Thoughts from Bloesch - New Age

“The motto of the New Age is struggle, growth and freedom as opposed to the biblical motto: faith, repentance and service.” Bloesch p244.

Thoughts from Bloesch - Church & Kingdom

“The task of the church is a modest one: to wait and pray and hope for the coming of the kingdom, to witness to and acclaim God’s redeeming and sanctifying work; but the church must never confuse its work with God’s work or its righteousness with divine righteousness. The church can create parables and signs of the kingdom, but it cannot extend or fortify the kingdom through its own power and strategy. Biblical Christians could never say with the philosopher Hegel: ‘The Kingdom of God is coming, and our hands are busy at its delivery.’ God builds his kingdom through his own power and initiative, but he enlists us as coworkers in making the promise of the kingdom known to the world.” p243

Thoughts from Bloesch - Hearing Not Seeing

I've found a number of interesting thoughts in my reading for Christology (from Bloesch's Jesus Christ: Saviour & Lord) this week. So I'm going to post a few quotes.

“Evangelical Christianity is focused on hearing, not seeing. The kingdom of God is not a visible reality but an invisible one that makes its way in the world through the proclamation of the gospel (cf. Lk 17:20-21). The new theologies speak of imaging God in order to make him real for human experience. Evangelical theology reaffirms the commandment against graven images (Ex 20:4; Deut 5:8) and extends this to a prohibition against mental images of God as well. Because the true God is incomprehensible and invisible, because he infinitely transcends all sight and understanding, he cannot be made known until he makes himself known. And God has made himself known fully and decisively in this one person, Jesus Christ. All other revelations and illuminations are simply clarifications and reaffirmations of this one incomparable revelation in human history. We make contact with Christ only through hearing the gospel about Christ, which we encounter in the Bible and also in the proclamation and ministrations of the church (cf. Rom 10:14-17; 1 Cor 1:21). Luther observed, ‘In order to see God we must learn to put our eyes into our ears.’ This indeed is the biblical way, and all other ways lead to obfuscation and deception.” p237-8

On praying outloud

I found an interesting post on another blog about praying outloud and about prayer being a verbal thingy. It is a good read!

I've been trying out contemplative prayer a bit recently, and frankly it feels weird, so this post was really interesting. I've also been reflecting recently on my Christology. I've realised that I find it easier to "connect with God" (by which I mean have some nice spiritual feelings whilst praying / singing etc) when I have my eyes closed, because I have a sense of concentrating on Jesus more when I do that. But in considering the truly man, truly God nature of Christ recently I think I have been concentrating on Him in His divine, "spirit" form, and forgetting that Jesus is still a man, albeit a resurrected man.

I've been feeling challenged in worship particularly to keep my eyes open and to recognise that God is as much present when I have my eyes open as when they are closed. That might sound weird, but I think I've been seperating the spiritual and the material a bit much, because closing my eyes to block out sensory material information whilst worshipping is to say that the material world is not spiritual! Dang that Greek/gnostic philosophy/heresy creeping into my thinking!! It's almost by closing my eyes I'm creating a 'more spiritual world' under my eyelids where I can retreat from the 'real world' to.

This idea of praying outloud that is suggested in the other post I'm finding interesting as another layer on my spiritual/material question. If I pray silently, it seems more 'spiritual' whereas to pray outloud perhaps more material. But what I'm thinking is if I pray outloud it is acknowledging that the material is spiritual, and it is also a recognition of Christ's humanity. If He was ONLY human I would talk to Him outloud, so why because He is also divine do I retreat into silent prayer unless I'm in a public setting?

God bless,
Bec

Staying Together after Adultery

There's a good article on staying together after adultery in The Age today:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/relationships/infidelity-forgive-and-forget/2008/03/26/1206207199531.html

It's great to see this in a secular forum! So often the secular response is something along the lines of "kick 'em to the curb".

Biblically the following is relevant:

• Jesus said divorce in the case of adultery is acceptable, but does not say it is mandatory (Mt 5:31-32, 19:8-9; Mk 10:5-9).
• Jesus said divorce was instituted because of the "hardness of people's hearts" (Mk 10:5) but this was never God's intention.
• God hates divorce (Mal 2:16)
• We have all sinned. As Christians God has forgiven us our unpayable debt, we should not be "unmerciful servants" who after being forgiven our unpayable debt, do not forgive others their smaller debt to us (Mt 18:21-35)
• We should forgive as the Lord forgave us (Col 3:13)
• If a non-believer wants to divorce a believer, the believer is not under any obligation (1 Cor 7:12-16)

I think a good rule of thumb is this, a marriage isn't over until God says so. There are clear scriptural guide lines that should cover the majority of cases (1 Cor 7 is good on this topic). Beyond that I think a good application of "...what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mk 10:9) is to say that UNTIL God says to let go, hang on. If God joins together, only He has the right and the ability to seperate.

My understanding is that there may come a time when God says to let go. Only He knows the full outcome before it happens. Only He knows whether your spouse will repent or not. Only He knows the good that you may do in the meantime by hanging on and fighting (e.g. 1 Cor 7:16). But until such a time as He says to let go (and says so a few times, and this sits comfortably with a few wise counsellors) we should proceed from the conviction that God's ideal is the restoration of the marriage and we should work towards that end.

We do not lose anything by "putting all your eggs in God's basket" and trusting Him for marital reconciliation in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, even when it is excruiatingly painful. He is faithful and works "all things together for good for those who love Him" (Rm 8:28), whether that means persevering in loving and honouring our spouse in a broken marriage or whether it means being divorced. God is more than capable of healing whatever pain is sustained under either circumstance. We can absolutely trust Him to care for us and carry us through such times of trial when we are being obedient to His will.

God bless,
Bec

And can it be...

I love Charles Wesley's hymn "And can it be" from 1825, something that as a mid-20s chick I may be fairly alone in, but nevertheless it moves me!

What follows is my attempt to restate the lyrics in a way that young people might more readily identify with. Musically I don't think they'd work though!!!

Is it really true that I should be richer
Because of the blood of Jesus?
He died FOR ME, even though I've caused Him so much pain
FOR ME, even though all my sins dragged Him to the grave
Whoa! Such AMAZING love! How can it be true??
That you, the one and only God, died for me????

Whoa! Such AMAZING love! How can it be true??
That you, the one and only God, died for me????
Whoa! Such AMAZING love! How can it be true??
That you, the one and only God, died for me????

He left His throne in heaven
He left freely because His grace is so huge!
He let go of everything except love,
And poured out His blood for our helpless race
It's all out of mercy, so gigantic, so free
And that mercy, that AMAZING, AMAZING mercy found me!

I lived a long time with my spirit in chains
Bound up in sin and darkness
Light from your eyes brought me back to life
I woke up, my prison cell was flooded with light
My chains fell off, my heart was free
So I left my prison and I followed you

I don't fear condemnation anymore
Jesus and all His followers are my family
I live a new life in Jesus, He's my head
I'm clothed in His divine righteousness
I approach God's throne with boldness
And claim the victor's crown because of Christ

I really love this hymn, it's so pertinent too, at this time of Easter.

God bless,
Bec

My big question this Easter

I only have a short post for this Easter period. This year I'm a bit disappointed I guess about Easter... and that flows out of the question, what is the most glorifying way to remember what Christ did for us?

It's a question I don't have an answer for. Yesterday I went to both a protestant and a catholic Good Friday service. There were elements in both that I found good and that I felt glorified Christ, but still there was something lacking.

I think we take Good Friday for granted because we know what happened three days later. Maybe His death doesn't seem so awful, so evil and so reprehensible because we know He was raised from the dead on the Sunday.

But for that three days, no one knew He would rise. His body lay rotting in a tomb for three days. For three days He was "with the dead". His disciples and His family would have experienced this as a very real, very normal (although traumatic) death.

If you are anything like me, because we can't see Him in flesh and blood today, it is easy to romanticise Jesus and focus more on His divinity, failing to see how human He was too. And so how heinous His murder was.

I'm really praying this Easter that I can come to learn more of the significance of what He did on the cross. That I might learn how I can best glorify Him and bring Him honour at this time. Quite frankly, I rather wonder whether there is anything that we can do that would bring sufficient glory to His name for what He did at Calvary.

Maybe all we can do is, with Paul say, 'I resolve to know nothing ... except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Cor 2:2)

God bless,
Bec