In the Future

From now on all posts will be made on this blog. It seems to fit better with my life currently, and will be a lot more fun! Hopefully this will work out better for everyone!

John

I am trying to keep up with some brand new Christians in going through the gospel according to John. Thes guys are eating up John like candy right now, and it's so sweet to see! I love it! Thanks be to God for His Word that is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. Pray for these new believers and for our chapter to gain more momentum after seeing some great fruit.

No replies to the last post! Maybe it was a bad topic. We can revisit it if there is interest later, i suppose.
Here is a question i have been pondering an awful lot lately.
If there are approximately 350 students attending evangelical Christian groups at UWSP, why on earth are there only approximately 110 UWSP students attending evangelical local churches? I realize that part of the deal is that we have a unique benefit of having a bunch of non-Christians around our organizations, but certainly NOT 75% of them! My main concern is that i know about 8o of those church-going students are involved in IV, my organization- and we are not the biggest Christian organization on campus by a long shot. How do we account for this? It is a travesty to not have Christian students in the most critical period of formation of their lives being educated and impacted by the local church. Over 90% of students who do not attend a local church during college are not attending a local church 5 years after graduation, whether they call themseleves Christian or not. Having no intergenerational Christian training and education forming people between ages 17 and 22 might be one of the weakest points in our congregations today, especially in towns with universities. What are we to do?

Here it is.

I have to confess i lost the book i wanted to quote from and don't remember the whole of the question i sought to answer. I'll do my best to bring it out and see what happens.
Substitutionary atonement has to do with the idea that we are all guilty before God, but that Jesus suffered a horrible death and the wrath of God in our place. We deserved that punishment as retribution for our sin, but God provided atonement for OUR SIN (yours and mine) through the punishment of his son. So the question then is, was that substitutionary death sufficient for salvation? If Jesus truly did pay enough of a penalty for everyone's sin (which i tend to believe), we have to say that there is something else required for salvation besides this substitutionary atonement (since not everyone has salvation). It is atonement plus something for salvation.
Now John Murray would say that it is application of that redemption to us by the Spirit, and in that way Jesus is the surety or savior for his elect. Is this ok?
This will get us started, let us dive into scripture and discover what we can about this mystery about why i am saved.

so is it unlimited, or limited?

Well, I have been busy getting ready for our area leadership retreat this weekend (i spent most of today just doing the food!). HOWEVER, i am eager to discuss something on this blog about the controversial L in TULIP- that's right, limited atonement. As a teaser, i like Mark Driscoll's "unlimited limited atonement" idea, and i think it makes sense scripturally and with regard to the Canons of Dordt.
BUT, i've been reading a little book called "In My Place, Condemned He Stood" by Packer and Dever. It talks about limited atonement and Christ's penal substitutionary atoning death. I've been thinking about this along with some other awesome works, namely "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ" and "Redemption; Accomplished and Applied." I wonder if Driscoll's unlimited limited view holds up. I'll write about it after the retreat!

back on the horse

I had to wash my hair, then the dog ate my computer, and i'm sure i have some other bad excuses for not posting in quite some time. Anyway, i'll start this back up slowly and try to keep up with stuff on this blog. My good friend Kyle Borg showed me this video. While i had the pleasure of visiting with him this week. This shouldn't be anything controversial, just Piper going after the heresy of prosperity gospel. I love it and want to share it. It stirred within me similar feelings of hatred toward the heresy. It ruins the true gospel of Jesus Christ and tears apart people's beliefs. Thanks again Dr. Piper for so fluently putting together words and emotions to make a God-exalting point!

link

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/05/true-story-or-removing-offense-of.html

Above is a link to a critique of one of the books i was thinking of when writing that last post. It is very interesting and well-founded. It states much of what Monika commented about as well. Check it out and see what you think, especially the part where Trevin talks about how we can "completely miss the boat" when sharing the gospel in the way described in the book.

By grace through faith or a "spiritual journey"

Hello again, fellow bloggers! I must apologize for my absence as i have been somewhere between Canada and lake Huron on the very tip of the U.P. for InterVarsity training camp. During the camp i took my student leadership team through a week-long study of James. It's a great book. We especially enjoyed the context of the writing of James, how he is addressing a schism between Jewish social classes and oppression of the lower classes. James was well known as a friend of the down-trodden in society. Partly in response to this, we decided to engage our campus next semester with the question "Where is God?" in response to social injustices, like slavery, poverty, sex trafficking, etc... We want to show God's desires for these areas through our words and actions, but also proclaiming a Christ-centered and justification-centered gospel. I had to stress that last point because often it seems that recently we have put so much emphasis on how we should act as Christians in "reconciling all things" that reconciling them to Jesus gets lost in simply trying to make things right. By that i mean we try to make life better for everyone because we think that is our duty and that is why Christ died and rose again.
There are many books written, many by my own beloved IVP, proclaiming what we know as the social gospel, and it seems that sometimes Jesus is thrown in as an afterthought, if at all. There is a huge emphasis on this thing called a "spiritual journey" that "everyone is on together." Part of that spiritual journey is doing good things for people because Jesus came to set the captives free and heal the blind and help the oppressed. So that is what we should do.
Before i get too far here i want to ask if anyone else has noticed this trend, and if so, what do you think? Is it good? Bad? Just misguided? A step in the right direction? Must we line up on a side, chosing to emphasize only either personal justification or declaring Christ through merciful acts? I hope a few people are still reading this blog and can comment. I'd like to look at the newer Belhar confession in this discussion as well, since it addresses this and my denomination has adopted it as an additon to the 3 forms of unity for anyone who knows what that means (Kyle). Let's get the discussion started!

Jesus used a boat

Here's something i've been thinking a bit about lately:
What are our most important ministry tools? We have God fighting for us, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and the Bible- the Word of God. Those are pretty impressive weapons in contending for the gospel, and i would say they trump anything that the enemy has up his sleeve, that's for sure. But what about other resources and materials? More specifically, what do we use to engage the culture and the people around us? One front up here in Stevens Point is definitely the outdoors. EVERYBODY fishes, and if my evangelism did not include some kind of outdoors-based strategy i would literally miss out on well over half of the student population, as environmental issues come far ahead of even humanity issues on my campus. So i'm hoping to buy a boat. And i have a guide license for WI. I want to be able to take out students and men from the community on guided fishing trips and share the love of Christ with them, as well as do discipleship. I know this works, as several people have become Christians while in a canoe with me or standing on shore next to me. Having a boat will serve to multiply that kind of fruitful ministry.
Is this the correct course of action, or am i fooling myself into taking on "unspiritual practices" and attempting to load the gospel into places it shouldn't belong? I worry when my students would rather hang out with non-Christian guys because they have boats or cooler equipment than hang out with me because i don't have any of that stuff. Some of it is their mindset, i know, but i'd love to get rid of any limiting factors if i can. Is that the right way of thinking?

Battleground InterVarsity

Hey ya'll, sorry it's been so long since i posted here-i've been in Indiana and what feels like all over the country the past week or two for IV. It's fun, but as i wrote before it kinda stinks working so much and then coming back to campus tired out a week later and realizing that i did almost nothing with the students i love back home. But that's the way the cookie crumbles.
I learned some interesting stuff about some objectives of InterVarsity over the past week. It was stated that one of the greatest contributions of InterVarsity and the publishing company associated with us is that we further the discussion on a lot of controversial issues. This hurts in some ways, because someone might read one IVP book or one article written by an IV staff and think "If IV believes this, then it is evil." InterVarsity may not believe something like that at all, the organization just enjoys almost being an antagonist sometimes in order to further important discussions on important topics.
One example of this is publishing some of Greg Boyd's stuff, as well as Basinger and Rice and a few other open theists. My reactionary response is to think that here is a case in which we should absolutely not "further the discussion," but instead do everything we can to kill it. However, perhaps in not acknowledging some of these works we would fail to see the argument to it's end, but instead only sweep it under the rug. That may not be a good way of dealing with it, either. What should we do? Are there topics with which we should "further the discussion" and other topics which we should not? Should we attempt to create a para-church org that has a purestrain theological system, or should we acknowledge many ways of thinking about things in order to debate them? What are your thoughts?

Saved by faith?

Here is an interesting question posed in the comments on the last post. I wanted to discuss it a little bit here if that's ok with you. Are we saved "by" faith? Ephesians 2:8-9 was touched on a bit already, but i think we need to take a closer look at it. How do we get faith? What exactly does faith "do?" What is the relation between our faith and salvation?
I don't think this will take long to talk about, but I wanted to get some thoughts out there. Thanks ya'll!

debtor's ethic

What comes to mind when we think of "righteousness?" Being a good person? Doing righteous deeds? In our small group this morning we talked about righteousness, grace, and a debtor's ethic. Much of our conclusions mirrored what John Piper said in his book Brothers, We are Not Professionals. It was so good to think of serving God as a gift that He enables us to do, rather than a servive we provide Him. We can live as a Christian only by His power and grace.
In fact, every time we do anything "worthy of our calling," we become even MORE indebted to God's grace. And that is the way God wants it. Helplessly falling more and more into His grace, with no way to dig ourselves out of the hole. He doesn't want us to. God doesn't only give us grace when we mess up, or when we have a big test or a talk coming up. He gives me the grace to wake up in the morning, to serve students on campus. No amount of preparing on my part can cause Him to deal out less grace, and no amount of good stuff i do causes the stream of grace to lessen. Oh the gratitude that springs up when we see it this way! We are debtors, ever increasing in debt, and our Giver wants it to be that way! We respond in joy not to even attempt to pay God back but because we are eternally grateful!

scary stories

One time i was downtown with some friends and we were trying to get into what we called "spiritual conversations" with people- talking about the excellencies of God and sharing His gospel. We talked with a guy who went off on us for 15 minutes about how the Catholic Church was the only church instituted by Jesus and the rest are all cults. It was awesome, i'd never seen anyone so adamant about this. There was no reasoning with him.
Smoetimes i enjoy sharing horror stories about sharing Christ with people. The truth is, it doesn't always go that well and it isn't always our fault. We shouldn't be scared to share with others the hope that we have just because it didn't go well once before. Does anybody out there have any scary stories about evangelism? I'd love to hear them.

fun day

Well, this morning i found 5 quarts of oil spilled on the parking lot under Joanna's car. To make a long story a little shorter, we needed a new oil filter. So i figured i'd run to Wal-Mart since good ol' Fleet Farm doesn't carry the right filters. On the way there, my truck ran out of gas while the gauge told me i had about 5 gallons left. Thankfully my mentor Ben and his wife bailed me out. That was not fun. Cleaning up the oil was the worst part.
I just got back from the mailbox where i got to talk about the Lord with the mailman. He started talking about how in the end everyon will be saved. He looked it up in Strong's concordance, apparently. He had some interesting ideas, so i asked him what church he went to. He doesn't. I invited him to ours, but he responded by saying Luther and Calvin and Zwingli came out of the organized church, and that's what he is doing. A very interesting guy. I hope future talks will happen. But i've been thinking and reading, and as it turns out- he's wrong. There will be a time when God will cast unbelievers into eternal hell and usher those found in Christ into heaven eternal. Part of me wishes that guy was right, but it's just not the truth. God's plan stands forever, and that plan includes vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and also vessels of mercy.

justice and justification

Sorry it has been a while since i've written. I just got back from leading a trip to the inner city of Milwaukee, one of InterVarsity's short term mission trips. There were about 40 students on the trip, and it was a great time! I got to meet a lot of cool people, have lots of interesting discussions, and serve in many helpful ways.
A big part of our trip were bible studies looking at why the city needs Jesus, and what God says about serving the poor and doing justice. The term "justice" has been a difficult one for me. It is true that God loves justice and calls His people to carry out justice- we see that in Isaiah 58 and 59. Also perhaps in the kind of religion that God finds pure and faultless. So what is my problem with justice? Justice is scary to me because if God is a just God, which He says He is, then my sin should be punished, which it either will be or has already been. How do we distinguish between the justice God wants for His people to execute, and the justice God gives? Someone I look up to explained to us last week that justice was a horizontal action (man to man), while justification was a vertical action (God to man). My problem with this is simply i don't think we can think of justice as only a man to man thing. God is just, and does not only deal out what we know as justification. If justice is "getting what we deserve," then justification would be 100% grace. Well, i'm tired, so to prevent from dragging this on further; do we need different definitions of justce and justification? Can we see justice as a horizontal act while justification is the vertical one? What do the two have to do with the other? Does God use justice to proclaim justification, or does He desire them both equally? What't the deal? Thanks for your input on this poorly written post.

A different angle

The recent discussions on body image were amazing and i feel like we came to some good realizations, however i don't think we're quite done. I want to ask one more quick question that should come at the issue from a bit of a different angle. Should we be content with our bodies? Contentment is a "rare jewel" among Christians today. Is it right to be content with the bodies that God gave us, or should we look at them as a manifestation of the effects of sin? Should we be content when we are in good physical shape only, or discontent with phyisical bodies as a whole because we are longing for new heavenly bodies? What do you think?

the art of debate

I don't even know if we had a debate team at my high school, but sometimes i wish i would have done debate. I think philosophy and Christian ministry have made me into a person who loves God-centered discussion and argumentation. It is something that has sharpened me and challenged me to dive into God's Word and test my reasons for what i believe. I thank God for the friends and family that have challenged and encouraged my thoughts and beliefs through debate, discussion, and, dare i say, argumentation. For example, my old roommate Jeremy and i argued and debated things until we felt we came under God's Word to a conclusion. We are both stubborn, but we found that over the years our views were molded to be so similar there are few things that we do not agree on. Thankfully, there are still some edges that we are working on, like some intricacies of the doctrine of limited atonement and how far reaching Christ's sacrifice is. Anyway, some recent discussions have gotten myself and some others wondering about how to effectively debate. The question is, "where is the line of taking something too far?" Is understanding each others' points all we need to do in debtate? What should be our goal for debating someone, specifically a Christian sister or brother? Let's have a rousing discussion!

Letters

Last night i took a break from writing about how awful the current book i am reading is and picked up a book i bought recently. It is called Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It is a compilation of hundreds of letters written by the pastor to all kinds of people. I read it with the same joy and voracity as i read Frost's poems. It was good for my soul, and i loved reading what Spurgeon had written to encourage his loved ones to press on and grow in the faith of their Almighty God. Writing letters was a central ministry of Spurgeon's. I'm bad at being consistent, but i want to be a letter writer too. I'll try to write a God-centered letter a day to my friends, family, students, missionaries, ect... and use that as part of my ministry. On a secondary note, if you all aren't done thinking and talking about the last post, the discussion is continued (and furthered) on the Wenzel's blog, so please check that out.

i need your thoughts!

Thanks all for the thoughts on body image, i needed it. I've been reading the Wenzel's blog (side bar link) about some of the same stuff. I have to ask an interesting question here, and hope to get some good responses.
How does sin affect God's creation of our bodies? He "knits us together in our mothers' wombs," but does He create something imperfectly then? If he creates babies with what we would call "severe defects," and they are loved by God and He has a plan for their lives, how do we avoid God's act of creation being tainted by sin? Everything He does is perfect, right? Have at it!

self-image

Man, i think i've been humbled this week. I've been asked to speak on the topic of the "idol of body-image," and i realized that i don't know much at all about that. I'm speaking on Thursday and that's coming up, so does anyone have any ideas?? I know this is lame to ask on a blog, but all i've got are some statistics about dissatisfaction with physical appearance and Psalm 139 and some great stuff about our bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit. 80% of women are satisfied with their physical appearance, so i know it is a huge problem, but can someone help me understand how the idol affects someone? I mean, why is is such a problem, why is it so hard to get rid of...that kins of thing. Thanks in advance!