Tag Archives: Bible interpretation

Mar 18 2013

this went thru my mind

 

Bible interpretation: * It’s Biblically Impossible to Be Biblical; * Beware of Thinking Biblically

* “While ‘biblical’ could technically mean ‘influenced by the Bible,’ it has become a code word for ‘possessing the one and only way to interpret the Bible on a particular issue.’ In our zeal to follow the teachings of scripture, we have sought a definitive, once and for all time way to read a book that has always been a work in progress. … There is no ‘biblical”’ way of doing things. There is only a biblically informed and Spirit-led way of doing things. And that information and leading may evolve and shift over time.”

* “… I’m very cautious about that phrase, about ‘thinking Biblically.’ Not of thinking Biblically, but of using that phrase to legitimatize teachings and opinions that are sometimes terribly wrong.”

Choices & decisions: Never Settle for Second Best with God by Wayne Stiles

“God’s best for us seldom comes immediately. But it’s always worth the wait. How often have we run ahead of the Lord instead of waiting for His best? A lonely believer marries an unbeliever. An eager couple makes a poor financial decision. A family joins a church for its location in spite of its doctrine. Many people fail to see God work in their lives because they fail to wait on Him to supply.”

Missions: Are We Only Interested in Low-Hanging Fruit? by Mark Woodward [required reading]

“… can we as a fellowship see beyond the low-hanging fruit? Can churches of Christ do the hard work in hard places for many, many years? Can we commit to sowing seeds that may not bear fruit for generations?”

Poverty & social justice: * Right to Lawyer Can Be Empty Promise for Poor; * The Good News on Poverty (Yes, There’s Good News) [13 1/2 min. TED talk by Bono]

“Today, many states and counties do not offer lawyers to the poor in major civil disputes, and in some criminal ones as well. Those states that do are finding that more people than ever are qualifying for such help, making it impossible to keep up with the need. The result is that even at a time when many law school graduates are without work, many Americans are without lawyers.”

“Bono ‘embraces his inner nerd’ and shares inspiring data that shows the end of poverty is in sight … if we can harness the momentum.”

The Bible mini-series: * Q: What Do Roma Downey and Writers of the Bible Have In Common? A: Neither Sticks to the Script. by Pete Enns; * The Bible—Part Three by Ben Witherington

* “… failure to stick with the biblical script is something we see a lot of in the Bible itself.”

* “The saddest part of all this is twofold: 1) millions were spent on this project filmed overseas with no little time and expense expended, but 2) it could have been soo much better. So much better. I do think they intended well. I have no problem with the selectivity and even with paraphrasing things to get at the spirit of this or that narrative. But they needed to do a better job of listening to whatever scholars were advising them. They have avoided irreverence but are flirting with irrelevance by not doing a better job.”

Values: Topsy-Turvy Values: This is a Heart Issue by John T. Willis

“Which is more important: To spend time with another person or to play games on a new gadget?”

Feb 18 2013

this went thru my mind (bonus post)

 

Bible & hermeneutics: Sola Scriptura by Jonathan Storment

“… if the Ethopian Eunuch would have been a Protestant, when Philip would have come jogging along side of him, asking do you understand what you’re reading there. The Eunuch would have responded by saying ‘Of course, I’m literate. I have no problem understanding this.’ But he doesn’t. Instead he tells Phillip something I think is interesting. He says, ‘How can I? Unless someone explains it to me?’

“Worked into the Bible itself is the Bible pointing beyond itself. As if it’s incomplete, looking for a body. This is not to diminish the Bible. It’s to say what Jesus himself said in John 5, that Scripture points externally to the person of Jesus. Which just happens to be what Phillip does from there.”

Bigotry & prejudice: No Irish Need Apply: Group Prejudice in America by Chuck Warnock [required reading]

“It seems the dominant majority in America has always designated one or more groups as an inferior group in our society.”

China, Christian faith, oppression & persecution: How China Plans to Wipe Out House Churches

“Government sponsored persecution rose 42 percent in 2012.”

Evangelism & outreach: Memphis and Markets

“A church has four markets:

“1. Members/Attendees: These are us, they’re part of us, we share faith and life with them.

“2. Associated: These are people who know us and probably come into our building.

“3. Served: These people live in our city and we connect with them through our service.

“4. Distant: These are people who live outside our normal life connections. The only way we touch them is through mission.

“What we’re finding is that most churches pay redemptive attention to only two of these markets: their Members and the Distant people. And even with their Members the redemptive attention is minimal. If we’re going to impact the people in our networks we’ve got to pay redemptive attention to our Associated and our Served markets.”

Facebook: Facebook Gets Unwelcome Look at Hackers’ Dark Side

“Intruders recently infiltrated the systems running the world’s largest online social network but did not steal any sensitive information about Facebook’s more than 1 billion users, according to a blog posting Friday by the company’s security team. The unsettling revelation is the latest breach to expose the digital cracks in a society and an economy that is storing an ever-growing volume of personal and business data online.”

Jan 16 2013

this went thru my mind

 

Bible reading & the OT: The Old Testament – Why Bother? by John Alan Turner [required reading]

“I sometimes hear people say this: ‘We are a New Testament church producing New Testament Christians.’ … Here’s the problem with that statement: You can’t really be ‘New Testament” anything without being ‘Old Testament’, too.”

Charitable giving: The ‘Second Disaster’: Making Well-Intentioned Donations Useful by Pam Fessler

“Disaster relief groups call this the ‘second disaster’: the flood of unwanted donations, despite repeated requests for cash.”

Churches of Christ: * It’s Time to Fly by K. Rex Butts;* A Call for Less Orthodoxy by Chris Altrock

* “For many churches within the restoration heritage, the attempt to fly has been to try and reduplicate the pattern of the first-century church.  This assumed first that one single pattern existed and that such pattern could be mined from the New Testament. That assumption reduced the New Testament to a flat text which was read like a set of by-laws on church polity rather than a dynamic collection of Christian writings which both reveal and shape true living faith in Christ. Secondly it assumed that by such reduplication — restoring churches to that assumed single pattern within the New Testament — that contemporary churches would function as the conduits of God’s mission as they are called to be. Rarely has anyone considered that, as followers of Jesus, God is asking his people to pursue an innovative vision that only God can bring about among the church.  I believe it is time for an innovative dream to be pursued!”

* “Let’s put our best foot forward.  And right now, that’s either orthopraxy or orthopathy.”

Christianity & the perception of others: Warning: The World is Watching How We Christians Treat One Another by Frank Viola [required reading]

“Here are 7 points to consider the next time you think you have a possible disagreement with another Christian …”

Jan 5 2013

this went thru my mind

 

Aging & resentment: Pitfalls of the Pious by Dan Bouchelle

“… as you get older you learn the besetting sin of the mature is resentment.”

Bible interpretation & diversity: Musings on the Bible (1) The First of Three Questions by Patrick Mitchel

“A pressing question for thinking Christians is what to make of the ‘brute fact’ of radically divergent readings of the Bible by other Christians who share a belief in its divinely inspired origin.”

Captialism & church: Values of Capitalism & the Church by Tim Gombis

“One of the ways that capitalism has succeeded in capturing our culture’s imagination, however, is that efficiency has achieved preeminent status, overpowering all other values.”

Congress, faith & politics: The Religious Composition of the 113th Congress

“The new, 113th Congress includes the first Buddhist to serve in the Senate, the first Hindu to serve in either chamber and the first member of Congress to describe her religion as “none,” continuing a gradual increase in religious diversity that mirrors trends in the country as a whole. While Congress remains majority Protestant, the institution is far less so today than it was 50 years ago, when nearly three-quarters of the members belonged to Protestant denominations. … Catholics have seen the biggest gains among the 533 members … Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Mormons each make up a greater percentage of the members of Congress than of all U.S. adults. The same is true for some subgroups of Protestants, such as Episcopalians and Presbyterians. By contrast, Pentecostals are a much smaller percentage of Congress than of the general public.”

Change, humanity, identity & personality: You Can’t See It, But You’ll Be A Different Person In 10 Years by Nell Greenfieldboyce

“No matter how old people are, they seem to believe that who they are today is essentially who they’ll be tomorrow. That’s according to fresh research that suggests that people generally fail to appreciate how much their personality and values will change in the years ahead — even though they recognize that they have changed in the past.”

Christian faith, guns & non-violence: Violence: The Christian Response by K. Rex Butts

“… when it comes to a response to the problem of violence, the loudest voice is that which calls for more arms.  In fact, from where I sit this voice has great support from many Christians, something I regard as gospel failure. The American society already has enough voices advocating for more arms, so the last thing society needs is the voice of the church lending support to this cause. Though likely not so welcomed, what America needs from the church is for the church to be what the church alone is called to be and that is to be the voice of the gospel that exemplifies forgiveness, love, peace-making, and reconciliation. This is for the church to do what it is admonished to do in scripture and put off the old, putting on the new self instead, including a new mindset, and speak truthfully as one body (cf. Eph 4:22-25).”

Humility, patience & tolerance: Suffering Fools Gladly [required reading]

“… understand that the habits we put in practice end up shaping the people we are within. ‘Manners are of more importance than laws,’ Edmund Burke wrote. ‘Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.’”

Statistics & the United States: Capturing America, Fact by Fact by Sam Roberts

“College graduates have less leisure time than high school dropouts. More people are injured on toilets than by skiing or snowboarding. More households have dogs as pets than cats, but cat lovers are more likely to have multiple pets. And more foreigners visited New York (9.3 million) than any other American city (Los Angeles was a distant second with 3.7 million). Those facts are among the thousands gleaned from the 2013 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. …

“More than 41 percent of births were to unwed mothers, for instance, compared with 33 percent a decade earlier. Student loan debt in households headed by a college graduate soared to $36,809 from $12,373 three decades earlier. Since 1982, the number of federal civilian employees rose by 160,000 while the number of state and local government workers swelled by 6.6 million.”