For future reference, the root canal wasn’t too bad.  It took longer than a filling, but it really didn’t hurt any more (yet).  I kept waiting for the pain to hit. [...]]]> I had my first root canal today.  I experience intense thoughts when I am sitting in the dentist chair at the mercy of another professional.

For future reference, the root canal wasn’t too bad.  It took longer than a filling, but it really didn’t hurt any more (yet).  I kept waiting for the pain to hit.  A part of the file fell into my root canal, and it remains to this day.  Hopefully my body will not reject its new titanium implant.

But, there in the chair, I am more fully aware of my own frailty and mortality.  I am not immune to pain, and the fruits of my ancestor’s civilization take a less abstract reality as the procedure advances.   I imagine better times ahead, and I am taking the dog for a walk to my best fishing hole.  I pity those who suffer with no hope of a better day.  I consider the impoverished who cannot afford a dentist.  I wonder why I was born a 1 per-center and what I should do about it.  I ponder the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.

In the dentist chair, I want to be the best lawyer that I can possibly be.  I know that my clients will want me to have the skill that I want my dentist to have.  The dentist has my tooth in his hands.  A bad lawyer can send an innocent man to a prison dentist who may take pleasure in enhancing the penitentiary experience.

And, I cannot be happy about the reality of hell.

Rhapsody made a neat recommendation today.  Music Inspired By The Story is a kind of an opera where each song represents a character from the Bible.  A few of the tracks that I found really nice:

• Born For This (Esther)
• Be Born In Me (Mary)
• How Love Wins (Thief)

And this is a song to remember.  [...]]]> 2 Chronicles 14,15, and 16 chronicles the life of King Asa.
Noticed:

• Asa shows how to call upon the Lord 14:11
• Asa reforms, but he leaves some high places 15:16
• Life without God 15:3-5
• Seeking God and finding Rest on Every Side 15:11-15
• God looks for those who seek him with all their heart 16:9

And this is a song to remember.  Lord You’ve Given Me So Much.

In the meantime, it is important that I post the following passage, without much comment:

Hebrews 10:19-39

One day in the not so distant future, I will read this and be reminded not to shrink back.

The just will [...]]]> I need post about the faith of Abraham, but I do not have all my thoughts together on the matter.

In the meantime, it is important that I post the following passage, without much comment:

Hebrews 10:19-39

One day in the not so distant future, I will read this and be reminded not to shrink back.

The just will live by faith.

Sniffing Glue, A Childhood in Christian Pop

Meghan spoke of her childhood in an evangelical home and culture.  She was [...]]]> I fixed my car radio on Saturday, and today I left work early for a dentist appointment.  Therefore, I was able to tune into the Paul Edwards’ show.  Today, Paul interviewed Meghan O’Gieblyn, the author of this fascinating article.

Sniffing Glue, A Childhood in Christian Pop

Meghan spoke of her childhood in an evangelical home and culture.  She was even home schooled through the 10th grade.  Eventually, when she became older, she found the church to be inauthentic, and she turned to secular culture for reality.  Ultimately, she chucked it all for agnosticism.

During the interview, Meghan was very honest and articulate, but she really struggled to tell Paul what the authentic church would actually look like to her, personally.

In a few ways, her experience parallels my own.  I remember one seeker friendly church in my college town with great music and free coffee.  I went there several times, but I actually walked out when they played yet another 5 minute video clip about “the tools” to build a happy marriage.  I never went back, but the church had certainly planted some seeds in my heart.

Ultimately, I discovered my version of the authentic church in the form of a pastor who selflessly dedicated himself to help my family in some dark and trying years.  And again, I discovered my version of the authentic church in a group of older people with a dedicated pastor who kept a small church going, primarily because they love God and trust that the Bible is true.

(I feel like I should have written something about holiness, but I didn’t.  I’m about Christlike while I am alive on this earth, as Abraham was the father of multitudes while he was alive on this Earth.  I can’t really say that an authentic church looks authentically holy.)

In summary, to me, the authentic church looks a lot like love and perseverance.  And I’m talking about love when it is difficult, not just when it is easy.

As a new Christ follower, I was very enthusiastic about having my sins [...]]]> I recently heard a D. James Kennedy sermon that made a potent point which I have found particularly powerful.  He asked “What did you bring to your salvation?”  After a few minutes, he explained that we bring only one thing to our salvation.

As a new Christ follower, I was very enthusiastic about having my sins washed away.  As the years go by, I am disappointed about the sin that remains.  I have tried many things to deal with sin, but it is a bit like squeezing a balloon.

I’ve spent the past year trying to discern the difference between religion and righteousness.  J. Vernon McGee points out that what we do isn’t as important to God as the reasons we do them.  Why am I doing this, what is my motive?  Is it to bring glory to God or to myself?  These questions provide a pretty bright line to distinguish religion from righteousness.

Lately, it is becoming crystal clear to me that most of the New Testament is devoted to the issue of repenting from sin and pursuing righteousness.  Pursuing righteousness is not a matter of religion.  Nor, it is it a means to salvation.    It is a matter of desire.  It is something we must do because we love Jesus.

The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges is worth a second read.  It dissects the issue of Holiness and brings to bear the totality of scripture, in a very digestible manuscript.

My pastor has been spot on addressing my issues in the past two weeks of sermons, and I commend them to my readers.  If you went a week without food, how would you crave it?  How much do I crave righteousness?

• The Training that Helps You Change
• God’s Word Trains Us in Righteousness

In closing, the one thing you bring to salvation is this… your sin.

By extension, the one thing I bring to my righteousness is… my sin. This seems paradoxical at first, but in practice, understanding this fact makes a tremendous difference.  How I love Jesus; I will never find a friend so true!

My Christmas present to myself was Scott McKnight’s Finding Faith, Loosing Faith.  I won’t comment on Scott’s writing style except to say that it read like a Master’s [...]]]> My new year’s goal is to generate a blog post in less than 20 minutes.  12:11…  If I fail, then the blog is going to have to go.

My Christmas present to myself was Scott McKnight’s Finding Faith, Loosing Faith.  I won’t comment on Scott’s writing style except to say that it read like a Master’s thesis, objective and informal, but ended like a blog post, personal and speculative .

The book explores conversions within the Christian eco-system is divided into 4 parts.

1) Conversions of Evangelicals to Apostacy

2) Conversions of Jewish people to Evangelical

3) Conversions of Roman Catholics to Evangelical

4) Conversion of Evangelical to Roman Catholic.

McKnight looks for patterns, in a social science kind of way.  The book refers to collections and anthologies of conversions stories, but seldom gives much details about a particular conversion.  Instead, a pattern and a theory of conversion is fit to the fact patterns.  One has to wonder if these theories are valid, however, because the conversion stories are subject to a selection bias.  Even so, the hypothesis presented are interesting food for thought.

Conversion Theory, Generally, my paraphrase and filter…

a) A conversion begins with the person in a context

b) The person has a crisis that is unmet by his current belief system

c) The crisis triggers a quest by the person to resolve the crisis

d) The person has an encounter with a new belief system that seems to resolve the crisis

e) The person makes a new commitment to the new belief system

f)  There are consequences for the person in his family and social group

1. Conversion from Orthodoxy to Apostacy (or Independence, as the McKnight presents it)

Several converts, inculding John Loftus and Christine Wicker and briefly considered.  The key crisis identified by McKnight are:

a) Questions about the inerrancy and foundation of scripture

b) Questions about science vs. scripture

c) Unchristian and hypocritical Christians

d) The concept of Hell

e) Unwillingness to accept the Bible’s documentation of the Divine Nature

f) Seemingly unfulfilled promises

2.  Jewish people converting to Christianity

Facinatingly, the crisis that most often leads Jewish people to Jesus is a crisis over the Jewish Messiah.  They seldom if ever convert using the “Roman’s Road” or something similar, and for them the fundamental question becomes… What does the Hebrew Bible say about the Messiah, Was Jesus the Messiah?  When they consider this seriously, it creates a crisis that often results in conversion.

3. Roman Catholic Conversion to Evangelicalism

The crisis most often faced by Roman Catholics include:

a) Questions about assurance of salvation.

b) Reading the Bible for the first time and contrasting it with Roman Catholic doctrine.

c) Questions about the divine authority of the Eucharist, confession, and priesthood.

d) A decision about the divine authority of the Bible vs. the Priesthood.  Can they coexist?  Scripture usually trumps the priesthood for a convert.

e) An anemic parish. The person desires a more personal worship experience than the ritual of the liturgy.

— I have just spent 22 minutes.  Time to shut down the blog?

4. Evangelicals converting to Roman Catholicism

The following crisis may lead an envangelical to Roman Catholocism

a) A desire for transcendence, a desire to embrace all 2000 years of church history, not just the last 500

b) A desire for certainty and authority.  Given the splintering of all the evangelical denominations, there is a great deal of disparity among various interpretations of scripture.  Giving authority to the catholic clergy settles the theological questions.

c) Unity, the person believes that the church should be subjectively one body, and determines that the Roman Catholic church is the subjective unified church.

McKnight closes by referencing Rambo’s Understanding Religious Conversion.  This is a nugget from the book… “The tell-tale sign of a conversion is the reshaping of one’s autobiography,” and a conclusion “patterns of conversions are shaped by human needs and it is the needs that shape the story of conversion.”

The book has impacted me by:

a) Inspiring me to write my own conversion story one day and identify the crisis, quest, and new autobiography.

b) Making me want to listen to John Micheal Tabolt, the author’s favorite musician, and a convert from evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism.

c) Making me want to explore church history in more detail.

d) Making me want to be less of a hypocrite.

e) Making me want to read McKnight’s The Blue Parkeet: Rethinking How you Read the Bible.

Err.. 12:44, I’m not going to proof read this post unless somebody pays me.  Done!

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance [...]]]>

Philippians 2

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. ¹⁷ But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. ¹⁸ So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.