Tuesday 29 August 2006 at 8:08 pm
Most of us are familiar with the flow change of redemption from the Old Testament to the New. In the Old Testament the nations are drawn to the "model" of Israel living out kingdom of God on earth with the epicenter being the Temple in Jerusalem.
With Jesus the flow of redemption is reversed and now God’s power is no longer bound by a temple with walls or a city or an ethnic group but (via Acts 1:8) flows out into the world through the church. The body of Christ is the new temple, etc.
In listening to one of Tim Keller’s lectures he noted that this change of flow actually begins in the book of Jeremiah. The first group of exiles have been hauled to Babylon (Daniel’s group) along with articles from the temple, etc. There are false prophets announcing that within 2 years they will return triumphantly to Jerusalem, returning the articles and all will be well. Jeremiah says he wishes that would happen but it won’t. Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke will be one of iron (unlike the wooden one the false prophets broke) and Jeremiah urges the exiles in Babylon to "seek the welfare of the city and pray to the Lord on it’s behalf. For in it’s welfare you will find your own."
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Saturday 26 August 2006 at 6:15 pm
This was part of a larger conference. I didn't listen to all of the lectures on this linked page: but the three from Tim Keller are outstanding. Much of the same stuff we heard in NYC from him but unpacked a bit more. I put these on my mp3 player, burned CDs of it and have been digesting it by listening to it multiple times. Really important foundational stuff on the gospel and for ministry. Keller I think is one of the best out there to really learn from. Here are a couple other fruitful Keller pages: DJChuang, Monergism, SteveKMcCoy.
Thursday 10 August 2006 at 12:30 pm
The role of imagination in a "personal relationship with Jesus" is usually pointed to by cynics. "I don’t think God is calling me to that... the difficult, laboring, sacrificial path. God is calling me to this... the easy, financially beneficial, comfortable road." Jesus’ characterizations of the Christian life not withstanding.
Cynicism, although sometimes proving insightful, is easy. Faith is hard. I believe our faculty of imagination is a God given and used by God for many good things. No one in the Bible is more imaginative than the prophets who especially in the Old Testament always seemed to prophesy in poetry. God, I think, speaks more through our imaginations than our ears.
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Wednesday 09 August 2006 at 1:57 pm
Preachers and evangelists have over the last 50 years been pleading with people to have a “personal relationship with Jesus”. Even though this phrase is not found in the Bible, reading the stories of Abraham, Job and Moses it is pretty clear that these heroes of faith indeed had personal relationships with God.
The hymn “What a Friend we Have in Jesus” has often given me pause. Phillip Yancey in one of his books questioned what kind of “friend” God or Jesus really is. For most of us a good friend will help us out if they can. If we are in desperate need of money, or if one of our loved ones is desperately ill, it is assumed that a good friend will go to great lengths to help us in our crisis. What if our friend had unlimited power and resources. Cattle on a thousand hills to answer any financial emergency or power to heal any disease. If we are facing such a crisis what kind of a friend refused to return our calls or simply says “no” to our crisis? Perhaps when it comes to God or Jesus “friend” might need to have some quotation marks around it or an asterisk behind it. A “personal relationship” or “friendship” with the creator God of the universe will certainly be different kind of thing than my relationships with others around me.
Relationships are almost always complicated, especially close ones. Most murders and violence happen between people in significant relationship. If a married woman turns up dead the husband is normally suspect #1. To say that we simply have a “personal relationship” really isn’t describing much about that relationship. Preachers that pound the “personal relationship” line had better be willing to live up to the hard side of this metaphor. When death rips families apart, when war kills the innocent, when illness or disease strike our beloved, this “relationship” is going to be tested.
Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 26 is not for cowards. It is not a confession we should be glib with. What kind of faith is required to make it after one has truly suffered?
