Monday October 4th.
At the meeting you will hear the latest on this whole situation.

#2. Ministry to Families
A.) Children
1.) Good to Great
With the dramatic increase in attendance of undergraduates it seems appropriate to restate our vision for and commitment to seeking to partner with parents in helping their children to hope in God.
Currently Christ Community offers solid biblical teaching at 9am on Sunday mornings. During the 10:00 hour we offer Children’s Church every other week to K-2nd grade.
In order to build on this good we really need to add to this:
~a welcoming environment
~better signage showing newer people where to go
~clearer markers of what our children are learning to help them experiencing & extend the grace of Jesus Christ
~putting resources into parents hands and hearts to teach the Scriptures to their children

For those who want more, I highly recommend an online article: The Family: Together in God’s Presence which can be found at http://desiringgod.org/library/topics/family/family_worship.html

Core Values of Our Children’s Curriculum:
Redemptive-historical Perspective. The Reformed approach to the Bible is to see it as the complete, unified counsel of God. Therefore, we interpret every small portion of God's Word in the context of the whole.
A God-ward Focus. As we encounter any biblical truth, it teaches us about God and ultimately elicits worship from us as we discover him to be sovereign Creator, Redeemer and King.
Show Me Jesus. The subject of Scripture is God's unfolding story of salvation, and Jesus is its focus. We show how Jesus Christ, reflected on every page of the Bible, came to seek and save the lost.
God's Covenant of Grace. From Genesis to Revelation, covenant is the thread that ties the Bible together: we build on that truth to teach students of all ages the constant faithfulness of God.
The Home Link. Church and home — working together to point children to Christ. We believe parents are key in the spiritual training of their children, and we provide resources for them to reinforce the solid teaching children receive at church.
2.) Children & Communion
The elders are very excited to see that we have many children in the congregation who are interested in taking their place at the Lord’s Table. The elders take the profession of faith of children very seriously. Our normal practice for adults to join the church is to meet privately with the elders to profess their personal faith in Jesus Christ. We don’t force the children to fit into this “interview model” which adults even get nervous about. The way it works is that you or your child should let an elder know that it is time to set up a home visit. I’ll come out with another elder to visit very informally with you and your child(ren). We are simply looking to hear of your child(ren)’s personal faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ and some basic understanding of the Lord’s Supper.

I’ve enclosed the pertinent sections of Christ Community’s Book of Church Order and a lithograph we’ve used in the past.

B. Youth
Currently we have David Bagwell working on a part-time basis with the jr hi and hi school. He’s teaching Deuteronomy in Sunday school and Romans in Youth Group on Sunday evenings.
David and the volunteer leaders are doing a great job of seeking to spend one-on-one time with students during the week. This is crucial and we commend them for seeking to incarnate the gospel to young people.
David is supported administratively and emotionally by help from Maggie Martin, Tyler Walker, Lorraine Martin and of course, Margaret Thaler. This group is always looking for ways to bring more youth in contact with the gospel of grace.

#3.) Money (see attached sheet)
A.) Regular Giving
B.) Site to Serve Capital Campaign

Now, there are some points here that are very encouraging and some points that are quite concerning. Shall we start with encouragements?
Ø To see Land/Building Fund go from $9,000 to $182,000 in 24 months is great progress. One pastor who has seen his church through numerous capital campaigns says, “Rob that is good progress if you have something visible for people to give to. Christ Community can’t even put a ‘Future Home’ sign in the ground and they’ve given like this to an idea? That’s outstanding.”
Ø The amount of money that 50 contributors are giving is quite good.

Opportunities for Growth
Ø Seems that the number of inconsistent contributors (72) is high, we need to see 10 of these become regular givers
Ø Seems that you can’t go long or far with non-members giving half your money. There’s two ways to change that and of the two I prefer to see a migration of non-members into a covenantal relationship with us.

#4 Key Result Areas for October 2004-May 2005
Frankly, I’ve got to talk with our elders, committee chairs and staff to boil these down. Plus, if I give you everything here, you might stay away Sunday!

#5. Leadership Development
The elders and the Education Committee have been working on this, giving time regularly to pray and plan towards elders and deacons to emerge and be ordained from our membership. One thing we’re doing is having me teach Sunday School more often. Also, the elders are taking a relational approach to officer identification.

Let me wrap it up like this…sometimes I stop and stare at my wife and realize, “If I was starting all over again and I was single, I’d set my sights on Kim and go for her.” Yet I can wrongly allow day to day familiarity to cause me to take her and her greatness for granted. Sadly, this happens with Christ Community as well. Does it for you? Do you forget that with all our problems (and we have ‘em!) Christ Community is a work of God’s strong grace? Have you forgotten:
~ the quality of people God has gathered here
~ that some churches go years without seeing a visitor, we rarely go a week
~that we have cross-generational friendships that are vital in this fragmented culture
~that some churches would jump for joy to have the opportunity to impact as many university students as we do
~that we have godly & gifted musicians helping us worship
~so many people are working so hard behind the scenes to help us grow in faithfulness
~ the healthy blended emphasis we have on knowing Christ emotionally and intellectually

One recent note that came into the office said:
So I admit I've been jaded by my previous experiences at other churches.
What I had observed was most Christians are hypocrites, don't care, and are overly worried about appearances. The more I do with Christ Community, the more I realize that I'm wrong. I've really enjoyed my time in Bible studies, really being able to learn about and from other Christians. I know our church isn't a wonder-church … But I feel like people genuinely open up and are seeking after the Lord, for the most part.

I look forward to being with you on Sunday, morning and evening.

The Chief Good, and Delectable

2004-09-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

God is bonum summum, the chief good. In the chief good there must be delectability; it must have something that is delicious and sweet: and where can we suck those pure essential comforts, which ravish us with delight, but in God? In God's character there is a certain sweetness which fascinates or rather enraptures the soul. 'At thy right hand there are pleasures.' Psa 16: 11:
In the chief good there must be transcendence, it must have a surpassing excellence. Thus God is infinitely better than all other things. Thomas Watson, 17th century

Yom Kippur :: Interactive :: Videos

2004-09-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

High Holidays 2004 :: Yom Kippur :: Interactive :: Videos

4th grade reading list

2004-09-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

www.veritaspress.com

keller quote, graces dependant upon one another

2004-09-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Real self-control dependent on joy

There is a kind of self-control and self-discipline that comes only by substituting one idolatrous over-desire for another one.

• For example, a boy may lack emotional self-control. When someone says to him, “Don’t act like a girl,” suddenly he gets control of his emotions.

• But how does it happen? He has been made to feel superior to women and shamed into control. That throws out one distorted view of life (self-pity) and puts in another distorted view (proud superiority), which produces (for the moment) emotional control. But later in marriage, that man may lose his temper when his wife talks back to him!

• The only true kind of self-control is that which comes from joy in God. Addictions to anger, to habits that make us temporarily feel better about ourselves, all come from a basic lack of joy in our lives.

• What we need above all else is a deep joy and experience of God’s beauty. Then we will not be out of control, addicted to seeking beauty and satisfaction in other things.

Thanks,

Rob Pendley

Congregational Letter

2004-09-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

This letter is going out snail mail today...
Dear Congregation,

Since Hurricane Frances prevented us from worshipping together last weekend, this letter is to inform you of our upcoming Sunday activities.

1) As Gainesville and the rest of Florida continue recovery efforts, we will be taking a special relief offering for the victims of Hurricane Frances. (The special offering for UF campus ministries will be postponed.)

2) Sunday School Orientation & Worker Training. At 9AM in the Student Center, all parents and children are invited to our Sunday School “Open House.” Come meet our teachers, learn about the curriculum, participate in activities, and enjoy refreshments.

Immediately following the service, anyone looking to be involved with our children’s ministry will be asked to meet in the Student Center for the Teacher Training Workshop. Training will last one hour, and lunch is provided.

3) Once again, we are expecting a capacity crowd for the Oak Hall auditorium. Please consider the following ways we may serve our visitors on Sunday:
a. If you are physically able, park in the lower school lot (first parking lot on the left) and walk to the auditorium.
b. As you enter the auditorium, sit toward the front and the center. This will help with overflow as latecomers arrive.
c. Please welcome new people. First impressions are crucial.

4) We will also be celebrating the Lord’s Supper.

5) We have included last week’s “For the Fridge” but wanted to mention two corrections. First, the next Lay Leadership Council meeting is changed from the 13th to the 20th. Also, Rob will be teaching a class at 9am this Sunday, but the topic will be God’s role in “natural” disasters instead of what is listed. Rob will begin the Sunday School class on “Peacemaking” on the 19th.

Buy Depthof Mercy CD and Heaven CD

2004-09-07T05:12:00.000-07:00

Buy Depthof Mercy CD and Heaven CD

2004-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

John Calvin, "Let us remember that this sacred feast is medicine to the sick, comfort to the sinner, and bounty to the poor. If you came based on being healthy, righteous, and rich it would be of no value. Thus, the best and only worthiness which we can bring to God is to offer him our own vileness and unworthiness, that his mercy may make us worthy; to despond in ourselves that we may be consoled in him; to humble ourselves that we may be elevated; to accuse ourselves that we may be justified by him."

calvin quote here

2004-09-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

Lord's Supper Prep: Things for which to ask and seek

2004-08-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Things for which to ask God to give you by His Spirit as you receive the Lord’s Supper:
Reverence and attention.
Discernment of the Lord’s Body, an understanding of the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.
Meditation on Christ’s death and suffering
Self judgment.
Sorrow for sin.
Desire for Christ.
Feeding on Him in faith.
Trusting in Him.
Rejoicing in His love.
Giving thanks for His grace.
Renewal of your covenant with God and commitment to Christ.
Special love to all Christians.

Johnson, Keller on end of acts 4 and start of 5

2004-08-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

Every verb in the summary of Acts 4:32-35 is in the imperfect tense, but in 4:36 Luke shifts back to the aorist tense—a signal that Barnabas’s gift is both a specific example of a general trend sketched in the summary and the immediate introduction (instigation) to the hypocritical generosity of Ananias & Sapphira (5:1-11). In 5:12-16—another summary—the characteristic verb tense is the imperfect. Johnson, Acts in History of Rdmptn

It is clear, from many “clues” in the text, that the early church was not any formal kind of communism or socialism. However, we must not minimize the fact that their love made them almost de facto communalists. Their life together was intimate in the extreme. --Tim Keller

Jim Collins.com %7C Lecture Hall

2004-08-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

Jim Collins.com %7C Lecture Hall

Cool...Tour the Church

2004-08-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

Tour the Church

Cool...Tour the Church

2004-08-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

Tour the Church

entire article

2004-08-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity.
I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle. "You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned. I'm sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus. In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God--even if he is holy too."
This young man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people make to the Christian message. (A close second, in my experience, is the problem of suffering and evil.) Moderns reject the idea of final judgment and hell.
Thus, it's tempting to avoid such topics in our preaching. But neglecting the unpleasant doctrines of the historic faith will bring about counter-intuitive consequences. There is an ecological balance to scriptural truth that must not be disturbed.
If an area is rid of its predatory or undesirable animals, the balance of that environment may be so upset that the desirable plants and animals are lost--through overbreeding with a limited food supply. The nasty predator that was eliminated actually kept in balance the number of other animals and plants necessary to that particular ecosystem. In the same way, if we play down "bad" or harsh doctrines within the historic Christian faith, we will find, to our shock, that we have gutted all our pleasant and comfortable beliefs, too.
The loss of the doctrine of hell and judgment and the holiness of God does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts--our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must preach the bad.
But in this age of tolerance, how?

How to preach hell to traditionalistsBefore preaching on the subject of hell, I must recognize that today, a congregation is made up of two groups: traditionalists and postmoderns. The two hear the message of hell completely differently.
People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to have (a) a belief in God, and (b) a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be good. These people tend to be older, from strong Catholic or religious Jewish backgrounds, from conservative evangelical/Pentecostal Protestant backgrounds, from the southern U.S., and first-generation immigrants from non-European countries.
The way to show traditional persons their need for the gospel is by saying, "Your sin separates you from God! You can't be righteous enough for him." Imperfection is the duty-worshiper's horror. Traditionalists are motivated toward God by the idea of punishment in hell. They sense the seriousness of sin.
But traditionalists may respond to the gospel only out of fear of hell, unless I show them Jesus experienced not only pain in general on the cross but hell in particular. This must be held up until they are attracted to Christ for the beauty of the costly love of what he did. To the traditional person, hell must be preached as the only way to know how much Christ loved you.

Here is one way I have preached this:
"Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself.
"If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you--that hurts. If a good friend does the same--the hurt's far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying, 'I never want to see you again,' that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation.
"But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us."

How to preach hell to postmodernsIn contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans.
When preaching hell to people of this mindset, I've found I must make four arguments.
1. Sin is slavery. I do not define sin as just breaking the rules, but also as "making something besides God our ultimate value and worth." These good things, which become gods, will drive us relentlessly, enslaving us mentally and spiritually, even to hell forever if we let them.
I say, "You are actually being religious, though you don't know it--you are trying to find salvation through worshiping things that end up controlling you in a destructive way." Slavery is the choice-worshiper's horror.
C. S. Lewis's depictions of hell are important for postmodern people. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell. The descriptions Lewis makes of people in hell are so striking because we recognize the denial and self-delusion of substance addictions. When addicted to alcohol, we are miserable, but we blame others and pity ourselves; we do not take responsibility for our behavior nor see the roots of our problem.
Lewis writes, "Hell . . . begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps even criticizing it. . . . You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."
Modern people struggle with the idea of God thinking up punishments to inflict on disobedient people. When sin is seen as slavery, and hell as the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe, hell becomes much more comprehensible.
Here is an example from a recent sermon of how I try to explain this:
"First, sin separates us from the presence of God (Isa. 59:2), which is the source of all joy (Ps. 16:11), love, wisdom, or good thing of any sort (James 1:17). . . .
"Second, to understand hell we must understand sin as slavery. Romans 1:21-25 tells us that we were built to live for God supremely, but instead we live for love, work, achievement, or morality to give us meaning and worth. Thus every person, religious or not, is worshiping something--idols, pseudo-saviors--to get their worth. But these things enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them). Guilt, anger, and fear are like fire that destroys us. Sin is worshiping anything but Jesus--and the wages of sin is slavery."
Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the people on Lewis's bus from hell are enslaved because they freely choose to be. They would rather have their freedom (as they define it) than salvation. Their relentless delusion is that if they glorified God, they would lose their human greatness (Gen. 3:4-5), but their choice has really ruined their human greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom."

2. Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance. Nothing is more characteristic of the modern mindset than the statement: "I think Christ is fine, but I believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God." A slightly different version is: "I don't think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief." This approach is seen as more inclusive.
In preaching about hell, then, I need to counter this argument:
"The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God.
"You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once.
"So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, 'The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.'
"But what about us moral failures?” We are excluded.
"The gospel says, 'The people who know they aren't good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.'
"Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God?” They are excluded.
"So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel's is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.' "

3. Christianity's view of hell is more personal than the alternative view. Fairly often, I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all."
"Why?" I ask.
They reply, "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin."
But then a question remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?"
The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary."
How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."
The postmodern "sensitive" approach to the subject of hell is actually quite impersonal. It says, "It doesn't matter if you believe in the person of Christ, as long as you follow his example."
But to say that is to say the essence of religion is intellectual and ethical, not personal. If any good person can find God, then the essential core of religion is understanding and following the rules.
When preaching about hell, I try to show how impersonal this view is:
"To say that any good person can find God is to create a religion without tears, without experience, without contact.

"The gospel certainly is not less than the understanding of truths and principles, but it is infinitely more. The essence of salvation is knowing a Person (John 17:3). As with knowing any person, there is repenting and weeping and rejoicing and encountering. The gospel calls us to a wildly passionate, intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ, and calls that 'the core of true salvation.' "

4. There is no love without wrath. What rankles people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God: "I can't believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?"
So in preaching about hell, we must explain that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. Here's how I tried to do that in one sermon:
"People ask, 'What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?' But any loving person is often filled with wrath. In Hope Has Its Reasons, Becky Pippert writes, 'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it. . . . Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.'
"Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'
"She concludes: 'If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone's condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.' "

A God like thisFollowing a recent sermon on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the post-service question-and-answer session was packed with more than the usual number of attenders. The questions and comments focused on the subject of eternal judgment.
My heart sank when a young college student said, "I've gone to church all my life, but I don't think I can believe in a God like this." Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open.
Usually all the questions are pitched to me, and I respond as best I can. But on this occasion people began answering one another.
An older businesswoman said, "Well, I'm not much of a churchgoer, and I'm in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me."
Then a mature Christian made a connection with a sermon a month ago on Jesus at Lazarus' tomb in John 11. "The text tells us that Jesus wept," he said, "yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That's helped me. He is not just an angry God or a weeping, loving God--he's both. He doesn't only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross."
The second woman nodded, "Yes. I always thought hell told me about how angry God was with us, but I didn't know it also told me about how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how much hell told me about Jesus' love. It's very moving."
It is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love are so brilliant and astounding.

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City.